Command and Conquer: Under the Shadow


Lieutenant Colonel Robert Parnell
July 25, 2034
Classified Location, Australian Outback

It was never easy being a field commander for the Global Defense Initiative, but easy and boring meant two very different things for Lieutenant Colonel Robert Parnell. He didn't mind the former but hated the latter.

Today was shaping up to be a little less exciting for him, if only because some of the novelty of his newest assignment had worn off. He'd learned a fair amount ever since he'd been deployed into the Australian Outback about a month ago - one, that Australia in summer was hot, two, that the Black Hand were tenacious assholes, and three, Australia in summer was really, really hot.

He wouldn't have learned any of the above were it not for the ubiquitous alien crystal presently ravaging Earth - Tiberium, named for the Tiber River in Italy, site of its discovery in 1995. The enigmatic substance leeched valuable minerals from the ground and poisoned carbon-based life with equal, ruthless, efficiency all while spreading to over half the globe by now. It threatened nothing less than the extinction of life on Earth.

As existential crises tended to do, countries banded together to form the Global Defense Initiative (GDI), a UN-authorized international peacekeeping organization that had since evolved into the world's single strongest military, bar none. Even the old superpowers like Parnell's native United States paled in comparison to the sheer size and strength of GDI. A shame that such force was completely necessary. Two horrific world wars, aptly known as the First and Second Tiberium Wars, had been fought to control the substance. Parnell had been born shortly before the first and fought in the second with distinction as an armor officer.

Now assigned to the Chione Forward Operating Base (FOB), deep in the desolate Australian Outback, he would be leading a battalion newly rotated here, not unlike him. The 26th Battalion was the greenest unit of the whole 90th Experimental Division and thus a perfect fit for Parnell, the latest commander to join their ranks. He was about to get a semiofficial tour of the place the 26th was going to call home for the next few months or so, if everything went according to plan.

The Second Tiberium War had been over for four years, but its chief belligerent, the hybrid terrorist group/corporation/religious cult known as the Brotherhood of Nod - once the greatest single danger to the free world - hadn't quite faded away. Their messianic "prophet", Kane, might have died with Nod's dream of world domination at the war's end, but splinter groups lived on, squabbling over the scraps and posing a considerable threat to anyone caught in the crossfire. Men like Parnell were here in the wastelands of the world to prevent any bud from flowering into a new Brotherhood. He, along with the rest of the 90th, or the "Steel Talons" as they had been nicknamed, were doing to their best to keep GDI's eagle banner flying high and Nod's scorpion tail down, preferably six feet under.

The Black Hand, Nod's former religious enforcers and presently their strongest splinter faction, had been unusually active in recent weeks, with more than double the amount of normal skirmishes and even a reported large-scale battle at their headquarters. Whatever happened there, nobody at the Talons was really sure. Given the fact that all of their pulse scanners were blown up and a recon team sent to investigate them vanished without a trace, nobody entirely wanted to know, either. Regardless of the reasons behind everything, the Talons' best frontline units were heavily engaged with no clear end in sight, which left the newbies in charge of minor things like base security.

Parnell took his first steps outside of his heavy amphibious APC - one of the few vehicles consistently authorized to travel around the Outback - and was greeted by imposing concrete walls, automated machine guns, and a gruff, bearded sergeant waiting for the officer.

After a brief exchange of salutes, the Sergeant introduced himself.

"Sergeant George Nyman, sir. Welcome to the Chione FOB."

"Good to meet you, Sergeant. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Parnell."

"Commanding the 26th?" Sergeant Nyman asked.

"Yes. Where's Weaver?" Parnell asked, for the previous officer stationed at Chione was supposed to give him the tour of the FOB.

"Lieutenant Colonel Weaver had to leave quickly. I took his place."

"Very well."

Two Riflemen, keeping their shiny GD-2 assault rifles close, accompanied the two men as they set off on the tour.

The main entrance of Chione FOB was ringed with Guardian Cannons and Watchtowers, their cannons constantly turning around, monitoring their killzones with silent, robotic detachment. White concrete walls surrounded the entire place as a few of the new UH-90 Hammerhead helicopter gunships patrolled the outer perimeter. Fort Olympus, the largest Steel Talons field base on the continent, wasn't much larger than this so-called Forward Operating Base.

"Been deployed here for long, Sergeant?" Parnell asked.

"Yes, sir. I've been in charge of base security since 2032."

Up came the rather comforting mechanical grind of GDI War Factories - modular vehicle production and maintenance facilities, able to assemble most combat vehicles within mere minutes, provided enough raw materials were on hand.

"Primary war factories, for building and maintaining our vehicles." Nyman stated the obvious, perhaps erring on the side of caution with the new officer. Nyman needn't have worried; Parnell was an armor officer born and bred.

"Most essential part of the base," Parnell mused with a grin. He had always had a soft spot for armored vehicles. He'd won most of his battles in TW2 by crushing, sometimes literally, enemy forces underneath the armored legs of Titan walkers.

The War Factories were presently in high gear, constantly opening and reopening their large hangar-like doors to let in and out vehicles, mostly smaller vehicles like Pitbull recon jeeps and Wolverine power suits. The topside crane was fully stocked with familiar green hexagonal GD-600 crates, able to store nearly any conceivable supply - rations, ammo, fuel, weapons, and more.

Walking another several hundred feet past the War Factories - which were augmented by several Guardian anti-tank cannons defending their front entrances - the small group reached an array of six Power Plants, large stations emitting puffs of grey smoke, scrubbed of contaminants, byproducts of an environmentally friendly process that kept GDI bases and cities worldwide humming 24/7.

"Here's the base's secondary power grid, for the local infrastructure. The primary power grid for the base defense network is two klicks south, but one company should be defending that place full time. The barricaded old town and Watchtowers there are enough to stop anything in their tracks."

A bit towards the south, Parnell could see the base's four airfields, all of them the new ultra-modular model in line with the whole GDI's building updates, busy at work, Orca attack jets constantly ducking in and out, landing without rockets, taking off with.

This whole place was modernized, much more so than Olympus. The base defenses, the equipment, even the personnel, everything was about as up to date as it could be. He'd expect to see this kind of technology first deployed around the Pentagon, maybe Southern Cross, not some random base in the middle of the Outback. Steel Talons or not, something was up with the security here.

"This isn't really a FOB, is it?" Parnell pointed out. "This place is a full sized, permanent base. Why is it so well defended? Am I guarding something important?"

"I was about to get to that, sir," Nyman said.

Parnell was led across the road to an intersection, dominated by an unusual building. The structure was shaped like a downwards-pointing arrow, with the main body, made out of a clear, glasslike material, cemented into a reinforced trapezoidal base. Attached to the base were four cylindrical drum containers tilted at a forty five degree angle, each drum likely able to store hundreds of gallons of liquid. Each drum had a single revealing stretch that revealed an odd green substance inside, occasionally flickering with unnatural light.

The giant conventional fuel silo right by the main building didn't really bother Parnell, but somehow, those four drums and the green stuff inside most definitely did.

"What is this place?" Parnell asked, weirdly mesmerized.

"Lieutenant Colonel!"

A man in a lab coat had been waiting outside. He was pale and thin, wearing thick glasses that Parnell was sure any man with a white lab coat owned.

"Dr. James De Groot," he introduced himself.

"Robert Parnell," Parnell replied, shaking his hand. It wasn't a strong grip. "Good to meet you, Doctor. Is this your research lab?"

"Yes, it is. This is the GDI Institute for Tiberium Research. Some of the planet's most brilliant Tiberium researchers work here," he added with a touch of pride. "We could even exceed Dr. Boudreau's work, given a few more years."

