March 6, 2035

04:53 Greenwich Mean Time

English Countryside

Damn time zone changes, Van thought muzzily to herself as she clenched her mug of coffee trying to figure out if she were coming or going. John was looking suspiciously perky for a man who had been up just as late as she had been and had been woken up at the same ungodly hour. She tried not to glower at the source of her annoyance: a man with a long, thin face, pale skin, watery blue eyes and shaggy blond hair.

Speaking slowly so she wouldn't start yelling, Van asked, "Just to make sure I understand you correctly, Ethan, some of your men took off a couple of hours ago and haven't reported back? And you want us to retrieve them?"

"Yes, Commander."

At least he could speak English so she didn't have to have a translator on hand. Really, she shouldn't be so irked at the guy since a typical Resistance cell was pretty haphazard. Yet at the same time they could be counted on knowing where their people were generally. "Do you have an idea of where they may have gone?"

He looked chagrined. "I'm afraid not, Commander –"

Ethan broke off what he was saying as someone in the background started talking to him.

Van glanced at John who was looking a little twitchy. She couldn't blame him. Ethan Steele looked to be about the age range between her chronological age and John's actual.

"Thank you for your patience, Commander."

She nodded and waited. Vanessa had no intention of making this easy on the man.

"But I've been informed that there is a tracer on the truck that was taken. There's also some communications equipment that was taken with it that they could possibly be using. If they are, you might be able to locate them with those." He tapped at something at his end and the information popped up at the bottom of the picture.

"No promises, Ethan, but I'll see what can be done."

"Thank you again." Then he was gone.

She rubbed her forehead and muttered. "It's too damn early for this shit."

John gave her a sympathetic look that somehow managed to combine that patient one of him waiting for her to get her brain in gear.

After taking a long drink from her mug, Van asked the current comms tech. "Ms. Eriksen, can you use Mr. Steele's information to attempt a scan for those items?"

"I'll try, ma'am." The woman was clearly trying to remain polite, but Van could easily figure out what was going through her head.

"Just do the best you can, I'm not asking for miracles. In the meantime, have the folks down in Resistance comms keep trying to find another cell to work with. I'm not going to have us tied up with this lot if I can help it." There was no problem in doing something to help a cell in exchange for their help, but until now, none of the cells had been so…ridiculous.

Especially this early in the morning when she could be asleep. Or If she had to be awake at such an unholy hour, having some quality time with her boyfriend.

While her fingers flew over her keyboard, Eriksen said, "I'm sorry for disturbing you over this, ma'am."

"Not your fault. He said it was an emergency. I'd rather be awake to deal with this, then asleep when there's a real emergency to deal with."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you."

Her stomach cramped and it felt like it was trying to gnaw her spine in half. Right, coffee and a protein shake were most certainly not going to be enough to keep her going and she wondered if the mess had breakfast ready. And if so, did she have enough time to grab some? Then the glorious smell of bacon and eggs hit her nose.

Twisting around, she saw one of the workers from the mess come in pushing a cart loaded down with breakfast. While the aliens may have gone after the species of bovines in the world, at least they left chickens and pigs alone.

There were quiet murmurs of appreciation as people went one by one to get their breakfast. Van raised her eyebrows at John, knowing how fanatical he was about keeping Mission Control clean. She vividly remembered his explosion the time he found a burger wrapper stuffed under one of the consoles of the original Mission Control. He caught her look and raised his voice. "This is an exception, people. Keep it clean, or you'll be cleaning the consoles with your bare hands."

"You could at least give them toothbrushes, if only so they can reach the hard to reach spaces," she added on with a small smile.

His lips twitched in return, but he was all business as he said, "Seriously though, keep it clean."

There were assorted acknowledgements as she left her mug in a safe place before she wandered up to the cart to help herself to the first of several breakfast sandwiches with a large cup of orange juice. Van had wanted to make sure that her people had their fill before she gorged. She remembered joking with female friends that what a woman's real desire was to be able to eat whatever she wanted without it going to her hips.

What none of them considered was the metabolism that was required.

Between her regular, fairly intense, training and the genetic enhancements done to her, she had to eat. So while she didn't have to worry about her hips anytime soon, she was quite aware of the fact she should have been more careful about what she wished for.

When John came up next to her with his own breakfast in hand, though keeping a sharp eye on the crew, she smiled at him and commented quietly. "You're the best boyfriend ever."

"Not that I'm arguing mind you, but what brought that on?"

"Having breakfast brought in for everyone here."

