Diane Duane - X-COM - UFO Defense

She met with Colonel Amesson, who had been sent to Zürich after his interception team finished its work in the Canaries. Together, with a couple of squaddies as de facto bodyguards, they walked down the Bahnhofstrasse, past the broken shop windows and the burned-out stores, and he briefed her.

“It seems as if the Battleship fell afoul of the cast-iron reinforcements in the old building,” he said. “There was nothing like that in the new construction to give it any problems, but what it did sink through seems to have slowed it enough for Colonel Laurentz to stick the spear in its side, so to speak. When my team got in, we managed to get out about ninety civilians who were trapped in the ruble.”

Jonelle nodded and looked around her. “How are they doing?”

“About eighty percent survival, the hospital says. Then the Avenger dropped its assault teams, just the other side of the river,” Arnesson said., “The squads came across, destroyed the bridges, killed some Floaters they found on their way over, and started working northward. They met heavy resistance on the way up, and Colonel Laurentz broke off his attack on the Terror Ship down in Paradeplatz and flew down to help them. That’s when the Avenger went down. The aliens had two teams with blaster launchers waiting down there. I suspect they were waiting for an attack from the south. If Ari had come in straight, he’d have been dead, and all his teams with him—not even an Avenger could have taken both those things in the teeth.”

Jonelle nodded. Leaving strategic considerations aside, Ari had a love of sneakiness for its own sake. He would never go straight when he could go crooked. Jonelle used to tease him, Your brain could be used for a corkscrew, you know that? And he would laugh.

“The Avenger went down just on the lakeside,” Amesson said, “into the water. That was what saved his and Melanchion’s lives. They both got out OK—they were both armored, and Ari came out with a psi-amp. The crews say that to have heard Ari, as he went down, you’d have thought he was discussing what bus stop he was going to get off at, he was so casual. In the middle of ditching, he was still giving them instructions on how to attack the craft in Paradeplatz, and insisting on casualty reports.”

“I wouldn’t mind one of those myself,” Jonelle said, a little tartly.

Arnesson looked at her in some surprise. “Weren’t you given one already? My apologies, Commander—there’s been a breakdown in communications somewhere. Of a total of thirty-four deployed, we lost ten.”

“So many,” she said softly.

“It’s a miracle it wasn’t more, Commander. We were spread very, very thin on the ground here, and if the aliens had had even a slight advantage in numbers or tactics, a whole lot more of us would be dead. As it was, our people fought like madmen…and the aliens, a lot of them, didn’t seem to be functioning up to full efficiency after the Battleship went.”

“The masterminds were on it,” Jonelle said, “or at least so I suspect.”

“Some of them, at least. We got several stunned Ethereals of several ranks off it, and various other dead ones. They’ve gone down to Irhil M’goun to be held until Doctor Trenchard gets back down there from ‘Moria.’”

Jonelle smiled slightly. “Yes, he would want to be there for the interrogations. That’s fine.” She lost the smile, then, as they came to the Zürich branch of the EA.O. Schwartz toy store. It was burned out, the biggest and most beautiful of the antique rocking horses in the front window lying on its side on a carpet of shattered glass, plasma burns marking its side. He’ll never buy me that horse now. Not that he could have anyway—the bloody thing costs about half a year’s salary…and where would I have kept it?

“At any rate, the initial teams’ assaults were surprisingly successful, despite the aliens’ resistance. We had a little unlooked-for help, too: a lot of the locals took exception to the terror raid and sniped at the aliens from their windows. Some of them died for their trouble…a lot of them did us some good. While the first-in teams were working north, Colonel Laurentz and his pilot made their way north as well, joining up with the southernmost team about twenty minutes into their attack. They were pushing north to join another team when they ran into an attack group of aliens apparently sent to stop them. That was where about a third of our casualties came, right there. There were two Ethereal leaders with the force, a lot of Snakemen, and some Chryssalids. The team killed the Chryssalids first, as you might expect, and then started working on the others. But they came under psi attack. According to the survivors, Colonel Laurentz engaged one of the Ethereals with his psi-amp and killed it—but the other one got control of several of his people and then forced them to attack him. There was a battle for control of their minds, apparently. Colonel Laurentz won it—just—but must have sustained some blow to his mind. He went down, and the teammates he had been protecting went down with him—a couple of them died. The others are on their way back to Irhil.”

Jonelle nodded calmly “And the colonel?” she said, as though no more concerned about him than about anyone else.

“After the fighting finished in this area, a recovery team made pickup on him and his teammates. He seems never to have regained consciousness after he went down, Commander. He was shipped down to Irhil with the rest of them. As far as I know, he’s still comatose. I haven’t heard any updates, though we should have one for you shortly.”

“Very well. So. That particular alien attack was resolved, more or less in our favor, I take it. What happened to that other Ethereal?”

“It must have been considerably weakened by Colonel Laurentz’s struggle with it, Commander. It was stunned and taken prisoner a little later, with surprisingly little trouble.”

They stopped a block north of Paradeplatz, looking up at a shot-out window. Someone had draped a Swiss flag out of it at some stage of the fighting, and the flag lay limp and somewhat singed around the edges. “Around that time,” Arnesson said, “my team came in. We put down troops and Heavy Weapons Platforms between the Limmat and the Sihl and began a sweep eastward to meet Colonel Laurentz’s troops. The team from Greece landed at the train station and headed down inside.

“I’ll want a more detailed report from them shortly,” Jonelle said, “but what’s the general story down there?”

“About six hundred civilians dead. A lot of Chryssalids and Zombies—we had to kill all those, of course. A whole lot of dead aliens of various kinds. At least eight of our own assault team members.” Arnesson looked somber, and Jonelle guessed that some of those were his own people. “The station is in a bad way. Once we’ve got all the dead and wounded out of there, the place will probably have to be demolished.”

“To think they just renovated it,” Jonelle said. “Well, never mind. So the assault teams consolidated….”

“Yes, Commander. And several HWPs joined forces and began concentrating on the second alien craft, the Terror Ship. Colonel Laurentz was very insistent that we shoot the site up thoroughly.”

“The site?” Jonelle said, looking at him curiously.

For the first time in all this, Arnesson, always something of a sobersides, cracked a small, thin smile. “You’d better have a look.”

They walked on down the Bahnhofstrasse to the point where it bends slightly crossing Pelikanstrasse, and Jonelle gazed down at Paradeplatz, past the wreckage of burned and derailed trams—and opened her mouth, and shut it again.

The Terror Ship was tipped over on one end, sticking out of what appeared to be a large hole in the street. As they got closer, Jonelle could see that the upper levels of the hole were full of cables and conduits, and what appeared to be several hallways or corridors, some ten or fifteen feet under ground-level proper.