Well damn, I forsee much terror and tears in our future then.
Though if we can get the bullshit of old-com psy powers then it will all be worth it. That and the weapons were pretty sweet.
XCOM: Agent of F.I.X.F.I.C.
- Thread starter Canas Dark
- Start date
- Sci-Fi
-
- Tags
- xcom xcom (2012) cyoa
Though if we can get the bullshit of old-com psy powers then it will all be worth it. That and the weapons were pretty sweet.
08-Operation Heavy Rain
Canas Dark
Living comfortably in his own head
- Location
- Elsewhere
[X] The team would rely on Close Range Combat Tactics with a heaping helping of Explosives; the team would try to call for military support where possible, and use their new SCOPE systems to improve their aim. They also all put the new Nano-fiber vests to good use. They had:
Strike 1: X-9 W/shotgun, 1 FN P90, 2 Hand Cannons, 2 Frags, Carapace Armor
Strike 2: Minigun W/Ammo Box, 2 sawn-off double-barrel shotguns, 3 Frags, 2 Flashbangs, 3 Battle Scanners, 1 Signal Smoke
Strike 3: X-9 W/launcher, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Trauma Kits, 1 Flashbangs, 2 Signal Smokes, Carapace Armor
Strike 4: M249 SAW W/Ironman Box, 2 Signal Smokes, Carapace Armor
Strike 5: XM25 Grenade Launcher, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Demo Packs, 4 Slam Mines
Strike 6: Milkor Grenade Launcher, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Demo Packs, 3 Slam Mines
Strike 7: AA-12 Shotgun, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Frags, 2 Flashbangs, 2 Battle Scanners, Carapace Armor
Strike 8: AA-12 Shotgun, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Frags, 2 Flashbangs, 2 Battle Scanners, Carapace Armor
It had been a bit hectic when Agent Smith and Central Officer Bradford had arrived at the barracks. Apparently, the Council had requested the Commander's attention between the time a decision had been made to run a Bug Hunt and when Bradford had gotten Jon out of bed, with the end result that not one, but two separate missions needed to be handled. Strike Team Beta was going to handle the mission Bradford had gotten Jon up for; after hearing that the Council's request was for XCOM to look into trouble in Newfoundland, Canada, the Agent had insisted that the better-equipped team handle that side of things.
Rumors had been making their rounds more or less confirming that Jon seemed to know what he was doing, but the Bug Hunt they'd accepted in Eritrea wasn't going to be allowed fall to the wayside, either. In the end, the helicopter they'd been given would be used to take the second team to their mission, under the command of Williams, while Bradford focused mainly on the Alpha team. With Smith helping Ceathya to lead, it would hopefully give the Central Officer an opportunity to better learn to lead from his desk.
As the Beta team had the backing of the local military from the start, and Alpha wouldn't get that until sometime after they touched down, it was decided that Jon's team would get the bulk of the new toys the Engineers had cooked up.
"Mujina dropping down," the voice sounded from both the front of the Skyranger and from Alpha Team's helmets. "Mission is a go."
There were no complaints about how heavily they'd kitted themselves out, and the crew were silent as we dropped down the ropes at the back of the Skyranger to land at the edge of the fishing village, half a football field's distance from the water. There were lights on in some of the warehouses and homes, and several haphazard streetlamps still provided light, but the crew had flashlights on most of their guns to compensate. The moon had gone down, and it wouldn't be too long before the sun started lighting up the morning a little bit at a time.
Some thought had been given to simply firing into the crowds of bugs the soldiers expected to find there while standing safely at the back of the Skyranger, but Jon only had to warn against a single alien with a plasma gun halfway to the drop point for the idea to be scrapped. The Commander's voice had come across the airwaves at that point, during their flight.
"Perhaps I heard you wrong," Commander Williams' voice came through clear, "but you think there might be other aliens working alongside the Chryssalid swarm? Can they even be controlled that well?"
"Of course," Jon had scoffed, shrugging his shoulders under the huge pack he was wearing; he'd swapped to the regular combat uniform of XCOM, but the loss of his exo-suit didn't leave him weak enough to pass on the firepower it provided. "Otherwise we'd never expect Chryssalids on non-bug hunt missions. They're the prime force behind the terror attacks, but they're very rarely sent in alone. The Swarm Nest might not have aliens, but I wouldn't bet my life on it, even as lucky as I am."
Moderate swearing came not only from Command, but also from the other soldiers in the Skyranger.
"What?" Jon asked. "We've got multiple machine guns," he scoffed, patting the minigun on his lap. "And we had to be focused mostly on close range for the Newfoundland mission anyway. It's infamous across timelines and realities for being an absolute clusterfuck, or I wouldn't have insisted that we deal with it personally. Hell, if we can, I want to just turn the whole place to ash after we verify it's a Nest."
"Strike 2," Bradford's voice cut in, "as I told you when Delta Team took the mission we'd planned on sending you on, we won't have an air strike for-"
Variable DC, roll d100
ROLL d100: 22+25 (Charmed Life)= 47
Moderate Result
"-at least half an hour after you arrive, maybe more. You'll have to prevent the Chryssalids from reaching Swarming levels until then; we don't know how much food they had here, so some surveillance must be done so we know what we're dealing with."
"It's not your team I'm worried about, Agent," Commander Williams grunted. "Every Bug Hunt from around the globe thus far has only had Chryssalids."
The Central Officer and Commander had left the Comms silent from there, presumably to inform the team overseeing the other Bug Hunt that they might be dealing with the first signs of a ranged fight. While Bradford himself would admit behind the scenes that he wasn't the one best suited to leading a combat team, Commander Williams had more or less told him to buck up and train to do it anyway; when multiple teams had to be sent out at once, as they were dealing with now, he'd be expected to carry a share of their command. The Commander was the best, but when four battles might kick up at once, he was still only human.
Those thoughts floated through Agent Smith's mind as he hefted his minigun, feet crunching on the fresh powdered snow as he turned to take in the surroundings. Strike 3 and 4 had ribbed him about not speaking up more before they'd left, and Strike 7 and 8 had both kept silent, watching the exchange before speaking themselves.
Speaking of the rookies, Angel Ngcobo and Dale Olson took up position to his left and right. Both of them had automatic shotguns and plenty of ammo, as well as the new .50 caliber revolvers that had taken over as XCOM's sidearm of choice for the mission. Smith glanced at both of them, then glanced at Strike 8, Olson, again when he saw the man was grinning. It wasn't a cruel grin, either, like the soldier was happy to participate.
