Well, that last set of attacks went very well. The only worry is that a battleship will show up on my doorstep. But not that likely.
I have one replacement: Jordan J. C-,G: 53,55,36,40,36,63,69,33-High accuracy, but still rookie stats.
Anyhow, now to wait for the alien scumbags to arrive. I'll attempt this while talking to Kevin over facebook. Meanwhile, some Sectoids land in Russia, and the Skyranger goes out on a mission. Night mission, in the forest. Rolling hills and stuff.
But not many Sectoids. One walks near an electro flare, and our new teamster Jordan kills the punk.
This was typed but never published.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
12:47 EST May 23, 2011
Didn't get translated Saturday. What a bummer.
Brief update. Work has been pretty decent. Slow last week but busy the week before. Either way, need to pick up the pace. 14 weeks to go, 140 plus installs needed, so I need at least 10 per week. Let us hope that economic recession isn't going to carry over enough that it stops us from selling. The other night on the way to a job I got stopped at a police checkpoint. The officer asked where I was going, I told him I was going to install an alarm, and he told me to 'be careful out there.' All the sudden I felt like I was in the hood, in my mind I started wondering if I should run stop signs because I could get jumped if I stopped. Or shot. Ok, that's what they do in Puerto Rico, luckily it is a bit more sane here.
Got zapped by an AC unit today. Always, always check your breakers. I've been zapped 3 times to many out here, and each time it gets worse and worse. Not cool at all. This one went all the way down my arm, way way freaky. But at least I figured out what was wrong with it. Otherwise I've started reading Angels and Demons, a good book, inspires my writing style in here. Also, watching episodes of both Fringe and Chuck in free time adds some good story lines to my head. And hopefully some good storytelling will rub off and merge with X-COM and create something truly epic. Yeah.
Just writing this to tell you I'm alive. And I am going to start working on the next chapter. I really need to do some of that collage stuff I did before. It looks pretty cool.
Brief update. Work has been pretty decent. Slow last week but busy the week before. Either way, need to pick up the pace. 14 weeks to go, 140 plus installs needed, so I need at least 10 per week. Let us hope that economic recession isn't going to carry over enough that it stops us from selling. The other night on the way to a job I got stopped at a police checkpoint. The officer asked where I was going, I told him I was going to install an alarm, and he told me to 'be careful out there.' All the sudden I felt like I was in the hood, in my mind I started wondering if I should run stop signs because I could get jumped if I stopped. Or shot. Ok, that's what they do in Puerto Rico, luckily it is a bit more sane here.
Got zapped by an AC unit today. Always, always check your breakers. I've been zapped 3 times to many out here, and each time it gets worse and worse. Not cool at all. This one went all the way down my arm, way way freaky. But at least I figured out what was wrong with it. Otherwise I've started reading Angels and Demons, a good book, inspires my writing style in here. Also, watching episodes of both Fringe and Chuck in free time adds some good story lines to my head. And hopefully some good storytelling will rub off and merge with X-COM and create something truly epic. Yeah.
Just writing this to tell you I'm alive. And I am going to start working on the next chapter. I really need to do some of that collage stuff I did before. It looks pretty cool.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
X-COM 2-Field Test
As custom let's start with some me. What other point would I have to making a blog anyway if I wasn't including all kinds of random stuff in it? After finishing the last chapter, which did take quite a while and yes, the next ones will definitely require more pictures. Though I sorta thought that the story went well. After completing the story for likely the first time ever I was behind the blog when dealing with X-COM. Since you usually do quite a bit of waiting, I wasn't expecting much. And also wasn't really wanting much, seeing how I had a nice squad, and I could start off our characters with a nice even balance of weapons and work them into the alien techs as the story went along. Quite a nice idea, don't you think?
"We've got our ETA at the crash site in about half an hour, keep frosty boys." Kevin had always wondered what 'keeping frosty' was really supposed to mean, or at least what the person who came up with it thought it should mean. "Probably an interesting story," he thought.
Some of the other guys had been napping, though the seats on the Skyranger certainly were of a military grade, not quite the most comfortable for any types of naps. The UFO they were shortly going to engage had been shot down roughly an hour ago at around 0630 that morning. It was originally sighted a few hours earlier, over the Sahara. The fighters had done a somewhat joint attack, one engaging first and the other later. The second fighter had been shot at by plasma blasts from the UFO, but it's missiles took it down before it had sustained any serious damage. When they first boarded the Skyranger an hour ago Kevin's heart had started racing, along with his thoughts. He would twiddle his fingers, check his pockets, even though all the weapons were kept on board the ship and weren't given out until they were closer to combat. But by now his adrenaline had left him with little emotion, and he simply felt somewhat irritated.
They had been on base for about 3 days now. On the first day they received orientation. Firstly they had been tested, running an obstacle course and aiming at targets with a laser pointer. For some reason they didn't get to shoot, they had said it was something about underground acoustics and ammunition and so on and so forth. Kevin didn't mind, whatever the reason might be, but he had never been much of a gun handler, so some practice would be very welcome and nice. After their physical stats were measured they had been assigned into squadrons. Currently the base had one flight group of soldiers, in squads of Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. Since there was a capacity for 10 soldiers on the Skyranger, Alpha had a complement of four and Bravo and Charlie only three soldiers. Kevin was assigned as Bravo 3. At the time they didn't tell him what that meant and said he would understand the troop maneuvers and such when he met with the rest of the squad to go over weapon diagnostics. As there were other soldiers arriving on the base that day, they would have to wait until all of them were there and assigned before doing the squadron meeting.
It had been quite a bit to take in, and Kevin had simply returned to his room, lied in his cot and fell asleep. The easiest way to get rid of stress. And apparently to remember new information. Kevin wished sleep would come as easy for him now. Well, perhaps an hour ago, with a half hour till landing, that wouldn't leave much rest time. Suddenly thinking that he would be hitting the ground in full combat gear and holding a weapon made any thoughts of sleep vanish as Kevin imagined that moment.
"So, you think you'll do OK out there?" a fellow soldier, Rob asked.
"Yeah. Well, let's hope so." Kevin stammered out a response.
