Three hundred and fifty two. That was the number of warships humanity had brought to bear. The largest fleet that they had organized in history. Only the home fleet defending Earth had ever come close to that number, and this one had beat it by a good hundred. Some of the ships were older models, but as many newer, cutting edge ones as possible had been folded into this fleet.
What was more, thousands of cargo ships, a good portion of them merchant marines, but hundreds of them private ships that had been volunteered by independent captains and corporations alike, were standing by at the nearest human controlled planet, laden with vehicles, soldiers, supplies, and everything else that was needed to fight a war.
The warships had a hundred-thousand soldiers, all of them equipped with state of the art weapons and armor, scattered among them. The cargo ships on standby had over five million. The plan was to deploy the vanguard, which had a much higher than average concentration of XCOM operatives, and establish a breach for the main force to funnel through. After that, the cargo ships would return to home territory to gather more reinforcements while the warships maintained safe supply lines.
It was ambitious, dwarfing all other invasions that had ever been planned by humans, and a lot was being put at risk. But the objective was easily worth it. The Muton homeworld. After over a century of warring with the Etherals,XCOM had finally located the birthplace of one of the Ethereal's thralls. If they were victorious here, they would be able to take out the source of the Ethereal's shock troopers, and finally put them on the defensive.
Kim Yeo-jin, commander of XCOM, took all of this in on a datapad in her hands. She was standing on the bridge of the flagship of this assault fleet, the dreadnought Noryang. Six other dreadnoughts were joining this fleet, the Cannae, the Gettysburg, the Stalingrad, the Hastings, the Sekigahara, and the Red Cliffs. Before this point, the highest number of dreadnoughts to ever be assigned to the same fleet was four. She reread all of the names in front of her, thinking back to what those ships were named after. It was fitting. History had turned on many of these events, and it was time for it to turn again.
"Feeling all right?" Vahlen's voice echoed in her COM unit. "Everything's good down here, every last ship reports in zero issues, green across the board. Yeo-jin wasn't very surprised about that. This invasion had taken months to prepare for, the engineers of each ship had doubtlessly been spending that time obsessively checking every last rivet, nut, and bolt on their warships. No one wanted to be the one who screwed up when humanity finally, after a century, had a chance to go on the offensive against the Ethereals.
"As good as can be expected," Yeo-jin said. "Everything good with the ground forces?"
"A few minor unexpected injuries from training, but ten out of five million," Vahlen replied. "Sprained ankles and the like. All of them are fanatically requesting that their injuries be ignored so that they can take part in the invasion."
"I'll let their commanders decide that," Yeo-jin said. "How's the reaction back home?" Officially, this operation was supposed to be a secret. Unofficially, keeping an invasion this big hidden from the public was basically impossible. Despite the best efforts of humanity's intelligence agencies, she had seen the spread of rumors on social media, with may predicting (correctly) that the military was preparing for some sort of major engagement.
"Tense," Vahlen replied. "Not angry, not scared, tense. There's a general feeling that something is going to happen, countless people are feeling that way. They're frustrated because they want to be able to do something about it and they can't." Yeo-jin let out a sympathetic sigh. It really wasn't fair that the majority of humanity was kept in the dark about this, but they didn't have a choice in the matter.
"Their patience will be rewarded," she said. A warning sounded on the bridge. Five minutes until the fleet made the jump to the Muton homeworld. "I have to go. I'm going to open the way for you, but you're going to be the one that decides the fight by making sure the ground forces get here. I'm counting on you." Lowering her hand, Yeo-jin looked around. She was sitting in a seat reserved for VIPs on the flagship, the fleet admiral looking at her.
"Any final words ma'am?" she asked. "I think the men might appreciate words of encouragement from someone who was there when this all began."
Nodding wearily, Yeo-jin pressed a button on her armrest. A small holographic display came up, with which she pressed a few buttons. "Men and women of Earth's defenders," she said, her voice echoing across the united fleet. A unique privilege that was given to few. "A century has passed since the Ethereals first spilt human blood in Germany. From that day forward, our existence has been one that we have been forced to actively fight for. We have looked up at the stars, not with wonder, but with fear. Never knowing what fresh horrors tomorrow would bring."
