Terror from the Deep, Collaborative Fan-fiction.
Chapter I

It was a strange kind of day, Captain Benjamin Briggs was aboard the ship he had piloted for nearly twelve years now but he was restless. The Trans-Atlantic Liner Hyperion was the third of three new sister ships constructed by Cunard Line to sail the seas that divided America from the Eastern world. Hyperion's sister ships Gaea and Uranus, named from the mythical parents of the Hyperion's titanic namesake, had been sailing the Atlantic ocean for nearly twenty years, making Captain Briggs' liner very much the youngster of the trio.

The Captain knew where his unrest stirred from but today he felt particularly on edge. What with modern technology and the extreme levels of health and safety that the 20s had ushered in, there had been no naval mishaps of any kind for nearly fifteen years, save a few uncharted fishing boats and trawlers. The commercial seafaring industries seemed near untouchable, even by nature itself.

So why then the sudden increase in naval fatalaties thought Captain Briggs... Since the start of 2039, even slightly before, vessels had begun to vanish without a trace. Some had been discovered weeks later, deserted and empty. Others had left behind vast floating memorials as they apparently disappeared beneath the waves. Even more however had simply vanished, without time for even an SOS.

Of late, the Atlantic seemed to be possessed. Some sailors blamed the Bermuda triangle, others blamed international terrorists, but most blamed another source altogether... Since the end of the Alien war at the dawn of the twenty-first century, there had been an uneasy peace. The planet was overpopulated and polluted with unemployment at an all time high. Many countries had simply failed to survive after the governments of their more powerful neighbours practically denied their existence. But there was peace, mostly...

Only several years ago a newly surfaced 'religion' calling themselves the Cult of Sirius had begun worshipping the alien invaders of the twentieth century and even launched deep space probes inviting them to return now that XCom was no more. Much of what had remained of XCom had been lost when The Inquisitors clashed with the Cult in a mighty 'holy war'. Many of the war's heroes were lost and both sides were decimated in the ensuing bloodshed.

Many people were now becoming incresingly anxious that the Cult's messages had not fallen on deaf ears. Pilots of the sky and sea alike had seen colleagues simply disappear off the face of the earth in recent years and very few of them were buying the scientific explanation of 'magnetic anomalies' and 'freak storms'.

Captain Briggs was not a superstitious man, he had been born a year after the alien invasion and so had been left largely unaffected by its occurence. The world now was no different to what he knew as a child. True, it was becoming more frequent that the rain would burn and when he was a child his father had been allowed the use a private vehicle but on the whole, much had stayed the same.

Now as the sun began to meet the ocean, Captain Briggs leant out over the bow of his magnificent ship and sighed silently to himself. Perhaps he'd never know what was happening to the world around him, in fact he was quite sure that he didn't actually want to know...

The Captain watched the sun sink and passed an eye over the steady sea around him. It was calmer than normal, he was quite relieved to see a glimmer of something emerge briefly from under the waves. It bobbed again, up and down, travelling alongside the ship.

He smiled to himself as he watched the Hyperion's new companion rise and sink off the port bow. It was said that dolphins were good luck, perhaps this was a break for Captain Briggs. Maybe he could finally stop worrying about the world around him and get back to the world he used to enjoy.

Staring out to sea, he strained to make out any features that would suggest his luck was up but it seemed more like a whale than a dolphin. Smooth backed, slightly scaled even, it was too far off to tell. The Captain leant back off the railings and stretched as if to touch his highest mast, then looked back out to sea.

Whatever had been accompanying the ship it was gone, to hunt perhaps...

It soon reappeared, nearer to the ship and it drew more than a gasp from Captain Briggs. It was no dolphin, that was for sure. No whale either by the looks of it. The surface wasn't scaled, it was panelled, much like the hull of his very own ship but a sandy seabed colour...

The Captain watched as this small submersible floated alongside his own ship, wondering who else had seen it. A pale green light was emenating from the front of the craft just under the water, spotlights or portholes perhaps...

Captain Briggs stood stock still as the vessel slowly fell away from his liner. It drifted to the aft of the ship and then seemed to stop as the Hyperion sailed away from it. Looking back along the length of his vessel Captain Briggs could see a line of passengers and several crew lining the galleries and promenades watching the strange vessel now some distance away.

Suddenly snapping out of the trance he had succumbed to Captain Briggs turned from the strange view and descended a deck to the radio room to inform someone of this peculiar vessel, though he wasn't entirely sure who.

The submersible had continued to follow the Hyperion several hundred meters astern as if in tow and now was drawing a massive crowd. As the Captain attempted to compose a message to be sent something began to happen to the Hyperion's stalker...

The gathered crowd gasped in amazement, some fled in terror, as the pale glow flared up to a blinding green pulse of light. The light shone for several seconds before being released from whatever device produced it and flying towards the Hyperion's stern gliding through the water like a bird through the air.

An almighty panic ensued throughout the watching passengers and Captain Briggs sped out of the radio room just in time to see the green flare skim past the Hyperion's rudder and off to her starboard side.

As he watched in utter amazement the submersible began to glow again and Captain Briggs dived back into the radio room, snatching the transmitting equipment from the crewman seated there.

Opening an emergency channel to all listening frequencies Captain Briggs called his SOS just as he saw the second projectile coming straight for the Hyperion's bow.

"Mayday! Mayday! This is the Trans-Atlantic Liner Hyperion! We are under attack! Mayday! Mayd..."

The captain's last cry was never to be heard. The blinding ball of light struck the vessel directly below the bridge with a following explosion that tore the bow clear off. A blinding green flash hung in the air for minutes as the vessel slowly foundered, flooding from the front back...

Passengers and crew at the back of the vessel were throwing themselves off the ship shouting and screaming, panic filled the air as the ship dissapeared beneath the waves. The ship sinking too fast for lifeboats, passengers and crew alike clutched onto whatever they could find in a vain attempt to stay afloat once they hit the water.

