This is some fan fiction based on the xcom sieries of games. It will probably be loosley based on it. Not sure what name fits best, and it is always open to suggestions but I think either Global Defense Force or Terran defense force fits pretty well. Also forgive any lack of details I am not a combatant, not that I haven't tried, but well amoung other things I am no longer eligible to deploy. You can probably guess what service I am in, just by reading the story below, or the first paragraph.
Anywa if there are any glaring errors or anything that can be made more realistic, please let me know. Thorgrimm will probably notice some pretty significant differences that should have cleared up a lot from the old one. Anyway I hope you guys enjoy and please feedback is the only way I can improve. Take care.
~Luc
Chapter One!
Here I sit, my back up against a car turned on its side, with a hole in my side, bleeding out, and a sectoid pointing its weapon at me, as if guarding me. It’s almost like its waiting to spring a trap or worse, just standing there to watch me die. It is under cover inside the wooden shed next to me, but I can still see it, thanks to the bright moonlight. With that emotionless stare, I can’t tell what its thinking though, I bet it gets off on the fear it is causing. I can feel the creature probing around in my mind. I keep trying to think of the past, to think of things that it will find no value in; things I can recall vividly just to keep myself from unintentionally giving away any useful information. I would repeat what I know to do when captured…
Robert Pierce, Technical Sergeant, United States Air Force, 133-98-9713.
My mouth won't move, however, and I cannot make any verbal sounds, but at least I am still breathing. I want to scream, hell I am screaming on the inside, just nothing happens. I can't move anything, I can blink and breathe and that is all. I don't know what is worse; knowing this thing is probing my mind or watching myself bleed to death as I cannot even cover the wound. I imagine I don't have long left with all of this bleeding so I am going do my best to avoid giving away any useful information to this damned thing.
This creature, nicknamed a Sectoid as the scientific name is just too technical for most of us, is just staring at me. It makes an audible squeak every once in a while, but I don’t think that is speech. Those large, black, pupilless eyes show no sign of emotion; if it wasn't moving I would swear it was dead or fake. Its head is large and bulbous. It has a tiny mouth and no nose to speak of. It has nostrils, but they are simply holes in the middle of its head, no nose structure to speak of. Its tannish-gray skin almost looks like decaying human flesh and its short, gaunt body doesn’t appear otherwise. Those skinny arms look like they can barely hold that heavy rifle, but they are holding it firm. It is just standing there looking at me and yet no emotion shows on its face at all, if you can call it a face it looks more like a mask to me.
Half of my team is down and what is left of them is out there probably trying to find me; I have no way to tell them I think they are heading right into a trap. I have the TPCS pack so they are blind on top of that. These Sectoids want to take us out just to spite us, I imagine because we have been so lucky lately. This was our first assault mission on an already landed craft. This was a significant discovery as it might allow us to capture a completely intact craft. It seems they somehow knew we were coming though, or maybe they somehow set us up. They probably didn't like the idea that we just captured one of their companions too. It didn’t go down easily, but we were ordered to capture if the opportunity presented itself and we are pretty stubborn. I don’t know where it is now, and I am not sure why I was captured and not killed like the others. I heard the order to fallback just before I was hit and dragged away. I didn’t see them leave and I can see they are still fighting so I think they are trying to find me. My hearing got screwed up right after I was hit, and I can’t make out much of anything. Everything sounds like it is coming through a long pipe, too many echoes, too much stimulation, it is almost overwhelming.
I have to stop thinking of the current situation…I don’t want to give away any critical information, locations and such. To think, five months ago I was leaving my home in Colorado Springs and heading to an unknown assignment in the Bahamas. I thought that it would be great living in the sun and sand, with all of the women around. I knew I would miss my daughters, but it is good to get away from the ex sometimes. She is a nice person and all, I am just glad I don’t have to be reminded of my failed marriage all of the time. So it was sort of a relief that I was selected for the assignment.
