"Adaptability and high mobility allowed Nod to remain a viable threat for fifty years. In the face of an enemy far more technologically advanced than us, we must be flexible, and learn from our former foes. Brute force will not win us the day when our enemy brings it to bear against us."
- GDI Tactical Primer, 2052
ALASCADIA Command, Vancouver, B-16
[18/05/2056]
Lieutenant Colonel John Lewis finished lacing his combat boots, pulled a matching padded jacket over his black singlet, and stowed his wafer thin datapad in the front pocket of his grey fatigues. He ran a hand over his bristly black buzz cut, and stepped out of the cramped quarters he had been assigned in the 19th Recon Division's barracks complex. Space was at a premium, even for an officer of his rank.
Passing through the officer's mess, a rectangular, low-ceilinged room with rows of stainless steel tables and chairs, Lewis surveyed his subordinates as they ate. The men and women were all dressed in matching grey fatigues, similarly to Lewis, with insignia of rank on their sleeves and serial numbers in black on their chests. They sat in huddled groups, chatting and laughing as they ate out of cardboard containers.
Walking up to the service bench, Lewis picked up a food container and bottle of water from the stack. He ripped open the cardboard box and fished out a wafer of something soggy and orange as he made his way through the barracks and onto the asphalt outside. The complex was nestled in amongst a forest of dilapidated high-rises, great trunks of concrete which hid the rest of the city from sight.
A row of squat, compact vehicles sat on the asphalt outside the low shape of the motorpool; the descendants of the Pitbull ATVs that had been so popular for GDI officers behind lines during the Third Tiberium War. Lewis opened the door of the nearest, slid into the seat and perched the carton of 'food' on the dashboard.
A small chime came from his pocket. Lewis slid the datapad out, and pressed his thumb against the scanner. The screen blinked into life. The words 'Welcome back, Commander' scrolled across its surface. "You have an incoming transmission from GDI HighCom," a synthesised female voice spoke in his ear. A bouncing icon at the bottom of the tablet confirmed this. Lewis tapped it, and the window expanded to fill the whole screen.
Jack Granger had worn well with time – the grey, craggy features and strong brow commanded respect for the aged veteran, and piercing eyes shone from the dark, shadowed pits of his eye sockets, analytical and severe.
"General Granger," Lewis nodded respectfully.
"Commander," the General's deep voice was grim, his expression severe as he paused for a moment, uncertainty written across his features.
"There's been… a problem."
Lewis braced himself. Those words were death, especially coming from a seasoned general such as Granger.
"We've lost communication with Commander Jackson's taskforce."
Lewis shook his head slowly, hoping that the situation wasn't as grim as the General's tone suggested, but knowing that if it wasn't, Granger wouldn't have personally contacted him.
"When?" he asked tersely.
"Two days ago. Commander Jackson set up shop just north-east of Fort Triumph. Several squads of Zone Troopers were sent out to scout the area for signs of Nod smugglers. We think they've been running contraband through Triumph into B-16. Zone Captain Peele was assigned to clear an abandoned farm in the area. He reported contact with an unknown enemy in the homestead."
Granger sighed solemnly.
"One minute later, we lost contact with the whole squad. Not long after, several other recon units in the area went silent, and within twenty minutes, Commander Jackson's feed went dark too. There's been heavy ion storm activity in the area, which prevented our orbital assets from getting a close look at activity on the surface, and none of the taskforce's helmet cams were able to transmit anything more than static."
"Have we ruled out a simple technical failure?. The Ion Storm could be-"
Granger cut him off with a gesture.
"I thought that too, until I saw this." The General tapped at an off-screen keyboard, and a second notification appeared in the corner of the datapad; Confirm Retinal Projection. Frowning heavily, Lewis tapped the icon, and blinked as his vision blurred. A slight buzzing filled his head as a window appeared in the corner of his view, a rectangle of light projected onto his retina by microscopic projectors in the datapad.
