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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5116136" data-attributes="member: 143">Hadrian was played by karvon, one of the regulars over at Neverwinter Connections. He also runs games over there, and I believe that he has openings in one of his campaigns, if any of you have NWN and are interested. * * * * * Session 17 (August 18, 2008)Chapter 61Hadrian had barely hopped down from the helicopter before it surged back into the sky, its engines roaring as it vanished into the night sky.  Someone’s in a rush, he thought, as he hefted his duffle and looked around.  “Over here, trooper!” came a voice from the darkness.  It had been dark inside the helo, but not this dark, and after a moment the marine’s eyes had adjusted enough to see the faint outline of the building a short distance away.  The man in front of it was only a vague form.  The air was dry, and there was a faint smell on the breeze, a stink of burning and violence that he knew all too well. “Hold up, chief,” the voice said as he approached the building.  “You’re Jones?”Hadrian nodded, before realizing that the man likely couldn’t see him any better than he could see the other.  “Sergeant Hadrian Jones,” he said.  “Right.  Step up to the door, look into the little opening in the center.”  Hadrian did as directed.  A bright light flickered in his eyes, blinding him for a moment.  The door unlatched and began to slide open with the ponderous motion that came from a considerable thickness of plate steel. “Guess it is you,” the guard said.  “Go right in.”  He went inside.  It was even darker inside than outside, but as the door closed behind him, a lamp flickered on the wall.  The interior of the building was a single large room, with an open-sided elevator assembly in the center. “Proceed to the lift,” came a voice from somewhere. Again he obeyed, and rode the lift down in silence, counting off the faint markings that indicated distance.  He’d counted fifteen before the lift grinded to a stop.  When the lift grate didn’t open on its own, he pulled it up, the counterweight holding it in place as he disembarked from the lift into a room not much larger than the one above.  There was a door to his right, but a voice drew him in the other direction, to a hallway leading off the chamber that was more brightly lit with lamps set into panels in the ceiling.   “Sergeant Jones?  Over here, if you please.” The speaker looked to be about a decade older than Hadrian, though he obviously had kept himself in good shape.  The Marine didn’t recognize his uniform, but the insignia seemed to indicate a high rank.  “Sir.”“I’m Hallorand, base chief.  Welcome to X-COM, Marine.”Hadrian presented his orders. “That’s all right, Marine, you can keep those,” Hallorand said.  “We already know more about you than your mother and Uncle Sam combined.  I myself did a stint back in Gulf 1.  Semper Fi.”“Semper Fi,” Hadrian echoed reflexively, still wondering just what he’d gotten himself into.“Did they brief you on what you’re going to find here?”“No sir.”“Well then.  You’re in for a treat,” he said, his voice dry.  “I’ll leave it to Garret to give you the whole spiel, but let’s just say that the guy who wrote the Corps anthem never had this stuff in mind.”  He led Hadrian down the hall, past a pair of guards armed with G-36 assault rifles.  A woman approached, clad in a coverall that fitted to her body in a very… effective way.  “Ah, Grace,” Hallorand said in greeting.“This the new guy?” the woman asked.  “Yes, a Marine.”Grace looked him over.  “Hmm.”  She held up a small object.  “Sergeant, could you say your name, please?”“Hadrian L. Jones.”  The device beeped.  Grace did something with the touchscreen.  “Right.  Voice print initialized.”  She handed , then handed it to him.  It looked like a simple media player or cellular telephone.  “This here is your communicator.  Don’t lose it.  It’s like an iPhone, on steroids.”Hadrian nodded.  Grace handed him another item that was more familiar.  “And this is your ID.  It gives you sovereign authority in all consortium nations.”He raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t look like she was joking.  “Be careful waving it around.  Your average beat cop isn’t going to know what the hell X-COM is.”  She looked at Hallorand.  “He up to speed on the mission brief?”“Apparently not.”“Gah.  Well, I don’t have time.  Get him in to Alpha.”  She looked back at Hadrian.  “Excuse me, welcome aboard and all that.”  Without waiting for a reply, she shot past, and was halfway down the hall before he could so much as blink. “She’s always like that,” Hallorand said.  “All right, come on, Sergeant.  I’ll introduce you to the other members of your team.”Ten minutes later, Hadrian’s confusion had only deepened. Apparently, his “team” included three women, one of whom was British, and a Russian?  He greeted them mechanically, trying to remember everything they said and did, but he had to admit that most of what he was seeing and hearing made little or no sense to him.  The tour of the base didn’t clear up many of those questions.  The basic features, like the workshops and the target range, were generally familiar, but the tech there was far beyond anything he’d seen on a U.S. facility.He briefly met the leader of the facility, a no-nonsense figure in a black suit.  “My name is Michael Garret,” he said to Hadrian, pausing in one of the corridors to speak to him.  It looked like he was in a hurry.  “I… well, I help coordinate things here.  Glad to have you aboard.  I’m sorry we didn’t have time for a formal orientation.  We’ve lost some personnel lately.  Nothing sinister, just transfers.”“I see,” Hadrian said. “We’re trying to keep a boat floating with a thimble and a roll of tape.  From your service record, I know you understand, sergeant.  And I’m sure you can hit the ground running.  Vasily, Jane, Cat.  Good to see you.  There will be a briefing at 1500.”  