Please remember to favorite and follow!

"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is, and get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on."

~Ulysses S. Grant

Chapter Seventy-three: Sororal

"What in the everloving name of Jesus Christ is happening down there?" Gallant clutched the rail in one hand and his cane in the other, staring at the screwballing holodisplay full of static and ghost images bouncing off each other. "I thought they disabled the damn jammer?"

"Another one's firing up, sir. A mobile one." Lily didn't look happy. "Looks like an aircraft inbound from Wales on a search sweep, jamming external frequencies."

"God damn it." Gallant fought the urge to get more colorful. All eyes were on him still, and men took their cues from the idiot in charge. If he gave in to panic now, everyone would be on edge. "Any idea what happened before the relays cut out?"

"Lot of shouting." Bradford at least didn't sound any happier than Gallant felt. "Julian?"

"I'm reading at least one plasma discharge signature. One of our men has opened fire."

"Great." Breathing steadily was hard, but he'd manage somehow. "Peachy. Uh..." What were the priorities? Comms were down, so he couldn't micromanage whatever was going on. He didn't have access to fire support or anything. Avenger was essentially unarmed.

Under pressure, you've got two choices: get wrapped up in what you can't do, or focus on what you can. God, how many years had it been since West Point? Gallant hadn't thought about his old captain in a fuck of a long time.

So, what can I do?

"Central, bring us in on the LZ."

"Sir?" Bradford paused. "We don't know what's happening down there–"

"Exactly. The team will still be pushing for the evac zone in the absence of further communications. That alien ship is inbound, and I'm not leaving anyone behind. We move to the LZ, drop lines, and winch up anyone who makes it in time."

"Sir, we've got less than five minutes until that UFO reaches us." Lily glanced at her tracking console. "Four."

"Then we'd better move fast." Gallant turned to the holodisplay. "Julian?"

"Commander?" That voice would never not be creepy after the Tower, but at least the red-faced hard drive had his uses.

"Any chance you can remotely access that ship's systems?"

"My familiarity with Advent software gives me an 87.234 percent chance of –"

"Kickass. Consider it a directive. Blind them and vent the power core coolant in the command section."

If Julian had a human face, it would almost certainly have turned disbelieving. "Not going to have me access the core and detonate the ship?"

"Too risky. They'll have their strongest defenses on the power systems, but no one cares about the coolant vents. Won't kill any of them, but it'll keep them busy and deplete the ship's supply. Won't be long until they have to skip on back home for a pit stop."

"Clever." Bradford chuckled under his breath. "That's why you're in charge."

"Why, because I was the annoying kid in science class? Don't get too appreciative; odds are this will only work once. Angelis isn't stupid, even if she's ugly." Gallant turned his attention back to the scrambled transponder beacons and in-and-out smatters of broken communications. "And if you can kill that jammer, Julian, you'd be my favorite homicidal AI outside of Ultron."

"Fucking–" Meysam crashed on his side, covering his head as blue plasma fire rent a hole in the corner of the building. Slag and smoking masonry sprayed over him, and he yelped, flicking red-hold bits of stone off his face.

"Fatima!" What Anne had seen, Meysam hadn't, but it coincided with another plasma shot and that was enough for his stomach to drop. His gauss rifle was back in the clear ground, lost when he'd dived out of the way of "Nui's" shot, but he had the Shadowkeeper. He yanked it out and held it two-handed, forcefully reminded of old cop shows for an odd minute. Funny, how the human brain scrambled under pressure.

"Nui?" He swore, keying his com a few more times. "Fuck." He leaned around the corner. "Where's–"

"Get back!" Hands seized the back of his armor, and Meysam tumbled on top of his attacker.

Another plasma shot ripped a chunk out of the wall. Molten masonry dripped down to the pavement, and Meysam gulped.

"Thanks, Father." He clambered to his feet, brushing dust off his arms.

"Of course, my son." Giovanni checked his machinegun, and wasn't that an odd choice of equipment for a literal priest? "She has managed to scatter us all. She's keeping watch from the high ground."

"Fire escape, I'd imagine." Meysam bit his lip. "Do you know how everyone else is holding up?"

"Your major was hit, and the medic is with her now. I believe Anne is guarding them in case the impersonator attempts to advance. I got Yue under cover with Elias, and now I'm here with you."