A faint smile touched his lips, though his eyes lit up. "That's being a good second in command, but will still take the best boyfriend ever title." He took a couple of quick, neat bites of his breakfast sandwich "Not that I'm going to make a habit of this, but figured this morning could make an exception."

"It's appreciated. I doubt if anything will come up while I went to get breakfast, but considering my luck, I'd be in the middle of stuffing my face and end up having to run back."

"The thought did cross my mind," John said with a hint of another grin. He continued on in his normal volume. "Besides, this will let us test out Shen's new toys."

Lily had been working on new drone designs based off some of the new tech the squad had been bringing in from their missions, ones with improved range, sensors and stealth abilities to help with recon. So this was a good test as he said. Except there was one problem with his statement. "Please don't call them toys to her face. She's as protective of her devices that her dad was."

John just coughed slightly and the tips of his ears turned red.

"Central…"

"Might have said something like that to her."

"Is that why she was so miffed with you yesterday?"

"Maybe."

She just shook her head with a faint smile and went to get more food.

By the time she was finished eating and on a third mug of coffee, Van was feeling more alert and a bit more charitable towards the world. Which proved to be a good thing when the missing Resistance members were located in a shattered shell of a suburb of Birmingham. They had hit an ADVENT checkpoint causing the troops to come swarming out like some very pissed off hornets from a broken hive.

And were now rapidly driving away from. It looked like there were two in the cab of the truck and three in the bed.

Mentally cursing the idiots out, she was glad she'd already had Kelly rouse up a squad to get going and Firebrand to prep the skyranger. This time she let John brief them, she was going to be busy enough as it is.

"Right, time to see what these drones can do. Give me a map of the area and patch into their communications."

The map was the easier of the two and Van gave a tight smile of satisfaction. It was almost the same quality of what she was used to from the old days. She quickly spotted an abandoned building that should give them enough protection to hunker down in until Menace 1-5 could get to them.

Next was the "interesting" part. Talking to the idiots. By then Tucker had joined Eriksen at the second comms station, between the two they had figured out which frequency their targets were using. There was a quiet huddle between the two.

"Problem?"

Eriksen answered for the two of them. "Sounds like the leader has the last name of Steele. He could be a younger brother of the Resistance leader or son."

Well, that certainly cleared up why Ethan was frantic to find them. It would've been nice if he'd included that little detail because it would have made contacting this crew a lot easier. Remembering to be civil and not let on of what she thought of the people she was contacting, Vanessa said briskly over her comm. "Mr. Steele, I'm -"

"Huh? Whoareyou? Whatchoowant? Getoffthisfrequency."

Vanessa blinked. She'd heard people talk before, but never like this. It was almost as bad as the man who did the commercials for little toy cars when she was a girl. "Deep breaths, Mr. Steele, and slow down. We're here to help."

There was an explosion of sound that she thought were words, but couldn't be sure. Eriksen and Tucker hastily removed their headsets and rubbed at their ears. Van couldn't hide her sympathetic wince. That had to be hard on them with their specialized tech.

On the screen the group of five young men were still aimlessly driving from the rapidly advancing ADVENT forces. If they'd listen to her…

A different male voice came over the comms. "Aidan, shut the fook up! Let the woman talk."

"Why should I?"

Letting her anger creep into her voice, she said. "I'm Vanessa McKenzie, Commander of XCOM and the soldiers that are on their way to save your sorry asses. Now if you'll shut up and listen, I can get you to a place to hole up until they can get there."

Central muttered. "Real diplomatic, Commander. ETA is fifteen minutes."

Yet another young male voice piped up. "You bloody liar! Your dad didn't give you permission! Now he's sent XCOM after us. Bloody XCOM of all people." There was a sudden pause. "Uh, Commander, are you listening in?"

Van replied calmly. "I'm here."

"Oh, um, good. Uh, what do you want us to do, ma'am? Also, I'm Johnny, that blighter Aidan isn't going to be bothering you again."

There was a quiet sound from John who was still standing next to her. He looked like he was trying not to laugh. She felt her own mouth twitch upwards in response, but kept her voice businesslike. "Go to the location I just sent you. If you'll trust me with the tactical decisions, I'll do what I can to keep you alive."

On the screen the icon for the truck sped up as it started to head to their temporary refuge.

"Thank you, ma'am. We'll listen. Just…don't expect Aidan to be any use."

"What did you do?"

"Er, well, he might have a small case of unconsciousness."

