#yes he has money but does he know how to parry in close quarters?

[mycological-mariner]

I should buy a sword. I can even practice now that I have a small outdoor space. I think a sword would fix so much with me

[trbl-will-find-me]

Every Exit, An Entrance (13/?)

There are two (and only two) possibilities: either she led XCOM to victory and they are now engaged in a clean up operation of alien forces, or XCOM was overrun, clearing the way for an alien-controlled puppet government to seize control of the planet.

She’d really like to figure out which it is, but asking hardly seems the prudent option.

Read from the beginning here

She watches from behind glass as three sealed containers are loaded off the Skyranger by technicians in hazmat suits. Shen had pushed his team hard to complete the isolation labs ahead of schedule, and she’s grateful. She’s hoping with Vahlen’s own insatiable curiosity propelling the research team, they might soon have some answers.

Her tablet beeps and she cringes; her most recent requests have fallen on deaf ears, and she doesn’t foresee a different outcome for this latest one.

Officially, XCOM has no authority to examine the medical records of civilians. It also lacks the authority to order medical quarantines, exams, or procedures. She herself had insisted on that very protection; giving an international black ops military organization that much sway over civilian lives seemed a set up for an egregious abuse of power.

She stands by that decision, but right now, she’d give her left arm to have made a different one.

She’d like to say she can’t blame the Council nations for refusing to intervene; they have a duty to protect their citizens’ privacy, a duty she’d like to think they take seriously. The whole of human history, however, tells her that it is less about governments acting for the greater good, and more about punitive bullshit.

Central has always been the better diplomat, the one with a gift for defusing tensions and parrying concerns. His edges have never been as rough as hers, his tongue not quite as sharp. She thinks, not for the first time, that he should have taken Commanding Officer when the role was offered to him.

She finally checks her tablet, pulling up the notifications. The Australian government has predictably denied her request. She huffs a sigh, and darkens the screen. She’s going to need coffee if she intends to make it through this shift.

--

She wakes to the sound of someone knocking at her door. When she opens it, Wallace is there, face drawn.

Oh no.

“Ma’am, um,” he breathes. “Dr. Tygan sent me up. He wanted me to tell you that Asha’s … She’s not going to be with us a lot longer.”

She nods. “Thanks, Wallace. I’ll get a hold of him.”

She screws her eyes shut after she watches him go. She remembers how to do this all too well.

She’d gotten more than her fair share of practice writing condolences during the invasion. Sorry, I didn’t see the alien coming. Sorry, I was sure someone else would make the shot. Sorry, I screwed up and got your loved one killed.  Yes, the words themselves are prettier, more eloquent, but the sentiment is always the same.

“Tygan,” she says, pressing a finger to her comm.”Someone with her?”

“Krieger is, ma’am.”

“Alright,” she sighs. “You have any idea what happened?”

“I can only speculate, Commander.”

“Shoot.”

“Epidural hematoma --- a kind of bleeding between the skull and the outer lining of the nervous system.”

“Jesus. Alright, keep me updated.”

She reaches for her tablet, moving Krieger to inactive status. Death bed vigils aren’t the kind of thing you cycle back onto duty in the aftermath of. She knows there is no way to quantify the emotional labor the specialist has undertaken, or its particular toll.

She reaches for a pad of paper and a pen. Even after all this time, it still feels strange to write directly onto a tablet. It is too removed, too impersonal. Her words stare back at her, blinking and ephemeral. There is no time to think, only the demand to produce, to put the right words in the right order. Pen and paper has always been more forgiving in that regard, more patient and less strident. Make the marks, and think. Cross your words out. Rewrite them. Scratch out six different attempts and then scratch them all out in the hope that you’ll find something meaningful, something that doesn’t sound so hollow, something better than I’m sorry because, god, if that isn’t the worst cliché.

Everyone’s sorry, she thinks. I’m sorry. Tygan’s sorry. The man in the moon is sorry. At the end of the day, it doesn’t change anything. It’s as empty a platitude as anything else.

But it is the best she can offer.

The best, she thinks, bitterly. What a joke. What an empty superlative. You did your best when the aliens first landed, and it wasn’t enough. XCOM still fell and the governments of earth still collapsed. We’re still facing a battle of unfathomable odds. You did your best today --- there are still whole families waiting to be buried and Gunda still lays dying. Best, best, best, but what good did it really do? Does it matter if nothing changes? It’s a word, a concept without any real meaning, the thing you tell yourself at night when those sneaking suspicions you’d prefer to ignore grow too loud to avoid

She thinks of Strike One, of Hershel and Molchetti, of Royston and Martin and Bernard; of Raymond Shen and Moira Vahlen; of Gunda and the civilians. Her best had not been enough to save any of them.

She shrugs on a fleece and makes her way through the ship, through engineering, down the ramp, and out into the night air. She settles on one of the rocks and draws a matchbook from her pocket, reigniting the camp fire.

It’s a slow process, a frustrating one. She throws each failed attempted into the flames, taking some perverse satisfaction in the way the offending papers blacken and burn.

The sun rises halfway through draft number seven. Her twelfth draft roasts away on the flames as night shift changes to morning. After twenty-three drafts, she has run out of paper and douses the flames before returning to the ship.

She is on comms duty when Tygan’s voice sounds in her ear. “She’s passed, Commander.”

She can feel tears well behind her eyes and a lump grow in her throat. “Did she suffer?”

“Not as far as I can tell."

She swallows hard. “Thanks, Doctor. I’ll let the rest of the crew know.”