Dr. Boudreau was arguably GDI's, if not the world's, foremost Tiberium researcher. Anyone claiming to be her equal better have good reason to. But looking at those strange green drums, Parnell wondered if whatever inside was worth bragging about.

"What's inside those containers?" he pointed out, downing another sip of water.

"Those drums you see each contain fifty liters of liquid Tiberium plus an inert solvent, used for our experimental power plant research."

Parnell didn't catch the last part as he spat out his water. Liquid Tiberium? He'd heard a documentary mention that liquid tib had five times the blast yield of an equivalent amount of enriched uranium. It was the most volatile substance on the planet. Did this Doctor just casually mention they had two hundred liters of the stuff?

"What? You serious?" he sputtered. "Liquid-?"

"I am serious, Mr. Parnell. But this is the future we are talking about here."

Parnell would have loved to know about this earlier. If he could command this place's defense remotely, he'd much rather do so, too.

"We are on the cutting edge of research, just like you. I wholeheartedly believe that is why the Steel Talons were assigned to guard the Institute, as we are both creating the future. I know, it isn't easy researching liquid Tiberium, but I hope you can believe in me."

"Okay, okay. Well, no matter what you're doing inside, I will defend this place with my life." Not that I need any more motivation to, Parnell thought.

"Thank you, Mr. Parnell. We could change the world here."

Maybe. Or maybe one of their janitors would trip and blow himself, along with half of the building, to smithereens. Or maybe half of the entire FOB.

De Groot continued to talk about his research, explaining the many, many possible applications of Tiberium-based technology, everything from ultra-efficient power plants to hypersonic jet engines, but Parnell was too distracted to really appreciate the doctor's work. He was still wondering about the fastest way to evacuate this place when several alarms suddenly began ringing across the base, snapping him out of his thoughts faster than a Wolverine's 0.50 cal bullet.

"We got hostiles incoming, sir!" a guard shouted to the group.

"You - get inside now," Parnell told De Groot. Turning towards Nyman, he said, "Get me to the Command Post."

Nyman close behind, Parnell rushed towards the base's Command Post, burst open the doors, and booted up the nearest command console. He needed a full picture. The Post was an excellent facility but something about having two hundred liters of liquid Tiberium five hundred feet away just did not reassure Parnell. As his battle control systems came online, EVA telling to please standby, he wondered whether his commanding officer who let him work remotely. Probably not, but it was worth a try.

"What's going on?" he asked, impatiently tapping his fingers.

"Olympus Command reports an enemy armor group has been sighted towards the east. Estimate three walkers and about ten tanks in support." EVA told him as battlefield control came fully online, connecting with all ground and air assets in the area.

Currently available to him and able to intercept the enemy were two patrol groups of four Titans each and a squadron of eight Orcas standing by. That would be good enough.

First, he immediately ordered his Orcas to lift off. Within two minutes, they were cruising across the barren Outback hills, preparing to engage the Black Hand armor group, composed of three Purifiers, eight Scorpion tanks, two buggies, and one yet unidentified light tank.

Next up, he ordered his Titan patrols to approach the enemy group. They wouldn't need to fire the first shot, not that Parnell would ever dare send Titans against Purifiers. The two walkers might have stood at almost the same height, but Titans lacked the raw power of those primitive Nod mechs. Good thing those Purifiers were expensive. Intel noted that each was individually blessed by a Black Hand priest before entering combat. Parnell sometimes wondered if the priests got bonuses to their salary with every Purifier delivery. That might explain their relative scarcity.

His forces, highlighted in blue, approached the Black Hand, now individually marked in red, his units and broader data links following every entity's every move, constantly uploading the data to Parnell's Command Post.

"Are we engaging now, sir?" the Orca squadron leader asked. His ID tag identified him as Captain M. Curtis.

"Yes, you are. Take out whatever's most threatening to you first."

"Got it," Curtis acknowledged.

As the Orcas moved into position, several alerts began popping up. Radar alerts.

A stream of glowing green missiles suddenly streaked towards one Orca, which did its damndest best to evade, dropping flares and frantically rolling, but a single SAM headed straight for the cockpit, blowing it and the pilot within to microscopic pieces.

"Take that tank out!" Curtis ordered, even as the remaining Orcas were already firing back against an unusually small tank, maybe half the size of the Tick Tanks from TW2. The Orca's weapons crushed the tiny vehicle's hull, setting it ablaze in a wave of secondary explosions, bringing the menace to a swift end.

"What was that?" another pilot cried out. "What the fuck was that?"

"Looked like a Mantis. Damn Black Hand robots!"

Parnell was just as surprised as his pilots, but the destruction of that "Mantis" meant they had free reign over the remainder. They had to use that opportunity, now.

"Orcas, stay on task! Kill the rest of those vehicles!"

With a vengeance, the seven Orcas left turned their attention first to the buggies, already speeding away, soon sent moving even faster, albeit in multiple flaming pieces. They next turned their attention to the tallest things in sight - the Purifier walkers.

The Purifiers were notoriously tough but far from invincible. Harried by a steady hailstorm of AGM-240 anti-tank missiles, they first slowed, then stopped, then tried to fire back, but the Orcas were far too nimble to get hit by a clumsy laser cannon. Darting around like lions around a wounded elephant, the Orcas focused their fire against weak points, especially the joints of the legs.

One by one, they collapsed under the overwhelming fire of the Orcas. With a cheer from the Orca pilots, the last Purifier dropped to its knees, trying to claw back to its feet, but one more missile blew its entire arm off, sending it tumbling a dozen meters away, and the mighty walker promptly fell face-first, sending up a cloud of dust.

"Nice face plant!" a pilot gleefully chortled.

"Sir, we're empty," Curtis reported to Parnell. "Enemy vehicles are running."

The surviving Black Hand vehicles - only the Scorpions by now - were retreating, backing up as fast as they could, banking on the Orcas' limited ammunition to make their getaway. Parnell was not about to let them.

"Titans! Take them down!" he ordered.

"Sir, yes sir!"

There was already a massive debate within the GDI military over the future viability of walkers over conventional treaded tanks. There were plenty of excellent arguments for the former. For example, tanks were simpler to maintain, had proportionally lower ground pressure, and have a greater top speed. Walkers, on the other hand, were expensive, vulnerable to leg attacks, and unwieldy to maneuver. But for all of the good arguments, Parnell would always remember the moment he first saw the Titan Mark II in action.

Eight 120mm cannons roared at once, the walkers ever-so-slightly rocking back from the recoil. Their APDS shells sailed towards the surviving Black Hand vehicles, coming down on their thinly-armored topsides, easily blowing through metal, flesh, ammunition, and metal again, igniting everything in their path. Not that it would have mattered if the shells made a direct hit against the Scorpions' frontal plates; the unfortunate Nod crews simply would have gotten their organs shredded slightly later, before blowing up and burning all the same.

"All targets pulverized, commander!"

"Excellent work, everyone!" Parnell congratulated them. Surveying the rest of the area, he noted with some amusement that there were quite a few more Purifier wrecks already scattered around the sandy fields. Seems like the Black Hand weren't good at taking hints. Still, Parnell would have to send a detail to clean up the wrecks eventually. No point in leaving giant war machines, however damaged, just unattended like that.

Well, there would be a time for that, and soon. With his battalion due to arrive in full strength within the next forty eight hours, he would be ready for everything.

But everything didn't have time for him.


Three days later...

Parnell usually woke up early, but today was bothering him more than usual. The intense heat didn't help, but he had gotten used to drinking twice as much water as he usually did, with a couple of electrolyte drinks for good measure. So what was the problem?

