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"Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership."

~Colin Powell

Chapter Twenty: Beyond Human

It was cold. It was dull white, too, with shades of gray to break up the monotony, lit by overhead fluorescent bulbs that might have come from the 2000s.

Edward Gallant's breath misted in front of him, every time his shaking chest rose and fell. He leaned on his cane left-handed, barely feeling the chill as it dug into his bones and burrowed under his skin. It was one of those things that should have mattered, but it somehow...didn't.

Before him on a gurney lay Sophie Weber, still marred by those horrible fang marks.

"Figured I'd find you here, sir."

Gallant sighed. "Central."

"Commander." Bradford settled into place at Gallant's side. Together, they observed the German for a long moment, equally somber.

"It's my fault," Gallant muttered.

"That's not true."

"Damn right it is true. If I had ordered her to pull back into the group, or sent someone to reinforce her..."

"Things happen fast. One man, even a commander, can only do so much."

"Then what am I even here for?" Gallant knew he sounded bleak, but the corpse before him was a powerful depressive.

"You give us a fighting chance," Bradford muttered.

Gallant's insides might have been warmer than the morgue, but then again, they might not have. "Do I? Do I really?" He reached out to put a hand on Weber's still shoulder, and it brought back the whole chain of faces: Mendoza, Nunez, Larsen's teammates, the other soldiers of the Old War, Army Rangers in Iraq...

"Sir, you're a masterful strategist and a capable battlefield tactician. But no one's perfect." Bradford shifted his weight, leaning in on the corner of his CO's vision. "We all make mistakes. You're not God."

"When I drop a stitch..." Gallant swallowed, tightening his grip on Weber's uniform. He didn't think he had to finish the thought. "God." He turned the name over in his head. "Tell the truth, John, but I don't know that I believe any more."

"Why?"

"All of it." Gallant couldn't bear to look at the young woman - the corpse - anymore, and looking at Bradford was out of the question. He eyed the far wall without seeing it, shivering. "Advent. The elders. Losing the war."

"People have lost wars before. That doesn't mean-"

"Humanity lost the war," Gallant snapped. "Surely He wouldn't have..."

Silence. Neither man spoke for long minutes.

"Have you talked to the chaplain?" Bradford finally asked. Gallant shook his head.

"To what point and purpose? Everyone on the ship would know in ten hours that the Commander was in the confessional, too. Morale would drop."

"Morale's not so fragile as all that-"

"Have you been paying attention to any of this?" Gallant demanded. "The crew's morale hangs by a thread, John. You and I are the rocks holding them together."

"Your morale hangs by a thread," Bradford corrected, which made Gallant stiffen. "With all due respect, I think you need to look beyond your own pain a little more, sir."

"Meaning?" Gallant knew it came out through clenched teeth, but he couldn't help it.

"Meaning every man and woman on this ship is a volunteer, and they all knew what they signed up to do. Meaning that while Mendoza, Weber, and Nunez were all their friends - and Ramirez and Osei too - they've lost friends before joining XCOM." Bradford shook his head. "Sir, they're not close to breaking. It would take a lot more than this to accomplish that. It's your faith that's shaking."

Gallant listened to the faint drip...drip of a minor coolant leak. Or maybe there was a patch of ice somewhere that was succumbing to nature. It was cold, but not that cold, not with the Avenger soaring over India. Climate control was all well and good, but not even the aliens could-

Woolgathering, Edward. Gallant took a slight breath.

"What do I do?" he asked.

"Have a little more faith," Bradford urged. "Trust our people a little more. You're not the only one responsible for whatever happens, good or ill. Sergeants White and Quinn are professionals, and they were capable soldiers even before they joined the team. Not to mention Dragunova!"

There was one name he didn't drop, and Gallant's nostrils flared as he took the responsibility. "Kelly."

"...Kelly." Bradford shifted his weight again. "Sir, she's one hell of a soldier. I couldn't have gotten you out of Paris without her, and she's only improved."

"But?"

"But." Bradford's eyes darkened. "What are you going to do to her?"

"Well..." Gallant didn't exactly want to mention the thoughts coursing in the depths of his mind, as he thought of the sergeant's obscene insubordination. "I've had a couple of ideas. Between you and me and..." He couldn't bring himself to mention the corpse in so callous a way. "Between us...what would you do?"

