XCOM: Agent of F.I.X.F.I.C.

[Canas Dark]

Hello and welcome to an XCOM story based on @sun tzu 's Agents of F.I.X.F.I.C., which I originally found on SV here. After looking over his CYOA game for a bit, getting more details, I messaged back and forth with @sun tzu . Shortly after that, he accepted an informal expansion to his work, which is posted here, on the fourth post (the Chosen are detailed 3 more posts down). I spoke with him a bit more, and then began writing a story based on my expansion to his CYOA. After putting together a good 30 pages worth of content with Sun Tzu's oversight on some questions regarding the rules (and one part of his unfinished DLC for the CYOA, which was cool to get in advance), and with my best friend's professional editing expertise, I realized that my story would quickly run out of steam when I had the whole world worth of possibilities to work with, and little in the way of direction to send my characters.

This is where YOU come in!

I'm here to post my story and to get help in deciding where it should go. If you're up to join a story-turned-Quest in progress, you'll be voting on where the characters should focus their efforts, submitting side characters and A- and B-Lister soldiers for the XCOM barracks (with C-Listers possibly working off screen if there are enough soldiers), and most importantly, deciding the fate of the Earth!

But no pressure, alright?

The original document I drew up for this story (with some notes) is on google drive here, so you can look at where the story was originally heading or view Jon's starting stats there if you like.

With no further ado, I present Jonathan Smith's Mission:

XCOM: The Ethereal War​

My codename is Jonathan Smith. It's not the coolest or most imaginative name, but it's one that works in all kinds of Mission Worlds. Not that it's mattered just yet. This is the story of my first official day on the job. My employers, F.I.X.F.I.C., had contracted me to solve a problem for them. I'm not completely sure how their selection process works, but the short answer is, they pick people they think have what it takes to make a difference in those Worlds.

That's the basic explanation, but it doesn't actually have a lot of substance. I'll try to jump through the exposition as quick as I can, so any minutia later isn't as annoying.

F.I.X.F.I.C. is an organization dedicated to making all the different versions of reality safer places to live and thrive. The Mission Worlds represent the nigh-infinite number of nearby parallel realities to our own, and all their permutations, where things have gone horribly wrong, clichés and all. F.I.X.F.I.C. sends people like me out into these places to solve their problems as best we can, and they pay us handsomely, and with the greatest powers and perks you can imagine, as thanks.

I don't know the official story on how my employers got started. From what I've pieced together, they're backed by some of the greatest heroes and reformed villains you've ever heard of, at least in terms of available resources. Whoever, or whatever, put the organization together, I suspect is from a post-scarcity civilization, and they decided that not only would they make the local dimension-space a little safer to live in, having dealt with a number of cross-reality world-enders, but also better for the likes of Humanity and Democracies everywhere.

Yes, Humanity and Democracies. They're admittedly biased, but hey, they do a lot of good anyhow.

As to where their numerous resources come from? As far as I can tell, from all over the place. I suspect they've got a turncoat Weaponer from Qward making Power Rings, and I know for a fact that they've contracted the time-traveling Doctor for favors. The blue police call box in particular is listed on their available Powers and Resources page as a one-time-only get out of jail free card that also solves some major problem, so that's a nice backup for the less confident Agents.

Bringing it back to me, I was contacted by one of their recruiters at a coffee shop a few months before my mission, asking if I wanted to make a difference in the Worlds. Apparently, I'd been studied and my background reviewed for key markers that would make me a good fit for them. The way she talked, it sounded like they needed heroes, or people who could do great and terrible things. I thought the girl was talking about joining the military, right up until time stopped and she used telekinisis to grab herself a coffee from the machine, which was the only thing in existence capable of moving at the time, besides her. Me? I was stuck, listening and a little terrified. Maybe it was the thrill of adventure, maybe it was a awestruck fear, maybe it was something else. Maybe it was the assurance that if I said no, I'd blink and she'd be gone, and I'd forget we'd ever spoken. However you slice it, as soon as she let me move in the paused time bubble-thing, I said yes.

She took out a little mechanical device and pointed it around the shop, scanning everything. Apparently, it would allow me to return to this moment in time retroactively when I was done working with their organization. With that, she welcomed me into the organization. We shook hands, and then I blinked.

Before the blink, we were stuck between moments in the evening of an inner city coffee shop. After the blink, we were standing in the middle of a warehouse the size of Manhattan Island, in what I would later learn was Receiving.

Not storage or training or anything. Just Receiving.

For small goods and services.

While I gawked at everything, the lady, now my handler, reassured me that no matter what happened, I could always return to the moment I'd left behind, reawakening in that coffee shop. I wouldn't be missed too much if I decided to retire elsewhere in reality after completing a Mission or several.

We got out of the way just in time for me to see a twelve foot tall Orc with a battle axe as large as me appearing with another Agent. They got out of the way for somebody who was a body double for Commander Shepard. Not the actual N7 commander, just somebody who stepped in after the real Shepard died before the events of the games. Things got stranger from there.

Yes, games. It's apparently not a coincidence that lots of our fiction is modeled after countless nearby Mission Worlds, which meant that somebody like me could step in after reviewing the source material for long enough to know how things might have gone, before we were needed. Somebody could study it, prepare themselves, grab a few Powers, and work toward the solemn goal of preventing the end of all life as the people in these Worlds know it. Or the downfall of Democracy and uprising of a worldwide Nazi power. Or any number of things smaller or terrifyingly larger.

Which, finally, brings us back to me. Jonathan Smith, first time Agent of F.I.X.F.I.C. Short brown hair, hazel eyes, an average face. That's me, or it was before I got to work.

I spent a little more than two months getting ready, reviewing the available Mission Worlds, and haggling with other Agents for potential favors and doing my best to understand some of F.I.X.F.I.C.'s many rules. Over the course of those two months, they put me through some hellish basic training, drilled me on various common situations I might encounter, and helped coach me through the various things I would need to do upon arriving wherever it was I was planning to help stabilize a World, or save it from extinction.

I was encouraged, first gently and then firmly, to work slowly, and to try out various forms of the Powers and Resources available to new Agents like me. They even let me try on a Power Ring, a Green Lantern Power Ring, as part of my training. Not that they'd let me keep it for any of the places I was likely to go; there are only so many resources to go around, even with everything these guys have, and apparently the ring I was borrowing was actually a loaner from somebody who retired, but still dips their toes in when they feel like it, saving Worlds and banking Boon Points they'll never spend.

Boons, for future reference, are part of the rewards system that F.I.X.F.I.C. uses as a carrot for its employees. Save a few Worlds successfully, which they consider an invaluable service, and they'll gift you with some of their Powers to keep. Those Powers range from memory-uploads of super technology all the way up through straight-up reality warping by any other name, so it makes for a rather nice carrot.

The stick, on the other hand, being stripped of your powers and memories, is apparently reserved for people who go off the reservation. Fighting for your life isn't all fun and games, the Mission Worlds' connection to fiction notwithstanding, but that doesn't make turning yourself into an immortal tyrant-king an acceptable option. Most everybody else washes out before too long because they can't handle the stress and random elements of saving an entire world, regardless of the tools they have to do it with.

Feh. I've wasted enough time talking about it, probably too much as it is. Let's jump ahead to my first assignment.

While F.I.X.F.I.C. is still working on preparing "training" missions for less experienced Agents like myself, those places aren't quite ready for saving yet. Red tape and auditing can slow down even reality warpers, it seems, so I had to choose something easy or average to start off with. In the end, I went with a Mission World similar to XCOM: Enemy Within, worth 30 "Tokens."

I'll just say that the more Tokens you get, the harder the job is, with 20 as the lowest right now and 80 as the most impossible task they've got. (They've got a team working on deciding just how to approach the 80 Token nightmare, as it's much harder to deal with than it looks on paper.) The threat levels aren't additive, however, more like geometric. At 20 tokens, you're dealing with a civil war where the KKK came back with tons of AK-47s. At 40 tokens, you're dealing with the End Times of Warhammer and fighting physical gods. It gets worse from there, but then again you also get more to try to solve those world-changing or world-ending puzzles.

Those Tokens get spent on appropriately valued Powers and Resources, as explained above.

Back on topic. My first assignment is to save the Earth of the Mission World I'm getting sent to from the Ethereals. They're psionic alien overlords who have enslaved several planets worth of aliens, and Humanity is next up on their list of targets. Under normal circumstances, they're dying of a sort of immortality-cancer, and they need Humanity, or any other eligible species, to be turned into their meat puppets so they can continue living forever. Without outside help, these versions of humanity may have less than 1 in 5 odds of pulling out a win against the aliens and their war machine.

My job is to stop them. Officially, I'll be put on immediate probation, or fired in disgrace, should I fail.

Unofficially, if I manage to put the World onto a path whereby stopping the Ethereals becomes considerably easier, then F.I.X.F.I.C. may cut me a break and give me partial credit. They don't like to admit that failure is an option, because it's not supposed to be, but I was clued in by the Green Lantern guy that they'll consider cutting me a little slack for my first assignment if I make a really good showing. Then somebody like him will be sent in to clean up the rest of my mess.

So the Ethereals are coming to Earth to invade. I'll be arriving 24 hours beforehand in a pub somewhere in Australia, where a gentleman who will become the Commander is currently living. After situating myself, my second job will be to find and convince him to lead the XCOM Project, and also to accept my help in pushing back the Ethereals after they start attacking the world in force. To do this, I'm going to show him that I'm capable of Psionics myself, and in fact may become the most powerful Psionic human to ever live.

I'm going to try to explain that using numbers. The thing to remember is, the numbers themselves may not seem all that high, until you remember they're less linear and more geometric; The higher you go, the crazier things get. One point is worth something like a lightsaber, and fifty points literally turns you into a Silver Age Superman without the Kryptonite allergies. That, or it gets you a Pre-Flashpoint Green Lantern Ring.

My original plan was to go heavy. On paper, I'd have gone with the following: I would have altered my local physics to become a videogame RPG character, commonly referred to as The Gamer, and those powers would have been connected to my new Psionic abilities. Right there, that's 37 points; 25 to become the Gamer (essentially a video game's Player One), 10 to connect that to my Psionic abilities for unbelievable growth potential and speed, and 2 points to actually, well, be Psionic. Normally, XCOM's Mission Worlds are worth 30 Tokens. My planned version was actually worth 45, which is pretty damned high on the danger scale, only offset back down to 40 because the Commander exists. The extra 15 points were because the Ethereals weren't going to be dying for 10, and because they'd be working with a few "uplifted" humans they'll call the Chosen for the last 5.

I was informed after presenting this plan that those extra 10 points from the Ethereals not dying means they'll destroy most of the planet almost immediately if the defenses against them aren't beyond perfect.

My handler quietly told me in so many words that I was a moron, stopped me wasting time trying to spend the last 3 points, and then redirected my efforts to something much easier to start off with, that wouldn't result in the deaths of billions of people in the days it took to get my feet under me. Instead of all that, I'm going to be "super lucky," Psionic, and boosted with a basic Captain America package.

Remember when I said I was pretty average when I accepted the job in that coffee shop? Now I look like a more plain-faced Captain America, maybe a little fatter.

I'd put 25 Tokens down for godlike luck, 2 for basic Psionics (a bargain, I'd thought, only offered for so low because I could technically find them myself in the world), and the last 3 to be lifted to the physical peak in strength, stamina, and in dexterity. That's 30 points, the value of XCOM's World, plus 5 for the Commander, still offset by 5 for the coming of the Chosen two weeks after the war had started. I was assured that if everything worked perfectly, then they'd let my try my luck against the Ethereals when they weren't crippled.

There are a few other little bonuses freely available to all Agents, including an upload of all the local languages and a new perk offering start-up supplies to anyone entering a World (I was apparently one of the first enjoying this free care package of stuff, which I was thankful for).

