X-COM (updated M-W-F)

[Richard Rawen]

yeah, stayed in bed... At HOME.
This is a brutal campaign, did all of your players accept the 'inevitibility' factor well, or were there some grumpings at lost pc's ?

 

[Lazybones]

This is a brutal campaign, did all of your players accept the 'inevitibility' factor well, or were there some grumpings at lost pc's ?

In actuality no PCs were "lost". In-game, "Cecilia" was killed by the trap but I allowed a revive. I don't remember if they had an Advanced Surgical Kit (i.e. a "raise dead" kit) with them or if I had them bring her body back for a medical evac. The Skyranger was equipped with a stasis unit that they used before, when Buzz was killed during the first mission.

In most of my NWN campaigns, I allow for resurrection, but with a scripted XP penalty. In this case it wasn't magic of course, but based on advanced alien medical technology. If I recall correctly I also had a timed stat penalty as well that lingered for a while after a raise.

In this case the player left shortly after this session, so I elected to make Cecilia's exit a bit more dramatic.

* * * * *

Session 19 (September 1, 2008)
Chapter 69


“What the hell was that?” one of the guards said, his voice more than a bit tense in the darkness. There was a shuffling of booted feet.

“Wait for emergency lights,” Vasily said, sounding calmer than he felt. Looking into the lounge, he saw it was more than the lights; everything was out, even the LEDs on the portable electronics. He reached into a pocket and took out his communicator, but he knew even before he tapped its power switch that it would be dead as well.

He felt an absurd sense of relief when one of the emergency lamps flared on. It cast only a dim glow compared to the regular lights, but it was reassuring to be able to see. He turned to the guards. “One of you see if Musa has portable lights that work,” he said. “I go see if bosses know what happened.” And to get my guns, he added, mentally.

He had to manually release door connecting the lounge to the barracks hall. Jane and Hadrian were there, putting on their armor. “We know what going on?” he asked.

“Power failure,” Hadrian said, sliding his arms into the torso unit and snapping its fasteners into place. Vasily went straight to his locker and took out his plasma pistol. He was momentarily grateful that Drake hadn’t won in her demand to have all the weapons lockers fitted with electronic locks equipped with biometric sensors. He added the web belt with the holster and clipped a small LED flashlight to it. After a momentary pause, he added a fragmentation grenade.

“Comms are down too,” Jane said, picking up her laser rifle. Thankfully, the indicator glowed as she activated the weapon’s power feed. Hadrian helped her get the heavy power pack slung across her back.

“What about Beta?” Vasily asked.

“They’re out on an overnight, remember?” Jane said, and Vasily bit off a curse; he’d forgotten. Still growling to himself, he headed back to the lounge, the others close behind.

As they came in through the barracks hall, Garret and Drake arrived from the outer corridor, the agent holding her handgun at the ready. “We have to assume this is an attack,” Drake was saying.

“Agreed,” Garret said. “We’ll see what Communications can tell us, if anything.”

“Damned electronics!” Drake hissed. Vasily followed them into the communications center, where two techs were trying without much apparent success to get their systems working again. Other than the emergency lights, nothing in the room appeared to be working.

“Report,” Garret ordered.

“Sir. Got a weird reading from upstairs, then everything went dead. Felt like a static shock, almost.”

“Or an EM pulse,” Hallorand said, as he stepped into the room between Jane and Hadrian.

“An EM pulse shouldn’t be able to penetrate this far underground,” Drake said. “Maybe it’s a systems failure—”

“That wouldn’t affect our personal devices,” Jane pointed out.

“Well maybe it—” Drake began. At the same time, Hallorand said, “Who knows what the aliens—”

Garret cut them both off. “Let’s focus only what we know, and worry about what ifs later. Security sensors?”

“Offline,” the technician said.

“They got into ducts last time,” Vasily said. “Best cover lift and hangar, maybe.”

“Lift’s power is negative,” Hallorand began, but then they heard a shout through the open door leading into the outer hallway. “Sir! I heard something in the lift!” came the voice of one of the guards.

Garret met Vasily’s eye, and nodded. The three Alphas hurried out through the lounge, with Hallorand and Drake not far behind. Vasily was the first through the door into the outer corridor. He arrived just it time for an explosion that blasted out from within the lift shaft, tearing the protective gate off its hinges, and hurling it across the room. The two guards were flung back off their feet, and Vasily staggered back into Hadrian, knocking them both into the threshold of the doorway.