"Yeah, I guess that is all that you can do. It's nice we have these laser pistols though. I think they are a lot more potent than our rifles or even the heavy launchers." Laser pistols were a new invention, they only had a limited supply of them built by the engineers at the base. Limitless ammo was a perk.
"These aliens are very...fire proof. We learned that last time. We would hit them with grenades and firebomb rounds, and they just stood though it. Heck, Luke shot one twice with his launcher before it went down, and that was after we set the house on fire." Rob was in Bravo squadron with Kevin, he had moved from B3 to B2 due to Luke's injuries. "Are we still going to use the grenade launchers?" Kevin asked.
Rob paused. "Yeah, I'm sure we might. But the thing is, our rifles were working just as well as the explosive rounds. When we saw those Floaters up in the house, Luke tried to blow open the wall, and so did Mike, he was in Charlie squad. I think they used firebomb rounds first, then switched to HE rounds. Either way they couldn't blow the walls. But they set the upstairs on fire. Taylor tossed a grenade up the stairs, and it blew the wall open. That's when the alien shot Luke. I'm glad he survived." Luke had been hit once by a plasma blast, but it hadn't killed him. He had some major trauma, so the team had started moving quickly to kill the aliens so he could have medical support. Three others were killed entering the UFO. "It's crazy man. But, don't worry, we mainly just pick them off once the tank spots them."
"Fifteen minute's till LZ. Get ready back there!" Elden, the new team leader stood up. He was assigned as Alpha 1. Tyson was Alpha 3 on his squadron.
"Ok, you all have your equipment. Now, as you already know we are engaging a large UFO. It's been down for about an hour, but it's in the middle of the desert and aliens aren't to accustomed to moving very far away from their UFOs when they are down. Aside from clearing the UFO, one of our goals here is to capture a live alien for study. At base a new alien containment facility has been set up, and part of our entire mission operation is to capture the aliens so we can find out what their purpose for being here is. As such, one from Bravo and Charlie will be getting these stun rods." He handed one rod to Kevin. Kevin held it like a foreign object, not sure whether it would bite him or not. "Now, don't risk your life trying to stun one of these aliens, but when we get closer to interior combat, it is likely there will be circumstances where you will be able to use one of these, so keep it in mind." Rob motioned for Kevin to put the rod in his backpack, and handed him a laser pistol.
"Don't worry, if you aren't in front you can just pass the rod to one of us, you're just carrying it for the team." Sorta like a flag bearer, Kevin thought. It would be better one of them, the professional soldiers, carry that pointy stick than him. Only he and Tyson were the untrained, undisciplined, and untested soldiers on board.
"Touchdown in 5! Get ready back there!" Kevin checked his pockets, on his shoulder he had a grenade, with the pointy stick in his backpack. Tyson leaned across the aisle.
"Makes me think of Jesse always threatening to get a cattle prod out."
"Yeah, he was always threating with that," Kevin half grinned. A sudden swelling of nervousness seemed to come over him, and despite how much he hated it and knew he needed to focus, it wouldn't go away. He had cleared his mind before cross country races many times. You had to drop out of the circumstance, and let your doubts and fears drop away. That was the only way you could do it right, the only way you could even have a chance at doing well. And then focus on what needed to be done and do it. He wished he could do it right now, but it didn't seem to be working. He was gritting his teeth when Tyson put his hand on his shoulder.
"Hey, I got your back out there. Keep with the boys that know what there doing. We'll be fine. You got my back?"
Kevin stared Tyson in the eyes. "Yeah man. I've got your back."
"Good, let's do this!" The rear thrusters were coming on to slow the ship down. Kevin's fears melted away. He nodded to Tyson and then looked upward to Cory, Bravo squad leader. Cory nodded and Kevin nodded back. He strapped on his helmet and grabbed the small pistol in his hands. "Landing gear down, touchdown in ten...nine..." The craft pitched upward sharply, everyone was still fairly strapped down though. Kevin felt it stop and hover, then drop towards the ground. "three...two...one! Dropping the hatch! Let's go!" The landing gear had hit the ground, hydraulics shot out some steam, and the thrusters died down. Everyone started standing up, Kevin found his seatbelt buckle and hit it, releasing the straps. Tyson seemed to be having trouble with his. Anataly, a female soldier on Alpha squad was helping him. She was carrying a rocket launcher. The back hatch swung down, bursting incredibly bright light into the cabin. Kevin heard the tank roll off, and looked down at the pistol in his hands. 'Hope you've got more kick than it looks like.'
Intermission! Wow writing these stories there is so much I think of putting in but then I just have to go with whatever comes to mind. Especially since I'm trying to limit myself some here. That way I can intersperse the parts through other parts, right? It just means I'll type for a set time each day, and in ten days of typing you'll get a report and a really long chapter. I don't know. But I wanted to throw in a quick part here. About my squads and such.
This is the basic formation that the squads will be taking for our combat here. This idea goes back to the idea of turns and time warps and such. When you are taking turns it is basically making a time warp. Ok, it is definitely a time warp. But then you try to overlap both turns to make it seem like it is happening simultaneously, especially if you are writing a story as though it is real life. And how better to make it realistic than to put your troops into squads and send them off? I think it will work well anyways.
Sorry if everything I'm typing sounds somewhat disjointed. My time between writing portions of this text is what is doing it. I forget what I was writing, or how I was writing, or what I want to say and so I just keep on going from where I'm at. It's hard to write, stop, and then just pick up where you left off and still keep the same cadence. Good thing Joseph Smith was actually translating something. If he wasn't picking up where he left off like that--supergenius.
Anyways, pressing forward. We've got Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. One thing that helps as far as cheating the game (and bending time) is what I call the no-see no-react principle. If the alien can't see the soldier attacking it, then the alien won't shoot back at him. The idea of the covering squads is supposed to amplify that fact. And I just figured on this setup as being fine for battlefield movement.
The individual squads are set up in a similar way. So, just as Bravo and Charlie are the recon and Alpha is the support squad, it's the same with B1 and B3 being recon, with B2 as support. Basically, your '2' of anything is going to be equipped with a heavier weapon or be a sniper with very high accuracy. Most likely I will put any snipers on Alpha, since they can hang back, take aimed shots and in many circumstances have a guaranteed hit. Thus far '2's have also been higher in the strength category than the others, so they can carry a bigger gun.
