Prologue

Facility: Observatory Outpost. Location: Northern California Mountains. Time: 1:23 am PDT 2/9/2015

Dr. Howard Chase left the break room, he had just finished a cup of coffee and was reclined in his chair. He was scanning over the new photos the Hubble had just taken. There wasn't much out of the ordinary and he was about to call it for the night when he spotted something unusual in the corner. Far off and out of focus was an oblong shape, distant, but as he looked through the repeated frames he saw slight changes in its location. It wasn't an asteroid, it was too smooth for that. It wasn't a satellite or a probe, the former were nowhere near by and of the latter there was no known probe sent out or for that matter in the general vicinity of the sector he was examining. It was then that his cell phone rang jumping him out of his stupor. He quickly answered it "This is Dr. Chase speaking, who is calling?" he began. The other quickly responded "Howard? Oh it's good you're up. It's me Dr. Moore, have you seen the most recent shots from the Hubble?" "Oh, you saw it to?" Chase inquired. "Yeah and me and all the rest of the boys at NASA are running around trying to find out what that thing is. We only got a few more shots before it just disappeared. We think it might be extraterrestrial in origin." Moore said. "Wait," Chase began "you mean to tell me that that thing is a UFO? You must be jok-" Moore cut him off "No I'm not. Now whether or not this thing was made by little green men from mars we don't know yet, but that's the problem, we don't know and we need to find out NOW." "Okay," Chase stated "what do you want me to do?" "Pack your bags and catch the nearest plane to Washington, we're going to need you at NASA headquarters." Moore finished "Very well Frank, I'm on my way." As Dr. Chase hung up the phone he sighed and put his hands on his head it was going to be a long week.

Facility: NASA Headquarters. Location: Washington D.C. Time: 2:10 pm EDT 2/10/2015

The room was a flurry of activity as Dr. Howard Chase walked in; multiple NASA science team and military personnel were running around as a giant screen projected photos of the UFO in the center of the room "Chase there you are!" an exasperated Dr. Moore called out "I'm glad you were able to get here on such short notice. We haven't had a second's break over here since that thing was first spotted." "Does anyone else know about this?" Chase questioned, "Yes the boys at the EU know as well as the guys in Russia. Besides that we don't know if anyone else has seen it" Moore replied "Look the President is on his way," He continued "so get ready to tell him all you know." Just then silence filled the room as the president walked in "Well?" He began "I was called here under what I had heard as urgent developments in the sky, so what can you tell me?" General Bolden stepped up to answer "Sir at 0300 yesterday we got an unidentified contact from the Hubble which we believe to be extraterrestrial in origin." "Did it try to make contact with us?" the President questioned "No sir it was just there one second then gone the next; so far that's all we know." The general finished. "Very well; I'll alert the other world leaders of this and we will decide what to do from there. Any objections?" The President challenged as silence filled the room. After a brief pause he continued "In that case I better make a few calls," He started to leave the room then abruptly stopped "and one more thing: not a word leaves this room. Got it?" A chorus of yes sirs erupted as he left the room. After the door closed General Bolden stepped up cleared his throat and announced "well everyone get some rest because in a few hours we are very likely going to have our work cut out for us." And with that the crowd dissipated as everyone began to leave for their houses or hotels. Hoping to catch a few hours of sleep before the nations came up with a plan of action.

Facility: The White House. Location: Washington D.C. Time: 3:45 pm EDT 2/10/2015

It had taken a little over an hour and a half to negotiate with the other countries who had detected the ship mostly thanks to the fact that they themselves had only just gotten wise to what happened and had just finished being briefed by their own scientists when they got the call still though not much progress was made all that had been decided for now was that there should be some military force in place to deal with any aliens should they come of which only these requirements were decided

The force would be sponsored by all countries and as such would not bow down to any one country

The force should have both unlimited authority and jurisdiction only obeying the wishes of the council of nations who would fund its efforts

The force would be based in Cheyenne mountain but the leaders of the organization would be handpicked by the council and it would be up to the organization's leaders to recruit other personnel

This organization would be staffed only by a skeleton crew until the possibility of invasion occurred where upon additional base personnel would be recruited

This organization would be called the extraterrestrial combat force or XCOM for short

With these mandates in place a brief respite occurred while the nations prepared possible rosters for personnel to join the project whereupon the next day talks would resume.

Facility: The White House. Location: Washington D.C. Time 12:55 pm EDT 2/13/2015

It had been three days, three days of almost ceaseless negotiations and barley any progress had been made. The President sighed, multiple rosters of varying levels of bias had been put forth and almost all of them had been shot down. Still the negotiations hadn't been a total waste they had at least decided to recruit based on skill rather than loyalty to a country which was a pretty big achievement in itself; after that it took an additional day to narrow down the candidates so far this is what they had:

Chief scientist candidates: Dr. Moira Vahlen, Dr. Hongou Marazuki, Dr. Frank Moore, and Dr. Langy Mervin

Chief engineer candidates: Dr. Raymond Shen, Dr. Kristoffer Darius, and Dr. Shamus Nicky

Central Officer: SMSgt David Bradford, LCol Errol Hector, Air Cdre Gordon Fillip, and OTL i.G Jakob Ewan

Commander: MRAF Jarred Baldwin, CMSAF James Everett, CMSAF Armee Blount, and Gen Anthony Eyre

It took about six hours to decide on the chief engineer and scientist, one hour for the central officer, and it wasn't until they got to the commander that things ground to a halt. It took two more days of threatening, placating, and one or two black mailings before the commander was finally chosen. "Alright." an exasperated President moaned "Are we all in agreement?" a chorus of yes's echoed through the video call "Very well, the chief scientist will be a Dr. Vahlen, the chief engineer will be a Dr. Shen, the central officer will be a SMSgt Bradford, and the commander will be a CMSAF Everett. Everyone clear on that?" Once again a chorus of yes's with varying degrees of enthusiasm occurred "Excellent, America will finish the XCOM base, we will all notify the selected individuals, and we will all select our preferred troops and base personnel to send to the XCOM project should the need occur. Farwell everyone and good luck." With that the President cut off the transmission and sat down he was going to have a lonnnnng break after this.

Author's Note:

I've had this idea in my head for a while to the point where I actually thought up how certain chapters would go and the basic arc of the story, so I finally decided to start writing it. I hope you all enjoy. I've also taken this as an opportunity to improve my writing skills for future school papers and finals, so constructive criticism is very much appreciated.