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"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind."
~John F. Kennedy
Chapter Thirty-six: War
"They're coming!" Nui Tashiro slid to a halt in the dirt, pausing to lean on her knees. "Word just came in. XCOM's twelve minutes out."
"That's at least five minutes late." Meysam Saleh, Guard Captain of Liberty Gulch, adjusted the tan scarves wrapped around his face, leaving only a slit for his eyes. "They're dropping mutons and berserkers beyond the ridge line."
"And stun lancers." Kang Ho-Jun was a tiny Korean, almost the physical antithesis of Meysam's swarthy stockiness. But he was damn near invisible and inaudible under anything but the worst of circumstances, and Meysam jumped when he reappeared from his scouting mission almost out of nowhere. "Saw about half a dozen of them, with troopers in support."
"Shit." Meysam swallowed. He glanced around the rocky cliffs and blowing sand of the Haven's immediate surroundings - not the best land for agriculture, unfortunately, but it was far from Advent and that was enough. Or, rather, it had been. Now Meysam wished for cliffs at least twice as high, marked by machine gun towers and preferably stiffened by a mobile reserve of armored personnel carriers. They'd make excellent targets for enemy air strikes, but at the moment he wasn't very concerned about that as opposed to the infantry advance.
"Nui, get back to the lynchpin." Said lynchpin was the closest Liberty Gulch came to a true fortified position: a three-story building with thick brick walls where the local civilian populace could hunker down in the event of an attack. Meysam had always pushed the elders to let him raid the nearby Advent bases looking for heavy mag-cannons to mount in the windows, or a healthy stock of grenades to arm his mobile forces with, or even a set of X4 charges he could wire into the approaches and set off under the enemy's feet...but no! No, that would draw the Elders' attention, stealing things like that!
Meysam glared at the transport ships setting down beyond the ridge. They were on the low ground, which gave him a tactical advantage, but if they'd brought a MEC to spearhead the assault, none of his guards' assault rifles would do much, even if they had started life as XCOM gear.
"Get back to the lynchpin," he finally repeated. "Make sure everyone there is ready. I'm naming you deputy for the duration of the crisis." Hopefully that would make someone listen to her.
"What about you two?" She glanced at the mess of woodworking tables that offered the only cover for a good distance. "There's nothing here."
"This is a checkpoint. Outliers will be rallying here on their way to the bunker." Meysam sighed. "Someone's got to try and make sure they live through the process."
"That's a suicide mission-"
"You've got your orders, Nui," Meysam snapped. He waved to Kang, beckoning the Korean in his wake as he started for the nearest defensible set of rocks he could see. "Go!"
She hesitated. An instant later, she lunged, and Meysam paused when she caught Kang by the shoulders. The captain waited while the most passionate kiss he'd ever seen happened about four yards from his lonely self.
"Why does that never happen to me?" he wondered under his breath.
"For luck," Nui gasped, when she finally came up for air. Mercifully, she finally took off for the others.
"Jeez." Kang had to take a minute to catch his breath. He actually coughed. "Thank you, Meysam."
"She's safe. Or, as safe as I can arrange. Odds are no one's going to make it through today either way." He let out a long breath as he heard faint cries; both of Advent and of humans. "I think that's our cue."
"For the Elders!"
Din Dourde knew she was lucky. The ambush in California hadn't gone according to plan - not by anyone's definition except perhaps the Warlock's - and yet here she stood, with a more prestigious command than a patrol group to show for it. That was the plus side. The down side was that now she had a patron: for all the good that came from having the Warlock intervene in your service record, the bad was that you were now personally beholden to a child of the gods.
Most days, it didn't bother Dourde. They were, after all, on the same side. But she did wonder what use the Warlock had for her, and whether she would thrive through or even survive it.
It is not today's concern, she reminded herself forcefully. She waved again to the soldiers in company with her: one lancer, one soldier, and one priest serving as her honor guard. Decked out in blood red for vengeance, she led the way toward the large human stronghold. Behind her immediate detail came the berserker and the codex and the mutons and the vipers, and the single MEC she'd wheedled out of the Baghdad garrison with her patron's name.
"Go east," she ordered the vipers now. They hissed and slithered off, taking a muton in tow as they moved to encircle and destroy the advance guard post. Dourde paid them no more heed: two humans with obsolescent weapons, against the Elders' chosen forces?
