A/N: It's finally here! After about two months of writing, planning, and more writing, the next "main story" mission has begun! And it's...forty-three pages. Let me repeat that. Forty. Three. Freaking. Pages. For just part ONE of this mission...helpme

Well, hope you like reading, cause this one's gonna be a doozy. And I'm not talking about just length, either. There's a lot that goes down in this chapter...and not all of it is good for Summer or the Bureau as a whole. So buckle up, get some snacks, and get ready what might be my longest (and possibly darkest) chapter yet.

Enjoy!


December 4th, 1962, 1249 MST
Roswell, New Mexico

The constant droning in DaSilva's head was almost loud enough to drown out the noise of the battle around him.

Almost.

He grit his teeth as he steered the borrowed Bel Air down a street erupting into fire and debris, swerving left and right to evade the falling drop pods and the blood-red lasers shooting at the pursuing car. Kinney and Redmond twisted around in the backseat, returning fire with scavenged Outsider weapons in an attempt to take at least some of the heat off their driver. No matter how many they cut down, more seemed to arrive with each pod. And no matter what turns or shortcuts DaSilva tried to take, the aliens were always there waiting for them.

"They've got the whole town locked down!" Redmond gasped as he shook off yet another laser burn. "We need somewhere to hole up!"

"Head for Henry's!" Kinney's Scatter Blaster exploded the head of a Sectoid that tried to latch onto the back bumper. "I left us a supply cache and some communication equipment. Plus it's nice and big and defensible!"

"Good thinking, Kinney!" The leader of Strike Two nodded in approval. "Maybe we can get this jalopy fixed up too."

And so with an illegal left that would have gotten him pulled over if any (alive) cops were watching, the beaten-up red convertible rounded the corner with screeching tires and a protesting engine. DaSilva kept both the car and his head focused on the road, trying to keep the thing at the back of his mind from clawing its way to the forefront. Good thing too - up ahead, directly between them and the used-car-dealership-slash-auto-shop, a pair of burly-looking Mutons hefted guns as big as golden retrievers, aimed squarely at them.

"Shit!" called out Kinney. "Roadblock!"

DaSilva grimaced. He briefly wondered if they had enough speed to ram the alien enforcers, but decided that now wouldn't be a good time for a theoretical physics lesson. So instead he opted to test another principle of motion, grabbing an important-looking piece of alien tech from the pile in the passenger's seat. Checking it briefly to make sure it was one he'd tinkered with, he grinned as he pulled his arm back.

"Hey quarterbacks!" he taunted, flinging it out of the car with all his might. "Go long!"

The device sailed straight up and into a parabolic arc, hovering at the top for a moment before falling where the car had been a few seconds ago. Predictably, the Muton's eyes followed the package as it soared, and judging by their shocked expressions and desperate scramble to catch it, DaSilva guessed it was quite important. They dashed right past the car as it zoomed onwards, ignoring the trio's parting shots as they dove to save the tech before it hit the ground. One Muton caught it in both hands as its chest hit the pavement, the other landed right on top of its partner with a sickening crunch.

Four seconds later, the hidden explosive detonated, and both Mutons went up in flames.

"Hah, they never see that one coming!" cackled DaSilva as he watched the aliens burn in a crooked rear view mirror. "Works like a charm every time."

"Nicely done, sir," said Kinney with a nod. "You sure we didn't need that, though?"

"Eh, we've got at least a dozen of those," remarked DaSilva with a shrug as he pulled off the road and up the driveway. "Once we're inside, I want Redmond to get the doors and weld them shut with his laser. Kinney, I'll need you to show me where the caches are."

The men in the backseat nodded as their trusty steel chariot rolled into the service area of what used to be the most profitable (and morally dubious) shop in Roswell. Henry's Dealership and Auto Shop was a two-in-one package deal - the front half of the shop was a lavish-looking car shop with a spacious floor dedicated to showing off the newest models, while the back half consisted of a typical automobile servicing area that could fix any problem for the right price. If a car needed repairs that the owner couldn't afford, Mister Henry could convince them to sell their old wreck to him for "in-store credit" that could be used to purchase one of the conveniently-available (gently used) cars on display in the back lot. That old car, in turn, would be fixed up for a fraction of the quoted price and slipped into that lot for sale. Top that off with a theme dedicated to capitalizing on the "Roswell aliens" craze, and the result was a moneymaker that drew in tourists and townspeople alike, one out of fascination and the other out of necessity. A string of thefts and robberies, as well as mounting tensions with the USSR, had convinced Mister Henry to invest that profit into thicker walls, metal grates, and even an underground office lined with lead. This added security was to insure that Mister Henry, and his business, lived to see the aftermath of the end times.

Of course, Mister Henry himself was wandering around with the rest of the Sleepwalkers these days, so profit wasn't exactly on his mind anymore. Still, he'd probably have been honored that XCOM was using his humble little establishment as a safe house. And then he'd probably try to charge them protection money.

As soon as the borrowed red Bel Air stopped, Kinney and Redmond hopped off the back without even bothering with the doors. DaSilva's shaky hand fumbled with the handle for a second before he finally pushed it open - a little too forcefully, as the door fell off its hinge with a loud clatter. Shaking his head in embarrassment, he climbed out and followed Kinney, watching Redmond press a button to close the garage door.

"It'll keep them out, but not forever," he reported over the distant sound of laser fire. "We'll probably be fine for a few hours, at most."

"Then let's hope that the Bureau can send people in less time than that," noted DaSilva, trying to focus through the droning in his mind. "Where'd you stash the goods, Kinney?"

The young Engineer grinned and pulled down a large decorative flying saucer from the ceiling, snapping it in half to reveal several lockboxes inside. "There's ammo behind the cardboard little gray man, too, along with enough chems to make at least two dozen of your little explosive packages."

DaSilva chuckled. "A little on the nose, don't you think?"

"It's the perfect hiding spot," grinned Kinney. Then he grew serious. "Want me to rig up the distress beacon? Or do you wanna do it yourself?"

The droning in his mind and the sudden urge to smash everything made DaSilva shake his head. "I trust you, Kinney. Get it set up, and then we can…"

He trailed off, noticing how Redmond was trying to peer outside of a barred-up window.

"Redmond? What's wrong?"

"You hear that, sir?" The Support Agent was frowning.

It was hard to hear anything with that damn hum inside his ears, but DaSilva didn't need to mention that. "I don't hear anything."

"Same here," said Kinney, "Totally quiet."

"Exactly," snarled Redmond. "They've stopped firing. Why?"

"Maybe they gave up and went back," offered Kinney.

"They wouldn't have chased us all across town just to retreat once we holed up," Redmond growled. Now DaSilva was curious, as he went to another window to try to get a better look. Sure enough, where the streets had once been crawling with Outsiders and Sectoids and even Mutons, now there were only empty roads and burning buildings.

The eye of the hurricane didn't stay for very long.

"Guys. You hear that?"

"Hear it? I feel it in my very bones. What the hell are they sending now?"

DaSilva grimaced as he stared up at the sky, the noise in his mind drowned out by a low bass that made his teeth tingle. A single dark shape in the sky told him that he and his team were in real trouble.

"Heads up boys," said Nico quietly, "New contact in the sky. And it's coming for us."

Kinney gulped. "It's not the Command Ship, is it?"

He narrowed his eyes. "No. Worse."

Redmond and Kinney both went quiet. Then they looked at each other, and nodded.

"Sir," said the Support Agent, "grab those supply caches and get your ass downstairs. We'll hold them off for as long as we can."

DaSilva's eyes widened. They couldn't be serious, could they? "No. Absolutely not. I'm not leaving you boys behind while I - "

"You have to," said Kinney. "That intel in your pack is too valuable to risk losing in a firefight, especially if one of those things is involved. You need to hole up in the safest spot and wait for XCOM to arrive. However long it takes."

So they were serious. Dammit.

"You realize what you're getting into, right? If you don't come with me…"

"We knew the risks before we even signed on," replied Redmond somberly. "This is our choice, sir. Please respect it."

"And don't set off any of your traps, either," added the Engineer. "Save them for if the aliens get too close to your hiding spot. Don't even touch that remote until after we're gone. And when you get back to base…"

Kinney pulled off his tags and tossed them to DaSilva. Redmond did the same, and it was only pure luck he managed to catch them.

"...tell Nils and Liz that I'm sorry. And that I'll be waiting for them on the other side."

Swallowing the lump in his throat, DaSilva nodded and gathered up everything he needed before heading to the stairs. He looked back at his team one more time, watching them reload their weapons and take defensive positions.

"Gentlemen? It's been an honor."

John Kinney and Michael Redmond turned back to their squad leader, smiling sadly and saluting.

"Vigilo Confido, sir."

"Honor's all ours. Now move."

Taking one more steadying breath, DaSilva turned back around and almost tripped down the stairs, clutching the dog tags tightly as he heard the alien weapons fire resume.

This time, the droning was loud enough to drown it out.


December 7th, 1962, 1637 MST
Roswell, New Mexico

"...gotta get to the pharmacy...before it closes…"

"These damn heels...knew I should have worn the flats…"

"...free dinner rolls with every family platter...get yours while supplies last …"

Carter cast a furtive glance at the aimless horde as he and his squad traveled down the road, squeezing past the throng of Sleepwalkers as they walked. The mindless shambling husks seemed to pay the half-dozen humans no mind, content to wander around and endlessly repeat their last thoughts out loud. Occasionally one of them would look at the group with a vacant stare, pale eyes and blackened tears on full display, before turning away and resuming their shuffle. Given how often this happened, it felt safe to say that Strike Three wasn't in danger of being mobbed by alien zombies...but Carter kept one hand on his Colt, just in case.

Behind him, the rest of the squad seemed to be just as uneasy as him. Ryan Steel, Strike Two's Commando, kept his head and his M14 on a swivel as he scanned the left flank, while Knox did the same on the right. Adam's Z-62 was slowly edging its way out of its holster - the only thing that kept his nerves from pulling it out and spraying the horde was Dawson's hand on his backpack. And Summer stood almost shoulder-to-shoulder with her squad leader, hands tightly gripping to Wandering Thorn's hilt as silver eyes darted from one side to another.

"Never thought I'd see this many Sleepwalkers in one place," she murmured. Carter could only nod in agreement.

"How many of them do you think there are?" Adam asked cautiously.

"Too many, that's for damn sure," growled Knox.

"I thought it was those alien signals that turned people into Sleepwalkers," said Ryan as he kept his rifle trained on another group. "How come there's so many this time?"

"Maybe they upgraded their broadcast equipment," hummed Dawson. "Or they found a new way to turn people. Either way, this isn't good."

