(A/N): So...did you all like the last chapter? With its low stakes and fluffiness and cute moments between Carter and Summer? Did you all have fun with that?
Yes? Good.
Because here's where the other shoe drops.
Longtime fans of the Bureau might remember a series of live-action trailers starring an agent named Ennis Cole, which was created to both promote the game and set the atmosphere of what was to come. While the game arguably didn't match that tone, the trailer itself is still an amazing bit of cinema, and when I first began planning the story, I knew from the start I wanted to try to capture that particular tone of "investigations done by a shadowy organization willing to cover up the truth" for this story's version of the Bureau. So that's what this chapter's gonna be - a recreation of the spirit of that series of trailers, and a look at the darker side of this conflict.
Be warned...this one's gonna be a little rough.
(Also, I didn't realize until I started writing this chapter that I'd been misnaming Ennis Cole as "Dennis" for the whole story. I blame TVTropes.)
The morning sun filtered through the dusty old hotel room windows, illuminating the pair of figures entwined in the bed sheets and each other. Carter slowly blinked his eyes open, trying to take in the surroundings as his other senses woke up. He rarely slept restfully these days, as nightmares seemed to hound him everytime he dared to escape reality for one night. But the usual pain that came from clenching his jaw all night was missing, he'd barely moved an inch in his sleep, and there wasn't a single torn blanket or pummeled pillow in sight.
For the first time in ages, William Carter had experienced a peaceful night's sleep.
And it didn't take him long to figure out why.
The sleeping form of Summer Rose was still pressed against him, snoring softly and rising with each new breath. She pushed her back against his front to fit within the confines of the bed, claiming one of his arms for herself and hugging it close to her chest with both hands. Her ivory skin felt warm and soft against his own, carrying with it an electrifying sensation that still persisted long after the deed was done. Despite not being able to see her face, Carter was sure there was a bright smile on her lips, one that carried satisfaction, joy, and peace all at once.
Carter let out a contented sigh as the events of last night washed over him, shaking his head softly in amazement. He knew little about Remnant and even less about its sexual practices, so he was half-expecting the alien Huntress to behead him halfway through the act of making love. But Summer, surprisingly, was gentle and thoughtful, dictating the pace of the events while still making sure he was comfortable and okay with every step. Not that he'd ever be able to say "no" to those silver eyes ablaze with passion - nor would he want to.
It was...an incredible experience, to say the least.
And thanks to the alien artifact's healing factor, the bite marks were already fading from sight.
He let out another sigh as he rested his forehead against her crown, closing his eyes once more. She responded to the touch by pulling tighter on the arm she'd captured, nuzzling her cheek against his palm and cooing in pleasure. Eventually they'd have to stop their cuddling and get dressed, and then after a greasy breakfast they'd be on their way back to the Bureau.
But Carter figured they could stay like this for just a little while. The alien menace could wait.
The woman in his bed was the only alien he was worried about at the moment.
Deep within the Bureau, Faulke sat at his office desk with a furrowed brow as he considered the report in front of him.
While it was comforting to hear that Carter and Rose's dispatch operation had been a complete and total success, the other missions XCOM had run in the last few days hadn't been so fortunate. The death of Axis and the capture of his Mosaic Implant were important victories, sure, but it had been the Director's hope that without a leading figure to head the invasion, the Outsiders would be demoralized and slow their attacks long enough for Weir and Dresner to discover the secrets of the phase plotter. Instead, it seemed to have the opposite effect - the alien invaders were not only still connected to Mosaic, they were emboldened by the loss of their Shipmaster, conducting raids on civilian towns and setting ambushes for operatives on supply runs. It was as if the death of their local leader had lit a fire under the Zudjari, prompting them to abandon their relatively methodical invasion tactics in favor of sowing as much chaos and destruction as possible. And while there hadn't been any Agent deaths yet thanks to a plateau in the arms race, the injuries began piling up as the list of dead civilians grew longer and longer.
What made things more complicated was that their usual method of tracking enemy movements was useless at the moment. Over the course of the war, the technicians and comms operators had managed to turn America's network of radio towers into one enormous radar field, one that could spot UFO movements and identify both their point of origin and their destination. This had been instrumental in locating the Zudjari's fortifications, supply depots, and communications towers, since those were frequent places that the flying saucers visited, as well as serving as an early alert system to mobilize troops to intercept enemy operations. But there hadn't been a single ship in flight since Axis's death, which meant that the only way to track the movement of the Outsiders was when they attacked - and by then, it was usually too late to do anything.
So Faulke didn't have a lot of optimism these days.
And days like these wore away at what little hope remained.
He looked up from the newspaper draft, which included a rather prominent picture on the front page: an array of what looked like shredded metal circles dotted along a grassy hill.
"You're sure this is from a trusted source, Ennis?"
The glasses-wearing leader of Strike Four on the other side of his desk nodded tightly, clenching his jaw.
"I'm certain, yes," he said sternly. "I went to college with the journalist who took the picture, and I trust him with my life."
Faulke nodded. "And there's no...ulterior motives for your request to be on the investigation team?"
That made Ennis hesitate a little, his pale sallow skin somehow growing even whiter. It was unsurprising that the Recon Officer would want to handle this assignment - his wife and son lived in Pima, blissfully unaware of the war he was waging to protect them. The dozen or so alien ships that inexplicably crashed a few miles away from the town was a threat both to his family and their peaceful ignorance, one that Ennis Cole would do anything to destroy.
The drive was admirable, but it also was a concern for Faulke. After a moment, Ennis gave another terse nod.
"Very well, then," the Director said finally. "What's the status of Strike Four?"
"Most of them are still recovering from that raid the other day," reported Ennis. "Dresner has requested that Vahlen stay on-base to assist him and Weir with the Avenger Project, but Commisar and I are ready to move on your order."
Faulke nodded once more. "Weir's made a similar request for Shen, but otherwise Strike Three is cleared for action. Report to Carter as the squad's temporary ASL. Wheels up in twenty minutes."
Ennis snapped a stiff salute at Faulke before turning and leaving, leaving the director to take a whiff of his cigarette and let out a long, smoky sigh. A pang of guilt shot through Faulke's heart as he contemplated just how broken and tired his guest's eyes had looked. Yet despite that pain, the young Recon agent was driven and determined - almost dangerously so. And that was what concerned him most.
He knew that Ennis was already a troubled individual. Months of isolation from his wife and child had turned him to the demon in a glass bottle as a coping mechanism, one that was only reinforced when coupled with the stress of the most soul-crushing paperwork the Bureau demanded. Perhaps Faulke was partly to blame for overtaxing him, for pushing so many Editing Room assignments onto Ennis, and for denying his requests to take leaves of absence to visit his family. Whatever the case, temptation had fallen into Ennis's lap, both enticing him with what he wanted and threatening to take it away...and he wasn't sure if the Officer was strong enough to resist.
Faulke had seen too many brave men with frayed nerves snap at the seams when pushed too hard.
Would Ennis Cole be next?
"Coming up on the outer limits of Pima, New Mexico now," reported Barnes through the cabin speakers. "Crash site shouldn't be much further."
Summer tapped her fingers against her knee as she sat on Carter's left side, her elbow subtly grazing against his in the barest of contact. If he felt it through the sleeves, he gave no response. If the other people in the Skyranger's cabin noticed, they didn't comment. While neither she nor her squad leader had shared the newest development in their relationship publicly, people somehow seemed to already know. And while nobody asked them about it directly, she still caught whispers among the corners of the base that largely amounted to "about damn time" or "I knew it" or other similar victorious phrases. (Apparently Goldstein had even set up a sort of betting pool regarding their relationship, which ended up being quite lucrative despite money currently having no value.)
On Carter's other side, Knox cleared his throat and disrupted the tentative silence. "So. Commisar, right?"
The middle of the three Recon agents, the one sitting between Ennis Cole and Adam Goldstein, looked up from his ancient-looking rifle. "Yes."
"What's the story behind the nickname? You another one of those Reds?"
