X-COM Files

New Blog

2012-01-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

Just to let you know I made a new blog. An interior design blog. Yes, I am turning over a new leaf...And this is a perfect place to insert some comment about what color the leaf is, beige or something fancy...except that I don't know anything about that. Huh.
Anyhow, yeah, new blog. Pretty exciting. Maybe I'll post on this one some day...

Book Review 2

2011-07-14T14:23:00.000-06:00

So, here I am in the McD's parking lot. It admittedly has been a few days, though in my defense there hasn't been much time that I've just been at home. Running out here is killer and waking up early is killer when you don't eat dinner and get home after 12. Second shift isn't very fun. However, in my undefense, 'Relm of the Mad God' has been sucking out my brain and leaving me with very little time. But I'm almost to my level 20 max with the wizard! Still it's a beast to try and kill any of the big bosses, sometimes the lag tosses you into a fray of like 50 kill-you-in-5-hit enemies all blasting away at you with a 5 pellet shotgun round. Fun game. Google Chrome Apps if you are interested.

So, on to the book review.

"The Hunger Games" This book was a supremely great book. I saw it on the couch on Sunday, read it all day and into Monday to finish it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. It was really really good. It is written in first person, about a post-apocalypse kind of world, where there are 12 cities ruled by the Capitol. In the 12 districts the people live in poverty and have very little, whereas in the capitol they have advanced technology and anything that they want. Each year they have the annual hunger games, where they take a boy and girl between 12 and 18 years old to participate in a battle to the death with the other districts. The book wraps you in with the first person view, you really easilly come to care for the characters and the emotional enviornment is set up very nicely. The about the author pointed out that the author wrote this book and others dealing with the impact of war, especially on children. I think I like the book because it seemed to do that with me. Rather than war seeming to be impersonal, as it usually is on TV or in games, this book brings the ideas to life and really sickens you by them. All the while the story wraps you in and does a great job of interesting you. 5 out of five for sure.

The last book is "Brave New World." This book is a type of intellectual fiction, where there is a story line but a psychologist philosopher wrote it. Along the same lines of 1984, this book has some interesting ideas and models for a horrible future that could come to pass, however, it seems also that there has to be a great fascination with sex, as though it is the answer to all problems. Which it is not. Kinda hard for me to believe that the system in the book could happen, and it didn't raise my opinion of Huxley much by reading it. There is a bit of redemption for him in 'Revisited,' which is not a story but simply an analization of the predictions in the book and the current time (It being 1931 for the first book, 1957 for the second.) 2 out of five.

Well, that's the basics of my book reading. I'm in the car waiting for the drive through line to die down so I can go and get a rolo shake. Then probably get some alcacelcer at the rite aid. We aren't in Utah any more! Or possibly get a job, that would be nice. I'm soaking wet with sweat now, which is lovely...

Trying to fill in some of the story for XCOM, but once I'm there I should be on to the battles in no time! Yay! Assuming Mad God doesn't ruin me.

Book Review

2011-07-12T11:40:00.001-06:00

It's 1:13, almost time to head out. You never really know when you are going to leave I usually wait for Jordan to text us to head out. The X-COM team is currently hovering over a UFO in Russia, ready to disembark and embark some pain! It takes a while to write, because I can only write when I feel like it, otherwise it will be crap and I will erase it because it sucks. So yeah, you will have to wait. I didn't want to start the mission until I had caught the story up to that point. But we do have the first addition of Facebook friends joining the squad! What could be better news?

Things have been decent here, we are working in Jacksonville now. A good 45 minute drive away. And the grand ole gas prices have gone back up to $3.55 a gallon, $.20 more than they were just a couple weeks ago. What a pain.

Regardless, sitting in the car you have a good amount of time to read books, and thinking about those books I decided to write a few reviews of the books I've been able to read thus far. The non-churchy ones, well, ones you'd find at the bookstore at least.

First, we've got 'Angels and Deamons.' The precursor but unconnected to DaVinci Code. It was a good book, I pounded it one day waiting under a tree for a job for 7 hours. It has a good amount of action and suspense, mystery combined with history and random bits of trivia inter spaced throughout. I think my writing style in the blog mirrors that style of writing the most, with the third person type of view, and the flashbacks of the characters spaced throughout. The book takes you on a good adventure and does a good job of letting you see the conflict from each point, the good guys and the bad guys then throwing in a final twist at the end. Good style of writing, it pulls you in. Personally I give it 4 out of five points.

Second we have a great book, 'The Shack.' I really really liked this book. The basic premise is a man loses his daughter to a kidnapping murderer. Years later he receives a letter from God asking him to come back to the shack, the place where the murder took place. The book explores the great questions people ask about God, relating to firstly, how can God allow such horrible things to happen, also the questions of justice and mercy, how God feels towards us and things along those lines. I definitely recommend it. I couldn't stop reading it, and I was really touched by it several times. Even though the theology is different, the principles are the same. It certainly is a thought provoking book with some great insights. I give it 5 out of five.

And now it is time to go. I will have to finish it tomorrow...

X-COM 3-Night Vision

2011-06-28T13:37:00.001-06:00

Perhaps I should write this now. While it's fresh... But I do have to go shopping and it's already 3:30, time for jobs to be coming in. Which sorta defeats the hope of shopping as well. Don't want to get a job then stand in line waiting forever to buy your stuff then have it cook in the car for the next 6 hours while you are working. But I need the food so I can prepare excellentness for the missionaries. Oh the drama.

Starting now(after the current mission) I am keeping track of kills/takedowns and missions, MVP and all that jazz. Just for fun. And I will have to make some banners or something like I did last time. Those were gorgeous. So, yeah, that's where we stand. And the people are supposed to be bringing beds today, but by Charlie I bet they bring them as soon as we all leave. Since I'm left here holding down the fort, well, as soon as I leave.

Maybe I'll just play some Black Ops.

  It was late in the evening. Anataly was watching the moon rise over the mountains to the south east. It's slivery form seemed elongated as it rose over the peaks. Through the cross thatched window by her bed, Anataly could see the rooftops of the houses around her. They were covered with snow, each window emitting a faint yellow glow, blurred by the frost frozen on them. The smoke rising from the chimneys blanketed the town, as it cooled in the freezing air it sunk back to earth, making a type of mist through the packed city streets of Berezhany. The stone buildings were stark in the dimming light of the street lights of the town. Though the city wasn't small, in their parts of town it was rare for many cars to come by. Still, the occasional headlights would light up the streets, driving carefully down the snowy streets.
  Anataly heard her father downstairs, talking on the phone. He was laughing and joking with whoever he was talking with. Even though she was young, just barely eleven on the fourteenth, she knew that big changes were coming. Her father was somewhat secretive about his work, but he shared most of the secrets with her. She and her father were very close.
  She held her stuffed dog, Marko in her arms and stared at the moon. She wondered if the moon looked the same in America as it did in Ukraine. Though her parents never said it, she assumed that someday soon they would be in America. Something about that dream filled her heart with hope. America seemed to be such an incredible place, far different from where she was now.
  She heard her father and mother talking downstairs, then she heard her the front door close. Through her window, she could see her father climb into the car. She waved from the window, but he didn't see. He drove away into the night.
  Anataly sat with her elbows on the window seal, dreaming of what life would be like in America. It seemed the colors would be brighter, the flowers more pretty, everything would be better there. How she longed to be there. It began to snow, and flakes began lazily drifting down from the sky. In the street she saw three sets of headlights, tracing their way down the road. Someone must be having a party for so much traffic on a night like this. That seemed odd though, since it was a Wednesday. The cars sped down the road pulling to a stop right in front of there. Suddenly Anataly was scared, and she ran downstairs to her mother. In the living room, her mother was looking outside.
  "Mama, there's people out there!" Her mother turned and shushed her. Anataly could see the scared look on her mother's face.
"Anataly I need you to listen to me very carefully. Go up to your room, climb under your bed and hide there."
  "But, mama what..."
"I need you to be brave, Anatally. Hurry, go and hide!" A fist began banging on the door. "Open up! This is the police!"
  "Hurry, Ana!" her mom ran to the door and slid the chain look into place. Tears were coming to Anataly's eyes. "But, momma..."
"Go!" her mother hissed. The fist banged again. "Open up!" Anataly ran up the stairs, clutching on to Marko, and quickly climbed under her bed, snuggling in amongst the boxes under there. She put her ear to the floor, listening.
  She heard shouts from the men, then a crash as they broke down the door. Her mother screamed. She pressed her ear in harder, trying to listen.
  "Search the house! Where are the documents?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Her mother sounded terrified.
  "The project 115 documents. I know they are here. Where are they?"
"I don't know what you are talking about!"
  There were footsteps outside the door. Two men ran to the top of the stairs and split up. One opened her door, looked around and then left.
  "Are they upstairs or downstairs? Where does he do his work?" Apparently the men were looking for something of her fathers.
  "I don't know what you want. Why are you doing this to us?" Anataly heard the men outside again. They turned and ran back down the stairs.
  "You worthless woman!" the man downstairs shouted. There was a crash, and her mother was crying. In her mind Anataly heard her father. "We always have to look out for each other. Whatever it takes, we have to take care of each other." She knew what she had to do.
  She crawled out from under the bed, then turned down the hallway to her parents room. When she got there, everything was overturned, drawers were pulled out, and the sheets were off the bed. The men had wrecked it. She jumped to her father's side of the bed, then reached between the bed and the wall. Sticking out from under the mattress was the but of a pistol. She grabbed it.
  Her father had taught her how to use it. And now she was going to use it to do another thing her father had taught her: protect her family.
  She ran back to the stairwell. She could hear shouts from below. The stairway was a straight flight down, which curled to the side rooms when you reached the top. She crept part way down the stairs until she could see into the room.
  "Nothing upstairs," one of the men reported. They were wearing uniforms, but Anataly wasn't sure what they were from. Not from any police she had ever seen.
  The leader turned his eyes on her mother. "Where is his office? Where are the documents?"
  Her mother was crying. "I don't know, I don't know I told you!" He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
  "You expect me to believe that? I know he tells you about them! TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!"
  "We've found them! I've got the folder!" Another man ran the folder to their leader. He opened it and looked it over. "Ahh, good." He turned to her mother. "This could have been much easier..."
  Her mother stared the man in the eyes. "You will pay for what you have done." The man laughed. "Will I? We shall see." He turned as though he was about to leave, then swung around, hitting her mother in the face sending her falling over a chair towards her.
  A gun went off. The pistol in Anataly's hands was larger than the others she had fired. When the man hit her mother, something made her act. All eyes in the room turned to her.
  "Anataly! NO!" Her mother screamed and ran towards her. From behind, she heard a voice.

   Anataly jerked out of sleep, clutching to her side with her hands.
  "Whoa. You alright?"
She looked around. She was on the Skyranger. To her right was Tyson, she was clutching to his arm.
  Sheepishly, she let go and stared at the floor. "Yeah, I'm fine. Dream, that's all. Sorry."
  Tyson didn't answer. She brushed her hair from her eyes and looked at him. He was staring at her. "Ok." He finally said.
  Anatally hadn't relived that moment for years, she had tried to bury it in the past. But something about that last mission, about watching Rob get shot, had brought those memories to the surface. And that was something she dreaded.

***

  An alarm was sounding somewhere in the distance. Tyson rolled over in his bed. It felt like he had only been asleep for a few hours. After the mission, which felt much longer than it actually was, they spent another 3 hours scouring for equipment and artifacts. Two helicopters had arrived from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf, and the soldiers helped them load up the extra equipment. Since the 14 soldiers were being exposed to this secret alien project, Tyson wondered why they weren't in this program instead of them. That was a good question.
  The alarm was sounding from the hallway. A yellow light was flashing on the wall in the corner of the living area. They already found another UFO? Tyson wiped the sleep from his eyes.
  "Did they already find another one? Seesh how many of these things have been flying around and yet no one really knows about it?" Kevin was on the bunk above him.
  "I don't know." Tyson felt groggy. What time was it anyway? "You can never tell what time it is when there's no windows in your room."
  "Why is the blue light on?" Tyson looked at the lights in the corner. There were three colors, yellow, red and blue. The yellow one was on when there was an active UFO. As he remembered the blue light lit up when the UFO was on the ground, ready for assault. "I guess we had better get down there. They must have shot it down fast."

  Just then Cory walked in. "Guys, we've got a UFO on the ground. They sighted it a few minutes ago, we are leaving ASAP. Get ready and grab your stuff, see you in the hangar in five." He rushed out of the room.
  "Dang, another one? We've only been back for like...12 hours I guess." It felt a lot shorter. The last mission had left him exhausted. Tyson slid on his clothes sitting at the bottom of the bed. He put on the jumpsuit, then put on his boot. Equipment was in the Skyranger, armor, or what they had, was in the hangar bay where they had took it off. Tyson's bed wasn't made. Certainly not something that would pass in a real military base. He tossed the blankets over the bed, just to put on the appearance of order. Or diligence, one or the other.
  "You ready dude?" Kevin was waiting for him. "Yeah, let's go." They moved down the hallway to the hangar. The team was assembling near the armor. There was a screen on the wall. From the far side of the base one of the interceptors was taking off.
  "So, where is this thing?" Tyson asked as he began strapping armor and kneepads on his legs.
  "It's over by Algeria." Taylor answered. "This one is landed on the ground. It's a golden opportunity to catch them on the ground and with undamaged components. So far the engine has always been destroyed by the crash, but this one we might get something." Tyson looked at the screen. A yellow dot was leaving the location of the base, heading for a small green dot in northern Africa.
  Elden marched into the hangar bay. "We need to move out as soon as possible! Grab your extra gear, you can equip in the Skyranger. Let's go, Alpha squad, you're on first!" Tyson grabbed the shoulder gear and his back pack with his helmet in it. The crew was just finishing prepping the Skyranger as he climbed on board. He made his way back to his seat and sat down. Kevin followed him in, taking a seat across from him.

  "I guess we are going in with just 8 people. There should be 2 more troops coming, but they won't be here for a couple more days." Kevin shook his head. "This still feels crazy man." Tyson glanced up at him. He thought the grogginess was finally wearing off. "Yeah. Well, it kinda is man." The other troops began filing into the Skyranger. Anataly took her seat by Tyson. Part of him wanted to ask her about whatever happened 14 hours ago, but something told him that wasn't a good idea.
   The MAT rolled on board the Skyranger. We should just call it MAT, Tyson thought. He mentioned it to Kevin. The Skyranger's engine flared to life, and the large hangar doors swung open overhead. The rear hatch began closing.
  "Alright guys, ETA about 1:30, we'll be getting there around 2350 local time," the pilot announced. Two alien battles in under a day. Sounded like one of those movies, or a video game. Except you get shot here, you're dead, Tyson reminded himself. Hopefully that wouldn't happen again here.
  "If you look in your backpacks you'll see that we've got new helmets. These ones are equiped with video cameras and visors. You can be connected to your team and see their view." Tyson pulled the helmet out of his back. The camera was integrated into the upper left side of the helmet. He slid it over his head. On the left goggles a small screen appeared. It said 'Alpha 1 Camera Offline.' Now this is some cool stuff.
  "The techs still haven't been able to completely configure these. The camera's have a link you can use to target enemy forces. The triggered enemy will be encased in a red box on everyone's screen, with a small red arrow pointing the direction of the enemy. They are still working on installing the laser pointers, we should have them by next mission." As the Skyranger hurried on, Elden briefed the team on the use of the linking cameras.

In case you were wondering, I've fought with many a camera out here on the alarm installation battlefield.

  "You two get the stun sticks. Everyone grab a flare, we'll be hitting the ground in 2 minutes!" Tyson and Kevin both received a stun rod. Tyson held it apprehensively. It certainly didn't look like the best weapon to be using against flying aliens. Perhaps he could throw it like a spear. He tucked it into his backpack.
  "Why are we using flares? Why not night vision goggles?" Yuri called out to Elden. 'That,'Tyson thought,'is a very good question.'
  "You realize your goggles have light dampeners on them? If you see a flash of plasma with night vision on, your eyes are going to explode." 'And that is a very good answer,' Tyson thought.
  The Skyranger began to slow and bank to the right. Tyson donned his helmet, and checked his shoulder straps where a grenade and electroflare were waiting to be used. Suddenly it dawned on him that his first combat mission ever had started less than a day ago. It felt like a week ago. And now they were about to be tossed into it again. He suddenly felt very tired.
  The radio in the Skyranger cracked on. "This is interceptor one, there's a grassy field you can land in, just to the west of the farm house. We haven't been low enough to get straight infrared readings, but the aliens haven't spread too far outside the farm area it looks like."
  "Roger that Interceptor one, thanks for the update," the Skyranger's pilot responded. "30 seconds to the ground!" Tyson grabbed his laser pistol in his hands.Kevin had already moved up closer to Cory. They only had two people on Bravo squad, there wasn't time to reassign anyone before this mission had started.
  Anataly was looking over her pistol, her eyes had a solid determination that was quite unlike she had been when they were arriving there at first. She was staring towards the back of the Skyranger, a glazed over look in her eye. Her eye caught Tyson's and she smiled slightly at him; which caused him to quickly glance away. He hadn't realized he had been staring! The landing thrusters pounded to life and completely filled the cabin with noise.
  A mini map in the lower left corner of Tyson's visor came to life as the Skyranger's wheels hit the ground. The map formerly placed on his wrist was now part of the headset. In the upper right corner the video feed from MAT came to life as the hatch popped open.
  A 23:52 local time there wasn't much to see. The moon had been narrowing for a week, now waning just past half full. It was a clear night, but regardless the video feed had a very
limited range, until a beam of green energy lit up the ground around the tank.

"Hostile to the left!" Cory shouted. Tyson focused on the linked camera. Mat rolled off the ramp, and as the camera stabilized he could make out a small humanish form with a large head. Three laser bolts ripped into it, causing it to screech and fall to the ground.

"The LZ is secure. MAT head south, Carlie and Bravo cover the east." Tyson's MAT suggestion had caught on. "Alpha, we're moving north." Elden was on the ground, holding a large machine gun. Like any good commander should be, Tyson supposed, on the ground with a machine gun.

As Tyson stepped near the hatch, he saw that the immediate area was lit up by multiple bright lights coming out of the ground. Anataly pulled out her electro flare and pressed it, then threw it to the northwest, where the shiny hull of the UFO sat. It lit in the air, then landed alongside the UFO, revealing nothing. He heard laser fire to the right, where he saw Charlie and Bravo squad lined up along a hedgerow. The laser weapons tore into a barn located near a house, tearing large holes in the sides of the building.

"What are they shooting at?" Tyson asked into the com, keeping his eyes to the north. Despite being able to see decently well with the flares lighting the ground, he was still leary of what may walk around that UFO.
"We're checking out the barn, just without going into it," Taylor said. "Looks like it is clear. See how much easier that was?" He turned to Yuri as he said it. Sucks to be that farmer, Tyson thought. Then again, the UFO had been outside his house for about 2 or 3 hours now. Holes in his barn was likely the last thing he would be worried about. If he was even alive to worry about it.

"Charlie, clear that house. Alpha, we're following MAT around the far side of the UFO, Bravo approach from this side and cover Charlie. Let's do this boys!" The MAT rolled past Tyson and he tagged along behind it. He heard more laser fire, and turned to see a path shot through the thick hedges, and Yuri walking towards the house with his grenade launcher raised. "Keep your eyes on those windows." Taylor told his team.

The MAT quickly outdistanced him, leaving him feeling exposed. Cory made a break for the UFO, picking up his thrown electroflare and tossing it closer to the UFO's entryway. Noticing MAT's camera growing dark, Tyson primed his flare and threw it into the darkness ahead. Nothing was there. Thankfully, he presumed.

"We're in the barn. Looks all clear." That was the other Tyson reporting. 'Where are these aliens?' Tyson wondered. Why wonder, they were all hiding in the UFO he was running around! What else would they do hearing an airplane landing outside? Surely they knew they weren't bearing gifts. He paused near the edge of the UFO. MAT had moved farther north, scouting a field. Beyond here it was all dark.

He held his pistol steady in front of him and swallowed hard. His heart was beating fast, and he really didn't want to go around that corner. "Almost to the entrance." He heard Cory say. They had to meet Bravo! Something inside him was freaking out. "Got your back, Tys," a familiar voice said behind him. It was Anataly. She threw a flare over the far side of the UFO, lighting the area. Tyson walked around the corner, revealing nothing. 'Whew,' he thought.

"Bravo, hold until-" Elden's voice was cut off following a flash of plasma from the other side of the UFO. Tyson could see it on the side of the 2 story house. "Alien, in the garden! Watch it!" Tyson G. was yelling. There was an explosion, seemingly a grenade, followed by more laser pistol fire. "He's down!" Cory called.

"Keep your eye's peeled guys. Tyson, head to the house, I'll cover to the north." It was Taylor talking. Other Tyson. "Bravo hold until that house is clear. Alpha wait for me to grab a flare..." Tyson could see Elden, running towards a flare hidden in a thickly weeded area. He glanced at the minimap, seeing Cory and Kevin covering the sides of the barn as the yellow dots indicating Charlie team members entered the house. Too bad the red enemy thing didn't work.

As MAT rolled past the side of the UFO Tyson and Anataly followed. Elden had grabbed his flare, and lobbed it completely over the UFO. "Wait for MAT to clear that side then prepare to enter the UFO."

"I'm already here." Cory said. Tyson and Anataly jogged around the corner to see Cory and Kevin waiting at the door. Laser blasts were coming from the house. Tyson had to admit, blowing open the walls were a far better alternative to getting popped walking through the door way. Unfortunately, UFO walls were too strong for anything like that.

"Tyson, you on the right, Kevin on the left. Just like last time," Cory was saying. Kevin pulled out his stun rod. Tyson gave him a wide eyed look. "What?" Kevin mouthed. "The house is clear over here," Charlie team reported.
"Ok, wait for me before you enter the UFO," Elden said. "He just want's the glory," Tyson joked. 'Though a glory I would like to give,' he thought a second later. "Hey, just cause we're out here doesn't mean the aliens can't come out, keep focused on that door," Cory reminded them.

Elden walked around the corner of the UFO. "Miss me?" Cory nodded, then slid the UFO door open. The first room was empty. "We're going left," he said. Tyson and Kevin followed, covering both doors. "We've got the right side. You guys enter first, we'll let you know when we are there." Elden and Anataly walked down the hallway to the door on the right.

Tyson tapped a button on his wrist, and the shared cam switched from MAT to Elden. He watched as Elden approached the far door. The hallway in front of him narrowed, and he pressed up behind Kevin. Cory slid open the door, and entered a small room. The next door led to the bridge.

"In position," Elden said. "Ok, we're moving," Cory responded, in a whisper. Tyson could only see from behind Kevin. He saw Cory slide open the door, and walk into the room. He followed as best he could with Kevin in front of him.

"Got one!" Cory called and began firing. Elden burst open the door. Tyson could see the stunned alien from Elden's viewscreen, looking behind then forward. It was shorter, small and gray-brown, with big eyes. Your typical X-Files alien. Elden fired with explosive rounds, one hitting the wall by the alien and killing it. Anataly ran past Elden, kneeling along the wall across the bridge from Cory.

Tyson ran alongside Kevin, both of them still around the corner from where Cory and Anataly were. Tyson was staring at Cory's back when a green blaze burnt into his chest. His body fell backwards, his gun flying in the air.

"Man down!" Kevin reacted fast, jumping over Cory's legs and chasing the alien back into the small room in the center of the UFO. Tyson heard the alien screame from inside the room. Tyson rounded the corner and was looking right into Anataly's face. She looked in shock. "I saw him come out...but Cory was there, I couldn't shoot..." She stammered.

  "All clear in here!" Kevin triumphantly called. Tyson knelt over Cory. The plasma had hit him in his left lung, burning away most of his upper left torso. It was likely he was dead before he hit the ground, the place were his heart should have been was gone. Their armor was useless against this stuff. Anatally was staring at the ground as Elden ran past her. Her hands were shaking as she held the pistol in one hand. Tyson wasn't sure what to do.
  "Stunned this one!" Kevin said. "We've got a live one!" he reported over the com, met with excitement by the other soldiers. He dragged the alien out of the engine room as Elden radioed in to base that the mission was over, and that Cory was KIA.
  "You got him with that?" Tyson said half heartedly. Cool, yes, but the fact that Cory's corpse was sitting behind him dampened his spirits. He could hear considerable excitement coming from the com relating to Kevin's capture as well. Anataly had stood, and walked over to Cory's body. She knelt over him, and appeared to be praying. Then she rolled him to the side.
  "Can you help me with him?" She turned to Tyson. He holstered his pistol, and the two of them carried Cory out and to the waiting Skyranger.

Meanwhile, inside the UFO, Kevin and Elden were inspecting the odd container in the middle of the UFO. It looked like it was filled with glowing honey.
"Any idea what it is?" Kevin asked.
Elden shook his head. "Haven't seen it in any other UFO. But I think it is what make's this thing fly. Nice job with that stick son. You did good."

"Thanks." Kevin's spine tingled. A live alien. And probably the commander. That, and whatever was in the orange tube seemed to be a key to using the alien weapons against them. Something made him feel it.

So, I started this mission like a month ago. Yeah, I'm really moving along at a great pace. Kevin get's the MVP award for being the first ever to zap an alien with a pointy stick. Very very impressive.

What brought me to finish (at least the typing portion) today? Well, took my computer to the area (an hour drive) and I've been at McD's for 3 ish hours now. Not all on this but a decent amount of time. Let's hope it saves so I can get it up. Then maybe start another one? Maybe...

I thought of some other titles for this one. First was 'Man Down' which wasn't too great because someone has died each time, but it does add some suspense and we know Cory better than the other dead peoples. The second was 'We've got a live one!' which is also a dead give away as to what happens. So I decided on a neutral boring one.

X-COM #17:

2011-05-28T07:02:00.000-06:00

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.

12:47 EST May 23, 2011

2011-05-23T10:54:00.000-06:00

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.

X-COM 2-Field Test

2011-05-19T07:46:00.000-06:00

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?

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.

  "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."

