Reflections Lost on a Dark Road

by Chryssalid-Lathis

A botched mission sends the cast of Lathis' "Teen Titans and the Lost Boy" across a dimensional boundary and into a parallel world; on that world, the XCOM Earth, the cast of "The Road to Cydonia" suddenly have more than just the Alien War on their hands.

25. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space 4

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Reflections Lost on a Dark Road

Time and Relative Dimensions in Space

Chapter 24

---

Cap'n Chryssalid
Lathis - "Enjoy if you will, Tolerate if you won't."

---

A nebulous corona of pale blue expanded in the void of space, growing, widening, thickening and then suddenly vanishing as visible light emissions abruptly became replaced by high energy gamma rays. A flattened disk of silver emerged from the pulsar of electromagnetic radiation, transitioning back to real space in the wink of a spectral cosmic eye.

Several hundred thousand kilometers distant, a blue planet hung in space.

Ranma's senses extended, through the ship, and into the void beyond. Pathfinder's sensor suite was far and above that of any other craft its size. Even an Avenger utilized a mixed-source sensor arrangement, being able to divest much of the work of tracking distant enemies beyond the horizon to the integrated sensor network XCOM had access to. In other dimensions, however, that network would not exist. Consequently, Pathfinder had to do all the work itself and the hull was tightly packed with the most advanced and compact hyperwave, radar, and spectrum reading instruments available. Automatic systems and powerful algorithms began searching the moment they entered this new dimension.

As pilot, Ranma sensed it all in time with the machine.

"We're off by a bit," he announced, knowing the rest of the group were near where he sat in the pilot's seat. "Looks like the 'Earth' here is a bit further away than ours would be. Nothing major, though."

"Any information on the planet?"

"Hold your horses, P-chan, I'm gettin' to it!"

There was already a steady stream of data coming in about the nearby world: not just 'Earthlike' it was, for once, a real carbon copy parallel Earth. The first one they, or Urania-1 for that matter, had ever encountered. A spectrographic analysis indicated that not just this planet, but the star and most everything else in range, was all a direct analogue for the one back home.

Standing behind the Saotome heir, Ryouga examined the readouts on the screens. He was in full personal armor, minus the helmet, and so was everyone under his command. Even Ranma. Most of the teams were waiting or looking up at his displays with curiosity and more than a few hints of excitement. Out of all of them, Cyborg was silent, busy double checking results either on the displays or on his forearm mounted display.

"Are we in our, um, extended universes?" Starfire asked her fellow Titan. "That planet does look like Earth."

"No," Cyborg decided after a few seconds. "My scanner is still reading basically the same as before. Still the wrong multiverse." He shook his head, and tapped one of the screens. "And look at this 'Earth' ... It's like someone took an eraser to it. No radio traffic. No nothing. It's Earth, but there's no one down there."

"No one with technology anyway," Ranma chimed in, speaking through the ship's internal comms. "Nothing in orbit either. You guys know what that means! Come on dinosaur planet! I'm gonna find a T-Rex and take it for a ride, just like in Jurassic Park."

Ryu coughed and pointed out, rightly, "That never happened, Saotome."

"...It happened in the book."

"No. It didn't."

"...One of the books."

"I didn't read them all, but I doubt that happens in any of them."

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. I choose to believe!" Ranma's digitally rendered voice enthused. "And I'm gonna do it anyway."

"In that case," Ryu declared with a smirk. "If this is a dinosaur planet, then dino-steaks for everyone!"

"We're not eating any of the wildlife," Ryouga cut in. "Or taking it for joyrides. Ranma. Send the ping and take us into orbit. First things first."

"Enjoy your Acting Major rank while you can, man," the pilot replied with a light hearted tone. "Okay, I'm heading in. Hyperwave ping in ten seconds."

---

Scanning was a slow business, even when moving at high speed in orbit. There was no miraculous scanner available that would cover every square mile of a planet's surface right off the bat, nor did Pathfinder have the ability to deploy more than three drone satellites to assist in its search. Instead, the actual process substituted simple methodical determination.

Pathfinder's hyperwave scanner/decoder hardware could cover a range of about eight hundred nautical miles, or an area of almost seven million square kilometers. While impressive sounding, this was in fact only about 1.4 percent of an Earth sized planet's surface. Traveling at roughly thirty thousand kilometers per hour at a suitably low orbit, Pathfinder could accomplish the task of scanning an Earth-sized world with 90 percent accuracy over the course of five full orbits, using two unmanned parasite drones.

This, in all, took seven and a half hours.

---

With a sigh, Raven watched as the rest of her friends and team mates wiled away the time. Normally, she would have enjoyed the down time which the lengthy scanning process had afforded them. Unfortunately, unlike normal circumstances, there was nowhere for her to actually go to escape the antics of everyone else present. As such, she was forced to attempt her meditation less than two meters away from the ring of martial artists and metahumans that had formed at the main bay of the ship.

The hooting and cheering that ensued each and every dealing of Kuno's... favored deck of cards was just as abrasive now as it had been when they'd started playing over an hour earlier. They'd even dragged Starfire into the game, the poor thing.

As if any of them stood a ghost of a chance.

Not considering that Nabiki and Jinx were both playing in the game.

Raven still couldn't believe those two. All it took was the gentlest of psionic probes to reveal that both were taking cheating to epic proportions, but doing it so well that not even a ring full of martial artists had caught on to either of them yet. She had to give credit to the acquired street smarts, experience and the sheer gall that the pair of cheaters possessed, that let them think they could scam everyone on the ship... even each other.

Of course, while everyone in the game was technically a victim, some seemed to be just a little more victimized than others-

"To the Hell of Ravenous Gophers with this hand!" Shampoo shouted, throwing her handful of cards down to the floor in a fit of pique. Throwing her hands into the air, the Amazon followed it with an incredulous, "I can not believe it! I have not had a good hand all night."

Ryouga - her Ryouga - grinned at the lavender haired Amazon. "What's the matter, Shampoo? Haven't quite picked up the rules of the game yet?"

She stuck her tongue out at the Lost Boy. "At least I know where to throw my cards in when I fold, Cabbage Head."

"Hey! How was I to know-"

"Okay, okay, enough of that!" Surprisingly, it was Jinx that broke of the bickering pair - which was almost unfortunate, as Raven found herself intensely curious as to just why the pair were bickering in the first place. Had they even shared more than a single word since her friends and her had arrived in this world?

Jinx held out her hands in a placating gesture.

"Ryouga, there's no reason to get all nasty. We're just here to have fun." Even as Raven's eyes widened at the near unbelievable sight of Jinx actually taking someone else's side against Ryouga, the sorceress turned back to Shampoo. Going so far as to drop a hand on the Amazon's shoulder - causing Shampoo to tense like the extended hand was a striking snake - Jinx offered a broad smile. "And don't worry, Shampoo. Luck is a pretty fickle mistress. I'm sure yours will turn around in no time."

And, just like that, the game began again, quickly reforming the same stale cycle of dealing, betting, winning... which was usually quickly followed by another curse from Shampoo.

Even stranger, was the fact that Raven was able to glean the fact that Jinx was actively using her power to 'help' Shampoo with her losing streak, though not in the way that the Amazon would have preferred. The only thing that she couldn't figure out was why she was doing it. She didn't dare delve any deeper, as that would be noticed quite quickly, especially with someone with as many engrained defenses as Jinx. And besides, considering the way that Shampoo and Ryouga were arguing, it seemed that the most obvious explanation was likely the correct one.

Jinx didn't like it when someone messed with her man.

Raven winced at her own description. "Her" man? Raven didn't like the sound of that all... for completely unbiased reasons, of course. And yet, even as she tried her hardest to concentrate on her own

meditation, she found it impossible not to notice the glances which flashed between the witch and the Lost Boy like so much bottled lightning.

'Ugh, get a room already,' she muttered internally.

That was it, she needed a change of scenery. Maybe someone being productive at the front of the ship would actually be able to provide some intelligent discussion?

---

"Hey, hey! Check it out! I've got something."

Ranma's voice was excited, but Ryouga couldn't quite get why. A return could mean only one thing.

"They're here?" Ryouga guessed, and looked over to where the signal was coming from.

It wasn't anything complex. Pathfinder's deep-scan hyperwave decoders weren't capable of all the subtle tricks of the trade the big ones back home used. It substituted a brute force approach that blanketed the area, passively or actively sorting the brainwaves from those below. Computer filters automatically processed the results, looking only for the telltale signs of sentient (or sapient to be exact) life.

"Um..." Ranma droned. "Actually, I'm not sure."

The most tactically useful aspect of hyperwave decoding wasn't just that it could find the enemy in a general sense, but that it could plumb those alien minds for information. It was the exact same thing the aliens did when searching for a hidden XCOM base. They would sweep the area until they picked up brainwaves that effectively incriminated themselves. XCOM was now simply returning the favor.

"What do you mean, you're not sure?"

"Well... these are sapient returns, just not the aliens we're looking for," Ranma explained. "At least I think so. I'm orienting one of the drones to get a visual, but its a mess down there. Jungle or swamp or something."

Ranma's work didn't exactly pay off: the drone's cameras were state of the art and could read a license plate from orbit, but they couldn't pierce the canopy of thick vegetation down below. If there were sentients down there, they were clearly pre-industrial - likely even pre-agrarian - and, as Ranma said, not the xenos they were looking for.

"Ignore it for now," he decided. "Finish our scan for hostiles. If we don't find anything, we'll come back and get a picture for the labcoats back home."

"Ain't we supposed ta seek out new life and new civilizations, Acting Major?"

"No. We're finding the same aliens as ever and giving them the same treatment as ever. You've got another hour and then we'll trade places again."

"Major," Raven stepped in, having just overheard the tail end of the conversation. "I'm not interrupting?"

"Hm? No. Come on in," he replied, motioning for her to head over. The violet haired woman strode up to join them, her gaze quickly moving to rest on Ranma's still form.

"Did I hear that correctly?" she inquired. "Have you found sentient life on the planet?"

"That's what the computer's telling me. Can't get any solid information besides that, though." Ranma's digital self sighed. "I marked the location so we can check it out later."

The Titan's head tilted to the side, a curious expression on her face. "So..." She lifted a hand to her side. "What exactly is the procedure when 'later' comes along? Is this an unknown alien, or more of your friends?"

"Some sort of new type," Ranma answered, reminding her about what they'd found before. "There's no radio or anything, and I don't see any areas where there'd be, you know, farms or factories or cities. So just some 'sentient' or sapient or whatever natives. I'd be surprised if they even had fire down there."

"When 'later' comes around, we'll approach things slowly and carefully," Ryouga provided his own response once Ranma was done. "We'll take pictures, some extra biological samples, and then head back home."

Raven nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer. "Just as long as we don't let any of the less... subtle people off of the ship, I'm sure things should progress well enough then."

"I'm sure everyone will act professionally..." Ryouga began, and saw Raven give him a dubious look. "What? If you're implying certain members of this operation would be inclined to trade half the continent for some beads..."

"Implying? No. Outright stating? Yes. Not that I am naming the names of anyone here that is well known for their love of money and swindling people... just making my opinion known is all. Though, honestly, I'm slightly more concerned about those among the crew with a history of using highly explosive abilities at the drop of a hat."

"Well," Ryouga replied. "Destroying the landscape is a time honored tradition for some of us."

"Yes," Raven replied, staring at the man through lidded eyes. "I am well aware. Perhaps you might consider letting Ran.. um, or should I say ... um... Ukyou, do the talking?"

"We'll have all of two minutes before she hits one of them with that spatula of hers..."

"Oh shit! Shit!" Ranma's sudden bout of out of character explicatives cut them off. "I got 'em! That was it! That one was definitely Sectoid!"

Ryouga whirled on the screens again, his good cheer instantly evaporating. Darkened eyes searched through the screens for mind-scan results and map overlay.

The result was a cluster of fuzzy red.

"They're here?" he asked, surprise and a bit of anger mixing together. "You sure about this?"

"Hell, ask the machine, it's doing most of the work. But yeah. It's them." Ranma paused. "We're decoding now."

A seeming heartbeat later, the words popped up on the screen.

ALIEN RESEARCH

ALIEN ABDUCTION

ALIEN SUPPLY

"Is this...? No, there ain't enough to be the whole expedition," Ranma speculated, his whistle coming out over the speakers as a little distorted. "Looks like a small group. Maybe one ship's worth."

