Bradford raised an eyebrow and sat down. "So, what's so important that you dragged me here, Shen?" he glanced at Luna, who shook her head. It didn't seem like she knew either.

Shen looked slightly more dishevelled. "Central, we need to talk. We went to talk to Apple Bloom about hacking the ADVENT Network, but she brought up something interesting. It seems that when the Ghost has been detected in it, there's two things that happen."

Shen put up her index finger. "The first, is that all you hear is screams of pain. The second thing you hear is a song."

Bradford frowned. "A song? That doesn't make any sense. The Elders don't listen to music." He paused. "Probably."

"Well, what's worrying about it is not that it's music," Shen said. "It's what specific music it is… tell me, Central, what's with the Commander's obsession with 90's music if she hates it so much?"

Bradford grimaced. "I don't know."

"But you do know, friend Bradford," Luna said. "Please be honest. I suspect Shen is asking this for a reason."

Bradford sighed, drumming his fingers on the table. "All I know is that the Commander listens to it when… she starts thinking of the Temple Ship. And that it's not something she used to do before. As far as I know, she's always hated 90s pop music."

Shen frowned. "The Temple Ship? That was twenty years ago."

Bradford nodded. "To us. Remember that to her, it was just a few months ago." His eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

Shen sighed, then took a deep breath. "When Apple Bloom said what she had heard from the Ghost was wails, she also mentioned that Julian had at one point recorded the music… and she hummed the tune and sang some of the lyrics."

Bradford motioned with his hand for her to continue.

"Central," Shen hissed. "Ghost was singing Runaway Train."

Bradford felt his stomach grow cold, and his need for a drink sharpen. "What?" His voice sounded more like a whisper of incredulity than he wanted to admit.

Luna tilted her head. "Unless it is a song forbidden by your culture, I fail to understand why this is a problem. Surely taste in music is not a reason to panic."

"The problem is that it's not just a random song," Shen said. "It's the same song the Commander keeps listening to over and over!" She turned to look at Central. "How many times have we walked up to her office only to hear her listening to that?!"

Bradford grimaced. "Shit."

"Indeed." Luna said, carefully studying both of them. "But I believe it is time we solve this particular mystery. This is no time to risk the success of our ventures only because we would hesitate to confront the commander on this."

Bradford stood up and picked a beer. "I need some liquid courage first."

"For whatever reason, that song seems to have a lot of emotional impact on the Commander," Shen said. "It's raised some concerns before, but until now it hadn't been directly involved in anything official. It was just… a quirk."

"But one that now is a problem," Bradford stated, returning to sit down, beer in hand. "We need to clear this up if we want to proceed. If there is any link, we have to figure out what it is."

"I would suggest that rather than just us three barreling in there, we include my counterpart who is trained for these kinds of interventions, and possibly Dr. Tygan."

Bradford took a swig and let out a long, deep breath, resting his forehead on the cool table for a moment before slowly pushing the bottle away and standing up. "Let's do it."

The cockpit shook slightly as the Skyranger flew through a cloud, engines roaring as it gained altitude. With just a bit more turbulence, the plane eventually broke free and leveled up, turning ever so slightly East towards its final destination.

Spitfire checked all the systems and hummed to herself as she corrected her bearing and altitude, then double checked the gas.

The maneuvering was different, with all the weapons, missiles, railguns and lasers that Shen, Vahlen and Spitfire had strapped on to it. Half-attached dashboards controlling the additional devices, wiggled in place, held mostly stable with the creative use of velcro tape, duct tape and bubblegum.

Still, Big Sky's eyes were less on those devices (and even their environment) and more on the current pad she was browsing. "Seriously, Sunset? You don't have anything newer?"

"Hey, it's all good! Choose something inspiring, alright? I need to talk to the team," The Colonel said, fiddling with her psi-armor. She clearly wasn't too fond of it yet.

Spitfire shook her head, scrolling down until she found something. "Make the best of this."

Sunset Shimmer blinked when the first instrumental notes started, then, recognizing the song, she smirked. "Danger Zone? I should've known you'd had a soft spot for that."

"You wanted music, Colonel."

"And I got it," Sunset replied, patting Spitfire on the shoulder. "Hold our course steady, Big Sky."

"Count on it."

Smirk still in place, Sunset made her way back to where the rest of Stardust was gathered. "Alright boys and girls, gather up!"

"Hey, Vision!" Lionel shouted from the back, "Any pre-cognitive advice for us?"

"Don't die in the first room."

Sunset waited until the laughter died and the smirk faded. "No, seriously. Don't die in the first room. It'll be embarrassing and I will haunt whoever does that for the rest of eternity."

She squared off, facing her squad.

"I have a few words for all of you. This is our last mission and it won't win the war. The aliens will survive this, and take over. We can't change that."

"Well," Irvine muttered, pulling down his stetson over his eyes and leaning back, "that really makes me glad I accepted this mission."

