Disclaimer: FF:TSW is property of the now-defunct Square Studios. X-COM is property of Microprose/Infogrames. I own stock in neither.
Author's Note: Something short I whipped up between the main chapters to help hold you guys captive, lol. It reads like a script.
Deep Eyes and X-COM: Captains' Discussions, Pt. I
July 27, 2067 22:07 hours
Location: in an otherwise empty upstairs debriefing room at the Houston Military Airbase…
A palm-sized PDA is powered down and the holographic images and text floating above it vanish. A male voice speaks.
"So, now you know something about my team, and who's who. Only fair to ask about your people, captain."
The woman's six-foot-plus figure adopts a relaxed pose. "Where to start…with Lanier, I guess. He's my 'official, unofficial' second-in-command, much like your sergeant. Matt's also a damn fine pilot and top mechanic. Atwood almost worships him when it comes to flying."
"You know, Fleming said that he noticed that."
"But don't let his quiet Zen crap fool you. If you were to enter a room and find a bucket of ice water perched above the door, Lanier would be the prime suspect." Her eyes are grinning emerald crescents. "Don't ask me how I know this."
"Oh, really? I'll be on my guard then!"
"While I'm still on the subject of flying, Atwood is the youngest one on the team. He's not even 21 yet, but the kid already has the earmarks of an ace pilot. He's one of the few that Lanier will trust on his wing in a firefight. Unfortunately, there's one small issue that tends to distract him."
A brow furrows beneath brown hair. "What's that?"
"Tyler has a serious crush on Harper."
"Harp–oh, the one that Aki treated."
A nod. "Exactamundo! The girl with the go-to-hell eyes. See, it's boy-likes-girl, but girl-treats-boy like poo, because she has attentions for someone else now."
He cocks his head. Didn't I hear this somewhere? "'Someone else?' Here?"
"Yep."
"A Deep Eye?"
"You got it."
"Well…?"
"It's Corporal Fleming."
Laughter. "And I thought that Aki was joking!"
"She would say that a woman's intuition is never wrong."
"And therein lies the problem. Neil and Jane are, shall we say, an 'item'. Proudfoot is the no-nonsense type and I doubt if she'll tolerate someone flirting with Neil lightly, if at all."
"I want to give Harper a serious talking to about it. I don't want it to cause any strife between anyone, or distract her from our objectives. But, know this…beneath all of her brashness and bravado, Eri has a good heart and anyone should be glad to have her watching their back. All of us have combat experience but she's the firearms specialist, and on top of that is lethal with a throwing knife. Personally, if I went one-on-one with her, and she was in a pissy mood, I'd shit my pants." A husky snicker turns into an outright guffaw.
"And then there's one more person, I think–"
"Oh, yeah. Hughes. Claims he's a descendant of Howard Hughes, who built the Spruce Goose. We always took that with a grain of salt–a handful, really–but if you need a system to hack, or you're faced with funky alien computers, Martin's your man. I've never seen anyone who can damn near just glance at unfamiliar hardware and almost visualize how it works, right there on the spot, and pretty much nail it. His only weakness is his skirt-chasing habits. And off the record, he was eyeing the doctor before he was hastily informed she was not available." She spreads her hands. "Hey, he didn't know, captain."
A grunt, forced through a lopsided grin. "Hpmh. An honest mistake…no harm, no foul. She would have set the record straight eventually, though. Aki is frank like that."
"Not to be nosy, but what is her–"
Another smile, warmer this time. "Ethnicity? Her father was Japanese, her mother Irish. She lost them both in the Phantom attack on the San Francisco barrier city. She was orphaned with no siblings."
"Christ, I'm so sorry…"
"That's why she's so close to Dr. Sid. He's pretty much her foster father." He gets up and goes to the small cabinet in the corner, unlocking it and returning to the table with a full bottle and a pair of small empty glasses. He breaks the seal and pours. The woman places a folder on the table and opens it as she accepts her glass of scotch. Inside the file are several photographs; each one contains an image of something that is not human.
"Now, Captain Edwards, it's time for me to show you what is quite possibly the face of the enemy…"