Entering Chione FOB's Command Post, he reached his personal command station, some of his staff already waiting for him, with the main screen already turned on. Judging by the urgent red "WARNING" flashing there, something was up, aside from the little spat he'd had with General Mitchell yesterday about the precautions about being next to the Institute. The General insisted that everyone would be fine so long nobody did anything stupid. Parnell insisted that stupid things were inevitable, but forcing a commander to work five hundred feet away from a WMD's worth of liquid Tiberium was not. Alas, the best that Parnell could get from him was "I'll think about it".

"What's going on?" Parnell checked in with his team.

"Sir, it looks like the Black Hand have established a field base near Chione. It's about ten kilometers west, near the green Tiberium field." That was Captain Stian Johnsrud, his permanent InOps spook hailing from Norway, speaking.

"Any accompanying forces?" Parnell asked.

"Yes, sir, they're bringing in infantry and light vehicles right now."

As Parnell had seen firsthand and could tell by all the recent wreckage, the Black Hand poked their heads around Chione FOB often, but they'd never actually tried to set up shop. Regardless of the current size of the enemy force, this escalation could not be ignored.

"Show me."

A series of satellite images popped up on Parnell's screen, showing a Nod Mobile Construction Vehicle entering the area, the stubby four-legged walker deploying near the edge of the green Tiberium field. The very last image showed a lone Power Plant being built next to the deployed MCV. That was ten minutes ago.

"Okay, wake the whole battalion up," Parnell ordered. "I want every soldier ready to go as soon as possible. And see if you can get me some Orcas. Who's on patrol already?"

"There's three squads of four Wolverines each," answered Major Pedro Sandoval, his second in command. "Patrol Lima is closest to the enemy base. They can reach it in a few minutes."

Parnell wasted no time establishing a link between himself and the Wolverines.

"Chione Battle Command to Patrol Lima, approach the field base at these coordinates and tell me everything you see."

"I'm on it!" their sergeant instantly replied.


Corporal Logan Rigby loved his Wolverine more than his girlfriend, a fact he'd been readily willing to admit after he'd joined the Steel Talons. Running through the Outback hills at twenty five miles an hour, practically bounding along with each step, he couldn't help but smile. The bounce of the Wolverine's powered hydraulic joints and the slight jolt of its center targeting crosshairs never ceased to amuse. Here he was, giving a ten-foot tall machine gun armed walker a morning jog of sorts.

The rest of his patrol group stayed in formation, keeping close to one another as they approached the Black Hand field base. Rigby wasn't sure what to expect there. Just some random light infantry milling about? A brand new Temple of Nod, erected overnight? Their commander had clearly told them where to go, but not what to expect.

The distance kept dropping, three kilometers, two, one...

Before it dropped further, their sergeant's Wolverine suddenly stopped at the base of a hill, sending the rest of them to a skidding halt as well.

"This is good," Sergeant Toscano told them, taking a knee with the walker. "Make yourselves less visible, now. We'll reach the crest and reconnoiter from there."

Rigby followed his sergeant's orders, crouching a bit, then slowly edging up to the peak, making no sudden movements. Slowly and carefully, the four of them all peeked out from their cover, giving them a full view of the Black Hand field base dead ahead.

A construction yard had already been established, alongside a small array of power plants and a Tiberium refinery. Several dozen Black Hand soldiers were already moving about as a wheeled vehicle, two red flags attached to its sides, emerged from the construction yard's loading bay.

"That's an Emissary scout, sir," Rigby identified the vehicle, now driving north. It was a rather funny-looking vehicle, with a shell-like body, two Black Hand flags swishing in the wind, and what looked like loudspeakers mounted near the flags. Rigby zoomed in with his sensors - and yup, those were loudspeakers. Interesting choice of decor.

"Means they're expanding," Toscano confirmed. "Looks like to the Tiberium spikes."

"Can we stop it, Sarge?" another Wolverine pilot, Banda, asked.

"Probably. Lima-Five to Command, permission to pursue Emissary?"

"Not yet. Continue to monitor the base. Stay undetected, if you can."

So monitor they did, for the next few minutes, continuously transmitting their data and video feeds to Command, shining a light on the rapidly-expanding base. As Rigby watched, additional power plants and even a war factory were deployed, all of them coming online within minutes. Still, hidden as they were, Rigby wasn't too concerned. It wasn't as if he was supposed to wipe out the entire base by himself, not that he wouldn't love to try.

"Emissary is still moving," Toscano noted, still linked to their commander. "It might be going for the blue Tiberium field, too."

"Cocky of them, huh?" Banda commented.

"Keep scouting, men."

As the seconds ticked by, Rigby noticed more movement near a hastily-assembled Hand of Nod, the most iconic barracks design in the world. Dominated by a metal fist clutching a stylized globe, the design was hard not to snicker at upon first sight for its sheer impracticability. But like most things in a world dominated by a radioactive, mutating, virulent, extraterrestrial green crystal, people got used to it.

"That's a lot of people next to the Hand of Nod, Sergeant," Banda noted. "All sorts of infantry, lots of weapons among them. Wonder if they got snacks, too."

"Be more specific, Banda, and stay on task. What type of weapons? Armor? Types?"

"Well, there's Saboteurs. A lot of them."

With their heavy environment suits, their heads encased in some kind of large green tinted helmet, Nod Saboteurs were dedicated combat engineers and technical specialists. Despite resembling aliens with their green helmets and all, they performed very human tasks like bridge repairs, network hacking, and vehicle maintenance.

Rigby, his attention newly aroused, counted them. "There's got to be at least a dozen," he realized. "What do they need so many for?"

"Maybe we're just sitting on some high tech research that they need a dozen engineers to sort through?" Banda cheerfully suggested.

Before Toscano could reprimand the trooper, an audible "fuck!" echoed from Command. Clearing his throat, the Commander gave them new orders.

"That's enough, Lima. Hunt down that Emissary now."

"Yes, sir. Wolverines, move out!"

As their little pack headed north, tracking the Nod vehicle, Rigby wondered what made the Commander swear like that. He resolved to ask him when he got back to base. What was the worst that could happen?


Parnell wondered what to do next.

So the Black Hand were coming for the Institute. He should have guessed. De Groot's research was probably priceless, and Black Hand were willing to kill for a lot less. His battalion was powerful on paper but short on experience. The Black Hand, on the other hand, were veterans of countless skirmishes with the Talons and other Nod factions. He needed reinforcements, and he needed them now.

"What's the ETA on the QRF? Who's commanding it?" Parnell asked his staff.

"One hour, sir," Sandoval told him. "Colonel Weaver's in charge."

"Well shit," Parnell muttered. Colonel Weaver was tactically sound but really dragged his feet. For all of his talent, he seemed to prefer it when fights came to him, not the other way around. Parnell remembered that Weaver and his unit had been assigned as the QRF after they failed to stop a Nod incursion on the Australian coast. Not coincidentally, QRFs were almost never called and thus the source of the division's best poker players.

"What's the progress on the battalion, Sandoval? Are they ready?"

"About fifty percent are ready to go right now."

These guys really needed to hurry up. Parnell shook his head.

"Sir," Johnsrud called. "Dr. Aria Liang from the Institute just sent a message asking about Chione's activity. Is there anything the scientists need to do at the moment?"

Oh, hell, of course. There were two hundred liters of liquid Tiberium just lying around. The last thing Parnell needed was for a random stray shell or laser to sail in and level the entire base. As that would also destroy whatever intelligence was inside, at least the Black Hand might be more subtle than usual, assuming no accidents. Which was ridiculous and unrealistic to expect.

"Tell the scientists to secure their most volatile materials and find a secure place to hunker down. The battle shouldn't affect them but caution won't hurt."

"What about an evacuation?"

"No. They need to secure the lab first. I don't want anything stupid to happen."

"Yes, sir."


Rigby was even happier now.

