X-COM (updated M-W-F)
- Thread starter Lazybones
- Start date
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lazybones
“God, we need some better way to stun than sodding stun pole.”
...the woman lay where she’d fallen, her eyes open, but her body stiff and unresponsive.
LOL yeah, makes one wonder how the game is crafted... or how Fate plays a part of things LOL Things were nuts in LB's games; but, had always been memorable
Originally Posted by Lazybones
“God, we need some better way to stun than sodding stun pole.”
...the woman lay where she’d fallen, her eyes open, but her body stiff and unresponsive.
Ask and ye shall receive
LOL yeah, makes one wonder how the game is crafted... or how Fate plays a part of things LOL Things were nuts in LB's games; but, had always been memorable
Lazybones
Adventurer
Session 14 (July 14, 2008)
Chapter 49
The sectoid with the small launcher lifted its weapon to fire, but before it could shoot James blasted it with a shot that bored a brightly glowing line down the center of its helmet. The alien staggered back a few steps before crumpling to the ground. Its companion shot back, the plasma bolt hitting the SUV in the tire, exploding it and a good part of the wheel well, showering James with debris. The doctor fell hard onto his side, but kept shooting.
The nearer of the charging sectoids lifted its vibroblade as it closed the last few meters to the stunned women. It fixed on Catalina, who was still standing, but even as it started to swing it was flung backward as a dozen armor-piercing shells tore through its body. The second alien turned as Vasily stepped into view, but all it could do was die as Vasily blasted it with a sustained stream of fire that chewed it into meat.
The last alien had dropped as Buzz shot it a second time with his laser. Scanning the area for further threats, Vasily sidled closer to the others. “The hell was that?”
“Hold on, don’t touch them!” James cautioned, grimacing as he dragged himself back to his feet behind the wreckage of the SUV. “Whatever they hit her with, it got Catalina when she touched Jane.”
But Catalina was already starting to come out of it, blinking and almost falling before she stumbled back a step, then steadied herself with a hand against the back of the SUV. “What happened?”
“You were stunned,” James said. “Looks like some sort of paralytic agent, by the look of it.” The vapors had completely faded, but James was careful as he bent close to Jane. The fallen agent was still conscious, but her muscles had frozen into an awkward position, and it was clear from the strained look on her face that she was trying to fight off the effects. “Hold on,” he said, reaching into his medical kit.
Vasily bent and picked up one of the alien swords. It appeared to be inert, now, and he couldn’t see any mechanism that activated it. “Not seen one of these before,” he said. “This not look good.”
“You okay?” Buzz asked Catalina.
“Everything went black,” she said. “Like… I don’t know what.”
A groan came from Jane as James injected her with the contents of an X-COM medikit. “What the hell?” she asked.
“Take it easy, don’t force it,” James said. “You were hit by a new alien weapon, but it looks like the effects are temporary.”
“That must be how they capture people,” Buzz suggested.
James looked up, saw that Vasily had a fresh black burn on his armor, along his side just under his left arm. “You need help, Vas?”
“Just shot of painkiller is good, anything. We still have alien ship to deal with.”
While James tended to him, Catalina and Buzz kept an eye out for more aliens. Jane sat on the blacktop, working the muscles in her legs and arms. When James had finished with his injection, Vasily said, “Jane, you with us?”
“Yes, I think so,” she said. She accepted a hand from James, who pulled her to her feet.
“Stay together,” James said. “Don’t want to be stunned when you’re alone.”
Catalina took point, scanning with her motion sensor. As they approached the front of the All-Mart, they could see through the shattered front windows that the alien ship had actually descended into the store, with as much of it protruding through the sagging roof as they’d seen above. Long struts descended from its body like legs, including one that dropped through an awning into a scattered display of patio furniture. There were more bodies inside, including a few people who’d apparently been killed by debris caused by the ship’s landing.
“There’s a hatch,” Buzz said, pointing to the base of the strut.
“I think there’s more of them inside,” Catalina said, holding up the sensor. “I’m picking up movement.”
“Careful with autofire,” Vasily said. “May be prisoners inside.”
Buzz worked the hatch, which split and recessed into the alien ship to reveal a steep ramp heading up.
The ascent remained close, with Vasily and James having to duck to avoid hitting the ceiling, until the ramp opened onto a small chamber. There was another hatch on the far wall, which Catalina approached, scanning first with the handheld device and then with an ear to the door.
“Two, maybe three,” she reported.
The Alphas took up position, and readied their weapons. At Vasily’s nod, Catalina worked the mechanism, and the door opened to reveal a larger, round chamber on the far side. Alcoves lined the walls, some of which held cocooned human captives. The curve of the far wall contained alien machinery and a narrow opening that led to another room beyond. There were also sectoids, three of them, who turned as the door opened and drew their plasma pistols.
Using the doorway as cover, the Alphas unleashed a barrage of fire that tore into the aliens. One sectoid went down, lasered into a charred mess, while a second was blasted back against the console by a series of hits from Vasily’s autocannon. Obviously dying, it managed to get off one shot, which caught the Russian in the shoulder and knocked him into Buzz. Both men fell to the floor. James grabbed Vasily and pulled him out of the line of fire, while Catalina and Jane fired at the last alien. One of them scored a glancing hit on the alien’s arm, but it made it to one of the doors, which hissed open and then shut quickly behind it.
“Gya,” Vasily said, as James helped him up. The plasma bolt hadn’t penetrated his armor, leaving him just a little singed.
