From space the Earth looked like a beautiful, blue ball with white wisps of color randomly floating about. Only the American astronauts had seen the Earth with their own eyes from this perspective. The stark contrast of the blueness in front of the darkness was awesome. It made X-Com's mission even more dire, for if they were to fail, this perfect oasis in the desert of darkness would surely become dark as well.

Mederow looked at the Earth as it slowly passed above the horizon from the confines of the newly constructed moon base. In just under three months, X-Com had constructed a huge base and a very large mining operation. This facility had all the functionality of the largest of X-Com bases, but there was one major difference. This base was constructed in a vacuum. There was no air out there, and that made the job of maintaining the base that much more difficult. Special precautions were taken to ensure that Luna base's atmosphere would not be compromised. Mederow knew that these precautions were the reason why it had taken so long to construct. Kimall's advanced construction methods helped of course, but the Ethereals did not have much experience in building bases in vacuums. They were pacifistic environmentalists. Outer expansion was not a concern. Commander Thompson and the other top brass of X-Com did not know how they would be able to construct an entire fleet of attack vessels in 1 week. Since leaving the protective mind shield of Europa, Kimall had intercepted the emissions of the Psionic Amplifier which told him of the Master's rest period. X-Com now knew that he would re-animate himself in 1 week. If X-Com did not have a battlefleet constructed by then, the Master would awaken and discover that his minion's bases had been destroyed, and he would order them to stop trying to destroy X-Com and to initiate the purging of the inhabitants of this most defiant world.

Mederow turned from the window and looked back at Kimall and the rest of X-Com command. "Gentlemen, that blue ball out there will be lost if we don't find a way to use Kimall's construction techniques to make a battlefleet and defeat the Master. Any ideas on how we do that?" "My fiend Mederow, there is a possibility." "Really. Care to explain?" "Of course. We can use psionics to build your fleet. The raw ore that you have launched into orbit can be manipulated by our minds and can be forged into anything we desire. The minds of humans and Ethereals are completely different, but both of them possess psionic ability. Both of them are capable of manipulating the physical environment with sheer thought. Humans simply have not yet mastered how to do this. Your scientists would call this telekinesis. For Ethereals, it is the ultimate in construction. When I was growing up on my homeworld, millions of us would form a collective psionic consciousness and use it to build great structures in seconds." "That's nice Koras, but you see, we don't have a million Ethereals." "Please, let me finish Commander Thompson." "Sorry." "As I was saying…There may be a possibility. The human psionic latency is the inverse tangent of the ethereal psionic latency. If I combine my psionic wave with a powerful human psionic wave, then the construction process would equal millions of Ethereals working together." "You mean to tell us that two people can build an entire battlefleet in seconds?" "Maybe not seconds, but definitely within the 1 week time frame." "But do we have a powerful human psionic?" Thompson pulled up Klaus's personal biorhythm and put it on the main viewer. "Jesus Christ, would you look at that. Colonel Mederow's stats are almost superhuman." "Yes they are Captain Krause. The reason why we recruited Colonel Mederow was because of his statistics, especially for his psionic potential. We knew that the Ethereals were powerful psionics, and we hoped that Klaus would be able to combat them and perhaps even teach others to be psionics. He has far exceeded out expectations as all of you can see. This mission would never have happened without him. As all of you can clearly see, Colonel Klaus Mederow has a psionic strength of 100 and a psionic skill of 75. His skill will go higher as he learns to use his gift. Mr. Kimall, is Colonel Mederow powerful enough?" "Yes Commander, I believe he is. We should start immediately." "Fine. Mr. Kimall, I'm leaving this up to you. We will leave you alone and not bother you until we see the Space Station Freedom in orbit above us along with an incursion fleet. I guess if we see nothing, then you will have failed." "We won't fail Commander, you can count on us."

Mederow watched as everyone in the room left. Koras came over to him and sat down. "Klaus, you have the potential. You have the ability. Look into my eyes and see my mind." Klaus looked into Koras's deep, black ethereal eyes and then found himself standing in a pasture. Above him was the sun. He was back on Earth. He saw cows grazing and the wind blowing the trees. A small pond was in front of him, and he sat down on a flat rock. He looked down at the pond and saw a deep darkness spotted with bright dots. He was the Earth in the distance along with the reflection of the sun. Or maybe it wasn't just a reflection….. It was the starscape!

"Klaus, don't be afraid. Our minds are linked together. This place we're at now is the human representation of collective consciousness. The pond here is our focus. Concentrate on the raw ore that's orbiting the moon. Don't think of the actual process of construction. Think of the finished product." Klaus looked down and visualized a grand, orbiting space station. He saw the pond water start to agitate, and then it was calm. The reflection of a space station now was visible. He looked up but saw only the blue sky of Earth. This experience was intense. He could even smell the flowers and could feel the wind blowing on the small hairs on his neck. "Klaus, now visualize your battlefleet. You already know what it will look like." Klaus refocused onto the pond an envisioned a fleet of Avenger spacecraft. He then thought of hundreds of Spacestorm craft inside of two Carriers. The pond then seemed to boil, and steam leaped from its surface. The waters then suddenly subsided, and Klaus saw a great fleet shimmering in the sunlight that was reflecting off the pond. He turned to Koras and looked again into his eyes. Klaus then found himself back at the Ops Center in Luna Base. His nose was bleeding, and he felt an extreme hunger. His strength drained from him, Klaus collapsed to the floor.

