A/N: Sorry for the long wait and short chapter. I had originally planned a bunch of events that would spread this into two or three chapters but my muse refused to co-operate, so I just cranked this one out as quick as I could. More frequent and exciting updates to come, barring unforeseen complications.
XCOM Research Report: 11th November 2017
Head Researcher: Dr. Andra Abdul
Team Leaders: Dr. Miles Westwood, Dr. Luigi Martiosi
Anomaly Report, project codename: Atlas
Although many new research projects were opened up by the successful terraforming and colonisation of Mars, by far the strangest anomaly found on the planet was the so-called 'Patera Platforms'. These large hexagonal platforms, ranging in size from a few metres to two kilometres across, appear to be held aloft above the elevated region known as Alba Patera by a natural mag-lev effect caused by the large quantities of magnetised iron buried beneath the region as part of the oxygen cracking process, aided by the lower gravity of Mars.
Analysis has shown that the platforms, although clearly artificial, are largely unremarkable from a technological perspective, the levitation effect merely achieved by powerful magnets and not gravity wave engines as initially speculated. Further to this, the blue glow that emanates from the underside of the platforms has been identified as large colonies of bioluminescent bacteria that crack ferric oxide as part of their basic metabolic pathway, neatly preventing rust from forming on the magnetic portions of the platform.
Despite their impressive appearance, these platforms are little more than a curiosity to the research team. As a result, normal classification procedures are unnecessary.
ICAMA - Independent Colonial Administration and Management Authority - Official Planetary Anomaly Survey Report - Patera Platforms
The Patera Platforms, as they have been christened, have been thoroughly surveyed by an ICAMA team and have been proven to pose no hazard to prospective exploitation efforts save from the obvious fall risk.
Projections show that the larger platforms can support weight measured in millions of tons and the platforms are locked in position relative to the ground and one another. Based on this data the survey team has postulated that these platforms would be the ideal site to build a major spaceport, due to their perfectly flat upper surfaces, weight bearing capacity and proximity to the proposed site of the capital city, Eunostos.
The Alba Patera area is sparsely wooded and contains very few animal species and no unique species, making it a prime candidate for clearing and industrial zoning. However care must be taken not to disturb the magnetic fields holding the platforms aloft.
###
MOSCOW
"This is Skyranger Sierra-3 approaching co-ordinates, over."
"Confirmed Sierra-3. Patching you into RuFed groundside comms now."
"... need immediate support! Repeat, this is Lieutenant Paschalov of the 103rd Infantry, we are pinned down and need immediate support!"
"This is Commander Shepard of XCOM. We have two squads available for aerial insertion. Can you lase, over?"
"XCOM? Thank God! Marking targets, affirmative, over."
"Pilot, go for high speed drop run over that strip. Put us down right in the middle of those sons of bitches."
Shepard strode back into the troop compartment of the Skyranger.
"First squad, ready to drop."
She looked around at her squad. Tali, Stewie and Ashley were her closest friends. All of them would trust the others with their lives. The other two were a pair of trainees, Faarah and the eternally silent Israeli Joanna David.
"Let's go."
With that, the six of them dove out the aircraft, their armour thrusters activating and sending them hurtling into the thick of the fray.
The first thing that became apparent was that the Russian Federation's soldiers were the only ones blazing away with laser weapons. As she watched, one of them caught an emerald green beam to the shoulder, blowing his arm off and instantly killing him.
"EXALT have plasma weapons? How the hell ..."
Tali dove into cover beside her, blasting away with her alloy cannon.
"Let's worry about that when they aren't shooting at us."
Shepard nodded.
"Point. Alright, get me suppressing fire. I'm moving to a vantage point."
Staying low so her memetic skin would hide her, she quickly moved to a firing position, getting her first good look at the latest iteration of EXALT. Her first impression was one of resigned disgust. The operatives no longer looked human. Their scalps were hairless and a horrible pallid white colour, their faces lined and pitted as if they were all in their seventies and going downhill fast. They all sported huge tumourous masses of flesh on their upper backs and shoulders, making them somewhat resemble Krogan, and their lower legs seemed to have been uniformly replaced by crude cybernetics. Their business casual dress code was still in place, but the dress shirts were hideously stretched over their deformed backs and the sharp creased slacks bulged around the knees where flesh and metal collided.
"Shepard to all forces. Eyes on EXALT. Seeing evidence of drastic gene modding, capabilities unknown. Engage at will. I need status on civs."