So, there you have it. In short anyhow, about how I plan on moving the X-Com Bom Squad around on their wonderful alien slaughtering adventures.
"You ready for this?"
Tyson looked up from pulling his pistol from his belt holster. Fumbling it in his hands he answered.
"Yeah, I'm ready."
Anataly smiled. "Good. Let's do this!" The hatch swung down and the remote control tank rolled off the ramp.
"I need to get me one of those." Tyson glanced at Anataly and grinned. The loud shots of plasma broke his concentration, but it still wasn't quite seeming real. "What you need is one of these," Anataly patted the rocket launcher she was holding. Tyson nodded in agreement. The launcher was shaped more like a barrel than a tube. It didn't have a recoil, or a back-blast affect. The design was made to hold all of the force of the rocket within the weapon, which made it useful for firing even when in a squad and without an excessive time firing. Much larger than the small pistol that Tyson was holding in his hands.
Tyson nodded to Anataly. "You've got my back, right?"
"Yep, you know it."
More plasma fire came from outside. "Allright, we're on the ground, I want Bravo to the left, Charlie go right." Elden was calling out orders. The MAT had located an enemy floater, and a burst of plasma hit the side of the Skyranger, shaking the ship. 'Hope this will get us home,' Tyson thought. Outside the laser pistol was receiving it's debut test as Bravo Squad leveled a floater near the top of the hill. Tyson glanced back at his seat, just to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Outside he saw a huge wall of metal. "Whoa..." The Skyranger's cockpit was roughly 12 feet off of the ground, the landing gear was built so that it stood higher than the battlefield to avoid most of the ground fire. The wall of metal ascended at least 10 feet higher before it curved off on the top. The UFO was oddly beautiful, yet very mysterious. Perhaps the oddest thing was that it existed at all. Even though he had seen the footage and the bodies, it was still hard for Tyson to believe that aliens and UFOs and all that sci-fy stuff was turning out to be real.
Tyson turned around. Anataly and the other soldiers had moved towards the exit. Anataly was from Ukraine originally, her family had moved first to New York and then to Philadelphia when she was just a girl, and she had grown up in the United States. With her grandparents in Ukraine, she had gone back to visit them and spent many summers in Ukraine during her high school years. She had dual citizenship, and after two years of school in America she moved to Ukraine. Her parents had moved back by then, and her father's involvement in the military made her want to join as well, which she did. She had been in the military for two years, including the military activities she did as a student in America. Tyson wasn't sure her age, when he would guess she would just say "You're close," but she would say that for every number. He assumed she was around 21-24 judging on the time frame. Riding on the hour and a half flight with her had made him feel loosened up, despite the fact that he was heading into combat having fired a weapon only a handful of times in his life.
"Tyson! You coming?"
He broke his trance to see Anataly looking at him. He grinned, nodded, and ran towards the group.
*** ***
"The floater's down!"
"What is that huge thing to the east?"
"Whatever it is kill it."
Elden took charge of the situation. "Bravo team follow the MAT and approach the UFO around the west. Charlie, kill that big thing like a 29, ya holla-backs! Set your coms to touch communication." The teams moved to the sides of the Skyranger. Tyson was the last to get off.
"You're gonna back up Bravo, move up to the UFO and provide cover fire whenever they need it." Tyson nodded at Elden then ducked underneath the Skyranger's landing gear. All of a sudden it the situation lost any comedy it had and became real to him. To his right, Rob and Cory were moving up a sand dune, Kevin was a few meters in front of him standing at the base of the hill. Plasma flew over the top of the tank, hitting the Skyranger's nose. "This is MAT, we're taking fire, damage minimal." MAT stood for mobile artillery, the remote controlled tank was about half the size of your standard sedan, roughly 3x4 meters, with a cannon fitted on top that fired slugs.
"The big one's down, we've got another one over the hill," Taylor, Charlie team leader, called over the coms. Tyson looked down at the underside of his wrist, where an area map was located on his uniform.
More plasma fire flew from where the MAT had turned around the hill. It was extremely loud, and burnt holes in whatever it hit. Suddenly the pistol didn't seem like it would compare to what they were about to face. But apparently it was better than the old bullet method.
"Another big one up here-" Rob was about 35 feet away, but near the top of the sand dune. He opened fire with his laser pistol, shooting off two bursts of three. Cory followed and fired also. "Watch out it's still alive up there. Kevin, move in and take down that floater in front of the tank." Tyson had moved past Kevin, he had started climbing the hill. The UFO looked a lot bigger from the ground. Tyson could scarcely glance at it though, his blood was racing. As he neared the edge of the hill he dropped to his knee, holding his pistol in front of him just like he had seen countless times on however many shows. Though he had tried to emulate cops the best, granting it was real footage and not Hollywood.
An explosion sounded right behind him, blasting dust across his back. He turned to see lasers cutting down a floater on the far side of the UFO. "Moving in," Taylor called, and his team, as well as Al, Alpha 2, moved towards the west of the UFO. The explosion had left and odd purple dust that quickly vanished in the wind. Odd...
"It's running at us!" Tyson heard Anataly's shout from near the top of the hill where she had lined up alongside the rest of Bravo squad. Rob sent a hail of laser fire over the top of the sand dune. Shooting from the hip looked like he was holding a heavy weapon as he blasted away. An image of Han Solo popped into Tyson's mind. Except the lasers they shot were yellow, and much more of a beam than those you saw on star wars.
"Big boy's down!" Rob called over the com. Cory began firing. "Floater's down too. Heading to the top of the hill."
"We're taking fire! We've got another floater on the west of the UFO!" The MAT's operator called down. Tyson looked towards Kevin, and they both began running towards the side of the UFO.
"We've reached the UFO over here. Pulling out a scanner." Yuri, from Charlie, was saying. Tyson had one of the scanners too, they were another invention that was brand new. Though they didn't have much range, they could detect motion through the UFO hulls.
