Chapter Text
XCOM HQ
7 hours ago...
Normally, having an almost empty infirmary was a good thing if that infirmary belonged to a military organisation. Unless of course, the reason that infirmary was empty was because the morgue was full, which was unfortunately the case with the infirmary of XCOM headquarters.
Dr Hector Valdez tried not to think too hard about it as he made his rounds. Morale at XCOM was at an all time low as it was. He was just glad he'd been assigned to tend to the living, even if part of him still felt ashamed for being glad over anything at all.
"How are we feeling today?"
His current patient, Sergeant Kim Chun Hyun, looked up from the tablet she had been busy surfing on. She clumsily placed it to the side of her sickbed, as her dominant arm was still encased in a sling.
The Korean assault specialist tried to speak and hesitated, before mumbling something that sounded like "better." She said nothing else but continued fidgeting, clearly at a loss for what else to say. Dr Valdez smiled patiently at the awkward soldier and was rewarded with a shy smile from his patient in return. That was a good thing, because Hyun didn't smile or talk much nowadays. Not since the recent invasion of the base, anyway. He couldn't blame her, all things considered. She'd been the only survivor of the nearly-overrun Delta section.
Delta again. If there ever was a cursed designation in XCOM, that was it.
He paused as he noticed Hyun's smile suddenly turn into an expression of surprise. Her good hand shot to her forehead in a salute, despite being bedridden. Dr Valdez swiveled around and saw the last person he'd expected to see in the infirmary.
"Central Officer— ah, Commander Bradford!" Valdez blurted, before correcting himself.
"At ease, Sergeant Kim. Sergeant Valdez, I'd like to have a word in private...?"
Valdez started. He hadn't been referred to by his military rank for a while now. Not since he'd transitioned out from the strike team...
Then it sank in. The empty infirmary. The overflowing morgue. There could only be one reason for this sudden visit from the new Commander. As Bradford began talking and got right to the point, his suspicion was confirmed.
"You want me back in the field, sir?" Valdez repeated slowly. The spectres that he thought he had overcome came back in full force.
"I wouldn't ask you if I didn't. Think you're up for it?"
One part of his mind was screaming at him to refuse. He's only asking you out of desperation, Valdez realised. He's only asking you to come back as a field operative because everyone from the old guard is dead. Everyone except Hyun, and if she could fight right now he'd probably still prefer her over you.
But the other part of his mind wouldn't let him say no. It was screaming at him for being a coward, for being a weakling hiding in the infirmary while every one of his comrades went out and fought and died.
So instead he replied: "Just give the word, sir."
Bradford smiled. "You're a good soldier, Sergeant Valdez. As it is, we have a vital council mission and I need you to lead it. Head to the armory and gear up."
What the hell had he just agreed to?
He turned and met Hyun's gaze as he made his way out of the infirmary. She knew.
"Delta-2," Hyun spoke up suddenly as he was on his way out. "Come back alive."
Something was wrong, he knew something was very wrong.
Why was he remembering this? That wasn't now, that had happened hours ago, but he just couldn't remember why he was thinking about his promise to Hyun right now. Why was he going over that instead of what was going on in the present? What was he doing the present? Why was that important? Everything in his mind was a disconnected, muddled jumble of thoughts, just like that other time when he had been—
ALONE
He didn't want to remember, but the memories flooded back in a toxic, uncontrollable rush.
One man stood alone in a deserted warehouse, surrounded by the dead.
"Central, I think that's it. It's over."
But Delta-2 had thought wrong. He'd forgotten about the last one. The puppetmaster hiding in the shadows. The first alien controlling the German soldier Delta-3 had died trying to disarm. Then he'd heard the movement behind the crates, realised his mistake, tried to warn Central, but by then, it was too late.
MINE
—the volley of red light flashed from his heavy laser and burned her into a husk at point blank range—
PUPPET
"...don't care what The Commander says, Erikssen deserved better, and that bastard just..."
MURDERER
The blood was everywhere. No matter how he tried, nothing seemed to work. Then a hand gripped his, and he paused his frantic efforts at staunching the wound to look into the eyes of the person he was trying to save.