"Englobe the structure." She checked her rifle, pausing here in the midst of what seemed to be a Resistance shooting range. It would serve as a forward command post well enough for her purposes. "Ensure none can escape out back or to the flanks, then push in and exterminate them all."
"For the Elders!" cried her loyal soldiers. The mutons led the way, with their berserker hanging in the back lest she become consumed by the wrath before it was time. With them marched the MEC, and Dourde peeled her lips back as she imagined the slaughter it would wreak.
She heard weapons-fire from the east, and sudden screaming. That made her grin widen. The forward post would not last long, not against even her light elements. If she'd chosen to deploy the MEC on that side, it would have already collapsed...but she had bigger fish to fry.
Then her grin vanished, because she heard magnetic weapons-fire.
"Heads down!" Jane bellowed, over the roar of the Skyranger's engines. Evidently, someone on the ground heard her, because one of the two Resistance soldiers - limping, clutching his side, but without an ounce of quit in him even with his friend bound up by a viper - threw himself flat. Jane slapped the nearest shoulder. "Light 'em up!"
"Keep her steady!" David White shouted, before he unleashed his mag-cannon on full auto. Firebrand worked her controls like an artist, and her pride and joy came to an almost dead stop in the air, hardly wobbling inches while the Australian's fire traced out in a wild golden stream. The muton down there hardly had time to realize he was under attack from the air before about sixty million tracers eviscerated him. Jane relished the beautiful whirring of the mag-cannon's action, wishing she'd scored as a Grenadier.
"That's it!" screamed Mariah. "How do you like it, you bastards?"
There has got to be a way I could have done this without bringing her. Jane was at a loss for what, exactly, that was, but there had to be a way. Mox and Julie and Outrider were all wounded, so that was three good soldiers she was denied. She'd already tapped David and Aileen and herself...hell, she'd broken bad enough to bring Mordecai the new guy, just on the general principle that having a Reaper beat not having one. She'd been left with two slots, and hadn't thought it was wise to risk losing Liang - XCOM's only remaining veteran who wasn't deployed or in the medbay. That left Charlotte and Mariah, since Jane still didn't quite trust Sylvie's diagnosis. She'd almost brought both of the new fish.
Almost, because she'd had a better idea.
"Deploy!" the Ranger ordered, before flattening herself against the starboard compartment wall. Thunderous metal footfalls disrupted Firebrand's nice stabilization, and Jane heard the pilot swear as she fought the jerking stick.
Then it was all worth it, because Junior landed with a crash and a blast of scattering dust and dirt, right beside the viper binding up one of the Resistance guards. Jane fancied it whimpered the instant before Junior's servo-driven power fist went through its skull plate and out the other side.
"Alright." Jane didn't see anything alive down there that wasn't supposed to be, and she checked her shard gun. "Mordecai, you're on point. Spot targets and call out patterns. Do not show yourself to the enemy under any circumstances."
"Understood." The Pole seized his line and down he went. David eased back to slide a new clip in his cannon.
"Aileen, David, you're heading along the ridge line to flank south. You're likely to run into heavy resistance, so I'll stick Junior with you for an armored spearhead." She gave her boyfriend a worried glance. "Don't die."
"I'll take care of him, don't worry." Aileen took her Bolt Caster and seized her line. "Come on, Nessie!"
"I'll be fine. Worry about yourself." David gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "For luck, eh?"
"Get out of here." Jane made a shoving motion, then claimed her sword.
"And me?" Mariah bared her teeth, popping up at Jane's flank with a puppy wolf's enthusiasm for death and slaughter. Jane, remembering how emphatic the girl had been about volunteering, couldn't shake the feeling her charge had personal reasons for being here.
"You..." Mariah was nominally just like any other soldier, despite her last name...but Jane still couldn't help but suspect that if she got Central's daughter killed, that might put her under just a bit of a cloud. Jane blew air through her teeth, then handed the kid her line. "You do not leave my sight."
"End of the line, ladies." Firebrand waved over her shoulder. "Call if you need an airstrike."
"If only." Then Jane caught her line and began the Slide of Doom, Mariah on her heels. They came down hard among the rocks and the worktables...hard enough young Miss Bradford nearly lost her footing. She stumbled, catching herself one-handed, and Jane wondered if that was an omen.
"Thank God you're here." That was one of the Resistance soldiers. He looked Korean, and he was studying his friend's wounded leg. "They're pushing up on the lynchpin - the big central structure back there. They've probably surrounded it by now."
"We're on it." Jane turned that way, adjusting her cap. "Stay here!"