"Why aren't they attacking, though?" wondered Adam. "Why go through all the trouble of zombifying a whole town if you're not gonna use them as a literal meat shield?"

"Same reason the ancient Egyptians never turned the people of Israel into a massive army," pointed out Dawson. "They wanted slaves, not soldiers. And if this shipyard's as big as DaSilva's reports say, they'd need a lot of manpower to make something like that happen."

"Can we cut the chatter and just focus on finding the bastard?" Knox grumbled. "You can pick his brain all you want then. For now, let's get out of this crowd before they do start tearing us apart."

Carter nodded. "Kilo's right. Romeo, did DaSilva's reports say anything about where he might hole up if there's trouble?"

Ryan furrowed his brow as he thought. "Well...he did mention some kind of auto shop a bunch of times. Henry's or something?"

"Henry's Dealership and Auto Repairs, yes," came a soft-spoken (but more confident than it had been) voice. Carter noticed Summer's smile as she heard Penny speak up, proud that her friend had taken on a more active role. "Kinney's reports mention how he'd stash supplies and alien materials there after hours, in case they needed to restock or retrieve them later."

"Thanks, Bravo-Zero," said Summer. "Skyranger-Three, can you find that place she mentioned?"

"Already see it now," called Barnes from the Skyranger maintaining patrol around and above them, "two blocks dead ahead, then three blocks right. Just a fair warning though - you might not like the decorations…"

"As long as it's not carnival-themed, I think we'll be fine," said Dawson with a smirk. "I can handle anything but clowns."

Ryan raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with clowns?"

"What isn't wrong with them?"

"The fuck did I just say, Golf? Cut. The. Chatter."

"Fine, fine, Kilo. I guess I'll tell you my life story later."

Carter sighed in relief as the soldiers behind him finally stopped talking, moving through the crowds of Sleepwalkers in relative silence. Thankfully, the mind-wiped horde paid little attention to them, aside from the occasional glances and mutterings to nobody in particular.

"...soup's too damn cold...the hell kinda service is this…?"

"...keeps nagging me to stop smoking...she can leave if it bothers her so much…"

"Mommy, where are you...hold me, I'm scared…"

Eventually the streets opened up to reveal burning fires and alien corpses, weapons and bodies and debris and wreckage thrown left and right and creating a hazardous field to navigate. Buildings were bombed out, cars were burnt and melted until they resembled piles of scrap metal, and chunks of stone were scorched and scored with black marks on both the front and back. Fuel canisters, gasoline pumps, and piles of rebar were all strewn about, each one sporting a barely-visible blinking light and beeping softly.

It was a war zone.

And at the center of it was…

"You've gotta be shitting me," groaned Carter.

...a half-destroyed wreck of a large shop, the flashing neon-green sign proudly proclaiming "Henry's Dealership and Auto Repairs." The front of it may have been shot to hell by powerful lasers, but most of the decorative paraphernalia was still intact, however tasteless it may have been in the current situation. Carter could see burnt cutouts of big bulbous-headed green aliens that held arrow signs pointing to the entrance, a toppled statue of an extraterrestrial visitor with a crackling speaker that croaked out "take me to your dealer" in a monotonous, broken voice, and even a flying saucer above the sign suspended by wires, arranged to look like it was "abducting" the apostrophe from the establishment's marquee. To top it all off there was a sign by the front road that proudly boasted what could only be assumed was the establishment's catchphrase.

"Henry's Dealership and Auto Repair," read Summer aloud, "where our deals are - snrk - out of this world."

"Goddammit, DaSilva…" Carter shook his head as his ASL almost laughed hers off. "He would pick this kind of place, wouldn't he?"

"Of course he would," Ryan smirked. "Just...wow. There's irony, and then there's this."

"Christ." Knox furrowed his brow. "All this craze about little spacemen over some goddamn circles in a corn field. Is this kinda shit really that popular? Like, enough to spawn all of this?"

"You kidding, old man?" Dawson said with a grin. "When I was in pre-med school, this was the urban legend that people were talking about. Everyone had their own ideas about what it meant...and about all of them were taken as seriously as you'd expect."

"And it turns out we were right all along," said Adam with a smirk. "Aliens on Earth...who's laughing now, huh?"

"Certainly not the people here," growled Knox. Adam's smirk faded, and whatever he was about to say next was cut off by a burst of static.

"...I repeat, this is…Officer Nico Julian DaSilva of Strike Two, callsign 'November...gah…

November-Two'... broadcasting on all...available frequencies… anyone out there, please respond...respond…"

Carter almost forgot to breathe as he clicked his radio. "November, this is Whiskey. We're here to help."

There was a long pause on the other end, then a haggard-sounding chuckle. "Hey Will...glad you could make it, buddy. I knew you'd get here eventually…glad to hear your voice..."

Ryan's emotional mask cracked, and he pulled up his own radio. "Sir! You're okay! Thank god...are the others there with you?"

Another pause. "Yeah, I'm...I'm doing okay, Ryan. Thanks for coming. As for Kinney and Redmond...well, they're around somewhere...is Nils there with you guys?"

Carter frowned, and was about to tell the truth when Summer spoke first. "He couldn't make it," she said with warmth and relief. "But he sent me to give you his best regards, and my own. We all missed you back at the base."

As the pause happened again, Summer looked to Carter, who nodded. Probably not the best time to explain Nil's condition to DaSilva. Especially if the stranded squad leader was half as bad in person as he sounded over the radio.

"Heh...course ya did, gorgeous...Summer in the winter...guess I got lucky after all."

Carter rolled his eyes as he clicked the button. "Flirt with my ASL on your own time. We need answers. What's your status? Where are you? What the hell happened here?"

The familiar pause was a little longer this time, and Carter wasn't sure if it was just the jamming or if DaSilva really was taking that long to come up with answers. He hoped it was the former, but his gut had a feeling it would be the latter.

"Aliens happened, that's what," explained DaSilva. "We were doing some recon inside that alien shipyard when a Command Ship came in out of nowhere and docked close to where we were hiding. The crew spotted us as they disembarked, and we had to run like hell back here. We've been holed up here ever since, fighting the patrols that would wander too close. Thank God I parked the car nearby - we never would have made it out of there without it. Damn good car, it is...think Faulke would be willing to pin a medal on its hood?"

It didn't escape Carter's notice that he completely neglected to answer two of his three questions. He furrowed his brow. "And where is this shipyard?"

The pause wasn't as long this time. "Couple klicks west of here, out in the boonies. You'll know it when you see it - look for the crop circles. The whole place is cloaked to throw us off, but they can't hide the shape their UFOs make when they crush the crops…"

Another straightforward answer. Good. "Skyrangers, you hear that?"

"Heard it loud and clear," came the other Skyranger pilot's voice, her familiar Southern drawl crackling through the speaker, "Gonna swing over there and try to get a visual, then maintain a holding pattern once we spot it."

"Careful, Two," warned Barnes, "You've got the doc on board. Don't do anything reckless."

"Please. When have I ever been reckless?"

"...you don't really want me to answer that, do you?"

"Not unless you wanna be kicked out of the quilting club, Three."

"Fair point. Moving to extract Strike Three."

Carter clicked his radio again. "You hear that, November? We're getting you out of there."

The chuckle from the other end of the radio was more than a little ominous. "I don't think that's a good idea, Will. Trust me...it's better if I stay here in the basement. For everyone. So that's exactly what I'm gonna do."

"Like hell you are," growled Carter. "We came here to save you, and we're gonna do just that."

"If only it was that easy."

Before he could ask what that was supposed to mean, Dolly's voice rang out again.

"Aw hell's bells! Two Dropper UFOs just appeared out of thin air! They're headed for your location, Strike Three!"

"I got a visual on them, Two!" added Barnes. "Heads up, Whiskey, ETA five minutes!"

Well that would be an issue. Dropper UFOs were slow, unarmed but heavily armored ships that, as their names implied, carried and launched Outsider drop pods into battle. A single one of those things contained a large platoon of alien troops - if two of them were coming in, it would be like facing a small army all at once.

And Carter didn't like the odds of his six-person squad against those numbers.

"There's still time to get you out of there before they arrive," offered Barnes. "Skyranger's faster than them, and they can't do anything to me. But once they start dropping off troops, you won't have another chance for extraction until the Droppers are out of troops."

"We're not leaving without DaSilva," growled Carter. "And right now he's too busy holing himself up in his room like a kid who didn't get what he wanted for Christmas. We're staying."

All around him, the various members of Strike Three nodded in agreement. DaSilva didn't seem convinced, though.

"Just get outta here, Will…" he groaned. "I'm a lost cause anyways…"

Summer, Ryan, and the rest of the squad all looked to Carter, and shook their heads. Carter nodded to all of them, then keyed his radio once more.

"Not an option, DaSilva. We're not leaving without you, and we'll fight every single alien bastard they send our way if it means getting your stubborn ass out of that basement. Stand by for extraction, Skyranger Three, and keep us posted on when you've got another window. We'll be ready by then."

"Understood, Whiskey. Vigilo Confido, and be careful."

Carter watched as the Skyranger disappeared over the buildings, then keyed his radio once more. "You hear that, DaSilva? We're staying to fight whatever they send our way for your sake. You better be grateful."

The pause was almost unbearable, however short it might have been. "Fine. You wanna throw your lives away? It's your funeral."

"There will be a funeral today," declared Summer, "but it won't be ours."

There was another pause on DaSilva's end, before a throaty chuckle came over the speaker. "Of course. I forgot who I was talking to for a second there. In any case, you might wanna take a look around before those Droppers get here. The aliens that were attacking us, and the ones that came by on patrol afterwards, left some pretty neat tech behind - weapons, gadgets, and all sorts of stuff I'm sure the Bureau could use. Assuming you live long enough to bring it back."

"We will," said Carter with a nod. "Stay on the line so you can give some details on what we find. Everyone else, split up and search. We don't have much time to prepare, so make sure you spend it wisely."

With a nod, the squad scattered and started picking through the rubble, searching both inside and outside the shop for supplies and weapons. While most of it was standard fare the Bureau was used to seeing, there were a few new toys thrown in the mix.

Ryan Steel pulled a massive-looking gun out of the grip of a dead Muton, his Venn Brace helping him heft the weight as he looked the new weapon over. It seemed to be the alien equivalent of a portable gatling gun, with a rotating assembly of six long barrels to disperse the heat from sustained firing. Although it slowed him down significantly and required two hands just to carry, the number and power of the lasers made the sacrifice of speed well worth it.

"How the hell are you gonna even aim that thing?" Knox asked his fellow Commando with a quirked eyebrow. "There's no sights on it anywhere."

