Innocent Bystander
First Post
Awesome updates LB! Cat is very entertaining. Are you add libbing or actually quoting the player?
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
X-COM (updated M-W-F)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Lazybones
Adventurer
I'd say 95%+ of what the main characters in this story say comes from my saved logs of the games. Neverwinter Nights allows you to save the entire chat log of a session. So with that as a resource, I quoted the players directly as much as possible.
Vanya mia and the others made very memorable characters for this campaign.
It also made this story much easier to write, since I only had to fill in the narrative and rearrange some of the details for continuity purposes.
* * * * *
Session 13 (July 7, 2008)
Chapter 43
They got the call late that afternoon, while eating together in the base mess hall. The five of them, including the Israeli scientist, made their way to the briefing room. They ran into Agent Drake on the way, coming from the direction of the lift.
“Our newest recruit?” the FBI agent asked, giving Moshe a weighing look.
“Yes,” Vasily said. “Doctor Yahav, this is Agent Drake.”
“A scientist, or so I hear. How isMossad doing these days, Doctor Yahav?”
Yahav blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Never mind.” She continued ahead of them toward the briefing room.
“Our hosts,” Vasily explained. “We on U.S. soil out of sufferance sometime it seem.”
“Let’s go see what craziness we have in store this week,” Catalina said, leading the way to the briefing room.
* * *
“The bogey is coming down on an arctic insertion course,” Doctor Wagner told them, bringing a global map up onto the big wall screen. “Our best estimate is that it is heading for central Canada, or perhaps the Wisconsin-Minnesota region.”
“Great, we’re meeting Santa Claus,” Jane said.
“I’m afraid you’re not going to like this,” Wagner continued, “but preliminary read on the hyperwave is snakemen.”
“The ship doesn’t appear to be heading for any heavily populated areas,” Garret added. “Interceptors one and three are en route, but given our effectiveness against them thus far, we may not be able to shoot it down. I want your team ready to hit if it lands.”
“Doctor Sandesh has the new Heavy Weapons Platform waiting for you in Hangar One,” Wagner said. “I believe he has instructed you in its use.”
“Don’t look at me,” Catalina said, “someone else can sort it out.”
“All right,” Garret said. “Get your gear. Ken will keep you posted on what we learn as it happens.”
The members of Alpha stood. “Welcome to our world, Moshe,” James said. “Best pray to whatever it is you pray to.”
* * *
The air swirled with gusty flurries of snow as Skyranger-1 descended over a landscape blanketed in white. The roar of the ship’s engines echoed over a landscape that was almost devoid of features, save for the squat forms of a farmhouse and several outbuildings that sat quiet and dark in the midst of the white fields.
That, and the glistening bulk of an alien spaceship that crouched in the yard in front of the farmhouse, looming over its roof by a good five meters.
The Skyranger landed a good hundred meters back from the alien ship, behind a low barbed-wire fence that was almost invisible in the flurry. Even as it settled the hatch in the rear began to open, and Catalina stepped out. The agent was clad in a suit of metallic armor that gave her an almost robotic appearance.
“God, I stand out like a beacon in this,” she said to herself, looking at the pure white of the landscape. The alien alloys used in the construction of the new Personal Armor had a bluish tinge, and she suspected she would be quite easy to spot coming.
Jane got the cargo compartment slung under the Skyranger’s belly open, and the low outline of the HWP emerged. “Focus on me,” Jane commanded, and the machine gave a small chirp before it moved into formation a few paces behind her.
Vasily looked over at Moshe, who was the last to exit the ship. “The guns these bastards use are lethal. Keep you head down, don’t get hit.”
James was fiddling with the power setting on his laser pistol. “Lasers aren’t a lot of good on the snakes, doc,” Catalina told him.
“Oh? Should I grab an MP5 from the ship? Are those more effective?”
“Kind of,” Vasily said. “Spray of bullets gets through their skin. Some time.”
“Great,” James replied. “I think I’ll hang back and cover you guys.”
“Just watch the autofire when Vas and I pull stun rods,” Jane said. She moved forward, the HWP leaving tracks behind her as its treads cut across the snow.
“Jane, if you have that thing, you have to stay back,” Catalina told her.
“Right. No stun rod this time.”
“I not interested in stunning any this time,” Vasily said. “Gun them all down.”