Smith shook the thought away, trying to mentally match Strike 7, Ngcobo, whose face was set in stone. Both rookies had been offered, and accepted, front-line duty, though Angel was the one who had seemed almost delighted at the offer. Dale had just agreed to be put wherever he was needed.
"Turn the SCOPE system on," Strike 1, Ceathya, spoke quietly into her helmet mic.
Every one of their primary weapons had been fitted with SCOPEs, a combination of regular rifle scopes and advanced computer-targeting software; even the Minigun had one slotted on near the grip of the multi-barrel machine. As the system powered up across all of their guns, the integrated screens on their helmets distorted for a moment, then a mini-map gradually faded in, appearing to the top-right of all of their views. Agent Smith noted with a grin that the four drones were providing the view quietly from above, then grimaced when he saw that a pack of zombies wasn't far off their position. 10 red dots showed up in his visor.
He pointed his gun toward the zombies, through the walls of the buildings between them, and waited as the SCOPE system finished initializing.
Triangulating the targets using his SCOPE and the silent drones, vague outlines of the targets showed up through the walls, albeit through too many of them for him to want to open fire just yet.
Nearer to their position, they stood just behind a large warehouse with metal siding and no windows, and there were houses scattered around further from the water. A long, deep ramp led into the warehouse from the water, and past it were the docks. The air was silent and cool, a faint breeze failing to chill the arriving team.
They had the element of something akin to surprise, if only for the moment. Best for them to be prepared before things got nasty.
"Strike 8, drop a battle scanner on your position," Central ordered, and the rookie reached into his vest to pull out a little metal ball. He squeezed it in his hand, priming it, then dropped it directly between his feet, his shotgun never wavering from the zombie pack a building or two beyond our drop point.
Variable DC, roll d100
ROLL d100: 44+25 (Charmed Life)=69
Good Result
The little device beeped a little more loudly than expected, and the scanning pulse flashed across the team's visors.
Revealing that two Chryssalids had buried themselves nearby, and that a zombie had been lying prone between them.
"Contact left!" Strike 7 called out firmly, and she and almost everyone else, save Smith, opened fire.
DC 70*2, DC 65*1; roll d100*7 +(25 (Charmed Life) +10 (SCOPE))
ROLL d100: S1-86, S3-49, S4-90, S5-91, S6-6, S7-53, S8-27
Additional calculations unnecessary
No Chance Of Escape.
The explosions from the three different grenade launchers, one underbarrel and two primary, went a bit wide, but the shrapnel combined with the mass of gunfire was more than enough to turn the bugs and their infected meatshield to little more than gruesome piles of themselves.
Alpha Team quickly formed up, with Agent Smith stepping back as Ceathya, Ngcobo and Olson knelt in the snow closer toward the village. Teasdale turned his LMG around to watch their rear while Silva and Vasiliev readied their grenade launchers to watch the sides. Smith kept his head on a swivel-
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 55+25 (Charmed Life)=80
Success
-but no additional contacts appeared around them.
After a few terse moments, Central's voice sounded in their ears.
"Keep moving, Alpha Team. If there are other aliens in the AO, you don't want to be caught out in the open."
With a glance at the radar the Battle Scanner was providing confirming that their little scuffle hadn't been responded to, the group started moving closer toward the zombies shuffling out of sight, keeping to the middle of the warehouse wall. While out in the open, their unspoken agreement to maintain formation was held. Finally, they reached the blank side of the large building, and the formation broke up somewhat.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 23+25 (Charmed Life)=48
Encounter! Roll d8
ROLL d8: 4
They'd only let their guard down for a second as they planted their shoulders against the thin wall, but it was enough for something to scramble to life on the other side of their cover.
DC 60, roll d150
ROLL d150: 17-25 (Charmed Life)=-8
CRITICAL ROLL! 87 (-25)=62, No Critical Failure.
Whatever it was tried to punch through the wall, and the spiked legs of the 'lids nearly stabbed into Smith's ammo box before he ducked away. The legs pulled back as Jon Psionically pulled a Battle Scanner from his pouch and squeezed it, holding it up as the team put a little room between them and the Chryssalids. The small white radar sphere flashed, and additional information flashed to life through the wall on the squad's HUD.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 41+25 (Charmed Life)=66, +9 (Bonus)=75
Success
Thankfully, no additional contacts beyond the four 'lids they'd disturbed sprung out to join the fray, even as the beasts started to dig themselves through the wall.
"Target practice!" Strike 8 joked as he and Strike 7 opened fire faster than anybody else on the first bug to dig through.
DC 70, roll d100*2
S7: ROLL d100: 20+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=55, Miss
S8: ROLL d100: 48+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=83, Hit
Ngcobo's shotgun pellets glanced off the Chryssalid's thick carapace in the first shot, but Olson's tore through the bug while the automatic shotguns fired. The pair of shotgunners kept up the fire on the first bug as the other three burst from the wall.
Agent Smith mentally drew both of his sawn-off shotguns and clicked on the laser-sights that had been duct-taped to the top. He Psionically held them at the ready as he turned his minigun against the bug second-closest to the rookies.
DC 70, roll d125, d100*2
S2: ROLL d125: 5+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=40, Miss
S2-1: ROLL d100: 71+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=106, 76+25=101, Crit
S2-2: ROLL d100: 83+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=118, 36+25=61, Hit
The Minigun's barrel didn't spin up to speed before Smith's first sawn-off shotgun was flown right into the bug's mouth and the second took aim at another Chryssalid that Ceathya had already sighted in, blowing the first's head clean off and wounding the second as the double-barreled guns fired in sync.
Ceathya's X-9 fired with both barrels of her own, 5.56 and slugs both as she forced the gun down against the recoil.
DC 70, roll d100*2
S1: ROLL d100: 35+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=70, Hit
S1-1: ROLL d100: 29+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=64, Miss
While the underbarrel shotgun didn't stay on target, the weapon's primary fire was more than enough to drop the wounded 'lid. The last of the current threat tried to dodge around to get at Vasiliev-
DC70, Roll d100*2, d80*2
S3: ROLL d100: 67+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=102, 18+25, Hit
S4: ROLL d100: 58+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=93, Hit
S5-1: ROLL d80: 27+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=62, Miss
S6-1: ROLL d80: 29+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=64, Miss
-but was dropped under the combined gunfire of Jamball's assault rifle and Teasdale's SAW, while Silva's and Vasiliev's massive sidearms fired just wide.