She took a deep breath. "But in the time since then, we have grown, developed, and perfected the tools with which we fight back. Evolved both physically and technologically, and honed our craft of survival. That's why, even with non-stop attacks, we have endured and even thrived. But we will not be eternally on the defensive anymore. We have finally found one of their strongholds, and we will be the ones to cloud their skies, to force them to defend their homes, to make them feel the fear that we once did."
"The status quo has gone on for too long. Today marks the first step in breaking it. In finally ending this war. I understand I'm asking a great deal of you, but I only do that because I know that every last one of you is up to the task. I have no doubts that we will emerge victorious today. Kim Yeo-jin out. Vigilo Confido." She lowered her hand.
"Well said," the fleet admiral said. "Two minutes to jump," she said, taking her seat and strapping herself in, Yeo-jin doing the same. "I know it's a little late, but are you sure you want to be on the bridge? It's a high risk scenario. You don't want to know what the projected odds of this ship making it through the battle are."
"I'm certain," Yeo-jin responded. "I've been at the center of combat before. Besides, my duty is to direct XCOM when they deploy. The delay from long range communications, no matter how light, has the potential to be devastating."
"Understood ma'am," the fleet admiral said. Another alarm sounded on the bridge. "All ships, prepare to jump in predesignated formation in three. Two. One. Now!" Pressing a button on her armchair, a holographic image of all 352 warships appeared in front of her, arranged in a carefully plotted out formation. The slight tremble that indicated faster than light travel vibrated through the ship, and Yeo-jin brought up a holographic display similar to the one the fleet admiral had.
The trip through FTL was short, the launch point had been one that wasn't far from the destination, but it seemed to stretch out for an eternity. Yeo-jin double checked everything that there was to double check. She made sure the fleet was in proper formation, that her COM unit was working, that she was strapped in properly, that her pistol was in its holster, that all of the buttons on her uniform were done up properly, everything to keep her hands busy.
The bridge was a rather large affair. The purple of the alloys they had reverse engineered from the Ethereals molded into shapes more comfortable for humans. Rigid corners and fixed chairs in front of consoles, creating a familiar sense of human military, even if the color had an unpleasant Ethereal feeling to it. Every last crewmember on the bridge looked how she felt. Fidgeting, but fidgeting in ways that had been focused into productive double checking. Yeo-jin could tell that they were both dreading the oncoming fight, and were just praying that it would happen already.
Then, with another tremble, they were out of FTL. "All skirmishers, weapons free!" the fleet admiral barked out of instinct. "All fighters launch and cover our flanks. Dreadnoughts, engage target priority bravo, and everyone else...everyone else…" she trailed off. She blinked and looked more closely at the map. There wasn't a single alien vessel present. "All ships, confirm. Is this the Muton homeworld? DId we get bad info?"
"No," Yeo-jin whispered. While there were no Ethereal ships in the area, there was still a planet where there was supposed to be a planet. Zooming in on it, she looked at it through the sensors of the Noryang. It was a world dotted with cities, five different, massive continents with cities that rivaled the largest on Earth easily noticeable. The planet also lacked an atmosphere. There was no sign of vegetation, of fauna, or any kind of life on the planet.
A heavy silence creeped through the bridge, and Yeo-jin had a bad feeling everyone who had access to the scanner feeds was noticing what she had noticed. A long, uncomfortable silence passed. "I'm open to suggestions," the fleet admiral said. "My orders were to engage and destroy the enemy fleet and provide cover for the invasion. Those are orders are I cannot follow."
Yeo-jin gave a small nod. "Try and find a city that looks like the capital city. We'll send an expeditionary team in for light recon." She looked at the planet one last time. She had expected to lose hundreds of thousands, if not millions, in the battle for this planet. It seemed now that they would take it without a fight, and yet she couldn't help but hate the Ethereals now more than ever.