Ken’s voice came through over their headsets. “Visibility is low, but the ship’s sensors are picking up some movement in the area of the farm.”
“Come on,” Vasily said. They set out, Catalina on point, the others following in a line with Jane and the HWP bringing up the rear.
They made their way across the field without incident, but as they neared a low stone wall that fenced off the yard behind the farmhouse, Catalina raised a hand in caution. The Visual Display Units on their helmets offered some magnification and resolution improvements, but those advantages were offset by the bad weather, the swirling snow absorbing everything in a blur of white. They could see the bulky form of the farmhouse, and the barn behind it to the left, but the alien ship was just a vague shadow in the distance.
Catalina gestured for them to remain there. She clambered over the wall and quickly moved across the field to the back of the farmhouse, crouched to minimize her outline against the stark white of the snow. The others knelt behind the wall, using it as cover as they scanned the area for signs of the aliens that Ken had indicated were nearby.
“There,” James said, pointing. “Two to the left.”
“I see them,” Catalina said, whispering over the comlink. She reached the back of the farmhouse and pressed against its back wall, pulling out a gas grenade.
The snakemen slithered through the snow, leaving long trails behind them as they emerged in the space between the house and the barn. As they approached the side of the building where Catalina waited, she pulled the pin on the grenade, leaned around the corner, and tossed it onto the ground between them.
The grenade exploded with a dull thump, engulfing both aliens in a cloud of greenish vapors. The wind caught up the gas and dissolved the cloud quickly, but it was clear that both aliens were affected, the two snakemen twisting and thrashing as the toxin affected their nervous systems. One fired its weapon, the plasma bolt streaking into the sky before it was lost amidst the flurries.
The members of Alpha Team responded with a barrage of their own. The lasers flared in bright streaks as the beams vaporized snow before slashing across the aliens’ bodies. Vasily’s autocannon spit out a less subtle barrage of shells that raised coughs of snow all around the aliens, along with greenish pops of alien blood. The HWP, coming around the end of the wall to get a bead on the targets, fired a rocket, the missile streaking across the battlefield, narrowly missing one of the snakemen before it hit the barn behind them and exploded. Bits of wood and other debris were flung across the area by the force of the blast, adding to the confusion.
The aliens recovered quickly from the stunning gas, but by the time they started shooting back, both were critically wounded. But even as the firefight continued with full force, another two snakemen came around the far side of the farmhouse. James spotted them and started to yell a warning, but before they could hear anything over the noise of the fight, Moshe was hit by a plasma bolt that clipped his shoulder, knocking him roughly over onto his back.
Catalina turned toward the reinforcements and hefted another grenade, but one of the aliens from the first group spotted her, and shot her in the back. The shot knocked her off her feet, and she landed on her face in a mound of snow. The alien that had struck her went down a moment later as Vasily zeroed in and delivered a stream of shells that carved its torso into a bloody mess. The one behind it was covered in wounds, but it managed a shot that sliced past the Russian, catching Jane with a glancing impact to the side of her helmet. Most of the energy of the bolt was discharged off into the air, but Jane hissed in pain as the side of her face sizzled with a surge of blistering heat, and she fell to the ground, her legs thrashing in the snow as she tried to pry off her damaged headgear.
With three Alphas down and three aliens still up and shooting, the situation seemed to have suddenly taken a very bad turn.
Heh. Heh. Heh.
Actually, I'm surpised that there haven't been more casualties amongst the players. I mean - this is Lazybones DM'ing a rather high casualty game that's been converted to D20 Modern - which itself is rather lethal relative to D&D3.5, what with the Massive Damage Threshold being lowered from 50 to your Constitution Score, which pretty much any crit with a gun will trigger massive damage, and a non-crit with a gun that rolled well on damage could trigger massive damage too, assuming it's not one of the pathetic weak ones, which aren't really what the Aliens are packing.
Actually, I'm surpised that there haven't been more casualties amongst the players. I mean - this is Lazybones DM'ing a rather high casualty game that's been converted to D20 Modern - which itself is rather lethal relative to D&D3.5, what with the Massive Damage Threshold being lowered from 50 to your Constitution Score, which pretty much any crit with a gun will trigger massive damage, and a non-crit with a gun that rolled well on damage could trigger massive damage too, assuming it's not one of the pathetic weak ones, which aren't really what the Aliens are packing.