They made their way into the room, the women leading, checking the alcoves to make sure that no more aliens were lurking in wait. Catalina took out her knife and cut into one of the cocoons, confirming that they held live humans that had been captured by the aliens. Vasily headed to the door that the alien had used to escape, but when it opened, it revealed only an empty corridor.
“Leave them for now,” Vasily said, as James joined Catalina in freeing the comatose prisoners. “We need hurry before they take off again.” He looked around. “Where Buzz?” He tapped his communicator. “Buzz?”
Buzz’s voice came from the narrow opening between the alien machinery. It led to a nook crowded with control banks and bulky components that occupied the space from the floor to the low ceiling. “Working on the ship’s controls,” he said. There was a deep thrum that seemed to come from beneath them, followed by a slight settling as the floor trembled once and then fell quiet.
“Buzz?” Vasily asked.
The hacker reappeared. “I shut down the engines for now, but the main control is elsewhere in the ship. I don’t think it will take them long to override.”
“All right,” Vasily said. He nodded to Catalina. “We go left,” he said. He went that way, while Jane led Buzz and James through the opposite doorway. “Keep the com channel open,” Catalina said, as she hurried after the Russian down the corridor behind the door.
The corridor ended in another door that opened onto a long chamber dominated by the mechanisms of the alien ship’s engines. “Where the hell they?” Vasily asked the air, peering into every nook and cranny as they made their way to the front of the compartment, where another opening was visible that led into another chamber in the front of the ship. There was another exit opposite them that appeared to loop around to the entry chamber, and a shaft of light that rose from a recessed circle in the floor up to a contracted iris in the ceiling.
“This ship have an upstairs,” Vasily said, pointing toward the beam of light.
James appeared in the far doorway, followed a moment later by Jane and Buzz. “Power sources,” the doctor reported. “No more this way I can see.”
Catalina scanned the room, moving the device first left, then right, and finally up toward the ceiling. “No more on this level,” she said. “Some movement above… I think it’s further back, more toward the center of the ship.”
Vasily nodded. He stepped forward, into the ring of light. He wasn’t quite surprised when he started to rise into the air. The iris in the ceiling above dilated as he approached, proving access to an upper level of the ship. He was ready for a fight, but the top of the lift was little more than an alcove, empty of anything except for a small doorway that led to another part of the ship. Vasily watched it until the others had made their way up, then gestured for Catalina to check it out. After a few seconds the door slid open, revealing a slightly larger room beyond. There were more instrument panels here, along with workstations that might have been for anything. They didn’t linger long, just verifying that there were no aliens before moving to the larger door in the far wall.
Catalina barely had to look at her scanner. “They’re in there,” she said, indicating the doors.
They didn’t need to talk more to prepare, taking up positions around the door. Once they were all ready, Catalina triggered the sensor that opened the door. It parted and drew open to reveal a sectoid standing there, holding a plasma pistol.
“Aza gaak!” it exclaimed, lifting the weapon to fire.
A blast of fire tore into it, and the alien crumpled. “Azza Gak yourself,” Vasily said.
They didn’t hesitate, moving into the large chamber beyond. It was instantly evident that the long, ovoid chamber was the control room. Panels along the wall showed scenes ranging from the exterior outside to what looked like a view of the Earth from space. Banks of control panels lined the walls, and a pair of large, bulky mechanisms rose up from the floor in the center of the room, glowing as lighted indicators flickered within translucent spheres.
There were sectoids, too, at least three of them in view, all of them armed. “Gaaak!” one yelled, while to the right, a second echoed, “AAAgak!” Both fired, but their shots missed the Alphas as they charged into the room. Their helmet displays classified the aliens as a navigator and engineer, respectively.
Vasily aimed at the navigator, but before he could pull the trigger, another alien appeared at the far side of the room. It held a pistol, but instead of taking aim it simply focused its eyes on the Russian, who staggered back as if struck. “Gya!” he yelled, shaking off the attempt to take control of his mind, succeeding where he’d failed in the hangar bay of X-COM headquarters. “That one at the back!” he yelled. “Want him alive!”
But at the moment, there didn’t seem to be much they could do about the alien leader, who turned to the nearest control panel and started pushing buttons. Another alien engineer appeared behind the banks of machinery, adding its fire to the others, hitting both Vasily and Catalina with blasts that spun the Russian around and knocked the British agent off her feet. “Doc!” Catalina yelled, but James was already running toward her. Jane blasted the sectoid navigator between the eyes, burning an opening an inch across through the center of its skull. As it fell, she ran forward toward the leader, unlimbering her stun rod as she ran.
The engineers immediately shifted their fire toward her, but Vasily reacted before they could stop her. Pulling a grenade from his belt, he yelled, “Fire in the hole!” then tossed it roughly between the two alien engineers.
The explosion buffeted the Alphas, but the sectoids, caught by the full concussive force of the explosion, crumpled. Vasily ran forward to help Jane, grabbing his own stun rod, but before he could get to her another sectoid stepped out from between the banks of machinery and lunged at him with a vibroblade. The weapon bit into his armored leg and ripped through the layered armor, drawing a cry of pain as it cut deep into flesh and muscle. The Russian fell, but as the alien surged after him to finish the job he thrust the end of the rod into its face and triggered it. The alien jerked as electricity surged into it, and it fell back into the machinery, jittering there for a moment before it fell over.
Jane was nearly to the sectoid leader when the controls around it flashed, and the entire ship shuddered violently. The former CIA agent nearly lost her balance, but caught the edge of the control panel, grimacing at the wind was nearly knocked out of her by the impact. The alien looked up at her, and Jane screamed, clutching at her head.