Looking from Ranma, then to Ryouga, Raven shrugged her shoulders, a nasty grin on her face.

"Just one? Why don't you two just drop me off then? I'll take care of them and be back in time for lunch. Then you guys can go and start a war with the other aliens as well."

"See, and people call me cocky! Not that I mind. I kinda like overconfident girls."

Ryouga's eyes narrowed.

"Alright, alright," he tried to suppress his smirk as Raven's admittedly cocksure attitude had turned infectious. "Land us nearby... we're going in. All of us."

---

The forest was as giant living tangle, with broad leafed trees rising hundreds of meters into the air. Branches as thick as a man was tall arched out and formed a crisscrossing competitive weave of organic matter; an almost entirely separate bubble ecosystem existed far below that rarely caught more than a few glimmers of light. The planet was hot and wet, a greenhouse of hyper-competitive flora and fauna, and no where was it more intense than the equatorial band.

Pathfinder's gravity bubble tore a perfectly symmetrical hole through the canopy as it came in for a landing. Giant branches warped and twisted as the induction shield wreaked havoc on the organic matter and biological membranes that held everything together on the cellular level. An unearthly hum filled the air as it worked, like a gravitic buzzsaw, clearing a path to debris strewn ground level.

A minute later, heavy boots crushed the porous soil underfoot.

Konatsu was the first to emerge from the ship, taking only a few steps to adjust his stride and balance. The footsteps became, in the span of a yard, indistinct and then vanished entirely. The armored kunoichi double checked the immediate environment and then blurred, identical Rokubu Ichitai projections heading out in different directions. The original's movements slowed, his mind divided up six ways, and eventually gave an unspoken signal to those behind.

The rest of Juliet squad set foot on the new world, none having the 'trackless' technique of their pointman, but all moving with practiced silence and ease. The forest floor was dark due to the overlapping and entwined canopy far overhead, and giant insects - children of an oxygen rich atmosphere - buzzed in once the gravitic disturbances ceased churning the air. Juliet squad finished checking out the broader area, and placed a metal stand down near the ship: a positional beacon and recording platform.

India and Yankee emerged soon after, all in full personal armor and NBC protection.

Ryu took point, his helmet HUD providing markers to guide him towards their projected target. The mission CO was right behind him, making sure to both not get lost and to respond to any potential threats, followed by Kuno and Mousse. Recon was brisk due to the thick foliage. A Roaming Susan UAV would spend more time burning through trees and branches than it would spend taking stock of the battlefield. The teams would have to handle things from a purely ground pounding perspective.

Light amplification and motion sensors were the first and primary form of investigation. While the forest canopy itself was a formidable obstacle, once at the forest floor things opened up. A lack of light was the most likely culprit. Weapons swiveled as a creature, some sort of hairy eyeless hexapod, jumped out of the bush.

"God damn cricket," Ryu hissed, sorely tempted to splatter the foot long critter.

"According to my scans, it isn't an insect. Some kind of oversized Entognatha."

"Thanks for the biology lesson, Professor."

"Anytime, dawg!"

Ryouga motioned forward, and they resumed their pace, pushing or tearing through the growth when it got in the way. For the most part it didn't. Ground cover was scarce, except for colonies of faintly bioluminescent fungi that extended thick filaments like webs, some a dozen meters across. Momentarily flickering off the nightvision, Ryu could see yet more faintly glowing shapes in the pitch black jungle floor, like eerie will-o-wisps.

They were about halfway to the target location, when the Kumon hair's sakkijutu went off.

Instinct and experience took over, and he spun, leg coming up to intersect the sudden movement that was already somehow within striking range. The toe of his boot slammed into its target with a loud crunch, a second before the Kijin Raishu Dan vacuum blade traveled in its wake, slicing the assailant in half.

In a split second, it was over, and Ryu actually got a good look at the thing that had provoked the counter attack. It was like that creature from before, but far larger. The front legs were sickle like barbs, one of which had been deflected off his forearm, and what had once been the head seemed to have some kind of extending jaw-parts or mandibles. The eyeless predator had clearly leapt out from some kind of burrow, built like a flap of debris.

The top half of it slid apart, spilling mottled green and yellow ichor.

"..."

Ryu glared down at the dead creature, then turned back to the forest ahead.

"Ambush predator. Like a trap door spider," Yankee-Ryouga remarked from further behind, tied into the same group communications channel. "Got lots of 'em in Okinawa. Big ones."

A few paced behind him, Jinx shuddered. "Remind me never to visit there, would'ya?"

"Cyborg," India-Ryouga order. "Sonar."

"Already on it," he answered, partly reconfiguring his arm and pointing it ahead. "Images are pretty messy. There are more of them up ahead, though. Maybe half could be empty depressions though."

"Move carefully. No flares."

"Yes, sir," Ryu replied, and resumed their advance. Even having a good idea what to look for, the trap door burrows were damn near impossible to spot in all the debris and rotting detritus. The jungle floor here was less tropical and more cave-like. Every so often a mixed cloud of breeding flies and fungal spores drifted past or through the group.

Along the way, they also caught sight of what could only be described as a giant centipede the length of a car, half coiled around a tree. It skittered up into the foliage and parasitic vines overhead, producing no amount of comfort for those below. The ground soon became softer and soggier, nearly to the point where it threatened to sink some of the heavier stepping members of the two teams.

"There's something moving around under there," Cyborg warned, pointing his arm down. "Oh yeah. A couple of em. Big worms or snakes or something."

"Nice planet they've got here," Mousse quipped, seemingly untroubled.

"I find it quite lovely," Starfire commented, looking around to try and catch a glimpse of the critters with all of the excitement of a child at the zoo. "Such adorable, cuddly creatures remind me of some of the pets I had as child."

"I'll stick with dogs and cats, thanks."

As they delved deeper into the root-infested swampland, Ryu motioned them to go near-prone. Figures crouched, and Ryu and Jinx both advanced, following an unspoken gesture from their CO. Advancing slowly through the mire crouched low, Jinx moved a bit ahead and took a knee, pointing just ahead and above. Ryu saw it too and nodded.

"Cyberdisk," he whispered over the comm. "About a hundred meters. One o'clock." He paused, catching it carefully. "Probably a sentry. It isn't moving."

"There'll be another one on patrol." India-Ryouga knew that from experience. This also confirmed, without a doubt, that there were Sectoids nearby.

Ryu patted the rifle in his hands, and he and Jinx crept further forward while Shampoo and Cyborg set up to deal with the stationary disk. Rather than find the second one on patrol, however, they encountered two distant Sectoids, perched on an artificial bulwark. The bulbous creatures were near something else, too: a different sort of alien.

It had to be the local 'sapients.'

It stood three times the height of the tiny Sectoids, but almost seemed to be groveling. Ryu adjusted his HUD to get a 2x zoom, and made out a few additional details. The new creature was apelike, hunched, but with both short shaggy hair and plate like scales. The posture was, in fact, gorilla-like, and matched the short legs, long powerful arms and barrel like body. It also seemed unarmed, but from the angle it was impossible to tell for sure.

"You getting this?" Ryu asked the CO. "What should we do?"

Ryouga's response took a few seconds.

"Once we find where the UFO is, we'll mind control the one on the right. Stun bomb all three in the confusion. We'll hit the Cyberdisks at the same time, then take the ship."

"Roger that," Ryu confirmed, and checked the underslung grenade launcher on his rifle. It had both stun and airbursting explosive rounds prepared, and he made sure it was toggled to the former. Stun bombs were notoriously fragile, and the aliens had an entire weapons system dedicated to their delivery. XCOM had a smaller system able to be installed as a grenade attachment, but it only worked in-atmosphere. For space ops, one would have to end up using the conventional 'small launcher' system.

Three rounds total. No reloads possible.

A minute of chatter later, and Mousse and Kuno were at what they assumed to be the landed UFO's entrance. It was heavily concealed beneath shrubbery and a blanket of fungal foliage. The pilot had landed it "in deep" which meant that they used the gravity drive to push away more and more soil until it became a mound-like rampart. A UFO could, if it desired, turn itself into a hill in very little time, leaving only a concealed entrance or dug out pit to allow entry and exit.

"Blue. Go."

That was the signal.

Shots rang out in the pitch black Troglobite forest, thunder to the lightning of green plasma and invisible laser light. Ryu and Jinx emerged from cover, and the sergeant unloaded a pair of stun bombs. Even as they tore through the air in a slight arc, he could see one of the Sectoids lunging for the other, a bright flash going off and into the forest heights. The native alien howled in surprise and fear, turning just as the bombs hit, bathing the area in paralytic gasses and sending out a psionic shock that even Ryu felt, a football field away.

It was a nice buzz.

Somewhere to the east, the forest thundered as a Cyberdisk exploded.

"Green. Go."

Ryu and Jinx advanced then, and both knew Starfire and Yankee-Ryouga would be pinning down the second Cyberdisk. The flush was in progress, and the game was sure to rear its ugly head. Jinx's plasma carbine barked, and a Sectoid emerging from around a crevice in the bulwark vanished in a spray of red and a cloud of superheated steam. It had been a perfect center of mass body shot.

The death of the second Cyberdisk was, as expected, heard throughout the battlefield. The terror machines almost never went out without a bang. Fires clung to nearby trees, but struggled to do more than stay in place against the soggy forest floor. The roar also elicited a series of shrieks and howls from some sort of native animals as they fled. Something that must've been elephant sized fell with a thud, but it was out of sight.

More explosions came from around the side of the "hill" where Mousse and Kuno were covering the landed UFO's entrance. Ryu and Jinx moved fast, jumping up to where the three aliens had been stun-bombed, and for good measure, they gave each one 'the stick.' The stun rod was an old favorite in XCOM, so popular that it had been improved and miniaturized down to baton length.

Ryu had even heard that some teams had fitted them to their weapons, like bayonets.

He had also heard that some teams used them for hazing rituals, but that was strictly against the regs. Which, of course, meant that no solider would ever think of it. Sure.

Clipping his stun rod back to the slot on his belt, Ryu took a second to kick the local xeno onto its back. This was the first clear look any of them had really gotten of its face. It was no star Trek alien, that was for sure. It had two beady black eyes and a shaggy, slightly sloped face covered in hair and bright blue plates. No - the plates were green-gray, the creature had simply smeared something blue on them.

He and Jinx then headed down to support Mousse and Kuno for the 'red' push into the UFO itself. Ukyou, Shampoo and Cyborg would move up to secure the area outside the ship. Starfire and the two Hibikis would make up the third wave, providing backup where needed.

"Red. Go."

There it was.

Ryu could see Mousse's welcome mat - aka, front door booby traps - had already claimed a victim in the form of a Sectoid that had rushed out, heavy plasma in-hand. It had tripped two claymores set by the hidden weapons master soon after stepping outside. There were pieces all around the trench leading up to the UFO's door, and probably bits in the jungle a hundred feet away. Of course, Mousse had gone easy. He hadn't even used one of his favorite land mines.

Inside, the two were just in time to help clean up the last bastion of alien resistance. A number of remaining Sectoids had fallen back to make a stand inside the cargo bay of the landed Harvester. The two story room was a small maze of retracted and protruding stasis and digestion tubes, glowing in the half light with murky forms within. Sectoids sniped down from across the room or the second floor.

Ryu grinned.

It was a wonderful melee, and the close quarters fighting played to the strengths in their training and personal preferences. Plasma flashed, hexes flew, and a dozen vacuum blades arced behind cover to turn one alien grenadier into an autopsy lesson. In the end, only one Sectoid was left, holding its weapon up in the air in the human-universal gesture of surrender.

Sergeant Kumon raised his rifle to finish it off -

It was being mind controlled, of course. Aliens didn't surrender.

"Hold your fire, Ryu," India-Ryouga said, approaching the alien. "That one's a medic. We'll take it alive."

"If you want, sir."

Without another word, the acting Major jammed a stun rod into the alien's midsection, knocking it out and freeing Raven up to assist with Starfire and Yankee-Hibiki's cleanup on the second floor. Ryu felt his battle high dip a bit as the realization that the engagement was basically over percolated up through a cloud of adrenalin.

"Clear," Yankee-Ryouga announced.

"Clear outside," Ukyou confirmed.

"No remaining hostiles," Kuno said, standing nearby and sheathing his sword. "It would seem we are victorious."