Catalina would have so loved a fan club, and signed photos would have very much been in order. LB doesn't take enough credit, though. You can have the most outrageous character concept there is, but if the DM (and other players for that matter) doesn't give you enough meat then they don't grow.
And trust me, we didn't know if we we going to die any minute or not. Massive damage is very real in the NWN version of D20, and LB doesn't pull punches. He's been kind and hasn't described how many times one or the other of us lay dying on the floor, hoping someone would get to us with a resussitation shot before the bleeding period ran out and we 'died'. LB's campaigns are for adrenalin freaks, and definately not those who want an easy ride.
Lazybones
Adventurer
We did have a lot of near-TPKs early on. I bumped the massive damage threshold to 3x CON after the first few sessions, since the alien guns were powerful enough to do 1xCON with every single hit, and you'd have half the group going down in every single firefight. That's no fun, not even for the DM.
I think we reached a decent balance. In the release version of the mod (available on Neverwinter Vault), I included an Excel file that has stats on all the weapons and aliens that appear in the game.
I think we reached a decent balance. In the release version of the mod (available on Neverwinter Vault), I included an Excel file that has stats on all the weapons and aliens that appear in the game.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Session 13 (July 7, 2008)
Chapter 44
Explosions rocked the area around the farmhouse as the HWP kept up its barrage of rockets. The wounded snakeman to the left was flung to the ground from a direct hit, and the miniature tank swiveled in place before starting forward toward the second pair. It launched a missile that took out the corner of the structure adjacent to them, showering the snakemen with bits of stone and wood. Some of the debris landed on Catalina, who crawled through the snow, coughing, trying to get clear. James knelt down next to Moshe, helping him with a medical kit. Vasily kept up his fire from his autocannon, steam now pouring off the barrels of the weapon, and the two snakemen began to draw back, firing their plasma rifles to cover their retreat. The HWP continued rolling forward after them, firing another missile that streaked out behind the farmhouse before exploding somewhere in the distance.
“Get tank back!” Vasily yelled, but Jane was in little shape to issue commands. Kneeling behind the wall, she finally got her helmet off, revealing ugly black marks along the side of her neck and across her brow where the explosive splash from the plasma bolt had seared her.
Vasily came over the wall and grabbed Catalina, helping her to her feet and all but pulling her back to where the group was gathered. “Doctor!” the Russian yelled, but Catalina shook him off. “I’m… I’m okay. I think the armor took the worst of it,” she said, standing on her own two feet, if a bit unsteadily.
A noise reached them over the sound of the wind, coming from the direction of the alien ship. “I think it getting ready to take off or something!” Vasily yelled, rushing forward after the HWP.
“Hold, Vas!” James yelled after him, but the Russian had already vanished around the edge of the farmhouse. Catalina was hurrying after him, and Jane was on her feet again, her long hair flaring out behind her as it escaped its bindings and got caught up in the wind. James helped Moshe to his feet, and the two followed after the others, following the tracks left by the weapons platform in the snow.
They found both it and Vasily in front of the alien ship, its curving form incongruous as it crouched in the midst of an empty vegetable garden. The tarp that had covered the garden jutted out from one of the alien vessel’s landing struts, flapping in the wind like a trailing cape. The HWP sat facing the ship’s hatch, inert now that its magazine of missiles was empty. A black streak marking the ship’s hull indicated that the tank had gotten in a hit, but there didn’t appear to be any serious damage.
Catalina held up the motion sensor. Signals flared on its small screen, but she couldn’t resolve them through the hull of the alien ship. “Some in there,” she reported.
Vasily touched his comlink. “We need to go into UFO,” he said. He scanned the group quickly, long enough to make sure that no one was about to fall over, then he headed for the hatch. Even without Buzz present, the process of forcing entry was by now almost routine, and after a few moments the slabs that made up the hatch parted and slid back into the body of the ship.
Vasily led them up the ramp into the interior. They emerged into a chamber that had a familiar layout, with recessed niches set into the walls, framed by protrusions that curved up from the floor and into the ceiling above. It looked much like the ship they’d boarded during the Riverside mission.
Except this time the niches held not entombed children, but instead a pair of snakemen, who emerged from the alcoves to the right and left as Vasily reached the top of the ramp.