Commisar merely shrugged. "I don't have much love for any form of government, really. If you're asking if I'm Soviet, the answer is 'no.' It's just a nickname one of my former clients stuck on me, on account of my marksmanship and 'huge stick up my ass.' He meant it as an insult. I took it as a compliment."
Knox furrowed his brow. "Client? So what, you're some kinda mercenary?"
"Mercs only care about the money," said Commisar with a hard edge in his voice. "I only care about putting fascists in the ground, and selling myself and my rifle here to guerilla warmongers just so happens to be the easiest way to do so."
Summer fidgeted in her seat, while Knox sighed and shook his head. Carter wisely decided to change the subject, looking to Ennis with an inquisitive stare.
"You're the one who found this place, right? Any idea what we're walking into?"
The glasses-wearing Recon Agent looked up from his plasma rifle with an annoyed expression. "You got the same briefing as I did, Whiskey. All we know is that a number of derelict UFOs were discovered a few miles south of Pima. It's up to us to investigate the crash site and make sure no Outsiders remain...and to puzzle together what happened to cause the crash in the first place."
Carter clenched his jaw. "Right. Just thought I'd ask. Thought you'd know more, considering...you know."
Ennis pulled a square flask from his hip and took a swift sip. With a wince, he sighed.
"I don't know what I know these days."
The tension in the air was thick enough for Summer to cut with Wandering Thorn. It wasn't just the squad composition that bothered her, though - every drop of blood in her veins screamed that this whole mission felt wrong, that it was a trap waiting to be sprung the moment she let her guard down. No one had seen a UFO since she and Weaver killed Axis, and suddenly the wreckage of a whole bunch of them had suddenly appeared out of nowhere? It felt too convenient. Too calculated.
Too perfect.
The Skyranger cabin fell into an uncomfortable silence, which seemed to last forever until Adam finally dared to break it.
"How much further do we have, Big Sky?" he asked, leg bouncing anxiously.
"We're coming up on the crash site," replied Barnes, clearly taking pride in his new nickname. "I'll turn on the nose cams to give you an overhead view of the AO before we land. Should be coming into visual range right about...now."
Summer watched as the monitor flickered to life, revealing a sight that made her jaw drop.
Oh...gods.
What had once been an idyllic grassy hill was now a graveyard for massive shattered metallic ships, ravaging the landscape and leaving long ugly gashes of soil and stone. Some of the formerly flying saucers had been crumpled up like balls of foil from the sheer impact of landing, or burrowed into the earth so hard they remained half-buried at unnatural angles. Others had the misfortune of landing upside down, scattering alloy fragments across the field or breaking into fractured halves on contact. Still others had landed on their side, either collapsed under their own weight or leaning precariously against other wrecks like they were waiting for the day they would topple over. Summer didn't know just how many UFOs had crashed in this particular area - she stopped counting after ten.
"Sweet mother of shit," gaped Knox. "How big of a stone do you need to knock that many birds outta the sky?"
"Bigger than any of the ones we have, clearly," said Commisar, his face impassive.
"Look at the size of some of them," breathed Adam, pointing at the screen. "There's Droppers, Scouts, Transports, Raiders...hell, I think that's a Command Ship down there, too. We haven't seen this many ships at once since…"
"...since the Roswell incident," finished Ennis joylessly.
A pang of guilt shot through Summer. She quelled it.
"But why would they all crash here?" she asked. "And what made them crash in the first place?"
"That's what we're here to find out," answered Carter tersely. He looked past the grainy monitor. "Any sign of movement down there?"
"Negative," reported Barnes, "Nothing on thermals, no chattering on the Mosaic network...it's as quiet as death down there."
"Let's make sure of that, then. Drop us off on the top of that hill, in case there's a welcome wagon waiting for us."
"You have a plan, then?" Ennis asked.
Carter nodded. "I'm thinking you, me, Kilo, and Sierra make our way to the Command Ship while Alpha and Charlie hang back and watch our sixes. If any of those wrecks would have answers about what the hell happened here, it'll be that one. And if there is an ambush waiting down there, I want to have sniper support to take them out from a distance."
Ennis nodded in approval, looking over to Commisar. "That work for you?"
"I brought the ghillie suit for that exact reason, Echo," said Commisar.
Adam raised an eyebrow. "You know you don't need to wear that, right? Our cloak modules do the same thing, but more effectively."
"Better safe than sorry."
So that's what all the weird patterns on his clothes are for, mused Summer. And here I thought it was just a fashion statement.
"Alright then," said Carter. "Set us down Big Sky. We'll shoot you a flare if we need an exit."
"You got it, Whiskey. Be careful out there."
The Skyranger gently lowered as the side doors opened, wind kicked up by the rotors blowing into the cabin and whipping into Summer's face. With practiced ease she unclipped herself and stepped off the platform, dropping with grace and instinctively sweeping her plasma rifle left to right when she landed. Carter followed suit, then Knox, followed by the trio of Recons. Commisar and Adam peeled off to find suitable sniper perches on the hill while Ennis shifted his plasma rifle into its shotgun configuration, scanning the horizon and watching for any sign of an oncoming alien ambush.
The expected attack never came.
Summer was the first to break the silence. "Why is it always more worrying when there's nothing immediately waiting for us?"
"Cause it means there's something worse waiting further ahead," answered Carter, furrowing his brow. "But there's no point sitting here and wondering. Let's move out and find that Command Ship. Search the small wrecks on the way, see if there's anything we can use."
With a terse nod, Summer fell into position behind Carter, while Knox took the opposite flank and Ennis brought up the rear. Adam snapped a SCOPE onto his fusion lance, while Commisar's SVT-40 was already loaded with armor-piercing rounds. The snipers nodded and kept their lenses fixed on the gray-hatted man as he led the advance, leading the group down the steep incline that fed into the ship graveyard.
The shadow of death hounded their every step through the twisted remains, looming over them like a specter that grew stronger with each passing moment. It was one thing to see the wreckage on a grainy monitor from an overhead view; it was another thing entirely to see that same wreckage up close with widened eyes. The squad felt like ants scouring the decayed remains of what might have once been a picnic, abandoned for so long that nature had begun to lay roots in the shattered remains. Enormous sections of ships were torn apart by the impact with jagged patterns in their metal hulls, giving the illusion of toothy jaws waiting to clamp down and drag them into the darkness.
Every single one of the ships they searched was empty.
"I don't like this," growled Carter after they finished inspecting the fourth such ship. "If the aliens were waiting to spring a trap, they would have done so by now. Where are they?"
"Maybe they all died in the crash?" offered Summer hopefully.
"There'd be more corpses laying around if that was the case," countered Knox, who then frowned. "Or any corpses, really."
"The weapons lockers would still be stocked up as well," observed Ennis. "So far, they've all been emptied out."
"Which means the bastards are alive and armed," concluded Carter. "Come on. I don't think we're gonna find anything else in the Scouts and Droppers. Let's head for the Command Ship next."
The squad wordlessly agreed, and after Carter used his "battle focus" to chart a path, they moved out again, pointedly ignoring the other wrecks that called out to them like sirens of the deep. Summer felt her breath hitch as her eyes snapped on every flickering shadow, every stray rustle of the breeze, every creak of metal straining under permanent pressure. A quick glance at Knox and Ennis told her that her companions were similarly on edge, with the old Commando keeping his M14 in a death Grip and the reclusive Recon fiddling methodically with the trigger. For all that six months of combat with an enemy unknown had steeled their nerves and honed their senses, dread still remained the one opponent that struck deep beneath a soldier's armor.
Regular comms checks with Adam and Commisar confirmed that unease, as even with the various settings of their SCOPEs at hand, nothing was alive in the valley except for them and the grass. More than once Summer almost caught herself wishing for an enemy to appear; an Outsider firing squad, a Muton Elite, hell she would even be willing to fight a Sectopod at this point. Anything to take the edge off the gnawing feeling in her gut.
It was almost a relief when the upside-down Command Ship came into view and offered an obstacle to their investigation.