"Great." Meysam made sure his safety was off. "Alright. Someone's got to keep that faceless' attention while someone else goes for the kill."

"She's too high up. You'd need your rifle." Giovanni patted his grenade launcher. "I used my last frag two days ago."

"But you've got bullets, right?"

"Some." He shrugged. "I have a mag and a half."

"That's enough to get her attention." Meysam nodded, heart racing. "Try and pin her down, but don't get killed. I'll go up and engage from the–"

Clink!

"Oh." Meysam stared at the green, blinking cylinder. It rolled across the pavement until it touched his foot, nuzzling it almost gently. "Shit."

Kablam!

"Meysam!" Anne covered her head as the plasma grenade went off, blowing the entire alleyway behind the department store to shreds. Who else had been back there with him? They were gone now, they had to be–no one could have escaped that blast.

"Is she going to live?" Anne shot a glance over her shoulder.

"Fuck you." Fatima actually tried to stand with a glowing, smoldering hole blown in her uniform. "I'll shove that rifle up her ass–"

"Stay down!" Aileen nearly straddled Fatima, spraying medical nanobots on her wound. She paused to tap buttons on her arm computer, and her GREMLIN obediently dropped to deploy an anasthetic injection. "That shot might have grazed your lung. I've got to deploy an internal scope and figure out whether you need a fusion treatment–"

Light. Anne threw herself flat before she had a chance to think, and a blue beam shot over her head and bored into the hood of a car down the street.

"Damn it!" Anne generated her shield, covering herself and the impromptu medical drama as best she could when the car cooked off, smoke tearing into the sky and flames billowing over the street. A tire bounced off her shield, and then the steering wheel, separated from the column.

Roars and cries in the distance. Between the plasma grenade and the car...

"We're gonna have company." Anne lowered her shield. "LZ is four blocks away. No way we'll make it under fire from her and trying to deal with a Lost swarm."

"She can't walk, not even with the EXO." Aileen paused to literally backhand Fatima. "Stop trying to push me off, dumbass!"

"I'm not dead yet–"

"You will be if you don't let me coddle your sorry butt." Aileen did clamber off Fatima, but only to take her arm firmly. "Anne, you've got to do something about our mimic up there. I'll get Fatima to the LZ if you can give me a distraction."

"Uh...um..." Anne wasn't half the Templar Janet was. What would she have done? Invert positions with False Nui, maybe, and have Aileen blow her away. Or she'd have created a shade clone of herself and sent it screwballing out over the open ground to draw fire while she flanked. Anne had never been able to do either.

"Right. Um..." Anne drew her autopistol. At least it was better than the one she'd used pre-XCOM. That hadn't even been magnetic! "I'll get her attention from downwind. When you get the window, get out while you have the chance. Hopefully our friends have the VIP somewhere safe."

"Are you sure about this?" Aileen ignored Fatima's beginning protest to hoist her up like cargo.

"No. You'll know when to move." Anne ducked low behind the brick half-wall marking the edge of the street, autopistol held two-handed. She shuffled along until she found a nice, thick column, and she cautiously straightened, back pressed against it.

"Okay. Okay." She sucked in a breath. "One for the money, two for the show..."

She spun, popping out from behind cover. She brought her autopistol up, hitting the trigger almost before she'd sighted in.

Blam-blam-blam-blam! Unfortunately, her clip was about the size of her ex's sexy bits. Her mag-rounds rent the ancient fire escape and smashed glass on the run-down and cracked window behind her, but there weren't many of them. False Nui ducked behind the rail, not that she even really had to–none of Anne's rounds even came close.

Then the mimic popped back up, and Anne pivoted back behind the column.

Blam!

"Fuck!" Anne dropped her fresh clip halfway through reloading. The column shook behind her, and dirt and dust fell from the impact. Were the bricks hotter than they had been? Maybe this full cover wasn't as full as she'd thought. Forgetting the clip lying by her boot, Anne fished out another one and shoved it into her pistol, racking the bolt. At least she had a fuckton of spares.

"Hey, bitch!" Anne popped out again, firing a quicker burst this time. The mimic threw herself flat, and Aileen jumped from cover, scurrying toward the LZ as fast as she could. Anne let up, waiting with half a pistol's worth of mag-rounds–

Nui's plasma rifle appeared over the rail. Anne hit the trigger before thinking, and there went the other half of her clip: wasted on nothing organic and vulnerable.