"No. Too late." The Commander coughed and struggled to stay alive for just a few more minutes. "Get through to Central. Need to..."
USELESS
"...no one needs to know about this part... that's an order—"
COME BACK ALIVE
Valdez's eyes snapped open. He wished they had remained shut shortly after, because the first thing he saw was what was left of Private Murray.
DEAD
They're all dead again. Did I kill them? No. Please, anything but that... I'd rather die. Please just let me die.
He was just so tired of it all. All he wanted was for it to end, to give in to the inevitable. But then a single thought suddenly broke through the swirl of nightmares that had all but overwhelmed him.
COWARD
You promised Hyun you'd come back alive.
It was a hopeless promise, but he clutched at it with the desperation of a drowning man, and it brought him out of the crashing waves of terror and back in control. His instincts took over.
SURVIVE
Ears ringing, he tried to get back on his feet. He was covered with blood. Probably Murray's. Where was his gun?
He vaguely remembered that last moment now. Him, Sergeant Valdez, acting like he knew what he was doing, leading Murray to go to Zhang's aid. Then the grenade arced over the truck they'd been taking cover behind and landed with a clang. It had come out of nowhere— Murray hadn't noticed, not until it was too late, anyway. He didn't even get the chance to yell out a warning before the explosion reduced her into nothing recognisable as a human, and ignited the fuel tank of the truck.
He remembered little after that. The explosion for the truck must have knocked him out and there was his gun and oh...
There was a piece of shrapnel sticking out from his body armor. The metal shard must have belonged to the alien grenade, because the Carapace armour he wore was made of alien alloys and was almost impervious to normal frag grenades. This piece however, had almost punched right through the breastplate.
Actually, some of it had gotten through. Maybe some of that blood on him wasn't Murray's after all.
No pain. Which meant he was probably in shock. He gingerly touched the edge of protruding shard and fought down the impulse to yank it out. He was a medic and knew too well it was probably been the only thing keeping him from bleeding out at the present.
First things first. He sealed the wound with his medikit, shrapnel still embedded. He could worry about the infection and damage later. If he lived long enough for it be a problem, that was. A painkiller-stimulant injection cleared his mind further. He reached for his comm and was relieved to find his earpiece still miraculously in place.
Tap-tap. "Central, this is Strike-1. Come in, Central. Strike-4, come in."
No response. Valdez frowned and tried again. Still no response from anyone. It was then when he realised he could hear no sound at all even though the ringing in his ears had stopped. Which meant the explosion must have deafened him. Merde. He hoped the damage was temporary. If he couldn't hear enemies coming and he was in the middle of a battlefield then he was pretty much a dead man walking.
If you want to keep your promise to Hyun, then the dead man had better start moving towards the Skyranger, a voice in his head told him. Since it was the only thing he could hear now, he picked up his heavy laser and obeyed.
"Central, Strike-4, if any of you can hear me, I'm making my way back to the extraction zone."
It was a long walk back, and a strangely deserted one. Where were Zhang and Jaitely? Was Kotsi still alive? The last communication Valdez remembered was the sniper saying he'd been poisoned. Thin Man poison... getting hit by it used to be a death sentence, but not anymore. Doctor Vahlen had already found a cure and incorporated a Thin Man antivenin module into the medikits. If Kotsi was still on the rooftop near the extraction zone, if Valdez could get to the sniper, he might still be able to save him.
A flash of green coming behind the same building Kotsi had been on caught his eye, and he cursed. Green meant plasma, which meant aliens.
The voice of Colonel Spencer suddenly came to mind: "When in doubt, take the high road." Good 'Ol Jack. He had always known what he was talking about.
A normal person in his condition really shouldn't have been able to climb up that fire-escape to the roof so quickly, but somehow, Valdez still made it up to the roof in what seemed like barely any time at all. He was greeted with the sight of a dead Thin Man. Next to the corpse lay an unmoving Private Kotsi.