"Me?" Bradford's jaw tightened. "Bust her back down to corporal, sir. Or transfer her to Shen's grease monkeys, or the supply packers."

"Generous, aren't you?" Gallant wondered. "Trying to temper my worse instincts?"

"I know your first thought would be to run her off the ship, sir. While she's airborne."

Gallant's lip curled. "And also my second, I'll admit."

"Sir..." Bradford hesitated. "We could use her skills for the war."

"Yes," Gallant admitted, without hesitation. "But she's a discipline problem. If I don't give her a suitably severe fate, others will be tempted to echo her actions. I can't let her off the hook that easily."

"Commander-"

"Sir!" The door burst open. Gallant turned a hair faster than Bradford(who looked remarkably unhappy), and he was the first to see Lily Shen, poised in the doorway with a big grin.

"Yes, Chief?" Gallant frowned. "What's got you so chipper?"

"Sir, we just received a burst signal," Shen said. "It's from a handheld transmitter operating on the Resistance network. Set up in southern India, sir."

Gallant abruptly stiffened. "Draguonva?"

"Yes, sir." Shen's grin only widened. "They recovered Mox from the prison. Richardson was hit, but she's in good shape now and expected to make a full recovery." She hesitated. "Sir, I took the liberty of ordering Firebrand to pick them up-"

"Good man!" Gallant clapped her on the shoulder, leaving her perplexed in his wake as he energetically thumped by. "Finally, some good news!"

"You're joking!" Bradford looked like he'd taken a crowbar to the stomach. "You're..."

"I'm what?" Elena Dragunova lounged in her chair, across from Commander Gallant's desk, rather surprised to be holding a glass half-full of red wine. She'd barely gotten in and saluted before he'd shoved it at her, chortling the whole while.

Honestly, it somewhat unnerved her. He was happy. Why was Gallant happy? He looked like a sectoid who'd just mind-controlled a haven leader, or a hungry viper who'd broken into a preschool. Something positively nasty had occurred to him, and he was in a spell of rare high spirits. Screw somewhat, and screw unnerved too. Elena was outright scared.

Of course, given what she'd had to say about her mysterious rescuers, even his cheer had started to dampen into incredulous shock too.

"Chilong..." Gallant shook his head slowly. "Haven't heard that name since the Old War."

"Sir?" Elena tilted her head. "You do know this man?"

"Did. Past tense." Gallant blinked slowly. "He has to be pushing seventy, at least...more like eighty. He was in his fifties in Shanghai..."

"His name is Shaojie Zhang," Bradford supplied. "A former Triad operative whose boss came into possession of an alien transponder beacon. We...still aren't entirely sure how. Zhang didn't even know when he offered it - and his services - to us."

"Did you do anything exciting with it?" Elena asked. Gallant shook his head, but Bradford remained pensive.

"There wasn't time," the Commander replied. "Too many other things-"

"With respect, sir..." Bradford coughed. "Doctor Shen took it when we escaped the base. The Shens and I pulled it off the shelf a few years ago when we realized it could be used as a lure to draw an alien ship in to an area of our choosing."

Gallant's jaw dropped. "You used it to get the Avenger."

"Shen senior had to modify it a bit, but yeah." Bradford glanced around. "Always wished I could pat Zhang on the back, buy him a round, and take him on a tour of what his generosity wound up giving us."

"There were others with him," Elena said. "Two women, three men."

"Describe them." Gallant observed her closely.

"Two of them must have been siblings. Egyptians." No recognition flitted through her audience's eyes, so Elena continued. "An American, blond, with the manner of a sniper." She hesitated. "They didn't...their eyes were normal, but something about them seemed psionic."

"Did any of them have amps?" Gallant asked. Elena shook her head.

"Certain low-level psionic abilities can be used by the Gifted without them," Bradford argued. "At least, that's what Vahlen always theorized, before the base fell. It's possible they uncovered those base powers even without specialized equipment - or that theirs operates differently. Implants, maybe."

"Fair." Gallant nodded. "The others?"

