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"My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure."

~Abraham Lincoln

Chapter Seventy-nine: Code Black

Wind whipped the Avenger's upper deck, even with the craft hovering stationary above the Mediterranean. Glittering water shone only a few hundred feet below, stirred into choppy waves by the enormous antigrav drives protruding from Avenger's nose and stern. The sun beat harshly: too bright, too cheery and idyllic, compared to the topic of the day and the work set to begin.

"Though we have lost, and lost a great deal, we have not lost everything." Father Giovanni stood by the Avenger's flank, next to six symbolic caskets: full of nothing but personal mementos to be interred in the place of the bodies XCOM couldn't even recover. "Our friends may be gone, but their loyalty, their love, and their faith cannot be destroyed by the works of this world."

Pretty. Commander Edward Gallant leaned on his cane, feeling every year he'd biologically aged, feeling the twenty he'd spent in stasis, and then another few million besides. Pointless too. How many military funerals had he attended? How many chaplains had he listened to spout off about meaning, about love, duty, faith, and whatnot? It never calmed the widows. It never fed the orphans.

I suppose both will fall to me. Gallnt's eyes lingered on Lilah. Far from Firebrand, the brunette stood with her head bowed, dressed all in somber black without even a dash of her color and vibrancy. She had washed her hair, but it hung unkempt around her head, even its hue seeming dampened by the destruction of everything she held dear.

Gallant had seen his share of widows. He'd probably made just as many in his career. But if his heart went out to Lilah, what was he supposed to do about it?

I failed them. The thought branded itself in his brain, digging deep with fury unabated. I should have realized it sooner. I thought about calling the strike off, but I didn't. I didn't want to look weak, not after Kelly's challenge. Was that it? Who the hell knew? Now, because of my pride, six good soldiers are dead, and every one leaves behind friends and family in shock and mourning.

He was the wrong man for the Project. He always had been, and no one had ever listened when he'd told them. This was proof: the darkest failure of his career, even worse than Iraq, than Detroit, than all the Havens and Resistance bases he'd seen burning since he awoke. Worse than the Battle of the Avenger.

They deserved better. Gallant leaned hard on his cane, eyes burning. Better than me.

The soldiers watched him from the corners of their eyes. Some hid it better than others, but they all did. And why not? He was supposed to be better than this. Hell, when he'd led ADVENT forces in the field, he'd been better—who ever heard of an ADVENT company just up and walking into an obvious trap?

He'd been a better soldier for the enemy than for his friends, and the men under his command knew it now.

"…so lift up your hearts." Father Giovanni held his hands up for all to see. "As is written in the Book of Matthew, 'blessed be those who mourn, for they will be comforted.'" He laid his hand on the coffin of Cameron Rogers in absentia. "We will never forget."

No. Never. Gallant etched that promise into his soul, searing it into every dark corner of himself he could find. I will never forget.

Jane Kelly put her hands on her hips, eyebrow rising as she examined her new surroundings. "Irina…"

"It was the best I could find." Irina poked at the wall. "Look. A roach."

"I'm sure." Jane threw her backpack in a corner of the tiny, hole-in-the-wall flat her friend had saddled them with in the Toronto slum. "We're going to get eaten by rats, I guarantee it."

"That is what you have your blade for." Irina had also smuggled a pistol out, though hers was magnetic instead of plasma. She kept it hidden under her jacket inside a security-repelling holster—one of Shen and Tygan's designs for covert operatives.

"Sure." Jane tugged on her hat, sparing a glance out the window at the trash-coated, poorly-lit streets below. "The cities look worse than I remember."

"There is a lovely high-end neighborhood around the Gene Clinic." Irina shrugged. "You could always look for a flat there."

"Hell no. I like living." If ADVENT security was everywhere in the ghetto, it was omnipresent in the city center. "At least this flat doesn't have a camera."

"That is correct. I checked myself." Irina tossed an EMP grenade to herself. "And I have this if I suspect otherwise."

"Perfect." Jane leaned her elbows on the window, drinking in the stench of a twisted, broken city. Humanity on a leash, or perhaps thrown to the ground. A statue loomed not far across the road, depicting a sectoid pulling a human to his feet. Or, perhaps, abandoning him. Jane scowled on general principles. "It's been a long time since we had to deal with this, hasn't it?"