Unfortunately, the first Chryssalid had managed to get close enough to the rookies-
DC 70, roll d150
ROLL d150: 64-25 (Charmed Life)=39
Miss
-to take a swing at Angel, who dodged back and kept the fire on as she moved away, giving both her and Olson shots at point-blank range. Under their continued combined fire, the bug finally stayed down. In just moments, the firefight had flared up and then paused, the team quickly turning to watch for additional contacts.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 74+25 (Charmed Life)=99
Success
"Is the whole mission going to be like this?" Silva's whisper cut into the silence of the dark morning.
"Reload, everyone," Agent Smith ignored her question, and the team was quick to do so besides Teasdale, with Strike 5 and 6 replacing the single round each from their massive revolvers before slotting a grenade each into their launchers. Jon made sure to replace all four slugs across both of his sawn-off double-barrel shotguns, mentally reloading them as he kept an eye out, then floated them back into their holsters for the moment. The Battle Scanner they'd dropped on the edge of town died while they regrouped, hesitantly waiting near the second floating device.
"You alright, Ne- Nuhg-" Dale fumbled over her name. "Uh, you alright, Angel?"
"I am fine," she grunted back. "I have half buck-shot, half slugs. I am switching to slugs, the buck-shot is not working."
"I'll swap over as well," he agreed readily. "Wouldn't want to get eaten because we used bad ammo."
"Alpha Team," the Commander came through the comms, "the drones above your position are showing that the group of zombies near your position is starting to twitch more frequently. Blow open a hole in that warehouse wall where the Chryssalids weakened it and head inside for cover."
Variable DC, roll d100
ROLL d100: 58+25 (Charmed Life)=83
Great Result
"Vasiliev grabbed too much ammo," the large Russian grinned. "Will lose some weight, I think."
Strike 6's grenade launcher was brought up, and three grenades later, the wall was open wide to the world. The Russian quickly cracked open the launcher's rotating breach and tilted it up with a hand on the unspent grenade shells, letting the rest slide out to be replaced as the front-line shotgunners moved in to clear the hole, Strike 7 less than confident that the scanner, which died as they moved in, had properly confirmed they weren't walking into another ambush.
The warehouse had several large sharks hung up by hooks near the walls, and large supports ran down the sides of the open room. The far wall, unlike the one they'd come in through, was a bit thicker, and had windows revealing a wide road and another warehouse on the far side. Unlike their own building, with entrances only to the left and right, the other warehouse had apparently been both made of wood and also on fire sometime between the aliens attacking and the village being deserted; the roof had half-collapsed and the massive wearhouse doors had fallen out into the road.
Which gave them a clear view of the ten zombies, milling around in the street and burned building. Inside the building, there was a clear divide between the entrance for a boat and the shelling area, a chunk of which was apparently reserved as office space given the number of desks and the industrial-sized fridge where a burned-out wall would have normally kept it away from the seafood preparation side.
One of the zombies milling in the street started twitching, seizing up, and then it exploded in a hollow burst of gore, leaving a fresh white-chitin Chryssalid behind.
DC 100, roll d100
ROLL d100: 41+25 (Charmed Life)=65
Failed
The open windows also gave the zombies and newly-born 'lid a clear view of the Strike Team in return. The Chryssalid called out, roaring to the winds like a man with a torn, mucus-closed throat, and the zombies turned almost as one to face the interlopers.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 91+25 (Charmed Life)=116
CRITICAL ROLL! 84 (+25), 109, CRITICAL SUCCESS!
Unfortunately for the bugs, closed-in crowds were why they'd brought explosives and machine guns.
The mass of bodies started stumbling toward the team as Teasdale and Smith brought up their massive guns, and the minigun quickly spinning up to join Strike 4's M249 machine gun in tearing into the walking corpses.
DC (70-35), DC (65-35)*9; Roll d125*10, d100*10; crits on 65+
S2: 80, 4, 92, 66, 110, 105, 116, 24, 40, 87
S4: 46, 84, 56, 26, 71, 36, 41, 10, 27, 7
Crit checks (75): 33, 48, 41, 31, 31, 57, 60, 54, 70, No Crits.
Results: 14 hits
It was a slaughter. The windows were shattered as the machine gun's jackhammer competed with the minigun's hellish whine and roar, and the Chryssalid was torn to shreds under the combined fire while the zombies sprint-shuffled forward into the grinder. More than half the horde was torn down before the bodies could shove themselves through the windows, and fewer still could stand when the concentrated fire was turned down on them.
Silva and Vasiliev were quick to join in, catching the few remaining zombies in a quartet of explosions.
Roll Not Required.
They didn't rise again.
"Alright, it's official," Teasdale said into the now-broken room, "I think I'm in love with this gun."
"Hey now," Jamball chided him, "can that gun tell you how manly you are?"
"Yes, actually, it absolutely can," he chuckled.
Angel looked pointedly away from them, keeping her shotgun sweeping across the empty room. From what impressions he could get, Agent Smith got the sense that she disapproved of the rest of the team's antics.
Well, the room was mostly empty, Jon noted as he watched (1d7, 2) Jamball approach one of the dead fish hanging around.
"We'd probably be best off blowing up all these sharks," Jon spoke into the Comms. "The last thing we want is to find out later that they've got-"
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 88+25 (Charmed Life)=113
CRITICAL ROLL! 69 (+25)=94, No Critical Success.
"-Chryssalids hiding inside them, waiting to be born."
"You heard him, Strike Team," Bradford's voice agreed. "Turn those sharks into chum."
It was the work of a tense minute, cutting down the sharks with a few nearby machetes and shoving them roughly into a pile, but once it was done, both Silva and Vasiliev contributed a demolitions charge each and placed them on the mass of flesh. Apparently, the infestation inside didn't appreciate being moved, and one of the sharks started wriggling and writhing as the group moved away and into the street.
"Vasiliev offers the honers to Silva," the Russian said imperiously as the drones above shifted positions, two of them still providing overwatch while two more pushed further out, looking for more contacts in the dark with their night vision. She glanced at him through her visor, then pulled a remote detonator, and pressed the button without any fanfare.
The explosion rocked the evening air-
DC 100, roll d100
ROLL d100: 50+25 (Charmed Life)=75
Encounter! Roll d7
ROLL d7: 5
Test for Leadership, ROLL d7: 7
-the wind buffeting the soldiers as the dust mingled with snow, and after a few moments-
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 5+25 (Charmed Life)=30
Encounter! Roll d5
ROLL d5: 1
-the warehouse collapsed.
"Think we'll draw any more of them in with that?" Ceathya grumbled sarcastically, moving to take up position by the burned warehouse.
