Innocent Bystander
First Post
You're constant players in/players out is scary similar to the original games. You were always losing people on missions and having to bring in new ones to replace them.
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X-COM (updated M-W-F)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Lazybones
Adventurer
Hadrian was played by karvon, one of the regulars over at Neverwinter Connections. He also runs games over there, and I believe that he has openings in one of his campaigns, if any of you have NWN and are interested.
* * * * *
Session 17 (August 18, 2008)
Chapter 61
Hadrian had barely hopped down from the helicopter before it surged back into the sky, its engines roaring as it vanished into the night sky. Someone’s in a rush, he thought, as he hefted his duffle and looked around.
“Over here, trooper!” came a voice from the darkness. It had been dark inside the helo, but not this dark, and after a moment the marine’s eyes had adjusted enough to see the faint outline of the building a short distance away. The man in front of it was only a vague form. The air was dry, and there was a faint smell on the breeze, a stink of burning and violence that he knew all too well.
“Hold up, chief,” the voice said as he approached the building. “You’re Jones?”
Hadrian nodded, before realizing that the man likely couldn’t see him any better than he could see the other. “Sergeant Hadrian Jones,” he said.
“Right. Step up to the door, look into the little opening in the center.” Hadrian did as directed. A bright light flickered in his eyes, blinding him for a moment. The door unlatched and began to slide open with the ponderous motion that came from a considerable thickness of plate steel.
“Guess it is you,” the guard said. “Go right in.”
He went inside. It was even darker inside than outside, but as the door closed behind him, a lamp flickered on the wall. The interior of the building was a single large room, with an open-sided elevator assembly in the center.
“Proceed to the lift,” came a voice from somewhere.
Again he obeyed, and rode the lift down in silence, counting off the faint markings that indicated distance. He’d counted fifteen before the lift grinded to a stop. When the lift grate didn’t open on its own, he pulled it up, the counterweight holding it in place as he disembarked from the lift into a room not much larger than the one above. There was a door to his right, but a voice drew him in the other direction, to a hallway leading off the chamber that was more brightly lit with lamps set into panels in the ceiling. “Sergeant Jones? Over here, if you please.”
The speaker looked to be about a decade older than Hadrian, though he obviously had kept himself in good shape. The Marine didn’t recognize his uniform, but the insignia seemed to indicate a high rank. “Sir.”
“I’m Hallorand, base chief. Welcome to X-COM, Marine.”
Hadrian presented his orders. “That’s all right, Marine, you can keep those,” Hallorand said. “We already know more about you than your mother and Uncle Sam combined. I myself did a stint back in Gulf 1. Semper Fi.”
“Semper Fi,” Hadrian echoed reflexively, still wondering just what he’d gotten himself into.
“Did they brief you on what you’re going to find here?”
“No sir.”
“Well then. You’re in for a treat,” he said, his voice dry. “I’ll leave it to Garret to give you the whole spiel, but let’s just say that the guy who wrote the Corps anthem never had this stuff in mind.” He led Hadrian down the hall, past a pair of guards armed with G-36 assault rifles. A woman approached, clad in a coverall that fitted to her body in a very… effective way.
“Ah, Grace,” Hallorand said in greeting.
“This the new guy?” the woman asked.
“Yes, a Marine.”
Grace looked him over. “Hmm.” She held up a small object. “Sergeant, could you say your name, please?”
“Hadrian L. Jones.” The device beeped. Grace did something with the touchscreen. “Right. Voice print initialized.” She handed , then handed it to him. It looked like a simple media player or cellular telephone. “This here is your communicator. Don’t lose it. It’s like an iPhone, on steroids.”
Hadrian nodded. Grace handed him another item that was more familiar. “And this is your ID. It gives you sovereign authority in all consortium nations.”
He raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t look like she was joking. “Be careful waving it around. Your average beat cop isn’t going to know what the hell X-COM is.” She looked at Hallorand. “He up to speed on the mission brief?”
“Apparently not.”
“Gah. Well, I don’t have time. Get him in to Alpha.” She looked back at Hadrian. “Excuse me, welcome aboard and all that.” Without waiting for a reply, she shot past, and was halfway down the hall before he could so much as blink.
“She’s always like that,” Hallorand said. “All right, come on, Sergeant. I’ll introduce you to the other members of your team.”
Ten minutes later, Hadrian’s confusion had only deepened. Apparently, his “team” included three women, one of whom was British, and a Russian? He greeted them mechanically, trying to remember everything they said and did, but he had to admit that most of what he was seeing and hearing made little or no sense to him.
The tour of the base didn’t clear up many of those questions. The basic features, like the workshops and the target range, were generally familiar, but the tech there was far beyond anything he’d seen on a U.S. facility.
He briefly met the leader of the facility, a no-nonsense figure in a black suit. “My name is Michael Garret,” he said to Hadrian, pausing in one of the corridors to speak to him. It looked like he was in a hurry. “I… well, I help coordinate things here. Glad to have you aboard. I’m sorry we didn’t have time for a formal orientation. We’ve lost some personnel lately. Nothing sinister, just transfers.”
“I see,” Hadrian said.
“We’re trying to keep a boat floating with a thimble and a roll of tape. From your service record, I know you understand, sergeant. And I’m sure you can hit the ground running. Vasily, Jane, Cat. Good to see you. There will be a briefing at 1500.” For some reason, Garret’s eyes lingered on the Russian for a moment, before he turned back to Hadrian. “I’m sorry, I cannot stay. Welcome aboard, sergeant. Alpha Team here will get you up to speed.”
“Yes, sir,” Hadrian said, but Garret was already moving.
He knew little more two hours later, as he made his way from the barracks to where the briefing room was situated just off the lounge. He’d made sure to remember that; he knew that first impressions went a long way in bureaucratic organizations. And for all its fancy tech and military trappings, he was getting the idea that X-COM was very much one of those. For someone used to the structure of the Marines, this operation seemed one small step removed from chaos.
He headed to the briefing room ten minutes early, but he was still almost the last to arrive. He recognized the engineer and base chief, but there were two women he hadn’t met before, a short-haired brunette in a suit sitting next to Garret, and a tall, leggy blonde standing by the huge console on the left wall. A black man and a nice-looking woman with very long hair sat at the end of the table. The Russian and one of the American women were seated along the table to the right, so he headed over to join them.
“Sergeant Jones,” the blonde said. There was just a hint of an accent that Hadrian recognized from his stint in Germany. “I am Kimberly Wagner, research head for X-COM.”