The blue rectangle resolved into an aerial view of a grey, barren landscape. The altitude was too high to make out any details beyond the occasional patch of green that heralded either cultivated farmland or a more insidious growth. It was over one of the latter, sparkling spectacularly even at this distance, that a festering mass of black clouds gathered. Info-tags to the right marked the location of Jackson's taskforce, as well as the recon teams scattered across the terrain.
As the thundering clouds churned, localised bursts of static lit the screen, drowning out the paltry features of the landscape. Tags began to disappear, first Captain Peele's unit, then McLachlan's, Ives', and more. Before long only one tag was left. A bright emerald light flared up, obscuring it. A black cloud of dust followed, spreading rapidly across the image. The camera feed filled with static, and the window vanished. As the interior of the ATV came back into focus, Lewis barely repressed a shudder at the realisation that he had just watched his comrades dying.
"I'm sorry, Commander."
Lewis swallowed. "Could it be a nuclear strike?" he asked through the thickness in his throat.
"I'm not sure. Every instinct tells me it's Nod, but… they just don't have that kind of military presence here, and there'd be hell to pay from the Border Zones if they even thought about using nukes this close to a major population center."
"Do we know what caused that explosion, then?"
"No, we don't, and that's why I'm sending you in. Go in light. If Nod's hiding out there, they're hidden good, and I don't want to throw more men into the meat grinder. If it is some new Nod weapon, then we need to know what the hell they're up to, without them finding us first."
"And if it isn't Nod?"
Granger paused, a scowl working its way across his stony features.
"Then God help us."
The General's image disappeared from the screen, and Lewis swallowed with trepidation. He took a moment to steel himself, then opened up a company-wide transmission.
"We've got a new mission," he addressed the troops under his command. "Wheels up in 30."
Richmond Airbase, B-16
[18/5/2056]
The airfield was abuzz with activity. The midmorning sun glinted off the cockpits and stubby wings of hundreds of aircraft. Ground technicians in bright orange coveralls scurried across the tarmac, and between the blocky support structures that walled in the facility.
Propellant farms steamed in the sunlight, their supercooled contents forming a layer of condensation on the exterior of the domed pressure vessels. Ribbed black hoses pumped fuel into the bellies of the waiting VTOL Transports. The sharp, almost sweet smell of jet fuel rose and mingled with the morning mist as technicians unhooked the hoses with a hiss. A handful of well armoured, six-wheeled vehicles rolled between the landing gear of the grounded craft, and were clamped securely in place.
In true military fashion, the thirty-minute deadline had turned into a case of "hurry up and wait." A cluster of maybe a hundred soldiers in grey fatigues were milling about the loading ramps of four transport craft. Each was involved in their own pre-deployment ritual. Some did pushups on the hot tarmac, or obsessively disassembled and reassembled their weapons, checking the various components. Others caught a quick nap under the shade of an aircraft wing, helmet visors obscuring their faces.
One fireteam sat on their haunches around a crate. A flexi-tablet had been unfolded at one end, behind which a corporal narrated with dramatic gestures while the rest of the team watched with rapt attention. A handful of polyhedral dice sat on the crate's top.
Across the airfield, a spacecraft ascended skyward atop a plume of fire and smoke. It was a snub-nosed, winged shape like an airliner, bolted onto the side of an ochre coloured fuel tank. A little archaic, maybe, but with the demand for orbital work these days, even those last-generation craft were being pressed into service. As the soldiers below watched, it rolled gently, flipping onto its back as it continued its ascent into space.
An All-Terrain Vehicle pulled up to the formation of parked aircraft, and the assembled infantry leapt to attention. Lewis dismounted onto the tarmac, a helmet tucked under his arm. The commander of Bravo Company was waiting for him at the foot of the nearest loading ramp, dressed in grey fatigues and a flak jacket adorned with equipment pouches. A nametag across her chest identified her as Lt. P. Terrence. She saluted crisply as her commander approached. Beneath her cloth cap, the woman had sharp cheekbones and a penetrating gaze.
"At ease, L.T." he instructed her. Terrence shifted to a stance that could barely be described as 'easy'.