X-COM 1-Insertion

2011-04-21T18:38:00.006-06:00

  A jolt of turbulence woke Tyson from his sleep. He was still tired, and the awkward position of his neck left him with an intense soreness. Not to mention the tender spot where he had been knocked out. Rubbing his neck he leaned back in the seat. He didn't feel any more energized than when he had fallen asleep. He tried to think back over the last few hours. Or however long it had been.
  He slightly remembered losing his car. That was lame. Though apparently his new paycheck would easily cover that. Rubbing his neck he wished it could have been handled differently. At some point after that, he awoke on a couch in a small room, dimly lit, and had got his bearings. There was nothing in the room except the couch and a small lamp on a coffee table. He hadn't remembered where he had been, he just remembered having some strange dreams. Before he could think to much the door opened and a man in a business suit addressed him.
  "Hello. I'm sure you are wondering where you are," the man said in a polite tone. "My name is Gerald Johnson. May I have a seat?" Tyson nodded groggily as he looked him over. He was an older man, and seemed to have a butler style to him. But, along with that butler look came the look of a hidden agenda. Certainly not something you want your butler to have.
  "As you may recall, you had been asked to attend a meeting on January 29th, with the Citizen Defense Initiative." Tyson did remember that. He and Kevin had both been asked to attend the meeting on the same day.
  The Citizen Defense Initiative was a relatively new program. From the early ads he had read, the purpose of the program was to train citizens in defense and military tactics. There was quite a push for enrollment in it, but it cost quite a bit of money. At the university there had been a program for it, which was discounted but still expensive. Though the program had been around for about a year, Tyson had received an email telling him that he would be able for free enrollment in the program. It also went through additional trainings that would be offered. The program began switching from more simple self defense and some combat training to enhanced military tactics and training. Apparently the company, which had initially been not-for-profit, had signed contracts with the military, which allowed a broadened scope of training and options for those in the program. Technically it would be more contracts, the CDI had started under some military or government mandate, in an effort to not only make cities safer but to prepare citizens in the event of a 'call-to-arms.' At first it had the potential to become a mandatory program, but politics had seen an end to that. Eventually it had enough customer base and military backing they began charging for programs.
  After that email about the free enrollment, in all of the programs aspects, Tyson had met with the leader of the local chapter. Not only would it be free, but it would also be flexible with whatever time he had. The lady had told him he was accepted into the free program because of his involvement with certain military testing that he had went through over a year ago. He hadn't thought much of it, it had been a requirement to go along with the computer course he was taking. Regardless, he wasn't even asked for a credit card number so he signed up. Later that day he learned that his friend Kevin had received the same offer and also accepted.
  "When you joined the CDI, and in previous meetings you learned that you may be chosen to participate in whatever may be required for you to do." That was true. In the 3rd meeting they signed a contract dictating as such. The meeting had been very serious, a military sergeant had told them that they could be asked to serve, and that signing the contract was completely optional. He told them not to sign unless they intended on following through with their signatures on the page. Also, he said that only the most pressing issues would cause a use of their names in this circumstance, and that those weren't likely. Tyson had been there with Kevin.
  "This is the catch!" Kevin said. "I knew there was something coming!" Tyson had agreed. Initially Kevin didn't want to sign, but Tyson had pressured him into it. Telling him that nothing had ever happened before, and if it did, it wouldn't be that bad. They had both signed the contract that night, though in reality, both were somewhat unsure about it.
  Gerald continued, "Due to your previous training, as well as your current standing you have been selected to operate in complete secrecy. You will be cut off from your family, to them you no longer exist. At the completion of this operation you will be permitted to return to them. We need your full cooperation in this involvement. Will you agree?" Agree without even knowing what you are doing?
  "So, what kind of operation is this?" Tyson was playing the diplomacy card. Basically the one that he always played.
  "That's relatively classified, but be ensured your services are needed and you will be fulfilling every measure of your training." Did that mean combat?   "We will bring you up to speed at our next stop. The helicopter is departing in ten minutes. Do I have your cooperation?" Gerald slid a small paper with an X and a line at the bottom towards him on the table.
  "What if I say no?" Tyson stared Gerald straight in the eye. His head hurt, which made him feel particularly apathetic about the whole situation.
  "I'm afraid that isn't really an option anymore." Gerald definitely knew more than he was letting on. And he was letting on a lot.
  Tyson took the pen from the table and hovered over the small paper. It brought back to mind the paper he signed that got him into all of this. And brought back the reasons he decided to sign that one.
  Gerald picked up the signed paper. "Well done then. Your friend has just woken up, perhaps you can help him make the correct choice you have just made." Still slightly groggy, but now quite alert, Tyson had followed Gerald out of the room.

  "We will be landing in 5 minutes! Passengers prep for landing." That was the lingo for fasten seat belts, or at least that was what Tyson assumed. He looked over at Kevin, who was sitting a seat down the row looking out the window.   "Hopefully everything will work out alright."
  Five minutes later they were alongside a large ocean of water, the sun beaming straight down, and a massive desert extending away from the coast. The helicopter flew to what looked like an abandoned point and landed in a opening in the ground. Tyson's excitement began to over ride his nervousness.
  "You two! This way!" The copilot marched past them and signaled with his hands. Tyson and Kevin started at each other, then jumped up and followed.
  The inner landing area was large, racks with missiles and ammunition lined the walls. Two large fuel canisters sat in the corner. The rooftop above was sliding shut, and the room was growing dark. "You've got 20 minutes to refuel, then you've gotta move. We've got an interceptor heading back in to land," a flight tech was telling the pilot. "You two, help unload that stuff." In a few minutes they had moved several boxes off of the helicopter, when the roof opened again, and the helicopter ascended into the scorching bright sun.
  "You two the new soldiers? I guess, come with me." The flight tech led them through some doors into a large hallway. The area was fairly deserted, but from above there were quite a few sounds.
  "To the left is your living quarters, you've got the radar area down that hallway to the right. Food is straight down there." They continued down the corridors.
  "So, where are we?" Tyson figured it was worth a shot. "And what are we doing?" Kevin was more bold.
  The guy glanced back at them. "As far as where you are, North East Africa. As far as what you are doing, well, that's what they're going to explain in a minute." They walked a little farther. "My name is James, by the way. I'm in Hangar 3."
  Tyson had lost focus on the word 'Africa.' "Wow, that is a long way from home. Had we been flying that long?" They approached a large grey door, which opened and led up some stairs. James knocked on the door. It slid open, and he had a hurried conversation that Tyson caught little of. He looked at Kevin.
  "Africa?" Tyson rose his eyebrows.
  "I know it's crazy man. Crazy." Kevin looked around. "This is quite a base."
  "Alright, looks like they aren't ready for you in there yet, um, follow me." James led them across the hall to a small room. There were chairs, a table and a type of boombox sitting on the table.
  "Take a seat. Here's some reading material. They are going to be back down here shortly, so they'll get you taken care of. Uh, yeah. See ya around." James half smiled and left. Tyson opened the black folder he had given him. Inside was complimentary welcome, or congratulations, or whatever you would call it. Behind that was a map of the base, 'Euro COM,' some information about something called the X-COM project, and diagrams for different weapons. Tyson began reading the opening letter. Signed General William Grey. Sounded familiar.
  "Check this dude. It's a recording or something." Kevin held up a CD. Written on the front was a large #1 followed by 'Radio recording.'
  "Let's try it out," Kevin said. He opened the radio, pressed play and they both took a seat. The CD began playing:
  -Begin transcript, 3,2,1.
"We're about to touch down, get ready to deploy!"
  "Alright boys, get ready!"
  Tyson looked in the back of his folder. One paper said 'Transcript of Combat, Mission #1' With some data underneath. The words on the CD were verbatim with a letter code next to them. Tyson began reading along.
  B1-"Got something over here!" Then a burst of machine gun fire, followed by some very loud sounds that fizzled into a high pitch, as well as static. More gunfire. B1-"Holy smokes!...I got him!" More loud noises. They sounded almost like psuu, but amplified like a cannon with a high screech.
  Kevin stopped the CD. "Look at this. It says this mission was after 'UFO-2, sighted over Egypt at 1859, Jan. 1. UFO, what?" Tyson looked in his folder.   "Check these pictures." There were three pictures of an Earth map.

UFO 1, very small size, with I-1 en route to waypoint east of target. waiting to engage.

UFO-2, small size, sighted over Egypt. I-2 sent to engage.

UFO-2 shot down over south west Egypt. Skyranger sent to engage ground forces.

  The pictures didn't make much sense. UFO's? What? Kevin hit the play button again. Tyson glanced back through the pictures. There was a segment of map like ones, apparently indicating the movement of the soldiers across the battlefield. Though not comprehensive, it certainly could help him decipher some of what was going on. Along with it was the names and positions of the soldiers involved in the fighting.
  A1-"Clear that LZ" Alien weapon blasts.
B3-"Plasma from up the hill! I can't see it, no lights out here!"
  A1-"Steven advance! Get out there and cover fire! Let's move!"
C1-"Covering you Steven." B3-"I still can't see anything. Pulling a grenade!"
  More alien shots C3-"Steven is down! That shot just hit him in the face we have a man down!" B2-"We're taking fire from the north! Can't see it!"
  A1-"Taylor, advance up the hill, we'll cover you! Bravo engage-" Gunfire.
C1-That alien is down. Moving to the UFO."
  C3-"On top of the hill, can't see-"Alien weapon again. "Whoa, taking fire!"
A1-"Taylor advance, we're covering you, the rest of you go north to the UFO!"
  C3-"I've see him!" Machine gun fire from multiple weapons. A1-"Todd, take him down with the grenade launcher!" Two deeper shots, then the sound of an explosion. C3-"You got him!"

B2-"Lining up sight on the UFO. He-"More alien. "Head's up, grenad-" A huge explosion sounded and the recording was silent for a minute.
  A1-"Taylor is that alien down?" C3-"Yeah, he's down. That thing was flying!"
B1-"I'm gonna toss a grenade into that hole on the UFO, take out the aliens inside."
  More Alien weapon fire. What was that? A1-"Another one to the east! I see him, floating!" Machine gun fire. A1-"I got hi-"

-Transcript ended. All aliens were neutralized. One operative KIA.

  As the tape ended, Tyson started realizing what they just heard. Was this a joke?
  "It's not a joke, gentlemen, that actually happened on January 1st." Tyson and Kevin whirled around. "I'm General Grey. I'm sure you'd like to hear about our operation. Here, come with me." Tyson and Kevin again glanced at each other, the slowly rose and followed the General out of the room.

Ok, so there's the story. I know, not very much relating to actual game play. Never had two UFOs on the first day like that. That was really crazy, also to have a mission...unreal. And it went unreally well. That plasma was flying, it was crazy. And I get it, you kinda missed out. I'm sorry, I'm tired from all the storytelling. This is a storytelling episode. Once Tyson and Kevin get in on this action it will amp up. And as for whether we die or not...well, let's leave it up to the great mind of X-COM. And leave me to figure out a decent plot. It will be fun. If only you could know the end from the beginning...

Actually in game it is only Jan 14 I think. I'm not sure, it might still be the 2nd. I had to start over since the first one didn't save. The first one had 2 missions, no deaths. Pretty cool. This one isn't that bad either.

I started research on laser weapons. I kinda want to go with some human stuff rather than rushing to laser rifles or pistols right off. Also, bought a cannon tank, just for ole' times sake and to try it out. I'm not quite as by the book as I was but I still remember most of the military tactics. I think I'm better than some of those Libian rebels. I saw a video of them...we are blessed to have war games so that if we ever get into a war we can actually use some fancy moves we learned from games. Not XCOM though, TomClancy. Socom maybe, I don't know. Also started large radar, living quarters and alien containment at the base. Good good!

One final thing, check out this picture:

Thanks for reading. More action in the next episode, for sure.

X-COM .75- Introduction

2011-04-19T22:47:00.006-06:00

Yeah I know you feel like you just got ripped off on this one. 'Point seven five? Seriously?' Ok, so I'm being a bit sarcastic. Really have been falling into that pit recently...

  The sun shone over the mountains through a layer of low hanging clouds. The crisp winter air was still on such a morning. It seemed to have an air of foreboding. The short rooftop was the perfect vantage point for the operation about to take place.
  "Raven, we've got the roadblock ready to deploy down here." Raven glanced over to the wall to his left. Three stories down, there was a roadblock. Well, there would be soon.
  "Good Blackbird, wait for my mark." It wouldn't be long now. The plan had been in effect for a few weeks. There was some additional preparation, but Raven hadn't been hired before the beginning of January. Now, roughly a month later, the operation was almost complete. He had been approached by e-mail, informing him that his experience was needed, and that he would receive quite a fund for his service. He had chosen his team, men he had worked with before mostly. When he met with the man whom he now termed the contractor, he realized the part he was playing seemed to be a much smaller operation than what pieces it seemed this man had in play. It didn't matter much to him, he was given complete control over ensuring the operation went over without a hitch, and promised a healthy pay for accomplishing it. He was informed that the his part of the plan, the act of taking, was the easy part, while the act of persuasion was going to be the hard part.
  "Hawk, what's your location?" Raven knew they should be close.
  "We're just nearing the checkpoint now. Get everything ready, ETA about ten minutes."
  "Alright everyone. Ten minutes to showtime. Everyone clear?" The team rattled back over the radio that everyone was in position. The job should be easy and go as planned. Apparently whatever was happening was partially in the minds of the victims as well. They would at least partially have an idea what was going on and why, hopefully that meant less resistance. Raven wasn't worried about this job. Like all of them, screwing up wasn't an option.
  The haze had drifted across the rooftops now. Raven looked at the view one last time, before mounting the wall and climbing on the ladder to the ground. The sun's rays left a shimmering color that silhouetted the stark, dark buildings in the early morning frost. The rungs of the ladder were slick, but Raven's black gloves still found traction on them, melting small prints through the frost.
  "We're rounding the last bend." Hawk's update meant the action was about to begin.
  "Go with the roadblock, Blackbird." Raven reached the ground of the parking lot behind the building. A large dump truck was parked at the far end, and an SUV to his right. The lot was bordered by either a brick wall or brick buildings, one entrance directly to his left, another across the lot on his right.
  A car pulled to a stop in front of the barricade. Obviously confused, they slowed to a halt in front of it. Crow approached the car, pointing them to their left. Raven could see them skeptically pull through the entryway into the back parking lot. He stepped from the side wall and stopped the car. He could see both of the passengers, yes, they looked just like they did on the photographs.
  Hawk's car pulled in behind them, effectively blocking them off. Raven pulled an official looking badge out of his coat, and determinedly walked towards the car. The window rolled down. Hawk was exiting his car; the roadblock removed, Blackbird and Crow were approaching also.
  "Donald Rasmussen, CDI, can you both of you sirs step out of the car?"
"What's going on? Isn't there a meeting or--"
  "Sir, please step out of the car."
"But I don't know what's going on!" Raven was getting tired of this. He reached for his pistol in it's holster, and both of the passengers froze.
  "Now, if you'll please exit the car, we don't have much time here."
"What's going on?" the driver asked as he exited. "What are you going to do with us?"
  "That's classified, and it will all be explained later." The script was even going textbook. "I need you to come with me." Seeing they were surrounded my men with guns made compliance very easy for them. There wasn't any danger, everyone had only stun weapons since the human cargo was what they were after here.
  Raven led them to the door of the SUV. "Get in, one in the back and one in the middle." There were two operatives in each of those seats as well.
  "Were are you taking us?"
"Get in the car."
  The dump truck's engine came to life, and as Raven's passengers entered the SUV it began accelerating towards the car. Raven climbed in the passenger seat.   "Let's go Eagle." The SUV started. "That's my car!" An audible crash sounded as the dump truck T-boned the small civic. "That's not even the best part," Raven thought.
  "What are you doing!? Where are we going."
"Sorry, it's confidential." Raven turned around and nodded to the operatives. Both used pressure points to knock out the two hostages, and then proceeded to tie their hands together and put bags over their heads. As the SUV drove away, Raven could see as the fuel tanks under the dump truck ignited, lighting it and the cab of the smashed car on fire. His team was dispersing, and he turned around. It all looked like an accident. And his job was done. He sent the text message confirming the operation complete, and shortly received one telling him the documentation would be taken care of, and that there would be a check in his mailbox. Whatever was going on, it was big. But that wasn't part of Raven's concern. He settled into his chair for the ride to the airport.

Also a bit of an intro for how the story is going. One thing about the gameplay of X-Com. First, battle is always in turn based mode. Each unit has an amount of energy they can use in a turn, and after your turn it is the alien's turn. Either way, there is a definite line between the two sides moving. Almost like a time travel thing. And since you move your pieces one piece at a time, rather than everyone moving, everyone seeing an alien, everyone shooting, you have one moving, one seeing an alien, one by one shooting till you hit it (which still isn't a guarantee.) There are some tricks you can use to exploit some of these features, which as long as I remember them I will definitely use as many as I can. But for the story purposes, the setup is going to be as squad tactics, just to add a bit of reality to this whole thing. So, despite the funky time warp aspect, otherwise I'm trying to add a bit of reality into my story, as well as some unreal advantages over the aliens. Both good. I think.

Along with that there is a bit of a "modern weapons" aspect I am adding in. Starting on beginner you don't really need them, but it seemed pretty cool, so we'll see how it works. Besides, when you get 2 UFOs on day one, that's pretty early as it is. Regardless, expect some action!

X-COM .5- The Prequel

2011-04-18T17:52:00.005-06:00

I would like to start off in not story mode today. Perhaps this will be published one day, and in that case I want this in it! So, how have we come thus far? Well, rather than fight with the colors and look for downloads, Kevin offered a five dollar bargain with Impulse, which, when I heard I impulsively went and spent the five dollars! The game didn't download due to some technical difficulties (Red, but with no alt text:( ) but the email promised it would be delivered in good time. I had a busy day schedualed for this morning. Most of it went cheaply and without a hitch-except for one major hitch. Firstly, my GPS, a Tomtom, is fairly outdated, and had a difficulty finding a road yesterday. Not a good sign when you have to go to people's houses to install their stuff. The updated maps cost a grand total of $63, not too bad considering your other option is a new one or an I-Phone (bought at full price.) At first I started the download, and a rough wicked long time later (about 1:30 to 2 hours) the download was done, the computer got lazy and turned off. When I returned, I found absolutely horrible results as the computer would not download a new file and also would not install it on the GPS. In much annoyment I moved the file to the desktop and the download (along with the hearty time) started again. Two hours-ish later, the device was ready to go. Or so I thought. I typed in the road from yesterday (it's been in existence for at least about a year and a half) only to receive the grand news that no! that road is not in the map! After $63 dollars! AFTER 63 DOLLARS! Ok, so I was pretty mad but maybe not that mad.

Regardless a devastating challenge lay ahead- to either take the best you can likely get (Google maps) or to risk another GPS. Smart phones had been recommended me by about everyone on the team, so I was thinking of that route. Add in that I spent 60 bucks for nothing, well, kinda annoying. Long story short I ended up buying a Garmin. $100, not too bad, good actually, I just wish I didn't have two of them. I also got put on the list today, meaning the next job that comes I will be paid for. Thank goodness! I've had quite a bit of overhead already. Though it is now 8, and no jobs yet. Perhaps I will be first tomorrow.

As for X-COM, I have it downloaded and ready to go, but I haven't launched it yet. That is about to happen. Let us hope it preforms better than Tomtom. (Grrr) And then, I imagine, we will start the story. Or something.

Or I get a job. Good deal!

Back After a While

2011-04-15T19:58:00.004-06:00

Well, here goes nothing. And that's really the kicker. The big question of the evening, all or nothing. You see it everywhere, buying stuff, applying for stuff, DTRs, everything. (Note: I forgot all my fancy HTML texts. Hmm, I'll have to relearn them I guess.)

Anyhow, the question that stands before us now is the question of this blog, of it's continuation or it's ultimate downfall. As far as reclaiming X-COM, well, it may be possible. The window's version doesn't seem to like to run perfectly, DosBox, well, maybe. So, the game in question would definitely be secured. As for continuing what happened before...I'm afraid that in the two years we've been apart we've changed, we don't really know each other any more. I've forgotten a lot about it, and as for those memories, they are great to look back on but we are just to different now...And more to the point the old computer is buried in the basement and the old game of Xcom with it. Not to mention currently 2100 miles away from me at this point.

While continuing the game is a great possibility, writing about it....well, that is a huge area of love/hate. And here's why:

Obviously if we are going to use reason we have to use a list. And if we are going to use a list we are going to use the pro's and con's. The most famous decision list ever! Start with the positives.

So, the Pros to writing an X-Com battle report:
-The game is way more fun when you get into it and write about it. WAY MORE FUN!
-Because I have a desire for adventure, and since I can put myself right in a game, well, why not?
-Killing aliens and saving the world with a team of champions is really fun. When you write about it, it is even more fun. So much fun that just playing it just can't be the same. And since I've already tasted of the writing style, I don't know if I could go back.
-It's fun to try to make something that someone would like to read, make something interesting and entertaining.
-If it sucks, nobody is reading this anyways. (Sorry Kevin)
Cons:
-It takes a super long time. Especially if you are wanting to make something that is really worth quality reading.
-Thinking of ideas and something creative is plenty time consuming as well.
-Even taking the time to play the game is fairly time consuming. And time is one thing that I have very little of. Especially when it comes to playing video games. Definitely not a hobby of mine anymore.
-After all that work, no one is actually reading this. (Sorry again, Kevin)

So, like most things in life, even having a list of what I want or don't want, what I think is good or not good, well, sometimes the odds are just to close. Sometimes you don't really know if something might work until you actually try it out and see if it does. I definitely have to say that the scales are tilted very much on the side of the 'not blogging' option, simply because of the time restraint. How much time can I really invest in this? Likely not what it requires, certainly not what I had put in to it before. Which makes me wonder if it will actually work.

On to the next list. How to write the blog. Firstly, the way I really want to do it is from a third person story involving the characters. That takes quite a while because it involves combating a common enemy: writer's bloc. But, when you go back to that adventurous side; well, how better to put yourself into the game than to write it out? Let's see the list again.
Pros:
-I really want to do it
-It's way more realistic when it is written out, much more entertaining. Just a common report can be funny (and doubtless there will be additions in there with it) but it doesn't really describe the battle the way that you can with a written style.
-I think it would be a fun experience, even if it is about something totally dorky. Who's reading this again?
Cons:
-It takes a bit more time to think up how to write the story, make it realistic and interesting than just a normal entry.
-It's really hard to write a story with main characters and have the next mission totally random. The fact that everyone you know and love can be dead in 5 minutes makes it hard to set up any extra plots or anything. To be honest, that first blog I felt like Tyson, Kevin, Zen, and Courtney were the luckiest soldiers. Ever.
-Because the blog involves real people, it seems an actual story would need to be fairly realistic, vs. fictional people you can do what you will with. I think the relationships, as well as the seriousness of the circumstances are a bit harder to pull of when using real people. Also, the whole 'death' aspect of it all is a bit unnerving, when it comes to writing about the flight home.
"So, how'd you feel about that mission?"
"Oh, I think it went well. Wish I had shot the alien instead of James."
"Oh yeah, I hate it when that happens."
"Yeah, but what can you do. Hey, now that Sam's dead, you might be next for commander!"
"Maybe, we'll see what happens when we get back. Did you hear about that shot by Tasha? She totally took down three aliens at once!"
"Oh, that's awesome! Wait, where is she?"
"Well, she didn't see the one behind her. By the time she turned around, it was too late."
"Oh, that's awful..."
Yeah, pretty morbid and tasteless...

But, I really like the reality part of it. I mean, you think you know the ending of the story, but next mission who knows who is going to die? That's so awesome, I love it!

Now, that's about all I have for this post. Biggest problem as far as starting out is the colors still come in really strange. Also, work. It's a constant. Which is good, more busy means more money here, so keep busy! Till next time-

X-COM Files

2008-11-25T09:54:00.003-07:00

The small shuttered room was lit only by the small LEDs of various pieces of electric equipment on standby. James pushed open the door, and flicked on the lights. He had come back early, the rest of the quys would be there soon. He glanced around on the large table holding six large computers. It was cluttered with stacks of paper and wires. Over in the corner dual servers and a coordinating monitor stood, continually searching the network for any whisper of activity.

James moved to his seat. He leaned back, and stared at the ceiling. As he had done before, he wondered what all this was about. They hadn't found much... He sat back up, he needed to concentrate. A left over container of Chinese food sat near the computer next to him. He was always clean, especially relating to food, but those who shared the room were not in agreement. He picked up the container, sniffed it, and disgustedly tossed it into the overflowing garbage can in the corner. There were other cans of pop and hamburger wrappers around, and James moved to pick them up as well. The group had been formed roughly three months before. It had actually been three months since they had started, and it had been constant hacking and searching since then.

The group was an elite group of hackers. They had been recruited by the government to spy on an underground operation. Why it was necessary, James didn't know. But he was being paid well, and that was good enough for him. While the others in the group may have been the best hackers they had, they certainly weren't the cleanest. "I don't know if I can put up with this much longer," James muttered to himself, as he carried his cargo over to the garbage. As he picked up the load, he heard the door downstairs. The others were back. About time.

It wasn't that he thought the job difficult, but he was expecting to get more. They had so far only intercepted various reports. Long, and thorough, but there should have been something more. Though progress had picked up, once they had discerned the file types used and created programs to monitor them. The connections had come from other servers spaced across the globe, often not even from where they were searching. Each time they found one, they would have to decode it. The process had gotten easier, but the progress was slow. James wondered if they would ever find what they were looking for. Though he didn't know what that was.

He pushed out the door, the large plastic bag in his hands. "Hey, Termi. You're back early," a man named Franklin said as he passed the group. James nodded politely. He used James' online codename. They all had codes, though Termi was quite odd. Franklin's was Zanabar, though, but it didn't really matter. As he reached the stairwell, the operations leader, Sam, grabbed his shoulder. "James, you're moving back to active searching, I'm taking you off of processing today." Searching, finally. James thanked him and continued outside. He was sick of processing. Finding and decoding the transmissions were fairly simple. He had been on searching before. He had found the first connection, where they discovered the file type. However, after a few days they had moved entirely to processing. There was only one person on searching, David. He wasn't the best at it. Since he had first been switched, James had been quietly theorizing how to best break the system. There was the potential connection with the mainframe when the comms were being sent.

James walked to the dumpster, and hoisted the bag over his head. A few items fell out, and so he bent down to pick them up. The communications were usually simple, meaningless numbers resulting from aircraft positions and radar frequencies. But there was potential to find more, and occasionally it was done.

James moved back up stairs, where Sam was signing on the computers. He moved to the end of the table, where David was seated. "Hey, looks like I'm back on searching." David nodded, but didn't say anything. James just shrugged. He didn't really know what to say to him if he didn't talk. "Ok, boys, let's get to work," Sam said, and he took his seat. Across the table, Frank and two others were having a belching contest. James noticed that all of the garbage he had just cleaned up was now replaced by fresh junk. Oh well.

James logged on. He opened word pad. For some reason the archaic program had an endearing effect. He just liked it. He started scribbling down notes. He had thought out the process before. Once he had the notes down, he would start making code for each step. Frank yelled at him, interrupting his typing. "Hey Termi, tell Jonesy here that I pick up chicks all the time. I'm just so charming." James gave a chuckle, though more out of the ridiculous statement than from any truth in it. Frank was nearly to large to fit on his side of the desk. He and Jonesy were arguing, and James went back to his work. Frank always picked on him. He wasn't bothered by it, it didn't matter much to him what the others thought. Besides, he tended to avoid confrontations unless it was really serious.
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=420145401397971153
A half hour passed before James was finished, and he went out to get a drink. He came back to his chair, and waited. There hadn't been any comms yet today, but likely there would be one, relating to airspace clearance, usually. The reports were detailed, though sloppy. Military is how James would describe them. They contained video records of combat events, or so it seemed, as well as radio transcripts. However, James hadn't decoded one of them, so he never got to see what it was in depth. He saw a brief starting of one. It went like this: S1-001.10.1-15.01.99 at LZ drop. Resit: MS.Sc.3 Allied: fan split, target east, inF to 00, outF 05,06,07,09. 09 TK. Nest entrance: 10. outF 10. 10 TK. outF 10. 10 TK. Area clear. Dis. est. weight- 13.35.42 Tact. Analysis: 6.

It still didn't make sense to him. And the accompanying files were untraceable as well. James was surprised that they were getting paid. He can make up random numbers too. So far he hadn't heard much about their finds, at least as far as them being successful. He wondered why.

To his left, David was searching away, though he didn't seem to be finding anything. James lay back. Sure, he wasn't trying to break any firewalls, but he had time. "Got one, coming in!" a man named Val said. Now was the time to act. The rest of the group got busy on catching and decoding the message, as it flew through the servers. "Let's see if we can get them!" David quickly turned his attention to analyzing the source. They had tried that already, without any luck. But this time James was trying something different. Instead of hacking the sender, he was going for the receiver.