"It seems that the main entrance is buried underground," observed Ennis, "as is the access hatch on top."
"Well damn, there goes that plan," grumbled Knox. "Too bad we couldn't bring Romeo out with us. He could probably blow a hole in the side of the ship."
"He could, yeah," said Carter. "But I brought something just as good as an Engineer. Might wanna stand back."
Summer did as instructed, watching as the squad leader pulled what seemed like a large gray brick off the side of his power pack. The block of steel expanded in his hands to reveal a handle, trigger, sights, and a cylinder with six chambers like a revolver's main body. The front of the weapon flipped open to reveal a long grooved barrel, large enough to fit a baseball and deep enough to hide an entire baseball bat.
Knox grinned at the sight of a weapon he clearly recognized. "Ah. Guess that's the casing for those new HEAT rockets, huh?"
"New what rockets?" asked Summer, raising her eyebrow.
"High-Explosive Anti-Tank warheads," answered Carter as he aimed the launcher. "It's based on the old tank busters that we used back in World War II, with a little bit of Elerium combustion jelly thrown in for good measure. This thing's more powerful than those LAWs we've been using, but safer than a Blaster Launcher. Techs say that six of these rockets is enough to blow up a Sectopod; I'm willing to bet one's enough to give us an entrance. Brace for the explosion."
Summer stepped back and covered her ears as Carter pulled the trigger with a muted THUMP, launching a rocket the size of a beer can with a flaming blue tail. The projectile flew straight and true with a faint whistling sound, burying itself deep into the alien hull thanks to its harpoon-like tip. An instant later, the rocket detonated.
BOOM.
Even from this distance, Summer felt the explosion shake the ground and send a rumble through the grass and stones. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the last remains of greenish-blue flame licking the edges of a new hole in the Command Ship, one that opened up to reveal the darkness deep within.
"Yep, I'd say it works," mused Carter as he collapsed the launcher.
Knox whistled. "Nice. Remind me to pick up one of those for the next op."
"There's two more back on the Skyranger," said Carter, stowing the HEAT Launcher on his back once more. "Plenty of time for you to play with one later. For now, let's get inside that thing and see about getting some answers."
The squad nodded, and after doing a quick check to make sure the entrance was clear, they finally climbed into the hole.
Carter was the only one of the squad who'd been inside a Command Ship before, so he took point as he led the team down corridors and hallways. If the ship being upside-down hampered his navigation skills in any way, he didn't let it show. It was the one comfort that Summer felt as she traveled deeper into the wreck alongside the men, plasma rifle on a tight swivel as its barrel swept back and forth. The light from the Venn Braces cast dancing shadows against the pale undecorated metal walls, which the Huntress's imagination turned into dark monsters ready to devour them.
Focus, she willed herself as her heart threatened to explode out of her chest. Breathe. You're no good to anyone scared. You're a Huntress. You can handle whatever you find here.
Of course, as soon as she had that thought her foot made contact with something soft and squishy.
She took a sharp breath and instinctively leapt back, aiming her weapon at whatever she stepped on. Relief flooded through her veins, however, when her light fell on the mystery object and revealed it to be an Outsider lying facedown. A Field Commander, by the color of its cape and armor, and a very dead one at that. A large boot print in a nearby puddle of viscera confirmed that fact, as did the empty stare in its eyes and the awkward angle of its neck.
Carter seemed to sense the discomfort. "Sierra? You found something?"
Summer nodded. "Yeah. Over here. Looks like a Field Commander...or what's left of one, anyways."
The other men in the squad converged on her, staring down at her discovery.
"Man...never thought I'd be glad to see a dead alien bastard," muttered Knox as he wrinkled his nose. "Or smell one, for that matter."
Ennis pushed his glasses into place. "Interesting. This is the first Outsider we've found out here. If this crash was deadly enough to destroy this many UFOs, we should have seen similar corpses littered across the entire site. Why would there be one here?"
"Good question. Turn him over, Sierra, and let's see if we can't find out."
Biting the temptation to ask why she had to be the one to do the dirty deed, Summer nevertheless complied with Carter's order, pushing the Field Commander's shoulder with her boot to roll the corpse onto its back. Her mouth hung open as she got a full view of the alien commander's chestplate - and the six-inch wide patch of melted steel and scorched flesh.
"...this Outsider didn't die in the crash," realized the Huntress, silver eyes widening. "He was killed by plasma fire. His own troops turned on him."
"So it seems," said Ennis as he inspected the wound. "This is strong evidence to suggest that some form of mutiny occurred here."
"Can they even do that?" Knox asked, raising an eyebrow. "I thought all those Outsiders had some mind-link thing that kept this kinda shit from happening."
"They must've felt something when Axis bit the dust," proposed Carter with a shrug. "We know that bumping off one of these guys makes everyone under their command keel over and die, and removing their chip scatters and confuses 'em. If I was in the shoes of his crew, what with the guy at the top going down and getting stuck in a crash, I'd probably be pissed enough to do something drastic too."
There was a small silence, and for a moment, Summer wondered if Carter was speaking from experience. The gray-hatted man shook his head, though, and keyed his radio. "Alpha, Charlie, are you keeping an eye on us? What's up ahead, and is it something we should be worried about?"
"Tracking you through the walls with SCOPEs, Whiskey," answered Adam in a static-laced voice. "No other thermal signatures inside the ship except for the four of you. If there is something waiting for you, it's either mechanical or already dead."
"Copy that, continue monitoring. We'll let you know if anything changes."
"Understood," remarked Commisar. "Though I won't hold my breath."
Carter sighed and turned back to the situation at hand. "Come on. Navigation is just up ahead. It's the nerve center for these ships - whatever happened to make all these ships crash at once, we'll find it in there."
Summer nodded as she fell back in line with the rest of the troops, continuing the march down the flipped halls of the Command Ship. As the team moved, they found more bodies with the same style of wounds as the fallen Field Commander, even passing by a Muton with a heated blade still lodged in its skull. While the discovery of each alien corpse was a small relief, only a handful more were found during the entire walk to Navigation. Adding up the number of bodies revealed that the victims would have formed a crew too small to manage something as large as a Command Ship...a fact that made each Agent's mind burn with a single question.
Where are the rest?
After prying their way through the unpowered doors, Carter and the team finally stepped into a room that was wider than the narrow hallway but just as long and foreboding. The Navigation Center was a mess of fallen pylons and trashed terminals, the latter dangling from the floor-turned-ceiling by cables that hung in a tenuous balance. The central dome that housed the phase plotter was smashed into a million pieces, the critical black box laying unceremoniously on a bed of broken glass. And while there were a few more corpses strewn across the ground, they all had the same fatal wounds that linked them to the massacre, rather than showing signs of dying in the crash.
Carter went over and picked up the phase plotter, furrowing his brow. "This thing's cold to the touch," he remarked. "I don't think it's been working for at least a week."
Summer noted the massive crack along one of the cube's faces. "Think it'll still work?"
"I wouldn't try flying with it, personally," answered Carter. "But it might have the answers we're looking for. Big Sky, patch me through to Bravo-Zero - let's see if the good doctor can't give us some advice. Echo, Kilo, sweep the area and look for more clues. Sierra, you're on standby."
The Huntress nodded as the other men gave stiff salutes, poking around in the rubble and searching through the debris. After relaying the situation to Barnes, the radio went quiet for a moment, before the familiar voice of Doctor Weir came through in a burst of static.
"Hah, found another phase plotter, have you William? Er, sorry, Whiskey. Apologies for sounding less professional than usual - I haven't slept for at least three days right now. Or was it four? Hmm...couldn't possibly be more than - "
"Doctor," chided Carter gently.
"Right, sorry. Anyways, what kind of condition is it in?"
"Got a crack along one of the sides, and it's cold as stone. Will that be a problem?"
