"Holy hell. Look at the size of that thing,"

Weiss could only nod mutely in agreement with the rookie's assessment of their target. The ship was, to say the least, utterly enormous. It was easily the size of the entire XCOM base, and then some. She wouldn't say it to the rest of the freshly-recruited squadmates accompanying her, but even she was having second thoughts about taking this mission. Who knew just how many aliens were aboard that ship? But a ship that size would also represent a colossal amount of resources that XCOM could salvage if they won over their enemies – or a colossal amount of materiel that the aliens could use against them, if they lost.

The mission was simple. Do or die. That also included all the XCOM personnel, both in her current squad and in the base. And she had no intention of dying today, nor did she intend to let any more of her colleagues perish.

What she wouldn't give to have Ruby providing her with covering fire on this mission. As they drew closer, it became obvious that there were wide fields of fire on the ship's open deck. Even if the aliens had taken cover behind the various crates and cylinders that were scattered on the deck, they wouldn't have been able to hide from Ruby. Very few things could, when she was in her element. But the still untested sniper on her current squad was another matter entirely. He was green – both in experience, and in appearance.

"Specialist Alvarez," she spoke, reading his nametag. "Breathe. You wouldn't be able to hit anything if you're that tense. Smith, make sure that machine gun isn't going to jam. I need you to provide suppression fire for the squad,"

The young man gulped and nodded nervously, while his gunner teammate snorted.

"Says the alien-touched girl," the machinegun-wielding man spat, "What's to say that you're not out to kill us?"

Her patience was wearing very, very thin. Dangerously so.

"I could order you to stand out the front as bait to reveal all the aliens, Specialist Smith," Weiss replied dryly, "But I won't, because the latrines are in dire need of cleaning. Are you volunteering?"

"Bitch! I'll make sure that-"

Something snapped in her. Who was this idiot that thought he was worthy to question her? She unlatched Wisteria from its holster on her hip and spun the cylinder. There was one round inside; where it was, she didn't know. In a flash, she had the pistol's bayonet at the loud-mouthed gunner's throat.

"Tell me, Specialist Smith," she growled, cocking back the hammer on the revolver, "Do you feel lucky?"

"What-"

"Answer the question. Do you feel lucky?" she snarled. She pressed down on the trigger, coming up with an empty click – and a frightened yelp from the shocked gunner, "I suppose you are, aren't you? I won't be the one sending you back in a bodybag today. I'll tell you this, you dolt; and the rest of you had better listen, and listen well. We're all in this together. You. Me. All of us are on the same team, and you had all better remember that. I can't say that I will be able to guarantee that all of us will walk away unharmed, but by Dust, I will definitely try. You, Smith. Do you have any family?"

"What-"

"Answer the question!"

"A brother and three sisters, back in a farm in Lincolnshire,"

"Specialist Alvarez?"

"A girl back in Santiago,"

"Lance Corporal Li?"

"M-my boyfriend, back in Hong Kong,"

"Then you know what you're fighting for. You fight to make sure they're safe. That they live to see a world without aliens," Weiss spoke, standing up from the Skyranger's bench and pacing about in front of her squadmates, "I understand that. Now, I know that some of you don't trust me. That's fine. I'm not asking you to fight for me, if you can't stomach that. I'm asking you to fight for the people you care for instead,"

"What do you know about fighting for someone else, huh?"

"More than you think, Specialist Smith. At the end of the day, you and I – and all of you – may part ways after this mission, and we might not see each other again. But just know that when we all have the same goals, it doesn't help any of us to be at each other's throats. So for this mission, whatever grievances you have with me – or each other – stow it. Fight it out in the sparring ring after the mission if you have to, but not while we have something more important to do. Are we clear?"

The squadmates looked at each other and gave reluctant nods.

"Good. Then I'll try my best to make sure that we all come back safely," she sighed, lowering her revolver and holstering it.

