The Technological Assimilators

by Knight in Blackest Armor

With the technologies of several alien races at its disposal, humanity had undergone a technological revolution. It advanced at such a rapid pace, far exceeding many expectations. Soon however, the humans learned that they shared their galaxy with yet another group of sentient alien life, but to mankind's horror and confusion, these aliens were not the sort they expected at all.

2. Dust to Dust

Director's Quarters, Level 92 - Officer Quarters and Recreation, Schultz Moonbase, Luna

July 03rd, 2157 - 0430 hours

Director Tyrone Nolan Faust - Supreme Commander of the XCOM Initiative

"Early to bed, early to rise," A wizened, elderly voice narrated in a grainy, old-fashioned radio filter, accompanied by the sounds of birds chirping and leaves rustling in the wind. "Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Good morning, director."

The voice and the pleasant ambient noise were then abruptly replaced by a woman's cold, robotic droning. "Director, you have six notifications from CENTRAL and one notification from DE NORMANDIE, ADELIN. Council funds have been added to the project treasury and-"

A mechanical hand slammed down on the Ilyushinite-made alarm clock, which was reinforced specifically to avoid shattering into tiny pieces whenever Director Faust decides to destroy it in his sleep-addled mind.

Shaking himself fully conscious, Faust's very first action of the day was to take a cigar from the nightstand case. He then set it alight with a lighter built into one of his prosthetic hand's cybernetic fingers. The project director grumbled as he brought up his omni-tool on one arm, reviewing his daily schedule with one organic eye opened halfway, and a cybernetic replacement that's perpetually glaring at the objects in front of it.

Running XCOM in the present day wasn't as glamorous or exciting as it was back in the bloodied years of the Second Contact War, a fact that Faust detested with every fiber of his soul and being. The main purpose of the project - defending humanity from extraterrestrial invasion - wasn't going to be fulfilled any time soon, what with the complete absence of any ethereal invasions for the past century and a half.

The director believed that EXALT attacks were a dime-a-dozen nowadays, and were very quickly repelled with the right application of overwhelming firepower and sound tactics. The renegade organization had been rapidly losing its power, but they were stubborn enough to try and regain the amount of dread they instilled into the populace back in their glory years of 2015-2016.

He never failed to express his displeasure at being ordered by the Council of Systems to send a cadre of agents to quell a rebellion at some backwater colony in the edges of Federal space. He thought it would simply be overkill to send a team of DEW-wielding, exoframe-equipped XCOM soldiers against a fringe colonial uprising armed mostly with antique slug throwers and poorly-maintained laser pistols and rifles.

And that's not taking into account the sheer nerve-wracking quality of the training regimen all agents must complete before they're considered true members of the organization.

Being in charge of the mythical organization basically amounted to making sure that routine base operations ran on time, Central gets the right amount of coffee every few hours, Dr. Shevchenko's engineering shopping list was fulfilled by the middle of the day, and Dr. Garamond's usual lab accidents were not too catastrophic.

"Just another day in the goddamn office..." Faust stood up from bed, taking intermittent drags out of his cigar. "Another dose of goddamn Meld..." He yawned, long and disconsolate. "Another cheque for my goddamn bank account..."

"I'll take that cheque if you don't need it. I could always use a nicer desk."

The director craned his neck behind, coming upon the sight of his personal assistant just getting out of his bed. "I got work to do, Kolarik. You do too, as always."

"Huh, good morning to you too, director." Kolarik grinned and brushed away a lock of red hair from one of her hazel eyes. "Will it hurt if you just called me Maksimilijiana?"

Faust shrugged nonchalantly. "It's a mouthful, but it won't. However, we do need to keep a professional appearance around the agents, don't you think?" He said as he slipped into his uniform and overcoat, just as she clothed herself in turn.

"Sure, but we're the only ones here." Kolarik tidied her hair and tried her best to make herself look presentable. Her prepared excuse as to why she spent a whole night in Faust's personal quarters was that she fell asleep organizing his files and picking up his slack. "Come on, Nolan. Show some affection." Rather sarcastically, she feigned being hurt.

The director merely laughed it off. "Ah-uh, don't call me that. Tell you what, give me another two months, and I'll take you back to Earth for our furlough. Then we can call each other on a first name basis. What do you think?"

"Ach," The assistant made a sound of exaggerated disgust. "Don't remind me of Earth. I left that overcrowded ball of smoke and dust just to get away from the bloody Serbs. I prefer it here, thank you very much."

"My hometown, then. Greater Orleans." Faust rolled his mismatching eyes and leaned into the holoconsole built into his door. Inputting his codes, he prepared himself for the same dull routine he'd have to undertake with each passing day. "Hm, Balkanites..."

. . .

Combat Information Center, XSV Shimazu, Hoxha Woodlands, Shanxi Colony

July 03rd, 2157 - 0550 hours

Colonel Jonathan Shepard - Acting commander of the Shanxi-Theta Relay Expedition

"Sergeant Khrushev! I need a situational report, now!"

An XCOM military agent, profusely bleeding from a wound on his uncovered forehead and looking completely dazed out of his mind to even function, nevertheless delivered his report in a precise, clockwork-like manner.

"Our scattered vessels made an emergency landing in Shanxi, colonel. More than half the expedition flotilla was lost to the alien ambush, and the rest of the vessels will have to undergo significant repairs before we could leave the atmosphere. We'll be stuck here for quite a bit of time, I think." He then took a deep breath as he grasped a damaged railing, putting most of his weight on it.

Colonel Jon Shepard inspected himself for damages. He thought it fortunate that he took to wearing his Templar-issue armor about sixty-percent of the time. "What happened to Captain Granger and his ship? Has the Indigo contacted our yeoman, yet?"

"Yeoman Singh's karked it, Shepard," A field agent, already equipped in his combat infantryman's exoframe and an alloy cannon, approached the colonel. "Along with the captain and most of the fuckin' expedition. I reckon you're the guy in charge of us now..."

Shepard sighed, long and hard. Though he can't exactly say he was surprised. "Lewis, we're gonna do a routine maneuver, alright? Contact the rest of the flotilla, tell the survivors to begin deploying EMP packages around their ships, reactivate all available berserker units from stasis and then rendezvous with us to the north, in the city outskirts."

Field Agent Lewis shrugged, pulling his gun up to rest over his armored shoulder. "Aye aye, colonel. Your co-colonel's been trying to contact you twenty minutes ago, if you need to know. You were still in your stasis pod, then." He traced a metal finger over his faceplate, which signified a frown on his face behind it.

"Your woman's been worried sick about you, sweetheart. Aww, and I'm a bit worried, too." Though his mocking voice betrayed the opposite of a frown.

"Ah, come off it, Lewis. We don't have much time on our hands here." Shepard would have laughed, but it was simply not the time, nor the place. "Get to work, before I have you shoved out the nearest window."

Lewis turned about, placing a free gauntleted hand over his armored chest. "You break my heart, Shepard. Both of them." With a chuckle, he left to complete his duties.

"As for you, sergeant," Shepard turned to regard the other agent, his orders already on the tip of his tongue. "I need you to-"

He halted, seeing the sergeant's body lifelessly splayed over the ship's railing, with his blood now freely seeping from the massive laceration just below his neck, hidden from a glance by his undershirt and sweater. The soldier concealed his mortal wound admirably well, knowing that the colonel would've futilely have him rushed to the devastated med-bay section of the Shimazu.

The colonel carefully took the fallen agent's corpse from the bloodied railing, carrying it over his shoulders to give it a proper resting place in the ruined crew quarters. He knew for a fact that the sergeant won't be the last of his expedition to die in the next few days, but he nonetheless soldiered on, also knowing that simply doing nothing would be a much worse alternative to what he had in mind.

"Somebody warm up the sectopods!" He called out to anyone listening in his immediate vicinity as he walked to the crew quarters. "And I want all Lotus units online!"

. . .

Main Office, New Larkintown City Hall, Shanxi Colony

July 03rd, 2157 - 0640 hours

General Malcolm Williams - Federal Navy colonial representative

Williams cleared his throat. "This colony is under threat." He declared, in his most gruff voice.

"We need to mobilize all marines and reservists we have in station before the bastards get here and shoot up the place. Hell, I'll have Al-Aziz drop the sectopods planetside - that'll show these renegades not to mess with the Federation."

Colonial Surpervisor Madeline van Hoff did not share Williams' rather excessive enthusiasm for defending the colony. "Okay, just take a deep breath and relax, Malcolm. Yes, we've already detected the unidentified ships making landfall in the area around Hoxha Woodlands, but do we seriously need an entire regiment to take care of a few raiders who may or may not be working for EXALT?"

Williams covered his face and sighed into his palm. Looking back at the supervisor with a more intense glare, he continued, "These aren't the usual threats, Maddie. You must have outdated sensors, because yesterday at eleven-hundred, our sensor relays picked up devilship signatures, and I'm quite sure EXALT would be the only terrorist group out there with the means and resources to try and reverse-engineer captured Federal tech."

Van Hoff seemed to take the general's words a little more seriously now. "You're sure about this, general? If this turns out to be a false alarm, we'd have wasted huge amounts of resources that would've been put to better use elsewhere. Maybe we could-"

Just then, one of Williams' adjutants entered van Hoff's office, interrupting the colonial supervisor inadvertently by virtue of looking like she just went through a warzone.

"General Williams, sir." The adjutant saluted the general, who nodded and wordlessly inquired what's wrong.

"Kingfisher Team just came into visual range with unknown contacts approaching the city outskirts via the main road. They counted about five-hundred humanoid figures in dark exoframes, half a hundred MEC troopers, eleven Lotus-pattern cyberdiscs and twenty-seven sectopods of an unknown design." The adjutant paused for breath, wiping sweat from her forehead. "Your orders for us, sir?"

Van Hoff was stunned. Williams knew exactly what he should do, however, and he immediately started walking out of the office.

"Get my men and my gear planetside as soon as goddamn possible, Maddie." He called to the supervisor, as he held open the door. "Time to kill me some sectoid-kissing renegade fuckers." He slammed the door shut.

. . .

Cafeteria 73B, Level 44 - Food Processing, Schultz Moonbase

July 03rd, 2157 - 0640 hours

Director Faust

Having done the first set of duties on behalf of the continued smooth operation of the XCOM Headquarters, Faust decided to finally have some breakfast. He was joined by his three main advisors at the same table, though he was the only one there purely for the purpose of eating.

Central Officer Jan Deckardson, or 'Central', as practically everybody in Schultz called her, downed a mug of coffee like a true coffee-drinking expert. "The observation force we sent to the Shanxi-Theta Relay hasn't made any hails, or responded to any of our transmissions. What do you guys think? Did something happen to Captain Granger's flotilla, or am I just being paranoid?" She looked genuinely dumbfounded, which was rare for her.

"Hm... it is hard to tell with the amount of caffeinated drinks you regularly consume." Dr. Maksim Shevchenko, the moonbase's principal engineer, put away his omni-tool for the time being. Unlike his three other compatriots, he didn't sit, nor he needed to. Due to an accident decades prior, his lower body had to be replaced by a talon-tipped, arachnid-like mechanical platform he designed and fabricated himself. "Perhaps it would be wise if you refrain from drinking any more than three mugs a day, or one mug for espresso."

"You know as much as I do how I need these to function properly, Shev." Deckardson gestured at the empty mugs neatly stacked on her corner of the table. She sighed and leaned forwards, her eyes taking a misty look. "I miss Field Agent Parker. His homebrewed espresso kept me awake for almost three days straight."

"Yeah, too bad he decided to fuck us over by selling our bloody gear to the black market. Can't believe he thought the pay's shitty in this organization. His standards were set just too damn high." Dr. Arthur Garamond rasped. He was XCOM's rather sickly chief scientific researcher, and rival to his engineering counterpart. He appeared to struggle just by speaking, but his brilliant mind more than compensated for his physical shortcomings. "He deserved what he got. I just wish I was the one to pull the trigger on that smug wanker's face."

Faust shook his head, choosing not to involve himself with his advisors' rather inane conversations. Checking his extranet account with his omni-tool, he expected to see his daily report for the previous day from the Council of Systems. He found a new message almost immediately from Silke Timmermans, the new Council spokeswoman.

"Silke...?" The director was surprised to find his old flame's name on his extranet mail. Checking the mail if the link was genuine before reading through it, he learned that the Council was buzzing with activity lately, and he should expect to hear from them very soon.

. . .

Main Road, New Larkintown City Limits, Shanxi Colony

July 03rd, 2157 - 0710 hours

Colonel Shepard

"You alright there, mate?" Agent Lewis, with his faceplate pulled open, handed over a medkit canister to his commanding officer as he and the rest of the XCOM survivors marched across the countryside on foot towards Shanxi's capital. "There's a red spot on your neck protector - maybe your wound's just opened up again."

The colonel previously ordered his men to follow the length of the road they have reached some time earlier, seeing that in doing so, they'd easily reach the outskirts of New Larkintown. On the way, Shepard and his men had to constantly endure the sweltering heat of the humid climate, and the rather uneven countryside. The deaths of many of his fellow agents and the prospect of facing the first alien incursion on human soil in centuries weighed heavily on the colonel's mind.

So much so, that he never noticed his throat was bleeding.

"It's just a little bit of blood, Lewis. It'll heal." Shepard said, shaking his head. A separatist terror attack in the Spanish province of Girona only a month prior left Shepard with a life-threatening throat wound when one of the ballistics-wielding terrorists caught him unaware, on shore-leave and without his powered armor. The colonel endured having his neck penetrated by an incendiary bullet, which had the unintended side-effect of cauterizing his wound and preventing him from dying from blood loss.

The attack should've killed him, but the best in medical equipment, personnel and supplies at mankind's disposal was enough to bring Shepard back to fighting strength in a matter of weeks.

"Stubborn just like Isaacs." Lewis retracted the canister. "Well, it ain't gonna be my fault if you suddenly keel over dead from blood loss, heh." His expression then suddenly turned serious, just as he pulled up his faceplate. "But seriously, you think you're gonna be alright? That spot's looking pretty bad."

"There are much worse things we could worry about right now over a small red stain on my neck." Shepard responded, somewhat harshly. He took note of a warning his forward observers sent him, displayed over his helmet's built-in HUD. Already, the rural environment started to clash with the pre-fabs and shuttles they started to come across every once and a while.

"Sure, sure. I wouldn't argue with my commanding officer if I could help it, but if by some stroke of misfortune that you, well... die," Lewis looked at Shepard straight in the eyes, then smirked. "Can I go out with Karlotte?"

Shepard rolled his eyes and wisely chose to refrain from responding to Lewis' inquiry. Things were about to take a radical turn with his life, if Karlotte's suspicions were proven right. "Heads up, we'll be coming up on a fortified Federal position; four hundred meters up ahead, three hundred hunkered-down contacts with minimal MEC trooper and medium armor support."

Lewis did a quick check on his gear, then closed his faceplate shut. "Okay, I'll ask again: you sure about this, Shepard?" His warbling, helmet-filtered voice sounded out rather harshly. "There's a chance they might find out who we work for, and it'll be on our arses. Dunno 'bout you, but I'd rather stay on the Council's good side."

"We don't have much of a choice." Shepard said, sounding strangely nonchalant and resigned to his situation.

"Hey! Hey." A woman's accented voice came through the comms. "This is Colonel Thierfelder, is Colonel Shepard in this channel?"

Lewis would've responded first, but Shepard was quicker. "Yeah, I'm here. What's your status?"

There was a pause, and the colonel on the other side of the channel could be heard sighing in relief. "Jonathan, thank God you're alive. My scouts spotted your soldiers advancing east of our position, and we're heading our way towards you now. We'll be with you in fifteen minutes, at the least."

"Solid copy, Karlotte. We'll stay on overwatch until you regroup with us. Be advised, in all likeliness, the Federal garrison doesn't think we're friendly," The colonel warned. "If you come across an infantry patrol and they attacked, do not retaliate. We didn't get assigned to this planet to kill humans this time around."

Shepard closed comms, looking at the towering spires of New Larkintown up ahead. Soon, they'd reach the city proper. "It's about time XCOM started fulfilling its true purpose."

. . .

New Larkintown Outskirts, Shanxi Colony

July 03rd, 2157 - 0730 hours

General Williams

"Check your charges and weapon settings! Clean your sights! Fix powered-bayonets!" One of the few officers in the colony with actual combat experience shouted and screamed as his subordinates scurried around the hastily-made entrenched position they put together just minutes ago. "Ready yourselves, men! We're about to make contact! Do what you're told, and you may make it out alive!"

Williams shook his head and frowned as he observed the men he was saddled with at the time being. Even to an untrained eye, it was very clear that they were never trained to deal with anything more severe than pirates, hostile wildlife and the occasional EXALT attack.

The general, who was inside the cockpit of his personalized, custom-built Juggernaut-pattern mechanical exoskeleton cybersuit, shifted on his side and looked down at his adjutant. "Lieutenant, when are proper soldiers gonna arrive to relieve these poor excuses for marines?" His voice was made clearer and more intimidating when filtered through the cybersuit's external speakers.

"Supervisor van Hoff contacted Admiral Al-Aziz only ten minutes ago, general. Our reinforcements are set to arrive in fifteen minutes." The adjutant reported, sounding just a tad unsure.

"Goddammit. I told her to contact the admiral almost an hour ago!" Williams made an irritated sound, his cybersuit fidgeting slightly at his erratic movements inside the cockpit.

Calming himself in short order, the general pointed at the three other MEC units in the colony. "Form up on me, maggots!" He and his fellow cybersuited soldiers started to trudge forwards, to the front of the position. "We'll hold this position, or die trying!"

Williams wasn't met with a resolute cheer from his men, as he observed while moving past their positions. He couldn't find it in himself to blame them, however. Most of them ran farms and businesses somewhere in the colony, hardly were they proper substitutes for Federal marines, who were trained to hold the line and happily die on the Federation's behalf. It didn't help that the current odds were grim.

"Grim indeed..." The general muttered, examining the mass of enemy contacts approaching from the direction of the main road.

The cadenced marching of a thousand power-armored boots were felt through the slight trembling of the ground, and joining this were the intermittent quakes that came from the thick, Ilyshunite-plated legs of the enemy sectopods and MEC troopers. Looking at the unknown soldiers even further with the help of his particle cannon scope, Williams was surprised to find the extremely high quality finish of the powered exoframes the most of the contacts wore for armor. Most disconcertingly, a disturbing amount of these exoframe-suited men possessed purple emblems proudly displayed over their left pauldrons, making their status as combat psionics obvious.

"...Hold on just one goddamn minute," He muttered to himself again. "These boys can't be EXALT... there's just no way they could-"

"General Malcolm Williams."

"Gah, FUCK!" Williams jolted, nearly toppling himself over when a voice addressed him from the Federal Navy's private comms. Clutching a gauntleted hand over his heart, the general hauled his cybersuited form up to his feet.

Enraged at how he nearly suffered a heart attack, he screamed into the radio, "Just who the fuck are you?! Identify yourself, right this goddamn instant!"

"Calm down, general." The man's growly voice, which had a certain 'Dutch' quality to it, spoke without emotion nor inflection. "We need you to cooperate with us."

"Wrong answer, maggot! How the hell did you find this channel?!" The general ignored the man's words, too high on adrenaline to even understand what he just said. "You're illegally accessing Federal Navy property! I'll have your deadbeat ass locked up in Folsom II until the wardens think you're too old and weak even for retirement!"

A scoff was made on the other line. "Your dossier states that you developed a severe temper problem later in your career, as a result of a family tragedy. Now, I can honestly say I'm surprised to find Federal Navy dossiers to be perfectly correct, for once." The man on the other side continued, he was starting to sound a little impatient.

"Listen close, general. I work for the Federation government just like you. However, I answer to a higher authority than the Federal Navy, and it'd be very wise if you were to heed my instructions. Are my words made clear, General Williams?"

Williams steadied his breathing and relaxed on his seat, letting his blood cool down. The man knew a little too much about his personal life.

After nearly a full minute, the general responded, "Who are you and what do you want?"

"You'll learn soon enough who we are, but first, let me enlighten you of our situation. In all likelihood, in a few days' time, we predict that this colony would be facing a much greater threat than the sporadic pirate and EXALT raids; you might have an extraterrestrial invasion in your hands, Williams." The man said, and Williams scoffed derisively, thinking his predictions ridiculous. His patience for the man started wearing thin again.

"My employers sent an observation force to this system's mass relay, to investigate why it started activating itself without any known Federation-aligned ships even remotely close to it." The voice stated. "Once we approached a close enough distance to the relay, we were suddenly ambushed by unknown vessels, destroying a large part of our flotilla and forcing the survivors to land here, in Shanxi. In essence, we committed an attack on their race by defending ourselves, and it's not too unlikely that they'd respond by assembling an invasion fleet, with an attack on Shanxi in mind."

He's a government spook then, Williams thoughts resounded. "Okay jackass, I'll let you have the naive belief that I don't think you're flat-out lying! You were attacked by ethereals-"

"No, general. These vessels do not identify as Advent-made." The man corrected. "These vessels belong to an entirely different extraterrestrial race-"

"Does it matter what color or how many tentacles these goddamn things have?" Williams angrily cut the man off. "Like I said, you were attacked, you made an emergency landing in Hoxha, and then you came to me to ask for my help for when whatever-the-fuck ambushed you comes back with an army to try and finish you off. Is that the gist of it?"

A moderate pause. "You put it rather crudely, but that's right. We're on the same side here, and I'm not against attaching my forces to your garrison and letting your men borrow our equipment if it meant repelling an incoming assault on this colony. What do you say, general, do we have a deal?"

Williams didn't believe the man one tiny bit. He didn't even realize that his anger significantly clouded his judgement. "And if I told you to fuck off?"

There was a patronizing chuckle from the other line. "Then we'll turn around, hunker down somewhere hidden, and let you deal with the alien invasion fleet... alone."

"You'd willingly let this colony fall while ducking in some shitty crevice with thumbs firmly planted up your asses?" Williams poured every amount of vitriol he could muster into his voice. "I don't think you really work for the government."

"Oh, but we do, Williams. Once the local garrison surrenders with you either dead or in a POW camp, we'd conduct a planet-wide guerrilla war against the alien occupying force until either the Federation retakes the planet, or we get wiped out to the last man. We won't waste our lives trying to defend a city with a hotheaded general refusing to cooperate with us." There was another pause, and Williams had just started to realize the repercussions of trying to defend New Larkintown with an inexperienced garrison against a full-fledged alien invasion.

"I ask for one final time, general. Will you cooperate with us and live, or will you refuse our offer and die?" The man offered his ultimatum. "You'll be remembered as a hero either way, but if you accept our offer, you might even live to benefit from your new reputation. Heh, unless you surrender, that is. My employers make excellent propaganda; they'll have you branded as the worst kind of coward in the eyes of every citizen of the Federation if they think it's necessary."

One of the most difficult things Williams had ever done in his life was to swallow his pride and accept the man's offer that day. "When you put in that way, it doesn't look like I've got much of a choice, do I? I'll have the men mark you as friendly, but DON'T try to pull a fast one on us while our backs are turned!"

He sucked in a breath and started speaking faster than the man on the other line could respond. "Have your soldiers report to the mustering grounds and have them prepare my garrison as best as they could before your 'invasion fleet' arrives. I can't believe those paper-shuffling morons assigned such pathetic excuses for marines to defend the biggest colony outside the core worlds!"

Williams paused for breath again, and the man stayed silent. "As for you, I want you to report to the New Larkintown city hall later this day - you've got a lot of explaining to do, spook. I want you to tell me what sort of gear and vehicles are you bringing into the table, and just how do you expect to beat back a goddamn extraterrestrial attack. More importantly, I want to know who you are, and what kind of pimped-up, overfunded, 'highly-classified' organization do you work for! Dismissed!" With that said, the general quickly cut comms.

. . .

New Larkintown Outskirts, Shanxi Colony

July 03rd, 2157 - 0830 hours

General Williams

Almost every soldier, reservist or colonist present, were rooted frozen in place as they stared at the newcomers in exoframes while they passed by their position, into the city proper. The men expected to defend their colony from these unknown soldiers, but were very relieved to hear that they came in peace.