The Commander is my in for the XCOM project, the last-ditch effort that Humanity will put together to stop the invasion force. Under his leadership, they'll be capable of learning, rebuilding, and lucking their way in and out of the most dangerous firefights around the world, saving as many people as they can while I build their new Psionics program and work to help save the world and kill all the Ethereals. Some governments will fall, which I already knew was coming. Millions of people will die, maybe hundreds of millions, while the Earth rallies.

Through all of that, I'm going to train. I'm going to train, to learn, and to work with the scientists and engineers of XCOM to uplift humanity while the aliens do their best to force them to evolve, or die and be enslaved.

I've studied, prepared, and I am going to save the world.

My name is Jonathan Smith. I'm an Agent of F.I.X.F.I.C.

This is my story.

---

Day One, 17:35, Australia - 24 Hours before the first Terror Attack.

The mission started simply enough. I waited in one of F.I.X.F.I.C.'s staging rooms as a timer counted down, thinking for the hundredth time over my objectives. The timer hit zero. One moment I was sitting in a chair at an empty desk with a huge briefcase by my side and a note with my goals, and the next I was sitting alone at a booth in a dimly-lit diner. Or a Pub, I guess.

I did a few quick tests, touching my thumbs to my fingers in sequence and gently flexing my oversized muscles, careful not to mess up my armored button-up suit. With the benefits of a surgeon's hands, Michael Phelps' endurance, and strength on par with the winner of the World's Strongest Man competition, I had spent time to get used to the minor edits in my brain to compensate for my physical changes. The benefit, being able to bench press half a ton (once) or carry it maybe ten meters, as well as the speed-of-hands to quickly put my equipment together, was a Power I didn't expect to regret.

Unless I found myself in space. Then being able to operate in a vacuum for 10 minutes with no side effects might have been nice.

I looked around, but nobody had given me a second look. I pulled up my huge briefcase, laying it flat and flipping open the tabs, then carefully opened it, reviewing the numerous contents, all set pretty in foam, just as I'd asked.

Ten thousand dollars worth of currency, five thousand in Australian dollars with the rest in other denominations; I'd already pulled out a few hundreds and twenties from the stacks before the mission started and had them in my wallet with a fake ID. The unbuilt parts of a laser pistol, one in line with some of XCOM's early tech. The parts to a .50 caliber sniper rifle, with 50 rounds of depleted-uranium bullets. Some basic maintenance equipment for them and the armor I was wearing under my 2-button suit. One customized autonomous drone, a Gremlin model, on permanent loan from a guy who'd already helped another Mission World with XCOM's forces in it. A Psionic Amp, ready to be kickstarted and practiced with using my presently meager Psionic skills. And finally-

"Is this seat taken?" a rough voice asked me. I quickly closed the briefcase and got a look at him.

And promptly looked back down at my closed briefcase, trying not to laugh.

It had been explicitly stated in my briefing that I would recognize the Commander on sight, but the tech guy had just smiled when I'd asked how. Apparently, seeing him for the first time had triggered a massive fireworks display in my mind, the world turning to black while his face was backlit by grand lights and a huge banner reading "THIS IS THE COMMANDER!" appeared over him with helpful arrows pointing directly at him flashed and danced around his imposing figure.

"Something funny, soldier?" He asked with a small frown.

"N-no, Sir," I assured him as the images and nonsense faded away, returning the world to normal in my eyes. "You just reminded me of a famous Commander I once knew. He was a hero. One of the best. Please, sit down."

The man's frown faded and he took a seat opposite me.

Part of me wanted to slap the tech for his joke at my expense, but then I thought about it for a moment. That was possibly one of the last few harmless jokes I'd get to enjoy for the next few months or years as the humor of the world was replaced with fear and madness, and then hard steel and a war for the lives of everyone on the planet.

I had a job to do, depressing as it was going to be. I focused on his features, making sure I'd never lose him in a crowd. Not that there was much chance of that anyway.

The Commander-to-be of XCOM was a large man, easily six-five, easily weighing 115 kilograms, or close to 250 pounds, most of it old muscle. He had pepper-grey hair, dark green eyes, and a rough face with a scar under his neck on his left side, a knife wound he'd picked up along the way. When he spoke again, his voice was deep, rough, and had a thick Australian accent.

"He must have been a good Commander," the man observed. "If you'd mourn him like that, so quickly after laughing. You didn't think I was him come back from the dead?"

"No, Sir," I murmured. "Just thought… nevermind. The truth is, I'm here to see you. I was told I'd recognize you when I saw you, and, well, I guess I hadn't realized what that had meant."

He leaned back, contemplating me. I locked the briefcase, setting it in the booth beside me, then gave him my full attention, leaving my hands on the table where he could see them. While we sat in silence, contemplating one another, a waitress approached our table.

"G'day gents!" She greeted us grandly. "Welcome to the Royal Hotel. What can I get started for you?"

"I'm buying," I said quickly, then smiled at her, just in case I'd already managed a faux pas. "I'll have a water, no ice, and a sasparilla if you have it. Coke if you don't."

"Should I hold off on drinking?" the Commander asked me, and I gave it serious thought. He must have seen it in my face, because he got a soda and an appetizer plate before I could answer him. The waitress assured us the drinks would be out quickly.

"There is a massive, imminent threat to the safety and security of the world-" I began, and it was his turn to laugh.

"Oh, another one of those," he chuckled. "What've we got to deal with this time?"

"Well…" I sighed. Here came the fun part. "If I'm being completely honest, it's something most would consider ridiculous to hear, and I'm not sure if just blurting it out will make you think I'm nuts or not."

He raised an eyebrow. "Should I have bought a pint, then?"

I shook my head, then looked him in the eyes. "Sir, there are confirmed threats coming in from outside of this solar system. Within the next twenty four hours, Humanity will, for the first time since the cradle, verify the existence of alien life in this universe."

His other eyebrow raised to join the first, just a bit, but he remained silent.

"There is significant reason to believe that this alien life is extremely hostile, and will attempt to subjugate humanity," I continued, making an effort not to sound too much like I'd practiced this in the mirror. "According to Enrico Fermi's infamous paradox, there should be signs of life out there in the universe. There aren't. Or rather, there weren't. There is reason to believe that life is out there, and has been for a very long time." I leaned forward. "We've been sending signals out into the expanse of space in hopes of finding allies and friendly civilizations. Instead, we believe we may have found the reason that space is empty and silent. Yes, the world is in danger. We just don't know how screwed we are yet."

I leaned back as the Commander absorbed what I'd said, mulling it over. While I'd been told he would be highly likely to be willing and able to work with me, or any other Agent that F.I.X.F.I.C. might have sent, I still wanted to make a good first impression. The last thing I wanted to do was upset the man most likely to be my future boss, at least on paper.

The waitress came by with our drinks, and we thanked her.

The Commander continued to consider me as he sipped at his drink, his expression neutral. Finally, he shook his head.

"Let's assume you're telling the truth, right?" he asked, and I nodded. "Right. So aliens are real and they plan to, what, destroy us all?"

"Enslave us," I corrected. "If things go way south, our extermination is on the table eventually, yeah."

"Right," he nodded. "So the American government has sent you, alone, to cherry pick me out of retirement before anyone else can," he smiled, taking a sip of his drink, "with enough equipment to assassinate the Prime Minister, and all of this in preparation for an alien attack from potentially peaceful extraterrestrials?"

I nodded. "Officially, my sponsors are a little higher up on the chain than you're likely to believe, and the organization you would lead would be multinational, but yeah, that's the long and short of it. Of course, when the aliens' first move is to attack a city, however quietly they do so, peaceful interaction will be taken off the table."

He shrugged, swirling his drink. "And what, I'm to believe that there are no better options for your secret government conspiracy?"

"No," I said bluntly. "Out of everyone else in the world, you're the best, apparently worth an entire team of experts by yourself. Take that as you will."

"Huh. If you say so," he said dubiously. "So… I guess this is where I ask for proof?"

Because of course, that's the ordinary sticking point. For most people, it might have been difficult. For me? I'd been preparing for this one for a while.

"There's a new energy people will be able to tap into, perhaps because of a resonant connection to the aliens," I lied through my teeth. It was actually Elerium, a kind of crystal element, that normally made Psionics possible; personally, I'd just been zapped by a reality-warper and declared Psionically gifted. Mazel Tov. Have fun with the powers. Even with the aliens on the way, I'd be the first and only Psionic for some time as their use of the energy spilled out to the rest of the world.

I took a deep breath, then focused on my training.

Psionics, as it turned out, could do a lot more than you might picture at first glance. It's not just a way to control minds or fray them apart, like it does it the games. If you know what you're doing, really know what you're doing, you can twist the energies of the mind into other minor effects. As you practice, move from the basic theories to the more advanced ones, those effects can get much, much stronger. One day not too long in the future the war might be decided by who had the stronger psionics. That was a long way off, though. Fires could be set, hearts could be stopped, you could teleport at the highest stages… and you could easily swing a bit of telekinesis.

I was a novice, with only the practice I'd gotten before I arrived. But it was enough.

I didn't lift the Commader's glass. That would have been too easy.

I lifted the soda out of his glass instead.

The older man blinked, watching bubbles of liquid hover above our table. I made them spin in a small circle, something I'd mastered just before I'd arrived, and then gently lowered them back into his glass. He glanced at my eyes, muttering something indistinct to himself; I suspect he could see the faintest hints of purple glowing around my eyes.

"Well I'll be dipped in shit," he said quietly. I glanced around, but nobody had given us a second glance. I suspected my luck was at play. "No hallucinations?" He asked, almost to himself. "No. No, you're telling the truth. Mostly."

He squinted at me, hands set on the table beside his glass.

"You lied about how you have this energy. And you lied by omission about whoever hired you to come talk to me. But…" he gestured at his glass. "Let's say I believe you. What happens next?"

I grinned. Step one complete.

"Well, after we leave this pub, we'll be travelling to…" I paused, and the answer jumped into my mind. "Egypt. That's where XCOM's facilities will be built, if they haven't already been finished."

"And you're a fortune teller now?" He asked, but it wasn't a joke. He took it completely seriously. "You didn't know that answer. And then you did. Was it this new energy? I would like it if you didn't keep secrets from me before we've even begun," he huffed, "but I've done this job long enough to know it's never as simple as asking."

I considered the man before me. Really, really considered him. I'd spent five points, as much as it cost me for both Psionics and the gift of a peak physical body, to have him help me along. I could have had a small expert team come with me for 6 tokens, could have had Cassandra Cain as Batgirl back me up for 3, and he was worth 5. I'd specifically taken a risk, the Chosen, to get his help, and they'd represent a sufficient threat to Humanity on their own when they started knocking down governments to pave the way for the Ethereals.

I had to trust him, as I'd been assured he'd trust me.

"Alright. I've kept two things from you, and both of them are going to help us tremendously in our fight to save the world. The first is that I'm not from this Earth." I held up a hand before he could speak. "I'm not from this Earth. I'm from a parallel one, and I've been given a few perks I can describe in detail over dinner. Stuff to help this world survive the coming storm. Psionics is one of them, and it's something the locals here, on this Earth, will unlock over time." I waved my hand over myself. "Call me the prototype, one with a cheat sheet. And that's why I know the aliens won't be friendly."

The Commander made a noise, preparing to say something, but he paused as the Waitress brought over his appetiser plate. We politely ordered our dinners, though I wasn't all that hungry, having eaten before I started the mission.

When the waitress had left, he jumped in before I could continue. "You said two things. What was the other?"

I looked down at my briefcase, then back, and I smiled.

"I come bearing gifts."