The Emissary was a smoldering wreck, its hull perforated by a few hundred 0.50 cal bullets, its pitiful little red flags shredded all the same. Rigby walked over to one of the loudspeakers, knocked off but mostly intact, and then stepped on it, crunching it beneath the Wolverine's metal foot.

"Good work, men," Toscano congratulated them. "Lima-Five to Command, the Nod Emissary is destroyed."

"Uh, Sergeant? To our left…"

Rigby had to zoom in to see what Banda was talking about. There were at least fifty soldiers double timing it towards the four Wolverines. Their black armor and red-tinted helmets made their identification obvious; their light machine guns and rocket launchers made their purpose clear. The faintly audible screaming of 'death to the heretics!' wasn't really necessary at that point.

"Lima-Five to Command, do we engage?" Sergeant Toscano asked. Not that they needed an answer, but they still got one.

"Affirmative. Do what you do best."

Rigby readied his dual machine guns again. The Emissary, a full sized vehicle, had been utterly impotent against them. These squishy human infantry would fare a lot worse.

"Take out those rocket troopers first," Toscano advised. "They might match our range. Be careful."

When the first enemy squad stepped into firing range, Rigby casually pressed the trigger for a second, sending ten rounds from each machine gun hurtling towards the so-called Confessor Cabals at three thousand feet per second.

Judging from how quickly the survivors hit the dirt, the shots must have been pretty effective, so Rigby kept it up, shooting rapid bursts, suppressing the hapless Confessors.

"Incoming!" Toscano warned. Two rockets were streaking towards their position. Rigby hurriedly sidestepped, but the blast wave shook him badly.

Shaking himself out of the brief daze, Rigby went back to shooting. The Black Hand infantry advance had stalled, no one daring or stupid enough to poke their heads up, except to briefly launch a rocket their way. Sometimes they were recognized for their bravery by getting their heads completely blown off. Sometimes they lived to fire again, harassing the Wolverines but failing to score any catastrophic hits.

Still, Rigby was pretty sure the painful pulses in his eardrums weren't normal. Those shockwaves were doing a number of him, even without directly striking his combat suit. He didn't want to stay where he was for much longer.

"Command to Lima, pull back, now. You have light tanks incoming."

"Yes sir! Patrol, we're getting out of here! Move it!"


The intelligence was getting better and better, if Parnell had been a Nod commander.

He'd since gotten a squadron of Orcas to check out the Black Hand base, and their eyes in the sky had been the source of even more bad news. Their war factory was working overtime, pumping out numerous Scorpion Tanks even as additional support vehicles kept streaming in. Raider buggies, attack bikes, even a few of those Mantis antiaircraft tanks that forced his Orcas to retreat back to base, were all rolling in. At least the Orcas had popped a couple of Scorpions before their hasty retreat.

"Can Weaver hurry the hell up?" Parnell muttered to no one, as he paced around. His battalion still wasn't fully readied, the green troops sluggish compared to Parnell's old unit from the Second Tiberium War. He would've loved to have his old troops back, just for today, but alas, he would have to make do with what he had.

He double checked the forces available to him. The 26th Battalion was a standard GDI armor battalion, with two Titan companies and two infantry companies. On the ground, he had thirty Titans, sixty Wolverines, six Behemoth artillery walkers, and three hundred infantry. In the meantime, the base's airfields were currently refueling and rearming the eight Orcas from before; they'd be ready to re-engage within twenty minutes. Another squadron of fresh Orcas was on route, ETA ten minutes. His ten Hammerhead gunships were already maxed out on ammo and fuel.

All in all, he had a superior force to the Black Hand. For now.

He switched his comms channel to his battalion's, now in the final stages of gearing up. They'd been woken up to defend the base. Well, there was about to be a change of plans. Best to let them know.

"This is Lieutenant Colonel Parnell to the 26th Battalion. Listen up, people."

He decided to explain himself the best he could.

"You've been woken up because the Black Hand have set up base near this FOB. They're coming for this base, so of course, we're going to stop them. That's why we're coming for them instead: coming straight for them and kicking them in the teeth."

"I'll be issuing additional orders to your captains. Listen to them, and we'll all be going home by day's end, with a massive pile of dead Nod bastards behind us."

With the announcement over, he went to planning. He'd send his battalion on a more or less straight path to the distant Tiberium spikes, as it seemed the Black Hand were intent on creating a secondary base there, if that Emissary was any indication. He'd wipe that outpost off the map, and then push south towards the main base, leveling it for good. Any Black Hand forces still in the field would be forced to withdraw or face annihilation. Either was fine with Parnell.

He could hear his Behemoths opening up with their massive 200mm cannons, beginning to rain death on the distant Black Hand base. But even those mighty walkers wouldn't be staying here for long. He'd need just about every heavy weapon for the imminent assault. For base security, he'd leave two of his infantry platoons behind. Besides, the automated defenses should be enough of a deterrent to any secondary strike force.

"Parnell to the 26th, prepare to move out on my command! Armored platoons, lead the way. Infantry and mechanized, follow close behind. 9th and 10th Platoons, you'll be staying behind today. Make sure no one tries to slip into our bases."

He then opened separate channels to the battalion's captains, explaining his battle plan to them, and promising that he would stay in touch. Reminding them to work together and keep an eye out for any suspicious activity, he closed the link and moved onto his aircraft pilots, who hadn't ignored the mobilization of the whole battalion.

With the plan explained to all parties, Parnell took the moment to take a long drink of water, throwing the empty bottle into the Command Post's trash can. He walked over to one of the windows, where he could see his force walking - including the vehicles, being mostly Titans and Wolverines - past the buildings and towards the enemy base. With a satisfied sigh, he grabbed another water bottle and sat back down at his command station. This day was going to be quite exciting, but damn Weaver and his slow ass. He could at least send his Orcas - they'd be pretty useful.

"Are we leaving the base too lightly defended, sir?" Sandoval asked, a few degrees of worry appearing on his face.

"If Nod is trying to take the lab, then they can't hold onto it without a field base. If they raid the lab without support, the Orcas and Hammerheads can hunt them down."

"Understood, sir."

Parnell took one final look at his tactical map. He had one chance, and zero intention of bungling it.


"Ten minutes, sir," Johnsrud, his InOps guy, told him.

"Just ten minutes to go," Sandoval echoed.

In ten minutes, his battalion would arrive at the Black Hand outpost, and all hell would break loose. Enemy force projections were now projected to be about one battalion - making the forces roughly equal on paper. It was up to the commanders to tip the scales.

The action had already started. His advance Wolverines were skirmishing with squads of enemy troops, the rest of his force marching fast as possible to join them. His Behemoth artillery walkers, meanwhile, were deployed and firing away at full intensity, pounding the main base with a steady stream of high explosive 200mm shells. Once the main battle started, they'd switch to armor piercing and directly target high-priority vehicles. So far, no counter battery fire had struck back, just the way the Behemoths liked it. The sixteen Orcas available to him were also all airborne and en route to support the attack. Unlike in typical engagements, where the aircraft would strike first and let the ground forces clean up, Parnell opted to keep them together. He was too afraid of those little Mantis AA tanks to let his Orcas go alone; he didn't need to lose half of his air support before the main battle started.

The combined arms force trudged along, sweeping aside the minimal resistance in its way, and anxiously awaited contact with the much larger force known to be lurking about. With no more satellite coverage available, Parnell was operating under a lot of assumptions as to where everything was. He hated the fog of war as much as he hated Nod. If only he could have accurate readouts on every enemy unit and building, and direct all of his attacks, especially artillery and air, accordingly.

Note to self - encourage GDI Command to build a permanent, all-seeing satellite network so commanders can kill things more easily, he thought. GDI might have been significantly cutting back on their military budget, but surely they could afford a few more standard spy satellites? The GDSS Philadelphia command station already cost a small country's worth of GDP to maintain, why not stick another dozen cameras in space too?