"I didn't see much of the heavy with Zhang, but he was Argentinean. And the woman..." Elena shook her head. "She was perhaps forty-five, but still quite spry and agile. She had witty eyes, intelligent eyes, purple eyes...a pronounced French accent. She was their medical specialist, but she radiated power in a way not even Julie does. She didn't have an amp either, but I was positive she was a psionic."

Now she saw acknowledgment in her commanders' faces, and she didn't like the way their lips thinned. Elena shifted her weight, taking a little sip.

"Is this...something I can ask about?"

"No." Bradford's voice cracked like a gunshot. Gallant didn't argue, and Elena accepted her defeat.

"Very well. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"Not at the moment." Gallant leaned back. "Or, not directly. If you could find Doctor Tygan and have his staff detail someone to help you write up a full after-action report-"

"I have a handwritten one here." Elena produced a sheaf of notes. "It may be hard to read, but-"

"That's spectacular." Bradford took the documents, reaching for his reading glasses. "We'll send them down to Tygan's people when we're done with them."

"Yes. Thank you, corporal." Gallant paused. "As soon as we've sifted through all of this, expect your sergeant's stripes."

"Sir." Elena was entirely more comfortable discussing aliens and gunfire than promotion. "Is that a dismissal, Commander?"

"Yes, corporal." Gallant didn't rise when she did, but Elena remembered his cane in time to not get offended. "Get yourself some rest. And let the infirmary staff know I'd like an update on Julie's condition as soon as they can spare the time to send it."

"Oh my god." Gallant leaned back in his chair the instant Elena left the room, and he stared at Bradford through wide eyes. "I don't believe it. I don't believe it."

"It's easy to see how Zhang might have gotten out of the base," Bradford observed. "He was core to a lot of our field ops, and the man could probably fist-fight an old muton, at least back then. He ran the boxing ring and ruled it."

"You two never matched up," Gallant reminded his XO. "I'd have paid good money."

"Never thought it sounded fair, beating up an old guy." Bradford paused. "I wonder how many of the kids refrain from hitting the ring with me on that logic?"

"Zhang escaping the base: possible. Even probable. I never thought about it, but now that the fact's been shoved in my face, I should have expected he'd gotten out." Gallant rubbed his chin. "The Argentinean she mentioned. Do you think..."

"If you suspect Marcel..." Bradford trailed off. "Sir, I think that's entirely likely, too. A soldier of his experience would have made it out all right if anyone would have - and it's possible he and Zhang paired up to blast their way out. They usually deployed together."

"And those energy weapons she described sound a lot like Vahlen's early sketches of laser-based weaponry." Gallant felt a kindling stir of hope. "Maybe..."

"Sir, most likely they got out with prototypes or documents and did their best to copy them and fill in the holes."

"But there was a base that Vahlen was using, not far from India," Gallant pointed out. "You were there. What if they regrouped with her and tried to form their own resistance? Zhang said they were XCOM."

"We can't afford to become certain of anything right now." That Bradford was steering Gallant away from Vahlen and hunting her down was obvious, and he almost snapped back. Unfortunately(fortunately?), Bradford distracted his attention with another key point. "What about Annette, though?"

"Annette." Gallant picked up a pencil and rolled it thoughtfully between his palms. "Tell you the truth, John, I assumed EXALT had finished her off since support obviously never came in."

"I tried to find her," Bradford said. "I had the same thought. But she was all the way in Nigeria with nothing but a sidearm, and we were at base in the US. And I had to shepherd the Shens. By the time we got there, Annette's cover had obviously been blown and EXALT was all over the area looking for her. I assumed they'd caught her too, and got my group to safety." He snorted. "Sometimes I wonder what the EXALT people thought, when they finally met their alien friends for the first time. EXALT formed the nucleus of Advent, I'm sure, but I know the aliens executed their entire leadership group first to make it clear who was in charge."

"But if Annette escaped them..." Gallant chewed on that thought. "Those others. She mentioned others several times."

"You're thinking she found Zhang and Marcel, and the three of them rescued her former fellow abductees?"

"Do you have a better theory?" Gallant leaned back. "That explains where this team of six came from, though how they've managed to operate without anyone in our group hearing even a whisper for twenty years would be more than I'd be prepared to guess. Then again, Vahlen clearly managed it." He didn't explicitly draw the connection again, but implicit connections had a value all of their own.