“Ma’am.”
Garret indicated the woman to his left. “This is Agent Drake, liaison for the U.S. Government. I believe you met Grace already.”
The engineer shot him a mock salute. “Chief engineer.”
“Next down is Stan White, our resident doc, and Joan Beauvois, psychological counseling.”
“I’m sure we’ll talk more at length later, Sergeant Jones,” the shrink said, which immediately raised quiet alarms in Hadrian’s head. For now, though, he moved to his seat and sat down.
Garret looked at his watch, then shifted his gaze to the Russian again, with that heavy, considering look Hadrian had recognized in the hallway before. “Tell me, Vasily. Are you comfortable with what X-COM is doing?”
The Russian held up to the attention well enough, Hadrian thought, as all eyes in the room focused on him. “Yah, I think. All of what I know that X-COM do, anyway.”
The shrink leaned forward. “I am sure that he…” she began, but was cut off by Agent Drake. “Wait for everyone.” The look she sent at the Russian was utterly ambiguous, Hadrian thought, and he started to wonder what he’d gotten himself into here.
They didn’t have to wait long, as Jane and Catalina came into the room, chatting with a young Asian man dressed in what Hadrian recognized as a flight suit. “Ken Yushi, our pilot,” Garret said in introduction. “This is Hadrian Jones, our newest recruit, courtesy of the United States Marine Corps.”
“Ken’s a flyboy, and you know how they are,” Catalina said with a grin.
Hadrian nodded noncommittally.
“All right,” Garret said. “Allen’s going to be sitting this one out, so we can get started.” He waited until the newcomers had taken the last seats at the table before continuing. “We’re here because of new information that we’ve picked up from our intelligence connections.”
Agent Drake shifted her intense look at Hadrian. “Sergeant, as of right now, you have Top Secret clearance. You were vetted by Homeland Security, but nothing said here leaves this room. Understood?”
Hadrian nodded, but Drake did not ease up. “Is that how you typically respond to your superiors, sergeant?”
“Agent Drake, if I could continue,” Garret began.
Her eyes did not shy from Hadrian’s. “Have you forgotten Okwelume already?” she asked. Hadrian did not understand the reference, but he could sense how the mood in the room subtly shifted.
“I understand, ma’am,” Hadrian said.
“Kim, the pictures, please,” Garret said. Wagner hit something on her control console, a high-resolution video appeared on the big wall screen. It showed what looked like an alien ship—even Hadrian could tell that—flying low over white mountains.
“We picked this up almost by accident,” Wagner said. “As you probably know, we’ve lost all satellite activity since early on in the alien incursion. These pictures were taken by an automated recon drone.”
“Where is that?” Catalina said, as they saw the camera overshoot, then briefly scan back to catch a glimpse of the ship descending out of view. They briefly caught sight of something metal below, glinting off the sunlight, then it was gone.
“The Ural Mountains,” Garret said. Several sets of eyes shifted toward the Russian. To Hadrian, it looked like he stiffened slightly, but he betrayed no other reaction. “According to our intelligence, it’s an OSNAZ facility.”
“Russian Special Forces,” Drake said.
“We’re quite aware who they are, Agent,” Catalina said.
“…they… attacked it?” Vasily asked. “What happen?”
“It was not an attack,” Wagner said. “In fact, from our contacts in th Russian government, the site does not exist at all.”
Catalina swore something under her breath.
“No,” Vasily said. “That… that is wrong. Some other freaking mountains.” Catalina patted him lightly on the arm.
“It could be a black operation, beyond the government’s knowledge,” Garret said. “Whatever it is, we need to find out what they are doing. We cannot allow Russia to follow the path of France.”
“If Russia goes, it’ll take half of Asia with it,” Drake said.
Vasily exploded with a string of Russian curses. “We not going to freaking follow—”
“Vasily, we’d understand if you prefer not to go on this mission,” Garret said.
The Russian’s look might have etched glass. “I going.”
“Look at it this way,” Drake said. “If OSNAZ has gone rogue, you’d be doing you country a favor by putting a bullet in it.”
“Agent Drake,” Garret said.
But Vasily might not have even heard her, by the look on his face. “I going,” he repeated, his jaw tightening.
* * * * *
Session 17 (August 18, 2008)
Chapter 61
Hadrian had barely hopped down from the helicopter before it surged back into the sky, its engines roaring as it vanished into the night sky. Someone’s in a rush, he thought, as he hefted his duffle and looked around.
“Over here, trooper!” came a voice from the darkness. It had been dark inside the helo, but not this dark, and after a moment the marine’s eyes had adjusted enough to see the faint outline of the building a short distance away. The man in front of it was only a vague form. The air was dry, and there was a faint smell on the breeze, a stink of burning and violence that he knew all too well.
“Hold up, chief,” the voice said as he approached the building. “You’re Jones?”
Hadrian nodded, before realizing that the man likely couldn’t see him any better than he could see the other. “Sergeant Hadrian Jones,” he said.
“Right. Step up to the door, look into the little opening in the center.” Hadrian did as directed. A bright light flickered in his eyes, blinding him for a moment. The door unlatched and began to slide open with the ponderous motion that came from a considerable thickness of plate steel.
“Guess it is you,” the guard said. “Go right in.”
He went inside. It was even darker inside than outside, but as the door closed behind him, a lamp flickered on the wall. The interior of the building was a single large room, with an open-sided elevator assembly in the center.
“Proceed to the lift,” came a voice from somewhere.
Again he obeyed, and rode the lift down in silence, counting off the faint markings that indicated distance. He’d counted fifteen before the lift grinded to a stop. When the lift grate didn’t open on its own, he pulled it up, the counterweight holding it in place as he disembarked from the lift into a room not much larger than the one above. There was a door to his right, but a voice drew him in the other direction, to a hallway leading off the chamber that was more brightly lit with lamps set into panels in the ceiling. “Sergeant Jones? Over here, if you please.”
The speaker looked to be about a decade older than Hadrian, though he obviously had kept himself in good shape. The Marine didn’t recognize his uniform, but the insignia seemed to indicate a high rank. “Sir.”
“I’m Hallorand, base chief. Welcome to X-COM, Marine.”
Hadrian presented his orders. “That’s all right, Marine, you can keep those,” Hallorand said. “We already know more about you than your mother and Uncle Sam combined. I myself did a stint back in Gulf 1. Semper Fi.”
“Semper Fi,” Hadrian echoed reflexively, still wondering just what he’d gotten himself into.