"Shouldn't be, if you're just trying to pull the information from it. Then again, I can't say for certain, as no one's brave enough to do more than a rudimentary stress test on the one we have." Weir paused again, his silence punctuated by a loud slurp. "Fascinating things, these phase plotters. Nico was right on the money with his theory on how important they are, but I don't think even he could have predicted just what they can do. These little miracle cubes can do everything from storing information to generating holographic images, and that's not getting into the more advanced functions like flight mapping and quantum teleporta - "
"Doctor." Carter's voice was a little firmer this time. "Focus. We wanna find out what happened here. How do we do that?"
"Oh. Easy. You should be able to just plug in your Venn Brace and play the logs using the interface. The Field Commander chip in your Brace should give you high enough clearance to access that much - you're not trying to fly or anything, which takes a Shipmaster level authorization. Good luck, and tell me what you find!"
The gray-hatted man sighed as he shook his head, clicking off his radio. "Well, that was about as clear as mud. I swear, I don't know how Shen is able to tolerate him when he gets like this."
Summer smiled as she took his hand. "He's just excited about his new toy, is all. Like a kid at, um...oh, what's that Earth holiday with the gifts? Thanksgiving?"
"Christmas, Summer. Or Hanukkah, if you're Jewish."
"Close enough," she said with a shrug. "Here, plug in and let me use the controls on your Brace. I think I might know a thing or two about this kind of thing."
"Knock yourself out." Carter pulled a long metallic cable from his wrist-mounted device and plugged it into one of the jacks on phase plotter. When the device glowed green, Summer hugged Carter's bicep with one arm, using her other hand to manipulate the dials and switches. Alien words and letters appeared on the tiny little screen, which she would have to squint to read if she could understand the language. With a little translation help from Carter, she eventually made her way to what she assumed was the logs directory.
"Okay, let's see…" she said as she hummed thoughtfully, leaning against her squad leader (and boyfriend) in a playful gesture. "Let's start with the most recent one...this one."
She pressed a button on the Venn Brace, and then everything changed.
The dark and vacant phase plotter suddenly hummed to life, filling the room with orange-red light and temporarily blinding everyone looking that way. When Summer's vision cleared, she realized that the glow no longer came from the cube, instead emanating from projected shapes that hovered in the air. After stepping back, those shapes formed the outlines of Outsiders in every rank imaginable, from Field Commanders to lowly grunts, from Sectoids to Mutons. And every single one of them was shouting in an alien language, not at her or the men...but at each other.
"I'm guessing that's what Weir meant by holograms," mused Carter, whose other hand let go of the pistol on his hip. "We're not just reading the ship's logs - we're seeing and hearing it, too."
Summer nodded, relaxing her grip on her partner. "Yeah. Can you understand what they're saying?"
"I can get bits and pieces," he answered. "It looks like an argument of some kind, and a pretty heated one at that."
"About what?"
"From what I understand so far, we're looking at the crew after about a week of being stuck inside the ship. The Field Commanders are arguing that they should continue staying put while they wait for rescue, while others want to break out and explore. Maybe this is the lead up to that mutiny Cole theorized took place?"
As if to answer his question, a large group of Outsiders and Mutons drew their weapons and began firing, causing the room to be drowned in simulated plasma and recorded screams. The holographic replay stopped moments later.
"...well, that answers that," noted Carter. "The phase plotter must've gotten caught in the crossfire."
"There weren't any signs of damage on the outside of the ship when we approached," noted Ennis, who had been watching nearby. "I wonder...how did they escape? Since they clearly aren't here…"
"I might have an answer for that."
Everyone turned to look at Knox, who was standing over the open maintenance hatch cover. Under normal circumstances, the hatch and its accompanying ladder would have led to the top of the hull; with the Command Ship upside-down, however, it instead led right into the ground. As the others approached, the Commando's discovery became more visible - the other end of the shaft gave way to a cleanly-dug tunnel, one that had been newly collapsed with fresh stone and dirt.
"Looks like they burrowed themselves out," observed Carter. "Smart."
"And they sealed the tunnel behind them, once they were certain they would not need to return," added Ennis.
"Yeah, but how the hell'd they survive the crash in the first place?" Knox asked. "And why did they crash at all?"
"Let's find out," said Summer, already fiddling with Carter's Venn Brace again. She ignored the blush on the squad leader's face and the looks of her squadmates as she scrolled through the list of logs, playing each one in succession and relying on Carter to translate. Most of the recordings were uneventful - futile attempts to repair the damaged craft, arguments between Mutons and Sectoids that usually ended in the former squishing the latter, and empty silence as the aliens patrolled areas other than Navigation.
Eventually, though, one recording began with four Outsiders standing on the ceiling, diligently working on functional terminals. Summer's heart swelled with hope.
"This one appears to be from the day of the crash," observed Ennis.
"It better be," growled Knox impatiently. "What are they saying, boss?"
"Mission chatter, mostly," said Carter as he furrowed his brow. "Sounds like this Command Ship was leading a flotilla of UFOs through here to try and get started on another shipyard."
"Makes sense, considering we destroyed their first one in Roswell," said Ennis with a nod. Summer's heart sank once again at the memory.
Carter tensed, but kept his attention on the figures along the ceiling. "...huh, okay. Apparently these guys were part of a skeleton crew that kept the ship running, while the bulk of the aliens here slept in stasis pods. If they were in the pods when the ships crashed, that might explain how they all lived."
Summer raised an eyebrow. "The pods are that strong?"
"You and Whiskey were on dispatch when Dresner did a stress test on a recovered capsule," said Knox. "We hit that damn thing with enough explosives to level Mount Rushmore, and it barely left a scratch. They're basically invulnerable to blunt force...though they are a bitch to try and fit into."
"He's not wrong. He tried to take a nap in one of them."
"Shut it, Echo."
The Huntress chuckled at the thought, then continued watching the holographic figures work on their stations. A moment later, she flinched as a loud alarm blared and echoed throughout the ship; the Outsiders were seemingly just as startled, though they clutched their foreheads rather than their ear canals. Their howls blended together with the klaxons to create a cacophony of discordic din, one so loud that even the phase plotter failed to record it as anything other than white noise.
After a moment of screaming, the figures began to float, and in that moment, Summer made the connection.
This was the moment that Weaver pulled Axis's chip.
"Oh...gods," breathed Summer, hands covering her mouth. The words of the Infiltrator from that fateful interrogation floated into her mind as she watched, reminding her of the knowledge that had changed the course of the Bureau's war for the world.
The phase plotter does nothing on its own. It requires a connection to a Shipmaster to function.
Carter looked at Summer with a nod. "...you realize it too, huh?"
"Realize what?" Knox raised an eyebrow. "You got something? What caused the crash?"
"We did!" Summer answered quickly. "Well, I mean, not directly. Don't you see? Axis controlled all the phase plotters through his implant. When Weaver and I yanked it out of his head, it shut down every single unit that was still on the network...including the ones on any ships that were still flying. And we all know what happens to things in the sky that suddenly stop flying."
The Commando's look of confusion was replaced by one of shock.
"...they drop," he finished.
Ennis blinked, then adjusted his glasses.
"That...makes a great deal of sense," he mused, "Any failsafes or functions connected to advanced maneuvering of the craft would also have been disabled alongside the higher-restricted functions of the phase plotters. Without a way to operate the ships, there was nothing the aliens could do to pull out of the resulting death dive."
"Which explains the mutiny," added Summer, "Even if most of the crew was protected by their stasis pods in the crash, they were still stranded and disorganized with nothing to do but wait for rescue or new information. When neither of them came, things got violent."
Ennis nodded in agreement. "Furthermore, the lack of a Shipmaster would also explain why we haven't been able to track any UFOs as of late."
"Yeah, cause they can't fly," agreed Carter with a nod. "Not until they find another Shipmaster...and I doubt you can just replace someone that important overnight."
Summer nodded, watching as the figures pulled themselves out of the room and into the hallways, presumably to enter their stasis pods before the inevitable crash. Given how there were no bodies that showed signs of dying from impact, they must have been successful in that at least.
"I think that's all we're gonna find here," said Carter as the hologram finally flickered out of existence. "Let's signal Barnes for pickup and then we can - "
"Strike Three, come in! Can you read me?"