Even as the glow faded from the sky the keel lifted from the waves and the first surviving funnel disappeared below them. The annihilated bow slowly sunk in shards and sections, relieving any survivors of their much needed floats.

Within ten minutes the Hyperion was gone, taking most of its passengers and crew with it. Those who had survived slowly lost grip on the flotsam they clinged to and lost their fight with the waves. With the sun now lost, the bitter cold of the deep dark Atlantic ocean began to gnaw at even the hardiest survivors.

Help never came to those who escaped the Hyperion. As night set in, the last survivor succumbed to fatigue and slipped silently into the waves. His lifebelt floated eerily on the surface, the only remainder of one of the twenty-first centuries finest vessels gone to an early grave.

They were back...

By the time a rescue effort could be organised, it was too late for the crew and the passengers of the Hyperion. It wasn't as if they hadn't tried; only the very rich could afford a luxury cruise on the Hyperion or its sister ships, and such people have a lot of political influence. In December, hypothermia can kill in a matter of minutes in the cold waters of the North Atlantic. It was therefore unsurprising that European Airforce seaplanes and rescue helicopters failed to find a single survivor.

When Triton-1 approached the wreck of the Hyperion over thirty hours after the disaster, its crew were under no illusions. The purpose of this mission was not to locate and rescue any survivors, but to try to find out why one of the largest passenger ships in the world had sunk so quickly in good weather conditions, taking over three thousand people to a watery grave.

It was impossible to believe that the recent spate of what the international media had dubbed the "Mary Celeste sinkings", even though the whole point of the Mary Celeste was that it hadn't sunk, could be down to anything other than hostile action. The question was who was responsible.

Every national government had denied responsibility and pointed to the list of ships and aircraft it had lost. Quite a few terrorist groups had claimed responsibility for each sinking, but this was a pathetically obvious attempt to get some publicity for their cause. Some of the more sensationalist news services were claiming that the aliens had recommenced their long aborted invasion, a theory that seemed to be supported by the testimony of the few traumatised survivors.

In an odd sort of way, Able Seaman Mark Reynolds hoped that it was the aliens. If the crew of Triton-1 learned that a human faction was responsible for the Mary Celeste sinkings, a global nuclear war would probably be the result. He particularly hoped that it wasn't the militant Welsh nationalists; being Welsh was hard these days because of all the nationalist terrorist attacks on public buildings throughout the European Syndicate.

"Okay, we'll be landing in five minutes," said the co-pilot over the intercom. "Get suited up."

Mark went through the last minute checks of his diving suit and breathing apparatus before putting on the stuffy helmet. He also made sure that his dart gun and the spare ammunition clips were securely attached to his utility belt. Despite the name, he was well aware that the dart gun was effectively a crossbow designed to work underwater. When all eight members of the squad indicated that they were ready, the passenger compartment was flooded, leaving the pilot and co-pilot snugly behind a water tight door.

Several divers left the Triton, each heading to a different part of the wreck. Mark turned on the integral light on his diving suit before he stepped onto the sea floor after them. Although it was the middle of the afternoon on the surface, very little sunlight got through to 300 fathoms. The seascape in front of him was dominated by what was left of the aft section of the ship.

"What the hell could have done that?" asked Able Seaman Brian Goldstein over the suit radio, as he stood next to Mark while taking photographs of the wreckage. "And shouldn't there be more bodies in the area?"

That got Mark worried. A lot of people would have been in the water around the ship, where they would have been sucked down when it sank. And it wasn't as if the rescue flotilla had found any floating bodies. Although scavengers such as hagfish would eventually eat the bodies, this process normally took months.

Mark and Brian walked up to the aft section of the ship, getting close to the area of the hull breach. As Brian took more photographs, Mark gently rested his hand on the hull in wonderment, only the section to crumble away, leaving a two metre wide hole. "That was inch thick steel," he said in astonishment. "But it was no stronger than paper that had gone brittle with age."

"You guys had better get some samples so we can look at them in the lab," said Scott Gasvin.

"Hey, where's all the barnacles?" came the voice of Peterson. "I can see the marks on the paintwork, but they must have just fallen off. That sort of thing just doesn't happen."

"Are you sure?" asked Goldstein.

"The amount of time I've spent scraping barnacles off the Triton, not to mention the base? Course I'm damm sure"

"Triton, did you just get that on your monitor?" came the voice of Jake Burton. "There's something moving around there. It's human shaped, but it's small, and it has a large head like a child. I can't make it out clearly at this distance though. I'm taking a closer look."

"Well there aren't any other divers in the vicinity," said Gasvin. "It's probably just an octopus."

"I've seen enough octopuses to know that they don't walk around on two legs," said Burton. "I think there's a couple of others walking around there. One of them almost looks as if it's holding something. If only I could see more clearly... Holy! Are you picking up these creatures on my cam? He then screamed violently for several seconds.

"Burton? What happened?" asked Gasvin. Silence! "The rest of you, find him and bring him back to the Triton."

Another crewman screamed in agony as his bones were jellified by some mysterious weapon that must have been far more powerful than the dart guns carried by the crew.

"Kill your lights, we're under attack" shouted Mark as he fumbled for his dart gun.

"Who by?" asked Gasvin.

"I don't know"

Mark and Brian had stayed together as two of the higher ranking Able Seamen on the Triton. Scott Gavsin and Dale Petersen had also joined together but as Seamen they were less experienced than Mark and Brian. They moved slowly and cautiously, more than a little anxious as to what they might find.

Another pair of seamen, Richard Pritchard and Peter Brines were already inside the Hyperion's broken hull. Already several hundred meters from the Triton and with no clear view of it they were already slightly afraid at the prospect of hostile contact in the vicinity.