"Strike Seven, we are arriving at the AO. Be advised that satellite scans indicate an extremely high level of enemy presence as well as the presence of significant amounts of enemy supplies. Exercise extreme caution, and avoid destroying the supplies where possible," Big Sky hollered to the troop compartment, shutting them all up. "Central reminds you that Adept Schnee is your commanding officer, and is a Lieutenant. Refusing orders is insubordination, and will not be tolerated,"

Amid a chorus of grumbles, they all checked that they had their weapons and a sufficient supply of ammunition. Weiss checked her pockets for the presence of a diluted Elerium syrette and grimaced when she found it. Dr. Vahlen had informed her that in an emergency, that injection may reactivate her Aura temporarily and greatly increase the potency of both her Semblance and her psionics. What the drawback was, she didn't want to know, and hoped that she never had to use it. If something had given Dr. Vahlen reservations while creating it, it was likely very, very bad for the user.

On touching down in the woods just outside of the landed cargo ship, Weiss took in a sharp breath as she saw just how many aliens were guarding the vessel. Outside, she could count at least a dozen Sectoids and half as many Thin Men, accompanied by a pair of red-armoured Mutons.

"No fucking way," cursed Smith, "Central wants us to attack that? That's suicide!"

"If you have nothing worthwhile to say, I would say that you need to shut up," Weiss said sharply, "We have the high ground overlooking them, and we are still hidden. They do not know where we are. I say that we will be able to kill them all. Specialist Connor, I asked Central to provide you with a special rocket warhead. Did you collect it from the armoury?"

"Yes ma'am. What's special about this one?"

"It's a Fire Dust infused Elerium rocket. Put it simply, that rocket can and will burn through even alien battleship plating. Several layers thick, in fact,"

The man's eyes widened and he suddenly handled the rocket tube much more gingerly than before.

"Now, for the plan," Weiss muttered, scanning the battlefield.

The cliff that they had landed on formed a wide crescent around the bow of the cargo ship. The alien ship's engine wash had burned away all the trees around its base, leaving only a charred expanse with rocks too small to provide any meaningful cover. The ground itself was rather flat and featureless, which probably explained why the aliens even landed there.

"I will lure them to the base of the cliff. Connor, prepare that rocket. When they cluster up, I want you to fire and catch as many of them as you can,"

"Got it, ma'am. Standing by,"

"Smith, move to the far side of the cliff at our ten o'clock. Remain hidden. Li, go with him and make sure that no aliens catch him by surprise. When I give the signal, open fire on the aliens,"

"Understood,"

"Good. Now," Weiss murmured, unsheathing Myrtenaster and stabbing its blade into the ground. A glowing glyph materialised on the ground in front of her, from which a single armoured arm sprouted forth. She grimaced a little, knowing that she had intended for a full knight to appear, but an arm had to do.

The arm picked up a nearby stone and hurled it at the nearest sectoid, cracking the creature's skull on impact. It fell to the ground, motionless; but its nearby allies had seen the stone flying, and were looking straight at the arm. Grinning, Weiss willed the arm to pick up another rock and hurl it at another set of enemies, this time braining a Thin Man.

"Excellent. They're falling for the bait," she chuckled darkly, watching in amusement as the aliens rushed forward with their guns blazing. Not that the arm could even be damaged, as it simply dematerialised wherever a bolt of plasma would pass through it. Soon, the aliens had all congregated about the arm, completely befuddled by the strangely glowing arm without a body in front of them – and the fact that they had expended most of their ammunition and it was still there. "Connor, fire the rocket,"

"Fire in the hole!"

The rocket tore through the air and slammed into the charred dirt exactly where the arm was, erupting into a blinding white fireball. They didn't even get a chance to scream; their bodies were vaporised in a flash. That took care of the external guards.

"Multiple targets neutralised. Excellent shot, Connor,"

"Thank you, ma'am,"

"Everyone, move up and take up defensive positions around the cargo ship's ramp. Li, I need you to move up onto the ship and wait by the primary cargo bay's side; Alvarez, I need you to stay up on top of this cliff and provide overwatch. Move out!"

Now encouraged by the easy kills on all of the external alien guards, the squad strode confidently to their next position. Smith had his machinegun propped on an alien console, pointed straight at the glowing, shielded doorway in front of them. Li was pressed up against the side of that doorway, her gauss pistol held ready.

