Diane Duane - X-COM - UFO Defense

When it went off, the alarm on the console sounded about a hundred times more jarring than she had expected it would—the acoustical brightness of this little bare-walled room with nothing on the walls. Her mind cried, Ari! She fumbled for the lamp, found it, stumbled out of bed toward the console, and slapped the comms button. “Yeah?”

“Trouble, Commander. M’Goun’s got a hot one coming our way.”

“What are they sending?”

“Nothing, Boss. They’re empty”

“What, again? Shit! Can’t anyone else—”

“No, Commander. That’s why they called.”

“Scramble the pilots and an assault team,” she said, heading for the closet to get dressed. “We’re going. What have they picked up?”

“Large Scout, ma’am.”

“Right. That means one of the Lightnings, and have the Skyranger loaded as backup. Get them moving.”

She pulled out a flight coverall, scrambled into it, pulled on her boots. Thank God the pilots are here, she thought. I sure couldn’t fly, not six hours after drinking. Jonelle went pounding out the door into the screech and hoot of the newly installed Klaxons. As she went by one installation, she noticed one hooter that wasn’t working. Make a note of that—

Up the stairs. The place was coming quickly alive. The bright lights were on in the number-one hangar, pilots and crews already hurrying out into the big space. Some of them looked at Jonelle in astonishment as she headed for the equipment rack and pulled off her flying armor. “Ma’am—” one of them said.

It was a captain, her only one, Matthews. She wheeled on him. “We’ve got nobody higher-ranked on hand than you right now, Matt. I will not send out a ground assault with no one higher-ranking to advise. That’s me. Get your team suited and get them loaded!”

People ran in all directions. “Command,” Jonelle shouted, “where are they?”

“Over Bellinzona now, Boss,” the voice came back. “Heading northeast.”

Chur, she thought. That was the first city of any size nearby. Thirty thousand people—the aliens would have a party there, if allowed to land. “I don’t want them to get any farther north than our latitude,” she yelled to Comms and the public at large. “Let’s go!”

The Skyranger’s troop complement was loading; its HWP was getting ready to trundle into position, last in to be first out. Jonelle headed for the Lightning. As she did, the new hangar exit door slid open. Snow fell inside in a great lump and splatted wetly on the floor. “I’ve got to do something about that,” she muttered as she ducked through the Lightning’s door.

She made her way up to the ships cockpit, buttoned up, and started to lift. There was barely room for her to wedge herself into the observer’s seat behind the young pilot, Ron Moore.

“Ronnie,” she said, “all we’ve got on this one are Stingray missiles. Your job isn’t to get too close to that guy. Just hurt him, put him down as fast as you can. But under no circumstances are you to let him get any farther north than Andermatt.”

“You got it, ma’am.” Ron hit his comms control to put his chat with Central Command at Irhil M’Goun on “open air.” “Central, where’s our baby?”

“Transferring our targeting to you until you acquire,” said Central. The screens in the cockpit came alive as the Lightning shot out the opened door in the mountain, and Jonelle braced herself in place—no straps would fit around the flying suit.

“Thanks, Central, we’ll need it. Cloud’s bad. Ceiling eighteen and snow.”

Gray cloud boiled against the cockpit windows. “He’s still heading northeast,” Ron said. “Four thousand meters.”

“Wouldn’t go much lower than that if I were him,” Jonelle muttered. In this neighborhood, the higher moun-taintops could come up on you with deceptive speed.

“Neither would I, ma’am,” Ron said. “Still heading northeast. I think he wants to go to ground in the Lukmanier Pass.”

“Don’t let him in there,” Jonelle said. “He’ll run right up to the main east-west valley and have a straight shot at Chur. Waste a shot or two if you have to, but tum him, Ronnie.”

“Will do, Boss,” the pilot said.

He climbed, heading southeast to intercept. Conventional motion detection picked the alien up as they were swinging past the peak of Piz Paradis, one of the taller mountains southeast of Andermatt. “There he is,” said Ron, and the screen lit with the trace of the large Scout ahead of them.

“Force him up—don’t let him down into the valley!” “Stingray one,” said Ron, “targeting—”

At this range? Jonelle thought, but even with as big a miss as Ron was likely to make, the Scout might still turn at the shot across its bow. This part of the chase was going to be up to Ron, at any rate.

“Stingray one away—”

The Lightning gave the little idiosyncratic jump, which was typical when it launched a missile. Jonelle peered at the radar and motion detection screens, which were more than usually difficult to read, cluttered with ground artifact from the mountainous terrain below. The alien craft was shooting straight as an arrow for Chur: northeast, northeast—and then abruptly, it zagged almost due westward.

“He’s out of the valley, Boss. Heading toward Sedrun, right into the mountains now.”

“Good. Put him down as deep in as you can. I don’t want him near anybody”

They plunged through the air over the mountains, passing over the small town of Sumvitg, south of the main east-west valley. “Some nice glaciers down there, Boss,” Ron said, comparing the heads-up display’s map against the radar/motion detection screen. “Wouldn’t bother anybody if we knocked him down there, would it?”

“Only us,” Jonelle said, shivering, “on recovery. You really want to do a ground assault on a glacier?…But if it seems the best spot, never mind, just do it!”

She watched the screen. They were creeping closer to the Scout. “Thirty kilometers now,” said Ronnie. Then a few moments passed. “Twenty-five…Stingray two targeting. Acquire. Launch!”

The Lightning bounded again. A third dot appeared, the missile. Jonelle watched the targeting trace from the missile lock onto the alien craft, watched the two dots draw closer together, closer, almost merge—

The alien craft jogged sideways again, southward, just as the missile should have struck it. Ron swore. “Sorry, Boss,” he said. “Still too much range. And they know the speed of these missiles too well—I wish I had some more vector to add. I’m closing—”

The Lightning leapt after the Scout. The Scout leapt too, almost due southward now. “Whatever he’s going for,” Ron said, “it won’t be Chur, not unless he does another one-eighty.”

“He may have that in mind. You just make sure you put one of these up his butt: before he gets a chance, Ronnie.”

“Kinky,” Ron said mildly The Lightning accelerated— Jonelle had to brace herself more firmly

“Don’t let him get as far south as the San Bernardino pass,” Jonelle said. “He’ll vanish down that like water down a drain.”

“I won’t,” Ron said. “Twenty kilometers now, Boss. Targeting Stingray three now. Acquire—”

“Wait for fifteen kilometers, Ron—”

“That’s my intention, ma’am.”

She watched as the two dots, the Scout and the Lightning, slowly slid closer together. “Fifteen point four—fifteen point two. Fifteen kilometers—firing!”

Bound! went the Lightning. Once again a third dot appeared as the missile leapt away. The targeting trace from the missile indicated positive lock. They watched while the dots inched closer, closer, merged—

The screen flashed. “It’s a hit!” Ron said, but the Scout didn’t slow or veer. “Damn. Not enough damage. Must have winged him.”