I remember the day I said goodbye to Ashley and Elizabeth. Ashley, the younger one, only four years old, didn’t really understand. Hell, I didn’t really understand. When the time came to say goodbye, I wondered what I was thinking. How could I leave my daughters behind? At the same time it isn’t like I chose this, I was being reassigned. Ashley wouldn’t let go of me, she couldn’t. Elizabeth, the ten year old, was mad at me, she seemed to think I chose my job over her, and it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t even my choice to leave. The military picks who goes where and when. I don’t have much of a say. My family never understood that, least of all my daughters. My ex-wife and I already agreed they would come see me during Christmas vacation, but that seemed so long away then, now, though, it is only next month.
It’s true what they say, ignorance is bliss! I would give anything to be back there. I never wanted this; I never asked to fight this war. War...a war that the people of the world don't even know is going on. How can it be called a war then? I don't know what to call it, but it isn't right to keep this from the world. How long do they think they can keep this hidden?
When I got to the base in the Bahamas and I found out it was underground, I was dismayed. Realizing that I would not get out much or have a social life at all, I began to feel depressed.
It was based in an air field in the middle of no where. A small run way and some civilian planes surrounded a small military hangar. The elevator was inside, right out in the open. Inside the base was rather impressive. It looked like something out of a sci-fi flick. All of the sectors were segregated by powered doors. I imagine there is some sort of containment reason behind that.
It was as if they built each sector separately and moved them down here somehow. Not sure how that would work, but that is almost how it looked. Everything was so high-tech. The system would recognize you as you approach, nothing like I ever saw before. Now that I think about it, its time to change the subject again.
****
‘I wonder if I can slow the bleeding through some sort of mental discipline?’ He asked himself concentrating on the bleeding wound.
‘I don’t think that is working…’ he resigns not noticing any slowing of the blood flow.
‘Was that just? Yes, that was Amn Tamora, where did she come from?’ he asked himself just then the sectoid looks at him, as if focusing on his thoughts. The Sectoid motions to two others to come over and then they go off in different directions in search of something, probably Amn Tamora.
‘Damn it, I have to take my mind away from this place. Think Rob, think!’
****
I am a combat-comm troop, sorry an RTO as the rest of the troops call me. Radio Transmission Operator, yeah that sounds much better. I can’t even roll my eyes right now either. Anyway I thought I was up for anything, but even after I got here, my mission was never fully defined. The captain insisted this was for national security, something I had never heard on any of the missions I had been on for the Air Force. We were always fed as much information as possible to ensure the best mission outcome, and yet here we are stuck in the dark. I guess joint assignments function differently; this is my first, so I will make do as I go. The only information I was fed is that my role was to carry the Tactical Positioning and Communication System, the TPCS, pronounced t-packs, allows for the team to communication with each other and HQ within a 10 mile of me, and that is without satellite support. The primary function, however, is to allow the field commander to have a pseudo-birds-eye view of the battlefield, allowing him to make better tactical decisions. As a side-effect I get to watch it all unfold as it is sent to HQ.
As soon as I got here, I was kept busy. The people in charge here kept us busy and didn’t encourage us to communicate between ourselves, in fact they would interrupt us at anytime. Who is “they” you ask, the security forces. They were treating us like we were outsiders or something. This stood out as very odd to me. I don’t know how other branches work, but in the Air Force we encourage the group to be as a family, to get to know one another, everybody works together best that way. This was just so unnatural. There was no training, at least for me. They gave me my comm-pack and taught me the inns and outs of that as it was more advanced than anything I used before. The equipment they gave me, somehow allows them to electronically track the team members, the terrain and even some of the enemy. I have seen similar equipment before and been trained on it, but I never got to use it in an active combat role, so this equipment wasn’t all that dissimilar from what I was used to, just a bit more advanced in its tracking. The questions that came to mind however weren’t related to my training or how to use the equipment, it was what are we doing here, why is everything so secretive?