DaSilva chuckled through the comms. "Found a Gatling Laser, huh? That's what Kinney called it, at any rate. It's not meant for aiming - it's meant for shooting a big area a whole bunch of times. Perfect for suppressive fire...or for when you need a really meaty target dead five times over."

The other Commando smirked. "There's another one over there. You want it?"

Knox shook his head. "Nah. It'll slow me down too much, and I'd like to use my knees while they still work, thank you very much."

Ryan shrugged as he hefted his new cannon into firing position. "Your loss."

Adam's keen eye noticed a fallen Sniper fading in and out of existence, one hand clutching some kind of disk-like object while the other held its rifle. After grabbing the extra power cells, he pried the device from its grip, noticing how the effect ended as soon as it was removed. He looked it over for a moment, wondering what the disk did, before he realized that now he was fading in and out of existence. A few seconds of opening the casing and sticking some fuses into broken circuits later, the Recon Agent pressed the button on the top...and completely disappeared from sight.

"Looks like this is how those snipers manage to stay so well-hidden," observed Adam as he faded back into view with another button push. "Let's see them try to spot me now."

"Careful with that Cloak module," warned DaSilva. "Kinney and Redmond did some tests with those things, and found out that they heated up fast. I'd say you'll only be able to stay invisible for about five minutes or so before you need to vent it."

"Five minutes to find a new spot, get there, and line up the perfect shot?" Adam smirked. "All the time in the world."

Dawson came across a wrecked storage locker with at least a dozen or so strange metallic pucks stacked on top of one another. Taking one out, he flipped it over in his hands and inspected it, inadvertently hitting a button on top in the process. When it started beeping rapidly, he tossed it as far as he could and braced himself for an explosion...which never came. Instead, when he opened his eyes, he saw a three-yard-wide shimmering sphere that, when shot at, seemed to block any and all attacks made against it.

"Very cool," said Dawson as he stuck his hand through the pale gray bubble, wiggling his fingers and sending ripples across the surface. "It's like those shields we have in our packs, only better. These should do a better job at keeping people from getting shot than just smoke grenades."

"Those Shield Spheres are pretty neat, huh?" DaSilva chuckled. "Redmond especially liked those. They burn out after one use though, and they only last a minute, but he was pretty sure they could be reverse-engineered and made with the stuff back at XCOM. So don't use them all in one fight! Make sure to save some to bring back with you."

The Support Agent grabbed the shield sphere pucks and slipped half of them on his belt, storing the other half in his power pack. "Five should be plenty, right? If we need more than that, we might as well just get shot anyways."

Carter was in the middle of swapping out his frag grenades for unused alien variants when he heard his radio crackle.

"Carter...you there? I'm calling just you. I...need to talk to you."

With a sigh, he pulled his radio off and switched it onto the private channel. "Use callsigns, Sierra."

"Right, sorry. It's just...you might wanna get over here. In the Auto Shop part of the building. It's...I found Kinney and Redmond."

The fact that they'd been quiet thus far gave Carter a pretty good idea of why she was calling just him. He sighed, snuck a few more alien grenades into his pack, and headed over into the shop.

The smell of burning sulfur and rusted iron overwhelmed him as soon as he stepped inside. If he had to use a word to describe the interior, it would be hell. The air was thick with copper flecks and smoking fumes, fading sunlight pouring through softball-sized holes in the roof. Summer was already there, hunched over the body of a young man with pale skin and a blood-soaked suit. In the corner of the shop, an older dark-skinned man was propped up with open gashes on his chest and an entire arm missing, the other hand holding limply to a dried-up medkit.

"Dammit…" said Carter, shaking his head. He looked at the silver-eyed woman sympathetically. "Any signs of life at all?"

She shook her head. "The bodies are stone cold, and completely stiff. They've been dead for a while, Carter. There's no way DaSilva wouldn't know about this."

"Maybe he does, and he's trying to downplay how bad things really are." Carter shook his head again. "Dammit, DaSilva. What the hell kind of trouble did you get yourself into?"

"Big trouble," said DaSilva over the radio. "Big enough trouble that they sent a goddamn Titan after us."

Carter quirked an eyebrow. "Titan?"

"Outsider aerial combat units. Picture all the damage a Command Ship's main weapons can do. Now compress it into a beam as wide as a fist, give it to a twenty-foot-tall black monolith, and slap some anti-gravity generators on it to make it fly. That's a Titan, and it's the big bad warden in the alien security lineup. It followed us all the way here from the shipyard, and as soon as we heard it coming, Kinney and Redmond told me to get downstairs while they stayed topside to fight. I tried to talk them out of it, but they gave me their tags, and...well, that was that."

The sound of something hitting the ground behind Carter got his attention, making him turn to see the normally-composed Ryan Steel slump to his knees at the sight of his squad. His thousand-yard-stare wasn't even looking at the corpses, or at Carter, or even at Summer. All he could see was the death of his friends.

"No…" he whispered with a choked sob, "...goddammit, no...first Prescott, then Nils, now Kinney and Redmond...how many more friends am I gonna lose?"

With a tight frown, Carter went over and put a hand on the anguished Commando's shoulder. "I'm sorry, soldier. I wish there was more I could do."

"Can't you just...I dunno, heal them or something?" asked Ryan bitterly.

He shook his head. "It only works if the wound's recent. An hour or so after someone gets hurt, I can't do anything to help. And I can't raise the dead, either. No amount of tech can do that."

Summer frowned for a moment, then stepped forward and rested a hand on Ryan's cheek.

"If it's any comfort, I have faith that you were in their hearts as they fought here," she said gently. "I fought alongside Kinney once, and his devotion to his squad and his friends were clear for all to see. They were good men, and the world is lesser for their loss. Now it is up to us to carry their names forward, to not let their deaths be in vain. And when we have a chance, we will give them a proper burial. They died as warriors and heroes; we will honor them as such."

Ryan nodded, tears streaming down his face as he leaned against Summer. She stood there, a silver-eyed pillar of comfort, running fingers through his hair and consoling him. Carter stepped back, took a deep breath, and pulled off his hat in quiet reverence for a moment.

The silence was broken all too soon.

"Heads up Strike Three," called Barnes, "Droppers are coming into range now! Get ready for a fight!"

Sure enough, the distant humming of approaching UFOs grew louder and louder with each passing second. A cursory glance out a shattered window revealed a pair of crimson-plated flying saucers standing out against the blue-gray afternoon sky, the back hatches opening as salvos of red streaks launched from deep within. Anyone else witnessing the event would have concluded the alien ship was carpet bombing a target, and they would be partially correct. But these blazing arcs didn't contain explosives - they carried something much more dangerous.

Slipping his hat back on his head, Carter looked to Summer, who was still comforting Ryan. She in turn looked down at the crying Commando, who didn't look like he would run out of tears anytime soon. Her hands kept running through the hair, even as her eyes snapped back up to Carter.

"We'll be out in a minute," she said simply.

"We may not have a minute."

"Then buy us as much time as you can. We'll be out there."

With a nod of understanding, Carter unslung his laser rifle and exited the auto shop to see Knox and Dawson moving behind mangled cars for cover. His timing was impeccable, as he took point behind a concrete block just as a dozen or so drop pods fell from the sky and buried themselves into the parking lot. The transports opened up to reveal the usual assortment of Outsiders and Sectoids, though Carter noted that there were three Shield Commanders among the troops. There was also a pair of Mutons that kicked their pod doors with enough force to send them flying, as well as one particular Outsider wearing the vestments of a Commander, but sporting a yellow cape instead of the blue ones used by their protective allies.

"What's that yellow one do?" Knox wondered as he fired off a suppressive burst from his rifle.

As if to answer his question, the new Commander stretched out a hand, pale yellow lines stretching up his neck and veins. Fallen alien weapons and materials from the previous battles suddenly levitated and came together to assemble a makeshift turret, one that turned towards Knox and opened fire on full blast.

"Whoa, holy shit!" The veteran soldier went prone in an attempt to hide from the massive volume of seven or eight laser rifles firing all at once. "That thing controls tech!"

"Maybe we should call it a 'Tech Commander,' then," said Dawson as he tossed a smoke grenade towards Knox. "That makes sense, right? Especially if the other troops decide to keep being uncreative with these alien commander names…"

"You can call it whatever you want, long as you kill it!" Carter barked, ducking behind cover as his hat got shot off his head. "Alpha, get on top of the store! You should have a good sniping position up there."

"Already there, Whiskey," came the Recon Agent's voice through the radio. "Anything in particular I should be targeting?"

"Focus on stripping the shields off the Commanders," he growled. "We can handle the rest. Sierra, you and Romeo ready yet?"

"Just about. Try to hold on for another minute or so. We're opening one of the garage doors Redmond welded shut, to make a shorter path to the battlefield than circling around and going through the doors. It'll also give us a nice exit if we need to fall back, just in case."

"Good thinking. We'll try to hold them off, but there's a lot. Get out here as soon as you can."

Another voice came over the radio. "Will, I'm sure you noticed already, but I left a few 'gifts' for our friends out there. If you can point out what you want exploded, I can detonate it from here."

Poking his head out of cover for just a moment, he caught sight of a baby-blue station wagon with an abnormally large rear end. Besides being hideous to look at, it was also providing cover to an Outsider firing squad that was doing a good job of keeping him pinned.

"How about that ugly-ass Plymouth towards the back? The one that looks like the sky if it puked all over itself. Did you tape a bomb to that?"

DaSilva chuckled. "The Valiant? Buddy, that's one of the first things I trapped. Get ready for the boom."

A second later, the car went up in flames, detonating in a shower of steel shrapnel and fiery wreckage. The Outsiders that were huddled against it disappeared instantly - the others nearby had the misfortune of dying slowly from blood loss as scraps of metal punctured their throats and torsos. No longer pinned down by enemy laser fire, Carter leaned out and put them out of their misery, blasting a few Sectoids hobbling out of cover to boot.

"Thanks, DaSilva," he said as he retrieved his hat, ducking back into cover as the makeshift turret fired on his position. "Any advice on how to deal with those yellow-caped bastards? Or the stuff they make?"

"You can disrupt their constructs by hitting it with explosives, though it won't last long," answered DaSilva. "Beyond that, your best bet is to kill the alien asshole who built it. Their toys fall apart without their operator alive to put them back together. Easier said than done, though - they like to hide behind cover and let others do the fighting for them."

"That so, huh…" mused Carter, spotting a corner of yellow cloth peeking out from behind its substantial cover. The Tech Commander was on the far end of the battlefield in a well-defended position - too far away to flush out with a grenade, too many aliens shooting at the squad to try to close the gap and flank, and hiding behind too thick of cover for the squad to destroy even with explosives. There wasn't any easy way for the squad to get rid of it without needlessly exposing themselves.