Nobody answered her, but Smith shook his head and took out another battle scanner. He clicked it on and held it up as the new data popped up on their visors.
Nothing seemed to be in range.
The drones disagreed.
"Alpha team, you've got a some trouble headed your way," Bradford warned, "take up defensive positions, it looks like there are Sectoids coming in with a few Chryssalids! Hunker down, and don't hesitate to use your equipment! On your left, toward the water!"
Smith threw the scanner in that direction as the team entered the burned-out building, and saw something strange when the SCOPE systems updated with the additional radar and sonar from the device.
Something big was down under the water.
"Alpha team, there's something else coming in, some sort of snake creature has just been spotted leading the Chryssalids!" Bradford spoke quickly, "Don't bother trying to take this one alive, you've got other things to worry about for now."
"You heard the man," Ceathya called out with a savage grin, "blow up everything that isn't us!"
Silva exchanged a glance with Vasiliev, and the pair of them quickly moved to plant some of their SLAM mines on the street, leaving a clear path to retreat back to the other mostly-collapsed warehouse if they had to.
They didn't have time to plant very many, despite how quickly Silva moved, planting two near the hole between the boating entrance and the seafood-prepping area while Vasiliev got one down in the street near their flank, away from the water. The first of the plasma volleys shot into the windows on the far end of the warehouse before they could do anymore. With a curse, (1d8, 1) Ceathya dove behind another desk.
DC 70, roll d100
ROLL d100: 95-25 (Charmed Life)=70, -1 (Bonus)=69
Graze
She swallowed a scream as the sectoid's plasma-fire caught her in the left shoulder, partially melting through the Carapace Armor, then blind-fired back over the desk through the windows.
DC 65, roll d50
ROLL d50: 12+25 (Charmed Life)=37
Miss
"Jon, help me move this thing!" Teasdale shouted by the industrial fridge, and the two of them shoved it away from the wall as additional cover while the far windows in the burned out building shattered.
The minimap the team shared was swarming with red, most of it coming in from the water. One of the drones caught sight of the movement in the dark, and the warning went out, "Alpha team, multiple contacts coming in, count six Chryssalids, one zombie, the snake and something else!" Bradford shouted.
John focused his mind and let go his fears, planning out his next moves as though he had all the time in the world.
It also gave him time to visualize the two unexpected threats in combination with the SCOPE system and drones, seeing the strange armored Snake with a large plasma weapon moving with the four sectoids, and the three meters tall thing emerging from the water.
For the purposes of this vote, Jon may be considered in "heavy cover." He may take up to three sub-actions, with no restrictions on mixing and matching. His team will act after he has, and then the aliens will respond.
Talking is not a free action. You may speak while taking your actions within reason, but detailed orders can't be delivered quickly at this time.
[ ] He's got guns, and he's going to use them.
-[ ] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (Specify which threat(s) to focus on; change cover level to "light cover")
-[ ] He had two sawn-off shotguns and was going to float ammo up to them, using the SCOPE systems as he went, to take out threats two at a time. (Pick threats to focus on; compatible with, but does not automatically include, the Combat TK vote)
-[ ] He has grenades. He just needs to decide which are going where. (All grenades on Smith may be used at this time; signal smoke may not be used for a military action/air strike, but may be used to call the Skyranger if so voted)
[ ] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[ ] He would put his Combat TK to the test, forcing distance between the 'lids and his team. (Compatible with, but does not automatically include, the shotgun vote)
-[ ] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[ ] He'd put the biggest threat to sleep before it could get close enough to do any real damage (specify which threat).
-[ ] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
[ ] The drones could deliver one shock each, or could explode. His team needed orders, and Bradford wasn't in there with them to give those orders effectively.
-[ ] Tell the Commander to take over, regardless of whatever might be going on with the other Bug Hunt. You need him here, giving orders so you don't have to. (All other orders below are considered to be given; consequences, if any, are unknown)
-[ ] Order two squadmates to take specific action(s); may be taken up to three times.
-[ ] Order the drones to attack. (Specify targets. If the Commander option is taken, up to three drones will explode, and all four may choose to zap given target(s). If not taken, the drone operators may attempt to intervene.)
[ ] Move any reasonable distance to or from cover, including into the open; assume lightning reflexes is in play for this move only. May be taken twice.
[ ] Write In. (Any reasonable action may be taken, subject to QM discretion).
Strike 1: X-9 W/shotgun, 1 FN P90, 2 Hand Cannons, 2 Frags, Carapace Armor
Strike 2: Minigun W/Ammo Box, 2 sawn-off double-barrel shotguns, 3 Frags, 2 Flashbangs, 3 Battle Scanners, 1 Signal Smoke
Strike 3: X-9 W/launcher, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Trauma Kits, 1 Flashbangs, 2 Signal Smokes, Carapace Armor
Strike 4: M249 SAW W/Ironman Box, 2 Signal Smokes, Carapace Armor
Strike 5: XM25 Grenade Launcher, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Demo Packs, 4 Slam Mines
Strike 6: Milkor Grenade Launcher, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Demo Packs, 3 Slam Mines
Strike 7: AA-12 Shotgun, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Frags, 2 Flashbangs, 2 Battle Scanners, Carapace Armor
Strike 8: AA-12 Shotgun, 1 Hand Cannon, 2 Frags, 2 Flashbangs, 2 Battle Scanners, Carapace Armor
It had been a bit hectic when Agent Smith and Central Officer Bradford had arrived at the barracks. Apparently, the Council had requested the Commander's attention between the time a decision had been made to run a Bug Hunt and when Bradford had gotten Jon out of bed, with the end result that not one, but two separate missions needed to be handled. Strike Team Beta was going to handle the mission Bradford had gotten Jon up for; after hearing that the Council's request was for XCOM to look into trouble in Newfoundland, Canada, the Agent had insisted that the better-equipped team handle that side of things.
Rumors had been making their rounds more or less confirming that Jon seemed to know what he was doing, but the Bug Hunt they'd accepted in Eritrea wasn't going to be allowed fall to the wayside, either. In the end, the helicopter they'd been given would be used to take the second team to their mission, under the command of Williams, while Bradford focused mainly on the Alpha team. With Smith helping Ceathya to lead, it would hopefully give the Central Officer an opportunity to better learn to lead from his desk.
As the Beta team had the backing of the local military from the start, and Alpha wouldn't get that until sometime after they touched down, it was decided that Jon's team would get the bulk of the new toys the Engineers had cooked up.
"Mujina dropping down," the voice sounded from both the front of the Skyranger and from Alpha Team's helmets. "Mission is a go."