-----
On my second day while standing in line for food in the Chow-hall, I ran into this young girl, she looked about 16 but I imagine she had to be at least 18 since she was wearing an Air Force uniform. She had lost her grip on her tray, but caught it before it fell to the floor. Still, half her food spilled to the floor. The obnoxious specialist standing next to her; started laughing and feigned an apology so I figured he was at least partially responsible. I put my tray on the counter and walked over towards her, pushing my way past the asinine specialist, to give her a hand. The specialist had the name Daniels on his shirt. She put her tray on the floor, looked up at me with an appreciative look and then proceeded to pick up the food.
After we were done, I offered her half of my meal and we ate together. She was Airman Tamora and she was a medic. Before she joined the Air Force she was a paramedic with an interesting background. She grew up in Detroit and had plenty of practice dealing with a variety of wounds due to the gang problems in the area. She had dealt with a lot of gun shot wounds and even the occasional shrapnel wounds. She was an interesting person, she looked a lot younger than she was and acted even older than that. We got along pretty well and took our time with our meal, this was one of the few times we were allowed to talk freely, but before we finished our meal the intercom began to chirp and it was calling my name, so to speak.
‘Recon Team, report to briefing room A immediately’ it repeated for about three minutes. Well, that was the team I was a part of, so I got up, looked across the table to say I had to leave and I noticed that she got up as well. I never imagined that I would be working with her directly. She looked as surprised as I was. We both stood up and headed down the hall towards the briefing room. I was glad, because I had no idea where it was, so I basically followed her.
There were about 20 of us all called together and sat down in a briefing room of some kind. Some of these people I have seen around the base, but most I never saw before.
When they told us we were gathered together in order to investigate a mysterious crash site, I thought they had to be joking. My feelings weren’t just my own, everyone was flabbergasted. We were there to provide security for an investigation team of scientists and we were leaving immediately. No one understood why all of us were needed or why all of the secrecy, we would soon learn.
When we arrived at the crash site, I was ordered by some scientist name Gray to stay near him. He apparently though he was in charge and wanted me there so he could communicate on a whim. There was almost nothing left of whatever crashed, but I could tell that the aircraft was even more high-tech than the base we staged from.
Specialist Chavez, looked up at Dr. Gray and asked if this was a preemptive strike or a terrorist attack by the Eurasian Confederacy, the answer he got was quite puzzling. General Pascola, the military member in charge here, walked up to the three striper and told him that if the EC had this type of technology we would be in some serious shit. The thing is the General never said who this technology belonged to. Of course I know now, but at the time I could only wonder; maybe their was a new enemy that joined the EC, that thought scared me. And in a way, it wasn't far from the truth.
Then the General called for the area to be cleared and secured. My team was in charge of securing the perimeter and ensuring no unauthorized entry occurred. So they were off mainly securing the area, as no one was out here in the middle of the night. My job was to sit near the bigwigs and provide necessary communication. Sometimes I wished I was one of those guys, out there, doing things, instead of sitting next to the biggest targets out there.
A single thought occurred to me at that moment, it had been two weeks since I left my home, and we were told when we left that we were here to secure the crash site. Did they let it sit here for the last two weeks, open to anyone's eyes? Something didn't add up.
Then I saw it...A strange creature being put on a stretcher. I don't know if it was alive or not, but the General did not seem happy. I heard him berating some of the guys in white coats, I imagine they were scientists or engineers or something, but he was yelling about not being able to get anything from this wreckage, all of the technology was destroyed and the Sectoid was dead. That was the first time I heard the word Sectoid, and I wish it was the last.
On our way back to the base, I was the security agent assigned to the transport with the scientists and the 'sectoid'. The scientists could tell I was scared, and they joked with me about it. After a while they showed me the creature. It was shorter than a man, maybe four or four and a half feet tall. It had nearly gray skin, it had a little tan tint to it, but it was mostly gray. There was no hair at all on it and the eyes were nigh creepy. It seemed to be looking at me, but they insisted it was dead. The only thing I could think of with similar eyes is a rodent, its eyes were bulgy and all black, and it had no nose, though it did have nostrils and a very large head. It was what many of the sci-fi movies and books drew up as an alien, but it seemed much worse laying there in front of me. Suddenly I felt the transport pulling into the base hanger; I opened the latch and booked out of there as quick as I could.