Vasily blinked, and nodded in thanks to the Marine as he steadied himself. The emergency light in the lift bay was down, and the light from the corridor gleamed on bits of dust swirling in the air. The Russian took a tentative step forward. The two guards were stunned but conscious, coughing as the dust raised from the blast settled.

Hadrian drew out an electroflare from one of the leg pouches in his armor. Twisting to activate it, he tossed it into the lift bay. The bright glow filled the room, and shone up into the dark shaft. There was movement there, which Vasily recognized even before the first purple form drifted into view.

“Floaters!” Hallorand yelled, just as the aliens started shooting.

 

[ejja_1]

I was waiting for that....

I am surprised it took this long for EMP weapons to enter the fray.
As always LB your stories captivate.

 

[Lazybones]

Thanks, ejja!

* * * * *

Session 19 (September 1, 2008)
Chapter 70


Plasma bolts shot from the lift shaft as more floaters drifted into view. A blast caught one of the guards in the chest just as he was getting up, and he crumpled, bullets from his assault rifle spraying out wildly as he fell. Another bolt clipped the top of the doorway where Vasily and Hadrian were standing, the plasma exploding in a spray of white-hot fire.

“Fire in the hole!” Vasily yelled, hurling his grenade as he charged across the corridor to the shelter of the side hall that led to Musa’s armory and Storage Bay 1. A plasma bolt streaked past him, and another followed him into cover, slamming into the corner and dislodging a spray of metal shards and masonry. The surviving guard was already there, his hands shaking as he fought to unjam the mechanism of his weapon.

The grenade landed just outside the base of the shaft, and exploded under a pair of floaters. The explosion lifted both of them toward the ceiling, and they slowly drifted down, perforated by shrapnel.

“More of them!” Hallorand yelled, as three more floaters appeared out of the lift. The base chief stood over Hadrian, who was kneeling in the shelter of the doorway, firing with calm deliberation. A floater dropped, two neat holes blasted into its chest.

Vasily leaned out of cover, and fired a shot of his own that exploded harmlessly off one of the lift struts. His eyes narrowed as he studied the foe. “Take one alive, these different!” he yelled. He ducked back as a plasma bolt shot past his position. The guard replaced him, spraying a burst of rounds until another bolt caught him squarely in the face.

“Die, you bastards!” Inise Drake yelled, as she pushed past Hallorand and burst into the corridor, firing shots from her handgun. She scored a hit, punching a bullet hole into the floater’s chest that then exploded from inside, tearing a fist-sized hole in its body. The creature let out an agonized sound but fired back, its shot missing Drake by inches. Another hit the wall near Hadrian and Hallorand, sending both men ducking back into cover. Jane emerged with her laser rifle lifted to her shoulder, and drilled the floater with a perfectly aimed shot that drilled a hole through its skull.

Alien bodies and body parts littered the floor around the base of the lift, and the surge abruptly ended. One floater drifted around behind the lift, trailing ugly splatters of fluid from wounds in its chest and arms. Vasily lifted his gun, and yelled, “Not kill, not kill!” but too late; Drake’s hand cannon fired once more, and the alien’s head popped like a balloon. “Grah!” the Russian yelled. He bent to tend to the fallen guard, but one look was enough to tell him it was useless.

Hadrian and Jane came forward warily, alert for any aliens that might be shamming.

“Damn it, they got Brooks and Rogers,” Hallorand said, his own uniform streaked with black lines where streaks of plasma from the near-miss had struck him. The Marine started checking the bodies. “Can we lock the lift down?” Jane asked.

“It should have sealed automatically,” Hallorand said. “The automatic systems must have failed. It looks like they’ve blown the top of the lift, and are using their levitation ability to drift down. Hell, there could be an army up there.”

“They attack other parts of base before,” Vasily said. “We need check medbay and engineering.”

“No way in,” Hallorand said. “The base should have locked down as soon as the power went down.” He shook his head. “No way an EM pulse should have penetrated all the way down here.”

The door to the south wing groaned open, and two more guards appeared, accompanied by James Allen. The doctor started toward the fallen men, but stopped when he saw that there was nothing left for him to do.

Garret appeared in the doorway, a grim look on his face. “We’ve gotten partial backup sensors online. Should have power back up in a few minutes. There are no alien ships topside, but beyond that, we can’t tell much.”

“Where’d they come from, then?” Hallorand asked.

“I don’t know,” Garret said.

“We need to sweep the base,” James said, echoing Vasily’s earlier comment.