Day Nine, 04:31, Newfoundland - Five days before The Chosen may arrive
OPERATION HEAVY RAIN
OPERATION HEAVY RAIN
There were no complaints about how heavily they'd kitted themselves out, and the crew were silent as we dropped down the ropes at the back of the Skyranger to land at the edge of the fishing village, half a football field's distance from the water. There were lights on in some of the warehouses and homes, and several haphazard streetlamps still provided light, but the crew had flashlights on most of their guns to compensate. The moon had gone down, and it wouldn't be too long before the sun started lighting up the morning a little bit at a time.
Some thought had been given to simply firing into the crowds of bugs the soldiers expected to find there while standing safely at the back of the Skyranger, but Jon only had to warn against a single alien with a plasma gun halfway to the drop point for the idea to be scrapped. The Commander's voice had come across the airwaves at that point, during their flight.
"Perhaps I heard you wrong," Commander Williams' voice came through clear, "but you think there might be other aliens working alongside the Chryssalid swarm? Can they even be controlled that well?"
"Of course," Jon had scoffed, shrugging his shoulders under the huge pack he was wearing; he'd swapped to the regular combat uniform of XCOM, but the loss of his exo-suit didn't leave him weak enough to pass on the firepower it provided. "Otherwise we'd never expect Chryssalids on non-bug hunt missions. They're the prime force behind the terror attacks, but they're very rarely sent in alone. The Swarm Nest might not have aliens, but I wouldn't bet my life on it, even as lucky as I am."
Moderate swearing came not only from Command, but also from the other soldiers in the Skyranger.
"What?" Jon asked. "We've got multiple machine guns," he scoffed, patting the minigun on his lap. "And we had to be focused mostly on close range for the Newfoundland mission anyway. It's infamous across timelines and realities for being an absolute clusterfuck, or I wouldn't have insisted that we deal with it personally. Hell, if we can, I want to just turn the whole place to ash after we verify it's a Nest."
"Strike 2," Bradford's voice cut in, "as I told you when Delta Team took the mission we'd planned on sending you on, we won't have an air strike for-"
Variable DC, roll d100
ROLL d100: 22+25 (Charmed Life)= 47
Moderate Result
"-at least half an hour after you arrive, maybe more. You'll have to prevent the Chryssalids from reaching Swarming levels until then; we don't know how much food they had here, so some surveillance must be done so we know what we're dealing with."
"It's not your team I'm worried about, Agent," Commander Williams grunted. "Every Bug Hunt from around the globe thus far has only had Chryssalids."
The Central Officer and Commander had left the Comms silent from there, presumably to inform the team overseeing the other Bug Hunt that they might be dealing with the first signs of a ranged fight. While Bradford himself would admit behind the scenes that he wasn't the one best suited to leading a combat team, Commander Williams had more or less told him to buck up and train to do it anyway; when multiple teams had to be sent out at once, as they were dealing with now, he'd be expected to carry a share of their command. The Commander was the best, but when four battles might kick up at once, he was still only human.
Those thoughts floated through Agent Smith's mind as he hefted his minigun, feet crunching on the fresh powdered snow as he turned to take in the surroundings. Strike 3 and 4 had ribbed him about not speaking up more before they'd left, and Strike 7 and 8 had both kept silent, watching the exchange before speaking themselves.
Speaking of the rookies, Angel Ngcobo and Dale Olson took up position to his left and right. Both of them had automatic shotguns and plenty of ammo, as well as the new .50 caliber revolvers that had taken over as XCOM's sidearm of choice for the mission. Smith glanced at both of them, then glanced at Strike 8, Olson, again when he saw the man was grinning. It wasn't a cruel grin, either, like the soldier was happy to participate.
Smith shook the thought away, trying to mentally match Strike 7, Ngcobo, whose face was set in stone. Both rookies had been offered, and accepted, front-line duty, though Angel was the one who had seemed almost delighted at the offer. Dale had just agreed to be put wherever he was needed.
"Turn the SCOPE system on," Strike 1, Ceathya, spoke quietly into her helmet mic.
Every one of their primary weapons had been fitted with SCOPEs, a combination of regular rifle scopes and advanced computer-targeting software; even the Minigun had one slotted on near the grip of the multi-barrel machine. As the system powered up across all of their guns, the integrated screens on their helmets distorted for a moment, then a mini-map gradually faded in, appearing to the top-right of all of their views. Agent Smith noted with a grin that the four drones were providing the view quietly from above, then grimaced when he saw that a pack of zombies wasn't far off their position. 10 red dots showed up in his visor.
He pointed his gun toward the zombies, through the walls of the buildings between them, and waited as the SCOPE system finished initializing.
Triangulating the targets using his SCOPE and the silent drones, vague outlines of the targets showed up through the walls, albeit through too many of them for him to want to open fire just yet.
Nearer to their position, they stood just behind a large warehouse with metal siding and no windows, and there were houses scattered around further from the water. A long, deep ramp led into the warehouse from the water, and past it were the docks. The air was silent and cool, a faint breeze failing to chill the arriving team.
They had the element of something akin to surprise, if only for the moment. Best for them to be prepared before things got nasty.
"Strike 8, drop a battle scanner on your position," Central ordered, and the rookie reached into his vest to pull out a little metal ball. He squeezed it in his hand, priming it, then dropped it directly between his feet, his shotgun never wavering from the zombie pack a building or two beyond our drop point.
Variable DC, roll d100
ROLL d100: 44+25 (Charmed Life)=69
Good Result
The little device beeped a little more loudly than expected, and the scanning pulse flashed across the team's visors.
Revealing that two Chryssalids had buried themselves nearby, and that a zombie had been lying prone between them.
"Contact left!" Strike 7 called out firmly, and she and almost everyone else, save Smith, opened fire.
DC 70*2, DC 65*1; roll d100*7 +(25 (Charmed Life) +10 (SCOPE))
ROLL d100: S1-86, S3-49, S4-90, S5-91, S6-6, S7-53, S8-27
Additional calculations unnecessary
No Chance Of Escape.
The explosions from the three different grenade launchers, one underbarrel and two primary, went a bit wide, but the shrapnel combined with the mass of gunfire was more than enough to turn the bugs and their infected meatshield to little more than gruesome piles of themselves.
Alpha Team quickly formed up, with Agent Smith stepping back as Ceathya, Ngcobo and Olson knelt in the snow closer toward the village. Teasdale turned his LMG around to watch their rear while Silva and Vasiliev readied their grenade launchers to watch the sides. Smith kept his head on a swivel-
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 55+25 (Charmed Life)=80
Success
-but no additional contacts appeared around them.