“Did they brief you on what you’re going to find here?”
“No sir.”
“Well then. You’re in for a treat,” he said, his voice dry. “I’ll leave it to Garret to give you the whole spiel, but let’s just say that the guy who wrote the Corps anthem never had this stuff in mind.” He led Hadrian down the hall, past a pair of guards armed with G-36 assault rifles. A woman approached, clad in a coverall that fitted to her body in a very… effective way.
“Ah, Grace,” Hallorand said in greeting.
“This the new guy?” the woman asked.
“Yes, a Marine.”
Grace looked him over. “Hmm.” She held up a small object. “Sergeant, could you say your name, please?”
“Hadrian L. Jones.” The device beeped. Grace did something with the touchscreen. “Right. Voice print initialized.” She handed , then handed it to him. It looked like a simple media player or cellular telephone. “This here is your communicator. Don’t lose it. It’s like an iPhone, on steroids.”
Hadrian nodded. Grace handed him another item that was more familiar. “And this is your ID. It gives you sovereign authority in all consortium nations.”
He raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t look like she was joking. “Be careful waving it around. Your average beat cop isn’t going to know what the hell X-COM is.” She looked at Hallorand. “He up to speed on the mission brief?”
“Apparently not.”
“Gah. Well, I don’t have time. Get him in to Alpha.” She looked back at Hadrian. “Excuse me, welcome aboard and all that.” Without waiting for a reply, she shot past, and was halfway down the hall before he could so much as blink.
“She’s always like that,” Hallorand said. “All right, come on, Sergeant. I’ll introduce you to the other members of your team.”
Ten minutes later, Hadrian’s confusion had only deepened. Apparently, his “team” included three women, one of whom was British, and a Russian? He greeted them mechanically, trying to remember everything they said and did, but he had to admit that most of what he was seeing and hearing made little or no sense to him.
The tour of the base didn’t clear up many of those questions. The basic features, like the workshops and the target range, were generally familiar, but the tech there was far beyond anything he’d seen on a U.S. facility.
He briefly met the leader of the facility, a no-nonsense figure in a black suit. “My name is Michael Garret,” he said to Hadrian, pausing in one of the corridors to speak to him. It looked like he was in a hurry. “I… well, I help coordinate things here. Glad to have you aboard. I’m sorry we didn’t have time for a formal orientation. We’ve lost some personnel lately. Nothing sinister, just transfers.”
“I see,” Hadrian said.
“We’re trying to keep a boat floating with a thimble and a roll of tape. From your service record, I know you understand, sergeant. And I’m sure you can hit the ground running. Vasily, Jane, Cat. Good to see you. There will be a briefing at 1500.” For some reason, Garret’s eyes lingered on the Russian for a moment, before he turned back to Hadrian. “I’m sorry, I cannot stay. Welcome aboard, sergeant. Alpha Team here will get you up to speed.”
“Yes, sir,” Hadrian said, but Garret was already moving.
He knew little more two hours later, as he made his way from the barracks to where the briefing room was situated just off the lounge. He’d made sure to remember that; he knew that first impressions went a long way in bureaucratic organizations. And for all its fancy tech and military trappings, he was getting the idea that X-COM was very much one of those. For someone used to the structure of the Marines, this operation seemed one small step removed from chaos.
He headed to the briefing room ten minutes early, but he was still almost the last to arrive. He recognized the engineer and base chief, but there were two women he hadn’t met before, a short-haired brunette in a suit sitting next to Garret, and a tall, leggy blonde standing by the huge console on the left wall. A black man and a nice-looking woman with very long hair sat at the end of the table. The Russian and one of the American women were seated along the table to the right, so he headed over to join them.
“Sergeant Jones,” the blonde said. There was just a hint of an accent that Hadrian recognized from his stint in Germany. “I am Kimberly Wagner, research head for X-COM.”
“Ma’am.”
Garret indicated the woman to his left. “This is Agent Drake, liaison for the U.S. Government. I believe you met Grace already.”
The engineer shot him a mock salute. “Chief engineer.”
“Next down is Stan White, our resident doc, and Joan Beauvois, psychological counseling.”
“I’m sure we’ll talk more at length later, Sergeant Jones,” the shrink said, which immediately raised quiet alarms in Hadrian’s head. For now, though, he moved to his seat and sat down.
Garret looked at his watch, then shifted his gaze to the Russian again, with that heavy, considering look Hadrian had recognized in the hallway before. “Tell me, Vasily. Are you comfortable with what X-COM is doing?”
The Russian held up to the attention well enough, Hadrian thought, as all eyes in the room focused on him. “Yah, I think. All of what I know that X-COM do, anyway.”
The shrink leaned forward. “I am sure that he…” she began, but was cut off by Agent Drake. “Wait for everyone.” The look she sent at the Russian was utterly ambiguous, Hadrian thought, and he started to wonder what he’d gotten himself into here.
They didn’t have to wait long, as Jane and Catalina came into the room, chatting with a young Asian man dressed in what Hadrian recognized as a flight suit. “Ken Yushi, our pilot,” Garret said in introduction. “This is Hadrian Jones, our newest recruit, courtesy of the United States Marine Corps.”
“Ken’s a flyboy, and you know how they are,” Catalina said with a grin.
Hadrian nodded noncommittally.
“All right,” Garret said. “Allen’s going to be sitting this one out, so we can get started.” He waited until the newcomers had taken the last seats at the table before continuing. “We’re here because of new information that we’ve picked up from our intelligence connections.”
Agent Drake shifted her intense look at Hadrian. “Sergeant, as of right now, you have Top Secret clearance. You were vetted by Homeland Security, but nothing said here leaves this room. Understood?”
Hadrian nodded, but Drake did not ease up. “Is that how you typically respond to your superiors, sergeant?”
“Agent Drake, if I could continue,” Garret began.
Her eyes did not shy from Hadrian’s. “Have you forgotten Okwelume already?” she asked. Hadrian did not understand the reference, but he could sense how the mood in the room subtly shifted.
“I understand, ma’am,” Hadrian said.
“Kim, the pictures, please,” Garret said. Wagner hit something on her control console, a high-resolution video appeared on the big wall screen. It showed what looked like an alien ship—even Hadrian could tell that—flying low over white mountains.
“We picked this up almost by accident,” Wagner said. “As you probably know, we’ve lost all satellite activity since early on in the alien incursion. These pictures were taken by an automated recon drone.”
