Part Two:
He dragged himself to his feet, using the wall for support. His ribs ached with every breath, and he could taste copper in his mouth. He checked his plasma pistol. The power cell was blinking red. He had maybe two shots left.
He had to get out. He had to find the bridge, override the lift systems, or find an escape hatch.
He staggered down the primary access corridor, following the green power conduits running along the floor. The ship was dying around him; the destruction of the Cyberdisc and the damage from the Earth interceptor had destabilized the lower power grids. Secondary explosions rumbled through the belly of the beast.
The corridor opened up into a massive, multi-tiered chamber. It was the command bridge.
In the center of the room stood a raised dais, surrounded by holographic displays projecting maps of Earth’s major cities. Standing upon the dais was the master of this vessel: an Ethereal.
The creature was terrifyingly thin, its frail, elongated limbs shrouded in flowing, ornamental robes of a shimmering, iridescent fabric. It had no visible mouth or nose, only a pale, hairless face dominated by large, glowing eyes that burned with an ancient, malevolent intelligence.
The moment Vance stepped into the chamber, the Ethereal turned.
Vance didn't hesitate. He raised his plasma pistol and fired his remaining two shots. The green bolts streaked across the bridge, aimed directly at the creature's head.
But the bolts never hit. A meter away from the Ethereal, an invisible, shimmering barrier of pure psionic energy flared into life. The plasma bolts splashed harmlessly against the telekinetic shield, dissipating into the air.
The Ethereal didn't move a muscle, but a voice exploded inside Vance’s mind—not a sound, but a crushing wave of pure, unadulterated thought that made his skull feel like it was fracturing.
“Mortal. Fragment of a broken race. You crawl through our vessels like vermin, yet you dare lift your primitive hands against the architects of your destiny?”
Vance fell to his knees, drop-dropping his useless pistol. He clutched his head with both hands as a blinding migraine threatened to tear his consciousness apart. Blood poured from both of his ears, staining the inside of his helmet. The Ethereal raised a single, long-fingered hand, lifting Vance completely off the ground with a casual wave of telekinetic power.
Vance floated three meters in the air, his limbs pinned to his sides by an invisible, crushing weight. He could feel his ribs bending, threatening to snap and pierce his lungs.
“Your species is a failure,” the Ethereal’s psychic voice echoed, dripping with cold, clinical arrogance. “A crude collection of genetic material. We have cultivated a thousand worlds, engineered a thousand servants. You are but raw matter to be harvested for the grand design.”
Vance gasped for air, his vision fading to black at the edges. He looked down at the Ethereal. He thought of Captain Sterling. He thought of Martinez, torn to pieces by plasma. He thought of Chen, reduced to a screaming shell. He thought of the billions of people on Earth, sleeping under a sky filled with these predatory gods.
No, Vance thought, focusing every ounce of his remaining strength into a single, burning spark of defiance. Not today.
With a desperate, agonizing effort, Vance forced his right arm to move against the telekinetic pressure. His muscles tore, his joints popped, but he refused to stop. He reached into the small utility pouch on his chest armor.
He didn't have weapons. He didn't have grenades.
But he had the tracking beacon.
It was a small, high-frequency subspace transponder used to guide X-COM Skyrangers and heavy artillery strikes to precise coordinates.
Vance jammed his thumb down on the primary activation switch. The beacon flared to life, emitting a sharp, rhythmic electronic beep that bypassed the ship’s internal jamming arrays.
The Ethereal’s glowing eyes widened slightly. For the first time, Vance sensed a flicker of something resembling surprise—perhaps even fear—in the creature’s overwhelming psychic presence.
“What have you done?” the voice demanded.
Vance smiled through the blood coating his teeth. He looked directly into the alien’s eyes.
"I called for backup," Vance choked out.
Outside the Battleship, five miles away in the upper atmosphere, an X-COM Firestorm aircraft detected the sudden, clear beacon signal originating from the heart of the downed alien craft. The pilot didn't hesitate, locking onto the coordinates and releasing a heavy payload of Fusion Missiles—the pinnacle of Earth’s reverse-engineered alien technology.
The missiles streaked through the night sky, tracking the signal with flawless precision.
Vance felt the air pressure change a split second before impact. The telekinetic grip vanished as the Ethereal threw up its arms in a desperate attempt to shield itself.
The fusion warheads slammed directly into the bridge of the Battleship.
The resulting explosion was a blinding sun of white-hot energy. The top three tiers of the alien Battleship vanished in a microsecond, the structure torn apart by the raw power of fused atoms. The shockwave ripped through the vessel, tearing the alien hull to shreds and throwing Vance’s armored body through the shattered viewing port out into the open air.
The sun was rising over the Argentinian pampa when the recovery Skyranger appeared.
A team of X-COM containment specialists, clad in clean bio-hazard suits, stepped off the ramp, their plasma rifles raised as they scanned the smoking, blackened crater that had once been an alien Battleship. The wreckage was scattered for miles, a graveyard of twisted metal and alien debris.
"Search for survivors, but keep your eyes open," the team lead ordered. "Nothing could have survived that blast, but we don't take chances with Chryssalids."
A medic walked along the edge of the debris field, his scanner buzzing rhythmically. Suddenly, the scanner let out a sharp, continuous tone.
"Sir! I’ve got a life sign! Human bio-signature, faint but stable!"
The team rushed over to a deep furrow in the mud, nearly a quarter-mile from the main crash site. Buried beneath a crumpled piece of X-COM alloy plating was a lone figure.
It was Sergeant Jon Vance.
His personal armor was mostly destroyed, the chest plate shattered and the helmet cracked wide open. He was covered in mud, soot, and a mixture of human and alien blood. His breathing was shallow, his ribs broken, and his right arm was severely fractured.
But as the medic knelt beside him and cleared the debris from his face, Vance opened his eyes. He looked up at the blue Earth sky, blinking against the morning light.
He reached out his left hand, his fingers curling around the medic’s forearm with surprising, iron-clad strength.
"The bridge... is clear," Vance whispered, his voice a gravelly rasp. "Tell the Commander... we won this one."
The medic stared at him in utter disbelief before a slow, reverent smile spread across his face. He began administering a stabilizing dose of alien-derived medikit spray to Vance’s wounds.
"Copy that, Sergeant," the medic said softly. "Let's get you home."
As the heavy transport lifter hoisted Vance into the belly of the Skyranger, the lone survivor looked back at the smoldering ruins of the alien titan. They were coming from the stars in numbers humanity could barely comprehend, with technologies that defied human science. But as long as there was a single soldier willing to bleed, crawl, and fight back against the dark, Earth will not fall.