After a few terse moments, Central's voice sounded in their ears.
"Keep moving, Alpha Team. If there are other aliens in the AO, you don't want to be caught out in the open."
With a glance at the radar the Battle Scanner was providing confirming that their little scuffle hadn't been responded to, the group started moving closer toward the zombies shuffling out of sight, keeping to the middle of the warehouse wall. While out in the open, their unspoken agreement to maintain formation was held. Finally, they reached the blank side of the large building, and the formation broke up somewhat.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 23+25 (Charmed Life)=48
Encounter! Roll d8
ROLL d8: 4
They'd only let their guard down for a second as they planted their shoulders against the thin wall, but it was enough for something to scramble to life on the other side of their cover.
DC 60, roll d150
ROLL d150: 17-25 (Charmed Life)=-8
CRITICAL ROLL! 87 (-25)=62, No Critical Failure.
Whatever it was tried to punch through the wall, and the spiked legs of the 'lids nearly stabbed into Smith's ammo box before he ducked away. The legs pulled back as Jon Psionically pulled a Battle Scanner from his pouch and squeezed it, holding it up as the team put a little room between them and the Chryssalids. The small white radar sphere flashed, and additional information flashed to life through the wall on the squad's HUD.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 41+25 (Charmed Life)=66, +9 (Bonus)=75
Success
Thankfully, no additional contacts beyond the four 'lids they'd disturbed sprung out to join the fray, even as the beasts started to dig themselves through the wall.
"Target practice!" Strike 8 joked as he and Strike 7 opened fire faster than anybody else on the first bug to dig through.
DC 70, roll d100*2
S7: ROLL d100: 20+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=55, Miss
S8: ROLL d100: 48+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=83, Hit
Ngcobo's shotgun pellets glanced off the Chryssalid's thick carapace in the first shot, but Olson's tore through the bug while the automatic shotguns fired. The pair of shotgunners kept up the fire on the first bug as the other three burst from the wall.
Agent Smith mentally drew both of his sawn-off shotguns and clicked on the laser-sights that had been duct-taped to the top. He Psionically held them at the ready as he turned his minigun against the bug second-closest to the rookies.
DC 70, roll d125, d100*2
S2: ROLL d125: 5+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=40, Miss
S2-1: ROLL d100: 71+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=106, 76+25=101, Crit
S2-2: ROLL d100: 83+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=118, 36+25=61, Hit
The Minigun's barrel didn't spin up to speed before Smith's first sawn-off shotgun was flown right into the bug's mouth and the second took aim at another Chryssalid that Ceathya had already sighted in, blowing the first's head clean off and wounding the second as the double-barreled guns fired in sync.
Ceathya's X-9 fired with both barrels of her own, 5.56 and slugs both as she forced the gun down against the recoil.
DC 70, roll d100*2
S1: ROLL d100: 35+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=70, Hit
S1-1: ROLL d100: 29+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=64, Miss
While the underbarrel shotgun didn't stay on target, the weapon's primary fire was more than enough to drop the wounded 'lid. The last of the current threat tried to dodge around to get at Vasiliev-
DC70, Roll d100*2, d80*2
S3: ROLL d100: 67+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=102, 18+25, Hit
S4: ROLL d100: 58+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=93, Hit
S5-1: ROLL d80: 27+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=62, Miss
S6-1: ROLL d80: 29+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=64, Miss
-but was dropped under the combined gunfire of Jamball's assault rifle and Teasdale's SAW, while Silva's and Vasiliev's massive sidearms fired just wide.
Unfortunately, the first Chryssalid had managed to get close enough to the rookies-
DC 70, roll d150
ROLL d150: 64-25 (Charmed Life)=39
Miss
-to take a swing at Angel, who dodged back and kept the fire on as she moved away, giving both her and Olson shots at point-blank range. Under their continued combined fire, the bug finally stayed down. In just moments, the firefight had flared up and then paused, the team quickly turning to watch for additional contacts.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 74+25 (Charmed Life)=99
Success
"Is the whole mission going to be like this?" Silva's whisper cut into the silence of the dark morning.
"Reload, everyone," Agent Smith ignored her question, and the team was quick to do so besides Teasdale, with Strike 5 and 6 replacing the single round each from their massive revolvers before slotting a grenade each into their launchers. Jon made sure to replace all four slugs across both of his sawn-off double-barrel shotguns, mentally reloading them as he kept an eye out, then floated them back into their holsters for the moment. The Battle Scanner they'd dropped on the edge of town died while they regrouped, hesitantly waiting near the second floating device.
"You alright, Ne- Nuhg-" Dale fumbled over her name. "Uh, you alright, Angel?"
"I am fine," she grunted back. "I have half buck-shot, half slugs. I am switching to slugs, the buck-shot is not working."
"I'll swap over as well," he agreed readily. "Wouldn't want to get eaten because we used bad ammo."
"Alpha Team," the Commander came through the comms, "the drones above your position are showing that the group of zombies near your position is starting to twitch more frequently. Blow open a hole in that warehouse wall where the Chryssalids weakened it and head inside for cover."
Variable DC, roll d100
ROLL d100: 58+25 (Charmed Life)=83
Great Result
"Vasiliev grabbed too much ammo," the large Russian grinned. "Will lose some weight, I think."
Strike 6's grenade launcher was brought up, and three grenades later, the wall was open wide to the world. The Russian quickly cracked open the launcher's rotating breach and tilted it up with a hand on the unspent grenade shells, letting the rest slide out to be replaced as the front-line shotgunners moved in to clear the hole, Strike 7 less than confident that the scanner, which died as they moved in, had properly confirmed they weren't walking into another ambush.
The warehouse had several large sharks hung up by hooks near the walls, and large supports ran down the sides of the open room. The far wall, unlike the one they'd come in through, was a bit thicker, and had windows revealing a wide road and another warehouse on the far side. Unlike their own building, with entrances only to the left and right, the other warehouse had apparently been both made of wood and also on fire sometime between the aliens attacking and the village being deserted; the roof had half-collapsed and the massive wearhouse doors had fallen out into the road.
Which gave them a clear view of the ten zombies, milling around in the street and burned building. Inside the building, there was a clear divide between the entrance for a boat and the shelling area, a chunk of which was apparently reserved as office space given the number of desks and the industrial-sized fridge where a burned-out wall would have normally kept it away from the seafood preparation side.
One of the zombies milling in the street started twitching, seizing up, and then it exploded in a hollow burst of gore, leaving a fresh white-chitin Chryssalid behind.