Humans and aliens exchanged fire at close range. Vasily took a hit to his chest that was largely absorbed by his armor and the bulky harness of his autocannon. It threw his aim off slightly, but the spray of shells still chewed up the wall shielding the nearer alien, spraying it with fragments both of steel bullets and of the alien alloys that made up the hull of the ship.
Catalina appeared at the top of the ramp and dove to the side, splashing a laser beam across the torso of the other alien. Behind her Jane and Moshe came charging up the ramp, but before either could contribute to the close-quarters exchange the nearer alien fired its plasma rifle, missing Vasily but hitting the low roof over the heads of the two Alphas behind him. The shot obviously hit something important, for the segment of hull exploded, blasting both Jane and Moshe and filling the ramp with a stinging cloud of greenish-gray smoke.
Vasily staggered forward but kept up his fire, pounding the closer snakeman at point-blank range. The barrage tore the creature almost in half, and it fell to the ground in a messy heap, still twitching. Catalina slid into a niche just in time to avoid the second alien’s first two shots, then she leaned out and blasted it with a shot from her laser pistol that cut a diagonal line squarely across the center of its skull. There was a brief flare as the beam vaporized its left eyeball, then it too fell. It tried to get back up, scratching at the armored floor with its claws, but she finished it with a persistent beam to the back of its neck before it could recover.
Jane and Moshe limped into the chamber, assisted by James, who’d avoided the worst of the blast. Checking them quickly, he sat both of them down in the niches flanking the entry, then dug out a medikit to get to work on Jane.
Vasily double-checked that the first alien was dead, not that there was much doubt given the mangled wreckage that was left. “Not many rounds left for this thing,” he said, hefting the autocannon. “Allen! How we doing on med supplies?”
James didn’t respond at first, injecting the potent mixture in the medikit into Jane’s neck. “Allen?”
He finished what he was doing, then shook his head. “Sorry. We are low. Got six kits left, and I’d rather have a couple of spares.” He took one of those out of his pouch and turned to help Moshe. Even as the injection began to take hold, Jane remained seated. Her face and neck were covered with more burn scarring, and she squinted, blinking quickly as she tried to clear her vision.
Vasily frowned. “Jane, Moshe, maybe you go back to ship and…”
He was cut off as the ship began to vibrate. As the Alphas reached for whatever was nearby to steady themselves, there was a high-pitched whine, and a rumbling that seemed to come from the walls, ceiling, and floor all at once. Then they could feel the floor seeming to press up against them.
“Okay, too late for that,” Vasily said. “We ready?” he asked, looking back at James.
“Go!” the doctor yelled, as he helped Moshe to his feet.
The ship continued to shake as its engines carried it upward. The Alphas made their way to the forward door, which opened to reveal the forward command area of the ship. The snakeman at the controls didn’t see them until it was too late; by the time it turned, alerted to the presence of intruders, several weapons were pointed in its direction, and it absorbed several hits before it could so much as lift the plasma pistol hanging from a harness at its side.
“It’s dead!” Vasily yelled, as the alien slumped down against the console, trailing a streak of garish green blood. “Now, uh, can someone make this thing land?”
A ear-splitting noise filled the chamber, and the ship begun to tilt to the side. “Quick?” Vasily added.
Catalina hurried over to the controls. James grabbed Moshe, who seemed like he wanted to fade into the curving wall. “Come on, you’re the braniac,” he said, thrusting the scientist forward.
“Come on, we make sure that engine room clear,” Vasily said, tapping Jane on the shoulder. The two of them headed through the side hatch that opened onto the steep ramp that descended into the bowels of the ship.
The ship continued its banking turn, to the point where they had to grab hold of the console to keep from pitching over.
Jane’s voice drifted up from below. “The alien engine seems to be fully functional, if you can get it to stabilize flying!” She appeared a moment later, pulling herself up the ramp.
“Hmm,” Moshe said, looking over the controls as if he were studying a complex mathematical proof.
Jane staggered forward, taking up a position opposite Catalina along the bank of alien controls. She grabbed a V-shaped lever jutting from the console, and tried to shift it. The response was immediate; the ship abruptly yawed, tiling back to horizontal before flipping over to an almost forty-five degree angle in the opposite direction. The members of Alpha cried out as they were flung about, and they could hear Vasily yelling as a loud clatter sounded from the engine room below.
