XCOM: The Long War, Prologue Part I

Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying -Arthur C. Clarke

Roswell, New Mexico

7 July 1946

To Staff Sergeant William Huntley, the day should have been like any other. The morning muster had gone without a hitch, with the Army Air Force garrison of Roswell Army Air Field marshalling onto the parade ground for reveille. From there, the Staff Sergeant had led them on a brief morning PT session before letting the personnel get to their daily tasks. It was a busy Monday, and the command staff wanted everyone to get back into the swing of things after weekend liberty. It didn't help, of course, that Independence Day had been last week: the men had yet to slide back into the post-celebratory groove. Not like Huntley could blame them: the flyovers and fireworks had a way of putting you in a party mood.

The day had gone on normally, too. The Staff Sergeant had done some rounds, making sure the personnel were accounted for and getting the job done. Lunch came and went, with no spectacle. It was at 1515 local sharp did Huntley notice that something was off. It was then that the command staff called a meeting over the intercom, an unscheduled addition to the day's agenda. It wouldn't have been much cause for concern had the officers not been in there for forty-five minutes, only to emerge with grim, nervous looks on their faces. Almost a minute later, the MPs were told to assemble by the front gate, and it was then that Huntley knew that something was very wrong.

Huntley paced to the gate, his service pistol in his holster, cap affixed properly. The MPs stood before them, in full gear and armed as they normally were. Some of the newer guys seemed confused, but Huntley saw the same concern he had in the faces of the old guard, the vets that had seen action in the war. Huntley stopped walking as he filed in with the guards, waiting for someone to approach. A few meters away was an officer, finishing a quiet conversation with a superior. The two men nodded, and then the junior officer turned and marched towards the MPs. He eyed them all quietly as he approached, and stopped a few feet before the men before speaking in a hushed tone.

"I need five guys to come with me. There's been a crash at a local homestead, and we're going to try to secure it." The officer stated, grimacing.

"I'll go, sir." Huntley replied, stepping forward. The officer, a strict Lieutenant named Stephens that the Sergeant hadn't encountered much, nodded appreciatively. One by one, four other MPs stepped forward and volunteered. Once they were done, the Lieutenant eyed the remaining guards.

"Return to your duties, gentlemen." Stephens ordered, still talking in a commanding, but hushed, tone. The others nodded, saluted, then walked away. The Lieutenant turned to one of the volunteers. "Get a truck from the motor pool. A big one, ready to take some salvage." The youngest guard nodded, turned, and started jogging towards where the base stored all of the vehicles.

"Excuse me, sir." Huntley started, politely. Stephens shook his head.

"Not right now, Staff Sergeant." The Lieutenant replied. Huntley repressed a frown, and resigned himself to wait. It took a few minutes, but eventually the rumble of a truck reached Huntley's ears.  The truck, a big GMC painted in flat Army green, rolled to a stop at the gate. The Lieutenant started walking to the passenger's side, and Huntley motioned to the seats in the back of the vehicle.

"Alright, guys, get in." He halfway shouted over the growl of the big truck's engine. One by one, the remaining MPs clambered aboard, with Huntley being the last to get on. The passenger seats in the back were rough, made of hard wood, and were rather thin to accommodate more floor space, but a thick green tarp covered the back of the  vehicle, sheltering them from the overwhelming New Mexico sun.

Without much hesitation, the vehicle bounced forward, picking up speed as it traveled along the bumpy service road. Huntley looked back at the Field as it grew ever more distant. Something was very wrong indeed.

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When the GMC finally stopped, Huntley waited a second before saying anything. "Alright, dismount." He barked as the engine turned over and coughed to a halt. The doors at the front of the truck opened with a groan, and Huntley could hear the driver and the Lieutenant clamber out. Standing up and lowering himself out the back carefully, the Sergeant took the opportunity to look around. It was unfamiliar territory to him; some know-nothing ranch not too far out from the field. What bothered Huntley was the lack of smoke or flames, the twin signs of an aircraft crash. It was eerily quiet, and the skies were clear, cloudless and blue. 