“I thought you shut down the engines!” James yelled, as the rumbling from within the bowels of the ship continued.
“I think it may be some kind of auto-destruct!” Buzz yelled back, rushing to the nearest console. Lights were starting to flash there as well, although they couldn’t make much sense of the alien indicators.
“Jane!” Vasily yelled, pulling himself to his feet through sheer will, even as blood continued to course down his savaged leg. He started forward, nearly collapsing with each step, but Jane beat him to it, lunging out blindly with her stun rod, clipping the alien on the shoulder. The alien leader staggered back, injured but not incapacitated. It yelled, “Akkk gak! Gaaak!” It lifted its pistol, and fired a single shot even as Jane stabbed at it again.
The alien stiffened and crumpled. It missed Jane, but the bolt streaked past her and hit the console where Buzz was frantically trying to override the alien’s destruct command. The pulse of superheaded plasma tore into a conduit jutting from the bottom of the console, and the entire assembly exploded. James was knocked over onto his back, but Buzz was flung into the air and landed in a burning heap.
“Buzz!” James yelled, coughing as he staggered to his feet, pushing through the acrid torrents of smoke rising from the ruined console toward his fallen companion. He could hear Vasily and Catalina yelling as well, but their voices faded into the background as the smoke parted around him and he saw Buzz lying in front of him.
“Doc,” the young man croaked. “I’m hurt, doc.”
“You’ll be fine,” James said, forcing his voice to remain level as he knelt beside Buzz, reaching for a medikit. With luck, the alien compounds would keep him alive long enough for them to get him out. At least the alien ship had stopped its rumbling; either Buzz had successfully overridden the sectoid leader’s destruct signal, or its destruction of the control console had somehow accomplished the same.
“Oh, god,” he heard Catalina say from over his shoulder. “Buzz, oh god,” He didn’t look up, injecting the contents of the medikit directly into Buzz’s heart. He’d already seen what she’d seen, what no alien wonder drug was going to cure. Both of Buzz’s legs ended in bloody messes above the knees, the wreckage of what had been there before scattered around, and most of the rest of him was a charred wreck, his uniform clinging to his burned body.
“Hang in there, Buzz,” James said, as he worked to save his friend’s life. But Buzz didn’t hear him; mercifully, he’d lost consciousness.
Chapter 49
The sectoid with the small launcher lifted its weapon to fire, but before it could shoot James blasted it with a shot that bored a brightly glowing line down the center of its helmet. The alien staggered back a few steps before crumpling to the ground. Its companion shot back, the plasma bolt hitting the SUV in the tire, exploding it and a good part of the wheel well, showering James with debris. The doctor fell hard onto his side, but kept shooting.
The nearer of the charging sectoids lifted its vibroblade as it closed the last few meters to the stunned women. It fixed on Catalina, who was still standing, but even as it started to swing it was flung backward as a dozen armor-piercing shells tore through its body. The second alien turned as Vasily stepped into view, but all it could do was die as Vasily blasted it with a sustained stream of fire that chewed it into meat.
The last alien had dropped as Buzz shot it a second time with his laser. Scanning the area for further threats, Vasily sidled closer to the others. “The hell was that?”
“Hold on, don’t touch them!” James cautioned, grimacing as he dragged himself back to his feet behind the wreckage of the SUV. “Whatever they hit her with, it got Catalina when she touched Jane.”
But Catalina was already starting to come out of it, blinking and almost falling before she stumbled back a step, then steadied herself with a hand against the back of the SUV. “What happened?”
“You were stunned,” James said. “Looks like some sort of paralytic agent, by the look of it.” The vapors had completely faded, but James was careful as he bent close to Jane. The fallen agent was still conscious, but her muscles had frozen into an awkward position, and it was clear from the strained look on her face that she was trying to fight off the effects. “Hold on,” he said, reaching into his medical kit.
Vasily bent and picked up one of the alien swords. It appeared to be inert, now, and he couldn’t see any mechanism that activated it. “Not seen one of these before,” he said. “This not look good.”
“You okay?” Buzz asked Catalina.
“Everything went black,” she said. “Like… I don’t know what.”
A groan came from Jane as James injected her with the contents of an X-COM medikit. “What the hell?” she asked.
“Take it easy, don’t force it,” James said. “You were hit by a new alien weapon, but it looks like the effects are temporary.”
“That must be how they capture people,” Buzz suggested.
James looked up, saw that Vasily had a fresh black burn on his armor, along his side just under his left arm. “You need help, Vas?”
“Just shot of painkiller is good, anything. We still have alien ship to deal with.”
While James tended to him, Catalina and Buzz kept an eye out for more aliens. Jane sat on the blacktop, working the muscles in her legs and arms. When James had finished with his injection, Vasily said, “Jane, you with us?”
“Yes, I think so,” she said. She accepted a hand from James, who pulled her to her feet.
“Stay together,” James said. “Don’t want to be stunned when you’re alone.”
Catalina took point, scanning with her motion sensor. As they approached the front of the All-Mart, they could see through the shattered front windows that the alien ship had actually descended into the store, with as much of it protruding through the sagging roof as they’d seen above. Long struts descended from its body like legs, including one that dropped through an awning into a scattered display of patio furniture. There were more bodies inside, including a few people who’d apparently been killed by debris caused by the ship’s landing.
“There’s a hatch,” Buzz said, pointing to the base of the strut.