Garret nodded. “We’ll have the doors open in a few moments.”

“Let’s check medbay and engineering first,” Jane said, “then hangar, protect personnel first.”

The lights came on in a few minutes as promised, but the main computer and their communications systems remained inactive as the Alphas coordinated with Hallorand’s men in securing the base. They found no signs of other alien intrusions, and manual checks of the venting systems and sublevel access points proved clear. The scientists and engineers were nervous but secure. They found Catalina with a pistol in the medical bay, limping badly as she protected the medical staff in the supply closet behind her. “What the hell happened?” she asked. “Little green men?”

“Red floating men,” Vasily said.

“Damn, I miss all the fun,” Catalina said, grimacing as she leaned back against the nearest bed. “Glad I didn’t let them take my little friend here,” she said, tapping her gun against her hip. “Save a few for me, eh?”

As they made their way back to the communications center, they heard some static hiss out over their communicators, with a few barely distinguishable words in between the white noise. Drake was there to meet them at the door to the communications room. “The hangar is clear,” she said. “but we have other problems.”

“Great,” Jane said.

“We’re reading something up above. Something… big. There’s no alien tech, no ship, no drop pods. Whatever it is, it’s organic.”

“Wha?” Vasily said, as Hadrian echoed, “Organic?”

“Yes. At least, it’s showing green on the boards.”

“Like… flying whale, or something?” Vasily asked.

“Well now. I suppose you will have to find out.”

Vasily scowled. “I love you too.”

“Stay in communication… if the damned things work,” Drake said. “And watch your backs.”

Hallorand came in. “The lift is still down, but we’ve cleared the access to the stairs.”

“Wonderful,” Vasily said.

“I’ll send Zhang and Kolkowski up with you,” Hallorand said. “We still haven’t heard anything from the guards that were on duty above when this hit.” By the look on his face, he didn’t expect to hear anything good anytime soon.

They paused just long enough to get the rest of their gear. Vasily put on his Personal Armor, and James joined them, packing a satchel full of several of the latest generation of medikits. Just ten minutes had passed since the end of the attack before the Alphas were on their way up to the surface, moving in silence up the tight, narrow staircases that folded back in on themselves as they made their way up landing after landing. By the time that they got to the heavy door that led up to the interior of the surface installation, their legs were throbbing from the strain of it.

Vasily glanced back to make sure that the others were ready, then he tugged the manual release and pulled back the heavy steel door.

The interior of the room was dark, with the regular lamps still nonfunctional. The glow of the emergency lighting was enough for them to see that the upper part of the lift had been breached; dark scoring marked the columns where the entry grate had been secured before. As they moved around the lift they could see that the door leading outside was also missing, almost as though it had been simply yanked out of its moorings. There was no sign of the guards that were supposed to be on duty, not even any blood, human or alien.

It was dark outside, the sky a huge expanse of deepening purple as night settled in on the desert. There was still enough of a glow on the horizon for them to see the landscape around them, and to mark the piece of machinery, roughly the size and shape of a standing child, stuck into the ground about thirty meters in front of the building. Between them and it were the missing guards, or at least parts of them; one man was missing his head, and both of his legs ended in bloody stumps just above the knees. The second… there were just pieces of him left, none of them much larger than a backpack.

For a long moment, the six of them just stood there, silent. “My god,” Kolkowski finally said, in little more than a whisper.

“Shhh,” Vasily said, creeping forward up the recessed staircase, scanning the empty desert. There was no place that an alien, big or small, could have hidden, except for…

He turned, and looked back just as the alien came around the edge of the building. It looked… no, there was nothing that came to mind, nothing terrestrial that Vasily could think of that would be even close to a basis for comparison. It was a monster, bipedal but otherwise nothing close to human, a bulging thing of muscles and fur and bony ridges. It walked hunched over, its body compressed like a spring, but even so it stood almost three meters tall. Its arms jutted from its body, trailing down to claws that nearly scratched the ground as it walked. Its face, which Vasily saw as it turned toward him, was a horror in and of itself, a feral visage flanked by curling horns, and jaws that looked big enough to accommodate a human without much effort. Hot slaver trailed between teeth like broad daggers as those jaws opened, and it issued a deep, guttural noise that Vasily felt in his bones, even fifteen meters away.

The others turned and saw it, and felt the sheer primeval impact of it.

Then the thing roared, and charged at them.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Well, the Alpha's are in for a real treat. Good thing they came up fully armed and armored.