"Thank you for choosing Bravo Company for this opportunity sir. We won't let you down."
"I'm sure you won't. Are the transports ready for deployment?"
"Yes sir, at your command."
"Then let's go."
Terrence nodded sharply, and began shouting commands to the assembled force. Pilots in form-fitting flight suits and bug-eyed helmets clambered into cockpits, and infantry marched into cargo holds. Lewis and Terrence pushed through the crush and into the cockpit of the lead craft. Lewis leaned over the pilot's seat, and confirmed the coordinates of their destination.
When he looked back to his newly-appointed second in command, she was frowning. "Something the matter, Lieutenant?"
"The rest of the Battalion is curious about the deployment, sir."
"Yeah, me too," Lewis muttered. "What do you think, Lieutenant?"
"I'm ready to kick some ass."
A low whine began, rising in intensity and pitch, as four sets of turbofan engines whirred into life. The sound grew into a thunderous roar, and the aircraft ascended vertically on the thrust of their blocky engine pods.
From atop the cylindrical control tower, the golden eagle banner of the Global Defense Initiative fluttered. Beneath it hung the stars and stripes, with its twenty stars in a circular formation. When the aircraft had reached a substantial height, enough that the cityscape below them flattened out into a patchwork of grey squares, the engine pods swivelled on their mounts. They shot forward in an arrowhead formation, leaving the safety of the Blue Zone behind.
10 miles outside Fort Triumph, Red Zone 7
[18/5/2056]
Vibrations shook the transport as it settled on top of the plateau, its landing jets kicking up dust. The harnesses that held the platoon in place released automatically, and the rear wall of the troop bay slid away. Roughly thirty men and women in ash grey combat fatigues, full face helmets and masks slipped from their seats, removing rifles from overhead lockers with practised quickly, they cleared the compartment and arrayed themselves in a staggered circle around the transport's ramp, scanning the surrounding terrain with rifles raised to their shoulders.
A barren vista of grey fields and craggy hills stretched to the horizon in every direction around the platoon, illuminated from above by flashes of harsh blue lightning. Even through their airtight helmets, the soldiers could hear the continual roar of the wind around the rocky outcroppings that punctuated the desolate landscape. Puffs of fine grey dust blew across the horizon as the howling wind carried them away.
"Are we sure this is the right place?" one soldier muttered over the platoon's radio frequency. "It all looks the same out here."
"Affirmative," Lieutenant Terrence replied tersely. She highlighted a particularly deformed region of the landscape on a satellite map, and shared it to her soldiers' HUDs. Blinking dots further afield showed the locations of the other recon teams as they canvassed the wilderness where Peele and the other reclamation squads had vanished.
"Bravo Squad, secure the plateau and stay with the transport. Alpha, Charlie, we're moving through the old riverbed. It's narrow, but it beats lugging it across those hills, and it might give us some protection from the weather. Delta, I want you to cover us from those outcrops." She highlighted a line of rough ridges which protruded above the canyon. "I sure as hell don't want any shiners or Noddies getting the drop on us." Her soldiers replied in the affirmative, and set about their appointed tasks.
Lieutenant Terrence took point. Her boots were already coated by a fine powder, and she was wary of how little support the ground gave each footstep. Gingerly, she began picking her way down the dusty slope and into the winding, sinuous path of the dried up river.
She wished they could have set down closer to the site of Commander Jackson's base, but the ground was too cracked and deformed by whatever explosive force had torn through it for their transport to touch down safely. Moving single-file between the towering walls of rock, her force was perfectly positioned for an ambush. Her ears pricked up at the slightest noise. Visibility was low in the gloomy depths of the fissure; the only illumination came from the few paltry rays of tainted sunlight that managed to penetrate the thick clouds overhead.
A clatter of rocks slid down the cliff face ahead, and the two squads sprang into action, forming a ring back to back. Their rifles snapped up like a porcupine's spines. Terrence hadn't realised how loud the footsteps of their procession had been until they were stilled. In the silence that followed, every breath echoed like thunder inside her helmet.
"Delta, any sign of hostiles?"
