One hour prior...

Matthew Peters was not a fighter, but he was good at monitoring things. In his previous job as a financial manager for Polystralia, this had let him optimize his company's production while minimizing their losses. Prior to that, during a summer job at a supermarket, he'd paid such good attention to his salary that he knew that his boss was paying him 15 percent less than his coworkers. Most important of all, though, was that he had noticed that the computer firm he worked for was having small amounts of its profit siphoned off every month for a year.

He had attempted to inform his boss, only to find himself at gunpoint on his way home from work. It had turned out that the missing profits had been secretly sent to the Blind Eyes crime syndicate, as a form of protection money. They had not liked his interference in their operations, but at the same time, they were impressed with his analytical skills. For this reason, they had offered him a chance to join them, both as a financial manager, and as head of electronic security. No guns, just monitoring computers, they said.

Peters knew that if he said no, he was a dead man, but honestly, he would have said yes either without that incentive: he hated his coworkers, who seemed to be more interested in lazing around rather than getting the job done. The Blind Eyes were known for their efficiency, and he could appreciate that. The fact that both positions he had been offered were well paying was just a bonus.

Over time, his skills had lead him to gain a position monitoring communications in addition to the two he already had. It wasn't his forte, but he adapted fairly well. When all you had to do was make sure all three Blind Eye bases in the region were giving the correct broadcasts at the right times, being a member of the communication staff was an easy job.

Now, though, something had gone wrong. One base near an unaligned station had been broadcasting the all clear signal for three hours. Nothing odd, except that, two hours ago they should have broadcast that they were shutting down operations for the night. Additionally, they'd mentioned that they had to use some of the maintenance lifts to remove an expired test subject. Given the slip up in communications earlier, he doubted that this was sent by the base's comm staff. His superior agreed and had sent a task force to see what had happened. If they encountered a hostile presence, well, they had jets and tanks.

Soon, everything would be back to normal.

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With enemy air support inbound, I sent my CNDR's into cover while my doxes turned their attention toward the incoming armor. PA tech was incredibly overpowered, and it showed: of the 15 tanks I saw coming at me, I took out five easily, with my only real problem being that one of the doxes now had cracked armor. As for the aircraft, I pulled in a fighter patrol from my territory and sent them into battle. Since both my aircraft and my enemy's were drones, all that either of us really lost from the battle was time and money, but I could afford more of both than the Blind Eyes could.

As for my allies, they were digging in behind the nearest cover they could find: walls, old vehicles, even the manufactory itself. My CNDRs were also digging into the same area for cover, but I could afford to lose them. Though minimizing losses would be preferable here.

A few dropships managed to avoid my fighters and started disgorging their passengers. I quickly had a tank fire at some of them, leaving behind some funny looking salsa on the ground, as well as destroying a nearby assembly line. I wasn't too worried about expenses here: this place was supposed to have been demolished a few months ago, but someone had made sure the order never got sent. I assumed the Blind Eyes didn't want their operations to be revealed, as their base under this facility had been active for two years prior to my arrival.

While my tanks worked on dealing with the remaining enemy armor, I moved my CNDRs into a position to engage the enemy troops that had advanced too close for tanks to be effective counters. If I did attack with the tanks, I'd risk friendly fire. My CNDRs were equipped with laser rifles that let them make short work of the enemy troops. It wasn't even a fair fight, because I could give out ten different orders before they even had time to react.

Any troops that I missed were gunned down by Gamma Squad. A combination of fire from an LMG, assault rifle, sniper rifle, and a shotgun that actually had the range real shotguns had worked wonders on the opposition. Enemy troops found themselves having new holes burned into their bodies before they could even react. Also, despite what fiction may tell you, laser wounds are messy, and the battlefield was becoming soaked in blood. While that made me want to hurl, it was a sign that we were definetly winning.

Then, I noticed that one of the Blind Eyes had managed to outflank my CNDRs and was poised to attack Gamma Three. As I tried desperately to get a bead on him with one of my doxes, Three surprised me when she threw a rock at the guy, pulled out a sword, charged the stunned manned and cut him down. Then she got promptly resumed shooting at her foes with her laser shotgun.

Another dropship went down, this time courtesy of Gamma One, who had, in addition to an LMG, a very accurate rocket launcher. Somehow, he also managed to fit a grenade launcher into his kit, which he was using to disperse the Blind Eyes who were using the dropship's wreck as cover.

Pretty soon, the Blind Eyes were reduced to a few troops desperately tryin to fight back. With their enemy mostly dealt with, Gamma Four was trying to call in a dropship for pickup. She was doing this with some kind of drone, which I was kinda surprised I hadn't noticed earlier. It didn't take long for the drone to signal pickup, which would apparently arrive in two minutes. I quickly moved in transports of my own to bail out the forces I had: no sense in staying when you have completed your mission.

While we waited for the dropships to arrive, Gamma Two took out five men with just as many bullets, before trading his sniper rifle for a pistol and killing three more men in just as many seconds. Of course, then somebody wised up and threw a grenade at him, though due to thick cover, it only grazed him. To my surprise, while Gamma One gunned down the offending soldier, Four's drone moved in to patch up his teammate. Now I really wanted that design.

Sure enough, two minutes after the call was sent, the dropships arrived. The Blind Eyes seemed to realize that this was a problem, because they quickly opened fire on the dropship. As I prepared to gun them down, the dropship opened up, and out of it came a bluish blast that froze the offending troopers. A second later, a purple beam followed that blew them to pieces.

What the fu-OOOHHHHH.

Now it all made sense.

I waited until Gamma Squad was taking off before I dealt with the remaining troops. Nothing fancy, just a simple bombing run from a Bumblebee. Once that was done, I pulled out my forces and returned to my territory. To my surprise, Gamma Squad was sending me a transmission.

"Thank you for your assistance, Commander Flame."

"You are welcome. Your help was also appreciated."

Though, honestly, that wasn't surprising. After all...

THAT'S XCOM, BABY!

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AN: Read and Review. This is Flameal15k signing off!