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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5107881" data-attributes="member: 143">An EMP-burst weapon wasn't in the original X-COM, but that technology may make an appearance in this story later on. Maybe not the way you think, though. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I've been playing X-COM: Apocalypse on and off on Steam; it's got the core of a fun game in there, hindered by a god-awful UI. Buggy as hell, too; have to save after every mission because of all the crashes. Real-time X-COM is definitely a very different experience from the first two games but it can be exciting in its own way. * * * * * Session 16 (August 4, 2008)Chapter 60There was a bright flash, and Catalina flinched, thinking that her number had finally come up.  But then the floater crumpled, half of its face shearing off and sliding to the floor in a mess of blood and gore.  The HWP rolled past her, already engaging a second target, streaming a beam of laser light that clipped an alien in the side before drawing a bright line across the back of the alcove.  Catalina darted into the nearest niche just ahead of a plasma bolt.  She fired her laser, but in the wild confusion of the close-quarters battle, it was hard to see if she was hitting anything.  Sparks and dust erupted from the walls, and the glow from the lift cast everything in a hazy, unreal light.  There was an explosion somewhere nearby, between her and the aliens, and something hot and sticky oozed over her as the organic sac within the niche ruptured. Fighting the urge to be sick, she clung to her perch along the lip of the niche.  There was a yell behind her, and she looked back to see Jane crouched over Cecelia, who’d gone down, stunned or worse.  Jane was firing back into the room they’d just left.  And then the familiar sound of Vasily’s autocannon started up, and the already chaotic scene was punctuated by the violence of dozens of microexplosions.  Most struck the walls and ceiling, but Catalina caught a glimpse of a cloaked form coming apart.  She saw another floater stir within the glow of the lift, something in its hand.  She aimed and fired without thinking, and the alien fell back.  A moment later another explosion shook the entire area, but when the ringing in her ears stopped, she realized that the battle was over.  She looked back and saw that Jane had pulled Cecilia into cover in another niche.  “She’s just stunned,” she said.  “I got the alien, check on Vas and James!”Catalina nodded, and rose.  She hurried forward, belatedly remembering to warn the men that she was coming.  She passed the HWP, which continued scanning for threats.  It had taken at least one hit, with black streaks from plasma burns scarring one side of its chassis.  She made her way through the swirling smoke to find Vasily sitting sagged up against the wall, his autocannon propped up in his lap.  James had been marked with plasma burns along his left hip, but other than a slight limp he seemed to be okay.  “Gods, Cat, what happened to you?” he asked.  “Are the others okay?”Catalina tried not to think about the goup that was smeared all down her back and side, and caked in her hair under her helmet.  “Yeah, Cecilia got stunned, but I think she’ll be all right.  Are you okay to move, Vasily?”The Russian grimaced, but he was able to get to his feet without help.  “Nice try,” he muttered, in the general direction of the aliens.  “Some warning there, Cat,” James said, as the three of them made their way to Jane and Cecilia.  The tank followed behind. “We should have left someone to watch the lift,” she acknowledged.  They emerged from the smoke to see Cecilia propped up against the wall of the niche.  “Where is Jane?” James asked.  “We need to stay together.”“Back to regroup?” Catalina asked, while Vasily tried to raise Jane on his communicator. “No, let’s just let Jane wander around on her own,” James said.  “I’m sure it’ll be fun.”“I think she went on ahead,” Cecilia said.  “I could go and try to find her.”“I’m right here,” Jane said, reappearing at the end of the passage.  “I was checking to make sure the alien medic was dead, and I saw a panel that looked like it had been blasted open when the ship crashed.  It looks like the Elerium power supplies are in the chamber below.  There’s a lot of damage.”“How about staying with us in the first place!” James exclaimed, clearly losing his temper.  Jane’s expression darkened, but Vasily stepped between them.  “Hey!  Yelling can wait until after mission.  We sweep this level, then move up, yes?”They moved forward to the hatch Jane had located, which provided access to the ship’s engine room.  The damage was considerable, and the found a floater lying dead in one corner of the room.  Two of the three Elerium cells were dark and powerless.  The third was glowing with the stored material, but hissing flares of blue mist were rising from it, and they were careful to give it a wide berth.  “Maybe cleanup crew can get it safely,” Vasily suggested.  Cecilia and Jane found a control panel and were trying to access the ship’s systems, but before they could accomplish anything there was a faint rumbling tremor that shook the ship.  “Gah, what are you doing?” Vasily asked. “It wasn’t us,” Cecelia said.  “We’re locked out here; it looks like the controls have been routed from somewhere else in the ship.”“Damn, they taking off!” Vasily said.  “We need to find control room!”They retraced their steps, moving back to the entry level and the lift.  The bodies were as they’d left them.  The lift area had been heavily damaged in the firefight, but the lift itself still worked, catching them up one by one and carrying them up through the spiral opening to the upper level.  Vasily ordered the damaged HWP to stand watch below, and followed the others up. The lift deposited them at an intersection, where four passages led off in the cardinal directions.  Catalina was already scanning, and she pointed them to the north, back toward the front of the ship.  They passed several doors, but she pointed at the end of the passage, which culminated in another set of doors large enough to accommodate several man-sized creatures at once. “In there,” she said, moving to the side.  “Ready?”  She took her last gas grenade from her belt, and primed it.  Cecelia moved opposite her, and readied her rifle.  She nodded.  The door opened swiftly as Catalina touched its sensor, revealing a long oval of a chamber crowded with alien control machinery.  There were aliens as well, at least three of them, who turned and lifted weapons as the door opened.  Catalina’s grenade exploded next to one panel, enveloping two of the aliens in the stun gas.  Cecilia opened up with her rifle, but she was hit by a plasma bolt a moment later, blasting her forearm and sending the M4 flying.  She let out a cry of pain and collapsed backwards, clutching the injured limb.  “Go!” Vasily yelled, dodging past James and rushing into the room.  Jane was on his heels, but before she could line up a shot a bolt streaked past her from behind, striking a protruding panel along the wall to her left.  “Behind us!” she yelled, swiveling and lifting her laser rifle to line up a shot.  James let out a curse and fired at the floaters coming up the hall behind them, protecting Cecilia with his body.  The injured agent reached down with her good hand and drew her Glock, firing from under the doctor, squeezing off half a clip in rapid order.  The floater in front staggered as several bullets struck it, but kept coming.  Caught again in a crossfire, Catalina added her own fire to the barrage.  She shot the floater Cecilia had wounded, but as it crumpled, the one behind it shot her with its plasma rifle.  The bolt slammed into her gut with the force of a sledgehammer, and she collapsed, gasping for breath and spitting up blood.  The alien kept shooting, but its shots exploded harmlessly against the walls, and a moment later it fell, a bright hole drilled through its face by Jane’s laser. A floater soldier crumpled, half its torso blasted away by Vasily’s autocannon.  “Do not kill the leader!” he yelled, dropping the heavy weapon and drawing out his stun rod.  As the cloud from the gas grenade cleared, he rushed forward.  An alien drifted forward, still dazed, but it lifted its plasma pistol as Vasily loomed over it.  It didn’t get a chance to fire, as the Russian knocked its weapon away, then blasted it with a thrust from the stun rod.  He hurried forward to where he’d seen the leader, wary of another ambush, but then caught sight of the alien lying limp against the forward control panel.  Blood trickled from the bullet hole in the middle of its forehead.  “Bah,” the Russian said.  Catalina got back to her feet, still looking very unsteady, with a trickle of blood running down her chin.  She looked at the back of her hand, where more blood was smeared.  “Dammit,” she said.  “Hold on just a second,” James said to her, as he injected a medikit into Cecilia’s arm.  “Try not to move it.  The arm’s broken, and the burns are very serious.  This should keep you together until we can get you back to HQ.”  The agent nodded, and leaned her head back against the wall, clenching her jaw against the pain.  “Hey, guys.  We airborne at moment?” Vasily asked.  “I think we would have noticed that,” Jane said. Catalina came forward, ignoring James’s protest behind her, and joined Vasily in front of the control console.  “We need their intelligence.”  She looked over the controls.  “I don’t know what most of this means, but this one’s familiar.  On button, off button.”  She pressed the latter, and the ship seemed to sag around them, the power indicators draining down until they were all black.  “Come on, Cat, you’re about to fall over,” James said.  He propped her against the console, and examined the nasty wound in her belly, another medikit in hand.  Jane activated her comm unit.  “Ken?  We’ve secured the ship.  Call in the clean up crew, and prep the party gear.”“We still have a few rooms need to check,” Vasily said.  He returned to his cannon, and picked it up.  He came up to Cecilia, sitting by the door, who looked up at him. “Is it always… like this?” she asked. Vasily nodded.  “This one… not bad.”  He looked back at James and Catalina, then back down at Cecilia.  She nodded, then extended her good hand.  He helped her to her feet.  Once she was steady, she drew her Glock.  “I got your back.”Vasily nodded again, and headed back to clear the rest of the ship.</blockquote>

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