It was two days before I was able to sleep again. Every time I closed my eyes I saw that thing. And the nightmares made things worse. In fact, it was the same nightmare, over and over again.
In the dream I was in a gun fight with several of these creatures and as I was looking over at this girl next to me, telling her to cover me, I looked back up only to see this large purple thing flying at me. It looked like a furry purple dragonfly. She pushed me down and it ripped her off of me and she was gone. There was blood everywhere. I kept waking up in tears.
I had been seeing Col. Courtney about these bad dreams; she was a psychotherapist and had been helping me through these problems. Being one of only a few Air Force on the team, I could only imagine what the other branches would think about me seeing a therapist after a non-event and a dream like that. Col. Courtney said she expected her workload and staff to increase due to the mission ahead of us. She obviously knew more about this than I did.
Suddenly the alarm went off...we are off on another expedition? I thought we had been to the crash site already. I suited up, grabbed my gear and headed to the briefing room. This time it is the General with one of the scientists giving the briefing.
"We have a situation," he said.
"There is another crash site," he looked over to the scientist with a smirk on his crusty old face, "well there will be soon. Here's the kicker, we need you guys to capture any survivors."
I spoke up at that moment "Capture? Sir, I thought we were to secure the area? What do you mean capture survivors? What if they don't surrender willingly?"
"If you would have let me finish Sergeant, you would know. You saw the creature's body from the last site; these guys are a threat to us. Your mission is to clear out and then secure the crash site. Incapacitate anyone you find and bring them here for questioning. That is all you need to know." He gestures to the scientist.
"Hello, I am Dr. Morton and I have some weapons that may be of use to you” He pulls out a strange bull colored grenade shaped weapon. “We are not sure the effect your standard stun grenades will have on these creatures, use them, but don’t rely on them. These grenades, called snap-pods should incapacitate the creatures, but we are not sure what effect they will have on humans, so don't be too close when you use them. Press this button here and you have 10 seconds before it goes off. You can change the timer by doing turning this to the side, like this...
"We only have 12 of these grenades right now, so you each get one. This is what we have gathered from the creatures we have studied so far.
"They have a very resilient anatomy. They have two extra chambers on what we think is their hearts and their skulls are thicker than that of a human. So they can take hits to the head or chest and still be a threat. Bludgeoning weapons would probably have little effect on them. As would piercing weapons, we think their extra-chambered heart would simply compensate if they were damaged their. There are extra organs that we have not been able to identify as of yet, and many that are normal for humans have not be found in their bodies. The weakest part of the skull is where the eye sockets are. Their brain is huge and an impact there from a bullet or stabbing weapon should cause sufficient damage to kill them.
"Ahem," the General cleared his throat, obviously telling the guy to move onto other things.
"Oh...um...the grenades should knock them out from a distance so guns shouldn't come into play. Rely on the grenades." He looked at the general, as if that was a programmed statement.
At that point the General interrupted, "The ship is down, go get them bastards...and bring them back alive."
So the 9 of us, our Captain, Roy Stevens, our LT, Steven Swanson, Sergeants Romero and McNeeley, and specialists, airmen, and soldiers...Chavez, O’Neil, Simmons, Robertson, and Tamora, and myself of course all boarded the S-917 Phoenix transport. I found out that the rest of the team was split off and made into their own team called Bravo team, apparently they had their own things to do.
If only we were prepared for that mission. If they told us what we were up against. I find it hard to believe they didn't know. It was a tragic chain of events and I believe it led us to where we are today.
Upon landing at the crash site, there was debris everywhere, but this looked like it was a smaller ship. From the looks of things though, this ship was shot down, which I should have guessed earlier. I guess I was gullible or maybe just ignorant.
There was burning metal and other materials and by the looks of it the ship was entirely destroyed, how could anyone have survived that, alien or otherwise. Boy was I wrong...