"We can help!" protested the wounded one. "I'm captain of the guard-"
"Stay here!" Jane repeated. "Come on, Mariah!" She hit her com as she sprinted for the looming building...and the weapons-fire and screaming starting to fill the air. "Mordecai, talk to me!"
"Movement on the right," Mordecai warned. Aileen grumbled off her com.
"Sure, there's movement over there," she allowed. "That's where the bloody building that's burning is."
"He isn't as bright as Outrider," David agreed. He paused a moment later. "MEC and mutons!"
"Make it rain!" Aileen threw herself flat behind the first rock she saw: heroism was all well and good, but the first rule of combat was to not die. Nessie buzzed over her head, and she hoped the happy little drone didn't take mag-rounds.
Red tracers seared over her head. She heard the harsh cries of mutons, but saw no plasma-fire: they were taking the moment to move into position.
"Catch!" David cried. His grenade launcher whumped, and Aileen whooped when a tremendous bang announced the hit. She popped up without thinking, sighting down the length of her odd but lovely weapon. It hummed as she activated the power cell.
Then she lined up on the MEC, and Aileen pulled the trigger.
"Gotcha!" she cried, as the heavy shot slammed into the MEC's chest. It hit hard enough that it punched straight through it, ripping circuitry and metal out and blasting oil and coolant in a wild spray for almost twenty feet. The white robot stumbled, almost sounding surprised as it beeped out the last electrical impulses from its central processor.
Then it collapsed, and Aileen ducked as mutons opened up on her. She reloaded as quickly as she could.
"Got an enemy command group here," Jane announced. "I'm going in. Mordecai and Mariah, cover the rear."
"I apologize for your untimely death," announced Junior, and Aileen beamed as his fire ripped into the mutons from the side. They howled and roared.
"All units, this is Gallant." Aileen missed a word or two in there because she had to shoot someone who wouldn't let her take a phone call. "The enemy is deploying another ship's worth of units. I'm marking their projected landing point."
"Oh, joy." Aileen couldn't help but notice that projection put them about thirty feet away from her. She tried to count the mutons, and broke off after five. And hadn't she heard a berserker earlier? Where was it?
"Our advance isn't going anywhere fast," David growled. He loaded another frag. "Junior, hit the right target when I blow their cover. Aileen, knock the other one."
"The rest of you had better get in there on that building," Aileen warned, listening to the continued racket of rifle-fire from that direction. "We're locked into a slugging match down here."
A moment later, David's grenade detonated...and the Bolt Caster claimed another life.
"What is happening back there?" Dourde bounded up onto a rock, leaving her rifle dangling off her shoulder. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out details about the first human position. "Section one, report." She glared at her wrist com for a moment. "Section one!"
No response. Dourde growled under her breath. "Section three, move in now! Slaughter all the traitors and anyone who tries to protect them."
She got a chorus of affirmatives in multiple alien dialects. Dourde abandoned her perch, swearing as she hurried across the firing range, perplexed guards in her wake, toward an outdoor workshop. She ground her teeth.
"XCOM," she muttered. "It must be XCOM." She let out a long breath. "Well, so be it. That's why we're here."
"Sighting report." Her codex appeared, gold and spewing black from its head. "One of their fighting scouts is pushing in on the holdout."
"Alone?" That wasn't usually how XCOM worked. Dourde shrugged when the messenger nodded. A child, perhaps abandoning support in search of glory. She raised her wrist. "Deploy the berserker."
She heard the roar without the com. Dourde grinned again: berserkers were invincible. She'd never seen one taken down in action in her entire service. If their Ranger thought-
"Get down!" That was the priest, seizing Dourde from behind with sudden fury. They both collapsed...and angry yellow traces rent the air only an inch from the captain's face. She rather thought they dented her helmet, as a matter of fact.
"Come on!" And then the frustrated human was in amongst them, and she worked the pump on her gun again. Dourde lunged to her feet, seizing her rifle-
The codex cried out as the human's next shot went into her. She split with an agonized shriek, seemingly against her will, and the second half landed on the human's other side. Dourde had one moment to examine the human - brown hair in a long strand, dark ballcap, Irish flag between her shoulder blades - before the codices chose to act in unison.
"Wait!" Dourde cried, as they called on their power. Purple vortices burst up over the firing range, and psionic blockers jammed the Ranger's gun.
And also Dourde's and her guards'.