On the ground, Sergeant Torsten Konig was thinking the same thing.

His Titan, Frederick II, was steadily plodding along at thirty-two kilometers an hour, twice the sprinting speed of a human soldier. Shaking the ground with its fifty-ton frame, Konig led his Titan through hill after hill, the vanguard of the entire 26th Battalion's advance. If anyone saw a hostile first, it'd be his Titan. If anyone was going to shoot first, it would also be his Titan.

His driver, a stout Hamburg native named Vogel, kept the Titan moving along while his gunner, Adler, a foulmouthed Bavarian, kept the cannon primed, quite ready to smoke the first Black Hand vehicle he saw with a 120mm APDS round. The shell could penetrate just about every Nod vehicle in existence, maybe except for the absurdly powerful CABAL cyborgs, but the rogue AI was thankfully long gone from this world.

It'd be wonderful to have a satellite network conveniently pointing out every enemy vehicle, Konig imagined, just able to mark enemies and let the Titans do their job from maximum range. Instead, they had to close in and fight the hard way, not helped by all the hills that broke line of sight.

"Vogel, don't trip, now," Konig warned. The men of the Steel Talons - they were overwhelmingly men - had a tremendous amount of combat experience but while some, like Konig, had fifty lifetimes' worth, others like Vogel had at most a quarter's. The last thing any of them needed was the lead Titan falling over without a fight.

"Yes, Sergeant." Vogel replied, shifting the gears, slowing the Titan just a bit.

"I'm not fucking digging Frederick out again," Adler muttered. "Not again."

Konig tried not to remember that incident. It was embarrassing, to say the least. Two weeks ago, Vogel had gotten a little too excited in a firefight and tipped the Titan over just as a RPG struck the legs, panicking the young corporal and sending their war machine into the dirt. Their fellow Titan crews had first laughed their asses off, and then promptly wiped out the offending Nod militants. Vogel managed to get Frederick back to its feet, but ever since someone had painted an image of the German emperor with a bump on his forehead on the Titan's side, the entire division knew about Tripping Frederick.

On the top of yet another hill, squad comms suddenly buzzed to life.

"Guys, I've got signatures, twenty degrees, four kilometers ahead," a fellow Titan commander, Lehner, radioed in. "Looks like Scorpions to me."

"Easy. How many?" Konig asked.

"At least twelve. They're moving now - can you see them, Konig?"

Konig maxed the zoom on his cameras, adding the infrared layer to them, and saw what Lehner was talking about. Twelve Scorpions, with their unmistakable insectoid hulls, were driving out to meet the Titan group.

"Adler, turn to twenty degrees, set range to four thousand. Prepare to fire."

"Uh huh," he complied, and Konig turned back to the Scorpions. The light tanks were splitting up and fanning out, preparing to flank the unit. There was also something attached to the front of their hulls, something Konig had never seen before - some kind of plow? What did they need that for? There wasn't any snow here, that was for sure.

"Confirmed?" Konig asked Lehner.

"I'm checking with Command. Give me a second."

Lehner went silent for a moment, until a familiar Lieutenant Colonel's voice suddenly sounded off in the entire platoon's headsets.

"Battle Command to Titan group, you are cleared to engage. I repeat, you are cleared to engage!"

"Cleared to engage!" briefly echoed on the Titans' channel before they went to work.

Adler fired without hesitation, locked on to one of the rear Scorpions. He said he liked to shoot the back ones first so the front ones wouldn't know their buddies were dying, thus giving him the chance to kill them too. That might have disturbed some people but none of those people were in the Steel Talons.

The shell blew out of the rifled barrel at several times the speed of sound, instantly shedding its outer coating to expose its core, a brutally sharpened depleted uranium rod that wanted nothing more than to taste the armored frame of an enemy vehicle, only to utterly blow through and melt the delicate systems, fuel, and people inside.

But that particular shell would be denied its chance, even as Konig's computer recorded a confirmed hit, the Scorpion kept moving along, apparently undeterred by what should have been a lethal hit.

"FUCK!" Adler screamed, Konig not bothering to silence him. "Why did that verdammt shell deflect? What's that fucking Scorpion made out of?"

"Lehner, did you hit your target?" Konig called his buddy.

"I did. Failed to penetrate."

As Adler furiously waited for the cannon to reload and give him another chance to blow that Scorpion to hell, Konig took another look at the enemy tank. There was something else new - a blast mark right on that plow that split the red-striped metal in two.

"Adler! Adjust your aim!" Konig ordered.

"How?"

"Aim a little high, right for its cockpit!"

"Will do!"

That damned plow took the impact. Well, not again it wouldn't.

Adler's second shot was on point, entering through the tank's cockpit and exiting shortly afterwards, bits and pieces of the unlucky driver still on the tip. All Konig saw was the enemy Scorpion blowing up, which would have put a smile on his face were it not for the return fire of the enemy, high-velocity 90mm cannon rounds smashing against the Titan's armor, badly shaking the crew inside.


"Scorpions are putting up one hell of a fight, sir," Sandoval reported.

Parnell looked back at his engaged Titans, which had sustained some damage but were all still mission capable. "I can see that. Are they covering for something?"

"It'd be a good idea, but what would they cover for?"

He went back to looking at the wider battlefield. Keeping all of his forces concentrated worsened the fog of war, but he didn't dare split up anyone. He couldn't risk exposing small groups to annihilation and getting the remainder ground down. So brushing off the broad swathes of area that were still unscouted, Parnell went back to the main fight, the armored skirmish that was rapidly escalating into a full-fledged battle.

With his lead Titans fully committed to the fight, Parnell next ordered his Missile Squads into range, their multipurpose anti tank and anti air missile launchers quite effective at disabling light or medium vehicles. As additional Scorpions and vehicles were sighted, closing in from multiple directions, Parnell began to wonder if he really made the right decision. But he was commanding Steel Talons, and the Steel Talons were at their best on the open battlefield. This is where his forces belonged, and this is where they would win.

"Keep moving!" he ordered. "Push forward, and we're going to win!"

Not the most inspiring words, but they were the best he could muster.

Parnell, as a little boy, had often watched ant battles, especially when two colonies collided. Thousands upon thousands of the little insects would swarm over each other, hacking, biting, and otherwise trying to maul the opposing colony into submission. Each individual ant was basically inconsequential to the cause, but with enough zeros to their quantity, all of them together could make a difference. It didn't really matter how many fell; if the colony won, every sacrifice would be worth it.

Humans were supposed to be different. Everyone had free will and agency; everyone was a unique soul, formed by their own experiences and background, many evolutionary steps up from the mindless drones of an insect hive. Behind every service number was a name and a man (or woman), and GDI Officer Command School never failed to remind its students of the responsibility that would be on their shoulders.

But Parnell always remembered the ants. The first time he'd led his forces through a battle control system, back in the opening days of the Second Tiberium War, he couldn't help but remember how his forces pushed forward, fell back, and held their ground in the same way the ants did. This battle, like all the others he'd been in, was no different.

Watching his battalion fight, kill, and die, Parnell remembered the ants, occupied as he was with prioritizing targets, setting up fields of fire, and moving squads around. He remembered their struggles for a greater good and their desperation, if sterile, barely-sentient insects slaved to pheromones and instinct could ever be called desperate.

His Titans and Missile Squads continued to hammer the enemy tanks as his Wolverines and riflemen suppressed incoming infantry. His Hammerheads and Orcas launched strafing runs and missile attacks, blowing holes in the enemy lines. The superior firepower doctrine of GDI was paying dividends, as each Talons soldier inflicted multiple casualties upon the fanatical Black Hand mobs.