DC 100, roll d100
ROLL d100: 41+25 (Charmed Life)=65
Failed
The open windows also gave the zombies and newly-born 'lid a clear view of the Strike Team in return. The Chryssalid called out, roaring to the winds like a man with a torn, mucus-closed throat, and the zombies turned almost as one to face the interlopers.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 91+25 (Charmed Life)=116
CRITICAL ROLL! 84 (+25), 109, CRITICAL SUCCESS!
Unfortunately for the bugs, closed-in crowds were why they'd brought explosives and machine guns.
The mass of bodies started stumbling toward the team as Teasdale and Smith brought up their massive guns, and the minigun quickly spinning up to join Strike 4's M249 machine gun in tearing into the walking corpses.
DC (70-35), DC (65-35)*9; Roll d125*10, d100*10; crits on 65+
S2: 80, 4, 92, 66, 110, 105, 116, 24, 40, 87
S4: 46, 84, 56, 26, 71, 36, 41, 10, 27, 7
Crit checks (75): 33, 48, 41, 31, 31, 57, 60, 54, 70, No Crits.
Results: 14 hits
It was a slaughter. The windows were shattered as the machine gun's jackhammer competed with the minigun's hellish whine and roar, and the Chryssalid was torn to shreds under the combined fire while the zombies sprint-shuffled forward into the grinder. More than half the horde was torn down before the bodies could shove themselves through the windows, and fewer still could stand when the concentrated fire was turned down on them.
Silva and Vasiliev were quick to join in, catching the few remaining zombies in a quartet of explosions.
Roll Not Required.
They didn't rise again.
"Alright, it's official," Teasdale said into the now-broken room, "I think I'm in love with this gun."
"Hey now," Jamball chided him, "can that gun tell you how manly you are?"
"Yes, actually, it absolutely can," he chuckled.
Angel looked pointedly away from them, keeping her shotgun sweeping across the empty room. From what impressions he could get, Agent Smith got the sense that she disapproved of the rest of the team's antics.
Well, the room was mostly empty, Jon noted as he watched (1d7, 2) Jamball approach one of the dead fish hanging around.
"We'd probably be best off blowing up all these sharks," Jon spoke into the Comms. "The last thing we want is to find out later that they've got-"
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 88+25 (Charmed Life)=113
CRITICAL ROLL! 69 (+25)=94, No Critical Success.
"-Chryssalids hiding inside them, waiting to be born."
"You heard him, Strike Team," Bradford's voice agreed. "Turn those sharks into chum."
It was the work of a tense minute, cutting down the sharks with a few nearby machetes and shoving them roughly into a pile, but once it was done, both Silva and Vasiliev contributed a demolitions charge each and placed them on the mass of flesh. Apparently, the infestation inside didn't appreciate being moved, and one of the sharks started wriggling and writhing as the group moved away and into the street.
"Vasiliev offers the honers to Silva," the Russian said imperiously as the drones above shifted positions, two of them still providing overwatch while two more pushed further out, looking for more contacts in the dark with their night vision. She glanced at him through her visor, then pulled a remote detonator, and pressed the button without any fanfare.
The explosion rocked the evening air-
DC 100, roll d100
ROLL d100: 50+25 (Charmed Life)=75
Encounter! Roll d7
ROLL d7: 5
Test for Leadership, ROLL d7: 7
-the wind buffeting the soldiers as the dust mingled with snow, and after a few moments-
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 5+25 (Charmed Life)=30
Encounter! Roll d5
ROLL d5: 1
-the warehouse collapsed.
"Think we'll draw any more of them in with that?" Ceathya grumbled sarcastically, moving to take up position by the burned warehouse.
Nobody answered her, but Smith shook his head and took out another battle scanner. He clicked it on and held it up as the new data popped up on their visors.
Nothing seemed to be in range.
The drones disagreed.
"Alpha team, you've got a some trouble headed your way," Bradford warned, "take up defensive positions, it looks like there are Sectoids coming in with a few Chryssalids! Hunker down, and don't hesitate to use your equipment! On your left, toward the water!"
Smith threw the scanner in that direction as the team entered the burned-out building, and saw something strange when the SCOPE systems updated with the additional radar and sonar from the device.
Something big was down under the water.
"Alpha team, there's something else coming in, some sort of snake creature has just been spotted leading the Chryssalids!" Bradford spoke quickly, "Don't bother trying to take this one alive, you've got other things to worry about for now."
"You heard the man," Ceathya called out with a savage grin, "blow up everything that isn't us!"
Silva exchanged a glance with Vasiliev, and the pair of them quickly moved to plant some of their SLAM mines on the street, leaving a clear path to retreat back to the other mostly-collapsed warehouse if they had to.
They didn't have time to plant very many, despite how quickly Silva moved, planting two near the hole between the boating entrance and the seafood-prepping area while Vasiliev got one down in the street near their flank, away from the water. The first of the plasma volleys shot into the windows on the far end of the warehouse before they could do anymore. With a curse, (1d8, 1) Ceathya dove behind another desk.
DC 70, roll d100
ROLL d100: 95-25 (Charmed Life)=70, -1 (Bonus)=69
Graze
She swallowed a scream as the sectoid's plasma-fire caught her in the left shoulder, partially melting through the Carapace Armor, then blind-fired back over the desk through the windows.
DC 65, roll d50
ROLL d50: 12+25 (Charmed Life)=37
Miss
"Jon, help me move this thing!" Teasdale shouted by the industrial fridge, and the two of them shoved it away from the wall as additional cover while the far windows in the burned out building shattered.
The minimap the team shared was swarming with red, most of it coming in from the water. One of the drones caught sight of the movement in the dark, and the warning went out, "Alpha team, multiple contacts coming in, count six Chryssalids, one zombie, the snake and something else!" Bradford shouted.
John focused his mind and let go his fears, planning out his next moves as though he had all the time in the world.
It also gave him time to visualize the two unexpected threats in combination with the SCOPE system and drones, seeing the strange armored Snake with a large plasma weapon moving with the four sectoids, and the three meters tall thing emerging from the water.
For the purposes of this vote, Jon may be considered in "heavy cover." He may take up to three sub-actions, with no restrictions on mixing and matching. His team will act after he has, and then the aliens will respond.
Talking is not a free action. You may speak while taking your actions within reason, but detailed orders can't be delivered quickly at this time.
[ ] He's got guns, and he's going to use them.