"Speak of the devil," grumbled Carter, who keyed his radio. "What is it, Big Sky?"
"Thermals just picked up a Sectopod coming in from orbit!" Barnes reported hastily. "I think the aliens just found out that we're poking around down there."
Because of course things would be difficult, thought Summer as she already moved to grab her sword.
"What's its trajectory?" Carter asked, furrowing his brow. "How long until it hits us?"
Barnes hesitated before speaking in a voice heavy with emotion.
"...that's the thing, Whiskey. It's not headed for you. It's headed north."
North? But that was…
Oh.
Oh no.
"They're not going after us," whispered Summer, "they're going after the town."
"Pima," growled Carter. Knox grit his teeth, while Ennis paled. The leader of Strike Three wasted no time in stowing the cracked phase plotter in his pack, pulling out the HEAT Launcher once it was secured.
"Everyone outta this room. I'm gonna make a new exit for us. Big Sky, pick up Alpha and Charlie on the hill, then watch for our flare. Come grab us, and then we're booking it to Pima ASAP. These assholes wanna kick the hornet nest? Hope they're ready to get stung."
Summer nodded determinedly as she left Navigation with Knox and Ennis in tow, bracing themselves for the shattering boom that came shortly after. Natural sunlight shone down from the new hole in the floor (ceiling?), revealing an only moderately-singed Carter standing and stowing the launcher again. Without missing a beat he fired a flare out of the gap, sending a bright red rocket soaring high into the blue sky. After a little bit of climbing, all four Agents stood on the hull as the Skyranger flew low, the ramp already extended and hovering inches above the metal wreck.
"Everyone in!" Barnes barked, "Don't bother strapping down, we don't have time for that! Just grab a seat and hold on tight!"
Carter and the team did as instructed, the ramp closing with a pneumatic hiss as the helicopter took off at full speed. Summer's knuckles turned white as she clutched her seat, fighting the urge to throw up the grease-encrusted eggs and bacon that still sat like bricks in her stomach. The flight was over in just a few minutes, and yet it was entirely too long. Not just because of the discomfort of flying at high speeds, but because the stakes sat in the forefront of everyone's minds. If the aliens from the crash site were intent on launching a full attack to terrorize the town, then every second was crucial if they wanted to save lives.
Sure enough, by the time the Skyranger finally cleared the town limits, Pima was completely on fire.
Summer's heart sank as their craft slowed to a crawl and flew low along the streets, the nose cameras giving the agents a glimpse of the horror that awaited them. Outsiders, Mutons, and Sectoids patrolled the streets and crawled like ants on the monitor, storming into buildings and blasting burning holes into the walls and the people inside. Innocent people in the street were being gunned down by green plasma bolts, falling over in pools of boiling blood and glowing ash. And even though the Skyranger's cameras didn't pick up sound, the screams and cries of agony were still loud enough to fill the cabin through the thin walls, as wails and pleas resounded and begged for a salvation that would never come.
"Christ…" groaned Knox, "I've been a soldier for twenty-three years, and this shit never gets any easier to stomach."
"This isn't a raid," noted Adam. "This is a full-on siege. They've been planning this."
"We'll need backup to handle this crisis," said Commisar. "Big Sky, can you radio back to base for more Strike Teams?"
"That Sectopod's jamming our long-range comms," replied Barnes with a frustrated groan. "I can't contact Bravo-Zero for reinforcements. We're all this town's got."
"Then we'll have to be enough," growled Carter. "Alright, here's the plan - Alpha and Charlie stay on the Skyranger and let Big Sky give them a mobile vantage point, one that's perfect for sniping on the move. Kilo and Sierra, you two take those new launchers and hunt down the Sectopod, while Echo and I - Echo! The hell are you doing?!"
Summer turned to look at Ennis, who was throwing open the Skyranger's side door and filling the cabin with smoke and wind.
"Apologies, Carter…" he said unapologetically, "...but I cannot make the same mistake you did. Continue on without me - I'll do what I can on my way."
Before anyone could stop him or tell him to stop, Ennis Cole jumped out of the moving Skyranger and disappeared from sight.
"Dammit!" Carter growled, slamming his fist against the cabin in annoyance. He took in a deep breath, then let it out. "Okay, new plan. Sierra, you go after Echo. Kilo, you're with me. Alpha and Charlie, same as before. We don't have a lot of time here, so let's move!"
Summer nodded and grabbed one of the HEAT Launchers from the rack, along with a belt of smoke grenades and shield spheres. After exchanging a meaningful glance with Carter, she took a deep breath and leaned her head out of the Skyranger's open door, watching and waiting for something to soften her landing. Spotting a low-roofed building coming closer, she timed her jump so that she landed on the sloped surface, scattering shingles as she slid and came to a halt with one heel in the gutter.
Not my best landing, but not my worst either, she thought to herself as she dropped off the building and onto the ground. She immediately darted to cover at the sight of an alien patrol, hugging the side of the building while she waited for them to pass. As much as she wanted to dive into combat with sword blazing, she knew that in an active warzone like this, the enemy far outnumbered her and her squad. And if all the aliens that survived both the crash and the mutiny were here, caution would be needed to avoid attracting all of them at once.
When the Outsider patrol was out of sight, she pulled out her radio and keyed the button. "Echo, this is Sierra. Respond now."
The static-laced voice that poured out of the speaker was equal parts irritated and intrigued.
"And here I thought Whiskey would keep you close to him in this situation."
"He would have, if your dumb ass hadn't jumped out of a moving Skyranger," she said, rolling her eyes as she emerged from cover. "Where are you right now?"
"At the corner of 27th and Lincoln. In the drugstore."
Summer furrowed her brow as she looked around, spotting a road and running alongside it. "And what the hell are you doing there?"
"Finding a way to my family."
The Huntress paused. "Your...family?"
"My wife, Ann, and my son, Kevin," said Ennis in a tone slightly more emotional than usual. "They've lived here in Pima all their lives, completely unaware of the danger. I need to make sure they're safe."
A knife forged of pure empathy stabbed into her gut. Once more, this world seemed to mock her, throw her choice back in her face at the worst of times.
"I...I get that, I really do," said Summer, "but if we don't do something about these aliens, then no one will be sa - !"
"Summer. Please, you of all people must understand." Ennis's tone was broken, pleading. "You and Carter may be strong enough to shoulder the weight of a family you failed to save...but I am not. I abandoned them, cut myself off from them, to ensure that the alien threat would not endanger them. I cannot abandon them now, when that very threat now comes for them."
Summer bit her lower lip and squeezed the hilt of her sword, frantically weighing her options. On the one hand, chasing after Ennis and his own goal would waste precious time, especially with dozens of civilians dying by the moment. On the other hand, Ennis showed no signs of backing down, and further arguing would cost them even more lives as she spent fruitless moments trying to talk him out of his plan.
Besides...how could she, in good conscience, ask someone else to abandon their family for the "greater good"?
In that moment, with a heavy heart, Summer relented.
"...fine," she spat mournfully. "What do you need me to do?"
Relief was clear in Ennis's tone, even if his words weren't very thankful. "My house is six blocks away, and my cloaking module was damaged in my landing. I need you to draw the attention of any aliens we come across, giving me a chance to slip by while their focus is elsewhere. I'll do what I can to direct the civilians we find along the way - draw them away from me, and you may yet save them as well."
Summer's lip was halfway chewed through, but she continued biting it as she nodded while resuming her run. "Okay. I'm on my way there. Are you safe?"
"The first platoon is just up ahead," reported Ennis. "I can see them from my position, but they cannot see me. I will move on your mark. And Sierra? Thank you."
She didn't bother saying anything back as she saw the drugstore at the intersection Ennis mentioned. Summer slid into cover behind a decaying brick wall, leaning around the corner to get a glimpse of the enemies ahead. She saw the brutish forms of three Mutons stomping menacingly towards a pair of horrified children - two little girls who huddled together as the brutes came closer and closer. A half-dozen Outsiders stood over a collection of adults, putting plasma into the backs of their heads as their prey tried to squirm out from underfoot.