Unless...

"Alpha, I'm gonna lift the Tech Commander into the air!" Carter barked, ignoring Dawson's shout of elation at his name being used. "Soon as he's airborne, blow his head off his shoulders!"

"You got it, sir! Locking in with the SCOPE and charging a penetrating shot now!"

Carter felt his skin tingle and his hands vibrate with energy as they glowed with azure light. He focused his mind and his power on the Tech Commander cowering in the corner, watching with a tiny little laser pistol as its machines sowed chaos among his men. It felt safe. It felt secure.

But not for much longer.

"Alley-oop!"

With a flick of his wrist, Carter launched the alien machinist into the sky, ignoring the cries of protest as it was flung upwards out of its shelter. He held the struggling Outsider in mid-air for a moment, feeling the pull of gravity and the thrashing of his captive fight against his own power. A fraction of a second later, a red bolt of death streaked across the field in an echoing blast of sound, shearing the Tech Commander's head off its shoulders and making its body go limp. The makeshift turret fell to pieces as Carter let go of its former master, alien weapons clattering to the ground just before the headless corpse did the same.

"Nice shot, Alpha! And good thinking, Whiskey! Saw that from here."

"Thanks, Sierra. Gotta vent the rifle, though. Gonna need a minute to swap power cells."

"Do what you have to, Alpha," said Carter. "Kilo! Switch to DEAF rounds and start shredding those Mutons!"

Knox grinned as he got back up, swapping the empty mag in his M14 for one of his special black-painted magazines. The Engineering team had noticed that conventional weapons were starting to lose their effectiveness against the ever-adapting Outsiders, and even lasers were having trouble punching through the armor of heavier units like Mutons. Furthermore, the number of burnt-out shield cores the Agents went through on missions began to add up, leaving massive amounts of spent Elerium that couldn't be re-energized no matter how it was stimulated. So Engineering took those two problems and turned them into a solution, swapping out the lead used in traditional bullets with smaller, thinner projectiles made out of the dense waste material. The result was the Depleted Elerium Armor Fragmenting ammunition, or DEAF rounds, which could be loaded and chambered into any ammo-fed weapon, penetrated and shredded enemy armor, and (best of all, according to some) created highly-satisfying thrump noises whenever fired.

The Commando leaned out of cover and unloaded a salvo of slugs into the nearest Muton, deep bass shots echoing across the field as the rounds slammed into the protective shell. The sound of ceramics shattering followed each impact, sending blood and chunks of armor flying with each bullet that burrowed into the alien. The Muton roared in pain and raised its Scatter Blaster, but a flashbang disoriented it and a burst of laser fire from Carter made it drop its weapon, leaving it open long enough for the last bullets from Knox's mag to core it right through the skull.

"Oh, hell yes!" Knox exclaimed as he ejected the specialized mag. "I love these things! You can keep your fancy laser shit - I'll take cold hard metal any day!"

"Don't use them all at once," warned Carter as he swapped power cells. "You've only got a few mags of the stuff. Use them wisely."

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled the Commando, "I'll just use one more on the other Mut and - WHOA!"

"Kilo!"

Knox suddenly went flying out of cover and into the line of fire, as a Shield Commander snarled and pulled with glowing hands. The Commando fell at the Outsider's feet with an empty rifle, prompting him to pull out his pistol and start firing. Predictably, the bullets bounced harmlessly off the protective barrier, doing nothing to stop the Shield Commander from hosing down his own shield with blasts from its laser SMG. His teammates both aimed at the Outsider, but two separate firing squads opened fire at them, keeping them pinned behind cover. Carter was running out of options to help - he couldn't blindly throw a grenade without catching Knox in the blast, he and Dawson were locked down and unable to shoot, and Adam was still venting his rifle.

He blindly fired his laser rifle over his cover, desperate to hit something before Knox's shield gave out...

"Kilo, get down! I've got you covered!"

A deafening metallic roar rang in his ears as a massive torrent of lasers poured into the Shield Commander, shredding both shield and commander until there was nothing left of either. Carter looked back and saw Ryan Steel stomping out of the auto shop, pivoting as he fired the gatling laser and tore through a firing squad like his cannon was a leafblower and the aliens were fallen leaves. Summer was already on the move as she darted out from behind him, running up behind the other Outsider firing squad and dispatching them in one, two, three, four quick sword slashes. When another Shield Commander tried to lift her, she merely twisted and spun in mid-air as she fished a knife out of her boot, flinging it through the barrier with perfect precision and embedding it right between the eyes.

"Nice of you to finally join us, Sierra," said Carter with a nod.

"Thanks for waiting," she responded, rolling to land back on her feet as the telekinetic field faded. "Hope you saved some for me and Romeo."

"There should be plenty," Carter answered, eyeing the last Shield Commander. He pulled a frag grenade off his belt, then paused. With a curious glance, he swapped it for one of the alien grenades, examining it and finding a button that required squeezing a trigger to unlock. After activating it, he tossed the alien explosive in an arc that ended at the Shield Commander's feet, where it beeped loudly.

Let's see how much better these things are than normal frags, he thought as he watched.

The alien grenade beeped four times before it exploded into a shower of pure plasma, emerald fire splashing and spreading and incinerating everything it touched. When the carnage faded, there was nothing left of the Shield Commander but a blackened stain of scorched asphalt.

Yeah, I'd call that an upgrade. Carter smirked as he looked out across the battlefield, as his squad tore through the remaining aliens like a well-oiled machine. More drop pods arrived bearing more enemies, though there weren't any special units this time - just the basic Outsiders and Sectoids that they'd come to expect. A few more Mutons arrived in between waves, but coordination between the squad made short work of the armored brutes, whether it was with explosives, armor-piercing rounds, or Summer's sword.

DaSilva's traps proved instrumental in keeping the aliens locked down. Rather than spend a grenade or have the Commandos use one of their precious LAWs to break the enemy ranks, all Carter would have to do was key his radio and say what he wanted blown up, and a second later the hidden explosive would detonate. Fuel cans exploded Sectoids like overpowered pressure cookers, old cars consumed entire Outsider squads in showers of scrap, and rebar flew like shrapnel with enough force to penetrate even Muton armor. This, combined with Strike Three's usual tactics of controlling the crowd, made dominating the battlefield an easy enough challenge.

He was just about to feel good about the fight when a Muton drop pod landed right next to him.

"Oh, sh- " he growled in shock, his curse cut short by the need to dodge the flying door. He came up out of a roll just as the Muton leveled its Scatter Blaster at him, the barrel glowing as it prepared to fire. Thinking quickly, he loosed a telekinetic blast that knocked the alien brute backwards, slamming it back into its pod and sending its Scatter Blaster clattering to the floor. Carter unpinned an alien grenade and tossed it into the pod, hoping to blow it and the Muton to Kingdom come.

Unfortunately for him, the Muton cleared its head quickly enough to recognize the danger and lunged forward with nothing but its bare hands, unaffected by the drop pod exploding behind it. Carter's eyes widened as a massive alien forearm drove itself into his chest, as the Muton tackled him and slammed his helpless ass against the pavement. He punched the big apelike face with the Venn Brace and all his might, but the Muton barely even flinched, responding with punches of its own that Carter had to lean his head to avoid.

"Carter! Hold on, I'm coming!"

Summer's promise was reassuring, but the hand that suddenly clamped around his head and squeezed likely meant there wouldn't be enough time for her to cross the field to save him.

But maybe someone else could.

"Silas!" Carter choked. "Go!"

A little canister on his power pack opened up, and a screeching mass of alien black goo launched itself at the Muton's face, enveloping it and wrapping it in a thick layer of corrosive gel. The alien brute's roar was muffled by the Silacoid as it released Carter and clawed at its face, trying in vain to pull off the oobleck-like omnivore. Now that his head wasn't being crushed to make fresh-squeezed brain juice, Carter had the freedom to scoot back and load his pistol with DEAF rounds, firing armor-piercing bullets into the Muton's knees and shoulders. His attacker fell over face-down just in time for Summer to rush over with her sword, plunging it through the downed Muton's back and twisting the blade. Its death rattle followed a moment later.

The tamed Silacoid left its victim and coiled up around Summer until it reached her shoulders, at which point she started rewarding it with scratches. Then she looked at Carter with a shit-eating grin.

"Not. One. Word." Carter snarled as she opened her mouth.

Summer, who clearly had at least a dozen snarky comments about what just happened, just smiled and let "Silas" flow back to the ground, watching it reform in a mound next to Carter. When he was sure that his ASL had turned her back to leap back into the fray, he gave the little Silacoid a single pat on the head.

"Thanks for the save, little guy," he mumbled, "Better get back inside for now."

Silas warbled in disappointment, but nonetheless did as Carter asked. He stood back up and keyed his radio with one hand, firing his pistol at a distant Muton with the other.

"Skyranger-Three, how many more of these things are there?"

"It looks like the Droppers are running out of troops to launch," said Barnes. "Just mop up whatever left and we should be in the -"

"Hold that thought, Three!" Dolly's cry was loud and clear. "Picking up an incoming heat signature flying in from high-altitude, and it's falling fast! At this rate it's gonna crash right into your AO! ETA thirty seconds!"

Well shit.

"November? This better not be that Titan you warned us about."

DaSilva's chuckle was not nearly as reassuring as it should have been. "No, no, this isn't that bad. Trust me, you'd know it if you saw it. Plus, it would come from the shipyard itself, not from the sky."

That was a relief, at least.

"No, they're just sending a Sectopod."

That wasn't.

"A Secto...pod?" Carter growled, "You wanna fill us in on what the hell that means? Or are we gonna have to guess?"

"It's basically the Outsider's equivalent of a Sherman," explained DaSilva, "Only instead of caterpillar treads and an M3 cannon, it has robot legs and gatling blasters on the front. It's armor is tough and its guns burn hotter than our laser weapons - probably plasma or something even more powerful."

Carter frowned. "So how do we beat it, then?"

"It's got a Sectoid pilot wired into its main canopy, so if you can pry it open somehow, you should have a clear shot at its operator. The feedback should short out the rest of the bot...in theory, anyways. I'm just spitballing ideas based on plans we stole from the shipyard here, we never actually had to fight one of those."

So they got to be the first again. Wonderful. At least they had an inkling of what to expect.

"Alright, we'll see if that works," replied Carter. "Thanks for the intel, November."

"Hey, anything for a friend, Will. Vigi-"

DaSilva's voice was cut off by a haze of static as the ground trembled underneath Carter's feet. He scrambled back into cover and looked out at the new arrival. Around him, the rest of Strike Three finished their targets and turned to look at what had dropped into the field.

