by Alex Deva
But they kept on coming. And more were joining them from the woods.
Jessica Lawry had patched her tab into the tactical feed, and field reports were flowing on her screen. She watched in horror the live video streams coming from the Bishops, witnessing their superhuman craft. She saw two soldiers who, surrounded from all sides by at least twenty attackers and three armoured vehicles, tried to make their escape: they jumped over the heads of their enemies, in opposite directions, firing incessantly and hitting every single time. But it seemed that their tactic had been expected, or perhaps even provoked. A rocket launcher on top of one of the ASVs sent out a flurry of fiery rockets. One of the Bishops, doing an unnatural turn in mid-air, managed to duck them; he fell tumbling and ran for cover, covering four metres with each step.
But his fellow soldier was less fortunate, and much closer to the ASV launcher. He was practically pulverised by five or six rockets hitting him simultaneously, still high up in the air.
“I think they need you,“ said Seppänen. She looked at him distractedly, and he pointed at a blinking light on the goggles hanging around her neck.
“Oh fuck,“ she remembered, putting her headset back on. “Mark, Zi, are you there?“
“Finally,“ came the answer from the Albanian. “At least comms are working.“
“Something’s gone wrong,“ came Mark’s voice, too.
“What? Something’s gone wrong there? What?“
“What do you mean, here?“
“What’s wrong, Mark?“
“The station is under some sort of cyber attack. Rrapi says they don’t have control over the transceivers anymore.“
“What? Are you all right?“
“I’m on my way to meet Zi. We’re fine.“
Jessica put her hand over her forehead and tried to think.
“Doc,“ she said. “We gotta pull them back.“
Lem looked at her quizzically. “Why?“
“They’re in trouble. Station’s been hijacked or something.“
“How? By whom?“ He put on his own headset.
“More importantly,“ came Dahlberg’s voice from Lawry’s tab, “are the two attacks related?“
“Zi, ask Rrapi who’s hijacked the station?“
“I did. He has no clue, but there aren’t many species capable of pulling a stunt like that. Rrapi’s people are pretty good at this, and they’re also neutral. The Squares are in Rrapi’s top five, but on first place there’s a race called the Mallam. I think they hold the patent on some of this telesentience tech, and they’re also part of the Eight’s zoo.“
“Shit,“ said Dahlberg.
“We’re pulling you out,“ said Lawry and gestured to Lem, who in turn started gesturing towards the whole room.
“No,“ said Mark.
“Don’t,“ said Zi, too.
“What? Why?“
“Because we won’t be able to come back here again. We’re under some kind of lockdown. Nobody can get in. If this is our only chance, then pulling us out will ruin it.“
“You’ve been in there for nearly forty hours. You need to be replaced.“
“How? By whom?“
She stopped again to think.
“Shit,“ she said, too. “What do we do?“
XIX.
The night was lit by tracers, lasers and explosions and much of the scientific research complex in Geneva lay in ruins. The Bishops were spread in a circle around the chemical institute building, fighting in squads of two against wave after wave of insurgents. Each squad was facing at least fifty attackers, which was just a little more than what they’d been trained to fend off. The attackers enveloped them, carefully testing out pressure points, searching for weak spots, exploiting the thinness of Vatican’s elite troops.
But there were hardly any weak spots. The enhanced Catholics fought faster, better and fiercer than anyone else, and the advantage of numbers — great as it was — proved to simply not be enough.
The three Rook snipers on the top of the institute helped out calmly, identifying people who appeared to be in control of the various attacking groups, and taking them out from nearly half a kilometre, hardly missing any of them. Their commanding officer was right in the middle of the roof, working on a black box with a large hemisphere on top.
“I’m really worried about this,“ he said.
“Me too,“ answered Lykke Dahlberg in his headset. “But believe me, they have no air support. And that's not because we’ve shut them down. There just isn’t any.“
“They’d need a thousand people to get past us. Nobody would sacrifice a thousand people just to avoid using aircraft.“
“And yet there’s no aircraft. Darkness changes things. Weather may be too bad.“
“I suppose that could be it,“ said the Rook CO. “And yet I’m really worried about this.“
Dahlberg made a face. “Me too.“
Then, she sighed tiredly and said: “I’ll let you know the instance anything bigger than a bird gets into your airspace. Just in case your own radar won’t.“
A nearby sniper fired. The crack of his rifle echoed in the cool air, quickly covered by the other sounds of the battle.
“Just… hang on in there,“ she added.
“How long?“
“I don’t know. As long as it takes.“
“Same extraction plans?“
“For the moment, yes. The moment our people in there are done, we pull everybody out. I have aircraft on standby around the clock, day and… Well, around the clock anyway.“
As if someone heard her words, a huge nearby explosion turned night into day for a few seconds. The soldiers felt the shockwave into their bellies, even as they ducked for cover.
“Bishop grenade?“ asked Dahlberg after a few seconds.
“Fuck, yeah,“ answered her man, yawning wide to unblock his ears. “Feels like a damn asteroid crash.“
“They must’ve had no other choice,“ she said, frowning.
