Pfc. Riley Jones
"Central, we have contact! ADVENT Dropship, approaching the Avenger!"
I didn't expect that ADVENT would already have found us. Hell, XCOM had only been back up for 2 weeks. I'd just been recruited from a seedy bar, hoping to live a quiet life after being way too stupid and young, and now I was about to-
"What colour is it?"
My brain froze for a second. We were about to feel the full might of ADVENT's power, and the Commander wanted to know what shade- Oh. Dropships aren't supposed to be grey with red sigils.
"Hold your fire! Those are friendlies!"
Being as confused as I was, I had no objections, or at least none I could put into articulate phrases. The vessel began a controlled descent onto the Avenger's landing pad, as the Commander and Bradford appeared out of the bridge.
"Ah, Mox! It's good to see you in good health. Just do try to call ahead next time so our new recruits don't shoot you out of the air."
A figure, clad in a helmet of a foreign design and wearing some type of pelt over their armor, replied. "I would have, but this isn't a social visit. We've received intel that ADVENT's planning a raid on a nearby Resistance haven within the next several hours. We don't have much manpower to spare, so we were hoping you'd be able to provide some help. Brothers in arms, and all that."
"Well, unfortunately, our main team is out on a mission. We don't expect them back until late in the evening." The Commander replied.
"As I said, any help is appreciated."
"Well then. How many can your ship hold?"
-xxx-
The strange cat lady sat next to me seemed glad that we had taken off just before dinner, as she was dry heaving every couple seconds or so. Bradford had given us the briefing on the Skirmishers, who he assured us that despite their ADVENT bodies were of sound mind, and in fact had played a vital part in the Commander's escape. He, in fact, went into such laborious detail about how difficult and traumatizing it was for them to remove their chips and escape the psionic network that I nearly fell asleep. Well, I had killed plenty of ADVENT in my past, so as long as they didn't hold that against me and Mox didn't crash this vessel into a tree, I was sure that I had much bigger problems to deal with. Like not getting shot.
I turned to the other Skirmisher, whose name I hadn't picked up.
"So, uh, this your first operation?"
"No." Was the curt reply.
"How many have you been on then, in that case?"
"4." The silence afterwards hung awkwardly in the air for a while after. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, the quiet was broken by the distant chattering of gunfire.
"I will be with the ship and provide visual assistance for ground forces. Be prepared for a hot landing," came the voice of Mox from the head of the transport. We indeed had a hot drop, as when we pulled into sight of the buildings the smell of smoke and death already were filling the air. Several parts of the compound were already alight, and I could just about make out the flashes of gunfire in the distance.
We made it onto solid ground with few issues, and began to approach the first building ahead of us.
"Menace 2, be aware, we're getting reports of something blinking around and picking us off one by one. Stick together."
"Understood." We pushed through the first building, and then out to the back. Nothing. I lowered my rifle to take a better look at my surroundings.
"Fuck! Taking fire!" Our gunner yelled, as he dove for cover behind a nearby crate. Ahead of us, two Sectoids had taken the high ground up on a hill, and were raining plasma down on us. As the cat and I ducked back into the building, our Skirmisher ally took the initiative, shooting a grapple up onto a nearby roof and pulling himself up. A few seconds later, a hail of bullets dropped one of the translucent creatures. The other one, clearly unhappy about this, began to channel a purple bolt of energy, which shot back towards the origin of those bullets. The Skirmisher grasped at their throat, before turning towards us.
"That's mind control! You have to get rid of that Sectoid before the bullets start coming your way!"
"Cover me." Was all we heard as the feline lady began rushing towards the alien, blade drawn. I nodded to our gunner as we laid down suppression on the Sectoid, forcing it to duck behind a tree, as our swordswoman made her way up the hill. When she reached the creature, a quick slice was all it took to lop its head off, as the purple glow around the Skirmisher's head dissipated. However, while our hero of the moment was turning around, smiling and sheathing her sword, a hand suddenly appeared around her neck. A tall, gangly purple figure appeared, and I snapped a handful of shots towards the thing, hoping none of the shots would accidentally become friendly fire. The strange being let go, muttered what I could only assume to be a swear, and vanished. However, the experience clearly hadn't left our blade-wielder unharmed, as she collapsed to the ground.