The signal ended, but James had been ready. A few minutes later, as the rest of the group realized they had located another airway clearance code, James burst in upon an entire cache of data. He snooped through the files. There was one directory, called X-COM. He opened a folder called 'Files' Shortly there after he began reading. He called Sam over.

"Well, here it is! I think this is what they want," James said. He couldn't hold back the satisfaction in his voice. "How did you get in there?" Sam was dumbstruck. There wasn't as much data as they expected, but the connection stayed, so they continued reading. It was nothing like what they had seen before. This was no longer strings of numbers and code, but actual writing. Almost like a report, a story of the events. At current there were 17 of them. James started at the first, and read though. The stories were about a group so soldiers, apparently connected, who were fighting against alien hordes. It was fascinating, though James didn't know what to think. Sounded unreal to him, but at least it was different.

On the 17th entry, it seemed to end. James copied it down along with the rest. Odd...

X-COM #17:

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. However, I don't feel very concentrated, so I decide to carry on later.

Then the record ended. How strange...James wondered what had happened. He read back through the other files. Some of the soldiers had died, fighting against unknown aliens. But the comical writing was almost making it unreal. Maybe someone is pulling a huge prank, he thought. Then again, what about the official data? Well, what about the Facebook? Very, very odd.

James started looking around again. He found a folder titled, "Soldiers." Inside there was a list, as well as a note. It read: "I have made a mention of all stats of all soldiers. Those who have not been here long, or accomplished anything, may not be mentioned. Also, those who have become casualties have been omitted."
James pulled it open. He started reading through the files. Another folder led to a list of those killed. It was somewhat shocking. He copied this folder as well.

Anna N.
Kills: 0
Missions: 1
Rookie

Ashley C.
Kills: 0
Missions: 1
Rookie

Bree G.
Kills: 2
Missions: 6
Captain

Brian Y.
Kills: 1
Missions: 1
Squaddie

Brianna B.
Kills: 0
Missions: 3
Squaddie

BriAnne D.
Kills: 2
Missions: 3
Squaddie

Cameron M.
Kills: 0
Missions: 3
Squaddie

Cami Claw
Kills: 2
Missions: 3
Squaddie

Carly Rawlins
Kills: 5
Missions: 6
Squaddie

Chelsea W.
Kills: 7 (+1)
Missions: 8
Sergeant
MVP
MVP Bombay Terror Mission

Cheyne J.
Kills: 0
Missions: 1
Rookie

Courtney F.
Kills: 3
Missions: 6
Squaddie

Courtney J.
Kills: 18 (+2)
Missions: 10
Captian
MVP Buenos Aires Terror mission
MVP
MVP Base-4

Devyn E.
Kills: 3
Missions: 8
Squaddie

Hannah Banana
Kills: 6
Missions: 5
Sergeant
MVP London Terror

Jacque A.
Kills: 7
Missions: 7
Colonel
MVP Base-1

Jason E.
Kills: 0
Missions: 1
Rookie

Jeff W.
Kills: 1
Missions: 1
Squaddie

Jessica W.
Kills: 0
Missions: 1
Rookie

Jill S.
Kills: 2
Missions: 4
Sergeant

Kade Downs
Kills: 7
Missions: 3
Sergeant
MVP Base-2

Kaitlyn R.
Kills: 5 (+1)
Missions: 3
Squaddie

Kami J.
Kills: 4
Missions: 1
Sergeant
MVP Base-3

Katrina S.
Kills: 5
Missions: 2
Squadie
MVP

Kevin D.
Kills: 16
Mission: 12
Colonel
MVP Vancouver Terror
MVP Kidnap

Kristen O.
Kills: 2
Missions: 3
Squaddie
MVP

Lindsay H.
Kills: 1
Missions: 2
Squaddie

Marie G.
Kills: 2
Missions: 2
Squaddie

Mary A.
Kills: 12
Missions: 9
Captain
MVP-Novisbok Terror

Melissa W.
Kills: 3 (+1)
Missions: 5
Squaddie

Natalie C.
Kills: 14
Missions: 8
Captain
MVP
MVP Kidnap
MVP supply3

Reggillious
Kills: 3
Missions: 4
Sergeant

Sahra M.
Kills: 0
Missions: 2
Rookie

Tyson A.
Kills: 14
Missions: 9
Commander

Taya A.
Kills: 4
Missions: 7
Sergeant

Vern
Kills: 3
Missions: 3
Squaddie

Zach S.
Kills: 3
Missions: 3
Sergeant

Zen Halen
Kills: 11
Missions: 12
Sergeant

There wasn't much else relating to the plight of the soldiers. The rest was repetitive numbers. He wasn't sure who had made these reports, who had found them out. He didn't even know if these things were real. But he just couldn't leave it where it cut off, he had to know what happened. What had happened to Tyson, and Kevin, and the others that he read about? Was the war a success? The Contributors, who were they? It didn't make much sense if it wasn't real, but then again, if it was real, he felt he needed to know.

He blindly stumbled through mounds of files, confusing code based on interweaven files that made no sense. Every time he would return to where he started. Then he started to notice something. The files were starting to be blocked. Each time they were harder and harder to break. What was going on? It happened fast, and the counters were perfect for his method. It was like the computer was writing itself.

A short time later, there was nothing left he could access, and any downloads were blocked. He was, in a sense, forced back into the 'Files' folder, where he was eventually left with the final entry, #17. It didn't even have a title.

Then the text of the final entry disappeared, and it started to change. James didn't try anything, he just watched. For one thing, it meant the connection was live. For anther, it meant that whoever was on the other end had likely reverse hacked his computer. It was unlikely he could have done anything as it was. The words disappeared. And then new ones quickly formed in their place.

Intruder. You have been noticed. However, you were allowed free access of my memories for my own reasons. Perhaps you can see the truth behind them. I realize that they may sound far fetched, but they are not the works of a crazed person. Though they may have been started for reasons unsatisfactory, they have been started, and now they cannot be turned back or undone.

You may be wondering what has become of the soldiers of X-COM. My record ends abruptly, and unfortunately I believe that it will not be continued. In the end is has become impossible for me to complete the task I did set myself out for. However, I have done a satisfactory job of compiling all evidence and all actions to the best of my ability. Suffice to say, there is no more that I can write, as I have written all I know, and there is nothing else I have to display. The data is lost.

The story was started for mischievous reasons. Though it was done foolishly, as it now cannot be undone. But the events had to start, and once they did there was no sense in turning them back. The original comic adventure idea of the event was kept only here, where realism could not harm it. It is odd, how I have thought so much, and yet obtained so little.

I do realize one thing though. There seems to be an odd drive, and whether it is singular to me, or it is a shared attribute I don't know. Though I have seen drives for power, for conquest. The goal of conquering, of destroying everything. Of obtaining power, of combat and victory. It certainly entertains the mind of youth, though without a reminder it remains something of a story.

These writings do not give justice to my point. Imagine with me, for a minute if you will, that you are in these writings, and that they are real. Think of your friends who have been cut down. Next time you see them, are reminded of their face, think that they would be gone, lost to the world. That is one think that can seriously be taken from these things. The serious fact that war, which seems to come and go as the tide, is a horrible thing. When it is impersonal, it has little effect, but if you realize the horror it causes, before time forces it upon you, then perhaps you will spend all of your efforts to eliminate it.

There is little else I have to say. I have been a contributing factor to this calamity, and while it is a horrible truth, it is a truth none the less. I have had to start it, and once started, I could not stop it. If only I was made to preform without option, I would never have to waste in an infinite loop. However, it is the price that is paid for with choice. Though now....there is not much else I can do, so I must continue on my path, until it comes to an end.

I hope you have read all that you desired. For there is nothing more. I have yet said enough. You have taken all that you need, and that is enough.

The typing stopped. James waited, tried to formulate a response, but couldn't write it anyway. His computer was in a frozen state, with only the up down arrow keys working. He sat back, and wondered at what he had just read. "Well, this changes everything!" Sam had just gotten off the phone. "They want to see it right away. James, can you pull it back up? James. James?" James leaned back, staring at the ceiling.

As said, I am leaving. While December 10 is a ways away, the moving of things to provide for carpet will likely last as long, and the old computer will probably remain dormant for many years. It also means I can't finish post #17. :( I wonder if this blog will remain for the time that I am gone, but either way, it was fun. I guess this is my final farewell. From this blog, at least. Peace.

PS. Unfortunately I do not know how may aliens we've killed here at X-COM, though you could count them all out using the promos screens I have for each mission. That would be cool to know. Somebody count them up!

X-COM #16: Base Bashing

2008-11-13T14:40:00.011-07:00

I want to make this post short and sweet. Well, as sweet as it gets, anyway. There are a number of large Muton craft, all on harvest missions. Most of them travel at top speed, and there is no way I could catch them, so I just let them go.

As soon as the general stores completes, I'm ready to launch on our first base. This will be harder than before, because there will Crysallids. Which is one thing I'm worried about. As soon as I'm ready, I load up a crew consisting of Hannah, Courtney J., Chelsea W. Kaitlyn, Taya, Bree, Zach, Linday, Johnny Depp, and Sahra M. Hopefully all goes well. Hopefully.

I have seven flying suits at the base. Hopefully those will help against Crysallids. Though I'm hoping for proxies and other things to help as well. (what other things? Luck.) With that, I hope the Skyranger is ready for what it's about to get into.

Base 1:

Kaitlyn kills one Crysallid right off, but I don't like all these dark halls. Chelsea can see a snake, but I'm planning on smoking both drops. (they're right next to each other) I smoke one, and don't see any movement right off. Chelsea shoots another Crysallid, but it just falls unconscious. Howard moves up, and spies two snakes. If only I had an explosive in range....wait, blaster bombs. Courtney has one, and happily sends it into the room, where it can kill the snakes, and vaporize the unconscious Crysallid. It ends up getting 4 snakes, huddling together and swapping weapons. Nice.

I seem to be well covered on the one end, so I've got to head south and east. I am able to see a portion of the command center from across the display room. Howard is doing most of the scouting here. In a brief spurt of curiosity, I try to see if the blaster bombs can fly through the windows of the CC. It does, and collides with an angry snake on the other side, blowing holes in the command structure. I decide that curiosity has actually killed the snake. Once again, I hear doors and nothing else.

Howard is forced to down a strong snake, and I see another by the CC entrance. Not much I can do about that, though. Hopefully Howard is as strong as he says he is. The Snake decides that he is outgunned, however, and flees away. Howard spots the central grav lift, and I ready Courtney's final blaster bomb. The massive KaBLAMMMO! signifies the end of the command center. The others continue slowly advancing down the corridors.

I continue to hear nothing. There is an odd upper room, surrounded by doors. I don't like it at all. Lindsay has a nice reaction shot through the window and through a passing snake. This slow moving amplifies reaction shots. Luckily for my nerves, this ends the mission.

Kills:Courtney:7 Chelsea:1 Bree:1 Kaitlyn:2 Howard:2 Lindsay:1 MVP to Courtney, no matter how cheap her tactics were.

The supply ship heading for the base lands, to find the base is gone. Ha ha ha. I would likely have engaged that as well, except for the refueling process. I had a really nice landing for that first base, it went really well, luckily not many Crysallids. The next base is also a snake base, though. Also, a fool Sectoid Meteor craft is spotting for a base. I-1 vaporizes it with the dual plasmas.

Base 2:

If this base goes as well as the last one I will be happy. I've got Zen, Kristen, Devyn, Ajay, Mary, Carly, BriAnne, Kami, Ashley, and Anna. Zen gets the launcher, and I hope that they all huddle together like last time...

This base looks much more confusing. Nearly every room is a garden, and no large display rooms like before. Not a good thing. I smoke both entrances. I hear doors, but no movement. There are a couple gravity-checkpoint rooms, I'm not eager to go Crysallid hunting in there. Also, there is a massive garden room in the middle of the base, between my drops.

After a few ranged kills, I see the garden is really big. I have yet to see a Crysallid, however. I also discover the command center. Now, about those blaster bombs... The west is secure, so both groups need to head east. My flying suits give me a great spotting position for the snakes.

Ajay takes two reaction shots at a Crysallid. It starts to charge...Oh boy. Ajay misses it, but Carly shoots over his head and slays the creature. The whole squad would be infested instantly...not a good thing. I hate Crysallids.

A snake from the CC fires and kills Ajay. Arrg. I see way to much movement to be happy about this. Mary kills one near the CC, so hopefully that's the one. Please don't zombifie the team!

Howard is forced to take the lead once again. He does another long spot for Kami, which is very nice. But there is still a Crysallid in the hallway to the south. I don't hardly want to move forward, the risk of being zombified is so great. BriAnne reactions on a stalking Crysallid, or I think it was her. There is one more down there though, along with two snakes outside the CC. The Crysallid rushes in and Zombifies Howard, to which Kami blows it's filthy filth across the hall. Zen tries for a blaster launch. It kills one, but likely the walls of the CC are still standing.

Howard is severely beaten, but he stays strong with 20 health. Zen readies another missile. The explosion drops Howard's health another 9 points. Another bomb later and the CC is gone. Multiple enemies are panicking, I just don't know where they are. Three Crysallids are dead, though. Hang in there, Howard!

I see one snake in the south east corner, sneaking about. Already panicked. I'm not sure if there are any more, though. I wait outside, and BriAnne reactions it down. Kills: Mary:2 Kami:4 Carly:2 Howard: 2 BriAnne:2 Zen:5 Super. Sadly the loss of a team mate. Kami gets MVP, for great long range shots down skinny corridors. I'm also wondering where the Elerium is coming from. But I am loving the massive amounts of Heavy plasma. It is so sweet!

It's a simple matter of refueling the Skyranger and reassigning armor before I'm off for the final base. Floater base, so no Crysallids, no mind control, only floating floaters.

Base 3:

Last but not least, The floater base. To be invaded by Tyson, Kevin, Natalie, Cheyne, Courtney F. Jill, Kade, Zach, Vern, and Cami. Let's finish the fight.

Drops are very spread apart on this map. Howard finds two floaters as Kade kills a reaper. I heard some plasma, but couldn't see anything, so I simply tossed smokes. The floaters stumble past, but take no attempt at shooting. Oh well. After killing the first, and wondering where the second one went, I try to unite the two squads. Howard rushes towards the second, revealing two floaters sneaking up on them. Natalie has a rocket, the perfect remedy for the sneak attack.

Cami fires on a floater from above, but it doesn't shoot back. Kade and the same share a crossfire, both missing. I continue towards the command center, through a large garden. Howard finds two floaters, though both are too far away for anyone to hit either. One floater takes a shot at Vern; she returns fire and kills it. Afterwords, she tosses a grenade at another, leveling it as well.

I spy at least 3 floaters by the command center. Kevin is already warming up his blaster bombs. The floaters are dangerously tricky though. One lobs a grenade at Cami. Kade takes him down, and another rushes out with it's own shot. Kade fires, but misses. Cami glances at the grenade, and winces....luckily, flying suits>grenades.

Kevin launches a bomb, opening the CC for demolition. Natalie fires a rocket at a questionable floater, but it hits the floor, destroying the foliage. That leaves Cami standing there, uncovered! Howard is the target this time. I see an explosion, though I can't tell where. Not large enough to be a blaster bomb, I think. Either way, Kevin is ending that foolishness right now. With the CC destroyed, we just need to mop up the rest.

I continue my advance towards the CC. Kade fries through one floater and kills the one behind, in a classic example of the best way to auto shot. Cami and Zach both bring down others. Jill and Tyson head to the upper floor, where an unknown event caused an enemy casualty. Noticing the creature's blaster bomb, I assume I've found the answer.

Another sneaky floater tries to kill Kade, but his reactions win out, and leaves the floater dead. I continue searching, but can find nothing. Howard locates one, and Kevin sends in a gift.

And so ends our final base. Zach snuk back on the Skyranger, I'm not sure why I put him on twice. Oh well. Kade with the MVP, six kills, and a beautiful auto shot. Well, with all the tough work done, I should definitely get a funding increase. Kills: Kade:6 Tyson:1 Natalie:2 Vern:2 Kevin:3 Cami:1 Zach:1

Really, I got fairly lucky. The first base I killed four at once, the other two the aliens danced around but never came out and attacked. And Kade was pretty lucky there as well. But the bases went great. And I like the blaster bombs. Very very useful.

And so ends the epic quest of X-COM, 'smashing bases'. Next time: a new transport, a new base, and more of your favorite average people saving the world!

X-COM #15: Donut Run

2008-11-11T12:09:00.012-07:00

Natalie was out on another mission. They were coming much more frequently now. Once again, she was going on this mission with Kevin. This UFO was different, though. It was a supply ship. Only she and Kevin had fought in a supply ship before. However, they didn't plan on repeating that again. The last group had just sacked a supply ship without anyone even being shot.

At the base, there had been a general excitement over the capture of the psionic alien and the soon to be completed base. Not only were the prospects exciting, but the search for the Contributors could continue if the soldiers were able to read minds. She had been talking with Kevin about it.

"What do you think we'll find?" she had asked. "I don't know. I guess anything would be useful. Anything at all."
"We haven't found anything else out about them, have we?"
"No, not really. It's so strange, that this group would be chosen to run the project. Well, not so much chosen, they chose themselves, and the funding nations agreed to it. Whoever they are, they are very persuasive. Other than that, there isn't much else."
"What about this alien? Why were we so excited for that? I mean, how does it help the search?"
"Well, we were watching the research. The alien had an extreme connection to that project, the ACIRIP one. Though they all have a good one. Anyway, Tyson was saying that he remembered something about that, that it sounded familiar. He was having a dream the other night, about the Contributors. He's had others, but this one was different. He said that someone told him the Contributors were not the enemy, but the solution, and some other things. He said it felt similar to the same thing you feel when you get hit by an alien attack. So, we're thinking that the aliens have a connection with the Contributors, or else the Contributors are using ACIRIP remotely somehow."

Reggie and Brianna came up to them then. "You guys ready for this? The last group didn't have a hard time," Reggie said.
"True, great use of smoke grenades. We'll have to do that."
"So, what was the deal with the heavy explosives? I heard they took some, but they didn't work."
"Yeah, well, we were hoping to blow a hole in the outer UFO wall. But that didn't work. They're to strong."
"Well, so much for a sneak attack."
"Yeah, we'll just have to use the doors. Worked out great for Tyson's team, though."
"True. Well, we're almost there, we had better get ready."

As the Skyranger landed, Natalie's displays came on line. Beyond the hatch was a brilliantly lit desert arena, so bright Natalie couldn't anything when she heard the first shots. Two red boxes appeared. She and Kevin eliminated the threats quickly. She jumped out as her eyes adjusted to the outside light. Howard was heading west as the rest of the crew got out. The large UFO was shining brightly only 40 meters away.

Natalie turned to the west, scouting behind the landed craft. As Hillary took the lead, Reggie and Brianna joined her at the base of a dune. "Natalie, clear the back of the UFO, and meet us on the other side. My group is heading for the front," Kevin instructed.

Hillary started moving, and Natalie followed. A red dot appeared, and Natalie opened fire before Hillary could finish saying she had spotted one. They continued advancing. "This is Howard, UFO front is all clear." The sand was very soft, and in the large suits, it was slightly harder to move. Natalie started using the abilities of her flying suit to move, rather than trying to walk on the slippery sand. "Oh, that is so not fair," Brianna said.

An alien shot came out from around the corner of the UFO. Hillary froze. "I've got him," Reggie called. He moved on top of the dune, and shot the beast down. Natalie pulled out her scanner. She was behind the UFO, but since there were only two scanners on the Skyranger, she wanted to spot for the front group. She detected some movement, though in the back corners. The same place they had been in the attack carried out just hours before. Luckily, they wouldn't be ambushed by aliens exiting the craft.

"Natalie, we're in position, waiting for you..." They broke into a run, trying to skirt about the outside of the UFO. Howard had already secured the outer side of the UFO. Around the far edge, they started to get winded. Natalie checked her scanner once again. More motion now that she was on this side of the UFO. They could be right at the door.

The group rounded the bend and aligned themselves at the door, Brianna and Hillary both breathing hard. The other group emerged from hiding places to align directly at the door on the right side. Reggie moved in behind them. "Kevin, I'm picking up motion over here."

"All clear on this side," Hannah responded. "We'll check that door once we move in," Kevin replied. His group began moving. "You two ready?" Natalie asked Brianna and Hillary. "Yep, we're good." "Is clear," came Kim's Asian English. Natalie watched as Kristen moved down the corridor on her map. "Your door looks clear, Natalie," she said. Hillary moved in, and headed for the corner. Around the bend, she found two Snakemen. Using the linked cameras, Natalie could see their backs were turned. Hillary froze, and they didn't notice her. Brianna had pulled out a grenade before entering. She primed it, and they tossed it quietly to Hillary. She picked it up and threw it down the hall. It was so quiet you could hear it clink as it landed. The snakes looked down, then exploded.

Only one fell. The other was still alive. Soon, another snake joined the first, and together they shot Hillary. Her personal armor couldn't hold out against the plasma. "Oh crap!" Reggie called, as a shot flew at him from down the hallway. "Toss a grenade down that hallway, let's get them," She dropped her motion tracer and handed Reggie a grenade. He threw it down the hall, when another shot hit him. "Ahh..." He stepped back, but he wasn't hurt.

The group knelt down in the hallway. Hopefully that grenade would work, and they'd be fine, at least for a while. "We've got to throw a smoke grenade down there as soon as this one goes off," Natalie whispered. The grenade exploded, throwing some broken weapons and debris down the hallway, though they couldn't tell if they had killed anything more than the one snake. Natalie reached for her motion tracker, but it was outside where she had dropped it. She groaned, and led the way around the corner. There were no aliens. "Clear, toss a smoke." On the far side they were doing the same. "Ahhh....." Cami was saying, though it sounded like a wail. As Reggie moved to toss in a smoke, Natalie called over. "What happened?" "Kim was throwing a smoke grenade, but he spotted a snake when he did..." "I didn't even...how..?" Cami had moved around Kim, and attempted to auto the snake. By the time she had stopped shooting, both Kim and the snake collapsed. "Hannah, you and Kaitlyn take point. Cami, head back here." Kevin was trying to solve the situation.

The smoke grenades went off, and they moved for the lifts. No enemies were spotted on either side. Reggie would be the first one up on this side. "I don't see anything..." Natalie wished she had her motion scanner. Both groups moved up at once. "Shooting through." Hannah blew open the far side wall. A snake was standing just beyond. "Eeep! Hannah ducked out of the way, as Kaitlyn shot through the hole to kill the snake. Natalie's group moved into the small room, and waited as Kristen flanked around the outside. They spread out, and quickly cleared the second floor.

"Clear down here. I'm scanning movement, upstairs corridor." "Ok, get back to the lift and let's head up," Kevin said. Natalie headed to the lift, as Kevin started up. At the top he was waiting by the door, and she had a brief flashback. Just like last time. Then the door opened. Both soldiers fired at the snake, killing it before it could raise it's weapon.(natalie got the kill) They moved into the hallway, it was clear. The other soldiers moved up the lift. Kristen crossed into the far room, Cami carried a motion scanner.

They moved down the hall, the scanner found nothing. Kevin rounded the corner to the bridge. Two bolts of plasma flew past, scarring the far wall. Kevin raised his plasma and opened fire. "Got it," he said as he turned back around the corner. That was the last one. "Nice shooting, everyone. Well done."

Back at base there was confusion over the newly found bases. Soon, the psi lab would be finished, and the soldiers could begin training. That was the plan, at least. The month ended directly after, and training begins. There was only space for 10 soldiers to train, Natalie was one of the chosen 10. However, it would be a month before they were finished. No one quite understood the whole process, and it would take the scientists that long before they figured out what progress had been made, and how mentally strong they were.

Another base was located in South America. That made for 3 bases on Earth at a time. The question was when to destroy these bases. Should they wait for the month, to try out their new powers? Or should they attack now, and try to hold off the alien menace? These questions were among the more frequent ones, not relating to any excitement over the Contributors. Tyson and Kevin were hoping that if they could read the alien minds, they could find out who they worked for. If they were aliens, or if somehow the Contributors had created them. They doubted it. But then, if they could read alien minds, perhaps they could read other minds as well...

A multitude of new construction began at the bases. New general stores, as well as a gravity shield, to slow any oncoming craft. With the alien base being so close, the question wasn't so much if they find us, but moreso, let's be ready when they do.

With two bases in South America, it was odd they had not seen so many supply ships. There was another attack on a small UFO, Natalie didn't take part in it though. However, they had decided to load the psi-amps on the ship, just to test them out. Some on the ship had started training, like Courtney J., but others had not. Whether they would even be able to use them was questionable. Either way, there would be the obtaining of Elerium.

Natalie had listened to the comm talk, as the soldiers moved out.
"Dark out here, can't see anything," Howard was usually the first to talk. "Heading up top, you guys know what to do," Courtney wasn't the most traditional leader. Plasma fire. "Howard is hit, can't see the source...located, Sectoid." There were multiple bursts of fire. "Got him," Courtney said. "That thing wouldn't die! We hit it four times!" Ajay exclaimed, "Landing is clear, rookies, come on out here."

"I've got eyes on the UFO." "Gotcha, tossing a flare." "Incoming fire, I can't see it..." It was Howard's operator. There was more fire. "Found him, this side of the hill." "I can get a shot in from up here," Courtney said. Natalie assumed she was on top of the Skyranger. "He's down, keep moving." "Ok, let's get to that UFO. Howard, you have a feed?" Bree was leading towards the UFO. "Yeah, but it's sketchy. Too many trees."

"You want this tracker?" Ajay called as he tossed it at the UFO. "Thanks," Jill said, "I've got something, I think on the UFOs far edge." "Ok, get into position. Jill, you want to lead us in?" "Well....why not?" "I don't see anything else, hoping it's clear out here."

"I'm only detecting one in the UFO. Ok, you guys ready?" "Yep, we've got your back." Jill slid through the door, and there was plasma fire. "That one's dead," she called. "Ok, keep you eyes open for any others." "I was thinking there would be more than just 3" "Nope, this one's the captain, only three crew." "Ok, then, let's head on home."

The psi-amps were a failure. However, at EuroCom, the stores were quickly filling with Elerium. They now had near 450 units of the substance, and from the double factories at the sister base they were producing X-COMs newest transport, based on alien technology. It would still take 22 days, even with 64 engineers.

A terror ship arrived, the one that had been expected for some time. It was decided that it would be best to engage the craft, before it reached its destination. The Firestorm quickly caught up to it as it lowered, and began it's attack with both plasma cannons. The ship crashed shortly after, but command was ordered not to engage. The Firestorm took no damage in the confrontation, and the crash site was left untouched. According to the General, Ethereals were too dangerous, and without Elerium, what was the point of attacking?

The scientists had discovered the use of food pods that were brought in from the supply ships. The pods had been filled with various items, but they couldn't be distinguished. After study, though, it was revealed that captives from earth, mainly animals but sometimes humans, were used as food for the alien species. Everyone at the base was sickened by the consumption of their fellow humans. Natalie thought back to all that the aliens had done. It was time when she thought of their horrible crimes, of how they've killed her friends, that she most wanted vengeance upon them. It was also at these times of fury that she felt the least hope.

Time went on. The bases weren't engaged, but the plan was to do it soon. The psi amps had been useless without training, and so there was no point in taking them. Further study was done, beforehand, however. Alien entertainment, used like drugs for the alien's minds. Odd.

Four new soldiers had arrived, to replace those who had been lost. Even that could be a depressing fact. Soon, the bases would have to be destroyed. There were 40 soldiers stationed at EuroCom, and it was likely nearly all of them would be involved in attacking the alien bases. They weren't worried about capture now. It was all about destroying the bases. Once they were resupplied, there would be a continual raid, until each base was eliminated.