"Roger Charlie. Let's advance on the UFO, the doors must be on the other side," Elden commanded. For being shot down, the UFO didn't seem to have much damage. Most of the missiles had hit the underbelly though. Lasers flew past the west side of the UFO, coming from Cory and Rob up on the hill. "Took a few shot's but that one's down. This side is clear."
"Tyson, move up and secure that western side for our advance." Elden was a way's behind him but was running up fast. He and Kevin both took off to the side of the UFO. If anything was around that corner, the MAT would have reported it to them. Or so Tyson hoped. Either way, he cautiously peeked around the corner before kneeling on the ground. Kevin and Elden ran up behind him.
"I'm hit! Ahhh!"
The dreaded call came after a burst of plasma from the far side of the UFO.
"This is Charlie we've got a man down over here! Al's been hit!"
"Dirty alien ran behind the side of the UFO! We're covering you to." Tyson could tell that was Taylor. "How's Al?"
"I'm ok. Ahh..."
"He's got some serious bleeding, he needs medical attention ASAP!"
"Dirty coward, how do you like this?" Tyson wondered what Al was doing, especially considering he had been shot by plasma fire. "Tossing a frag." That was Yuri's voice.
"Charlie, what's you'r status?" Elden asked. The rest of Bravo had joined them at the bottom of the hill, the MAT rolled around the side of the UFO, flanking wide from the doors.
"Al tossed a smoke grenade, but it landed on the roof. Yuri tossed a frag to the doors." The sound of an explosion verified Taylor's report.
The tank reported another big alien around the corner of the UFO, coming out the doors. Rob pulled a grenade from his shoulder, and as he primed it there was more plasma fire from the far side of the UFO.
"Al's dead! He's down!" As Rob tossed the grenade over the front of the UFO, laser fire was heard from the far side of the UFO. "View of the floater. He's behind the wall." The MAT had flanked the front of the UFO and had a visual of the alien that killed Al. "Tossing a grenade!" Tyson G. called. The two explosions followed.
"Get ready to move to that door," Cory said to the six soldiers lined up on the west side. The lumbering form of the big alien lumbered around the corner and into view. 'Man, those things are tough!' Tyson thought. Anataly, breathing hard from hauling the extra weight of the rocket launcher and a spare rocket, was the first to call it.
"I've got this one!" She knelt and fired a large rocket, hitting the creature square. Despite the blinding sun of the desert, the flash of the rocket left Tyson's eyes a little blurred, as well as his ears ringing. "That got him, advance!" They ran towards the UFO.
Tyson jumped over the dead floater and ran around the corner of the UFO. The MAT had cleared the far side, so he wasn't worried. His feet hit the ground burnt from Anataly's rocket-it was hard like rock. The blast had glassed the sand. In front of him was a large doorway, comparable to a single car garage. It looked like it would slide to either side, but he couldn't tell.
"Get that stun rod out, Kevin. This would be the ideal place to catch one of those aliens," Cory said. Kevin pulled it from his backpack, and held it in his left hand, pistol in the other.
"Charlie, ready to enter?" Elden called over the com. They couldn't see the far side of the UFO, but on the map Tyson could see they were by the entrance. "Yep, we're following the MAT in."
"Ok, I've got point, follow me in." Cory touched the door and it slid open. The UFO had a layer of smoke along the ceiling. Kevin ran in behind Cory, who looked around the corner of the first room. "Dead one in the corner, not seeing anything else. Tyson ran in behind them. The second room to the right had severe damage. Most of the walls were warped, metal chunks were everywhere. Some internal explosion had blown half the walls apart. Obviously they'd found where the UFO had been hit by the missiles.
"Looks clear on this side. We're moving around the right side, don't shoot us."
"Yeah, sure thing Taylor!" They ran into the central room. There was an odd red area in the middle of the room that ascended up into the ceiling. Through the smoke Tyson could make out a floater body crumpled by the wall.
Cory ran to the red circle in the middle of the room. Tyson and Kevin followed. There were lines of red running upwards from the ground. "What do you guys think this is?" Cory turned and asked. Tyson shrugged and looked up the hole. He couldn't see much of the room above through the red barrier above.
"Aliens! Above us!" Rob's call was simultaneous with his laser pistol. He was shooting up into the ceiling. Then a bolt of plasma hit him just below the chin, and his face was engulfed in a green flash. From behind down the hallway, Anataly began firing her laser pistol into the holes as Rob's near headless body fell to the floor. Tyson just froze, staring at the burnt remnants of Rob. Two floater bodies fell through the ceiling to the ground below.
"Looks like that's all of them."
"Keep your eyes on those holes, Anataly. Charlie, watch your back, aliens through the vents above."
"Roger that, we're covering this side."
"Good." Elden closed the com. "Let's get up there boys." He nodded to Cory. Cory nodded back, stood on the red panel, and jumped. He rose up to the ceiling, stopping on the floor above.
"Grav lift," Kevin whispered. He climbed in and rose up as well. Tyson followed.
The tingling sensation left him directly above where he had stood below, standing on a thin red barrier. Laser fire sounded from below. "Got another one," Anataly reported. They were in a small room, Cory was listening to the door, trying to hear if anything was out there.
"Think you're going to use that?" Tyson whispered and motioned to Kevin's stun rod.
"I guess, if I get the chance. I've got it out here." Kevin shrugged.
"In these close quarters it will probably be a great place to use it. We could use some intel from these aliens. The sooner we figure out where they are coming from, the sooner we can stop them, the sooner we can go home." Cory looked both of them in the eye, then nodded. "Alright, let's go." He turned and opened the door.
All three X-Com operatives seemed to freeze in surprise at the alien standing in front of the door. Or Tyson froze, at least. Cory reacted first, pulling the trigger on his pistol, but hitting the wall nearest him. The alien seemed to be just as shocked and Cory was fast enough that he was able to shoot the alien in the face with another burst of laser fire. 'Good thing we were both napping' Tyson thought. The aliens probably weren't used to combat, considering that there hadn't been many operations against them. And they were covered more in secrecy than full out war.
Cory ran into a room across the hall, looked both ways, signaled Tyson and Kevin to split down the hallway and then ran farther into the room. "See you on the other side," Tyson said to Kevin as they split to opposite sides of the hallway. Elden followed them up.