"Over already, huh?" Jinx asked, perched on top of one of the storage bay's stasis tubes.

"Police these bodies," India-Ryouga ordered, and headed back outside... after finding the wrong door first. "Ahh. Damnit." And getting it on the second try. "Ukyou. Shampoo. Mousse. I want you outside. Secure the area."

"Sir." "On it." "Easy enough."

"Sir," Ryu called back to the Acting Major. "What about the native xeno?"

Halfway outside, disappearing into the dark cave-forest outside, the mission CO wavered a bit.

"That'll depend," he replied, and stepped outside. "Just get those bodies tallied up and the gear stowed away."

"You know," Ryu turned to where Jinx was still perched, like a cat, looking down on Kuno. "We usually have newbies police the messier kills."

She nodded, kicking her feet out over the edge of one of the tubes.

"Well..." she replied, grinning teasingly behind her visor. "Have at it, then, Noob. I gotta keep on alert in case something important happens, after all. We wouldn't want to have our heavy hitter wrapped up in sweeping up the corpses when we can just have you do it."

"Cute," Ryu commented, also smirking behind his visor. "Very cute. But it'll be cuter when you're elbow deep in guts. You, too, Kuno. Squaddies are called grunts for a reason."

---

One positive thing Ranma could say about Sectoids in general was that they were fundamentally quite simple creatures. They'd made themselves that way. Minimalist in a sense. They didn't have redundant organs or tissues, like an appendix; their digestive tract was exactly the length it needed to be for what the species always ate; there was very little physical variation between any two as befitting a civilization of hierarchal clones.

Their minds, too, were straightforward and indexed from the moment of "conception." They never slept, never dreamed, never lost themselves in imagination or obsession; they didn't have abstract or irrational fears, besides mission and abuse; they didn't lose track of time or forget. Like little biological computers, their brains studiously recorded every event that transpired around them in perfect detail, cross indexed by chronology and relevance. Quite unlike an often scattered or disorganized human mind - or a Floater's or a Snakeman's for that matter - Sectoids were an open book with an easy to read index and table of contents.

Once you cracked it open, that is.

In depth psionic information retrieval was normally done at the base by trained personnel, but most officers and high level psions had varying degrees of training in what to do. It was a much more sensitive and detailed procedure than simply inducing panic or taking control of the body. It wasn't hard to format a computer, after all, or smash it or cause it to have an error... it was a bit harder to break into an otherwise secure system without damaging the data. The hacking analogy wasn't perfect, of course, but it was close enough to get the concept across.

Ranma appeared within the alien's mind at the same time as Ryouga and Raven. It was SOP for deep depth dives to consist of three trained psionics. There was always danger of a back-hack from the victim, especially when it was a psi-capable alien, or other more passive forms of deception. With three independent minds simultaneously making dives and triple checking what they found, someone would always be watching someone else's proverbial back.

The Sectoid's mind space was completely blank save for a featureless orb.

"Guess I'll give us some perspective," Ranma said to the other two, and held up his hand. Grasping apparent nothingless, he pulled it down, and when his hand opened a single line bisected the featureless void. All three oriented towards the new "up" and "down."

It was a comfort thing.

Strolling towards the floating orb up ahead, Ranma tucked his hands in his pockets. In this place, his mind had colored him with his old favorite: a green silk Chinese shirt and pants, while Ryouga was comfortable enough in his uniform to manifest it without wanting or trying to, adding the old bandages he'd worn on his hands and arms back when he was training up his projection points. His hands were even leaking green ki, like back in the crazy days.

Raven was in her old leotard and cloak combo once more, but it was hard to appreciate that fact at the moment. Though her usual blue cloak hung over her shoulders and hood covered most of her face, Ranma could actually feel something like a second cloak shrouding the young woman, though that hardly did the sensation justice. Despite being the smallest person present, the dark Titan seemed to loom over the both of them, an invisible mantle of raw power pressing down on everyone and everything present. Even to Ranma, the girl's ally, being in the presence of such psionic might was a little ominous and off-putting.

Obviously sensing that very same danger, the orb contracted, forming a little shell.

Far more eager than anyone else present, Ryouga's right hand reached out and grabbed the sphere, fingers flexing as the tips cracked and dug into the orb beneath. White and red ooze seeped out, like blood, first a trickle and then shooting out like a geyser. A moment later, and his hand dug into and inside the orb. Ranma could feel the alien mind within it resisting. This part wasn't a matter of power. It was a matter of desire.

It wanted to keep its secrets. It wanted to be safe in its little cocoon. You could either coax the mind out, or tear it out. The latter was the preferred method for dealing with non-humans in a time sensitive situation. But you had to want it. You needed to be motivated.

Ryouga was 'motivated.'

Finally, the orb dissolved and the acting Major wrenched something from the shell. Ranma's face didn't betray his disgust. This wasn't the first time he'd seem a Sectoid's inner self. It didn't change the fact that it was vile.

A bulbous fetus hit the floor with a wet splatter, slowly moving its tiny arms and head in a bloody puddle. Huge black eyes stared out at nothing in particular and a black mouth screeched in indignation. Next to him, Ranma saw Raven adjust her hood, but give no other visual sign of discomfort or disgust. Despite that, though, and despite her own training, he could feel traces of her disapproval bubbling over. There was no doubt in the Saotome's mind that she knew she could have coaxed the alien out less violently, if she had been given the chance.

But Raven didn't know these aliens like he and Ryouga did. These were the star-faring bastards that had been harvesting and torturing humanity for thousands of years. They didn't have time to play nice, nor did they have the inclination.

As if to prove his point, a combat boot pressed on the squealing alien fetus, as if to crush it underfoot...

Instead, the boot skidded it over to the side slightly, turning it to face upwards and lie on its back. Ryouga then held up one hand, and a long thin needle appeared and grew, stretching to more than a meter long. As the tiny creature saw what was coming, Ranma felt another jet-pulse of resistance. It refused to cooperate. It refused to let them in.

Ryouga's hate muffled the unspoken cries, reasserting command. Ranma knew his 'best rival' hated aliens in general with a terrible passion, and even though he didn't go around glowering and swearing revenge for Akari anymore, it was always there. Under the surface; always burning, like a molten ingot buried in sand. Ranma could almost see that knot of negative energy hovering behind the lost boy. It was ample motivation to cow the alien's comparatively meager will to resist.

Raven looked away a second before he slammed the meter long needle into the alien's forehead, pinning it like a fly.

"See, this is why I leave you to this kind of stuff," Ranma commented, and reached over to place his hand on top of the blunt end of the impaling spike. "I'm just too nice for this line of work."

"I'm not sure the Captain of the Procyon would agree." Ryouga already had his palm down on it.

The pigtailed one scoffed. "Those were... special circumstances. Ones I hope I never encounter again. Come on, Rae."

Hesitantly, Raven nodded and reached out, putting her right hand on top of Ranma's. All three felt the immediate access they had to the alien's memories and thoughts. Whatever will to resist remained had been thoroughly broken and drowned out; washed away into the gutter. This particular alien would probably be comatose for days once they brought it back to HQ. Sectoids were resilient, though. A human, or some of the humanoid aliens, would be a drooling, shitting vegetable.

Purpose: Medic.

Extended: Study and exploitation of local sentient resources.

Ranma started at the beginning, with the alien's creation. It was the third Medic produced using this particular template. Ranma moved past the more irrelevant details; Sectoids were just programmed life forms. Those early memories were of being in a tube, emerging from the tube, and being immediately put to work.

It had been unexpectedly recent, however, and Ranma soon found himself at what he assumed to be planet-fall here on this alternate world. The alien hadn't been taken out until after the expedition made its transit here. The Sectoid was literally about a month old.

In that short time, however... it had been busy.

Too busy. The alien expedition had only been gone for a few weeks, but there were enough memories and data here for twice that. It had to be another time dilation effect. The ones in the previous two transits had been much less pronounced, but still noticeable. Not a major problem, really; it just meant they'd be gone for two days instead of one. Picking the Sectoid Medic's brain, Ranma could also see that the aliens had been making the best of their 'free time.'

The local aliens from this alternate Earth weren't human, obviously, but they were biologically advanced enough to warrant a 'study' team going down to see if they could be made to 'serve' in some capacity. Among the first ways of 'serving' that the aliens had looked into was also the most abhorrent. Food. Various local animal life was tested, and methods developed to properly render them down to the liquid soup aliens of most types relied on.

With a method in place for proper 'recycling,' the aliens quickly got to work with their other typical activities: chiefly experimentation. They had already performed a survey of the alien population planet-wide, and tested members from different areas. Three isolated pockets of diverging native populations had already been exterminated right off the bat for failing to perform as expected and for being 'dead ends.' The remaining three were slated for systematic 'advancement' and 'improvement.'

Most important to the aliens had been, first, the cultivation of another alien species worthy of uplifting. There were expectations that this group of sapients could, like the Mutons, serve as a source of labor and expendable soldiery. There was also the possibility they could be improved by developing latent psionic or other abilities. Lastly, their genetic material could be of some use in "targeted diversity" within the Sectoid Hierarchy.

Ranma frown deepened the further he delved into the alien depravity.

'Like they did to us,' he realized, and kicked himself for not really expecting it. 'Is this what they did to our ancestors, Kami knows how long ago. This is what they did to us.'

---

The EDC Core was intact.

"An awful lotta trouble fer something so small, huh?" Ranma asked, holding up the special containment case they'd brought along for just such a purpose. The whole thing was small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and without the organic control core, the rest of he EDC was effectively useless.

Ryouga nodded in agreement. "Just don't lose it, Ranma."

"Should I make a joke here about getting lost?"

"It never stopped you before." But he quickly turned to Mousse and Cyborg, who were present and finishing clean-up. "Are the scuttling charges ready?"

"She's ready to blow!" Cyborg enthused. "I, uh, just hope we're not popping this baby where it is?"

"We'll probably tow the ship into orbit," Mousse guessed, and adjusted his glasses with one finger. "And let the pieces burn up on reentry."

"Exactly. Pathfinder can't transit while latched onto something as big as a Harvester," Ranma explained, only to have the three present stare at him. "What? Too exposition-y?"

"Where do you even come up with these words, Saotome?"

"It's called creativity, Mousse."

"Anyway," Ryouga cut them both off. "Mousse. Finish stripping the ship. We've got the Elerium and the EDC core, but if there's anything else we can loot and bring home..."

It was a time honored XCOM tradition, of course.

"Say no more," the Hidden Weapons Master then jerked his head in Cyborg's direction. "Am I on it, or are we on it?"

"Unfortunately, I'll be needing Cyborg and Yankee for another matter, now that the essentials are taken care of," the officer replied with a shake of his head. "Juliet, too. So do what you can with just India. I'll help, too, of course... but I'll be keeping Ryu on watch."

"So just us three? I guess we can strip off the white meat," Mousse said with a sigh, referring to the more modular UFO components. "But what's more important than salvaging this hulk?"

"Science," Cyborg answered seriously. "Even with what you guys took from the aliens, we're only scratching the surface of the ecosystem here!"

Ryouga didn't disagree. "That, too. I also want Yankee and Juliet to check out two of the nearby native-alien villages. According to the Sectoids we took, they've put up clandestine sensors to monitor the aliens they've modified."

"Biochips?" Mousse asked. It was the most common alien 'abduction experience' tracking device, allowing the aliens to track a target (allowing for easier long distance psionic attack) and sometimes, to make on-the-spot physiological modifications. There was a wide variety of them, but morphologically they were all pretty similar.

"Nah. I'm not worried about those. Besides, how would we get them back?" Ryouga asked; of course, they could recover the tech by cutting them out of the native aliens, but there was no need. "These are little floating ovals about twice the size of a Frisbee."

Cyborg stepped in then. "Um, you mean a regular Frisbee or a disk golf Frisbee?"

"Disk what?"

"Disk Golf. Its like golf but with Frisbees."

"Just.. a Frisbee. I don't know!" Ryouga held out his hands. "This big. We need them both taken out. The aliens were also acting through proxies, like the sleeping native we've got sedated in the other room."

"Hm," Ranma thought aloud. "You think we should take them out, too?"

"I'm considering it," he admitted. "Just because the aliens started messing around here doesn't mean we have to let their experiments play out."

"Somatic mutations?" Mousse asked, a moment before Cyborg could.

"Yeah," Ranma replied. "The aim was to make diverging populations. Eventually, all but one would go extinct." He sighed, and looked around the room. "That is... if we do nothing."

