Free Xenonauts: Crimson Dagger by Lee Stephen Page A

energy weapons, they were more open to what would normally have been considered lunacy.
    Shaking his head, Mikhail tried to explain further. “I felt it, for the quickest of moments—a connection. It is difficult to explain, but it was a presence in my thoughts that was not my own. And when you killed the alien, it was like a floodgate opened, even if just for a moment. I saw the alien’s memories, what it was doing.” He looked at the corpse again. “He was helping to restore communication to the ship. That was the priority task. If communication was restored, they could contact the others—I presume that meant other extraterrestrials.” He wasn’t sure how else to interpret it.
    Hemingway seemed to be taking everything in at face value. Kneeling down several feet away, he looked at Mikhail stoically. “So you’re saying that’s what this ship’s crew is currently trying to do? Restore communication to signal the rest of their…whatever. Right?”
    “I can only tell you what I experienced,” answered Mikhail. “I have never felt anything like this before.” He resisted the urge to say, you have to believe me . It would have made him feel crazy.
    Nodding his head, Hemingway rose. “If that’s what it said, that’s what we go by.”
    The look on Mikhail’s face must have echoed his surprise. Hemingway believed him, without question. Why? Without Mikhail needing to ask aloud, the American captain addressed it.
    “You’re the best your country could send for this mission. I’m gonna take a step of faith and trust you’re not crazy or an idiot. Because, frankly, if you’re right, we don’t have much time.”
    Reed stepped into the room. “And if he’s wrong, sir?” His gaze stayed on Mikhail.
    “At this juncture,” Hemingway answered, looking at his soldier, “I don’t think it matters.”
    Trust. Even with an extraterrestrial spacecraft looming over the hills, trust had been the biggest question mark throughout this operation. But that was starting to change. If the Americans wanted an excuse to take control of the operation, this would have been the perfect opportunity. But Hemingway didn’t. Mikhail’s stare lingered on the Green Beret leader, eye contact maintained between the two of them. Nodding his head appreciatively, Mikhail readied his M3.
    “I don’t suppose that thing told you where we need to go?” Hemingway asked.
    “Unfortunately, no,” said Mikhail. “Your bullet was a little too fast for that.”
    The American captain waved his soldiers onward, then looked at Mikhail. “We should split up. Two teams will move through the ship faster. Find whatever communication system they’re trying to restore.”
    “I agree,” answered Mikhail. He and his fellow humans had been thoroughly outmatched at the outset—but the outset had passed. The last thing Mikhail had seen the aliens do was bleed. Three and four-man teams suddenly didn’t seem so insignificant.
    Sparks angled his head to one side. “How will we know what their communication system looks like?”
    Indicating for Nina and Nikolai to approach him, Mikhail answered, “Ask every hostile you see. If they don’t answer, shoot them.” Hemingway cracked the faintest of smirks. “One team should press forward. Continue in the direction we were all heading. The other should backtrack to the hallway where I threw the grenade.”
    “We’ll do that,” Hemingway said.
    No—go that way yourself. “No, we will,” Mikhail said. Green Berets present or not, if any side was returning to a known hot zone, it was going to be Soviet. “Continue down this corridor. Create as much damage as you can. We will do the same in the other direction.”
    Hemingway seemed to hesitate. “You sure?” Very briefly, his eyes shifted to Nina.
    The sniper noticed. Her brown eyes narrowing, she set her jaw and tied her hair into a ponytail. “Don’t worry, capitalist. The team with the woman will do fine.”
    “We will head back, then