XCOM Headquarters – 48 hours before execution

Bradford stepped aside as a team of engineers rushed through the door he was trying to enter. The cart they pushed carried a massive tank of highly flammable flamethrower fuel. The yellow and orange labels alone made it abundantly clear the danger contained inside the pressurized container. Once they had passed, Bradford stepped into the workshop, catching the eye of Doctor Shen. Shen gestured to his office, and the two men stepped out of the screech of saws and popping of sparks to talk.

"How ready are we, doctor?"

"Bradford, we're still some time out on making sure that the MECs will still function properly. We might not be able to put as much weight on them as we did in the past. The elerium fuel cells we used in the last war have at least partially degraded."

"What type of reduction in payload are we talking? The Colonel won't stop pestering me about having the MECs available to rescue the Commander."

"Well Bradford, it looks like we only have enough unspoiled flamer ammo for one MEC, so we can remove those from the others. Honestly at this point it looks like we'll be able to cobble together enough proximity mines to put either one fully stocked launcher on one, or two partially filled ammo reserves on two different MECs. We'll really be relying on the railguns and fist modules, I think."

"Do we have anything for mechanized enemies? Any HEAT or Shredder Ammo left over? What if we have to go to close range?"

"We have HEAT and Shredder. And they're relatively easy to make, so we have some of the engineers whipping up a batch. Take off in 44 hours, right?"

"For the first group, yes. Do your best to have everything ready. This is going to be the hardest mission we've ever had to do."

Commander's Conference Room

Egos were clashing like flint and steel, setting alight the tinder of anger. No one had slept for more than two hours at a stretch since planning for the operation had begun. Kislewski sat, trying to pay attention as Cassandra Brockovitch, a former field medic reiterated her idea to land the Skyranger directly in the plaza and take the execution podium by force. The same rebuttals greeted her as a chorus of opposed voices brought up concerns about being shot down by air defense forces and limited amount of space on the Skyranger for a strike force.

When the room had returned to angry glares and poring over planning screens and pages of documents, a knock turned the heads of the assembled as one. Kislewski went to the door, opened it and was met by Shen, carrying an easel and rolled up piece of paper.

"Doctor Shen, good to see you. What do you have there?"

"A plan, Colonel." To his credit, Shen had never once stumbled by calling her Commander before correcting himself. His respect for the Commander was too immense to call anyone else by the title. "I think I figured out how to save him, and it involves combining some ideas that I've heard about already."

"How do you know what we're talking about here? Isn't this discussion closed and classified?"

"Just because I'm an engineer doesn't mean I can't help, Colonel. And you forget, that while the soldiers in this room are excellent in the field, I watched the Commander direct countless operations, and I have an idea now."

Taken aback at the resolve in his voice, Kislewski said, "Alright then, Doctor, please proceed. Everyone, listen up."

Shen moved to the front of the room, adjusted his easel, and clipped a pad of documents onto the stand. The first page was a breakdown of XCOM forces that were trained for offensive deployment: Four MECs, one Skyranger, and twenty experienced operatives. There were twenty rookies too, just beginning their combat training, but prepared to deploy on the front lines if necessary. Shen began his presentation, "You all know our current deployment numbers. But I think we can leverage our rookies more than this planning group realizes. They're not in any systems, not injected with any potentially compromised communications chips, and even though they're rookies, have the skills to become what you all did during the first war. I think we should use them as a critical point of the assault. The plan goes as follows."

He paused for a drink of water from a cup on the table in front of him, then turned the page. "Starting immediately, the rookies go to Moscow and set up an ambush around the site of the execution. As soon as the commander hits the platform, they go loud, and mow down as many guards as they can. This distraction will pull eyes to the center, which is when the Skyranger and Commander Bradford's old Soviet copter will fly in with the entire offensive force. They'll have to come in low and fast, and they should probably be closer to the city than we are now. But with the initial shock of the rookies followed up by our veteran troops, we should be able to snatch the Commander off of the platform and get him into one of the vehicles."

Cassandra Brockovitch was the first to interrupt. "And what happens after we get the Commander? Not everyone is going to be able to extract if the rookies go in early?"

Shen replied, "I know. That's the the problem. But I have an idea. You all are not going to like it. Here it is anyways. The rookies will board the transport ships, along with the commander and whoever else can fit. The remainder of the force will stay behind and fight a sacrificial rearguard defense to buy the Commander and the future of XCOM time to get clear."

Before Kislewski could say a word, the room erupted into shouting. Most of the invective was directed against the idea of a sacrificial defense by the veterans. Shen waited, his hands folded calmly, before proceeding.

"Now I know that idea is controversial, but we could try my other exit strategy, which is riskier but means that more people could get out alive." Shen quickly flipped a page. Pointing with an old fashioned wooded stick, he outlined his idea on a map of the city. "This plaza for the execution is close to a military base here. I'd be willing to be that they have transports equivalent to the Skyranger or even better. The extraction would then go as follows: The Skyranger and Russian helicopter boost away on autopilot at maximum speed, while the commander is escorted to the military base by our forces. We'd seize transports there. The pilots of the Skyranger and helicopter can fly them, because those craft are dead as soon as they flee. Then we make a short hop to outside of the city, then wait and move, either on foot or when we are sure no satellites are watching, by air, back to the Farm. This plan requires us to take a military base by force, but it's possible they'll be drawn down to provide cover for the execution. The upside is that everyone gets out alive if we do it right. Above all else, this plan does what the Commander would have wanted. Everyone can get out alive. We just have to be good enough."

The assembled soldiers fell silent. Kislewski felt a rush in her chest as her mind ran through the plan. She liked it. Quickly she polled the room. Miraculously, no one had major concerns. Immediately she felt butterflies in her stomach at the prospect of executing an operation again.