Two more able seamen completed the Triton's full compliment for what was supposed to be a routine reconnaissance mission. Matthew Gardna and Andrew Munt were both less than thrilled to be caught up in the middle of any excitement at all, both being nearly as lazy as the other. But now it couldn't be avoided they were both switching on rather too rapidly for their liking.

With Burton and his team mate Joseph Crawley already wounded or possibly worse the remaining eight men were left with a large area to cover in low visibility and with a hostile presence. Add to that the freezing cold water and uncomfortable diving gear and it was no wonder these men weren't best pleased to be here.

Able Seaman Reynolds was the first to take some kind of control over the situation and after a brief check of his heads-up display he decided the two stray seamen were the teams first priority. Pritchard and Brines were already inside the Hyperion, now with several hundred feet of corridor between them and the missing bow.

Gasvin and Peterson were near to Reynolds and Goldstein as it was, their lights were still visible. Mark opened a channel to the two inexperienced aquanauts and firstly advised that they extinguish their torches and secondly that they make their way to himself and Brian.

The other two more senior divers, Munt and Gardna, were headed off in a completely different direction to the other teams altogether. On exiting the Triton Matthew had seen a green glow in the distant murk of the ocean. It had faded to nothing now but he was certain it hadn't moved so the team were now moving to investigate it.

From where the Triton had stopped, the Hyperion was directly ahead to the West. Brines and Pritchard who were now attempting to leave the wreck were approximately 300 meters from the craft and Reynolds and Goldstein were slightly southwest of the Triton, only 200 meters from the Hyperion.

Peterson and Gasvin were to the North of the Triton making their way south towards the Able Seamen near the Triton while Munt and Gardna were now almost 250 meters south of the Triton on what was possibly a wild goose chase. Unfortunately both divers would rather find nothing than meet what caught up with Burton and Crawley. At least if they did find this glow it probably wouldn't kill them they thought!

As Gasvin and Peterson came into view of Reynolds and Goldstein, Mark waved his dart gun above his head, something made rather difficult by the ocean around him. The four aquanauts made their way towards each other, converging almost directly east of the Hyperion's wreck.

After almost ten minutes of eerily silent comm. channels Mark opened a link to the stranded divers to the West for a status check.

"Richard? Pete? This is Mark, how are you guys doing? Are you out of the wreck yet?"

The line crackled for a moment before a reply came. "Hey Mark, we can see the ocean again now, we're literally feet from being outside but I think I see some movement"

Mark knew Peter Brines, even over the godawful comms that Xcom scavenged when they returned to Alpha-01 to take over from SORESO. Since SORESO's owner F. Denman Williams had begun preparing for war himself, he'd been drawing a lot of high ranking government attention. Besides, noone even believed the rumours of alien invasion except Williams himself so exactly who he was planning to fight was a mystery...

Williams had been profiting greatly from the mysterious sinkings of the recent years. They not only gave him a defence against the losses he was encurring personally but also provided a wealth of salvage that no other company could reach. This and other things made many government and military officials think that perhaps personal glory was more of an incentive to the man than global wellbeing.

By the time Xcom was authorised to take control it was well known that Williams was missing more than a few barnacles below the waterline! The number of experimental craft he was losing was increasing everytime he produced a new prototype and with each loss claiming five divers he had been getting a lot of unwanted attention.

Williams was finally removed from power when one of his prototypes imploded spectacularly at a demonstration he'd laid on to encourage funding from the 16 powers. Late in 2039 the SORESO craft Khimtar had also been lost, near the Titanic in the Northern Atlantic. Nearly two months later, The Pentagon received a belated distress call from the vessels captain. It concluded simply "I think they're back"

Now with the Hyperion in view and two men missing, presumed dead, Mark was beginning to wonder if maybe that message hadn't been the hoax that the world had labelled it as. After all, here he was!

Mark thought for a brief moment. Countries were blaming each other for the Marie Celeste sinkings, and China had nearly gone to war with America back in July when the Zedong, a 240,000 tonne air/sub carrier had disappeared on its shakedown cruise. Only the sinking of the USS Jeb Bush in similar circumstances had convinced China that America was innocent. And the Syndicate had already publicly blamed Egypt for the Hyperion disaster. This was the world's best chance of proving who was responsible for the attacks, and they had to take it even if it meant more casualties.

"Richard, Pete, don't say anything unless you have to but keep your radios on, I don't want you to be overheard. Whatever you saw wasn't one of us, so it must be one of the terrorists. Take him out if you can, and then get back to the Triton with his body and equipment before his mates turn up.

"Munt, what's your status?"

"There's defiantly something big out there. I think it's the enemy sub."

"Okay, see if you two can get close enough to take some pictures, and then get back as quick as you can.

"Goldstein, you and Peterson had better see if you can find out what happened to Burton and Crawley. Be careful as their attackers might still be out there. Gasvin, you and me are going to help out Richard and Pete. I don't need to remind you guys to stay in sight of your partner." Mark wished that there was an officer around to make these decisions for him, but they were all too busy sipping fine wine in the officer's mess. Still, at least the inexperienced Peterson and Gasvin would have experienced partners and everybody still had plenty of oxygen.

Seamen Brines and Pritchard heard something moving down the corridor, so they decided to hide in what had once been a luxury cabin. When the terrorist passed by the open doorway, they swiftly despatched him with their dart guns. Peterson turned on his suit light to get a look at the terrorist, and what he saw shocked both himself and Brines.

"It's a frigging Sectoid" shouted Pritchard over the radio.

"Could you repeat that?" asked Reynolds.

"We've shot a Sectoid"

"Are you sure about this?" asked Goldstein

"I've seen plenty of photographs, to say nothing of the pickled Sectoids in the Imperial War Museum. This one looks a bit different, but it's still a Sectoid. But it doesn't have a diving suit, so how could it survive down here?"