"Since you did. I had to endure a prison."

"Aren't you a ray of sunshine?" Jane let out a quiet sigh, breath misting in the cold air. Her eyes drifted skyward.

I hope they're doing well. Gallant could die in a fire, but the others…well, fuck Bradford too. He screwed Mariah over, and then there was his obscene loyalty to the dead man on a stick. I bet Liang and Cameron are being lovebirds with Lilah everywhere right about now! And what about Sylvie and Julie? They'll make great mothers.

Being gone felt strange. This had been Jane's life for a lot longer than it hadn't, but at the same time, so much had happened when she was aboard Avenger that it felt much more significant. In a decade, she had barely made a difference, and then all of a sudden, in less than six months she'd been part of some vicious firefights, made some deep friendships, maybe given Earth a second chance…

I miss them. That was hard to admit, given the circumstances of her departure. Jane watched people stream by on the streets, clearing the way as a cluster of ADVENT soldiers briskly advanced. But it couldn't have gone any other way.

Undoubtedly true. Gallant was what he was, and Jane couldn't bear to be around him. They'd fought constantly even before this latest change, so maybe her departure was the best thing for everyone anyway—

"Wait." Her eyes fixed on that cluster of soldiers again. "Irina, am I seeing things or is that a general?"

"Hm?" The Russian appeared at Jane's elbow, her blonde hair so much like Aileen's that a pang of longing shot down her spine. "Da, I believe it is. Why?"

"What's a general doing in Toronto?" Jane cocked her head slowly. "It looks bloodied too. Whoever they are, they just got back in from doing something exciting."

"And what of it?" Irina shot Jane a hooded glance. "We only just got here."

"We may not get another chance." Jane swept her plasma pistol out of her bag. "Stay here and set up. I'm going to see where this officer's heading off to."

"Just do it quietly!" Irina scowled as Jane hurried out the door. "Irish!"

Yeah, yeah. Jane scrambled down the stairs for the ground floor, holding her cap in place as she rushed into the street. Quiet, sure. I'm just tailing her, not blowing her to bits.

That part would come later.

"I'm so sorry."

"Chief…" Yue Liang wiped her eyes with one of Lily's tissues, sucking in a deep breath through her mouth. "It's just not fair."

"I know." Lily squeezed her fellow engineer's shoulder. "I know how you must feel."

"We were apart for so long. Then we found each other and…" Yue buried her head in her hands. "Why does it hurt so much? I'd resigned myself to being without her years ago, but now that she really is gone…"

"I'm sorry." What else could Lily add? She toyed with a screwdriver, tapping it in sequence across her deck. "It's my fault."

"What?" Yue blinked through her tears. "No. How is it your fault?"

"I should have rushed equipment designs through faster." Lily bore that weight, just like she'd borne so many others who'd fallen because she couldn't protect or arm them right. "I got complacent. I've got prototype concepts on file that I held off on because of the SHADOW Chamber's work. Any of those devices might have…could have…"

"You don't know that." Yue shook her head. "You can't know it."

"Maybe." Lily couldn't help a glance to the corner, by the power core. Her eyes traced repaired paneling, restored wiring, and a little dark patch on the floor that she knew had been cleaned a thousand times yet still stood out for no damn reason. Well, for one reason. "I know the pain of loss, though."

Silence lingered in Engineering.

"We can't bring them back, not even with the Elders' technology." Yue took one final sniff, shaking her head as if to clear it. "So what can we do to prevent this from happening again?"

"I don't know." But Lily turned to her terminal anyway. "Julian, bring up Projects Goliath, Crecy, Flak, and Tunguska. I want to know how close we are to actualization."

Pratal Mox strode quietly into the Infirmary, a cigarette between his fingers. He passed the nurse, her head down as she contemplated her work through the same dark cloud everyone else on the Avenger now wore around their necks. He passed the status board, the condition of the wounded displayed for ease of reference.

He stopped at the foot of one bed in particular, heart thumping quietly.

"Look who it is." Fatima Tariq nodded once. "Have a seat."

"Yes." Mox tentatively perched on the stool next to Fatima's bed. "Would you care for a smoke?"

"Actually, yes." Fatima held out her hand. "Thank you, alien."

"Please." Mox's eye twitched. "Do not call me that."