“Dammit, Jane!” Catalina yelled.
“Okay… that wasn’t quite right,” Jane said, heaped up in the corner near the entry, tangled up in a confusion of arms and legs with James.
Moshe crept back up to the control panel. There was a sense of urgency now, as they could feel a sense almost approaching weightlessness, a sure sign that the ship was losing altitude fast. The Israeli scientist grabbed a series of controls, including another lever slick with the blood of the dead snakeman pilot.
Vasily appeared in the lower hatchway, missing his gun and his helmet, blood pouring from a gash in the side of his head. “If we crash, you see what this alien ship energy do? It take us all out, and probably anything we land on.”
“And half of the location,” Catalina agreed, dragging herself up by the end of the console. Slowly, the angle of the craft was straightening back toward horizontal, but Catalina noticed a display panel that seemed to be counting downward, very quickly. “Slow its descent!” she yelled. In response, Moshe started pushing other buttons, but it wasn’t immediately clear if they were having an effect.
Vasily got to where Catalina was holding on for dear life. “Crap. Uh, is that altitude?”
Moshe kept working, and had started talking to himself in Hebrew as he tried to arrest the ship’s descent. Something he did activated some sort of viewscreen, for a portion of the wall was suddenly transformed into a view of the Wisconsin landscape, including the farmhouse they’d left behind, and which was now rapidly growing larger as the ship plummeted toward it. They could see the squat form of the HWP sitting in front of the building, as if waiting for them to return.
Jane had finally gotten back to her feet, and she made her way up to stand beside Moshe. “I know you can do this,” she said.
“I just like to say,” Vasily began, “it been fun—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish, as the alien ship suddenly pitched forward, and the farmhouse suddenly filled the viewscreen, and everything exploded in a chaos of sound and violence.
Chapter 44
Explosions rocked the area around the farmhouse as the HWP kept up its barrage of rockets. The wounded snakeman to the left was flung to the ground from a direct hit, and the miniature tank swiveled in place before starting forward toward the second pair. It launched a missile that took out the corner of the structure adjacent to them, showering the snakemen with bits of stone and wood. Some of the debris landed on Catalina, who crawled through the snow, coughing, trying to get clear. James knelt down next to Moshe, helping him with a medical kit. Vasily kept up his fire from his autocannon, steam now pouring off the barrels of the weapon, and the two snakemen began to draw back, firing their plasma rifles to cover their retreat. The HWP continued rolling forward after them, firing another missile that streaked out behind the farmhouse before exploding somewhere in the distance.
“Get tank back!” Vasily yelled, but Jane was in little shape to issue commands. Kneeling behind the wall, she finally got her helmet off, revealing ugly black marks along the side of her neck and across her brow where the explosive splash from the plasma bolt had seared her.
Vasily came over the wall and grabbed Catalina, helping her to her feet and all but pulling her back to where the group was gathered. “Doctor!” the Russian yelled, but Catalina shook him off. “I’m… I’m okay. I think the armor took the worst of it,” she said, standing on her own two feet, if a bit unsteadily.
A noise reached them over the sound of the wind, coming from the direction of the alien ship. “I think it getting ready to take off or something!” Vasily yelled, rushing forward after the HWP.
“Hold, Vas!” James yelled after him, but the Russian had already vanished around the edge of the farmhouse. Catalina was hurrying after him, and Jane was on her feet again, her long hair flaring out behind her as it escaped its bindings and got caught up in the wind. James helped Moshe to his feet, and the two followed after the others, following the tracks left by the weapons platform in the snow.
They found both it and Vasily in front of the alien ship, its curving form incongruous as it crouched in the midst of an empty vegetable garden. The tarp that had covered the garden jutted out from one of the alien vessel’s landing struts, flapping in the wind like a trailing cape. The HWP sat facing the ship’s hatch, inert now that its magazine of missiles was empty. A black streak marking the ship’s hull indicated that the tank had gotten in a hit, but there didn’t appear to be any serious damage.
Catalina held up the motion sensor. Signals flared on its small screen, but she couldn’t resolve them through the hull of the alien ship. “Some in there,” she reported.