"How can it survive at all?" asked Brines. "The Alien War ended decades ago"

Now Mark was really worried. There was a common misconception, carefully encouraged by the governments, that the aliens had been utterly destroyed in the war. Three years after the Battle of Cydonia, X-Com had detected a group of alien bases on Phobos, one of the two asteroids orbiting Mars. Three Avengers, nicknamed the Judge, the Jury and the Executioner had carried a taskforce to Phobos to defeat the aliens and recover their technology. Three quarters of the personnel in the taskforce were killed before all eight alien bases on Phobos fell. Was it possible that they had missed other alien bases, thus giving the aliens time to regroup?

"Okay you two, take the Sectoid body and any artefacts on its person, and get back to the Triton immediately." The body would be weightless in the water, and if they could recover it, they would be able to prove that aliens were behind the sinkings.

A moment later, Goldstein spoke. "I've found Crawley's body. Oh god, it's like all his bones have turned to jelly"

"Okay, bring him back," said Mark. There didn't seem to be any further point in looking for Burton. "Munt, Gardna, I think it's time for us to get out of here."

"Give us another few minutes," said Munt as quietly as he could. "We can just about make out the enemy sub. I'm getting lots of pictures here."

"Look at that," said Gardna a moment later. "Those sick bastards are hauling away the bodies from the Hyperion. Why the hell would they do that?" He had known that there would be some stomach churning sights, after all, the Hyperion had only gone down the previous day and scavenging species such as the hagfish would need longer to do their work. But nothing could have prepared him for the ghastly sight of aliens piling up the bodies of people who had recently been enjoying a luxurious ocean cruise.

At that point, the alien submarine emitted a ray of greenish light as bright as a naval searchlight, illuminating and Munt and Gardna in full view of the alien crew, who promptly began to fire at them. There was no possibility of returning fire with any accuracy as they were both dazzled by the light, so they decided to make a strategic withdrawal back to the Triton.

As they started swimming back, Munt was narrowly clipped by the corona of a sonic beam; he was unharmed but shaken by the noise. Gardna was less lucky; two sonic beams caught him in the torso, killing him within seconds.

Goldstein and Peterson heard Gardna's death scream as they manhandled Crawley's unpleasantly limp body back to the Triton. "Triton, get ready, we're going to want to leave in a hurry" shouted Goldstein through his radio. He knew that there was no way they could win this fight; the best they could hope for would be to escape without any further losses.

"Matthew" Andrew turned in the water to be faced with no more a body than jumpsuit... Gardna had been posted at XCom's underwater facility almost as long as he had and seeing him extinguished so quickly was unbearable.

Andrew reached out to Matthew's outstretched hand but his body simply sailed gently to the seabed, a small cloud of dust silently echoing his fall.

Mortified though he was, Andrew knew staying still for too long would see him dead too. He half ran, half swam, all as fast as he physically could. The diving gear was heavy, cumbersome and now only just keeping out the water where the first shot had barely missed him.

Goldstein and Petersen were already at the Triton with Crawley's jellified body by the time another scream was heard.

Brines had been dropped by another bizarre alien attack and lost with him were a host of alien items as Pritchard preceded to race for the triton.

Munt arrived back at the Triton absolutely exhausted but it was certainly worth the rush to avoid a similar fate to Gardna... Pritchard was the last to arrive back at the Triton, half carying, half dragging the only alien casualty to their four human losses.

Pritchard was hauled through the Triton's cargo bay doors by several waiting hands all eager to leave and the hatch closed behind him almost before he was through it.

No sooner were they shut than the Triton was mobile, the pilot no keener to meet these creatures than the other six men who'd escapped alive...

As the craft accelerated and ascended to the warmer, shallower waters of the atlantic, the cargo bay emptied and the decompression sequence began.

Pritchard, who was amazingly still standing, threw his travelling partner to the ground by his feet, face down, bloody darts up... Goldstein had set down Crawley's body before the Triton had left the seabed but now found himself lying disturbingly close to his former colleages missing organs. He sat up rather sharply...

As the other divers came to their feet and either grabbed a handrail or took a seat, the Triton left the sea and entered the air... Now that the quality of ride had improved, it was time to be sick, and Andrew was first to succumb...

Tearing off his helmet, he quickly deposited what looked eerily similar to Crawleys missing body parts in a neat pile on the floor. He coughed once or twice then fell backwards into the nearest seat.

Pritchard also removed his helmet, wiping his brow and sighing for a million different reasons. Goldstein, still beside the ex-aquanaut Crawley, kept his helmet firmly on and closed his eyes as tight as biology allowed. Until they got back to base, he just didn't want to know...

Gavsin clearly agreed but having an apparently rather low level of control over quite what level of consciousness he desired, he simply fell over...

Petersen sat down and removed his helmet, eyes going from human corpse to alien corpse... Mark just stared out of the window. The sun was rising, a new day... A new world... A new war...

The UN investigative committee studying the Marie Celeste sinkings reached the base by helicopter less than two hours after the return of Triton-1. The video evidence acquired by the surviving crewmen, their testimony and the autopsy report convinced the committee that they had an alien situation on their hands.

Alpha Base was the only facility on the planet that was ready for immediate action against the alien threat. It was equipped with an advanced passive sonar system, a Triton, two Barracuda hybrid attack subs, and numerous personnel including ten scientists, ten engineers, and eight surviving aqaunoughts. The only problem was that it still technically owned by F. Denman Williams.

The eccentric software tycoon had made a fortune in the years after the alien war through marketing new computer systems loosely based on alien technology; employing some of the scientists laid off by X-Com had been a highly profitable investment. However, his business acumen seemed to have deserted him in recent years; he had squandered much of his fortune on his ongoing efforts to search the ocean floors. Ironically, he had sold the research on the failed Khimtar project to a rival corporation a price that represented a tiny faction of what he had spent on the project. They corrected the design flaws and used the research to develop the Triton.