 

[Lazybones]

And the funny part is that this isn't even the worst thing left in the alien arsenal that we haven't gotten to yet. X-COM veterans know what I'm talking about.

* * * * *

Session 19 (September 1, 2008)
Chapter 71


“Shoot it, SHOOT IT!”

It wasn’t clear who yelled, or all of them, for their cries were drowned out by the sound of gunfire as the alien monstrosity surged toward them. Bullets, laser beams, and plasma bolts slammed into the alien, which moved with an uncanny speed that caught them all by surprise.

The creature sprang forward, leaping up onto the edge of the building’s roof, digging in its hind claws before it jumped again, its momentum carrying it into the midst of the X-COM team.

Vasily was struck solidly in the chest, and went flying, tumbling head over heels before striking the ground and tumbling to a rough halt some ten meters back from where he’d been standing. Zhang screamed as he was crushed under the creature’s bulk, and both Jane and James were knocked off their feet.

Hadrian and Kolkowski had avoided being hit in the initial rush, and both unleashed fire into the monster at point-blank range. Hadrian fired his pistol into the joint where its right leg met its body, the plasma bolt thumping into its matted hide with little of the explosive force that the weapon usually evidenced. The creature obviously felt it, but it turned and lashed out with a claw. The Marine dropped into the stairwell and ducked, narrowly avoiding the sweep that gouged out runnels of stone and metal as the claws scored the ground around the stairs.

As the creature turned away, Kolkowski fired his G-36 into its backside, but the bullets merely bounced off its hide. The guard yelled and drew out a stun rod, flicking its power switch and stabbing it hard into the creature’s rear. The jolt got the thing’s attention, and as it spun around to face its tormentor, nearly taking off Hadrian’s face with one of its huge feet as the Marine peeked up from his shelter, looking for a shot. Kolkowski tried to thrust the stun rod into its face, but the creature was faster, seizing him in one huge claw, lifting him off his feet. It grabbed onto the arm holding the stun rod with his other claw, and with a yank tore the limb off at the shoulder. Kolkowski screamed, but that didn’t last long as it stuffed his head into its maw and bit down, severing his neck.

A blast of plasma flared against the back of the creature’s head as James shot it. The alien turned, tossing Kolkowski’s body aside, roaring and flashing its bloody teeth at the doctor. Jane fired her laser rifle, the beam slicing across its head. The alien roared again, this time in pain, but she kept the weapon on target, and as it pulsed across its face one of its eyes swelled and exploded, leaving a trail of bubbling fluid running down its face.

The alien took a step toward them, stepping across the stairwell, but it staggered as a stream of armor-piercing rounds from his autocannon slammed into it from the left. Vasily kept firing, and the alien lifted its arms to protect its face as it turned toward him. Hadrian popped up and slapped something onto its heel just as it fell into a crouch and leapt forward toward the Russian. It closed the distance between them in a flash, but as lunged to strike its right foot exploded with a dull thump. The alien screamed and toppled over, striking Vasily a glancing blow that nevertheless still flipped him over, driving him once more into the ground. He managed to roll away from the creature’s violent thrashings.

Energy blasts continued to hit the alien as it dug into the ground with its claws and pulled itself up. Even with a crippled foot and one eye destroyed it still seemed ferociously menacing, and it kept coming, creeping after Vasily rather than charging, leaving a bloody trail of mess behind it on the barren ground. Vasily wisely chose to fall back. His gun had been damaged, the ammo feed fouled by the latest impact, and he slipped out of the heavy harness as he retreated, letting it fall to the ground as he drew out his plasma pistol and started firing at the creature’s face. Jane, James, and Hadrian kept shooting as well, but the alien kept on coming, closing the distance between them.

“Back inside!” Vasily yelled. He turned and started running now in earnest, but the alien, perhaps sensing that its quarry was about to escape it, surged forward, jamming its ruined foot into the ground, then springing off its good one into the fleeing Russian. Vasily went down, and the creature rose triumphantly over him, lifting its claws into the air, forming them into fists like iron hammers.

The other Alphas spun and abandoned their retreat, coming back toward the alien, firing as they came. Plasma bolts exploded around its head, forming a cloud of white fire through which Jane’s laser pulsed eager lances of heat. The alien’s claws came down, slammed into Vasily’s chest. They came up again, but before it could finish the Russian off, Hadrian, now almost within its reach, lifted his pistol and fired a shot that vanished into the dark socket of its ruined eye. The creature rose to its full height, claws clutching at the air, then it tumbled over backwards, landing with enough impact to shake the ground under their feet.