---

We'd eaten dinner and discussed the various kinds of aliens that XCOM could reasonably expect to see, and a number that might pop up somewhere or other that I wasn't expecting, but that could blindside us if we didn't prepare for them on some level or another. After the pub had closed, the Commander had invited me to stay the evening at his home. He had a spare cot, but one I didn't end up using until after three in the morning; my own sleep schedule was bass-ackwards as a result of jumping from a fresh morning start right into the Australian evening. He couldn't sleep because of everything on his mind. We ended up talking for most of it, and I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he began considering everything.

After he'd gone to bed, I put together my laser pistol and set it aside with a shoulder holster, then practiced quickly putting together and taking apart the .45 H&K USP the Commander had supplied me with until I could finally make myself take a long nap.

His real name was Daniel Williams, I'd learned. His actual rank hadn't quite reached CDF, Chief of the Defence Force, but he'd been in the runnings for it. The closest equivalent to the CDF was a 4 star general, and Australia only ever had one at any given time. Still, despite his previous rank, I only ever really thought of him as "the Commander."

The first 22 hours or so of my mission, all told, were somewhat boring. After some deliberation, the Commander overturned my decision to try to travel directly to Egypt, informing me that trying to beat XCOM there might threaten our credibility, especially if he was already earmarked for the project. Instead, we traveled around Australia to meet up with a few old buddies and several more serious connections he'd worked with in the Australian Defense Force, and a message was quietly circulated: prepare for war.

And kindly forward that message to all of Australia's allies so they'll prepare for war, as well.

It wasn't a ton for his old superiors to work off of, but he'd assured me the message was delivered in a way that would put the right people on alert.

By mid afternoon of the official second day of my mission, I'd been quietly introduced as the Commander's bodyguard to several generic military installations while the man himself made a few dozen key handshakes. Given my physique and the faint muscle memories I'd inherited as a result of the body I'd purchased and the few months of intense training I'd gotten from my employers, everyone who met me pegged me as ex-special forces, probably American. I'd refrained from verifying any specific service because, well, I hadn't ever served on this planet.

Nobody asked about my oversized briefcase. I think they knew full well what kinds of things I had inside, given my cover of "bodyguard."

At 1605, an hour and a half before the first attack was scheduled somewhere on the planet, an alarm went off on my phone. I checked it, verified the time, and cleared my throat. The Commander and I were between meetings at the time, walking past a barracks. I tapped my watch (a gift he'd given me and insisted I'd wear; he'd told me in no uncertain terms that forgetting to bring one was unacceptable for all future missions I had, here or in other worlds), and he checked his own. He frowned at it, then nodded. It was time to stop shaking hands, have an early dinner, and hurry up and wait for the enemy to strike.

At that moment, a number of soldiers in heavy fatigues and body armor exited the nearest barracks and fanned out into a parade row on either side of the entrance, then stood at attention; by the time they'd mostly formed I quickly estimated that they numbered almost 40 strong. Most had assault rifles slung over their shoulders, though a few had what appeared to be submachine guns and other various weaponry on their persons. I schooled my features to remain bland and set my briefcase on the floor, trusting the Commander to warn me (and my luck to protect us) if anything was about to go wrong. Not that I was suspecting as much, it was just that this wasn't what we'd expected.

My eyes caught on their helmets. Unlike most of the soldiers down here in Australia, these ones were wearing actual helmets and face coverings, rather than boonie hats.

The last soldier out was wearing something closer to parade dress and had two gold diamonds on his shoulders (I hadn't reviewed enough to recall his rank just looking at them), and approached the Commander to salute him. "General Williams," the officer said, "it's an honor to have you here with us today."

"At ease, Lieutenant," the Commander responded easily. He made a show of looking back and forth at the soldiers, who had moved as one into a parade rest at his words. "I'm a little surprised at the show. Are we interrupting something?"

The Lieutenant's eyes flicked to me, and Williams caught it.

"He's got clearance for whatever you're about to say," the Commander reassured the soldier.

He got a few quick blinks in response, but the Officer explained himself without hesitating further. "Sir," the Lieutenant told him, "we've received word from the Major General that you would be leading this squadron through special drills this evening. We're ready on your orders."

The Commander chuckled, taking it in stride, though I myself started wondering how inappropriate it would be to crack open my briefcase and suit up.

Well. Suit up more, anyway.

"Special drills, eh?" The Commander continued. "Well. If you call me and my bodyguard joining you for an early dinner 'special drills,' then by all means."

As I'd said, we had an hour and a half before we expected things to start falling to pieces somewhere in the world, and taking an early dinner (and sleeping in a bit that morning) would ensure that we'd both be ready for the invasion once it arrived. From there… well, even for Agents, plenty of plans don't survive contact with the enemy.

While F.I.X.F.I.C. is known to work hard to reconnoiter their Mission Worlds and to stack the deck in their Agents' favor whenever possible, it was balanced against the sheer number of places they worked with on a daily basis. A lot of the details could change in subtle ways even just because an Agent entered the world, which is a frustrating thing to waste resources on trying to prevent.

The end result was, I didn't actually know for certain where the aliens would attack first. There was a 35% chance that they'd attack a city in Germany, but that was balanced against a 65% likelihood that they'd attack literally anywhere else.

I'd asked the Commander to send a warning to Germany to play the odds anyway.

Having already accepted that we weren't all on the same page, the Lieutenant nonetheless accepted his orders with grace. With a call to the soldiers to fall in line, the group escorted us to the mess hall.

I picked up my briefcase and quickly fell in step with the Commander, then shook my head at something one of the soldiers said in an undertone that sounded like "rather fang out than double with a lobster," and something involving maccas. The strange thing was, I'd heard it both as that and as, "An early dinner beats extra training. I hope they've got chips today," in the back of my mind. After a moment thinking about it, I nearly slapped myself.

No wonder I hadn't heard much Australian slang so far! The universal translator F.I.X.F.I.C. had given me was bypassing what the people around me were actually saying and was delivering the meaning behind those words instead. Hearing their accents, I'd almost forgotten the obvious missing differences between our dialects. I made a mental note to go over my training regarding my resources again that evening, to ensure I didn't blindside myself by mistake, as unlikely as that might be.

I promised myself I'd focus on additional military training once XCOM came together. I'd studied personal fighting and definitely knew my way around all kinds of firearms, but there were whole lifetimes' worth of information and experiences I simply wouldn't have.

In hindsight, maybe I should have spent more than just a few hard months preparing for this.

We arrived at the mess hall and I tensed up at the sounds of a fight, my hand jumping up into my suit jacket to the handle of my laser pistol (my .45 was in a holster in my waistband). I slowly moved to set down the briefcase as I took in the scene, noting after a moment that it was a shouting match between a couple of soldiers, and I wondered whether it was likely to have gotten any worse.

Wondered, mind you, because the Commander ended it with a single word.

"Enough!" He'd shouted, his tone the same despite being several times louder than I'd ever heard him. It drew the gaze of the room, and when they saw his uniform they all quickly came to attention. He stepped away from me, and I let my hands fall to my sides as I maintained a respectful distance.

I didn't bother keeping an eye on my suitcase. If my super luck decided my equipment needed to be somewhere besides in my hands, then I wasn't worried; it'd be put to good use. If my power decided I still needed it, then it would make its way back to me regardless of how hard anyone tried to take it from me. I wasn't sure precisely how the plague of coincidence was going to help me along over the course of my mission, but I was sure it wasn't capable of screwing me over unless I deliberately made an effort. Leaving my briefcase nearby wasn't an issue, or at least it wouldn't be yet.

I put it from my mind and enjoyed the show.

The Commander was standing tall, in easy view of the entire cafeteria. He pointedly looked between the men responsible for causing the problem in the first place (one of whom I realized wasn't a part of the shouting match), then spoke.

It was aggravating that the translator garbled the message slightly. I would have liked to hear it in the original format.

"Gentleman, we are on the precipice of a global disaster, one the likes of which is classified at the highest levels," he spoke out in measured tones, the rest of the room dead silent and listening intently. "I'm not going to focus on punishing the individuals who were responsible for this, because it would be pointless and counterproductive to do so mere hours before what will likely be the greatest war in human history."

He met the eyes of the men and women in the room as his gaze swept across them.

"Not twelve hours ago, I was made aware of a threat to the life and liberty of every member of the Australian Defence Force, every person in Australia, and perhaps every major government on this Earth. That much, at least, will absolutely not remain secret in the coming days, or perhaps even in the coming hours. Many will perish. Many more will hear the call to arms, and they will stand as the front, middle, and final lines between our people and their total destruction. It will not be an easy road, but it will be one our people will conquer."

The Commander waved his hand to include the soldiers that had followed him in, and met their gazes as well.

"From now on, a constant state of readiness must be maintained, here and abroad. From now on, every soldier will wear his or her sidearm everywhere, and will keep their rifles near at hand. From now on, we will all set our differences aside, and we will focus on keeping one another alive, that we may complete our objectives.

"Our people will stand tall. We will defend our country, defend the world, against the threats that come for us. We will stand tall, and we will remain strong. We are vigilant. We are necessary. We will not fail."

His gaze slowly swept through the room one final time, through the silence.

"Eat your fill, and then ensure you're ready for combat. We will be deployed in the coming days. Dismissed."

After a moment of silence, the soldiers broke and hurried to their tables, or to the line for dinner. Several of them sprinted from the room, calling out orders that I vaguely heard through the doors before they swung shut. The Commander nodded to me, then walked over to grab himself a plate; the soldiers parted before him and several saluted as he passed.

Me? I smirked to myself and turned to grab my briefcase, which I was pleasantly surprised to find a soldier had brought to me. I hefted it up and walked it over to the nearest empty space on one of the tables, then cracked it open. I pulled out the final item I'd requested for my Mission and heard a number of the soldiers around me gasp in appreciation and awe.

Oh yeah. We were going to be ready.

---

I double checked my massive sniper rifle's bolts and mechanisms one final time, then slotted in one of the standard magazines and racked in one of the gun's massive rounds. Ten shots, the .50 caliber rifle held, and I easily and comfortably swung it over my shoulder to lock into place on my back.

In XCOM, there were a number of weapons and tools available to the average soldier, and those increased in availability over time as the war dragged on and the science and tech levels of the Commander's forces improved. As I'd noted when I first went over my equipment list, F.I.X.F.I.C. had added the starter package to their lineup as something free to help Agents get themselves situated in new Mission Worlds. Under ordinary circumstances, they liked to stick with things that fit for the reality their Agents were being shipped off to, both because it made early interactions easier, and because it meant that their Reality Warpers wouldn't have to alter any equipment or spend their valuable-and-somewhat-limited time on bending the rules of physics. Or whatever passed for physics wherever the Agent was sent.

I'd spent several days going back and forth with my handler, and then a short time with her boss, an intense man who called himself Sun Tzu, before I'd gotten approval. The trick of it was simple enough, at least in my case. Rather than build new equipment or try to make something like a lightsaber work without studying the physics of it all, he'd directed me to a soldier by the name of Otto who was a regular Agent for XCOM. He'd set me up with an old laser pistol as the intermediate step between conventional weapons and plasma guns, and then had offered some of his other somewhat used equipment to fill out my kit.

Instead of an expensive cell phone or computer, I'd sprung for a simple-AI Gremlin drone.

Instead of a 75 thousand dollar sports car…

I shifted my shoulders, testing the feel of where I'd hooked the massive rifle to my armored exo-suit. When the suit was folded away, it had been surprisingly compact. I wouldn't have believed it would have fit in my suitcase, alongside everything else, right up until it was folded up and shoved inside. The helmet had a state of the art HUD system, monitoring my vitals and supplies, and was connected to a voice system that was part of the Gremlin's control system. In the upper right of my view was a camera linked to the drone, and I had a fold-out control system to override the AI if it became necessary to do more delicate work through it's precision waldos. The helmet was also capable of providing a few minutes of uninterrupted oxygen even if it was the only thing I was wearing.