Ryouga crossed his arms, clearly disliking the available options.

"Let's see how things go in the field," he finally decided. "It may be a moot point anyway." He sounded almost hopeful of that as he briefly massaged his temples before turning to address the local tech genius. "Cyborg, help me find other-me so I can brief him, hand down the ROE, and get this done."

---

"Alright, Yankee Squad, fall in."

It still surprised Ryouga to see his teammates scramble into line before him. At his core, he still felt a combination of guilt and frustration at subjecting his friends to this embarrassment; them being forced to do what he said just because of a dimensional fluke. It should have been Robin here, not him, and if not the masked teen, then Cyborg. At least then he could be confident that the orders that were about to be handed down weren't complete bunk.

Still, they had a job to do, and he had to do his best to make sure everyone survived. He took a moment to inspect his team, now that they were standing neatly in rank and file before the entrance of the ship. At the far right was Starfire, standing ramrod straight. Even with her helmet on, her height alone - taller than everyone on the ship except Cyborg - made the Tamaranian's identity obvious. Then, of course, was her armor. Unlike India and Juliet, all wearing the standard XCOM scout-type or regular Personal Armor, with a few affectations here and there, Starfire's armor was quite unique. A replacement for the suit she'd lost destroying Saffron, the suit she wore had numerous small improvements over the original.

Thanks to her innate strength and flight, they'd gotten approval to "ghetto rig" (as Cyborg put it) some extra modular armor plating in addition to the Polarization technology. It still had the intricate internal cooling and insulation systems of the standard personal armor suits, of course, but field experience had shown that, as an aggressive flier, Starfire attracted a disproportionate amount of enemy fire. The large riot shield strapped to her back, a combination of Cyborg's polarization technology, Ukyou's spatula tech and the standard Xcom cooling systems and just sheer weight of alien alloy, was also impossible to miss. Nothing short of vehicle-class exotic alloy was guaranteed to take a heavy plasma bolt and not be a molten mess, but, if anything, Cyborg would put that piece of armor up against any HWP in the field. Since she used internally generated starbolts as her main weapon at-range, rather than a rifle, it was considered a worthwhile addition to her equipment. Unlike a human, she could actually carry the otherwise completely unwieldy piece of armor without any difficulty.

Next to her, Jinx stood, her slight frame matched with an equally light suit of scout-class personal armor. The scout kit was only up-armored around critical areas, representing an 'all or nothing' approach to protecting just the vitals and statistically targeted areas. In Yankee, Jinx was highly dependant on the force field technology that Cyborg had cannibalized from his T-Brella. Thankfully, for Ryouga's peace of mind, Cyborg had had the time to tweak and upgrade the tech during their downtime, attaching a superior power supply for longer duration missions. The endoskeletal accelerator system had also been blended with UNETCO style of strength enhancement used in more modern personal armor suits.

And in yet another case of Jinx stealing the more cutting edge tech, Cyborg had removed the prototype holographic emitter from himself and installed it into her suit. His own bulky frame was too large, and his training in stealth was pretty much non existent to really take advantage of it, but for someone like Jinx, it suddenly became much more practical. Even better - or so Cyborg had claimed - he was able to hijack the emitter array used by the force field system to project a more coherent image. It was far from perfect but for someone with Jinx's training, it could be enough to gain a useful advantage against the old Mark-One Eyeball. Unfortunately, Cyborg hadn't had a chance to field test it, yet, so to prevent any temptations on her part about using it prematurely, the system had not yet been activated.

As for Cyborg himself, the already large teen was wearing a new set of appliqué armor plating as well, making him seem like a walking battleship. Some, the native Hibiki included, had criticized the "over armoring" Yankee seemed to be attempting, stressing that the best defense was a quick and efficient offense. Speed and training were considered more important than belated attempts at putting on more armor in XCOM, but Yankee was a unique squad with unique capabilities.

Cyborg's extra armor represented that. Taking the Titan's prodigious strength into account, he could be wearing a few dozen tons of armor and it wouldn't even slow him down. There was another new addition as well, the less on the defense side of things. Though his Sonic cannon was still his main weapon, he had mounted an Autocannon to his back, loaded with standard HEAP rounds, for the extra penetration power that his S-Cannon and plasma enhanced mini missiles couldn't provide. All in all, he looked more like a piece of military hardware than the go-to "science officer" of the mission.

And, last but no least, standing next to Cyborg was Raven, clad in her UNETCO uniform, psi badge displayed prominently on her shoulder. Obviously, she wouldn't be going with them physically, but she would still be with them on their mission. Like all of the combat teams, her uniform was camouflaged. In this case, they were all using a variation of jungle-woodland greens and browns.

"Alright," he began. "We've been assigned to locate a nearby village and take out a remote sensor that the aliens were using to monitor the indigenous populations."

"Sounds simple enough," Jinx stated. She slung her assigned plasma carbine over her shoulder. "With extreme prejudice, or what?"

Instantly, all eyes turned her way, though only Raven's glare was plain to see. "Absolutely not," replied the dark Titan in a sharp tone.

Ryouga nodded. "We're not here for genocide; we're here to help these guys, whether they like it or not."

The martial artist could all but feel the smile beaming from beneath Starfire's helmet and her feet floated off the floor several inches. Rolling his eyes, though no one could see the gesture through his own helmet, he then pointed to the Tamaranian. "Starfire, I want you to give us an aerial view of the area. Locate the village and guide us in. We have no indication of them having any technology at all, but just in case they're wicked good at throwing rocks or have bows, keep a nice, high altitude."

She nodded sharply in response, obviously ecstatic at the chance to get some high flying in on a mission. He then turned his attention to Jinx. "Jinx, I want you to take point. Keep in constant communication with Starfire, and stay out of trouble if you can. If you spot any aliens avoid them if possible and give Cyborg and me the heads up so that we can as well."

"Easy-peasy, boss man," the sorceress replied confidently, firing off a sloppy salute.

Next in line was Raven. "Raven, you'll vector with Starfire and Jinx. Keep a steady line of communication open between them, and see if you can't 'dissuade' any locals that might be less than friendly."

An annoyed look flashed across Raven's face for a second, and a slight tensing in Jinx's frame indicated that she likely wasn't any more excited at the prospect, but - frankly - it was a case of 'Tough Beans.' He hated to even think anything that sounded like something his counterpart would say, but those two needed to learn to work together, whether they liked it or not. Thankfully, they had been getting along much better lately, but he knew that it would still take them both more time.

Cyborg smiled broadly, having yet to put on his heavily armored helmet. "So, that means that you and me get to stroll along at a lazy pace while the girls do all the real work?"

Chuckling, Ryouga nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much the gist of it. I guess that's our burden, working with such damned talented, not to mention beautiful women."

Immediately, hips cocked out and fists were planted on them firmly. Only Raven's wry smile was visible, but it seemed all but a forgone conclusion that it was being shared by the sorceress and the alien as well. "Your burden, is it?" asked the lavender haired Titan.

"If I weren't such a kind and trusting person, I'd say you two were just being lazy bums," Jinx followed up.

"However, your flattery has been appropriately deployed to deflect our ire over being shouldered with the lion share of the labor." Starfire's helmeted head tilted to the side. "With our vanity sufficiently placated, we will endeavor to complete the mission to the best of our abilities."

Raven nodded, still grinning. "Flattery will get you anywhere, so the saying goes. Just try not to make a habit of it."

"Well, don't make a habit of using it to manipulate us poor, impressionable young girls," Jinx amended. "Flattery for the sake of flattery, though, is all good. Keep that stuff coming."

Chuckling, Ryouga could only shake his head helplessly. Finally, he waved to the entrance of the ship. "Just go, already. I don't want people to think I'm an even softer commander than Ranma, here. Let's liberate us some aliens."

Nodding, the three girls quickly stepped over to the airlock and got into a quick huddle. At Ryouga's side, Cyborg slide on his helmet and activated the environmental seal before joining him in watching the female half of Yankee. Raven indicated for the pair to lean forward - and down a bit in Starfire's case. She then placed a hand on the helmet of both girls in a small ritual that Ryouga had been a part of several times already. Though not strictly necessary, the physical contact made the shifting of Raven's 'partitions' - as they were called - all but effortless.

Nothing at all appeared to happen but Ryouga knew better. Starfire and Jinx didn't so much as tense at the mental insinuation, more than used to the sensation at this point. Without another word, Raven spun and made her way out of the room and back towards the cockpit. She would likely hunker down close to Nabiki so as to better disperse any intelligence that Starfire or Jinx might gather from their advanced positions.

Once she was gone, the door sliding closed silently behind her, Ryouga and Cyborg joined the girls and exited the ship in short order. As soon as their feet touched soil, Jinx and Starfire were off in a flash. The former zipped forward and vanished into the dense forest in a matter of seconds, and Starfire disappeared into the canopy in a streak of green light. Giving them both several moments to achieve a sufficient lead, Ryouga idly examined his laser rifle. It was about the easiest weapon to learn to use. 'Point and click interface,' and instant time to target. Plus, no need to juggle ammo clips.

"Man, I can't get over how gorgeous this planet is," Cyborg breathed in awe.

Ryouga simply shrugged. "Meh. You've seen one giant forest filled with giant animals intent on eating you, you've seen them all. I'd definitely prefer a giant koala at the moment to all these nasty creepy crawlies."

"Dude, you just got no appreciation for nature…" Cyborg paused. "… And I can't believe how bizarre that sounds, coming from the cyborg to the mountain man."

"The only people that 'appreciate' nature are the people that don't spend ninety percent of their life lost in nature. Trust me, it gets old quick."

Cyborg shook his head, the sound of metal scraping on metal grating on Ryouga's ears. "Jaded much?" He then looked down to the display on his arm - a transparent plate of the alien alloy had been overlaid over the existing view screen, allowing him to still take advantage of the useful device. "Anyway, Jinx has a kilometer on us now, we should head out."

Slinging his rifle back over his shoulder, the Lost Boy nodded, then began to jog forward into the forest. He kept a relaxed pace; while Cyborg could easily keep up in normal circumstances, he'd likely sound like a bulldozer tearing through the jungle if he did try to run any faster. Of course, that meant that they were still losing ground on Jinx, but not so much that they wouldn't be able to catch up in short order if an emergency came up.

They had quite some distance to cover, though, and even at their tireless pace, it would probably be a half an hour before they reached the general vicinity of the alien village in question. As such, Ryouga wasn't surprised when his secure comm crackled to life again and Cyborg's voice poured into his ear. A quick check of his internal HUD showed that Cyborg had opted for a private channel this time, so they didn't disturb anyone else on the line.

"So, Ryo… I hope you don't mind me asking, but what was up with you and Shampoo back there?"

"Huh?" Ryouga grunted in a non committal fashion.

A large root was smashed to splinters as it attempted to trip up Cyborg in the middle of his charge, and the large Titan gave no indication of even noticing the impediment. "You know what I mean. You were harpin' on the girl pretty much the entire card game. I know you two were never super close or nuthin, but you've barely even spoken to her since we got here, so where did that come from?"

Seeing a low hanging branch zooming towards him, Ryouga opted to leap over it, rather than just crash through it - if only to save on the paint job of his armor. Once he was back in the flow of running, he looked over to his team mate, still trucking along. Honestly, he hadn't even realized it at the time, but when even Jinx had called him on it…

"I guess I'm still annoyed with her over last night. I ran into her when I was doing some training. We kinda got into it."

"Got into it?"

Ryouga nodded to himself before ducking under a low branch as thick around as his torso. "It started off just kind of annoying. I was working on my earth ki techniques, and she started to lecture me on it." He growled under his breath. "Seriously, she's pretty much one of the least knowledgeable people on the base when it comes to actually applying ki, let alone elemental qi. It would be like Ukyou trying to lecture you on cybernetics."

"Ah," Cyborg 'ah'd', "So a case of professional pride and bruised ego is the deal? I guess that makes sens-"

"Actually, no," Ryouga cut in quickly. "I got over that pretty quick. She did have good intentions, after all. But after that, we started arguing about the morality of being a martial artist versus being a super hero."

Cyborg let out a bark of laughter, lashing out to smash a small sapling out of his path. "Just like Ukyou and BB, right? That must have been hilarious!"