Blam!

"Shit, dammit, fuck..." Anne dropped flat, even though the blind shot hadn't come anywhere near her. She ejected her empty mag, scrambling for the one she'd left on the ground. "This is nuts. This is suicide." But Aileen was out there and defenseless, so Anne shoved the new clip in, then popped up on one knee.

"Yes!" Her shriek probably attracted more Lost, but so what? Her snapshot had actually hit the bitch! Faceless goo flew in a brown spray from her shoulder, and False Nui's face contorted.

"Whoa!" Anne threw her arms in front of her face, summoning her psionic shield to absorb the next blast of blue energy. It dissipated out to the sides, heating up her arms and face even though the barrier...but it didn't break through. Anne bared her teeth, bringing her gun up again–

Wham!

Anne choked, clutching at the scrawny forearm wrapped around her neck. The Lost Dasher heaved her backward, scratching at her armored shoulder and trying to bite. Anne lost her grip on the autopistol, and her heart stopped as it fell.

Straight into a gutter.

"No...no!" She drove her elbow into the Dasher's stomach, but it didn't even seem to feel the pain. Anne yanked at its arm, but its limited intelligence was all in on choking the life out of her. Air...

False Nui, taking her time to line up this shot with the most evil smirk playing over her face...

Blam!

"What the hell is happening back there?"

"Fuck if I know. Sounds like Lost." Aileen eased Fatima down against a wall. She examined the red hole rent in her chest again. "Losing a lot of blood. We need to get her back aboard ship, and pronto."

"Evac point is four blocks away." Barta was here, at least, with Yue and Elias. What had happened to Meysam and Giovanni? Where was Real Nui? Hopefully everyone who was still alive could make for the ship. If they didn't...

"I can walk, Annette." Fatima glared through the haze in her eyes.

"Yeah, I'd believe you a lot more if you remembered my name." Aileen fished out another injection. "Hold still. It'll help with the pain."

"I'm not afraid of pain–" Fatima yelped when Aileen thrust the needle right into her arm. She fished out a quick-seal bandage, and by the time she'd finished pasting it down and activating the clot-assembling nanobots...

"I thought you were giving her a painkiller." Yue frowned.

"I said it would help with the pain." Aileen hoisted Fatima on her shoulder, heedless of her gentle snoring. "She isn't hurting if she's sleeping, eh?"

"I guess–"

"Elias!" Aileen scrambled for her plasma rifle as his shotgun blurred. Oh, God, he was turning it on her–

Blam!

"Jesus Christ, kid!" Aileen covered her head one-handed as yellow slime exploded over her like the worst shower in the world. "A little warning?"

"I just saved your life!" He worked the pump, hunting for another target. "We can't wait here. They'll catch up sooner rather than later."

"Right." Aileen ground her teeth, then keyed her com. "Anybody copy? We are pushing for extraction now, morons. If you're dick-boxing with the Lost, shut the fuck up and get a move on. I'm already carrying one of us out, you're fucked if you expect me to carry your ass too."

"Motivating." Yue fished in her bag, pulling out an old kinetic handgun. "I hope your extraction is close."

"If not, I'll haunt the shit out of Central." Aileen turned for the road. "Alright, let's not sightsee any more than...than..."

"Captain Quinn!" From the road ahead, Barta snapped her mag-bullpup into position, sighting in over Aileen's shoulder. "Step away from her!"

"Who are you?" cried...Barta, from Aileen's left. She aimed at her twin, clutching her weapon so hard it should have cracked. "What in the world is happening?"

There was a problem. Anne wasn't dead.

But was that really a problem?

"You son of a bitch!" She opened one of her gauntlets, nearly slicing the Lost behind her in two. Its fragments flew away, legs still running and arms still beating at the ground, and Anne couldn't help whooping. "Meysam!"

"Funny thing about this suit? It has a grapple line." He didn't have his rifle anymore, but from his position on the far rooftop he recovered that line in a flash, and what about the result! False Nui stood frozen, literally–doused in the extract from the Viper King's venom sacs. How long would it hold?