XXXXX
Osvaloo "Thor" Hernandez stepped off the landing pad of the Avenger class shuttlecraft he and the rest of his squad was on. He felt disoriented. He had spent the last few hours mentally preparing himself for the most grueling battle of his life. And now it he had received word that there wasn't a single enemy in sight. "This feels like a trap," he said to no one in particular. He grimaced. That night in Munich. Operation Devil's Moon. It reminded him of it too much.
"That's why they're sending us in to make sure it isn't," Zhang said, following him. "Besides, this feels different. Luring us into a building that's suspicious empty, maybe a block or two, I can see that. But an entire planet? I think that's beyond even them." Osvaloo turned to look at Zhang. He and the rest of their five person squad were wearing the most up to date version of XCOM's Titan armor, this latest model being vacuum sealed hard suits with enough oxygen to last for 24 hours. Osvaloo could barely see the scared face of the Chinese man through the thick visor, but he could just barely make it out, stretched by old age, despite Vahlen's best attempt to slow down aging.
"You can never expect enough from them," Osvaloo said, his voice low. "Any trick they can think of, no matter how improbable, they will use."
"We all know how they work," Annette chimed in from the back of the dropship as she jumped out, "most of us were there for the first invasion, and the rest of us joined up not long after. I think Zhang's got a point with this one. Even for a trick they pulled, this is a little too much, something that would consume too many resources on their part. Besides, look at this place." She gave a wide sweeping gesture, prompting Zhang, Osvaloo and the other two operatives to glance around.
They were standing in the middle of a crowding street in what had appeared to have once been a major metropolis. It was littered with corpses, so thoroughly choking the streets that there was barely a spot where it was bare, and in many places the bodies were stacked. "God," Osvaloo said softly. Kneeling down, he gently turned the nearest corpse over. It vaguely resembled a Muton, in the same way that a Neanderthal resembled a human. It was noticeably thinner, its face softer, and it lacked any sort of weaponry and armor. It was still big enough to tower over Osvaloo, and could most likely snap his arm in a wrestling match, but it paled compared to the Mutons used by the Ethereals in combat.
"Looks like a civilian," Zhang said, doing the same to another nearby Muton. This one was covered with wrinkles, and was unhealthily pale. "If I had to take a guess, this one looks like an elder." He lifted up the hand of the Muton he was examining, opening the hand. A strange, orb like tattoo was there, a chipped edge at the side. "This could be a mark of a respected leader."
"Or a criminal," Annette said. "Hard to tell, we don't have much of a frame of reference for these things culturally." Osvaloo took it all in again. There were easily thousands of dead on this block alone. He could see more blocks stretching out in front of them. "How did they die?" Annette asked.
"Not much sign of injury," Zhang said, flipping a few more bodies over. "I have a couple of guesses for what that means. The Ethereals could have used some sort of bio-weapon or gas on them, it'd be an effective version of those terror attacks of theirs. There's also the possibility that they've used some weapon that we're not familiar with. But. Given that none of these bodies show any sign of decomposition, and they must have been dead for some time, I have to assume the worse." He pointed up. There was no sky on this planet, they had a perfect view into the void of space and the stars beyond. "I think the Ethereals ignited the atmosphere."
An uncomfortable silence followed. Osvaloo sighed as he got up. "The intelligence we had on the non-Ethereal aliens indicates that they were most likely conquered by the Ethereals. But that's the key word. Conquered. Not eradicated. We keep fighting them, it doesn't make any sense if they were all wiped out like this."
"Maybe they were space faring when the Ethereals encountered them," Annette suggested. "It'd make sense. Take out the homeworld to beat the rest into submission, then use smaller colonies as breeding grounds for shock troops."
"I don't think so," Zhang said. Crossing to the end of the street they were on, he examined the inside of the building. A very large, crude looking cube was sitting on a table, along with a large mechanical device with exposed gears. "Their technology doesn't look anywhere near advanced enough to be capable of interstellar travel. And even if they were, we didn't see any signs of orbital structures, destroyed or otherwise, on the way down."