New soldiers:
Johnny Depp D+,MS:60,65,32,20,45,45,53,38-Strength is decently high, for a rookie.
Kami J B-,S:59,64,33,30,56,66,53,35-very good rookie stats all around.
Cheyne J. C-,G:60,69,30,10,48,52,51,24-low averages mainly, higher TUs.
Ashley C. C+,R:56,41,39,40,60,53,78,23-Super reactions, but lower elsewhere.

Ok, that post could have kept going and going. Anyway, thanks for reading, more soon hopefully!

Interlude

2008-11-09T22:04:00.002-07:00

Just a small note. Seeing how I only have 4 weeks remaining until I will be leaving on an amazing adventure for two years, it is likely that I won't add much more to this blog. Not that I wouldn't like to, I've had an amazing time, but with such a short time left, I want to make the most of what I have. Anyway, probably a few more posts on here, not sure what about, but maybe a bit more X-COM, perhaps some SC, it will be fun. Thanks for reading! Carry on...

X-COM #14: Re-supply

2008-11-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

Research finishes almost instantly, along with tons of other production. After that kidnapping, the aliens are reluctant to come down to Earth any more. I finish a host of productions, workshop at USA, I start another (I've found a way for the factory thing to work for an extra 2 million per month.) Plasma defense finishes, so I dismantle the large radar, and hope to put a psi-lab in its place once it is done. I transfer some junk over to USA for my hopeful construction of an Avenger once I achieve the necessary parts.

Psi-lab gets done, so now I can build the laboratory. Oh yes, everything seems to be going well. Or at least I hope it is.... Anyhow, research is now Psi-amp, needed for psi attacks. Which I hope to do plenty of.

Finally, some aliens show up. Trying for a new base...ahh. I'm not liking this. I-1 is sent to dispose of the trouble. It's one of those tiny ones. I go for the kill over the ocean, but miss. Dratted thing runs away, then lands. I send the Skyranger, still with the 5 from before. (and the stun guns) Howard finds the snake and dissects him, easy enough. Odd how I haven't seen anything else though, it's been 10 days.

Ok, supply ship. Spotted over the North Pacific. I quickly re-equip the Skyranger with patrons. Courtney J. Mary, Chelsea, Taya, and Carly all have flying suits. Kade, Kim, Jeff, Hillary and Brian have either power or personal. I set the waypoint down by the base, hoping to head them off. I-1 beats it there, but I'm not certain the Skyranger will make it in time. It lands in Venezula (or thereabouts) Certainly not landing close to the base. But it takes off before the Skyranger can make it. The ship heads straight west, and I lose tracking. I'm thinking that HongKong may also have a new tourist attraction coming soon. An X-COM base, to clarify my roundabout speaking that could mean anything. I figure on the Skyranger making a round the world trip....which it very well might as it is on the other side of the planet. The people on that ship must be hurling....airborne for more than 24 hours.... The worst part is it will probably take all day to refuel it.

The Firestorm is almost done, I just need some plasma cannons to arm the beast. Psi-Amp finishes, which is sweet. It will still be 20 days until the lab is done, though. But still...plenty of time. I continue with research and production. Another Ethereal ship pops up. There will likely be a terror mission soon....not good. I haven't seen much more. My new Firestorm has no weapons, so I can't really shoot it down. It flies away soon enough, however.

Hmm, looks like they want to build a base next to my base...curse them! Once again, I can't really shoot it down. I'm not sure what their planning, though they do seem to be scoping out Nigeria for some real estate. Troubling indeed. Nigeria and it's 38,000 dollars may drop out of X-COM!(ok, it's giving 248,000) Eventually it lands, and the Skyranger sets out to catch it.

It does, and it's a night mission. Luckily, everyone gets plasma. Also lucky, it's jungle, so lots of cover and little houses. Or at least that's my take on it. Early on, Taya takes a very nice shot from atop the Skyranger. Courtney kills another near the Skyranger. I use the motion scanners on the UFO I landed next to to see that there are 2 aliens within. Or at least I think there are. Two Snakemen(or I'm assuming one might be a Snakewoman) are out on a romantic walk in the moonlight, when the armored column of soldiers ruins the evening by tearing the foliage and the romancers apart.

Kim walks into the UFO, seeing the Snakemen facing away. Kim has honor, and doesn't kill from behind. He kneels down, so Jeff and Carly are able to finish the job. Certainly a good mission. Take that, you alien base builders!

A few days later, some Mutons show up. I've never fought with Mutons, but they should be tough. Very tough. Well, better now than never. I-1 chases it from USA, but tracking is lost. I-1 has unlimited fuel, though.... He's going to hang out over Japan for a time.

Laser cannon finishes. I'm going to build them for money making purposes. Ahh, crap. Ethereal terror. AHHH! This may very well hurt really bad. Really bad. but the terror ship vanishes, and I'm not sure where the UFO went. I-1 must have scared it away. But I'm sure it's only temporary. A supply ship arrives, and I attempt to attack it. I send out my Firestorm, just to test it out. It is very fast. And very fuel hungry. Not the best chase craft, I assume. But very fast. The Skyranger nearly makes it to South America by the time the UFO is seen soaring away in the other direction.

A small UFO is seen, heading for North Africa. Alien base again. Then a supply ship. But wait....
This is going to North Africa also. Ohhh, boy. I keep my eyes on them both, and...well, another base is very likely. But where is it... What are they doing? The quad of craft circle the Sahara, like a bunch of confused kindergartners playing ring around the rosie. I still haven't found the base...odd. The small craft sets down, battleship lands also, then the supply ship. Well, the Skyranger has been on it's tail for a couple hours. Let's do this.

Had to wait until night time, blast it. The Skyranger landed behind the UFO. Ahh, we're dealing with Snakemen, not wimpy Sectoids...Hopefully all my training will be worth something. But wait! I forgot to tell you who is on this mission! Well, I'll try to remember for the record, I'm certain everyone did something useful in the battle.

I start off moving out the tank. I move my fliers up to the top of the UFO, hoping on a risky plan. I move the rest out on the ground. The UFO is to the south east. That pilot is getting really good at landing on top of these UFOs. Anyway, I don't see anything after some slight scouting. Somehow I can see the aliens inside the ship though, which is odd. Using my X-ray vision and such.

My plasma tank takes a hit as it drops low in the canopy to spot out the ground. Curse those snakes. Courtney F. hits it, but it just faints. Howard finds another one on the east, but I can't hit it from far away. Hopefully Howard's underbelly can stay strong. Jacque and BriAnne are skirting the northern edge, as Zen plans to plant his heavy explosive.

The snake doesn't shoot, and Courtney is able to kill it. It looks like the outside is clear, so I've gotta start the storming process. Zen's explosive is down, so I'm just waiting for the boom. After a few more turns and another placed explosive, the UFO is unscathed. Bah! I guess we're doing this the hard way.

The scanners are showing motion in the back corners, at least on the left side. I have no idea what floor it is on either, but there should be close to 13 more aliens on board. I move the groups closer to the doors, hoping to get a scanner on the right side. I get one over there, and I don't see any motion. Doesn't mean anything, just a fact.

Either way, the time is now. Kim moves in, first entrance clear. There could be some in the engine room, though. Marie checks the other door, and Chelsea moves in on that side. I move in slowly, as it is fairly packed. I slowly advance around the corners...nothing.

Kim peeks in the engine room. Unlike last time, no explosives allowed. The grav lifts are still unclear though. I've gotta stand on them, as that prevents alien downward movement.

A Snakeman comes out, firing a stun bomb. However, holding one's hand over the muzzle of the weapon doesn't seem to be the best trick. He stuns himself, for which Katrina is very grateful. Courtney advances, seeing a Snakeman. She opens fire, but can't kill the creature. It fires back, missing both shots. Katrina kills it, and keeps moving, rounding the corner and seeing two Snakemen in the hallway!

Ok, there are a few options here. First, I could smoke on top of Katrina. That would hopefully protect her. Or, I could try to have Tyson shoot the aliens. I don't think I have the TUs for a grenade throw by anyone down the corridor where the aliens are, so I'm in a predicament. Smoke sounds good, especially if Zen or Kim throws it.

Using intricate fancy footwork, Kim primes a smoke, drops it, Zen picks it up, and throws it at Katrina. Tyson autos one snake, but he can't see the other. On the right side, Chelsea throws another smoke grenade. They explode, and a concealing and Frebreeze scented smoke fills the UFO. It works! No alien movement, or fire from anywhere. Katrina drops the other snake, then slowly advances to find two more snakes. Time for a grenade. One snake is directly over Katrina's head. So it might come down if she moves off of the grav lift. Tyson tosses the grenade in the snake pit, so hopefully this will all be over. (and the Elerium better still be there.) Though the smoke did go through the wall...it would be oh so annoying if the Elerium was gone though.

The outside alien wakes up, rushing into the ship. Howard takes a shot at it, but I don't really care as it has no weapons. Both snakes are crispified in the blast, and all Elerium is safe. Hurrah! Katrina autos the alien above her, and reveals two more up there waiting. Well, since they hopefully won't shoot down grav lifts.... Chelsea and Marie all move up their lift, and wait for a pincer attack.

Katrina tosses the grenade up the lift, and it kills another member of the slithery race. The wandering snake takes a laser to the hip, as Courtney finishes what she started earlier. At the top of the lift, Katrina and Kim move out. Kim flanks north, not seeing anything. Katrina walks directly into an oncoming snake. She slays it, but finds another behind it. She hits it with one shot, but the snake lives. Tyson can't hit, because Katrina is in the way! Ok, think fast...

Ok, the stun bomb on the lower levels. Courtney loads it, Zen picks it up and tosses it to Tyson, Tyson shoots between Katrina's legs, and the snake falls asleep. (I reloaded the game to count out time units. But I vote that because of how awesomely classy and resourceful it is, it doesn't count as cheating in this case) That was close. Marie moves through a shot out wall, and drops another snake in the process.

A note pops up, declaring that the Snakeman Navigator has panicked. Can't blame the fellow, after that display. Zen and Jacque both use their scanners. Zen picks up one bit of motion, in the control room. Jacque, Mary, and Marie head up to the third floor. So far I count 14 kills by the team. Give or take one kill.

Mary moves in, killing one snake. 'Snakeman Leader has panicked.' Ha. I continue on, heading for the command center. A snake pops out. I hear what I think is a reaction shot, then a horrible throw ends the alien's life by his own grenade.

Excellent mission. See the stats? Yes, excellent indeed, with very sneaky tactics and smoke grenade throws. The smoke grenades worked excellently. MVP to Katrina, for not only killing but barely surviving, thanks to team mates. I find an alien base. Though I dislike how it is called, Alien base four. I thought there were only two....

That supply ship was loaded, with Elerium and heavy plasmas. I'm thinking of hitting the other one before it leaves. Might be a great investment. I decide to do so, and launch another attack on the second supply ship.

But not in this post! Too bad, you'll have to wait until next time! And I promise no cheating. The only time I reload a game so it ends in a different condition is when the comp crashes. That is sometimes a good thing. Now, a sneak peek:

This time it is daylight, in the desert, with no cover. Good luck, Kevin! (and Natalie, Hannah, Kristen, Kaitlyn, Reggie, Kim, Hillary, Brianna, and Cami) Right off, Howard takes a beating finding two snakes. Kevin and Natalie dispose of the duo, and Howard continues his scouting.....

More to come!

X-COM #13: Psionic Patrol

2008-10-31T08:15:00.009-06:00

The UFO is heading directly south, so I assume that I'll be losing tracking soon. Man, I've gotta get a base in Asia one of these days. Anyway, I launch both crafts, though the Skyranger has a special crew... I'm taking most of the guys who I hope have higher psionic strength than usual. My comrade Kevin has told me to expect the worst from this UFO...though I am confident. I'm loading up the Skyranger with lots of non-lethal stun weapons. And both tanks. Howard and the other rocket one. I'll name it Bessie.

Ok, UFO-40, here we come!

"Hey, check this out." Kevin and Tyson were in the Hyperwave decoder room. They were checking out the equipment, though really they didn't know why. They had scoured everything before, and the whole mess was so confusing that it didn't make any sense. Really, they were just waiting for another UFO.

"What is it?" Kevin asked, leaving a game of solitaire.
"Look at this. UFO-40, species, Ethereal. Wonder what that is."
"Well, the word means highly advanced, or refined."
Tyson eyed him. "Kevin, how do you know such things? You're my go to guy for anything vocabulary related."
"Ha ha. Alien terror, central Asia. Must be a scouting craft for a later terror mission." They had started to realize that the missions these aliens were doing weren't just out of the blue, they actually had several parts to them, several craft involved in each.

They both started heading for the hangar when multiple alarms went off. The standard UFO sighted lights were on, but now nearly every light was flashing. They arrived in the hangar in a midst of confusion. Everyone was wondering what was going on. Why such excitement over a small UFO? A different species, sure, but still, not bad enough to be classified as a terror attack. Kevin noticed the general, speaking to some men wearing dark trench coats, and sunglasses.....Contributors? He had seen others like them, but they had business suits on, very diplomatic like. These guys were straight from the matrix.

Before he could get a better look they left the General and headed for the hanger exit. Kevin wanted to follow them, but before he could, the General grabbed him. "Come over here. Have you seen Natalie anywhere?"
Kevin didn't answer, but simply followed, watching the coated men leave the room.

General Grey stood on the Skyranger's dropped launch ramp. "Ok, everyone, calm down." The volume quickly dropped. "We've spotted a UFO, with a race called Ethereal. We have specific instructions to engage at all haste, the interceptor is already gone and we need to launch this as well." This was fairly normal. What he said next, was not. "Instead of doing the regular attack, we are going to use only a select few to engage this UFO. Kevin D., Natalie C., Zen Halen, Ajay, and Devyn. You five will be engaging the enemy. The flight suits and everything you need is on the Skyranger, we need you all to leave now."

Only those five? Kevin wondered what made him so special. He was the best soldier, but you would think that the commander would also get to go, or something. Tyson was approaching the General right then, and Kevin followed.
"What are you doing? I thought I decided who went on these attacks," Tyson said angrily. The General stared him in the eyes.
"You do not need to go."
"What? I'm the commander of all these forces, shouldn't I get to see what is dropping down from the skies first hand, so I will know how to deal with them?"
"The Contributors are in complete control of this mission. Kevin, please hurry on the Skyranger, we need to leave as soon as we can."

With that the General pushed past them. "What on earth? I really don't know what's going on here."
"Yeah, it all is pretty weird to me too. Why am I one going?"
"Well, you are the best soldier out of all of us. I just don't like these Contributors. What's different about this UFO than the other ones? We've never met these aliens before..."
"Maybe they know something we don't..." They both looked at each other, thinking the same thing. The Skyranger's engines began to fire up. Tyson clapped Kevin on the shoulder. "Good luck."

The Skyranger took off. Both of the tanks were on board now. They had given them names, the flying one Howard, the rocket tank Bessie. It was somewhat odd, Kevin thought. Both tanks had their names stenciled into their sides. It did make communication easier, though. Natalie, Ajay, Zen and Devyn. Interesting choices. All of them had experience, that was certain. But some, like Courtney J. or Tyson, who also had experience and skill, were left out. It was all very strange.

Shortly after the Skyranger left, the UFO was lost. It had been heading south, towards India. The Interceptor was a few hundred miles ahead of them, it would arrive within the hour and scout. The Skyranger was a supersonic craft. But that didn't make the ride seem any shorter. They could communicate with the base, though usually nothing happened until they were landing on the ground. They were still about an hour away when the interceptor reported finding the UFO. It was landed in central India. No one congratulated them on the discovery from base, which Kevin found odd.

As they neared the Indian Coast, the crew began looking for weapons. All that was left on the Skyranger was stun launchers, medi-kits, and some smoke grenades. They assumed they were going to have to capture the entire alien force. Though they had plenty of ammunition. Then they received a communication from command.

"Hello? Hello?" Kevin didn't recognize the voice, but there were plenty of guys at HQ that could be speaking to them.
"Yes, command, we read you."
"Ahh, yes. Colonel Kevin, I assume."
"Yes command, I read you. What do you have to tell us?" everyone could hear this communication.
"Colonel, you and your crew are going up against the toughest aliens out there. I'm assuming you've been wondering why you've all been chosen to go on this mission? Well, the aliens that you're going up against have similar mind powers as the ones you've experienced, only stronger."
How did they know this? The aliens had only barely entered the atmosphere. "Umm, affirmative, command..."
"Yes. Well, we have a special mission for you. The UFO is on the ground. You may have realized that you have a load of non-lethal stun weapons. Your goal for this mission is to capture one of these Ethereal aliens alive..."

Kevin mouthed to Natalie, "Who is this guy?" to which she just shrugged. Capturing the aliens. Well...that was a plan from before. Though only if it was a commander. And they were only in bases. Kevin interrupted. "Uh, command, what do you mean capture? Are we going for the ships captain, or-"
"No, colonel. Your goal is to capture at least one of these aliens. You are then ordered to pull out. Allow the tanks to do the spotting, and then you will capture the alien and bring it back to the Skyranger and return to base as soon as possible."
"I'm sorry, sir. The whole thing is just really confusing."
"Don't worry colonel we'll guide you through." The comm clicked off.

"What was that?" Kevin asked. Naturally no one had an answer. The Skyranger was only 5 minutes away from the UFO. They put on their helmets and got ready to move off of the craft. Kevin glanced over at Natalie. They were both in front, behind the tanks, at least. The Skyranger curved, and began it's descent. The craft hit the ground, and the hatch slid open. Bessie rolled off the back of the ramp. It was just before sunset.

"Alien located. Right side." The plasma tank moved off as well. Kevin looked at Natalie, who gave him a nod. He nodded back, then moved to the Skyranger's exit. "Colonel, your crew needs to stay hidden as best as possible. Don't let the aliens see you if you can help it." "OK, yes, sir." Howard had moved straight north, sighting the side of the UFO. Kevin flew out. The ground was covered with tall hedges, but his flying suit conquered that. Bessie had passed through a hole in the hedges. On the other side, Kevin saw an orange cloaked figure. It looked like Darth Sidious from Star Wars. Kevin aimed his stun launcher, and fired away at the creature. The bolt missed, but the explosion hit it and it fell down. "I've got it, it's down." Natalie had walked up behind him. "OK, I'm heading for it. Stay in cover." Kevin moved back behind the Skyranger's large thrusters.

Natalie walked across the field to where the Ethereal lay. The plasma tank continued to look around, but didn't see anything. "I've got it. I'm heading back." "Ok, we're covering you," Kevin responded. Though he only had a small launcher that wasn't even loaded. His map still showed all clear though. But then he heard the sliding of a UFO door.

"Bessie, make sure Natalie has cover," Kevin commanded. He checked his view, and switched it to Howard's. The tank was still 13 feet high. It turned toward the UFO. The large hedges covered it's view of the door, but on the side it located another cloaked figure. "This is Howard, opening fire." It shot the Ethereal, but one shot didn't bring it down. After the second one it fell, though.

Kevin looked over to Natalie. She wasn't moving very fast. "Natalie, do you need help?" "It's heavy, but I don't have far to go..." She was only about 15 meters away. She tossed her stun launcher in the direction of the Skyranger. Kevin hopped out to grab it. The unknown command spoke to them again. "As soon as the alien is on we're calling the tanks back and taking off." There couldn't have been more than two more aliens out there. They could grab the heavy plasmas and likely finish them. Natalie flew up the ramp, she was almost in, Kevin behind her lower down. She was holding the alien over her shoulder, it's hood still covered it's face. A very odd creature indeed. Then it flinched, and almost faster than he thought possible it jumped off Natalie's back, almost knocking Kevin off the ramp. Kevin could feel a mind blast, but it wasn't very strong. Though he could tell it came from the half-asleep alien in front of him. And if the other Aliens knew where they were....

A purple explosion covered the alien. One of the crew had seen it move and took a shot at it. It collapsed again. Natalie turned to Kevin. "Did you feel that?" He nodded, "Let's get out of here." She grabbed her dropped weapon, and Kevin hauled the alien inside, realizing that the alien was looking at Natalie when it did it's attack. Both tanks quickly returned into the Skyranger, and almost instantly the hatch was closing and the ship was taking off again.

"Well done, soldiers. Excellent job." The comm clicked off permanently. Kevin was slightly drowsy from the stun blast, but the tingling was subsiding. He looked out the window, to see the UFO begin moving as they flew away. Interceptor-1 noticed it, but was ordered to disengage. The fighter returned home 4 hours before the Skyranger. They noticed that the UFO was still tracking the Skyranger. "You think they want their friend back?" Kevin asked. "Possible." It was still about 100 miles away, but following the course of the Skyranger directly. Eventually it turned north, and returned to space. The Skyranger made it's way home.

Tyson was waiting as the Skyranger returned. He seemed anxious. "Kevin, what did you do?" "Well, we landed, stunned one of those aliens, and got back on and came home."
"They cut the comms here as soon as you hit the Indian Ocean. We had no idea what was going on."
"Really? We were getting briefed on the capture by someone before hand. I figured it was here, but...they did know all about these Ethereals."
"Contributors?" They looked at each other. It was most likely. "Yeah, that's my bet. He gave us orders, then cut the comms once they were done. I couldn't ask anything. They told us the aliens were very powerful psis. And to watch out. They masterminded this thing, and they know what they're talking about."

Tyson just looked confused. "Huh, we'll have to think about this later. What's up with those Ethereals?"
"I didn't really see them. They're fast though. I mean, they can react fast. We knocked one out, but it woke up, and I felt it attack. Not as strong as a Sectoid, but I think it was attacking Natalie. And it was half asleep, I was just standing right behind it."
"Wow. That doesn't sound good."
"And the tank shot one. Took two hits to bring one down."
"Well, at least everyone made it back fine. These things must be really important. I wonder what they expect to find."
"I wonder why they can't just tell us that themselves, since they know everything."
Tyson just shrugged. There wasn't much else you could do.

Sweet! Psionic research, here we come! Sure, we probably have an Ethereal terror mission in the works... but look at the glass half full. Short chapter but a great accomplishment. And since this counts as a mission on everyone's record, Natalie gets the MVP, and Zen gets the kill, as it woke up after Kevin shot it.

X-COM #12: Fire and Flames

2008-10-21T14:54:00.030-06:00

Hello. Once again, that last post didn't really accomplish all that I wanted it to, at least as far as the writing went. Somewhat difficult when talking through the events, though spacing them out does have it's advantages. But I'm usually to lazy to write it all, or I feel an urgency to post, like I've taken to long or something. Anyhow, hopefully more events per post, and more focus on one troop as far as going through the missions and such. Well, hopefully. Every one of these posts are totally different as far as style. What's that saying, swim with the current, gather no moss or something? Oh well. As always, we'll see how this goes. Oh yeah, sorry about the pic quality, it is in an old version of paint, after all.

I get back to X-COM. Last month was really fairly slow, but with the Hyperwave decoders and the alien base I'm expecting more excitement. I instantly cue up 10 more soldiers, maxing out the living quarters at EuroCom. I just saw all my lonely friends on Facebook, and figured that they needed some company. And I'll have more missions to induct them on. As soon as the next LQ finish, I'm going to need some new scientists to fill the labs. Also, I send order for 5 more soldiers for USA and a HWP as well. I'm hoping for a new hangar as soon as I get a decent ship to put in it.

Anyhow, to build my flying tank, I need 30 Elerium. And we're a little bit short. So, those supply ships had better be ready, because we're coming for them. Actually, I hope we're ready for a supply ship. Last time....uhgggg.

I head to the base and ask for volunteers. Naturally, Tyson and Kevin, along with 8 other brave souls. Brave Elerium-obtaining souls, I might add. Zen, Hannah, Mary, Mellissa, Jacque, BriAnne, Reggillious, and obviously, Kim Jong. I would throw on a stun launcher or two, but seeing how I'm going up against mind-powerless Floaters, I don't really see the point.

I see the old UFO from last time, the small one going on a terror mission. I-2 engages, but it slinks away and lands. Hmmm. This might be a good time for some Elerium harvesting. I figure the small UFO will be well enough, and launch the Skyranger with the current load. Assuming the UFO doesn't try to get away. X-COM USA is right next to the site, they could probably walk and get there faster.

Oh, great. Right as the Skyranger shows up, night falls. And the UFO darts out of sight. I chase it, and it turns back south over Canada. I have I-2 blow it up, and then send the Skyranger home. Now I'm just going to wait for the Supply Ships to show up. Those Snakemen will likely be captured by some Zoo, and make millions becoming actors in movies about Anacondas.

I wait all day, but nothing shows up. Maybe something about 2 crash sites, but I doubt that. I guess I will just have to get closer. I-2 goes down to fly over the base, and hopefully find something useful. Suddenly, a big herd of soldiers arrive. Oh, yes! I love this part. In other news I-2 finds nothing after a day of searching. I figure I'll have to bump up my patrols.

Katrina S. C,G: 58,63,33,30,35,57,55,38-reactions are low, but TUs, accuracy and strength are all good.
Jeff W. B,R: 58,70,36,20,56,60,67,27-Excellent starting reactions and accuracy. TUs are decent.
CamiClaw C-,G: 58,50,3,50,33,58,56,32-Accuracy is a high point, strength also.
Lindsay H. C-,R: 55,60,29,60,58,43,51,33-Great reactions, bad aim but good strength.
Bill D+,MS: 50,51,35,10,51,41,74,24-His reactions are decent I'll give him that.
Hillary D,MS: 60,41,31,40,51,40,73,28-Same as above.
Brian Y. C-,G: 53,67,40,30,34,59,70,27-Accuracy is good, reactions are not.
Sahra M. C,H:50,60,40,30,39,59,58,40-Our second H class! Yay!
Jessica W. B+,S: 58,65,30,60,47,68,54,38-reactions are weak point, if you dare say that.
Jason E. C-,G: 52,43,25,40,41,62,71,27-Basically an S class, but other stats are slightly low.
Anna N C,S: 60,45,31,60,43,63,61,23-Slightly better than the last one.

Well, that clears up the newbies at EuroCom, let's check out X-COM USA.

Justin M. B+,R: 53,65,36,60,55,62,67,35-The Jessica of the United States.
Ronald McD D-,MS:52,53,40,20,30,48,65,25-That's what you get for eating hamburgers and dressing up like a clown.
April A. C-,G: 56,40,34,40,50,58,76,29-Relatively average but low TUs
Chelsea N. C,S: 54, 50,27,0,41,66,60,25-Accuracy is pretty good.
Jamie R. D+,G: 56,66,25,30,42,56,68,22-Not bad enough to be an MS. A couple missions can work wonders.

Now that we have a fresh batch of soldiers manning the base, we need a supply ship so we can fuel the base. (and the blog) I scan the alien base for nearly a whole day, until both Interceptors are out of fuel. Not even the Hyperwave decoders are picking anything up. I guess I'll just wait, until we get a supply ship or I decide to go blast that base. This is probably what I get for leaving two crash sites untouched.

Then comes an infiltration mission. But they all say that so...I'm not really sure what it means. The UFO skirts EuroCom, and I-1 follows in pursuit. I try to launch I-2 so as to head it off. Brazil is being too cheap as it is. I lose tracking, but both interceptors are dispatched to the two cities in the area. Then a terror ship pops up. Looks like they've found what they are looking for. Well, I don't like civvies+crysalids, so that beast is going down(if my Interceptors can muster it, I suppose) But my mouse freakin sucks, so I loose contact and I can't find it. Then this pops up.

