Interlude 3
Sergeant David Harper was not a happy man right at the moment.
OF course this wasn't exactly a new state of mind. There was a lot to be unhappy about. The aliens arriving in 'peace' and taking over the world via ADVENT. The gene clinics and martialness and propaganda and all that rot demonizing the old world and hailing the new world that the aliens had brought. Watching everything he knew and loved vilified and condemned while ADVENT rapidly grew.
A shining façade that hid an absolutely rotten interior.
It got to a guy sometimes. Most of the time. All the time.
It's why David signed up with XCOM the minute he got the chance. Of course that was five years ago, fifteen years after 'unification' and thirty years after he was born but that was a moot point.
He half-heartedly wondered why he was thinking this all of a sudden. It might be because he and his squad were completely and utterly screwed.
"Firebrand, you can't come in for a pickup?"
"Not right now. Skies aren't clear."
"Well that's not good."
"We're fucking screwed Sarge." And that'd be Jenkins again, the rookie. "We can't even bug out and Greg's gone all screwy-"
"I bet it's that psionic space magic shit they've put in his brain." Kelly Grant swore under her breath in… Mandarin. Or Chinese. One of those old Asian languages. She made to shift the load on her back, her E.X.O Suit's servos whining slightly as she continued swearing. "Goddammit stop jerking."
"THE EYES THE EYES SO MANY EYES THE MOUTH SO MANY TEETH IT HUNGERS IT-" Greg babbled, half draped across Kelly's back.
"That's enough out of you." David finally interjected, raising his voice over Greg's panicked babble. "Both of you. We might be fucked but damned if we're not completely fucked yet and I want to fucking keep it that way. Kelly can you sedate Greg again?"
"Out of sedatives. Drugs aren't doing dick all at this point for god knows what reason, probably more spooky magic shit. We can't exactly go anywhere like this." Kelly scowled.
"Alright fuck it here!" Jenkins turned. Swung the butt of his rifle at Greg's head.
Greg stopped screaming. Greg also slumped over because he was knocked unconscious.
There was a moment of awkward silence before David cleared his throat.
"Jenkins?"
"He wouldn't stop screaming." The man, more of a teen really, shrugged. "And we couldn't carry him because he was jerking all over the place so I fixed the problem."
"… You might've given him brain damage. You've certainly given him a nasty concussion."
"He'll get better."
"I-" David pinched the bridge of his nose. Inhaled. Exhaled. Tried to avoid venting. Control, control was key. He was in control. He was in command. He could do this..
"Besides this sucks. Least I don't have to carry his sorry ass. Sucks to be you Kelly."
"God dammit Jenkins." Kelly growled.
No this didn't make him any happier. Not at all.
This mission was a classic FUBAR situation. In hindsight they should've bugged out the minute they landed on the ground.
The ground. The squishy organic purple ground. The stuff was just nasty. It was like walking in purple jelly that clung to your boots. And dear god the smell. David had killed a lot of aliens in his career. He'd popped Sectoids, tangoed with Vipers and gone toe to toe with Mutons but none of them smelled as… Funky as this organic purple stuff.
The mission itself was a weird one. ADVENT had been redirecting a metric shitton of personnel to this region of the world for some reason. Which is why Central decided it'd be nice to know just what the hell was going on.
At least that's what the briefing had said.
Firebrand had dropped the six of them off near the edge of whatever the hell this shit was, about half a kilometer away from any ADVENT positions.
Unfortunately ADVENT had been patrolling the area in force.
Double unfortunately when ADVENT said force they meant force because they'd sent in something like a hundred grunts.
A hundred grunts who were burning the purple crap with flamethrowers.
A hundred angry troopers who were all too keen to turn those flamethrowers on some hapless XCOM squaddies. A hundred angry troopers who'd also called in backup.
So things went downhill. Things went downhill very quickly.
Things went downhill very quickly and now here David was. Morasky and Chen were dead and Greg, the resident Psi Ops, went ballistic for some reason. His eyes started glowing, blood was pouring from his nose and ears and he was screaming something about face-eating mouths from the Void who were here to eat everybody.
Here David was. Half his squad was dead or incapacitated, communications cut out after Greg had his fit, Jenkins was whining and being a pain in the ass and he was just done with this shit. And oh look, more babbled screaming which meant Greg had woken up again. The man would not stay down for two minutes for god knows what reason.
No spooky space magic wasn't a reason even if Kelly kept insisting it was the reason.
In any other situation that sort of tenacity would be admirable but in this case? It was just rage inducing. Everything about this mission was r-
Greg stopped screaming.