Ryouga didn't disagree. "It was… interesting, to say the least. Her main argument seemed to be that self interest was better than selflessness. Of course, I'm sure there are some people that would agree with that completely… right Nabiki?"

A silent moment passed… until the comm crackled to life once more, a new voice joining the conversation. "You know, the gossip feels much juicier when you guys pretend that I'm not monitoring all the transmissions."

"Yeah, yeah, we love you too, Biki," Cyborg replied with a smile. "Now are you gonna keep this under your hat and keep quiet, or are we gonna have to change the subject?"

"What?" squawked the operator. "You can't change the topic now. I wanna know all the dirt, too. I'll keep it private, I promise. I'm pretty sure there's some kind of confidentiality thing going on here, provided whatever is going on between you and Shampoo isn't a matter of internal security."

Looking over at Cyborg's arm display, Ryouga noted that Jinx was still a good distance ahead of them. "No, nothing like that. Hell, we didn't even finish the argument. I reminded Shampoo of the inconvenient truth that we were every bit as reckless and dangerous as any meta-human, but without any of the redeeming qualities of concern for the social good. She kinda gave up there, changed the topic real quick and made a run for it."

"Wait," Nabiki interrupted, sounding shocked. "Shampoo actually backed down from a fight, of any kind?"

"Don't feel bad about getting ticked at Shampoo over that, Ryo. We're from two different worlds, after all. Her views might be completely alien to us, but might be perfectly normal here."

"Actually, that isn't what I'm annoyed about, either," Ryouga corrected. "After all, when you think about it, for all that Shampoo said, what she's doing now is pretty much exactly the same as what you guys have been doing for years. The only difference is that everyone here had to wait for an invitation and permission to play hero."

Cyborg nearly stopped in his tracks there. "Okay, hold on a second. You aren't ticked at her for critiquing your training? You're not ticked at her for questioning your views of morality? Just how many things did you and her talk about, and how could two people possibly disagree about so many things?"

Ryouga waved his hand, before quickly using it to vault over a waist high mound of dirt. "It wasn't any of that. It was… well, she-she-"

"Oh, for the love of money, Ryouga, spit it out already. You sound like the mean old Amazon violated you, or something," Nabiki all but commanded. The note of amusement in her voice was far more obvious than was strictly necessary for the moment.

"No!" Ryouga barked, nearly tripping over his own feet at the mere suggestion. "It's just that-that… she called Jinx a Stupid, No-Breast Girl!" A deep growl rumbled in the martial artist's throat. "Damn Shampoo, who does she think she is? Jinx does so have breasts!"

It took Ryouga three whole seconds to realize that he was by himself. Skidding to a stop, he quickly spun around. There, nearly fifty yards behind him, Cyborg was laying collapsed in a heap. Electronically transmitted gales of laughter assaulted Ryouga from both ends of the line, and he found himself glowering. Stomping back, he dragged the massive Titan back to his feet.

"So," Nabiki drawled, "You seem pretty sure of Jinx's … endowments. You must have some kind of proof of that."

In an instant, Ryouga's spine stiffened and he nearly dropped Cyborg back onto his face. Hemming and hawing, his face blushing bright red, he twiddled his fingers as he attempted to come up with an answer. "Ummm… would you believe 'anecdotal evidence'?"

Pushing himself to his feet, now dripping mud and looking more like Swamp Thing than Cyborg, his massive companion stood up beside him and slapped a heavy metal hand to Ryouga's armored shoulder. "You sure there wasn't a visual inspection involved in this deduction, Ryo?"

"Oh, no, Ryouga is far more of a hands-on kinda guy," Nabiki's voice was hushed, possibly because she wasn't alone in the cockpit, but still filled with mirth. "I bet he's got all kinds of physical evidence to back up his claims."

"Shut up, both of you! Don't make me pull rank!"

"Sir, yes sir!" Nabiki barked, but in such a sarcastic manner that it caused Cyborg to nearly keel over in laughter.

"Well, at least now the mystery is revealed." Shaking his head one last time, Cyborg began to steamroll along through the forest, hot on the girls' trail. "Now come on, man, stop slowing us down already. We got a mission to do!"

Grumbling, Ryouga was tempted to just leave his team mate in the dust, but knew that if he didn't keep Cyborg in sight, he'd likely get lost in less than a minute. Still, the guy was right about one thing; they did have a mission to do.

He just wondered, as he began his easy jog again, whether Jinx had to put up with this kind of crap as well.

---

'So… you seem to have an interesting approach to playing cards. One would almost think that you were more interested in making Shampoo lose than in winning yourself.'

'Ugh,' Jinx groaned internally. 'Why do I have to put up with this crap?'

'You are aware that I heard that, right?'

'I should hope so, I thought it 'loud',' Jinx countered in a huff.

It was hard enough, vaulting acrobatically through the forest, trying to maintain a tight balance between speed and stealth, not to mention stretching her senses to the limit to make certain that no one got the drop on her. The last thing she needed was psychic static distracting her.

'Can we not do this now?' she followed up quickly. 'I'm kind of in the middle of something here.'

As if to prove her point, a burst of motion exploded from the side. Unlike Ryu, though, she didn't lash out at the creature that leapt out at her from its burrow. Instead, she twisted around in a tight spiral, letting the predatory insect fly right over her to crash into the brush on the other side of her. Not even slowing her charge, she left the gross bug in her dust. It made a meager attempt to recover and give chase, but it didn't have a chance.

As an afterthought, she opened a quick commlink. "Hey babe, I left you guys some man eating bugs to play with. Keep an eye out for them."

"Thanks for the warning, Jinx. Will do." A short pause from her commanding officer. "Also… can you please not call me 'babe' when we're on the job?"

The sorceress' lips twisted up into an indulgent grin. "No, no I can't. Over and out."

Amusement aside, though, the terrain was far more arduous than she was expecting it to be. The massive trees, the untamed undergrowth and the deadly aliens were a combination of conditions that even she wasn't used to. The fact that it was raining again, making every surface as slick as glass and the ground into a mud slide made it even worse for her, as her particular style of locomotion didn't involve the 'smashing through walls with her skull' that most everyone else here seemed to enjoy.

"Jinx, are you prepared to receive an incoming transmission?"

Jinx rolled her eyes. "Yes Starfire, I'm prepared. What's up?"

"I have located the colony we seek. There are several crude structures visible through the branches, however it appears as if the bulk of the village is taking up residence within the heart of a large tree. I have descended as low as I dare, but have been unable to locate the object we seek."

'You know what that likely means?' Raven intruded.

'Yeah, yeah. 'Someone' is likely gonna have to go in and find the damn thing. And if we don't want to pull an India style Slash and Burn, that someone is probably gonna be me.'

"Alright, Star, fill in Ryo and Cy. I'm gonna go on ahead and scout it out."

"Roger that."

With that, Jinx redoubled her efforts to remain unseen as she moved through the jungle. She desperately wished she could give the holographic stealth field a test run, but it wouldn't exactly help her if it made her glow neon green or something because she was too impatient to test it. Of course, that didn't stop her from just happening to mutter, "Boy, sure would be nice if I had some kind of invisibility field." over the team commline. Instead, she resorted to the old tricks of the trade, utilizing natural cover and using short bursts to minimize her exposure as she moved from tree to tree.

She was about to dart forward again-

'Wait. I sense a presence nearby.'

Instantly, Jinx plastered herself to the nearest trunk. Her fingers ran over the rough bark, the hard metal of her armor clicked silently as it bounced through the uneven ridges, providing the sensation. Moving slowly, she slid around the trunk, carefully scanning the forest. The thickness of the canopy above her, the rain and the pervading shadows made this difficult even with low light enhancement, but she had a practiced eye when it came to picking out potential threats.

A little mental prodding from Raven to point in her in the general direction didn't hurt either.

It was perched less than fifty feet away from her, and twenty of that was vertical. She had to crane her neck a bit, but saw she could just make it out, mostly in thanks to the bright blue… gunk which it had spread over its plated hide. Like her, it was pressed up against the trunk of the tree, but being nearly twice her size, it cut a somewhat more noticeable profile than she did. It was incredibly still, far too still to actually be asleep.

'It hasn't seen me yet, has it?'

A moment passed.

'Give me another moment. It's mind is primitive… No, no it hasn't seen us. It did hear us approaching, though, and it has caught our scent, but it doesn't know where we are at the moment.'

Jinx let out a thankful sigh, grateful for the helmet keeping the sound contained. 'Gotta give the guy credit for hearing me coming. These alien buggers are sharp. Can you keep him off my case?'

Time seemed to crawl by as Jinx clung to the tree. She actually watched as a centipede-like annelid over two inches in diameter and three feet in length slid down the tree and crawled over her shoulder, then down her chest before crawling back onto the tree and on its way. Even through the armor, her skin crawled at the mere proximity of the disgusting creature, but she refused to flinch.

Looking back up, she started in shock - the creature was gone!

Tensing, she prepared to leap out from her cover - when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Spinning, she brought her plasma carbine to bear-

'Calm down, Jinx!' This time, the mental echo felt as if it emanated from the shaggy blue alien that had just appeared behind her. The alien creature quickly backed off a step and held its hands up before it. 'I've taken control of this alien. Like us, it is acting as a scout for its tribe.'

Frowning darkly, Jinx lowered her weapon. As if that hadn't been obvious to begin with. It would have served Raven right if she'd vaporized the alien's skull. See how well she could control it then. 'Do you have any actual useful information there? Like how far we are from the village?'

In a very human gesture - looking all the more alien when performed by the creature - it nodded. Lifting a large, gorilla-like arm, it pointed back in the general direction which they had already been traveling. 'We only appear to be a kilometer or so out… I think. Trying to interpret time and distance from this creature's mind is … interesting, to say the least. The village itself isn't terribly large, probably only one hundred aliens at the most. I am getting a few scattered memories of the device we're looking for as well. I can't tell you where, though, I … think it's actually mobile.'

'Well, that's just great. Sounds like we're gonna have to pin it down then.'

The alien beast nodded grimly. Frowning, Jinx took a knee, kneeling down on the broad branch beneath her. She tried to scratch her chin, but only scraped the metal of her helmet. It was annoying to try to think on her feet like this while feeling like a sardine in a tin can. Finally, she gestured to the alien. 'Alright. Get Star to relay all this info to Ryouga. Then you and me will go ahead and scout out the village. We'll find the thing and let Ryouga figure out what to do from there.'

A second later, the alien nodded again. 'Starfire is relaying the situation now.'

Not bothering to reply, Jinx just bolted off once more. Surprisingly, the alien creature was actually able to keep pace with her moderate run. Even with Raven at the steering wheel, the alien body flowed through the jungle as smoothly as anything she'd ever seen. In less than a minute, they arrived at the outer fringes of the village proper.

It was a combination of what Star had explained, as well as Raven… and at the same time, it was so very much more. It was… beautiful. It was like a scene from a documentary… or maybe a movie, like Gorilla sized Smurfs In The Mist, or something. As Starfire had said, there were several rough shelters, mostly just branches lashed together and covered with ferns, but there was almost an… artistry to how everything had been assembled. The aliens even had some kind of light sources, fascinating shades of pink and blue contained in dangling gourds. Possibly some kind of moss?

There were aliens wandering around, going about various tasks. Only a few of them were going about their business around these small huts, though, the majority of the aliens were moving in and out of a massive tree at the center of the clearing. The tree towered over all the rest, and she could even see several small huts set up on some of the higher branches. It was like the world's biggest tree fort.

What she couldn't see, though, was an uberfrisbee conveniently floating out where anyone could spot it...

Sighing, she activated her commlink. "Ryouga, come in."

"Ryouga here. Are you in position, Jinx?"

Well, about as 'in position' as she could really get, she supposed. "Yeah, me and Raven are just outside the village. No one has spotted us yet, but we don't have a visual on the MacGuffin."

"The what?"

Jinx shook her head. "Never mind. What do you want us to do?"

There was a momentary pause. "Hold tight for a moment. Cyborg has a plan. I'll patch him in."

A second later, Cyborg's voice entered the conversation. "Alright, Jinx, this alien sensor is gonna be tough. Your carbine might not be able to take it out in a single shot, so unless you wanna charge in guns blazin', I suggest a slightly different approach."

"I'm all ears," Jinx replied. If this thing was mobile and she took a pot shot at it, there was a good chance it would zip off before she could take another shot. And if that happened, then they'd have to find it again and take it out, only with the added joy of having an entire tribe of violent, panicked alien beasties giving them grief over it.