With a roaring report, a blast of blue light hit the ice-encrusted impersonator from behind. The blast ripped right through her, blowing her gun from her hands and sending her toppling from her fire escape in a spray of shards...and brown goo that fell like rain in a wide cone. By the time False Nui's body reached the ground, she was nothing but slough.

The impact was more of a plop than a crunch.

"Duck!"

Anne didn't need to be told twice. She threw herself flat, rolling behind the wall and covering her head. The Lost charged, hundreds strong–

Blam-blam-blam! Blam!

Laser blasts ripped into the crowd, felling three or four targets with each well-placed headshot. Meysam must have taken Giovanni with him when he grappled, because the priest opened up from the same roof. Heavy caliber machinegun bullets tore into the Lost crowd, and the Shadowkeeper roared in tandem with the assault.

"You fell for that impersonation?" Nui spat in the remains of the Faceless, pausing to eject the elerium core from her plasma rifle and shove a new one in place. "She didn't even get my nose right!"

"Thank God you're here!" Anne scrambled up to one knee, kicking shattered Lost body parts left and right as she vaulted the wall again. "Was that Aileen on coms?"

"Yeah, something something calling us morons." Meysam took a moment to slide down the first ladder he could find, and Giovanni hurried in his wake. "Sounds like we need to move. Things just seem to keep getting worse."

"Don't say that. It's not going to help." Anne froze as more Lost cries echoed through the streets, harsh and full of hunger. "Damn it, Meysam!"

"Hey, how was I supposed to know?" He swept his discarded rifle from the pavement. "I'll dig in on the rooftops, while you–"

"No!" Anne waved them off harshly. "Get out of here, for fuck's sake! Aileen called the retreat. Get to the evac point!"

"What about you?" Giovanni hesitated, while Nui and Meysam traded looks.

"Me?" Anne inhaled softly as the Lost appeared: racing and rushing from the alleys and surging toward the sounds of battle with inhuman cries of lust. "I'll meet you there. Don't worry about me."

"There must be a hundred of them–"

"Trust me, I've got no plan to die today." Anne didn't even look over her shoulder. "I won't say it again. Go."

In the end, misgivings or no, they were professionals. Meysam couldn't help but sight in and fire a mag-round that ripped through three of them, and Nui swore under her breath, but they did turn and hustle for safety.

"Go with God, my child." Giovanni sounded like he was administering her last rites.

Anne couldn't help but laugh. Last rites? Against only some hundred Lost?

The first dashers nearly caught the rest of the team, thanks to their hesitation. Anne's psi-blades came out in a flash, and she carved through half a dozen with as many strokes. Their putrid flesh offered no resistance, and her psionically-enhanced reflexes were more than a match for their shambling swings and faltering grabs now that she was prepared. She impaled one on each gauntlet, pitching their corpses into the throng to trip up their followers.

"A hundred to one." Anne bared her teeth, raising her psionic shield to absorb the first wild tackle that actually came close to landing. The Lost rebounded like he'd hit rubber, and he lay on the ground still with his head caved in from the impact.

Anne's laughter was the only sound louder than the Lost's manic charging cries. "I like those odds."

"Nobody fucking move!" Aileen pointed a finger at the newcomer Barta, and Nessie hovered angrily over her shoulder, electricity shooting from her emitters.

"Captain, she's a faceless!" The Barta at her side growled deep in her throat. "Let me take the shot–"

"She's the faceless!" The other Barta took a threatening step. "Drop the weapon–"

"I said nobody fucking move!" Aileen snapped her fingers, and Nessie's emitters crackled even more dangerously. Both Bartas froze as Elias turned his shotgun on one, and Yue her handgun on the other. "Fucking shapeshifters and fucking faceless and for fuck's fucking sake, fuck!" She kicked at a dismembered Lost foot. "I am not paid enough for this shit..."

"What do we do?" Elias twitched as more Lost screaming rang out from behind. "They won't be long getting to us. We don't have all day."

"Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on, kid." Aileen spent a moment fishing left-handed in her pocket. It was awkward, but there was no way she was setting Fatima down when the enemy was so close in so many forms. Finally... "Okay, here's how we're gonna do this. You!" She pointed at the Barta closest to her. "Take your gauntlet off. The ripjack one."

"What are you talking about?" Targeted Barta stared behind her helmet. "Why do you have a knife?"

