Chapter Four: Iron Wrath
7th of April 2115
Gagarin Cluster
Planet Aurora
As Gloria and her team made their way through devastated hallways of Vigilance one thing became apparent to her – there was something odd about LT Hansen. Gloria couldn't put her finger on it, but for her it was clear that she's… different somehow. She was wearing standard issue XCOM jumpsuit but the symbol on the chest didn't match. It was a regular XCOM shield, but instead of an X within it, it had a skull with something looking like a shockwave under it. Gloria was sure that she have seen that symbol before, but couldn't recall where. There was also that weird… calculation? Some sort of mechanic precision in the way Annika moved through the corridors, as if she had memorized every inch of the ship. They were nearing an intersection when LT Hansen raised her hand.
"Footsteps."
Gloria closed her eyes for a second and then shouted. "Check your fire, friendlies coming through!"
"What are you…" Annika said but stopped when she saw a group of five armed people walking through. They stopped and looked at her. "Lieutenant Hansen. Captain send us on your position."
"It's a bit late for that but whatever. Better get your asses there before these two manage to get themselves killed." No doubt she was referring to the engineers they left outside. "While you're here, what's the situation in the armory?"
"It's a warzone ma'am. Lots of gunfire coming from there, not many people coming out. The quartermaster had a squad with him, but there's no telling how are they until someone's going to check on them."
"Alright." She said and looked back at Gloria. "Let's move."
They moved through corridors following Annika's lead for a while now and the sound of gunfire was getting louder with every step.
"How did you know?"
"Hm?" Gloria asked a bit lost in thoughts.
"How did you know they were friendlies?"
"I just… I don't know… felt it? That kind of stuff comes with being psionic."
"You're PSI?"
"Yes ma'am."
Finally the doors leading to the armory were in sight… well, what was left of it anyways. The sounds of battle left no doubts as for the situation inside and as they stepped into the enormous room, they got caught right in the crossfire.
"Inhale, pull, exhale." The silent whisper drowned out by the gunfire and bestial roars of Mutons didn't stop Terrence from repainting his mantra. Every single time when he put a crosshair of his scope on a Mutons head he said these words, as every time he took a shot at anything, be it human, alien or a cardboard target at the firing range. The recoil kicked in as the heavy Gauss Anti-Material Rifle propelled a massive alloy slug into an alien head.
"Inhale, pull, exhale."
The quartermaster did a good job keeping the massive aliens pinned down behind debris with a mag-cannon mounted on the railing and the rest of the fire team send in to help them were also eager to send aliens their regards, preferably at muzzle velocity. Unfortunately most of said fire team was gunned down couple of minutes ago, and even the swarm of alloy slugs provided by the quartermaster's mag-cannon wasn't enough to keep aliens at bay forever, especially with the armory door being reduced to a pile of bent metal. Then suddenly Terrence noticed something as he was loading another slug into the chamber of his rifle. A side entrance to the room they were in. Something moved down there. And a seconds after, a group of five armed individuals joined the battle converging on the quartermaster's position.
"Suppressing fire!" Gloria shouted as Daniels brought his Gatling laser on point an unleashed a red storm upon Mutons in tandem with quartermaster's mag-cannon. The rest of the team quickly moved on the quartermaster's position and Daniels followed shortly after. A wounded soldier cowering behind a pillar with a pistol addressed LT Hansen.
"Hansen?! Damn, I'm glad to see you." He looked at the woman and continued. "Where are your toys? We could use them, you know?"
"That's why I'm here Jake. Meet Sgt Gloria Van Doorn. You better like her because she's the only reinforcements we're getting for a while."
"Glad to meet you Sarge, excuse me if I won't shake your hand." He said showing her a hand covered in bandages with a bits of burnt skin sticking from under it. "I would prefer if there were more of you but at that moment I can't afford to be picky. Senior Specialist Jake Paddock, Vigilance's marines." A ball of plasma struck the pillar he was hiding behind.
"Larry! I need ammo now!" He shouted at the quartermaster, but he didn't hear him. Instead a Gremlin type drone flew out of the armory and placed a small ammo box next to Jake, another provided Quartermaster with a much larger box, no doubt packed to the brim with heavy alloy slugs. The Gremlin that brought ammo for the wounded soldier stopped mid air and looked at Gloria, did a barrel roll for the reasons unknown and flew back into the armory.
"I think he likes you." Jake said with smile.
"Is that everyone?" Gloria asked.
"No, there's Slingshot too". A particularly loud gunshot echoed through the hall and one of the Mutons fell out of cover with his face torn to pieces. The quartermaster added some slugs from his cannon practically sweeping the alien corpse to the side. "He's our little guardian angel. It would be best, if you patch in on our radio."
"That would make things a lot easier." She said and switched frequency according to Jake's instructions. "Comm check."
"Jake! Could you send me a Gremlin with some ammo? Pack of cigs would be nice too." Said voice in the radio, Gloria assumed that it was Slingshot.
"How about some French fries?"
"Well, since you're paying."
