Session 1 (April 14, 2008)
Chapter 1
Vasily Kasprjak dozed in the cavernous interior of the C-130 transport aircraft. The monstrous plane rattled and shook, its engines filling the interior compartment with a constant roar, but Vasily was not especially troubled by the din; he’d flown in old Tupolev bombers that had felt like they were trying to shake themselves apart.
Nor was he troubled by the men in khaki who sat across from him, who’d watched his every move since they’d embarked in St. Petersburg sixteen hours ago. They hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words with him, and their hands never seemed to stray far from their sidearms, but the Americans just couldn’t seem to manage the level of cool malevolence that he was used to from agents of the FSB. That and he knew that if the Americans were willing to go through the trouble of flying this huge plane to Russia to pick him up—and the cost of two aerial refuelings to boot—then it was unlikely that they intended him harm. In truth, he’d probably become much safer when he’d stepped onto the American plane.
They had told him it was a glorious opportunity to serve the Motherland, a chance for new challenges, new responsibilities. Grim jargon, all of it. It meant, We're going to throw away the key.
He knew it had been coming, in the days following what was officially being labeled “The Kalinovskaya Incident.” People had died, some of them true patriots. Attention had been drawn to an operation that was supposed to go unnoticed. Objective Achieved, he'd made sure of it, but at a cost some in the organization had felt was too high. He had wondered what was to become of him. A desk job? Forced retirement? A teaching post at one of the Training Academies?
No. It was far, far worse than that. They were sending him to America.
The enforced solitude of the trip had given him a chance to make peace with the reality of his exile. He still had no idea just what this new international organization that he’d been assigned to was all about, but secrets were nothing new to him. You didn’t get far as a soldier in the Federalnaya sluzhba bezopasnosti of the Russian Federation without knowing how to accept orders without knowing their purpose. Of course, you also tended to go farther in the Federal Security Service when you didn’t report superiors for accepting bribes. Had it been an accident that his backup had been four minutes late arriving at Kalinovskaya?
A slight shift in pitch in the engines warned him before the aircraft started its descent. Wherever he was going, he’d find out what he was getting into soon enough. He kept his face as impassive and as dignified as he could. You may be the lowest of the low, they told every recruit, but it doesn't matter how high you climb - in the eyes of the World, You are Russia!
So now, as always, that's what he'd be.
* * * * *
“De Farrago, we have an assignment for you.”
The information had surprised her. She had struggled to hold down that and the elation, and display in the emotionless manner they were expected to maintain. She had responded with thanks, careful to use an even tone, while taking the rather slim dossier that now resided in her case. A liaison role would have been normal to begin with, and to put her in the field so soon was against policy. Now sitting and swaying easily with any bumps as the APC rolled along, warm and rather uncomfortable in the formal suit, Catalina ran her eyes over the people she travelled with. Her eyes wandered from the big soldier, to the rather hard-eyed woman, to the balding and bearded fellow, speculating idly on who they might be. So far there had been little conversation, and beyond accents she had no real information to go on.
“I cannot deny, this is soon for you to be in the field so actively, but your talents fit the desired profile sufficiently well to satisfy the official request, and frankly…” here the normally impassive face of the commander had wavered, “the information we have been supplied is a little… unusual. Were it not for the trusted relationship with our cousins across the pond…” He’d tailed off and coughed lightly. “For this reason, a full briefing is being withheld, you need to go into this with an open mind.” She’d listened, now concealing puzzlement, through the rest of the briefing concerning travel, contacts, reporting structures, plus the standard information on personnel arrangements and matters of protocol. It didn’t tell her a great deal, and nothing Catalina had learned so far had improved the situation. The flight across the Atlantic on a RAF BAe 125 had given her time to review the briefing folder, but that had only led to more questions. The plane had deposited her at Creech Air Force Base—she remembered that the Yanks controlled their drone aircraft from there, part of the ongoing War on Terror—and she’d found herself in an armored carrier without even a pause to adjust her makeup. The briefing documents were somewhat vague on her final destination, and the vehicle lacked windows to yield clues. From the way that the vehicle kept jostling her, it was somewhere that lacked proper roads.
“This is not an assignment for which we are going to pull a key agent out of the field. I’ll be frank, De Farrago, there’s a chance someone is trying to make a laughing stock out of the service, and that won’t do. So...” The commander had leaned forward with a severe expression at that point. “…we’re officially removing the limitations of the normal inter-agency exchange arrangement. You have license to learn what you can, however you can, and report back if you can.” He’d leaned back and tented his hands. “Don’t put yourself, or the service, in an unsafe position, but we want to know what’s going on, De Farrago.”