“Where is that?” Catalina said, as they saw the camera overshoot, then briefly scan back to catch a glimpse of the ship descending out of view. They briefly caught sight of something metal below, glinting off the sunlight, then it was gone.
“The Ural Mountains,” Garret said. Several sets of eyes shifted toward the Russian. To Hadrian, it looked like he stiffened slightly, but he betrayed no other reaction. “According to our intelligence, it’s an OSNAZ facility.”
“Russian Special Forces,” Drake said.
“We’re quite aware who they are, Agent,” Catalina said.
“…they… attacked it?” Vasily asked. “What happen?”
“It was not an attack,” Wagner said. “In fact, from our contacts in th Russian government, the site does not exist at all.”
Catalina swore something under her breath.
“No,” Vasily said. “That… that is wrong. Some other freaking mountains.” Catalina patted him lightly on the arm.
“It could be a black operation, beyond the government’s knowledge,” Garret said. “Whatever it is, we need to find out what they are doing. We cannot allow Russia to follow the path of France.”
“If Russia goes, it’ll take half of Asia with it,” Drake said.
Vasily exploded with a string of Russian curses. “We not going to freaking follow—”
“Vasily, we’d understand if you prefer not to go on this mission,” Garret said.
The Russian’s look might have etched glass. “I going.”
“Look at it this way,” Drake said. “If OSNAZ has gone rogue, you’d be doing you country a favor by putting a bullet in it.”
“Agent Drake,” Garret said.
But Vasily might not have even heard her, by the look on his face. “I going,” he repeated, his jaw tightening.
Innocent Bystander
First Post
OOhhh, first site mission (or whatever they called it when you located an alien base)? This has some extremely nasty potential.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Yeah, the Russian base mission turned out to be a real test for the group, as you'll see shortly.
* * * * *
Session 17 (August 18, 2008)
Chapter 62
The briefing hadn’t ended well, to Hadrian’s thinking. Wagner had briefed them on what they knew of the base, but it was thin, real thin. The engineer said something about a dampener on their aircraft they would use for their insertion, which should allow them to approach the base undetected. When it came to mission parameters, “should” was not a word that the Marine liked to hear.
Of more concern was the Russian. Hadrian really didn’t like working with unknown quantities on a mission, and here he was saddled with a whole team of them. But he knew how to follow orders.
Those orders were simple enough. They were to recon the Russian base, penetrate its security, determine whether there was an alien connection, and if so, take action to neutralize it. It wasn’t the most suicidal mission Hadrian had ever been given, but at the moment, it seemed to be right up there near the top of the list.
After the briefing, they were ordered to report to Workshop Three for mission prep. Hadrian arrived to find Cecilia Sharp fastened spread-eagled into what looked like some sort of torture contraption. Grace was supervising three technicians who were grafting pieces of body armor onto her. They’d already covered her legs, hips, and back, and as he watched, two men almost as big as he was hefted a breastplate that looked like it weighed a few hundred pounds. He could see the other components, the bulky arm units and a helmet with a glossy silver visor, waiting on a table adjacent to the rig.
“How’s she going to be able to move in that?”
“The armor is powered,” a voice said behind him. He turned to see Jane Swift standing there, looking past him at the work being done on the agent. “It’s fully articulated with electroactive polymer units in the legs and arms. I worked on those some, amazing tech, really. There’s an Elerium-115 reactor in the back unit, of all things. The outer layer is made up of alien alloys and a lot lighter than it looks.”
Hadrian looked at it dubiously. Grace caught his eye, and made a gesture to one of the other engineers. “Right over here, sergeant. We’ve got your suit of Personal Armor ready for fitting.”
He was leery of something along the lines of the powered armor, but the suit they fitted him with was not that dissimilar to the Interceptor armor he was familiar with. It was slightly bulkier, with full-body protection, but Jane had been right about the weight of the material; even with the full rig he felt lighter than even the basic Interceptor vest with its ceramic inserts. The engineer helped him, making adjustments so that the suit fit him better, and explained the basic functioning of the Visual Display Unit in his helmet.
By the time he was ready, Cecilia was fully rigged up, and Grace was helping with adjustments to the suit, working with an xPhone connected to the armor by a thin cable. The others were gathered around a table were weapons were being taken out of protective cases by another pair of techs. Hadrian moved to join them, conscious of the bulky tread of his boots—also armored—on the plate steel floor.
The weapons looked like something out a science fiction movie. Vasily gauged his look and said, “I think we figure out alien weapon technology recently. Is kind of step forward. They did tell you about aliens, right?”
“Not exactly,” the Marine replied.
“Well, we shoot the bastards,” Vasily said to Hadrian.
Catalina had picked up one of the weapons, a pistol that had several small bulges in the haft and along the action. “Hopefully these plasma weapons will dent the snakemen a little more.”
Jane held up her xPhone, which showed an image from the security camera in the alien containment lab. “So that’s them?” he asked.
Vasily glanced at Jane’s phone. “That the smallest kind. But yah, that them.”
“More than one kind, I take it then?” Hadrian asked.
“Three we know of,” Catalina said.
Jane handed out their medikits, which fit into snap pouches that had been attached to their armor at the left hip. She briefly explained to Hadrian how they worked. “We have a medic, Doctor Allen, who usually goes with us,” she said. “but he’s not trained for infiltration missions like the rest of us.”
“Don’t know how stealthy we’re going to be,” he commented, glancing back at Cecilia, who was plugging the lead from her laser pistol into a socket in the waist of her armor.
“Here,” Vasily said, handing one of the plasma pistols to Hadrian. “Just like regular pistol. Aim and shoot. You get used to weight.”
“This our primary weapon, then?” he asked, hefting the gun and looking down its length. The build of it make holding it a bit awkward, and the simple sights had apparently been glued on to the top.
“Depends,” Catalina said. “Snakies don’t mind the lasers much.” She smiled as she lifted one of the improved laser pistols. “Light,” she said, duplicating Hadrian’s action as she sighted down its length. The new software in her VDU activated, showing a bright point on her image screen that matched what the pistol was pointing at. “Very nice,” she said to herself. She took one of the plasma pistols as well, affixing its holster—another jury-rig—on her belt opposite the laser.
“We use more standard weapons, too,” Vasily said. “Musa, he can get you just about any kind of gun you want. These… these pack a good punch, though.”
A voice hissed over their communicators. “Hey kids, I got the bus all ready to go, when you’re ready,” Ken told them.
“That’s our cue,” Catalina said.