Jane and Hadrian rushed forward to make sure of it, while James bent over Vasily, a medikit already in hand. The Russian groaned, conscious but spitting blood as his broken ribs poked into his lungs. “That… hurt…” he managed, as James shook his head and stabbed the medikit into his chest.

 

[Vanya Mia]

Don't we just?!

Mind you, though I missed the initial exposure, those blasted things always made me think "Oh s&%t". What with Catalina only wearing light armour and all. Never did I make more use of the "Shot on the Run" ability, more aptly named "Fire and get the hell out of there" as far as I was concerned.

 

[Innocent Bystander]

Well hopefully by the time the get into the even nastier things than reapers they'll be much better armed.

Luckily, in the orginal version of the game, it was pretty easy to keep them at a distance...as long as one used Cat's fire and get the hell out of there tactics

 

[Lazybones]

Yeah, the d20M project had a great model that I used for the reapers. I'll see if I can post a pic later.

* * * * *

Session 19 (September 1, 2008)
Chapter 72


“It looks like they came on foot over the desert, from the northeast,” Hallorand said. He activated graphics that appeared on the map displayed on the big LCD as he gave his report. “Nothing there but empty desert for about 200 miles. We haven’t found where they landed, yet, but we’re still scouting out possible sites.”

“Couldn’t you just follow the tracks left by that big bastard?” Hadrian asked.

“We’re on it, but it’s some rough country out there,” Hallorand said.

“Of more concern is how they got inside our detection perimeter,” Wagner said. “Our preliminary analysis indicates that the floaters had some sort of integrated device that seems like it was designed to confound our sensors.”

“Okay, that not good,” Vasily said. He was still a bit weak, but he’d insisted on sitting in on the briefing, even if he could barely remain upright in his chair.

“Now that we know about it, we should be able to counter,” Wagner said. “But it shows they are still a step ahead of us.”

“They brought that EM generator all that way,” Jane said. “Caught us completely by surprise.”

“Our systems were hardened, but that pulse was… nasty,” Hallorand said in agreement. “From what we’ve heard, Reno and Las Vegas are still completely dark.”

“Well, we will definitely need to secure all of our systems against another burst like that,” Garret said.

“And a new alien species to add to our list,” James noted.

“I saw it on the camera as they brought it in,” Garret said.

“What’s next?” Drake snorted. “Dragons and trolls?”

Wagner brought up a picture of the carcass on the monitor, its body making the autopsy bay seem cramped and crowded. “It is probably another genetically engineered creature. Looks like it was designed for close fighting. Tough, fast.”

“Not fast enough for Alpha,” Garret said.

“Yes, well, I’d be more worried about how the aliens could infiltrate and break our security at will,” Drake said.

“Hopefully we’ll know more by morning,” Garret said. “I’ve got the interceptors on alternating CAP duties until the main sensor array is back online. USAF has agreed to scan the desert for us.”

“Did seem small force if they intend to take out all of base,” Vasily said. “Am wondering if this was just… test of new creature.”

“From what I’ve seen of the alien devices,” Wagner said, “They couldn’t have hidden any more than that from our sensors.”

“Vasily has a point,” Garret said. “They certainly seem able to adapt.”

“We shall just have to adapt faster, then,” Drake said, a grim thought that held them as they stared at the monstrous thing up on the monitor, even in death dwarfing the white-clad researchers that moved around it, beginning the work of learning more about what they faced.

* * *

The Alphas didn’t get much sleep that night, charged up from the battle above and the implications of the latest alien gambit. Several of them met up in the firing range, where they practiced some more with the new plasma pistols, getting over some of the awkwardness of the alien weapons. When they reunited in the briefing room at 0800, they found the department heads already there.

“Good morning,” Garret said in greeting as the Alphas filed in. “We were just going over what we’ve learned.”

He nodded to Doctor Wagner, who continued her report. “The aliens came overland, from a landing site approximately seventy-five miles northeast of here. As we noted earlier, the floaters were upgraded with an integrated device that sent out a jamming field effective against our sensors. We can compensate, now that we know about the technology.”

She nodded to Stan White, who stood and brought up a picture of the big alien they’d killed topside on the monitor. “Wait, where’s James?” Jane asked.

“He left two hours ago,” Garret said. “Doctor White, maybe you can best explain.”

Stan nodded. “We got this, last night, from Buzz Olloff, at the Advanced Aerospace Design Center. Buzz has been working on the software for the Lightning project, and we sent him the Russian hard drive to see if he could help out on the decryption.”