Faceless troopers in towering, all-encompassing Ilyushinite armor ignored the stares and awed looks they were being given, completely occupied with marching towards the inner portion of New Larkintown. Sectopods and MEC troopers stomped along the streets with their comrades-in-arms, occasionally having to stop and let civilians and Federal infantry move out of their way, and all the while, Lotus cyberdiscs hovered above the buildings in pairs, patrolling the city airspace for anything that may pose a security risk.

Of course, any feelings of security and relief that the men may have had earlier were immediately dispelled when General Williams started speaking.

"Men! You are not to attack these government spooks! For all intents and purposes, they're our allies now!" The general declared atop an elevated position, still piloting his MEC. "They're here as our reinforcements! They came to help us fortify our position against an incoming alien assault, so don't throw a party just yet! We haven't crossed even the street!"

The soldiers were shocked to hear the news, and some were quick to voice out their displeasure and dismay. After more than a century without a single extraterrestrial encounter, hostile aliens have come to disrupt the tentative peace mankind had been enjoying once more. Already, there was talk of desertion among the volunteers, and what's worse, they don't even appear to be bothered discussing their plans within Williams' earshot, which was something that made the general sick to his stomach. These milksops neither possessed discipline, nor respect.

"Quit that bellyaching and cut that cowardly talk, I'll have none of that in MY army!" Williams bellowed at the top of his lungs, his already impressive shouting voice significantly amplified by his suit's speakers. "Wouldn't you boys and girls rather kill x-rays instead your fellow men for a change? Isn't the alien's complete destruction the very essence of what makes a true soldier of the Federation? The Federal Navy's original purpose is to defend mankind from any alien threats, and by God, each and every one of you maggots will relish the chance to serve your original purpose either this day, or the next one! Death to the alien!"

"That's right, death to the alien! Haha!" A group of reservists raised their weapons in the air and started pumping their fists in approval, though they were met with blank stares and bemused head-shaking, it was clear from their upright stances and bright faces that they were more than eager to pitch in.

Williams shifted to his side, the servos in his suit whirring with each slight movement. "Well finally! Someone in this pathetic little backwater colony possessing even a little bit of backbone and enthusiasm! Keep that attitude up, and your future will be most assuredly bright - if you survive, that is!"

The old general then turned to the vast majority of the colonial volunteers. "As for the rest of you weak-minded codpiece-fondling doubters, mark me well: embracing your role within the coming days will be your first step to fame and recognition in the eyes of your fellow citizens, and goddamn redemption in my eyes! The aliens have come for us again, and I won't be tolerating any doubters in this army! More so than ever before, the president needs your complete trust and faith in his decisions - put aside your hesitation and fear, there isn't any more room for that weak, childish shit anymore!"

More men started cheering, with some marines among them. "For the president! Kill the alien!" They chanted like a mantra as more and more of the crowd slowly started to see things Williams' way.

"We'll show those probing fucks the what-for so hard, they'll think twice about crossing us ever again!" Williams joined in, giving the ground an earthshaking stomp with his MEC's metal foot, as the once-meek hodgepodge of armed colonists and Federal marines were whipped into a frenzy. "History will remember us as heroes, men! This colony's triumphant defense will be our legacy!"

The general grinned as the vast majority of his men cheered themselves hoarse. He didn't expect to say so little to awaken the inner xenophobe in his men, but he preferred it that way; his throat was just about to fail him. After discharging an extended burst from his gauss gun into the air to silence the crowd, he started speaking in a more subdued manner... though it would still qualify as shouting to most men.

"Now, I know now that you're aching to kill aliens as much as I do, but the difference between me and the lot of you is that I'm trained properly to kill as many of these things as I damn well please. I won't make the most use of your abilities if you don't even know how to use them well!"

Williams started pointing at those in the crowd without uniform, which was most of the men.

"Any man or woman here that admits to not having been to boot camp yet, then good for you! You have the courage to let us know that you'll be a liability when shit hits the fan! Now, if you don't want to let your comrades down and stop being a liability, then you need to report to the mustering grounds to submit to immediate Federal infantry training!" The general ordered.

If the aliens did manage to arrive in Shanxi, Williams hoped to have an army of fearless zealots at his disposal, but he had no use for an army of untrained zealots, no matter how fearless.

"You will be trained by our new allies, and you will be given weapons and equipment that most of the Federal Navy aren't even allowed to have! Make the best of this rare opportunity; earn the right to be called a real marine! Have my made myself clear enough to you maggots?!"

Each and every one of them shouted at the top of their lungs: "Loud and clear, sir!"

. . .

Main Office, New Larkintown City Hall, Shanxi Colony

July 03rd, 2157 - 0920 hours

Colonel Shepard, Colonel Thierfelder

The two colonels never bothered knocking on the door as they entered Supervisor van Hoff's office side by side. General Williams, his adjutant, van Hoff and her two Preserver bodyguards were there, waiting.

"An inspiring speech, general. Truly, no one else could inspire such hatred amongst men better than you do." Were the first, rather sarcastic words out of Shepard's mouth. Even with a helmet to cover his face, the general instantly recognized his voice.

"I used to watch a lot of vids," The general responded, with some mirth. "Very little of that was my own invention, I admit."

Karlotte laughed and retracted her faceplate. "Be proud of it! Jon and I were there when you went about shouting and screaming... I think my ears have blisters now."

Williams shrugged, a smile tugging at his lips. "Yeah, maybe some of it was my invention..."

Of course, he was unaware of the psionic suggestions Karlotte was continuously implanting into his mind, soothing his infamously fiery temper and making him susceptible to banter. She would've flat-out assumed control of his mind so that precious time was saved, but his will was too strong even for a man in his late nineties.

"Shall we get down to business?" Shepard was quick to progress the situation, though. "We have much to discuss."

The general nodded, adopting a stoic expression. "Right, of course. Lieutenant, you need to leave us for a while. Maddie, this discussion's between me and the spooks. You and your bodyguards need to leave, too."

"On the contrary, I'm more than welcome to this discussion," Van Hoff coolly responded. "Griggs and Sheckley, on the other hand, may leave the office."

As the adjutant and the two Preservers vacated the room, and before Williams could ask, Shepard informed him, "Colonial Supervisor Madeline van Hoff is one of our organization's main contacts and informers in the Heilong Cluster, general. She answers directly to our project director."

It was Williams' turn to be stunned. "...right. Then I think it's about time you tell the only non-spook in this room what agency do you clowns work for, exactly. Was it CAT6 or the PALADIN Conclave? The Slavyane? Maybe Westwatch? I'm guessing it's Westwatch, am I right?"

Shepard and Karlotte spared each other a brief look. Van Hoff started chuckling as she fished out a peculiar pentagonal emblem from her desk, sliding it over to Williams.

The general picked up the item and slowly brought it up to his face. He somewhat recognized the patterns on the emblem, but he couldn't quite place it. It's so familiar, yet so foreign. The Latin words emblazoned on it, "Vigilo Confido", only served to dumbfound him even further.

"CAT6 is a ruthless PMC group that so far, has shown no problems with recruiting from the mentally insane. And the PALADIN Conclave doesn't even have an armed force and is exclusively for the Federation's best and brightest scientists and engineers," Karlotte stated rather matter-of-factly, before she wryly smirked, "Without moronic things such as 'ethics' and 'morality' weighing them down, of course. Pretty standard for top-secret Federation-funded organizations, really."

"The Slavyane only take recruits from colonies with Eastern European-descended populations and exclusively speak a modified version of the Russian language, and Westwatch is an elite biowarfare and intelligence-gathering division dating back from the 21st century that, unlike CAT6, recruits from war criminals and reformed EXALT personnel instead." Shepard gave a quick lesson on the hidden forces operating within the Federation government, much to General Williams' astonishment. So many things were kept hidden by the government, even to high-ranking Federal Navy personnel such as him.

"The Slavyane don't seem too bad, until you learn that they also have close ties to organized crime and they engage in the drug trade for extra profits." Karlotte was quick to add. "Ah, well. Nobody's perfect."

"Hm. So... which dysfunctional group of scum do you take your rookies from?" Williams sarcastically inquired, though he wouldn't be surprised if every government-sanctioned spook-circus recruited solely from scum. They tend to be that way.

"It's not important where we get our agents from, only that they prove to be the best at what they do, and they're drilled to be exceedingly loyal to our cause." Colonel Thierfelder said. "But really, we only take recruits from outside our group on rare occasions. Most of us were born into the organization."

"And as for our expertise, we specialize in defending humanity from extraterrestrial threats, much like the Federal Navy." Colonel Shepard brought up his omni-tool, bringing up an old motivational reel of four iconic XCOM agents in action: Ferdinand Schultz, Annette Durand, Shaojie Zhang and ex-UN rep Peter van Dorn.

Working fluidly with one another, the quartet of agents maneuvered a maze of wreckage and rubble in a ruined Luxembourgian town. They eventually encountered and swiftly dispatched an entire platoon of mutons, floaters and a berserker through the use of psionics and precise laser fire. With less than thirty seconds to spare, the four-man team narrowly secured their objective by defusing a plasma bomb, with only three seconds left in the timer.

"Not bad," Williams nodded, seemingly impressed. "If that wasn't such an obvious piece of edited-propaganda-bullshit-footage, I'd put these clowns up for a medal."

The colonel ignored the general's comment. "However, unlike the Navy, we are better trained, better funded and better equipped. Our organization also prides itself for being responsible for the defeat and repulsion of the Outsiders in the late 20th century, and the success of Earth's defence against the ethereal collective in the early 21st century."

During his days as a lower-ranking officer, Williams remembered hearing about a conspiracy theory about how a shadowy, highly-advanced alien-hunting organization was the sole reason that Earth remained in human hands, but like any sane person would, he scoffed at the claims.

"Believe me, our predecessors have done a lot to ensure that mankind stood strong like it is today, but to better serve our people and to avoid answering for our more questionable actions, we thought it best if we stayed working in the shadows." Karlotte took out her own emblem from a compartment built into her exoframe, displaying the different engravings on the back.

"No offence, but I think every word that came out of your mouths after you went through that door was just plain ridiculous..." Williams admitted, chuckling briefly. Shepard merely folded his armored arms while Karlotte gave him an 'I told you so' look.

"But I'll be honest with you, I couldn't care less who you two work for, really. That was just curiosity on my part." He said, sliding the emblem back to van Hoff. "What I really wanted from you, is a favor."

The general inhaled a lungful before mustering the courage to speak up. "I need you two to eventually assume command over my men, if this invasion of yours ever manifested. I believe my time as a general has come to an end, and that I'll be of better use as a MEC pilot."

Shepard and Karlotte were surprised, to say the least. Convincing Williams to relinquish control of his forces had been one of their hidden objectives, as they have been aware that his grasp on unit tactics and strategem had begun to fade with age, made worse by his increasing susceptibleness to bouts of extreme anger. On the other hand, his skill with piloting MECs and sectopods was a thing to behold, as his dossier states.

"That... can be arranged, general." Shepard composed himself quickly. He spared a cursory, inquiring look at his fellow colonel, who narrowed her eyes and shook her head in negative. She hasn't done anything to manipulate the general's decision-making.

"Well, now that this business is settled, why don't we start discussing our new toys, then?" Williams let his eyes linger on the agents' XCOM-issue plasma rifles, to accentuate his point.

"Ah, but this isn't the place to discuss that." Karlotte started, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "We used to have a branch here in Shanxi, but we have to abandon it after an accident with the elerium reactors and a shipment of thin man gas grenades. I heard there's still plenty of weapons and experimental tech left behind there."

Shepard nodded. "And it's only two-hundred klicks from where we are. If we act now, we can reach it within in an hour and have the leftover gear hauled over to the city by the end of the day. By then, Lewis and the others should have the colonists in a better fighting shape."

. . .

New Larkintown Federal Garrison Mustering Grounds, Shanxi Colony

July 03rd, 2157 - 1740 hours

Field Agent Second Class Henry 'Postman' Lewis - senior XCOM agent

"A good day's work, lads! Well done." Lewis gave a gauntlet-covered thumbs-up to the assembled colonial troopers in front of him. His fellow agents were at a similar situation, wrapping up training their own batch of volunteers and reservists.

"I say, color me fuckin' surprised! You came here ranting and raving like a buncha separatist protestors in front of the prime minister's winter residence, but you came out as a passable unit of infantry! An impressive effort, but not good enough to make it as a proper replacement for a marine battalion, I'm sorry to say. What, you didn't really expect to finish boot camp in one day, did you?" The agent jokingly inquired.

Lewis waved them off. "Get some shut eye, the lot of ya! We'll continue where we left off tomorrow, if you still have the guts for more, that is."

The makeshift soldiers saluted their impromptu trainer and drillmaster before dispersing, either to return to their pre-fabs or to the nearby barracks. Lewis stayed for a while, lighting a cigarette and enjoying the cold afternoon breeze on his uncovered face.

Looking up at New Larkintown's towering spires glistening in the fading red-orange sunlight with the nearby snow-peaked mountains in the background was indeed a breathtaking sight. Lewis didn't have to think twice about defending the colony with his life, if need be.

The agent spent a bit of time pondering about what to do next. Still in his armor sans the helmet, Lewis decided to turn around and head back to the barracks to check his gear and calibrate all the guns he kept, like some of his fellow agents just did.

While he would've gone off into the city to have a drink like most of the agents, Lewis thought that he should stay sober for the time being. After all, with the two colonels, the general and a whole convoy of trucks and shuttles out of the city hauling abandoned XCOM gear, Lewis was practically the highest-ranking officer in the city.

If an incident occurs, it'll be up to him to coordinate his fellow agents and the Federal garrison to resolve the situation. Besides, it's been a long time since his alloy cannon was tweaked; he was more than a little curious to see the effects of unloading an accelerated blast of machined Ilyushinite shards onto an alien's face.

"H-hello, um, excuse me, Agent Henry?" Lewis turned to his side, coming upon the sight of a Federal marine, looking shyly up at him.

"Good afternoon, ma'am! How can yours truly help you out?" He inquired smoothly, but he was cautious to any hidden plots against him.

"Well... I, uh..." The marine, an overcoat-clad, tan-skinned woman in her late twenties with curled locks of black hair and dark green eyes, struggled to start speaking. She nervously wrung her hands together. "Can we... perhaps... speak somewhere more private?" Lewis took careful note of the small purple badge she wore over her chest, signifying her status as a Category Beta Minus psionic.

The agent found himself amused at her coy display as he took note of her South European features. "Ah, no thanks ma'am. 'Preciate the offer, but unauthorized fraternization outside the organization is strictly forbidden. A shame, really. I kinda like Italians girls," He winked at her, thinking himself the epitome of smoothness. "And I heard psionics have some... interesting applications when used in a certain way..."

The woman appeared completely taken by surprise. "W-what? Oh, oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it to come across like that, it's just that-" She covered a part of her face with a palm. Lewis chuckled. "Sorry, I guess I just wanted to ask which agency do you belong, so that I know who we would be working with."

She extended a gloved hand to Lewis. "Junior Operative Nicoletta Petrucci, from Covert Activities and Reconnaissance Division. I heard there was a contingent of government black-ops agents stranded in New Larkintown, after being ambushed by an apparent extraterrestrial attack."

"Well, why didn't you bloody say so, and why were you so nervous back then?" The agent smiled and shook hands with the Federal spy, remembering from the previous mission briefing that personnel from CARD may have been stationed in Shanxi. "Usual days, I wouldn't be able to tell you who we are, but CARD knows we exist and what we're supposed to be, anyways. Me and the lads serve under XCOM, lady."

Operative Petrucci cautiously looked around her surroundings briefly. "You know Henry, we shouldn't really be discussing this here..." She leaned in as she told him, her eyes narrowed. Then, she pulled immediately back. "Ah, but what the hell. I was a little afraid that you and your colleagues might be working for Westwatch, but you don't seem too unstable and bloodthirsty. Well, yet."

"Westwatch? Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised you thought that way," Lewis said, frowning. "We dress like them and have the same level of tech most of the time, but we have more issues about secrecy than that psychopathic lot, and we're a lot less trigger-happy."

"Yeah, a circus act full of arseholes, they are." Nicoletta snorted in disdain. "I heard they pistol-whipped one of my colleagues for trying to speak with them. I was worried that would happen to me when I approached you."

"Nah, I wouldn't do that." Lewis shook his head and grinned. "I wouldn't want to ruin your..."

The agent trailed off and stood still like a deer confronted by headlights when he came upon the dreaded sight of a darkened squadron of unidentified shuttles and aircraft zooming past the horizon, just some distance away from the city outskirts, but too far away for the cyberdisks to make pursuit.

"Jesus Christ, did you see that!" Far from being calm and gesturing wildly at the white trails the alien craft left behind, Lewis questioned Nicoletta. "Was I the only one who fucking saw that? That seemed so bloody real!"

The spy took hold of the agent's armoured shoulders, and with surprising strength, shook him back to sense. "Hey, hey! I saw them, Henry! Those birds aren't ours, that's for sure!"

Lewis paused to think of the next course of action. "Holy hell, this is bad. I'm calling Shepard and Karlotte now, but we need to be ready for unwelcome guests until they arrive. Come on!" With Nicoletta in tow, he started running to the barracks to retrieve his equipment.

"Any mates of yours coming to help us out, or is it just you in this colony?" The agent inquired as they entered the building.

Nicoletta brought up an omni-tool, which displayed a small countdown. "A lot of friends, actually. I'm counting on a small CARD flotilla to come and attach itself to Admiral Al-Aziz's ships, and my fellow agents in Shanxi are on their way to New Larkintown to provide ground support as we speak." The two agents passed by several Federal soldiers in the barracks, and Lewis was quick to alert them about the situation. "I hope they're enough!"

"All help's welcome!" Lewis said, taking his Ilyushinite shotgun from a gun rack in his quarters. "I got what I need, now we just need to assemble the New Larkintown welcoming committee. Let's up and make the aliens feel right at home, shall we?"

. . .

Situation Room, Level 32, Schultz Moonbase

July 03rd, 2157 - 1745 hours

Central Officer Janet Deckardson, AKA 'Central'

"Sir..." Deckardson nervously began to an expectant Director Faust. "I've got terrible news. You might wanna take a look at this." She inputted commands on her omni-tool, and in a second, the massive holoscreen dominating most of the situation room started to transmit the middle of a Federation emergency broadcast.

"-pouring through as early as yesterday, several eye-witness accounts of an unknown military flotilla being decimated by what appears to be a collection of vessels of extraterrestrial origin and make, near the vicinity of the Shanxi-Theta Relay, in the Heilong Cluster," A veteran news anchor reported, disbelief and bafflement written plainly on his expressions.

"Some of these witnesses even went so far as to provide us with video evidence of this attack on the unidentified human vessels, which were speculated to be from a shadowy, government-funded paramilitary organization calling itself Westwatch." The anchor continued. "Most of these vids were proven false, however, and there has been no evidence as of yet to suggest that Westwatch actually exists."

The anchor paused to take a sip from glass of water sitting on his desk. "In response to this apparent threat of extraterrestrial attack, President Lazarenko issued a declaration early this morning, calling for several fleets to report to the Heilong Cluster and all systems nearby. Admiral Norman Draynor, commander of the FNWS Annihilation, was among those ordered to defend the colony of Shanxi from any alien attacks. More on this story as the situation devel-"

Deckardson cut the feed, coming across the sight of Director Faust in the process of crushing his cigar between his teeth. "Commander, as it turns out, I'm not being paranoid this time," She said, her voice struggling to stay calm. "Captain Granger might be already dead, for all we know."

Faust gave one last look of disbelief at the empty holoscreen before storming off, out of the situation room.

He placed his index and middle finger atop the comm bead sitting on his ear. "All Schultz base field personnel, this is Director Tyrone Faust! Disregard all previous directives and assemble at galaxy room! I repeat, all field personnel must report to the galaxy room immediately!"

As he exited the room, he was immediately flanked by two MEC troopers, appearing practically giddy at what their leader was about to say.

"Reset the goddamn clock! The XCOM Initiative is back online!"

. . .

Heavy Fabrication Bay and Hangar, Level 4, XCOM Shanxi Branch

July 03rd, 2157 - 1750 hours

Colonel Shepard, Colonel Thierfelder

Shepard, with his helmet keeping him from being poisoned by lingering thin man gas, observed quietly as Karlotte introduced the gas-masked General Williams to the prototype battlefield device still attached to its rack, with dusty cables and computers strewn all over the area.

Left behind to corrode and waste away, a MEC-sized powered maul designed for engaging in close quarters combat and on-the-field demolitions remained hooked up to its frame, but thanks to the myriad countermeasures by departing XCOM engineers and operators, the weapon remained in an almost pristine condition, fit to be worked on where the previous science team left behind.

"A thing of beauty, isn't it?" Karlotte traced a metal finger on the maul's handle, uncaring of the thick layer of dust blanketing it. "It's been proven that the S-HC 41a 'Deconstructor' Powered Sledge is fully capable of putting a Federation sectopod out of commission with just one good blow anywhere near the cockpit or the engine area."

"That's the best I heard from you spooks all day," Williams rubbed his gloved hands together, dreaming of the amount of destruction he could sow with the weapon in his possession. "But the damn thing's no use to us wasting away in here. I'll have the grease monkeys haul this onto an excavator in a moment."

The general looked around the interiors of the base. After spending several hours emptying XCOM Shanxi of all its weapons and other useful tech, Williams had to squint to find any more useful items his men could use. "Looks like we've cleared this level. We should be heading back to the city and start planning out our defence."

"Ah, but general, you haven't even seen the last piece of hardware hidden in this level, yet." Shepard said. He was standing over an unpowered console, with very large, decayed shutter doors behind him.

Williams and Karlotte walked over to the colonel. "Got something for us there?" The general queried.

"What's that, Jon? I didn't find that in the base's equipment manifest." The other colonel inquired.

Shepard shrugged his armoured shoulders. "I spent a few months stationed here in '39. I got close to the fabrication team's principal engineer and he let me in on a little secret side-project he and his team were working on." With that said, the colonel commanded the shutters to open.

Karlotte took a step back upon seeing what Shepard was referring to.

"Holy Mary, mother of Jesus..." Williams, however, slowly took several steps forwards. "You crazy bastards, you did it! We've already won this war before it even started!"

The 'side-project' appeared to be an upscaled, heavily modified version of an XCOM Crusader sectopod, with a myriad more plasma weapons and missile racks mounted on every part of the chassis, a prototypal, miniaturized version of the Godfinger supercooled fusion lance with an underslung Penumbra laser repeater cannon as the main gun, and a much larger cockpit area.

Shepard was less than impressed at the machine, however. "The Devastator sectopod might look formidable enough, but it's an archetypal glass cannon; because of the lack of proper funding for the project, the fabricators have to provide the vehicle with a thinner layer of Ilyushinite plate armor. A few good hits to any major part of the sectopod with a plasma sniper rifle will disable it for a very long while, and field repairs are made much more complicated with this machine."

"This thing's massive. It looks like a cybersuit could fit in that cockpit." Karlotte absently noted, to Williams' glee.

"Hell yes, it could! I'm calling for more excavators ASAP!" The general quickly left the two colonels to themselves, disappearing into an elevator.

"Never thought I'd see him happy for once," The colonel said, closing the shutters.

Karlotte grinned behind her helmet. "Well, good for him. He probably just added two years to his lifespan."

"I don't think he'd like that," Shepard walked close to his partner. "Read his dossier? He's trying to kill himself, I think. Join his wife on the other side."

"Well, would you be so dedicated to follow me if I took a hit that I won't be coming back from?" Suddenly, she threw him a serious question, catching him off-guard.

Shepard stood silent for a while. "Always remember, Karlotte, if you die... I won't have anything much to live for anymore." He turned his back to her. "Just ask me, and I'll get it done."

"You know I wouldn't tell you to do anything like that, Jonathan." Karlotte moved herself closer to Shepard, who turned back to her. "Besides, you do have plenty to live for. You have Dr. Isaacs, our squad, the Rashad Base personnel... mankind... and our child."

The colonel's heart missed a beat.

"Results came in two months ago, but I'm afraid to tell you," Karlotte sounded ashamed, folding her arms insecurely. "I guess I was just-"

Shepard took hold of her shoulders, silencing her. "Not another word out of you, Karlotte."

He embraced her, a gesture that she took a little time to return. They were still in armor, and they knew that the planet was going to be embroiled in conflict in the next few days, but none of it mattered to them now. It was the start of a family for them.