“Come on, I show you where armory is,” Vasily said to Hadrian.
* * * * *
Session 17 (August 18, 2008)
Chapter 62
The briefing hadn’t ended well, to Hadrian’s thinking. Wagner had briefed them on what they knew of the base, but it was thin, real thin. The engineer said something about a dampener on their aircraft they would use for their insertion, which should allow them to approach the base undetected. When it came to mission parameters, “should” was not a word that the Marine liked to hear.
Of more concern was the Russian. Hadrian really didn’t like working with unknown quantities on a mission, and here he was saddled with a whole team of them. But he knew how to follow orders.
Those orders were simple enough. They were to recon the Russian base, penetrate its security, determine whether there was an alien connection, and if so, take action to neutralize it. It wasn’t the most suicidal mission Hadrian had ever been given, but at the moment, it seemed to be right up there near the top of the list.
After the briefing, they were ordered to report to Workshop Three for mission prep. Hadrian arrived to find Cecilia Sharp fastened spread-eagled into what looked like some sort of torture contraption. Grace was supervising three technicians who were grafting pieces of body armor onto her. They’d already covered her legs, hips, and back, and as he watched, two men almost as big as he was hefted a breastplate that looked like it weighed a few hundred pounds. He could see the other components, the bulky arm units and a helmet with a glossy silver visor, waiting on a table adjacent to the rig.
“How’s she going to be able to move in that?”
“The armor is powered,” a voice said behind him. He turned to see Jane Swift standing there, looking past him at the work being done on the agent. “It’s fully articulated with electroactive polymer units in the legs and arms. I worked on those some, amazing tech, really. There’s an Elerium-115 reactor in the back unit, of all things. The outer layer is made up of alien alloys and a lot lighter than it looks.”
Hadrian looked at it dubiously. Grace caught his eye, and made a gesture to one of the other engineers. “Right over here, sergeant. We’ve got your suit of Personal Armor ready for fitting.”
He was leery of something along the lines of the powered armor, but the suit they fitted him with was not that dissimilar to the Interceptor armor he was familiar with. It was slightly bulkier, with full-body protection, but Jane had been right about the weight of the material; even with the full rig he felt lighter than even the basic Interceptor vest with its ceramic inserts. The engineer helped him, making adjustments so that the suit fit him better, and explained the basic functioning of the Visual Display Unit in his helmet.
By the time he was ready, Cecilia was fully rigged up, and Grace was helping with adjustments to the suit, working with an xPhone connected to the armor by a thin cable. The others were gathered around a table were weapons were being taken out of protective cases by another pair of techs. Hadrian moved to join them, conscious of the bulky tread of his boots—also armored—on the plate steel floor.
The weapons looked like something out a science fiction movie. Vasily gauged his look and said, “I think we figure out alien weapon technology recently. Is kind of step forward. They did tell you about aliens, right?”
“Not exactly,” the Marine replied.
“Well, we shoot the bastards,” Vasily said to Hadrian.
Catalina had picked up one of the weapons, a pistol that had several small bulges in the haft and along the action. “Hopefully these plasma weapons will dent the snakemen a little more.”
Jane held up her xPhone, which showed an image from the security camera in the alien containment lab. “So that’s them?” he asked.
Vasily glanced at Jane’s phone. “That the smallest kind. But yah, that them.”
“More than one kind, I take it then?” Hadrian asked.
“Three we know of,” Catalina said.
Jane handed out their medikits, which fit into snap pouches that had been attached to their armor at the left hip. She briefly explained to Hadrian how they worked. “We have a medic, Doctor Allen, who usually goes with us,” she said. “but he’s not trained for infiltration missions like the rest of us.”
“Don’t know how stealthy we’re going to be,” he commented, glancing back at Cecilia, who was plugging the lead from her laser pistol into a socket in the waist of her armor.
“Here,” Vasily said, handing one of the plasma pistols to Hadrian. “Just like regular pistol. Aim and shoot. You get used to weight.”
“This our primary weapon, then?” he asked, hefting the gun and looking down its length. The build of it make holding it a bit awkward, and the simple sights had apparently been glued on to the top.
“Depends,” Catalina said. “Snakies don’t mind the lasers much.” She smiled as she lifted one of the improved laser pistols. “Light,” she said, duplicating Hadrian’s action as she sighted down its length. The new software in her VDU activated, showing a bright point on her image screen that matched what the pistol was pointing at. “Very nice,” she said to herself. She took one of the plasma pistols as well, affixing its holster—another jury-rig—on her belt opposite the laser.
“We use more standard weapons, too,” Vasily said. “Musa, he can get you just about any kind of gun you want. These… these pack a good punch, though.”
A voice hissed over their communicators. “Hey kids, I got the bus all ready to go, when you’re ready,” Ken told them.
“That’s our cue,” Catalina said.
“Come on, I show you where armory is,” Vasily said to Hadrian.
Lazybones
Adventurer
Session 17 (August 18, 2008)
Chapter 63
Hadrian had to admit, the ride was impressive.
The engines roared as the Skyranger began its descent. The brief experience of weightlessness had been something, but greater than that was the sensation of speed, of the aircraft hurtling through space like a rocket, nothing like the ponderous C-130 or even the hybrid V-22. Hadrian had no idea of how fast they were going, but he knew that they were traveling over a very large chunk of the Earth in less than seven hours.
With their communicators they could have talked over the noise of the engines, but there was little chatter. There had been a brief communication from headquarters, with Doctor Wagner’s Germanic tones whispering into the tiny speaker in his ear as though the woman was leaning close up to him.
“We’re confident that the dampening field will confound the base radar,” she had told them, “but we’re not going to push our luck too much. First objective is to find the controls for the base’s radar and communications array. If you can find the main dish, you should be able to tap into their comms with your xPhones. From there, you’ll have to decide how to proceed. Collect as much information as possible, but remember, we cannot tolerate a covert alien presence in any consortium nation.”
Hadrian had thought about trying to get some sleep, but ultimately decided against it. He took out his xPhone and began reading up on X-COM, but was interrupted a few hours into the flight when Vasily had leaned over toward him.
“Okay. Here is short version,” the Russian had said. “The little white ones, just shoot them. The red ones that float, shoot or tear gas, either is good.” He pointed to the gray orbs hanging from Hadrian’s belt, the grenades that Musa had given him, along with an M4 and a Glock pistol that he’d tucked into the small of his back.