"Negative sir, you're all clear. Nothing showing up on thermals either."
Terrence grunted and adjusted her grip on the rifle. It was a nervous habit, one she couldn't shake, like the enduring sensation of unseen eyes on the back of her head that plagued her. The squad began to creep forward again, clearing each bend in the riverbed with pounding pulses, only to find it deserted. After twenty minutes of this gradual progression, she began to hope for a sudden ambush. The pulse-pounding excitement of a firefight would be preferable to this nerve-wracking crawl.
She mentally scolded herself for holding such a hope. Whatever they were hunting had taken out a force twice their size, while suffering no apparent casualties. She shouldn't risk the lives of the soldiers under her command for a brief burst of glory.
Terrence saw a glint of light up ahead. Sniper! The inner voice of instinct screamed at her. She held up a hand to halt the platoon's advance, and hewed close to the rocky wall. The canyon was motionless once again. No sudden shots tore through them. She waited, and saw the light flicker again. It was a lot closer than it had seemed at first glance, maybe twenty feet ahead in the canyon.
The seconds crawled by in torturous anticipation, and then part of the rocky wall moved. A shard of crystal peeled itself away from the slope, sprouted legs, and began skittering down the rocky wall.
Terrence almost laughed as she let the tension leave her body. "It's just a crab, folks." Relieved chuckling filled the squad channel.
"Alright, Alpha, Charlie, move out, but keep 'em peeled."
Even with that false alarm behind them, the spectre of a potential ambush hung over the soldiers as they worked cautiously through the last stretch of canyon. The plaintive howling of the wind at their backs did nothing to alleviate their suspicions.
At last the canyon began to widen out, onto a silty plain that may have been an old lake bed. The meagre illumination of the sun lit the plateau before them. As the recon team spread out around the canyon mouth, they stopped dead in their tracks.
"Ho-lee shit," someone breathed over the radio. No-one bothered to reply. The sight before them spoke for itself.
The site where Commander Jackson's forward base had formerly been was now a cracked, blackened plain. The tall railgun emplacements had been toppled, the vehicles were indistinguishable lumps of metal, deformed by heat and impacts, and the impromptu fabricated buildings were nothing but a pile of rubble, strewn across a two mile radius. The power plant stood silent, its cooling tower cold and grey.
"Charlie, take the right flank," Terrence instructed the squad. "Delta, stay on overwatch at the canyon ridge. I don't want anyone getting the jump on us. Alpha, we're taking the left; let's see if there's anyone left alive in here."
—
Columbia Plateau, Red Zone 7
Corporal Urdan picked his way through a thicket of twisted girders and bent ceramics. He kicked at a small, glittering shard of Tiberium which was lodged in the ground ahead of him, shattering it into a cloud of glittering dust. He watched the fragments disperse.
A similar vein of crystalline strands were lodged in the ground ahead of him. They formed a sinuous path leading from the blackened shell of a fabrication plant.
"Loot, I think I've got a lead at the War Factory," he reported to his superior.
"Copy, Corporal." Terrence's reply was heavily obscured by static, even at this close range. "Check it out, but stay vigilant."
Urdan and his squadmates pressed forward cautiously. The beams of their flashlights caught flecks of emerald dust hanging in the air. The service door of the fabrication plant was shattered. Shards of crystal were embedded in the frame. They had already begun to spread, corrupting the nearby matter.
The Corporal turned to his fireteam of Walker and Benton, and held up three fingers. He counted down, then made a fist, and charged inside.
The other soldiers flanked him, raking their flashlights across walls and corners. They divided the room into segments, clearing each in turn. The Corporal had heard the manoeuvre referred to as "cutting an orange"; he had no idea what a colour had to do with breaching hostile encampments. Urdan waited for the shots to ring out, for a blow to strike him in the back, but nothing attacked them. The machinery hall wasn't completely empty though.
A figure was hunched against a bent pillar, dressed in a GDI environment suit. The armoured chestplate was blackened and deformed, with fist-sized holes punched through it.