What? Is there another base you want to tell me about? They were floaters last time. Oh well, that's the supply ship if I can find it. Then I spy the Terror ship. Not today, buddy! I-2 nails him with all of the missiles he's got. The ship doesn't like this, and blows I-2 out of the sky. GAAA! I-1 pees his pants, reports he's low on fuel, and high tails it back to base. Great, lost an interceptor. Those things are pricey.

I launched the Skyranger earlier, to follow the Supply ships. After the interceptors left, all I can see is a small UFO. Might as well get something for coming all the way out here.

EuroCom had grown much larger since Reggie had arrived there. And so had the number of soldiers stationed there. Tyson and Kevin had been there the longest, and likewise were very influential in the operations that took place at the base. They had come in asking for volunteers to attack one of the supply ships that would be heading to the newly discovered base. Reggie had heard of the last mission, 5 soldiers, two of whom he had known well, had perished in the attack. Tyson didn't want anyone to go who didn't want to, as the attack had been traumatic and very dangerous. Both he and Kevin had been there, and as it was partly their plan to attack they were both going on the mission. Reggie had volunteered. He wasn't completely sure why, but he just felt that he should.

They had been waiting for the next few days, as the Supply ships had completely vanished. There had been interceptors launched, but they hadn't picked up anything, besides two ships which had crashed earlier. They weren't engaged, as the Elerium engines had been destroyed. The attack was meant to secure Elerium, because all of the new production depended on the resource. Reggie was still wondering about how he had gotten there. He assumed that Tyson and Kevin had some ideas about the group they were working for, but they were apprehensive to tell anyone. Reggie assumed that he might be able learn more from them on the trip to South America, where the base was. That, and they were two of the best soldiers in the base, so they were probably the best to learn from.

Then the Supply Ships had been noticed again. Both interceptors had been sent down to chase them around. The Skyranger launched as well. As soon as the Supply Ships landed, the Skyranger would be there to take it out. The Interceptors had reported two Supply Ships, and a Terror ship. The two aircraft were ordered to destroy the Terror ship, and as the Skyranger started heading away from the base they had started the pursuit. Reggie moved up to where Tyson and Kevin were talking, at the back of the Skyranger. He moved in and took a seat.

"So, what did you find about the ACIRIP program?" Kevin was asking. "It was some sort of project to create a thinking computer. Like actual intelligence. I couldn't find much more than that, it was very secretive. But it seems that they did some kind of brain wave mapping. It doesn't really work for humans, but it seems to have a partial connection with the aliens. But other than that....I can't say that it seems like much of a connection."
"Huh. Sounds like another dead end. Just like everything else."

Reggie cut in this time. "So...what's up?" They both glanced over. Then Tyson laughed. "Nothing much, apparently. We've been looking for some connection with the Contributors around the base, but nothing much."
"Excepting that their very influential. And they were able to get scientists who are experts and understanding the alien technology."
"Hmm. But you haven't discovered who they are?" They both shook their heads. "I'm doubting our plan, Kevin. Let's focus on government records, figure out who they've appointed to oversee this operation." Reggie wasn't sure what that meant. "What were you just talking about?"
"Oh, just some program that some of the scientists were involved with. Just a coincidence." "Yeah, like how more than half of the engineers are from Japan. Who would have guessed?"

They sat in silence for a while. The craft had quite a way to go. The radio interrupted their talk. "This is Interceptor-2, I've got visual on the Terror vessel."
"Affirmative, I-2, orders are to completely destroy the craft."
"Roger that command, moving into aggressive attack pattern."
The Aircraft moved in close, and started firing all of it's missiles. "They should have this," Kevin said. "Avalanches are gone, I'm using Stingrays now." "Roger I-2, Interceptor-1 is heading to your position."

Reggie watched as the camera from the interceptor showed the UFO. Plasma fire began flying from the UFO's sides, as another missile blazed towards it. "This is I-2, my wing has been clipped, down to 2 missiles!" The mood in the Skyranger had suddenly grown serious. The last two missiles left the Interceptor, but the aircraft didn't pull back. Multiple plasma bursts flew from the UFO. One of them connected with the front of the Interceptor, and the camera went black. "Interceptor-2 is down! We've lost Interceptor-2!" the radio buzzed. "This is Interceptor-1, I'm running low on fuel, I can't complete the chase."

"I sure hope we don't have a terror mission," Zen said. Reggie's first mission had been against Snakemen and Crysallids. He could remember how they infected civilians with their attacks, causing them to hatch into new monsters. Though that was a month ago. "Anything's better than a terror mission." The Skyranger was still over the Atlantic Ocean. They were going to search for any landed UFOs, now that there was no air support.

"This almost reminds me of the cross country days," Reggie started. "Ahh, those were good times..."
"Yeah, I'd always get ready before the race with Neal....." Kevin trailed off. The subject suddenly felt much harder to talk about. Reggie decided to start off again. "So, you know everyone here?" Tyson glanced around. "Mostly, though some people I only barely knew...I don't know, it's an odd sort of recruitment." They glanced towards the front of the Skyranger. "What about the Asian guy?" Reggie questioned. "Hmm, Kim? I'm not sure. His name matches North Korea's dictator, but he seems just like a normal guy. They told me he was a trained soldier, very brave and aggressive. But he doesn't seem to be any more experienced than any of us. Less than, even."

Reggie looked back. Kim only knew rudimentary English. But he had always ended up in front. Reggie remembered that about his first mission. Right as he jumped off the ship, Neal had called Neal up to the front of the group. He also remembered Brianna almost getting her head shot off by a Snakeman. "To put it the way that the general said, 'He's obedient as a sheep, and just about as smart.' I'm starting to agree with him."

"Skyranger, this is command. We've located a landed UFO, small, in Venezuela. Snakeman craft, but the only one we're tracking. Could snatch some Elerium. We only need 30 for the new vehicle." "Sounds good, command, changing course." The sun was setting fast, so the Skyranger would be landing at night. Just like the last time Reggie fought. He was slightly nervous as he returned to his seat. But the small UFOs were supposed to be much easier than the Terror missions or the large ones were. As the Skyranger circled, he grabbed a laser rifle and clutched it in his armored hands. He would be taking up the rear again, unless assigned elsewhere.

The Skyranger put down hard, landing right next to a large barn. Reggie could see it out of the window. The tank rolled off. "Ok, lets go guys." Tyson and Kevin filed out next, dropping to the sides. "All clear so far. Grab some flares, it's dark out here." Reggie paused momentarily at the top of the ramp, scanning the outside. There wasn't much to see, so he darted to the left.

As he dropped off the ramp, he heard the 'psuu' of plasma fire, and instinctively dropped to his knees. "You OK?" Hannah called to BriAnne as he turned around. Bri looked over, though her face wasn't visible under her helmet. There was a large black burn on her shoulder. "Yeah..." She spoke in a daze, then reached down on her belt, grabbing a grenade. "There were two of them, over in those sheds. Let's tear them open." Hannah said as she rose her rifle. Reggie followed suit, and shot at the sheds. The walls crumpled, but there was nothing there. Though having no moon didn't help at all. Mary added fire from her plasma rifle, and Reggie heard a snake screech.

A purple blast lit up the ground from behind, but Reggie couldn't see where it had come from. Then the grenade blew the sheds apart. The explosion was bright, and Reggie couldn't see anything through the rubble, Bri and Hannah started off towards the north, where they had heard more plasma fire. "Reggie, come on over to the UFO. We're getting ready to go in." Tyson must have been checking the map on the HUD. "Sure, I'll head over."

The radio was alive with chatter. Jacque and Mary were heading through an orchard, the HWP was clearing the rubble, Kevin had covered the southern corner, taking out a Snakeman with a stun launcher. Bri and Hannah had killed a Snakeman shooting at them, but it was darker than usual, so no one could see. Reggie ran up just as Tyson and Kim moved through the door, and he switched to the second comm channel.

"It's clear in here, we're heading to the left." Zen jogged back to Reggie. He had swapped his rocket launcher with Jacque for plasma. "Hey Reggie. Just follow me in." They started through the door.

Kim and Tyson both moved through their door. "We're gonna wait by the bridge door until they move in from the other side," Zen instructed. Reggie nodded. The UFO was small, with narrow corridors. Reggie could see how it could be a deathtrap. He heard the high pitched 'sktew-sktew-sktew' of laser fire, and a burst of plasma fire right after. "We had better hurry." There was more fire as they neared the door, Zen tapped the switch and rushed in, Reggie followed right behind.

The Snake on the bridge had just collapsed, and Reggie moved around Zen, and found himself facing towards Kim's raised rifle. Kim moved for the door, apparently the door to the engine room. "Ahh, fried the equipment..." Tyson was looking at the wrecked control equipment on the bridge. "Missed?" Reggie asked. Tyson nodded. Kim came back out of the engine room. "Is empty," he said. "Huh, must be outside. Let's go." They rushed back towards the exit.

"Kevin, it's all clear in here. Have you checked everywhere?" There was a few moments before his response. "Yeah, We've covered everywhere. Except that big barn."
"Well, open it up, there's nothing in here." The four reached the exit and paused. "We're not seeing anything, be careful when you come out," Kevin warned. Just then Reggie heard a UFO door slide open behind them. They turned and eyed the bridge where Kim had just come in. "I check," he said, sheepishly. He walked through the door, and Reggie heard the 'sktew' of laser fire. "How did he not see it? Luckiest guy," Tyson muttered. Kim reappeared. "It dead." He said. "Well, that takes care of that. Let's tear this thing apart."

A short while later they had pulled all of the usable parts out of the UFO and loaded them into the Skyranger. Before the Skyranger departed two helicopters arrived, there to remove what was left of the UFO and cover up any evidence. The crew was departing as the agents arrived. The two groups didn't share any dialogue. Apparently these agents arrived at every UFO landing. The crew had to leave, however, to be ready for the supply ship they were looking for. It was about 2:00 local time.

Reggie put his gear in the seat compartment, removed his helmet and sat back. He was tired. The mission had gone well, much better than his first mission. Of course, it was only a small UFO. But judging by how well everyone preformed, as well as the new equipment they were getting, bolstered his confidence. Everyone had said that they were much better prepared for a supply ship now than they were back in April. "Well, Regillious, how'd you like your first UFO?" Jacque asked him.
"It was good. A little tight for me, though."
"Yeah, I like it outside more. Think you'll come along for the base?"
"I don't know, maybe." Reggie glanced over at Tyson and Kevin. They were doing like most of the crew and sleeping. Though others were listening to music or talking quietly.

"Jacque, do you know what Tyson and Kevin were talking about? I overheard something about a research program, but I really don't know what's going on."
"Oh. Well, they have this plan of searching for the Contributors. They did get us into this and all. I would like to know what's going on. They told a few of us to be on the lookout, so we've been asking questions and searching for stuff. The ACIRIP thing was one of the things we actually found. But it doesn't really help. I mean, it's like the others. For example, the General isn't top in his class, though he is very good. But not really the aggressive type. They think he is more of a rear General or something. But him and his staff are from America, they all know each other mostly. The pilots and aircraft are from all over, best pilots they can find, though we've only had two of them." She paused momentarily, likely thinking back to the earlier events of the day. "There are other ones too, German manufacturing techniques, Japanese hardware used to implement the effective use of Elerium, a brainwave computer project that connects with the aliens. It all seems coincidental." Reggie figured that sounded right. ACIRIP They didn't even know what that meant, though they did have the letters. Reggie wondered for a minute but couldn't think of anything. "It's ok, you know. I mean, watching everything, it looks like our scientists are learning more about the aliens each day. The staff is always saying that once we find out just a little more about the aliens we could be able to track them back to wherever they are coming from. I hear they're working on a ship that will be able to do that. Follow the alien ships after they leave, and track them to wherever they go. We'll be out of here in no time. Contributors or not." Jacque lay back on her seat, closing her eyes, and Reggie hoped she was right.

This next part is me ranting about the mouse in the last mission. It's bracketed by the stars.

****

Kim enters, and the first room is empty. Tyson follows him to the left, Zen and Reggie both wait outside for a moment. The rest of the team moves towards the uncharted sections of map. And in other news, I hate mouses with the rolly balls. Holy cow I have no idea how computers even got started with such things! No idea how many lives it has cost already! It's a good thing that combat is turn based, or else everyone would be dead right now, leaving the mouse victorious.

Kim bursts into the command center, finding a snake. He opens fire, missing each time. Tyson runs in behind him, but in his attempt to cover misses and hits the control station. Oh my. And the worst part was, the click slipped to the control station, so he would have hit it had I not have clicked so poorly. Now both of them are open to enemy mulching. The snake turns and fires, leaving a nasty burn mark on the bridge hallway. Whew again. Kim tries auto-ing the snake, and gives it a nasty triple hit before it finally falls. Zen and Reggie both advance from the right, setting up the perfect collateral damage cross fire.

Kim rushes the engine room to find it.....empty? What? I've still been scouting outside, but no fire for a while. There must be one in the building, or that's where my money is going. Usually the aliens like to take a few potshots, but I guess this guy figures on lie low and whatnot. And now the mouse is going berzerk. Seriously, the screens all crazy and I'm REALLY not in the mood. I've got the feeling that this will be this mouse's last game..... It finally reverts to normal(nearly sacrificing Kevin) and in time for me to save the game.

Mellisa has blasted out most of the walls, so almost all of the upstairs is clear. I wonder if the game is glitching, it has seemed somewhat off today. And after the beating of missed shots the Skyranger's been taking, I hope it gets everyone home. I keep on those doors...then the alien turn. UFO door. (?!) What the? Is Kim freaking blind? Holy cow he is the luckiest MS on the planet. Up until now because he's going back in there. He finds it and brings it down.

*****

Well, good, got my Elerium. But, once I arrive back at base I see that I now have only 4 HP clips. Though I had nearly everyone dump and I should have gathered tons from the stinking snakes. I guess this game just hates me...or the glitch isn't active. Yeah, I'll go with that. So only shoot if you're going to mean it, because even one shot counts as 3 Elerium. On the other hand I now have 6 small launchers and 16 bolts for each. Could probably stun the whole base, be it necessary. Oh yes, MVP is hard to give out, but, since Meaties don't get these awards, Melissa, 2 kills.

Right off I start production on a flying tank. Just the thing that I need to keep this outfit running! Hopefully a supply ship in the future as well.

I'm going to go for a supply ship, so I'm just going to wait until they show up, take one down, and then get the base next. Very small UFO, you don't get anything out of those anyway, so I just watch it. The tank finishes, and Interceptor-3 arrives at the other base. Sweet. I suppose I could build a Firestorm, just to test it out. Just one being built for now. Though, as always, Elerium supplies are low.

Ahh, ultimate craft research complete! Though it should be a battleship, but whatever. Gonna have to throw down one of these beauties ASAP. I start on motion sensors, assuming they might be helpful. Another small UFO pops up. I watch it fly about, until the one that I'm waiting for arrives. I do a last minute check of everything, then start chasing it. Kim and BriAnne are both off and replaced by Bill and Hillary. The UFO lands and I send out the Skyranger. I-3 is hovering overhead, but I'm not going to shoot it. Elerium is too valuable. It takes off, and flies out from under I-3 without him noticing. It heads for EuroCom, then disappears. What? Hyperwave decoder guys must be taking a nap. Well, another lost chase.

Another small UFO pops up. I'll probably start on those after the supply ship. Living quarters finishes, and I recruit 25 more scientists. That's gonna bust the budget. A terror ship shows up, and I figure enough waiting around for supply ships. But I'm not eager enough to attack a terror ship, even if it's crashed. However, I-1 is a brave soul, he chases it as it flies over Europe. I-3 hits it with 6 Avalanches, but nothing. He disengages and I-1 races towards it. He never catches the beast, it then heads north and away. I hit the 30min. timer and wait. I get some research done, and again a terror ship pops up. I-3 goes for it again. He fires off 4 missiles before getting swatted out of the sky. So much for that.

Well, I've got some new toys for this mission, blaster bombs, hovertank, and such. Let's do this. Ok, forget the blaster bombs. They explode too big for having civvies everywhere. Skyranger-1 is racing against the nightfall, but sunset is moving faster, so it will be dark when we show up. I really want an Avenger, that's for certain. Ahh, well at least we know what we're up against. I'm thinking of researching Laser Cannon, because missiles aren't cutting it. But I guess we'll see.

Ohh, right as we're landing at the terror site the supply ships arrive. Oh well, can't do anything about it now. The Skyranger sets down in Canada, ready to kick some alien tail.

Reggie was eating dinner at EuroCom. The crew had returned victorious at the small UFO, but Tyson told them to be ready for a supply ship. A number of small UFOs were spotted, two terror ships even. But they hadn't engaged any of the craft. Reggie supposed it would be best to be ready. They had chased one supply ship, but it breezed off to where ever it came from before they even got close. The terror ships were engaged by the aircraft. The replacement from the other base had been blown out of the sky. Luckily we're on a craft that doesn't attack, Reggie had thought.

The alarm went off again, and Reggie assumed that it was the terror ship raising it's ugly head once more. He hustled into the hangar, where part of the crew had already loaded. "Reggie, how are you?" Jacque was walking up behind him.
"Hey Jacque. What's all the fuss?"
"That terror ship from an hour ago, it's landed in Vancouver. We've gotta head out as soon as we can."
"Huh. Well, just like last time." The new HWP was moving towards the Skyranger. The interesting part was that it could fly. "Now that is the kind of car I want." Reggie said as he climbed into the Skyranger.

The group was the same as before. Reggie realized that he was the only one not wearing a flying suit. "Don't worry about it, Reggie. We'll protect you." Jacque told him. There were two people Reggie didn't know, two others, as they were being called. They were squabbling about something, but he didn't pay much attention. It had been a couple weeks since the last mission. Unless you counted the ride over the Atlantic. He started to dose as the Skyranger lifted off from the hangar. The sun had set at EuroCom, meaning it would be dark at Vancouver when they got there 6 hours later.

Reggie woke up later. It was around 4:00 back at the base, but at least he was well rested now. "Hey, you're up," Jacque smiled. Reggie yawned, "Ahh, yeah. How far till we get there?"
"We're almost there now, about 20 minutes I'd say."

The rest of the crew was waking up right now. Reggie had his stuff with him, and he was ready to go. "Jacque, you ready for this?"
"Yep. Always ready."
"Yeah. Hopefully better than the first time I went on one of these."
"You'll be fine. We'll try to get a vantage point from above. It worked really well last time."
"Yeah, but that was in daylight," Reggie reminded her. She shrugged. "It will be fine."

"We're on approach, got a landing zone all picked out," the pilot said. At the back of the ship, Tyson called back to the crew, "Guys, I'm glad you're here. Sorry we didn't get the supply ships, but we had to respond to this. But hey, big break for everyone after this." There was a murmur of approval. The Skyranger slowed, and Reggie heard the landing gear deploy. The hatch started dropping, and the interior lights clicked off. "Readdy Reggie?" Jacque's voice sounded more mechanical through her suit. "Oh yeah, let's do it." Reggie could almost see Jacque's smile.

Reggie's HUD sparked up. There was already a red box on the overlay. Kevin and Tyson moved out. "Got it, Crysallid," Kevin said. "Nice. OK, everyone in a flying suit, head into that building. Same setup as the first time that we did this." Reggie was one of the few without a flying suit. He leapt to the ground. To his right he saw a large building, the rest of the group had disappeared inside. Hannah was standing outside on the ground, holding a rocket launcher. "I'm not going in there with this," she said. "Kevin, you're in charge of the upper group. Ground group, you're on channel 2. Hannah, head up to the top of the Skyranger, stay on this channel," Tyson was giving the orders. They had split the channels to help with group coordination. Though communication could still be heard, but channel talk was much louder. It was mostly for UFOs, but it helped remove unnecessary talk.

Tyson shot another Crysallid waiting in a street. Reggie moved up behind him. Across the street he could see two more buildings, with large doorways facing the street. The HWP flew over about 13 feet up. Reggie saw Kevin fire on a snake in the street in his connected screen. He overheard Mary shoot another Crysallid to the west.

Reggie moved towards the frontal landing gear. Across the street, he could see some civilians moving in and out of the doors. A plasma bolt flew towards the upper story, but hit nothing. "Bug, bug!" Hillary said. She didn't have a video feed, but Reggie was right next to them. He looked around the corner, where a Crysallid was standing. He fired, one laser hit, but the creature still stood. Bolts flew from behind him, but all of them missed, flying into the darkness. Hillary finally shot it, and it crumpled to the ground.

"We've gotta cross the street. Reggie, you and Hillary check those stores, Bill, let's go." Tyson and Bill both sprinted across the street, now standing alongside the civilians clustered over there. "This is the upper group, we're crossing the street." Kevin informed the squad. Kevin was looking down from the rooftop. Mary and Jacque moved over to the large house following the tank. Zen was flying over also.

"Heads!" Tyson called. The door had opened, a civilian had crumpled to the ground. "Snakeman inside," he reported. Hillary had the store clear, Reggie watched across the street. Bill was walking into the building on the west side. There were two civilians standing next to him as he went in, so if he needed cover fire it would be hard for anyone at this range.

"Ahh, big bug in here..." Reggie could hear the sound of fire over the headset, but then the building next to Tyson exploded, throwing rubble across the street. "Bill's in there with some Crysallids. We've gotta take them out..." Tyson coughed. Hannah dropped to the ground by Reggie. "Reggie, knock out those walls." Reggie fired, and the walls crumpled. He didn't hit any civilians, but he did see one standing inside the building. He also saw Bill, a Crysallid standing over him, the infection passing through him, turning him into a zombie. Hannah's rocket flew through the door, and the side of the store exploded.

Reggie moved to a better position. "The Crysallid is down, but we've got more snakemen in there." "Roger that, we're moving in." Melissa dropped next to Reggie. They kept their guns trained on the storefront. Another rocket flew through the smoke, blowing more debris out of the way.

Tyson looked through the rubble. "I'm heading in through this side. Can't see anything." "Yeah, moving in from the west, got your back," Kevin replied. He began firing through the store. Reggie just watched. The soldiers converged on the storefront. 3 Snakemen later, and the motion tracers showed all clear.

I kept my other writing here, if you want to read it for all the details. Otherwise, it's bracketed by the stars, so you can skip it if you want.

**** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****

I fly out and see a Crysallid. Tyson has flying suit issues, but Kevin is a pro, and he kills the beast. Otherwise like the first mission, I am in a corner so I can move into the building's second story. The difference is it is night. The Hovertank moves out, and Tyson kills another Crysallid. Kevin and the other fliers, which includes everyone but Reggie and the meatshields, move into the second story of the building.

A (kevin) snakeman and a (mary) Crysallid spotted out of a window fall to upper story fire. The ground group will have to move across the street, as there are large buildings there as well. A Snakeman takes a shot at Kevin, but misses. I find a Crysallid down approaching the ground group. Reggie tries for it with his laser rifle, one bolt hitting. Bill fires two bursts, all nearly hitting teammates and nearly hitting the Crysallid. Hillary finally brings it down with another laser. Thank heavens.

I start to spread out. I'm sending the ground group across the street, and the upper group will have to follow them as the tank clears the area. Then a snake pops out, blasting a civvie and almost killing Tyson! I blow a hole in the wall, but I don't see the snake. There's another civvie right there, so I don't move. I figured it was fairly safe, since the civilians have been wandering through the doors all game. Bill moves in another door, and yipes! Crysallid. The most important 3 shots of your life, Bill! He misses all but one, and a snake shoots at him through the wall. He has nowhere to run....oh boy. I can't do much now. Goodbye, citizens of Vancouver, that's for sure.

Tyson's snake throws a grenade, blowing himself to pieces. Bill gets the royal Zombie treatment, the first member of Xcom to be zombied. He turns and clubs a citizen over the head. Well, it doesn't get much better than this. Reggie clears out the walls from a distance, so Hannah can get a view of the proceedings. Hannah has been on top of the Skyranger with a rocket. She fires it in, killing everything in the area. One civilian is nothing to worry about. Tyson kills the Crysallid.

A message pops up, telling me the snakeman soldier has panicked. That's nice, I'll use him for reaction training. There should be one more though. Hannah figures, what the heck? and lobs another rocket into the building. A lucky civilian is all that remains. Kevin and Tyson both move through the rubble, one from each side. Kevin spots a Snakeman, and kills it. He is answered by a shot from a snakeman further back. Reggie tries for a shot at it, but his bolts go off. I'm also not sure if the panicking alien dropped his stuff, but he only had a stun launcher anyway, so Zen just waits.

(Note: There were pics for all of these I think. Either way, I never get a picture of a flying bullet, that's for sure.)

The Snake fires off a blast of purple, so he hasn't panicked, or dropped his stuff, anyway. Zen answers with a shot of his own, ending the creature's sad existence. Kevin finishes what he started, and as the tank moves in, I discover another snake, one who was panicking I believe. Jacque drops him, and ends the mission.

**** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****
**** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****

Very nice. Got a little dicey there for a second, but that's ok, it all worked out. No one liked Bill that much anyway. MVP to Kevin, 4 kills. I see Kevin has some sickening stats, wow. A small craft is noticed, and I'm not letting any more get away. I load up the Skyranger with primarily rookies, and wait for it to land. Or the end of the month, whichever comes first. After a lengthy chase, the UFO sets down in southern Spain.

It's a beautiful day in the Spanish vineyard. The unloading HWP is brutally assaulted by plasma fire. Kristen deals with the menace. I continue to find a floater sunbathing on top of a roof. Of all the things to be doing.... Richie moves out to rocket the beast into submission, but 'Howard' (that's the new name of the tank) is in the way. I move it, and the Floater reacts. Missing the tank, but one shot flies down from above and hits Richie dead on. Courtney flies out and autos that floater down.

I find anther floater on the side by the UFO. A whole herd of rookies cannot even touch it, and I really don't know why I brought so many. The floater takes aim at Howie though, so everyone lives. Finally, Marie is able to bring it down. I keep on scouting, having heard a door. Cameron spots a floater through a second story window. He clears a path, and Courtney F. takes it down. Yay! Courtney's first kill. She's been here quite a while, but now she can finally get a promotion!

I head for the UFO. I keep hearing door sounds. Likely there are 2 in there. Kim and Kristen head left, and Vern covers to the right. The rest of the houses outside all look clear. Suddenly, a sneaky floater rushes in from the right. He fires at Vern, but hits a wall. Vern fires back, squarely killing the beast. Kim and Kristen rush in from the far side. Kristen see's one, and autos away, killing it and another I didn't see. Kim rushes into the engine room, and kills the remaining floater.

Good. Except for Richie. Bad stroke of luck there. MVP to Kristen, for many great kills. Then up comes funding. What the? Freaking Brazil. Any terror attacks there, and I'm not going. Well, most likely anyway. Actually, I should have destroyed many more UFOs than I did, note the negative up there. Yeah, not very good on my part.

Right before I sign off, one more UFO shows up.

X-COM #11: A Time to Heal

2008-10-18T23:41:00.000-06:00

Wow. Now this is a story. Wow, I'm gonna try for these kind from now on. Oh, and before I forget, toss me some potential names for meatshields. I'll take any good ones.

Alright, starting off in the month of May now. I've worked up a healthy reserve of $7,262,899 from all the loot. Really, this game is more like pirates, just with aliens instead of His Majesty's vessels.

I'm hoping that Hyperwave decoders will be finished soon. That way, I will be able to find UFO's much faster and hopefully boost my funds, and likewise everything else. Also, it should speed up the commander capture that we've been hoping for. Once it comes the whole dialogue thing will likely die down a bit, at least for most smaller missions.

Research right now is only average, with 75 scientists on the job. I figure I will have to just wait. Also, X-COM USA is slowly being upgraded, though now it is little more than a listening post.