"SHEPARD!" The colonel's omni-tool suddenly received a transmission from Lewis, and he was forced to look into the problem with one hand. "You lovebirds seriously need to get back here, now!"

Lewis quickly noticed the one arm Shepard kept around Karlotte's waist. "Oh, that's just great!" He went from frantic and alarmed in one second, to flushed and embarrassed in another. "Look, guys, I'm sorry I ruined a bloody moment, but we're having a much more pressing issue out here back in town! ET flyers have just landed some distance away from the city limits minutes ago, and the radar started registering unidentified blips on approach!"

"Perfect timing," Karlotte quipped, "Hold the fort until we arrive, Henry. We'll haul out the rest of the gear tomorrow."

"Sure, no rush!" Lewis cocked his alloy cannon. "Oh, and CARD operatives came by and told us they came to help, with more of them on the way. I'll see you guys either in a few hours back in town, or with Schultz in the Temple Ship. Agent Lewis, out." The transmission was cut.

. . .

Niruel Sector Grid P-55, Unknown Alien Colony

July 03rd, 2157 - 1830 hours

Turian Hierarchy Second Lieutenant Septimus Quiricus - Relay 314 Advance Force I, captain's retinue

"Captain, with all due respect," Lieutenant Septimus spoke, as he walked next to his commanding officer. "Our plan's all kinds of stupid. You know this'll never work, and yet you volunteered us to do this anyway. I'm pretty sure we won't even get to understand them and vice-versa."

"This is only a matter of protocol, lieutenant." Captain Silus Resulon said, trying to sound as if he was only following orders. "Citadel law dictates that the Hierarchy should offer our enemies a chance to surrender first. Once negotiations inevitably break down, then we can resort to violence immediately."

Septimus knew better, however. He'd been serving under Silus for three years now, which was enough to show the captain's true colors. Captain Silus was an incompetent, overranked fool who always proved extraordinarily persistent in achieving glory and recognition. He cherished the chance to be the first of the Hierarchy to draw blood against the enemy in a firefight. If anything, this will guarantee that he and the rest of the Resulon family will be mentioned in the early morning news.

In fact, the most probable cause of Silus' rather excessive awards and commendations was due to the Resulon family's well-connected and extremely affluent status, and that Hierarchy Command had very likely gone dangerously complacent after centuries of peace - the higher-ups never once questioned why Silus' mission results were less than stellar for his rank and supposed competence.

Septimus would've been the one in charge of the operation, if it weren't for his more humble origins as a lowly C-Sec officer.

"I still think this is a terrible idea," The lieutenant continued, "Admiral Nandrakan should've smashed through the enemy defence fleet first, then commenced planetary bombardment instead of sending us to go ahead of the vanguard fleet and negotiate with the natives. There's absolutely no guarantee that they won't just attack us either on sight, or after diplomacy fails us."

"You worry too much, lieutenant." Silus adopted a relaxed stance to accentuate his words, holding his assault rifle by the carrying handle. "In all likelihood, we'll be up against savages with low-level tech. We'd probably confuse them with bright lights and loud sounds."

"Spirits," Septimus couldn't help but voice his displeasure at his captain. He cared very little if he was court-martialled at a later date for doubting a superior officer if it meant saving his skin at the present time. "You didn't read the reports? The alien ships were fielding directed energy weapons, captain. If the aliens could manage to mount the damn things on their spaceborne vessels without tearing themselves apart, then there'd be nothing stopping them from giving their troops plasma rifles and such."

Finally, some sense was knocked into Silus, as evidenced by his more wary stance. "Plasma... rifles? But we still have kinetic shielding, don't we?" He started carrying his rifle on his hands, a talon on the trigger.

"Kinetic shields only stop bullets and bullet-type projectiles, captain. Directed energy weapons like plasma and lasers are a no-go." A sergeant piped in from the back. "So in essence, we're at a major disadvantage."

"What he means to say, is that we're fucking screwed here, sir." Septimus hammered down on the captain's already plummeting morale mercilessly. "We should just turn around already, then just tell the admiral that negotiations failed. It's safer that way."

Silus struggled internally to make a decision. The aliens were a formidable threat with plasma weapons, but before he left Palaven to serve, his father told him to only return with the condition that he achieve a significant feat in the Resulon clan's name. If he disobeyed, he will then be disinherited as a consequence. His loss would mean nothing; His siblings were plenty, each of them more than eager to take his place and succeed where he failed.

"Stand to, men! Alien infantry on approach!" A soldier shouted to his comrades, indicating at the shadowy profiles moving from cover to cover, blending themselves into the urban environment.

Whatever decision Silus was about to take, Septimus knew for a fact that it won't matter now. "Take positions, on the double! We can't take any risks, the negotiations are off!"

Silus didn't even object to having his men ordered around by a subordinate as he scurried for cover as well, finding shelter behind the walls of a building manufactured from a strange, alien kind of alloy. The structure, despite its foreign architecture, was recognizable enough as a home of a sorts.

A tense standoff occurred between the two sides. The turians expected the aliens to make a move soon, but for some strange reason, they stayed put and out of visual contact. The troopers started talking to one another as they waited amidst the eerie silence, mostly about how the enemy looked like.

Five minutes have passed without incident. Septimus started doubting if there were any alien soldiers at all. Thinking tactically, he thought it wise to remain in cover and keep scanning for foes for longer, just to be safe. Unfortunately for him, Silus thought way ahead of him.

"No hostile contacts! Regroup on me!" The captain slowly emerged out of cover, collapsing his rifle from its combat-ready form. "Let's press on. There's no one here-"

Silus abruptly paused mid-sentence, as if he suddenly realized something.

Septimus poked his head out of cover. "Captain! Get out of the open!" Silus didn't respond, nor move an inch. He just stood there, appearing frozen.

Growing impatient, he called for a fellow soldier. "Private Caius, go and secure the captain for his sake, will you?"

"Aye, lieutenant." The private nodded and quickly vaulted out of cover, putting his shotgun away as he ran straight for the captain.

Upon reaching him, Caius tried to put a gloved hand over Silus' shoulderplate. "Captain, it's not safe out here. We should get back into cover before-"

In a very unexpected move, Silus forcefully smacked away the private's hand and pushed him to the ground. In the time it took for every turian soldier to comprehend what just happened, Silus had de-collapsed his rifle, aimed it at the fallen soldier and unloaded a volley into Private Caius, killing him almost instantly. At such a close range, the soldier's kinetic barriers barely helped keeping his blood inside his own body.

"What the fuck!" Septimus cursed, just as the treasonous captain jumped into cover and started firing at his own men, keeping them down. The lieutenant bared his teeth as he ordered, "Kill that barefaced traitor!"

He always wanted to say that.

A markswoman and her spotter popped out of cover and took aim with their rifles. The first shot from the spotter ripped through Silus' shields, and the second one from the sniper tore a chunk of the captain's side.

Silus, however, didn't even flinch from his wound as he swiftly gunned down one half of the sniper team in retaliation, like a man possessed. Septimus was baffled at the captain's superbly improved marksmanship, but he resolved to prove himself better.

Scooping up the dead sniper's weapon from her lifeless talons, the lieutenant waited for the precise moment Silus' weapon overheated. When that time came, Septimus didn't hesitate to take the shot against his former commanding officer. With one squeeze of the trigger, the mass-accelerated slug found its mark on Silus' left eye.

Septimus felt overwhelming satisfaction in putting Silus down. He vaulted out of cover to check on his kill, but by that time, he completely forgot about the aliens they were looking out for. Before he could reach the captain's corpse, the lieutenant was promptly incapacitated when a wayward, superheated plasma bolt bypassed his shields and seared off most of his right shoulder, followed by another bolt that incinerated a large portion of his left leg.

"Contact, CONTACT! ENEMY ALERT!" A trooper shouted as he watched Septimus drop to the ground, screaming and writhing in agony and clutching at his cauterized shoulder wound.

From his position on the ground, Septimus watched as his soldiers appeared to start engaging unseen alien contacts making a frontal assault. With their most senior-ranking officers down for the count and affected by confusion, the Hierarchy troopers took heavy losses at the initial assault as bright green energy weapons fire destroyed what little cover they have, leaving them out in the open and vulnerable to further attacks.

The lieutenant crawled his way to a nearby waist-high wall, facing the direction of his men. He observed with a terrified expression as he spotted enemy infiltrators emerging out of cloak, in position to strike at his in men's backs. Kinetic shields, the Hierarchical Navy's most relied method of protection for its soldiers, were rendered useless when plasma bolts picked clean through the turian ranks, dropping several of them at a time.

All it took were thirty seconds for the skirmish to conclude. Septimus grimaced in agony at his burns and fear for the Citadel races. The Hierarchy had made a terrible mistake.

One of the last things Septimus ever saw was the last of his men, retreating in panic from the alien soldiers. The turian passed by the lieutenant's writhing form without so much as a second look, only concerned with his own life. He ran past a corner and was suddenly knocked to the ground when an alien soldier ambushed him, bashing its firearm's metallic stock into his face so hard, Septimus heard the sickening crunch that accompanied the blow, followed by the soft thump of the turian's body hitting the ground.

The ambusher alien locked down its foot on its prey's back as he tried to flee. It cocked its gun and shot the horrified turian soldier once, breaking his shields and wounding him severely. The alien seemed to chuckle softly and said something in its tongue, its voice made grating and more terrifying when filtered by its helmet.

Just as Septimus thought he was about to witness another of his kind unceremoniously put down, the alien appeared to take mercy, removing its armored boot from the soldier's back.

The lieutenant was barely conscious as he tried to at least get a good look of the enemy as much as he can. Armored in what appeared to be powered armor painted black with a helmet that resembled an antiquated gas mask, the alien's bulky plate gave it a larger-than-average profile. It also carried what seemed to be a shotgun with parts that resonated a dim orange light, and from what he observed, the gun fired several shards of a thick, metallic substance, shredding the alien's foes after breaking their shields.

Septimus turned his head to his side, and found Silus' corpse there, sans one eye. He weakly smiled before blacking out, satisfied with what he saw.

. . .

New Larkintown Outskirts, Shanxi Colony

July 03rd, 2157 - 1840 hours

Field Agent Lewis

"Good fucking work!" Lewis congratulated his trainees, who he made extensive use of in the previous battle. "The bastards probably never saw one of their own turning against them!"

"Don't get complacent," Nicoletta thought something wasn't quite right, however. She thought she'd be in for the fight of her life, but the carapaced, avian-like creatures hardly put up a fight when pitted against plasma weapons, trained CARD and XCOM operatives plus her own psionics. "We outnumbered them, surrounded them, have better guns and we got the element of surprise. I'd stay on my feet, if I were you."

Lewis would've laughed the spy off, but he had to acknowledge her. "She's right, we shouldn't let this go to our heads. I'm not saying you didn't do good enough, but we should try and get even better for when more of these bloody, two-legged lizard-birds show up on our doorstep."

"Get back to rest, everyone." The Federal spy told the colonial volunteers. "We'll mind the dead, get them a proper burial."

The colonists immediately dispersed without much commotion, except for three men who took another five minutes to depart from their fallen comrade's corpse. Corporal Blackmoore was one of the four casualties, all of them volunteers.

"What should we do with the captives?" A CARD operative inquired Lewis, who spared a quick glance at the trio of aliens they've captured, one of which the XCOM agent subdued personally.

"Take those tossers over there to a med-bay and have the medics do whatever they can. We can still use them, since they're still in one piece." He said, indicating at two of the aliens. With a grimace, he looked at the third, unconscious one. "But... I'm not so keen on that one. It's already missing two limbs, I don't think it'd last under interrogation."

"How can you interrogate aliens, anyway? They speak an entirely different language from everyone." Nicoletta approached the two men, holstering her smoking plasma pistol. "It's not like that one will give you anything. It'll probably prefer death, now that it's maimed twice over."

Before answering, Lewis pulled out his alloy cannon, walked over to the unconscious alien trooper and mercy-killed it with a single shot to the head fringe, splattering himself with the captive's dark blue blood.

One of the captive aliens, the one still uninjured and conscious, yelled something out in anguish. Nobody batted an eye when a CARD operative promptly silenced it with an arc thrower charge.

"We don't need to talk to them to get what we need. I dunno know much about what Dr. Garamond does to the EXALT agents we do manage to capture, but I heard he sucks out the information straight from their brains and leaves them as empty, brain-dead husks." The XCOM agent walked back to the Federal spy, putting his shotgun away. "The sick fuck tortures them first to get his rocks off, but I only heard rumors."

Nicoletta had heard of Dr. Arthur Garamond the 'Bloody-Handed', as some from CARD's sister agency, the PALADIN Collective, took to calling XCOM's chief researcher. "We don't have interrogation techniques that advanced, but I'm sure Director House wouldn't rely on it if we did."

Lewis actually thought about simply dispatching the captives to spare them of a horrible fate at Schultz base, but then again, they weren't human, and they probably wouldn't hesitate to interrogate or torture him if the situations were reversed, as was expected of aliens.

Deciding not to dwell on the thought any longer, Lewis chose to occupy himself with work. "Come on, let's haul these alien corpses into a morgue and retrieve their gear. The lads at R&D would probably have some uses for them."

It wasn't any longer before Shepard, Karlotte and Williams arrived. Lewis and Nicoletta brought them up to speed, and the colonel quickly decided that they should then rest for eight hours before returning to work, planning out a defense.

Unbeknownst to everyone, most of them wouldn't have the satisfaction of getting even six hours of rest.

. . .

HWS Indefatigable, 15,000+ kilometers to Unknown Alien Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 0115 hours

Admiral Aureliana 'Lina' Nandrakan - Draius Ferlodinus Legion vanguard leader

"We'll be reaching the target world in twenty minutes, ma'am. You have further orders for the fleet?"

Admiral Aureliana, or 'Lina' as close friends and colleagues have taken to calling her, stretched on her seat and yawned. FTL travel, like many things, Had a way of lulling her to sleep. "Stay on the current course. Have the sensor relays picked up any enemy vessels orbiting the planet yet?"

The tech officer seemed to pause. "Here... here's a report from the sensor crew, admiral." Lina warily took the report and started reading it, while the officer continued, "There must've been a mistake, the alien ship profiles can't be that large."

The admiral saw the source of the officer's fears. Though the enemy vessels were vastly outnumbered by the turian vanguard fleet as detailed in the report, each and every one of them was vastly larger than their counterparts in the Hierarchical Navy. An alien cruiser was almost as large as a turian dreadnought, and the sole alien dreadnought stretched almost as far as two turian cruisers welded together by the end.

Still, as history demonstrated time and time again, size and brute force weren't nearly enough to be an effective counter to sound tactics and and a decent strategy.

"Men, I want the entire vanguard to adopt the Stalwart Predator Doctrine," Lina calmly announced to the Indefatigable bridge crew. "We cannot delay; we must achieve the element of surprise if we are to destroy the majority of the enemy defence fleet before they could even retaliate."

The ship's veteran executive officer complied. "All ships, this is the Indefatigable speaking. We are about to engage the enemy; Navigators, move your ships into position and prepare for assault. Gunners, man your battle stations and ready yourselves for battle." He spoke into the fleet comms, managing to sound a little unenthusiastic.

"All marine units are to report to their designated shuttle bays immediately. You are to secure and hold the planetary capital until further orders," Lina spoke through the comms with more spirit, though not by much. First contact wars, despite popular civilian opinion, was a regular, almost entirely unexciting affair for Hierarchical Navy officers, and this one seemed only a little different, what with how the aliens actually managed to severely cripple a relay patrol fleet only a while back.

"Watch your backs out there, people. Always remember, the primarchs are watching your performance. Those who performed their objectives exceptionally well can look forward to a bright future as a Spectre candidate," Lina continued, with some genuine cheer.

"Good luck, and may the Spirits keep you."

. . .

Machine Hangar D-41, Federal Navy New Larkintown Barracks, Shanxi Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 0120 hours

General Williams

"Two points to the right, a shift of zero-point-seven degrees, a little adjustment to the barrel angle, and bam!"

Williams squeezed the gauss cannon's trigger with a dismantled MEC arm, propelling the magnetically-accelerated projectile into a training dummy's center of mass with remarkable accuracy, obliterating it utterly in a simulated explosion of wooden splinters.

"My eyes weren't nearly as good as they were back in the day, but hell, I still got it." The old general proudly declared as watched the holographic dummy piece itself back into shape.

"Think you can replicate my shot, sonny?" He offered the gun and the cybersuit arms to the only other person in the hangar that night, not even sparing a sideways glance.

Colonel Shepard firmly refused the offer. "Don't be absurd, general. I'm a close combat specialist, not a MEC sharpshooter."

Williams hadn't slept, and he knew he couldn't because he was too excited to try out the new weapons they excavated from the nearby derelict XCOM base. He decided to tire himself out by shooting at holographic targets in the hangar.

Shepard on the other hand, was always very light on his sleep due in no small part to his occupation. That night, he put on his armor and entered the hangar after hearing the loud noises coming from it. There, he was relieved to see nothing too unusual going on; it was only the general practicing his marksmanship, challenging himself by taking a shot of brandy every few minutes.

"Close-quarters, huh." Williams consumed the contents of another shot glass and turned to his side, regarding the colonel with his full attention this time. Almost immediately, he noticed what appeared to be a sheathed, exoframe-scaled officer's sword secured by magnetic locks to Shepard's hip.

He decided to play dumb. "What, like shotguns and assault rifles? There's a weapon locker over here somewhere. Why don't you try impressing this decrepit old man, then?"

The colonel scoffed. "You'll have to excuse me, I worded it rather poorly. You see, general, my expertise lies with hand-to-hand fighting, which involves melee weapons and such."

He paced around the hangar, while Wiliams listened. "Back in the old days of Earth, when war between humans and the Advent still went on, XCOM was forced on the defensive by 'berserker' mutons, a resilient variant of the muton species that relied on spiked gauntlets to dispatch our infantry. To counter this alien on equal grounds, the director introduced the Templar doctrine."

Shepard took his sword by the ornate hilt and unsheathed it, accompanied by a sharp electric crackle. Williams expected a dull old sword, but the blade appeared to be wreathed with an unstable energy field.

"The Templars were first tested in battle at a cathedral dedicated to Saint Agatha, the patron saint of healing and martyrdom." Shepard huffed a breath of a laugh. "Heh, those soldiers even inspired the formation of a quasi-religious, paramilitary organization with the Council of Nations' full support, called the Agathian Knights. I was attached to them, once. All Templars were."

"Pardon my skepticism, colonel, but I'd rely on a soldier with a gun more times than I'd do a lunatic with a fancy sword," The general dryly stated. "These things haven't been declared obsolete for centuries without a good reason, as you know."

"You're right, but we're just as skilled with a gun as we are with blades." Shepard said, indicating at the folded assault rifle he sported at the small of his back. "If the best soldier in the Federal Navy was caught in a fight where for some reason he couldn't make use of his gun, he'll be just as easily killed as the next man. One of the major points of the Templar doctrine is to be a decent combatant at all ranges; we don't overspecialize like most soldiers nowadays."

Williams pointed an accusing MEC finger at the man. "Don't you talk shit about 'Madman' Jenssen. That man's batshit-crazy, but he's a fucking legend."

Shepard gave the general a blank look. Seconds of silence passed between the two men, before Williams burst into laughter.

"Ahaha, I get what you mean, Shepard." The general took a sip out of his brandy, "How about we start this over? You said you were in a religious order, does that mean you're a praying man, Shepard, you go to church and all th-"

Williams felt his stomach churn all the sudden. The floor and the building they were in seemed to shift and shake, and the general only barely saved his brandy bottle from being toppled over the table. Things settled down after a while, though.

"Christ... what the hell was that?" Williams asked Shepard, whose helmet was already folded over his head.

"A dreadnought's fusion lance shockwave." The colonel, with some alarm in his tone, answered the general. "You know what this means, Williams? It's time."

The general didn't take long to spring into action. Bringing up his omni-tool, he opened up a commlink to Admiral Al-Aziz, who was in charge of the orbital defence fleet. "Al-Aziz, this is Malcolm speaking! What the fuck is going on up there?!"

A burst of static came from the comms before a Scottish-accented voice came through. "General, we've just spotted an unidentified fleet in approach to Shanxi, but they didn't respond to our hails." The Federal Navy admiral calmly informed his marine counterpart on the planet. "That shockwave you might have felt was from our first shot; the surveyors are reporting that two of their cruisers have just been destroyed."

The admiral paused for a while. "...not a bad start, but we can only hold three hundred frigates, a hundred cruisers and a dreadnought for long. I suggest you start preparing for unwanted company down there. I'm dropping all the sectopods planetside now."

Williams always wondered how Al-Aziz, a man of pure Middle-Eastern descent, got himself a very convincing Glaswegian brogue. He might never have the satisfaction of finding out, because the admiral was determined to fight to the end. "Give the bastards hell, admiral. I'll see you on the other side!"

"Good luck, Malcolm. We'll be transmitting our situation until we're rendered unable to do so." Still as stoic as ever, the admiral said. "This is Admiral Al-Aziz, signing off." The link was dropped.

. . .

HWS Indefatigable, 3,000+ kilometers to Unknown Alien Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 0135 hours

Admiral Lina

"There hasn't been any word from Captain Resulon as of yet, admiral." A senior communications officer told her leader of the news. "That's strange... they should be telling us of their expedition results by now. Should we continue waiting for them to-"

Lina cut her off. "No, that's not necessary. Assume the worst and write them off as dead; we'll continue with conquering this world regardless of Silus' mission results." She sighed tiredly, knowing of the myriad of outdated, ridiculously unsound protocols her forces were nevertheless obliged to follow through in case of situations like the one the vanguard fleet was in.

"And what of our landing party? Any word from General Desolas at the barracks?" The admiral then inquired.

Another officer came up with the answers. "The Arterius brothers have previously signed off their approval; they're all set and are now awaiting your word to begin the assault on the alien world, admiral."

The admiral grimaced in a noticeable manner. She made it no secret that she felt very ill at ease when she neared any of the two Arterius brothers for reasons even she couldn't quite understand. General Desolas, the older Arterius, was undoubtedly a brilliant tactician and proved himself steadfastly loyal to the cause; he also never failed to try to come off as friendly and personable. However, Lina felt that his personality was just a front for something far darker. Persistent rumors of his supposed insanity and his erratic mood-swings while in private certainly did not help him appear like the honest, dependable image he was trying to cultivate to the public.

As for Lieutenant Saren the younger Arterius, Lina supposed she'd feel a lot less on edge while around him, given the fact that her younger sister was involved with the Spectre candidate at one point - he even visited the Nandrakan manor several times. Alas, his extremely polite demeanor and overly austere attitude made him come across as aloof and condescending. Lina would dare even think that she felt more wary when around Saren than with Desolas. At least the general was open and up-front, but the lieutenant was like a blank slate - cold and unreadable, with blue eyes that gleamed with terrifying deviousness and cunning.

"The enemy vessels are turning, admiral. We've been spotted!" The executive officer informed his leader, just as she was starting to relax on her seat. "Our main guns will be in range in another thousand kilometers!"

Lina nodded, taking a more active stance on her command chair. "That is no cause for alarm - everything is in order. Are the gunnery crews ready?"

"The gunners are all lit up green, they're prepared to fire on your orders, admiral!" A senior tech officer reported.

"Navigators, full speed ahead." Lina relayed her voice through the ship comms. "This will be over soon, so try to make-"

"Whoa, holy crap! One of them just opened up! THEY'VE OPENED UP!" A sensor officer shouted in alarm. "Brace for impact! We've got-"

A bright orange glare lit up the Indefatigable's command bridge, blinding those unfortunate souls close to the windows. The light was gone as quickly as it appeared, and none of the fleet appeared worse for wear.

"How the hell did they have that kind of range?" Lina inquired, mostly to herself. "Status report!"

"Spirits..." The executive officer put a hand over his forehead as he read over the data from his console. "This just in, we just lost two cruisers to a directed energy attack... all hands on both vessels lost."

Lina felt her heart skip a beat. "What. Let me see that!" She left the command chair and stomped over to the XO's console. The holoscreen data confirmed what the officer just reported - the Varnus and the Titanborn were both lost to a single enemy projectile that scored a precise hit on Titanborn, emerged out the cruiser's portside hull and continued flying until it also put Varnus out of commission.