Tyson peeked around the corner. On his left, Cory was peeking out the door to the room where he was, also looking down the hallway. Likely they were at the bridge. He looked back over his shoulder at Kevin. They caught each other's eye, both nodded, and then darted around their respective corners.
***
"Hold up Kevin." Kevin stopped.
"What?" he whispered.
"Just hang tight for a second." Elden wasn't sure how to explain having Kevin stop, but there was something that just gave him a feeling. "Kill whatever's on that bridge." He said over the com. A second later, a burst of laser fire killed the last floater on board.
"Got one!" Tyson's excited cry came over the com. Kevin followed Elden up to the bridge.
"Nice shot man. That guy probably would have zapped me."
"Yeah, I don't feel any guilt about shooting aliens in the back.
"Bridge is clear, we've got the all clear down here. I'm dialing for dust off. Let's start sorting through this stuff, see what we've got."
Elden turned down the hallway, passing Cory. "Good mission," Cory said as he walked by. Elden nodded. Two dead wasn't too bad, those losing any wasn't good. But considering they had two rookies on the team...not that they had preformed bad. And the fact that the team was now from diversified militarys. Originally they had just one squadron that they had taken the whole X-COM team. But to replace casualties apparently it was a soldier by soldier basis.
The team wasn't what was bothering him though. It was the odd feeling he had had. Once to tell Yuri and Charlie team to watch the ceilings, the other to tell Kevin to stop, and let Tyson kill the floater. It seemed like a voice in his head, a prompting of some kind. He didn't know, perhaps just intuition. Either way, it was something he would have to deal with later.
"HQ, this is X-COM team, requesting dustoff."
"Affirmative, helos en route."
A few days after the first mission(which was Jan. 1st, incredible how early that was) another UFO is sighted and shot down. Well, you can't just go letting them get away now. I had a tank, just the cannon, as well as a fully loaded crew so why not? Let's say that the aliens certainly reminded me that X-COM is not about things working out nicely or going according to plan. X-COM is hard. And by hard I mean it beats you down. Especially if you think you are gonna kid around. The mission was pretty intense, so I saved at a certain point. Then, things really went south. Way south. But I couldn't accept the truth and so, I confess, as a weakling that I am, I instead cheated my way out of death. Everyone's doing it these days. If you aren't invunerable like you are in a racing game, then you come back to life when you mess up. Which is what I tried to do here. And I did come back to life. Well, Jordan did. And then the plague continued...
You see, in X-COM (and life. And scientology) there is the theory of karma. What an amazing word. Karma, what goes around comes around, you reap what you sow and all that. After saving Jordan and completing the mission quite miraculously, I woke up to find two wounded soldiers and my HWP without ammo. And a suspicious craft landed just to the west. But I was way to scared to attack with only 5 guys. Not to mention guilty of treason. Which didn't leave me feeling good. Later that week, a large UFO is sighted, and I-1 investigates, then gets blown up after trying to prevent a terror mission. I order another one, telling myself I deserve it. I-2 follows a terror ship to just outside the Nigerian capital, until I decide I had better risk attacking rather than risk a terror mission and loss of funding. I-2 get's popped as soon as he looks at the terror ship. And then they do the terror mission. Wonderful.
Luckily for me and my horrible morals, the computer ran out of batteries and reloaded to before I had cheated death. Last night I finished that mission and took my losses, which were still quite severe. Floaters are hard to kill, surprisingly. Then I overshot and stayed up till 2 finishing the mission against the terror ship shot down later. I revamped everything. No more dilly dally in the workshop, get me some laser pistols. I don't care about floater corpses, I need some personal armor. And order some new troops. Well, especially two particular one.
In other words, no more messing around. I mean, not that I was but it's game time. Also, and perhaps I've just been watching too much Fringe, but I was thinking about adapting for the storyline. Easy to do, but that isn't really the purpose here, and it would be cheating the game. As well as the fact that each mission can bring unexpected results, that can really throw quite a few loops into the whole storyline. Which I am really growing fond of. If I can weave my plots in and out and deep enough, I think this could be pretty fun. I'll have to broaden out the main characters, so the swap over isn't sudden in the event of a switch. But I think it could be quite a good storyline. Or it will really stink and everyone will die, I don't know. Regardless, it is about time to start drafting! Yay! I even made a friend list on facebook to denote all those who have honorably joined the service. Your day of greatness is now. Right now all it has is Kevin, but he will be joined by others, just you wait.
I'm going to throw up some mission pics on here. They might not follow the story line, so just go with the captions when you read them, hopefully it is explanitory. Hopefully I remember what was going on, I am writing purely from the screenshots so I am taking screenshots of everything. Also needing to force myself to a limit on here. There's a lot more to life than X-COM. Even though it seems like it should be the only thing.
You see, in X-COM (and life. And scientology) there is the theory of karma. What an amazing word. Karma, what goes around comes around, you reap what you sow and all that. After saving Jordan and completing the mission quite miraculously, I woke up to find two wounded soldiers and my HWP without ammo. And a suspicious craft landed just to the west. But I was way to scared to attack with only 5 guys. Not to mention guilty of treason. Which didn't leave me feeling good. Later that week, a large UFO is sighted, and I-1 investigates, then gets blown up after trying to prevent a terror mission. I order another one, telling myself I deserve it. I-2 follows a terror ship to just outside the Nigerian capital, until I decide I had better risk attacking rather than risk a terror mission and loss of funding. I-2 get's popped as soon as he looks at the terror ship. And then they do the terror mission. Wonderful.
Luckily for me and my horrible morals, the computer ran out of batteries and reloaded to before I had cheated death. Last night I finished that mission and took my losses, which were still quite severe. Floaters are hard to kill, surprisingly. Then I overshot and stayed up till 2 finishing the mission against the terror ship shot down later. I revamped everything. No more dilly dally in the workshop, get me some laser pistols. I don't care about floater corpses, I need some personal armor. And order some new troops. Well, especially two particular one.