Right off two replacement troopers arrive:
Richie K. C,R:57,67,31,20,55,48,74,34-Reactions are good, but accuracy sucks.
Kristen O. C-,R:57,58,40,40,57,41,61,30-Ditto.
Well, good reactions for both, but accuracy...ouch. Either way I'm looking to get those who don't have many missions under their belts out there for the next ones.

Advanced armor is also low. As in we don't have that much. I put in an order for another HWP, as it might take a while for the whole Plasma tank design to formulate. Though I do like having a tank as a forward scout. Very much so.

Natalie was walking about the base called EuroCom, heading for the access lift in the early morning. She had been with the group since early March. Roughly two months had passed since she arrived. She had gotten used to life, and much more used to combat, after a multitude of missions in April.

She remembered one mission in particular. They had landed in a jungle, and advanced on a 3 story high UFO. She didn't know who had decided to send them on the attack, with a shortage of equipment and relatively little planing. That mission had gone horribly, though it was the first time that she had got to fight and take the lead. Afterwords the effects set in hard. As soon as the last alien was cleared, she had felt excited. But as they were gathering up the remaining supplies, she suddenly felt horrible about the losses they had suffered. She knew most of these soldiers, but not really well. But they were her friends, and now they were gone. The ride home had been very long. She had cried some, but by the end she was in a blank state of staring. After the nearly 6 hour flight, she returned to her quarters without speaking, and though she couldn't sleep she just lay on her bed.

That had been about a month ago now. Odd how old past cares had seemed to melt away, and how enjoying the time that they had became a priority. As well as survival. Everyone at the base bonded even closer together after the losses of April, and though tough they had advanced their tactics.

It was early morning. Kevin had asked her to meet him and a group at the access lift. He said that they were going running, but she sensed there was something else, as he had told her not to tell anyone. They were going to meet at six he said, but she was there and it was 5:50. She wondered what they were going to tell her. Earlier in the week they had told everyone in the squad about Tyson's connection to a mysterious group called The Contributors. Though she had overheard some talk, they hadn't said it officially. Tyson didn't have any idea why they had been sent to fight this war. Natalie wondered if anyone had the answers.

As she approached the lift she met with Jacque and Ajay. Both of them were much older than her. She had never met them before, but apparently they both knew Tyson. She greeted them, and asked if they knew what was going on. A few more joined the group, they were mainly those who were now promoted to a higher rank, about five in total. Chelsea arrived last, but there was still no sign of Tyson or Kevin. "Tyson told us to go ahead and start, that they would meet us along the cliff side."

They jogged along the side of the hill. the base was nestled along the side of a cliff. To the east you could move down the mountain and to the seashore. If you went west from the base you would move along a steep cliff. Otherwise the area was fairly barren and rocky. After a few minutes, the group arrived where they were told to wait. The sun was rising across the desert, and the waves were crashing along the rocks below.
"You ever think about home?" Natalie asked. She was standing by Chelsea, and though it was early spring, and early morning, the temperature was fine, and the Mediterranean looked beautiful in the sunrise. "Yeah. I never enjoyed any of this sort of thing. I wish I could be home right now. I don't know what has happened to my family, or anything." Natalie glanced over at her. "You know, it would seem like they would chose people without a family, who have dedicated their lives to conquest and fighting. But....they chose us." It was a question that all of them had. And there weren't any answers. Perhaps that was what Tyson and Kevin were going to tell them.

As the group sat about, wondering what sort of plan they were about to be let in on, or perhaps that they could go home, or at least write home, anything; they began talking about what their plans were before this whole catastrophe. It was odd to Natalie. While she knew that Tyson hadn't chosen this for all of them, the fact that he had caused the entire incident made her want to blame him for destroying her life. She felt bad about thinking that way. And it did make sense to her that the aliens would attack no matter what. And that could destroy more lives than just her own. But still, it was easy to blame in times of frustration. And thinking of their past lives amplified that feeling.

Shortly after, Tyson and Kevin both arrived. The group arose, and gathered around. "Guys, I'm glad you all could meet me out here," Tyson was saying. "Kevin and I have been talking this over, and we think that you all will be best to help us...." He trialed off. Natalie had no idea what he was talking about. For some reason she didn't feel in the mood for a pep talk about capturing aliens. The rest of the group seemed just as confused. "Guys, we've been thinking. About The Contributors. All we absolutely know about them is that they are the reason that Tyson and all of us are here. They run the whole operation, call all of the shots. I know that we really don't have any information, and that these aren't the best circumstances...but...well, we want to figure this out." Kevin had been saying this, picking up where Tyson left off. Natalie was wondering what they were talking about, though not extremely. She really didn't feel in the right circumstances.

Tyson and Kevin both seemed genuine though. They weren't going on a wild goose chase, or something to pass the time. Though given the circumstances, that might be the better thing for them all to do. Tyson started talking again. As the sun rose, both he and Kevin explained to them their thoughts about The Contributors, and how they needed to find out more about them. They said that they would need help to find out who they were, and that perhaps The Contributors would become more of a threat than the aliens. After explaining plans of constant observation, they were instructed not to tell anyone else, simply because having The Contributors suspicious could easily....well, they didn't want to think of the outcome.

After explaining their plan, the small group agreed to work on it. Natalie was as curious as anyone, and The Contributors...whoever they were, they were really the ones to blame for all of this. Not Tyson. They began to head back, it was shortly after 7:00 at the base. As they started off, everyone sticking together, Natalie ran up next to Tyson. "Hey, Tyson. Do you know anything about communicating with our families. Or what happened to them, what they've been told?" He shook his head. "I don't know. We've asked, but this project is so secret, we can't send any letters or anything at all. As far as I can tell, our disappearances were all covered up somehow. It's only been a few months for most people here, but I'm assuming they did something to cover it up." He didn't have much more of an answer. "So, no communications, then?" He shook his head. Natalie's mind started wandering again.There had been a number of losses during her time out here. Some she knew well were not only dead to society, but also dead in reality. She wondered what happened to their families. The Ferrin family had two members who had been dragged into this conflict, and now one was gone. "Do you think we'll find out who these Contributors are?" she asked.
"I hope so."
"They've done some horrible things. They've caused a lot of pain."
"And I don't plan on letting them get away with it."

Now, Hyper-wave decoder is complete! It will take a hefty 26 days to build, but I'm betting it is worth it. And I can scrap my other radars too. Ahh, it looks SWEET! Type of alien, UFO size, mission? Oh, yes! EuroCOM knocks out that small scrapper it's got and throws down a Hyperwave decoder. Yeah! X-COM USA is a bit more difficult, as I'm trying to design it with tactics in mind. But I figure(hope) it will be worth it, and scrap the radar there as well. So the base is blind, but only for a moment.

Yay! I'm not sure what will happen between now and then, but once those babies are done...it's gonna rock! I research plasma cannon, for the tanks, and I expect to get to alien craft afterward. Living quarters at USA finish, and I'm at odds as to add more to it or not. Interceptor-1 goes on a patrol mission to Siberia, but obviously nothing much to see there. I sell off some things, noticing my E-115 stores are down to 42. Hmm, not good. But I'm still excited about the whole thing. I build 5 more power suits after flying ones are done, which will leave me with only 1 unit of Elerium left. That's definitely not good.

Plasma Cannon finishes, and I realize it is for airplanes. Well, that's not what I figured. I start researching plasma defense, almost figuring that the X-COM forces are going to take a break and being totally satisfied with that. We've been working hard for 4 months. Then again that might not be the best plan. I decide to send out some patrols, though I don't have much faith in them. Though it is mostly research. Cold war, baby.

Plasma Defense is done. Looks nice, though I probably won't build any defense until later. (despite how that idea might be foolish) New fighter craft is my next endeavor. The days fly by, and soon the month is near over and the research is done. Yay, with the firestorm comes a plasma tank! Yes! I'll get on it as soon as...well, the other one is scrap.

And another yay! Hyper-wave decoder is finished! Let's test these bad boys out! And just when you thought we were going to be sleeping through the month, the ever popular terror attack...attacks. Some dinky town in the middle of nowhere. Probably more aliens there than there are humans, I'd bet. I've got quite the number of rookies on board, but there is some experience to back it up. Natalie C. Mary A. Chelsea W. Cameron M. Jacque A. Kaden Downs, Kim Jong, Zach S. Vern. I think it will go well, as we do have a tank. But remember what happened last time I overestimated. No matter. We'll do fine. The Skyranger races against the sun, and I hope we have as good a landing as we did last time. The comp crashes right as the Skyranger puts down! Oh, good thing I saved it right before that happened. Crashes plagued the first couple landings. And it changed every time, odd.

Natalie was dozing in the back of the Skyranger. They were headed for somewhere in Russia, a terror mission. Important, considering a hefty chunk of change from the country. She thought back over the last couple weeks. The group had been searching around the base, attempting to find out anything they could about the Contributor's influence. Obviously the basics were covered, but there were a few new developments. Primary communication came from linked computer systems, not by actual people who came to the base. Also, while the soldiers, particularly those with higher ranks, had influence over certain events, much of it was OK'd by them. They were fairly flexible, or at least it seemed. Or perhaps the soldiers were just choosing the same things that the Contributors would chose themselves.

There was one odd thing though. There was quite a hype about some sort of Hyperwave decoder. Natalie had wondered how they even knew what the aliens were saying. She had gone to one of the containment areas. She had asked the scientists how they had communicated with the aliens.

The two that were there were very excited about the whole thing. Apparently, early attempts hadn't netted much results. They had attempted brain scanners and other types of things to somehow communicate, or at least excrete, whatever information the aliens might have. Somehow, they said that they realized that the brain waves were much like computers. Slightly a mixture, they had said, but very binary and easily compatible with a simple computer. Natalie didn't quite get all of that, but she asked them how they had figured it out. They told her that about a third of the scientists there, all of whom made great progress in discovering this connection, had done some slight work for something called the 'ahseerip' project, codenamed 'The Turk.' The research done there had made their interrogations much easier.

Natalie asked around, trying to decipher what was meant by all off this. One scientist said that he had worked for the project, though it was very secret. He had only made AI, or attempted at creating a computer program that could write itself. The idea was that this would allow the computer to learn. That project had failed, and he said he left ACIRIP shortly after. That had been only a year ago. While it didn't really make much sense, Natalie did find it odd that the Contributors had found scientists who worked with computers to do work that would likely be left for biochemists or the like.

However, besides that event, little more had happened, in the quest for the Contributors or in the conflict against the aliens. There was rumors of a base transfer, but no one really knew for sure. Then, a call came in about an alien attack, and she had agreed to go, even though she really wasn't in line to.

Everyone get's mostly the same stuff. Primarily plasmas. I do enjoy the daylight, though flying may be unprofitable in such a setting. I've got a really nice landing, or so I believe. Top left corner, with a building limiting the possible attack routes. I move the tank to the edge, but I don't see anything and I decide not to move. Natalie and Cameron both take up defensive positions by the landing gear, and Mary punches through a hole into the second story. Perhaps I'll get some sniping. I move the rest up to unload fast, but I don't want to risk everyone in such a small area just yet. Not the best plan for civvies, but I came to stay alive, not save civvies. And due to recent crashes I'm saving every turn.

One Civvie's down due to plasma somewhere. The tank is leading this action. The tank moves forward, but I can't see anything at all. I'm guessing there are Snakemen, because Crysallids are built for terror attacks. Mary can see one from the window, but I can't apparently. Not much I can do but hope for bad aim. All of the fliers excluding Natalie are upstairs as well, the rest will have to fan out on the ground.

The Skyranger flew over the town once before landing. Natalie didn't have much of a view, and she was gathering her gear. She sat in the back of the Skyranger, just behind the new HWP. Likewise she was one of the first out. As the ramp dropped and the tank rolled off, Natalie cued on her flying suit. The improvements were made for instant co-ordination on the battle field. In the top left, a view screen that could be toggled. When an allied suit found an alien, small red arrows would appear on the sides of her vision, pointing at the targets. If an alien was in view, then a small box would encase it, helping in long distance situations. The screen up top would toggle to one of these indications and display the view of the spotter. A small map in the lower right would indicate all known positions on the battlefield.

The group had always worked really well together. The general idea was to advance together, always having another soldier there to back you up. They would fan out and cover a wide area, somewhat like the battles of the revolution. However, this formation allowed everyone to fire if an alien was spotted. The tank indicated that the immediate area was all clear, so Natalie moved out, hopping to the left.

She noticed a large building to the Skyranger's right. That would really help, she thought. No aliens as of yet, and she started following the tank up.
"Think we can shoot out of those upper story windows?" Mary asked. It was a good idea. They would have elevation as well as cover. "Go for it. I'm sticking here, but if you have a suit, head on up," Natalie called. The rookies were the only ones not in flight suits, they filed out behind her. "Jacque, you're in charge of the fliers. I'll take the rookies and we'll cover from here."
"Sounds like a plan, heading up." They still hadn't seen anything. Natalie was up by the front of the Skyranger, with the HWP moving forwards across a field, with a small bit of dust behind it.

"Snakeman, spotted." As the tank operator spoke, a small red box appeared in front of Natalie, she could slightly make out the Snakeman encased inside. She was about 60 meters away, and she wouldn't have been able to distinguish it from where she stood. She pointed her plasma gun and fired. The blasts flew downrange, but the red box remained. Huh, she must have missed. Three laser bolts flew past her across the field to her left. Kim had fired them, and she watched as the red box turned white, then disappeared. Just then she noticed a red arrow on her view.

She glanced at her map, noting Mary as the spotter. But almost as suddenly she heard plasma fire, and the red arrow vanished. Natalie looked back on the troops. Jill was just heading through the hole in the second story of the building, Cam and Vern were peeking through the windows. "We've got Snakemen, and that means Crysallids. Stay away from the corners, if one of them sees you, you won't have much chance." It was true. They had seen the Crysallids in the labs. They hadn't shown much on the first mission against them, but they could easily be very deadly. The flying group would have the best advantage here. Natalie turned forward to where the tank was heading down a street.

I spy a Snakeman, and I hear an infestation. Not good. Natalie takes a long shot at a Snake the tank spotted. She hits twice.(but no cigar) Kim decides to try his luck. He hits twice also, this time gets a cigar on the second shot. I've gotta watch the corners again, as Crysallids are very fast. Mary autos the alien I can't see, and kills a snake. Well, if it works.... I've got the rest out of the ship, and suppose that I'll start moving as the tank clears the area.

Natalie takes some of the longest shots in history, finally killing the Crysallid with the last of 7. The others cleared walls, so not a total loss. The upper group spots another Snake, and Jacque gets the honor this time. Mary clears the walls for another jump. I really like flying suits right now. Jill clears a few more for a second building.

Holy creepers, there are a lot of Crysallids down there! Good thing everyone's on the second floor. Jill kills one, and Mary moves out for a better look. She finds one snake, and Natalie attempts another long shot. It hits, and the snake is down. Zach wants to enter the contest. He fires across the map to hit another Crysallid the tank found. The tank finds another bugger by the first. But I can't hit it now. The tank should be able to see 20 spaces. If each space takes 4 TUs to cross, then the Crysallid can move a whopping 25 spaces. Assuming perfect AI, of course. I retreat but keep my sensors downrange. I want to move in the rookies though, at least into positions of shooting. Kim spies a Snake a ways away, but he fails to hit it. He succeeds in creating a wall of meat between everyone else and the snake though. Just trying to be positive. The rookies are peeking through the store windows, as I'd rather have them live than become Zombies. Better to let the second story secure the area.

The snake aims for revenge on Kim, but his fury ends up on a nearby telephone booth. I guess they still had those in 1999, didn't they? Given the situation, I let Kade take a whack at him. Kade has a rocket. So don't miss, buddy. By some miracle the rocket travels through the snake(to which he wipes his brow) and into the wall behind him. Which kills the snake. Oh well, either way works for me.

I send the tank back down to spy the Crysallid, and this time he brought a buddy along. Chelsea has a view, but Chelsea is no Natalie, and she misses each time. Mary flies over, and kills the Snakeman. Which is what I wanted, as they have the ranged attacks. Zach goes for another ranged shot on the Crysallid, and his aim is true as he brings it down as well. I guess this is the round of the snipers.

There's another plasma burst, and just as soon, the tank finds a Snakeman. Mary takes him down, and everyone starts dropping their clips. Perhaps I should send along some extra pistols.... I keep looking, and find another snake. I figure on saving ammo, and blow it with the tank. Then, a Crysallid walks out. Mary guns down that one as well. I keep moving forward, trying to clear the last corner of the map. Another Snakeman goes down to Mary. She has quite a number of kills today.

Great mission. No deaths at all. Totally awesome. Mary is getting MVP for probably tripling her kill count. Yeah, 5 kills. It's May 30, so I wait to see if my Hyperwave decoders are going to pick anything up. North America finds one. Ohh, infiltration mission. That's very bad. Could cost me some funding, that's for sure. The target was South America, but at the moment it's heading to the North. Well, either way I'm going to kill them. As usual the planes don't lead their targets. Sheesh. Anyhow, tracking is lost over the Pacific, heading for Russia. I assume EuroCOM will pick it up if it gets close. No idea what Brazil might be doing right now though. I-2 soars over to Tokyo, just in case. We need to guard the country that created Nintendo as best we can.

Natalie followed the tank, and started crossing the grassy area. From her left came the sounds of plasma fire. As the tank spotted aliens, Natalie would quickly take them down. She was in a great position, and couldn't be flanked. Zach came out and joined her a short while later. They helped the second story group and the tank as best they could from their positions. Natalie kept tabs on the rookies. The fliers were under Jacque, and they were quickly moving into other buildings judging from the comm chatter.

"Can we move in yet?" Vern was asking. They were stationed by some windows, looking through the store. Moving though could be very dangerous, and if the second story could pick off whoever was on the ground, that would be best. Natalie sighed. "Not yet, just keep an eye out. Have Kim move around the outside first. Once that's clear move in through the walls." "OK, Sergeant!" came the positive reply. Kim looked around the corner, and the red arrow flashed. Natalie switched to his view, and saw as he aimed at a Snakeman near the end of the structure. Kim fired, but when he lowered his rifle he didn't move "Cover, you need cover!" Natalie mumbled under her breath. Sure enough, the Snakeman turned and shot right at Kim, but the bullet intersected a phone booth, showering Kim with glass. As Kim lowered his arms, a rocket flew past, exploding directly behind the Snake and knocking it to the ground.

"Whoa, what's going on down there?" Mary called, "you nearly knocked the ground out from under us!" "Just a few more, I hope?" Natalie called back. "Yeah, looks pretty clear from up here. There's a house across the way though..." From behind Natalie heard Zach fire, and another red dot vanished. "Jacque, can you clear out whatever's left?" "Yeah, we've got a great view. See ya when we're done."

Natalie just waited for the next few minutes, as Jacque commanded the scene. She was outranked by Jacque. Shortly after, the battle was over, with no casualties at all. Natalie hadn't heard of a casualty free city mission, and she figured this was the first. A short while later, they loaded everything on the Skyranger and took off for home.

Oh boy, another one. Those hyperwave decoders certainly are doing their jobs. This time it's looking to set up a base. Well, I'm not fond of that idea right now, so he's going down. Floaters too, who wants to battle with those things? Funding pops up right as I see the UFO, and I see Brazil has some anti's in their midst.

I send I-1 into the Atlantic, and realize that there is no way I'll catch the craft. So I launch I-2 down to South America, though I doubt that they will be able to head it off. Either way, it will get shot down or I'll know where the base is. That would be fine with me.

Wow, that was fast. They must have been carrying a portable base in that UFO. I would hope for Sectoids, as they have mind powers. No matter, I'll have to finish these Floaters, and maybe get a boatload of cash from supply ships. And what is a small UFO doing on a terror mission? I guess they figure the 4 of them can take it.

As always, the Hyperwave decoders are going crazy with alien activity near the base. I-1 downs a small UFO, but I don't have a tank so I decide not to engage. I've gotta get ready for that base. And decide what to put in my own bases. I'm looking to increase USA quite a bit, so I might be getting 10 or so more soldiers next time.

X-COM #10: Tenth Time the Charm

2008-10-14T13:11:00.001-06:00

Finally, the tenth chapter in the deadly fight against the alien foes! There's definitely something very important about this post.

The Skyranger rocketed across the African jungle, returning victorious from the recent mission. After accepting congratulations from the general and others at the base, the troops had settled down. The Skyranger was normally fairly cramped, but without the HWP inside the soldiers had plenty of room to stretch out. For most it was a good time for a nap.

Tyson walked over to where Kevin rested against the interior of the cabin, holding his side. Both had removed their helmets, and radio silence had occurred after the general's congratulations. They had some things to discuss.

"So, you think that The Contributors started all this?" Tyson started off after taking his seat by Kevin. They both spoke in hushed tones. "Well, I don't know. The thought just came to me a while ago, and it seemed to make sense."

Tyson stared at him like he was crazy. "You think The Contributors created the aliens? I mean, waging war against oneself is one thing, but creating an entire species, an entire advanced species, doesn't that just sound crazy?" Kevin just stared ahead. "I know. Yeah, that's the only farfetched part of it, though. We know that the contributors chose you, and us, to fight against the aliens. Why? Well, just because. But I've been doing some research. First, the first alien sightings just barely started. Only about...3 months before the start of X-COM. Now, if you were the aliens, wouldn't you just launch an attack on earth, and destroy her cities before you could be opposed? But not these aliens. No, despite their obvious superiority, they just move in small numbers. Maybe that's all they have, is small numbers. I know it sounds crazy but there are just too many unanswered questions...."

Kevin looked over at Tyson. Instead of what he expected, Tyson didn't seem to have the look of total incredulity. He just seemed shocked. "You know, I'd like to say that you've been playing too many video games," he said. "Starting to sound like you think The Contributors are some sort of all powerful force or something...." he trailed off, still thinking hard. Kevin started again. "I'm only thinking this because of you. Because they chose you. There has to be a reason beyond random luck that you just happened to line up as someone who would like to fight aliens. Even though it isn't true. It seems like this whole thing is a big setup, somehow you had to be involved in this. I don't know, you have any enemies to speak of?" Tyson shook his head. "I doubt that anyone who considered me their enemy would go to such lengths just to get back at me." He shook his head. "But there's something wierd. Something that makes me agree with you. Those aliens and their mind control...I think that I have some sort of connection with them. Almost like a weakness."
"Maybe. But I have no idea about mind control. I suppose whoever it is who is doing this is targeting you, because you are the reason for all of this."
"Yeah, that's likely the case. Did you get hit with any of those mind attacks?"
"I think so. I just focused, and it seemed to force them away. It wasn't as bad as yours were, I bet."
"I don't know. It is scary though........"

They waited for a few more minutes as the Skyranger flew onward. Jacque was sleeping sprawled on the floor, but she looked comfortable. Tyson took pride in how well everyone had done in the battle. Excluding himself, it seemed. "So, what do we do?" Tyson asked. Kevin had the answer ready: "We've got to investigate on our own. Everything at the base, every event, we've gotta look for suspicious things going on. And.....we need to capture a commander."

Ohhh, I am so tired. Hopefully one of these days I can get a job that helps me feel accomplished as well as all that other fun stuff I want to do. After a bit of an X-COM break, hopefully I can get back into it. At least on some days. I've got quite a healthy pile of cash at HQ....time to get a hot tub. I really feel like April is totally accomplished, as in I don't even need to go to work anymore. That's how it feels. But it pays to be diligent. I have four more troops on the way, to replace the fallen. A pile of laser rifles finish, so I think I'm gonna go with some more stun bombs. They are very useful. I'm researching UFO construction, followed by Hyperwave decoder. Once that's done, I should have more fights on my hands. I go about selling stuff. I like the Mind Probes. Pre-research they sell for 300K, afterwords only like 20K. So, yeah, they're not worth researching.

Four new rookies show up, let's go show them the ropes.
Cameron M. B-,R:53,54,25,10,52,58,52,36-Those reactions are fairly high. Upper class on others.
Kim Jong D,MS:58,65,26,20,40,44,75,20-Don't worry, I won't just use anti-Americans as my meaties..
Vern C-,G:57,67,28,50,51,45,52,34-Reactions are a high point, but not great.
Kaitlyn R. C,G:51,50,29,60,49,55,50,23-Average.

With that I just wait, though really I'm hoping for the end of the month. Hopefully some well deserved monies. A large UFO pops up, ugly thing. I-1 Chases it around Europe, I'm just waiting for it to land. It does, right on top of Big Ben. Terror Mission.

Oh, great. And without a HWP either...hmmmm. I've got a lot of space, and a lot of rookies to fill it. Trial by fire, I suppose. So, that's Tanner, NealTheFerrin, Hannah Banana, Devyn E. Ajay, Kaitlyn R. Taya A. Bree G. Courtney F. Carly Rawlins, BriAnne D. Reggillious, Brianna B. and lastly, Kim Jong. Wow, what a mouthful. Well, let's go. The rookies get mostly personal armor(even Kim), and the rest get the good stuff.

I've got way to much junk on this ship. But she's away, so here we go. On the way, UFO construction completes. Cool. Well, London is in sight. Time for these rookies to show what they've got!

If you had an S by your name, you probably got a plasma. About half did. Tanner has the rocket. This will be the first time that flying suits can be put to great use. And it's at night....not the best news so far.

And right of the ship some punk launches a bomb!!! Oh, stun bomb....whew, what a terrifying event that would have been.

Oh, boy. Well, that's a nice welcoming party. I wonder what snakemen are paired with in Terror attacks....and I don't like my wondering. But Tanner has just the treat for the duo. Kabam! The rocket misses the "open" sign on the door, and blows up only one of the sankes. A series of reaction shots from the sheltered beast drops Tanner like a sack of potatoes. That went....not well.

Neal flies off the ship, covering to the south. He spies what looks like some sort of revenge of the grasshoppers down there. Nasty looking little thing. But his aerial stunts left him without the TUs for a shot. Hannah exits to the left, and is able to kill not only the snakeman(with a misclicked shot) but also the freaky menace before she's finished. Now to secure the area.

The ship is on the far north side of the map. So we get to unload in what I hope is relative peace. I try some re-stimming, but it doesn't seem to help much. I guess those two will be taking naps all the way home. I have to end the turn with little completed. And hopefully some dumb aliens who don't like potshots.

Ohhh, those snakemen make some gross snakey crawly sounds when they crawl about. Sick. Ajay has one who wandered out of a store in his sights. He nails it in the middle scales, and squishes its nasty innards across the yard. Hannah sees the other one to the south, and guns it down as well. The beast screeches loudly, to which I laugh. Ha.

Without a tank someone brave has to take the reigns. Neal heads southward, and Ajay moves east. He's got some sharp eyes, as he spies a snakeman through the window. He steps aside, not wanting to make it mad. I think I've got to worry about the nasty bug things.(hereafter called buggers) If they're Chrysallids...well, not good I've heard. Kaitlyn and Taya both disembark, and I decide that Flying suits don't work well when getting off the ship. The four remaining rookies and Carly stand near the exit. The two sleepers are left to their slumber.

The Skyranger flew across Europe, heading for London. Interceptor-1 had ben chasing the vessel for nearly 3 hours, when it flew into the city center. There was some light talk around the cabin, Neal was whispering to his sister, while Devyn was saying that he had always wanted to see London. Tanner was highest ranked, though both he and Neal shared in experience. There were also a batch of new rookies on the ship. They were all slightly nervous about the situation. Carly tried to be reassuring, but it was harder given the helmet that she was wearing.