“I think there’s more of them inside,” Catalina said, holding up the sensor. “I’m picking up movement.”
“Careful with autofire,” Vasily said. “May be prisoners inside.”
Buzz worked the hatch, which split and recessed into the alien ship to reveal a steep ramp heading up.
The ascent remained close, with Vasily and James having to duck to avoid hitting the ceiling, until the ramp opened onto a small chamber. There was another hatch on the far wall, which Catalina approached, scanning first with the handheld device and then with an ear to the door.
“Two, maybe three,” she reported.
The Alphas took up position, and readied their weapons. At Vasily’s nod, Catalina worked the mechanism, and the door opened to reveal a larger, round chamber on the far side. Alcoves lined the walls, some of which held cocooned human captives. The curve of the far wall contained alien machinery and a narrow opening that led to another room beyond. There were also sectoids, three of them, who turned as the door opened and drew their plasma pistols.
Using the doorway as cover, the Alphas unleashed a barrage of fire that tore into the aliens. One sectoid went down, lasered into a charred mess, while a second was blasted back against the console by a series of hits from Vasily’s autocannon. Obviously dying, it managed to get off one shot, which caught the Russian in the shoulder and knocked him into Buzz. Both men fell to the floor. James grabbed Vasily and pulled him out of the line of fire, while Catalina and Jane fired at the last alien. One of them scored a glancing hit on the alien’s arm, but it made it to one of the doors, which hissed open and then shut quickly behind it.
“Gya,” Vasily said, as James helped him up. The plasma bolt hadn’t penetrated his armor, leaving him just a little singed.
They made their way into the room, the women leading, checking the alcoves to make sure that no more aliens were lurking in wait. Catalina took out her knife and cut into one of the cocoons, confirming that they held live humans that had been captured by the aliens. Vasily headed to the door that the alien had used to escape, but when it opened, it revealed only an empty corridor.
“Leave them for now,” Vasily said, as James joined Catalina in freeing the comatose prisoners. “We need hurry before they take off again.” He looked around. “Where Buzz?” He tapped his communicator. “Buzz?”
Buzz’s voice came from the narrow opening between the alien machinery. It led to a nook crowded with control banks and bulky components that occupied the space from the floor to the low ceiling. “Working on the ship’s controls,” he said. There was a deep thrum that seemed to come from beneath them, followed by a slight settling as the floor trembled once and then fell quiet.
“Buzz?” Vasily asked.
The hacker reappeared. “I shut down the engines for now, but the main control is elsewhere in the ship. I don’t think it will take them long to override.”
“All right,” Vasily said. He nodded to Catalina. “We go left,” he said. He went that way, while Jane led Buzz and James through the opposite doorway. “Keep the com channel open,” Catalina said, as she hurried after the Russian down the corridor behind the door.
The corridor ended in another door that opened onto a long chamber dominated by the mechanisms of the alien ship’s engines. “Where the hell they?” Vasily asked the air, peering into every nook and cranny as they made their way to the front of the compartment, where another opening was visible that led into another chamber in the front of the ship. There was another exit opposite them that appeared to loop around to the entry chamber, and a shaft of light that rose from a recessed circle in the floor up to a contracted iris in the ceiling.
“This ship have an upstairs,” Vasily said, pointing toward the beam of light.
James appeared in the far doorway, followed a moment later by Jane and Buzz. “Power sources,” the doctor reported. “No more this way I can see.”
Catalina scanned the room, moving the device first left, then right, and finally up toward the ceiling. “No more on this level,” she said. “Some movement above… I think it’s further back, more toward the center of the ship.”
Vasily nodded. He stepped forward, into the ring of light. He wasn’t quite surprised when he started to rise into the air. The iris in the ceiling above dilated as he approached, proving access to an upper level of the ship. He was ready for a fight, but the top of the lift was little more than an alcove, empty of anything except for a small doorway that led to another part of the ship. Vasily watched it until the others had made their way up, then gestured for Catalina to check it out. After a few seconds the door slid open, revealing a slightly larger room beyond. There were more instrument panels here, along with workstations that might have been for anything. They didn’t linger long, just verifying that there were no aliens before moving to the larger door in the far wall.
Catalina barely had to look at her scanner. “They’re in there,” she said, indicating the doors.
They didn’t need to talk more to prepare, taking up positions around the door. Once they were all ready, Catalina triggered the sensor that opened the door. It parted and drew open to reveal a sectoid standing there, holding a plasma pistol.
“Aza gaak!” it exclaimed, lifting the weapon to fire.
A blast of fire tore into it, and the alien crumpled. “Azza Gak yourself,” Vasily said.
They didn’t hesitate, moving into the large chamber beyond. It was instantly evident that the long, ovoid chamber was the control room. Panels along the wall showed scenes ranging from the exterior outside to what looked like a view of the Earth from space. Banks of control panels lined the walls, and a pair of large, bulky mechanisms rose up from the floor in the center of the room, glowing as lighted indicators flickered within translucent spheres.
There were sectoids, too, at least three of them in view, all of them armed. “Gaaak!” one yelled, while to the right, a second echoed, “AAAgak!” Both fired, but their shots missed the Alphas as they charged into the room. Their helmet displays classified the aliens as a navigator and engineer, respectively.
Vasily aimed at the navigator, but before he could pull the trigger, another alien appeared at the far side of the room. It held a pistol, but instead of taking aim it simply focused its eyes on the Russian, who staggered back as if struck. “Gya!” he yelled, shaking off the attempt to take control of his mind, succeeding where he’d failed in the hangar bay of X-COM headquarters. “That one at the back!” he yelled. “Want him alive!”