"Maybe." Bradford must have noticed, but he soldiered on without acknowledging it. "It doesn't explain how Zhang, Annette, and the others could rescue Dragunova so well."

"It's possible they spotted Firebrand when she was coming in," Gallant suggested. "Or heard the ruckus at the facility and moved to investigate."

"Possible, though that doesn't clear up why they were in India to start with. It's a big world."

"And coincidences do happen," Gallant reminded. "Others, of course, are made to happen, and we might want to consider that Annette or her friends might be able to affect the minds of some of our people. They could have plucked information from the Avenger in passing as we flew by, or from Dragunova's team during the insertion, without getting all too close. Armed with that knowledge, they might have decided to stick around and see what happened, especially if they figured out that you and I were their leaders."

"Possibly." Bradford turned the idea over in his head. "I don't want to get too...tinfoil -y, but it's possible." He took a breath. "I'll look into it. Maybe Volk and Betos know more, or can help us learn."

"Do it." Gallant contemplated the ceiling for a moment. "But not yet."

"Sir?" Bradford frowned. Gallant chuckled humorlessly.

"There's someone waiting outside we should probably deal with first. Bring her in."

It was dark, save the omnipresent green glow. It was still, save the gentle rumbling in the floor. It was quiet, save for the faint hum from below and aside.

And except for the faint sniffling tears.

Evangeline Moreau huddled in the corner of a glass tube - only it wasn't really glass, not with how hard she'd hammered on it earlier in the day. It surely would have broken, and she'd been quite prepared to risk the damage to her hands.

Part of the darkness, she knew, was the lack of her glasses. Everything was fuzzy and indistinct, but she could tell she was at the center of a darkened facility that gave literal meaning to the phrase black site.

In spite of herself, that thought made her almost want to smile.

Idiot! She twisted her head down, covering her eyes in a flash. What's funny about any of this? You're going to die, Evangeline, and you're sitting here thinking up crackpot puns?

Her own words came down like the strikes from a lash, and Evangeline's eyes burst with tears again.

"I'm going to die," she whispered, not for the first time. The rumors she'd spent her life dismissing came back into her head: experimentation, torture, vivisection...

She'd never believed. Evangeline had been barely ten when the aliens came and the Old World's governments assailed them under a flag of truce. Her father had never been resigned to the occupation and Advent, but her mother had thought it all marvelous.

World peace, she'd enthused many times. No more senseless wars...ever again.

And so Evangeline Durant had grown up in a Paris that answered to Advent, in the nexus of the coalition's affluence and authority in Western Europe. She had friends who worked for Advent. She'd interned with a base commander once, before she had gotten her current job!

But there had always been the rumors, even after she got married, and now she was certain that she shouldn't have dismissed them out of hand.

She sat naked in the dark, on cold metal and surrounded by clear walls, weeping and hugging herself.

She wished for Henri. She wasn't a little girl any more, and couldn't climb into her mother's lap when she wanted everything to be better, but her husband was almost as good comfort. She desperately wanted to be back with him, and with their son.

He'll never know what happened to me, she thought. I just...vanished without a trace.

Funny. Despite the uncountable days of her captivity, it wasn't until that moment that Evangeline finally made the connection between her current plight and the spate of disappearances. In fact, the connection was enough to make her pause, eyes widening.

No, she thought. No! That's not...there's no way they could take that many people...it's those terrorists...

She stopped. Using that word to describe people who fought against Advent suddenly no longer seemed respectful. In fact, this quiet Parisian whose wildest dream was to be a housewife and caring mother suddenly found herself wishing to be caught up in a "terrorist" raid.

"There's no guarantee they would save me," she reminded herself. "They're criminals. Mercenaries. Raiders and pillagers...they'd see me like this and..." Her hand rose to the base of her throat, and she shivered.

She thought of Nathan again, and a very dark, very terrifying thought presented itself to her.

"They examined me," she muttered. "They checked all my genetics...it was at the clinic that I was taken. What if they found something about me...something genetic..."

It took every ounce of her self-control not to fling herself to her feet. Evangeline had thrown hands and shoulder and feet at the clear wall long enough to know it wouldn't break. She couldn't get out that way.

