Spoiler (click to show/hide):
It was still the early stages of her time with the reformed XCOM, but you knew that this iteration was somewhat different. For one thing, it was all women.
When your little resistance cell was contacted by XCOM, your mother refused to join, citing its dangers. Indeed, many of the men and women from your small community who went with XCOM operatives never returned, and the few that did spoke of the brutality of fighting plasma and mag weapon equipped Advent forces who cut through soldiers time after time. The only way to survive was to strike fast, strike softly and give Advent as little opportunity as possible to use their overwhelming superiority in firepower. It seemed a near perfect fit for you to volunteer your skills as a sniper to XCOM, but it was somewhat surprising that they brought you into a combat operation without even vetting your actual ability with the rifle.
Your briefing was short and somewhat disconcertingly brief: you and a pair of girls from your resistance cell were joining an XCOM operative to conduct a supply raid and steal as much Advent materials as you could. One of the other girls was even younger than you, a tiny nervous looking chinese girl with her pink hair braided into girlish pigtails while the other was a russian woman in her mid forties with a face hardened by trauma. Leading your group was the assigned XCOM operative, a slender nigerian corporal by the name of Amira. Her briefing was a simple description of the area of ops, and the route your team would take to get to the ops zone. A car drive to a point twenty kilometers away from the area of ops, then a one day full pack march through rough terrain, it was surprising that such a mish mash team would have done it. Each of the women, yourself included, looked more suited to be on the cover of an old world fashion magazine, but corporal Amira refused to entertain any conversation between the unorthodox squad makeup. Amira maintained tight opsec during the trek, and instructed you all to take a rest under the stars after many hours of marching. Sleep, restful and welcome, refreshed your exhausted body until a boom echoed across the forest and Amira grabbed you and the other girls to make a flat out run.
Fifteen minutes later, you all arrived at the source of the explosion, and saw that it was a derailed supply train. Starting from a hill overlooking this arid patch of colorado desert, the four of you could see two pairs of advent troopers keeping watch, with a single officer staying within the armored train cabin. 'Ok, Advent will probably take a few more hours to send a rescue team. This interception site was well planned, but I have no idea why Central assigned you rookies to this op, or why I was sent here. ' grumbles Amira as she shoulders her M4 with Masterkey underslung shotgun. 'At least Karen has experience shooting,' she says, eyeing the M14 EBR sniper she assigned you. 'Right Karen, I'm putting you on overwatch. Amy, Natalia, you two are running interference. Karen, give me your sitrep on how you want to direct this op.'