Urdan gave a sharp hand signal, and began to advance towards the figure while the other two kept watch. Pale ash fell from the crumpled roof of the building, disturbed by his footfalls. He knelt in front of what he was now certain was a corpse. The abdomen of the suit had been torn open, exposing the fallen soldier's innards. As grisly as the sight was, it could have been a lot worse. There was very little organic matter left inside. Where Urdan expected to see a liver or intestines, there was only a spine that was in the process of crystallising, shooting out glassy spurs in a sick imitation of a ribcage.
A line of jagged punctures pierced the ceramic plating over the suit's torso. Within each hole was the tell-tale green glitter of a fragment of Tiberium.
He spotted another body, faceplate smashed in, and with it most of the unlucky owner's skull. Another, sprawled over a jagged shaft of crystal; another, barely more than a scorched skeleton. Frequent calls came over the radio as the other members of the platoon made similarly grisly discoveries.
"War Factory is clear," he reported. "Three… no, four casualties located. Looks like they were killed by some kind of Tiberium shrapnel."
"Copy — regroup — yard." The Lieutenant's response was garbled by the persistent interference.
The Corporal lifted his gaze to the figure's face. The helmet's visor was scratched, which made identifying any features difficult. Their skin was pale, mottled by dark splotches, and 5heir jaw hung slack, frozen in an expression that resembled disbelieving horror.
He reached for the neck seal, where the helmet met the body suit, intent on retrieving the fallen soldier's dog tags, when they shifted. The eyes shot open, revealing a startling blue that seemed to glow in the gloom of the ruined building. They drew in a rattling gasp of air. The pale flesh of their face began to squirm, moving independently of the rest of the body. Then, it melted, sloughing off the skull and down into the innards of the suit.
Urdan watched in horror as a viscous, fleshy substance poured into the ruined chest cavity, wrapping around the crystalline growths. He leapt back, but staggered, and crashed down onto hard concrete.
A tendril of brown and red flesh had lashed out and wrapped itself around his ankle. He cried out in shock and disgust, kicking hard at the fleshy pseudopod to free himself. It held him firm, and even began dragging him closer to the corpse from which it had emerged.
The off-white environment suit shifted and slumped, as the visceroid bubbled out of it. A rattle of gunfire accompanied a flash of light, and the tendril gripping him frayed. A second burst followed, and shredded the limb. Urdan felt the grip on his ankle relax, and he leapt to his feet, kicking off the fleshy remnants that clung to his boot.
The other two soldiers had moved up to flank him. They peppered the corpse with gunfire, shredding its already damaged armour. Splashes of sticky matter sprayed the pillar behind if. .
The barrage ceased, replaced by the click of magazines being replaced. They watched for signs of something stirring inside the suit, but it was motionless. A pile of yellowed bones and scraps of fabric were all that remained
"Do you think it's dead?" Walker ventured, fear colouring his voice.
Urdan shook his head. "Visceroids can shrug off a shell from a Titan. It's still around here somewhere."
He imagined the slimy mass working its way inside his suit, suffocating him while he was helpless to escape. He shivered.
They grouped up, back to back to back, and shuffled towards the ruined doorway they'd entered through. They scanned the cracked concrete floor for any sign of the mutated creature's passage.
Their huddled unit had nearly reached the door, and the promise of safety, when a thin strand of material slid from the shadowed ceiling in front of them. Urdan lifted his gaze. The beam of his flashlight illuminated the glistening mass of the visceroid, wrapped around a bent girder. He gave a shout, and opened fire. The yellow burst of the muzzle flash threw its features into harsh relief - stringy tissue, bubbling polyps, and lines of teeth protruding from the flesh.
It lunged down at them. Urdan threw himself out of the way, skidding on the dusty floor. There was a scream of horror. He spun towards it, and saw the visceroid was enveloping Walker. His helmet and shoulders were completely obscured. Urdan and Benton pointed their rifles at the struggling pair, but hesitated, reluctant to shoot in case they wounded Walker.