In other words, no more messing around. I mean, not that I was but it's game time. Also, and perhaps I've just been watching too much Fringe, but I was thinking about adapting for the storyline. Easy to do, but that isn't really the purpose here, and it would be cheating the game. As well as the fact that each mission can bring unexpected results, that can really throw quite a few loops into the whole storyline. Which I am really growing fond of. If I can weave my plots in and out and deep enough, I think this could be pretty fun. I'll have to broaden out the main characters, so the swap over isn't sudden in the event of a switch. But I think it could be quite a good storyline. Or it will really stink and everyone will die, I don't know. Regardless, it is about time to start drafting! Yay! I even made a friend list on facebook to denote all those who have honorably joined the service. Your day of greatness is now. Right now all it has is Kevin, but he will be joined by others, just you wait.
I'm going to throw up some mission pics on here. They might not follow the story line, so just go with the captions when you read them, hopefully it is explanitory. Hopefully I remember what was going on, I am writing purely from the screenshots so I am taking screenshots of everything. Also needing to force myself to a limit on here. There's a lot more to life than X-COM. Even though it seems like it should be the only thing.
"We've got our ETA at the crash site in about half an hour, keep frosty boys." Kevin had always wondered what 'keeping frosty' was really supposed to mean, or at least what the person who came up with it thought it should mean. "Probably an interesting story," he thought.
Some of the other guys had been napping, though the seats on the Skyranger certainly were of a military grade, not quite the most comfortable for any types of naps. The UFO they were shortly going to engage had been shot down roughly an hour ago at around 0630 that morning. It was originally sighted a few hours earlier, over the Sahara. The fighters had done a somewhat joint attack, one engaging first and the other later. The second fighter had been shot at by plasma blasts from the UFO, but it's missiles took it down before it had sustained any serious damage. When they first boarded the Skyranger an hour ago Kevin's heart had started racing, along with his thoughts. He would twiddle his fingers, check his pockets, even though all the weapons were kept on board the ship and weren't given out until they were closer to combat. But by now his adrenaline had left him with little emotion, and he simply felt somewhat irritated.
They had been on base for about 3 days now. On the first day they received orientation. Firstly they had been tested, running an obstacle course and aiming at targets with a laser pointer. For some reason they didn't get to shoot, they had said it was something about underground acoustics and ammunition and so on and so forth. Kevin didn't mind, whatever the reason might be, but he had never been much of a gun handler, so some practice would be very welcome and nice. After their physical stats were measured they had been assigned into squadrons. Currently the base had one flight group of soldiers, in squads of Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. Since there was a capacity for 10 soldiers on the Skyranger, Alpha had a complement of four and Bravo and Charlie only three soldiers. Kevin was assigned as Bravo 3. At the time they didn't tell him what that meant and said he would understand the troop maneuvers and such when he met with the rest of the squad to go over weapon diagnostics. As there were other soldiers arriving on the base that day, they would have to wait until all of them were there and assigned before doing the squadron meeting.
It had been quite a bit to take in, and Kevin had simply returned to his room, lied in his cot and fell asleep. The easiest way to get rid of stress. And apparently to remember new information. Kevin wished sleep would come as easy for him now. Well, perhaps an hour ago, with a half hour till landing, that wouldn't leave much rest time. Suddenly thinking that he would be hitting the ground in full combat gear and holding a weapon made any thoughts of sleep vanish as Kevin imagined that moment.
"So, you think you'll do OK out there?" a fellow soldier, Rob asked.
"Yeah. Well, let's hope so." Kevin stammered out a response.
"Yeah, I guess that is all that you can do. It's nice we have these laser pistols though. I think they are a lot more potent than our rifles or even the heavy launchers." Laser pistols were a new invention, they only had a limited supply of them built by the engineers at the base. Limitless ammo was a perk.
"These aliens are very...fire proof. We learned that last time. We would hit them with grenades and firebomb rounds, and they just stood though it. Heck, Luke shot one twice with his launcher before it went down, and that was after we set the house on fire." Rob was in Bravo squadron with Kevin, he had moved from B3 to B2 due to Luke's injuries. "Are we still going to use the grenade launchers?" Kevin asked.
"Ok, you all have your equipment. Now, as you already know we are engaging a large UFO. It's been down for about an hour, but it's in the middle of the desert and aliens aren't to accustomed to moving very far away from their UFOs when they are down. Aside from clearing the UFO, one of our goals here is to capture a live alien for study. At base a new alien containment facility has been set up, and part of our entire mission operation is to capture the aliens so we can find out what their purpose for being here is. As such, one from Bravo and Charlie will be getting these stun rods." He handed one rod to Kevin. Kevin held it like a foreign object, not sure whether it would bite him or not. "Now, don't risk your life trying to stun one of these aliens, but when we get closer to interior combat, it is likely there will be circumstances where you will be able to use one of these, so keep it in mind." Rob motioned for Kevin to put the rod in his backpack, and handed him a laser pistol.
"Touchdown in 5! Get ready back there!" Kevin checked his pockets, on his shoulder he had a grenade, with the pointy stick in his backpack. Tyson leaned across the aisle.
"Makes me think of Jesse always threatening to get a cattle prod out."
"Yeah, he was always threating with that," Kevin half grinned. A sudden swelling of nervousness seemed to come over him, and despite how much he hated it and knew he needed to focus, it wouldn't go away. He had cleared his mind before cross country races many times. You had to drop out of the circumstance, and let your doubts and fears drop away. That was the only way you could do it right, the only way you could even have a chance at doing well. And then focus on what needed to be done and do it. He wished he could do it right now, but it didn't seem to be working. He was gritting his teeth when Tyson put his hand on his shoulder.
"Hey, I got your back out there. Keep with the boys that know what there doing. We'll be fine. You got my back?"
Kevin stared Tyson in the eyes. "Yeah man. I've got your back."