It was widely suspected that F. Denman Williams was more interested in his quest for personal glory and making money from alien technology than in stopping the aliens. Such a person could not be allowed to be associated with X-Com. The result was a carefully worded ultimatum.

If he handed control of SORESO over to the UN with immediate effect, he would be able to retire into obscurity on his private estates. He would be allowed to give a face saving speech to the news services stating that he had initiated this change upon the discovery that aliens were behind the sinkings, and only through international cooperation could the aliens be defeated. History would remember him as the man whose vision had saved humanity's first line of defence against alien invaders from the accountants - a far more formidable enemy.

However, if he refused, the UN would prosecute him through the World Courts for negligence and deliberately withholding information that had led to the deaths of the passengers and crew of the Hyperion. He would certainly be executed because they would arrange for the trial judge to be someone sympathetic to their aims.

Faced with permanent disgrace, something he feared even more than death itself, he immediately capitulated to the committee. Besides, this was only for now; he would find a way to regain his rightful position of supreme commander of X-Com and saviour of mankind.

Thomas Ferguson, the American representative on the committee very much doubted that a man as obsessive as F. Denman Williams would give up that easily. He would probably come up with some sad little plot to retake control of X-Com, or at least to severely embarrass the UN at a time when global unity was called for. However, all national governments knew how to arrange for such a person to quietly meet with an unfortunate 'accident'. He wondered which country would be the one to carry out the assassination.

The committee was now listening to Able Seaman Munt, who was arguing that the X-Com charter should be revived to deal with the aliens. It was necessary to obtain unanimous backing from the sixteen nations of the UN to reactivate X-Com. While the boys at SORESO were ready to have another go at the aliens, they would need diplomatic permission to enter territorial waters. Also, filtering out alien craft from the tens of thousands of human ships ploughing the ocean waves would be impossible unless X-Com had access to data from national surveillance systems.

"Up until the Hyperion went down, you all thought that the Marie Celeste sinkings were down to international terrorists or a rogue nation," said Able Seaman Munt. "You let your citizens think the aliens were back because it was better than having them demand revenge on the next country over. Nobody wants a nuclear war. But now everything's changed because we've proved that the aliens are back. If you don't reactivate X-Com, most of you will have a civil war on your hands inside a year"

"I believe that all the SORESO employees are from the European Syndicate or America, and this base is, of course, just off the European Atlantic coast. What assurances do the people of Free China have that X-Com will not spy on our military secrets?"

He had known that somebody would ask that question, but he had been surprised that it was the Chinese delegate in view of their flagrant theft of foreign technology in recent decades. "X-Com was a multinational outfit last time round. And it was directly supervised by a specialist UN committee. I suggest you continue this policy."

"Assuming we reactivate X-Com to fight the aliens, how do you plan to proceed?" asked the Egyptian delegate.

"Over to you, Mark," said Munt.

"Thank you. Our biggest barrier to putting up an effective defence against the aliens is that we don't have enough data to work on, but we have worked out a plan to deal with that. So far, most of the alien attacks have occurred in the North Atlantic, the North Pacific and the Artic Ocean. This means that the aliens must be travelling between the Atlantic and the Pacific via the Artic as it's a long journey the other way. Assuming that they prefer to stay below the thermocline layer to avoid detection whenever possible, this means they must be using the deeps between Rockall in the British Isles and Iceland. I propose that we establish a line of sonar buoys between Rockall and Iceland. Any alien submarine entering the Atlantic can then be intercepted by the two Barracudas at our base.

"We will also establish other bases at choke points such as the straights between Alaska and Eurasia to restrict the alien movements and speed up our response time to alien incidents.

"Eventually we will figure out how the alien technology works and use it against them. Until then I recommend that ships avoid the deeps and travel in convoys protected by the military whenever possible." He had the scientist's knack for taking a proposal a little bit further than most people were willing to accept.

"Impossible," roared the Brazilian delegate. "You would have us cripple international trade. Have you any idea how many trillions of dollars your idea would cost?" Some of the other delegates were nodding their agreement.

Up until that point, Ferguson had been thinking about recommending that Reynolds would be given supreme command of X-Com as it wasn't as if anybody else had any ideas for fighting the aliens apart from nuking the deeps at random, and to hell with the environmental consequences. However, they would clearly need an experienced military leader with a proven ability to handle politicians. "I believe the point is moot. Most people now realise that the aliens have established their control over the oceans. They know that our ships are entirely at the mercy of an alien civilization that doesn't understand the concept. Who the hell is going to sail the oceans now without military protection? The only way you can stave off economic depression is to reactivate X-Com."

That argument proved to be the clincher with the politicians. A global economic downturn would anger the corporate sponsors of the political parties in power across the world. The sponsors would then switch their support to political parties that promised to pursue an aggressive policy towards the aliens.

By the unanimous agreement of the UN, the X-Com charter would officially into force again on 1st January 2041 at 00.00 hours GMT, with Alpha Base becoming the first X-Com base. Its passive sonar system picked up their first USO four hours later!

"Though I realize that you are not the same group of IDIOTS who disregarded my warning forty years ago, I still believe that this is an appropriate juncture for me to say that I told you so," Dr Zager snapped. Changed in many ways since the first alien war, Dr Zager still had the same, mad gleam in his eyes that betrayed his supreme intellect. He was seated in a wheelchair at a meeting of the funding nations of X-COM. A bald man in a green tunic was standing behind the wheelchair. He had the same purple eyes and cybernetic enhancements of Dr Zager, marking him as a psionic. The fact that he was obviously no older than twenty-five, coupled with the fact that psionics had been banned for over thirty years, indicated how little Zager cared for the international laws of the land.