This isn't a siege or a raid, realized the Huntress. It's a goddamn massacre. Most people would be powerless to stop this.
Taking a deep breath to steel her nerves, Summer rolled out from cover and aimed her plasma rifle, lining up a shot on the lead Muton's back.
But I'm not most people.
"Hey Zudjari Kraksaad!"she hollered as she squeezed the trigger. "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?!"
The taunt and the ball of searing hot gas were enough to draw the alien hulk's attention, making it turn and roar as it shrugged off the new burn. The other Mutons and the Outsiders also heard the cry and aimed their weapons at the now-coverless Huntress, firing in perfect tandem and threatening to drown her in plasma. One of Summer's hands flung down a shield sphere just before the deadly matter could touch her, protecting her from the barrage for a precious moment. The other hand reached into her pocket and pulled out what appeared to be a plastic syringe, one filled with a sickly green-blue liquid and a barely-concealed sharpened point.
"Time to see if this works out in the field," she said to nobody in particular.
Sucking in a breath to prepare herself, Summer jammed the needle into her thigh before her mind could realize what her arm was doing. The world seemed to slow down when her thumb clicked down on the spring-loaded button, dispensing the contents of the vial right into her leg. A wave of burning pain came seconds later - a sharp cry escaped her lips before she could clamp her jaw shut, wincing and hissing as the cocktail of chemicals flowed into her veins.
As she tried not to dwell on the poison she'd just injected, Weaver's words of warning floated to the front of her mind.
Faulke originally commissioned these "auto-injectors" for Agents who might need a quick antidote to nerve gas, in case a Soviet operative cornered them and hit them with a burst of the stuff. As you can probably guess, though, surprise neurotoxins from undercover Reds are the least of our concerns right now. So I took the liberty of filling these with a different kind of solution, one that I mixed up just for you.
Her heart began to beat in her ears, and the pain from the injection already began to dull. A month ago, she would have been convinced that the stoic leader of Strike One was trying to kill her. These days, though, she knew better.
It's a watered down toxin that's designed to trigger your fight-or-flight reflexes, with a little bit extra to make your body treat it like a threat. It won't kill you, but it'll feel like it will - and given what I saw out there in the Forge, that should be enough to make your Aura flare up. Just mind the fatigue that'll take hold once the crash hits, and whatever you do, do not take more than three of these within the same hour. Otherwise, you'll get to feel firsthand the effects of cyanide poisoning...and there's no walking that back, Aura or no.
Sure enough, she looked down to see a milky-white field of energy envelop her body, healing energy already flowing through her veins to counter the poison. She grinned as she felt that familiar surge of power flood into her, that same warmth that told her she was a Huntress once again. Based on the tests she and Weaver had done back at base, the effect would only last about thirty seconds - but if she used it right, that was all the time she'd need.
"Thanks, Angela."
Summer drew Wandering Thorn and flung it with all her might, sending it flying out of the shield sphere and burying the heated tip into a Muton's skull. She reappeared next to her sword in a burst of pale roses, twisting the blade and yanking it free before the massive lizard could even finish its roar of pain. The silver-eyed Huntress wasted no time as she moved onto her next target: another Muton that caught sight of its lobotomized comrade and turned to face its killer. Before it could even open fire or call out, she vanished into a cloud of petals and reformed above the brute, bringing down her sword and stabbing through the neck. Another forceful twist of the blade killed the second alien brute in less than ten seconds.
By this point, the other aliens had realized Summer was out of the bubble and carving through their ranks like a murderous gale. They shot at her, and their bullets hit nothing. She slashed at them, and their flesh tore open. The last Muton put up a better fight than its brothers, but even it couldn't kill what it couldn't touch. Summer teleported back and forth around the brute and slashed at its unguarded sides once, twice, three times before leaping high above her opponent, bringing the full weight of Wandering Thorn down on its skull and splitting it in half.
The Huntress still had a few seconds on the clock, so she channeled her Aura into her sword as she swung at the last remaining Outsiders, bifurcating all four grunts with a razor-sharp wave of energy. The power faded a moment later, and exhaustion quickly took its place. She doubled over and gasped for breath, panting as the cost of her heroic actions finally caught up to her.
When she looked over at where the little girls had been cornered, she was relieved to see that only Ennis was there. The Recon Agent didn't seem all that shocked or impressed at her otherworldly display, though he did give a slight nod towards her.
"Impressive as always, Sierra. Let's keep moving."
Willing away the fatigue that was already building in her blood, Summer nodded and started following Ennis down the road, swiftly taking out small enemy patrols and avoiding the larger groups that moved in formation. Whenever a hastily-formed squad showed no signs of moving out of the way, it fell to the Huntress to quickly and efficiently clear them out, drawing their attention while the Recon took advantage of the chaos to slip past the alien attackers. Valiant attempts were made to save the lives of innocent people caught in the crossfire, but more often than not it wasn't enough. Not even Summer was fast enough to save everyone, and every face that stared at her with empty, lifeless eyes burned itself into her memory.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to each life she'd failed to protect. Men, women, children. They all weighed on her heart equally.
Ennis said nothing as they moved, giving no indication that he even recognized the corpses as anything other than dead meat. As the silence between skirmishes intensified, Summer began to wonder if that was a deliberate choice on his part. Pima had been his home, after all - and as horrifying as it was to see so many lifeless faces, she could only imagine how much worse it would be if she could tie a name to each one.
When she asked him if he was okay, his response was haunting.
"That depends on what we find in my house."
Journeying to the Cole household was not an easy task. The fires of war seemed to burn brighter and hotter the further they ventured, until even the suburbs became lawns of blazing flame ignited by stray plasma bolts. Summer had to use both of her remaining "Aura Shots" in the space of ten minutes: first to get the drop on a half-dozen heavily armored Mutons, and the second time to rescue a man and his tiny daughter from a burning gas station. Each rush of power felt less euphoric, and each wave of exhaustion after the effect wore off hit harder. The last feat of her Semblance in particular drained her more than she thought it would, leaving her coughing and wheezing and tasting blood in her gums. Still, she'd been able to get the pair out of their dire situation without too much trouble - and not a moment too soon, as the building exploded into a massive fireball seconds after she reappeared with her passengers in tow.
The girl looked up at her with wide, trembling eyes. "Are you...an angel?"
Despite the stabbing pain in her ribs from breathing too hard, Summer laughed softly as she ruffled her admirer's hair. "Something like that," she panted.
"Sierra. Let's move."
Summer sighed and looked at the man. "Will you be okay from here on out?"
"We'll manage," he said tiredly, "Thank you. You're doing the Lord's work right now."
I sure hope so, thought Summer as she nodded and ran the opposite direction, over to where Ennis was surveying the area. "How much further?"
"We're almost there," said Ennis stoically. "Just another street corner to round. From here, the house looks intact...if Ann and Kevin stayed there, they might still be okay."
The Recon moved out without another word, forcing Summer to push her legs into moving once more in spite of the fatigue. Gods, she was tired. Whatever was keeping her Aura suppressed really didn't like being overruled, not even for a little bit, and saw fit to punish her hubris with pinpointed exhaustion. Her bones felt like they were filled with lead, her arms trembled and struggled to hold her gun, and even the mere act of breathing felt like a chore. Still, she pressed on, willing herself to keep moving no matter how much it hurt.
And by the gods, did it hurt.
She collapsed onto one knee as a small house with a white picket fence came into view, her body overruling her will and demanding a rest. Seeing as her companion didn't even seem to notice her fall, she reluctantly complied, sitting there in the grass and working to catch her breath. Silver eyes watched as Ennis crossed the street at a full sprint with a revolver in one hand, bashing the front door of the house open with the other. He disappeared inside, leaving Summer alone in the grass with her thoughts.
"Ann? Kevin? Where are you?"