In denial, Lina stormed off the console and leaned over to the starboard windows to have a look at the fate of the two ships for herself. What she saw unnerved her: the two casualties were cleaved messily into two scorched pieces, now serving as the final resting place for a combined total of three-thousand turians, while also serving as fiery obstacles for those vessels unfortunate enough to be positioned behind the wrecks.

Lina now believed that this mission was not meant to be an routine first contact engagement. If she couldn't handle the situation competently enough in the eyes of her crew, it could spell the end of her career if she was fortunate enough, or her death if she was not.

"All vessels," The admiral started, still making an effort to appear calm. "Take evasive action. Don't let them get another shot through!"

As if the enemy heard her, another lance of orange light streaked through the void, tearing through another cruiser and severely damaging those close to the point of impact. After the vanguard fleet passed a certain threshold, a veritable hurricane of weaker but vastly more numerous energy projectiles were fired into the mass of turian vessels. The projectiles bypassed the Turian Navy's overdeveloped kinetic barriers entirely and melted off the ablative plating, superheating the interiors of the stricken ships and incinerating the unfortunate crew.

While her fleet advanced closer to the planet, Lina started to see the enemy vessels with her own eyes, and indeed, they were as impressive and intimidating as their readings indicated. "All ships in range?" She inquired her XO.

"Y-yes! The fleet is prepared to engage on your command, admiral!" He was lying through his teeth; nearly a full quarter of the fleet still lagged behind, having been crippled when plasma ripped through their engines.

"Then what the hell are you waiting for? Tell the fleet to shoot these mongrels down!" The admiral had already abandoned her prim and proper attitude.

The Hierarchical vanguard ships synchronized well with one another as they fired, peppering the enemy fleet with a hail of mass-accelerated rounds. To her eternal surprise, an attack that should've left the enemy fleet in shambles merely seemed to put large dents in their extremely thick armored plating, which was especially true for the dreadnought. The minute-long volley only managed to destroy a single cruiser and cripple two others, and this loss didn't even appear to slow the enemy attack.

This is not fucking good, Lina began to lose her patience. The majority of the enemy vessels were still in fighting shape, progress wasn't nearly as fast and her fleet had taken too much casualties. She hated to rely on crude tactics, but the situation left her with no choice. Relieving her executive officer of his position as her mouthpiece, the admiral began issuing the fleet orders straight from their leader.

"Legion, this is Admiral Nandrakan speaking! Our fleet has already taken too much damage, and I'm not willing to continue letting our ships get picked off like this! We must commit to a pincer movement!" She relayed, and without so much as a pause for breath, she continued, "Cruisers, stay put and assume Unyielding Colossus Doctrine! Frigates, break off from the fleet and encircle the enemy! Flank them from both sides and don't. Let. Up!"

The turian vessels quickly did as they're told, with the larger vessels staying and keeping up the fire with the command dreadnought while the frigates dispersed like hornets from their nests, wildly picking several different directions only to reorganize as they closed in on enemy vessels, combining their fire to a much better effect than the previous volley.

Things slowly started looking up for Lina, as they should be. Finally, she could take the load from her shoulders and let the marines handle the job planetside, after the initial bombardment. It would be one hell of a public rep nightmare waiting for her the moment her battered fleet returned to Digeris, but at the price of reverse-engineered plasma weapons and another conquered world, she might have the necessary offerings for her to keep her career.

"Admiral! Some ships in the fleet report to having been infiltrated! They're asking you for orders!" Suddenly, one of the comm officers alerted the admiral with a desperate expression, his comm-bead having been repeatedly assaulted by the panicked reports of turian marines dying to unknown alien boarders.

"What? That's... that's not possible! It's not-" Lina cut herself off, having come to the realization that she had seen very impossible things manifesting before her eyes. How the aliens managed to sneak in several boarding parties into the vanguard fleet's midst without being spotted, the admiral had no clue. "Gah, what do you think they should do? Mobilize all landing parties and use them to repel the boarders!"

The officer quickly got to work, lest he invoke his leader's wrath. "Cruisers, the admiral needs you to clear your ships of hostile contacts! Round up the marines in your crew and... wait a minute. That can't be right..." According to his flashing console, the marine detail in the Indefatigable's cargo bay reported having been engaged with robotic insects.

Just as the turian officer was about to warn the admiral, the bulkhead his console was mounted to was suddenly blasted open by an emerald-green explosion, covering him with severe plasma burns and dropping his broken body to the floor, much to the shock of the entire bridge crew. When the smoke cleared and the electrical fires died down somewhat, one of the alien boarders revealed itself, hovering ominously at the breach it made on the Indefatigable's command bridge wall.

"Spirits, what the fuck is that thing!" One of the navigators shouted, just as the boarder, a silver-painted robot with a profile that highly resembled a floating spider-like creature, impaled the comm officer lying on the floor with its sharpened tail and subsequently tearing into the poor man's corpse like a predator with its kill.

"DON'T just stand there!" Lina screamed in exasperation at her crew, drawing her sidearm and emptying rounds into the creature as it enthusiastically painted the walls with the comm officer's blood. "Fucking SHOOT IT!"

The bridge security guardsmen were the first to regain composure, drawing their assault rifles and peppering the alien machine with mass-accelerated bullets. The rest of the crew quickly joined in with their sidearms and omni-tool tech attacks. The creature buckled and twitched as rounds and other projectiles pinged off its vulnerable interior plating, and it responded by spraying wild, inaccurate fire on the bridge crew, scorching at least two officers who were standing at the wrong place at the wrong time. Eventually, as the bridge security guards started doing serious damage, the machine was forced to fold itself into a disc-like defensive form before attempting to retreat.

"Stand clear!" A security guard pulled a grenade launcher from a weapon rack and fired a shot at the fleeing creature. She missed her first attempt, but she managed to score a direct hit on the machine on her second shot, which caused it to explode in a spectacular manner, covering the walls and machinery close to it with thick scorch marks in the process.

Lina let her smoking pistol slip from her trembling claws. Looking very terrified yet extremely furious at the same time, the admiral finally had enough. "This day MUST be won, no matter the damned cost! Get back to work!"

. . .

Fortified Bunker Complex, Level 8, XCOM Shanxi Branch

July 04th, 2157 - 0230 hours

Colonel Shepard

"The Achilles just went down, all escape pods jettisoned into the planet." Admiral Al-Aziz reported calmly, in contrast to the large amount of panicked shouts and blaring klaxons accompanying his voice in the background. "One of my ship's turrets just went offline. Commencing field repairs."

Shepard had told Williams that he and the agents won't be joining him and his marines as they took shelter in another bunker hidden away underneath the barracks in New Larkintown, due to overcrowding. Just after helping with evacuating New Larkintown's civilian populace, the agents packed their gear, sent their remaining Lotus units to assist the spaceborne defenders and left the city to take shelter in the ransacked XCOM base.

Once Al-Aziz's defence fell, there would be nothing to stop the aliens from desolating the colony with repeated orbital bombardments.

"There's too many of them. We can't hold for much longer." The admiral said. "Christ, a dozen flankers just blew off the engines. My dreadnought can't turn; we're sitting du-." A wave of static momentarily blocked out the commlink. "-there's no one left, it's just my ship now. Most of the crew already left using the escape pods... but we might still buy a few more minutes before..." The admiral quietly trailed off when his ship's raid sirens started to get louder and louder, drowning out every other sound in the commlink.

"...we've been boarded."

At the XCOM base, some of the agents thought about what course of action would they take had they been in charge of Al-Aziz's dreadnought. They quickly made the decision to set the ship's reactors to critically overload, blowing the vessel into oblivion and destroying anything close to it when it exploded. Two hundred kilometers away, General Williams and some of his men have hoped that the admiral and his crew would fight off the enemy marines and keep taking the fight to the alien fleet.

"Comm relays are taking damage. General Williams, if you're still listening, then do me a favor and don't let these wankers take over the planet. I don't want to die for nothing." The admiral said, resigned to his fate. "They'll be knocking down on my door any moment now, but I won't let them reach that point. I'm not in the mood for visitors at the moment."

He sighed, then distinctive the sound of a cork being plucked out of a bottle was heard. "Aaahh, good thing I spent most of my retirement fund on this - all three-hundred and seven credits of it. Goodbye, everyone. I hope you have better luck than I did."

With that said, the commlink was cut.

"Think he'll do the right thing?" Karlotte queried the other colonel.

Shepard dropped his omni-tool. "We'll see." He stood up from his seat. "Right now, we need to worry about ourselves. If the aliens did what every decent tactician would, we'll have to wait the bombardment out and link up with Williams in the city."

The colonel looked to his agents, which numbered only in the few hundreds. "By that time, the bare bones of our plan should already be in place." He shuddered to think just how much troops the enemy can afford to put down.

. . .

Unknown Alien Colony, in perimeter of Colony Capital

July 04th, 2157 - 0620 hours

Corporal Vespasius Thrax - Predator Squad designated marksman

"This area's clear! Double time it, people!" The shuttle co-pilot set the green light for the marines to clear out of the vehicle. "Give the bastards hell, boys! For the primarchs!"

Corporal Thrax was among those marines. Being barely out of boot camp, Thrax was absolutely thrilled to make use of his new skills. But like most new soldiers of the Hierarchy, he also couldn't help but feel a little nervous at the fact that he was to participate in active combat, where someone else would be testing their skills on him, too.

The eight-man team of Predator Squad filed out of their vehicle, neatly forming themselves up with other squads from the other landing shuttles. Hovering convoys of Sikarius Main Battle Tanks accompanied by fast-moving pairs of the more traditional Gladius Infantry Fighting Vehicle passed by those turians on foot, and Firelance fighter jets zoomed past their heads, monitoring the city airspace for enemy aircraft and drones. It was a long walk from the wilderness to the city they were scheduled to besiege and capture, but the Hierarchy's marines were trained to not let such things hinder a campaign's progress.

Thrax felt the cold morning wind on his face as he marched along the paved road with his comrades. He was burdened by the heavy legionnaire gear he was obliged to take along, but his excitement and trepidation kept his mind off any small inconvenience. Looking up ahead, he could faintly see the devastated alien capital on the horizon, with thick plumes of smoke billowing from several of the flattened buildings.

Admiral Nanadrakan - furious at the losses she sustained after the enemy dreadnought self-destructed - immediately called for the prolonged orbital bombardment of the planet below them in order to destroy anti-air defences for the landing shuttles' benefit and to soften up any resisting forces the aliens could muster up. She was careful not to overdo it, though, for she had standing orders to capture the world without rendering it into an inhospitable, near-worthless rock of fire and rubble.

The soldiers followed the trail until they reached the outskirts of the ruined city, which looked completely devoid of life. Rubble, wide craters in the earth and scorched buildings were what dominated the landscape, and even bits of the destroyed alien dreadnought were discovered among the ruins.

Still, the marines plowed through every obstacle in the way and shouldered on, keeping on the lookout for any defenders. Predator was just unfortunate enough to be assigned to the very tip of the spearhead formation, meaning that if alien forces attempted an assault at the front of the turian force, Predator Squad would be the first to feel the brunt of the attack.

"You think we're going to see some action around these parts?" Lance Corporal Apulium blurted out, querying anyone listening. "The fleet sure did a number on this place, flattened down everything. I've been waiting all my life to finally shoot somebody, then we come down here and find out that some overcompensating cannon cocker in orbit did our jobs for us."

"We'd count ourselves lucky to even come across a tank or something," Another lance corporal, Kaeso, put out his thoughts. "Nothing but rubble out here. It's strange that we haven't come across any bodies, though. I want to see how they looked like."

"I heard they're all fifteen feet tall, have asses for faces and have tentacles growing out of their crotch," Sergeant Secundus, Predator's squad leader, can't resist a chance to mess with his subordinates. "Neh, just kidding. Nobody's ever seen what these bastards look like, though I bet they're ugly as the yahg. The universe keeps surprising us with life's ugliness."

"Captain Resulon and his men probably saw what the aliens look like, and you can bet they wished they just saw ugly." It was Thrax's turn to speak. "They haven't reported back in ages, and they're likely roasting over a fire right now, with the natives dancing around them like damned pyjaks."

"That's not that bad of a thought, actually." Secundus chuckled. "Resulon had me cleaning latrines for a whole week because I didn't salute him when I had my hands full. Always wanted that idiot get taken down a peg since then."

Suddenly, a Galan tank painted with the traditional command colors hovered up, accompanied by a trio of smaller Sikarii. The three vehicles moved up the formation, parking themselves at the very front, just as the men gathered up together to hear what their commander had to say.

The Galan's command hatch slid open, and out came General Severus, one of the senior marine commanders. "Alright, men! Stand in attention and listen to me!" He commanded his soldiers as he emerged out of the hovertank, coming up to stand at the top of the turret.

General Severus, a noted scholar of turian military history, a veteran of many undocumented Terminus Systems engagements and an infamously eccentric fellow, was wearing an old-fashioned Unification Wars-era general's uniform complete with an antique ceremonial sword, said to be wielded by a supposedly exceedingly famous ancestor of his.

"Legionaries, we are about to embark into hostile territory!" Severus grandly declared at the top of his voice. "It may not look like it, but I'm secure in my knowledge that the enemy will cross all lines just to halt our indefatigable march! In fact, I wouldn't be so surprised if they're listening to me speak now, trembling in FEAR of our approach!"

"Ohhh, boy. Here he goes with the speech again..." Secundus muttered to his men behind his shoulder with gritted mandibles.

Apulium lowered his head as he talked, "What, does the general do something like this often, sarge?"

Secundus wore a smug grin on his face. "This?" He gestured at the Severus atop his tank, making wild gestures with his arms spread wide. "All the damn time. It don't motivate us men and veterans none, but the boys and the unbloodied eat his bullshit rhetoric up like a Demetrius-class through fuel," He laughed. "With Severus around, morale is never a problem when your army's full of stupid rookies with too much muscle and too little brains."

"-courage, duty and dedication, that's what this navy needs from you!" General Severus continued, his voice never wavering in strength and grandeur. "Perform your duties with these traits and show no hesitation to do the Hierarchy's justice, then your rewards will be great - you'll secure your own place in Citadel history! Conversely, display any sort of cowardice and hesitation to die for the cause, then I'll personally see to it that you will be severely punished! History will forget that you even existed!"

The marine general drew his sword, levelling it at the deserted streets of the alien city ahead. "Go forth, brave soldiers! We'll see to it that the legion flag is raised over this city today, or die trying! Forward MARCH!" He quickly hopped back into his tank, just as the marines shouted and cheered for their leader.

With renewed vigor, the turian force moved into the city proper, with General Severus' tank leading the charge. They came there expecting to find glory and triumph, but what they found waiting for them in the city was - to their shock and horror - quite the opposite.

The Hierarchical marines were forced to halt their advance when Severus' command tank suddenly burst apart in a great, fiery eruption, incinerating quite a few of those standing in close proximity to the vehicle and maiming several others who were either set on fire by the blast or were struck by the flying superheated metal bits from the exploding Galan.

Thrax was quick to shake off his surprise and regain his composure, jumping off to the side of the street and out of the open... though some of his fellow marines were not as swift nor auspicious. Kaeso and a dozen others, having been caught out in the open without cover by a hail of plasma bolts heading their way, were painfully consumed by fire when a hidden alien repeater turret opened fire on them from the cover of ruins.

"INCOMIIING!" Secundus screamed as several humanoid figures in conventional armor painted in urban camouflage colors emerged from the rubble and the windows.

They utilized the element of surprise to terrifying effect as they opened up with their arsenal of plasma weaponry on the confused turian marines, sowing heavy casualties in the small period of fifteen seconds. Infantry were cut down from where they stood and vehicles were quickly disabled by a swift plasma explosive to the turret area, if they weren't outright destroyed.

The aliens didn't stay in one place to add to the turians' disorientation; they fired as they moved from one position in the ruins to another, covering each other and intermittently hurling plasma grenades and flashbangs in a twisted, foreign parallel to established turian stratagem.

Quickly reorganizing themselves, the Hierarchy's troops returned fire with their mass-accelerator arms, killing several of the aliens in turn as they were moving out in the open street. Turian marines split off into groups of six and fired as they advanced, showing off that they were capable of squad-level tactics as well. Accurate sniper fire from the marksmen picked off those alien soldiers perched on the windows, and omni-tool tech attacks proved quite useful in a myriad of combat tasks.

Hovertanks and IFVs concentrated their firepower on the most entrenched alien positions while Hierarchy aircraft made danger-close strafing runs with machine guns and rockets, destroying any obstacle in the path to victory. With every dead alien, progress was made.

In the end, superior numbers and air superiority proved to be the most deciding factor in that battle, as the turians slowly pushed the battlefront back, deeper into the city. General Severus' death was a heavy blow to morale, but the marines were quick to regain their strength under a new leader, Colonel Lukarn Jorianus.

"Drive them back, soldiers of the legion! ADVANCE!" Lukarn was among those marines who led the charge, blazing away at the enemy with his battle rifle. Realizing that they were fighting a losing battle, the aliens quickly switched from frontal, man-to-man assaults to guerrilla tactics - sniping at advancing marines from afar and making flanking attacks on overextended turian units before quickly retreating.

Thrax was among those marksmen who chose to stay behind and pick off any alien that came into sight. He and a few others of his designation were holed up on an intact rooftop, with plenty of cover to adequately hide themselves from sight.

The marine sharpshooter lined up a fleeing target his spotter took notice of in the space of three seconds. He pulled the rifle's trigger and made his seventh kill for the day, satisfied at the work he's done. Pulling his sights from the scope and letting his spotter do his job, the corporal took the time to clean his scope's lens and readjust the sights.

"Whoa, take a look at that!" Private Lanius indicated at a distance, near where the main advance force should be. "Over by that rooftop with the slanted billboard, close to that plume of smoke!"

The marine sharpshooter grumbled inaudibly as he peered back into his scope, to the direction where his spotter gestured at. Annoyed to see nothing special coming into view, he took a closer look and turned on his scope's thermal vision.

His jaw dropped in shock at what he saw. "Holy shit," He mumbled. "Secundus and Lukarn are fucked."

The view that was obscured by rubble was glowing a bright orange in the thermal sights, indicating massive numbers of hostiles hidden there. Hovering just a few meters to the right also revealed a large number of waiting hostiles utilizing cloaking devices, lying in wait for Colonel Lukarn's force to move past them and attack their vulnerable rear flank.

"We need to warn the poor bastards." Lanius said. "They'll get wiped out."

The corporal was already on it, activating the radio built into his suit's collar. He turned to his side as he spoke into the device, "Stingray Five, this is Corporal Vespasius of Predator Squad. You're advancing into an ambush, I repeat, you're about to be ambushed. My spotter and I noticed a-"

A pair of metal hands grabbed hold of the metal handles on Thrax's backpack, hoisted him up to his feet and slammed him onto the rooftop's concrete fence, knocking the wind out of him. His assailant then pulled him back, violently throwing him away from the rooftop's edge and onto the floor.

Thrax coughed and wheezed as he tried to stand up. As he struggled up, his eyes came across his spotter lying down on the floor with him some distance away, weakly clutching at the gushing blade wound on his throat while he gurgled his last breaths.

Acting on adrenaline, Thrax hurriedly got up to his feet and tried to take his fallen rifle, but as he turned around, he was horrified to see a scene lifted straight from a surreal nightmare: the rooftop he was standing was now almost completely covered in turian blood and viscera, with the mutilated corpses of his fellow sharpshooters strewn haphazardly over the floor and the concrete fence. There were almost no signs of struggle, indicating that if the attackers wanted Thrax dead, he wouldn't even have the time to think about it.

"No... NO!" Panic fully took hold of the marine sharpshooter. He tried to make a run for it, but was forced to stop when he found his path blocked by several alien creatures in dark exoframes wielding plasma weapons and brandishing oversized, electrified knives.

As the aliens slowly approached him with unsavory intent, Thrax could feel his heart beat faster than his mind could register. He turned around to head back, but he soon came to the realization that with every direction he could take, there stood an alien soldier, looking at him with those gas-mask helmets with pairs of blank, soulless eye sockets that glowed a ghastly orange-red. His only chance for freedom was a dangerous jump from the edge of the building.

Remembering the things he was taught at basic training, Thrax decided to give the aliens a bloody nose instead of salvaging what chance he had at continued living. He tapped at his chestplate quicker than the aliens could react, activating the grenades strapped to a bandolier there. As the aliens scrambled for cover and took running steps backwards, the marine sharpshooter waited to die.

That was it for him, he thought. He'll be remembered; his life for the cause.

Alas, the corporal didn't expect one of the aliens to suddenly appear by his side, holding what appeared to be a plastic block mounted on a pistol grip. Thrax reacted too late when he found himself incapacitated by an electric shock from the device. Before he lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was one of the aliens tearing off his grenade bandolier and throwing it into the air, off the side of the rooftop.

. . .

New Larkintown, Shanxi Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 0650 hours

General Williams - 'Hammerhead'

Williams in his enhanced Juggernaut MEC - utilizing a cloaking device taken from the XCOM base - materialized into sight on a rooftop just above the alien advance force. His soldiers, all garrisoned in buildings adjacent to the enemy formation, also emerged from the windows, brandishing sniper rifles and machine guns.

"Wait for it..." The general held up a cybersuit arm, and his men awaited his word.

The aliens obliviously strolled past the hidden Federal colonial force. They advanced further up the street until they arrived at an intersection, where a suspicious amount of rubble and junk liberally covered the area. Williams tried to contain his laughter when the first alien soldier stepped over a piece of rubble, making it start inexplicably humming for some reason.

The aliens ignored the strange noise at first, but then it started getting louder. More and more pieces of rubble started humming in accord as the soldiers passed over them. Soon, the humming was all that could be heard, surrounding the aliens with a wall of noise and confusing them to no end. It was at that time that Williams decided to stop toying around with the enemy. He watched with anticipation as he offhandedly gave his adjutant with the detonator beside him a thumbs-up.

The adjutant rolled her eyes. "About time, sir." She darkened the shade on her helmet's visor before she pressed the button.

A massive, brilliant emerald explosion erupted at the intersection, scorching anything within its radius with the heat of a star twice over. Nearly a thousand aliens and several dozen of their vehicles were caught in the explosion, messily yet painlessly eradicating all traces of them from existence. All those who witnessed the explosion in close proximity and were unfortunate enough to be still alive at the end of it were permanently rendered blind - their eyes quite literally burned from their sockets like eggs in a microwave oven. All that's left of the intersection was a giant, smoking crater.

"Hah!" Williams allowed himself a single, hearty breath of a laughter. "Heh, that was, ehem, very unexpected!" He grinned, mentally praising XCOM for providing him with such a magnificent plasma bomb. He could only imagine the scale of the explosion if the bomb wasn't tweaked down to its lowest heat output.

The remnants of the alien advance force panicked, as expected. They ran back the direction they came from, straight into the arms of the waiting Federal forces.

"Aha, that's right, you sick, probing fucks... come to me... come to Daddy Malcolm..." Williams muttered to himself as the aliens approached.

"General Williams, we saw the explosion," A commlink with Colonel Shepard on the other side resounded in Williams' radio. "You need to initiate the second phase of our plan and immediately vacate your forces from that area. Your time runs short, so make it quick."

Williams was taken by surprise. "'Vacate my forces'? Now, why the hell would I wanna do that, spook? Are you out of your mind?" He spoke into the comms. "We have them by the balls; we should take the fight to them and drive them outta here, I say."

"It would be a mistake to assume that the enemy hasn't been adapting to the situation, general. As I speak, a larger force of hostiles - eight thousand of them, are moving up from the outskirts and to your position." The colonel informed the general in a flat, calm tone. "You'll be wiped out without our help."

"Yeah, and about that - just why don't you come over here and help us out, spy boy?" Williams inquired the agent. "Or is that how XCOM does things - get the Federation to do its dirty work?"

Colonel Shepard scoffed. "If my precursors did precisely that, both of us would never have existed. My forces are on other parts of the city, general, and they have their own objectives. A task force just secured a captive for us to interrogate, another prevented a group of shuttles from offloading more soldiers into the city, and another one just diverted a large force of hovertanks away from your position. We've all been busy, despite evidence to the contrary."