"I think that's our ghost. It looks like it's trying to grab one of us, don't let it!" Came the voice of Bradford over the radio. And I for sure wasn't intending on it. I dashed towards the hill, hoping that my squadmates were in position to cover me.
"Hello little rabbits. Here to come out and play?" Came a strange, ethereal voice from somewhere, though I couldn't tell you what direction. I looked around, and saw nothing. Pulling the cat back onto her feet, I heard the Skirmisher yell,
"More ADVENT incoming!"
And sure enough, several troopers, along with some sort of shambling creature, had appeared at our flank. We lit them up to the best of our ability. The massive flesh-coloured creature in particular took two full magazines before it dropped, though we put it down before I could find out what those massive claws of its could do. As I reloaded, however, I heard a faint metallic clinking.
"Good night." The voice chirped.
All of a sudden, my vision went black. I cowered next to a tree, hearing mag bullets rip into the other side of the trunk. From the shouts next to me, which I could barely hear, it sounded like the sword lady was having similar vision issues. I felt a wetness on my back. I hoped it wasn't blood. Or at least, not my blood.
I don't know how long I was down for, but when I regained my senses, I noticed that I was on the ground. The tree I was next to had fallen over, and as I looked down I saw a piece of shrapnel lodged in my armor. My body felt bruised, which normally isn't a great sign. However, because I didn't feel anything sharp in me, I hoped that it meant I didn't take any lasting damage. Our Skirmisher ally was still busy picking off the ADVENT stragglers as the LMG of our gunner kept them pinned on the ridge upon which they were cowering. They were clearly in the zone. Perhaps too in the zone, as I saw a shimmer approach our gunner, before it shifted into the figure of the thing that had been harassing us earlier. It drew a brutal slash into his belly, before slinking back towards the building we had come out of earlier. He dropped his weapon, and collapsed to the ground.
We needed to deal with that, and as I rifled through my belt for ideas I felt it on my fingertips. The Commander had told us to be careful with these, and only use them as a last resort. Well, we wouldn't have much more to resort to if we didn't deal with whatever that thing was. I chucked the vial-shaped container with as much finesse as I could, and saw it fly through the doorway before a crack, followed by a faint hiss. The coughing in the distance meant that it did something, at least.
"It'll keep that thing down for a bit, but we gotta move!" I yelled as the two of us on the hill rushed back towards the building I had just filled with toxic gas. I hoped we wouldn't have to go in to flush the thing out.
"The hell is that?" Was the reply as we got near enough to get a better look at our wraith. It was tall, purple, and looked oddly humanoid and feminine. It also looked like it wanted nothing more than to kill us. Fortunately, the gas seemed to have some effect on it, as this time it wasn't fast enough to evade our bullets. We both dumped our full mags into its body, and this seemed to do the job. It fell to the ground, but not before delivering a short monologue.
"You've bested me with dirty tricks. You wouldn't stand a chance in an honourable fight." It said as it bled out.
"I don't care about honor. I care about winning." And with that I reloaded, and shot it once in the head. But instead of expiring, like most things do when they're killed, it exploded in a burst of purple energy. Once the colour had dissipated, the body was nowhere to be seen.
"That thing just disappeared in a haze of psionic energy. I don't think that's the last we've seen of it." Came the voice of Bradford.
"Oh great. One more thing we can't deal with." Was the reply from our swordswoman. I agreed.
"The area is clear. You should probably deal with your friend before he bleeds out."
"Oh. right." And so the two of us scampered out of the building, as I looked around for something that would serve as a makeshift bandage.
"Are you okay?" I asked, somewhat rhetorically. The man's eyes seemed to glaze over. "What's your name and rank?" He answered feebly after a fit of coughing.
"Private First Class Connor Walker."
"Okay, just remember that. Repeat that to yourself. And for the love of god don't fall asleep." I didn't have much medical experience, but it at least looked like the bleeding was slowing down. However, my arms were getting sore from applying pressure, and I also needed to check myself over for any scratches. I turned to the cat lady.