“A cornered Bishop is a terrible fucking thing,“ said the Rook.
Despite everything, Dahlberg’s lips spread into a little smile. “They say the same about you.“
“Don’t see why,“ replied the man. “We don’t usually get cornered.“
“Let’s hope today won’t be the exception.“
“We’ll deal with whoever gets past the Bishops. We’ve been in worse situations.“
“Which included air attacks.“
The Rook CO made a face again, as if he’d eaten something rotten.
“I’m really worried that they haven’t attacked from the air. Feels like we’re missing something very important.“
Dahlberg nodded slightly and put her hand through her hair, considering. Then, she said:
“I really don’t see what we could be missing. But I agree that it’s strange.“
Someone approached her, and she leaned back so that her aide could whisper into her ear. She listened and nodded, then said a single word: “no.“ The aid left.
“Just hold the fort, lieutenant,“ she said. “Whatever comes.“
“Yes, ma’am. Whatever comes.“
* * *
Staff sergeant Markku Seppänen listened to status reports coming both into his ears and into his fingers. When it was his turn to report, he flexed a quick message that all was well. He looked around him, at the people talking in small groups, quietly debating who knew what, nodding to each other, convincing each other, agreeing or disagreeing, then going back to their stations and working frantically. That, he knew by now, was normal.
He found dr. Lem sitting next to a woman who was animatedly arguing some point and gesticulating with both her hands. Lem interrupted and she interrupted back, her hands forming some kind of invisible cube in the air. The doctor finally listened her to the end, then seemed to ponder for a few seconds, said something, patted her on the shoulder and got up. Looking a little dizzy and off balance, he gazed around, searching for his next mark. His eyes passed over Seppäne
n and moved further without stopping. That was also normal.
Lem crossed the room and walked by Jessica Lawry’s table. She was sitting with her head in her hands, VR gear on, talking softly. She was either talking to the Level 2 teams — diplomats and representatives bunkered elsewhere in the world, who were assisting remotely — or to the two men inside the metallic tanks. And that, in some surreal way, was normal, too.
Seppänen looked at the two cylinders and, for the hundredth time, wondered if he’d rather be in one of them dealing with aliens, or have his own body and guard that damn door, knowing he would be the last line of defence of… well, all things considered, of planet Earth.
He had no doubts about his job or his mission. He didn’t get to be what he was by having doubts and second-guessing himself or his orders. He knew that he would do everything he had to, whatever the costs. But he also knew that, if things got to the point where he had to fight, it would mean that every last one of his friends outside the door was dead.
There was Zi, of course, his squad mate for fifteen years, who was in the cylinder to his left. There were a thousand ways for Seppänen to die that day, and a thousand more for Zi, lying helpless as he was in dr. Lem’s special recipe purple broth.
A tingle in his forearm alerted him of an incoming flex message. The frequency and intensity of the tingle told him that this would be an automated message, computer-generated and to be sent to him all at once, rather than another status report, sent in real time from another Rook’s fingers. He gave it more attention. The message was very short and it came from one of the sensors with which that they had filled the building, in every room, at every level and in every corner.
He listened to the sensor designation: SM0391554. S for seismic, M039 for minus thirty-nine — meaning thirty-nine levels under ground, the deepest level of the complex, corridor fifteen, room fifty-four.
A seismic alert was nothing special. With so many bombs and grenades and exploding vehicles in the neighbourhood, the seismic sensors were constantly triggered.
But not thirty-nine levels underground. No conventional ordnance should be able to cause vibrations that deep. Perhaps an earthquake… or a volcano? Around Geneva?
He was about to grab his tab from his side pocket and run a sensor diagnostic, when three more tingles came, in quick succession. One was from SM0391553, another from SM0381554, and the third from MM0391553.
That meant more vibrations in the next room, and then in the room above; and lastly, and more worryingly, actual motion detected in level thirty-nine.
He called it in, flexing quickly to his CO on the roof, and before he was done, he started getting more alerts. First, the seismic, motion, sound, light and chemical sensors in room fifty-three, corridor fifteen on level thirty-nine, died. They simply stopped sending their heartbeats every tenth of a second, and a computer somewhere declared them dead. And for all the sensors in a room to be dead, it could only mean one thing.
They’re coming from below, he realised, and then spoke quickly and quietly into his laryngophone, passing on the alarm, while flexing calmly but fast.
At the same time, he stepped quickly to Lawry and tapped her shoulder. She looked at him through her VR gear, startled.
“They’re coming from underneath,“ he repeated to her.
“What? Who? How?“
“Wait.“
More tingles came. Sensor damage was now so extensive that the notifications came grouped and summarised; there would’ve been no time for each to be sent separately. And seismic sensors were triggered at level thirty-seven… thirty-six… now thirty-five.
He unfocused his eyes and counted.
When he felt the warning from SM0341553, he realised that there would be no time.
The laboratory was at level twenty-eight, and the sensors were triggered at a rate of one level every five seconds. That meant they had thirty seconds left.
