Harry checked his laser carbine for the fourth time as Big Sky brought them closer to their destination. It'd been a hectic two weeks since he had gotten his promotion, so much to do in regards to paperwork for the recruits. He'd never suspected how many forms were involved with running an army, but he was beginning to understand why officers all had their own desks in the office space set up behind the operation center.
Bradley had showed him how to handle most of it, but even with pointers it still gave him a headache worse than a sectoid psionic attack. If it hadn't been for the half dozen missions that had popped up over that same time period Harry probably would have gone mad from checking boxes and signing lines.
Most of the missions had been clean and easy. Go in, wipe out the enemy, secure the dead bodies along with any alien tech, go home. Harry had personally led all six of the missions, rotating out as many of the recruits as he could in order to give them experience on the field. There had been a few injuries, some that required simple medical attention and bed rest, two that required extended hospitalization. But so far there had been no deaths. He counted that as a victory.
At the moment the skyranger was taking Harry and the rest of his strike force to a location somewhere in Great Britain. Upgraded civilian satellites had picked up the now familiar unusual alien energy signatures and the call had gone out to XCOM through unofficial back channels. His team was in the air in less than ten minutes after central had received the intel.
Not bad, but they weren't going to win any wars with that kind of reaction time.
Harry was tired, he knew he was fast reaching the burnout point after going on six missions back to back with little time to rest in between. He'd have to designate other team leaders soon, but he wanted to see them all in action before he decided who would be given command on the battlefield.
All the mock combat exercises in the world wasn't a replacement for actual field testing. The best leaders during practice runs didn't always perform as well when the bullets flying overhead were real. You never knew who would crack under pressure until the pressure was on, and Harry needed to make sure his squad leaders wouldn't break. A lot of people learned their limits the first time they faced down a howling charging berserker muton. Team leaders needed to be able to keep their heads on straight no matter what situations they found themselves in.
The Commander had been patiently waiting on Harry's report on who to promote, but the leader of XCOM made it clear that he wanted it soon. Harry already had two people he knew for sure he wanted leading strike teams if he were not on board, both of whom he had already written up reports for though he had yet to submit them. Currently on this mission, he was evaluating a third candidate he felt might have the disposition to give orders when under fire.
Recruit Brown was a jovial man who seemed to get along with everyone he ran into. Cool under fire and steady with a gun, he had proven himself to be a solid asset on the last mission Harry had taken him out on. The only problem Harry saw was his tendency to make a joke of everything. Humor was good for keeping up morale, but if he couldn't take things seriously then people could die.
There were four other privates with Brown, all of them having not yet seen the battlefield while wearing XCOM colors. Harry had carefully read all the dossiers on his soldiers and was meticulous in his decision making when it came to team arrangements. Everything from physical capabilities to compatibility based off of psychological profiles had bene considered when assigning squads, with some input from Dr. Vahlen and Bradford.
PFC Sheng had been in the psionic chambers but tested negative much to her disappointment. The woman had been looking forward to killing things with her awesome "Jedi mind powers" as she had called it, but would have to content herself with using a gun.
The man cradling a laser sniper was PFC Walker, a dark skinned British native who had undergone a regiment of genetic treatments. His amber eyes had been modified to help his ability to aim and spot rapid movement, and his leg muscles given the thin man's unnatural ability to leap great heights to give the sharpshooter the ability to get to better vantage points rapidly.
Seated across from Harry was a large Japanese man fiddling with a heavy Gatling laser. PFC Yoo had quickly been nicknamed "Sumo" by the rest of his squad mates for his size and ethnicity much to his amusement. Best described as a wall of muscle, it was unsurprising that he could handle like toys the heavy weapons others struggled to even lift.
The last member of the strike team was PFC Fisher. Tall and lanky, the designated medic of the team wore spectacles that seemed constantly at risk of slipping off his nose. He looked uncomfortable wearing the dark olive carapace armor they were all equip with, and even more ill at ease holding the heavy laser carbine in his hand.
In all honesty he looked better suited to be working in the hospital wearing sterilized scrubs, but the man was one of the few who had been recruited specifically because he had fought against the aliens. Fisher had been part of an American army patrol in Afghanistan that was unfortunate enough to run across a pack of mutons kidnapping locals.
He had survived with two others out of his squad of eight, but was the only one recruited because the other two had suffered mental breakdowns after the ordeal.
"So LT," said Brown casually, "What outfit did you serve with before you got roped into this circus?"
The other members of the team perked up with interest at the man's inquiry. Harry hadn't been very forthcoming with himself despite encouraging others to get to know one another. He'd trained with them, ate with them, and led them, but mostly kept to himself otherwise. Nobody had really worked up the nerve to ask about him yet. Guess he couldn't stay a recluse forever.
"I think the real question you want to ask is how old I am," Harry corrected dryly.
There were some sheepish grins breaking out on the members of the strike team as they all nodded. It had been a point of debate that had been thrown around in the barracks whenever Harry hadn't been present. None of them were high up in rank to have access to the profiles of individual soldiers so they could only guess from what stories they had gleaned from other base personnel.
"You're twenty-six aren't you Brown?" Harry asked.
The man chuckled. "Yeah you caught me, two months before I hit twenty-seven."
"And three years from hitting the big three zero!" jeered Sheng causing the others to laugh and Brown to flip her the bird.
"Well you have about a good decade on me," Harry admitted once the team settled down again.
Jaws dropped as astonished stares honed in on the teenager causing him some discomfort. He knew the truth would come out sooner or later, but he had hoped to give the people serving under him more time to acclimatize and build trust in his leadership before his age became widely known.