As the mystery surrounding this assignment deepened, Catalina found herself agreeing soundly with that sentiment.
* * * * *
Buzz was always the least-threatening looking "kid" among "grown-ups." Even now, pushing thirty, despite his receding hairline and the red goatee he’d finally managed to grow, much of the effects of puberty seemed to have decided to simply pass him by. The harmless look he had about him had gotten him out of trouble in the past.
He hadn’t been born with many advantages, but he’d developed skills that could have led to success. If it were not for his incorrigible propensity for finding his way around what others thought of as “secure areas,” he would have had a nice normal life; a life outside the rat-filled rooms of his childhood. Now he felt like one of those rats stuck in a glue trap.
In hindsight, he shouldn’t have been surprised when they’d finally come for him. He had told them he had meant no harm, trying to play on those childless features once again, but these guys hadn’t fallen for it. Even when they’d found his stash of removable hard drives he thought he’d get clear, but these guys had been good, good enough to break through even the encryption and other stuff he’d put on there almost as a reflex, security that even government spooks shouldn’t have been able to crack. In hindsight, maybe he’d been a little overconfident, a little careless. Into the back of a white van, why was it always a white van, he’d thought, and he was off out of the slums. And he knew no one would miss him.
He was tested, prodded and probed. His captures learned quickly to keep him away from anything electronic. He’d overheard one guard mutter in frustration, "That damn kid could jack into our network with a paper clip!" Buzz puzzled in silence about the possibilities of that while he fell asleep.
It was in the middle of the night that he was often awoken to "learn some real hacking" he was told. This meant bruises and bumps and blisters for the most part. Buzz was not use to such physical endurance his captors seemed to take masochistic joy in pushing him to his limits. It was weird, instead of just beating him down, after the first few sessions, the exercises actually started to seem like some sort of regimen. The ring around his gut started to fade, and the unhealthy white pallor of his skin faded to merely pale. The days and nights blended together with one burning question, "Who were these people?"
It was in the middle of pondering this question on night, as he lay pretending to be asleep and waiting for them to rouse him off to more training, that he would finally get close to an answer. His captors—he never did find out who they were—roused him, and had thrust him still blinking back sleep into an elevator that had deposited him into a garage. Buzz had smiled weakly when he’d seen what awaited him there: another white van.
* * * * *
Jane didn’t know why she was here. She wasn’t with the CIA any more, though she still worked for them, after a fashion, doing contract work as security for foreign dignitaries. That was all she was going to get, she thought, after what had happened. She hadn’t seen her file since then, but she knew there had to be a big red mark in it, and no doubt an extensive dossier from the psych evals that they’d put her through.
If only some one else on her team had seen what she had. If only there had been radar evidence, or a sat pic, or something else to confirm what she’d experienced. Or maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference.
People didn’t want to hear that you’d seen an alien.
Since coming off active duty, she’d been doing some fund-raising work. She’d gravitated to FOAA—no doubt another red mark in her file. A year ago she’d have laughed at the group, but after what she’d seen, Families of Alien Abductees no longer seemed as “fringe” as it had. Sure, there were lots of cranks that were drawn to orgs like FOAA, but to her surprise, there were others there, serious people like herself, others who’d experienced things like she had.
She wasn’t crazy, she told herself.
The orders recalling her to active duty had come as a surprise. The uniformed men in the black helicopter had taken her to a site somewhere in the Nevada desert, where she was transferred with very little explanations other than that the orders were confirmed by the right people in charge. From a nearly-empty base in the middle of the night she was transferred by a black van to another van and eventually to the armored vehicle that even now carried her across the desert to what she hoped was her final destination.
She looked around at the other passengers. There were five in all, including her. She discounted the man in black armor and dark camo in the front of the compartment, a carbine that Jane recognized as a late-model M4A1 with a SOPMOD kit attached slung under his arm. She knew better than to ask him questions, though she saw that he had a com unit with its telltale wire tucked into his left ear.