"Rather than sniping it yourself, I want you to paint the target for me. You know what I mean by that, right?"

Jinx rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I'm not a moron here; we're practically living a military fantasy at the moment. What do you want me to paint it with, though?"

"The laser scope from your carbine should do fine. I already had tracking systems installed in my missile payload, so all you need to do is keep your rifle trained on the target and let me take care of the rest."

"It's about time one of you guys actually pulled your weight on this mission," she replied with a smirk. "Okay, Raven and I will start moving in. We'll let you know when we're ready."

The commline cut out, leaving Jinx alone in her helmet once more. Well, almost alone, anyway. Nodding to the alien at her side, she motioned for Raven to move in normally, then pointed up sharply, indicating that she would come in from a higher route.

Nodding, the blue alien beasty took several steps forward, giving Jinx time to scurry to the nearest tree and begin scaling it. 'Raven' then rose up and entered the village proper. Some of the other aliens lifted their heads and looked at her/him/it for a moment, but beyond that, paid little heed, already wrapped up in their own tasks.

A moment later, Jinx lost track of her team mate as she climbed up the back side of another large tree, one whose massive branches looked like they intertwined with the main tree a few dozen yards up in the air. It didn't take her long to find a limb that suited her purpose: a massive branch as big around as Cyborg was tall. She was well over a hundred feet in the air, but she didn't hesitate for a second as she sprinted across the uneven surface. At the midway point between the two trees, she leapt across to a nearby branch, landing gracefully before continuing her run towards the large colony tree.

As soon as she was close enough, she dropped to her belly and started crawling. The frantic actions actually brought a grin to her face, flashing her back to her academy days. Oh, the things they had been subjected to, the courses and obstacles they'd ran through! She'd done much more urban training, but this was still pretty fun. Sneaking into a colony of over a hundred potentially hostile aliens was an interesting challenge, even if they didn't have buttloads of advanced security to worry about bypassing.

Scuttling as she was, it took her several tedious minutes to actually infiltrate the tree, but now that she knew just how sensitive her victims were, she wanted to make especially certain that she didn't make a sound, and that she didn't get close enough to anyone for the smell of her armor to give her away. There wasn't much airflow in the colony tree, thankfully, though, so she was fairly certain she didn't have to worry about it carrying too far.

Even so, once inside the tree, with its vaulting, cavernous interior, she wondered if she would ever find what she was looking for. A Frisbee in a football field seemed an apt description. She did have a bit of luck, though. Rather than being a series of chambers and tunnels running throughout the tree, it appeared as if it was mostly hollow. The aliens had actually managed to build a series of vine bridges which ran up and around the interior of the trunk providing easier access to the upper reaches of the tree and to some of the naturally occurring platforms where more of their crude shelters had been lashed together.

Climbing close to a smaller version of one of the ledges, she peeked over edge. Thanks to the HUD in her helmet, she was able to start scanning around quickly, but she still had no idea how long such a search would take.

'Jinx, where are you?'

Raven's telepathic voice nearly freaked the stealthy sorceress right out of her skin. Grumbling, she took a deep breath before replying. 'I'm a few stories up. What about you, where are you?'

'I'm on the ground floor. I've found the sensor. It's floating roughly twenty feet above the ground, near the southernmost entrance. I'm currently several yards from it. I'll lift my left arm, then my right arm so that you can pick me out of the crowd.'

'Got ya,' Jinx replied. Well, alright. That was good news. They had arrived from the east, so the looked to the right and down quickly. There were probably forty or more of the aliens in sight, all moving around the floor. Considering the distance, she couldn't tell one from the other to save her life - so it was pretty helpful when she saw one of them lift one arm, then the other. The alien in question, then lazily began to move north a bit -

There! Now that she knew exactly where to look, she could see it! It was little more than a dot from ten stories up, but it's silvery hull reflected the light helpfully. Moving silently, she pulled out her carbine and took aim. It was actually somewhat lucky, as most XCOM operatives preferred to use a holographic or reflex scope system, but she hadn't really had any training with that tech, so she had requested the antiquated combo of telescopic and laser sights. Using the former, she brought the alien sensor into clear relief against the background. As soon as it was in her sights, she activated the laser sight, and an instant later, a tiny green dot appeared on the metal surface.

Not a single soul inside the colony seemed to notice to innocuous addition to the sensor as it hung silently in the air, just continuing along on with their lives.

Once she was confident it wasn't going to move on her, she tried to send a thought to Raven. 'Okay, I don't know if its smart, but you might want to get as many people outta there as possible. Cy is gonna drop something pretty heavy.'

'I'll do what I can.'

That was all they could really do, after all. Do too much, and they'd have a panicked mob on their hands. Satisfied with at least making the suggestion, she sent a signal to Cyborg this time. "Alright, big guy. I got it painted. It's inside the big tree at the center, though. You're going to have to arrow it right through one of those big ass holes first if you want a chance of taking it out."

"I got ya. You need any time to get to a safe distance?"

"No, I'm plenty far. Just give it one minute. Raven is trying to move out any aliens that might be too close, but I don't want to risk this thing moving on us, or anyone tripping over me."

"Understood. Counting down from sixty on my end."

And then the line went dead.

Immediately, Jinx felt her entire body tense as she began to count down in her head as well. Down below, Raven was surreptitiously attempting to push people away from the general area of the sensor. She didn't seem to have mastered the ability of communication apparently, though, as she was meeting with limited success.

Ten seconds passed, then twenty. Jinx felt sweat begin to build up on her brow as she concentrated on keeping her aim true. Thirty seconds ticked by… and still there were at least six of the aliens that Jinx was pretty sure would go up like candles if a plasma grenade analogue went off in their midst.

Forty seconds. Jinx felt her trigger finger begin to tighten up… maybe if she fired a shot, it would scare everyone enough to send them running? … And doubtlessly screw up their entire plan and sent the missile crashing somewhere completely random.

Fifty seconds…

And then a flurry of movement ensued. Without warning, Raven's mentally controlled alien suddenly reached out and struck another of the aliens, only to spin and begin to run away at top speed. Angry shrieks rang out, and a number of aliens gave chase, shaking their fists furiously.

Jinx let a smile play across her lips at the sight of Raven causing a ruckus… only to curse when the gleaming silver disc began lazily drift away from the disturbance.

"Shit - shit - shit!"

Moving her hands as quickly, but carefully as possible, she struggled vainly to keep the tiny dot dancing on the metal shell. If it started to move any faster, though, it would -

A series of terrified howls filled the air, nearly tearing Jinx's eyes away from her target, and a fraction of a second later, a low roar drowned it out. Moving almost too fast to follow, a plume of smoke burst into the massive tree, only to angle nearly straight up once it reached the center of the room. The blurring object slowed down, reaching a parabolic arc… only to dive back down, its speed increasing dramatically again.

Panicking, Jinx quickly focused back on the sensor, adjusting her aim as quickly as possible-

An explosion rocked the inside of the tree as a ball of plasma as hot as the surface of the sun was born as antimatter annihilated itself in spectacular manner.

"Oh shit, did I-"

The smoke cleared blissfully quickly, revealing… nothing left at all. "Yes!" Immediately, she opened the commlink. "I got it, Ryouga! Mission accomplished. We got some freaked out aliens, looks like the start of a riot, but we got it."

"Good work, Jinx. What's your location? Do you have an exit strategy?"

Jinx looked around, starting to feel a bit worried as aliens began to sprint around in every direction. The odds of her getting out unnoticed were going down by the second. "Um… I'm ten stories up, and my exits are drying up pretty quick. I can get out of the tree… but I don't know about out of the village."

"Ten stories up? Then don't worry. We got you covered. Just get outside and we'll get you out of there."

"You got it, babe," Jinx replied with a smirk. "I know you'll save my butt, what with how cute it is and all."

Not giving him a chance to stutter in embarrassment, she leapt to her feet and sprinted for the same entrance she'd come in through. What took her minutes to reach before, took seconds, and she blasted out the large portal and into the outside world again in grand fashion. She could already hear more angry howls coinciding with her movement, but she didn't wait to see how many, if any, of the aliens might actually be on her tail.

Sprinting back across the branch, she heard a familiar whistling cutting through the air, coming straight down on her position. So, that was the plan, was it? Deciding to make it a little more interesting, Jinx leapt off the branch, right into a dead fall, spreading out her arms and legs and laughing all the way.

When Starfire caught her a second later, the girl's frown could be felt right through her helmet. "Was that really necessary, Jinx? You are most fortuitous that I have excellent reflexes."

"Oh, come on, you know you love the drama." Wrapping her arms around Starfire's neck, she gave her a quick hug.

"Now, let's get back to the ship and see how the other guys did with their snipe hunt."

---

"Policing" was, without a doubt, the messiest and nastiest work left to XCOM soldiers and personnel. All materials of non-Earth origin were to be removed from site, primarily to preserve the secrecy of the program, but also because XCOM was run by penny pinching Commanders who hoarded or sold virtually every scrap of alien technology or biological matter they could find. HQ's bigwigs had never really gotten beyond the lean early years, and even presently flushed with funds as the organization was, they made every effort to salvage every single nut, bolt and bloody scrap that wasn't melted or vaporized. Hell, even if it was bolted down, XCOM would still take it in no time flat.

Generally, about a fifth of the work was done by soldiers in the field. They were the ones who "packed up" captured aliens and dragged alien corpses out of the more troublesome environs. When a Floater died in a tree, or on a ledge at the thirtieth floor of a skyscraper, or when an Ethereal had its brain exploded all over someone's living room - with living witnesses cowering feet away getting their share as well - the body couldn't be left as-is. So the corpse and its gear was toted away ASAP.

The other four fifths of the work was left to specialist teams. They cordoned off the area, rounded up witnesses for memory deprogramming, and they were the ones who took a fine tooth comb to the battlefield, sweeping up bits of Cyberdisk and bits of Muton alike. What they missed was commercially acquired as "radioactive scrap" from some falling satellite or another... in fact, much of it was mildly radioactive, which made the cover story, and the desire of people to get rid of it, all the more believable. The specialists were also the ones trained for rapid UFO disassembly and recovery.

India Squad was good at demolition, but not that sort of work.

They made due. The more easily removed UFO components, the so called "white meat," was torn out and packed for transport back home onboard Pathfinder, currently parked next to the concealed alien Harvester. Cargo space was extremely limited, so only the most valuable parts were stripped. Elerium, as always, took top priority, and the aliens here had a double-normal supply... a fact that would no doubt receive a glowing apropos in after action reports. Other components using Elerium followed, including every bit of alien weaponry.

Back at the base, alien rifles of all sorts would be broken down or converted into their XCOM equivalents or simply into spare parts. Clips were directly reusable and would, after inspection and testing, end up in the armory. Alien grenades would also be reused, and stun bombs were easy to salvage for the experts at Seiran. It was more work than a field team was typically used to these days, but it was far from unusual or unexpected. If the aliens had a kitchen sink, XCOM would steal that, too... and reverse engineer it and try and improve on it to boot.

One major difference here, for the Pathfinder teams, was in policing bodies and general stuff like alien alloys. The latter couldn't all be salvaged, so it would have to be destroyed. There were procedures in place for that, centering around massive explosions and atmospheric reentry. It would do the job. As for the former...

"And I thought they smelled bad on the outside."

"Ah ha! A Star Wars reference. Allow me to provide a contrasting quotation!"

"Knock yourself out, Kuno."

A Sectoid body rolled down the small heap of corpses, only to hit a boot and get pushed back up to the top. A few stomps later, and it was basically in place. Black eyes and clenching hands, frozen in rigor mortis, turned upwards in a mockery of agony and rage. Kuno and Ryu didn't pay them much mind. The two armored men were, first and foremost, focused on tossing buckets of alien chum onto the grizzly pile.

"Slow ahead, I can go slow ahead," Kuno said with a chuckle, emptying the bucket onto the pile. "Why don't you come down here and chum some of this refuse!"

Ryu also laughed, dropping his empty bucket and rolling his shoulders.

"The quote is 'shit' - chum some of this 'shit.'"

"You'll forgive my lack of coarse language, sergeant."

"That's weak and you know it. Though it reminds me... you know, we were talking about movies the other day. Ukyou and me," the Kumon heir clarified. "Jaws came up, and she said she saw it when she was twelve. Said she wouldn't train 'against the sea' for months. Probably thought a shark would jump out of the surf in Osaka Bay or something."