"Hey, uh, what's your name?"
"Sahara."
"Okay, Saraha, can you make sure this guy doesn't die? Just keep pressure on the bleeding, like I'm doing." As she took over, I examined myself for anything catastrophic. Fortunately, nothing seemed to have made it through the kevlar.
"Mox tells me that we have cleared the area. The local resistance group will take care of everything else. He will be here with the dropship soon." This, at least, was welcome news. I turned to our Skirmisher.
"Good shooting out there. We owe you one. I don't think we would have made it out if you weren't holding back an entire ADVENT section singlehandedly."
"Your gunner provided welcome support. Hopefully he lives." I noticed that she was holding her arm. It was bleeding.
"Are you okay? Do you need to get that bandaged?"
"I will live. Our bodies heal much faster than yours."
"Mhm. Oh, I don't think I got your name."
"They call me Basilisk."
The dropship gently touched down on our position, as we loaded Connor into a bench, and tried to secure him without exacerbating his wounds. The trip back to base was mercifully short and quiet, and as the medical team took our casualty into the Avenger, I turned to our new ally.
"Remind me to buy you a drink the next time we meet."
"I will try."
-xxx-
I met up with Sahara again in the rec room of the Avenger. She was fiddling with a hacked entertainment device, and seemingly having a blast with it despite it being stuck on the lock screen.
"You know that's not opened, right?"
She looked up, unfolding her legs from under her body.
"Opened?"
"Yeah. Hang on," I said as I navigated past the idle screen. "This should be better."
"Ooh, what's this?" She clicked on the settings menu.
"Uh, that's…you've never used one of these, have you?"
"Not really."
I took a seat next to her on the ground. "So, you've got cat DNA in you, you have no idea about technology, and you're the only person I've ever met who carries around a sword. Who exactly are you and where are you from?" I asked, still curious after the last mission. She gazed wistfully off into the distance, and muttered,
"I'll be honest, I don't really know."
"You don't know? No clue where you're from, or who you are?"
"Well, the first things I remember are blurry, strange memories from inside a tube. Jack tells me that it was some sort of experiment, and he says that's why I look like I do. Everything after that has just been trying to survive in the wilds. XCOM took care of me. I will repay the favour."
"I see. You'll have to forgive me, but I grew up in the cities. What exactly was it like to be growing up, outside the watchful eye of ADVENT?"
"Rough. Supplies were low for the first couple years. That was until the aliens began to start moving large amounts of stuff near our area. After that, it was just a matter of taking it for ourselves. Which was easy at first. We tried not to kill the humans who were doing the grunt work but, well… We weren't willing to lose one of our own for someone who gave themselves up to the aliens. And eventually, we were losing our own on a semi-regular basis, once the aliens actually realized - or maybe became able to - send proper guards with their stuff. It wasn't sustainable. Fortunately, we'd developed enough of a surplus to live off the land for a while, at least. Then all of you came along. It would be hard for me to say I was disappointed to hear that we could leave."
"I see. I knew friends that lost loved ones to the resistance raids. Back when ADVENT hadn't formed and I still had friends that weren't either dead or part of the administration. Still, that's nothing compared to how many died in the initial invasion. People forget easily, or maybe they choose to forget out of mental self-preservation, but the aliens razed entire cities to the ground when they first attacked. Tens of millions dead, and more that simply vanished. I wasn't old enough to remember that, but I'll be damned if I let us forget."
Sahara nodded along as I spoke. "I see why you joined, then. How did XCOM find you?"
"I ran with a pretty well-known resistance cell in New Winnipeg for a couple of years called the Free Flyers. We'd go and ruin ADVENT's day however we could, and I'm still surprised at some of the shit we managed to get away with. Well, I say we, but I never did any of the shooting. I spotted for them, and scouted out some of their hits."
I turned to show her the back of my neck, and pointed to the rough location of several metal bits, jutting out from the scalp just above the nape.