"I think...I think I hear something," Li muttered, gulping, "Sounds like there's a lot of footsteps on the other side of this door,"

"Anything more?" Weiss asked.

"No. Just...a lot of footsteps. On metal,"

Weiss sighed. If Blake were the scout, surely she wouldn't have any problems identifying the targets on the other side. But she had to know about what was on the other side, and the only way she knew how was-

Wait. She could see something. It was fuzzy and indistinct; a misty blob in her vision. Lots of misty blobs that looked to be past that door. Some were short, and some were tall; others were large and nebulous. Focusing on one of the small ones gave her a sharp stab of pain in her head, but she could now clearly see that it was a Sectoid's silhouette.

If the small ones were Sectoids, then the tall ones might be Thin Men; and by that logic, the large ones would be Mutons. She grimaced at the sheer numbers on the other side of that door. She had only requisitioned two Fire Dust rockets, and she had already used one. She could bait them to clump up like the others outside the ship, but that risked destroying valuable salvage – or worse, detonating other explosives that might be in storage.

She needed them dead, without resorting to explosives. But how? She only had a squad of six, while the aliens were at least two dozen strong on the other side.

"Ma'am?" Li said tentatively, "What are your orders?"

"Divide and conquer," she murmured, recalling a lecture by Port on attacking numerically overwhelming Grimm. Distracting half of them with one of the four huntsmen or huntresses in a team would allow the remaining three to more easily dispose of the others, and it was no different with aliens. She could cause a distraction somewhere else, pulling them away – but that was very, very risky without Aura or Semblances.

But what if she wasn't trying to cause a distraction? What if she could cause them to fight one another? She looked at her hand and blinked slowly, grinning maliciously as she thought about the Mutons. Those dim-witted brutes were tough, but their minds were truly lacking. Their minds begged to be dominated; and at this point, a ball of purple light gleamed in her now-clenched fist. "That's it. Divide and conquer!" she exclaimed, causing the rest of the team to look at her as though she had grown a second head. "Li, bring down the energy barrier. Remain hidden, but take a look at what happens inside. I will try something...new,"

"If you say so, ma'am. Bringing down the energy barrier,"

Weiss focused intently on one of the nebulous mists in the distance. There was no stabbing pain as it drew closer, forming into the hulking shape of a Muton. The creature had a large, heavy plasma machinegun of sorts in its chunky hands.

Perfect.

"Your mind is weak," she laughed darkly, focusing more intently on the shape. Instinctively, she held out her left hand; streams of purple eldritch energy streaked out of it, seemingly vanishing into the floor of the cargo ramp. A confused groan came from inside the cargo bay as her mind latched on to the Muton's.

She was immediately assaulted by the strangest sensations that she had ever felt. It was as though she were in two places at once; her vision split and overlaid with that of the Muton's; she thought of lifting her hand, and saw the creature's meaty fist come up to her split sight without any hesitation.

Kill your fellows.

With an almighty roar, the possessed Muton delivered a crushing haymaker against a sectoid that was crouching in front of it. The little alien never stood a chance; it was crushed into the floor, where it lay in a twitching, mangled heap. A Thin Man, turning around to check on what that noise was all about, was met by a powerful fist to its jaw. A sickening crunch later, the alien was sent hurtling through the air, landing on the cargo bay ramp and exploding into a toxic green mist.

"Holy shit. They're fighting each other? What...?"

The Muton then hefted its machinegun, letting loose a barrage of plasma bolts straight into the back of another pair of Thin Men. By this point, the other aliens had awoken from their stunned stupor, and were returning fire with deadly accuracy. Too bad for this particular Muton that Weiss had no intention of ever forcing it into cover. She ordered it to pull a grenade out and charge to a Sectopod that was emerging around a corner. Despite all the injuries it had sustained so far, it managed to prime the grenade and shove it through the Sectopod's central eye before it collapsed.

A warm and wet fluid trickled down Weiss' nose, and she had a pounding migraine when the shared sensations abruptly ended with the searing heat of a point-blank plasma blast. A second blast later let her know that the Sectopod's reactor core had exploded; and if the shrill cries of panic from the cargo bay were any indication, the aliens were well and truly disoriented.