"This is what I like to call the Faceless Identification Protocol." Aileen hit the switch, and her pocketknife popped out, glinting in the sun. "Jane and I cooked it up. Faceless don't have bodily fluids, right? If I cut you and you bleed, you're real."

"You're joking." Target Barta started to ease back. She froze when Yue took a threatening step toward her, gesturing aggressively with the gun. "You are not cutting me with that."

"You can cut me all you like, Captain." Other Barta removed her gauntlet, holding out her hand. "I have nothing to hide."

"Sounds like that answers our question." Aileen cocked her head at Target Barta. "Are you admitting to being the faceless?"

"I do not like blades." Target Barta gulped audibly. "There must be another way."

"There probably is, but I'm not smart enough to think of it on the spot. Besides, I like this option." Aileen leveled the knife. "Give me your hand, bitch."

"Captain, that is clearly our enemy. You may test me first if it proves recalcitrant." The other Barta raised her bullpup, aiming at her double. "The real me is not afraid of blades."

"You don't know anything about the real me!" Target Barta lapsed into a long and very dirty-sounding string of Advent. "Captain..."

"Your hand." Aileen took another tentative step, wondering if burying the knife in faceless-Barta's jugular would accomplish anything if she turned hostile. "If I cut you and yellow comes out, we're good. If I see faceless goo..."

"You will."

"I didn't ask you!" Aileen glared at Other Barta. "Hold your damn breath. If you're Barta, you've got nothing to worry about."

"Except the maniac who wants to cut me with a knife." But Target Barta did slowly lower her bullpup. She reached for the fastenings on her right gauntlet, unbuckling them one by one before holding her bare hand out. Her eyes never left the knife.

"Looking pretty suspicious about now." Left-handed, Aileen set the knife against her sable, alien-textured flesh. "You're supposed to be a Skirmisher, you know. They've got a lot more to be afraid of than the odd cut. What kind of excuse was that?"

"It was not an excuse–" Target Barta yelped as Aileen, fast as lightning, drew the knife back. It slid over her palm, cutting a line across it–

Blam-blam-blam!

"Major!"

Crash! Bang! Thud! Blam!

"...what..." The first thing Aileen registered, oddly enough, was that she'd kept her grip on Fatima throughout the entire process. Someone had...someone had tackled her, but she still hadn't dropped her cargo. That was worthy of the gold in the Field Medic Olympics, wasn't it?

"Who's hit?" That was...that was Barta. Target Barta, up on one knee and aiming around with her bullpup. "Where is it?"

"Over here!" Elias paused, then his shotgun roared again. Faceless goo blasted up like a fountain. "Sorry. Thought it twitched. Can't be too careful."

"Well, don't apologize." Aileen groaned. "What on earth happened?"

"It knew its cover was about to be blown, so it seized the opportunity to try and eliminate you and Major Tariq." Barta held out her hand. "Would you mind, since you did the damage?"

"You..." Aileen couldn't help herself. "You're afraid of knives?"

"I am also afraid of needles."

Control. Think stern thoughts. Don't–

Aileen burst out laughing.

"Hi, team."

"Jesus Christ! A zombie!" Aileen leveled her plasma rifle. Anne scoffed.

"Please, I'm twice as hot." She threw a severed Lost head at the Specialist's feet. It thunked on the deck of the barge they were using as an evac point, rolling until Yue had to step lively to avoid it. "Everyone, meet Steve. He was the only one who actually hit me, so I thought I'd bring him back and pickle his head as a souvenir. Pretty sure Dragunova can help me. Reapers are fucked up."

"And what are you, now?" Meysam stared with something akin to wonder mixed in with his horror. "There must have been–"

"I lost count somewhere around sixty. A hundred was probably close to it." Anne shrugged. She regretted it a moment later. "Fuck! My shoulder..." She massaged it. "Anyone got water? I'm parched, I ache, and this is the wrong time of the damn month for me to be out here hurting myself. I want a fucking donut."

"Hold up." Aileen eyed her very seriously. "We had a bit of trouble with faceless today, so..."

"Seriously?" Anne pulled back her bangs, wiping at her forehead. "That's where Steve got me. Fingernails, of all things! It was nasty. I need it sanitized."