At first it didn't seem dangerous - just a ten foot wide cube of gunmetal gray alien steel. Then plates on the surface began to shift and rotate, giving enough clearance for a long sturdy-looking armature to unfold from each corner and slam down onto the pavement. Once all four spidery legs were in position, the main body ascended as more panels folded and retracted, revealing an armored triangular frame, a translucent canopy with the faint outline of a Sectoid inside, and a four-barreled glowing green cannon directly underneath the pilot.

The Sectopod loomed over the battlefield, over the Agents, and over humanity itself.

"Holy shit, that's...big…"

"Dammit, I'm a sniper! I didn't sign up to fight tanks!"

"There's gotta be a weak spot somewhere… maybe the legs?"

"I wonder if fighting this thing qualifies us for hazard pay…"

"Stay focused, boys! We can bring this down together!"

Despite Summer's attempts to reassure the squad, the fifteen-foot-tall alien artillery seemed to send a more powerful message. The main gun began to whine as it spooled up, and Carter didn't need to keep watching to know what happened next.

"Scatter!" he howled into his radio, running out of his cover as the Sectopod opened fire.

A thousand bolts of pure emerald energy surged out like a rushing river, each blast carrying the power and intensity of a miniature star. The Sectopod's main cannon tore through the meager concrete block Carter was hiding behind a second ago, sending burning chunks of stone and gravel flying. He swore as he dashed for some other kind of cover, something that could withstand a barrage like the one currently trying to track him. Carter settled for the Muton's abandoned drop pod, dropping behind the alien metal just as the Sectopod's fire passed over him. The strange steel held better than the concrete, but only just - and he could see spots glow red on his cover as the heat began to bleed through.

"Kilo, Romeo, I need rockets on that thing now! Sierra, Alpha, start targeting the joints! Golf? Get those shield spheres ready, I don't think smoke is gonna help here."

A chorus of "yessir"s and "aye-aye"s preceded a melody of explosions, as the Sectopod's frame was bombarded by rockets and laser fire. The alien artillery stopped suppressing Carter momentarily to return fire on its scattered attackers, its gun-toting head swiveling on an axis to keep blasting as its robotic legs took menacing steps towards the humans. Despite the squad's best attempts to damage the Sectopod, none of their weapons made so much as a dent, and even Ryan's gatling laser only managed to scorch the surface.

Carter stepped out of his cover with an alien grenade in hand, flinging it at the Sectopod and watching it land right next to its back foot. The resulting blast of plasma was powerful enough to stagger the massive machine, but didn't accomplish much else. With a deep mechanical growl, the head swiveled back around to fire at Carter, who prepared to dive back to safety when he heard something metallic clink by his feet. An instant later, a silver orb of solid light surrounded him, and the barrage of emerald energy did little more than send ripples across the surface of the sphere.

"Thanks, Golf," said Carter with a nod. Then he tilted his head. "Say, you think it's safe to shoot out of these things?"

"No idea, but go ahead and try it! A laser burn or bullet wound shouldn't be too hard to patch up, especially considering...well, you know."

Scowling, Carter pulled out his laser rifle and leaned in one direction as he fired, angling his aim so that the shot wouldn't bean him in the face if it got reflected. Not that it mattered - the shot passed right through the barrier without challenge, even as the Sectopod continued its onslaught against his shield. With that question answered, he pulled out his pistol and fired DEAF rounds right at the Sectopod's canopy. The good news was that the bullets shot from inside the shield sphere weren't blocked either - the bad news was that even the armor-shredding ammunition did little more than chip the Sectopod's paint.

A series of whining beeps and a blinking red light from the puck by his feet warned him of the imminent barrier collapse, and he dove back behind proper cover just as the shield deactivated and disappeared out of sight.

"Armor on the joints is too thick!" reported Adam. "Lasers can't blast through it!"

"DaSilva said something about neutralizing the pilot," said Summer. "Maybe we can try that?"

"What the hell do ya think we're doin', lady?" growled Knox, "That thing just shrugged off four LAWs straight to the canopy. Anything else would have been reduced to scrap by now."

"Gatling laser seems to work best," reported Ryan, "but as soon as I start spinning it up the big guy just turns back and shoots at me before I get a clear shot!"

"At least we know the shield spheres can stop the cannon fire," said Dawson in an attempt to deliver good news. "So maybe we can all just huddle up together in a bubble and blast it from safety. That way when the shield drops, the Bureau won't have to travel far to get our tags."

"Keep trying!" Carter barked, "And stay spread out! It can't attack us all at once!"

Naturally, the Sectopod chose that exact moment to prove him wrong.

The main cannon wound down as panels on the side of the frame opened up, giving glowing red boxes space to slide out and point upwards. A series of muted thumps were followed by the screaming whistle of rockets in flight, as shaped charges soared high into the sky and began to fall back to earth in a wide pattern. Strike Three bolted out of cover and scrambled for safety from the explosive rain just as blood-red fireballs consumed where they were standing once before - while no one was caught directly in the blast zones of the missile barrages, there were a few close calls.

"Gahhh!" Ryan was sent flying off his feet as the shockwaves caught up with him, and thrown to the opposite side of the parking lot. The Sectopod turned to finish off the flat-footed Commando, but a rocket from Knox and laser fire from three other XCOM troopers got its attention, prompting it to spiral around on its axis like a fire-breathing sprinkler. Carter and his squad dove and hunkered down behind whatever was nearby to avoid the death blossom, giving Ryan time to scramble back to his feet and rush behind a stack of burnt-out cars.

"Romeo, report!"

"I'm alright, just a few scrapes and bruises. But my shields are down."

"Dammit Romeo, drop the gun already! It's just gonna slow you down!"

"It's the only thing we got that can actually hurt that bastard. We can't lose it, Kilo."

"Well we can't stay out here, either! Whiskey, we gotta get inside the auto-shop."

"Oh, great idea, Kilo. That way the Sectopod can just bring the building down on top of all of us."

"I don't see you coming up with any ideas, Golf!"

"Oh, I am having ideas. But they're all terrible."

Carter furrowed his brow as he retrieved his hat, pulling out the radio from his hip. "Kilo's right. We can't fight it like this. Fall back into Henry's and hunker down. We'll come up with a plan there."

"I'll keep it occupied while you boys get inside," said Summer. "I'm faster and more agile than all of you, and while I don't think I can hurt it, I can at least distract it."

After a moment of hesitation, Carter sighed and keyed his radio again. "Go ahead, Sierra. Alpha, can you give her some sniper support?"

No response.

"Alpha, are you there! Respond, dammit!"

There was nothing but static coming from the radio. Carter scowled.

"Figured he'd turn tail and run soon as shit hit the fan."

"He's an Agent just like us, Kilo. He wouldn't do that...right?"

"Weeell...it wouldn't be too out-of-character for him, Romeo."

"Not helping!" growled Carter. "Alright. Sierra, you sure you'll be fine on your own?"

"Just get everyone inside. I'll manage."

The Sectopod swiveled around to look at Carter again, but he gave a mighty telekinetic shove that made it lurch a bit. It wasn't strong enough to knock it over - he doubted that anything short of a speeding freight train could do that - but it was strong enough to knock it off balance long enough for the others to have a chance.

"Alright. Move!"

Two Commandos and a Support Agent all flocked back towards the auto shop, coming from the north, east, and west corners. Carter backpedaled and kept his laser rifle trained on the Sectopod, watching as the Sectoid deep within tried to regain control of the top-heavy mech. Before it could fully rebalance itself, Summer rushed in while switching to her Scatter Blaster, firing tight cones of crimson at the Sectopod as she advanced.

Carter watched as his ASL dodged the wild bursts of cannon fire like a leaf in the wind, firing the alien shotgun until the cell went dry. Rather than retreat to reload, she just holstered it and circled ever closer around the Sectopod, weaving in between the legs and keeping herself low and close to the belly as it tried to shift position. It took him a second to realize that she'd found a weakness in the Sectopod's design - it couldn't fire at its own feet, or even look down very far, so it effectively had a huge blind spot where its main weapon was useless. It didn't completely mitigate the danger, however, as the Sectopod was constantly moving and trying to use its legs to smash her with enough force to shatter the pavement. Luckily, Summer was fast and agile enough to avoid the slams and the kicks, countering with slashes from her sword whenever she had the chance.

That sword of hers can cut through damn near anything, he thought as he saw the burning gashes in the legs begin to pile up. It might not be long enough to completely penetrate the canopy, but it should be able to…

"Carter, this is Golf. Me, Kilo, and Romeo are inside the auto-shop. No sign of Alpha, though, and he's not answering his radio. Looks like he's gone AWOL, after all."

Dammit. Well, there was time to worry about that later. "Understood, Golf. Sierra, fall back!"

Summer nodded, delivering one more slash to the back of an armored knee before turning and running. Carter let loose one more forceful push, just to keep the Sectopod off-balance. The alien mech roared in discomfort, stumbling and staggering and trying to stand upright. Once he was sure it wouldn't attack, he ran into the building himself and spun around, watching as Summer sprinted across the battlefield at full tilt.

She made it ten feet from the doorway when a hidden cannon popped out from the top of the Sectopod, tracked her on a swivel of its own, and fired a green lance of energy that struck her square in the back.

Her scream of pain burned itself into Carter's memory.

"SUMMER!"

The squad reacted immediately as soon as Summer hit the pavement, just as the Sectopod regained balance and started spooling up its main cannon again. Dawson flung a shield sphere in front of her prone form, creating a barrier that protected her from the barrage of emerald. Knox and Ryan opened fire on the alien mech as Carter rushed to her side, turning her over and making sure there was still a pulse. There was, but he didn't have time to heal her, so he settled for scooping her up in his arms and running back to the auto shop. The Commandos screamed as more of those precise blasts of green targeted them even as the main cannon kept firing, forcing them back to safety and leaving Carter alone five feet from the doorway with a raging Sectopod closing in fast and no way to stop it.

Brrrrrrrt.

Carter heard the deep repetitive thrumming of a machine pistol unloading a clip of DEAF rounds, and as he looked over his shoulder, he saw Adam Goldstein materialize out of thin air. The Sectopod reeled and stumbled back, its main cannon sparking and crackling as the armor-rending rounds tore into the vulnerable firing mechanisms. While it shrieked and tried to fix the jammed servos, Carter and Adam booked it back into the auto shop, with Summer clinging to life in the arms of her squad leader.

"You, get her stabilized," barked Carter, thrusting the half-alive woman into Dawson's arms. He nodded, setting her down and getting to work.

"You two, get the doors closed," he growled to the Commandos, who moved to follow his order. "And you…"

Carter leveled a single finger at Adam, who stood ramrod stiff.