Granted, my helmet and the Gremlin made the suitcase wildly larger than one your average businessman might carry, but the armored system was absolutely worth getting ahold of.

The right arm had a grappling hook capable of quickly moving almost six hundred pounds up any walls that could hold that much, and the left was fitted with a rocket launcher. A rocket launcher. Because yes, XCOM had figured out how to shove micro-missiles into their suits, and I'd brought a few extras to play with. If you add in the plates of armor, the (comparatively minor) boost to my augmented strength, and my 2-button suit's extra hidden plates of armor, then I was likely one of the most deadly infantrymen in the history of the world, at least in terms of equipment alone.

We're ignoring stuff like the Davy Crockett mini nuclear launcher. It doesn't count.

Speaking of equipment, I had pulled the laser pistol from my left shoulder holster and had clipped it to my side, then had moved the .45 USP up to replace it. At an order from the Commander, an MK 48 machine gun had been requisitioned from the armory as my primary weapon, and I was disappointed to find out that, other than the depleted uranium rounds, I could have just asked for a Barrett M82 and ammunition after I'd arrived.

They'd hooked me up with grenades, though, which fit nicely on my belt. So that was nice.

The psionic amp was currently hooked to my chest just off my right shoulder, after I'd kick-started it through sheer force of will. The soldiers around me had flinched back when I'd done that, then a few had spent the remaining time they had in the mess hall watching the purple lights bend in and out of reality as the psionic energy interacted with the world.

The Gremlin was hovering around me, interfacing with a pair of glasses that were integrated into the exo-suit. I'd considered strapping a gun to the floating robot to complement the limited healing mist it could dispense, but I figured I could do that later, if ever.

All told, I was wearing a nice suit, had a much bigger suit of armor over it, had a grappling hook on my left arm and a small rocket launcher on my right, a USP strapped to my left shoulder and a laser pistol at my hip, had the Amp on my right shoulder, the sniper rifle on my back, and the MK48 was hanging by a long strap in front of me. Along with spare magazines for most of it (and a special pouch for the D.U. rounds I'd brought along), I also had a good size grenades strapped to my belt.

And again, the Gremlin was hovering around.

So… yeah. When I finally sat back down across from the officer's table from the Commander, whose eyes were twinkling a little bit while the corners of his mouth turned up slightly in amusement, I more or less had to lock up the servos near my legs at a near 90° angle to prevent myself from actually sitting down. Which I assumed would have destroyed the chair.

"Having fun?" The Commander asked me, focusing on his own meal. While the soldiers had brought me an MK 48 machine gun, they'd brought him body armor and an M14, which he'd insisted on having "just in case."

"Something like that," I admitted, looking up into the top-right of my new H.U.D. 17:15. If there was any chance of us being deployed nearby, then it wasn't going to be long until it happened. I rushed to chow down on one of the three trays of military food I'd requested (as this physique burns through calories like nobody's business), hoping to finish as much as possible without choking.

He shook his head, checking his own watch. I glanced at him as his smile, small as it was, faded. He made an effort to finish his own meal as well.

I downed another glass of water in seconds. This, right here, was why I always requested no ice in my drinks. Sometimes you needed to finish them in a hurry. Cold food and warm drinks beat burned tongues and a frozen throat when you had to rush.

By the time we'd finished, and I leaned back in my exo-suit, I noted the time:

17:29.

Somewhere in the world, somebody was about to get the rude awakening of a lifetime. The Commander had put his hours in over the past day, begging, borrowing and stealing any resources he could get his hands on, demanding that all observatories be on high alert in the near future and all available militaries scramble themselves or prepare a number of convenient "field exercises" for this afternoon. What they were looking for, what the world was preparing for, nobody was formally told. It was deemed too high a risk, that somebody would laugh it off at just the wrong moment.

17:30.

"If you'll excuse me a moment, Commander," I stood up, stretching, "I'm going to go use the restroom while there's time."

He waved me off and I left the table, carefully lifting myself out of the seat I wasn't actually sitting in. A few minutes later, I rejoined him at the table, having ignored the many stares of soldiers on the base. Word of my equipment had already gotten around, and the fact that what was clearly cutting-edge technology was being shown off to whoever had eyes to see it was putting everybody on an even higher alert.

If this was the stuff that wasn't classified, what was?

17:34.

The Commander stood up himself and stretched. The squadron of soldiers assigned to him quickly stood at attention, and I rolled my eyes and stood back up again.

I put a hand on the massive gun, chambered a round, and paused.

Something felt wrong.

Very, very wrong.

One of the double doors burst open, and a soldier with a piece of paper ran in, waving it and shouting, "Here! The attack is coming he-"

Just a few moments before something smashed in through the ceiling.

These were soldiers, not civilians, and something like that gave off one impression: get the fuck back and hunker the fuck down.

It had come down in the corner of the room, on top of the coffee maker and drinks table, and I recognized the shape and purpose almost immediately. It was an abduction pod, and it would release green goo before too long.

"Get away from it and stay away from it!" I shouted, "That's a chemical bomb!"

"Alright, everybody form up and make for the exits!" The Commander followed up on my idea. "And make damned sure the doors are closed on the way out!"

The chaos was minimized as General Williams, the Commander, shouted out further orders, and I stayed by his side and kept half an eye on the containment pod as the sound of explosions shook the building. He glanced back as I easily picked a soldier who tripped off the floor and got her to her feet. His eyes widened as the box began spraying something sticky and green out in all direction, a cloud of something that smelled like disinfectant and something that made my eyes water followed right after.

I was the last one out, and I accidentally broke the door handles when I shut them behind me after my Gremlin drone buzzed through.

I shook my head and focused back on when I'd worn this armor in training, then took up my machine gun and took in the first assault of the war.

There were three small circular UFOs hovering around a massive rectangular carrier ship, and I noted that they weren't shooting yet. Maybe they wanted to appear harmless before things got started, despite the obvious bombardment of the abduction pods. The smaller Scout UFOs had four blue shields covering large entrances around their metal shells, while the larger Abductor model only had a few obvious points of entry near the back and sides. Soldiers around the base cursed and shouted, repositioning as various points of hard cover were made indefensible and their tanks and planes were "accidentally" crushed by the random assault of abduction pods.

A couple shouted and twitched, purple light flaring for a few moments around their heads as they screamed, then shook their heads and let themselves sag, several of them reaching for the grenades on their belts.

"GET AWAY FROM ANYBODY HIT WITH PURPLE LIGHTS!" My voice cut through the crowds, and most of the soldiers jumped to obey while the Commander continued taking control of the situation at large. Several individuals saw the Psionic amp on my own shoulder and took my advice to heart, getting back from me just as much as their mind controlled comrades. They didn't have to know why it was a threat, just that there was one. Apparently the appearance of aliens made any reasonable order sound like it was worth following, and my celebrity status had been quietly circulated enough that nobody shot at me after hearing the orders.

Several of the unlucky soldiers among those hit weren't so lucky, and when they saw the grenades in their hands, the officers quickly moved from shouting orders to stand down, right into shooting them when the mind controlled soldiers raised their guns to point at them.

That signaled everyone else to shoot down the other compromised soldiers, and the explosions of their grenades managed to avoid doing much damage.

I grit my teeth and stuck by the Commander as we moved toward another nearby building, the formation of his soldiers shifting into place around him as we moved. I gave my Gremlin a verbal command to float up and try to give me a view of the battlefield.

That was when the second wave came down.

They weren't drop pods so much as shaped rods with a weird blue and orange coral-looking growths stuck to the sides. One landed right in front of us, knocking everybody without gyroscopic armor assistance to the ground. As the only one left standing, I hauled the Commander to his feet with one hand and readied my machine gun with the other. As the coral shifted and fell from the pod, I was almost lost in shock.

"Oh fuck," I breathed as the shapes stood up, the image of half a dozen more pods around the base appearing on my HUD. "Chryssalids."

The monsters from humanity's nightmares rose and shook themselves, their sharp, four-legged forms twitching as they took in their surroundings with their glowing orange eyes. If one were to pull itself up and stand tall, it would manage two meters in height, though they tended to crouch in on themselves. Their grasshopper legs were silver and sharp, and I knew they'd cut their way through tank armor without too much trouble. Their mandibles clicked together and their sharp webbed hands never stopped twitching as the soldiers pulled themselves together and took aim.

As one, the dozen chryssalids from the drop pod nearest me raised their heads high and roared in tandem with all the other assaulting bugs, the harsh sound making my teeth hurt.

The soldiers didn't need any more prodding. They all, and I mean all, opened fire as best as they could on the beasts, and I joined in with the machine gun in my right hand while my left pulled a grenade from my belt.

The beasts skittered faster than cockroaches, and the soldiers closest to the fight, namely the ones a few yards in front of me, were impaled in moments. My blood froze when the bugs quickly shoved their faces into the gore, and I did the military no-no of pulling a grenade pin out with your teeth and started cooking off the grenade even while I poured fire into the closest chryssalid. Under the hail of fire of soldiers, all of whom fired while they retreated, the two closest 'lids went down and the others shoved their faces into more and more corpses at breakneck pace, ignoring most of the bullets bouncing off their chitin exoskeletons.

I hurled the grenade into the mass of bodies left behind and grabbed another from my belt while I moved backward, noting that the Commander was using me as a human shield and still shouting to coordinate anybody who could hear him. I held the grenade behind me, felt him yank the pin for me, then threw it into the mix as well. My gun clicked empty a few moments later as the first grenade exploded, startling the 'lids and mangling several of the soldiers' corpses before they could rise. I dropped the ammo box off of my MK 48 and quickly moved to slot another into place, quickly bringing the gun up to put as many bullets in the air as I could.

The remaining chryssalids roared again, quickly spreading out almost at random to tear into the disorganized forces, and two of them passed over where my second grenade had fallen just as the timer ran out. The explosion and shrapnel didn't kill them outright, but mangled them and tore off several of their legs. Even downed as they were, they started crawling toward the nearby piles of soldier flesh to plant their progeny.

Still moving backward with the soldiers, still pouring on bullets and keeping my eyes moving for threats and trusting my luck to ensure we'd at least get out alive, I almost missed when the three alien escort ships broke off from the abduction vessel and started firing plasma into the concentrations of soldiers. More screams mingled with gunfire as those unfortunate survivors of the onslaught crawled away from the mess or just lay there, plasma burns having melted off most of their flesh and limbs.

Someone yanked at my suit and I looked back, then swore. The building and cover we'd been edging toward had been melted down into so much slag, and the Commander was shouting orders to spread out and prepare an anti-air defense, to compensate for the ones that had already been mulched by the abduction pods. He pointed me to a guard tower and shouted something I couldn't hear, and I got moving backward toward it, firing my machine gun until it ran out of ammo.

Combat is hell on Earth. It's brutal, fast, and you never see more than a piece of it at a time when you're in the middle of a firefight. Even so, I had my Gremlin drone floating above the battlefield to give me vision, the cameras focused mainly on watching the pile of corpses the chryssalids had infected, and as I dropped the MK and drew my sniper rifle around, I saw through the overlay video of my visor that the first of them push itself to its feet.

It can't have taken a minute between the chryssalids infecting the bodies and them getting back up, their nervous systems overtaken by the chryssalid parasites they'd been injected with. From the moment they were standing, they stumbled quickly, too quickly, toward the nearest group of soldiers, already breaking under the claws of the bugs. I didn't bother looking through the scope, just pointed my rifle as best I could and opened fire.

Some of it may have been reflexes and training, but I didn't kid myself. The shots were supernaturally lucky, the .50 caliber depleted uranium rounds ripping through the zombies and putting them down immediately. Maybe I'd hit their spines, maybe their parasite's cores, it didn't matter. What mattered was that for every bullet I fired, one of the zombies fell and never got back up.