We scoured the area and eventually all encircled the main debris pile. As we drew near and started looking through the debris, what looked like laser fire came from above us. It caught all of us off guard. The first or second shot went right through Captain Stevens’ back and burned its way through his chest instantly. He went down immediately without as much as a yelp. He was dead!
I yelled, "Take Cover" and ran over to him, but there was nothing I could do, where was Tamora, the medic? This man was dead. His skin around the wound was covered in some sort of green glowing material. I learned later this was plasma.
I then ran over to some of my teammates behind cover and explained what I knew. "There is nothing we can do for him now, we need to remove this threat, and then we can go back for his…body. What is our status?"
The LT dropped to his knees and began babbling incoherently. Private Simmons spoke up, "sir, it looks like there is only one of them, he is up on top of that two story house. Everyone else has gotten to cover. How do we proceed?"
And here it was, everyone was looking to me to lead them out of this mess. How did I become the ranking team member? What did I know about combat, I was a comm.-guy, I never had training for such a mission? I put my fears and doubts aside though and focused. We need a way to end this, the quicker the better.
Hmm, it seems the two Sergeants managed to make their way around to the other side of the building we were being shot at from. I radioed them and told them to look for an entrance, but keep themselves out of sight. I will try and keep the thing busy while they sneak up behind this thing. This little shack couldn't afford us protection for long anyway.
I crawled fairly quickly and peeked around the corner. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. So I instructed the closest troop to me, to get in my position. It was Airman Tamora if I remember correctly. I told her to wait until it betrayed its location and then to give me some cover fire.
With that I counted to 4 or 5, 3 didn't seem long enough to me, and then I jolted out and ran towards the closest building. Well, its aim isn't very good apparently, as I am still here and I saw green flashes flying by. I dove into the doorway of the tiny building and slammed into the wall on the other side. I shook that off, stood up, making sure I was still in cover, and couldn't believe that smell; or my Luck. I can't believe I chose to take cover in an outhouse; an outhouse that has been sitting in the hot sun for a very long time. Well, at least I knocked a small hole through the back. So I proceeded to crawl through it, at least it wouldn't expect me to be outside now.
I radioed back, that I was okay and asked if they were able to get a bead on its location. Airman Tamora reported that she saw his location and was able to distract him as he fired. I asked the other team if they had any luck finding a way in and they reported that they indeed found a broken door they would probably be able to sneak past. They would need a distraction so they could break it down without being noticed. I told them in 30.
Getting back to team 1, as I was now calling them, I said to have two of them fire on the target in 20 seconds and not to stop until I gave the order.
It felt like only 5 seconds and they were firing, well, now’s the time to join in. All of us were behind small wooden houses and shacks, which may not give us much protection but at least we would be harder to target. Its first couple of shots went towards team one, hitting the ground and a tree behind them. But right after I started shooting it got a line on me and fired, a lot. Green shit was flying everywhere and I retreated back behind the outhouse. The corner I was behind was all tore up and had caught fire. I figured I would go around to the other corner and fire from there. As I was crawling around two shots of plasma went right through the wall inches in front of my face, it was like he knew my tactics or maybe were I was. But how?
I realized that this plasma could shoot through wooden structures with the ease of a hot knife through butter. I immediately called for team 1 to fall back and get behind better cover. Before I was done yelling the order I heard a scream from the radio, a scream I will hear in my nightmares for years to come, if not the rest of my life.
Tamora's voice came over the earpiece, "Robertson's been hit, he is losing a lot of blood, but he isn't dead." I ordered her to pull everyone back to the Phoenix.
Within seconds the building I was ducking behind was torn apart by the plasma blasts. They were hitting all over, all I could do was stay on the ground and cover myself....and pray. As suddenly as it fired toward me, it stopped. I looked up over the debris and heard fire coming from Tamora’s position. The LT had apparently regained his composure and began firing at the enemy. This probably saved my life as it caused the creature to find some cover of its own.