But bullets, cannon shells, and incendiary rounds came in varying measures, cutting down the occasional soldier, whether screaming into the dirt or collapsing without another sound. He was taking noticeable losses, and all he could hope for was that the enemy was suffering more, that the overall situation was swinging in his favor. Individuals be damned, Parnell had a battle to win.

"Any enemy reinforcements?" Parnell asked Johnsrud.

"Doesn't look like it, sir. We just need to bleed them out here."

"And that, we can do," Parnell told himself out loud.

The enemy's numbers were definitely thinning out. Some of them were already pulling back in retreat, if in a rather organized fashion. This wasn't a rout, but it was a victory in the making.

With a final push by his Titans, advancing their intimidating bulks even closer to the deteriorating Black Hand lines, followed by up a short flanking maneuver by his infantry and Wolverines, with one final attack run by his Orcas thrown into the mix, the Black Hand broke. Under the sheer onslaught, they began to run in one and twos, first their scattered militia, and then their Confessor Cabal officers, all began to pull back. All save one group.

Data from fifty-something sources corroborated together indicated that the holdout enemy force was about one platoon - hardly enough to contest a battalion that outnumbered it more than nine to one. It appeared to be just infantry - Confessors with Black Hand and some Rocket troopers mixed in.

Parnell ordered his Wolverines and Hammerheads to mop them up, but the platoon fought with unusual fury, even for the Black Hand, bringing down a Hammerhead with accurate RPG fire and disabling multiple Wolverines too. Parnell at first couldn't believe it, then doubled the clean-up forces and pushed harder. In a few minutes, the entire pocket was surrounded and completely wiped out, killed to a man, yet somehow never broke.

They died like soldiers, like a few other groups Parnell had fought and wiped out in the past. And every single time they had died that way, it was for something larger, something more important than a dozen or a hundred of their lives. So why now? Parnell sank back into his chair, racing with hypotheses.

"Sir…?!" Sandoval tried to poke Parnell, but he was still thinking about the holdout platoon, wondering why they had fought so violently to slow down the battalion. "Sir, can you please look back at base? South entrance, to be exact?"

"What?" he demanded, but his eyes were already seeing what had caused Sandoval so much alarm - his mind just hadn't processed the burning red energy beam that was presently melting a Watchtower on the base's edge, even as EVA casually mentioned that "our base is under attack". The source of the laser beam was painfully obvious, given the hulking ten-meter tall bipedal walker using the mighty weapon against the comparatively puny GDI base defenses, which were even now plinking away with 20mm rounds that did nothing more than scratch its red and black paint.

"Is that a-?"

"That's a Purifier, sir," Sandoval reported the obvious, his fear impossible to conceal. "That's a Purifier."

Additional warnings suddenly began to pop up on his wider battle control interface - his garrison at their southern firebase were reporting hostile contact, and lots of it. Scorpions, buggies - did someone just say Flame Tank? Yes, someone was saying Flame Tank, and fairly screaming the warning now. Oh, shit.

"What's going on?" he asked anyone who was willing to respond.

The first reply he got was from the firebase, probably moments away from being burned to the ground by Black Hand Flame Tanks, equipped with two giant flamethrowers that excelled against entrenched infantry and structures - which was all the firebase had.

"Sir, they've got half a dozen Flame Tanks! The other enemy armor is suppressing my men, and keeping them inside their bunkers - we can't go out with all that MG fire, but those Flame Tanks will melt us if we stay!"

"Then prioritize the Flame Tanks!" Parnell ordered. "Just hold on out there - and I'll try to send some reinforcements!"

"Yes sir!" the soldier squeaked out, before grabbing a missile launcher and shutting the link. Parnell hadn't even gotten the soldier's name, and it was almost certainly the last time he would talk to him. Dammed ants, he thought to himself, now turning back to matters closer to home. The firebase's destruction would be a major problem in five minutes. That Purifier was a problem right now.

Even as it slagged another Watchtower into a collapsing, melted mess, Parnell ordered his Guardian anti-tank cannons to fire from maximum range. Their 105mm cannons, much heavier than anything mounted on the Watchtowers, began steadily pounding away at its legs. There was no way that thing would be standing for long.

But continue standing it did, and then, the Purifier actually began to advance, walking forward towards the main gates, firing its laser every now and then, disabling one of the Guardian Cannons. It closed the distance disturbingly fast for a machine its size, but it was definitely getting worn down. First, it began to stagger, dragging one foot, and then sparks occasionally burst from its joints and main body alike. With a final strike, the Purifier's left knee blew out, sending the mighty war machine down at last. It must have absorbed at least a dozen shots, shots that would individually ruin lesser vehicles, but the Black Hand beast was no more.

"Holy fuck," Parnell muttered. "About time."

He switched back to the southern firebase, now in utter chaos at two Flame Tanks finally came within range, releasing huge swathes of blue-hot napalm that caught men and buildings alike with equal ferocity, burning them all down within seconds. He tried to rally his surviving men the best he could, but out of the eighty or so soldiers initially present, only twenty were in fighting shape. Seeing no other options. Parnell ordered a general retreat, calling back a few of his Orcas and Hammerheads to engage the enemy armor and evacuate the few people left, respectively.

At least at the main battle, the bulk of his battalion had broken through and was moving nearly unimpeded towards the enemy base. They would level it within minutes, a fitting payback for their distant comrades at the firebase, stepping over dozens of slain Black Hand on their way. Parnell decided to request additional V-35 Ox heavy transport craft to the battle area. His many wounded troops would need more than their medics would provide, and plus, if the Oxen could also haul some of his armor back to crush the Flame Tank assault, all the better.

As Parnell tried to take a deep breath, his hands shaking as he tried to process the events of the last five minutes, the last person he wanted to hear in the whole world spoke.

"Sir…?" Sandoval piped up again, his fear even more evident this time. Oh come on. What was it now?

"What is it?" Parnell didn't bother to hide his frustration, glaring at him.

"There's eleven more Purifiers inbound. Coming right here."


0820, July 28, 2034

Parnell had been in dangerous situations before. This was more than dangerous.

If his executive officer, Pedro Sandoval, was telling the truth - and he had no reason to lie - then Parnell had ten minutes to live at most.

"Eleven?" was the first question Parnell was able to ask.

All Sandoval did in response was point to the tactical map, which showed eleven red signatures approaching the southern entrance of their base at twenty kilometers an hour. Their radar signatures were quite unmistakable, and first visual images were coming in now - showing the gigantic walkers steadily advancing upon the nearly defenceless forward operating base, guarded by a skeleton crew with nowhere near enough heavy weapons to stop them.

"Where did they even come from?" Parnell asked next, still trying to make sense of the situation.

"Didn't we engage one yesterday? Reports from the previous commander say he fought quite a few over the past month or so."

"So? Weren't they all destroyed?"

"They could've recovered the wrecks, maybe."

Parnell remembered the large group of Saboteurs his scouts had been in the beginning of the whole battle. He'd forgotten about them since, but then realized - none of his other scout patrols had sighted them. They had to have gone somewhere. Had they…?

"I need a visual on those Purifiers." Parnell ordered. "If they were pieced back together, it'll be obvious."

Before anyone could respond, the lights in the base suddenly flickered on and off.

"Low power," EVA notified the shocked command team.

"What the hell was that?"

There was another flicker, and Parnell's command interface suddenly began flashing - his entire base's power supply was suddenly compromised.

"The primary power grid, sir! Something took it out!"

The Flame Tanks. It had to have been the Flame Tanks. With his southwest outpost overrun, the primary power grid, now completely open, would be the natural next target for even the dullest of enemy commanders and their structure killers.

With his power supply cut in half, Parnell would have to make do with what he had.

"EVA, prepare to reroute power from all nonessential facilities to the base defenses."