"This council does not have to put up with your-" the American delegate started to say, as other delegates started to mutter.

"As a matter of fact, you do," interrupted Zager. "Cane" His disciple handed him a cane, which he then proceeded to slam down on the table with a loud crack.

"You need me. I warned the council that there was an even greater threat than the Alien Brain after we killed it, but they refused to believe me. It's just like a politician to ignore a threat until it's staring him in the face. We could have prevented it from ever coming this far if you followed my orders forty years ago."

"We have ordered you here because your knowledge of the aliens," said the European delegate, trying to regain control of the conference.

"You did not order me. You made a request, which I honored, beause I feel that I have something to gain from this. You are under the delusion that I need you or the rest of humanity."

Thirty years of working on his own vision of the perfect human society obviously hadn't improved Dr Zager's temperment.

"Here are my terms. I will be named chief scientist of X-COM. I will be allowed to bring the personnel and equipment from my base to X-COM to use as I see fit. Me and my team will be allowed unlimited access to any remaining stockpiles of both Elerium and pre-war technology. You will accept these terms because you have no other choice. I am the only one with the knowledge to save you."

"As a gesture of goodwill, I will make available the schematics for a prototype univeral, non-elerium powered plasma gun that should function underwater. I developed the theory a number of years ago, but I have no need for such devices at my research laboratory."

It took the council thirty minutes of deliberation, but the result wasn't in doubt. Dr Zager became X-COM's new chief scientist.

The klaxon had been sounding for several minutes but to say not everyone was certain of their current duties would have been an understatement! The meagre gathering of people who were actually currently stationed at Alpha-01 had been attempting to hold some semblance of a New Year bash, needless to say it had been cut short!

Obviously now that XCom was officially active there was a strict alcohol ban in the mess hall where the do was being held but who was really expecting a confirmed contact so soon. That is to say, most of the supposedly combat ready team was currently slightly worse for wear...

Thankfully the duty pilot for the day was slightly less social than most and though he was enjoying their company and the atmosphere of the party, he'd supped slightly less of the amber nectar than the rest of the base's compliment.

As a result, by quarter past four, less than ten minutes after the alert, Jonathon Finn was already kitted up and ready to launch in Barracuda-01...

The story for the Triton's compliment was very different however. Only six members of her original crew had survived the first encounter at the Hyperion and no funding or means had as yet been made available to XCom for additional recruitment procedures.

This had left arrangements hazy at best amongst most of the crew. By the time Barracuda-01 was on its way out to sea, the Triton was still sat in dock all on its own...

In the Barracuda's dock the tanoy sounded as a loud clear voice carried out a one way conversation with the crafts pilot.

"External docking bays are now open," the voice called out into the hangar. "Barracuda-01 your mission is go, repeat your mission is go."

This was enough for Jonathon and he immediately flooded his craft's ballast tanks, diving the craft below the water in the massive swimming pool of a dock. A walkway surrounded the central pool of water that housed the Barracuda when it was idle and currently most of the new years party were surrounding it watching intently as the craft disappeared from sight.

As Finn took the Barracuda into the docking tube that led out into the Atlantic ocean several members of the Triton's compliment arrived through corridors from various adjoining facilities, all looking as bemused as each other. Slowly they gathered themselves together and debated where they should be and what they should do.

Even as they did so Jonathon was passing the passageways to the other two docks at Alpha base and he could now see the final exit from the bases underwater corridors. He didn't pretend to know how the Barracuda worked, super-heated laser engines they told him but he'd only ever heard of laser propulsion in space...

He didn't care, he just accelerated as quickly as he could. Within seconds he had become the fastest travelling aquatic mass in the oceans of the world. Almost... Somewhere off the east coast of America was XCom's first USO, and it was travelling a damn sight faster than Finn's Barracuda!

It was almost half past four when the Triton's full compliment had finally got organised, equipped and assembled in the Triton's docking facility. Their diving suits were all onboard which had made life easier, and judging by the state of several seamen it had probably saved at least ten minutes too.

While Alpha-01 lacked a commander or any real form of organisation to speak of it had obviously been functioning adequately for the last few years. Unfortunately that was before there were aliens, interstellar conflict and worldwide catastrophe looming over a once again oblivious planet...

Right now a very frantic Sergeant Nielsen was trying to make something of the mess in front of him. Six men and an unknown enemy with far superior weapons and presumably armour and craft to boot... He really wasn't expecting to see any of the men in front of him or the Triton ever again but they had to try. Even though they had been caught off guard, they had to at least try...

"Right guys, I don't really know if there's anything I can say to prepare you for this so I'm just going to come out and say what needs saying... You've all seen these creeps before and we've already beaten them once. Now its time to clean up the oceans too."

The Sergeant turned to a man behind him, some of the seamen recognised him from their wanders in the workshops. He took a harpoon gun off the man and turned back to the Triton's crew.

"I know you're probably all petrified to go back out there after the Hyperion but we're already making slow progress. On such short notice there was very little time to prepare but we have some new weapons for you. The dart guns you had before may have taken one of these aliens by surprise but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be left in hostile waters with just that for defence so here's your upgrade."

He brought up the weapon so the troops could all see it. It was certainly more imposing than the pistol version they'd had. It would have been hard to stop a dinghy with one of them... To all intents and purposes, this was an underwater rifle that fired foot long steel barbs at immense pressures.

Truth be told they had been acquired slightly illegally by XCom after a routine patrol had discovered a well established whaling rig in the North Pacific. Most hunting and gathering had been banned years ago, even certain methods of agriculture had been prohibited.