"Uh Sarge?" Jenkins raised his gun. "Yeah we've got company."
David swore and raised his own mag rifle. He turned and came face to face with-
It was an alien. A new type of alien. A hideous purple winged dog thing.
"Shit." Kelly summarized as she leveled her own mag cannon on this new threat. "Where the hell did it come from?"
"It came out of the fucking ground!" Jenkins fired a burst at the alien, which promptly dodged the fire. "Fuck it's fast! I…" He trailed off.
Because they were surrounded. All of them were surrounded because the fucking aliens were popping out of the ground.
More of the winged dog things unburrowed. A hundred of them. Two hundred. Some fuck off number that was just too many goddamn aliens.
And then there were these snake things. These massive snake things with enormous claws and fangs that were… Oh dear god they were drooling.
More X-rays were popping up all over the damn place. On top of that ridge in front off them. In the ditch behind them. To their sides. There was just no end to the fucking things.
"Sarge?" Jenkins said calmly.
"Yeah Jenkins?"
"We're completely fucked aren't we."
"Yep."
"I just wanted to let you, before we get eaten… I stole the last cannoli from the fridge."
David laughed. Oh god this was surreal. "That was you? You ass."
"I would say I'm sorry. Except I'm not."
Kelly snorted. "Yeah well if we're fucked then let's go out with a bang."
David just continued laughing. Unprofessional? Yeah. Did he give a shit at this point?
Nope.
Greg was rocking in the fetal position where Kelly dumped him on the purple crap. What was he muttering?
"It'scomingit'scomingit'scoming-"
Something along those lines. It didn't matter at this point. None of it really mattered. No pick up, no reinforcements and outnumbered a hundred to one by what looked like man eating aliens from space hell.
Just another day for XCOM troopers. He wasn't getting paid enough for this shit.
He wasn't getting paid at all. He wouldn't be getting paid at all.
"Alright then, come and get some!" Jenkins was trash talking the aliens for some reason now. "I eat you fucks for breakfast! Fight me mate! Do you even lift br-"
"Jenkins just shut the hell up and kill the fucking things already." Kelly snarled.
Wait wait wait something was off.
"They haven't attacked yet." David lowered his weapon. No response from the aliens. He raised his gun. No response.
"They're aliens!"
"They could've just popped out of the ground at any time so why now of all ti-"
Greg started screaming again.
"IT'S HERE!"
And that was when David started hearing voices in his head.
"Yeah that'd be because I haven't ordered them to attack yet. I don't really want them to attack you lot. You're alright in my books. Now ADVENT and the… Eh, the Elder Ones? Now there's a bunch of assholes."
… What.
"I get you're confused but I promise there's an explanation. Just please don't shoot at my Zerglings and Hydralisks. It's not like it'd be that difficult to replace them it's just the appearance of the thing you get what I'm saying?"
What.
"Oh god I'm rambling and I haven't even introduced myself yet sorry this is just the first time in like a week I've been able to talk to anyone well not talk talk but psionic telepathy talk but you know what I mean no nevermind you don't oh god this is awkward please kill me except no not really I don't want to die even if I am an alien and your job is to kill aliens I already had to deal with enough shit today and I'm babbling and I'm going to stop now."
Was this thing stuttering? How did that even work?
"Ahem. Calm. Totally calm. Anyways, hi there. I'm an alien. A friendly alien, not like those ADVENT bastards. I would say 'take me to your leader' except given the circumstances that's actually not funny. I kinda want to get off this planet ASAP so... Yeah."
David shook his head mutely. Turned to his squad mates who also looked confused as hell. At least he wasn't the only one.
"The Zerglings and Hydralisks are gonna escort you to my main hive cluster so we can actually talk or something. Oh and I'll clear the airs so your Skyranger can come pick you up. Not like it's going to be a problem because ADVENT's kinda clearing out of the place really quickly now that I've killed most of their dudes. I'm gonna stop now because this is getting awkward so… See you then I suppose. Or not if you don't want to follow. Completely up to you."
There was a lightening sensation, almost as if something that'd been burdening his mind had vanished. And then the… Zerglings and Hydralisks started moving. Away from his squad's position.
David Harper thought about his current position. Thought about what had just happened and succinctly summarized this entire chain of events in three words.
"What the fu-"
---
More filler. This is just so I can get things rolling again.
Poor David Harper. Poor poor David Harper.
Also Generic-SI is still totally traumatized. I babble when I'm in shock. It's what I do.
... Also most awkward first contact ever lmao.