"Yeah, yeah. I get you." Williams abruptly cut comms, grumbling to himself as he opened up another link to another part of his task force nearby, consisting mostly of sectopods and MEC troopers. "Earthshakers, this is Hammerhead. Phase two of three is a go, I repeat, proceed with the attack. Make every shot count and leave none of these bastards alive! Hammerhead, out."

The aliens continued to retreat further down the street. They would've left with no further casualties, but suddenly, the ground beneath them had started to quake.

Several soldiers in MECs rounded a corner and quickly set up a blockade on the aliens' path, preventing them from escaping back to friendly lines. The cybersuited humans levelled their arms and promptly unleashed hell at the mass of alien soldiers, cooking them inside out as particle beams superheated their armor and natural carapace. Most of the aliens reorganized into small groups and returned fire, but to no avail, as all human military-grade Ilyushinite armor were reinforced specifically to resist mass-accelerated projectiles from prothean schematics.

Realizing that trying to fight was a lost cause, the aliens doubled back to the vaporized intersection, but once again, they found themselves beset by a quartet of hulking bipedal machines armed with fusion lances and blaster launchers, supported by squads of human infantry. It was at this time that Williams ordered his men to open fire from the windows, showering the enemy below them with sniper and machine gun fire. Some of the aliens broke off from their squads and ran off into the alleys, but most decided to make one final stand, fighting with greater ferocity in a manner similar to cornered rats.

Though they fought valiantly until the end, it didn't take long for the aliens to get messily wiped out. Over three thousand of them were killed on that street, in contrast to the middling casualties Williams' forces sustained, mostly from the sectopods' infantry support. Williams found the aliens' tenacity quite admirable, but deluded. He won't let them invade human colonies and walk away unscathed.

"Pack up and move out of here, maggots!" He ordered through the comms, as he let his smoking particle cannon cool off. "Report to the city center immediately, we're all in for the fight of our lives! Get to it!"

. . .

Rosenkov Materials New Larkintown Branch, Shanxi Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 0820 hours

Junior Operative Petrucci - Heilong Cluster CARD observer

"What. The hell. Is that thing."

Agent Lewis gave the CARD operative a bemused look. "What, never seen anything like this before?"

"Henry, no." Nicoletta shook her head at the XCOM agent. "That's absolutely ridiculous. Nobody's going to make use of a damned, honest-to-God shield in a firefight with guns involved. This isn't a riot, or the Middle Ages."

Lewis laughed her off. "Not any of us sane folk use this sort of equipment, but Shepard and the Templars do. Everything's a riot to those crazy bastards. Come on, help me carry this thing to him." He spared her an examining look. "And you should get rid of that bloody coat and armor up, I don't think your clothes can stop bullets."

Nicoletta, against her better judgement, assisted Lewis in hauling off the tall Ilyushinite shield, which resembled an ancient Roman scutum-type rectangular shield in shape and profile. "So you've got people from the Agathian Knights, too. I thought I'd never see insanity in the likes of XCOM, especially from the colonel. Guess I should've known better."

"What, Shepard? A fuckin' Agathian?" The agent laughed again. "Nah, he's just spent a large amount of time attached to the 'em as an advisor of sorts. Got a little too attached, actually. Heard he started crossing himself every now and then."

"Yeah, I get you." The operative nodded as several agents from both of their organizations scurried past them. "The main problem I have with Agathians is that they're reckless - they're always too eager to start fights and finish them off with swords and the like. They seem like a cult to me, but other than that, they're good to have in dangerous assignments."

"Hmf, I wouldn't know anything 'bout that." Lewis shrugged his armored shoulders.

The two agents traversed a short distance from the abandoned, Federal Navy-commandeered Rosenkov Materials building to the barracks, where they found Shepard already in his exoframe's first layer, in the process of attaching several other pieces to complete the suit. Nicoletta was somewhat disturbed to see the cuts and precise incision marks on the colonel's bare flesh, indicating where his countless augs were implanted into his body. She was also perplexed at his inexplicably large and muscular frame, but she just chalked it up to growth augs, to amplify his combat abilities in his expertise - close combat.

"Thought I'd never see you out of that armor, Shepard." Lewis remarked.

The colonel put down the compacted assault rifle/sub-machine gun hybrid he was holding on a nearby desk. "With the amount of new gear we retrieved from the derelict base here, I figured it was time for an upgrade." He walked over to the agents and took his shield from their hands. "It's been a long time since I used one of these in a live firefight. Not much berserkers these days."

"Speaking of human berserkers," Nicoletta cut in. "I let mine go off into the city. I read through his mind... and I saw what he did. I can't stand being in the presence of such a terrible waste of oxygen, so I had him charge the nearest enemy position and got done with it."

Shepard's austere features softened a little. "All of our psi-operatives and FARSIGHT agents get used to controlling these criminals, in due course. The galaxy's better off with them being dead, but one of our previous directors thought that these inmates would make better use as berserkers rather than just having them killed."

"What I'd do to get my own Jedi mind powers..." Lewis audibly muttered to himself as he hauled more gear into the room, for his own use later.

Nicoletta ignored the field agent. "XCOM is certainly a strange lot. You take members from almost every organization out there with at least one person in it. You never cared who they were, or what they used to do, just that they're the best at it, and they're loyal."

"That's according to popular rumors and myth. Most of our people were born into the organization from parents actively working - or used to actively work - for XCOM." Shepard talked as he placed a sheet of Ilyushinite plating over his left forearm, sealing it into place by interlocking it with the adjacent sheets. "We take retirement as a temporary matter. You'll never know when you'll be called into active service again."

"Retirement, huh." The Federal spy folded her arms. "I didn't think that's an option for XCOM agents. Well... not anymore, it isn't."

"The colonel grimaced. Now that he had something greater to live for, he was looking forward to retiring one day and experiencing life as a Federation citizen, looking out for a family of his own. "Don't remind me. Karlotte and I just picked a very inconvenient time..."

"Time for what?" Lewis questioned Shepard from his corner of the room.

Shepard wasn't about to distract a valued soldier of his from the dire situation at hand. He attached the final sheets to complete his exoframe, saving his helmet for last.

"You'll learn soon enough, Lewis. We need to get moving, right now." He magnetically locked his assault rifle to his side, and hooked several plasma grenades to his belt. "Williams should already be outside, and his men in position."

"You think we can successfully hold off several thousands of these things with no cavalry heading our way, Jonathan? If we pull this off, we still have those ships on orbit to deal with." Nicoletta reminded the man. "There's nothing stopping them from simply bombing us to oblivion once they found out that their attack had failed."

"Call me Shepard," The colonel offhandedly told the operative. "The Federation may be slow to wake, but once it gets going, nothing short of an alien invasion of Earth can slow it down. Williams had already asked for assistance hours ago when my fears were confirmed, but we're not sure when our reinforcements would arrive. If I'm guessing correctly, the director should send a fleet to help out with the counter-assault."

"Screw that, he'll send off fuckin' Carolyn herself," Lewis stepped forwards, already having had his entire arsenal of a shotgun, two pistols, a large knife and several different grenades strapped to his armored body. "I never did get to see the Old One in action personally. Wager'd it be so satisfying to watch her tear apart those alien cruisers above."

"Right now, you sound just like yourself back when we were initiates." The colonel smiled, a rare occurence for him.

Lewis struck his commanding officer's armored shoulder, with nothing held back. Shepard didn't even flinch. "Yeah, I remember that memory. You were that smart-mouthed, snobby wanker fresh from the ATLAS course, and I was a humble rookie out of regular boot camp. Ah, the times sure were different back then, hehe."

"I'll let you believe what you choose to believe, Field Agent Lewis." Shepard placed a gauntleted hand over Lewis' shoulderplate and gave it a rough shake in turn, nearly toppling over the smaller agent.

"You boys want me to leave and let you have a little private space or...?" Nicoletta smirked as both men turned to face her. "Ahah... alright, I'll go and get armored up now. How about a little private space for this lady, if you gentlemen would please?" She held the zipper on her coat as if she was about to undress, to emphasize her words.

"Let's make like chivalrous gits and give 'er some 'private space', Comman- er, Colonel Shepard." Lewis said as he took slow, hesitant steps back, away from the room.

The other man walked after his fellow agent, a smirk on his face. "I don't think you're being really sure you don't want to stay and watch our CARD friend get suited up..."

. . .

Decius Sector Grid F-58, Unknown Alien Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 0840 hours

First Lieutenant Saren Arterius - Special Tactics and Recon candidate

"We'll have such a valuable prize once we push the aliens out of this planet," Saren listened intently as his brother, General Desolas, fiddled with a captured alien plasma rifle in his hands.

"Our soldiers would be complete terrors on the battlefield with these guns in hand, and they'll be virtually unstoppable when equipped with alien alloy armor. For this, we have the aliens to thank, Saren." The older Arterius brother handed over the gun for his sibling to examine, while his soldiers scurried to and fro, carrying with them bodybags containing dead alien soldiers.

The lieutenant took it eagerly. "If we had this sort of tech back in the Rebellions, the war would've ended a lot sooner, and without anything saddling our fragile conscience in the end." He sarcastically quipped as he observed the peculiar contours of the plasma rifle, noting its cylindrical shape and the dull green glow some other parts emitted.

"Soldier, come over here," Saren looked up from the weapon, hailing a passing marine. "Take this and try a few volleys over, see if you can hit a target with it." He handed over the rifle to marine as she approached.

He wasn't dumb enough to try out an alien weapon himself.

The marine, a staff sergeant by the name of Kalista, obeyed as she was ordered and took aim on the scorched, shattered husk of a nearby Gladius. Saren nodded at her prompting look, and she quickly pulled the trigger in response.

Saren's suspicions were confirmed when the gun suddenly burst apart in a small plasma explosion, severely burning the marine's hands and the side of her face. If Kalista wasn't wearing her helmet, the front of her head would've had been scorched off by the intense heat.

"I knew it," The lieutenant grimaced as several other marines carried off their screaming, injured comrade to the nearest field infirmary. "It was all too easy to acquire these weapons; the aliens would've had countermeasures if they'll just let us have their guns as they fell back."

"These aliens are definitely much smarter than the standard savage lot," Desolas noted, after he regained his composure. "We're fortunate that there weren't nearly enough of them to stop our advance."

"I don't knew if you've been forgetting everything you saw in the past few hours, brother, but these aliens are clearly far from being 'savages'... at least when technology is concerned." Saren said, leaning on Desolas' command vehicle. "They certainly aren't lacking in small unit tactics and guerrilla warfare. Their fleet also put up a really good fight even even when massively outnumbered."

"You're not considering defecting to them now, are you?" Desolas teased the younger Arterius, lightly pushing him by his shoulderpad. "Planning on going native on me, dress up in animal skin and start wearing bones, brother? Maybe even get yourself a native wife with concubines on the side?"

"If I wanted that lifestyle, I'd have already defected to the krogan years ago." Saren replied, looking over at the horizon. He didn't even notice his brother's sudden slack-jawed expression. "But then again, they'd probably rip me to shreds. I never liked the look of their women eith-"

"All units, this is General Desolas Arterius." Saren looked to his side to find his brother blankly staring off into the distance, with a talon to his comm-bead. "I just received word that the humans have mobilized to a vulnerable position to the northwest. This is our chance; we must intercept and crush them before they know we're here. Desolas, out."

It didn't take a visionary to ascertain that something was wrong with the general. "Desolas, are you alright? Who did you 'receive word' of this intel from? And what the hell are 'humans'?"

Desolas slowly turned his head to look at his brother, in a manner strikingly similar to a geth unit. "From my radio, lieutenant. A section of light infantry reported directly to me just now." Saren cringed at Desolas' flat monotone. "You must get yourself prepared for the attack. If you'll excuse me, I need to hop back in my tank now." He didn't even answer Saren's last inquiry.

Before the lieutenant could press further, however, he suddenly felt a spike of agony concentrated on his head, much like an especially painful migraine. He gasped as he hobbled clumsily backwards, clutching his head in his hands.

We have had enough of your wretched kind, turian. You are not welcome here.

Saren heard a tiny voice whispering in his head, its tone full of bitterness and spite.

Twice, we came under threat from forces superior to yours. Twice now, we stood triumphant against the impossible odds.

"What... the fuck?" The lieutenant mumbled as his body suddenly felt extremely heavy, threatening to topple itself over. The voices in his head also started to multiply, taking a more malicious approach.

This time, we come prepared. We have come far. We do not intend to crumble to your PATHETIC invasion now.

Saren tried to mentally fight back against the cruel force attempting to invade his mind, but he was quickly overwhelmed. He was at the voices' mercy.

So come to us... come and we will TEAR the flesh from your bones, and EAT your EYES.

Disturbing, grotesque images of turians being clawed apart by towering, shadowy creatures flashed before Saren's eyes, and they were horrifying enough to elicit the turian into emptying the contents of his stomach into the ruined pavement, to his nearby comrades' shock and revulsion.

"Lieutenant, are you alright?" A pair of medics quickly arrived to assist the younger Arterius, who seemed on the verge of losing his footing. The medics helped him to stand, but the lieutenant fell down nonetheless as he lost control of his legs.

Saren slowly lost all consciousness as the alarmed medics carried him off to lie on a stretcher, just as Desolas entered his command tank's hatch and started issuing priority move orders from his radio, still sporting the unnerving monotone.

With General Severus dead and Air Marshal Caracalla presumed dead after his craft crashed somewhere outside the city due to alien commandos, the entire turian force of over nine thousand men and women were obliged to obey the highest ranking officer still alive. Pushing deeper into the very heart of the alien city, the Hierarchy's soldiers were unaware that they were being led to a trap.

. . .

Swanson-Mallory Court Solutions Floor #7, New Larkintown City Center, Shanxi Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 0920 hours

Colonel Shepard - 'Kodiak'

"Hm-hm, they're pretty easy to manipulate once you have had enough time to observe who's in charge," Shepard listened to Karlotte on the radio. She was out in the field with her fellow FARSIGHT operatives, on a mind control assignment. "I overwhelmed a general's mind and had him order his men straight to you. None of them even objected to his strange behavior, besides a single one we had to mindfray the fuck out of."

"Excellent work. Something else you can tell me about the enemy, Karlotte?" The colonel inquired further. Him and his fellow agents in the city center were holed up in several tall structures, ready to open fire on the aliens below them as they passed by.

"I dunno why, but these aliens have very, very Greco-Roman sounding names and designations." The other colonel said, her tone that of fascination. "The one I have under my thumb right now's called Desolas Arterius, and he's serving with his brother, Saren Arterius. I can try probing deeper for more knowledge, but that'll take me more time."

Shepard could only think of one thing to say. "They have names?" He asked, in genuine surprise and bafflement. "These aren't slave-clones we're fighting?"

"No, Jonathan, we're up against the alien version of the Roman Empire this time, the 'Turian Hierarchy'." Karlotte informed Shepard. "Hey, alien Romans in space... it's a little funny. Now that you made me curious... maybe the Ancient Romans got their culture from these ancient astronaut turian guys, and they've come to sue humans for plagiarism now." She chuckled at her own joke.

The colonel shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "Whether these 'turians' were really clones or not or why they're trying to capture this colony hardly matters for us now, anyway. They attacked us, and it's only natural that we try to defend ourselves against extraterrestrial invaders. What's your position now?"

"I'm about... er, hang on. I'm maaaybe thirty minutes away from you." The FARSIGHT colonel said. "Be advised, the aliens will make it there before us, so try not to expect warm company the first time. See you later, Jon. Save some for the rest of us psionics, will you?"

"Goodbye, Karlotte. Stay safe... for both our sakes." He said in turn before Karlotte cut the comms.

The colonel smiled behind his helmet. Despite everything that happened between the day he met her and now, Karlotte had never lost her ability to make light of everything, even on the darkest hour. He detested her for it at first along with many other legitimate reasons, but he warmed up to her in due time.

"Awww, how sweet. Are they an item or something?" Operative Nicoletta, now in her CARD-issue light infantryman's exoframe, crooned over at her corner in the office building as she witnessed Shepard conversing with Karlotte.

Lewis beside her, who sat comfortably on a flattened couch as he calmly sharpened his powered Ilyushinite Bowie knife, brought his blade into the light to examine its edge. "Nope, absolutely not. They're totally not practically married right now." He sheathed the knife, satisfied with his work. "Where do you get these ridiculous assumptions, anyway?"

"They say that being in danger draws people closer to one another," Nicoletta said, to Lewis' silent approval. "But, it's none of my business. I'm from out the organization, you see."

"You're practically an XCOM agent now, you know." Lewis smirked. "Fraternization is now authorized, I think."

"Hah, loud Aussies aren't my type. Not even in your 'bloody' dreams, Mr. Postman." Nicoletta spoke sweetly, despite her words.

"Perhaps a 'little private space' is on order for you two," Both of them didn't notice Shepard listening in. "I can have the entire building vacated for your benefit - let you do some 'covert activities and reconnaissance' in private, perhaps."

Lewis laughed as Nicoletta covered her face with both gauntlets. "Since when the bloody hell did you start jokin' around, colonel? Weren't you always caught up in bein' a stuck-up, workaholic wowser nowadays?"

Shepard made a tiny, wry smile. "Just a little morale-boost, Lewis. We're about to meet with the enemy, so I suggest both of you head over to your positions now, before they arrive."

Lewis stood up and picked up his alloy cannon leaning on a wall, while Nicoletta quietly heeded her orders.

"Yes, your fuckin' majesty, right away." The agent smirked as he mock-saluted his superior, before running off to take the elevator to the lower floors, where aliens would be expected to enter later.

Shepard slowly strolled up to the edge of the floor before contacting another person. "Hammerhead, this is Kodiak. My men are prepared to proceed with phase three. What's the word on your end?"

General Williams quickly responded, "We're almost all set over here, Shepard. Did Thierfelder deliver?"

"She delivered, alright. The alien general is under her control, and she used it to order an assault on our fortified position." The colonel said, standing over in front of a large glass window, with a perfect view of the city streets below. It was a good defensive position, perhaps good enough to last a long while under a full fledged siege.

"We're lucky these aliens weren't as advanced as I imagined. My original plan was to rig the city with explosives, lure them in with a force of expendable assets and then detonate a full-scaled plasma explosion in the middle of the city. Now, I think we might just be able fight them off..."

"I've been dying to use the new toys we unearthed from your base, colonel." Williams said. He couldn't help but let his excitement be known through his voice. "I may get carried away at one point, so it's a good thing I ordered my men to also start taking orders from you now. Lead them well, spook."

"We'll see." The colonel cut comms. With a sigh, he reeled a gauntleted fist back and smashed the glass window in front of him into pieces, giving him a clear line of fire for a firearm.

Two CARD operatives appeared, carrying a dismantled plasma repeater turret over to Shepard. "Are you Colonel Shepard, sir?" One of them inquired the colonel, who nodded. "Well sir, Jericho and I are here to act as a heavy machine gun team - keep the aliens from breaching the doors and entering the building. This is the best position to cover the streets, so if you don't mind, we need to set this turret up here."

The colonel stepped aside, as the operatives took up his previous position. He wasn't about to object, having been armed only with a ranged weapon that's only lethal at medium to close range and virtually worthless at longer ranges, whereas the HMG team had a repeater turret to work with.

"Colonel, are you perhaps occupied right now?" One of the operatives stopped Shepard just as he was about to head off to the lower levels with Lewis. "We could use a spotter, to mark important targets we can divert our attention to." He nervously scratched the back of his neck. "There used to be three of us, but I guess our old spotter deserted the agency when she heard we're up against aliens."

"Alright," Shepard nodded, and the operative handed him a laser sniper rifle with several peculiar attachments and modifications adorning it. "This is grunt work, but there's nothing else I'd rather do."

"Thank you, colonel. We'd normally ask someone like us to help us out, but we're low on manpower, and our time is quickly running out," The CARD operative said. "Just leave the killing to us - you only need to highlight priority targets for our gun."

The three men quickly organized themselves, with Shepard helping with setting the plasma turret up. After they placed sandbags around the turret, they waited in silence for the aliens to arrive, and soon enough, the first of the enemy soldiers arrived in sight, warily navigating the rubble-strewn streets.

"Contacts, alien infantry." Someone in the comms muttered. "No vehicles so far... this is probably the advance force."

Another person was heard spitting on the ground. "Ugly sons-a-bitches, they are. I'd carve one a pretty face once I get my hands on 'em."

"I'd go further than carving, Ludwig." And another one with a thick Eastern European accent said, apparently in response to the second voice. "I wonder how they'd taste like when grilled, covered in yogurt, mixed with rum, garam masala and turmeric. Heheh, can't wait to start the grill back in the Takeda - anyone in for an alien barbecue?"

Several people started chuckling in the comms. "I was being completely serious, you guys. Wait until you've tried out my cloned muton kebab-" The third voice continued, but was drowned out in laughter.

"Alright, cut that demented chatter," Shepard had to interrupt. "If you have nothing important to report, keep off the damned air for someone who does!"

Complete silence answered the colonel - music to his ears. Without much ado, he peered down his rifle's scope and observed his turian targets with an augmented eye.

. . .

Decius-Spurius Sector Grid H-23, Unknown Alien Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 0950 hours

Major Adrien Victus - general's adjutant

"General Arterius, this is absurd!" Major Victus, an unbloodied officer in the Hierarchical Navy, spoke tersely through the commlink. "We're exposing ourselves to an ambush! If we don't find cover now, we'll all be obliterated!"

There was a brief burst of static. "Everything is under control, major. The aliens suspect us to be further up northeast, so we have the advantage of surprise." Victus was getting sick of hearing Desolas' flat monotone. If there weren't such strict protocols against doubting or opposing superior officers, the major would've taken control of the marines and had them do something less insane, like blundering into an area reported to be where several armored companies just 'vanished' into thin air.

"Ghargh, for the love of..." He committed his very first act of disrespect towards a superior officer by abruptly cutting comms. "Legionaries, we've just been ordered to push forwa-" There was a very noticable click.

Victus was flung into the air when the small building he walked past by suddenly erupted in a green explosion, vaporizing his second-in-command and several others caught in the radius outright. He crashed to the ground with a pained grunt, his armored form covered in mild plasma burns.

"Taking small-arms fire!" One of the men shouted as shots came flying from all directions. "Head to cover!"

As he writhed on the pavement, horribly disoriented and in no small amount of pain, the major felt his ears ring painfully. They barely registered the sounds of gunfire, screaming and explosions as conflict between his race and the aliens sparked again. Major Victus gasped in a breath as he flailed around and reached for his rifle. As he made to stand up, one of his marines moved in to help him.

"Major, we're under attack!" The marine, a large man by the name of Avitus, said. "What is it you need us to do?!"

Victus forcefully shook his head, banishing his unfocused state. "Spirits, we're getting slaughtered out here! We need to find some cover right n-"

A flash of green light temporarily blinded Victus' eyes. He quickly regained his vision to find Avitus clutching at his shoulders, with a blank, rather surprised look on his youthful face. Victus clenched his teeth in anger and irritation as he grabbed hold of the marine's collar and quite literally manhandled him to cover, callously shoving him to the ground behind a ruined wall.

"What the hell were you thinking standing around like that?" Victus vented his frustration on the marine as he hunkered down under the wall's protection. Everywhere around him, his men desperately tried to find what sparse cover they could find against unseen attackers shooting from elevated positions in the tall buildings and the rooftops. Already, almost forty marines were killed before the fighting even properly started.

These bastards are damned professionals, Victus observed, taking note of their inexplicably precise plasma fire. If anything, the alien force he was up against made for better marksmen than the ones General Severus' forces engaged.

"Marine? You still listening?" Victus turned to look at Avitus, when he realized he hadn't responded. He sighed in further despair and exasperation when he caught sight of the unresponsive marine's back, which was marked by a horrifying plasma burn that dissolved most of his back and burned a wide, gaping hole that ate away at his flesh, guaranteeing a quick yet excruciatingly painful end for poor Avitus.

Risking the same death that befell the marine, Victus poked his head out of cover, spotting a building that spewed a prodigious amount of plasma fire onto the turian-occupied streets below, keeping the marines down and vulnerable from a flanking attack carried out on the ground.

Victus glared at the sealed entrance to the building, preventing marines from breaching it and slaughtering the underhanded aliens inside. No matter, he thought. This looks like a job for the Navy.

. . .