"Alright." Fatima clicked a lighter, igniting her little stick of tobacco and addiction. "I'm only teasing, Mox."

"Of course." That didn't make it any easier. Mox sighed. "How are you recovering?"

"I'll be fit to fight soon. Probably for the best." She shrugged. "Commander Gallant's going to need all his good people all of the time now."

"I had intended to ask—"

"Happened all the time in Vahlen's XCOM." Fatima blew smoke, heedless of the nurse scowling in her direction. "Chilong, Marcel, Annette, and my fellow Furies weren't her only operatives. We're just the only ones who survived this long. I can't tell you how many times Big Sky came flying back in with an empty bay."

"Oh." Mox studied his fingers—his artificial, alien fingers. "How do you move on?"

"Same as any disaster, I guess." Fatima sighed. "You just keep walking. You can't lose your faith in your friends, you can't lose your faith in the cause."

"I think…" Mox shook his head. "I think the faith I am losing is much deeper than those."

"Your loss." Fatima paused, as if to consider. "Well, it's really our loss. You're a hell of a soldier, Mox."

"I was built to be." What an awful concept. "Manufactured to slaughter. In another life, I easily would have been the one who cut Liang and Cameron down."

"No." Fatima scowled. "The Commander would have, using you like you'd use a gun."

"What are you implying?" Mox frowned.

"I'm implying jack shit. I'm straight up saying that the Commander was in charge of ADVENT forces when I lost my friends." That scowl turned darker, stormier. "Not Chilong, not my brother, but the rest of them. And I'm saying that the time in your life where you committed ADVENT's atrocities? That was him too."

"And?" There was more to her statement, even if she wanted a drag on her cigarette first.

"And." Fatima glared at Mox. "ADVENT wouldn't have walked into a trap like that if we'd set it. Convenient, isn't it? We rescue Commander Gallant, who turns out to have been hooked into ADVENT's network, and now we're getting our asses kicked. If Jane hadn't quit, how much do you bet she would have been on that op?"

"I imagine she would have." What relevance did that have to anything?

"I can't be sure until I can dig around." Fatima blew smoke past Mox's ears—his alien, genetically designed, never-human ears. "But I'm starting to wonder if Scapa Flow was a setup, Mox. A way for him to quietly dispose of Jane after she revealed his secret."

"You are suggesting…" Mox lowered his voice, shooting the nurse a worried glance. Fortunately, she was lost in her work, and he could breath a little easier. "You are suggesting the Commander is a plant? That does not make sense. If it was true, why would he have fought so hard with us?'

"I don't know!" Fatima sighed. "Maybe it doesn't make sense. But what else does? He screwed the pooch something fierce, and all I know is that ADVENT pre-Gatecrasher wasn't as gullible as we were in Scotland."

"That…" Mox turned the idea over in his head. "I do not like the implications of this line of thinking."

"Neither do I." Fatima sucked what was left of the cigarette out in a flash, tossing the bud to the ground with a flick of the wrist. "Neither do I."

Gallant sat in shadow, cane laid over his legs. His office thrummed quietly with the motion of the Avenger in flight, but nothing could bring proper life to the room.

"That concludes my after-action report on the Scapa Flow incursion." Precise, drilled, and formal, Gallant kept his back straight and his eyes forward the entire time. "In light of the supreme failures of command and control show during this action and before, sir, I tender you my resignation as Commander of the XCOM Project."

Quiet. Shadows.

Guilt eating away at Gallant from inside out.

"Commander." Shadow Man let out a long breath, his darkened form unmoving. "I do not see what else you could have done in the situation you described."

"Something. Anything." Gallant's eyes stung. "A Commander as good as you and Central Officer Bradford seem to think I am would have figured something out. Instead, you have me."

"In every war, there are defeats." Impassive, the darkened figure watched from Gallant's terminal, at once judge and spokesman alike. "You have endured costly victories, but never something like this. It is a test of the mettle of your organization."

"A test of my mettle, sir. One I failed." Gallant still refused to relax his spine. "I was never the right man for this job, and you know that as well as I do."

"That isn't true, Edward."

"It is, though!" Gallant slammed his hand on his desk. "Stop lying to me. I know the Council didn't pick me because of my combat record. They chose me because I was a failure who needed to be bundled off before he fucked up something that anyone cared about."