Vasily touched his comlink. “We need to go into UFO,” he said. He scanned the group quickly, long enough to make sure that no one was about to fall over, then he headed for the hatch. Even without Buzz present, the process of forcing entry was by now almost routine, and after a few moments the slabs that made up the hatch parted and slid back into the body of the ship.
Vasily led them up the ramp into the interior. They emerged into a chamber that had a familiar layout, with recessed niches set into the walls, framed by protrusions that curved up from the floor and into the ceiling above. It looked much like the ship they’d boarded during the Riverside mission.
Except this time the niches held not entombed children, but instead a pair of snakemen, who emerged from the alcoves to the right and left as Vasily reached the top of the ramp.
Humans and aliens exchanged fire at close range. Vasily took a hit to his chest that was largely absorbed by his armor and the bulky harness of his autocannon. It threw his aim off slightly, but the spray of shells still chewed up the wall shielding the nearer alien, spraying it with fragments both of steel bullets and of the alien alloys that made up the hull of the ship.
Catalina appeared at the top of the ramp and dove to the side, splashing a laser beam across the torso of the other alien. Behind her Jane and Moshe came charging up the ramp, but before either could contribute to the close-quarters exchange the nearer alien fired its plasma rifle, missing Vasily but hitting the low roof over the heads of the two Alphas behind him. The shot obviously hit something important, for the segment of hull exploded, blasting both Jane and Moshe and filling the ramp with a stinging cloud of greenish-gray smoke.
Vasily staggered forward but kept up his fire, pounding the closer snakeman at point-blank range. The barrage tore the creature almost in half, and it fell to the ground in a messy heap, still twitching. Catalina slid into a niche just in time to avoid the second alien’s first two shots, then she leaned out and blasted it with a shot from her laser pistol that cut a diagonal line squarely across the center of its skull. There was a brief flare as the beam vaporized its left eyeball, then it too fell. It tried to get back up, scratching at the armored floor with its claws, but she finished it with a persistent beam to the back of its neck before it could recover.
Jane and Moshe limped into the chamber, assisted by James, who’d avoided the worst of the blast. Checking them quickly, he sat both of them down in the niches flanking the entry, then dug out a medikit to get to work on Jane.
Vasily double-checked that the first alien was dead, not that there was much doubt given the mangled wreckage that was left. “Not many rounds left for this thing,” he said, hefting the autocannon. “Allen! How we doing on med supplies?”
James didn’t respond at first, injecting the potent mixture in the medikit into Jane’s neck. “Allen?”
He finished what he was doing, then shook his head. “Sorry. We are low. Got six kits left, and I’d rather have a couple of spares.” He took one of those out of his pouch and turned to help Moshe. Even as the injection began to take hold, Jane remained seated. Her face and neck were covered with more burn scarring, and she squinted, blinking quickly as she tried to clear her vision.
Vasily frowned. “Jane, Moshe, maybe you go back to ship and…”
He was cut off as the ship began to vibrate. As the Alphas reached for whatever was nearby to steady themselves, there was a high-pitched whine, and a rumbling that seemed to come from the walls, ceiling, and floor all at once. Then they could feel the floor seeming to press up against them.
“Okay, too late for that,” Vasily said. “We ready?” he asked, looking back at James.
“Go!” the doctor yelled, as he helped Moshe to his feet.
The ship continued to shake as its engines carried it upward. The Alphas made their way to the forward door, which opened to reveal the forward command area of the ship. The snakeman at the controls didn’t see them until it was too late; by the time it turned, alerted to the presence of intruders, several weapons were pointed in its direction, and it absorbed several hits before it could so much as lift the plasma pistol hanging from a harness at its side.
“It’s dead!” Vasily yelled, as the alien slumped down against the console, trailing a streak of garish green blood. “Now, uh, can someone make this thing land?”
A ear-splitting noise filled the chamber, and the ship begun to tilt to the side. “Quick?” Vasily added.
Catalina hurried over to the controls. James grabbed Moshe, who seemed like he wanted to fade into the curving wall. “Come on, you’re the braniac,” he said, thrusting the scientist forward.
“Come on, we make sure that engine room clear,” Vasily said, tapping Jane on the shoulder. The two of them headed through the side hatch that opened onto the steep ramp that descended into the bowels of the ship.