The other three passengers, however, seemed just as puzzled as she was by all the secrecy. There was a woman and two men, an odd mix. They’d barely spoken other than some curt greetings on being filed into the APC, but she’d heard enough to identify the woman in the suit as British, the big fellow as a Russian, and the other guy as an American, probably an inner-city kid of lower-class origin. Asking the obvious question of where they were going was as pointless as asking why they were all here. Still, wherever they were going it seemed pretty clear that they were going together, so it might be a good idea to get to know them.
Jane spoke up, "Name's Jane Swift. I guess I'm as clueless as the next as to why we're here. I suppose they wanted us to meet and get to know each other. I used to work for the CIA. Certed as a sniper, though I guess you could say I did a little bit of everything." She paused, and for some reason, found herself adding, “on the side I raised money for Families of Alien Abductees, a non-profit charity.”
The British woman, raised an eyebrow, just slightly, but she extended a hand. Of the four of them, she was the only one who somehow had managed not to appear a bit disheveled from the journey thus far. “Catalina De Farrago. Attaché to the British consulate.” After the slightest pause, she added, “Pleased to meet you.”
Jane shook the woman’s hand—she had a firm grip. She glanced at the red-haired American, and saw a flash of something in his eyes at her comment about FOAA—why had she said that? But when he saw her looking at him, he looked away.
The big man shifted slightly in his seat. “Kasprjak. FSB.”
Jane saw that Catalina recognized the reference, but the red-haired man apparently did not, or at least he betrayed no recognition. Russian Security Services, Jane thought. Interesting.
Now that they were talking, Catalina leaned back in her chair, grimacing slightly as the seat jolted under her. “Does anyone actually know where we are going?”
Vasily inclined his head at the man with the rifle. “Him?”
The soldier seemed to be ignoring their conversation, although Jane would not have put money on that being the case. He touched the earpiece. “Roger that,” he said, responding to whoever was speaking via the com unit. He didn’t quite look at the others, but after a moment he said, “We’ll be arriving shortly.” The pitch of the APC’s motor changed, and they felt themselves descending, the rough jolts of before smoothing out as they moved down some sort of ramp.
“Guess this is where it gets interesting,” Jane said, looking around at her new companions.
The APC came to a halt.
The soldier rose as they all heard the latches on the back door cycling open. “Okay, we’re here,” he said. “Last stop, everybody out.”
The Russian was the first to rise, straightening his weathered fatigues. The door opened onto a lighted area, and the others followed him out, ducking under the low overhang of the vehicle’s exit.
They were in a large garage area that was full of activity. The place, likely underground from the steep descent they’d taken in the APC, had metal walls, floor, and ceiling, old metal by the look of it, with bits of rust drifting down from the pipework that was suspended from the ceiling fifteen feet above. In addition to the APC they’d arrived on, there were two large trucks in the bay, which men in the same black uniform as their loquacious escort were busy loading with crates that other men were bringing in via a steady procession of flatbed handcarts. It was evident that the place was in the midst of being emptied, and for a moment the four newcomers just stood there, not sure where they were supposed to go or what they were supposed to do.
After just a few seconds, one of the men in black came over to them. “He’s waiting for you inside,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder to a recessed doorway on the far side of the garage.
“Inside,” Vasily said. Frowning, he headed in that direction, the others following behind. A soldier standing at the door watched their approach, talking quietly into a com unit. He opened the door, which had a round wheel set into it, resembling a compartment door on a warship.
The room beyond had been stripped of most of its contents, and they could see marks on the walls where panels and fixtures had existed before. A folding table with a large computer system atop it stood lonely on the far side of the room. A man in a black suit, white suit, and gray tie was working at the computer, but he quickly stood as the four entered the room.
“Good afternoon,” he said. “I am Garret. Michael Garret. United Nations liaison to this … operation.” He shook each of their hands, addressing them by name. “Sorry for the mess and the bustle. This was just our temporary home as we got organized. We’re about to move to a new facility not far from here that’s been specially adapted for our needs.”
He returned to the table with the computer, gesturing for them to follow, although there were no chairs anywhere in the room save for the one behind the table. Garret did not sit, however. “I understand that you have only just met, but each of you possesses certain skills that are going to be vital to the success of this operation. You have all been released by your parent national organizations to us, to help in getting this new agency off the ground.”
“Ah, sir, if I may ask, what is the name of this agency?” Jane asked.
Garret smiled slightly. “The official name is the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit,” he said, spreading his arms as if to encompass the entirety of the base. “But we’ve shortened it a bit for everyday use.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to X-COM.”