"Twas a memorable film to be sure. American horror cinema at its finest."

"No doubt about it," Ryu agreed, and turned the face of his helmet to the corpse heap. "So, that's it then?"

"Indeed. Save for the two aliens we have in captivity." Kuno rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, a relaxed posture for the eccentric kendoist.

"Crew compliment for a Harvester is usually about twenty," Ryu remarked, having read thoroughly about all the alien ship types and their default crew manifests. Not to mention having stormed more than his fair share over the months. "Plus the two, this one only had fifteen."

"It also had two Cyberdiscs in the field," the swordsman reminded India's sergeant. "Mayhap, the disks and the crew were deployed separately?"

"Must've been. C-Disks can't enter a Harvester except through the bay door on the underside, and this sucker's not just landed, its dug in like a tick."

"Counting corpses as we have been..." Kuno sighed. "Most ungentlemanly. However, it does remind me of things I have read before. I believe some Native American peoples used to scalp their foes as a proof of demise."

"Actually," Mousse interrupted, though he was still inside the ship finishing inventory. He was lurking on the same team comm channel. "Scalping was practiced by both native Americans and Europeans in the Americas. More importantly, the practice predates them by thousands of years. My own ancestors, the Scythian precursors to the Amazons, were the first to scalp their enemies."

"How do you know they were the first?" Ryu asked the out of sight teammate.

"Fine. The first to be recorded."

"We are not so barbaric as to actually scalp our enemies, fortunately," Kuno supplied.

"Yeah. Command just has us take those punch samples," Ryu said, sarcasm evident in his tone. "Genetic scalping."

"Less barbaric, however."

"Watch what you're calling barbaric, too."

"Come on, Mousse."

"Don't act like the Japanese never did stuff like that," the Hidden Weapons master argued, and paused a second or two to finish what he was doing inside the alien ship. "Japanese samurai used to be paid for bringing in enemy heads. And you have shrines to cut off enemy ears and noses."

"What? No way!" Ryu protested, even shaking his head. "You're making that up."

"I don't 'make things up.'"

"I still call bullshit."

"Actually," Nabiki interrupted now. "It's true. The tomb Mousse is talking about is creatively called 'Mimizuka.'"

"I've never heard of it," Ryu insisted, and turned to another potentially credible source. "Kuno, you ever hear of that?"

"The noble samurai did, on occasion, bear the heads of slain enemies," he admitted. "And what Nabiki and Mousse describe does ring a bell. That was the sixteenth century as I recall, the Tensho era."

"Oh?" Mousse spoke up again. "You mean Kuno here actually paid attention in history class?"

"As if!" Nabiki replied. "That idiot was always asleep. He only knows this stuff because he's obsessed." Before Kuno could complain about his 'great academics' being taken lightly, she continued, "And we didn't learn that in school anyway."

"Then how did you know about it?" Ryu asked, in a mixture of curiosity and suspicion.

"These things called books ...and also the internet."

"Were there pictures?"

"Yes, because its so damn hard to find disgusting things in every country's history." Nabiki, though unseen, was sure to be rolling her eyes. "You know what's your problem, you guys? You don't have any really juicy chatter going on. For a team of four supposedly red blooded guys, I never seem to catch anything good."

"And what would you prefer India Squad discuss?" Ryouga asked, his first few words over the last couple minutes.

"You can start by outlining your vices and disposable income."

What followed was a round of silence.

"Just a suggestion," Nabiki added. "Anyway, Juliet is incoming, and Yankee's only about a minute out."

"And there's the friendly IFF ping," Ryu said, checking his HUD motion sensor. It was SOP to broadcast a friendly IFF (friend or foe identity) when approaching other groups. Friendly fire was still the bane of military deployments, even when things were quiet.

"We had best make haste," Kuno reminded his fellows.

"Yeah," Ryu agreed, and took out a canister from a loop around his belt. Instead of an aerosol, it sprayed a thick foam on top of the alien bodies. The martial artist whistled as he finished covering the corpse pile with the stuff. Since there was never a guarantee of working in-atmosphere, much less in an oxygen rich one, XCOM gear was typically designed for all environments, or even none at all.

Rather than a fire retardant foam, this was the exact opposite. Once ignited, particulate thermate within the cocktail would flare up to over two thousand degrees Fahrenheit, regardless of whether it was used underwater, in a vacuum, wherever. It was like white phosphorus's older, meaner brother. It would all but disintegrate the pile of alien bodies.

"Hey," Ryu realized as he finished. "Since we're nuking the UFO up anyway, why not just leave the bodies onboard when we do it?"

"We won't always have the liberty of such a convenient disposal method," Ryouga replied. "Think of it as practice for next time. Besides, it's in our orders, so we do it."

"I guess it counts for thoroughness," Ryu observed, and put away the spray. With the same hand, he tossed the disposable trigger - just a small electrical charger - into the foam. It immediately began to hiss and crackle. A second later, small blue flames emerged from under the blazing foam and the shrinking pile of bodies. Air rushed in as the anaerobic fire started aerobic fires underneath it, quickly turning the blue flames into a familiar orange pyre clouded by a thick stream of ink black smoke.

"I bet that smells absolutely horrible."

Ranma landed in the clearing, having just made a suitably witty intro. The lieutenant was followed a moment later by Konatsu, Ukyou and Shampoo. Ryu and Kuno nodded their heads in respect to an officer, annoying old rival/frenemy though he was. At least Saotome wasn't the type to demand formal salutes at anything but the most dire, and official, circumstances.

"How went your mission, Saotome?" Kuno asked, also politely inclining his head to the rest of Juliet Squad. They all looked pretty muddy, but Ranma in particular looked positively gunk covered.

"Eh," Ranma replied, non-committal. "A lotta sneakin' around."

"Your type of mission then?" Ryu asked with a secret grin hidden behind his helmet.

"Oh, ha ha."

"We didn't hear any alarms, so..."

"No. It went smoothly enough at first," Ranma began.

"Any reason why you look like you took a swim in a pool of vomit?" Ryu asked, blunt as usual.

"As I said, it started out smoothly," the pigtailed one reiterated. "Except at the last second, the little... frisbee just shot off and started going haywire. Must've been when Yankee killed its buddy. It ended up in a... a bad place."

"A bad place?" Kuno asked.

"...a bad place."

---

"Did you see what I saw?" Ranma deadpanned as he landed on a nearby branch, having raced through the jungle with his team by his side after the stupid little alien disk. Their chase had, apparently, come to an end.

"Oh dear," Konatsu helpfully summarized the situation.

"Ran-c... Lieutenant," Ukyou quickly covered her on-duty slip. She was standing on the branch, with one hand slowly reaching back for her battle spatula. "That... that's a big turtle."

Ranma's expression fell behind his visor; 'a big turtle' was an understatement.

The stupid, stupid little disk had zipped by and, a heartbeat later, a giant maw had snapped it up. Said giant maw was appropriately attached to a giant turtle... turtle-like thing. It superficially resembled a softshell turtle, but one spawned from the blackest, deepest, foulest pits of Ryugenzawa. It had to be twice the size of the Yamata no Orochi and just as ugly.

There were no multiple heads; just one big beak with a snouty pig-like nose, a massive leathery, slime covered body that looks like it had things growing on it, and a quintet of stubbly little legs. Seemingly satisfied to have snapped something up - anything really - the beast started to churn the mud around it back up as he retreated into a gigantic sinkhole that was more "mire" than body of water.

Shampoo raised her laser rifle.

"That'll just make it harder to find," Ranma said with a sigh, gently pushing the Amazon's weapon down and off target.

"I guess we could just leave it?" Ukyou asked.

"It'll go in one end and out the other. And since we don't have a blaster bomb handy..."

Handing Shampoo his rifle instead, and making one great leap off the branch, the martial artist landed with a wet splash amid the sparse fen ferns. Slapping his hands, Ranma advanced on the giant beast. The instant he got close enough, the head extended via a long almost prehensile neck.

Swallowing him in one bite.

"Oh. I do believe Saotome-taichou's been eaten."

---

"..."

"..."

"So, yeah, that happened." Ranma shrugged. "Almost as bad as dealing with the Orochi."

"Almost as bad?" Ryu asked, drawing back a bit.

"That's not a fight we like to talk about."

The officer didn't elaborate. Not with the crossdressing and pretending to be a sexy maiden and all that crap. For a reason most would misinterpret, Ranma Saotome's whole body shuddered. ... Also Akane had been in danger, but Akane was always in danger in those kinds of situations. Grown men in drag, on the other hand, definitely ruined the fight, even when it was against a legendary monster.

"Anyway," Ranma insisted, flicking some sticky ooze from his hand. "I'll be taking a double dose in decon, if nobody minds."

Yankee chose that moment to enter, and at the lead, their tiniest member pointed glaringly.

Ranma held up a single index finger.

"Not one damn word, Jinx."

---

Ryouga Hibiki, acting Major for the extended Operation Pathfinder, found himself staring at six of the remaining alien stasis chambers. They were all that remained in the Harvester's storage bay. All the digestion tubes had been flushed and the contents burned along with the aliens that had planned, in time, to devour those victims. The actual samples taken by the aliens for their research had been seized, isolated, and packed for retrieval. His personal inclination had been to destroy them as well, but Command and the scientists back at the base would expect him to bring them back. So he would.

All that was left now were the six hairy primitive xenos kept in the stasis chambers. All were females impregnated with alien-altered fetuses. He'd seen this many times before back home; it was all too typical of the damned Sectoids. By some estimates, twenty percent of humans on Earth had at least some hereditary alien modifications. By other estimates, that number was over fifty percent. It was invisible in most people.

In a very select few over the last decade or so... the changes weren't exactly invisible. Or subtle. Or perhaps it was simply that people had stopped exposing obviously alien-looking children out for the elements to kill and that the aliens themselves weren't getting to re-harvest them with XCOM interference. The fact remained that there were XCOM run orphanages full of psionically gifted Sectoid-human hybrids, and in a couple decades time, there would be large adult populations of them. What the Hell would happen then?

Ryouga himself had helped rescue dozens of the infants and children.

It could be that they were, in the long run, the future of humanity. Even if the aliens were driven from the star system, even if they were pushed out of Earth's little galactic backyard, their work would live on. Humanity as a whole would carry that fact in its collective genetic code forever. Whatever "mankind" could have been... it wouldn't be. It was too late to go back, for better or for worse.

These native aliens, though, were another story. They were uncontaminated, and they would remain so... if the test fetuses were destroyed here and now. It was entirely possible to do so, even without harming or waking the aliens in the tubes. Yet... even if one considered the fetuses "enemy alien" - a hypocrisy, since he didn't consider the hybrid children he'd saved to be really less human - should they really be destroyed just for that? What did HQ do with all the biological... stuff... that they brought in after assaults on alien bases and Abductors and Battleships?

Even leaving that question aside, should the alien "plans" for these native aliens simply be allowed to proceed? Should the artificial genes just be allowed to pass down, from general to generation, doing God knows what? Was there some intrinsic right a sapient species had to not be fucked with on the genetic level? Surely it wasn't strange to think so. Shouldn't "preserving" that integrity be worth something? That was a slippery slope even he could see.

He couldn't bring them with him.

He had to let them go.

The question was just: to purge the modified fetuses or not?

Despite his distracted state, the Acting Major sensed a presence approaching even before the side bay door opened. It was useful, since there was no sound of footprints to accompany this particular individual as she floated into the two story open area. Turning his head to the side, he noted Starfire gliding gracefully across the floor - such a useful ability, though he himself preferred to be grounded in a fights.

The alien girl was clad only in a loose t-shirt and a pair of shorts, obviously having gone through decon not too long ago. She'd be back in armor before they headed back to Pathfinder. The lack of attire brought one notable feature to sharp focus, as the intricate series of tattoos that he had personally painted across her entire body were now on display for the entire ship to see. Starfire had been fully dressed at the start of the mission, and had been wearing her helmet for most of the time, so it was easy to forget the dark lines crossing her face and the rest of her skin.

But now, it was impossible not to stare. He could only imagine what Ukyou and Shampoo... or even Nabiki, for that matter, were thinking, seeing not only Starfire, but Jinx so wildly decorated. It wasn't just decoration, but a physical mark that these two had shown the initiative to take another step in their training that even Shampoo was not yet prepared to take. Though that was mostly because of the Amazon's naturally weak ki generating Manipura.