But at the moment, there didn’t seem to be much they could do about the alien leader, who turned to the nearest control panel and started pushing buttons. Another alien engineer appeared behind the banks of machinery, adding its fire to the others, hitting both Vasily and Catalina with blasts that spun the Russian around and knocked the British agent off her feet. “Doc!” Catalina yelled, but James was already running toward her. Jane blasted the sectoid navigator between the eyes, burning an opening an inch across through the center of its skull. As it fell, she ran forward toward the leader, unlimbering her stun rod as she ran.
The engineers immediately shifted their fire toward her, but Vasily reacted before they could stop her. Pulling a grenade from his belt, he yelled, “Fire in the hole!” then tossed it roughly between the two alien engineers.
The explosion buffeted the Alphas, but the sectoids, caught by the full concussive force of the explosion, crumpled. Vasily ran forward to help Jane, grabbing his own stun rod, but before he could get to her another sectoid stepped out from between the banks of machinery and lunged at him with a vibroblade. The weapon bit into his armored leg and ripped through the layered armor, drawing a cry of pain as it cut deep into flesh and muscle. The Russian fell, but as the alien surged after him to finish the job he thrust the end of the rod into its face and triggered it. The alien jerked as electricity surged into it, and it fell back into the machinery, jittering there for a moment before it fell over.
Jane was nearly to the sectoid leader when the controls around it flashed, and the entire ship shuddered violently. The former CIA agent nearly lost her balance, but caught the edge of the control panel, grimacing at the wind was nearly knocked out of her by the impact. The alien looked up at her, and Jane screamed, clutching at her head.
“I thought you shut down the engines!” James yelled, as the rumbling from within the bowels of the ship continued.
“I think it may be some kind of auto-destruct!” Buzz yelled back, rushing to the nearest console. Lights were starting to flash there as well, although they couldn’t make much sense of the alien indicators.
“Jane!” Vasily yelled, pulling himself to his feet through sheer will, even as blood continued to course down his savaged leg. He started forward, nearly collapsing with each step, but Jane beat him to it, lunging out blindly with her stun rod, clipping the alien on the shoulder. The alien leader staggered back, injured but not incapacitated. It yelled, “Akkk gak! Gaaak!” It lifted its pistol, and fired a single shot even as Jane stabbed at it again.
The alien stiffened and crumpled. It missed Jane, but the bolt streaked past her and hit the console where Buzz was frantically trying to override the alien’s destruct command. The pulse of superheaded plasma tore into a conduit jutting from the bottom of the console, and the entire assembly exploded. James was knocked over onto his back, but Buzz was flung into the air and landed in a burning heap.
“Buzz!” James yelled, coughing as he staggered to his feet, pushing through the acrid torrents of smoke rising from the ruined console toward his fallen companion. He could hear Vasily and Catalina yelling as well, but their voices faded into the background as the smoke parted around him and he saw Buzz lying in front of him.
“Doc,” the young man croaked. “I’m hurt, doc.”
“You’ll be fine,” James said, forcing his voice to remain level as he knelt beside Buzz, reaching for a medikit. With luck, the alien compounds would keep him alive long enough for them to get him out. At least the alien ship had stopped its rumbling; either Buzz had successfully overridden the sectoid leader’s destruct signal, or its destruction of the control console had somehow accomplished the same.
“Oh, god,” he heard Catalina say from over his shoulder. “Buzz, oh god,” He didn’t look up, injecting the contents of the medikit directly into Buzz’s heart. He’d already seen what she’d seen, what no alien wonder drug was going to cure. Both of Buzz’s legs ended in bloody messes above the knees, the wreckage of what had been there before scattered around, and most of the rest of him was a charred wreck, his uniform clinging to his burned body.
“Hang in there, Buzz,” James said, as he worked to save his friend’s life. But Buzz didn’t hear him; mercifully, he’d lost consciousness.
Innocent Bystander
First Post
Oh yeah! That was awesome!
Lazybones
Adventurer
Buzz's player had left the campaign and at this point he became an NPC. Grim things can happen to characters in my campaigns when their players depart; in one I'm running now one such character was captured by vampires, forcibly converted, and turned into a recurring villain.
Here's another aftermath/interlude post, derived largely from what the players indicated they wanted to work on. I've included the skill rolls that were used at the end.
* * * * *
Interlude: Base Priorities (July 15-21, 2008)
* * *
In the aftermath of the Cheyenne mission, the members of Alpha Team spent most of their time apart, throwing themselves into their work supporting the various projects on base. A crew came down and emptied out Buzz’s locker. They got word that he’d been transferred to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for further treatment. James had passed on that Buzz had needed skin grafts for the fifty-five percent of his body that had been seriously burned in the explosion, and there was nothing even alien technology could do for his missing legs.
Jane spent her time in the labs, working with the engineers to improve the accuracy and firepower of the laser weapons. Grace’s team had been working on the laser rifle ever since Vasily had returned the test prototype, and they’d been making steady process in addressing the difficult matters of weight and power density. Of particular concern for the former CIA agent was the issue of bulk and speed; the laser weapons, with their oversized firing chambers and tangled power cabling, were harder to bring to bear quickly than more conventional weapons. One morning Jane dragged the entire team down to one of the support levels of the base for a few rounds of paintball, delivering her points in a more visceral manner. It seemed to work; by the end of the week, Grace and Jane led the entire team to the weapons range for tests on upgraded prototypes.