Swanson and Mallory Court Solutions Floor #7, New Larkintown City Center, Shanxi Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1000 hours

Colonel Shepard

"Taking some heat down here at the intersection, but we got it under control for now," An agent reported over the comms. Marksman plasma discharges could be heard booming with his voice. "We're keeping them suppressed, but I have no idea when they'll wise up and start counterattacking."

"The east end of Langley Street's secure - all hostiles eliminated, but we lost a man." And another one said. "We'll attempt to keep the perimeter free from aliens for as long as we can. What's taking Hammerhead so long?"

"Kosciuszko Square's perimeter is definitely not secure," A CARD operative's voice came in last. "We're taking the full brunt of an armored assault here, and we've lost more than eleven of our soldiers to sniper and IFV fire. More of them's on the way; I don't know how long we'll last out here!"

Shepard regretted not assigning some of his men with the spies. They were good at intrigue, but were only a little better trained and equipped for war than the average Federal soldier. "Stand by, Gatecrasher. Hammerhead's on the way to relieve us-"

"Incoming orbital strike! Hit the fucking deck!" The two CARD support gunners Shepard was assisting suddenly bolted from their gun and dived down under a conference table further inside the office floor.

Shepard quickly dropped comms and ran after his fellow men, but was a few seconds late from taking cover as the Swanson-Mallory structure buckled and quaked violently, reeling from a small-scale mass-accelerated attack on the lower floors. The colonel was swept off his feet and his armored body was sent sliding off to the edge of the building as it teetered to one side. He watched helplessly as his highlighter rifle fell off the side and shattered into pieces as it impacted the pavement below, exploding only two seconds later.

Hanging on by one gauntlet, Shepard knew that it was futile to try and pull himself up. He was a pathetically easy target for enemy marksmen as he did so, and he wasn't even sure he'd be successful in his attempt - his augmented skeletal structure coupled with his heavy exoframe and arsenal weighed him down significantly, even with enhanced strength.

Good thing I had some upgrades, the colonel kept a cool head as he opened up a commlink to Lewis. "Postman, change of plans! Have some of the men file out the building - Gatecrasher's in trouble!"

"What the fuck, Shepard!" Lewis' frantic voice responded. "They just eighty-six'd the main entrance with a bloody precision shell from a fucking frigate, and the upper half of the structure started to lean over to the southeast like that Pisan tower! They'll come for us any moment now, I repeat, the x-rays are coming!"

Shepard held in a breath as he let himself fall to earth, just as small-arms fire started to whiz past his sides. His dark armored form plummeted the heights, past the floors and the agents manning them. Just when he passed by the third floor, Shepard righted himself and activated his suit's integrated thrusters, slowing his descent enough to prevent breaking his legs as his ironclad boots struck the pavement.

Several turian troops shouted in alarm at the sight of an exoframed, gas-masked human appearing right in their midst from the dust cloud he conjured, brandishing a compacted assault rifle in one gauntleted hand, and a strange block of metal strapped to the other. The colonel was as silent as could be as he drew his gun, in contrast.

The aliens hurriedly tried to reposition, but not before Shepard fired several lightning-fast, three-shot plasma bursts from his gun. Half a dozen of the aliens caught out of cover were quickly devoured by flames before they could even respond, and another three were ruthlessly killed when Shepard incinerated their cover and peppered their defenseless forms with energy weapons fire.

The colonel's shock tactic would've sent most opponents falling back in panic, but not the turians. Three aliens with shotguns advanced on the XCOM agent, while several others with assault rifles and submachine-guns jumped out of cover and tried overwhelming him with mass-accelerated fire, providing their comrades with covering fire.

However, much to the aliens' shock, their attacks were rendered pathetically ineffective when Shepard protected himself with the block of steel was holding, which suddenly expanded itself in size; sheets of Ilyushinite alloy emerged from the object's corners and locked themselves together into place, forming an electrified, tall and rectangular, inwardly curved riot shield.

How could a glorified slab of energy-wreathed metal be capable of halting bullets traveling at absurd speeds baffled the turians to no end. They doubled their fire and started utilizing incinerate-type omni-tool attacks, but the Ilyushinite shield refused to break apart, or be penetrated.

Shepard on the other hand, had little problems poking his assault rifle to the side and gunning down the aliens in turn, and the aliens quickly dwindled in numbers as the colonel dispatched them in a punctual, clockwork-like manner - unhindered by his reduced line of sight. Pure, unbridled terror was sown into the alien ranks as the XCOM agent pushed forward, incinerating their comrades left and right with precise plasma fire like a man possessed.

It didn't help that he appeared like a creature straight from a nightmare; with a hulking frame, an intimidating gas-mask with circular, opaque eye sockets that appeared completely devoid of feeling or soul, and a dark-gray exoframe pattern that never appeared to show obvious signs of being severely damaged when shot at with small arms.

In due course, Shepard had killed over thirty-eight hostiles in the course of three minutes and horribly maimed several more. The turians started to back away from his advance, only to quickly return with even more numbers at their side, intent on swarming him with armor-piercing sniper rifles and fiery tech attacks. Even a hovertank started unloading its secondary weapons at the colonel, wrongly thinking it overkill to resort to using the main gun.

The colonel knew that odds were now stacked against him with that kind of firepower on the aliens' side. He was just about to ditch his shield and run off to cover, when he heard Lewis shout into the comms, "Weapons free!"

A blaster launcher projectile tore apart the alien vehicle, just as a hail of plasma and alloy cannon fire rent any infantry support attacking the colonel asunder. The turian soldiers turned to return fire on Lewis' strike team, which was enough of a distraction for Shepard to get close to the enemy ranks. With his assault rifle stashed away in favor of his weapon-of-choice, Shepard swiftly decapitated an alien soldier with a practiced, sidewards swing, making him the first human to kill a turian with the Tyrant-pattern shockblade - a segmented, folding longsword veiled in a corona of electrical energies.

Before the aliens could even properly notice him, Shepard had already forcefully struck his powered shield onto an enemy soldier's side, which swept it off its feet when an electrostatic discharge entered its ill-protected body and fried its insides, painfully fusing them together. What once was a shotgun-wielding sergeant in the turian navy was now a horrid, blackened mess stuck to the pavement.

The colonel gruesomely dismembered another soldier by sweeping its legs from under it with the searing edge of his blade and snapped another surprised alien's neck by forcing its head inwards with his electrified shield. A turian officer turned to its side and got the second-worst shock of its life when it found an alien soldier beside it, about to cleave it in two with a searing longsword raised up in the air.

Shepard then bisected the officer's head along with its rifle as it tried to foolishly block his downward slashing attack by lifting its gun up, and finally, he cleaved straight into a close pair of enemy soldiers with one exceedingly powerful diagonal swing, felling a total of seven turians in rapid succession in a little over ten seconds.

The turians acted surprised to see the colonel within melee range already, but were smart enough to know that sticking around in close-quarters-combat with Shepard was a terrible idea. They quickly tried to turn tail and evade the sword-wielding human, but in the process, exposed themselves to Lewis' team. Morale plummeted for the aliens as they took massive losses for nothing, and soon, the survivors broke and routed.

"How the hell did you get here, Shepard?" Lewis inquired as he and eighteen other agents approached the colonel, as the turians dispersed. "Weren't you at the seventh floor?"

"It's a long story, but my suit's got a new thruster module. Right now, we need to relieve Gatecrasher." Shepard replied, after a while. Catching his breath, the colonel promptly contacted General Williams.

"Hammerhead, what's taking you so long? We'll be overrun if you don't-"

"Sorry, Kodiak. I had to take some extra toys with me." Williams responded, with a voice that seemed distorted and tinny. "How's it looking out there?"

Shepard was unamused. "What the hell do you think, old man? We've already given you the prototype enchanted Juggernaut MEC and the Deconstructor sledge, they should be more than enough for the job already!"

"I reckon I should take the Devastator for a test run," Williams said, to Shepard's mild surprise. The Devastator had extremely powerful guns that could even shoot down minor space-faring vessels in orbit, but it had armor like paper, so the colonel had previously suggested dismantling the warmachine's guns and mounting them on a vehicle that's less likely to be destroyed with concentrated small-arms fire.

Shepard just didn't expect Williams to actually pilot it into battle.

"It was a bitch to try fitting a prototype cybersuit into this thing, but we managed it. I'm piloting it right..." A large salvo of rockets flew overhead the XCOM agents, striking different parts of the city where turians were presumed to be holding makeshift bases. "...now."

The general laughed menacingly, just as the first of the Federal reinforcements came into view. Federal marines and colonial volunteers numbering in over a thousand men and women plus nine sectopods, sixty-four MEC troopers and a large swarm of Seeker droids advanced forwards, retaking lost ground and relieving the besieged XCOM and CARD garrisons.

"Missile cams determine two-hundred dead aliens from that rocket barrage alone, ehum." Williams also appeared, now in the cockpit of a hulking, highly-intimidating Devastator sectopod. The oversized gun platform bashed aside and stomped over any obstacles in its way as it lumbered along with the Federation's soldiers.

"Now that I'm here, let's see what this baby's really got." The general pulled a lever on the Devastator's console, causing a thick, orange beam from his warmachine's downscaled Godfinger fusion lance to obliterate an entire unit of eleven turian marines plus three hovertanks.

"Heheheh, I'll never get tired of this shit!" The Devastator stomped over a turian IFV's scorched husk, flattening it. "Drive them back, men! No fucking quarter!"

. . .

In orbit of Unknown Alien Colony, Command Bridge, HWS Indefatigable

July 04th, 2157 - 1015 hours

Admiral Lina

"Three walkers and eleven dismounts out in the open! Engage!" Lina heard Victus' panic-stricken voice coming from her console. "They're closing in! Hold the spirits-damned line, men!"

"I'm sending in more tanks and marine APCs to reinforce you, major." General Desolas chimed in, sounding extremely calm in contrast to the major. "Our firelance squadrons are experiencing severe technical difficulties, keep holding your position until we can send them to provide close air support, over."

"Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me!" Came the major's exasperated response. "Any second more, and they'll be right on top of us! Air support needs to hurry it up, or you can write us off as good as fucking dead!"

Lina was concerned at the progress the landing force was making. She heard that General Severus was vaporized when his command vehicle was destroyed by enemy plasma fire, and Air Marshal Caracalla was shot down by black exoframed commandos before he could even reach the city proper. Now, General Desolas was acting very strange; he issued tactically unsound orders and willingly assaulted heavily fortified alien positions with inadequate numbers or without air and armor support, letting several of his soldiers die in the process.

She had heard enough, the admiral must act. "General Arterius, as the person in charge of this operation, I'm deeming you unfit for command. Step down immediately and submit to-"

There was a sharp crackle of static, indicating that Desolas willingly or accidentally cut comms with the admiral. Annoyed, Lina looked to her console and checked for the commlink status between her ship and the landing forces. To her horror, she found that Desolas did more than just cut the comms - he apparently severed all communications between the marines and the orbiting vessels, which meant that an unstable officer was left to take charge of his men.

The admiral clenched her fists and struggled to calm herself. Slowly and assuredly, the situation was slipping out of her grasp. Just when things started to look up, some unforeseen problem or unexpectedly heavy resistance from the alien defenders kept victory at bay.

"Ma'am, our reinforcements have just arrived from the 314 relay," One of the bridge crew reported, much to Lina's relief and trepidation. She wanted to be positive about her ordeal, but she kept expecting something to go wrong immediately. "I'm patching you through to Admiral Sorex now."

Lina put a talon over her comm-bead. "This is Admiral Aureliana Nandrakan, of the Draius Ferlodinus Legion. Welcome aboard, Admiral Sor-"

"Admiral Nandrakan, we need your assistance immediately!" Lina was cut off again. Admiral Sorex sounded panicked and terrified, confirming her fears. "On our way here, we've been intercepted by an unknown hostile fleet; we only stayed locked in combat for half a minute, but my fleet's already taken heavy losses! We need support right now!"

The admiral sighed harshly. She looked to her console again and took a closer look on her reinforcements. Sure enough, Admiral Sorex's fleet appeared severely battered, with countless plasma scorch marks dotting the cruisers and most prominently, the dreadnought.

Lina supposed she shouldn't surprised; Admiral Sorex was but one of the many inexperienced naval officers in the Hierarchy's navy, sent to the alien colony to gain valuable combat experience in what appeared to be a typical first-contact engagement. Sorex probably expected to come and shoot a few primitive cruisers out of the void and then bomb some hapless targets planetside, which was what normally went down in assignments like the one they were in. Lina couldn't blame him, she reasoned - she was just as shocked as Sorex was.

"Solid copy, admiral. I'm moving my fleet to provide assistance. How large is the enemy fleet?" The admiral almost dreaded asking that particular question.

In response to her question, Relay 314 started spinning very wildly and rapidly, an sure-fire indication of a very large group of vessels approaching the star system. "O-oh, Spirits..." Sorex nervously gasped out.

Much like how bullets came out of a gun, alien vessels started appearing out of the secondary relay in rapid succession, starting with frigates, cruisers and finally, the dreadnoughts. There even was a peculiarly-shaped vessel that momentarily appeared, but immediately vanished from sight a second later. The alien ships were segregated from one another by the colors adorning them; with one large half of the enemy fleet painted beige and gray, and the smaller half sporting dark blue and forest green paint.

"Seven-hundred contacts and counting, ma'am! Three-hundred and fifty plus cruiser-types, thirteen dreadnought-sized vessels and four-hundred frigates!" Lina's XO reported, his words failing to hide his anxiousness and unease. "Spirits, that's a lot... s-should we move in to engage?"

The admiral's mandibles flared as she clenched her teeth together. "You're goddamn right we're moving in." She immediately headed to her console as she issued orders to the bridge crew left and right. "Shipmasters, I want this entire fucking fleet under Unyielding Colossus doctrine, now! Gunners, commence the attack when ready! Navigators, full speed ahead! Legion, engage the enemy!"

. . .

Decius Sector Grid H-21, Unknown Alien Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1030 hours

Major Victus

"Admiral, are you receiving me?!" Victus repeatedly screamed into the comms. The major had to peek out of cover and contribute his assault rifle fire at an approaching enemy squad. "Admiral Aureliana, what the fuck's going on up there? For the Spirits' sake, I need another danger close orbital strike concentrated on the coordinates I gave you!"

"The treasonous Admiral Nandrakan has severed all communications with the entire landing force. It's all up to us, now." General Desolas was the only person to answer the major on the comms.

Victus recoiled in surprise at the general's words. It wasn't like the admiral to suddenly abandon her planetside forces for seemingly no reason; he served under her command long enough to know that she deeply cared for the state and well-being of her subordinates, and even under the pressure of death, she always kept her head.

"Alien infantry, four o'clock! Over in the open!"

Victus turned his head and came upon the sight of a large horde of aliens in bone-white exoframes, advancing rapidly forwards and strangely, neglecting to take cover when the marines frantically responded by opening fire. They didn't appear to carry any weapons either, seemingly running into turian rifles with nothing but their bare hands and their armor.

"Well, don't just stand there! Kill them all!" The major switched his gun to fire semi-automatically before letting loose a hail of bullets on the approaching infantry, uncaring of the fact that they have no weapons. He felt his words sound rather exhausted, but to his surprise, also filled with hatred.

The aliens willingly dived headfirst into the combined turian assault, even as tanks and armored vehicles started contributing their guns to the fray. They appeared either very brave or suicidal with how nonchalant they threw themselves to their deaths.

Several of them crumbled and fell after being hosed down by too much enemy fire, and more died when they found themselves struck directly by explosive shells. Still, the vast majority of them never slowed their menacing pace, and soon after they reached a close enough distance, Victus discovered that the aliens weren't unarmed after all; they possessed large pairs of gauntlets that concealed sliding rings of electrified spikes, for use in brutal hand-to-hand combat.

When the first alien berserker reached its first turian victim, it skewered the marine with both spiked gauntlets, using the momentum it acquired from its charging sprint. The energy-wreathed blades easily penetrated the unfortunate soldier's armor, carapace and flesh, burning her insides to cinders. Disposing of its victim by quite literally ribboning her corpse apart, the berserker started noticeably giggling, almost in a childlike manner.

Shellshocked from witnessing an unnecessarily brutal death of a comrade, Victus and his marines acted too late to defend themselves from more incoming berserkers. Another one of them obliterated a ruined wall in its path and systematically hacked the four turian soldiers hiding behind it apart in a similarly gruesome manner, slicing off limbs and decapitating heads. Like the first berserker, this one also started laughing with one kill after another, sounding more and more unhinged as it cleaved through hapless turian infantry.

"Screw this shit, we'll be overrun! Retreat!" A marine screamed as he ran away from combat, abandoning his wavering squad just as it came into melee range with three berserkers.

"No! Hold your damn ground and drive them back, legionaries! Stand! FIRM!" Victus desperately cried out as more and more of his marines started breaking off from their assigned units and fleeing, all while the aliens continued mercilessly butchering turians in rapid succession. Groups of them working in tandem, with some even neutralizing armored vehicles by cleaving through the hulls and butchering the screaming, horrified crew inside.

Total chaos was the order of the day on that bloodied section of the alien city. Standing up to the alien berserkers in close quarters combat was tantamount to suicide, and the rubble-strewn, ruined nature of the colony meant that there was very little room to maneuver. With each marine killed, it seemed that the berserkers collectively grew stronger, faster and more vicious - and more worriedly, they even started to breath out orange smoke.

"Stand your ground! No retreat, no surrender!" Victus, like every good officer of the Hierarchy, was poised to go down for the cause.

The situation appeared very bleak, the marines did not possess the right weapons for the job, but fortunately for the major and his men, the Firelance jet fighter's arsenal proved sufficient. Clusters of alien berserkers were either vaporized or hosed hosed down by the droves with missiles and rapid machine-gun fire from Firelances zooming overhead. The wounded survivors were quickly finished off when more Hierarchy tanks showed up.

Victus would've breathed out a sigh of relief now that Desolas' promised air support finally arrived, but seeing the carnage they wrought upon the enemy, he could clearly observe hapless marines caught out in the open being killed by their own fighter jets via suspiciously precise friendly fire, always through explosives.

"Desolas!" The major shouted into the comms. "Your spirits-damned fighters are shooting at my men!"

"A necessary sacrifice," General Desolas calmly responded. "They stood too close to the enemy, you of all people should expect friendly fire is to be more than likely."

There's something seriously wrong with Arterius, the marine officer thought to himself. "What would you have us do, then? This sector's about to be overrun, we need to fall back to the outskirts and hold them until the Mondranor Legion arrives!"

"Negative on that, major. This situation's well under our control." Desolas responded, and Victus swore he completely lost touch with reality. "I'm about to send more Firelances to your position, they'll provide you with the means to push-"

"To hell with pushing!" Victus interrupted the general. "Our forces are vastly outmatched, we can't hold them back without orbital support and we both goddamn well know it!" He dropped comms and looked to his men. "Legionaries, abandon positions! Pull back to the-"

Suddenly, Victus found himself on the receiving end of his own marines' gun barrels. He was at a woeful loss for words when they suddenly opened fire, ripping his kinetic shields completely apart and leaving him with severe bullet-wounds on his legs and upper torso. It was nothing short of miraculous that Victus found himself facing the dusty ground, bleeding out but still barely alive.

The major looked up and through his blurred, rapidly-fading vision, came across the sight of his fallen rifle, buried under a thin layer of rubble. He didn't hesitate to try and reach for the gun, only to be stopped when a turian marine's boot stomped on his outstretched, bloodied arm, followed by another stomp to the back of his head. Victus' head struck the ground once more, with much more force.

While in the process of being hauled to some unknown destination and on the edge of consciousness, Victus struggled to make out the foreign words being spoken by the traitorous marines. Strange, the language they spoke sounded almost completely alien to his ears.

. . .

Kucioszko Square, New Larkintown, Shanxi Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1040 hours

Sayida Minna - businesswoman, musician, scholar, museum curator, EXALT deep-cover agent

"Unconscious?" She inquired, looking at the alien's unmoving body laid across a blood-stained stretcher.

He nodded disinterestedly, not looking up from relaxing on his seat in the shuttle and reading a file on his omni-tool. "He don't look like it, but yeah." He accessed another folder, continuing with his read. "That's affirmative, he ain't coming up any time soon... the mindjacked exxies made sure of that."

"But will he live? I read his mind - he's an officer of some kind, not like the surplus ones we've hauled back to the shuttle." She folded her arms, putting her weight on one foot. "He'll be much useful to our cause alive, rather than dead."

"What, with that kind of wounds all over his body? Hm, probably not." He shook his head and scratched at his scarred cheek. "But hey, since he's already in this state, we might as well use this to our advantage. His guts and body fluids should be nothing like anyone's ever seen before, so they should fetch a high price from my contacts in the gray market at least until XCOM starts selling them in bulk. The director loves doing that."

She took a few more moments to herself before she made a decision. Opening up a communications link to EXALT's Shanxi cell headquarters, Minna spoke, "VOX, Regent here,"

"Whoa, whoa, what do you think you're doing, sis?" Paxton suddenly dropped his omni-tool, standing up from his seat and looking at his half-sibling intently. "Don't tell me you're bringing our haul back to headquarters - the profits we'll make from the gray market will be obscene if we sold the assets to them!"

Minna frowned, brushing away a lock of black hair from her right eye. "Maybe you should stick to banking and teaching high school economics to teenagers. According to our moles inside XCOM and the Council of Systems, by the end of the day, the alien hunters will have acquired plenty of new xenotech to reverse-engineer - we must not waste the chance to even the playing field against them."

"Aw, come on." Paxton dropped his glare, looking to the side. "I'm all for bringing down His Imperial Majesty Lazarenko's Gestapo two-point-oh, but I'd really rather just earn credits when it came down to it. Actually, most of us joined this outfit to get rich, not pledge ourselves to a dead plutocrat's idiotic cause."

Minna ignored Paxton. She'd have already slit his throat if it weren't for the fact that they were related somewhat. "VOX, are you still there?" She talked through the commlink she opened.

"VOX is always listening. VOX is always watching." A synthetic droning voice came through. "Be advised, Overlook has deducted ten-thousand Federation standard credits from Jester's paycheck. Reasons: ugliness; subtle displays of disloyalty to EXALT's noble cause."

"Fuckin' hell." Paxton kicked a nearby Meld canister in anger. "You wry, spying piece of Ilyushinite shit, I'll jam a plasma knife so far up your motherboard, you'll-"

"Thirty-eight thousand credits." VOX nonchalantly chimed in. "Reasons: stupidity; making feeble and empty threats to EXALT hardware; extremely subtle displays of disloyalty to EXALT's noble cause."

Paxton groaned and kept silent after that. Minna smirked and continued, "VOX, tell Overlook that our cell in New Larkintown had to abandon previous track and report directives in order to capture alien tech and live personnel. Alert the perimeter guards, Jester and I will be making an appearance very soon..."

. . .

New Larkintown Proper, Shanxi Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1105 hours

Colonel Thierfelder

"Looks like you're making some good progress..." Karlotte kept in contact with Shepard on the radio. She and her FARSIGHT team took positions under the shadows of the ruined city, away from most of the heavy fighting but closely tailing the alien leader's command hovertank. "I'm looking at Agent Philmore's helmet cams - the berserkers just got taken out, but they did plenty of nasty work out there..."

"There goes the rest of the expendable assets, then." Shepard said, his voice interweaves with static and gunfire. "How about you, do you still have the alien general at your disposal? We could use another blunder to our advantage right now."

The FARSIGHT colonel frowned. "Not as well as I do minutes ago. He's slowly starting to question the hallucinations and suggestions I'm planting in his mind, and I'm afraid his will is too weak to withstand my full psionic might. There's a chance he'd go comatose if I try subjugating him with brute force."

"It's just an alien, Karlotte." The other colonel started after a quick pause and a round of plasma fire. "It came here to kill or abduct civilians and conquer this colony in the name of whatever higher power it answered to. If it died because it can't take the psionic pressure, I doubt any of us will lose any sleep tonight. Do it."

Karlotte couldn't argue with Shepard. "It's a shame, I was really looking forward to seeing this guy in a containment facility in Schultz. Always wanted a turian pet..." With that said, she left the channel and focused her efforts on mind-controlling General Desolas, of the Turian Hierarchy.

. . .

Kuciuszko Square, New Larkintown

July 04th, 2157 - 1120 hours

General Williams

"For God's sake, what's taking Theirfelder with that blunder so long? We need to break through the alien line and push them out of the city, now!"