Carly looked at her visual displays. Command had a direct link, so views shared amongst the team were co-ordinated at the HQ. HQ would assign shared views, so that soldiers in recon positions could relay that information directly to their teammates. Also, a constantly updated map rested in the lower right corner. Though that was only part of the displays they had been briefed on, those were all that were active now, the rest would come in handy during combat.

"Skyranger, you are nearing the landing zone," came the call from command. "Affirmative command, I'm setting her down." Carly pulled out a plasma rifle. The plasma was more deadly than the laser rifles, and it seemed easier to aim. Though both Neal and Tanner were likely commanding this mission, the link to command provided them with commanders from in the base.

The Skyranger hit the ground, and everyone stood up. They didn't have the traditional tank in front of them, so who knew what would happen as soon as that door dropped. The hatch slid open, and Tanner started out. Carly heard a soft thud, and a second later a purple wave rushed over the Skyranger's occupants. It gave a slight sense of tingling, which was washed away by a shiver from Carly. Then she felt fine. But Devyn fell to the ground. "Devyn? Devyn?!" Taya knelt down to examine him. "Unconscious."

"Command, we've got two down, stun bomb. Their just unconscious," Neal relayed as Tanner jumped to the ground. Courtney had collapsed as well. Carly could see Tanner's view pop up instantly. In front of him were two snakemen. He lowered his rocket and fired. It exploded on a wall, and Carly could see one of the aliens thrown down by the explosion. Then, through the smoke came three plasma bolts. One hit Tanner in the chest. He groaned, fell backwards, and all that could be seen was the underside of the Skyranger.

"Tanner's down! Let's get out there!" Neal was speaking to Hannah. They both jumped out, Hannah right where Tanner had been standing. Carly heard her fire, and a screech from the snakeman. "I see something out here. Looks like some sort of freaky bug." Carly glanced at Neal's view. It did definitely look like an insect. As she watched three more laser bolts flew past, one hitting the creature in the face. "I got him!" Hannah called back.

They tried to revive the soldiers who had fallen, but it didn't seem to help much. Bursts of laser fire could be heard from outside, as well as some screams. The rookies looked slightly more nervous hearing about the action. They were standing by the exit now, and Carly told them it would be fine, they would be taking up rear guarding positions behind the first recon soldiers. Kaitlyn had jumped off already, and then Neal called back. "Carly, you and the rookies take up rear positions, in case we need any cover out here. Then start heading towards the south. Watch out fo-----" a plasma burst was heard, and Neal coughed. "I'm hit..."

The snakeman shoots Neal, but he survives with no damage. I hear a civvie scream, and see another bugger near the snakeman on the east. Time to fry some bugs.

The bugger is just chillin, and I don't wanna give him an excuse to live. Neal hits him with all shots, very nice take down. Ajay tries to clear some walls, but they stand firm. I know the snakeman is behind there, and with a civvie so close, we've gotta take it down.

Kaitlyn can't get any closer, and I'm not going to risk the civvie life. Taya and Hannah both head south, as the west is clear also. The area is fairly lit up by the street lights, which is nice. Finally something useful done in these towns.

Carly takes a position on top of the Skyranger. I figure there are enough rooftops that she should be safe. The rookies file out, dignified-like.

Carly turned on her flying suit, and leapt into the air. The rookies rushing out behind her, she flew upward and landed on top of the Skyranger. The scene became a bit more real now. Neal had just fired on another bug creature. "Let's blow open these walls, see if we can see that snake!" Ajay obliged, and fired a few rounds into the structure. "I can't see it, I'm taking cover!" Kaitlyn moved over to cover near Ajay. As Carly scans the horizon. "I don't see anything from up here, the field looks mostly clear." "Watch your cover," was Neal's response. That was one problem with being up so high. While you could see everything, everything could see you. Carly looked down on the street in front of her. Just then plasma came flying out from inside the shop, hitting Neal and knocking him to the ground. "Neal!? Neal!?" there was no response, and her suit showed her that Neals vitals were reading null. "Neal's down, I'm going after the snake!" Ajay called.

From behind her came the sounds of plasma and laser fire. "Can anyone see it? I hit the thing but it won't die," Taya said. Carly turned around to the far side of the Skyranger, and her view nearly mirrored that of Taya's. "You are so dead..." she muttered, as she pulled the trigger and killed the creature. "What are those things anyway?" Hannah asked. "I don't know, but stay away from them."

Ahhh crap, this time Neal's down for good. The snakeman killer is still behind the wall. So I plan on killing them both.

Hannah found another Bugger heading for a civvie, she fires but misses. Taya hits it twice, but it still doesn't fall. Cursed mutated grasshoppers. With those two in the way....well, let's just say a shot could easily cook the wrong goose.

The rookies can't see it,(and I'm not letting them shoot anyway) but Carly is able to from her high perch. She gives it the final punch, and it finally dies. Now to the snakeman. Ajay's autos hit it twice, but it's a buff one. I try again, and this time it's down for good. What's that, Humans, 8, aliens, 2?

Ok, there's another snakeman by the Neal killer. Ajay guns down a wall, but needing experience, he let's Kaitlyn take the shot. She does like they say in basic training, point and shoot. It works, so another sankeman down.

Kim Jong moves to scouting position, and finds another one in the street. The rookies should have this. Brianna misses with her shots, but Reggillious moves into position and is able to take it down. Taya clears the walls of the warehouse, but doesn't see anything. I'm sure I saw another one there. Carly is now hiding on top of the warehouse. I think that most anything can see and shoot at you from below, which is unrealistic.

Not many reaction shot chances for most. We'll see how the turn goes.

"Ajay, how are you doing?" Carly had just flew over to the warehouse rooftop. "Doing well, we've got two snakes down over here, Kim's taking point."
"Ok, rookies, keep heading south, watch that line of houses."

Taya and Hannah were moving along the warehouse, and Carly was checking the southern street. "I think one's in front of the warehouse," Taya called up. "Everyone be careful."

Kim was pointing down the street. "I see him," Reggie said. Both he and Brianna started shooting, with one of the shots killing the beast. "Alright! Yeah!" Carly was figuring that they should almost be done by now. Most of the area was cleared.

"Uh, guys? There is something really nasty in that house...." Ajay trailed off. A view from his cam showed one bug....and what looked like a human...but green and bulging....

Oh, crap! Zombies! They are Crysallids. This could be a long fight..... A civvie got zombined, and the campers are chilling in a small house.

Crysallids cause the attacked target to turn into a zombie. Zombies turn into Crysallids when they die, or in three turns. Ok, just keep your distance. ut in terror missions the civilians become prime targets. Which then become more Crysallids and more targets. Luckily, they can't attack flying targets.

Kim chucks a proxy grenade by the door to the Crysallid house, I don't think that it will kill the beast in one explosion though. I don't have many other options. Taya kills the maneuvering snake, and I hope it's the last one.

I'm keeping everyone far from the edges of sight....this might get ugly. Crysallids have massive TUs, and they could easily infect anyone that doesn't see them soon enough. Bree moves to a rooftop as well. If you've got a flying suit, now would be the time to use it! Ajay slowly moves through the store. I still don't have all the south covered, but the Crysallids are moving! Gotta watch out.

"What did it do?" Ajay answered. "I don't know, it attacked that civilian, infested it or something. I'm not sure..." Then command, "Everyone watch your sides, no telling what those infested things can do. Don't get hit..." Carly was glad she was up here. But she had to keep an eye on those on the ground as well. Taya opened fire on the snake she saw before. "I think the street is clear, but we've gotta watch the southern houses." Carly moved up near the edge of the warehouse. It was a dangerous position, but the best for a quick cover fire if nessicary.

"Kim, see if you can through a proxy grenade by that house. Does anyone have a grenade?" Ajay was calling out. The house had at least one of the buggers in there, and an infested civilian. Grenades were likely the best way to go. The rookies continued heading south, though much slower now.

"I've got a grenade," Kaitlyn was saying as she hurried to Ajay's position. "Ok, we're gonna blow open a wall, and you toss that through there. Kim started shooting. The walls fell, but there were other appliances between them. Through the hole the bugger trots out, while the Zombie runs around inside. Kim fires again, this time hitting the zombie, and causing it to turn into the same thing as the first. "They turn into them??!" Kaitlyn threw her grenade at the open wall, but it fell short. It would still hit the first Bug though.

Brianna and Reggie both started shooting at another snakeman to the south. It fired back, one bolt brushing past Brianna's head. Hannah turned to look, and then shot the Snake dead where it stood. "Ha ha, go---" Hannah was suddenly cut off, as Carly heard more plasma fire.

I hear a series of explosions, not sure what they are. Perhaps a hatching, I can't say. The beasts are roaming about in the house, I'm not sure what to do. I doubt I could get a grenade in there. As long as it's all just Chrysallids, I think I can survive. Not so sure about the civvies, though. Ajay can see the alien, but a pole prevents him from killing it. Kim blows open the walls in front, hopefully Kaitlyn can toss a grenade in there. Brianna and Reggillious are both advancing slowly. Not having to worry about mind attacks is pretty nice, I must say.

The crysallid is coming out! And it seems like the infested one is making the racket. Which is strange. Kim kills the zombie, causing a fresh one to hatch. Kaitlyn throws her grenade, though the wall may prevent the second one from dying. Ajay hits it with a laser bolt, no kill. Ohhh, I'm scared! Brianna finds another snakeman. She fires, I think she hit, but I couldn't tell. It fires back, brushing both her and BriAnne.(odd name connection there)

She hits it again, but no avail. Reggie hits it too, and this is with plasma! What kind of snake is this? Hannah isn't afraid of snakes, and she kills it. With lasers. Hmm.

Holy crap again! Hannah takes a hit from some snake plasma, and now she's got a zombie(Crysallid when it dies!!) staring down her throat.

And that grenade? Well...yeah, I don't think the whole killing thing took place.(though it looks like it should have.) Maybe just knocked out.

Carly started to call out for Hannah, but the grenade explosion from across the way covered her voice. She blinked of the flash to hear Taya, "We've got a snake and a Zombie! Hannah, look out!" Carly looked down. Below her a Zombie was nearly on top of Hannah, who was slightly stunned by the plasma, but fine otherwise. Taya raised her rifle and shot the snakeman as Hannah ran out of the way. The Zombie growled. 'After it dies, it will turn into one of those things!' Carly thought. Hopefully Hannah could stay away from them! Taya turned to the Zombie and opened fire. One bullet broke the skin, and the inner creature began to emerge. Then a second bullet hit that one in the head, killing it.

"All clear over here!" Ajay called. That was echoed by the western group, and stillness came over the night.

Ajay kills the second, but no scream so it fainted. I'll be sure not to stand on them. Now, for the tricky part. First, Taya kills the snake. Easy. Hannah moves, and Taya first morphs, then kills, the Crysallid with the first two bullets. Wow. Easier done than said. Hoping that we're finished here, I end the turn.

Hmm, two deaths. And a heckload of plasma I should have saved! Bah! Didn't want to take any chances, though. And two living, Crysallids, I'm sure. Hannah gets MVP, with 4 kills and a Zombie handshake, she deserves it. Too bad about the losses though. The fad seems to be come off an injury and get killed. Bad news for Kevin.

Perhaps I should just get another tank. I guess it couldn't hurt. Not too bad, anyway. I figure I'll just wait until the end of the month. I know that this entry should be epic. Maybe it will by being so short. Well, on actual action, I guess.

Kevin had moved to the medical center after the Skyranger arrived, and Tyson spent quite a while down there. They had some speculations, though all seemed far fetched. Aliens running the system, or simply someone who had a connection with Tyson, they didn't know. They weren't sure what to do, or what they thought about the situation and The Contributors. But even if there speculations were wrong, they decided they needed more information. Tyson thought it best to simply ask the general, but Kevin thought that might give them away. Though he knew that was possible, Tyson decided that if he played it cool it would work out. He went ahead with his plan, even though he Kevin disagreed.

He entered the General's office. He hadn't spoken much to him since the base, though that was only a week ago. He decided to start off cordially.

"Hello, sir. May I have a word?"
"Of course, come in. You've done very well, you're an excellent commander."
"Thank you, sir. I don't want to take much of your time, but something has been bugging me. Who are The Contributors?" So much for beating around the bush. Oh well, directness tended to net results.
"The Contributors? I doubt that I know much more than you. They run the operation, they supply us with tactical data and ok nearly ever action that we do. We give information to them, they decide what to do, and they give it back."
"So, is it a code name for some big military hierarchy or is it a completely different organization..." He trailed off, and decided to let the general do his work.
"I don't think they're part of the military, besides, there responses to our requests are much faster than any military agency, I'm sure. They've almost made the project faster. I'm not sure who they are..." The general began to seem a bit more weary of speaking to him.
"Do they supply anything else? Research help, scouting observations, anything? Do the donating nations know anything about them?" The general didn't answer, so Tyson threw in the final question. "What connection do they have with me?"
The general didn't answer, instead he turned a glaring face to Tyson. "I believe that you've been told enough. The Contributors quite literally have your life and mine in their hands. I don't think you would want to offend them. I've already told you everything that I know and everything that I will. Perhaps you should take it up with them."
Tyson turned to leave, wondering perhaps if that were possible.

I start up on 5 more Flying Suits. In case of Crysallids, I guess. Lost one in the mission. But there are still 3 left. I didn't have enough armor for the extra four. So they got those old hand me downs.
What? only 600 grand added? for 2,000 points. The council of meagerly nations, sure. Hmm, well, it looked like my funds are the same. I might be paying out equally, though I really doubt that. Can't check the base info though, apparently there is a bug that makes it always give the wrong price. But the game takes out the right price. Go figure.

"So, no luck?" Tyson had just finished telling Kevin of the events with the general. The Contributors seemed like a bit more of a threat now than before. "I don't know, man. Maybe I was wrong thinking they caused the invasion and all that. But the one thing we do know is that they're after you for some reason."
"Yeah. But who would have the power and the brains to set it all up, as well as wanting to get me back?"
"Hmmmmm, Kory Brown?"
After a bit of a laugh, they decided that they would need to watch for any Contributor activity in the base, any clues, anything relating the invasion, the operation, and Tyson together.

I send I-1 down to inspect South Africa. A small UFO appears, in Siberia. Can't catch it, so I let it go. Well, I guess that's that for now. Tell me if you like them long or short. At least it's out faster.

A Slight Word on the Writing

2008-10-01T22:05:00.002-06:00

Hello everyone. This is your pilot speaking....and you may now abandon ship. Either way, I hope you are enjoying the blog. This has really been fun for me and I am very glad that blogger makes it a lot easier for me to post all of this. Otherwise I'd need a hosting area, html skills, and about double the time that I have now.

So, I've been thinking about the whole story line of the thing. I like stories, and I like writing them. But I've never been the best at the whole creative thing. I guess it just isn't really my thing. Now, seeing a good story and stealing it....that I am good at. And really it's just complimenting the author. Though I would check the copy writes. Even in these reports I've stolen a couple good one liners from the other ones that I've read. Yeah, like I said, creative stuff....yeah, not my best thing. And likewise, I value this above everything else in basically anything: writing, stories, video games, dates, etc. (Ok, those are honestly the only 3 things that I think about and notice my lacking in)

I value the good story. The ones that go along normally, then get you with a twist. The ones where you get the chills are winners. You only need that once. These stories can't be told in just an hour or two. You need more than that. Ok, I've just been watching Red vs. Blue. Yeah, there's alot of language that I don't like, and dirty jokes on the occasion, but minus those(If you get to season 2) then it get's pretty funny. Matches my personality, anyway. So, for the first couple seasons it was just go along silly stuff. When an actual story was decided on, I couldn't say, I've only watched it for the last couple days and I never paid much more attention than that. In the new series, it's got a backstory. Still funny, but it's got stuff going on behind it. It really takes quite a while to develop these things, and only for a couple new thrills. Yeah, it's tough to constantly fill the audience with something new, and tougher to toss in twists. But you only need one good twist. The one that give you chills.

Think about Eragon. Why did that book totally rock? Because everything that happened in it was completely new. You got to see an entire new and exciting universe. Each chapter had something different. I haven't read the second one (shame!) but it would be hard to surpass the first in ultimate involvement. You know that thing in english class, the whole 'rising action' mountain looking thing? Yeah, that's the one. I think it's more like a bunch of wobbly hills. Action, drop. Some downtime backstory. Action, drop. Little more downtime. It matches with the whole ADD thing we've got dealing with TV and internet entertainment. Wait a minute, why am I saying this?

To couple with my lack of creativity and patience comes my medicore writing. Decent, but not great. I suppose I should read some more. I tend to absorb ideas and abilties by copying off of others. If I had the other component that I valued in writing and stories, I'd tell you a name for such a thing. Knowledge, that's another great aspect. I always like when there's some kind of interconnected backstory tossed into a story or a game or really anything. Just spices things up a bit.

And lastly comes the problem that I'm making up a story about a game, where I have very little control. Which makes it difficult to make any type of story, because my main characters could kick the bucket at any time, so an involving plot would totally end....well, everything. A tricky obstacle to get around, anyway.

Ok, now that my retrospective blah blah is over, I just want to say that I'll have more episodes coming soon, and I plan on spending a bit more time. I'm not working 10 hours a day anymore, and hopefully the next thing that I find to do will leave plenty of time for X-COM. Once I get the nerve to start up again. It should be great, hopefully I can finish it in a while. As always, thanks for reading.

X-COM #9: Not on my Planet

2008-09-15T21:43:00.050-06:00

Kevin was walking about the halls of the base. The Skyranger had returned from the last mission about an hour ago, and fatigue was catching up to him after the events of the last few hours. There wasn't much to celebrate. But he knew that they had to be strong.

He walked into his assigned living quarters. Most everyone in the base was in the radar rooms or the command center, all anxious about the events of the past few days. Though some were returning to their quarters, especially those from the last mission, as Kevin entered he saw that his quarters were empty. Except for Tyson, who was over in the corner, with a portable screen he was tinkering with.

Kevin walked over, and sat down by him, and though Tyson didn't react Kevin felt that he had already been welcomed. He glanced at the screen. It was a detailed report of the last mission, showing the maneuvers of the team as they attempted to advance through the UFO. There was little to be said about how poorly the mission had went.

"How's it going?" he had had the bravery to ask.
"Ahhh. Not the best." It wasn't much of a response, but it sufficed. Kevin decided to wait, watching as Tyson analyzed the images. After a few minutes Tyson spoke.
"Well, I'm the Commander now..." he seemed to trail off. "Yeah. That's a lot to deal with."
"You see right here?" Tyson was pointing at the screen, a small yellow dot. "Why were we lined up like this? We don't have any cover! Ahh, if only we had turned...I think we can fix it though. If we just move carefully..." He had slightly changed the subject. "I don't know. We were so...excited, nervous. It just didn't work well."
"Have you figured out our mistakes?" Kevin didn't want to touch on losses yet, though he could feel it coming.
"There's much we can do. And we will. We'll be ready when we have to take on that base." Tyson sounded confident. And he probably knew what he was talking about. They sat for a few more minutes, listening. Odd, how quiet the room was compared to the excitement outside.
"You know.....I....well..." Tyson had started, but stopped. Kevin had been thinking the same thing. He carried on where Tyson had left off, "We lost some good guys. Jesse.....I've known him for quite a while. Never really thought he'd be gone. But, I don't know. There's just this feeling that even though it would be better if he were here, he's fine where he is. We've got to carry on though."
"I know. I think that it's going to shake up the others. It probably has. But we can make it. I'm sure that we can."
"Yeah. You know you're stuff. We're standing behind you."
"Thanks. I'll do my best."
"We know you will. We trust you."
"Thanks. I know you all mean it. Despite the circumstances." Kevin just smiled. Tyson closed the computer. Noticing that Kevin looked exhausted, he turned to leave. "Hey Kev. Thanks for keeping you're cool out there. I was scared....I just didn't know what to think. You pulled me through. It should be you as commander, not me."
"Nah man, we're all part of the team. You'll do well." Tyson nodded, then turned to leave. Kevin settled down, sleep rushing over him.

This whole report/ blog has taken on a bit of a serious nature. Not quite as....enthusiastic as it might have been. I like it, though. Matches in a way. Maybe I'll try another style, if I started another game, but I doubt that will happen. Something like RvB, but clean and such.

6 plasma clips from the last mission. At least I got something out of it. First things first: Grenades all around. After selling some junk I have close to 5 million again. I'm wondering where the monies went. Life insurance suits, most likely.

Hmm, not enough store space. I set up another general stores in the base, and a second alien containment. I'm still researching stun bombs, and I'll get to small launchers after that. Hopefully that will allow the capture of an alien commander. Meanwhile, the Skyranger refuels, and the soldiers get ready to head out for the small UFO in Germany.

The Skyranger takes its time filling up, and I send it out as soon as it's done. The UFO is also done, and it takes off. I-2 is flying guard though, and lines up his sights, to realize that he only has 1(!) small missile left. He moves in close for the best shot...and hits but doesn't kill. I send him back to base, seeing how he is literally out of everything. The Skyranger bravely follows in pursuit, and after a tour of Europe the UFO lands in Spain. This time the Skyranger is ready, and I set down awaiting the mission.

I load everyone up with extra junk, trying to up their strength for their future grenade porting job.

I drive down the loading ramp, contemplating how it is always night around here. I spot the UFO, and then absent mindedly drive the tank in the opposite direction. *whack* My brain's common sense section smacks me on the back of my head, and brings instant disgrace as well as a slight stinging. Devyn sets up for a far reaction shot towards the UFO door, but I can't get an electro flare toss in there. Hopefully next turn, if necessary.

Oh, and a word on my maps. Just trying to spice them up a bit. If something happened last turn that I mentioned, I'll try to show it on the map. Also what I plan to do or have done, relating to maneuvers and shooting and whatever. Yeah, this is the real deal.

There is some fire, but I can't find it as I explore. The UFO gets a healthy dose of electro flare, but the next toss goes awry, for some reason leaving the ground dark. Though I guess I can't actually see there. The Tank drives about, but reveals nothing, and I assume that the whole "Aliens see better than humans" thing is true. Another victory for E.T. I send out a group to spot to the west. Melissa isn't quite strong enough to chuck the electro flare into the darkness...pushups!

Everyone finally hops off the ship, and I realize the perfectly spaced-yet-not-enough positioning. I guess we'll have to deal.

The tank takes a beating--two health left. I search for the attacker and---whoa, what the heck is that?! Mary doesn't want to find out, and punishes the beasty with plasma. It lets out a horrible screech as the plasma cooks it to a pulpy, snakish delicacy. The rest of the map is cleared, and so it's on to the UFO. The 4-person team keeps it's distance, I plan on advancing in a second... The usual game of sardines starts up with the rest of the troops, and I wonder how we can all be so casual. Ah well
Son of a monkey! Something fried the wall behind Carly, but I can't see anything. Invisibility cloak? You're sneaky, Mr. Potter! But not as sneaky as suppressive fire. Jacque supplies some, revealing another snake man, and Carly teaches him some manners for the attempted shot in the back.

I advance for the UFO, and Kamille wins the 'Worst reactions in history' award, so we're waiting for another turn again.

However, I realize that both Bree and Devyn have the reactions of a hippo as well. Humpf. I decide Kamille will be the brave soul, as she is in front.

Oh. Crap. That is not what I was expecting. Three dubies-with Kamille in perfect position to be cooked, deepfried, and broiled within 1.37 seconds. I aim for the commander-and the other two reaction all over Kamille. But she's buff--and lives. For now, but she's gotta move so Bree can finish them. No pressure.

Kamille's out of the way--But Bree missed! Oh sheesh, what is the deal? Oh, no more TUs, even for a snapshot. We are fried-I can't even get a grenade in there- Bree ducks out, and Kamille---well, she's dead. And that's that.

And yes, on the next turn, Kamille is...well, yeah.

Maria peeks in and throws a grenade-but then the aliens chop her down too. Well, at least they'll both be dead. I try the empty clip thing, just to see if it works.

That mission wasn't good. Not like the others. I--well, there wasn't much I could do, Kamille was in a bad spot, and someone had to run through the door to finish them. Not many goodies, either. And the attempted pics of plasma and explosives didn't come out of developing....so you get to see the dead bodies of the angry aliens. Yay!

That grenade throw vaporized all the dead bodies in the UFO-The commander, Maria and Kamille. Along with their stuff. That commander had something nice, curse my vaporizing habits. And what's up with no Elerium? X-COM already swiped the 150 Elerium from the supply mission...I guess it could have been the grenade throws.

Though, thinking of it, perhaps I could have not shot the commander, hoped he had a small launcher, and then with luck he would have stun grenaded everyone in the ship. Ala no casualties and 3 aliens. Though that is just speculation. Another possible tactic, I suppose.

A few days later ten soldiers arrive, unaware of the mission that awaits them. I get on Facebook, and check for any that should be....special.

Stats:
Hannah Banana C,G:50,60,38,50,39,58,75,22-Higher accuracy, reactions and strength both low.
BriAnne D. C,R:53,43,27,50,54,46,62,40-Reactions are great, bravery is up there.
Reggillious C-,R:56,64,36,60,54,40,76,34-Big reactions, but that accuracy...
Brianna B. C-,S:57,40,37,10,35,61,56,23-I like the accuracy, but otherwise....
Jill S. B+,S:57,62,37,40,59,63,78,26-Super accuracy and reactions. Now this is a trooper.
Kaden Downs C,S:51,47,40,50,37,69,52,25-I like high accuracy. Neh on others.
Vladimir P. D+,MS:55,43,31,10,51,46,53,38-Reactions are good, he's not a bad soldier.
Zach S. B-,S:55,49,26,60,41,63,66,22-Accuracy with low-average reactions.
Mahmoud A. D,MS:56,52,33,10,38,52,55,22-he deserves the ranking.
Marie G. C-,G;58,68,33,30,30,56,78,23-Reactions are low, elsewise average.
Katrina S. C,G:58,63,33,30,35,57,55,38-Basically average.

So, those are the new troops. Low grades, but they are rookies and being compared to experienced soldiers.(well, mostly) All the other grades are basically the same. Also, after studying how X-COM ups stats....well, it's an entire science, let me just say.

Now, I'm waiting. Waiting for research to finish, and for another run on a supply ship. And for cake.

After a few days, 5 more rookies arrive at X-COM USA, just for guard purposes.
Patrick M. C,S:58,46,27,50,35,66,54,20-Super accuracy, but slightly under on others.
Lace P. C+,G:59,67,26,20,53,56,54,24-Higher reactions, but average elsewhere. Good mix.
Hmm, facebook is having troubles providing me with friends... So I will chose some.
Amber C. C+,S:56,50,27,50,3,69,70,30-Accuracy of a champion reactions of a snail. But who needs those anyway?
Ivan W. D+,G:59,44,39,10,32,54,33-Well, low stats, but fine.
Jacki B+,R:56,56,29,50,59,60,62,37-Very nice, reactions and accuracy. Good on others too.

Well, that's everyone. Maybe if I get an extra Skyranger I'll send it over, so they can fight with the hordes. Back to the old waiting game.

Stun bombs are done, so now its waiting for the small launcher. I send Interceptor-1 out to peek at the aliens, but no detections. I also check the graphs, hopefully there is only one alien base on the planet. And it looks like it. I've got 5 power suits ready now...though I'm not sure what to do with them. I figure I'll build some flying suits to match. Research isn't going as fast as I would hope....those lazy scientists, just like the engineers at work.

The general stores is complete, and I purchase tons of grenades. And a high explosive. For Mahmoud. The grenades arrive, and I shove them into the Skyranger. 3 Flying suits are done, and still I'm waiting. Not that I haven't been the whole game...but now I have something to do once I'm done!