"Understood, sir."

The base defenses could still buy him some time, if not much. What else?

"Parnell to War Factory, what vehicles are in storage?"

"Four Titans, sir. Do we need them?"

"Immediately. Full combat load. Get to it."

Parnell next turned his attention to the infantry.

"Parnell to Barracks, are you listening?"

"This is Sergeant Nyman. What do you need, sir?"

"Equip all personnel with anti-tank weapons. Can you still access the weapon racks?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do it." Parnell moved on, the name 'Nyman' ringing no bells in this desperate time.

"Where the fuck is the quick reaction force?" Parnell cursed to his staff.

"Weaver last said he was running into heavy resistance, expected to push through within an hour at most," Sandoval advised.

"Nobody here has fifteen minutes to live if he doesn't get here!" Parnell hissed under his breath. "Damn you, Weaver, and your slow ass."

Parnell tried to take a metaphorical step back and assess his situation. None of it was good. One, there were eleven heavy assault walkers approaching his base. Two, his power grid had been slashed in half, grinding his infrastructure to a halt. Three, his battalion and their reinforcements were much too far away to make a difference in either of the above.

"Sir, I hate to report this, but our long range comms were downed by the power outage. We could shut down the base defenses to run them, but well…."

Since the Purifiers weren't in cannon range just yet, he could probably spare a few moments. But did communicating with the outside world and keeping oneself alive really have to be mutually exclusive tasks?

"EVA, countermand my previous order. Communications along with command and control are first priority for power, base defenses are second."

'Yes, sir."

"Sir, why are they even attacking us? They could've crushed the entire battalion if they committed to the main fight, and then come for us here."

Parnell had the same question but no time for answers. The only way anyone was coming out alive was with an evacuation, and a record-breakingly fast one at that. Well, the Division had two V-35 Ox heavy transport aircraft on high-altitude standby, able to reach his position within just two minutes. Another had already been diverted to evacuate the wounded men of his battalion, five miles out.

Each Ox could carry up to sixty passengers when configured correctly. That meant up to one twenty hundred people could get out of Chione FOB, before the Purifiers arrived.

How many people were presently at base?

According to EVA, about three hundred.

Parnell didn't have a choice. With a few clicks, he had set up a comms link to the Institute's PA broadcast system.

"This is Lieutenant Colonel Robert Parnell to the staff of the Institute. I'm preparing an evacuation. The Black Hand are about to attack Chione FOB. I don't have enough forces to stop them, so you people need to get out of here, now. My men will hold the line. I've got two V-35s on route. All of you should fit. Now hurry up!"

Next recalibrating his equipment to talk to his battalion out in the field - quite inconvenient with his base's power supply so low, but doable nonetheless, Parnell took a deep breath and delivered a second rapid-fire speech to more people who had no idea what was about to happen.

"Battalion, listen closely. I will be going dark in a minute, but you need to keep pushing and destroy the enemy base. Once you've done so hold your position and wait for pickup. Good luck. Parnell out."


"What kind of order is that?" Vogel was asking.

"I don't know, other than that we don't question it." Konig shrugged, in the middle of running a new diagnosis on the Titan's main cannon. It still worked, despite the two glancing Scorpion shells and one RPG that had plastered the main hull. Konig kept his walker on the move and kept advancing, leading the ragged but determined Steel Talons armor to finish the battle. The Black Hand base was practically wide open by now.

But their commander had said he'd be going dark. Why? Was he under attack or something? The Lieutenant Colonel hadn't issued any more orders, and the few questions sent his way had gone unanswered. It seemed that he had just disappeared.

Without any more orders, the Talons battalion continued the fight, totally unaware of the firestorm about to ravage their ever-so-brief home.


"What do you mean, they're staying inside?"

Parnell was confused enough. He'd already taken the first seat inside the V-35, and with the rest of his command team around him, were trying to reestablish battle control, using devices with less than 10% of the computing power of the Command Post they had so recently occupied. But now Sandoval had just notified him that some of the scientists of the Institute had insisted on staying inside. But why? Parnell had been very clear that VIPs such as himself and them needed to go, immediately.

"Sir, they're trying to secure the hazardous materials," Sandoval said. "You know what I mean."

"The Liquid Tiberium..."

"Sir?" Johnsrud piped up.

"Yeah?"

"What if that's their target? That liquid tib itself might be the most valuable item in the whole place."

Parnell considered the proposition. Johnsrud had a point. Not everyone could produce and store several dozen liters of the most volatile substance in the world.

"What difference does it make for us?" Sandoval butted in.

"None, if we're getting out of here," Johnsrud admitted. "But that much liquid tib, God knows what Nod can do with it. They could blow Hammerfest or any other of our command centers off the face of the Earth next week."

"I'm calling Broken Arrow," Parnell suddenly decided. "Soon as I get comms restored."

"That's only for missing nukes, sir," Johnsrud reminded him.

"I think missing liquid Tiberium is close enough. I'll let the Institute scientists know. Maybe they can make a difference. Plant a tracking device or something, I don't know."

"Where to, Lieutenant Colonel?" the Ox's pilot called, his calm voice echoing in the passenger bay.

"Fort Olympus!" Parnell shouted. "The sooner the better!"

"Sure thing. You can count on us." The Ox repowered its engines and lifted off within the minute, most of its passengers huddling together in stunned silence, still trying to process everything that had happened today. None of it was supposed to happen.


Sergeant Nyman knew he was going to die.

Watching the two V-35s fly away, Nyman fully understood that those were his only chances for survival, now speeding away at six hundred kilometers an hour. On some level, he knew he would die here. He'd lived here long enough. It made sense that he would die here too.

So he shouldered his GD-2 assault rifle and went to rally the other dead men, the main difference being that they didn't know that they were going to die.

"What am I supposed to do, sir?" a panicked Private, clutching a FGM-90 missile launcher backwards, ran up to ask him.

He didn't bother correcting the Private's mistake with his title. Instead, he corrected the Private's grip on the FGM, gave rapid-fire instructions on how to fire the weapon, and shoved him towards a hastily-dug foxhole filled with equally wide-eyed green troops.

His Commander, Parnell, the same Lieutenant Colonel that he had given a tour just days ago, had informed the veterans at base that eleven Purifiers were inbound and that they were to hold the line at all costs. Parnell had then flown away, leaving the men to their fate, but Nyman didn't mind. Enlisted were expendable.

Since most of the combat soldiers were with the battalion far outside, all Chione really had left were a few grizzled Sergeants like Nyman and lots of support people - the engineers, the cooks, the contractors, and everyone in between. If they were lucky, they had fired pulse rifles in basic training. Many of them hadn't.

Per the final orders, every last anti-tank weapon left in the base had been gathered- a motley assortment of FGM-90s, land mines, even a stock of disc grenades left over from TW2. Those who had any kind of experience got the missile launchers. Those without hurriedly planted mines and were instructed how to throw the disc grenades. During the three minutes or so of instruction, Nyman became reasonably sure that his students could at least fire a missile - they hadn't been taught to reload. The Sergeants quietly agreed to recover and reload the launchers themselves if need be.

But there was only one way this could end, and when the mechanical clanking of the assault walkers sounded in the distance, occasionally interrupted by the ominous hum of laser cannon fire, eyes widened further and sweat poured down faces.

Nyman had since taken a FGM-90, and patiently waited for an enemy to come within range. The clanking sounded louder and louder, and as the base's tall Watchtowers began to open fire, Nyman got his first sight of a Purifier.

It was a terrifying thing, a humanoid mech with gleaming red lights and shoulder pauldrons, thick double-jointed legs allowing it to march across the hilly terrain at simply disturbing speeds. Raising its cannon, it easily melted a Watchtower with two quick shots, and continued onwards, soon joined by its brother walkers, seemingly casting their tall shadows over the GDI base's terrified defenders. Their very presence overwhelmed some of the men with fear, sending a few bursting into tears and others simply screaming for help.