Then in a commotion a few flashbangs were heard going off inside, a hideous screech followed, and then a strange sounding blast and a purple flash came after that. I feared the thing found the two troops heading up its way, when Sergeant Romero was seen in the building waving back at us.
They came out a few minutes later carrying this creature and its weapon. We cleared the wreckage of any useful technology, or I should say that Dr. Gray did. We covered the creature up and put it in the cargo hold with Simmons keeping guard. We loaded up and headed back. We had two casualties that shouldn't have happened. Stevens was dead and for no reason. Robertson was still alive, but barely. We weren't able to stop the bleeding and I didn't know how long he would hold on with the entire area of his kidney missing all the way through.
"Tamora, is there anything I can do to help stabilize him?" I asked as I was concerned for Robertson.
"No, just get us to base as quick as possible! I have stopped the bleeding as much as I can, but I don't know how long he will hold on," she responded frantically with a hint of tears in her eyes.
So I sat back down in the back of the passenger hold near the cargo hold doors Dr. Gray and I talked. "So guy, you must be pretty happy?" I asked overloaded with sarcasm.
"The name is Ross and yes, I am. To have captured a live extraterrestrial this soon... We will learn a lot from this specimen," he said sounding quite excited.
"I was speaking more about your grenade working on the first try, but yes I can see how that would be more exciting." I said rather annoyed at his lack of concern for my downed troop.
"Huh, I am not the one who designed the grenade, that was Sam Lockhart, the lead weapons engineer. I am the lead exobiologist. I study the specimens, I don't make weapons." He said defensively, I guess he sensed my agitation.
"Oh, I didn't realize there were different teams. I guess that makes sense as there are different specialists within my own team’s ranks. Is there anything useful you can tell me about these creatures?"
"Other than I already told you? No, you are not cleared to know any more."
At that point I was outraged, "know any more? Who do you think needs to know this stuff the most? We are fighting these things and if I find out you held back any vital information I will...I will."
Abruptly, a hair curling scream was heard from the cargo hold, followed by gun fire. With two shells flying through the cargo hold door and out of the hull I lurched forward as the pilot began to lose control from the sudden drop in pressure. I opened the cargo bay access door and pulled my sidearm. I saw the creature sitting up, hands and feet still strapped to the bed, it was looking directly at Simmons. Simmons was holding his head screaming and crying his gun lying next to him. I fired right into its head, aiming for the eyes, after a few shots its upper body fell back down, but I didn't stop firing. In fact it wasn't until my clip was empty that I stopped and even then I kept my pistol trained on the creature.
"Medic!" I yelled out. I heard Tamora finish instructing someone how to keep the blood flow down on Robertson and then she ran into the cargo bay, looked around and said "Shit, what the hell happened?"
She inspected Simmons and reported that nothing was wrong, no injuries were found, but he was now unconscious for no reason she could determine.
I ran back into the passenger hold and grabbed Dr. Gray by the shirt. His whimpering got louder when I did this. "What happened? What did it do to Simmons?"
"Www...We...well, I, sort of, had an idea, that maybe, they could, they had some sort of...of...well..." <br><br>
"Go on! Some sort of what?!" I questioned
"Well, the brain tissue, the amount and development, indicated, that well." He said, cowering more and more as he spoke.
"JUST TELL ME!" I yelled, drawing looks from the rest of the team
"Well, a sort of psychic power!"
"What? How is psychic power capable of doing this to a man? I don't understand?"
"Ever hear of telekinesis?"
"Of course!"
"Well, this is a form of that. Think of the specimen attacking the victim's brain directly."
"The victim has a name. Why didn't you tell us this in the briefing? Don’t you think this was important information?"
"Well, you weren't..."
"Don't you dare say cleared!" I exclaimed maintaining my death stare with him.
"It was determined you didn't have a need to know." <br><br>
"Determined by who?" I began to lift him off of the ground and I was never a big man.
"General Pascola!”
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So unless Robertson was hit with a conventional weapon I don't think his wounds would bleed. But that is just a minor quibble. So far I give it Two Rifles up 
in quality.