Digging the heels of her hands into her eyes, she draws in a deep breath, trying to regain her rapidly slipping composure. “Attention, all hands,” she says, pressing the comm in her ear. She can hear the tears at the edge of her voice, and wishes she could keep them at bay. “We just lost Asha. There’ll be a memorial at nineteen hundred local tonight.” She draws another shuddering breath. “I know this is hard, but try to push through. It’s a big ask, I know, but we have to find some way to finish this first. We’ve got people counting on us.”

She scrubs at her eyes, and tries to focus on the task at hand. Vaguely, she hopes her twenty-fourth attempt at a letter will go better.

“Commander,” Central’s voice cuts in, quiet. “What are we doing about burial?”

She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to remember Gunda’s personnel file. “The haven where her family lives is still standing, isn’t it? We’ll finish what we need to do to get into the black site, and then take her home.”

“And in the meantime?”

She sighs. “I don’t like doing it, but Tygan’s cold storage is no different than a mortuary freezer.”

“You’re gonna put her with those things?”

“I don’t like it either, but if it means giving her family a chance to say goodbye, then yes.”

“Understood,” he says, voice clipped.

What do you want me to do? She feels like asking him. What would be enough? Do you want me to bury her here, surrounded by strangers? Do you want me to order Tygan to dump his samples? What do I have to do to make you see that I’m trying? Tell me.

She shakes her head. Won’t help anyone, she tells herself. And it won’t bring her back.

--

“I realize this makes me an enormous hypocrite,” she says, handing him a cup of coffee, “but I kind of wish I hadn’t insisted on such strict limitations on civilian access.”

He takes the cup from her, shaking his head. “Not a hypocrite, just frustrated.”

“It was the right thing to do, but god, did I hobble us when it comes to research this time around.”

“You were expecting Council support. We didn’t realize how unrealistic that would be until we were in the thick of things.”

“I don’t even need identifying data, you know. I just. I need blood samples. I didn’t think it would be this hard. It’s not like we’re asking for money this time.”

“It’s about power,” he tells her.

Even in hushed tones, it’s a stupid discussion to be having in Mission Control. Technically, outside of personnel quarters and her office, everything they say or do is liable to be recorded and reviewed by the Council in the event of an inquiry. They are already playing fast and loose in their subterfuge. There’s no need to add to the risk.

He quickly seems to come to the same realization, settling his hand on the small of her back, and leading her towards the hallway, all the while making some excuse about expansions to the Skyranger hangar. He maneuvers them deftly through the halls, stopping at her office door, and waiting as she unlocks it. She’s momentarily disappointed when his hand drops back to his side, but chases the feeling from her mind. Really? She chides herself.  That’s what you’re thinking about?

He settles into a chair and waits for her to close the door. “I have samples coming for you.”

“What?” She asks, turning to face him. “How?”

He offers her a small grin. “I have ways.”

“This is one of those situations where I’m better off not knowing the details, isn’t it?”

Bradford nods. “Plausible deniability.”

She settles into her own chair, learning her elbows on the desk. “I thought we were done with cloak and dagger after we dealt with EXALT.”

“Another day, another challenge.”

She shrugs. “Welcome to XCOM, I guess.”

He chuckles. “Chin up, Regan. Comms have been quiet.”

She sighs. “Yeah, but when comms were chatty, we knew what to expect. We didn’t like it, but aside from that little incident with Molchetti, there haven’t been surprises in a long time. I can’t shake the feeling we’re in for a bad one.”

“It might just be combat stress talking, Lizzie.”

“You really think so?”

“Do you want an honest answer?”

“Always.”

His face falls. “Probably not. If you’re right, I don’t think we’re gonna like what we find when we crack the Fog Pods open.”

She buries her face in her hands. “Shen and Vahlen are predicting two weeks for a complete initial analysis. That’ll put us just before Christmas.”

“You’re worried there’ll be trouble.”

“With the way the energy spikes are picking up, and with how quiet things have been, it’d be a hell of a way to re-emerge.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I don’t think we can go to the Council. Not without solid evidence, and even then, I’m not sure that would be enough.”

“Strike One’s still on standby.”

She nods. “And we’ve got air and satellite coverage across the globe. We’re as prepared as we can be. I just wish it felt like it. Thank you,” she adds, after a moment. “For having my back through all of this.”

“I’m just doing my job.”

“It’s a little more than that.”

“If I can take some of the stress off of you,” he says, standing. “It’s worth it. I’ll be in Mission Control, if you need anything.”

Just you, she thinks.

There are not many possibilities that give her pause these days, not after the sights they have seen and the horrors they have survived, but the possibility of a Council inquiry, and the resulting court martial proceedings she suspects would follow, leave her with a sick pit in her stomach.

Could you speculate on Central Officer Bradford’s motives? She imagines them asking.

He believed me. He believed in me.

The past tense of the sentence stirs an ache in her chest, something on her periphery that she’s tried to forget.

He still believes in you, says a voice that both is and isn’t her own.

She shakes her head. You’re being ridiculous. There’s nothing to suggest the Council even knows something’s afoot. You weren’t prohibited from contacting non-Council nations. You weren’t prohibited from obtaining a Fog Pod. You’ve done nothing to violate the explicit terms of the charter.

But subterfuge is subterfuge, and she can’t imagine the Council would appreciate their authority being so flagrantly undermined. She led XCOM to this place and he followed her, confident in her ability to play the game. If she falters now, if she fails, she’ll have dragged him into the fallout right beside her, implicated him in whatever punishment should be hers and hers alone.

The thought absolutely terrifies her.