"...explain."

"Sorry about going quiet, sir," said Adam without even a nervous gulp. "The explosions drew in a pack of Sleepwalkers to our position, and they started swarming the front of the store. I needed to get past them to get off the roof and to get inside, so I used the cloaking module to slip through the crowd unnoticed. Had to turn my radio off in order to do so, though...after all, it'd kinda defeat the point of being invisible if I kept talking, sir."

So he hadn't bailed. Good. Carter had a feeling he wouldn't, but based on past behaviors...he couldn't be completely sure. There'd be time for a dressing down later, as well as praising his quick thinking for saving their lives. Right now, they were safe, but they had bigger problems.

"Alright, apology accepted," said Carter with a nod. "And thanks for the save. Just make sure next time you let us know you're going silent before you do so. Clear?"

"Yes sir."

Satisfied, Carter went over to Dawson, who was kneeling over Summer as she lay face-down with her head rolled to the side. The back of her shirt was torn open to expose a nasty-looking burnt gash, and her mangled power pack was peeped off and cast aside. "How bad is it?"

"Bad," said the medic, pulling back his half-empty medkit. "That blast ripped right through her shields and hit her right between the shoulders. Power pack took most of the heat, but a lot of tue energy still bled through and made a real mess of things inside. Her lungs and heart are burning, Carter, and there's nothing I can do - my Medkit can't reach that far inside her."

"Ruby…" rasped Summer, gasping like a fish on dry land, "I'm...sorry...I shouldn't have left you...I promised I'd be right home...I...I love…"

Carter furrowed his brow. "Well, I can. Let me at her."

Dawson nodded, pulling back to give Carter enough room to lay both his palms on the raw flesh. Hot blood oozed around his fingers, slipping out between the cracks and pooling against his knuckles. She winced at his touch, but her shallow breathing didn't even give her enough strength to scream. Silver eyes began to fade to dull gray, color drained from her face, and he could feel her muscles losing tension with each passing heartbeat.

"Come on, Summer," said Carter firmly as his hands started glowing, "Don't you dare give up on me now."

The process took longer than it usually did (and took more of his strength than he expected) but eventually the burnt skin started smoothening out as the energy flowed into the wounds. Summer groaned and whimpered as mangled bones and torn tissue knit themselves back together, then gasped loudly as her lungs reinflated. She coughed up blood loudly and violently after the healing was complete, limp in Carter's arms as he rolled her into an easier breathing position.

After she finally had her breath back, she opened her silvery eyes to see him kneeling beside her.

"Hey," he said quietly. "How are you feeling?"

Summer winced. "...not great," she admitted. Then she smiled. "...but not dead, either. I don't think...I could ever thank you…enough..."

She weakly reached out with one hand, as if she was trying to put her palm against his cheek. He clenched his jaw, frowning at the way she was looking up at him. He grabbed her wrist gently, and after consideration, set it back down by her side.

"Yeah well, you can start by not getting shot to hell and back so often," he grumbled. "Otherwise I'm gonna have to start keeping track of how many times I bail you out, and bill you at the end of the war."

Summer chuckled lightly. "Heh...I'll keep that in mind. Though...we really should keep track of how many times we save each other. Pretty sure my list is longer…"

Carter snorted. "In your dreams, Miss Rose."

"You know, this flirting is really adorable," said Dawson with a smirk, "but I feel like I should remind everyone we're not done yet. We still have a Sectopod to deal with."

Sure enough, the building rumbled as a salvo of rockets connected with the structure, the explosion shaking loose clouds of drywall from the ceiling.

"Yeah, but how the hell are we gonna do that?" Knox growled. "We've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at it, and it just takes it on the chin without flinching."

"Not everything," said Carter as he stood up. "We've got a handful of things that make it flinch. We just need to use those things in the right way to make it hurt."

Summer smirked as she rolled to her feet, all previous fatigue vanishing. "And I suppose you've got something in mind?"

"More or less. Now, listen closely. We only got one shot at this, so we need to make this count…"


"Skyranger-Three reporting in, Bravo-Zero. Still no word from Whiskey-Three or November-Two. Had a visual of them retreating inside the auto shop, but that's all I could manage without getting spotted by that Sectopod."

"Have you tried the auxiliary frequencies?"

"Yes sir. Nothing but static. That's all we've been hearing since that Sectopod dropped."

"It's possible that the Sectopods are outfitted with localized jammers that make long-range communication impossible. All the better to isolate targets from receiving backup or armored support with, after all."

"Interesting theory, Doctor. We'll have to confirm it later. Skyranger-Two, anything to report with regards to the shipyard?"

"No movement 'cept field critters since those Droppers disappeared into the crop circles. Still hoverin' a good four klicks out, well beyond the range of any AA they might be hidin' in those domes."

"Switch your position every three mikes just in case. Both of you, report back if anything changes."

"Roger that, sir."

"You got it, dollface."

As the chatter and static of the radio buzzed in his headset, Shen closed his eyes and leaned his head back, focusing on the humming of the Skyranger's rotors and the sound of his own breathing. He worked to keep his mind clear and calm, willing himself through the meditation exercises like Doctor Weir had instructed. It would have been easier had there been a hot cup of jasmine tea with him, but he'd have to make do with the smell of motor oil and gunpowder for now.

Really, anything would work if it helped calm his nerves.

Part of him wanted to stand up in front of everyone and scream at Officer Weaver to have Dolly turn her Skyranger back towards the town, to drop them off so they could help the squad - his squad - in their fight against an enemy unknown. But the rest of him knew that making a scene like that would get him nowhere except the brig when they made it back, and he understood why Weaver wasn't moving to reinforce Carter and Summer, reasons that went beyond her own bias. This Skyranger was carrying the team tasked solely with protecting Doctor Alan Weir, the person sitting next to him and the one man on the planet who understood alien tech better than the aliens themselves. Bringing him or the Skyranger too close to the Sectopod or any other active combat zone was too big of a risk - if anything happened to the doctor, they'd have bigger problems than just one strike team being in a tight spot.

Besides, if any squad could get themselves out of their current mess, it would be his squad. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that Carter, Summer, Knox, and all the rest would come up with some plan crazy enough to work.

So for now, he chose to deny worry any space in his mind. He was certain his team would prevail.

Just as he was certain he'd hear their story of victory a hundred times before the war's end.


"Alright, everyone clear on what to do?"

Summer gave Wandering Thorn a few test swings, checking to make sure her muscles were working again. "Clear as crystal."

Adam checked the power cells in his laser sniper. "Understood."

Knox loaded a fresh mag into his M14, pulling back on the charging handle. "Aye, sir. Tracking."

Ryan squared his shoulders and spread his feet, gatling laser humming and beginning to wind up. "Ready."

Dawson selected a shield sphere from his belt. "Perfectly clear, sir."

"Good. Then let's go bag us a Sectopod."

Summer watched as Carter adjusted his hat, then slammed his fist against a button. The garage door lurched open, revealing the dimming daylight outside and the armored feet of the Sectopod. It was just about to launch another salvo of rockets at their hiding spot when it noticed Carter and the squad's two Commandos step outside, guns in hand and nerves steeled. The giant alien mech turned towards them and screeched, its main cannon spooling up as it prepared to fire.

"Looks like it fixed its gun!" shouted Adam.

"That won't be a problem for much longer," said Dawson with a smirk. "Sierra?"

With a nod, Summer clicked the button on the disc mounted on her hip, watching as her own body faded out of sight. Patting Adam twice on the shoulder in thanks for letting her borrow his cloak module, she slipped through the open doorway just as the Sectopod opened fire on the trio of visible humans. But Dawson flung his shield sphere just in time, creating a blast proof bubble that protected everyone inside from the deadly emerald energy.

"Go!" Carter yelled as he and Knox ran through the shield in opposite directions, Ryan staying behind to hose down the Sectopod in gatling laser fire. Perfectly shielded from the armaments of the mighty machine, he had full reign to overwhelm the Sectopod with hundreds of red death beams, scorching its armor and drawing the pilot's attention. While he kept the main cannon occupied, Carter and Knox kept close to the legs and circled around from the left and right, one firing bursts from a laser rifle while the other unloaded a magazine full of normal bullets. Neither ammunition did much aside from irritate the Sectopod, but that was all they needed to do - keep the Sectopod locked in one place while staying safe from its myriad weapons.

Weapons that it wouldn't have for much longer.

Summer herself ran at full tilt towards the back of the Sectopod, leaping onto one of its hind legs and using her combat knives to dig into the steel. With practice ease that was honed through many, many afternoons of climbing trees in the Emerald Forest, she ascended the metal leg and scaled to the top of the alien war machine. Once she was on the roof, she spotted the pintle-mounted precision plasma cannon sweeping to the left and right, looking for targets to blast. With a vengeful grin, she dropped the stealth field just as she drew and activated her laser-powered sword, swinging it in a crimson arc that lopped the secondary cannon right off its mount before it could even turn to face her.

"That's our Sierra! Ride 'em, cowgirl!"

"Get the rocket pods next, then go for the main gun!"

Smirking at the calls of her squad over the radio, she proceeded to do just that, swinging Wandering Thorn down to the side to cut off the launcher that popped out. The Sectopod gave a deep bellow of displeasure, rocking and buckling back and forth to try to dislodge its unwanted passenger. But Summer plunged her blade into the top of the canopy, using it as an anchor point to hold tightly as the mech swayed and lurched. Her stomach rose into her chest and her arms felt like they would be torn from their sockets, and she grit her teeth and groaned painfully as the sudden and erratic forces coursed through her whole body. If it were anyone besides Summer Rose up there, they would have been thrown off like an amateur Huntress trying and failing to mount a bucking Beowolf.

Unfortunately for the pilot, this was far from her first rodeo.

Once the Sectopod stopped shaking and the world stopped spinning, she pulled her sword back out and dropped down in front of the canopy window, using the newly-melted gap from her anchor point as a handhold to hang from. With one more swing she cut through the remaining rocket pod, as well as the top half of the four-barreled cannon on the front. A solid kick to the base of the gun snapped the rest of it off, sending it clattering to the ground and leaving the Sectopod completely weaponless.

But she wasn't done. From her hanging position she had the perfect view of the Sectoid inside trying desperately to disconnect itself from the chair as she made one, two, three, four molten cuts in the metallic glass. With a smirk and a salute towards the panicked pilot, she hopped off in a beautiful flip, hitting the ground in a perfect landing split that would have shattered the pelvis of anyone else.

"Nice work, Sierra! Now stand back!"