"That is exactly why you were originally sent to me." Unflinching as he made the admission, Shadow Man regarded Gallant levelly. "It is not why I chose you. Do you think you were the only officer a Council nation wanted to be rid of? I had dozens of candidates for the Project, each one more useless than the last."

"And you wound up stuck with me. The least-worst option, I presume."

"Hardly, Commander." Shadow Man shook his head. "There were also soldiers sent to me in good faith: generals and commanders with burnished reputations, veterans of dozens of wars with naught but victory to boast of."

"Why not one of them?" Gallant felt his lip beginning to curl. "We wouldn't be here if you had."

"No doubt. If I had chosen any of those men and women, the war would be lost already." Shadow Man leaned forward, intent in purpose and bearing. "I didn't want a brilliant tactician with a clean record. I wanted a man who knew what it felt like to be struck to the ground. Who knew not just the soaring high of victory, but the chill of defeat and the acrid, stinging, thankless chore of hauling himself out of the gutter after losing everything. I wanted a man who would not shirk the most Herculean of challenges laid before him. I knew there would be days of darkness and defeat. Our world had grown soft—there had been no major wars for half a century! So I needed a man that I knew could endure an enemy stronger than himself, and when I saw you, I knew you were the one. You alone, of all the men and women I vetted, were at once competent and vulnerable, strong and brittle. You had lost everything to an enemy that got the better of you, and yet you still stood, shaken and battered, but fighting evermore to remain in the thick of the action."

"Sir." A tear broke down Gallant's cheek, his voice coming in hoarse. "I've made so many goddamn mistakes."

"Of course. And any other commander would have made them just as well. Defeat is a part of war, Edward. And you knew what it was like to lose. Even breaking your body left your spirit unmarked. That is what I saw in you: strength and surety unyielding." Shadow Man leaned back, steeping his fingers. "Your resignation is not accepted, Commander."

"Sir…" Gallant let out a long breath. "I hope I can live up to the faith you hold."

"I have no doubt you will." Shadow Man gave Gallant a moment to compose himself. "Now, Commander, tell me how I can assist you in your war effort."

"Okay." If Gallant's voice came in husky, who could blame him? "Uh." He pulled up his terminal menu, trying to run through his list of materials and problems. "I'm down to eleven soldiers, with Tariq in medbay. I need more than ten effectives to maintain combat readiness, and ADVENT isn't going to let up now that they know they've got me on my heels. A force on the attack remains on the attack until repulsed by a suitably firm defense. I don't have time to train rookies up to standards. Surely the Resistance has some experienced personnel on hand?"

"Perhaps." Shadow Man seemed to consider. "I will look into this and get back to you with whatever I can find. However, in the meantime, I have at least one lead for you."

"Excellent." Gallant wiped his eyes, pretending Shadow Man wasn't pretending not to notice.

"There is a compound, buried deep in the jungles of Southeast Asia. It is called the Gray Market." Shadow Man typed quickly on a datapad, and sure enough, coordinates and identification codes popped up on Gallant's terminal. "The proprietor runs an organization that collects items and information about the aliens. Whatever supplies and valuable information you possess, you can likely barter there in exchange for equipment, technological samples and blueprints, or even perhaps experienced personnel."

"Mercenaries." Having worked with them before, Gallant didn't put a lot of love into the word. "If that's what it takes to hold the line…"

"I will contact you shortly once I have had time to work my way through my Resistance contacts." Shadow Man nods definitively. "Good luck, Commander."

"Good luck…" Gallant sighed as the connection cut out. "Still no such thing as a 'good-bye, Commander', is there?"

With a whoosh of psionic power, the ascension chamber did its work. Din Dourde strode briskly from within the vortex, her boots landing with hard thumps on the alloy floor of the Hunter's sanctum.

"Sir." She bowed her head respectfully to her master, leaning on the rail before his sarcophagus.

"You're a mess, General." The Hunter chuckled, drinking her in. "Did you wash up at all?"

"It was a long flight, sir." Dourde wiped at her breastplate somewhat self-consciously. Blood, Lost goo, and rubble still stained her once-gilded armor. "I spent it reviewing combat data."

"I see the bug's gotten into you." The Hunter drew his revolver, opening the chamber and beginning the cleaning process. "Things went well in Scotland. I'm very impressed. For once, an ADVENT officer made a plan more complicated than running in and shooting things."