Still, right now noone cared where they came from, all they saw was a nice new shiny yellow harpoon gun that looked more than a little painful to its recipient. The sergeant explained the simplicity of the weapon, similar to the dart gun, twice as good in every way. It also provided automatic fire for those hairy situations when things just don't want to die!

There were fourteen of these new weapons on board, one for everyone who should be there, but two for everyone who actually was there. This was including the groups newest addition, Alexander Milne. He'd been stationed at Alpha-01 for some time in craft maintenance but he'd recently decided he'd like to get out of the base and join the recon team. Unfortunately for Alex, this was now the combat team, but he seemed happy enough so far...

By now, the engineer who had brought out the harpoon for Sergeant Nielsen had returned with an interesting and very confusing looking remote control. Every so often he would step back through into the next room to coax his new toy into the dock.

Eventually it emerged and although it was something most of the present seamen had seen before, they were all quite surprised to see it again. The small orange vehicle before them was generally used in aquatic mining but this particular one was one of Denman's SORESO modifications, it still bore the name on the side.

The personnel who were familiar with the machine had named it Bubbles due to the endless amount it produces once submerged and active. If nothing else though it could be used as some form of aquatic smoke screen! Denman had attached two harpoon launchers and a metal cutting disk namely intended for use on alien hulls. At a little over four foot square it wasn't all that imposing but it made everyone feel better when it was loaded into the Triton behind them...

Finally everything was go, it was 5am and the Triton was loaded and cleared, the pilot now awaited the same clearance that Finn had needed less than an hour ago.

In that hour however, Finn himself had been more than slightly speeding, he was downright playing... Jonathon was never a pilot, always a submariner, he had completed contracts for SORESO more than once but declined many more after some reliable contacts warned him of foul play on Denman's part...

Finn was well aware though that he was en-route to a potentially life ending situation, he didn't particularly want to get there quicker than he had to but he knew he had to get there quicker than he could... That's why he was out of the water, whatever superheated lasers do for a craft, they did it better in the air!

Alpha-01 had been monitoring the USO on long range and international sonar since it's detection and by the looks of it Jonathon was rushing unnecessarily. USO-01, although technically USO-02, had been heading for the English channel for the last twenty or so minutes and the speed was quite incredible.

Jonathon had been in contact with Alpha Squad's combat advisors several times but they were hardly XTC... He knew he was only minutes away from the contact but that was all he knew. Slowly he dropped into the ocean and dived to USO-01s depth, then suddenly it appeared on his sonar...

The pilot checked his cannon for rotation, loading and gas by firing off a few rounds into the seabed below him and armed the first Ajax missile in his launcher. This was it, the real first contact. There were no second chances he'd been told. These freaks had been raping the trading lanes for years, he was to shoot on sight...

They'd invaded once and lost... Why on earth had they come back? Jonathon couldn't help but wonder what was really going on. He gripped both joysticks tightly and switched to all manual controls. This was it...

No second chances...

There was quite a bump as the craft surged forward and the more nervous of the crew were visibly anxious with the change from the smooth decent to the turbulence of speeding through the water. Nielsen sat impassively, equipment checked he was left with his thoughts. Goldstein toyed with what looked to be a lucky charm and Crawley and Reynolds gazed constantly into nowhere in particular.

Munt still seemed to be rechecking equipment and Pritchard was nervously humming some doleful tune devoid of any melody whatsoever. Peterson was quietly talking to Pritchard who now and then would nod or stop the humming for a second to add some quite word or two.


Milne sat and looked at one of the new darts they had been supplied with. He was worried. What the hell was he doing here? He wanted combat but no one had said anything about water. He had been to sea many times but ON the waves not under them. After the rushed basic diving training he was more than a little aware that underwater there is no running, no dropping to the floor to fire prone and no chance of survival if you had suit problems. The odds seemed to be very much against them. He looked at the dart again. His engineering mind was working many things out.

Inside this craft, and his experience told him it was a fabulous machine, much better than anything they had in the air, so they seemed safe, but when that door opened a whole new world would come flooding in. The dart held his attention once again. He fingered the barbs, yes it looked lethal but he knew that even fired from a potentially more powerful gun the sea drift, plankton and the viscosity of the water would slow the dart down and make it very inaccurate at anything but point blank range.

There was no news as yet from the Barracuda but the Triton had been launched as soon as possible so as to be at the wreck site, if there was one.
It was impossible to know how long this journey would take, the USO may try to outrun them, it may turn and attack - they could be sat in this small compartment for hours.

There was nothing to do but wait and every crew member lived a lifetime waiting to find out their future, if the USO outran them there would be nothing to do but turn around and head back to base and though many would like to have turned around there and then the anticlimax of that would be soul destroying.

Eventually a red light came on Nielsen stood. "Okay get ready," he growled. There were many checks to do before they would be ready to exit the ship, above the forward hatch was an amber light that would flash when the flight deck was about to be sealed off from the rest of the ship.

It was a light none of them were looking forward to seeing.
The drill required them to be suited up, just in case the sub was hit and water came in, they also had to be ready to exit as soon as possible.

Milne felt his bowels tighten. He needed to talk but his helmet was now on and the latches were being checked.

"Radio check," called out the Sergeants voice on the helmet intercom. One by one the team confirmed radio check. Milne looked over to Goldstein who was trying his lights.

"Hey Brian, are sectoids as short as the one in Madame Tussauds?"

"Yeah, and just as ugly." Goldstein was nervous too and he thought the quip may lighten his heart. It didn't.

"Haven't you seen the ones in the Imperial War Museum?" interrupted Reynolds.

"No," replied Milne. "When I went it was after that incident with the Cultists and all the exhibits had been removed."

"Okay, tool up," called out the Sergeants voice on the radio. The crew reached to the weapons racks and picked out one of the new guns and a set of darts.

"It would have been nice to have tried these out first," groaned Peterson.