A string of profanities issued over the radio, followed by the sound of glass cracking, and a horrible gurgling sound that cut off the man's screams. Urdan realised with horror that the visceroid had broken Walker's faceplate and surged inside his suit.
Urdan let loose a burst of fully automatic fire. The bullets impacted against the spongy mass with wet thumps, but it continued its assault undeterred.
Walker had dropped his weapon and was clawing at the creature with his gloved hands. He dropped to his knees amidst a puff of dust. Time crawled as Urdan watched his doomed comrade unclip an incendiary grenade from his belt, raise the cylinder above his head, and pull the pin.
Liquid fire poured over them, sticking to flesh and ceramic alike, and burning like hell. Walker's screams were joined by a higher pitched shrieking. The visceroid's form seemed to shimmer, like the surface of a lake in a rainstorm. Eventually, the thrashing ceased, and both charred bodies lay intertwined together.
Urdan abandoned caution and dashed outside. He fumbled with the clasps of his helmet, and barely ripped it off before his stomach emptied over the cracked asphalt. He gasped for air, heart pounding, and collapsed face down. It felt like someone was pressing on his chest. Why can't I breathe? Something grabbed his shoulders, and he tried to free himself, terrified the visceroid was still after him, but he could barely . His helmet was slid back over his head with a hiss. He took a deep breath, and felt oxygen flood his lungs.
"Corporal, what the hell is wrong with you?" Lieutenant Terrence was kneeling over him. Urdan shook his head and babbled unintelligibly. He felt the urge to vomit rising in his gullet again.
"Kill it, kill it, kill it!" Benton was shouting over and over. Terrence gestured to one of the soldiers who had rushed to meet them. The man walked over to inspect the doorway. Urdan tried to reach out for the man, to stop him, but he could barely lift his arm.
"Christ," the man exclaimed, surveying the carnage within. The Lieutenant nodded to the rest of the platoon. They advanced, grenades in hand, and hurled the incendiary devices into the ruined building. Soon the shell of the factory was a crackling blaze. Flames licked the skeletal girders that held up the roof, till they bent and blackened, and the whole structure caved in.
Urdan thought he heard a guttural scream as the charred roof collapsed.
—
GDI Forward Operating Base, Red Zone 7
[18/5/2056]
This mission was not going to Lieutenant Terrence's liking. Two men were down, and their true enemy hadn't yet revealed itself.
Fortifying the base had proved more of a challenge than they'd anticipated. Their scouting force had cleared the rubble from the courtyard, allowing their transport to land. It was a tight fit; the craft's swept wings barely cleared the prefabricated structures around the rudimentary landing pad. As Terrence passed by, a squad was manhandling crates of supplies down the cargo ramp.
The few buildings that weren't completely levelled were not in a state she'd describe as habitable. Most had cracked walls that let the toxic wind blow through. A few were sprouting glimmering Tiberium deposits that their team just wasn't equipped to safely decontaminate. The least inhospitable of these structures had been sealed against the elements to serve as an emergency triage centre.
Corporal Urdan was confined to that makeshift ward, vomiting incessantly. A layer of plastic sheet had been stretched over the cracked walls. It fluttered frenetically, battered by the storm outside. A field lamp cast stark white illumination over the man's sickbed.
Their sweep of the base perimeter had uncovered many more corpses. There were thirty, all told; a significant number of dead, but not the full roster the deceased commander had set out with. After the fire inside the fabrication plant had at last died down, they'd retrieved the charred remains of Private Walker as well. When the blackened corpse had been brought into the makeshift medbay, Urdan had gone into a paroxysm of terror, so the body was being stored on a bench in the armoury. The fallen of Jackson's taskforce were brought into the ad hoc morgue as well. It was the most respectful repose they could give them for the time being.
Terrence walked through the armoury, inspecting the corpse of each fallen soldier. Very few of the bodies were unmutilated. The cause of death was different for each - massive internal trauma, piercing wounds, dismemberment - but one thing was universal; all had large shards of Tiberium embedded in their bodies.
"What the hell could have caused this?" She mused aloud.