Summer looked down at her radio. Apparently Ennis was still transmitting, either unaware that his radio was locked to broadcasting or unconcerned. She shrugged, reached into her power pack for a canteen, and took a long nourishing gulp of lukewarm water. Any other time, she would have spit it out in disgust. Right now, she felt like she was drinking the Elixir of Life.
"Ennis? Ennis, is that you?" A new voice joined the conversation. A woman's, most likely Ann's.
"DAD!" A young boy's voice came next. Definitely Kevin's.
A rare chuckle escaped Ennis's lips. "Oh thank goodness...I thought I'd lost you…"
"Where've you been this whole time? Have you been fighting the Reds? Is this attack because you killed so many of them they wanted revenge?"
"Kevin, please, you know your dad can't talk about that…"
"It's fine, dear. I'll explain everything, as soon as we get someplace safe."
Summer forced down the last of her water and lowered her newly emptied canteen just in time to see something that made her blood freeze.
The Sectopod, emerging menacingly from the wall of a nearby house.
"No…" she whispered, as if the alien tank could hear her. "...don't."
The four-legged walker ignored her plea, as did the hunting party of about two dozen Outsiders that followed it. The footsoldiers formed a perimeter around the Sectopod as it prepared for mass destruction, spooling up its front-facing cannon and aiming it directly at the Cole household.
"I said don't!" Summer roared, rising to her feet and drawing the HEAT Launcher off her back. But by the time she could aim the explosive weapon at the alien menace, it was too late.
A burning river of plasma tore through the house.
"NO!"
Her cry was drowned out by the shrieks of alarm pouring from the radio and the hissing of superheated gas as it melted through steel, wood, and concrete all at once. The Sectopod pivoted until the barrage of emerald energy cut through the entire front half of the house, leaving an ugly burning gash in the idyllic family home. Seemingly content with the carnage, the pilot finally powered down the main cannon...only to launch a salvo of crimson rockets that reduced the rest of the house into a pile of burning rubble.
The radio screeched one final time, then only static noise filled the air.
Summer's ears screamed in her head as the world around her went silent, a soundless sea of deafness engulfing her and her strained cries of agony. Without waiting for the noises of battle to return she fired her launcher again and again, sending every warhead in the revolving chamber flying into the Sectopod. The canopy exploded in a shower of blue and green flames, but Summer didn't bother stopping to watch the spider-like machine collapse under its own dead weight. She was already running forward and drawing Wandering Thorn and slashing at the Outsiders that swarmed her, sending limbs and blood and hot angry tears flying as red like roses tinted the edges of her vision. The battlefield, her sword, the aliens, her cloak. It all bled together into a swirling mess of colors and fury, rivers of violence flowing into a sea of rage with no borders, no restraint.
No mercy.
"Sierra!"
A voice cut through the tinnitus and reached her ears. One that came from behind her. She ignored it. She didn't want to stop. She couldn't stop.
"Sierra!"
Her sword arm was grabbed by something strong. Firm. She whirled to glare bloodshot daggers at whatever had dared to touch her, and prepared to draw a literal knife when she suddenly realized who was trying to reach her through the fog.
Carter.
A heave wracked her chest as she felt her vengeful second wind fade, leaving only a sorrowful shell behind. Summer dropped her sword and fell into the arms of her squad leader, who caught her and held her tightly. The chattering of guns off to the side told her that the rest of the squad had rejoined her and went to work, swiftly eliminating any Outsiders that had managed to escape her blood rage while she sobbed and shuddered in Carter's grasp.
"I-I tried to…" she wailed, dripping with blood that wasn't hers and tears that were. "I...I couldn't save him. He wouldn't listen to me, he was in the house when it…I...I…I did everything I could…"
"I know," shushed Carter gently. "I know you did. It's okay. You're okay."
As Summer finally broke down in the arms of her squad leader and emotional anchor, she felt the farthest from "okay" she'd ever been.
The hours after Ennis's death were grim and somber.
While Summer rested on a burnt-out lawn with a half-eaten chocolate bar in her hands and Silas slithering around her like a trauma blanket, the rest of Strike Three had gone out on patrol. The attack seemed to have revolved around the Sectopod acting as a relay for the Mosaic network, with Field Commanders who survived the mutiny guiding the troops in Axis's absence. So with the key targets taken out the team of Agents conducted a thorough sweep of Pima, both to eliminate any disoriented hostiles and to find any survivors. Based on the chatter that poured in over the radio, though, they were finding plenty of the former and none of the latter.
"Report, team. What have we got?"
"Four Outsiders bagged and tagged in a grocery store on the west side. No civvies...no living ones, anyways."
"Caught a few Sectoids hanging around the front of a school on the east. Checked a few rooms. Nothing but bodies."
"Took care of a Muton in a field not far from Echo's house. Found two corpses, one adult male, one small female. Looks like they got caught in the open."
Summer didn't think she had any tears left until she heard that last report from Commisar, but suddenly found a fresh new batch to cry. She hadn't saved anyone...and even her successful rescues just delayed the inevitable. Guilt clung to her heart like a stubborn thorn, one that stuck fast and hurt with each continued beat.
After a long while of listening, she finally clicked the radio off and curled up into a ball, trying to disappear into her blood-stained cloak. Silas cooed and rubbed against her cheek to make her feel better, but the Huntress was inconsolable.
Another silent eternity passed in just a few hours, and eventually the remaining men of Strike Three gathered around her with bags under their eyes and blood on their uniforms. Commisar began fiddling with his rifle, Knox pulled out a wad of chewing tobacco and popped it into his mouth, Carter lit a cigarette and held his radio to his ear, and Adam picked through the wreckage of ruined houses looking for something - anything - worth saving or salvaging.
Knox took a seat next to Summer, casting an exhausted but sympathetic look to her. "You feeling any better, Sierra?"
The Huntress shook her head. "Not...really," she said truthfully.
"Well, that's good at least," said Knox with a shrug. "I'd be more worried if you were alright after seeing all this shit. I knew guys in my platoon back during the Korean War who'd try to bottle all that up and never talk to anybody. They were usually the first to break under pressure."
Summer nodded in understanding. "We had people like that on Remnant, too. There was one Huntsman when I was a first year at Beacon who was convinced the best way to keep the Grimm away was to try to feel nothing at all. He didn't talk about his feelings, didn't share his problems with anyone, didn't even really stay close to his team. One day he walked into the Emerald Forest and just...never came back. It was a wake-up call for a lot of people about how stressful the job would be...myself included."
Knox may not have understood all the details, but he knew the intent well enough. He laid a hand on Summer's shoulder. "Things ever get this bad back home?"
She shook her head. "Nothing on this scale. What about you? Was Korea anything like this?"
The old Commando hummed for a moment, then spit out a mouthful of black tar.
"Compared to this? Seoul might as well have been a playground."
Summer curled up into a little tighter ball.
"Don't feel too bad about Ennis," said Commisar as he piped a cleaning brush down the barrel of his rifle. "You did everything you could. Not your fault he was an idiot who got himself killed. He was on his way to working himself to death in the Editing Room anyways - this saves us the paperwork, at least."
Silver eyes stared in horror at the Recon who was entirely too casual about the death of another human being. "How can you just say that? He was your strike lead. Your friend."
"Those don't necessarily mean the same thing," replied Commisar. "In my line of work, you learn not to get too attached to people. Pretty high chance of 'occupational hazards,' if you catch my meaning. Ennis might have been my CO, but he was still a reckless bastard who broke rank and made us split our forces. We might've been able to save more people if he hadn't needed you to babysit him."
Summer couldn't deny the truth to the Recon's statements. It hurt, but it was true all the same.
The conversation was cut short by Carter walking back over to rejoin the group, stowing his radio and adjusting his hat with a heavy sigh.
"Well? What'd the Director say?" Adam stood up from his pile of ash and soot, dusting himself off as he stood at attention.
"Faulke says that if the battle's mostly finished, there's no reason to expend more resources," said Carter. "He'll have salvage teams go to the crash site, see if they can get some of the steel for our own use. Might be able to finish our own spaceship in a month, depending on how much of the stuff is usable."