The aliens were finally driven out of the city center and to the outskirts, but to the shock of every human there, the enemy have had already entrenched countless turrets, garrisoned buidlings and erected other fortifications there. As a result, the relentless human advance had been slowed to a grinding halt - the retreating aliens were given more than enough of a fighting chance to turn the tide back once more.

"Keep patient, Williams!" Shepard answered over the comms. "She'll give us an update soon; it's only been fifteen minutes!"

Williams had earlier given Shepard command of his men, and he proved a decent enough commander. However, the colonel obviously lacked experience when leading units larger than a platoon, and right now, he hesitated to make bold moves that Williams would've already attempted minutes earlier, like make a shock-and-awe styled assault on the main enemy battle line. It was all too obvious that the colonel didn't like to lose men, most likely because his soldiers were much less expendable compared to Federal marines.

"Son, the longer we sit here and let them use those turrets, the more men I'm losing because of your indecision!" The general's temper slowly rose. "Tell your damn girlfriend to-"

"I... I think I just messed up," Suddenly, Karlotte's voice entered the comms. "I'm sorry. I should've put less pressure on him and-"

"Karlotte, relax. Take it slow, and tell us what you want to say." Shepard calmly and placatingly said, but the urgency and businesslike tone of his voice betraying his true emotions.

Through the static and the other noises in the background, Karlotte could be heard hyperventilating a little in exhaustion. "The alien general has died, and the turians have probably already reorganized themselves with a new, better leader. I'm sorry to say, but that blunder won't be coming any time soon."

Williams had heard enough. "Alright, fuck this. You wanna see how old bastards like me get shit done? I'll show you kids how a real soldier fights a goddamn war!" Angrily, the general logged off the comms.

With one pull of a lever, Williams' prototype sectopod lurched forwards, startling the Federal marines standing guard in front of it. Have they neglected to move out of the warmachine's way, they would've gotten squashed under its Ilyushinite soles.

Ponderously, the sectopod left the designated safezone and stomped its way to the frontlines. The friendly soldiers it crossed paths with could do nothing as it carelessly exposed itself to enemy small arms and missile fire, and contrary to Shepard's fears, the warmachine held firm and Williams in his cybersuit inside remained unharmed.

"You fucked with the wrong race!" Williams had his sectopod level its entire arsenal over a tall building garrisoned by alien infantry. Half a dozen buttons have to be pushed and more switches flipped before Williams unleashed the terrifying might of his warmachine.

Tightly-packed pods of blaster launcher missiles, massive, globular bolts of plasma and even a miniaturized ship-mounted fusion lance beam quite literally tore the target building apart, blowing off Ilyushinite and concrete chunks, vaporizing entire floors and reducing the adjacent area into a scorched, heavily irradiated wasteland.

"For the president!" Williams continued to advance, above such inane concepts as fear and caution.

. . .

Ajax-Tuksan Sector Grid D-09, Unknown Alien Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1130 hours

Lieutenant Arterius

Saren slowly woke up to the sound of screaming. He found himself inside a medical vehicle.

"Spirits, what the fuck! What the fuck!" Someone outside shouted in panic.

"Tanks! WHERE ARE THE BLOODY TANKS?!" Someone else screamed into the air.

The lieutenant still knew not why he fell unconscious, but he started to think he was better off that way. He stood up from his cot, coming upon the sight of one of the medics that attended to him.

"Lieutenant Arterius?" She also stood up, holding both hands placatingly. "You mustn't be moving so much, you should-"

"Just a damn migraine. I'm fine." Rather more grumpily than intended, Saren responded. He quickly moved off his cot and retrieved his assault rifle lying on a nearby table. "What the hell's going on outside?"

"I'm not gonna lie - things are bad and slowly getting worse, lieutenant." The medic informed. "Your brother flew off the handle and led us to disaster - over four-thousand of us... mercilessly butchered by soldiers in powered armor and walking tanks. This endeavor's on its last legs, Saren."

The lieutenant felt his stomach lurch. It wasn't in character for Desolas to suddenly do what the medic just said. "Is he alive, still? Last I saw Desolas, he was driving his tank into a heavily-defended area."

The medic mournfully shook her head. "Nobody knows where he is right now. He's probably still alive, but the chances are..."

Saren didn't let her finish. He quietly left the vehicle, coming upon the familiar landscape of the ruined alien city, but this time, his surroundings were teeming with turian marines scurrying about and nervously huddling under sandbags and makeshift bunkers, and there were several long-barreled heavy turrets firing off into the distance at some unseen foes.

The instant Saren reached a close enough distance to the frontlines, an alien plasma missile barrage took several tanks and some of the turrets out of commission, including the medical vehicle he was in moments before. Looking at the destruction being wrought upon the tattered remnants of the legion landing force, Saren knew that his race wasn't fighting against mere savages.

"Lieutenant!" Saren turned to his side at the source of the voice, seeing a lower-ranked general with his retinue waving at him from behind a fortified metal wall. "Get your ass over here and out of the open, it's not safe there!"

Not needing to be asked twice, Saren sprinted the distance between himself and his superior officer. He had to carefully navigate a battered landscape of rubble, burning wreckage and abandoned civilian vehicles on the way.

"Lieutenant, where the fuck have you been?" The general, a long time subordinate of General Severus named Zeliszek, glared murderously at Saren as he approached cover. "Your brother screwed us completely over, and now we've-"

"With all due respect, sir..." The lieutenant interjected rather curtly. "I was knocked unconscious for several hours, and yes, I think already know what happened during that time. What I don't know is just what the turrets are firing at over there."

"They're shooting the enemy, that's what matters." Zeliszek then indicated at a large group of entrenched artillery vehicles some distance away, discharging explosive shells in a synchronized fashion. "But those guns over there have the most important target: the toughest walker we've ever encountered so far. Just a minute ago, it fucking vaporized an entire spirits-damned alien alloyed structure like it was nothing."

Zeliszek pointed a talon at the wall behind him. "Climb up the ladder and take a look for yourself. That damned walker's giving us more trouble alone than the entire alien front itself."

Saren took a deep breath and ascended to the top of the metal wall, which included several relatively large nests for snipers and perimeter guardsmen to take cover in. There were multiple stacks of spare firearms and other supplies scattered along the area, as well as mounted anti-materiel sniper rifles for use against tanks and the like.

"Look, it's that idiot Desolas' barefaced brother." As he walked across the fortified wall, the lieutenant heard one of the snipers talking under his breath as he passed by.

"Where the hell was he when the general went insane? He must have ran from combat."

"Yeah, that's probably what he did. What a barefaced coward - a poor excuse for a lieutenant."

Saren kept walking, ignoring the whispers. They could've kept shooting at enemy flankers, but it appears that muttering insults was a matter that took more priority. The lieutenant was as silent as could be as he took position inside one of the sniper nests, discarding his assault rifle for a mounted anti-materiel rifle overlooking the battlefield.

The lieutenant could barely see anything below the field, because there was a thick, lingering cloud of black smoke that veiled the ruined cityscape. Switching his visor to thermal vision, he then peered through the scope and immediately felt shock at what he saw.

Decidedly alien signatures were practically everywhere in sight, filling Saren's vision with plenty of orange and red hues. Looking downwards, he could see turian forces valiantly trying to hold back the alien tide, but he could clearly see that they're on the losing side.

A quartet of turian gunships passed by Saren's position above, causing him to remove his sights from the scope to look up at them. He observed the aircraft descend into the battlefield, emptying their guns and missile pods at a target obscured by the smoke clouds below.

The lieutenant made a nonchalant scoffing sound. Four gunships against a single target seemed overkill to him, until those same gunships were suddenly engulfed in a massive energy explosion, making the sky rain with tiny bits of wreckage and temporarily blinding the lieutenant, nearly causing him to topple over the side of the wall.

Once he regained his vision, Saren hurriedly returned to his rifle and looked down the scope, scanning the battlefield in a panicked, disordered manner in an effort to determine the entity that so easily blasted four gunships out of the sky seconds earlier.

He ignored the panicked shouts filling his comms channel and the hail of gunship wreckage that could easily kill him if he was unlucky enough to be struck by a piece. An enemy of the Hierarchy needed to be put down, and Titans preserve him, Saren was determined to be the first marine to step over its corpse, whatever it may be.

. . .

Xiaoming Commercial Sector, New Larkintown, Shanxi Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1135 hours

Colonel Shepard

"Williams, are you there? Williams!" Even while engaged in heavy fighting, Shepard persistently tried to hail the general through the comms. It had been five minutes since he logged off the channel and went out into the battlefield all by himself.

"Give it a bloody rest, Shepard. I don't think the old bastard's coming back," Lewis answered the colonel through the comms, "He'll end up killing himself, I reckon."

"Dammit, then where the fuck is he now?!" The colonel impaled an alien soldier's throat with his shockblade, giving the handle a twist as he pulled the weapon back. He shoved the falling soldier to the ground before turning around to engage three hostiles converging on his rear flank. "We need that sectopod of his! If he ends up getting it destroyed with him in it, it'll end up jeopardizing this entire operation!"

Another voice entered the comms. "Kodiak, this is Field Agent Lorenzo of the Langley Street detachment! My unit spotted Hammerhead's sectopod approaching the enemy lines; he destroyed several armored companies, three fortified structures, a fighter jet and seven gunships on his way there. How copy, over?"

Shepard was in the process of beating a turian into a bloody pulp with the bullet-ridden, heavily damaged and unpowered remnants of his shield. By the time he was done, the alien's head and upper torso were reduced to mangled pieces of meat and his shield was rendered all but useless, though he didn't stop to think about this fact.

The colonel immediately went straight to sheathing his shockblade into a flanking soldier's gut, then quickly disposed of his mortally-wounded foe by striking its head with the back of his Ilyushinite-plated hand. Another nearby alien, strangely undaunted by the sudden deaths of its comrades, moved closer to the human and emptied its sub-machine gun into its foe.

Shepard shielded his head from the most damaging of the incoming fire with his tattered shield. Acting quickly before his armor succumbed to the close-range attack, Shepard approached his adversary by moving along a zig-zagging course. When he was nearly at melee length, the alien did something to its chestplate before putting its gun away and pulling out what appeared to be a serrated combat knife, but it was just as long as a short sword.

The colonel smirked - the turian made a fatal mistake. To even the odds a little, he sheathed his sword and threw away the severely-damaged remnants of his shield. His only weapons now were his own two gauntleted hands.

The alien shouted a guttural battle-cry and lunged as the human drew near, hoping to score an easy kill via a blade slicing through its adversary's throat. Shepard intercepted the blow mid-strike with his left gauntlet, effortlessly diverting the advancing blade's course with one swipe of plated hand. The colonel avoided a retaliatory left hook from the alien by moving off to his right, then swiftly countered by crushing the bones inside the turian's left lower leg with a powerful, exoframe-augmented kick.

The turian yelped as it went down on one knee. Shepard was relentless as he held on to his foe's shoulder for leverage, then proceeded to land one strike after another with his right gauntlet, capping off his vicious assault with a particularly cruel blow, made more gruesome with miniaturized rocket thrusters built into his exoframe's arm-part - essentially a scaled-down version of the infamous MEC Kinetic Strike Module attack.

As the alien withered and died in his grasp, Shepard observed his handiwork. In the middle of his assault, the alien lost both its mandibles - ripped from their sockets after taking too much damage. The general shape of the alien's head was unrecognizable, having been bent and hammered out of shape. One of its eyes appeared to have been driven back into the skull, and its nose was flattened and bleeding.

By that time, Shepard learned why this alien feared him so little. He noticed too late the primed grenades strapped to its chestplate.

"Kodiak, what the hell's going on out there! Are you still receiving me?" Agent Lorenzo continued, her voice sounding more urgent.

Cursing under his breath, Shepard held on to the alien's chest riggings and threw it back with all his augmented might, just in time to see more turians approaching his position. He turned to retreat, but was violently pushed to the ground when the deceased turian's grenades blew up, with him still in its explosive radius.

The colonel coughed and wheezed as he crawled his way to cover, just as enemy small arms fire began to pepper his position. "I'm reading you... clearly, Lorenzo." He responded into his radio. "Are you still in visual range of Hammerhead? I need you to move in and assist him in any way you can!"

The colonel pulled out his assault rifle. Checking the charge, he was slightly worried at how he already used up nearly seventy percent of the gun's power.

"We're now in position, colonel!" Lorenzo chimed in, sounding exhausted herself after a long sprint. "Be advised, the Williams' sectopod is in a pretty bad shape; one of the legs has been partially blown off, and the laser cannon doesn't look to be in a condition to fire again! We're trying to-"

There was a loud, metallic chipping sound, like a bullet embedding itself into a metal surface.

"Holy shit, man down!" Lorenzo could be heard shouting. "Heads up, we've got a sni-!"

Shepard just re-entered cover after suppressing a group of approaching enemy soldiers. "Lorenzo? Agent Lorenzo! What the hell's going on up there?!" He tore a plasma grenade from his belt and chucked it out of cover, into the general direction of the enemy.

Nothing but static from the comms and a grenade's explosion answered the colonel, to his increasing chagrin. He looked up from cover to fire at the enemy again, but was surprised by the sight of the aliens lying dead on the ground, having apparently shot one another.

FARSIGHT.

"You should slow down a little, Jon." Karlotte, accompanied by her squad of psionic soldiers, stepped into view and approached their fellow agent. "Our friends from CARD told how you went off into the thick of it without support."

Shepard looked around, noticing the trail of dead aliens he left as he mindlessly advanced forwards. "I had support,"

He fished out three pairs of dog-tags from a compartment built into his exoframe and showed them to the other colonel. "This is what happens when I don't pay enough attention - I get reckless like Williams." He put the tags back into the compartment.

"Speaking of Williams," One of the FARSIGHT agents spoke up, a junior field agent straight from Earth named Massani. "I last saw the old codger still piloting that goddamn sectopod at the foot of Lingzhao Station. He's already taken a bloody beating, but if we hurry, we can pull him out of there before the goddamn exxies get to him."

Karlotte seemed a little surprised. Agent Massani was a Wraith-framed scout who frequently operated behind enemy lines and far out of reach of friendly units, but she was still taken aback at the amount of information he was capable of retrieving.

"Lingzhao? That's x-ray central; no one's gonna reach that sector without getting mashed to paste by turrets and artillery. The Devastator can't take too many direct hits with the thin plating it has," The FARSIGHT colonel said. "The general is in serious trouble."

Shepard knew that the best course of action was to let the general get shelled for being such an impulsive idiot, but he can't risk having the Devastator scrapped to bits, nor could he willingly let a high ranking officer of the Federation to die. More pragmatically, if the situation turned south, there would be no scapegoats for the government and the Council to easily place the blame on.

The colonel made his decision. "We're left with no choice. I don't like throwing men into enemy fire so recklessly - but if we lose Williams, there would be severe consequences for everyone."

He sighed as he logged into a different radio channel, addressing all human forces in combat and in reserve. "All units, I'm ordering an all out-attack on Lingzhao Station, I repeat, we must retake Lingzhao Station at all costs..."

"God preserve us." He whispered.

. . .

Lingzhao Med-Cap Rapid Transit, New Larkintown, Shanxi Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1140 hours

General Williams

Shepard was right, Williams thought to himself as he continued to engage the enemy front all by his lonesome. Enemy mass-accelerated projectiles penetrated his sectopod's thin armor plating and slightly damaged his cybersuit, but the general took them in stride. If he hadn't been piloting a MEC at the same time as he was piloting the mobile gun platform, he'd have been already dead.

A four-man squad of XCOM agents arrived to fight with Williams earlier, but they were quickly killed off by alien sniper fire. Slowly and methodically, more and more of the aliens started encroaching his position, intent on overwhelming him with sheer brute force.

Vehicles and infantry sections were wiped from existence as they approached the general's crippled sectopod. They tried switching to different tactics, but Williams knew what to do every time they attempted to put themselves at an advantage. His defense lasted for several more minutes, until his guns overheated to the point of uselessness, and his pods finally ran out of missiles.

"Come on, you!" Williams pushed a lever forward, dragging his sectopod forward by its one remaining functional leg. He wanted to meet the enemy head on and get the proper end he so rightly deserved. "Move, you fucking spook sardine-can!"

Before Williams could move further, his radar spotted incoming alien fighters. He stopped and inclined his warmachine upwards, taking aim with the functional missile pods. Since he was already out of missiles, he had to use the sectopod's then-unused grapeshot-styled grenades for ammunition.

The general unleashed the thick swarm of explosives from the pods just as the fighters advanced extremely close for maximum accuracy. He watched as three of the fighters took direct hits from several grenades, obliterating them completely. One of them evaded the explosives, but nonetheless took one grenade to its right wingtip, causing it to careen off the side and collide onto an allied aircraft, engulfing both of them in a bright yellow fireball.

Despite all his best effort, the alien fighters nonetheless achieved their objective; a crippled bomber managed to advance close enough to drop its payload on the general's position, only a few meters to his left.

The general could only close his eyes and clench his teeth as an explosion ripped through the side of his sectopod, destroying almost all remaining functionality it still had and reducing the machine into a horribly-mangled husk. However, despite the amount of damage he sustained, the explosion still failed to kill Williams, thanks to his Juggernaut MEC.

Only the cockpit area of the Devastator remained in one piece. Williams struggled to see through the thick smoke and his cracked, blood-splattered visor as he made his final preparations. He endeavored not to die like Al-Aziz - he intended to go out fighting with everything he's got.

. . .

Hossk-Va Sector Grid E-19, Unknown Alien Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1155 hours

Lieutenant Arterius

"Zero contacts, lieutenant!" A marine point-man called out. "This area's clear, moving up!"

With a tactical shotgun in hand and in the company of a large battalion of marines and armored vehicles, Lieutenant Saren advanced with caution through the smoke, navigating his way around the ruined scenery. He and his comrades were tasked to make their way towards the troublesome alien walker's last known location, to confirm its destruction.

"Hell of a fucking day!" One marine exclaimed to his companions, who immediately responded in approval.

"Boys back home aren't gonna believe the shit we've seen in this hellhole colony," Another said. "This race don't mess around, that's for sure."

"Quiet!" Saren silenced the men as he spotted the wrecked alien walker just up ahead the beaten path, laying on the entrance of a subway station. "Objective in sight! Take positions, on the double!"

The once-great alien machine of war was reduced to a shadow of its former self. It was now missing both legs and with the exception of the main gun, most of its weapons have had their barrels melted by continuous use. The missile pods were emitting pillars of white smoke, and the area around the wreck was plagued with the persistent scent of burning metals and leather.

While the sizable cockpit area's left flank appeared to be scorched and mangled, the cockpit itself was the only part of the machine that still remained relatively intact, suggesting that it was made with better materials and construction methods compared to the other parts of the vehicle.

This fact made Saren wary - whatever piloted the dreaded warmachine might be still inside, waiting for unsuspecting marines to pry it open.

The lieutenant made to warn his men, but he acted too late to prevent a squad of his unblooded soldiers from moving a little too close to the walker wreck, in a misguided attempt to search for the enemy pilot.

"Hey! Get away from the-" The rest of Saren's words never left his mouth.

The dead walker's misshapen main gun emitted one last discharge. The orange beam narrowly missed a pair of passing marines thanks to its misalignment, but the intense heat of the fusion lance projectile was nonetheless enough to set the unfortunate turians ablaze as it passed by them.

Before anyone could react, the walker's cockpit canopy burst open, conjuring up a cloud of strange white and blue particles as it did so. When the cloud cleared out and the smoke dispersed somewhat, the turians quickly have had their entire arsenal levelled on the cockpit, expecting the alien pilot to appear, brandishing a weapon of some kind with the intention of making a final stand.

Instead, Saren and his troops found nothing. The cockpit area was open and bared for all to see, but not a soul was to be found sitting there.

"Maybe it was on autopilot - some kind of VI?" A marine at the front guessed, taking a relaxed stance. "I think it was-"

Every man listening to the marine recoiled in shock and revulsion. Some even went so far as to empty the contents of their stomachs onto the pavement, or even the inside their own helmets.

For some inexplicable reason, the soldier quite literally burst apart in a morbidly disgusting manner. It was as if an invisible force smashed him over the head and propelled his scorched remains all over the pavement.

"Ah, fuck-!" Saren recoiled as his armor and faceplate were spattered with the marine's blood and viscera. "Titans, what the- augh!"

A creature straight out from a nasty fever dream emerged out of cloak, carrying a monstrously large, energy-wreathed maul in its powerful robotic hands. It stood at an intimidating height of thirteen feet, fully armored in streamlined, compressed alien plate and painted in urban camouflage colors. The humanoid tank menacingly brandished its weapon as it approached the surprised turian marines in a deliberately slow, ominous pace.

The lieutenant wiped his visor free of blue fluids and briefly beheld the sight of the alien pilot bearing down on them. His next moves were more decisive - consisting of pulling up his shotgun and emptying shell after shell on the advancing foe. His actions quickly shook the rest of the men out of their collective surprise, and they quickly joined him in his attack.

In response, the alien in the suit reeled back and levelled the gun welded on the back of its armored shoulder at the closest cluster of turian marines. It took a moment taking in turian small-arms fire before it fired a three-shot burst of plasma grenades at its foes, obliterating an entire infantry section instantly, as well as several more marines from the other sections.

While the turians struggled to regroup and take stock of the situation again, the alien utilized the confusion it sowed to advance closer to its enemies, hoisting the electrified bludgeon it had in its hands as it did so.

With a grunt and some difficulty, Saren pulled a downed fellow soldier up to her feet. The marine lieutenant kept his mind on his duty as he turned to keep up the fire on the sole foe, but he lost all his bravery when faced with the sight of the suited alien bearing over his position, about to paint the pavement with his remains with its gigantic maul. The lieutenant barely managed to avoid being crushed by quickly moving to the side, but he was too late to avoid the alien's mechanical hand.

Saren choked and gagged as the alien's metal claws enclosed on his neck and upper torso, undoubtedly breaking some of his ribs in the process. It kept its constricting grip on the lieutenant as it took aim with another of the multitude of secondary weapons mounted behind its broad shoulders - the one that was fitted with obvious tubes of different sizes leading up to a large metal canister at the small of the alien combat suit's back.

The lieutenant wished he could look away at the scene that came next, but the alien holding him hostage seemed all too eager to force his neck towards its gruesome work. As it lumbered nonchalantly forwards, the alien torched any turian marine it came into close contact with using a dreadful flame-spewing device it was equipped with. Those without helmets could be seen screaming in agony as their eyes and flesh melted away from their skulls, and soon, there would be nothing left of these marines but a scorched, smoking ruin on the cracked pavement.

The alien in the suit bellowed out a distorted, worryingly unhinged cackle as Saren's marines fled its immediate vicinity in a panic. The lieutenant, however, managed to gain enough room to pull his emergency sidearm from his hip, and he quickly devised a makeshift attempt to break free from his captor's grasp.

He took aim on one of the fatter tubes that transferred fuel to the flamethrower and fired twice, the pistol rounds easily tearing through the rubbery alien material. The suited alien was too distracted laughing maniacally while hosing down its remaining foes to notice Saren clasping at the fuel-gushing broken tube, who quickly ignited it with an incendiary round from his pistol. With a flame-belching tube in his hand, Saren wasted no time smothering his captor's head with the same flames it took so many turian lives with.

Saren expected the alien to panic immediately and drop him, allowing for a smooth escape. He instead watched the flames from his tube quickly died out, revealing that the alien's helmet was completely undamaged save for a now blackened paint-job. The lieutenant then received a fleeting kiss from Death itself when the alien retaliated by suddenly tightening its grip on its hostage, nearly crushing him then and there.

The marine lieutenant barely held on to dear life as his captor hurled him away to deal with what small measure of damage its head sustained. He met with the pavement with a dull crunch, his gaze staring to his side, in perfect view of the charred remains of his comrades and the desolated alien cityscape. The lieutenant made no effort to move - he deduced that he was probably paralyzed from the neck down by then.

He felt no physical or emotional pain, nor any kind of sorrow - only disappointment at leaving his task undone; he failed in his duties to uphold the Hierarchy's interests.

Nevertheless, his last thoughts were that of home. The pleasures and satisfactions of life brought on by unquestioning service and devotion to his race were nearly enough to make Saren consider holding on to his last sliver of strength, but alas, his time had come.