The Russian lieutenant was quick to respond.
"Civilians have been relocated. If there are any left in the hot zone they're as good as dead."
"Copy that. XCOM air assets, configure for ground attack and surgical strikes."
As she finished barking her orders she was already lining up her shot. The first EXALT trooper in her line of sight caught her plasma bolt in the chest, his organs cooking and erupting out the small of his back. The sleek plasma rifle he had been holding fell from his slack hands, clattering to the ground beside him as she moved on to another target.
Tali threw herself behind cover as a sizzling bolt of emerald plasma shot over her head. She reflexively flinched as it blew a crater in the building behind her. She sent a psionic warning, accompanying it with a shout into her comm for the benefit of the RuFeds.
"Taking sniper fire!"
She peered above her cover.
"No visual, but I see the spotter. Engaging."
She lashed out with psionic force, a powerful directed Mindfray sawing at his brainwaves - or at least it was supposed to. She screamed as a counter-shock leaped between the rifleman and her, briefly making her curl in on herself in agony before her heightened pain tolerance kicked in. She mentally warned her squad mates that the EXALT soldiers seemed to be packing some sort of psi defence, finishing off the disoriented spotter with a blast from her alloy cannon.
Stewie in the meantime was having a fair amount of fun. Although the EXALT soldiers had a reactive defence against psionics that did exactly nothing to help them against biotic abilities. Unlike Boruv, who was a fan of the flesh-disintegrating Biotic Miasma, he preferred more precise salvoes of Warps and Flares, interspersed with the odd Biotic Charge to keep mobile. However in this case he was limited in the amount of Charges he could make - the EXALT teams were covering each other surprisingly well.
He reached out a hand, lifting an EXALT Heavy out of cover. The plasma weapon held in the target's hands resembled a triple barrelled minigun, spraying fire indiscriminately as the operative tumbled in the mass effect field. After a few hard lessons from Ethereal soldiers, he had added a random rotation effect to his pulls, further disorienting his targets. A quick blitz from his heavy plasma finished off the target, dropping out of the air once he was taken care of.
Shepard sighted down her rifle as another EXALT operative approached the first one she had downed, pulling out what she recognised as a medikit. Her first thought was that they must be dumb or desperate to even try to revive someone who had been all but cut in half by her plasma sniper. She kept her sight on the medic, then in shock she almost dropped her rifle.
The medic's regenerative spray washed over the downed rifleman, his flesh knitting itself together as she watched in dumb disbelief. Within ten seconds she was ducking for cover as what she had thought was her kill started shooting back at her. Growling in the back of her throat, she activated her memetic skin and crawled to a different vantage point, all the while muttering into her comm.
"All units be aware. EXALT forces have hyper-advanced regenerative functions. Medics are priority targets, over. Any RuFed air assets in the area? Over."
The lieutenant was fast to respond.
"Yes, Ma'am. One MiG squadron on interception duty. Anything tries to leave the city by air, it goes down. Over."
"No ground attack? Over."
"EXALT are using some sort of guided plasma bomb. We have already lost three gunships, everything else has pulled out. Over."
"Understood. Over and out."
She re-sighted in on the medic, making sure to aim for the head. She wasn't sure of the exact scope of EXALT's new resurrection powers, but she was fairly certain nobody survived the total plasma driven destruction of their brain.
She panned around the battlefield for other targets - and the shocking silence that always settled in the wake of a firefight pressed down on her.
"Anyone have visual?"
She registered the slew of negatives, both verbal and mental.
"Where the hell did they go?"
###
AEGIS MANTLE
Hackett was having a fairly bad day.
"I'm sorry, I must not have heard you correctly. Did you say EXALT stole 7000 TONNES OF MELD!"
Bradford flinched. Whenever Hackett raised his voice it was very, very bad for everyone around him.
"Yes sir. 7016 tonnes to be precise. They hit over sixty gene clinics, melted away before we could intercept them."
Hackett's fists opened and closed as he sought an outlet for his rage. Finding none nearby, he visibly crushed down his temper.
"Alright. Talk to me about these new EXALT soldiers."
"They've been gene modded to a ridiculous degree. The most drastic change has been some sort of secondary tissue sac behind their shoulders that lets them survive any wound short of total brain destruction. They go into some sort of stasis and can be revived by a specialised medikit."
Hackett raised an eyebrow.
"Impressive. Is it useful?"