I don't know how many of them I put down, I wasn't counting, before I turned and stumbled into the stairs at the base of the guard tower. It was a simple building, a box with windows on top of metal stilts and a circular staircase, and I rushed up them, not bothering to try out my grapnel hook. I was at the top in seconds, dropping the magazine out of my rifle and trading it with another from my reserves on the way. The only things in the tower were an empty desk, a fire extinguisher, and a med kit on the wall. From there, I got a perfect view of the Abductor UFO as it finally joined the fight.

Australia had been ready. Aircraft had been scrambled almost immediately after the ships had been caught on radar, and they were coming in hot. The three Small Scout UFOs didn't turn so much as stop in midair and pivot to bring their guns in line with the new attack, quickly moving in random directions to dodge the incoming fire. One of them, just one, didn't move away in time, and a dozen missiles exploded against the thick armor of the alien craft. I watched it fall, right on top of the cafeteria, and dust bloomed out to cover the battlefield. The blue shields over the ship's doors didn't even flicker during the impact.

The Abductor turned its cannons outward, almost ignoring the missiles that struck it and did little more than dent its armor, and it decimated the forces with its first volley of plasma. The aircraft that remained were shot down by the Scout UFOs and massive Abductor cannons in almost no time at all.

I couldn't do a damned thing about that, so I focused back down on the battlefield, where I should have been providing covering fire instead of watching the fight like a bloody tourist. I didn't bother securing my sniper rifle against anything, just used my augmented strength and the power of my exo suit to manhandle it into position to fire. I locked my leg servers with a twitch, and started looking out for 'lids through the clouds of dust and fire. My Gremlin wasn't helping too much either, until I blinked and swore, then pointed my gun at a group of soldiers firing blindly at everything.

I waited, taking a few deep breaths and doing my best to ignore the rain of plasma and violence in all directions.

Then a white chryssalid burst forward to strike at the group, just as I suspected one would.

The depleted uranium rounds were more than up to the task, blowing a hole through the chryssalid and giving the group time to get their guns pointed in the right direction, and they used what explosives they had liberally against the oncoming assault.

I couldn't save everyone, but I had to try giving them all a chance. I exhaled hard and turned to another group of soldiers, hoping that the first would manage alright without me.

The second group already had two blue and orange chryssalids tearing through their ranks, and I inhaled, aimed, exhaled and fired. The bullet tore clean through the monster, and I repeated the process against the other. One of the soldiers noticed me on my perch, and pointed me out to the others as they moved to tend to the wounded. As best as I could tell, this group hadn't been hit with eggs yet, so I once again moved on.

Before I could point to the new group, I heard something come up behind me.

I twisted and swung my rifle around blindly, and the Commander ducked beneath the swing and fell back on his ass.

"Shit, sorry," I breathed, offering him a hand up. He took it and rose with a grunt.

"Goddamned opening attack is a little worse than you predicted," he growled, and I took notice of the few soldiers that stood at his sides, already pointing their rifles about and using the height advantage to watch for and shoot at the enemies. "I told you to clear a path, not take off like a madman without us."

"Sorry, Sir, I couldn't hear you," I told him, turning back and bringing up my rifle again.

"Not that it's going to matter," he spat. "If I can't give orders and get this mess organized, then those shock troops are going to tear right through us. What I wouldn't give for a dedicated satellite. Hell, I'd take a megaphone at this point."

I fired off another round, killing one of the white 'lids, then blinked.

"I'm a fucking moron," I groaned, then quickly clipped the sniper rifle to my back to free up my hands. I unhooked and took off my helmet with a hiss of filtered air and blinked away the little water in my eyes from the smoke and debris in the air. I offered it to him and he put it on before asking any questions. While he fiddled with the complicated chin strap, designed to work like a diver's helmet, I pulled the Gremlin's remote control out from a slot on my lower back and opened it up, quickly turning it on and connecting wirelessly with the drone, still buzzing over the field unnoticed due to its small size.

"Here, use this to order it around the battlefield," I told him, turning on the microphone in my helmet remotely, "and as a second screen. My helmet will let you speak through the drone's speakers, so you can give orders and see the battlefield from a bird's eye view. Any questions?"

He glanced at the fold-out screen and looked it over. "Buttons?"

"It's a touchscreen," I simplified the answer, "just put your hand in the middle and drag it to get the thing to move. Twist your hand left or right to make it turn."

"Got it," he nodded, then sat down at the desk with the control device in front of him.

I got back to the fight, just in time to see the Abductor departing, both Scouts keeping close as it floated away.

It must have picked up whatever it needed while I'd been distracted.

I bit back a curse and got back to looking for chryssalids. I tuned out the Commander's loud voice booming over the battlefield, then blinked as I watched the haphazard forces moved into formations and took up better positions almost immediately following his orders.

Damn. He worked fast.

I put it from my mind and kept an eye out, but I couldn't see anything of note. For all our final preparations, it looked a lot like the attack was pretty much over.

One of the two remaining Scout UFOs broke off from the Abductor and turned back, and all the soldiers readied themselves around the battlefield as it landed, not two blocks from the military base in the middle of the street.

"What the hell are they doing?" one of the nearby soldiers muttered, and I narrowed my eyes as we all watched.

"Maintain positions, keep watch for enemy shock troopers!" The Commander's voice barked out into the relative silence of the battlefield, enhanced by the Gremlin's speakers, and the troops quickly moved to follow his orders, several of the remaining groups milling around to prepare for ambushes in any direction.

Several naked sectoids, easily the basis for descriptions of the short Roswell Grays, stepped out of the alien craft, their green glowing plasma pistols strapped to their arms making them easy targets. They seemed to sniff at the air as I watched through my scope, and then three more dragged a large, tall metal white-and-orange box out to plant in the street. I paused. Was that one of their Meld canisters?

Sure enough, the box opened and the legs lifted it off the ground, and the top of the device pushed upward and very slowly began to spin. The six sectoids began crawling around it, presumably ensuring it was working properly.

Their Scout craft lifted from the ground and they all stopped moving completely to watch it go. One of them rose a hand out, almost like it was reaching for the ship as it quickly lifted away and then shot off at an incredible speed.

"And that's my cue," I muttered, placing my finger over my rifle's trigger. "Commander, what're the chances we have enough tasers to try taking one of those things alive?"

I fired before he could answer, putting a bullet in one of the sectoid's oversized heads. The rest rushed into cover behind nearby cars, but I already had them in my sights and knew exactly where they were hiding. My bullets could have punched through an engine block before they were made of depleted uranium.

"I don't care if we have to use a goddamned rope net," he grumbled, "or hold it down with our bare hands. We will take one of them, and we're doing it today."

The sound of my rifle firing broke out into the now quiet evening again, and another one of the aliens fell. The remainder tried shifting around to better hide themselves, and a few took wild potshots back at the guard tower. They didn't come anywhere near it, and I suspected we were well out of the sectoids' pistols' effective range.

"Just so long as we're careful," I muttered, aiming to bring down another of little bastards. "They're small and weak, but they've got Psionic energy enough to panic soldiers or screw with their heads even without their little plasma pistols."

I pulled the trigger, and then there were three.

I caught the telltale glimmer of Psionic purple trailing from one little alien to another, and I pointed my rifle at the source. I inhaled, guessing at the exact position of its head, and then exhaled, relaxing. I held my breath, watched the flicker of energy…

The sectoid's head exploded from behind the red truck it was using for cover, disrupting the energies of the Mind Merge it was using on its ally. I watched the energies as best I could, and when the feedback quickly shot through the connection, I saw the second sectoid's eyes bleed piss-yellow before it screamed psychically and fell, dead.

"And down to one," I informed the others. "How did you want to-"

"CONTACT!" I heard the distant yell, and turned to the Commander as he looked out the window toward the Scout ship that had collapsed onto the cafeteria. The ship may have been tilted at an angle, but the glowing doorways had sectoids firing out through them and into the barely-fortified positions of what was left of the soldiers in the area. I looked back toward where the lone sectiod would have been, but it wasn't there.

The Meld canister was still spinning, and had picked up somewhat in speed.

---

OPTIONS:

[ ] That meld timer is running down, and a boost of the Golden Goo could make mech soldiers or gene therapy possible early. GET THE MELD!

[ ] Breaching a UFO, even a Scout that may only have a few sectoid soldiers and an outsider, is no joke. That's assuming the Intel on the early bits of the war isn't totally FUBAR already, considering the 'lids. Back the local soldiers up.

[ ] IT'S A TRAP! With the sectoid and who knows how many chryssalids running around, the only place to be is right here, defending the Commander. Watch for threats and provide a long overwatch. It's honest work and somebody needs to do it.

[ ] Luckily, the Commander has a plan… (WRITE IN)

---

And thus begins the quest! I know it was a bit lengthy to start, but as the first real work I've put in on this site, I hope it's worth your time. There is a secondary, less official vote available here as well, regarding the equipment Jon brought in with him. While I've got the CYOA's developer more or less available on speed dial and he didn't mind me using his DLC before official release, others may find the early laser pistol, gremlin, and especially the armor inappropriate, even as a gift from an organization who has a vested interest in getting this right the first time. If you feel the start is too powerful, even for a Player One, feel free to let me know so I can strip his equipment away, off to the R&D labs at the earliest opportunity (which may happen anyway).

Let me know what you think, what should happen next, opinions on possible missions and VIPs to work with, soldier submissions for plenty of side characters (it's a bit boring having only two named characters thus far, isn't it?), and more!

Thank you for your time, and please have a wonderful day!

 

[bryanfran36]

[x] Breaching a UFO, even a Scout that may only have a few sectoid soldiers and an outsider, is no joke. That's assuming the Intel on the early bits of the war isn't totally FUBAR already, considering the 'lids. Back the local soldiers up.

 

[Vanestus]

[X] IT'S A TRAP! With the sectoid and who knows how many chryssalids running around, the only place to be is right here, defending the Commander. Watch for threats and provide a long overwatch. It's honest work and somebody needs to do it.

 

[HorizonFallacy]

[X] IT'S A TRAP! With the sectoid and who knows how many chryssalids running around, the only place to be is right here, defending the Commander. Watch for threats and provide a long overwatch. It's honest work and somebody needs to do it.

 

[Canas Dark]

Current vote is 2 to 1, which is spread in a way I can start working with if there are no further voters. In any case, there was one more question I was hoping some enterprising souls might answer:

Does anybody want to submit any quick mentions of side characters (or other primary characters) to use in this? If so, please let me know over the course of the story.

If not, I'll see about writing some more. It seems that the Quests section goes by quickly enough that waiting for more votes is a fool's errand!

Cheers, all!

Canas Dark threw 1 100-faced dice. Reason: 2 Total: 23

 

[Terran Imperium]

[X] IT'S A TRAP! With the sectoid and who knows how many chryssalids running around, the only place to be is right here, defending the Commander. Watch for threats and provide a long overwatch. It's honest work and somebody needs to do it.

Current vote is 2 to 1, which is spread in a way I can start working with if there are no further voters. In any case, there was one more question I was hoping some enterprising souls might answer:

Does anybody want to submit any quick mentions of side characters (or other primary characters) to use in this? If so, please let me know over the course of the story.

If not, I'll see about writing some more. It seems that the Quests section goes by quickly enough that waiting for more votes is a fool's errand!

Cheers, all!

Click to shrink...

You should probably threadmark all of your updates, it makes navigation through the thread easier.

 

[Canas Dark]

Thanks for the advice. I've not posted much here before, so don't hesitate to point out things that might improve on what I have. It probably doesn't help that the only current update is a massive chunk of story with little navigation. Ah, lessons learned for the future.

Thanks for stopping in, and please have a wonderful day.