Valdez staggered over and checked the sniper's pulse. A wave of hope rushed through him. Kotsi's pulse was weak and erratic, but it was there. That, and his medikit, was all he needed. There was no time to stop and watch the anti-venin take effect, however. Somewhere an alien was still firing on one of his squadmates. He'd failed Murray and even Guzman, but hell itself be damned if he was standing by and letting anyone else die on his watch.
As Kotsi had said earlier, the view from that rooftop really was excellent. He could see everything that was going on. The building opposite him was pock-marked with laser burns and the corpse of a single grey sectoid lay splattered on the concrete roof. He didn't have time to wonder what the spindly little egg-headed creature was doing there as several floors below him, Corporal Zhang and a man who could only be the VIP, appeared to be pinned down behind the burned out husk of a convoy truck at the base of the building.
That wasn't all. Lying out in the open, halfway to the truck, was the fallen figure of assault specialist Amit Jaitely. The side of his Carapace armor showed severe plasma scorches, but even as Valdez looked he saw the man's hand move and attempt to reach for his laser pistol.
Not dead then. But unless they finished this battle quickly, he would be soon.
Then Valdez saw what type of alien it was that was doing the firing and his blood froze. Green armor, purple skin... a seven-foot tall hulking brute with gorilla-like hands which dwarfed the plasma rifles they carried.
Muton.
If brave, stupid Jaitely tried plinking away at a goddamned Muton with that very inadequate laser pistol, he definitely would be dead sooner.
Valdez remembered all-too clearly the details of the first time they'd run into Mutons— in the Hong Kong mission where they'd extracted Zhang. While he hadn't been there he knew those things were tough, and it had taken the combined firepower of Colonel Spencer, then-Captain Henry Harris, and then-Lieutenant Mary Harris to bring one down. That had been with old-fashioned ballistic weapons of course. During their later invasion of the alien base, he'd encountered them too, but by then the Mutons there had gone down much more easily thanks to the introduction of XCOM's laser weaponry.
The same type of laser weaponry which he was currently in possession of.
No time to waste, so he put the heavy laser on full auto and opened fire. The beams from his weapon cut through the Muton's hulking frame in an angry red hailstorm. The alien brute roared in pain and whirled around, but the armour it wore bore the brunt of his attack, allowing it to stand its ground despite the sheer amount of firepower Valdez was raining down at it.
"Shoot it now!" Inwardly Valdez hoped his comm was working, and that the rookies would know what to do. If he couldn't drop that Muton before it could return fire...
A torrent of plasma spewed at his position. Cursing, Valdez rolled away from the edge of the building as the section he had been crouching at disintegrated entirely. This turned out to be a bad idea for someone with a piece of shrapnel lodged in his chest, and despite the painkillers, a stabbing lance of agony shot through him. He nearly blacked out again, but somehow he fought off the creeping black in his vision and clung on to consciousness.
As he lay there, gasping for breath, he suddenly became aware of the flashes of red laser fire coming from below.
MOVE!
He gritted his teeth, rolled over, and gripped his heavy laser again, then began crawling back to the edge. Cautiously, he peered over. The wounded Muton was crouched behind a pile of bricks further down, waiting for an opening. It definitely looked worse off— Zhang must have gotten in a hit before it had retreated for cover. On spotting movement, it began firing at Valdez's direction again, but Valdez's prone position presented a slim profile and the shots hit nothing.
Valdez returned fire, keeping the alien's attention on himself. If he could just get one good shot—
Then he noticed movement and saw Jaitely's hand fall back limply, dropping the pin from a spent frag grenade. For a moment Valdez wondered what happened to the grenade itself, but even before he finished the thought, the pile of bricks that was the Muton's cover shattered as the frag grenade exploded and the Muton caught in the blast finally died.
So Jaitely was down but not out. And still had a damn good throw left in him.
But it couldn't be over yet. Pessimistically, Valdez waited for more aliens to come and covered Zhang as he and the VIP had safely moved for the Skyranger. But though he was trapped in silence, he saw no movement as he scanned the surroundings. Nothing.
Finally, it sank in.
He would be keeping his promise to Hyun after all.
Tap-tap. "Central, this is Strike Team Actual. I think that's it." Valdez prayed he was right this time as a wave of deja vu washed over him. "It's over."