An ethereal hum echoed across the battlefield, as the front section of canopy she'd just cut was suddenly yanked free from the rest of the material, hovering in mid-air and exposing the tiny little Sectoid for the world to see. Carter flung his fist to the left, and the sheet of metal followed his will, driving itself into the front leg of the Sectopod and punching through the steel into the joint itself. The spidery mech dropped to its "knee", immobilized and unable to move.

"Take the shot, Alpha! Finish that bastard off!"

A single bolt of red coming from inside the auto shop accomplished just that, splattering the pilot's brains against the interior. Sparks crackled along the length of the legs, and after a moment of uncertain lurching, the once-mighty Sectopod collapsed into a pathetic pile of twisted legs and junk metal.

For a moment, no one dared to move, as if everyone was afraid that doing so or saying something would reanimate the machine or bring forth more Outsiders. Thankfully, neither one happened as the squad's radio buzzed to life.

"...anger-Three, reaching out to Strike Three. How copy? Over."

Summer let out a breath she didn't even know she was holding, shoulders dropping as she stowed her sword once more.

"Read you five-by-five, Skyranger-Three," said Carter as he adjusted his hat. "Good to hear you again. We're all alive and kicking and ready for extraction."

There was a heavy-sounding sigh of relief on the other end of the line. "Oh thank god. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you guys again…"

"Feeling's mutual, Barnes," said Summer with a smile. "Anything else headed our way?"

"Nothing's showing up on radar, and the skies are clear. Guess the aliens thought that a Sectopod would be enough."

"It almost was," she said. "But we brought it down just like anything else."

Barnes chuckled. "Wouldn't expect anything less from Strike Three, Sierra. Moving in for extraction. ETA two minutes."

Carter nodded, waving his fingers in the air to give the signal for all squad members to regroup. As Adam and Dawson emerged tepidly from the auto shop and Knox and Ryan huffed over, he fiddled with his radio and walked away from the gathering crowd. Summer looked at the exhausted, war-torn men in front of her, and gave a warm, sincere smile that she hoped would boost their spirits.

"Hey. Nice work out there, everyone."

Dawson pinked slightly, Knox and Adam just nodded in affirmation, and Ryan smiled in return.

"Does that include me?" asked Dawson with feigned arrogance. "It'd better include me. Cause as we all know, I did most of the work here."

"Oh, please," said Adam as he rolled his eyes. "You sat in the auto shop and did nothing after throwing one shield for Romeo."

"Which was obviously the most important part of the plan!"

"You certainly won't hear me complaining," said Ryan with a chuckle. "Seriously, though. Is every Strike Three op this...insane?"

"More or less," said Knox gruffly, "Most of them usually end with Sierra here doing most of the heavy lifting, too. Nice work with that balancing act when it tried to throw you off - if you end up being a rodeo clown in your 'mysterious past', it wouldn't surprise me one damn bit."

"Oh my. A compliment from Knox Dolan?" gasped Dawson overdramatically, "Directed towards a woman? You'd better record it and play it to yourself every night, cause you're not gonna get another one."

Summer curtseyed with an imaginary skirt. "Well it's appreciated. But I couldn't have done it without any of you." She handed the cloaking module back to Adam, who clipped it back to his belt after snapping new power cells into his rifle.

"Thanks, the feeling's mutual," said the Recon Agent. Then he frowned. "Still, the fact that they're ramping up their armories again is...worrying. Not just Sectopods, but there's that Tech Commander from earlier. And I'm pretty sure some of those Outsiders have learned how to wear armor now, too."

"We'll just have to ramp up our weapons faster," said Ryan, looking down at his new weapon. "Or take theirs."

"I'm more worried about what new alien lifeforms we're gonna end up meeting," said Dawson with an exasperated sigh. "First it was those Outsiders, then the Sectoids, then Mutons and Silacoids, and now these Sectopods…I mean, what's next? Giant lobster people that eat faces and puke up their own eggs?"

"Please don't give the aliens ideas…" grumbled Knox. "Especially ones that ruin my lunch."

As the rest of the squad bantered and talked, Summer went over to Carter, patting him twice on the shoulder from behind. He turned and greeted her with a nod, then stared back down at the radio in his hands. Silas slithered slightly out of his little hidey hole, trilling with delight at her arrival. She chuckled and gave him a few headscratches, then looked up at her squad leader.

"You know, these little celebrations should include everyone," she said pointedly.

"Mission's not over yet," Carter replied, furrowing his brow as he fiddled with the radio. "So any celebrations feel a bit...premature. Sides, I'm trying to get a hold of DaSilva. This whole fight's meaningless if we can't get him to leave his room."

Summer hummed thoughtfully as Silas coiled around her forearm. "Think we should send the little guy to coax him out?"

"Nah, that might send the wrong message. Better to let him know we're here and ready the old-fashioned way. Gonna try tuning this thing to the same frequency he called out to us on - it's gotta go straight to whatever he's using to broadcast."

He twisted a few more dials on the radio for good measure, then clicked the transmitter.

"November. November, are you still there?"

No response.

Summer and Carter both shared a look of concern, before he tried again, and again, repeating the process with a little more urgency each time. On the fifth attempt, DaSilva finally answered, albeit quite groggily.

"Huh? Oh...yeah...yeah, I'm still here. Not sure for how much longer, though...you better get downstairs and find me in person. I'm in the basement offices, last door on the right. Just you and Summer though, Will. I...I don't want Steel to see me like this...not after he already lost Kinney and Redmond…"

Carter furrowed his brow, then nodded to Summer as he put his radio away. The two of them walked back to the squad, dreading what they were about to do.

"Alright, men, listen up! I want this place secured and ready for when Barnes brings the Ranger in. The aliens might have stopped their attack, but you never know what they might have up their sleeves. If we need to make a fighting retreat, start prepping killzones. Sierra and I will rendezvous with November-Two, get him ready to go."

He looked to Ryan, who was about to open his mouth to speak. "It might be best if you...stayed up here to help Dawson prep Kinney and Redmond's bodies for transport," he said gently, "We can honor them properly once we get them back to base. I'm sure Nils would wanna be there too...Kinney and Redmond were his friends as well."

The Commando looked torn for a moment, then snapped a salute to both Summer and Carter. With a nod to each other, the gray-hatted man and the silver-eyed woman went back into the auto shop, navigating to the front of the wartorn building and finding the stairs to the lower level behind a door labeled "employees only".

"I wonder why he wants to see just us," mused Summer, running her hands along a model of a car on the showroom floor.

"I can't imagine it's for a good reason," grumbled Carter as he passed a pile of deflated "alien" balloons. "Be ready for anything."

They nodded, each drawing their pistols as they made their way down the steps. The fires from the conflict still burned even this far in, and the strewn-about alien corpses lining the basement hallways painted a grisly picture. They passed by the offices one by one until they came to a broom closet at the end of the hall, and with a solid kick from Carter, the door opened to reveal…

"DaSilva?" Carter lowered his gun in shock. "My god."

Summer just about fell to her knees. Far from the handsome, charming man that left the base a few weeks ago, the person in front of her was a fractured, broken shell of a soldier, one who struggled just to rise from the tattered couch he sat on. His left hand had withered away into a near-useless mess of burns and missing fingers, his clothes were ripped and stained with blood of all different colors, and his well-groomed mustache was lost in a jungle of wild stubble that failed to hide the cuts and bruises on his face.

But most concerning of all was the black fluid that dribbled down from his eyes like tears.

"No…" she breathed.

With a labored breath, DaSilva summoned all the strength in the world to give an attempt at a warm smile. "Hey, Will. Summer. Glad you could make it. I knew you'd find me eventually. After all, we're friends...agh, friends..."

Carter didn't even bother trying to argue against that, as he usually did. "What the hell did they do to you?"

"Made me a better catch, that's what," said DaSilva with a hollow laugh. Then he frowned and focused intently on the people in front of him. "They got into my head, Will. Tried to break me, turn me, make me into one of those Sleepwalkers. And they didn't just single me out - the whole damn town's been infected...guh, infected…"

"Infected? How?" Summer shook her head in horror. "It...couldn't have spread that quickly. It's not like it's a sickness, like a cold or the flu. It's just mental damage caused by the signals they send out…right?"

"That's what I thought too," said DaSilva, eyes failing to focus. "That's what we all thought. That it was just a byproduct of beaming their orders into regular people. But...we were wrong. Completely and utterly wrong...rgh, wrong…"

The half-cognizant leader of Strike Two shook his head firmly.

"It's a disease, Summer. An infection...a virus spread through the absorption of moisture. Once it takes hold of you it starts shutting down your higher brain functions, makes you into an antenna for the command signals the Outsiders broadcast...turns you into a...a damn puppet...and the town's whole water supply was spiked with the stuff just before they started building... ugh, building…"

Carter stared at the ground, unsure what to do with this new information. Summer was similarly having trouble processing this. It certainly explained the sheer number of Sleepwalkers they saw on the way in, as well as why the Outsiders had an interest in draining lakes and rivers. They needed the numbers to build facilities more complicated than simple outposts, and they needed the water to distribute the Sleepwalker virus in large quantities. But...releasing an artificial disease with a near-perfect infection rate that turned its victims into mindless slaves? No living being could be that monstrous...could they?

"How long does it take to set in?" Carter asked.

"Depends on how strong-willed you are," groaned DaSilva. "Sometimes it takes a few hours, other times it can take a day. Me, I've been fighting it for a good week-and-a-half now, and...it hasn't been easy. Mind has been...slower...movements, clumsier...can't even pick up a gun anymore…at this point, I'm just about useless...gah, useless..."

Summer shook her head once again. "It's...it's gonna be alright…" she said with as much confidence as she could muster. "Barnes is already on his way for pickup, we can just have him fly you back to the Bureau for treatment…"

This time, DaSilva shook his head, though it was less of a cognizant action and more of a reflexive twitch.

"No...you gotta...get into that shipyard...and blow it to hell...hell...hell…ugh..."

Carter's jaw tightened, but he maintained his composure. "And how do we do that?"

"I've spent the last few days loading up my power pack full of explosive charges. It's over there in the corner," grumbled DaSilva, "There's also some notes in there, mostly ones I took before we attacked...attacked...grah!"

Summer instinctively stepped back as DaSilva slammed the side of his own head, as if trying to refocus his mind. Painful as it looked, it seemed to work, though a trickle of black-red blood began to flow from another new head wound. He panted, then looked at Carter and Summer with a little more focus than before.

"Right...okay. There's two things you've gotta do once you get in the shipyard. First, you're gonna want to head to the middle of the compound and get inside that Command ship. Pretty sure you know what it looks like, right?"

Carter nodded at the attempt at a joke. "We've had some experiences, yes."