“The big snake men,” the Russian went on, “tear gas, and if you cannot hit, just spray bullets. We meet something new… pray to God.”
“And snakes aren’t affected much by lasers?”
Vasily shook his head. “Shoot laser if that all you got, but bullets and plasma and tear gas versus snakes, preferable.”
That had been the end of the conversation. Vasily had closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, but Hadrian was almost certain that he wasn’t sleeping. He wondered what he would have felt if they’d ordered him to raid Camp Pendleton.
He got immersed in his reading for a while, until the change in pitch of the engines, accompanied by the feeling of dropping that never ceased to send a chill down his back, announced the start of their descent. “We’re coming up on approach,” Ken said over the intercom. “We’ll be coming in low, so stay buckled in until we land. Keep you comms on local contact only. Don’t contact the Ranger unless you have an emergency.”
The pilot didn’t lie; the approach was a violent one, with the aircraft darting nimbly back and forth, at one point tilting almost on its side before banking into a hard turn. Fortunately, none of them appeared to be the sort who got airsick. Finally the floor seemed to drop out from under them, and the Skyranger plummeted down; Hadrian found his hands fisting on the armrests despite himself.
“I’m ready power signatures to the north and northeast. Going to set down on an ice shelf about two klicks from the base. Visibility is… bad. But that should help you.”
The engines roared again and they were driven into their seats again, seemingly moments before a jarring halt announced an end to their momentum. “We’re down,” Ken said. “Good luck, team.”
The hatch opened onto a blinding sea of white. The harsh wind blew wafts of snow into the rear compartment of the Skyranger even before the opening was wide enough for them to disembark. Catalina was the first out, scanning the area. “Wow, really is bad,” she said. She trudged out a few feet, and almost vanished into the snow. “Watch your footing, can’t even see any edges,” she said.
Hadrian and Vasily followed her out. “And our plan is?” the Marine asked.
“Guess we need lay of land,” Vasily said. Catalina moved to the northeast, slipping off of the ice shelf into a cleft between two steep walls of ice-clad rock. There was some shelter there from the driving wind, so as soon as she gestured, the others followed her there.
“There’s a pretty steep ascent to the north,” she told them. “I’ll scout ahead.”
Vasily nodded. “Try to keep radio to minimum.”
She clapped him on the shoulder and headed out. Their suits of armor were hardly suited to winter camouflage, but the swirling snow made it moot, as it obscured her fully before she’d gone more than ten meters.
Catalina kept one eye on her VDU as she made her way forward; the software in the headset couldn’t see through the snow, but it did superimpose the power readings that the Skyranger had taken during its descent. The landscape was more than a bit treacherous, but she was sure-footed, and she was able to navigate her way forward with only a few minor diversions.
Up ahead, a tall ridge materialized out of the snow. The power readings came from its summit, and as she stared up, she could just make out the dark line that was too straight to be natural. “Found it,” she whispered.
She slowly made her way forward. The ridge rose up in steps formed for a giant, the cliff ahead of her rising almost ten meters to the first tier. She started to turn around to return, but caught sight of a narrow ascent, a ledge that ran up the face of the cliff like a ramp. She drew her laser and thumbed the power button as she made her way forward, intent on seeing if the path led all the way up to the summit of the ridge.
She had nearly reached the top when she heard a noise over the wind, and froze. The noise drew nearer, and resolved into the sound of boots crunching on the icy rock.
She pressed herself up against the rock face, silent.
The sound of the boots stopped. She could see the lip at the top of the cliff, where the path culminated, but not beyond that. She tensed, and shifted as if to start back down the path.
And froze again, as she heard voices, speaking in Russian, close enough that she thought she could reach out and touch their owners. They were right above her, and as she looked around, she realized that if they took one step forward, they could not fail to see her, standing on the path that now seemed treacherous and steep, utterly exposed and unable to escape without certain detection.
Chapter 63
Hadrian had to admit, the ride was impressive.
The engines roared as the Skyranger began its descent. The brief experience of weightlessness had been something, but greater than that was the sensation of speed, of the aircraft hurtling through space like a rocket, nothing like the ponderous C-130 or even the hybrid V-22. Hadrian had no idea of how fast they were going, but he knew that they were traveling over a very large chunk of the Earth in less than seven hours.
With their communicators they could have talked over the noise of the engines, but there was little chatter. There had been a brief communication from headquarters, with Doctor Wagner’s Germanic tones whispering into the tiny speaker in his ear as though the woman was leaning close up to him.
“We’re confident that the dampening field will confound the base radar,” she had told them, “but we’re not going to push our luck too much. First objective is to find the controls for the base’s radar and communications array. If you can find the main dish, you should be able to tap into their comms with your xPhones. From there, you’ll have to decide how to proceed. Collect as much information as possible, but remember, we cannot tolerate a covert alien presence in any consortium nation.”
Hadrian had thought about trying to get some sleep, but ultimately decided against it. He took out his xPhone and began reading up on X-COM, but was interrupted a few hours into the flight when Vasily had leaned over toward him.
“Okay. Here is short version,” the Russian had said. “The little white ones, just shoot them. The red ones that float, shoot or tear gas, either is good.” He pointed to the gray orbs hanging from Hadrian’s belt, the grenades that Musa had given him, along with an M4 and a Glock pistol that he’d tucked into the small of his back.
“The big snake men,” the Russian went on, “tear gas, and if you cannot hit, just spray bullets. We meet something new… pray to God.”
“And snakes aren’t affected much by lasers?”
Vasily shook his head. “Shoot laser if that all you got, but bullets and plasma and tear gas versus snakes, preferable.”
That had been the end of the conversation. Vasily had closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, but Hadrian was almost certain that he wasn’t sleeping. He wondered what he would have felt if they’d ordered him to raid Camp Pendleton.
He got immersed in his reading for a while, until the change in pitch of the engines, accompanied by the feeling of dropping that never ceased to send a chill down his back, announced the start of their descent. “We’re coming up on approach,” Ken said over the intercom. “We’ll be coming in low, so stay buckled in until we land. Keep you comms on local contact only. Don’t contact the Ranger unless you have an emergency.”
The pilot didn’t lie; the approach was a violent one, with the aircraft darting nimbly back and forth, at one point tilting almost on its side before banking into a hard turn. Fortunately, none of them appeared to be the sort who got airsick. Finally the floor seemed to drop out from under them, and the Skyranger plummeted down; Hadrian found his hands fisting on the armrests despite himself.