Nyman would have none of it. He slapped those that cried and shouted down those who screamed. The enemy was here, and as GDI soldiers, they would fight.

The first Purifier that reached the front gate of Chione FOB was officially welcomed with fourteen anti-tank missiles aimed directly at its legs, the right knee specifically, and while some of the missiles went waywards, more than enough impacted to send the walker reeling, struggling to maintain its balance with its badly damaged leg.

Nyman had waited for this exact moment to fire his own missile launcher, and the old Sergeant's instincts holding true, the last impact at the weak point was enough to topple the Purifier. The wild cheer that spontaneously erupted from the defenders was instantly silenced by six laser beams that swept across their positions, destroying sandbags, weapons, and men where they stood a moment ago.

The remaining Purifiers stormed the base with a vengeance, and though more missiles slammed into their armored hides, the perfect coordination of the opening volley was gone. The battle instead devolved into a slogging mess that greatly favored the heavily armed and armored Purifiers over the squishy infantrymen: some were literally crushed underfoot, flattened by the eighty-ton war machines.

The repaired Titans freshly hauled out from the War Factories were sadly ineffective in stemming the burning tide. Though they claimed one of the Purifiers, blowing out its cockpit and the Saboteur within, all four Titans and the brave combat engineers inside them were annihilated in turn.

Nyman had fired a fourth missile, the last one he had, when his skin registered an intense flash of heat. The foxhole in front of him was bathed in napalm, a darkly beautiful blue-hot fire that treated advanced body armor like dry timber, emerging from the top mounted flamethrower of the nearest Purifier. The others were already spreading out, emitting brief bursts of blue fire across the base's various structures, the walkers not bothering to clean up the first defenders at the gate.

What the fuck, they've already broken through, Nyman realized, not registering the six men in front of him flail about wildly for a few moments, before the black napalm liquefied their clothing and their skin, leaving them without nerves and soon without bodies.

Nyman instead retreated and looked around for another weapon. He was still packing his GD-2 rifle, not that it would do any good. But any remaining antitank weapons were probably burned up with their original operators.

So he at last spun around on open ground, flicking his rifle's safety off and firing quick bursts at the nearest Purifier, the same one that had so efficiently cleared out the foxhole. Even as it approached him, well into flamethrower range, Nyman kept shooting, only stopping to reload.

He was staring directly at the Purifier before he knew it. Its gleaming red lights flickering across its iron-grey and carbon-black body, it looked downwards at the soldier who opposed it with an assault rifle. Its pilot grinned, and primed the flamethrower again - no, that was not worthy for this brave, if misguided man. Changing his mind, the Purifier's pilot instead charged up his laser. The poor fool would have a taste of real power.

Nyman's rifle clicked empty. He didn't have a secondary weapon, unless his fists counted. Well, in a way, they did.

Seeing how the Purifier's laser cannon was pointed straight at him, hearing the unmistakable hum of the weapon charging up to full power, Nyman straightened himself and thrust his two hands forward.

Each had exactly one middle finger up.


Richard Gibbs was having a good day so far.

His Purifier had been devastated, barely holding itself together after being struck by multiple anti tank missiles and armor piercing shells. But it was doing much better than those who had assaulted it in the first place - the GDI heretics were but heaps of ash by now, incinerated by the Purifier's flamethrower or laser. They had put up a good fight - one had even fought to the end with an assault rifle and flipped Gibbs off in his final moment on Earth - but that didn't matter now.

The other seven Purifiers still standing slowly walked around, looking for any remaining infidels, but Gibbs took the moment to relax, lowering his weapons and taking a deep breath. He proudly surveyed the ruined GDI base, now nearly silent save for some crackling flames and a few desperate last stands. Only one structure still stood intact, an odd arrow-shaped building, by his commander's order. Gibbs took a few massive steps towards the building, pondering its value.

But a new order was now coming, transmitted from a distant bunker and fed into Gibbs' improvised helmet link, one of many emergency repairs he and his fellow Saboteurs had conducted to make the damaged Purifiers operable in a reasonable amount of time.

Burn it.

On Gibbs' heads-up-display, still slightly cracked from his Purifier's last battle, the arrow structure flashed with a square red crosshairs, angrily flashing and making it about as obvious as possible. As he primed his flamethrower, on its last burst of black napalm, he tried to read out the text on its front.

"GDI Institute for… Tiberium Research?" he read aloud.

Before he could fire, someone came running out of the building. It was a woman, on the short side, in a white lab coat. Out of curiosity, Gibbs held his fire as the woman, her black hair unkempt and flowing behind her, approached his towering walker, frantically waving her arms, seemingly saying something. He turned up his audio sensors.

"Please!" the woman was shouting. "You can't do this!"

Gibbs continued to listen, not that he had intention of obeying.

"If you destroy the lab, the whole base will be destroyed - you'll die, too!"

A good bluff, and one that might have convinced his less zealous colleagues. Tiberium was a fickle material. But his orders were clear, and even as the woman pointed to the four green containers, Gibbs shut the audio link and fired. He'd adjusted his aim just enough to avoid the woman. He could have easily caught her in the stream of fire, but there was no need for that. Perhaps she could be useful later. But for Gibbs, for the woman - Dr. Aria Liang - for everyone else in Chione FOB, there would be no later.

As the napalm ate away at the protective coverings of the exterior, pure thermal energy flooded into the rest of the lab. It didn't take much for the first drops of liquid Tiberium to reach a critical energy state, triggering a devastating chain reaction that spread within a millisecond to the entire Institute's stock of Liquid Tiberium.


Logan Rigby had been watching for enemy infantry when the edge of his visual sensors suddenly lit up with warnings. He had enough time to turn around, seeing two green flashes, right where the base was. The first was somewhat larger than a heavy bomb, but the second was much, much larger, stretching unbelievably high into the sky, higher than Rigby thought possible for an airplane, let alone an explosion.


Torsten Konig had reflexively braced the Titan for impact when he saw the second explosion, and his quick reaction paid dividends. Despite Frederick's considerable damage, the mighty walker absorbed the blast reasonably well, for something of that magnitude. Reasonably well in this case was merely being tipping over and collapsing on its "back", cracking one of Konig's teeth from the impact, rather than being thrown aside entirely, as Lehner's Titan was.


Parnell wasn't paying attention when it happened. The confused screaming from a few people in the passenger bay wasn't enough to garner his attention. The continued screaming from almost everyone else in the next five seconds was, and he turned around as the lingering green cloud kept expanding, flashing with exotic energies.

He couldn't begin to imagine the nightmare below, or anticipate the emerging one in his psyche.


Gibbs was gone, wiped out by the initial blast, but one of his comrades had just enough time to cry out "The Prophet will protect us!" before vaporizing just the same in the second blast. The final words were duly noted by the Black Hand's commander. Such faith was expected among them. Such faith had been tactically useful, and would continue to be.


Lieutenant Colonel Dan Weaver had been rushing towards Chione FOB as fast as he could, leading the quick reaction force through multiple ambushes and roadblocks, but stopped just like the rest of his men when they saw the overwhelming green fire in the sky. With that, Weaver realized this wasn't a reinforcement mission anymore. This was a recovery mission, assuming anything was left of the poor bastards in there caught in the most destructive crossfire in Australian history.


Connor Liang was looking outside. It was a pretty normal day by anyone's standards. He was ten minutes away from going on a trip that would change his life. His mother and sister were already on a trip that would change theirs.

But when he looked into the sky, just a random motion like the thousands in any normal day, all he could see for a moment was green.