Jake whistled and one of the Gremlins emerged from the armory. "Go fetch some ammo for that asshole above!" He said, trying to make sure that Gremlin will hear him over the gunfire. Gremlin dived back into the armory and popped back out with an ammo box hooked up to its magnetic clamps. Despite Quartermaster's dedication to covering aliens with a swarm of alloy slugs the Mutons were not planning on giving up. Quite the opposite in fact as they intensified their fire. Annika interrupted that interspecies exchange of pleasantries speaking to Jake.
"Do these Gremlins have Suit-up protocols?"
"How am I supposed to know?!"
She looked at Gloria and yelled "Cover me!" and she dived through the wrecked door and disappeared behind it. Then Slingshot said with distressed voice. "Looks like ET called home for the reinforcements!"
The ground trembled as another group of Mutons came charging through the doorway, but they were not alone. What looks like gigantic snakes followed by some kind of robot and a pair of little gray things, one of which had a ridiculously big head came into the mix too.
"The hell are those things?!"
"Just keep shooting!"
The hellish barrage of plasma hit their cover hard enough forcing most of them to duck down. These few minutes felt like eternity until the ground trembled again and they heard Hansen's voice on the radio.
"Clear the doorway!"
It seems that doors were the only element of the armory that got significantly damaged. Weapons and body armor were still neatly organized on shelf and in lockers, boxes full of ammunition of all kinds were standing on the shelves waiting patiently to be swooped by Gremlins. Annika stopped one of them and asked. "You know how to operate a dressing room?"
The machine made something that could be described as happy beeping and followed Annika to the device in question.
"Well, here goes nothing." She said as she took of her jumpsuit and proceeded to the seat, dressed only in tank top and shorts. As she sat down cables appeared and she connected them to the slots on her arms and legs. Robotic arms covered her in plates of armor. She waited for them to put her helmet on. A loud hiss meant that armor is now hermetically sealed with its own oxygen circuit. She blinked once and brought her HUD. A quick diagnostic message popped on screen:
Connected.
Reactor Online.
Sensors Online.
Proceed to weapons check.
With hissing of servomotors Annika brought her now massive metal body forward allowing the robotic arms to install Kinetic Strike Module on her left wrist and then took a massive railgun from a locker nearby. Another set of messages popped up:
Weapons Online.
All systems nominal.
Annika moved towards the armory door and spoke to the radio. "Clear the doorway!"
The world felt like the time decided to take it easy and slow down. Gloria barely managed to reposition herself in time when the bent metal that used to be the armory door launched forward and she had to hold onto the railing in order to stay on her feet. A massive chunk of black metal seemed to move on its own jumping over the railing and down into the hellstorm of plasma below. The radio went live again with Annika's voice.
"Bulldozer in the house!"
Then Gloria understood, her mind concentrated on the battle and staying alive managed to get all the pieces together. Annika's strange movements, the signs on her jumpsuit, the sentence on her suit – 'Belletor in Machina' – 'The Warrior in the Machine'. Her voice filled with excitement. Annika was a MEC pilot. The aliens quickly shifted fire to what they recognized as the biggest threat. Annika managed to dodge the fire with ease. Gloria was in awe. She never seen anything so large moving so fast. "But that's not the time to take pictures." She reminded herself as she brought her rifle on one of the Mutons and aimed true. The beast let out a furious roar. Annika began to move back and jumped back up to team's position. One of the snakes launched its tongue trying to grab the quartermaster, but Annika put her massive metal arm between them. She grabbed the alien's tongue and pulled it so hard that creature launched forward and connected with her fist. The alien seemed to have been turned into bag of jelly lying dead on the floor. Slingshot wasted no time, nailing Mutons one by one.
Annika jumped back down seeing one of the snakes charging forward into a better cover and send a heavy alloy slug in its chest yelling "How you like that?!"
Gloria quickly shifted attention to enemy robot which now emanated with a purple glow around it, she took a few shots at it, but the metal construct didn't seem to pay attention to the laser beams hitting it. Gloria could clearly see a trail of purple energy coming from behind a pile of scrap metal and overturned catwalk and was sure that behind it was the bigheaded gray man.
"Slingshot. Can you snipe that gray behind the catwalk?" She asked the strangely silent sniper.
"Negative. No eyes."
"I'll flush him out!" Gloria said closing her eyes. She let her mind free and reached for the gray man. When she made contact she knew that the creature felt her intrusion and was already fighting back. Its mind was strong and it tried to flood Gloria's mind with visions of unspeakable horrors, but her determination proved stronger in the end. She didn't really saw, but more felt the creature taking off from its cover when she felt an alloy slug connecting with the gray man's head. She felt its pain for a brief second before she managed to sever the connection. She wasn't even sure if she really did, or was it just a dying gray's final cry that forced her out. The pain almost knocked her to the ground.
"Fuuuuuck!" She managed to mutter a single word dragging herself back up. The purple glow now disappeared from the enemy robot and the rest of the alien forces were either dead or dying. Despite a feeling of unnatural heat in her ear, she pushed herself to concentrate one more time, creating a ball of purple light in her hand and furiously threw it at the robot. The alien construct lost its balance for a second. But even a second was enough. Annika rammed the robot knocking it to the ground and stepped on its midsection. Alien fired its twin-linked cannons in desperate effort, but heavy alloy slug fired at point blank ended its struggle.
