*
The strike team lurks in a white van in an alleyway in Montreal. On their right, a stained door opens into a laundrette; on their left, condensation hisses from the vents of a small supermarket.
Willie Thorne, returning home from a late night press conference, is diverted by a roadblock prearranged by the Council. Her driver slows as he enters the alley, his path blocked by a white van. Within moments, our team has the car surrounded, Thorne and her driver separated at gun point. Was it only a month ago I said it wasn't my job to point guns at people?
Sgt. Borg addresses the MP, her tone flat. "Wilhelmina Thorne, you are suspected of collaborating with the extraterrestrial enemy and willfully threatening the survival of the human race. By the authority of the Council of Nations, you are hereby apprehended..."
Hearing car engines approaching, Twitch tells Boghead to hurry up. Thorne seems shocked, disbelieving.
Two sleek black cars pull into the alley. The doors open, Thin Men unfolding themselves from the leather seats.
"Get down!"
The team bolt for cover. While Twitch, Voodoo, Sentinel and LG fire down the alley, Nix and Boghead head for the roof of supermarket, hauling Thorne up the fire escape with them.
Thin Men everywhere. Unseen windows shattering. Snake-silhouettes on the roof of the laundrette, framed by headlights in the alley. Twitch lunges into the supermarket, dives behind a pyramid of bean tins as three X-rays open fire through the streetside windows. He signals to Langran-Goldsmith for help, orders Sentinel to suppress the enemy outside.
On the roof, Nix presses himself against a ventilation shaft, forcing Thorne down beside him. She finds her voice at last
"How dare you?" She is not talking to Cpt. Gent - she looks straight into the camera at his ear, yanks him down so she can shout into his mic - she is talking to me. "You think I would betray my country, my people? What authority do you have for this?"
Boghead grabs her by the shoulder, orders her to be quiet, but Thorne pays her no mind.
"You've got no authority for this, nothing!" Her voice drops with scorn, disgust. "You're a thug, in the employ of dictators, nothing-"
LG checks her six, makes a dash for where Twitch is pinned down. She weaves across the alley, leaps for the door.
Green fire bursts from the darkness, splays across her back. Shit. She sprawls in the doorway, unconscious, bleeding out. Sentinel looks over in alarm and makes a dash for it, firing blindly into the laundrette. Crouching behind the lintel and a freezer, he jams a medikit into her suit, halts the bleeding.
"Saxby, down!" Twitch is too late - a shot to the shoulder sends Sentinel arcing across the littered tiles. I shout at Boghead and Voodoo to get down there: Borg leaps off the roof, rolling into cover behind a bench; Ash crashes down a drain pipe. Nix's cam blurs as he turns, scanning the rooftops.
All is confusion. The supermarket is a shooting gallery for the X-rays, thick with poison, smoke grenades and shrapnel. Com chatter is panicked, overwhelming; continuous gunfire punctuates the cries.
"Argh!"
"Damn, they got me-"
"Two more-"
"Die, you purple mother!"
A high scream. A Thin Man has scrabbled up the wall, leveled its glowing weapon at Thorne. Nix steps in the way, the blast throwing him back into Thorne's arms just in time, as a second X-ray unleashes suppressing fire from behind. They have nowhere to go.
My hand slams down on the counter. Relay the situation to Twitch. Cursing, he braves the firestorm, skids out of the supermarket. Forewarned by the groans of the fire escape, the suppressing Thin Man bolts, leaping for the street, but Twitch paper-balls it as it falls. Moaning, Nix rolls into cover and lays out the other X-ray with his sidearm.
Inside, the cams are useless. I need to know what's happening.
"Strike team! Report."
Sentinel: "Pretty shot up."
Voodoo: "Bleeding!"
Boghead: "Okay, but they've got us pinned down in here."
Nix: "Holding on, armour took most of it."
Twitch: "Walking wounded, sir."
I close my eyes, squeeze the bridge of my nose. One soldier out of action, only one unwounded, and us no closer to the evac zone than when we started. FUBAR.
More Thin Men creep up onto the laundrette roof. Twitch throws Thorne into cover, puts his back to the ventilator shaft, Nix next to him. His headcam shifts from Thorne to the enemy moving up; returns to Thorne, lingers. The firefight below rattles on the coms.
He turns his head away. He holds his mic to his face. "Permission to execute Order Swift Gaze." His head turns back.
Thorne fills the screen, cowering behind a concrete hump, laser fire bursting above her head. Her eyes are closed, her teeth gritted. It's her the X-rays want, for their own purposes. Not ones that bear imagining, whatever she may think. But the alternative is us, and the Council. Torture and death at human hands, or worse from the extraterrestrials.
Perhaps this is a kindness, of sorts. I'll tell myself that.
A deep breath, death grip on the arms of my chair.
"Execute."
The grenade chuckles over the concrete, Thorne's eyes opening as it nudges her leg.
She looks right at Twitch, at me, for just a moment.
*
With Thorne dead, the alien attack lessens. Boghead, Voodoo and Sentinel make a fighting retreat from the supermarket. Sgt. Borg grabs the unconscious Langran-Goldsmith by the scruff of her armour, hauls her up the fire escape. Halfway up, material tears and LG tumbles down, leaving a battered shell dangling from Boghead's fist. There is no time to go back.
The strike team limps across the rooftops, scrambles for the evac zone.
Mission scrubbed.
