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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 5138941" data-attributes="member: 143">In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have run the Russian mission with only 4 PCs. But hey, you live, you learn. Or in this case, almost get a TPK, you learn. * * * * * Session 19 (September 1, 2008)Chapter 68Vasily kept to himself for a few days after the mission.  The post-mission debrief hadn’t gone well.  Catalina was still in Medical getting her leg almost entirely rebuilt, while the rest of the Alphas were in little better shape after the restless trip back on the Skyranger.  Grace had almost been in tears over what had happened to Cecilia; she obviously blamed herself for the override and explosion of the agent’s armor, and since then the chief engineer had been driving her team into the ground trying to resolve the problem and improve the design so it could go forward into production.  They’d gotten word a day after their return from Russia that their actions had set off a major storm within the Russian government.  Three high officials in the Security Services had abruptly vanished, and Moscow publicly denied that the base had ever existed.  They weren’t able to get another stealth drone back over the site for three days, and all it spotted was a gaping hole in the ground where the base had stood.  There were quiet rumblings that some sort of coup had been narrowly averted.  Each of the surviving Alphas dealt with their loss in their own way.  Jane tried to bring them together, starting conversations in the lounge and in the galley whenever a few of them happened to be together, talking about the research program, tactics, or just small talk about their lives before they’d come here.  Hadrian agreed about the need to improve their tactics, but he spent most of his time in the barracks with a tablet computer he’d borrowed from the research lab, catching up on the technologies and techniques of X-COM.  James Allen was nowhere to be seen; the doctor practically lived in the research lab these days.  Vasily avoided the conversations, once cutting off Jane with a simple declaration, “We need alien rifles.”Vasily, looking for something to keep his thoughts and hands active, gravitated toward the hangar deck, where major retrofitting work was being done to ready Hangar Bay 2 for the impending arrival of the Firestorm craft.  The hardest part was working a viable—and safe—conduit from the Elerium-115 storage facility that could transport the alien matter into the storage unit on the interceptor.  It required a lot of crawling through cramped access spaces and lengthy spans installing pipework and wiring, work that was draining both physically and mentally.  Vasily did twice as much work as any of the engineers but did not complain, often going four or five hours without uttering more than monosyllabic acknowledgments. He was coming back from one such session, his coveralls stained with sweat and dirt and grease, thoroughly worn out, when he encountered Grace coming in the opposite direction.  The engineer started as they nearly collided.  “Oh, sorry,” she said, looking distracted.  She was wearing an X-COM uniform instead of her typical coverall, and instead of her toolbelt she carried only a small valise on her hip, from which an ultraportable computer protruded. “Going for a trip?” Vasily asked. “Yes, I’m heading off to the research command to get a report on the progress of the Lightning project,” she said.  “The sequel to Firestorm.”“Yah, the new Skyranger,” Vasily nodded.  “Don’t forget, you promised to report to Workshop 2 for a fitting for the newest Powered Armor suit,” Grace said. “I not forget.  Hope this one works better than last one.”He regretted the careless statement as soon as he’d said it, but the damage was done; Grace flinched visibly, and Vasily silently berated himself.  He needed some rest, and a shower, badly.There was a brief, awkward pause.  “Well, come back soon,” he finally said, moving past her back toward the crew quarters.  Behind him, the doors to the hangar slid closed again. Vasily moved past the lift, toward the crew quarters.  One of the guards on duty nodded to him; the Russian had earned his reputation with the security personnel.  He nodded back, and activated the door that led to the lounge.  There was a hiss and the door slid open, but then a strange feeling swept over him.  The hairs on his arms stood up, and he felt a sudden disorientation that had him leaning hard on the threshold of the doorway.  For a moment, he thought he was ill, but as he glanced back he saw that the guards had felt it too.  He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak, everything suddenly went black around him as the lights abruptly died.</blockquote>

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