Commander Thompson was still in amazement. For the last 5 days, he watched as the raw ore in orbit was "magically" turned into a space station and the X-Com fleet. Already, X-Com soldiers, pilots, and officers were aboard the newly constructed space station. The pilots were performing battle drills and the soldiers were practicing killing sectoids in the holo-simulator. Space Station Freedom was certainly the greatest thing ever constructed by the hand of man, or, in this case, the mind of man. 200 Spacestorm were resting inside the two carriers, 100 in each of them. 20 Avenger spacecraft held 50 soldiers each. The Spacestorm were armed with dual, direct-fire plasma cannons and a direct-fire hull-mounted fusion ball launcher with 10 rounds. The Avengers sported quadruple, rotating-fire plasma cannons and dual rotating-fire hull mounted fusion ball launcher with 10 rounds. They were truly powerful crafts. Space Station Freedom, however, did not have any defensive weapons. There simply was not enough ore to make any. But its sheer size would make it almost indestructible if the aliens decided to attack the moon base once the Master awakened. The Carriers had minimal defenses: a single rotating-fire plasma cannon was mounted underneath the cockpit. Thompson's transport docked with Freedom, and he stepped onto it for the first time. X-Com personnel were buzzing around like bees. Thompson had taken the last transport from the surface along with Kimall and Mederow. Neither of them had woken up yet, but the doctors expected them to awaken any time now.

Klaus slowly opened his eyes and saw a bright light and some medical staff hovering around him. "Ugh, where the hell am I?" "You're aboard the Space Station Freedom Colonel. Welcome aboard." Mederow raised up from his bed and stepped onto the floor. "I guess we did it." "We sure did my friend." Koras was in the bed next to him. They had both woken up at the same time. "Klaus, now that we have our fleet, we need to go on to the next phase as soon as possible. The Master will re-animate himself in one day. If we aren't in an offensive position by then, we never will be." "Well, I'm feeling OK now. Let's get this show on the road!"

Mederow and Kimall left Medbay. Captain Werner Krause was waiting outside for them. "Gentlemen, I'm glad to see you are both well. If you will follow me, Commander Thompson is waiting for us on the bridge." The three of them proceeded down the perfectly constructed hallways of Freedom and entered the bridge. Commander Thompson was sitting in his Captain's chair directing the battle drills. Spacestorms were maneuvering wildly and Avengers were testing weapons and propulsion systems. The Carriers were simply floating around, watching their Spacestorms. "Good, you're awake. I'd like to be the first to congratulate you two on this tantamount feat. Even the computers were ready to function when we first arrived here. All we had to do to them was install the operating intelligence onto them, and we were ready to start conducting these battle drills." Mederow looked out the parabolic window made of transparent aluminum and saw all the craft his mind had constructed. It was a breathtaking site to behold. "Mother, give Mr. Mederow and Mr. Kimall a chair." "Yes Commander." Two chairs came up from the floor right behind where Kimall and Mederow were standing. "I took the liberty of installing my personal artificial intelligence program onto the station's mainframe. Mother is the only surviving component of Area 51 base. "Commander Thompson, Space Marshall Torban reports that her fleet is ready to engage the alien fleet." "Thank you Mother." "By the way, I made Colonel Tatyana Torban the leader of the space fleet. She will be responsible for us getting past the Behemoth Battlecruisers. Troopmaster Werner Krause will lead the troops against the alien ground forces as a distraction so that you two, myself, and Captain Uta Faerber go into the underground alien city, find the Master, and "unplug" him. Miss Faerber came highly recommended by Colonel Torban, and she has a Psi rating of 88, the second highest. My Psi rating is also above average at 75, so that's why I'll be on the special ops insertion force. So that's it. We now need to get to our Avenger and head for Mars. Mother will run Freedom until we get back. If we're successful, this space station may be used to colonize our entire solar system someday." "That would be a good idea Commander. You humans have overpopulated your planet to a high degree. Expansion would seem logical for you." "Mother, open a channel to the entire station." "Channel open." "Attention all X-Com soldiers. I am now ordering all of you to board your designated Avenger spacecraft. I hope to see you all on Mars. That is all. Well now, let's proceed to docking bay 1 and get on outta here!" Thompson, Mederow, and Kimall left the Bridge and headed for their Avenger. "Goodbye Mother, see you soon." "Goodbye Commander, and good luck."

Captain Uta Faerber, fresh off her promotion, sat at the helm of Avenger-1. She had readied the mighty vessel for flight and, maybe, combat. Thompson and his group entered the ship. "Hi guys, glad you could make it. Colonel Mederow, would you please take navigation?" "Sure Captain." "I'll take weapons control, and Mr. Kimall will keep an eye on the engines." "Sounds good Commander. Miss Torban reports that the fleet is in formation and is standing by to engage the alien armada." "Great Captain Faerber, take her out." "Yes Sir. Hang on!!!" Avenger-1 and the rest of the fleet bolted off into the darkness. X-Com's Martian assault mission had begun.