What kind of drill or whatever it is can go through half a metre of reinforced concrete in five seconds without stopping? he wondered.
“We have thirty seconds,“ he said to Lawry at the same time. He ran to a console — a specific console which he had identified and memorised as soon as he’d taken his post — and pushed the technician aside.
“Hey, what…“ asked the man, falling on his butt.
“Excuse me,“ said Seppänen, and started typing quickly.
Lawry came next to him. “Markku, what’s going on? What are you doing?“
He didn’t answer.
“He’s locking down the system,“ said the fallen technician, as he was picking himself up. “Help!“ he yelled. The whole room stopped and turned towards them.
Lawry pulled out her sidearm and pointed it at Seppänen’s head.
“Move away, now, now, NOW,“ she yelled and fired just over his head, leaving a gaping hole into the wall.
Seppänen did not budge. “Almost done,“ he said. “Three more seconds.“
“You gonna kill them? Are you an Eighter too?“ she yelled through clenched teeth.
“I’m not gonna kill them. I’m just locking down the computers. And I’m not a fucking Eighter, Lawry. And that’s rich, coming from you. I’m under orders from Dahlberg.“
She squeezed the handle of her gun, trying to decide what to do.
“Listen, you think they won’t get the password from you?“ she asked urgently. “How crazy are you goddamn Rooks? They can probably crack open your skull and just take whatever they want right from your brain.“
He finished, and stood up, watching her gravely. She adjusted her aim upwards. The Finn was about a half metre both taller and wider than she was.
“There’s no password,“ he said, in a low voice. “It’s locked, Jessica.“
It took her a few good seconds to understand. Unfortunately, those were the last seconds they had left.
“But they’ll d…“
A big part of the floor caved in.
And when the dust settled, nearly everyone in the room was dead.
* * *
Most of the people in the laboratory were laying crumbled on what was left of the thick concrete floor, with blood coming out of their ears, mouths and noses. Seppänen had fallen over Jessica, gun in hand. He was not moving.
She came slowly to her senses, with a loud, high-pitched ringing filling her ears. She opened one eye, and then the other, and everything seemed to be bathed in red. She tasted concrete dust and blood, and could only breathe through her mouth, and even that was difficult. She chocked and coughed. Blood, snot and dust came out. The Finn’s dead body, with armour and guns and all, weighed heavy on her chest and she tried to shove him away, but moving her arms caused pain so sharp that she nearly fainted again. She let her arms fall back down on her sides, and that hurt, too.
“Oh, God,“ she whispered in pain, and closed her eyes.
“Yes?“ answered a voice.
A moment later, air filled her lungs as the Rook’s dead body was lifted from her chest. She tried to swallow but failed, because her mouth and throat were too dry. She opened her eyes again, and blinked to clear her vision.
A man with ruffled blue hair stood over her, and a shining yellow square of light floated over his head.
She passed out.
* * *
Not even a minute later, the door cracked opened a little bit, and four flash-bang grenades flew through the crack, in very quick succession; then, the door closed again.
The grenades dispersed to four corners and went off with four ultra-loud cracks, at the same time filling the room with light bright enough to cause temporary blindness. In the following second, the door flew open and two Rooks entered crouching low, wearing gas masks, immediately followed by two more, and then two more. They spread in the room quickly with their guns at eye level, covering each other, watching their arcs, taking everything in as quickly as possible and looking for hostiles. There were none.
They found Jessica Lawry sprawled unconscious and covered i
n blood, and everyone else, including Seppänen, dead. Lem hanged off the edge of a table with his head in an unnatural position and his one remaining eye staring into the huge hole in the middle of the floor.
The Rook CO, who had been first into the room, looked around, assessed the situation, and prepared to report the disaster: that all but one were dead, that they had, despite all, been taken by surprise, that they had been too late, and that the cylinders, together with a few of the workstations, were missing.
XX.
“She’s not answering. Still. Again,“ said Zi.
“Did you try flexing?“ asked Mark.
“Of course I tried flexing. Nothing, no answer. It’s been nearly ten minutes already.“
The alien crowd was beginning to show serious signs of restlessness. Some of them had gathered in groups, and one of the largest groups was bunched around Rrapi, who was fruitlessly trying to explain that it had no idea whatsoever about what was going on. Most of the aliens appeared rather unwilling to take it up on its word.
The Saudade ambassador found a thinner part of the crowd, planted her feet firmly onto the white, nondescript surface, stretched to full length, reached out and grabbed Rrapi from the middle of the lynch mob. She lifted it without reserve and deposited it a few meters away, near Mark and Zi. Then, feet still in place, she leaned menacingly all the way down to the unfortunate crouching station manager and, placing her head closely in front of the part of Rrapi that was supposedly most susceptible to threats, she said in an extremely authoritative tone:
“I want a refund, you little shit.“
Mark and Zi looked at each other, the same unspoken thought going on through both of their minds: remind me to stay on this lady’s good side.
“Does it look like I have any control here?“ said Rrapi plaintively. “I mean, do you truly think I would willingly put myself through this?“
“I don’t care! Fix it!“