Hierarchy First Lieutenant Saren Arterius drew his last, labored breath with a smile.

. . .

Hossk-Va Sector Grid E-04, Unknown Alien Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1205 hours

Brigadier General Molvarth Zeliszek

"Come back, you spineless, barefaced mongrels!" General Zeliszek shouted at some of his fleeing soldiers over the gunfire. He personally oversaw the advance force at the front, and to his dismay, he discovered that the battlefield conditions there were as every bit as hellish as the initial reports entailed.

"I'll have your hides for this! You hear me?!" Zeliszek's tried to put an effort in appearing defiant to the approaching alien tide for the benefit of his remaining demoralized men, but inwardly, he considered retreat to be a perfectly reasonable response to the rapidly deteriorating situation. "Stay by me, and I'll keep you alive! If we stand together, we can-"

An unexpected strafing run from a flight of alien 'cyberdisc' aircraft flying overhead decimated the general's frontline force, as well as most of the deserters standing out in the open. He cursed as power-armored aliens emerged out of deep cover, intent on pushing the last of the invaders out of their city.

"Sir, bad news!" The general's adjutant and his escorts arrived from the back, and not surprisingly, they appeared battered and bloodied. "Enemy commandos destroyed the last of our AA guns! We're defenceless against further attacks from the air!"

"Fucking great!" Zeliszek scowled. "What about the situation up in space? It's been a while since the vanguard fleet gave us some orbital support!"

The adjutant slowly averted his gaze from his superior. "Sir... we can't communicate with the fleet... at all. After we lost our long-range comm-relays, the only way we could patch through to Admiral Nandrakan's fleet was through Generals Severus and Desolas' surplus relays, which were built into their command vehicles. Last we heard of both of them, Severus' tank blew up in the first stages of the invasion with him in it, and Desolas hasn't responded to any of our hails yet."

It was the last straw for General Zeliszek. "Captain, without orbital support, we might as well call this invasion a damn failure! Re-organize the remaining men and vehicles and have them to withdraw back to Nuriel Sector, soldier! For all of our sakes, let's hope the shuttle pilots haven't left us to die, yet!"

. . .

In orbit of Unknown Alien Colony

July 04th, 2157 - 1205 hours

Admiral Lina

"Spirits, this is hopeless!"

"If you don't have anything useful to say, Sorex..." Lina was slowly being driven mad by Admiral Sorex's unhelpful attitude. "I'd strongly advise you to shut up and get. The hell. Off. My comms! Did you fucking buy your commission?"

"Madam admiral..." A comm officer meekly began, nervously wringing her talons as she started.

The admiral didn't even notice her subordinate. "If you don't do your duty at this very instant, Sorex, I swear, I'll have you tried and executed before the courts! I'll flay your filthy carapace and have it mounted on my damned mantelpiece! You won't even live to regret your actions today!"

"Admiral, please..." The officer trudged a little closer to her superior. "You really, really need to take a look at this."

Finally, Lina found the time to focus her attention on the junior-looking officer, who was clutching a datapad on her hands. She couldn't help but notice the woman's barefaced head.

"This had better be important, lieutenant! I'm a little fucking busy!" Lina, still brimming with anger, declared.

"I... can see that, ma'am..." The comm lieutenant mustered up her courage and held her datapad for the admiral to see. "This is the situation planetside..."

Lina's heart jumped when she saw what the pad displayed. She stepped down from her command position and walked closer to her subordinate.

What the admiral saw was raw footage from a Hierarchy squad sergeant's helmet cams. From the looks of it, the sergeant was hunkered down behind rubble as he emptied his gun unto indistinct, rapidly advancing alien infantry. Further study of the footage revealed that the aliens weren't even in cover, and were actively charging into the turian lines.

"Let's go, let's go! Run! Run, dammit! Get to the fucking shuttles!" He shouted while gesturing for his comrades to retreat behind him. He unloaded a volley into the enemy ranks before shifting targets. "Keep moving, you bastards! They can't shoot for shi-!"

Suddenly, an unseen entity lunged at the camera, eliciting a surprised gasp from Lina. The sergeant, along with the view, were knocked around for a while, before the camera settled to look up at a towering, hulking mass of an alien soldier, roaring menacingly at the camera. Encased in a bulky suit of darkened powered armor and armed with nothing but a pair of pneumatic fists outfitted with rings of electrified spikes, the creature was the stuff of drug-induced nightmares.

The admiral put her hands over her mouth and looked away as the alien lunged at the camera again. The sergeant's screams were cut quite short as disturbing sounds of bones being snapped and flesh being torn were heard. Nothing could be seen from beyond the camera at that point, as it was splattered in blood.

"I- I'm sorry you had to see that, ma'am. That was fifteen minutes ago, and as you saw, our ground forces have apparently been sent running." The junior officer pressed a button to the side of the datapad, and in an instant, the view was changed, displaying a grainy image of a poorly-lit ship's cargo deck. "But it gets worse. This footage was taken just two minutes ago, aboard Admiral Sorex's dreadnou-"

Suddenly, an loud explosion concentrated on one of the bulkheads in the cargo hold momentarily disabled the camera. Moments later, turian marines came pouring into the area, brandishing assault rifles and anti-vehicle weaponry.

"LOOK ALIVE, SQUAD!" The lead marine screamed as he charged in with his men, expecting to see hostiles inside the cargo hold. When it was determined that the area was clear despite the massive breach in one of the bulkheads, he seemed to relax.

"No sign of them, but keep on guard!" He ordered, gesturing at defensible positions while holding his rifle upwards with one hand. "CIC says they'll be here any minute now, so I suggest we-"

The darkened and obscured yet unmistakable alien figures of enemy boarders suddenly emerged out of cloak, holding a dizzying assortment of plasma and laser based weaponry and equipped with much bulkier exoframes. How they entered the turian vessel was beyond the admiral.

Lina and some of the bridge crew watched in abject horror as the aliens mercilessly slaughtered the dreadnought's security detail while they were still tripping over themselves as they scrambled for cover. Before the admiral could study these aliens, one of them nonchalantly levelled its gun up to the camera, before discharging an emerald bolt.

"Damn." Was all Lina could say about what she saw. She felt like vomiting. "...so that's it, then? We've lost."

The junior officer winced a little as she retracted her device. She could only look down and say nothing. In response, Lina nodded solemnly. Truly, there was nothing that needed to be said.

The admiral turned back to her post and glumly addressed the CIC crew. "Men, we wait until our forces from the ground return to us. After that, we'll head for Palaven to deliver our report immediately. This... this is a battle that, I'm saddened to say, we have no chance of winning. I will not waste any more turian lives trying to secure an objective we simply cannot take."

"But... but admiral!" Lina's XO spoke up, sounding very concerned for his commanding officer. "If we pull back, Palaven High Command will see you disgraced for this! I can only see that this will only end in your-"

The admiral cut him off, almost half-heartedly. "I'm willing to accept whatever punishment the Hierarchy deems necessary." She scowled, tiredly leaning on a railing. "In order to make an example of what happens to failures such as myself."

. . .

New Larkintown Outskirts

July 04th, 2157 - 1220 hours

Colonel Shepard - celebrating victory

Even with ear protection, the collective cheering coming from the victorious defenders of Shanxi was deafening.

Colonial infantry, volunteer militia and XCOM operatives alike shouted in joy and raised their guns to the air as the last of the turian shuttles took to the skies, the defeated remnants of the invading army within them. Above them, the spaceborne engagement raged on completely in favor of the reinforcing human fleet under Federal Navy Admiral Norman Draynor's command, and debris from the fight could be seen entering the planet's atmosphere.

Once again, humanity repelled an extraterrestrial incursion on their soil, sending the surviving aliens running back in shame, their tails between their legs.

Though the day was won and Shanxi's defense was successful, Shepard knew that the overall fight was very unlikely to be over. The battle was far too easy; the turians will be likely to return one day, bringing more men and a better arsenal. Humanity- no, any sentient race worth its salt would do the same.

"We won, Jon!" Karlotte bumped into her co-colonel, embracing him and interrupting his musings. "Can you believe it? We actually sent them running by virtue of being technologically better than them this time!"

Shepard placed an armored arm around his partner, pulling her closer. "Yeah..." He said, breathlessly. He looked down to her. "Though I have this weird nagging feeling that we'd be a lot busier in the coming days. You feel it too?"

"Of course I do!" Karlotte blurted out on impulse. "Jon, I'm going to be the mother of your-"

"WHOOO!" Lewis surprised the two of them by putting his arms around them from behind. "We're all heroes, guys! And most importantly, we'll all be filthy, stinkin', fuckin' rich! Ohhh, I can almost taste the amount of royalties I'll be getting from vids and documentaries out of this! Haha!"

Shepard was going to say something that will instantly deflate the field agent, but decided against it. He should enjoy himself while he still could.

"Uhh, Henry? You do realize that everything about this op will just be covered up and stories of our involvement expunged from records?" Of course, Karlotte did it for Shepard anyway. She couldn't resist. "By tomorrow, psi-ops teams will sweep the area to mindwipe everyone's memories. Everything we just did to protect the colony never happened. Everyone will believe that we were never here to begin with."

The way Lewis' face went from ecstatic to crestfallen was enough to make both colonels grin. "I... know about that. I'm an XCOM field agent, for chrissakes." He sniffled a bit.

Shepard just shrugged. "If it's any consolation, I think it's time you earn your stripes, Lewis. After all the shit you pulled through today, it's only natural that a promoti-"

"Field Agent First Class...?" Lewis whispered, almost reverently.

The colonel nodded, smiling. "Don't let this get to your head." Was all he said, before Lewis regained his mirth and started cheering again.

"Have I ever told you you're my favorite stuck-up, workaholic wowser, Jonathan?" Lewis laughed, clapping the colonel's armored shoulder with his gauntleted hand. "Bloody hell, I feel ten years younger! I've got-"

"Hey, Agent Henry Lewis!" Operative Petrucci called out to him. She was standing amidst the handful of her fellow spies still alive. "We're going for beers and blackjack back in town! You in?"

While Lewis appeared to consider the offer, Shepard and Karlotte were suddenly greeted by General Williams, now on his feet and out of his MEC.

"Colonel," Williams flicked his cigar to another corner of his mouth. "I suppose you have some words to say to me, after what I've done to your sectopod."

Shepard frowned. "Yes... I think a few words are in order." He agreed, nodding. "Honestly, we've won the battle, Williams. I couldn't care less if you managed to get the Devastator wrecked - it'll never catch on anyway."

The general inclined a brow. "That's it?"

"Not by a longshot." The colonel shook his head. "While I'd let your frivolous use of XCOM resources slip, I can't neglect mentioning your... conduct, during the battle." He said, letting his pent-up irritation and mild anger show in his tone. "What you did - charging blindly on into the front like that - was the most aggravating display of incompetence I've seen of Federation generals in all my years of service... and that's an achievement in itself, believe me."

His expression then softened, and his tone reverted to normal. "But... it did turn out for the best, in the end. You don't-"

"It doesn't excuse what I did. Things could've got a lot fucking worse." Williams said. "That's why as of now, I'm resigning from Federal command."

As Shepard and Karlotte looked on in surprise, Williams continued, "My actions today proved that I'm no longer suited to my position. I've gone too old and too emotional to effectively take command of my forces. I leave my post to whoever the higher-ups deem to replace me with. That's all I wanted to say."

"Wait," Karlotte cut in. "Maybe there's a way the Federation can make use of your skills just yet."

Shepard looked to his partner. "Something on your mind?"

"D'you remember um... what was that again, uhm..." Karlotte paused to think. "Er, XCOM Codex article 47-209. They taught me that in officer school."

"Ah," The other colonel nodded in comprehension. "The Blue Draft. It's been a while since one of us made use of that."

Karlotte quizzically tilted her head. "Yeah, it's been, what, sixty years?"

General Williams tilted his head slightly. "You spooks do a good job pretending I'm an inanimate object."

"Forgive us." Karlotte turned to the general, leaning forward as she did so.

"The thing is," She spoke in a low, whispered tone. "We really can't afford to let our existence be known. Tomorrow, FARSIGHT squads will make sure of that by brainwashing everyone here - erasing any and all memories that include even a single glimpse of an XCOM agent. I dunno why we really have to, but that's rules for you."

Williams can't bring himself to act surprised. "Psh, I'd expect nothing less."

"However, we think we'll have much to gain by making a special exception, just for you." Karlotte looked to Shepard, trying her best to look as stern as possible. "Isn't that right, Jon?"

"Right," The colonel agreed. "If you're interested, we could take you into the ranks of XCOM as a MEC instructor. Though you proved very reckless today, we can't deny that you still possessed great skill with a cybersuit. What do you think, Mister Williams?"

The former general folded his arms and shook his head. "You don't have to rub it in, you know." He paused to think for a while, but it didn't take long. "Am I allowed to go into combat again? Will I get to take the fight to the aliens in one of your MECs at some point?"

Shepard saw no cause to argue. "Of course. In all likeliness, the director would probably have to make use of every able-bodied man at his disposal, if the turians ever choose to return. Just... don't go berserk again like you did today."

Williams extended a gloved hand for the colonel to take. "Then it's a deal, Colonel Shepard."

Shepard took the man's hand and shook it. "Very good, Proctor Williams. We're glad to have you."

. . .

Command Bridge, FNWS Annihilation

July 04th, 2157 - 1250 hours

Director Faust

"I have immobilized and captured an enemy cruiser, director." A synthesized female voice with a marked Québécois accent was heard throughout Director Faust's personal comms. "I await further directives; what should be the correct course of action?"

Faust didn't respond immediately. He walked towards a nearby window and peered beyond it. Sure enough, he found what he was looking for: the XSF Old One, an experimental stealth cruiser-sized, special-operations vessel, made in the shape of an ADVENT Seeker drone and equipped with enough directed energy weaponry to decimate entire planets.

"Director Faust?" The voice continued, more urgent this time. "The vessel's occupants are getting restless and desperate. They are starting to jettison all escape pods in hopes of escaping my grasp. Please respond."

Most importantly, the Old One came equipped with the very first fully-sentient artificial intelligence developed by human hands, making it capable of routinely performing complex operations and maneuvers mere VI-equipped automated vessels have no hope of achieving.

The director entered the comms. "Copy that, Worldsmith. Have you disabled their guns, yet?"

"One moment, sir." Faust observed with keen interest as the Old One moved a couple of her underside tentacles to point at her hostage vessel's main gun. The plasma cannons mounted on the mechanized appendage took a second to charge up before they collectively unleashed a low-powered plasma volley, devastating the alien vessel and utterly destroying its main method of defense. "It is done. Onboard life signs indicate 47% casualties so far."

While Faust would've liked a disabled vessel with minimal damage to the ship interiors and crew casualties, he wasn't above taking damaged goods. "Good. Release it and move to assist the liberation force planetside. I want all alien stragglers eliminated without issue, am I understood?"

"My pleasure." The sentient starship chimed. Faust watched as the Old One wrenched her Ilyushinite limbs free from the severely damaged alien ship before disappearing from the naked eye's sight with a discharge of blue and white particles.

Faust heard footsteps from behind. With a smirk, he turned around and came upon a very impressed-looking Admiral Draynor. "Unbelievable, isn't it? That ship just talked to me on its own accord."

"Our ships talk to us all the time," Draynor countered lightheartedly. "I'm more impressed as to how you managed to design, let alone produce, such a unique ship like that damned thing. Seriously, just what did your engineers take, and where could I get some?"

Faust laughed. "It's a trade secret, Norman."

---

XCOM DATABASE

---

- OPERATOR REPORT 007128/380/08932

This report is a compiled by a collaborated effort between Junior Operator Lenka Stanislavovna Demidova [CANADA] and Field Agent Third Class Gerhardt von Rosshart [NEW PRUSSIA], submitted February 21st, 2141. The page is 14/37, and the section is labeled: Comparisons between standard-issue Federal infantryman equipment vs. XCOM standard-issue field agent/combat infantry gear.

14.) PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT

As Field Agent Gerhardt helpfully demonstrated in the holo-vid, the average Federation soldier comes equipped with a Mark VII K-21h Carapace Exoplate, which offers good protection form ballistic weapons fire, as well as acceptable protection from laser-based weaponry. Painted in Dark Olive Green and Taupe Grey and developed through a collaborative effort between defense contractors Rainer-Valdeko from Estonia and Qılınc Industries and Solutions from Azerbaijan-Armenia, this suit of Ilyushinite armor claims descent from the original XCOM-made 'Carapace Armor' design.

Equipped with features such as an internal medical delivery system for better combat performance, a holographic HUD that can automatically detect and track entities both friend and foe, an automated gun-cooling system allowing for continued laser firearm use, and a 'stasis' system to allow marines thrown out into space to survive the conditions they faced at the cost of complete immobility, the K-21h received whole-hearted praise from the soldiers equipped with them, crediting the suit for saving their lives when they otherwise would've perished in battle or by accidents.

As part of the Treaty of Bydgoszcz, non-Council armories cannot be allowed to equip Federal infantry with plasma-resistant gear and armor in order to give Council-affiliated field personnel a definite edge in a firefight against them.

In contrast to this, regular XCOM field personnel receive the Aufseher Powered Infantry Exoframe, designed by Swiss engineers on behalf of the Council. This suit of powered armor is very expensive and could take a very long time to produce from scratch due to galaxy-wide, Council-imposed quality control procedures. However, the Aufseher compensates for this by offering excellent protection from ballistics, beam laser, pulse laser, radiation, explosive, plasma and heat-based weaponry. In addition to this, the exoframe dramatically augments an agent's strength and reflexes, provides easy implementation of external combat drugs, and allows for simple application of a wide range of modular enhancements such as reactive plates, motion-assistors and experimental tesla coils.

Of course, over time, each Aufesher exoframe issued out to XCOM personnel could be subjected to extensive customization by the agents who wore them to battle in order to better suit their combat specializations. XCOM protocols technically forbid alteration of Council property, but the rule is almost never enforced. It is an unofficial rule among XCOM field personnel that so long as the armor still has the standard color pattern of Viridian and Dark Spring Green, agents can expect no trouble out of 'adjusting' their suits.

As befits our organization's 'quality over quantity' policy, our soldiers can claim superiority against their Federal counterparts in a straight-up fight, as demonstrated during the infamous Ganymede Incident of 2154, where a renegade Federal Navy company with significant drone support faced off against two platoons of XCOM field agents led by FARSIGHT operative Zaeed Massani. Our agents succeeded in neutralizing the renegades with only seven fatalities and eleven wounded.

- THE XSF "OLD ONE"

A few years after the end to the Second Contact War, a team of (vaguely) Council-affiliated civilian scientists and engineers from Japan (which effectively ceased to exist in the later months of 2015, due in part to the Flight of the Writhing Night - the largest and most effective Seeker rush in the history of the war) arrived in XCOM HQ and contributed their multitude of strange and completely unorthodox mechanized unit designs for Drs. Shen and Vahlen to decide keeping.

Needless to say, most of the designs were discarded for reasons concerning the lack of resources XCOM has to offer, especially when most were diverted to rebuilding the neighboring countries. Among these scrapped designs was the blueprint for a 'Cruiser, Fast-Attack Stealth - Yamashiro-class', depicting a hulking, dreadnought-sized abomination of a stealth vessel - armed with a fusion lance for a 'beak' and countless plasma cannons mounted on its appendages, in addition to being made in the visage of Japan's vanquisher: the Seeker drone.

Many decades later, in the summer of 2107, during a routine clean-up of Schultz Moonbase, XCOM's current chief engineer, Dr. Ryang Chong Hui from the State of Joseon, discovered the Yamashiro-class stealth cruiser designs stashed away in one of Dr. Shen's old folder drawers. Enticed by the idea of a significantly up-scaled Seeker drone that could appear behind enemy lines and either crush hostile cruiser-sized vessels within its Ilyushinite tentacles or shoot them dead within seconds using the multitude of directed-energy weapons mounted into its hull, Dr. Hui put forward plans to assemble the great machine.

Alas, the current XCOM commander (who was known for his extensive rivalry with Dr. Hui prior to taking command of the organization) almost instantly shot her idea down. Undeterred by the director's expression of disapproval, XCOM's chief engineer devoted resources and men to jumpstart the project in secret, codenamed 'Legacy'.

Due to the clandestine nature of the project, it had to be deliberately undermanned and underfunded to draw away attention, and as a result, it took almost twenty years just to complete 90% of the project. Most unfortunately, at that time, Dr. Hui was suddenly assassinated by her own wife - an EXALT deep-cover agent, leaving Project Legacy without its leader. However, luck seemed to favor the Legacy project personnel, when Hui's immediate successor, Dr. Carolyn Weber from the Republic of Québec, personally took the project under her wing, now with the current director's (if rather reluctant) approval.

Dr. Weber proved very unorthodox in her dealing with Project Legacy. She oversaw the daily procedures almost daily and contributed directly to the project, assembling parts and attaching them into the vessel's hull and interiors by her own hands. At some point during her tenure as chief engineer, she even ordered several new additions to the already significant amount of features the stealth ship possessed, which included a flash-terraforming function and even a self-aware artificial intelligence to serve as the vessel's mind. It goes without saying that her decisions met significant opposition from other XCOM and even Council personnel, but in the end, Project Legacy was finally completed after a period of twenty-two years.

The new stealth vessel, given the designation of 'Worldsmith' (supposedly for its habit of terraforming uninhabitable worlds in its spare time) and christened as the XSF Old One, proved to be an extremely useful addition to XCOM's covert assets over the years. While it was rather suspicious of Dr. Weber to suddenly resign from her position and immediately disappear without a trace a few days after the completion of Project Legacy, people were quick to move on after her replacement, a fresh-faced Dr. Maksim Shevchenko, proved even more adept at his position as chief engineer than almost all of his predecessors.

- OPERATOR-MADE LEAFLET, "AVOID TRAGEDY; PROVIDE XCOM WITH BRAVE SOLDIERS FOR THE FUTURE!"

This physical leaflet is dated 19th of August, 2021, designed by Senior Proctor Newyddilyn Moore and distributed among all XCOM personnel. There is a large red mark on the leaflet's middle section, displaying the words "FUCK THIS SHIT" very prominently.

Dear Sir or Madam,

On the 12th of June, 2021, the Council of Nations decided that XCOM would eventually stop recruiting from outside sources in an effort to increase security and reduce the very grave risk of EXALT infiltration. By the 1st of January, 2025, our numbers would eventually plummet until there will be none of us left to carry the XCOM flag. Essentially, without taking the necessary measures to prevent our extinction, XCOM is doomed.

We wouldn't want that to happen, would we? Who will defend humanity from the threat of alien invasion once again? Twice now we've done our duty to secure humanity's continued existence, only for us to unceremoniously die out like starved cockroaches - rendered nothing more but a gold-trimmed footnote in the annals of history.

Will our most valiant leader, the venerable Director Theerfelder [sic], let us suffer this horrid fate? Why, of course not. Not all of us will see his way, but in time, his decision will be seen as the wisest course of action, I assure you.

Effective today and until our numbers are at an acceptable level, active opposite-sex couples within the ranks of XCOM are required to procreate and conceive at least one (1) child for induction into operator or field agent training. Those who already have children of their own may choose to submit their chosen offspring to the barracks for gradual induction. Failure to do the above without providing an acceptable reason to our medical personnel will incur mild to severe penalties, depending on the circumstances.

Additionally... and most regrettably, due to the detestable state of our current numbers, same-sex relationships among XCOM agents are now actively discouraged as per Director Thierfelder's word. Heavy penalties will be incurred to any XCOM personnel proven to be engaging in homosexual acts until-

The leaflet is burned from further below, rendering any further paragraphs ineligible.

---

Hello.

I fucked up with the submission date again, didn't I? Well, nobody should be surprised at this point. My life just isn't what it used to be anymore - I couldn't even find the time to open my PM box. That's how bad it is.

As of 17/02/16, I handed over management of the story to one of my friends so that I'll be able to focus on my work more. Don't worry, my involvement will still be around 80%, given that I'll still be the one directing the course of the story. My friend will be the one in charge of most of the typing and some of the proofreading. I hope this doesn't change much except for the atrocious update time. I'm very sorry.

This is the last of the 30k word chapters (for real, this time). I'm off to perhaps 10-15k words, so that I'll manage to keep a regular schedule.

Goodbye.