Not sure why, Ryouga had the odd impression that Jinx would take no small pleasure in making sure that certain others were well aware of that fact. Regardless, what was done, was done and he didn't regret it. He remained silent as the Tamaranian floated past him, resting an artfully painted hand against one of the tubes as she studied the alien within with rapt interest. Eventually, it was her that finally broke the silence.

"So... will you release them?"

"Yeah," he answered in the affirmative. "Before we leave. It shouldn't be too hard on them."

Hopefully the aliens, once released, would be able to make their way back to their respective villages. Perhaps it wasn't ideal to leave them to their own devices like this, but it was the best they could do for the time being. The natives here had seen enough 'mysterious bright lights in the distance' to last them generations.

"That is good," Starfire replied with a beaming smile. She spent another moment, almost as if she were memorizing the faces of the contained aliens. And then, she turned around and began to float from the room.

"I hope you are right, that they have not been too ... what is the term - traumatized? - by this," she quietly asked. "They seem like a strong race."

"They're certainly physically quite powerful," Ryouga agreed. "From what we've gathered, pretty much none of them knew what was going on. The one we captured here was from the village you visited, and thought the aliens were 'ancestors' or something like that. The aliens had given him cybernetics to lengthen his lifespan and control him, just like with that corrupt politician you guys caught back at the terror site."

Starfire shook her head, grinning at the Hibiki. "Their physical strength is not what I was referring to. I have seen their community; they are a strong people. They will learn and adapt from this ordeal, likely to become all the stronger for having endured it."

He smiled shallowly, seeing now what she meant.

"We've done what we can to help, I think," he replied, crossing his arms to stare again at the troublesome tubes and the aliens within.

He didn't want to add that there was one last knot to untie. It was kind of embarrassing to admit he was at something of a loss. Everything else had gone over easily enough, even removing the enthralled natives with alien sympathies. There were only two, after all, and Ranma had dealt with the other one quietly and discretely. It was something they had done with human sympathizers often enough, like the bastards in the Sirius Group. So... that was familiar territory. Distasteful, familiar territory. This other matter less so.

What would the Captains do? More to the point: what would Command want done?

"Is there something amiss?"

He blinked, a bit surprised by Starfire's question.

"You are doing the tapping with your index finger," she said, and pointed to his right hand, where, sure enough, his index finger was tapping steadily against his left bicep. "I have noticed when our Ryouga is nervous about something, he sometimes does the same. It is the finger you first learned the breaking point with, is it not?"

The finger froze, by force of will.

"I... didn't know I did that. I wasn't even thinking." He frowned momentarily. He and the Titan Hibiki didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things anymore, due to their divergences, but they still had many similar root traits. What else could Starfire guess from his body language? It was strange having a relative stranger know your nervous tick.

Not so bad, though, just a bit strange.

"There is something," he finally admitted. "You've seen some of what the aliens, especially the types we fought here, do. Each one of these native xenos carry an alien modified..." Seeing Starfire staring at him with huge green eyes, he almost refrained from saying fetus. "An alien modified fetus. We don't know what changes they've made to the native genome, either."

The Tamaranian Princess nodded. "Ah, I... see. You believe that your superiors would be interested in what might possibly result from such modifications, and are unsure if you should release the aliens, or take them back for further research?"

"Yes. Well, we wouldn't be taking them back, so much. We don't experiment on aliens in that way, and there's no room." His finger resumed tapping. "I'd be removing the fetuses and putting them in storage. ... I assume they'd be studied and ultimately destroyed back at Seiran. Either that, or I release the aliens and let nature take its course."

"So, of course, you will choose the latter," Starfire concluded. "Since even attempting such an operation would likely be lethal in and of itself, let alone condemning unborn infants to death."

"The mothers' safety isn't an issue in the removal process. They'll be fine either way." It would have been convenient if he couldn't just take the little buggers out, but they were just thumb sized clusters of cells at this point. The tubes had retrieval functions programmed in that would do the trick.

"As for the..." he preferred not to say infants. "Fetuses, maybe you should ask if they should even be there in the first place. These natives were abducted, implanted, raped by technological means. Should we basically force these mothers to carry these modified children to term? Who even knows what stigma they'll face in their tribes, now that we've excised the alien sympathizers. In human women... we give them the choice of having an abortion or not and put them in protective custody to prevent repeat-abduction. I can't do that here."

Starfire tapped a finger against her chin.

"So, you would destroy them before they were even given the chance to develop? As you have said, all alien influence has been excised... so why destroy them? Who can know how they might grow? Is it not possible for them to transcend those creatures which engineered them, and become something greater?"

He nodded, having thought the same.

"Yes, individually. But isn't it also possible those embryos could grow into exactly what the aliens want? Over who knows how many generations and centuries... what if these native aliens, who developed this far by themselves, become thoroughly hybridized by the altered sub-species in their midst? No: what we're talking about could even be seen as abetting the long term alteration of an entire race of sentient beings. Should you stop an unethical researcher, but allow his unethical research to continue in his absence?"

Starfire giggled at that notion. She then held out her arms to the side.

"Very well then. I will not try to steer your decision further. However, I say this. Whatever fate you decree for these pre-infants, you must also inflict upon me. For am I not also the 'unethical research' of an 'unethical researcher'? Is not my existence an affront to pure Tamaranians? Should I not be removed from the gene pool, lest my tainted genetics infect the whole of my species?"

"Obviously you don't kill the pretty aliens. It's an unspoken rule," he joked, smiling a bit. "Judging by your theatrics, you seem to know I'm going to be letting them go."

"But of course." In a shocking move, the alien beauty suddenly flew forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. Then, even more unexpected, she planted a small kiss on his cheek. "Like my own Ryouga, you are a good person, no matter what hardships or tribulations you may have endured. You would no more harm an innocent than you would harm someone as 'pretty' as myself."

"Ranma always did say I was weak kneed when it came to cute girls," he admitted, rather enjoying the impromptu show of affection... and solidarity. It reinforced his own decision on the matter, a decision that had been brewing and hoping for justification. That needed a second opinion to agree, even though he was in command, and shouldn't be trying to pass on the buck or defer decision making. In a crisis situation, he had to make the call, alone, and take the heat for it afterwards.

It... was an often unpleasant feeling, worse now without a Captain or Commander around.

"Your me is damn lucky to have a friend like you, Starfire, you know that?" he asked, but the good mood and levity was tempered by the decisions he's suddenly found himself having to make. "I joined up to fight and follow orders. To get revenge and fight until I got killed. That changed over time, but... I'm no good at making snap judgments and decisions, not like Saotome is. I've made so many stupid decisions, so many wrong moves... am I really the type to lead? I wonder."

The alien powerhouse tightened her hug, almost crushing even his mighty Hibiki frame, before releasing him and floating back, a teasing smile on her lips.

"And with each passing moment, you sound more and more like the Ryouga from my world. I am certain that you are able to imagine just how often he has asked himself that very same question since coming here."

Clasping her hands together before her, she floated from side to side a bit as she regarded him. "It is true that there are some people that appear born to lead, such as my dear friend, Robin... but I feel that as long as your heart is true, than you will find that it leads you true more often than not..."

A pause. "Well... maybe not your heart."

"I dunno. I'd say the Hibiki heart is more reliable than the Hibiki brain when it comes to... actually, most things..." He grimaced at the admission.

That actually caused the alien to roll her eyes dramatically. "Actually, I have found, much to my chagrin, that the Hibiki heart takes even longer than his feet to find its way to where it is meant to be."

Ryouga scratched his chin. Combined with some of what he knew before, thanks to Raven, that sounded almost as if...

"Sounds like there's some backstory there."

Starfire just stared at him through lidded eyes. "I am sure that you know much of said back story yourself. I am certain that Ranma would be more than glad to regale us with tales of a certain 'double date' which you went on in your own past."

"Ranma and his stupid stories!" Ryouga dismissively declared. As if they weren't true. "You'd think we were some high school soap opera with everyone dating everyone else at some point."

"Or, rather, with no one dating anyone, but striving with all of their might to do so," Starfire corrected a bit too cheerfully. "Perhaps it is not merely Hibiki's which are so lost when it comes to matters of love, but the very act of training in the martial arts which stunts the development of emotional maturity."

"At least we aren't cutting off body parts or mutilating ourselves for love, like some artists..." he then quietly noted. "Just for the Art..." A cough quickly stifled that line of thought. It was The Art after all!

"Okay, Miss emotionally mature alien girl," he said instead. "Since you've helped me with this little dilemma, and we're all waiting for the science stuff to finish up, how about a little ting jing training to pass the time? I'll tame those super powered thumbs of yours."

"Proceed at your own risk, feeble human! I would hate to relieve you of the one feature which elevates humans above the other mammals which populate your planet." With a wicked grin, Starfire held out her hand and wiggled her thumb about tauntingly.

He cracked his knuckles eagerly.

"Give an alien a couple super powers and she thinks she owns the place?" he headed over to an open area, and the two locked hands. "I'll bring you down to Earth!"

In retrospect, it probably wasn't the most dignified hour spent on this mission, but command and responsibilities aside, it was certainly the most fun.

---

There was virtually nothing left of the First Branch Expedition.

This was worrying. This was unsatisfactory. The guiding Point Mind considered the possibilities and evaluated the data collected by the navigation pair. The Harvester on the ground had completely dissappeared from hyperwave and particle displacement detection. An emergency psi-probe of the area confirmed what had already been predicted.

The First Branch was gone. Annihilated.

Above the alien world, a newly arrived Terror Ship floated freely in high orbit. The servitor minds within soon detected trace, pulverized, production alloy still in low orbit. A theory was postulated that the First Branch Expedition had taken off, suffered engine failure, and blown up above the planet. Much of the rest of the mass had then fallen, unpowered, into the gravity well and burned up in-atmosphere. The servitor minds disagreed as to the likelihood of this occurrence, though all agreed it was not near zero. Accidents did happen, even among their race.

Floating in its titian robes, the Point Mind was not convinced. The Ship should have been delivering additional supplies to the First Branch, while picking up equally valuable processed food and genetic stocks. Progress reports would also be taken and passed on, in time, to the Fleet Point Mind. This was an unexpected and unfortunate interruption of normal duties. This was unsatisfactory. The Fleet did not have a replacement Harvester to spare. No others would be forthcoming to pick up where the First Branch left off.

Further scans revealed that the natives were ignorant of the incident that had occurred on their world. Though not generally used for abduction and psionic investigation, the Terror Ship was nonetheless capable. Natives were discretely taken from near the First Branch's former location. None saw anything of value. The research site was a scorched ruin with only circumstantial forensic evidence left behind.

The Point Mind thought again on the circular hole cut into the forest canopy below. There was only one that appeared recent. The old insertion site was already partly overgrown. This new point of ingress and egress was large enough to accommodate a Harvester, again implying it had taken off. Or been forced to take off. Yet, in an emergency of that nature, distress beacons would be launched to inform arriving Point Minds about what had occurred. Failures would not be repeated.

Yet there was nothing concrete.

Only the continued and confirmed existence of some of the research samples, recorded during the Point Mind's previous visit and passed on to the Fleet Mind, acted as a saving grace. Though no replacements would be forthcoming in the immediate future, the work done by First Branch would continue in a fashion. There was thus no need to take further action against the native species. There was too much risk now of interference. It was also not immediately obvious which of the natives were marked for culling and which for experimentation and harvest.

Stocks would have to be replenished elsewhere.

The Point Mind felt an increased concern for the mission. Whatever had occurred to the First Branch could not be allowed to spread. The Fleet Mind and Fleet Base were having enough difficulties as things were. A thought persisted, percolating up from within the servitors, and striking a cord with the Ethereal.

Humans.

Could the humans have followed? Were they launching strikes across the dimensional divide? Did the humans have a fragment of The Anomaly; of The Traveler? The Point Mind's atrophied body tensed as telekinetic powers sympathetically drew together muscle and sinew. It was unlikely, but always a possibility. Their interference could not be allowed. It had taken millennia to bring another Traveler to their dimension. If the humans were involved, they could not have more than a fragment or two, even assuming the one on board the First Branch had been taken.

Precautions would have to be taken.

And countermeasures.

To this end, even so far removed, even isolated and alone, all extensions of The Mind would forever be bound to Serve.