"Heh...anyways...once you're inside, you're gonna want to find and grab something called a 'phase plotter.' I have more detailed notes for the docs in my pack, but the short version is it's basically what lets the UFOs go into space and travel between worlds and all that. It's what makes a flying saucer...well, fly. You're gonna need that for the Avenger project...otherwise, man's first trip to the stars is gonna be real short and end in screams and fire."

Sounds like most of Remnant's attempts at space travel, thought Summer morbidly. Outside her mind, she nodded. "And the second thing?"

"The second thing is you're gonna take all those charges in the pack and plant them on the fuel lines," groaned DaSilva. "Those Command Ships do more than just carry, coordinate, and command troops - they also act like batteries for their smaller spaceships, charging them up to give them enough juice for bombing and supply runs. Set those charges on the connection points and the Command Ship itself, and it'll set off an antimatter chain reaction that'll wipe out the entire compound. Just make sure you're not there when you transmit the detonation signal - and make damn sure you've got the phase plotter with you when you leave."

DaSilva panted for breath and looked at them. "You got all that, Will?"

"Grab the phase plotter, set the charges, blow the whole thing sky high," repeated Carter with a nod. "Anything else?"

"There's one more thing."

Of course there was.

"You're not getting in there without a distraction of some kind."

Summer tilted her head. "...distraction?"

"This is one of their most well-guarded facilities," explained DaSilva. "The only reason they attacked Roswell was because they were trying to get to us. We got...careless when we were scouting. They've been hounding us ever since. If they see you sneaking in...they won't stop attacking you. They'll follow you all the way back to XCOM HQ if you're spotted. And considering that they've probably stepped up security within the last few days...odds are good that you will get spotted as soon as you're inside."

"Unless they're already looking at something else first," mused Carter. "What did you have in mind?"

DaSilva gave a dark smile. "Well...I was thinking about twenty pounds of explosives, a borrowed car, and a damned fool who's crazy enough to drive it straight into an enemy base."

Summer frowned. What did all of those have to do with...

Oh.

Oh no.

Carter's eyes widened slightly, his gaze softening as he reached the same horrifying conclusion Summer did. "Nico...you can't be seriously considering…"

"I am," growled DaSilva with a cough. "Look at me, Will. I'm a dead man walking. At this stage of the Sleepwalker virus, I'm beyond help. If you bring me back to the base, I'll just be dead weight at best and a ticking time bomb at worst. This...this is the best I can do...this is all I can do...gah, do…"

"There has to be another way!" Summer felt tears form in her eyes. "You can't - this isn't - that's suicide, DaSilva!"

"And turning into one of those walking corpses babbling like a broken record would be worse," he countered, "I'd rather go out on my own terms than live the rest of my life as a shambling husk...ugh, husk..."

"We'll find a cure somehow!" protested Summer feebly, "W-we'll find a way to reverse the process! Y-you don't have to -"

"Summer - "

"Don't you dare 'Summer' me! You can't just...I won't let you throw your life away like this! There are people who need you, dammit!"

Carter reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "Summer. That's enough. He's right. You saw the firepower the aliens were packing, there's no way we can - "

"You can't be considering this!" The huntress whirled on the spot to face Carter, fire and tears in her eyes. "Carter, you have to tell him that he can't do this! Tell him what you told me! That every agent is too important to lose! We already lost Kinney and Redmond! We almost lost Nils! Tell him that we can't lose him, too!"

The gray-hatted man stayed quiet, looking down at the ground. The only thing that came out of his mouth was deep, heavy sighing. Summer shook her head, covering her mouth in shock. Memories welled up deep within her, memories of her own mistake playing out in front of her, reflected through a twisted mirror to mock her, to taunt her, to destroy her.

Mommy, do you really have to go?

I do, little Rose. I wish I didn't...but I do. I'll be back as soon as I can. I love you very much.

Please, love...please don't do this...I can't lose you too…

You won't lose me. I may fall someday...but not like this. It won't be by her hands. I love you, dear. Be strong for the girls until I return.

Summer, you heard what Jinn said! You were right there with me when we learned the truth! She's immortal! You're going to fucking die! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?!

I understand completely. And I don't care how much you scream at me, I won't run away like you did. I'm no coward. I don't care if Salem's immortal...I have to try to stop her anyways. End the nightmare of Grimm, once and for all. For my family. Someday...I hope you can understand that.

Are you ready to go, Missus Rose? Fair warning...once you cross the threshold into her lands, there's a good chance you may not return.

I'm ready, sir. Show me where to go, and I will Scatter.

"...I wish I could," murmured Carter finally, taking his hat off and holding it over his chest. "Believe me...I wish like hell I could talk him out of this. But it's not my choice to make this time. It's his."

He looked up at DaSilva, and gave a somber, sad smile. Summer turned to see the half-infected man do his best to return it.

"After all that he's been through, I feel like he deserves that much at least."

DaSilva's smile widened, and for the first time since meeting him here, a little bit of himself shone through the corrupted eyes. "...thanks, Will. I knew I could count on you, friend...friend…"

Summer finally stopped holding back the tears as she lunged forward, wrapping both arms around DaSilva's torso and burying her face into his ruined shirt. The Officer was sticky and grimy and stunk from head to toe, but the huntress held the hug for as long as she could, dreading the moment she had to let go. A part of DaSilva's brain must have resurfaced enough to will his arm around her, squeezing her around the shoulders and making another wave of tears spill out.

"I'm sorry…" sobbed Summer, "I...couldn't stop you from making the same mistake I did…"

"It's alright, Summer," mumbled Nico, "It's alright. I want this...this is just the way it has to happen. We all have to play the cards life deals us. Just turns out that mine are...not that great of a hand..."

He planted a soft kiss on her forehead. "Just...promise me you'll take care of Will for me, alright? He's gonna need a friend after I'm gone...a friend like you…"

Summer choked. "I will. I'll...I'll miss you…"

"Of course you will. So will everyone."

The silver-eyed warrior held on for a few moments more, before she felt a hand on her shoulder gently pull her away. She was about to lash out at Carter again for being insensitive and thoughtless, when she saw him step forward to give Nico a hug of his own. It was far shorter and less intense, but it was no less meaningful. When he pulled away, Summer noticed that Carter was holding three sets of dog tags, each one scored and scorched by laser fire. She didn't have to read the names to know whose they were.

After a few seconds, Carter slipped his hat back on with a nod, grabbed the pack with the notes and explosives, and the two of them left the room to gather the squad and head back to the Skyranger.

And that would be the last time either of them would ever see Nico DaSilva.


The sun began to set over the New Mexico horizon. The low light cast shadows on the miles and miles of corn, each gust of wind sending ripples across a sea of darkened grains. It was calm. It was quiet. It was peaceful.

It was the perfect vista for his ending.

Nico DaSilva dimmed the lights on his car as he slowly drove it off the road and down the beaten path, the chipped red paint blending in with the twilight sky. The Bel Air rumbled and sputtered in protest of being forced to make one more journey, but soon it too would sleep forever. It had been a noble companion on this operation, a permanent fixture and base of operations for himself and his allies. It was only fitting that it would serve as his noble steed as he rode into battle one last time.

Everyone else had already left before he emerged from his bunker, and it had taken him a few moments to remember what he was doing, or even who he was. Still, years of field work had sharpened his mind enough to cut through the fog of the Sleepwalker virus one more time, giving him clarity enough to drive down the old familiar road with a singular purpose.

One more job to do, and then he could sleep for as long as he wanted.

"Nico. Are you in position?"

He smiled. In any other circumstance, he would have admonished Carter for calling him his real name over comms. It was important to keep protocol, after all. Not that DaSilva cared much, of course - protocols had always been "general guidelines" in his mind. But he knew that it mattered to Carter, which meant this little slip up was more significant than it appeared.

Almost as significant as Carter calling him 'Nico.'

"Yeah...in position, Will…" he groaned into the radio. "How about you guys? You ready?"

"Just about. Skyrangers are circling around the field now, trying to find the best place to drop us. We'll let you know when we're set."

If he squinted, he could see a pair of helicopter-shaped dots circling the hidden shipyard, black specks on an endless orange-gold sky. Tiny. Insignificant. In the grand vista of the sky, meaningless.

Was that how the Outsiders viewed humanity?

Would this be his legacy? Dying for a world that might have barely mattered in the grand scheme of things? Sacrificing himself for a war doomed to fail? If he went out in a blaze of glory tonight, how long would it take for this minor victory to be swallowed up by the crushing jaws of defeat? A week? A month? A thousand years?

Would anyone even remember his name in the future?

And if the answer to any of the above questions was "no"...would he still go through with this, his last act of defiance against an enemy unknown?

All excellent philosophical questions, and if the frontal lobes in DaSilva's mind were working properly, if circumstances were different, he might have actually had answers. Might have rethought things. Might have even made different choices.

Or maybe he would have reached the exact same conclusions, and concluded that there was no choice at all.

He wasn't a philosopher, after all. He was an engineer, a detective, and an Agent of XCOM.

And in a short amount of time, he would be nothing at all.

"Hey, Nico," Carter's voice came through again. "Wherever you end up...tell Julia and Richard to wait for me. If you could. And tell them...I'm sorry."

DaSilva almost laughed. Almost. He'd read Carter's file before the man even set foot in Groom Range, so he knew all about the accident and the problems it caused him. And even though Will never said anything, never opened up about his past, the tosses and turns and faces he made during the few times he did sleep suggested that it affected him on a much deeper level than he let on. It was a hard burden to bear, and unlike Nico, he didn't have the luxury of a swift ending to his story.

So if there was anything he could do in his final moments to lighten that load, it would only be right to do so.

"You don't need me to tell them that, Will," he said quietly. "They already know. But I'll give them your regards, if I see them. Tell them to keep an eye on you, too. Maybe get a bunch of those guardian angels to keep an eye on you. Lord knows you'll need it."

There was a brief silence on the other end, and for a moment, DaSilva wondered if he'd said the wrong thing. But his voice came back a moment later, choked and charged with emotion.

"Thanks, Nico. We're in position to drop now. I'll...I'll see you on the other side, friend."

DaSilva chuckled as he twisted the key in the ignition further than it was supposed to go, starting the timer on the explosives under the chassis. Of course Carter would choose now of all times, at the very end of his story, to start calling him friend.

Well...better late than never. Not that it needed to be said out loud, anyways.

"Take your time, buddy," he said as he shifted gears. "You're still needed here. Vigilo Confido...and good luck."

And he slammed his foot on the gas.

He surged forward in a shrieking charge, passing through the massive domed cloak the Outsiders kept over their shipyard. The roar of the engine, the rumbling of the tires, and the quickly-approaching aliens were the last things Officer Nico Julian DaSilva witnessed in this world.

Everything else went up in flames.