Entering the building, he spotted a Muton in a brightly colored green uniform, minus the areas where it was badly burned with something resembling a rifle in its hand. A trio of dead Sectoids were scattered around it, noticeable holes in their guts. Evidently the Muton had chosen this area for a last stand. Picking up the rifle, Zhang gave it a quick lookover. It heavily resembled a bolt action rifle, though the design was just alien enough that he didn't want to try firing it. "Their weapons technology doesn't look that advanced either. In fact, it looks like they were less developed than during the first invasion."
"Fuck," Annette said. "Can't imagine fighting those sons of bitches with 20th century level tech. And the Mutons never had psionic potential, so that's two things we had that they didn't." She glanced at Osvallo. "I don't think there's much left to find here. We came here expecting to find a fortress and we found a fucking graveyard. Seems kind of open and shut."
"For the most part, yes," Osvaloo said. "But the Commander has one area she wants us to check before we head back up." He pointed to the end of the block that they were on. A giant, obsidian colored building was stretching up towards the heavens there. It looked crude and rough, as if it had been handcrafted. "Initial intelligence has us thinking that that's a capital building of some sort. Could only be local, but either way, they want us to take a quick look."
Nodding reluctantly, Annette fell into line behind Osvaloo, as did the other operatives. They advanced with caution, weapons raised and scanning corners and blind spots for hostiles, but it was down more out of habit than concern of an attack. Osvaloo had a strong feeling that they were the only living things on the planet, barring the possibility of some underground single celled organisms.
As they neared the building, things began to change. The tide of dead Muton civilians gave way, to be replaced by very familiar bodies. Sectoids, Chrysalids, Sectopods, Cyberdisks, even the occasional Ethereal, were strewn about the front of the capital building, gaping bullet wounds marking all of them. They passed through the field of dead aliens, Annette giving a dead Ethereal a decent kick in the head, and reached the building itself.
Sizable barricades of scrap had been erected all around the building. Mounted weaponry lay upon it, while crude looking mortars had been set up behind. Hundreds of Mutons in the same bright green uniform lay dead on the inside of the barricade, all of them clutching weapons. Many had the telltale signs of burns caused by plasma weapons, but Osvaloo couldn't help but notice that just as many were unmarked. They had been fighting when the atmosphere had been destroyed.
"Look," Zhang said. He was standing by a breach in the barricade. A Berserker lay at the base of the opening, a veritable pile of dead aliens surrounding her. Her hands were soaked with multicolored blood, and, unless Osvaloo was seeing things, her fist was closed tight around the neck of a dead Ethereal. "Went down fighting," he said.
"Yes…" Osvaloo said silently. Annette, not saying anything, approached the dead Berserker. Putting her hand on its head, she muttered something in French, made a gesture Osvaloo couldn't see, and then turned away. "They were like us once," he said to no one in particular. "They were victims of the Ethereals, just like us. The techies have been telling us that for years, but they never showed us anything like this."
"If they had won, maybe Earth would look like this," Zhang said. "They must've abducted enough of the population to just clone more Mutons. If they had gotten enough humans off of Earth, why would they need it anymore."
"Every last one," Annette hissed. "I'm going to kill every last one of the fuckers."
Osvalloo nodded sympathetically at her, before taking one last look at the building. "From what I can tell, the Ethereals were invading, there was mass panic, and the Mutons were fighting back hard. They were taking heavy losses, but so were the Ethereals. The Mutons were holding their ground. Eventually, the Ethereals either get fed up with it all, or decide that they have enough Muton genetic material that they have no more reason to stay here."
Osvaloo shook his head, sighing. This was the existence of his species now. No matter where they went, no matter how far they reached, there was only the destruction and fear of the Ethereals. Everything revolved around them. "Gets get back up to the fleet, we were only supposed to do light recon here," he said grumpily. Turning, all five of them began to head back to the Avenger. Osvaloo had been expecting to fight for his life that day. In many ways, he would've prefered that to the reality of the situation.
XXXXX
Author's Note: SuperFeatherYoshi wanted a story about the invasion of the Muton homeworld. A very specific take on it. I hope he likes it and I hope you all like it too.
I would like to thank my Patrons, SuperFeatherYoshi, xXNanamiXx, Ryan Van Schaack, RaptorusMaximus and Davis Swinney for their amazing support.