Gloria pushed her back against a pillar and fell to the floor. Elizabeth saw her friend collapse and was by her side in a matter of seconds. She removed something from Gloria's ear and flashed a light in her eyes.
"Her Gloria! Stay with me. How many fingers do you see?" She asked showing three.
"Three. You always show three." Gloria tried to put up a smile. "I feel like someone tried to crack my skull with a jackhammer."
"You know you fried your amp right?" Elizabeth said showing Gloria what looked like an big earplug and a black smoke coming out of it. She threw it away and passed Gloria some pills. "Here, take them."
"Painkillers?"
"Yeah, painkillers."
"I thought you know better than push yourself too hard." Liz said with concerned expression on her face.
"I do. I got hit by a god damn feedback, because someone couldn't wait a few seconds to blast that gray man." Gloria said pointing at where she thought Slingshot had his little sniper nest.
"Friendlies!" Someone shouted from the corridor Gloria and her team used to get here. As the people emerged from the corridor it was clear that they were from the base camp.
"Looks like we missed the party." Even with her head feeling like it's about to explode Gloria recognized Monica's voice.
"Yes, you did." Daniels' words were the last thing Gloria heard before she felt asleep.
When Gloria finally woke up she wasn't sure where she is at first. It was certainly not base camp and since Vigilance sustained heavy damage its medbay was most likely packed full with injured crew and soldiers. But here, this medbay was half empty. One of the nurses saw that Gloria woke up and came to her.
"Ah Sergeant Van Doorn, you're awake. How are you feeling?"
"My head hurts like hell, but otherwise fine." She said trying to overcome the sensation. "Where am I? How long have I been out?"
"You're on XSS Drakken. You were sleeping for almost a day now." She said. "Your team will no doubt be relieved to know that your fine."
"So, I'm free to go?" A day? She knew that she did some heavy PSI lifting, so to speak, but almost a day?
"If you're feeling good enough, then by all means." Nurse said and began to turn around when she stopped. "Oh, one more thing. When you're ready, go talk with one of the comm specialists. I believe someone wants to talk with you."
"Yeah, thanks. I'll go do that."
Gloria stood up and headed through the doorway. Drakken was bigger than Vigilance was, yet despite much bigger crew it felt… empty somehow. Even despite the fact that traffic was quite big now. On her way to the comm room used by soldiers she passed a lot of people going both ways, delivering reports, soldiers preparing to drop. She finally reached the comm room.
"Sergeant Gloria Van Doorn." She introduced herself to the man behind a desk – comm specialist Taylor, if she were to believe a sticker on his desk.
"Room 3." He said without lifting eyes from his book. She found room 3 without any troubles as they were all marked with a big number on the doors. Soldiers used rooms like these to conduct private conversations with friends, families or anybody really. She closed the door behind her and pushed a button on the console.
"Hi dad."
"Hi kid." The hologram of Ian Van Doorn spoke to her. "Heard you took quite a beating down there. Are you ok?"
"I guess so. Psionic feedback hurts like hell, but I've been through worse. How about you?"
"Me? I've got a war brewing on my hands. After what happened in Gagarin Cluster people want blood. Preferably that green alien blood."
"War?" She said. "Is it really that bad?"
"You've been on the ground. You saw Vigilance being shot down. You fought the first aliens since the end of the Great Conflict. You tell me."
"Point taken. And how's mom?"
"If I know her, she's still the worst nightmare of rookies in Hereford yelling AT them that 'My 18 year old daughter did better than you sissy!'
Gloria giggled at the sound of that. "Yeah, that sounds like mom." She will never forget that time when her mother took her on a round in SAS training facility at Hereford at her 18th birthday. She never felt so tired in her entire life and yet, it was one of the best memories she had. "We're one crazy family, aren't we?"
"Yes we are." Ian laughed at the memory himself. "Look kid, I've got to go. You take care now ok? Your mom would kill me, if anything happened to you."
"I will. Tell mom I love her when you get the chance."
"I will."
"Bye dad."
The conference room was full of journalists both from Earth and from the colonies. The sudden press conference announced by Commander's press spokesman was a surprise to everyone, but these journalists knew that they have to get here, come hell or high water, to see why the commander of the most decorated military force in human history has to say.
Ian Van Doorn, or General Commander, as some people insisted on calling him stepped onto the platform and the crowd immediately fell silent.
"Ladies and gentlemen." He started. "Thank you for your time. I gathered you here to report that at about 11 p.m. earth time XCOM soldiers have been engaged in combat by the extraterrestrial forces."
Every journalist in the room stood up yelling questions, as if General had kicked the hornets' nest. He silenced them.
"We have confirmation that forces in question are in fact forces of the Ethereal Collective." He paused for a moment before he said aloud what everyone already knew. "We're at war. Humanity is under attack." And he left the room without answering any questions.