Sunset shook her head. "I've seen the world where we stayed behind and didn't take this opportunity. That is a world where humanity is nothing but mindless drones, we're harvested and kept in large structures."

She sighed. "The future is bleak when we do this… but there's hope. Chryssy... the Commander lives. Central lives. Shen. Vahlen." She glanced at Zhang. "Ember lives."

She paced down and back. "All this costs is our lives. This one chance for humanity to push back, and they will take. And even if this is a suicide mission… we can't go in without an objective. We sell our lives for all they're worth and more, you understand? No one falls in the first room because we have more. Because we can push through. We must push through. Till the end where we can bring this monstrosity down and give humanity a chance to fight back."

Elaine glanced at Sunset. "You know where we die?"

Sunset gulped, and shook her head. "No. I did not see that. I only know where I will die."

"So there's a chance that we might live?"

Sunset gave her a look and Elaine raised her hands. "Hey, hey, even Commander Shepard's fist punches through the debris in Mass Effect in one ending, that's all I'm saying."

"Nerd." Bors snickered.

"Life's not a video game, you clown," Lionel added.

"We're thousands of meters up in the air, flying at subsonic speeds to a giant spaceship that came to destroy humanity, we have crazy armor and laser weapons, a gal that can see the future, a crazy, plucky pilot ready to murderize aliens, and all of this to the soundtrack of Top Gun," Elaine pointed out. "How is this not a video game?"

"That's from Top Gun?" Irvine asked, "Damn. I thought it was just some of Vision's generic 80s music."

"You shut your whore mouth, Cowboy," Sunset hissed. "Top Gun is a classic!"

"No movie from the 80s is still relevant besides the Christmas Classic, Die Hard," Irvine countered. "And Bruce Willis never needed platform shoes."

"Kid's got a point," Spitfire shouted from the cockpit. "Tom Cruise is too short to be a Storm Trooper, much less a pilot!"

"Really? We're getting more nerd shit mixed up in this? Why can't we talk football or something?"

"Shut up Bors, you seem to think football is supposed to be played with your feet!"

"It is! It's you guys that decided that it would be more interesting to grab it with your hands and didn't have the human decency to change the name along with the rules!"

"Oh, I forget you brits have issues with everyone else not following your rules, mr. Knight!"

"I think Big Sky's the wrong nickname for you, it should be Big Butt."

"So mature."

"You love it!"

"I still don't get why Die Hard is a Christmas movie."

Sunset made her way past the squabbling to sit next to Zhang, who gave her an amused look, before his gaze returned to the picture in his hands.

"And so, the life of a criminal ends with a suicide to save the world," Zhang said. "In many ways, before joining XCom, I had already stopped living… I didn't anticipate to ever see my little Yújìn again. I had given up on anything but violence." He gave Sunset a glance. "I remember when we were on the flight back from China, how you looked at me and said, 'your daughter, she's waiting to hear from you.'"

Zhang leaned back. "If you hadn't said that, I would have simply joined… I would not have contacted her or her mother. I would not have seen her run and play with Lily. I have no doubts. I have no regrets… and now I have hope for her and my wife."

"I'm sorry I asked you to come," Sunset said, looking at the others arguing. "I wanted you to stay back… but no matter how I looked at things—"

Zhang rose his hand. "What better place for a Dragon to face his destiny, than surrounded by knights and a prophet?"

Sunset's smile was a bit sad. "Taking care of their hatchling?"

"Ember is strong. And… you have seen her, right?"

Sunset nodded.

"Then the dragon line will continue." He looked down at the red-glowing tubes on his heavy laser weapon. "I will tear a flaming path for you, Sunset."

Sunset smiled and glanced at the others, who had all quieted down and were looking at them. Lionel and Bors both raised their laser rifles up in salute. "We've got you covered, Sunny. Plenty of medikits and smoke grenades."

Elaine held up her scatter gun. "Hear, hear! Let's splatter these motherfucking aliens all over the walls!"

"I'm going to keep tabs this time, Sunny," Irvine said, tapping his new laser sniper rifle with a flick of his finger. "You won't get to lie again and say you sniped more than I did."

"You're on, Cowboy."

"Hey, nerds!" Spitfire shouted. "Our destination is up ahead! What the hell are you all doing? Stay outside of the doors! OUTSIDE!"

Stardust had crowded the doors to the cockpit as the entire group wanted to take a look at the Temple Ship.

"That thing is massive!" Irvine said.

"No shit, Sherlock. It's like the alien mothership."

"We're taking that thing down?" Elaine whispered incredulously.

"Yes we are." Sunset said, "and to get us in the mood…"

"Tut-tut!" Spitfire growled. "Until you're in there, I'm in charge of your limited soundtrack. Sit down and strap up, Stardust, things are going to get messy!" she commanded.