 

[Terran Imperium]

Thanks for the advice. I've not posted much here before, so don't hesitate to point out things that might improve on what I have. It probably doesn't help that the only current update is a massive chunk of story with little navigation. Ah, lessons learned for the future.

Thanks for stopping in, and please have a wonderful day.

Click to shrink...

It was quite a massive chunk of a story but it was an enjoyable read, to be honest. I liked it and its a point in my book that the character looks like Chris Evans. Another thing you might want to do is shorten the updates, yes. It'll make writing easier for you, less likely to burn out yourself and updates will come more regularly to keep your players interested.

Spoiler

 

[Canas Dark]

So I use Random.org for the majority of my rolls, when and if I'm rolling, right? I tried using the roll feature of the website on one of my posts, just to test it out, but I'll need to use it a bit more as time goes on before relying on it.

This was among the best and worst series of rolls I've ever personally encountered. I rolled no fewer than 6 times over 90, and even managed a 100 where I was trying to see how badly somebody got messed up.

Naturally, they're now going to be a recurring character. Anybody who rolls a hundred gets a bonus, I suppose, and when they roll 100 and then their buddy rolls a 99, well... I guess they aren't dying then! Jeez!

On the other hand, the armies, including the one in the base assault, had some abysmal rolls to compensate. I rolled for the good ol' U.S. of A., and what do they give me?
A freaking six! Even taking into account the flat +25 that many rolls get as a bonus when taking John's luck boost into account, that's still hilariously low.

Just... bleh. So if you're wondering why things seem to be a little back and forth, whipping between sudden and amazing successes (99s, of which there were four) and their counterparts (26, 14, 31, etc.), you can blame the atmospheric noise.

New chapter should be up in the next few days, editors' time permitting.

Cheers!

P.S.
The vote is indeed closed.

 

[Canas Dark]

Alright, the next chapter is technically ready, except that it has no less than four things to vote on: one each for the three Team Leads in XCOM (Central Officer, Chief Engineer, Chief Scientist), and the events playing out for the next chapter. If that's no good, I can part the chapter down from almost 6k words into several votes along the way, or I can simplify the votes themselves. My own offered choices are also up for review.

I'm already trying to ask somebody else with experience, but I'd like the thoughts of my audience if they're up for it.

Alternatively, people can just tell me to post it, and I will, with the understanding that it's a bit hefty in the voting bits this time around.

Thank you all for your time, and please have a wonderful day!

 

[Terran Imperium]

Shorter updates are preferable, something like 1k or 2k words. It'll be perfect if the updates are regular. You could have some sudden bout of inspiration and write longer updates as long as you don't burn yourself out.
Good luck, I'll like to read the next part.

 

[tapkomet]

[X] Breaching a UFO, even a Scout that may only have a few sectoid soldiers and an outsider, is no joke. That's assuming the Intel on the early bits of the war isn't totally FUBAR already, considering the 'lids. Back the local soldiers up.

 

[Terran Imperium]

[X] Breaching a UFO, even a Scout that may only have a few sectoid soldiers and an outsider, is no joke. That's assuming the Intel on the early bits of the war isn't totally FUBAR already, considering the 'lids. Back the local soldiers up.

Click to shrink...

The vote was closed, bud. QM already wrote the next update.

 

[tapkomet]

Ah, okay. Late for the party, I guess.

 

[Canas Dark]

One of my editors is AWOL and the other simply said, "It's good."

Reason enough to post the next chapter, sorry for the delay.

 

[Canas Dark]

[X] IT'S A TRAP! With the sectoid and who knows how many chryssalids running around, the only place to be was right there, defending the Commander. Watch for threats and provide a long overwatch. It's honest work and somebody needs to do it. Preferably someone with a helmet.

---

"Damn it," I growled, quickly turning my rifle to look for angles against the sectoids in the ship. The greys were exchanging accurate fire against the Australians, and somehow managing not to get shot right back. I kept my eyes moving, thinking on the timing, looking for one to step out where I could get a clean shot. No dice. I had zero angles, period. Apparently my luck wasn't just going to hand me everything. Or maybe… maybe I just needed to trust it? I pointed my rifle at the shielded doorway and closed my eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. I pulled the trigger, blind firing, then reopened them.

I blinked, then swore and ducked down as green plasma tore through the air toward the tower. I didn't see it pass, instead hearing it way fly by way overhead, missing the tower completely. The Commander hadn't bothered moving from his spot, still bent over the tablet in my helmet. I know he must have heard the gunfire, but apparently wild misses in either direction weren't worth his time.

Luck wasn't everything, and depleted uranium rounds weren't a dime a dozen. No more blind shots unless they mattered.

"Commander, unless you have a better idea, I'm going to hold overwatch from here and keep an eye out for you," I informed him, scanning the battlefield.

"Good," he agreed, taking a moment to look down into the distance. He pointed to a second group of soldiers tending to their wounded, already in cover past the middle of the base, further away from the UFO's tilted entrance than from the lone sectoid. The building they weren't thirty feet from was on fire. "There are chryssalids running around in the smoke and dust behind them. Smoke them out."

"Yes sir," I replied, but he'd already gone back to muttering into his speakers with his head down.

I was the guy with the sniper rifle, so I felt like I was right where I belonged. Nothing left but to get to it.

I scanned for targets, relying on both my scope and unaugmented eyes, and caught blatant movement in the distance. Subtle, the 'lids were not. I caught sight of a white bug rushing out, taking a long path where I had nothing but time to line up the shot. Even if I weren't lucky, there was no way I'd miss.

I pulled the trigger, and tore the armored beast in half.

I didn't have to look anywhere for the next chryssalid, just turned my rifle to lead the next two that followed behind the first.

Easy shots. Three bugs up, three bugs-

I clicked on empty.

I felt glacially slow, swapping in a fresh magazine while the last chryssalid sprinted across the field, and by the time I'd reloaded, the first soldier had been caught. The hail of gunfire from the other soldiers defending the wounded tore into the unlucky soldier and through him, and my own shot just confirmed that the damned thing would stay down.

I chanced a look over at the soldiers assaulting the UFO, and grimaced. Whatever luck I had, they most certainly weren't sharing. Almost half of them had been melted and burned by the sectoids' shots, and I cursed to myself when one of the soldiers remaining suffered from a familiar purple glow around his temples. I didn't bother to watch him, instead tracing the line of energy back to its source, and I got a good view of a larger Sectoid Commander's bulging red head leaning into view from a doorway.

I took quick aim and pulled the trigger, blasting its glowing head into pieces; the purple glow cut off instantly. A few screams, then an explosion followed a moment after, and I turned back to see that the soldier who had been mind fucked had taken out a grenade and blown up the cover he and several others had been hiding behind.

It only takes a second, with those grey bastards tearing into your thoughts. I promised myself I'd learn their secrets and return the favor.

"Near that gold canister!" The Commander shouted.

I was repositioned in a heartbeat, and spotted a flash of grey moving behind a truck near the Meld, spinning ever faster.

"I have no shot," I muttered.

"Just give me a moment, I'll draw it out," he reassured me.

Precious seconds ticked by, and the Meld canister itself stopped spinning and locked down while I waited. I took a moment to reload, not eager to screw up without a mental count of my bullets again. Behind me, the other soldiers in the tower shouted and started firing wildly at something, but I had to trust they'd have the few 'lids in the immediate area covered. The soldiers near the UFO screamed and another explosion went off, but I waited and watched near the Meld, rifle at the ready.

The Gremlin robot swerved down from high above to flush out the alien, and the sectoid jumped out of cover, firing wildly at the machine. I was focused and I had a shot. The recoil didn't much move my scope, and I watched the little bastard twist as it fell in a heap of piss-colored blood and organs; my bullet had caught it in the shoulder, and there wasn't much left of the skinny alien's torso afterward.

On and on it went, shooting at bugs and hoping for shots into the UFO. I took a spare moment to collect the bullets from magazines I had only partially emptied back into a single one. I wasn't quite running dangerously low on my specialized ammo yet, but I wasn't going to save it in the middle of a battlefield, either.

"This sucks," I muttered, watching another soldier fall to plasma fire. "Why won't those bastards come out?"

"Better up here than dead," the Commander replied gruffly, the Gremlin mercifully not echoing his thoughts to the rest of the base. He'd learned the controls quick. "Once I'm running the show from a fortified bunker in the middle of nowhere, Egypt, you're free to go gallivanting off into dangerous situations to risk life and limb as much as you think you'll survive." He tapped something on the pad. "Push up through their blind spot, to the right," his voice was doubled, in here and over the UFO. "We need eyes inside."

I huffed and adjusted my Psi amp, double checking again that it wouldn't interfere with holding my rifle to my shoulder. What I wouldn't give to be able to mind control the aliens right back, right now.

I watched as a group of soldiers charged up just as they'd been ordered, near the entrance to the craft but out of the aliens' line of sight. It was a small group, one with a shield and pistol followed shortly by another with a shotgun, and two more with rifles behind them. I idly swapped to a fresh magazine, one of only two I hadn't used at all, just in case.

The fight hadn't been going well on our side. When you have to trade ten soldiers in terrible cover to bring down one sectoid in unbreakable, almost unflankable cover, you're not going to have a fun time. What made it worse were the distances; it was too far to lob grenades, and just far enough to make the middle distance a no-man's-land. Short of going the long way around, completely behind and into the building (assuming you even could go that way), the cafeteria building's rubble made any assault a bad one.

But the Commander had finally gotten the groups organized enough to flank around the entrance for the same reason, relying on the blocked doorways to prevent unexpected assaults from within while I and the other soldiers kept watch for assaults on the outside. Fire was exchanged carefully over the middle ground, keeping the aliens honest.

I glanced around. I may have been focused on myself, but the other soldiers in the tower with me and the Commander were twitchy. I could almost feel them flinch whenever I fired my massive gun.

I turned back to look through my scope just in time to watch a pair of blue and orange chryssalids crashing into the shield of the lead man. I sucked in breath and prepared to fire when the shotgun soldier stepped forward.

The man in front somehow managed to fall backward and turn his shield just right to pull both 'lids off balance, and the man behind fired his shotgun as fast as he could pull the trigger. Miraculously, the man underneath both bugs pointed his gun through the broken middle of the shield and fired through it, right into the mouth of the 'lid.

My attention was torn to the second pair of 'lids racing after the first, and I fired on the one behind while the soldiers with rifles laid into the one ahead. The shotgunner stepped forward and kicked the 'lids on the ground off of his teammate, probably breaking his damned foot in the process. He hauled his buddy up and the four of them laid fire into the beasts while I supported as best as I could from a distance.

The four chryssalids were down. I kept an eye on the doorways, and was quick to punish a sectoid too curious on the 'lids' success to live.

The soldier in front picked up his mangled shield, shook it to dislodge the gold-blooded 'lid, and then the four of them pressed on.

The last I saw of them, they were walking in through the closest doorway.

"That was impressive," I breathed, then chuckled a little helplessly. "I'm just sorry I'm not going to be able to do a damned thing from here about the ones inside."

"Maybe you can't," the Commander muttered, "but I can. Keep watching the sides. The last thing we need are more surprises."

I spotted the Gremlin floating down, then into the other doorway, presumably to scout ahead.

Several minutes passed, with intermittent fire and a rare explosion sounding off in the distance or within the UFO. More soldiers had been quick to move up to cover the primary entranceway, and the Commander continued to mutter, either to himself or quietly to the soldiers inside. A few more of the Australian soldiers had slowly gone in after them, and I fought not to fidget while I tried not to imagine what the fight was like. I had better things to do, keeping an eye on the battlefield.

Which was damned lucky, because I spotted a fucking muton sneaking around the side of the cafeteria, hefting a massive plasma rifle.

"Uh, Commander?" I whispered, getting his attention and the attention of the soldiers around me.