Jane sighted down the length of the pistol, nodding as lights popped up on the inside of her VDU, silhouetting the target. The weapon flashed, and a bright red dot appeared on the chest of the targeting dummy as the laser beam superheated the armored surface.
"Good," she said. “A little lighter, and more accurate. How quickly can you upgrade all our existing pistols?"
The young engineer who’d been assigned as the project lead shook her head. "I'm afraid that the upgrade relies on some pretty difficult electronics both inside the gun and in your helmets. We can do it, but it's not going to be easy."
“Here, try this one,” Grace said. The laser rifle made the pistols looks sleek and tiny by comparison, and the backpack power unit was easily twice the size, but it was far more efficient than the prototype that Vasily had tested before. Jane strapped the unit on and powered up the gun, nodding as the indicators atop the barrel quickly cycled from red to yellow to green.
She sighted and fired. This time the effect was more dramatic, as the beam lanced through the targeting dummy; when she released the trigger a second later, its upper half slid downward along the diagonal cut she’d made in its torso, clattering to the floor.
“Works for me,” Jane said, with a grin.
* * *
Catalina had also worked with Grace, but in Workshop 2, where the armor team was fully engaged. A great deal of effort had gone into working on the surface of the Personal Armor to improve its effectiveness in circumstances requiring stealth. An examination of the most effective patina on the alloy, to minimize shine and allow the surface to subtlety reflect the environment around it, had been productive, with Catalina's training and expertise working to identify flaws. That had been followed by hours at a time stress testing the armor for small sounds made when moving while wearing it. Some attention had gone into how well the heat signature of the person wearing it could be suppressed. Given what they had seen so far, there was no reason to doubt that future encounters might reveal creatures able to see in the infrared spectrum.
"Damn it," Grace said as she slipped, and the heavy spray gun traced a long line of slick black onto the floor of the workshop.
"Problem?" Catalina asked, from where was overseeing another tech complete modifications to an X-COM armored helmet.
Grace put down her gun and pulled up the mask protecting her face. "It's this composite material. It doesn't want to bond to the alien alloys, and it's not spreading evenly over the armor. The suggestions you've given this week have been helpful, and I think this improved suit will help you blend into the shadows better, but I'm afraid that you're just going to have to live with being a bit less stealthy than you're used to. And I don't think that any of this is going to help with the new Powered Armor design, but maybe we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves."
"Whatever you can do, Grace," Cat said. "Every little bit helps."
* * *
The email from Cat had been annoying, but he was frankly too busy to post a reply just yet. Or ever, perhaps.
Vasily had to admit, he couldn't make head nor tail of the base blueprints. He was a soldier, not an architect. And he'd never been one to rely purely on maps anyhow; no matter how detailed a map, it didn't compare to getting the lay of the land yourself.
Unfortunately, 'the land' was a network of cramped air vents between the surface and the base. The only consolation was that at least he wouldn't be alone in there...
***
The Mexican frowned at the boxy device, getting the measure of it. "So what's this thing key off?"
"Micro changes in air density," Jürgen replied, adjusting the motion-sensor and handing it back to Eleazar. "How effective has it been in the field?"
"It not bad," Vasily replied to the German scientist, checking the safety on his Glock. There would be no fitting a laser powerpack in these vents. "It given us some good forward intel sometimes. Would have to talk to Catalina and Jane about it if you want details."
"Hey, man, no need to ask twice," grinned the Mexican. "There any chance of letting us have one of these toys any time soon?"
Ritter and Perez were his comrades for this one. Catalina and Jane were busy with their new weapons and armor innovations. Allen never seemed to leave the medical bay, Ama and Alyssa were busy helping with the hangar repair work, and Sveinn was on guard duty - not that he would have been able to fit inside the air vents anyway, especially not with the gigantic cannon that seemed to be his only weapon of choice. "I like to keep this handy... for close encounters," he'd said of the cannon when asked. There had been no arguing with that.
Perez had clearly warmed to the role of element leader in his time in X-COM, even insisting on giving a short speech before the three of them began the sweep. "We're all strung out of shape, but stay frosty, and alert. We can't afford to let one of those bastards in here."
"Unless they start coming out of the gotterdammen walls, we should be fine," Ritter had observed.
It was not, all in all, a pleasant job. Climbing up and crawling through the vents was awkward work, and it was too easy to run out of room unless one was careful how you moved. It was dark, and hot ("Yeah man, but its a dry heat!" Perez had cheerfully exclaimed) and the possibility of finding a stray sectoid saboteur, an alien bomb, or any other kind of horror led the imagination to run wild in the darkness.
Sweeping the vents and making sure they were clean of alien presence wasn't his only reason for being here, mind. As he shined the flashlight around, he built up a mental map of how the tunnels linked, which parts led to what rooms, the places where fans and filters could hopefully deal with alien gas introduced into the system, where the choke-points were, the junctions, the spots that would make good sites for sensor packages and tripwire defenses, and the exploitable corners. Simply sealing the vents off from the base was not an option - too much danger of asphyxiating the place, who knew what could happen - and a door would probably not last long against the alien weaponry. So, the only real answer was to make the lives of anyone trying to gain access into the base through the vent network as miserable and difficult as possible.