Large masses of Tiberium were known to be volatile, prone to explode violently when subjected to heat or force. But Commander Jackson's encampment had been little more than an outpost; so small it didn't require any on-site Refinery facilities. There would have been no concentration of the crystal large enough for such an explosion.
Terrence tried to suppress the nagging inner voice that told her she had seen wounds like this, once before, during the Invasion.
The unearthly Aliens, with their seemingly innate ability to exploit and manipulate Tiberium, had induced catastrophic chain reactions in …, and shot crystalline shards out of their very bodies.
Terrence's heart began to pound. Her extremities tingled as adrenaline flooded her system.
The ruin of the Refinery burned, silhouetted against the flickering light of an unstoppable blaze. A pillar of roiling black smoke rose into the sky. From out of the twisted wreckage, insectoid creatures skittered. Their many limbs were like scythes, cutting down innocents and combatants alike. Metallic mandibles snapped open, and disgorged crystalline shards of death.
Her squadmate stumbled, and fell. Glistening crystalline flechettes pierced his prone form. The Invaders stampeded over his body as though it was just another piece of rubble.
"Sir, we've found another body." A crackling voice from the radio cut through her trance.
"Bring it to the armoury," she ordered the scout, fighting to keep the tremor from her voice.
"Sir, the men won't touch it. Perhaps you should come take a look."
Terrence scowled. What could unsettle her troops worse than the mangled corpses they'd already recovered. The situation was demoralising enough that she decided to give the insubordination a pass, this time. It seems we're not done reaping this grim harvest.
The Lieutenant donned her helmet before stepping outside. The neck seal closed with a satisfying hiss. Terrence found it hard to hear herself think over the howl of the wind across the flatlands, a situation she somewhat relished. Harsh bolts of lightning lashed the ridgeline to the south of the base as the storm passed by. As she crossed the reclaimed outpost's courtyard, the voice of reason reasserted itself.
It was exceedingly unlikely the Invaders were responsible. When they'd made themselves known to humanity, it had been in grand fashion, falling from the heavens on pillars of fire. The whole world had witnessed their arrival. Why would a handful of Alien visitors be skulking around the American wastelands? How would they even have gotten past GDI's globe-spanning surveillance network from orbit? You don't spot hoofprints, and assume a zebra is nearby.
On the outskirts of the base, near the shattered remnants of a concrete barricade, a squad of armoured figures huddled together. Two kept watch on the storm-wracked horizon, while the rest kept their distance from a fleshy mass that lay on the cracked pavement.
"What's so special about this one, Sergeant?" Terrence asked brusquely. "We've handled plenty of dead folks…" she trailed off as she saw the body up close. This was nothing like the corpses of GDI scouts they'd uncovered. The figure was nude, and lithe, with the wiry musculature of a starved hunter. Its skin was a mottled mix of greys and reddish browns, almost as if it had been painted in camouflage. Raised ridges of a hard substance protruded all over the body; the signs of radiation burns repeatedly healing and then scarring again. They spiralled in intricate whorls over the entirety of the body, like a fingerprint.
"Mutants," she spat.
Sergeant Butler's face was set in a resolute grimace behind his visor. "There are another two, down the embankment." He indicated a ditch that must have been dug by Jackson's taskforce when they were fortifying their position.
"It looks like we've found our culprits," Terrence announced to the squad with more certainty than she felt. See, nothing more than Zone-running savages. The world's not ending… not today at least. Butler nodded in affirmation, and gestured to a series of deep circular gouges on the figure's chest. "Looks like our folks gave as good as they got, at least." Greenish ichor oozed from the wounds; a much thicker consistency than human blood. Terrence shuddered.
"Take photographs of the scene, then bring them to the armoury; I want all the evidence on hand before we report to the Commander." The Sergeant and his soldiers didn't respond. One man stood up and turned his back on the corpse.
"Is there a problem, Sergeant?" She stressed her subordinate's rank. He gulped before responding.
"No sir, it's just… we all saw what that… thing… did to Walker, God rest his soul. No-one wants to risk touching the shiners in case the same thing happens to them."