"You're pulling our leg right?!| spluttered Walker. "18's the legal age to sign up for most militaries!"
"Anything about XCOM seem like a normal outfit to you?" Harry asked wryly. "To answer your question Brown, I hadn't actually served in any military branch prior to XCOM."
"Did they just pull you off the street?" asked Fisher.
The quiet man had a sour expression on his face. No doubt that's how he viewed his own recruitment into the secretive international alien hunting taskforce.
Harry snorted. "Something like that. When the aliens hit up the shit end of town I was living in, instead of running like all the other smart people I grabbed a gun off a dead cop and decided to fight back. By the time the XCOM strike team came to mop things up, I'd killed enough of the bastards to impress them even if I was a kid in their eyes. Normally they'd just debrief a civilian like me, warn me to keep my mouth shut if I didn't want to disappear in the middle of the night and drop me off somewhere they can monitor me until they were sure I wouldn't run off to give interviews about my extraterrestrial experience. But I'd managed to do something they'd been trying and failing to do for a long time, which made me a bit of a special case."
"You captured a thin man," commented Yoo, his Asian accent softening the words he spoke. "The first person to do so."
"The only person to do so," corrected Walker reverently.
Harry nodded, hiding his discomfort at the impressed looks he was getting. No point being humble about the truth. They'd never been able to catch a thin man alive after that. Even those with nonfatal wounds would seemingly kill themselves in a cloud of noxious gas rather than be taken prisoner.
"Got lucky with one of the bastards. He popped around the corner and nearly ran face first into me. Not sure who was more surprised, him or me. I belted him across the head and beat him to sleep with the stock of my gun. Hog tied him with duct tape and slapped some on his mouth to keep him from spitting at me. Figured at the time someone would want to talk to him. Didn't realize just how much trouble that would land me."
The teenager snorted. XCOM had been so impressed they'd offered him a spot on the strike team, courtesy of the late Colonel McCoy. Hell if he can kill aliens, that makes him better than half the useless greenhorns taking up space and pretending to be soldiers in our barracks. McCoy's exact words to the Commander.
Like an idiot Harry had signed on, thinking only about the action and the money that came with the rather badass sounding job. It had been every bit as exciting as he'd imagined, but his fourteen-year-old self hadn't quite understood how much trauma came along with the job. He wasn't sure he'd have been any better off just walking, but some days he regretted being convinced into joining the war against the aliens, even if he was apparently pivotal in humanities struggles for victory against their otherworldly foe.
"I'm sure base personal have filled you grunts in enough for you to piece together the rest," he sighed.
The story being thrown around about him seemed to be getting more outrageous with each retelling. Sure he was the lone survivor of the botched mission against the battleship in space, and he'd been on a few missions that would have probably killed millions had they failed. But in his opinion he wasn't better than any other soldier, just luckier. They were making him out to be some sort of superman on the battlefield, all knowing and nigh unkillable. God knows he'd seen enough good people die to not even come close to believing that.
"Hey LT, I notice you carry around three grenades," commented Sheng with interest. "What gives? I thought operational handbooks said only two for soldiers on the field unless you're designated as an engineer."
"The operational handbook is more a guideline than hard set rules," Harry corrected. "You'll find your preferred loadout after a few missions. As for the two grenade suggestion, it's mostly because people won't ever have use for more than two unless you're a specialist, and if you do you're probably in deep trouble."
"I take it you've had to use more than two on one of your missions?" Brown asked with an eyebrow raised.
A rather brazen attempt to fish for stories. Every one of the soldiers on base had heard a variation of some of the missions Harry had been on, though they were all second or third hand. The lieutenant had kept mum about his experience outside of doling out advice during training periods.
"No," Harry replied shortly.
"Then why do you carry three?" pressed Brown.
The teenager turned to face his team, sweeping a hard gaze across their curious faces.
"Two for the enemy like the handbook suggests," he said quietly. "And one for me if it comes down to it."
Their expressions sobered at the dark turn of the conversation.
"Damn," said Walker, shocked by what he heard. "That's some grim shit there LT."
Harry snorted mirthlessly. "You haven't seen what the aliens do to the poor bastards they take back to their ships alive."
For a brief moment the image of a skinless child, face twisted into a silent scream staring out with sightless eyes through the transparent lid of a stasis tank, flashed before his eyes.
"If you did," Harry murmured quietly, "you'd carry a spare for yourself too."
"Big Sky to Strike Team," interrupted their pilot over the comm. "We are approaching the AO and the LZ looks hot! We have civilians in the area and someone exchanging fire with the aliens!"
"Circle around and lower the ramp Big Sky!" Harry ordered. "We'll give them some air support."
The pilot's answer was lost to the howl of wind as the cargo bay door opened. Everyone grabbed for the handles overhead to prevent themselves from losing their footing as the skyranger cut a lazy spiral pattern over the city. Below they caught a glimpse of a few people fleeing like ants.
Green blobs of plasma streaked through the air, tearing up the side of a building. Occasionally red jets of light would return fire from within.
Harry instantly was on guard. The return fire on the aliens looked suspiciously like their own laser weapons, and there was only one other organization out there who had access to that level of technology. EXALT.
"Priority target aliens!" shouted Harry over the dull roar of the engines. "But keep an eye out for any humans returning fire! If they even look at you funny I want them dead!"
"Say again?!" Walker yelled back.
"We may be facing a three way battle here. Hold fire until we're certain, but don't hesitate to kill them even if they are human!" ordered Harry.
Their ship dropped down further and his team open fired on any of the aliens unfortunate enough to be standing out of cover. Operation Sour Pub had begun.