Knox nodded. "And what about Pima, sir? What are we gonna do about...well, all of this?"
Carter took a deep breath, and for what felt like the first time, Summer thought she saw something unusual flash in the man's steel blue eyes.
"...Erase it. All of it."
Summer's blood ran cold.
The other men tensed up slightly, but nodded without another word and fell behind Carter. The Huntress stood up with shaking legs, staring at her squad leader in confusion.
"Wh...what does that mean? Carter, what do you mean 'erase' it?"
"Torch it. Raze it. Burn it to the ground." Carter looked back at Summer. "What else could it mean? Big Sky, circle on back to our position. Get the flamethrowers and masks ready. We're gonna run a Clean Slate on the town before we leave."
"...understood, Whiskey. Headed your way now."
What the hell? Even Barnes was on board with this?
Had everyone lost their minds?
"W-wait! You can't!"
Silas slithered off her shoulders as she marched forward with righteous fury, anger blazing in silver eyes. The rest of the squad stopped and wisely stood aside, letting Summer stomp straight up to Carter until they were within kissing distance. Not that either of them had that on their minds.
"You can't just - this is what the aliens wanted! They wanted this place gone!"
"They wanted its people gone, Sierra. They succeeded. There's nothing left here except burning buildings and rotting corpses. And by the time we're done, there won't even be that left."
"But why? Why are we destroying it after everything we did to protect it? This doesn't make any sense!"
"People can't know what happened here. If folks wander out here and find alien corpses and plasma guns, they're gonna start asking questions. Questions that the Bureau doesn't want them asking, because that makes it harderto do our job. So for now, any evidence of the war has to disappear...including dead towns in the middle of nowhere that no one will miss."
Summer gaped for a few moments, before turning to the other members of the squad in desperation. "You...you can't all be okay with this! How can you be okay with this?!"
Adam cleared his throat. "Strategic Operations Field Manual, section forty-three, subsection 'c,'" he recited from memory. "'In the event that a target area of operations has been compromised or otherwise poses no strategic value, a squad leader reserves the right to incinerate any and all evidence of conflict, up to and including official documents, damaged structures, civilian corpses, and even entire city blocks, at their discretion.'"
"It's standard procedure," added Commisar. "Like Whiskey said, we can't have people wandering in from out of town and seeing plasma damage and dead bodies. Plus, burning the whole place down is faster than digging a mass grave for the civvies. More sanitary, too."
Even Knox nodded with a guilty expression on his face. "Look, I don't like this part of the job either, Sierra, but it's better this way. It's easier to explain a fire than it is to explain an alien attack, and we can't just leave these corpses behind to fester and rot. We gotta dispose of the remains and cover up what happened here - it's the least these people deserve, after all this."
The arguments were sound, but Summer didn't want to listen. She shook her head in disbelief.
"But...but…" she protested, "...this...you can't just raze an entire town to the ground! W-we should do another sweep, keep looking for survivors and - !"
"Dammit Summer, that's enough!"
Everyone turned to face the source of the outburst. Carter, who almost never raised his voice at his troops. Carter, who rarely ever broke field communication protocol. Carter, who in almost all circumstances kept a calm head and wasn't one to let his emotions get the best of him.
Carter, who was glaring daggers at Summer while red in the face.
"Open your eyes, for God's sake!" he shouted. "There are no survivors! If there were people still alive in this hellhole, we would have found them already! This whole damn place is a ghost town now, a monument to a war that history will insist never happened. We need to make sure it stays forgotten like the rest of what we do - and if that means covering up the signs of battle with fire and ash, then so be it. Now if you're done rubbing your bleeding heart all over your soapbox, then stand the fuck down! This is not your world, so quit acting like you know what's best for it!"
All of Summer's counter-arguments died in her throat as she did her very best not to cry, settling instead for pulling her hood over her face and stepping back. Knox and Adam looked at her sympathetically, equally as surprised at Carter's verbal assault as she was. Commisar just narrowed his eyes as he pulled a body bag out of his power pack, walking over to the remains of Ennis Cole's house and stoically digging through the rubble to find enough of his Strike Leader's corpse for transport.
The Skyranger came down in a whirlwind of sound a few moments later, touching down gently as the ramp slid down. Barnes had a sour expression on his face as he wheeled a cart down into the street, one that contained tall red lockers covered in hazard labels. Carter walked over and threw open the first locker, revealing a flamethrower mounted inside the door with secure bolts. Other equipment lined the locker shelves, including extra tanks, a mask that completely covered the face, and a flame proof jacket.
Summer approached her locker, looked at the contents, and hesitated. She cast a quick glance to the others, who were already pulling on their coats and masks with tense silence. Even Barnes opened the last locker with a heavy heart, grabbing the gear meant for Ennis with none of his usual joy or charm.
The silver-eyed Huntress took a deep breath, thought back to her conversation with the little girl who would never get a chance to grow up, and slammed the locker shut without grabbing anything.
Carter looked over to her, almost towering over her in full fireman gear. The pilot light on his flamethrower was already lit, and his expression was hidden behind a visor of smoky glass. She sighed as she turned to face him.
"...I know I said I'd follow you no matter what that alien artifact turns you into…" Summer whispered harshly, squeezing her eyes shut. "...but I don't know if I can follow this."
There was a long pause, filled only by the sound of Carter's breathing filtered through the mask. When he spoke, his voice was muffled by the filter, though the disappointment and venom were crystal clear all the same.
"If you're not gonna help, get on the damn chopper."
Despite her best efforts, a single tear slipped down her cheek as she pushed past Carter and marched up the ramp. She took a seat with rage, sorrow, frustration, regret, and a million other emotions swirling in her heart, and did her best not to weep bitterly as the town of Pima went up in flames.
Like everything else today, she failed that too.
(A/N): *inhuman zombie writer noises*
This chapter...this chapter was an absolute bitch to write. I struggled with this thing for two whole months, partly due to burnout from the other updates (protip: do not write over 40k words in the span of one month - your body will grow to hate you and hate writing in general) and partly due to the darker tone I wanted to capture. I went through at least two different outline ideas for this one before I finally settled on what you just read, and even this was a challenge for me and my sugary-sweet disposition. I find that when I'm having fun with the story, when I'm writing about stuff like Summer being a badass lady who loves all her friends and makes Carter's heart do backflips, it's easier for the words to flow and the ideas to come. This, though? This chapter was just flat-out not fun to write, precisely because of how much darker it is than the rest of the story and because I had to carefully balance the horror and emotion without veering into "Warhammer 40k" style grimdark territory. It was taxing, to say the least.
Yet I don't regret writing it this way. I needed a grim reminder of what the war is like, as well as showing just how limited and outclassed the good guys are this time around. Whether I've succeeded at that point is up to the reader's interpretation, but it would feel like a disservice to not at least try to acknowledge it. XCOM at this point in the lore is not a globe-spanning, internationally funded Black Ops unit that can deploy supersoldiers in powered armor anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat. It's an underground resistance movement against an enemy with morality completely unlike ours, similar to XCOM 2 at the outset but with even less technology and no flying fortress. Not every battle ends in a victory, and when faced with a foe that has everything to gain and nothing to lose, there's going to be suffering and collateral damage. Plus, after writing them getting the thing they needed to finish the secret weapon, I knew I had to have the heroes lose to reaffirm what's at stake here. The Bureau's "story" is (barring the twist towards the end) a series of uninteresting shooting galleries where Carter and friends win all the time and respawn from the last checkpoint if things go wrong, and I knew going into this fic that I wanted this retelling of that story to be...well, anything but that.
Now, the good news is, things are looking up from here. The coming chapters are things that I've had in my mind for a while now, ranging from a few months to literal years worth of planning, and they're nowhere near as dark as the Pima Incident. If all goes well, we should be able to wrap up the story in less than a dozen chapters, and hopefully every single one of them will be easier for me to write than this one was. Stay tuned, I hope you enjoyed this newest installment of Summer Declassified, and as always, keep being awesome!