It hadn't been more than fifteen minutes before Vasily heard the distant shouts of Perez, trying to check on his partner's location. "Jürgen? Jürgen?" Yes, he had thought, that is the feeling of disorientation I wish to inspire in intruders. It had been a good half-hour more before they completed their allotted sweeps, and another ten to find each other again. "It's the acoustics," Ritter explained sheepishly once all three men were actually facing each other. "In this tight space, no one can hear where you are screaming from."
The afternoon shift had already been replaced by the evening teams when Vasily finally emerged from the crowded air vent. The muscles in his back were on fire, and his coverall was both torn and covered in grease and dirt, but there was a smile on his face. Behind him, the curses of the engineers still working in the vents filtered out of the opening. The scientists working nearby looked up and wrinkled their noses.
"I not know much about mechanics or engineering," he said, as he tossed his demolitions bag onto the ground, "But I can say this very clear; no alien is getting through those vents that easy again."
* * *
Author’s Note: Here were the skill rolls that contributed to the results above (I adjudicated all attempts using an online random number generator).
Catalina, Hide (15 ranks): roll 13 (28, complete success, but in a skill secondary to the task). Result: upgrade to Personal Armor: +2 Hide. Upgrading additional suits will require 4 engineer/weeks to complete (so 4 engineers can complete a suit mod in a week).
Jane, Craft (Mechanical) (11 ranks): roll 9 (20, moderate success). Result: laser pistols gain +1 to hit, but require 3 engineer/weeks to upgrade each weapon.
Vasily, Tactics (5 ranks): roll 20 (25, complete success). Result: improved security installed in X-COM vent system.
Here's another aftermath/interlude post, derived largely from what the players indicated they wanted to work on. I've included the skill rolls that were used at the end.
* * * * *
Interlude: Base Priorities (July 15-21, 2008)
* * *
In the aftermath of the Cheyenne mission, the members of Alpha Team spent most of their time apart, throwing themselves into their work supporting the various projects on base. A crew came down and emptied out Buzz’s locker. They got word that he’d been transferred to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for further treatment. James had passed on that Buzz had needed skin grafts for the fifty-five percent of his body that had been seriously burned in the explosion, and there was nothing even alien technology could do for his missing legs.
Jane spent her time in the labs, working with the engineers to improve the accuracy and firepower of the laser weapons. Grace’s team had been working on the laser rifle ever since Vasily had returned the test prototype, and they’d been making steady process in addressing the difficult matters of weight and power density. Of particular concern for the former CIA agent was the issue of bulk and speed; the laser weapons, with their oversized firing chambers and tangled power cabling, were harder to bring to bear quickly than more conventional weapons. One morning Jane dragged the entire team down to one of the support levels of the base for a few rounds of paintball, delivering her points in a more visceral manner. It seemed to work; by the end of the week, Grace and Jane led the entire team to the weapons range for tests on upgraded prototypes.
Jane sighted down the length of the pistol, nodding as lights popped up on the inside of her VDU, silhouetting the target. The weapon flashed, and a bright red dot appeared on the chest of the targeting dummy as the laser beam superheated the armored surface.
"Good," she said. “A little lighter, and more accurate. How quickly can you upgrade all our existing pistols?"
The young engineer who’d been assigned as the project lead shook her head. "I'm afraid that the upgrade relies on some pretty difficult electronics both inside the gun and in your helmets. We can do it, but it's not going to be easy."
“Here, try this one,” Grace said. The laser rifle made the pistols looks sleek and tiny by comparison, and the backpack power unit was easily twice the size, but it was far more efficient than the prototype that Vasily had tested before. Jane strapped the unit on and powered up the gun, nodding as the indicators atop the barrel quickly cycled from red to yellow to green.
She sighted and fired. This time the effect was more dramatic, as the beam lanced through the targeting dummy; when she released the trigger a second later, its upper half slid downward along the diagonal cut she’d made in its torso, clattering to the floor.
“Works for me,” Jane said, with a grin.
* * *
Catalina had also worked with Grace, but in Workshop 2, where the armor team was fully engaged. A great deal of effort had gone into working on the surface of the Personal Armor to improve its effectiveness in circumstances requiring stealth. An examination of the most effective patina on the alloy, to minimize shine and allow the surface to subtlety reflect the environment around it, had been productive, with Catalina's training and expertise working to identify flaws. That had been followed by hours at a time stress testing the armor for small sounds made when moving while wearing it. Some attention had gone into how well the heat signature of the person wearing it could be suppressed. Given what they had seen so far, there was no reason to doubt that future encounters might reveal creatures able to see in the infrared spectrum.
"Damn it," Grace said as she slipped, and the heavy spray gun traced a long line of slick black onto the floor of the workshop.
"Problem?" Catalina asked, from where was overseeing another tech complete modifications to an X-COM armored helmet.
Grace put down her gun and pulled up the mask protecting her face. "It's this composite material. It doesn't want to bond to the alien alloys, and it's not spreading evenly over the armor. The suggestions you've given this week have been helpful, and I think this improved suit will help you blend into the shadows better, but I'm afraid that you're just going to have to live with being a bit less stealthy than you're used to. And I don't think that any of this is going to help with the new Powered Armor design, but maybe we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves."
"Whatever you can do, Grace," Cat said. "Every little bit helps."
* * *
The email from Cat had been annoying, but he was frankly too busy to post a reply just yet. Or ever, perhaps.
Vasily had to admit, he couldn't make head nor tail of the base blueprints. He was a soldier, not an architect. And he'd never been one to rely purely on maps anyhow; no matter how detailed a map, it didn't compare to getting the lay of the land yourself.