Terrence couldn't deny that she felt a crawling nausea at the sight of the mutant's prone body. She imagined its mottled skin sliding free of the bones, wrapping its tendrils around her. She repressed a shudder.
"Fine; establish a cordon around them. I'm going to report to the Commander."
Something still nagged at her as she walked up the embankment to the transport craft. Mutants had a superhuman resilience, sure, and they were known to be unpredictable when around Tiberium, but she'd never seen one tear through this many armoured soldiers…
She quelled the sceptical voice. Who knew what those inhuman freaks were capable of. The world was growing less familiar by the day.
—
Columbia Plateau, Red Zone 7
Commander Lewis examined the live feed from the surveillance drone that hovered above the edge of their plateau. He observed the dark, twisted crags of rock with a mix of apprehension and suspicion. The grainy image wavered in the air before him like a mirage and static hissed through the audio feed, along with the unearthly howling of the wind through the valley below.
"Can we fix this bloody connection?" he hissed at a man in charcoal-grey fatigues, and a slightly more conspicuous orange hardhat.
"No sir," the engineer replied as he fiddled with a miniaturised communications dish which sat on a tripod in the thick, black dust of the plateau. "There's too much interference; there's an ion storm brewing about twenty klicks to the south east."
"Anything from Sky Sentry?"
"It's barely cutting through, sir."
"Dammit," Lewis sighed into his rebreather, cursing the restriction of his surveillance capabilities. Perched atop the APC, he was rather an exposed target, but height afforded him a vantage point that was vital with the lack of UAV surveillance.
Lewis couldn't help but feel uneasy; he was sending a small recon force into presumably hostile, definitely inhospitable, territory to root out an enemy which had wiped out a task-force twice that size, with zero intel about the nature of that enemy. The whole situation was a tactical nightmare. Lewis understood the urgency behind General Granger's directives though. The sudden loss of contact with GDI forces in a hostile area reminded him uncomfortably of the illusion of peace which had been shattered by the violent eruption of the Third Tiberium War. He was willing to bet he wasn't the only one. Lewis forced his apprehension down for the sake of the soldiers under his command, and set about trying to reacquire a connection to his eyes in the sky.
A burst of static squawked in his ear, and he heard Terrence's voice, crackling with interference.
"Hunter Actual, this is Hunter One," the heavily garbled voice said. "FOB is clear… there's … here.'
"Hunter One, this is Hunter Actual; say again?"
"There's nothing… commander. All the buil…. trashed, no.… of survivors."
Lewis sighed. He hadn't expected to find anything but devastation at Jackson's last known location, but it was still an unpleasant blow to be proved right.
"We have casualties… KIA, one wound…" Terrence's transmission continued.
"Casualties, Lieutenant?" Lewis' pulse quickened. "Were you attacked?"
"Affirmative sir. Hostile…"
"Say again, Terrence?"
"...visceroid… there's more… mutant corpses… bullet wounds… think they… the base."
Images of mutant corpses flickered through the video uplink on his HUD, line by line, as if they were being sketched by hand. Significant distortion artefacts marked the images; hallmarks of the fierce storm brewing deeper in the Zone. Lewis dismissed them with a flick of his hand. They were replaced by the images of dead GDI soldiers, their bodies torn to shreds by foot-long shards of green crystal. His fists balled up involuntarily, and his teeth ached as he clenched his jaw.
"Hold position at the FOB. Try to get it operational if you can. I'm sending Second Platoon to reinforce you. Third Platoon, load up into the APCs. We're going for a ride."
Lewis turned to Lieutenant Ruiz of Second Platoon, and gave the man his orders. A chorus of "affirmatives" greeted him, followed by the clattering of boots on ladders. The contingent of soldiers from the relief team set off into the now-cleared river bed at a brisk jog. Lewis slid into the passenger seat of an APC, thankful for the relief the sealed vessel gave him from the incessant howling of the wind.
"What's our destination, sir?" The helmeted driver asked him as Lewis settled into place.
"We're going to pay our mutant friends a visit."