“I’m ready power signatures to the north and northeast. Going to set down on an ice shelf about two klicks from the base. Visibility is… bad. But that should help you.”
The engines roared again and they were driven into their seats again, seemingly moments before a jarring halt announced an end to their momentum. “We’re down,” Ken said. “Good luck, team.”
The hatch opened onto a blinding sea of white. The harsh wind blew wafts of snow into the rear compartment of the Skyranger even before the opening was wide enough for them to disembark. Catalina was the first out, scanning the area. “Wow, really is bad,” she said. She trudged out a few feet, and almost vanished into the snow. “Watch your footing, can’t even see any edges,” she said.
Hadrian and Vasily followed her out. “And our plan is?” the Marine asked.
“Guess we need lay of land,” Vasily said. Catalina moved to the northeast, slipping off of the ice shelf into a cleft between two steep walls of ice-clad rock. There was some shelter there from the driving wind, so as soon as she gestured, the others followed her there.
“There’s a pretty steep ascent to the north,” she told them. “I’ll scout ahead.”
Vasily nodded. “Try to keep radio to minimum.”
She clapped him on the shoulder and headed out. Their suits of armor were hardly suited to winter camouflage, but the swirling snow made it moot, as it obscured her fully before she’d gone more than ten meters.
Catalina kept one eye on her VDU as she made her way forward; the software in the headset couldn’t see through the snow, but it did superimpose the power readings that the Skyranger had taken during its descent. The landscape was more than a bit treacherous, but she was sure-footed, and she was able to navigate her way forward with only a few minor diversions.
Up ahead, a tall ridge materialized out of the snow. The power readings came from its summit, and as she stared up, she could just make out the dark line that was too straight to be natural. “Found it,” she whispered.
She slowly made her way forward. The ridge rose up in steps formed for a giant, the cliff ahead of her rising almost ten meters to the first tier. She started to turn around to return, but caught sight of a narrow ascent, a ledge that ran up the face of the cliff like a ramp. She drew her laser and thumbed the power button as she made her way forward, intent on seeing if the path led all the way up to the summit of the ridge.
She had nearly reached the top when she heard a noise over the wind, and froze. The noise drew nearer, and resolved into the sound of boots crunching on the icy rock.
She pressed herself up against the rock face, silent.
The sound of the boots stopped. She could see the lip at the top of the cliff, where the path culminated, but not beyond that. She tensed, and shifted as if to start back down the path.
And froze again, as she heard voices, speaking in Russian, close enough that she thought she could reach out and touch their owners. They were right above her, and as she looked around, she realized that if they took one step forward, they could not fail to see her, standing on the path that now seemed treacherous and steep, utterly exposed and unable to escape without certain detection.
Innocent Bystander
First Post
So, the question for us who don't know what's about to happen is, do the Russians have their own secret XCom type program and the bogey they tracked was of Russian design, or do we have some collabaration happening? Can't wait to find out!
Richard Rawen
First Post
Either way it's Not Good!
Excellent story LB, having a lot of fun with this Sci-Fi break.
What do you have cued up for your next work?
Excellent story LB, having a lot of fun with this Sci-Fi break.
What do you have cued up for your next work?
Lazybones
Adventurer
I've been focusing on my non-D&D fiction, although I haven't much time to work on anything of late (luckily I had a good stack of X-COM updates ready before my busy spell hit). Still, I've made a resolution to publish two of my novels on Smashwords (i.e. as e-books) by the end of the year. X-COM should go through the summer at least, so I'll post any news here related to my other works.
* * * * *
Session 17 (August 18, 2008)
Chapter 64
The voices continued for a moment, the words muted by the noise of the wind. Cat remained frozen there, willing herself to silence as the seconds stretched into a minute. Then the bootsteps resumed, walking away, along the summit of the cliff, until they had faded from her hearing. She waited another twenty heartbeats before retracing her steps down the cliff face, and another twenty before she headed back to where the others were waiting.
They were right where she had left them. “Everything okay?” Vasily asked her.
“Company up ahead, but human.”
“No way past?” the Russian asked.
Catalina shook her head. “The base is atop a bluff. There’s a path up there, but there’s no way you’d make it up without the guards seeing you.”
“How about we climb?”
“I have climbing gear,” Jane said.
“I think I can find us a place far enough away from the path that the guards might not notice,” Catalina said. She gestured for them to follow her, and started forward again into the blinding snow.
The approach took a good half-hour, in part because of their concern about avoiding detection. They saw no sensors or alarm devices, but that didn’t necessarily mean that they did not exist. Their VDUs remained blank, save for the power readings in the distance. This time they headed in a more northerly direction, toward the second power source, away from the structure of the base that Catalina had detected. They ended up at a rough cliff face that rose a good twelve meters above them, its summit just a rough outline, a jumble of protruding rock and built-up snow.
Vasily took out a line of rope and a small folding grapnel from his pack. Climbing gear was one area where they appeared to be overequipped; in addition to him, Jane, Cecilia, and Catalina all carried mountaineering kits. Vasily took the lead, aware of the irony that his training in OSNAZ had specifically prepared him for this as he swung the grapnel and hurled it up the cliff. It caught and he started up, but he’d barely gotten three feet off the ground when the ice he’d snagged gave way, and he slammed hard onto his back.
“Gah,” he said.
“You okay?” Catalina asked, as Cecilia reached down and yanked him to his feet. He came up quickly, a bit surprised by the strength in the woman’s armor-enhanced grip. The Russian scowled and waved Catalina toward the cliff face.
The British agent took up the rope and attempted another toss, but this time the grapnel failed to catch altogether and dropped back to the ground. Growling with impatience, Vasily took it up and gave it another attempt. This time the grapnel seemed to stick cleanly, and the rope held while he scampered up to the top of the cliff. Once he was up and able to securely anchor the rope the others were able to follow quickly, Hadrian bringing up the rear barely five minutes after he’d started his ascent. While Vasily pulled up the rope, Catalina probed ahead, alert for any sign of the guards she’d detected earlier. She didn’t get very far before she saw the source of one of the power readings, a massive dish that rose up out of a large mound that was too regular to be natural. Still careful, she crept forward. There was a snow-covered ramp that led up to the top of the mound; near it she could see the familiar dullness of exposed metal. Looking more closely for a door or other access point, she found only a pair of vent outlets that were too small for access, even if they could get through the armored steel covers.