"Not now," he muttered back, utterly focused on his task.

I breathed slowly, trying to keep my heartrate down, then looked back at the other soldiers in the tower with me. They were also staring down at the green-armored hulk.

Part of me focused on what the Commander had said earlier. We wanted one of the aliens caught alive. My original thought had been the sectoid, down by the Meld, but now? Now I figured we had the opportunity of a lifetime.

Too bad I was going to waste it.

I lifted up my left arm, taking aim a bit blindly with the small rocket launcher on my exo-suit. I hadn't breached anything, and no enemies had been suitably bunched up to warrant wasting it, so I still had a micro-missile ready for just such an occasion. I breathed steady, taking a moment to mourn that the Commander was borrowing my aim-assisting helmet, and fired blind.

I'm not sure if it was a muscle spasm or fatigue, but the missile came in low, and it struck just under the massive alien's feet. The blast lifted it off the ground, slamming it into the broken wall of the cafeteria. It caught there, stunned, then roared into its mask, beating its chest with a massive free arm. The alien sound made my heart stutter, even as far off as I was.

The movement brought the cafeteria wall the rest of the way down, burying the muton in rubble.

I blinked. The Commander had looked up from his tablet at the sound of the missile firing, and he had apparently caught the beast being caught in rubble as well. He, too, blinked as the mound of rubble shuddered, the beast apparently trapped within.

"So," I began slowly, keeping an eye on the pile. "Remember when you said to take one of them alive?"

He shook his head and turned back to his work.

"Just keep an eye on it," he muttered. "We're still clearing out the UFO."

"If you say so," I agreed, then settled in to wait, rifle at the ready. We'd lost a lot of soldiers thus far. I could only hope we'd gotten something useful out of the opening volley in turn.

---

For good or ill, the battle had finally ended. In the aftermath of it all, I'd learned that more than half of our soldiers had been cut down over the course of the fight, and many more were wounded. Whatever hopes I might have had partway through the fight about the Commander and I taking a massive army of veterans back with us to Egypt, it didn't look like it was going to pan out.

What's worse was that there were intermittent transmissions coming in from around the globe, all bringing the same message: Our military installation was hit, and most of our soldiers on site were slaughtered in the fighting. Our warning, good as it was, was trusted by a little more than half of the people we'd sent it out to, and tens of thousands of soldiers had died, the count increasing as the hours went by.

It wasn't a series of global terror attacks, but only because the attacks had been jokes.

Any military mind looking at the damage done afterward, especially when considering that the aliens had a tendency to leave only a couple sectoids around in the aftermath, was forced to agree that something was wrong with the tactic no matter what culture you came from. Why send in a seemingly unbeatable set of alien ships if all you were going to do in the aftermath was collect a couple samples of the captured civilians and soldiers? Why leave such a pathetic force in the aftermath?

Why hit targets seemingly at random, moving through a hardened military base and then stopping by a supermarket before hitting the next one?

What hit me hardest was the sheer audacity of the aliens' attack over in the United States. The strongest military power in the world had dropped the ball, and they'd dropped it hard. Their fighters had been scrambled, sure, and they'd thrown everything they had at the aliens, yes, but they'd completely whiffed on the leadership side of things. As one of the countries that had I had personally expected to not only weather the storm but to also counter it, I was left flabbergasted when I'd heard they were caught with their proverbial pants down.

Every military base had sent their fighters, and nobody had coordinated them with the generals. I don't know if it was alien sabotage or sheer dumb luck, but the two primary bases hit in North America were razed, no survivors.

There was no press conference to be held, no call to action except behind closed doors. Aliens were real, and they were every bit as violent and dangerous as we'd feared. The world leaders wanted to prevent a panic. The losses around the world, apparently written off as sabotage or training exercises.

Except in Australia. Just before we'd left, I'd heard that a general alert was going out to all civilians in the country: We're under attack. Report to your nearest government facility for your free gun and ammunition, and keep an eye out for the chryssalids now out with everything else trying to kill you in the bushes.

Because of course chryssalids were now mingling with the local flora and fauna here and abroad.

All that was happening around the world. Immediately after the fight, I was still more focused on what the hell had gone wrong.

---

Day Two, 22:14, Australia - 4 hours, 39 minutes after the first Terror Attack.

"A thirty five percent chance they start with an attack in Germany. Sixty five for anywhere else. And you had no numbers on a global attack on a much smaller scale, except when it's a guarantee." The Commander sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Any chance you being Psionic drew them here first?"

I threw up my armored hands in the confined space, careful not to hit anything. The room we were in wasn't quite a bunker, but it was the most defensible space in one of the few buildings the Aliens hadn't hit. General Williams, as the ranking officer on base (retired or otherwise), had been installed at a desk here and been coordinating things both through my Gremlin and over a long-distance radio. We'd been the primary target on this continent, and the 'lids were already proving themselves to be a pain in the ass in the nearby countryside, potential threats to them in the outback be damned.

"Not a damned clue," I answered truthfully, leaning back in my exo-suit, currently locked in a standing position. "Either we were somehow 'lucky' to get hit here, or this was your audition into becoming XCOM's Commander. If I knew, I wouldn't bother keeping it to myself."

He sighed again.

I huffed a bit myself. "Well, we at least have the shell of a UFO, and all the corpses we could ever want to autopsy."

"Explosives were an appropriate choice at the time and I won't hear another word against them," Williams growled back, looking over his desk for a paper with a better figure on what munitions the base had left.

We'd taken the UFO, sure. It just had no useful flight computers, Meld, power sources, Elerium, or really much of anything that wasn't covered in blood and fried or blown up before we'd taken it. The other Meld canister we'd seen was also a bust, having sealed itself shut before venting the extreme heat from whatever process it was using to produce more of its golden goo. Precious little Meld had survived the process, maybe enough to fit in a test tube.

Even the alien we'd "captured" had somehow broken its gun and other munitions down to fragments before it could be contained. Maybe the only plus we had was that we'd somehow caught an actual alien, and a Muton no less, alive.

It'd be a shame if we couldn't keep it contained.

A knock on the door had me drawing at my laser pistol, but the Commander waved me off. I unlocked my leg and back joints and stretched a little nonetheless.

"Come in," he called out, putting his papers down and sitting up straight. The door opened, revealing a pair of men in suits like mine. They stood to the sides, and a third party came through, a short Asian woman missing her left hand. There were two medals on her chest, but I didn't recognize them.

"General Williams?" She asked, eying me in my exo-suit. I returned her gaze with a pleasant smile, mentally prodding her with less Psionic energy than would show up on the visible spectrum. I didn't notice anything odd, nor did I see any physical signs that might single her out as a Thin Man in disguise or something.

Hopefully it wasn't just my lack of practice with Psionics making me miss the obvious.

"You've found the right man," The Commander responded. "To whom to I owe the pleasure?"

She gave a quarter bow, first to him and then to me, and then spoke clearly. "I represent a coalition of the finest minds and bodies the world has to offer, a federation based on skill and strength, and funded by member nations around the globe."

I was already grinning, maybe too hard. Finally, things broke out in our favor.

"We are the Extraterrestrial Combat project. The English speaking leaders call us XCOM," she kept her face blank, her voice firm and uncompromising as she continued, except for just a moment mentioning the threat itself. "As you have no doubt become aware, aliens have attacked our world." She paused, her half growl receding back into a blank facade. "They have found it better prepared than they expected," she continued, "and even now we are gathering our allies to push them back, to keep them off our planet now and forever more.

"We heard reports of your foresight, quick response to the threat, and even of your felling and capture of one of their ships." The corner of her mouth twitched up slightly, then was gone before it could morph into a smile. "For those reasons, the XCOM project wishes to extend an invitation to you, General Williams, to join us and stand firm against the alien menace."

The Commander leaned back slightly in his chair, giving me a look, then focused back on her. "That's all well and good, Ma'am, but I was hoping you'd start with your name?"

"I am Fan Zhou," she said quickly, then stopped suddenly, like she'd been ready to say more. She stood at attention, arms at her sides, as we looked her over.

"May I ask what exactly this XCOM project would expect of me and my men if and when I join?" Williams asked.

Fan finally did smile. "We were hoping you could lead us."

I managed not to chuckle as the Commander finally got the official offer to become the Commander. He took a moment to visibly think it over, even going the extra mile to rub his chin and look around a little bit.

"Alright. Alright," he said evenly, focusing all his attention back on Fan Zhou. "Tell me what I should expect, coming in to such a project."

She nodded.

"There are currently three teams working together under three strong leaders, each building up their forces and preparing our new base for your arrival.

"First, there's the Combat Team. They have been drawn from special forces and top tier soldiers around the globe, and you may recommend several of your own from here to participate in the war if you believe they are ready to fight against Humanity's newest, greatest foe. They are led by…"


[ ] Me, Central Officer Fan Zhou. I can lead teams personally or run things from afar with equal efficiency, and am capable of working on any task you are too busy to focus on, be it paperwork, training, field exercises, anything that might otherwise fall through the cracks. My primary weakness is that I have no specialty. Still, I will do any job you give me, and I will do it well.

[ ] Central Officer John Bradford. He is perhaps the most dedicated soldier we have, and he will ensure the three Teams are working in concert at all times. His base management skills are near legendary, so much so that unless we come under direct attack, you will never need to worry about altercations or trouble at XCOM HQ. Unfortunately, he's a desk jockey of the highest caliber, and needs remedial training before he can lead any combat teams personally, even from afar.

[ ] Central Officer Adam "Shalashaska" Ocelot. Many call him Revolver, for his legendary skill with the gun. He trains the best and brightest, and his connections ensure we'll never want for missions, both against the Aliens and against their sympathizers, around the world. If he leads a mission personally, it's nearly promised success, even if the only one to return is him. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to isolate the groups on base into silos, focusing on combat and leaving the other Teams to their devices, and to your leadership. We also have heard rumors that our "best and brightest" are not all willing soldiers, so there is a higher risk of… trouble, at XCOM HQ.

[ ] WRITE IN (Name, Boon, Drawback, as simple or complex as you like; alternatively, alter one of the above in a minor way)


"As you will be responsible for running the entire base, your Central Officer will pick up the slack and, of course, lead the Combat Team whenever your focus is elsewhere. So long as they stand, the base will stand with them."

"A good Central Officer is the foundation of any well-oiled military machine," the Commander agreed, taking shorthand notes as the woman spoke. "You said there were three teams."

Zhou nodded. "Next is the Engineering team. Part of what they do is Research and Development, and part is expanding XCOM HQ. The rest is equipping all other teams with the equipment they need to accomplish whatever goal they are tasked with. They are working to produce standardized weapons and armor for our soldiers as we speak, and their leader has been working in our base for the better part of a year, preparing for any eventuality. The Engineering team is led by…"


[ ] Chief Engineer Dr. Frederick Staller. Dr. Staller is a down to Earth man, albeit one who tends to wander in life and in his work. His attempts to standardize our equipment have been met with intermittent success; he tends to build things to the user, rather than the other way around. It ensures his team is always looking for their next breakthrough, but that some time is lost in turning our prototypes into cost effective products we can mass produce. Still, once he knows a technology is possible, he and his team can get us there. Just… be careful with the more experimental prototypes.

[ ] Chief Engineer Dr. Raymond Shen. Dr. Shen is famous for his prototype nanoforge technology, and his motto is, "Anything the Science Team can dream up, we can build." That is a double-edged blade. His team can build anything, but their heavy reliance on the Science team to give them direction means there will be wasted man-hours that others might spent reaching for their next invention. Still, he and his team are eminently reliable. If you ask for a tank on Monday and they tell you it will be ready Wednesday, then your tank will be ready on Wednesday, no matter what.