But I will get out, she swore, and her fuzzy gaze hardened. I'm not going to die, not when Nathan could be next. I'm going to survive, and I'm going to find my way out of here.

She clenched her fists and teeth. Evangeline Moreau dug her nails into her palm, and searing worry and rage morphed into icy determination.

I'm not going to die.

"Kelly."

Jane looked up, then hurriedly stood. It was a crappy stool they'd left sitting out before the Commander's office, but any seat was better than none, so she was in two minds about whether she missed it.

"Central?" She made sure to sketch a salute.

"He's ready." The old man's eyes were hard. "Come on."

"Sir." Jane didn't suppose a protest was going to make this any easier. She squared her shoulders. "Yes, sir."

Her boots fell on Avenger's heavy plating. Her insides churned as she cast around for some method of escaping Gallant's wrath. He didn't strike her as a lenient man, and she had told him...

But there was nothing. She couldn't run, and she couldn't argue or fight. All she could do was face her future and her fate with spine straight and chin turned up.

She passed Bradford, and then she was in the dragon's lair.

"Sergeant Kelly, Commander." Bradford hung in the doorway. "Present for disciplinary action."

"Sir." Jane saluted as crisply as she could this time, trying to stay impassive as the battered man across his desk eyed her very seriously. He reached for his cane, but instead of rising he laid it across his lap.

"I see this." Gallant nodded. "That will be all, Central."

"Sir..." Bradford didn't sound happy, but Jane didn't dare look. "Sir-"

"Trust me, Central: if she still has her sergeant's bars when she walks out of this room, she's all yours." Gallant's gaze hardened, and Jane suppressed a gulp. "That will be all, John."

"...sir." Bradford sounded imperfectly resigned, but Jane supposed he could read the signal flags in Gallant's eyes even better than she could, with their history. That frightened her, because she saw hurricane warnings, even purely with her amateur's view. Bradford had a reputation as a hard-ass when it came to the wire on military discipline, but this was different.

Nothing had ever frightened Jane Kelly as much as the whoosh of the door sealing in the XO's wake.

"I would go over what's come between us, but I think you remember as well as I do." Gallant leaned back. "Not just on the ground in Southeast Asia, either: I still remember the wake of Sweden."

"Sir." Jane didn't trust herself, but her temper stirred. Unwisely, she relented to it, just a hair. "I did what I thought was right."

"Of course." Gallant scowled. "Because that's what soldiers are for. Judging what's right and suborning their leaders' directives."

"Your leadership didn't save Mendoza or Nunez." Jane's lack of self-trust had probably been wise, while it lasted.

"Watch yourself, Sergeant." Gallant's lips thinned. "I'm not a patient man."

"Yeah, that's obvious." Screw it. Jane couldn't see any way she was getting out of this office without a discharge or so severe a punishment she'd wish for one. If she was getting kicked off the ship, she'd damn well earn it. "You're reckless, aggressive, and generally pissy. Sir."

"Am I?" Gallant didn't fly into a rage, but she saw sparks in his eyes. Jane's lip curled.

"Bradford promised us a Commander who could defeat Advent. Instead, we got you."

"Poor you." Gallant's grip on his cane might have tightened. "Not interested in stroking my ego to save your place on this ship?"

"I've seen how you treat Shen, and Tygan. Even Central!" Jane shook her head. "You act like he's your friend, but you don't trust him. No one can steer you off your anger without an effort worthy of Hercules. Your temper will tear you to pieces before all's said and done, sir, that and your obsessions and self-loathing."

"You're pushing a dangerous line," Gallant warned, and there was a heavy undercurrent in his tone. "Be glad John's not in here. He'd have put you through the window by now."

"I don't care!" Jane leaned forward on Gallant's desk. "Mendoza didn't have to die, sir, and neither did Nunez or Sophie. Maybe if you'd listen to others, take your medication without a brawl, recognize your own limitations-"

"Limitations!" Okay, that had done it. Gallant's voice went up in that one word, loud enough Jane flinched, her trail breaking off. The Commander's eyes blazed with full-on fire now, sparks a distant memory. "Don't lecture me, Sergeant! You have your list, but I have mine!"