Stephens rounded the corner of the truck, his hands clasped behind him. He looked at the volunteers again, swallowed, and spoke. "What I'm about to tell you is classified. You will tell no one about this." The Lieutenant talked with an anxious edge, pausing before each sentence. Huntley realized suddenly that the man was afraid. "At fifteen-oh-nine hours, RAAF was called by the sheriff of Roswell reporting the crash of what he referred to as a 'flying disk.' We cross confirmed with all local airfields and bases: no disks, balloons, or anything of that nature were launched today, or in the past weekend. Nothing should be here."

"Soviet, sir?" Huntley asked, respectfully. The Lieutenant shook his head.

"Unknown at this time." He replied, grimly. "From what we can tell, this is actually the second crash in two months, but the first vanished not long after being discovered by the owner of this ranch. It seems unlikely that Ivan would launch something twice over the same area, only to have it fail both times."

"If not the Russians, then..." A MP trailed off. "Who?"

"That's what we're going to find out, Corporal." Stephens answered. "The debris field is right in front of us. You are to collect every piece possible and load it aboard the truck, marking its position on your maps-" at that moment, Stephens pulled out his map of the vicinity, and the rest of the soldiers followed suit- "so that the crash can be studied further later. Understood?" The men nodded in unison, before separating.

Huntley paced forward, map in hand. He rounded the corner of the truck, expecting to see nothing but a thousand pieces of some weather balloon somehow blown across the Pacific with fragments stamped with parts of the red star on the balloons side. He was wrong.

Lying before him, in a football field-sized area, were dozens of small metal parts that shimmered and glinted in the hot light of the sun. "What the hell?" Huntley hissed, before hurrying over to look at the largest piece closest to him was. Tentatively, the Staff Sergeant approached it, reaching out with his hand to touch the bare metal. Not wanting to get burnt, Huntley grasped his leather gloves, intending to feel the temperature through the material. As soon as the gloves made contact, and Huntley could feel the alloy through the gloves, he jerked his hand back in shock. "Holy-" he exclaimed loudly: the metal, exposed to the Mojave sun for hours, was cold. Before he could say anything further, Lieutenant Stephens sprinted to his side.

"Are you alright, Sergeant?" The Lieutenant asked. Huntley nodded.

"Yeah, I'm good." He looked down at the metal hunk in the ground. "The damn thing caught me off guard-it's cold!"

"Cold?" Stephens repeated incredulously. "That's impossible! It's been out here all day!"

"Feel it, sir." Huntley replied, offering the officer his gloves. "It's true." Nervously, Stephens grabbed the gloves and slipped one on, before lowering his hand into the metal.

"Jesus!" The Lieutenant hissed as he jerked his hand back. "How is that possible?"

"I have no idea, sir." Huntley replied, slipping his other glove on. Leaning over, he placed his hand back on the metal. Again, it was cool to the touch, but this time he wasn't surprised. Grabbing the alloy carefully, the Staff Sergeant raised it off the ground to examine it closer. The texture on the metal was remarkable, perfectly smooth and shining brighter than aluminum or steel in the sun. There weren't any markings on it, to Huntley's chagrin, but he began to seriously doubt if this was a Russian's work. It seemed too advanced for them, somehow.

Flipping the metal over only convinced him further, for that revealed something even stranger. It didn't look like anything  the Sergeant had ever seen, a strange pattern of lines and blocks engraved into an orange metal. It smelled faintly of sulfur, Huntley thought. "What about this, sir?" He asked, showing the officer the part. Stephens visibly blanched.

"Why," he whispered quietly, "that looks like electronics."

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It was late that night when a plane arrived at the RAAF, a twin-engined C-47 painted in all black. It touched down at about 2102 local, according to Huntley's watch. It had taken the salvage crew three hours to collect all the pieces and return them to the Field. They were placed inside a hangar, the volunteers were patted on the back and reminded of the secrecy, then sent off. Huntley couldn't help but notice the three men that got off the plane, wearing sharp suits that screamed military intelligence, walked calmly into the hangar the pieces had been filed.

The next morning, all the debris was gone, replaced by rubber and wood. "Weather balloon," the official report said. "Observational craft for nuclear tests," the volunteers were told. Huntley knew better. What had crashed at Roswell was too advanced to be American, and definitely too advanced to be Russian. The night before, Huntley had dreamed of the stars, the sounds of alien chittering, and big black pupil-less eyes that swallowed the world.