The Devil's Toys

"Dammit, missed the target!" Sergeant Varun Dutta readjusted his sniper rifle, trying to line up a headshot on the muton down the hall. The majority of his squad was occupied with taking down the cyberdisk and chryssalid in the engine room while Corporal Marina Johnson repositioned to engage the thin man that had come from the bridge.

The support quickly took aim with her laser rifle and pulled the trigger, burning a hole in the alien's chest. "Thin man has been taken care of," she announced as she dropped down to the lower level, planning to finish off the cyberdisk.

She never got the chance as an LMG rained bullets on the disk, causing it to drop to the floor. A couple seconds later it violently exploded, a chunk of it narrowly missing the gun's wielder, Lieutenant Shaojie Zhang.

As Zhang confirmed the kill, Sergeant Lexi Gibson targeted the charging chryssalid. Her minigun roared to life and proceeded to spew bullets at the insectoid. Unfortunately, the powerful attack failed to connect with its target, which was now almost on top of the MEC trooper.

Luckily for Gibson, Corporal Kate Kerrigan now had a shot on the chryssalid and took advantage of the opportunity to eliminate one of its legs. The alien stumbled as the limb suddenly gave way. Captain Alejandro Vega stepped out from behind his cover and fired his shotgun, ending the chryssalid's life.

The muton took a shot at Dutta, but the plasma blasts missed the well-protected sniper. Dutta returned fire, this time hitting his mark. The muton fell backwards, green blood splurting from its head.

"All hostiles in the engine room are down," Vega reported to central command.

"Copy that, squad leader. Proceed to the bridge," came the response.

"Understood. Squad leader out." The assault turned to face his men.

"Alright, Gibson and I are taking point," he ordered swiftly. "Johnson and Zhang, you're behind us. Dutta and Kerrigan, cover us from the hallway's entrance."

Kerrigan moved up beside Dutta as the squad advanced through the hallway. After confirming that there weren't any aliens in the next room, they made their way to the bridge. Vega and Zhang took up position on either side of the doorway while Johnson and the two snipers hung back behind a strip of partial cover. Gibson stood directly in front of the doorway since she was too large to benefit from cover.

Vega quickly poked his finger through the alien door, deactivating the force field that separated the squad from their objective. The three thin men on the bridge immediately moved to take cover behind the consoles they had been operating while the outsider crystal formed its body and positioned itself on the other side of the doorway.

The first shot came from Gibson, who obliterated the closest thin man with her minigun. Zhang took a shot at another thin man, but it ducked behind a console before the shot could hit. Dutta managed to hit the farthest thin man, but Kerrigan and Johnson both missed from their distant position. Vega bravely ran into the room, flanking the outsider at the cost of exposing himself to it. He fired his shotgun and hit the outsider, but no damage was done to the central crystal.

The semi-corporeal alien leveled its rifle at him and fired, wounding him badly but not quite putting him out of commission. The remaining thin man chose to shoot Gibson, heavily damaging her armor but not piercing it.

The MEC trooper rapidly approached the thin man while firing up the rocket boosters on her left arm. She pulled her fist back and activated the boosters, kinetically striking the thin man hard enough for its body to leave a sizable imprint in the wall behind it.

As the outsider prepared to finish Vega off, he quickly pulled his ARC thrower out and fired it at the alien, destabilizing its body. Soon all that remained was a light plasma rifle and a crystal.

As the battle against the aliens was unfolding, Commander David Bradford stood in XCOM's HQ, watching. Exactly six windows existed for observing the fight, each one provided by a helmet-mounted camera. The other two prominent figures in the room, Dr. Moira Vahlen and Dr. Raymond Shen, were wrapping up the organization of their research on alien craft and preparing to give instructions to the soldiers. Both of them attempted to conceal their nervousness, but they weren't completely successful. While Bradford was just as worried, his demeanor gave nothing away.

Soon the sense of dread in the room became justified as Vega made his announcement over the radio. "Central, this is squad leader. The bridge has been secured."

"Roger that, squad leader," Bradford replied. "Has the first objective been completed?"

"Affirmative. All hostiles have been eliminated."

"All right, I'm putting Shen on now. Prepare to receive instructions."

"Standing by."

Bradford looked at Shen. "You're up."

Shen nodded and turned on his headset. "All right, let's see here..." He compared the image of the battleship's computer to his notes. "Try pressing the flashing glyph in the bottom left corner. That should cause the ship to stop following the transponders."

The camera feed jiggled as Vega reached down and tapped the glyph. "Well, it felt like the ship just stopped, but I can't confirm anything," he said.

One of the personnel in the room spoke up. "Sir, sensors indicate that the UFO has just ceased all movement."

Shen sighed. "Now for the hard part." He scanned his notes again. "Ok, the third glyph from the left in the top row should be the—"

"Actually, I believe the second glyph in the bottom row is the one you're looking for," Vahlen interrupted.

Shen double-checked the image of the alien console. "Nevermind. You want the second glyph from the left in the bottom row."

"Aye, sir." Vega pressed the specified glyph, and the screen instantly switched to a new set of glyphs.

"Now then, the next glyph in the sequence is probably—"

Shen was cut off once again, this time by Vega. "Sir, the screen just changed again! And I think the battleship changed course, too!"

Shen looked up and discovered that the computer had indeed switched to displaying another screen. The course change was confirmed soon after when a technician said, "The alien craft has just begun accelerating straight up, sir!"

"Did Vega do that?" Bradford asked.

"I don't believe so. If I'm reading this right, the battleship has just received instructions from an outside source," Dr. Vahlen replied.

"Instructions? To do what?"

Dr. Shen responded first. "I believe it might be an order to return to the alien's homeworld. The amount of power being routed to the engines just drastically increased, as if the ship is preparing for interstellar travel."

"Can it be overridden?" Bradford demanded.

Vahlen proved to be fastest at answering this question. "I highly doubt it. The order itself is quite obvious, but any potential way of countermanding it isn't. It would take us at least a few days to figure out how to override it."

"Shit!" Bradford activated his headset. "Big Sky, this is Central. How soon can you provide evac for alpha squad?"

"We can be at the battleship in two minutes, Central," Big Sky responded.

"I want you there in one!"

"Understood. We're already on our way."

Bradford switched channels. "Squad leader, Big Sky is on its way and will arrive at your position shortly. Begin making your way to the extraction point immediately!" Bradford ordered.

"Solid copy, Central. We'll—" Vega was suddenly cut off as the transmission was lost and replaced with static.

"Sir! We've lost the squad's signal!" a technician quickly informed Bradford.

"Damn," Bradford muttered. "Is the UFO still in range?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Negative, sir."

Bradford began to consider all that had been lost on this mission. The soldiers were wearing the only carapace armor XCOM had, and they also possessed the prototype laser rifle. Not to mention they were by far the best squad he had. He sighed loudly. This was going to be a long war.