"I know we aren't exactly the most ethically solid organisation but the side effects are too extreme to even consider. The tissue mass is parasitic, our estimates show that these phase 3 EXALT soldiers suffer from debilitating side effects as a result."
Hackett nodded.
"Take that one off the table. Now the question is what the hell are we going to do about them?"
###
AEGIS MANTLE
The Research division of the Aegis Mantle reminded Hackett of an industrial kitchen that M.C. Escher and H.P. Lovecraft had been fighting over. Arcane devices of unknown purpose were scattered across the walls, floor and even ceiling, long arrays of blinking servers, menacing dissection tables and miniature Nanoforges all separated by a maze like web of glass walls on which figures and diagrams were projected.
Steven Hackett made his way through the technological fever dream, eventually finding Dr. Vahlen poring over the innards of one of the EXALT plasma rifles recovered from Shanghai.
"What have you got for me, Doctor?"
"Not much yet. So far EXALT's weapons seem to have been reverse engineered from ours, very skilfully I might add. I'll send you a full report once we're done."
He nodded, then looked over to a wall plastered with pictures of various bizarre animals.
"So how is Mars looking?"
The change in Dr. Vahlen's demeanour was electric. Plasma rifles were all well and good but the woman's first and foremost passion would always be biology.
"Steven, you won't believe what we have discovered about the animals there."
She practically leaped over the bench to get at the wall.
"Have a look at these."
The first image he came across was a colossal six legged rhinoceros-like beast. Its shoulders were incredibly broad and its front two legs had long blade like structures trailing behind them. Another image had captured one in the midst of rearing up on its four back legs, the front two lashing out and reminding Hackett of a praying mantis. The horn was equally enormous and consisted of a long curved blade-type structure that widened and flattened into a thick plate of armour that covered the upper half of the creature's head and neck. The most distinctive feature of the second image, however, was the familiar blue aura of biotics that surrounded its head and forelegs.
"This is what the survey teams are calling a Yirmak."
Hackett raised an eyebrow.
"That thing looks like it could win a fight with a Sectopod."
"Oh, they're docile and herbivorous. The point is have a look at these DNA profiles!"
She shoved a meaningless slew of data into his face.
"Pretend for a moment I don't have a PhD in molecular biology."
"Oh, sorry. This creature is part of a group we classified as the Yomoids."
"Yomoid as in ..."
"As in Yomo adrata, or as you know them the Adraa. They may look very different but these creatures are incredibly closely related to Adraa. Over thirty species we have catalogued thus far are."
Hackett looked over the images. Now that she had mentioned it he could see several creatures that almost looked like Adraa in animal form.
"Doctor, what are you saying?"
"That this isn't a coincidence. Somehow the nanites got a sample of Adraa DNA and based all these creatures off it. But there's more. Have a look at this."
The next image he was shown was a cat-like tree climber. It had been captured hissing at whoever had been holding the camera, a three toed clawed paw being waved in warning. Although the physiology was wildly different, the facial expression reminded him almost perfectly of Admiral Zorah before he had his mandatory morning dextro coffee.
"I suppose you're going to tell me this is based on Quarian DNA?"
"Precisely! It seems that Martian organisms have a dual classification system. There is the conventional system we use on Earth that divides them into kingdom, phylum etc. and then there is an alternative system that divides them into eight groups: Yomo, Rannoch, Earth, Tarsus, Thessia, Palaven, Reticula and Tuchanka. Each one is based on a different organism."
Hackett raised an eyebrow.
"Any idea why this is happening?"
"None whatsoever. Perhaps the nanites required DNA samples to work with and the DNA of those eight species are the ones that made it into the nanite mix. We will probably never know."
###
GENEVA
"I have to say I am impressed, Commander."
Hackett nodded an acknowledgement as the Russian representative looked over the list.
"Two months since the attacks on the gene clinic and you have already taken out six EXALT cells."
The Covert Ops division had been working overtime, cranking out location after location. XCOM strike teams had tangled with EXALT units another dozen times since the mass attack of the 10th November, shutting down six bases and recapturing around a quarter of the stolen Meld. Nevertheless, they had made very little progress towards determining the source of EXALT's resurgence.
Hackett made to speak, but then his comm, and the comms of every person in the room, started beeping. The message on the screen of his Omnitool nearly stopped Hackett's heart.
PRIORITY ZERO ALERT
TO ALL ACTIVE XCOM, NATO AND UNCCF PERSONNEL
THE WALL HAS BEEN BREACHED