[ ] Chief Engineer Dr. Hal Emmerich. Dr. Emmerich is famous for his team's prototype unmanned vehicles; when we heard that you were using a UAV drone, we suspected it was his work you were putting to use. Even now, he's working to build heavier floor models, which he calls Super Heavy Infantry Vehicles, to supplement our soldiers on the field. There are even rumors of heavily armored suits and small bipedal tanks in XCOM's future, if we can solve the problems he's been having with their AI. Unfortunately, while Dr. Emmerich's specialty may be broad in scope, his focus has always been on vehicles. It may take some effort to get him to focus on creating equipment for our infantry, and while he will never ignore orders, he may lose focus in his fantasies of untenable gigantic walking mecha. He is also terrible with operational security, though our Central Officer will try to help mitigate that.

[ ] WRITE IN (Name, Boon, Drawback, as simple or complex as you like; alternatively, alter one of the above in a minor way)


"Sounds like our engineers are in good hands, all things considered," The Commander agreed. "You said the Chief Engineer has been on the base for the better part of a year?"

Fan Zhou nodded curtly. "Egypt has agreed to host XCOM's base of operations in a bunker they'd prepared for World War 3. This situation is close enough for them to believe it is time to put it to use. Our starting engineers were hired to build weapons and prepare the base for war. It will suit our purposes better than anything else that can be found on short notice."

"I'll verify that just as soon as I can. Alright, Zhou, tell me about the third team," The Commander ordered, and she was quick to comply. I glanced at the two men in suits standing behind her, and started probing them gently as well, trying to remain subtle.

"Our Science Team have come together in their new laboratories in record time," Fan Zhou continued. "From the Chief Scientist down to the newest lab tech, all of them have familiarized themselves with the equipment the Engineering team have put together and are looking over what materials have already been gathered from an attack in Cairo."

"How?" I finally cut in, trying to imagine it. "It's only been, what, four hours? How on Earth have all these people been gathered together so quickly?"

Fan Zhou narrowed her eyes slightly at me, then looked at the Commander. "My apologies, Madam Zhou, but his question is an appropriate one. How has the XCOM Project been put together so quickly?"

She pursed her lips slightly for a moment, then answered, "There was an anonymous tip from a certain General in Australia who foresaw the attacks and told the world to prepare for war. Even if he were wrong, there were enough governments ready for such a call that they began coming together for a conference in Europe early. Once the threat was verified to be an alien one, several European emergency protocols were streamlined and put into action. While the details are still being reviewed, your appointment as the head of the XCOM project was unanimously agreed to."

He raised an eyebrow. "Well. You still managed to get from Egypt to Australia in Four hours, assuming you left during the attacks. May I ask how?"

Her lip twitched again, a not-smile. "I was stationed in Hong Kong. I left there two and a half hours ago in a transport they call the Skyranger. It is a prototype, a gift from my people to the XCOM Project. It, and I, will serve the project well."

The Commander glances at me, and I give him a small nod. A transport ship that has no business going Mach 3 isn't something I would turn down on a bad day.

"We interrupted you. May I ask who leads the Science Team?"

Fan Zhou nodded.


[ ] Dr. Lisa Jo. She received her first Doctorate in psychology, then transitioned to the harder sciences over the course of eleven years, picking up four more along the way, ending with two theses on seperate topics at once. She is a sponge, capable of studying anything without complaint, and offering what insights she can along the way. If there is somebody we can expect to understand whatever we put in front of them, Dr. Jo is that person. Unfortunately, she studies and researches all things for curiosity's sake, and while her work will no doubt be the backbone of any scientific breakthroughs, we must rely on either her support staff or the engineering team for most of the innovations that will turn her findings into usable technologies.

[ ] Dr. Moira Vahlen. She is an astrobiologist of the highest caliber, and is as ruthless as they come. She has stated clearly that her particular interests lie in finding ways to adapt alien technology to advance human scientific developments. To that end, there is little she won't do to ensure the XCOM Project's success, and she is certain to attach possible technologies to all of her reports. While she is certainly enthusiastic, there have been some questions regarding her ethical standing; she is brilliant, but if she goes unchecked, we aren't sure what the consequences might be, good or bad.

[ ] Dr. Naomi Hunter. Dr. Hunter is a gene therapist and has written groundbreaking reports on how DNA actually builds the human body, and how it can be altered and adapted to suit our needs. If there is a doctor on this Earth who will cure cancer, it's Dr. Naomi Hunter. It is expected that any autopsies performed or biological technologies studied will lead to new technologies in no time at all, and our medical labs are certain to be top of the line. The downside is that while our Science Team is equipped for all areas of study, Dr. Hunter has had a tendency to select medical doctors for the majority of her team, no doubt slowing any research outside of those fields until more scientists can be hired.

[ ] WRITE IN (Name, Boon, Drawback, as simple or complex as you like; alternatively, alter one of the above in a minor way)

"It sounds like XCOM has quite the team already," Williams said, putting down his pen as he finished taking notes. "Assuming that Australia is on board, and I suspect it will be, I will tentatively accept the position as the head of the XCOM Project."

Fan Zhou bowed deeply. "We have already received word that they are. Thank you, Sir, and may XCOM prosper under your leadership."

He nodded back with a quarter bow, still seated.

---

We got on the Skyranger with a few of the best soldiers on base a short while later, heading toward XCOM HQ.

[ ] We arrived just in time for another alert; XCOM had just sent out a team on a second Skyranger, and the Central Officer is ready to hand over the reigns or send in a second team to back them up at the Commander's order.

[ ] It had taken some time to get things squared away before we left; the Commander wanted to ensure that the civilians were armed and ready for any further chryssalid or alien attacks.

[ ] After a few short hours, a majority of the corpses and broken equipment from the attack were bundled up to just barely fit in the Skyranger; we wouldn't have to wait to get started on any of it. We even managed to chain up the live muton, ensuring it wouldn't escape on the trip to HQ, nor after we arrived.

[ ] Write in; include some kind of Boon.

 

[Terran Imperium]

[X] Me, Central Officer Fan Zhou. I can lead teams personally or run things from afar with equal efficiency, and am capable of working on any task you are too busy to focus on, be it paperwork, training, field exercises, anything that might otherwise fall through the cracks. My primary weakness is that I have no specialty. Still, I will do any job you give me, and I will do it well.
[X] Chief Engineer Dr. Frederick Staller. Dr. Staller is a down to Earth man, albeit one who tends to wander in life and in his work. His attempts to standardize our equipment have been met with intermittent success; he tends to build things to the user, rather than the other way around. It ensures his team is always looking for their next breakthrough, but that some time is lost in turning our prototypes into cost effective products we can mass produce. Still, once he knows a technology is possible, he and his team can get us there. Just… be careful with the more experimental prototypes.
[X] Dr. Moira Vahlen. She is an astrobiologist of the highest caliber, and is as ruthless as they come. She has stated clearly that her particular interests lie in finding ways to adapt alien technology to advance human scientific developments. To that end, there is little she won't do to ensure the XCOM Project's success, and she is certain to attach possible technologies to all of her reports. While she is certainly enthusiastic, there have been some questions regarding her ethical standing; she is brilliant, but if she goes unchecked, we aren't sure what the consequences might be, good or bad.
[X] After a few short hours, a majority of the corpses and broken equipment from the attack were bundled up to just barely fit in the Skyranger; we wouldn't have to wait to get started on any of it. We even managed to chain up the live muton, ensuring it wouldn't escape on the trip to HQ, nor after we arrived.

 

[tapkomet]

I'm going to vote for the canon team. I like them quite a bit already, more than people I don't recognize. (I assume other commanders are from different franchises? I only recognize Ocelot.) Sure, Bradford is a hopeless combat commander, but we have the Commander for distant directions, and ourselves to lead personally.

[X] Central Officer John Bradford
[X] Chief Engineer Dr. Raymond Shen
[X] Dr. Moira Vahlen
[X] After a few short hours, a majority of the corpses and broken equipment from the attack were bundled up to just barely fit in the Skyranger; we wouldn't have to wait to get started on any of it. We even managed to chain up the live muton, ensuring it wouldn't escape on the trip to HQ, nor after we arrived.

 

[sun tzu]

I admit, I also want to see the canon team.

[X] Central Officer John Bradford
[X] Chief Engineer Dr. Raymond Shen
[X] Dr. Moira Vahlen
[X] After a few short hours, a majority of the corpses and broken equipment from the attack were bundled up to just barely fit in the Skyranger; we wouldn't have to wait to get started on any of it. We even managed to chain up the live muton, ensuring it wouldn't escape on the trip to HQ, nor after we arrived.

 

[Canas Dark]

The teams include one OC, one original, and then the metal gear folks as examples of other possible write in choices. I figured I'd offer a little variety, and may have gone overboard.

Note: the boons are meant to be at least equally powerful. Take that as you will.

Live alien capture and broken equipment sent in early are currently ahead, as is the original team. I'll wait around a bit before starting the next part, and will try not to go overboard on size again.

The threadmarks are working for me, are they formatted correctly as well?

 

[Ironforge]

[X] Central Officer John Bradford
[X] Chief Engineer Dr. Raymond Shen
[X] Dr. Moira Vahlen
[X] After a few short hours, a majority of the corpses and broken equipment from the attack were bundled up to just barely fit in the Skyranger; we wouldn't have to wait to get started on any of it. We even managed to chain up the live muton, ensuring it wouldn't escape on the trip to HQ, nor after we arrived.

Going with the cannon crew just for the fact that it feels more xcom with them all there and because they are a interesting and balanced group that just works oh so well together.

 

[Canas Dark]

Quick question for anybody who cares, though it will not impact at least one plan I have in the next chapter or two if the vote doesn't change:

DLC and cannon events, do we add them along the way or stay away from them to tread new ground?

Zhang and slingshot, for example, were a huge part of my personal game play experience, but I can always just make that sort of thing a cameo rather than a semi first person experience, if it gets included at all.

Let me know what you think.

And somebody give me a side character! Hell, first one in gets to be a part of the main cast!

 

[Terran Imperium]

DLC and cannon events, do we add them along the way or stay away from them to tread new ground?

Click to shrink...

Why not both if its possible?

And somebody give me a side character! Hell, first one in gets to be a part of the main cast!

Click to shrink...

Do I offer an image and description? Sure.

Spoiler: Character

Ceathya is usually calm and collected during her attacks. She shows no remorse to her actions, killing without mercy. Ceathya can talk and acknowledge the world, but she doesn't really seem to "feel" anything about it. Someone can confess their love straight to her face and she can ignore it or simply demean it. She doesn't really get mad, sad, jealous or scared. It's comparable to say that she doesn't really care about the consequences of anything she does. That's not to say that Ceathya can't smile, she seems to take a certain delight in telling people how they are about to suffer or die because of her. While she may not use emotions, she certainly knows how people react to certain situations and thus makes preparations based on the emotion that someone is exhibiting. Ceathya's parents died, she was put under training from a top military officer. He gave her the name Ceathya. Ceathya saw him as a father like figure, she looked up to him and trained hard to meet his expectations. At an early age, she was capable of going on high-class level missions and could pull the trigger on her enemy without any remorse. She learned what kind of guns were the most dangerous, how to tell when someone was a beginner, who the most lethal enemy was at the time, where to be to avoid taking return fire, how to create cover, what emotions belonged on the field and much much more.

 

[Canas Dark]

@Terran Imperium do you have a preferred country of origin? Ceathya appears to be a bit of a sociopath with some tendencies toward arrogance, unless I miss my guess, though I missed her motivation under the background of success. Skills and how to manipulate people, sure, but not the why of it. If you could add that piece, then I won't have to guess at it. Other than that, she's in.

On the subject of possible events: I meant do we also include DLC and cannon, there's plenty to go around without it.

 

[tapkomet]

I like the DLCs, so I'd prefer to include them