"Move!" Dourde threw the priest out from the psionic bomb's blast radius, repaying her momentary debt. She lunged too, and her lancer and soldier scrambled for safety. They rolled up to their feet as the whirling blasts of power condensed and glowed, hissing with angry strength. Dourde's attention was so fixated that she didn't even notice the bullets that hissed from the Resistance strongpoint, blowing both her weakened codices into golden ash.
She just screamed in triumph as the psionic bomb vortices closed in for good...and then detonated with the Irishwoman caught inside.
Bang! That was a door. Mariah liked slamming doors, either closed or open. Humanity had lost something with the end of hinges, though she knew she was alone in that esoteric belief.
Bang! That was her shard gun, speaking its mind in anger and spitting harsh gold tracers across the entryway of the so-called lynchpin. There was a stun lancer preparing to head up the stairs, probably to force a breach in the heavy ballistic fire coming from above so that his trooper friends could exploit it. Well, so they could exploit it as soon as they finished executing the half a dozen cowering women and children in the far corner.
There was a stun lancer, and after Mariah's dramatic entrance and snap shot, there was a half-obliterated corpse in a yellow pool studded with rent entrails.
"Yes!" she crowed. The three troopers threw themselves behind cover - but then a little device flew out from a dark corner, snapping down between a pair of them, and a moment later someone else fired.
Ka-boom! Mordecai's claymore went off with a volcanic eruption of sound and light. Shrapnel sprayed the two soldiers it caught, and their cover blew apart. Civvies screamed, but Mariah thought they were fine. She worked the pump on her gun.
Blam! She ended one life...then swore as the third soldier fired on her. Mariah dove behind a column, wincing as red tracers ripped chunks from the stone. Her heart thudded and adrenaline raced through her veins.
"Mor balaten!" cried one of her attackers. "Toucan safari!"
"What?" Mariah demanded.
"Don't talk to them!" Mordecai was in here somewhere, and his temnotic rifle cracked with its metallic ring. Another soldier tumbled, and the last one was all alone. "Finish him!"
Mariah leaned out, yelping as more tracers soared around her. But she wasn't a coward, and she lined up her own shot in a flash. She swore, hitting the trigger-
Blam! Boom! Two things happened at once. The first was the roar of her shard gun cutting lose, its rounds ripping one of the trooper's arms off above the shoulder. He spun in a full circle before collapsing on his back, spitting and choking out words in the Advent language.
The second was the wall behind Mariah blowing inward.
"What the hell-" She broke off as she heard it: the roar, wild and angry and...
"Get out of there!" her father cried in her ear, as Mariah found herself face-to-face with a towering scarlet-and-white berserker.
She didn't have a chance to take half a step before it roared, dousing her in flying spittle...and charged.
Jane vaulted from the radius of the psionic blasts bare inches ahead of the purple wave of death. She rolled over a table, shard gun entirely forgotten, and her sword came out in a flash. She sliced the stun lancer's arm from elbow down, and on her backswing she bit into his thigh. The Adventer howled, stumbling, and then Jane had to move on, because the trooper was trying to unjam his gun.
"No!" Jane vaulted between trooper and lancer, bringing her arc blade down overhead. She hit the soldier's mag-rifle so hard it cracked, and the force of the blow knocked it from his hands and down onto his feet. He swore in his ugly alien language, twisting side to side to avoid Jane's follow-up strikes-
"Mor balaten!" cried the priest, snatching her gun. She leveled it, and Jane spun into a throw, hurling her blade end over end until it nailed the alien-lover to the nearest plywood wall. The priest screamed, purple light coursing over her body, but she was out and Jane's attention moved on.
She ducked as the stun lancer came for her, swinging with its hissing and sparking blade. The trooper came in right on his heels, and Jane's hands snapped up. She blocked once, twice, then kicked the soldier in the knee hard enough something cracked. As he went down, she spun, limbo-ing under another horizontal strike - one that came close enough to flick at the brim of her cap - and then seizing the end of the baton's hilt left-handed. Jane twisted, and the weapon flew - unfortunately, from both of their grips.
"Bit of old vinegars!" shrieked the red-armored officer, before vaulting into the fray, gun butt upraised. Jane wove sideways, and the Adventer brought her strike down on a tabletop. It cracked and everything on the surface jumped. Jane's hands found the officer's ornate trailing scarf, and she used it as leverage to haul her up and then slam her down face-first into the vise bolted at the near corner.
"Balaten!" shrieked the stun lancer, coming in with fists flying before the officer even finished tumbling. "Mor Balaten!"