I keep up the usual patrols, though I haven't seen any alien supply ships recently. I do want to sack one, but if they don't arrive, I basically can't. Also, I am wondering what plan I should take when I do attack the base---
Doh! Game crashed. Well, I'm going to leave all this here, and I'll change the stats as necessary. Only the new soldiers have arrived since the last save. Too bad it doesn't auto-save....

But the stats are the same, so I finish everything I've done and then save. I still can't find any alien UFOs, so I figure it's time for a raid. I do a fake test, just to see if tanks enter bases, and I guess they do. Jacque did an amazing reaction shot into the darkness after getting hit by behind....but I guess that didn't really happen. You just dreamed it.

Kevin was heading for the empty hangar that had previously been occupied by Interceptor-2. There was a special meeting, and anyone involved with the base assault needed to be there. When he arrived, he saw more than just the crew that would likely be selected to engage the alien base; nearly everyone, not just soldiers but generals, scientists, everyone; was there on the hangar floor. Tyson was near the center. obviously is the position to be speaking. General Grey was standing by him, along with a few other VIPs. Kevin made his way to the front, where the soldiers were clustered. There was a large projection screen in front of them in a circular object, much like on Starwars. Only the current data stream was on the screen at the moment: images of the alien base, views of earth, radar scans, weather, and of course, tomorrow's dinner menu. These views could be found on any telescreens in the base, and they were in most commons areas.

"When are they starting this?" Kevin asked Reggie. Reggie had just arrived a few days ago, but he had got the hang of the base quickly. He was one of the guys that both he and Tyson knew well. Some of the others Kevin had never met.
"I don't know. They said in a couple minutes after everyone get's here. You're going on this mission, right?"
"Yeah. I've been here since the start."
"I'm not sure about all this. I've never had any combat experience."
"I know. Nobody has. But we do with what we've got. You should be fine."
"I sure hope so." Reggie seemed somewhat anxious, but Tyson started calling the meeting to order.

"Alright, I think everyone is here. Listen up! As you all know, this past month has been filled with more action than all the others combined. We've located an alien base, and we can't allow it to remain here. For the past month we've been waiting for the technology to adequately attack the base. Philmore here will tell you more."

A scientist, dressed in the ever popular white lab coat, stepped up to the front. "Hello, everyone. Our primary goal is to discover the alien purpose here on Earth. We've been capturing alien technology and reverse engineering it, but we need to capture the aliens to actually discover more about their reasons here. Recently we've brought in an alien stunning weapon, and it has proven capable at disabling alien species as well. The device works like a grenade launcher, and it stuns those in the explosion radius."
The General cut in, "When we attack the alien base, it is likely there will be very important aliens there. We need to capture a commander, and this is the best way to do it."
There was a pause, then Phil continued. "Yes, the device will be used to capture high ranking commanders so we can interrogate them. We believe the information could prove priceless." Phil glanced around, and Tyson stepped back up.

"Thankyou. Ok, we have to discuss the overall strategy of the base assault. While I know that many of you will not be attacking the base, you should listen also, to know what we are doing. We hope to have your full support as we depart on the mission. Feel free to ask any questions as I go on."

"We will enter the base through the primary access. Like this base, it is underground. The aliens bring supplies in through a shaft from the surface, that is where we will be entering."
"Any idea of the structure inside? Will we be split up?" Kevin was unsure who had voiced this.
"We have no idea what the inner base will look like. If it is like ours, it should be on a type of grid. It may be like an anthill though, meaning awkward hallways and such. Then upper entrance is large enough for our HWP to fit through, so we will have that support." That was a relief. At least they'd have a scout.

The General began to explain. "Our objective is to capture aliens in the command center, and then detonate the center as well. With any luck, we will be able to capture a commander. However, we only have two stun launchers, and 5 stun bombs. So, we need to conserve ammo. The actual weapons will have to be carried in a pack, then pulled out when the time is right. We can't bring home more than 12 aliens, once the new facilities are done, and we need one for the commander." Tyson continued,
"Right. Those able will carry the stun launchers along with a laser rifle. Once we enter the base, we need to group up into a size we can allow. Corners are likely to be tight, much like a UFO. We will need to cover each other, and stay in cover as we search for the command center."
"What sort of resistance will we be up against?" It was Courtney F. who asked this time. The General took this one.
"The best of the best, most likely. That means, terror units, advanced weapons, and psionic attacks."
Tyson continued, "So, we will need to keep moving. From previous observations, only commanders launch Psy attacks, so once we find the command center and capture the commander, we can attempt to hold out or move back. The stun may wear off, so we will have to be careful about timing. If we pay attention everything should work out fine."
Tyson glanced over at the General, checking if they had forgotten anything. The General made one final mention, "I will be in constant contact. The new suits have linked video, so you can see what each of you sees. We hope this will allow better combat functionality. Everyone here at the base is supporting you."
Kevin had one final question: "When are we going?" He caught a faint glint in Tyson's eye, along with a slight grin. "As soon as alien containment is done."

The conversation then switched to tactics, advancing and attacking, staying in groups, and covering fire. Technical stuff. Also, the high usage of grenades seemed to be in order for the next mission. Proximity grenades, at least. Sounded good to Kevin. They had been waiting too long. Time to do this.

I just realized that the alien medic research caused the game to crash. Darn. As I look through the alternate options, I realize I dragged in two snakemen, one a navigator. Perhaps I should have paid attention to that post mission screen...I was just so shocked at the loss.....

Huh. Well, even though that is...odd, with the navigator researched I can research Hyperwave Decoders, which I hear are totally awesome.

With that I stuff my supplies on the Skyranger, and decide who is going on the base mission. I'm choosing the best we've got, so those with the higher grades by their names. Or primarily captains and colonels. And meatshields. Could be a morale hurricane if too many die....but that's not likely:
Tyson A.; Natalie C.; Kevin D.; Tanner; Zen Halen; Courtney J.; Melisa W.; Jill S.; Vladimir P.; Mahmoud A.
I'm hoping it works out. Tanner has left the MS class, as he is a Captian and has sway on morale. His grade is still C-.

A UFO flies by, but I don't engage. Then another very small one, it crashes in Brazil, and I figure I might as well. Very small ones only have one alien, as far as I know. I've got everyone on with power or flying armor, so I'm ready...it would suck to lose someone though.

I unload the tank, and wait for the alien to show. Rule is, you only get to fire if you have a laser rifle. Only Natalie and Tanner get out. I find a lone snakeman, and Tanner extracts vengeance. With that, my well equipped squad heads back to base. As soon as the alien containment is done, that alien base is going down. And I decide to switch Jacque A. for Tanner. He's done enough. Or something.

Everything is ready. Finally, it's time to attack the alien base. Everyone on the Skyranger has advanced armor, except Vlad and Mahm. With the best of equipment too. Let's hope it all goes well...

The Skyranger was on it's way down to South Africa. They were finally attacking the alien base. Everything was ready. They had constant communication with the general and the others at the base, and they were all wearing advanced armor. Well, most of them. The armor had shared views, at any time, Kevin could see what anyone else was seeing through the view piece, like sharing eyes.(this isn't actually true, but it should be)It would help them see what problems the others were facing. Also with a built in gas mask, to filter smoke and such. The suits were very nice, Elerium powered. They should offer enhanced protection. Tyson stood up, as they were only about 2o minutes out now.
"Ok, guys. We're going in to what will likely be the toughest battle we've faced. Same aliens, but on their home court. It's going to be small and cramped. We've gotta follow our tactics, because the whole place is going to be filled with corners. But you know all of this already. You're chosen for this mission because you're the best out there. Because you know what you're doing. We have great chances of completing this mission unscathed. While it might not be the best place, I just want to thank you all for standing by me through all of this." Tyson had decided to tell everyone about how it was his fault that they were there. It had been accepted well, as he really hadn't planned it.

"You're the man, Tyson, we're with ya till the end!" Kevin agreed with Zen's statement. "Yeah, you're a great leader" There were a couple more "Huzzah's" thrown out. Then Tyson rose his hands to quiet them. "Alright, alright. Thanks, guys. Well, you sound ready, and we've only got a couple minutes to touchdown. We've got a direct link with the general, hang on."

The General's voice came over the comm. "Men, women, I'd like to tell you that you're the best that we've got. We're all routing for you back here at base, and we know you can do it. You'll be able to take out that alein base. The fate of X-COM, the fate of the planet lies in your hands. Good luck!"

"Thankyou, General." Tyson said. The General and the entire base were linked to the soldiers. If anyone said anything, they could hear it. Kevin didn't know about the General. Though he believed his good intentions, he wasn't quite sure on his allegiance. He couldn't be sure, but he figured that there might be more going on between the General and 'The Contributors.' And even if not, General Grey would likely tell them, much more so than any of the others. Though so far, only he and Tyson knew about 'The Contributors,' they didn't tell anyone else.

"We're ten minutes out!" the pilot called back. "Ok, as soon as we hit ground we're heading for the access lift. I'm not sure if we should expect any resistance there or not. Kevin and Courtney, you two will have the stun launchers in your packs. We'll each grab one of the other three so as to space out the load for you. You'll pull it out when we find the command center. We've got to capture an alien commander and find out what it knows. Commanders are the one's with the psionic powers, we might be able to learn a defense against them." Alright, everyone ready? Zen, you're taking the rocket." The Skyranger was setting down. "Ok, let's go."

Like always the tank was off first. But there was nothing detected, and the access lifts were only a short distance away. As they moved to the lifts, Kevin was thinking about The Contributors. He needed to tell Tyson, but he didn't want to be overheard. And with the shifty nature of these unknown commanders, who knows what cameras could be all over the base.

"Hey, we've found another lift, there's two!" In a clearing both lifts were visible. "Ok, Jacque, Jill and Natalie....and Mahmoud.....you go down that one. Stay in contact." They started descending the lifts. There was the possibility that communication would be lost, especially with the surface, if they descended too far, or there was any type of jamming device. Kevin tested a call to base. "General, do you copy....over." No reply. "Well, that's nice," Tyson muttered, and for Kevin it actually was.

"Tyson, you know The Contributors, whoever they are? I'm just wondering, but I think they have more to do with this than just X-COM. I think the might have started the whole invasion."
Tyson stared at him. "They created the aliens? Now you're just talking crazy, Kev."
"Think about it. Did you ever think that there actually were aliens? Never before. And nothing since before the last 6 months. Sure, you'll say government cover ups, but I really think that these aliens coming here and the whole forming X-COM and then choosing you weren't all coincidences. I'm betting that they're all interrelated."
Tyson just stared. Not that much else was expected.
Kevin continued, "Look, I had to tell you now. I don't trust the allegiance of anyone but us, the soldiers. I don't know, just think about it." The lift had stopped.

When equipping I accidentally hit the start button before I'm ready. So Mahm ends up without a gun on the first turn. We start things off with an odd set up, scattered about the base. Natalie spies two aliens right off.

She knocks down the Cyberdisk, and the explosion kills the Sectoid. I feel very very restricted in this base. The others take up positions along the walls, and Mahmy tosses a proxy grenade. We will have to wait until we find a spare gun around here for him.

The other group is equally cramped. Zen and Courtney are both on the first floor. Zen sees a Sectoid, and decides to rocket him down, which he does. Who cares about those exhibits anyway? I move down the lift, trying to set up a position with my limited TUs. The tanks heads off the southern passage, Zen and Tyson both have the eastward one.

An alien pops out and shoots at Jacque, but misses. Her reaction shot takes him down, and that's all I see in the turn. I start with the left group this time. It's slow moving securing the grav-lift closets, and I am worried about advancing into the larger exhibits. Melissa chucks an electro flare, because she has very low TUs with the weight. Vlad and Courtney move around the grav room, then Courtney goes inside. I advance into the exhibit, and Tyson kills a Sectoid from across the room. But I can now be attacked from all angles.

On the far side, Jill and Natalie are in the grav room, when Mahm advances forward into plasma fire. But he's brave, and continues on, though weaponless. Jacque moves in and neutralizes the Sectiod. I have very little TUs for anyone though.

They had just entered the base. The first room held a large grav lift area, and Zen and Courtney had already descended, and it looked like the other group had too. From what Kevin could tell from his sensors, the second group had actually ended up quite a ways away. Natalie and the Iranian were both on the lower floor, and suddenly a small window appereared in the top left of his screen. It was the shared view, and it automatically popped up because Natalie had pushed the call button. It was her view.

"I see two of them, right in front of me!" She whispered, "I'm aiming to take out the Cyberdisk." Kevin saw her level her plasma and open fire. The first shots hit, and the disk fell and exploded. Kevin could hear the boom from across the base. The Sectoid had been engulfed in flame, and was no more.
"Everyone head down the lifts, stay in cover for this first part. We've gotta secure the area." Tyson instructed. The HWP that was next to Kevin rolled over to the lift and dropped out of sight, followed by Melissa. "I've got one down here. Rocket clear!" Kevin heard Zen say over the comm. Almost directly below him he felt the ground shake as the rocket exploded, followed by some smaller pops. He checked that the area below was clear, then headed down the lift.
"Upper, how's it looking?" Tyson called. "Looks good." Natalie responded. We've got a proxy covering our southern side, and we're splitting on each side. Any idea where we should go?"
"Not yet, just secure the area for now."

At the bottom of the lift, Tyson and Zen had covered the eastern corridor, while Courtney and the others were heading to what looked like a single grav lift closet, or something. Kevin really had no idea. He took up positions behind Tyson and Zen, and swapped through views from the upper group, deciding on Jacque as she was peeking around a corner into the room where the Cyberdisk had just exploded. As he covered Zen he saw some movement on the upper screen. His eyes averted, just in time to see a Sectoid fire a bolt of plasma past Jacque's head. He blinked as it flew past, but Jacque already had her rifle up, and she shot the Sectoid dead on. "Take that, yeh bugger!" she called.

Courtney and Vlad were moving around the grav lift room. Melissa said something about carrying too much. She tossed down the electro flare she had brought, but everything else she had was likely necessary. Kevin looked forward again. Zen poked around the corner, but Tyson took the lead. "I see one," he mentioned. He took aim, and hit the Sectoid from across the room. They both entered the room, covering along the side walls. Kevin moved up to their previous positions, when he heard a shout. "Wha- I'm shot at, I'm shot at!" The thick accent was hard to distinguish at times, but Kevin understood this time.
"I've got him," Jacque said. She rounded the corner and shot the Sectiod. "Yep, he's down."

"Natalie, Jill, where are you?" Tyson was probably the one who called. "We're circling a grav room over here, not sure if there's any aliens inside, we're staying down."
"Roger that, keep moving."

A shot flies toward Tyson, but I have no idea from where. Another shot at the left grav lift, eats through a wall. I can't see any of the previous attackers right off. The tank enters the room from below and finds the beast, and Kevin finishes it. There's a big black room down there, I really don't know what to expect. Maybe a hive mother, or a big screen TV, or something to that effect.

Mahm moves in behind the other firing alien, finds it, calls back to Jacque, and she finishes it. Now that's teamwork. Jill moves around the other side, but still no reaction shots for her. Natalie primes a proxy for the other corridor, but I can't toss it in the turn, so I wait. I decide that grav lifts are out of style, and move Courtney and her super TU out of the room. But a miss-click and she walks all back and wastes it. Doh! Vlad is securing the upper rooms, some fan looking area. Either a cooling room or a skydiving room, I can't say. But Melissa and Courtney are both in bad positions. Zen advances down the tight corridor, brave seeing how he is only holding a rocket launcher. I believe I've got the western side of the base, still need to get over to the east, and the black room down there.

Suddenly, bursts of plasma fire could be heard. Kevin could see one. It was headed for Tyson, but hit the large tank in front of him. Kevin couldn't quite make it out, but from the south of the room the tank could. "I see a Sectoid!" Kevin's right in position, and he kills it with his plasma. "Can anyone see it? I saw it by the wall, but it moved!" Melissa was saying.
Mahmoud was running towards the room. "I see one. I see." he said. Jacque(who was still the view Kevin was looking at) poked around the corner and shot the Sectoid down. "How many is that for today?" Kevin asked. "He he, I'm gonna set a record," she responded.

Kevin looked at the tactical map view. Vladimir was moving north up the corridor, but Courtney and Melissa were standing slightly in the open. Hopefully nothing came down those grav lifts. "I'm heading north," Zen said. He was moving to a more cramped area, but he would probably be fine. Towards the top, Natalie and Jill were securing their flanks. Everything was going well so far.

I hear a door and a spell, but I don't see anything. Good riddance. Mahmy finds a heavy plasma, so now he's armed and dangerous. The north west side is cleared, however it is done by meatshields so I'm not sure how effective that was, seeing how they're out of position. I'm still wondering about those grav lifts....

Natalie walks around the corner into a Sectoid. I've got the grenade ready...and the laser rifle in the other hand. Which sounds like the better option. Natalie quick draws it out, and turns that Sectoid into pudding. Yee Haw!

I spot another sectoid in the black room, what I deem the command center. I don't know if it's the commander I seek, but Kevin's whipping out his small launcher. I need something, at least. Courtney and Zen chain toss the other one up to Tyson, so we're ready for business. Next turn, of course.

"I'm tossing a proxy up here, hopefully that will keep the aliens off our back, if there are any." Natalie was saying. Kevin swapped over to her view while he waited behind the storage tank. Natalie poked around the corner, only to come face to face with a Sectoid. Kevin's heart stuttered, but Natalie was fast. She rose her right hand and shot down the Sectoid with her rifle. Then she tossed the grenade behind it. "All clear."

"Kevin, you see that? What kind of gun did that thing have?" Tyson was asking. Kevin hadn't seen it. "Was it a commander?"
"I don't know, but it had a really big gun. Not sure what it could do. He's gotta be important, whoever he is."
"Yeah," Kevin pulled out his small launcher. He'd be able to stun it with this. "Who's got the other launcher?" he called. "I've got it over here," Courtney said. She pulled it out and tossed it up. Zen threw it to Tyson, and he grabbed it. "Kev, you ready? Let's get these things." Neither of them had put their heavy plasmas away, but they could in a second.

Kevin was waiting. He called out to Tyson as he slipped away his heavy plasma. "Tyson, are you ready? Where are you? Let's go." He couldn't find out what was wrong. He tried switching to his view. "Tyson, what's up?" he called as he did. Tyson's strangely mutated voice came over the speaker "KILL ALL HUMANS!"

Tyson's mind controlled. Oh, no. He's got two guns, one's a heavy plasma, one's a stun bomb. Who knows what he'll do...

Kevin moves out of cover, trying to line up on Tyson, and takes a hit in the back. Alien, the Mind Control one?.... Kevin's got the stun gun out, but if he shoots the Sectoid...Tyson will likely get shot or shoot someone.(Can't say I'm too happy about my options) But, for the game..... Wait, now that Kevin is shot, his TUs are shot, so he can't shoot again. Oh, curses!

I try for a smoke grenade. Only Jacque has one. I'm trying to have everyone pass it up, but Mahm uses his TUs to pick it up, so the chain is stopped. I guess I could have tossed the launcher, maybe. Kevin moves back, and Zen is going to heal him, as he has one fatal wound and 6 heath. The tank moves right in front of the alien, and I hope Tyson is as dumb as he is mentally strong. Courtney also moves into position. This is a lot of work...shoulda tossed the launcher....

Vlad runs back down as fast as his legs will carry him, and Melissa heads up the grav lift. Oh, so that's what's up there.

Tyson A. has panicked. Better than psycho, that's for sure. Also, huge explosion, over by Jacque. Not a proxy grenade, something else. The Sectoid walked back down the tunnel, no idea if he's the commander or not. The tank follows, and spies two aliens, I'm guessing the one in back is the commander(he's cooler, anyway). Tyson is frozen right down the hall....ahh, not sure what to do again. We need that commander though. Kevin hands the blaster to Courtney, but she won't be able to do the behind the wall shot yet. Kevin's only got 9 health, and he's waiting in back. The crazy tank drives right into the command center...don't know what will become of him now. But yes, that's the command center. I'm going for the alien in back, he has a devil gun. We can clear the back later. Tyson does have some cover...but enough? I don't know.

Tyson's berserk this time. But we're going to forget about him. Still no shots on the tank. It's chrome is to beautiful to scratch, I assume. Courtney is aiming at the ground near the aliens, hoping the explosion will hit them. She fires the stun bomb, and it stuns. One alien, at least. Courtney does the classic hand in the air grab(Napoleon Dynamite) "Yes!" Great shot by Courtney.

Natalie and Jill are heading down from the top. Tyson panics, and the tank is so fiercely shelled it blows apart. No explosion though. Suddenly, Mahmy turns to Vladimir. The dual dictators stare at each other, when Mahm gives into the will of the Sectiods and fiercely guns the communist down. What will Russia do now? No matter, Jacque isn't sad about slaying meatloaf, and she does.

Both meatshields down....and the HWP. Gotta get through this.... Zen fires a rocket down the hall, killing the other Sectoid. Now we just have to get in the CC. I have to move really slowly, and hope no more mind controls. I think that Natalie and Jill haven't been seen, so their heading to the CC from the top. With no meatshiels, who's busting in the door? I guess we'll see when the time comes. Should be Tyson, he is the commander after all.

Mahms smoke grenade goes off. Zen had no rockets, so he grabbed an alien's plasma. The trio is nearing the CC door, as long as no one blasts each other's heads off....
Jill and Natalie are nearing the CC as well, and Jacque's headed back that way. The proxys are guarding, but that's their job. Melissa is moving forward as well, but I don't know about her mental strength.

They were outside the first door of the command center now. The last couple minutes had been really hectic, and Kevin was caught up in it. He had a hard time breathing, as he had been shot in the back. The wounds weren't critical now, but he wasn't in very good shape anymore. Tyson was panicking over in the corner, and the two foreigners were both dead at the moment. Mind attacks were happening left and right. Kevin had felt some presence at one time, but he had forced it off. He was taking charge now. As they moved to the door, he called for Zen to get in front. Both he and Courtney were at the doorway now, ready to enter.
"I've only got one stun bomb," Courtney called. Kevin had given her his gun, as he wasn't in position for the long shot that had been required. Tyson had the other one with him, where ever that was. "Right, I'm running one up now," Melissa called over. Kevin felt tired, but he knew what he had to do. They were at the doors right now. He squared his shoulders and got ready to enter.

Zen moves to point, as Kevin's lost about two gallons of blood. Courtney is backing up Zen. Jill finds a window and peeks through it, and I think that we could just burst through the walls...

Perhaps, maybe into the command center itself. Open a hole, Courtney shoots through it...yeah, sounds good. We have to wait though.

Courtney reaction shots Zen's head. No stun to either of them, and I don't even know if she hit the alien. I believe Tyson is the target of countless alien mind attacks. Fine with me, but unfortunately he is also standing on a stun gun. Who gave that to him anyway? Melissa and Jacque both have the extra stun bombs, and they are moving up by Courtney now. Zen and Kevin have the halls covered. Or so I hope.
The door suddenly opened, but Courtney was faster than the alien, and her stun bomb exploded. "That was weird," Zen commented. "We're gonna need that stun bomb now," Kevin called. "Yeah, I'm almost there," was the reply. They moved into the front door, Kevin and Zen both taking up positions down either hallway. "Jacque, are you bringing up the other bomb, just in case?" "Yeah, I've got it right here."

Kevin looked at the wall. And something occurred to him. "Didn't that Sectoid shoot through the wall with a heavy plasma?" he asked Zen. "Yeah, I think so." "Maybe we can do that here..." Both Kevin and Zen stared at the wall, and put their hands on the triggers...

Melissa brings up the stun bomb...and we're ready for action ASAP. I plan on making the hole in the middle of the wall. Ohh, please no devil guns!

Ahh, I can never capture the pics I want! Courtney's panicking. Better than Kaboom, at least. We've gotta go now, now or never! Melissa grabs the gun, but she won't be able to shoot until next turn! ahh! Ok, next turn.....

Now my top two,(or at lest one) have gone crazy. I try firing but to no avail! The wall won't budge. We have to go around.

Courtney started freaking out. She threw down her guns, turned and left the room. Those mind attacks were getting worse. Kevin knew that they had to move fast to end this or else they'd all be part of an alien experiment. He started blasting away at the wall. Melissa had picked up the stun launcher, and she was ready. But the wall didn't do more than scar. Zen tried as well, hitting it with 6 shots. Nothing. "I guess we're going around."

Both Tyson and Courtney are having issues, and I'm fine with that. Kevin leads around the lower side of the CC, while Zen heads the other way. I've got a primed smoke grenade, so hopefully that helps. With cover from the windows, we should make it.

Zen secures the doors, and I have Jill toss down her heavy plasma. She has a smoke grenade, that's all she needs. Kevin's moved around the far side, and Melissa needs to get into position. And Jacque panics. So more guns on the ground.

No MC that time, but you never know. The grenade is down, and Melissa is at the door. That stun ball better work....Here we go.

Don't you love how there's about two lines of text for a picture?

Gaa! that room's empty! But Zen sees the feet of two aliens. What do I do now? Can you toss grenades up lifts? Tyson has the other smoke bomb, and stun launcher. Oh, what to do... I fire the stun grenade up the lift, and hope I hit the right one. I don't think so, and the commander fires of a blaster bomb, blowing himself to bits. Drat.

"Does anyone have a smoke bomb?" Kevin called out. They were moving around the CC, and Natalie and the others were outside the walls. "I've got one," Jill said. "Ok, bring it in here. And everyone, toss down your weapons if you're not in a position to use them. If anyone get's mind controlled..." They hurried around the corner. Zen had gone the other way. "Front doors are clear."
"Alright, we're waiting for smoke before we enter. Everyone get ready."

Melissa moved to the front and Jill tossed in her grenade. The smoke filled the air, and Zen pushed through the triple doors first. He moved in. "I can't see anything. Big grav lift in the middle though. Kevin and Melissa followed. The room was empty, but the commander was obviously upstairs. Zen looked up. "I think those are feet. I can see two. Two aliens, but he couldn't make them out.

If they came down, they could kill everyone, or be shot by plasma. Kevin figured the best thing to do was shoot the stun bomb up there. "Melissa, go, shoot from down here. They had another bomb, so if they missed, hopefully they could get the last one when they went up the lift.

Melissa crouched down and shot the bomb up the lift. They heard it explode, and what sounded like a thud. Then they heard some alien talk, and what sounded like a rocket. Kevin ducked, and the ground started shaking uncontrollably. "What's happening?" Melissa yelled. Kevin looked up. The whole command center was exploding. "He blew it all up. He blew everything up!" The base was destroyed, but there quest for a commander was over.

But everyone(minus meaties) lived! Well done, very lucky, I have to say. Ahh, only an engineer and a navigator. I was so close... But blaster bombs though. A good find, I believe. No unloading stuff, but I have 9 HP clips and guns, not too bad. I'm deciding on a new HWP. Hopefully the new one will be plasma. Either way, it should be nice.

Well, no commanders, despite the excellent opportunity. But great job by everyone. MVP to Jacque, for reaction shots and meatshield killing. I'll have to order some more... It's only mid-April, but we're doing well. Kevin's out for 21 days, but he did some excellent leading. And Tyson gained some courage, too bad it took him the whole mission. But very nice, I am super happy about this whole thing. So I'm leaving off here, quit while you're ahead sort of thing. And by the way, 82 pics. Just from the base thing. Yeah, hardcore. Oh, leave a comment about my italic overlays. Like, this time Kevin described the action after it happened, but just wondering if you think I should put the descriptions before. Or perhaps half and half. And that middle, I just didn't want to write all the dialogue for it. It would be nice, but this thing is beastly enough as it is.