"Do you?" Jane rallied as quickly as she could, clenching her fists. "I lost everything to Advent! All my friends, all my family! And I'm told we have a chance of winning, and it turns out-"

"Get a lid on it!" Gallant ordered. Jane's eyes went wide as his cane shot out, rapping her firmly right over her heart. "Why don't you pause for a minute and...and..." He coughed. "Think about something other than your own..."

"...sir?" Jane wavered on her feet as his offensive sputtered out. She waited as he put a hand to his chest, squeezing his eyes shut. "Sir?"

Silence, save Gallant's heavy breathing. Jane hesitated, watching him struggle to get air in. Her eyes flicked across his desk, until she spotted a little container full of red pills.

Oh...screw it!

"Sir, is this..." She grabbed the container, popping the lid with shaking hands. "Here!" She pulled a pill and grabbed his free hand. "Sir-"

Gallant grunted. Jane let him wrench his hand away, and she waited while he dry-swallowed the little tablet. For another minute he struggled, but gradually Jane watched color return to her CO's face, and his shaking evened out.

More silence. Jane almost called for Tygan and the medical team, but she wasn't sure...

"You're lucky, Kelly." Gallant coughed one more time, sucking in a deep breath through his nose. "Your friend blew up God knows how much X4 mere yards away from you, and you walked it off. Then there's me."

"Sir..." That flabbergasted Jane. "How do you know-"

"There's things called personnel files. Look them up. In fact, I have one of my own if you need bedtime reading." Gallant massaged his chest. "We're both dead men walking. Or, dead women." He glanced up at her. "You don't have to tell me I don't belong here, or that I'm not the man for the moment. Trust me, I heard all of it from people I knew a lot longer than you, after the ambush that..." He tapped his heart. "That did this."

Jane blinked. "I always thought...maybe it was a chronic something. An illness."

"Illness?" Gallant looked quietly amused. "No, Sergeant. I was a freshly minted Major, shipping out from Basra to Baghdad to meet with some high-and-mighties." He shrugged. "IED by the roadside. My driver saw it before anyone else. Tried to swerve. Probably saved my life, but it didn't do anything for him: he took the blast instead of me. The car upended." Gallant sighed. "I think I did the same thing you would have done. I didn't know where my M4 had ended up, but I had my sidearm, and at least a few men were in the hills, opening up as soon as the mines went off."

"You crawled out," Jane surmised. "Tried to fight back."

"I got two shots off. They missed." Gallant's smile was bitter and crooked. "Watched half my unit go down. Probably the worst military disaster of the year. Got to cover behind a humvee's engine block...right as someone's grenade landed on it." He seemed to slump. "Jumping wouldn't have made a difference. I just dropped my gun and closed my eyes."

"Sir..." Jane hesitated. "How'd you survive?"

"I don't even know," he confessed. "Next thing I really remember is a hospital in Alabama. Doctors, medication...physical therapy." He rubbed his face. "Penny Ferguson - one of the nurses - attached herself to me. She was with me until the end."

Jane blinked. She shifted her weight back and forth, mulling over words. In the end, she didn't have to deploy them.

"You think I don't get it?" Gallant asked, voice low. "I got my whole team of Rangers killed. Before the accident, people were saying I was the next Pershing...or the next Eisenhower. He made it substantially higher than Commander, you know. I could have too, if you listened to them." Gallant's shrug was almost imperceptible. "Then I couldn't fight any more, and I got quietly put out to pasture, until Shadow Man found me. Can't help...always wondered..." He grimaced. "I always wondered if the Council actually cared about winning the war, or if it was all political theater. They gave their last line of defense a shoe-string budget and a crippled disaster of a commander, and acted all shocked when we couldn't hold the breach."

The thrum of Avenger's engines was the only noise.

"I get it, Kelly. I get the disappointment you feel when you look at me." His voice was empty. "I react to the mirror the same way."

Jane swallowed. "Sir...I'm not trying to be a roadblock for you. I just..."

"You just want to win. And you don't think I can." Gallant put his cane to the deck, and he rose with a grimace of pain. "Maybe I can't, Jane, but it won't be a matter of not trying." The form of address was far from lost on her, and she wondered if it was good or bad. "But we have to work together. I can't do this without my soldiers' courage and loyalty, and I'm what you have, for better or worse, on this front."