"Yeah, yeah. Fine. You're bleeding, you're real." Aileen still reached out and took some of Anne's blood on her fingertip, watching to make sure more dripped out of the cut before relaxing. "Can't be too careful. Wouldn't put it past 'em to smear some red on just to fool us."

"Consider yourself lucky." Barta glowered at Aileen. "She cut me."

"Oh no, a cut." Anne dropped to a seat against the rail, groaning. "I'm gonna need to get my armor toasted in the engines. It's supposed to be purple, not freaking yellow and green with Lost guts. I don't even want to think about how many diseases I've picked up today."

"Good work, team. Avenger beginning descent."

"Oh, thanks, Central. Couldn't have done it without you." Anne did make sure her com was off before snarking–she wasn't suicidal, whatever Steve had to say. She pushed up, fighting her protesting, screaming, abused knees, and swept up her new friend. The faint roar and thrum of elerium engines filled the air, and a dark shape loomed above the clouds.

"Sorry about calling you a bitch." Aileen didn't look at Barta. "And laughing. Just...tense."

"You cut me." From her tone, Barta would never forgive in a thousand years.

Avenger's bulk emerged from the clouds, settling in overhead. Anne covered her ears as the roar of the engines built, but it didn't help much. It helped less when she had to let go and take the line that dropped from the hangar bay in both hands. Aileen held on with one, teeth set while Fatima hung limply across her back.

"Morning, assholes!" Firebrand waved as the winch kicked in, hauling them up from Lost-town and toward the comforting embrace of their very techy mobile home. "How was the day trip?"

"One: fuck you." Aileen stuck her tongue out as soon as her feet hit the deck. "And two: fuck you even more."

"That's Moose's job." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. Cameron paused, pulling the music buds out of his ears.

"I don't know what she just said, but I deny everything." He put a hand on his heart as if swearing in a court. "I had nothing to do with it."

"Smart man." Anne chuckled. "Yue, this is Lilah. She's our dropship pilot, though without a ship right now."

"Not for long!" Firebrand seized Yue's hand. "Nice to meet you. Hey, have we met before?"

"I highly doubt it. I think I'd remember." Yue chuckled. "Scratch that: I'm sure I'd remember."

"I like getting that reaction from people." Lilah waved across the hangar. "Oh, there's my other best friend. She's the serious one." She paused. "Anne, what the hell is that?"

"This is Steve." Anne held up the head. "He's my new boyfriend."

"Jesus. I thought black widow was a figurative term." For once, Lilah looked nonplussed. "Uh...well, okay then. Um..."

"There you are. Liang!" Aileen groaned, depositing Fatima on a waiting medical stretcher. "Can you take charge of the newbies? That's Elias and Father Giovanni–yes, Father, as in..." She paused. "Uh...Liang?"

"I..."

Anne frowned. "Lieutenant?" She studied the frozen Grenadier very intently, before turning to the object of her gaping. "Uh...Lieutenant, this is–"

"Yue." Liang's face was sheet-white, as if she'd seen a ghost. "Yue."

"My God." Yue's hands both covered her mouth. "You're alive–"

"You're alive–"

"What." Anne stared as they both nearly tackled each other at the same instant, bursting into tears in each other's arms. "Uh..."

"Should I be concerned?" Lilah eased a step toward Cameron. "Liang?"

"No, no..." Liang didn't let go of their new arrival. By the look of her, she didn't ever want to. "This is...I thought..."

"You thought wrong, then." Yue chuckled, deep in her throat. "You always did jump to conclusions...sis."

Author's Note Seventy-three: Templar + Bladestorm + Lost = Free XP

Sorry for the delay. Road trip and vacation last week, had no access to my writing machine, so I got very behind. And you won't believe me, but then my wife's car died in an intersection and I've been running around trying to get it fixed(she's okay). Very, very sorry, but here I am again. Hopefully no more delays next week, but I'm not fool enough to promise that, sorry.

This moment is an organic one that happened without any player intervention in my campaign with Liang and Cameron(yes, they were bonded soldiers in one of my ironman runs). I happened to rescue a VIP named Yue Liang, and in true XCOM fashion I just couldn't help but fill in the gaps on why and what. Go back to Chapter Thirteen: I set this up over a year ago. Stupid delays...

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.