For some reason, Garret’s eyes lingered on the Russian for a moment, before he turned back to Hadrian.  “I’m sorry, I cannot stay.  Welcome aboard, sergeant.  Alpha Team here will get you up to speed.”“Yes, sir,” Hadrian said, but Garret was already moving.    He knew little more two hours later, as he made his way from the barracks to where the briefing room was situated just off the lounge.  He’d made sure to remember that; he knew that first impressions went a long way in bureaucratic organizations.  And for all its fancy tech and military trappings, he was getting the idea that X-COM was very much one of those.  For someone used to the structure of the Marines, this operation seemed one small step removed from chaos. He headed to the briefing room ten minutes early, but he was still almost the last to arrive.  He recognized the engineer and base chief, but there were two women he hadn’t met before, a short-haired brunette in a suit sitting next to Garret, and a tall, leggy blonde standing by the huge console on the left wall.  A black man and a nice-looking woman with very long hair sat at the end of the table.  The Russian and one of the American women were seated along the table to the right, so he headed over to join them.  “Sergeant Jones,” the blonde said.  There was just a hint of an accent that Hadrian recognized from his stint in Germany.  “I am Kimberly Wagner, research head for X-COM.”“Ma’am.”Garret indicated the woman to his left.  “This is Agent Drake, liaison for the U.S. Government.  I believe you met Grace already.”The engineer shot him a mock salute.  “Chief engineer.”“Next down is Stan White, our resident doc, and Joan Beauvois, psychological counseling.”“I’m sure we’ll talk more at length later, Sergeant Jones,” the shrink said, which immediately raised quiet alarms in Hadrian’s head.  For now, though, he moved to his seat and sat down. Garret looked at his watch, then shifted his gaze to the Russian again, with that heavy, considering look Hadrian had recognized in the hallway before.  “Tell me, Vasily.  Are you comfortable with what X-COM is doing?”The Russian held up to the attention well enough, Hadrian thought, as all eyes in the room focused on him.  “Yah, I think.  All of what I know that X-COM do, anyway.”The shrink leaned forward.  “I am sure that he…” she began, but was cut off by Agent Drake.  “Wait for everyone.”  The look she sent at the Russian was utterly ambiguous, Hadrian thought, and he started to wonder what he’d gotten himself into here. They didn’t have to wait long, as Jane and Catalina came into the room, chatting with a young Asian man dressed in what Hadrian recognized as a flight suit.  “Ken Yushi, our pilot,” Garret said in introduction.  “This is Hadrian Jones, our newest recruit, courtesy of the United States Marine Corps.”“Ken’s a flyboy, and you know how they are,” Catalina said with a grin.  Hadrian nodded noncommittally.   “All right,” Garret said.  “Allen’s going to be sitting this one out, so we can get started.”  He waited until the newcomers had taken the last seats at the table before continuing.  “We’re here because of new information that we’ve picked up from our intelligence connections.” Agent Drake shifted her intense look at Hadrian.  “Sergeant, as of right now, you have Top Secret clearance.  You were vetted by Homeland Security, but nothing said here leaves this room.  Understood?”Hadrian nodded, but Drake did not ease up.  “Is that how you typically respond to your superiors, sergeant?”“Agent Drake, if I could continue,” Garret began.  Her eyes did not shy from Hadrian’s.  “Have you forgotten Okwelume already?” she asked.  Hadrian did not understand the reference, but he could sense how the mood in the room subtly shifted.  “I understand, ma’am,” Hadrian said.  “Kim, the pictures, please,” Garret said.  Wagner hit something on her control console, a high-resolution video appeared on the big wall screen.  It showed what looked like an alien ship—even Hadrian could tell that—flying low over white mountains. “We picked this up almost by accident,” Wagner said.  “As you probably know, we’ve lost all satellite activity since early on in the alien incursion.  These pictures were taken by an automated recon drone.”“Where is that?” Catalina said, as they saw the camera overshoot, then briefly scan back to catch a glimpse of the ship descending out of view.  They briefly caught sight of something metal below, glinting off the sunlight, then it was gone.“The Ural Mountains,” Garret said.  Several sets of eyes shifted toward the Russian.  To Hadrian, it looked like he stiffened slightly, but he betrayed no other reaction.  “According to our intelligence, it’s an OSNAZ facility.”“Russian Special Forces,” Drake said. “We’re quite aware who they are, Agent,” Catalina said.  “…they… attacked it?” Vasily asked.  “What happen?”“It was not an attack,” Wagner said.  “In fact, from our contacts in th Russian government, the site does not exist at all.”Catalina swore something under her breath. “No,” Vasily said.  “That… that is wrong.  Some other freaking mountains.”  Catalina patted him lightly on the arm.  “It could be a black operation, beyond the government’s knowledge,” Garret said.  “Whatever it is, we need to find out what they are doing.  We cannot allow Russia to follow the path of France.”“If Russia goes, it’ll take half of Asia with it,” Drake said. Vasily exploded with a string of Russian curses.  “We not going to freaking follow—”  “Vasily, we’d understand if you prefer not to go on this mission,” Garret said. The Russian’s look might have etched glass.  “I going.” “Look at it this way,” Drake said.  “If OSNAZ has gone rogue, you’d be doing you country a favor by putting a bullet in it.”“Agent Drake,” Garret said.But Vasily might not have even heard her, by the look on his face.  “I going,” he repeated, his jaw tightening.</blockquote>

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