"You'll have plenty of chance to try them out soon." Barked Nielsen as he checked his weapon was loaded and the safety was on.

Inside he was worried. This was a relatively new and untried team and if he was honest he'd prefer that all crash sites were nuked first but they needed data. "Contact from Barracuda-01. He's beginning attack sequence."

"Let's hope he's firing missiles," said Gasvin. This raised morale somewhat, it was nice to think someone was roughing the aliens up before they had to face them.

"Well Milne," said Gasvin. "You wanna hope that the first real sectiod you see is a dead one."

Milne wasn't looking forward to seeing one in any state of health.

"They're not sectoids," interrupted Pritchard fitting spare ammo to his suit.

"What?" asked Gasvin.

"Well at least not like the ones I've seen preserved in jars. When I brought that one from the last mission, it had no breathing equipment with it," added Pritchard.

Gasvin was going to ask another question but stopped as Reynolds began pre-flood checks on Gasvins air tanks.

"That doesn't mean it didn't have any, it could have fallen into the sand at the bottom," Milne explained. There was no further input from Pritchard, he couldn't explain it, he had just noticed it. Goldstein had noticed it but hadn't considered it until now. Reynolds gave a quick look outside, saw nothing and checked the pressure on the dials and tried not to think about the fact that he too had noticed something weird about the sectoid, it had webbed hands and feet.

The team completed checks as Nielsen gave the command to clip into their restraining straps, then the lights from bubbles came on, they had forgotten it was there until it buzzed into life. Reynolds watched it move one of it's arms then he looked towards the door and glanced at the control that would soon open it.

"Any news on the Barracuda?" asked the sergeant to the pilot over the radio.

"Nothing yet," announced the pilot.

"I hope they're all blown to hell before we get there," murmured Milne.

"Quiet there," said Nielsen. "Use correct radio procedure from now on." He heard a sound he knew, a kind of hiss and he looked up to see the orange light flash.

They all tried to remain calm but none were. Milne thought about his family and looked at his watch. How much longer to live? he thought.

Their helmet radios clicked and the pilots voice said "Sergeant, there's a message from the Barracuda."

“Put him through.”

“The USO has touched down in the North Sea, just over one hundred miles east of Aberdeen,” came the voice of Finn over the scrambled radio channel.

“Touched down?” asked Sergeant Nielsen. “Didn’t you manage to engage it?”

“Negative. I couldn’t get close enough for a missile lock. Should I engage it now while it’s sitting on the bottom?”

“No. We need to recover it and the crew. Keep an eye on it though.”

As the Triton adjusted its course to intercept what would go down in the official logs as USO-1, Reynolds was thinking about what this development meant. “The aliens must have learned a few tricks since we kicked their backsides at the beginning of the century. They couldn’t land underwater because their hulls corrode on contact with sea water.”

“Their weapons have to be different as well,” said Munt. “Plasma technology doesn’t work properly underwater.” He knew that everybody else in the squad was as nervous as him; the only difference was how well they were able to hide it. Getting them talking about a scientific problem might provide some distraction.

“So if they aren’t using plasma rifles, what kind of weapons are they using?” asked Goldstein.

“I’ve got a theory about that,” said Reynolds. “Do you remember what had happened to the hull of the Hyperion? Solid steel so brittle that it disintegrated to the lightest touch? My guess is that the aliens have gone over to using some sort of sonic weapons.

“Sound waves can be very destructive. High pitched sound of the right frequency causes glass to shatter. And aircraft aren’t allowed to exceed the speed of sound over land because the sonic boom causes structural damage to buildings. I’d love to know how they manage to direct the sound waves.” The scientific discussion continued as the vents opened and the compartment began to fill with seawater.

“Four minutes to landing,” came the voice of the pilot over the intercom. Reynolds felt slightly jealous about the pilot and co-pilot sitting there in their nice comfortable cockpit on the other side of a sturdy air-tight door. He wasn’t sure what the aliens wanted in that part of the North Sea; fish stocks were exhausted and the last of the North Sea oil had been extracted in 2017. All that was left was the rusting hulks of the oilrigs that hadn’t been decommissioned because it would cost too much money. There were also some barrels of toxic waste that had been illegally dumped in the North Sea, making it too polluted for the kelp farmers who preferred the cleaner Atlantic waters.

Time to organise the troops, thought Sergeant Nielsen. He had been given a five page official document entitled “Rules of Engagement” that had been hastily cobbled together for this conflict. It contained a lot of rubbish about positioning and committing reserves, but whoever had written it had failed to address the main problem: the aliens would probably be well positioned ready to butcher the squad as they got out the door. The author had also assumed that the squad would consist of highly skilled soldiers and not a bunch of frightened scientists and engineers. Unless one counted the Hyperion debacle, he was the only one in the squad with any real combat experience, and that was against Quebecois insurgents and not the aliens. He knew he could rely on Gasvin, but he wasn’t sure about the others.

“The good news is that it’s about an hour after local sunrise and the USO is only in 150 metres of water, so it’s going to be fairly light out there. Milne, you’re going to be at the console, controlling Bubbles. As soon as the hatch opens, drive it straight out as fast and noisily as you can towards the USO. That should draw the alien fire. Reynolds and Pritchard, you try to circle to the left of the USO. Munt and Peterson, you take the right. Gasvin, you’re providing infantry support for Bubbles; remember to keep behind it at first though. Goldstein, you and me are going in the opposite direction to the USO so we can secure the area in case the aliens try taking us from behind. Don’t get out of sight of your partner whatever you do.”

The pilot landed the Triton approximately 120 metres from the USO, angling it so that the hatch would be facing the USO. The hatch was opened in the last stages of the landing procedure so that the silt kicked up by the landing would help provide cover from the squad as they emerged.

“Good luck everybody,” said Sergeant Nielsen as the hatch opened. They would need it.