Unfortunately, 'the land' was a network of cramped air vents between the surface and the base. The only consolation was that at least he wouldn't be alone in there...
***
The Mexican frowned at the boxy device, getting the measure of it. "So what's this thing key off?"
"Micro changes in air density," Jürgen replied, adjusting the motion-sensor and handing it back to Eleazar. "How effective has it been in the field?"
"It not bad," Vasily replied to the German scientist, checking the safety on his Glock. There would be no fitting a laser powerpack in these vents. "It given us some good forward intel sometimes. Would have to talk to Catalina and Jane about it if you want details."
"Hey, man, no need to ask twice," grinned the Mexican. "There any chance of letting us have one of these toys any time soon?"
Ritter and Perez were his comrades for this one. Catalina and Jane were busy with their new weapons and armor innovations. Allen never seemed to leave the medical bay, Ama and Alyssa were busy helping with the hangar repair work, and Sveinn was on guard duty - not that he would have been able to fit inside the air vents anyway, especially not with the gigantic cannon that seemed to be his only weapon of choice. "I like to keep this handy... for close encounters," he'd said of the cannon when asked. There had been no arguing with that.
Perez had clearly warmed to the role of element leader in his time in X-COM, even insisting on giving a short speech before the three of them began the sweep. "We're all strung out of shape, but stay frosty, and alert. We can't afford to let one of those bastards in here."
"Unless they start coming out of the gotterdammen walls, we should be fine," Ritter had observed.
It was not, all in all, a pleasant job. Climbing up and crawling through the vents was awkward work, and it was too easy to run out of room unless one was careful how you moved. It was dark, and hot ("Yeah man, but its a dry heat!" Perez had cheerfully exclaimed) and the possibility of finding a stray sectoid saboteur, an alien bomb, or any other kind of horror led the imagination to run wild in the darkness.
Sweeping the vents and making sure they were clean of alien presence wasn't his only reason for being here, mind. As he shined the flashlight around, he built up a mental map of how the tunnels linked, which parts led to what rooms, the places where fans and filters could hopefully deal with alien gas introduced into the system, where the choke-points were, the junctions, the spots that would make good sites for sensor packages and tripwire defenses, and the exploitable corners. Simply sealing the vents off from the base was not an option - too much danger of asphyxiating the place, who knew what could happen - and a door would probably not last long against the alien weaponry. So, the only real answer was to make the lives of anyone trying to gain access into the base through the vent network as miserable and difficult as possible.
It hadn't been more than fifteen minutes before Vasily heard the distant shouts of Perez, trying to check on his partner's location. "Jürgen? Jürgen?" Yes, he had thought, that is the feeling of disorientation I wish to inspire in intruders. It had been a good half-hour more before they completed their allotted sweeps, and another ten to find each other again. "It's the acoustics," Ritter explained sheepishly once all three men were actually facing each other. "In this tight space, no one can hear where you are screaming from."
The afternoon shift had already been replaced by the evening teams when Vasily finally emerged from the crowded air vent. The muscles in his back were on fire, and his coverall was both torn and covered in grease and dirt, but there was a smile on his face. Behind him, the curses of the engineers still working in the vents filtered out of the opening. The scientists working nearby looked up and wrinkled their noses.
"I not know much about mechanics or engineering," he said, as he tossed his demolitions bag onto the ground, "But I can say this very clear; no alien is getting through those vents that easy again."
* * *
Author’s Note: Here were the skill rolls that contributed to the results above (I adjudicated all attempts using an online random number generator).
Catalina, Hide (15 ranks): roll 13 (28, complete success, but in a skill secondary to the task). Result: upgrade to Personal Armor: +2 Hide. Upgrading additional suits will require 4 engineer/weeks to complete (so 4 engineers can complete a suit mod in a week).
Jane, Craft (Mechanical) (11 ranks): roll 9 (20, moderate success). Result: laser pistols gain +1 to hit, but require 3 engineer/weeks to upgrade each weapon.
Vasily, Tactics (5 ranks): roll 20 (25, complete success). Result: improved security installed in X-COM vent system.
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Actually, Smart Alec, Vanya Mia and I wrote our posts back in 2008, there were other posts / emails by other players and Lazybones too in that time period. A majority of what Lazybones has posted has been lifted right from the game logs and forum posts of the original authors (ie Lazybones and all the players throughout the campaign, there were quite a few).
It's actually amazing how familiar these posts are to me after two years. It's only the game sessions themselves that are mainly added to, with his descriptions of combat and setting, and such. It's amazing how vivid a storyteller he is. Two years after the fact and he remembers how the order of combat went down to the tee. I could only remember the order of combat with his storytelling, ie, I had to be prompted to recall it all.
I loved the extra descriptions to combat too. They really have made it come alive and brought back the excitement and more.
I'm really enjoying this story the second time around, in a new way.
It's actually amazing how familiar these posts are to me after two years. It's only the game sessions themselves that are mainly added to, with his descriptions of combat and setting, and such. It's amazing how vivid a storyteller he is. Two years after the fact and he remembers how the order of combat went down to the tee. I could only remember the order of combat with his storytelling, ie, I had to be prompted to recall it all.
I loved the extra descriptions to combat too. They really have made it come alive and brought back the excitement and more.
I'm really enjoying this story the second time around, in a new way.
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Hmm... This sounds somewhat familiar. Just replace the capturing vampires with servants of Orcus. Now you have a competent yet arrogant former ally as a stronger, eviler, more arroganter enemy!
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