"Thank you, sir." Dourde didn't bother trying to hide the giddiness his praise gave her. "And you performed well too, from what I saw."

"Well, that's a given, isn't it?" The Hunter flipped his gun, catching it by the barrel without looking. "I take it you're not fully satisfied?"

"You know me so well." Dourde's biggest regrets surface quickly. "Why wasn't Kelly there? I wanted her."

"Everyone does. She's got to be the third most wanted human on the planet, behind only Bradford and their illustrious cripple." The Hunter shrugged. "To be honest, I think that problem will sort itself out eventually. Kelly or no Kelly, we still dealt a heavy blow. And more importantly, it was fun!"

"Yes, sir. It was." Fun. What a deep concept, given Dourde had never given it real thought before the Hunter broadened her mind. "Sir, is that how you feel? The exhilaration of battle?"

"Exhilaration?" He cracked a wry laugh. "Only when pitted against a worthy opponent, General. Gallant may be a worthy match for you, but I'm still waiting for an equal gunslinger to me to enter the stage."

"Of course." Friend of sorts he may be, but at the end of the day, he was still a Chosen and Dourde was still merely ADVENT. "In any event, I'm grateful that you secured me this opportunity."

"And I suppose I'm grateful you didn't make a complete hash of it. It would have been so embarrassing to go back to Angelis after all that wheedling and admit my sister was right."

The teleporter blared. Dourde glanced over her shoulder. A moment later, she threw herself prostrate.

"I suppose there is a proverb about speaking the Devil's name." The Hunter snapped his cylinder back into place. "Sister."

"Brother." The Assassin strode briskly past Dourde, as if she were invisible. "I hear you dealt Gallant a grave blow in Scotland."

"I just pulled a trigger." The Hunter shrugged. "General Dourde did the work. Talk to her."

He gave me the credit. The Warlock wouldn't have. Warmth rushed through Dourde's body from head to toe. It's probably because he doesn't care, but he still gave it to me.

"Did she?" The Assassin shot Dourde an appraising glance. "Well, from all I hear, it went well. And you recovered some information about our quarry?"

"I did." The Hunter holstered his pistol. "I suppose you're here to make me honor my own agreement."

"If I have to." The Assassin crossed her arms. "Let us confer, then, brother. General, leave us."

"Of course, Mighty Assassin." Dourde shot the Hunter a look, and he waved without a word. Secure in the dismissal from both living Chosen, Dourde backed away for the teleporter.

What about next time? Before she'd even reached the pad, she was thinking about her next set of plans. They won't fall for the same trick twice, so I've got to come up with something else clever. Something to fool even the great Commander Gallant.

And next time, she hoped Jane Kelly would be in the firing line.

"Well, then."

Jane leaned against a lamppost, examining the complex her quarry had darted into. Where the bloodied, dirtied, dusted-up general had disappeared to after entry was more than she could say, but she'd walked in there with purpose. And she hadn't come back out.

Fascinating. Jane pursed her lips, examining the glowing structure at the heart of Toronto's city center from end to end. She tracked guards, placed security doors, and made guesses as to cameras, recording the information neatly in her head. Gene therapy clinics as a front for ADVENT operations? I wonder what exactly is down there.

In silence, shrouded by nightfall, Jane pushed herself off the post. Hands in her pockets, head down and cap's brim tugged low, she made her way back down the shining and clean main avenues, avoiding contact with the better citizens of ADVENT Toronto.

She had preparations to make.

Author's Note 79: Ragequit Denied

The more I think about it, the more clear it seems to me that the Council never really wanted to win the war in XCOM EW. They gave the organization a shoestring budget, squabbled constantly, only provided coverage for certain major nations instead of the entire globe, and as soon as the going got even slightly tough, member states pulled out in droves. The idea that the soldiers XCOM was given might have been rejects is also one with some merit, as is the concept of the Commander being not exactly chosen for being Earth's finest. After all, until it happened, who would have thought of an alien invasion as something logical to be prepared for?

Wish me luck today, as I start my first paid D&D campaign! I've DM'd for over a decade now, but never before for profit, so fingers crossed things turn out well at Session Zero and beyond. I'll be back here Wednesday.

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.