"Good, let's do this!" The rear thrusters were coming on to slow the ship down. Kevin's fears melted away. He nodded to Tyson and then looked upward to Cory, Bravo squad leader. Cory nodded and Kevin nodded back. He strapped on his helmet and grabbed the small pistol in his hands. "Landing gear down, touchdown in ten...nine..." The craft pitched upward sharply, everyone was still fairly strapped down though. Kevin felt it stop and hover, then drop towards the ground. "three...two...one! Dropping the hatch! Let's go!" The landing gear had hit the ground, hydraulics shot out some steam, and the thrusters died down. Everyone started standing up, Kevin found his seatbelt buckle and hit it, releasing the straps. Tyson seemed to be having trouble with his. Anataly, a female soldier on Alpha squad was helping him. She was carrying a rocket launcher. The back hatch swung down, bursting incredibly bright light into the cabin. Kevin heard the tank roll off, and looked down at the pistol in his hands. 'Hope you've got more kick than it looks like.'
Intermission! Wow writing these stories there is so much I think of putting in but then I just have to go with whatever comes to mind. Especially since I'm trying to limit myself some here. That way I can intersperse the parts through other parts, right? It just means I'll type for a set time each day, and in ten days of typing you'll get a report and a really long chapter. I don't know. But I wanted to throw in a quick part here. About my squads and such.
Sorry if everything I'm typing sounds somewhat disjointed. My time between writing portions of this text is what is doing it. I forget what I was writing, or how I was writing, or what I want to say and so I just keep on going from where I'm at. It's hard to write, stop, and then just pick up where you left off and still keep the same cadence. Good thing Joseph Smith was actually translating something. If he wasn't picking up where he left off like that--supergenius.
Anyways, pressing forward. We've got Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. One thing that helps as far as cheating the game (and bending time) is what I call the no-see no-react principle. If the alien can't see the soldier attacking it, then the alien won't shoot back at him. The idea of the covering squads is supposed to amplify that fact. And I just figured on this setup as being fine for battlefield movement.
"You ready for this?"
Tyson looked up from pulling his pistol from his belt holster. Fumbling it in his hands he answered.
"Yeah, I'm ready."
Anataly smiled. "Good. Let's do this!" The hatch swung down and the remote control tank rolled off the ramp.
"I need to get me one of those." Tyson glanced at Anataly and grinned. The loud shots of plasma broke his concentration, but it still wasn't quite seeming real. "What you need is one of these," Anataly patted the rocket launcher she was holding. Tyson nodded in agreement. The launcher was shaped more like a barrel than a tube. It didn't have a recoil, or a back-blast affect. The design was made to hold all of the force of the rocket within the weapon, which made it useful for firing even when in a squad and without an excessive time firing. Much larger than the small pistol that Tyson was holding in his hands.
Tyson nodded to Anataly. "You've got my back, right?"
"Yep, you know it."
Tyson turned around. Anataly and the other soldiers had moved towards the exit. Anataly was from Ukraine originally, her family had moved first to New York and then to Philadelphia when she was just a girl, and she had grown up in the United States. With her grandparents in Ukraine, she had gone back to visit them and spent many summers in Ukraine during her high school years. She had dual citizenship, and after two years of school in America she moved to Ukraine. Her parents had moved back by then, and her father's involvement in the military made her want to join as well, which she did. She had been in the military for two years, including the military activities she did as a student in America. Tyson wasn't sure her age, when he would guess she would just say "You're close," but she would say that for every number. He assumed she was around 21-24 judging on the time frame. Riding on the hour and a half flight with her had made him feel loosened up, despite the fact that he was heading into combat having fired a weapon only a handful of times in his life.
"Tyson! You coming?"
He broke his trance to see Anataly looking at him. He grinned, nodded, and ran towards the group.
*** ***
"The floater's down!"
"What is that huge thing to the east?"
"Whatever it is kill it."
Elden took charge of the situation. "Bravo team follow the MAT and approach the UFO around the west. Charlie, kill that big thing like a 29, ya holla-backs! Set your coms to touch communication." The teams moved to the sides of the Skyranger. Tyson was the last to get off.
"You're gonna back up Bravo, move up to the UFO and provide cover fire whenever they need it." Tyson nodded at Elden then ducked underneath the Skyranger's landing gear. All of a sudden it the situation lost any comedy it had and became real to him. To his right, Rob and Cory were moving up a sand dune, Kevin was a few meters in front of him standing at the base of the hill. Plasma flew over the top of the tank, hitting the Skyranger's nose. "This is MAT, we're taking fire, damage minimal." MAT stood for mobile artillery, the remote controlled tank was about half the size of your standard sedan, roughly 3x4 meters, with a cannon fitted on top that fired slugs.
"The big one's down, we've got another one over the hill," Taylor, Charlie team leader, called over the coms. Tyson looked down at the underside of his wrist, where an area map was located on his uniform.
"Another big one up here-" Rob was about 35 feet away, but near the top of the sand dune. He opened fire with his laser pistol, shooting off two bursts of three. Cory followed and fired also. "Watch out it's still alive up there. Kevin, move in and take down that floater in front of the tank." Tyson had moved past Kevin, he had started climbing the hill. The UFO looked a lot bigger from the ground. Tyson could scarcely glance at it though, his blood was racing. As he neared the edge of the hill he dropped to his knee, holding his pistol in front of him just like he had seen countless times on however many shows. Though he had tried to emulate cops the best, granting it was real footage and not Hollywood.
An explosion sounded right behind him, blasting dust across his back. He turned to see lasers cutting down a floater on the far side of the UFO. "Moving in," Taylor called, and his team, as well as Al, Alpha 2, moved towards the west of the UFO. The explosion had left and odd purple dust that quickly vanished in the wind. Odd...
"We're taking fire! We've got another floater on the west of the UFO!" The MAT's operator called down. Tyson looked towards Kevin, and they both began running towards the side of the UFO.
"We've reached the UFO over here. Pulling out a scanner." Yuri, from Charlie, was saying. Tyson had one of the scanners too, they were another invention that was brand new. Though they didn't have much range, they could detect motion through the UFO hulls.
"Roger Charlie. Let's advance on the UFO, the doors must be on the other side," Elden commanded. For being shot down, the UFO didn't seem to have much damage. Most of the missiles had hit the underbelly though. Lasers flew past the west side of the UFO, coming from Cory and Rob up on the hill. "Took a few shot's but that one's down. This side is clear."