"They gave me a fake chip. Got into a stupid number of places I shouln't have ever been, and definitely never should have been able to get out of. Helps that I'm small and know when to shut up and blend in. That's why they called me Sparrow. Anyways, long story short, their luck finally ran out. Mission went off, and a bunch of our team got killed or vanned. Those of us who were smart assumed someone was going to rat and bolted as fast as we could. Those who had too much faith are probably lying in an ADVENT mass grave right now. Some other cell busted out one of ours some time ago, but whoever it was had lost 3 of their limbs and most of their mind. I never asked who it was. Didn't want to know. Still, they had some info on our emergency plans, which I guess never spilled. News made its way through the grapevine, but most of what's left of the team is done with the resistance. I'm the only one dumb enough to go on, I suppose."
"Sparrow. I like that name. It's pretty." Sahara said.
"It reminds me of my past." I replied.
"Isn't that what we fight for? Or at least, those of us who have one?"
"My past is what I'm trying to stop from happening."
"Then fight for that."
-xxx-
It was about a week later that the Skirmishers were back with some news. Apparently, they'd disabled an ADVENT train, in order to draw out a VIP they wanted to get their hands on. Of course, they certainly wouldn't mind if XCOM wanted a piece of the supplies on said train, as long as the Skirmishers got a piece of the pie.
I was to command our half of the perimeter team, in order to delay ADVENT reinforcements from showing up before we were able to disappear into the night with all of our goods. The good news was that the Skirmishers were very well-versed in eliminating ADVENT ground transports with IEDs, and so the handful of rookies and I scarcely had to lift a finger as dozens of ADVENT reinforcements were instantaneously reduced to cinders. The bad news was that the Sergeant and his right hand man had both suffered pretty bad wounds in the span of battle, and so I was now, being one of the only other members with live combat experience not in the infirmary, on the strike team for the foreseeable future.
The other bit of good news that came later in the week was that Basilisk would be joining us for a while. She'd taken a pretty nasty shot during her part of the raid, and had volunteered her services as a delegate to the Avenger while she recovered. We had those drinks I'd promised, and was pleasantly surprised to find that:
a) former ADVENT can actually hold a conversation with more than single-word sentences, and
b) they do indeed get less inhibited under the effects of alcohol.
She talked at length about the Skirmisher training process, the strangeness of having her chip removed, and her best war stories. I was very interested by the fact that there were female ADVENT, a point that she was at a loss to explain. We discussed what we knew about Bradford and the Commander. Unfortunately, our time was cut short by the PA system calling the strike team to the briefing room. Basilisk finished her glass, looked at mine, and then quickly chugged what was left of my beer as well.
"You'll need your wits about you. Well, whatever's left of them, anyways." I swore I could see the tiniest smile. "Ta Valathar. I hope this is not the last drink we share."
I gave a mirthless chuckle. "I hope so too."
I made it into the briefing room with an exaggerated lack of motor control.
"I'm terribly sorry, but I'm completely intoxicated. I don't think it's wise for-" Bradford nailed me in the forehead with a pill.
"Well then, sober up." Shit. I hoped he wouldn't have any of these. Having run out of excuses, I took the pill and tried my best to focus on the briefing. I might be sober by the time we'd get to the site, but for the moment I was still struggling.
"The resistance and ADVENT have been duking it out hard for the last couple days in the ruins of Boise. It's died down plenty, but there's still a couple people who haven't made it out. Worse, the Lost have apparently been showing up there again, which is probably why it's so dead quiet. We're after a Dr. Albert Moses, but get anyone else alive out of there as well. We have a rough location for him, but getting him's the easy part." Bradford pointed to the annotated map.
"Once you get him, it'll be anywhere between 4 to 8 blocks away from the nearest landing zone we can feasibly get the Skyranger down on. Plus, you'll probably be getting tracked by both ADVENT and the horde. I would recommend getting as much help as you can."
"So what's the bad news?" Cathy piped up from the back.
-xxx-
Insertion was mercifully quiet. Cathy and Karl were to secure the doctor, while Sahara and I would look for any other survivors around the area. The merciful quiet quickly grew into a foreboding silence, as minutes passed with a fragile and palpable silence hanging in the air. However, as we combed through the backrooms of a shop, something shattered the silence. Namely, the far more worrying sound of ADVENT mag rifles.