Hadrian and Jane had taken up a position amongst some rocks that provided an overlook to the east. The outline of the base was visible there through occasional gaps in the snow; it was shaped like a giant “U”, with the open end facing toward them. Jane tapped the Marine’s shoulder and pointed; he nodded as he recognized the two dark shadows moving along the ridge near the base.
Cecilia and Vasily joined Catalina at the mound. Cecilia remained back, her bulky armor making it more difficult to remain unseen. Catalina and Vasily crept up the ramp to the top of the mound, where there was a bulky metallic frame half-buried in the snow below the radar dish. Vasily knelt over it, brushing away snow until he found an access panel. The panel was locked, but a few seconds from Catalina’s laser pistol provided entry. The Russian took out his xPhone, and after a moment found a port where he could connect the device. The software on the phone immediately went to work, and within a few seconds, Russian characters started running in columns down the handheld device’s screen.
“They’re coming this way,” Jane said to Hadrian, watching the approaching guards. Both of them readied their weapons, but suddenly the pair turned and ran to the south, away from them.
Jane looked at Hadrian; the Marine shrugged, but a moment later they heard a loud noise in the sky, followed by a light that appeared within the storm, growing rapidly brighter. Above Catalina and Vasily, the dish suddenly creaked into motion, swiveling toward the south. Catalina moved into the cover provided by the console, while below, Cecilia concealed herself in the lee of the ramp.
The sound and light resolved into the familiar lines of an alien small scout, which descended out of the storm toward the base. Within the area bounded by the rugged outlines of the facility, a pair of horizontal doors groaned and wheeled open, revealing an open space below. The alien ship descended, and as soon as it moved past the doors, they started to close.
Meanwhile, Vasily, crouched low next to the console, shielding the display with his hands, tried to make sense of the information that he was intercepting. He tensed as he found a folder, opened it, scanned the contents. “Idiots,” he muttered, under his breath.
“What?” Catalina asked.
The display on the xPhone suddenly went blank; Vasily checked, and confirmed that the signal coming from the relay was dead.
“Come on. We got to find others. Tell when we find them. Move quick.”
Cecilia fell in behind them as they moved toward the crest overlooking the base where Jane and Hadrian had taken cover. “Any luck?” Jane asked.
“I got transmission from dish.”
“And?” Catalina asked. “Useful?”
“Stupid idiots working behind Moscow’s back. Getting… something in return for working with aliens. They receiving alien visitor, now.”
“Well, what do we do?” Catalina asked. “I figure this is your call.”
“We need to get this back to X-COM. And this place… need to die.”
“It’s a long way back to HQX,” Cecilia said. “And any signal we tried to send from here, they’d probably pick up.”
Vasily’s expression was dark. “I… we need take this place now. I want this ‘special visitor.’ You with me?”
Catalina nodded. “Yes, Vasily, always,” Jane said.
Vasily turned to Hadrian. After a moment, the Marine nodded.
“We’ve got company,” Cecilia said.
They looked up to see that the guards had returned, and were approaching their position, moving quickly.
“Maybe they figured out what you did to the comm array?” Catalina suggested.
“They certainly seem irate,” Cecilia said, checking her laser.
“We do quickly, as quietly as possible,” Vasily said, laying down his autocannon and unlimbering his stun rod.
But the Russians must have seen some movement in the rocks, for they suddenly stopped, and lifted their automatic rifles. One reached for a small device at his belt, but even as he lifted it to his face, a bolt of plasma from Hadrian’s gun blasted it into fragments. The guard collapsed, clutching his ravaged hand.
The second guard cried out, but his shout died as a bright line lanced across his throat. He fell over, dead or dying. The other guard lasted just a heartbeat longer, as Catalina pulsed a beam from her laser into his head. The entire exchange had taken barely two seconds.
“Nice shot,” Cecilia said to Hadrian, who merely nodded and re-holstered the alien weapon.
“Good!” Vasily said, picking up his gun and charging forward toward the hangar doors. They were as he feared, reinforced steel, but the point where the two doors came together was the weak point. He reached for the demolitions kit he carried, trying to judge whether the plastic explosives he carried would be enough.
“Suggest we get these bodies out of the way,” Hadrian said.
“On it,” Cecilia said. With her augmented strength, it was a simple matter to grab hold of both guards, dragging them to an out of the way space behind the rocks.
“They’ll be missed soon, even if nobody heard that,” Catalina pointed out. Vasily didn’t look up, kneeling beside the doors, placing the explosives. He set out half of the charges in the kit, then after a moment’s hesitation put down the other half, connecting the detonators and setting the delay for fifteen seconds.
“Might be wise to kill their sat dish as well,” Hadrian said, as he came forward to join them.
“I use everything we got,” Vasily said. He made the final connection.
“Maybe I can take it out with this,” Catalina said, lifting her laser. The moment of distraction was costly, as Vasily triggered the delay, and immediately surged up, charging back toward the nearby wall. Hadrian was just a step behind him, and Jane and Cecilia, still covering up the signs of the brief firefight, saw and threw themselves down to the ground.
It wasn't much of a hesitation, but it was enough. Catalina had barely made the corner when the explosives detonated, hurling hot air and shrapnel in her direction. Though her torso was out of the main blast, Catalina's left leg was trailing as the blast hit.
The force of the blast simultaneously knocked her off her feet and twisted her around. She had enough time to swear loudly before the momentum spun her into the wall. The curse became a shriek as her lower leg reached an unnatural angle, and then silenced as her helmet connected with the wall. She fell to the ground, and lay still.
[OOC Note: When a player has to miss a session in my campaign, they have to accept that something unpleasant might happen to their character in the interim!]
I was just happy that the only thing that could happen was debilitating injury and I got some say in the matter! 
Pretty sure it would have been far worse if my holiday/vacation had coincided with the later incident when she was imp.... well that would be telling.
Plus I was automatically absolved of any responsibilty for anything that went wrong for two full weeks.
Pretty sure it would have been far worse if my holiday/vacation had coincided with the later incident when she was imp.... well that would be telling.
Plus I was automatically absolved of any responsibilty for anything that went wrong for two full weeks.
Zuoken
First Post
Snakemen means Chryssalids soon enough... I feel bad for our heroes.
Great job on the story hour man. It's inspired me to spend most of spring break playing UFO Defense again. The AI is playing hard ball this time around - I've already lost 2 countries and had 4 Alien Bases on Earth at one point.
Great job on the story hour man. It's inspired me to spend most of spring break playing UFO Defense again. The AI is playing hard ball this time around - I've already lost 2 countries and had 4 Alien Bases on Earth at one point.
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