"I...I understand, sir." Jane nodded. "Would it be worth anything if I said I'm sorry?"

"My mind was made up before you walked in here. All you've done is reinforce, to my mind, that I've made the right decision."

Jane's eyes fell. "Sir. I understand, sir."

"Good. Take off your stripes."

Jane slowly reached for her sergeant's stripes, surprised at how painful it was. She'd come in here expecting to be demoted or dismissed...why was it so hard now that it was happening? She chewed on that thought as Gallant reshuffled some of the items on his desk, and she struggled to work the pin holding her insignia. She'd thought they were embroidered on most uniforms, but XCOM pinned rank badges in place.

Maybe because there's no point embroidering the uniform of a man who'll probably be dead in a week. Pins are reusable.

Gently, Jane Kelly set her rank badge on Commander Gallant's desk.

"Now what, sir?" she asked.

"That depends." Gallant clasped his hands behind his back, leaning on his chair. "What are you going to do?"

"Sir..." Jane swallowed. "Just because this came to a head between us, doesn't mean I won't keep fighting. I'll find a Resistance cell somewhere. Or a Haven that needs a guard."

"In it until the end. I admire that."

"I'll be rooting for you, Commander." Jane hesitantly raised a hand in salute. "Even if I won't be here to help."

"Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you?" Gallant's eyebrow arched. "Desertion, Kelly, is a worse crime than backtalk."

"Sir, you just..." Jane frowned. "I thought you were dismissing me."

"It was tempting." Then Gallant reached for her shirt, and Jane could only stare in abject confusion as he pinned something to it.

"Sir...sir..." Jane struggled for words. "That's a-"

"Congratulations, Lieutenant Kelly." Gallant offered his hand. "I think the point's been made. And I need your clear fighting skill at this time. Of course, I also can't forget that I owe you personally for Paris. Without you, I wouldn't be here to disappoint."

"Sir...I'm sorry, sir!" Jane knew it came out in a blurt, but she was having trouble keeping up. "And thank you, sir!"

"It's not all selfless," Gallant warned, as she took his hand. "You're a pain in the ass, Kelly, but I need more people who have the guts to tell me what it is I need to hear, even if I don't like it one bit." His grip was firm despite his ailments, and the glint in his eyes veered from friendly to anticipatory. "So here's the deal: you listen, you obey, and we put this mess behind us. And you feel free to privately express your mind to me if you need to. I'll promise to listen. Deal?"

"Deal!" Jane paused to frown. "But sir...did you tell Central-"

"I told him enough. I said if you walked out of here with a sergeant's pin, you were all his to discipline." Gallant had a fondness for crooked smiles. "Call it a practical joke."

"Sir, you are a bit devious." Jane shook as she released his hand and stood to attention.

"I try. And not just with John." Gallant saluted. "Now, let this be the end of it, and from now on, let's turn our fire on Advent. And Kelly?"

"Sir?" She waited. Gallant gave her a warning look.

"Don't you ever tell me to screw myself again, Lieutenant."

Author's Note 20: Timey Wimey Balls

I realize the assault on XCOM HQ was only made possible by the fact Annette was in alien captivity at the time. I realize Confounding Light and the use of Zhang's transponder come in May. I realize there's no conceivable way XCOM could have rescued Annette prior to the base assault, even with the psionic element out of the equation, since Deluge comes after it.

I just don't care.

It never made much sense to me that the base assault required super psi powers. It's an attack. The aliens could do it if they mustered the logistic strength and troop levels - the only reason it's a one-off is to avoid repeating the same level(on the game design front). Annette's requirement for the attack is a plot reason to explain that single-time event, rather than an organic reason for it, so I'm handling things differently in this story and saying Deluge comes before the base assault, but after Portent and Friends in Low Places, while Confounding Light and Gangplank could happen at any time at XCOM's discretion.

I just don't want you to think I don't know my XCOM because of these canon changes. To paraphrase another alien-fighting commander: "I recognize the main game canon has invalidated my plot decisions, but given that it's a stupid-ass canon, I've elected to ignore it."

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.