"Gamma, is that you under fire?" Came the call over the radio.
"Negative. We're looking for the perpetrators." ADVENT didn't use traditional rifles to deal with the Lost unless absolutely necessary, so most likely any survivors would be found wherever this shooting was coming from. Still, it's never a reassuring feeling to be walking directly towards the sound.
ADVENT had smashed one of their vans into the front of a grocer's, and were firing into through the windows. The return fire was tragically inaccurate and weak.
"Bingo. Delta, we've found our marks."
"Move quickly. We've got the doctor, and I'm about to dial up FIrebrand. She'll be here in 4 minutes, so make it quick. If the Lost start swarming, we can't wait for you."
"Understood." I replied as I scoped in on the head of the officer. We made quick work of the enemy squad, as we approached the store.
"We're Resistance! If you want outta here, get your ass moving!" I yelled through the bullet-shattered windows. Two rough-looking soldiers carrying rifles emerged from the rubble.
"If you've got a ride out, we're not complaining. I'm Carpenter." She said, extending one hand to me while gesturing to her companion with the other. "Reeder." I refused the handshake.
"Not the time for small talk. We've got," I checked my watch, "3 minutes. Let's move."
"Our job was to set up a tap on ADVENT comms, but we lost half our team and the core so we've just been-" I shushed them. Around 50 metres in front of us was the reason why.
"MEC. Be very careful." I whispered. It didn't matter. It swiveled its hips and raised its large mag cannot towards us. The ADVENT troopers escorting it did the same, though they didn't really seem to know what they were aiming at. I shoved down Sahara, as I popped the pin of a grenade and hastily threw it in the MEC's general direction, hoping that it hit. The sound of sparks was reassuring, despite the mag rifles spitting at the wall I had hid behind. What was less reassuring was the sound of compressed air.
"Grenades!" I yelled as Carpenter got hit with a face full of shrapnel. I felt impact on my arm. The right side of my armor was completely shredded. I could feel blood trickling down my face. At least it wasn't gushing. Nevertheless, we still had a deadline we had to make. And to do that, we needed to deal with the MEC. I peeked around the corner to try and get a shot off at its core, but a hail of bullets quickly deterred me from doing that again. I glanced at Sahara, who had made her way next to me. She'd been lucky; no visible signs of damage. The two rescuees were on the other side of the street, clearly injured but still up. I checked my radio. Still working, fortunately.
"We need support, we're pinned down by a MEC!"
"We've got a horde of Lost on us near the LZ, you're gonna have to make do!" Was the reply. Sahara turned to me as the sound of the ADVENT troopers' boots closed, as they pushed for a better angle.
"Any ideas?"
I glanced around. Then up.
"One, but I need you to trust me. You need to run into there and make as much noise as you can. Keep your head down, I'll deal with the infantry." I gestured into the hotel we were pinned behind as I changed my magazine.
Sahara hesitated for a second. She didn't trust me. I mean, I had told her nothing about what the plan even was. But she also knew that there wasn't any other option. She smashed through the window and ran like hell. I saw bullets rip into the MEC, and it turned.
"Keep their heads down!" I yelled across the street to the two new recruits. As they engaged with the troopers, I hoped that ADVENT hadn't changed their MEC AI. Fortunately, it decided to prioritize what I hoped it would: engaging flanking troops. And so, when it lost sight of Sahara, it attempted entry into the building through the front door. Right under the neon sign. I unloaded my entire rifle into the supports, already weakened by decades of neglect and corrosion. They buckled, then broke. The metal frame tumbled onto the MEC, and I heard the cracking of delicate machinery. One more grenade from Sahara cleaned up the rest of the hostiles.
Carpenter could still just about walk, despite leaking blood from half her face. Compared to earlier, the Lost were no issue at all. We had the firepower to deal with the horde, and as we cleaned up Firebrand made her appearance with our ticket home, as well as some much-needed first aid supplies.
"Trust me now?"
"I suppose, Sparrow."