Jane wove and blocked, knocking the thing's hand into a table. She kicked said hand too, and bones cracked. Before she could follow up, the trooper threw himself at her again despite his limp, and Jane whirled to block and dodge a storm of attacks from two sides. She lashed out when she could, scoring a hit on the trooper's cheek and the lancer's shoulder with precise open-hand strikes.
The soldier's fist drove into her cheek, and Jane staggered. She caught herself on the table, then spun to her feet, retreating and blocking low as the lancer came in kicking, nursing his broken hand. Jane twisted and let him push-kick well past the point of no return, hitting nothing but air, and then she seized his ankle and heaved with a cry. The lancer hit the dirt on his back, and Jane made sure to use his face as a springboard as she jumped at the trooper.
The jarring reverberations of blocks and blocked strikes ran up Jane's armored forearms. Her arms blurred as she bore in on her enemy, and he screamed in his own language as she beat past his wild guard once, twice...on the third hit, yellow blood flew from his mouth. Jane brought her elbow up and then down, cracking it right atop his skull. Her armored joint pad couldn't prevent her from feeling the hit, but neither could the soldier's helmet. He tumbled to all fours, and Jane brought her leg up past head level before cracking her heel into the back of his head like an industrial hammer.
"Donut!" shrieked the priest, sword still sticking from her chest. Jane had to do a double-take - hadn't she killed her? - but then she was only hurling herself sideways as a lance of psionic power rent the battlefield. She rolled out of the path, grabbing the first object she could find, and she hurled the screwdriver before she'd even made her feet. She missed, but she found a hammer with her other hand, and then she sprinted up on her white-clad foe.
Silver blurred as Jane swung. The priest wove backward, raising her amp defensively, blocking only when she had to. She was hurt, and badly. Jane snarled, pushing in to finish the job-
"Eat pizza!" screamed the lancer, seizing her from behind in a vise-grip. He tried to lift her into the air. "Eat pizza, cool!"
Jane stomped on his foot, then howled as the priest brought her amp into her face. The blow rang her world, and Jane tasted blood when her teeth came down on her tongue.
"Fuck off!" was her most eloquent battle cry, before she snapped her head back and broke the lancer's nose. He stumbled, and her elbow drove him back another step. Jane spun, back-kicking the priest hard enough she stumbled a half-dozen paces off, and then brought the hammer down on the lancer's ankle when he tried to kick her again. Before he could finish screaming and staggering, Jane flipped the tool and drove its prongs into the side of his neck.
"Butts!" was the priest's objection when Jane ripped the hammer free in a wild spray of yellow blood. The lancer tumbled, but the Ranger lost her grip and the hammer fell with him. She saw the amp rising and power forming, and instead of waiting to be mind controlled or burned from within, the Irishwoman tackled the priest, ripping the weapon from her grip and throwing it aside. A knee flew, then an elbow, then Jane bashed her head into the Adventer's and spun her around. One hand caught the priest's cheek, the other her shoulder. Vertebrae snapped and shattered as Jane yanked sharply-
The body collapsed atop the others.
Jane groaned, leaning hard on the abused table. Blood - red and yellow alike - coated her gloved hands, and she felt it running over her cheeks and soaking her cap, dripping from the end of her ponytail. Split knuckles burned and her cheek ached. Her tongue stung as saliva and blood mixed and mingled over her open cuts. Her heart thundered and her breath came in ragged.
"Wait." Jane turned, leaning down to wrap her fingers around the sword-hilt still protruding from the priest's chest. "Three. Soldier, lancer, priest..." She spat red onto the nearest corpse. "There were four. There was..."
The officer was gone.
"Holy shit!" Mariah didn't have any better thoughts to voice as the berserker lunged. Instead, she brought her gun up, thoughtlessly putting a round into the first muscle cluster she could see, which happened to be a six-pack that was probably bigger than most people with them. The golden tracers tore into red and white flesh with yellow results...
And the berserker just sounded ticked.
"Wait!" Mariah fired again, not sure why the alien should do any such thing, as it seized her bodily in both hands. She screamed when it roared in her face. Its breath smelled like lemon cleaning products mixed up with kerosene fumes and week-old roadkill, but it was really the volume and rage in it that turned Mariah's legs to jelly.
She screamed louder when it threw her, and she came down hard on the far end of the room. She knocked her head on something substantial, and stars exploded before her eyes. Rolling over onto her front seemed like a Herculean task.