Oh god, it was like dealing with a pack of rookies. No worse than rookies. It was like the time they were sent a bunch of raw recruits who hadn't even gone through boot camp. They couldn't send the recruits back, they'd seen too much, so they were put through a rather rough

Well, that was one way of handling these kids. So she changed her tone to the one she used when dealing with reasonably bright, but clueless people, as she explained the rest of her plan.

There was a hint of amusement in John's expression. He commented. "You always did know how to talk to the rookies."

After giving the last of her instructions, she rolled her eyes a bit. "Yes, because talking to new soldiers like freshmen college students is such a wonderful way of dealing with people."

"Commander, they both generally come from the same pool of people."

"You might have a point there, Central," she replied as she watched the map, showing four people helping a fifth to keep moving.

By some miracle she managed to direct them to the building without ADVENT catching up to them.

Of course there was a complication. Like the fact the building was already occupied by two men. Armed men who had decided to camp out for much the same reason she had settled on, it was a good defensive position.

Over the comms she could hear a voice that sounded familiar, but couldn't place. An older man with an American accident. "You boys picked the wrong place to come into. Best you get goin' now."

John's eyes widened. "Tucker or Eriksen, can you either of you get the drone to give a better picture of who is in there?"

As they worked on his request, Van asked Johnny. "Can you see if one of those gentlemen will talk with me? Maybe we can make an arrangement?"

"Um, sir, the Commander would like to talk with you."

Van covered her face with the palm of her left hand.

"You boys don't look like you're with a military unit."

"We're not, but we've got the Commander of XCOM on the line."

Shit. She hastily changed frequencies to Firebrand's. "Is there any way you can get there any faster? I think these kids just dug themselves in deeper."

"I'll see what I can do, Commander."

"Thank you."

She switched over in time to hear the man growl. "Fine, let's talk to this Commander of yours."

There was a crackle of static as someone took off their headset to hand it over to the unknown man just as the drone maneuvered into place to provide a good image. John's eyes widened as he started to curse a bit, while a relieve smile crossed her face.

"Hello, Bulldog," she said, trying to keep her smile from her voice as she used Adam Kelly's old callsign. "This is Commander McKenzie. It sounds like you're causing trouble already and you're not even here yet."

There was a shocked silence then a wild whoop from the other end. "Commander, you are back!"

"Yes, I am, the reunion will have to wait, you've got some rather angry ADVENT troops on their way."

"You always did know how to show us a good time, Commander," Duane "Eagle" Robinson cut in. She wasn't surprised that he'd gotten his hands on one of the comms units. "I'll go up on the roof to pick them off."

"I'll organize the kids," Bulldog supplied. "Though one of them seems a bit… out of it."

Bulldog being diplomatic? That was new. Except the damn stasis thing was tripping her up again. He probably had to learn over time. "He was being an idiot, his buddies decided to knock some sense into him. Be careful, he's the son of the local Resistance leader."

There was an unimpressed grunt in response.

"Anyway, the cavalry should be arriving in approximately ten minutes."

"This'll be just like old times then." There was the familiar sound of a shotgun being prepped in the background. "My kid leading the squad?"

"Yes, why? And better take up your positions, the opposition will be there in thirty seconds."

There was a chuckle, then a couple of barked orders telling the kids what positions to take up. "I want this to be a surprise for her."

"She's not the only one," John grumbled in her ear. "They told me that it was going to be a few more days before they would be able to meet up with us."

They were going to have a little chat about that. He'd conveniently left out the fact that they were going to be joining them. "I've been informed that your arrival is a bit earlier than anticipated."

Bulldog chortled. "Made better time than expected, we decided to hole up for the day before meeting up with the cell operating out here." There was a crack of a sniper rifle. "Dammit, Eagle, you're supposed to save us some."

"There's plenty left. Might want to move your slow, fat ass if you want to get in on the fun."

Van found herself smiling at their familiar bickering. For a brief time she let herself forget about the lost time as she fell into old habits with her two veterans. In between cracks about each other's skills, or lack thereof, they did make encouraging ones when one of the kids made a shot.

Bulldog grunted at one point. "Eagle eyed my left hairy nut. That unconscious kid can shoot better than that."

"You mean the one that you lost to the chryssalid a few years ago?"

"Nope, the one I almost lost when you misjudged your shot for that prone trooper."

John exchanged grins with her. "They haven't changed a bit it seems."

"Hey Commander, Central, I didn't know there were any missions scheduled today." Lily said behind them. "Otherwise I would've been here sooner."