"Lieutenant! You...you're bleeding from your nose? What happened? What was that?" asked the squad's medic, holding up a medkit spray.

She waved him off and straightened up. "I just created a distraction for you," she panted. Dust, she had never felt so tired before. "All of you, move up! Fire at will!"

The battle in the cargo bay was an indistinct blur of chaos to her. There was a fire blazing near the ruined wreck of the Sectopod, around which lay several charred corpses. Three remaining Sectoids quickly fell to barrages of gauss rounds, never able to find any cover before they fell. A Muton had raised its rifle to shoot at Li, before the back of its head was blown out by its fellow Muton's plasma shotgun. The mind-controlled Muton proceeded to rampage among the other aliens, causing them to shoot blindly in panic. Something which Weiss took full advantage of; for when she injected further images of horror into every alien she could reach in her mind's eye, they screeched and fired indiscriminately at both friend and foe. Before long, only the mind-controlled Muton remained, standing still with glassy eyes staring into space. Weiss glared at that Muton; it immediately placed its shotgun against the floor and knelt down with its chin on the barrel. A loud blast rang out, and the Muton fell forwards, missing most of its head.

And if Weiss was to be honest, her head felt much the same way.

"Central, this is Strike Seven," Weiss murmured, wiping her bloody nose with her sleeve. "Requesting sensor sweep. I think we killed them all,"

After a few moments, the radio crackled back to life. "Affirmative, Seven-Actual. Sensor sweep is underway to check for any hostile presence. Be advised that Big Sky is patrolling the area, and states that there appear to be no more hostiles on either the cargo deck or around the ship,"

"No more hostiles on the cargo deck? We...won?" Specialist Smith chuckled, grinning to the others in the squad, "Holy hell. That was what, thirty aliens? Forty aliens? And we killed them all with just six of us?"

"The mission isn't over yet, Smith!" barked Weiss, "Keep watching for aliens. We killed all of them that are on this cargo deck, but we still haven't been cleared by Central yet,"

"Bitch," he muttered sullenly, "Way to spoil this win,"

"If I really wanted to spoil it, I could have you cleaning the latrines for the rest of your career, Specialist," Weiss grumbled, clutching her pounding head. "Be glad that I haven't. Central, status?"

"Thermal sensors reading alien forces fleeing the AO. Report to Big Sky for extraction, Strike Seven. Local military forces will deal with the stragglers,"

The flight back was mostly filled with cheerful chatter among the elated XCOM operatives. Except for Weiss, who was moaning in pain as the full force of her psionic abuse came back to bite her with a vengeance. Despite the painkillers that the medic was administering, nothing seemed to be helping with the burning agony in her head.

"Well, at least your nosebleed's stopped," chuckled Strike Seven's medic nervously.

"Williams, if you weren't the one giving me painkillers, I would strangle you here and now," snarled Weiss, "Of course it's stopped! You've essentially stuffed an entire roll of cotton bandages up my nose! Oooh, my head. Give me another dose, please,"

The medic rubbed the back of his head nervously. "No can do, el-tee. As it is, I'm giving you one dose more than what Dr. Vahlen said I should give anyone. I'm actually surprised that you're not laid out on the floor yet. Besides, we're almost back to base. Dr. Vahlen can have a look at you, if it's that bad,"

She groaned and leaned back in her seat. If using psionics was this painful, she wondered what the effects would be like had she used that Elerium syrette. "For once, that doesn't sound like such a terrible idea,"

Operation Restoring Hope

Lt. Weiss 'Ice Queen' Schnee: Active (Fatigued)
Spc. Allen Smith: Active (Disciplinary action for 14 days)
Spc. Juan Alvarez: Active
Spc. Ling Li: Active
Spc. Cameron Connor: Active
Spc. George Williams: Active

A/N:

Domination, Psi Panic and lots and lots of weak-willed aliens in close quarters. Totally a recipe for glorious disaster! Now if only there were Chryssalids in the mix... *grins evilly*