Thud. Thud. Those were the berserker's footsteps, like the dinosaur's in that incredibly old movie Mariah's mother had loved so much. The Ranger would have been shocked to see a cup of water rippling, though: those footsteps would have upended it long ago.
"No," she whispered, as she made it to her side. It loomed over her, angry and huge, and it raised its fists high overhead to make a Mariah Pancake.
"Hey, ugly!" Bang! Bang!
The berserker roared as the shots ripped into its shoulders. It spun, and its next roar was loud enough Mariah had to cover her ears. She yelped as it charged off on all fours like a gorilla, opening that anglerfish mouth to show more teeth than a hundred sharks.
"No, wait!" she cried, as she saw Mordecai, calmly pouring temnotic rifle fire into the beast from the open, standing between it and the civilians. Mariah scrambled to her knees-
"No!" she cried, a lot louder, as the berserker brought both fists down on the Reaper. He got another shot off in the instant before-
Wham!
"You bastard!" Mariah seized her shard gun, fully aware that no one could have survived the hit the Pole had taken. Half of him was recognizeable, the other half the berserker was busily smashing and devouring. Red ran from its jaws. Mariah leveled her gun, full of searing rage, and-
Blam! She worked the pump. Blam!
Roar! The berserker spun back to her. Mariah set her teeth as the beast started her way.
Blam! Blam! Mariah wondered if she'd have to draw Narya. If that was what it took, she'd do it without looking back. But she had one shot left, and she lined it up as the berserker thundered up, seizing a table to smash over her. Blam!
While all the others had ripped holes in its frame, that one went right into its open maw. The alien howled almost piteously, thrashing for a moment with table held high overhead. Mariah scrabbled on her belt until she had a fresh clip, and she ejected the empty one. By the time she slammed her next shots into place, the berserker had stumbled back and dropped the table, still wailing and howling, almost louder than the civilians clustered in the corner.
"You can't-" Mariah fired, worked the pump "-handle-" Blam! Click! "-me!"
It fell with an impact that could probably have been heard on the Avenger. Mariah set her teeth, searing with rage, and she worked the pump again. She put a third shot into the corpse, blowing its skull in half, then loaded up for another one that ventilated its chest. She dropped her gun as soon as she was out of ammunition. Tears burning at her eyes, Mariah drew Narya and lunged, howling curses and cries as she stabbed and hacked at the body in a mad frenzy.
"That's enough!" Someone caught her arm. "Mariah!"
"Get off me!" But she did slow her strikes, and then stop. Breathing heavily, the brunette drove her blade into the berserker for the final time, using it for support. "Captain?"
"Is the room secure?" Jane demanded. Mariah nodded.
"Yeah, I got this son of a bitch-"
"Are there any others?"
Mariah frowned, fully taking the other Ranger in for the first time. "Did you bathe in them?"
"Mor balaten!"
"Hey!" Mariah jumped as that trooper - the one whose arm she'd blown off, the one who had to have bled out - drew a grenade. Jane lunged with her sword in hand, while Mariah seized her gun and hit the trigger, only to remember it was empty-
The grenade flew. Mariah braced for detonation...and then sucked in breath as she saw where the little pineapple was going to land.
"Move!" she screamed to the crowd of cowering women and children. "Move, before it-"
Boom!
Author's Note 36: With Friends Like These
I like Haven Assaults...somewhat better than normal terror missions. On some days. Having the Resistance forces with you is good: having massive swarms of enemies and a virtually-guaranteed Chosen presence is not. And the Resistance is only really good on Veteran or lower. I usually play on Veteran - not because I can't play Commander, but because I don't really get off on a massive challenge most of the time so I play more casually - and there just isn't a lot of pressure to do much on Haven Assaults. Let the AI whittle each other down! I'll hunker down back here and make my cautious approach.
On Commander, the Resistance soldiers couldn't hit a lake they were standing in, and they couldn't hurt it if they did. I had a Haven Assault where the AI dumped 3 berserkers and 6 mutons on me in one turn, and they all just murdered civvies until I got them all. I had like...1 civvie over the bare minimum when the mission ended.
I've mentioned before that I daylight as a tae kwon do/mixed martial arts instructor. You can probably tell as of this chapter: the way Jane engages her enemies is focused and tactical, hitting joints and pressure points to weaken them, and focusing on one hostile at a time except when forced to react to a sudden attack(trooper, then lancer, then priest for the finish). I've missed writing good old unarmed combat scenes. Expect more in the future.
Until then, Vigilo Confido.