Epilogue: So That Wars can End

Weeks had passed since her Gift had been revealed. As she had predicted others with the same abilities were soon discovered amongst the soldiers of XCOM. Men and women she had fought alongside since the beginning of this campaign, even raw recruits with barely their first taste of combat against the aliens were revealed to have these latent abilities.

In that time the engineering and research staff had completed construction of the Hyperwave Relay and with it discovered the Overseer and the Ethereal Device. Shortly afterwards the Temple Ship emerged, threatening to tear the planet asunder in their final desperate effort to bring the human race to its knees. Their only hope was for an individual to enter the Gallop Chamber and interact with the alien artefact that was the source of the alien's power. In the end there could be only one volunteer, one sacrifice.

Big Sky touched down on the surface of the Temple Ship. Strike One, the finest examples of humanity armed forces, disembarked onto the surface of the ship with weapons drawn. From the moment they arrived on this alien ship Kiara began to hear voices permeating her mind, the cold unfeeling voice of the Ethereal. The voices whispered the tale of those who came before, those seeking ascension to a greater plane of existence, and those who failed in their quest.

Sectoids, frail and filled with anger and rage.

Floaters, mechanical abominations born of a twisted mind.

Chryssalids, slaves to their basest instincts.

Mutons, unrefined and simple creatures.

Sectopods, ungifted machines.

Ethereals, those who fed upon the gift of lesser beings and found themselves consumed by it.

Pious reassurances which justified the deaths of thousands of innocents, the ruthless execution of Delta Squad, bringing humanity to the very brink of annihilation.

They finally faced the alien leadership, the Uber Ethereal and the Muton honour guard. When the enemy fell the group released a collective sigh of relief as they knew the enemy leadership had been neutralised. This relief was short lived however as by defeating one threat to humanity they had succeeded in creating another. With the Uber Ethereal dead the Temple Ship was prepared to collapse upon itself and bring about the destruction of the planet. There was only one way this could be stopped.

Kiara turned back to face the rest of her team. She could not allow the others, the men and women who had fought beside her and had followed her into this madness, to be taken any further.

"Go!" with a single blast of Psionic energy she cast them out, sealing the door behind them. Left alone on the bridge she knew there was only one solution. In the end it seemed the doctor was going to be proved correct. Her only regret in this life is that she would never be able to tell the doctor, she was right.