The ship continued its banking turn, to the point where they had to grab hold of the console to keep from pitching over.
Jane’s voice drifted up from below. “The alien engine seems to be fully functional, if you can get it to stabilize flying!” She appeared a moment later, pulling herself up the ramp.
“Hmm,” Moshe said, looking over the controls as if he were studying a complex mathematical proof.
Jane staggered forward, taking up a position opposite Catalina along the bank of alien controls. She grabbed a V-shaped lever jutting from the console, and tried to shift it. The response was immediate; the ship abruptly yawed, tiling back to horizontal before flipping over to an almost forty-five degree angle in the opposite direction. The members of Alpha cried out as they were flung about, and they could hear Vasily yelling as a loud clatter sounded from the engine room below.
“Dammit, Jane!” Catalina yelled.
“Okay… that wasn’t quite right,” Jane said, heaped up in the corner near the entry, tangled up in a confusion of arms and legs with James.
Moshe crept back up to the control panel. There was a sense of urgency now, as they could feel a sense almost approaching weightlessness, a sure sign that the ship was losing altitude fast. The Israeli scientist grabbed a series of controls, including another lever slick with the blood of the dead snakeman pilot.
Vasily appeared in the lower hatchway, missing his gun and his helmet, blood pouring from a gash in the side of his head. “If we crash, you see what this alien ship energy do? It take us all out, and probably anything we land on.”
“And half of the location,” Catalina agreed, dragging herself up by the end of the console. Slowly, the angle of the craft was straightening back toward horizontal, but Catalina noticed a display panel that seemed to be counting downward, very quickly. “Slow its descent!” she yelled. In response, Moshe started pushing other buttons, but it wasn’t immediately clear if they were having an effect.
Vasily got to where Catalina was holding on for dear life. “Crap. Uh, is that altitude?”
Moshe kept working, and had started talking to himself in Hebrew as he tried to arrest the ship’s descent. Something he did activated some sort of viewscreen, for a portion of the wall was suddenly transformed into a view of the Wisconsin landscape, including the farmhouse they’d left behind, and which was now rapidly growing larger as the ship plummeted toward it. They could see the squat form of the HWP sitting in front of the building, as if waiting for them to return.
Jane had finally gotten back to her feet, and she made her way up to stand beside Moshe. “I know you can do this,” she said.
“I just like to say,” Vasily began, “it been fun—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish, as the alien ship suddenly pitched forward, and the farmhouse suddenly filled the viewscreen, and everything exploded in a chaos of sound and violence.
Innocent Bystander
First Post
Good afternoon ladies and gentleman, as we're beginning our decent to land we ask that everyone would please take their seats, fasten your seatbelt, and return your trays to the upright and locked position. We'd like to thank you for flying Alien Air and hope to see you again soon.
Smart Alec
First Post
The NWN engine allowed us to use a D&Desque philosophy of group tactics - tank, healer, damage-dealing snipers etc - that would have been very difficult to co-ordinate in the original X-Com. When it worked, it worked very well.
Speaking for my own guy, for example, Vasily was very much a tank in almost literal respects. He drew and absorbed fire, taking point and using a ridiculously large gun to attract attention, and his Tough and Daredevil levels allowed him to all sorts of Tanky things; self-heal, boost strength, speed, attacks and dexterity, and self-stabilise if rendered unconscious. Coupled with his powers of deadpan snark and smouldering temper, and you had the classic meatshield.
Of course, none of these do you any good in a UFO crash!
Speaking for my own guy, for example, Vasily was very much a tank in almost literal respects. He drew and absorbed fire, taking point and using a ridiculously large gun to attract attention, and his Tough and Daredevil levels allowed him to all sorts of Tanky things; self-heal, boost strength, speed, attacks and dexterity, and self-stabilise if rendered unconscious. Coupled with his powers of deadpan snark and smouldering temper, and you had the classic meatshield.
Of course, none of these do you any good in a UFO crash!
Innocent Bystander
First Post
I never pictured Vasily as being all that big, despite him being described as a big russian, but one of those guys a bit taller than average and very well built from years of hard labor or a physically demanding job, like being in the military.
Smart Alec
First Post
That's more or less right. He was the most physically imposing member of Alpha Team, but he was dwarfed by - for example - Sveinn of Beta, who was very much a Big Guy.