"Tyson, move up and secure that western side for our advance." Elden was a way's behind him but was running up fast. He and Kevin both took off to the side of the UFO. If anything was around that corner, the MAT would have reported it to them. Or so Tyson hoped. Either way, he cautiously peeked around the corner before kneeling on the ground. Kevin and Elden ran up behind him.
"I'm hit! Ahhh!"
The dreaded call came after a burst of plasma from the far side of the UFO.
"This is Charlie we've got a man down over here! Al's been hit!"
"Dirty alien ran behind the side of the UFO! We're covering you to." Tyson could tell that was Taylor. "How's Al?"
"I'm ok. Ahh..."
"He's got some serious bleeding, he needs medical attention ASAP!"
"Dirty coward, how do you like this?" Tyson wondered what Al was doing, especially considering he had been shot by plasma fire. "Tossing a frag." That was Yuri's voice.
"Al tossed a smoke grenade, but it landed on the roof. Yuri tossed a frag to the doors." The sound of an explosion verified Taylor's report.
"Al's dead! He's down!" As Rob tossed the grenade over the front of the UFO, laser fire was heard from the far side of the UFO. "View of the floater. He's behind the wall." The MAT had flanked the front of the UFO and had a visual of the alien that killed Al. "Tossing a grenade!" Tyson G. called. The two explosions followed.
"Get ready to move to that door," Cory said to the six soldiers lined up on the west side. The lumbering form of the big alien lumbered around the corner and into view. 'Man, those things are tough!' Tyson thought. Anataly, breathing hard from hauling the extra weight of the rocket launcher and a spare rocket, was the first to call it.
Tyson jumped over the dead floater and ran around the corner of the UFO. The MAT had cleared the far side, so he wasn't worried. His feet hit the ground burnt from Anataly's rocket-it was hard like rock. The blast had glassed the sand. In front of him was a large doorway, comparable to a single car garage. It looked like it would slide to either side, but he couldn't tell.
"Get that stun rod out, Kevin. This would be the ideal place to catch one of those aliens," Cory said. Kevin pulled it from his backpack, and held it in his left hand, pistol in the other.
"Charlie, ready to enter?" Elden called over the com. They couldn't see the far side of the UFO, but on the map Tyson could see they were by the entrance. "Yep, we're following the MAT in."
"Ok, I've got point, follow me in." Cory touched the door and it slid open. The UFO had a layer of smoke along the ceiling. Kevin ran in behind Cory, who looked around the corner of the first room. "Dead one in the corner, not seeing anything else. Tyson ran in behind them. The second room to the right had severe damage. Most of the walls were warped, metal chunks were everywhere. Some internal explosion had blown half the walls apart. Obviously they'd found where the UFO had been hit by the missiles.
"Yeah, sure thing Taylor!" They ran into the central room. There was an odd red area in the middle of the room that ascended up into the ceiling. Through the smoke Tyson could make out a floater body crumpled by the wall.
"Aliens! Above us!" Rob's call was simultaneous with his laser pistol. He was shooting up into the ceiling. Then a bolt of plasma hit him just below the chin, and his face was engulfed in a green flash. From behind down the hallway, Anataly began firing her laser pistol into the holes as Rob's near headless body fell to the floor. Tyson just froze, staring at the burnt remnants of Rob. Two floater bodies fell through the ceiling to the ground below.
"Keep your eyes on those holes, Anataly. Charlie, watch your back, aliens through the vents above."
"Roger that, we're covering this side."
"Good." Elden closed the com. "Let's get up there boys." He nodded to Cory. Cory nodded back, stood on the red panel, and jumped. He rose up to the ceiling, stopping on the floor above.
"Grav lift," Kevin whispered. He climbed in and rose up as well. Tyson followed.
The tingling sensation left him directly above where he had stood below, standing on a thin red barrier. Laser fire sounded from below. "Got another one," Anataly reported. They were in a small room, Cory was listening to the door, trying to hear if anything was out there.
"Think you're going to use that?" Tyson whispered and motioned to Kevin's stun rod.
"I guess, if I get the chance. I've got it out here." Kevin shrugged.
"In these close quarters it will probably be a great place to use it. We could use some intel from these aliens. The sooner we figure out where they are coming from, the sooner we can stop them, the sooner we can go home." Cory looked both of them in the eye, then nodded. "Alright, let's go." He turned and opened the door.
Cory ran into a room across the hall, looked both ways, signaled Tyson and Kevin to split down the hallway and then ran farther into the room. "See you on the other side," Tyson said to Kevin as they split to opposite sides of the hallway. Elden followed them up.
Tyson peeked around the corner. On his left, Cory was peeking out the door to the room where he was, also looking down the hallway. Likely they were at the bridge. He looked back over his shoulder at Kevin. They caught each other's eye, both nodded, and then darted around their respective corners.
***
"Hold up Kevin." Kevin stopped.
"What?" he whispered.
"Just hang tight for a second." Elden wasn't sure how to explain having Kevin stop, but there was something that just gave him a feeling. "Kill whatever's on that bridge." He said over the com. A second later, a burst of laser fire killed the last floater on board.
"Got one!" Tyson's excited cry came over the com. Kevin followed Elden up to the bridge.
"Nice shot man. That guy probably would have zapped me."
"Yeah, I don't feel any guilt about shooting aliens in the back.
"Bridge is clear, we've got the all clear down here. I'm dialing for dust off. Let's start sorting through this stuff, see what we've got."
Elden turned down the hallway, passing Cory. "Good mission," Cory said as he walked by. Elden nodded. Two dead wasn't too bad, those losing any wasn't good. But considering they had two rookies on the team...not that they had preformed bad. And the fact that the team was now from diversified militarys. Originally they had just one squadron that they had taken the whole X-COM team. But to replace casualties apparently it was a soldier by soldier basis.
The team wasn't what was bothering him though. It was the odd feeling he had had. Once to tell Yuri and Charlie team to watch the ceilings, the other to tell Kevin to stop, and let Tyson kill the floater. It seemed like a voice in his head, a prompting of some kind. He didn't know, perhaps just intuition. Either way, it was something he would have to deal with later.
"HQ, this is X-COM team, requesting dustoff."
"Affirmative, helos en route."
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