"This was a bit of an emergency, Chief," Van replied. "Though your new drones have been doing a great job for recon."

"Really? That's great!" Lily rushed over to one of the empty terminals to start doing something.

"Ah, just be careful please, we're still using them."

A thumbs up was the only response she got. Since there wasn't an interruption in the flow of intel, Van let it go.

It didn't take long for the two experienced soldiers to clear out the enemies, even if they were using it as a training lesson for the four kids.

The only problem that came up was when Bulldog decided it was time to check the bodies for anything useful. There were protests from three of the four conscious would be Resistance fighters. Johnny was the only one not to complain, but went out to help Bulldog.

There was some quiet gagging on the kid's part though, but he didn't complain.

"Might want to recruit that one, Commander," Central commented thoughtfully.

"Maybe, but I suspect this cell could use all the competent help it can get."

"Yeah."

Not long after that Firebrand arrived with Menace 1-5. As was usual, Shieldmaiden was the first down the fast rope and froze at the sight of her father. "Da? What the hell are you doing here? I thought we were supposed to be rescuing some joyriders?"

"Is that anyway to greet your father?"

"It is when you're not supposed to be here."

Father and daughter continued their discussion as they started loading people onto the skyranger. Shieldmaiden asked."Who's watching the cell and the farm with you and Eagle here?"

"You know we've got smart, capable folks, right?"

Van cleared her throat. "You might want to take your conversation somewhere more private."

"Sorry, Commander," they chorused.

Once Firebrand was heading to the location of Steele's cell, Van said, "We should probably relocate the Avenger?"

"Hm?" John asked distractedly. "Oh. No. We're still secure."

"What's wrong?"

He rubbed a hand over his mouth as he stared at the map of the area of their just completed op. "Let's take a walk." He raised his voice. "Commander and I are having a conference in the bridge if we're needed."

There was a quiet chorus of acknowledgements. After all, this was nothing new if they needed to discuss something in private, but didn't want to go far from Mission Control.

Wondering what was going on, she walked along with him.

Once the door closed after them, he said, "First of all, this isn't meant to be a criticism, your plan worked quite well as usual."

She frowned at him, her confusion twisting up into concern.

He pulled out his tablet, tapped at it for a moment, then sent the file over to hers. Frown deepening she studied the map he sent to her. On it was another abandoned building that would have been easier for the kids to get to and just as defensible. If anyone had been in there was unknown.

The blood drained out of her head and she swayed a little. In a hoarse whisper, staring down at her table, Van said, "That building never registered on me. I…I don't know how I could miss something so obvious."

John tucked his tablet away, then took her hands in one of his and used the other to lift her chin up so she would look at him. His hands felt unusually warm to the touch, but she suspected he wasn't running a fever. He said gently. "Van, I think your subconscious knew that Bulldog and Eagle were in the building you directed those boys to. This is what I meant when I thought that you were psionically active before Tygan confirmed it."

She couldn't help the shiver that went through her. "I never thought myself as anything special other than my smarts and my hard earned skills."

Letting his hand drop away from her chin, he took the tablet out of her hands and set to the side then began to gently chafe her now frozen hands. "Van, anyone with your brains is pretty damn special. This is just something that just a…bonus."

"You're taking this better than I am."

"Angel, I've seen some seriously weird shit over the last couple of decades. That you have some sort of psi ability doesn't even come close to being weird these days." His dark brown eyes studied her. "Didn't mean to upset you. Just wanted to show that there is something to what Tygan claims."

She squeezed his hands. "You didn't exactly. I'm just weirded out. And please, don't be afraid to point out things I miss."

"IF I thought there was a problem, I'd say so."

"Thank you." Then she squinted at him. "Though it would've been nice if told me that you were expecting Eagle and Bulldog so soon so I could have warned Jane."

"Message came in last night. Was going to tell you this morning, but things didn't go as planned."

"Oh yes, the unexpected going exactly as planned."

He gave a rueful smile.

She rubbed her forehead. "Right, here's hoping the two of them settle down by the time they get back here and that they don't cause tension in the troops. If there is I'm sending Bulldog and Eagle back to wherever they came from. We have a good working team and I won't risk it breaking down in the mistaken belief that they need better training. Especially when they didn't give much warning about showing up."

"Agree with you on that. You don't seem entirely happy they were there."

"It was just the way they suddenly showed up. I don't handle surprises too well these days."

He snorted in response and before he could say anything, Tucker messaged her over the intercom. "Commander, sorry to disturb you, but Shieldmaiden wanted me to pass on a message."