He typed in a few keys on the control screen, and an e-mail popped upon the large LCD.

FROM: Buzz Olloff
TO: Michael Garret
CC: Kim Wagner
RE: Russian Hard Drive

Russian cryptography isn't what it used to be. There was some Cold War stuff, I could tell you some stories... Anyway. I broke the encryption and am attaching some of the files. Some, because apparently there was a security program that started to wipe the drive once it was tampered with. Whoever yanked this must have really had ten thumbs. Well, I got some good stuff, blueprints, schematics, experiment writeups, yadda yadda. I ran it through a translator for you, and attached the originals as well. I couldn't make head nor tails out of most of it, but show it to the Doc, he'll probably like it.

“The files we got included information about Russian experiments on using energy fields and alien DNA to stimulate cellular regeneration in humans,” Stan explained.

“We found device marked like that in base,” Vasily said.

Stan nodded. “Apparently some of the experiments led to some nasty side effects, but there were also some remarkable breakthroughs. It is likely that the OSNAZ agents that you encountered had been ‘enhanced’ through these processes, which would help explain why they were so difficult to kill. While stronger safety protocols than those used by the Russians would be in order, our researchers may be able to use this data to begin work on regenerative serums that can eventually be used by X-COM field units.”

“That would be useful,” Jane said.

“Indeed,” Stan replied. “There are a ton of useful applications, this could advance medical science by—”

“Suffice it to say that we’re moving on this to get some useful field applications,” Garret interrupted. “Doctor Allen’s hasty departure is for a meeting at the American National Institutes of Health in Maryland; there’s a team of scientists from the United States and the European Union there already, working on several projects derived from alien science.”

“How long will he be gone?” Jane asked.

“Hopefully, just a few days,” Stan said.

“Doctor White, for now, please continue with your briefing,” Garret said.

Stan nodded and brought the image of the big alien back up on the screen. “Our preliminary analysis indicates that they’re definitely an engineered species,” he explained, bringing up a column of data that didn’t mean a whole lot to the Alphas. They already knew what the thing could do. “Built for combat. Fast, armored, and deadly. We’re calling them ‘reapers’ for now.”

“How droll,” Agent Drake said. By the look on her face as she sipped her coffee, she hadn’t gotten any sleep last night either.

Garret turned to her. “Agent Drake, your update?”

“I was going to report on this last night… before. A source has provided a lead on a possible alien activity on U.S. soil. We’ve set up a cordon… quietly… around an industrial park outside of Dallas. The place is dead; business dried up in the crash of ’08. Not much there now save for rotting buildings, mostly.”

“What kind of ‘activity,’ you think?” Vasily asked.

“That’s why you’re here, Vasily,” Drake said without missing a beat. “To find out the answers to those questions.”

“The neighborhood is putting out a lot of energy for an ‘inactive’ region,” Wagner said. She brought up a map of the southern United States, which rapidly zoomed in until they could see Dallas, and then closer, until they could see the buildings of the target zone in detail. “This is an old satellite image,” she explained. “Our preliminary scans indicate that something is going on there.”

“Anyway,” Drake went on, after a look at Garret, “We’ve agreed to let X-COM take the lead in this investigation.”

“If there is activity related to the aliens going on there, we need to find out, and learn what we can.”

“Any indication of what kind of aliens?” Hadrian asked.

“Hyperwave decoder shows nothing,” Wagner said. “Although if they have jammers now…”

“Assume it could be anything,” Garret said.

“Right,” the Marine acknowledged.

“Last night’s attack notwithstanding, the aliens have been too quiet of late,” Garret said. “They’re up to something, and we need to know what it is, before it happens. We’ve been playing catch up too much of late.”

“The area should be clear of civilians,” Wagner said. “If you do run into anyone, try to scare them out. We don’t want collateral damage.”

“Any human collaborators likely?” James asked.

“I would have said no,” Garret said, “before France.”

The Alphas shared a look, and nodded in understanding. “You depart at 1200 hours,” Garret said.

“Why the delay?” Hadrian asked.

Garret shifted his gaze to Vasily. “Before you depart, you have an appointment in Workshop 2.”

 

[Lazybones]

Okay, here's a few more pics.

xcom5: A reaper and its handiwork.
xcom6: French agents wait to betray X-COM.
xcom7: An X-COM agent in Powered Armor trades fire with two armored OZNAZ agents.