"Go ahead."

"We've got two recruits besides the hitchhikers. Will explain on arrival."

Thank you, Mister Tucker."

After the intercom clicked off they exchanged looks of dismay. John said thoughtfully, "Could always use more recruits. If they're the raw rookies from today they'll keep our two troublemakers busy."

"I like the way you think."

"Have my moments."

She laughed. "More than moments. I would be a mess without you to keep me going in the right direction" Van picked up her tablet and hooked an arm through his as he shook his head with a smile. "We should probably go back out and make sure no one else has run amuck."

"Run amuck," he repeated with a hint of laughter in his voice.

"What? Isn't that what happens when one of us isn't keeping an eye on things?"

"You may have a point there."

Mission Control was blessedly quiet when they emerged, though there were hints of approving smiles on some faces. It was otherwise quiet.

Until Firebrand arrived.

The first off the skyranger were two familiar, yet unfamiliar faces. They stopped dead when they saw her.

Bulldog had gotten his callsign from the fact he physically resembled said dog with the stubborn personality to match. Time had not been kind to his features. Eagle had gotten his name from his keen eyesight and his rather prodigious aquiline nose. Time had been kinder to him, though his skin now looked more like dried out leather than skin.

Both men crashed to halt, eyes wide with astonishment, but gave her picture perfect salutes.

Knowing how much that action meant to them, they'd saluted her as a point of honor, she stiffened her spine and gave them her best salute in return. Then reached out to shake their hands, a broad smile on her face. "You have no idea how good it is to see the two of you."

They broke decorum, instead of shaking hands as they'd done after a successful mission, both men hugged her tightly. She returned the hug since the two were more like the brothers she'd always wanted for all that she was technically their superior officer.

Seeing the ravages of time on them was as hard on her as when she first laid eyes on John and really knew who he was. Like John, they'd been around her age when HQ had been hit by the aliens.

The bittersweet reunion ended as soon as it started when she felt the unmistakable skin crawling sensation of psionic energy.

Without thinking she broke away from the two men and whipped out her pistol, yelling out in alarm. "Incoming!"

John took up a position at her back, his pistol drawn and looking for the threat.

There was silence as most of Menace 1-5 and the two men from the former Striker Alpha-1 looked at the two of them. Van realized that she didn't see Shieldmaiden and worried.

Body starting to shudder, Vanessa said through gritted teeth. "There's a lot of psionic energy. It's not the Shadow Chamber or the psi lab being built."

"Oh shite," said a woman with a strong British accent. "I am truly sorry, Commander."

The sensation faded, but didn't completely go away. The unknown woman growled. "Jay."

Another unknown voice, this one male with a faint drawl, spoke. "Right, right. Sorry about that."

Feeling vaguely stupid, Van put the safety back on her pistol, but didn't put it away just yet. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that John was still on guard.

"You are all complete and utter fuckheads," Shieldmaiden snarled from somewhere behind the crowd. She elbowed her way through. Van couldn't recall seeing the woman so pissed off. "I told you to be careful. The Commander is sensitive to psi energy, we don't have anyone who is psionicly active beside her, so she'll take any psi energy as an attack."

She glared at a man and woman that Van presumed to be the source of the psionic energy. The woman looked far too much like Ethan Steele for comfort, possibly his daughter since she looked too young to be his sister. Though where his features seemed weak, hers was strong, making her handsome for a woman rather than conventionally pretty.

The man beside her had a saturnine face with his black hair slicked back into a shoulder length ponytail and his eyes were hidden by a pair of aviator sunglasses.

"I'm Akadia Steele, Commander McKenzie," the woman introduced herself holding her hand out to Van. Her pale eyes regarded Van worriedly. Hoping she wasn't about to make a mistake, she put her pistol back into its holster and reached out to lightly clasp Akadia's hand.

There was only a faint tingle, but nothing unpleasant. "Welcome, Ms. Steele. I take it and your companion are our new recruits."

"Yes'm. My colleague here is Jay Sarin."

Sarin nodded to her, but didn't offer his hand. That was fine by Van since he seemed to have less control over whatever power he had than Akadia.

"Why don't we go in and talk? It's been a long morning for everyone."

The others headed in as she and John remained on the deck alone for a moment. "I feel like an idiot."

He snorted. "Hardly. We had no warning about friendly psionics. I didn't think there were any active human ones, outside of you."

Van rubbed the back of her head. "I have a feeling we're going to find out they're another alien experiment."

"Yeah, this should be…interesting."