-[ ] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (Specify which threat(s) to focus on; change cover level to "light cover")
-[ ] He had two sawn-off shotguns and was going to float ammo up to them, using the SCOPE systems as he went, to take out threats two at a time. (Pick threats to focus on; compatible with, but does not automatically include, the Combat TK vote)
-[ ] He has grenades. He just needs to decide which are going where. (All grenades on Smith may be used at this time; signal smoke may not be used for a military action/air strike, but may be used to call the Skyranger if so voted)
[ ] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[ ] He would put his Combat TK to the test, forcing distance between the 'lids and his team. (Compatible with, but does not automatically include, the shotgun vote)
-[ ] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[ ] He'd put the biggest threat to sleep before it could get close enough to do any real damage (specify which threat).
-[ ] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
[ ] The drones could deliver one shock each, or could explode. His team needed orders, and Bradford wasn't in there with them to give those orders effectively.
-[ ] Tell the Commander to take over, regardless of whatever might be going on with the other Bug Hunt. You need him here, giving orders so you don't have to. (All other orders below are considered to be given; consequences, if any, are unknown)
-[ ] Order two squadmates to take specific action(s); may be taken up to three times.
-[ ] Order the drones to attack. (Specify targets. If the Commander option is taken, up to three drones will explode, and all four may choose to zap given target(s). If not taken, the drone operators may attempt to intervene.)
[ ] Move any reasonable distance to or from cover, including into the open; assume lightning reflexes is in play for this move only. May be taken twice.
[ ] Write In. (Any reasonable action may be taken, subject to QM discretion).
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Canas Dark
Living comfortably in his own head
- Location
- Elsewhere
Not sure about this one, even with the rework. I could have gotten more in, but after the re-writes that seemed a good a place as any to return power to the players; before the re-writes, completely different things happened, so we're ignoring all that now.
The above shows about how much background rolling goes into each combat section. Editing them is a bit of a pain, but hopefully you see now how big of an impact Charmed Life is having on the things you're actively doing (Spoiler: it's a lot). I'm not going into the details of the wound system at this time, but the short answer to the inevitable question is:
Ceathya specifically has 3 wounds when completely healthy and armored at this point in the quest (simplified heavily from what I was doing before). She has taken one wound (a graze). At zero, she must roll to remain conscious. At -2, she automatically dies. Aliens do various levels of damage and some attacks ignore some kinds of wounds.
The vote will end in around 24 hours. Please try to get your votes and any Bonuses you might want to spend in by then.
The Bonuses I granted from the previous chapter discussions are now considered spent.
The above shows about how much background rolling goes into each combat section. Editing them is a bit of a pain, but hopefully you see now how big of an impact Charmed Life is having on the things you're actively doing (Spoiler: it's a lot). I'm not going into the details of the wound system at this time, but the short answer to the inevitable question is:
Ceathya specifically has 3 wounds when completely healthy and armored at this point in the quest (simplified heavily from what I was doing before). She has taken one wound (a graze). At zero, she must roll to remain conscious. At -2, she automatically dies. Aliens do various levels of damage and some attacks ignore some kinds of wounds.
The vote will end in around 24 hours. Please try to get your votes and any Bonuses you might want to spend in by then.
The Bonuses I granted from the previous chapter discussions are now considered spent.
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[X] He's got guns, and he's going to use them.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
Well, that didn't taking very long, going to have to kill the shit out of the old-com lid. As those guys are stupidly armored and more clever if memory serves then their newer counterparts. As for the rest of the stuff, stronger cover is a must when what we got right now just block line of sight with the enemy and should help with us making ourselves a massive freaking target when we go full auto minigun on everything. Lastly, going to heal up our injured, since this is a time we need all the guys yesterday for.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
Well, that didn't taking very long, going to have to kill the shit out of the old-com lid. As those guys are stupidly armored and more clever if memory serves then their newer counterparts. As for the rest of the stuff, stronger cover is a must when what we got right now just block line of sight with the enemy and should help with us making ourselves a massive freaking target when we go full auto minigun on everything. Lastly, going to heal up our injured, since this is a time we need all the guys yesterday for.
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Canas Dark
Living comfortably in his own head
- Location
- Elsewhere
He's got a second Bug Hunt running in the background that he's been focusing on. The Helicopter you would have used this chapter got used by the Beta Squad, and he's been Commander-ing all over their mission. If that wasn't the case, you'd have probably been working with him instead of Bradford for most of this, and his intervention at this point would have been expected, rather than something you need to ask for/demand. There are a few references to this at the start of the chapter.
"The Central Officer and Commander had left the Comms silent from there, presumably to inform the team overseeing the other Bug Hunt that they might be dealing with the first signs of a ranged fight. While Bradford himself would admit behind the scenes that he wasn't the one best suited to leading a combat team, Commander Williams had more or less told him to buck up and train to do it anyway; when multiple teams had to be sent out at once, as they were dealing with now..."
I can clarify this in the chapter a bit more if need be.
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Ah, in that case will be changing things then real quick.
Thanks for the heads up mate.
Tale Swapper
(Unverified Madman)
- Location
- Lost Among a Sea of Imaginings and Dreams
[X ] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
[X]The drones could deliver one shock each, or could explode. His team needed orders, and Bradford wasn't in there with them to give those orders effectively.
- [X] Order the drones to attack. Send one to shock the snake man long enough for the team to roast it, use one as a suicide bomber against the mega-lid.
- [X] Order the squad to hose down the ranged threats first. Your TK Field will protect them for a bit, but you're loaded for close-quarters combat; letting the enemy hold their range is a bad idea.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
[X]The drones could deliver one shock each, or could explode. His team needed orders, and Bradford wasn't in there with them to give those orders effectively.
- [X] Order the drones to attack. Send one to shock the snake man long enough for the team to roast it, use one as a suicide bomber against the mega-lid.
- [X] Order the squad to hose down the ranged threats first. Your TK Field will protect them for a bit, but you're loaded for close-quarters combat; letting the enemy hold their range is a bad idea.
Canas Dark
Living comfortably in his own head
- Location
- Elsewhere
If we hadn't spent so much on Charmed Life, I would say it is OP. As is, it is working as expected.
I am a bit confused by the + 9 and - 1 bonuses, and there doesn't seem to be any documentation on it in the logistics page. Are you just kinda saying 'Here is a bonus for generally being a good, engaged audience'?
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[X] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
[X] He's got guns, and he's going to use them.
-[X] He has grenades. He just needs to decide which are going where.
- - [X] Fragmentation grenade(s)
This vote is mostly because I want to play this out conservatively before we can feel out our limitations compared to these opponents.
Do you have a particular policy about people with bonuses asking questions about 'if I spend a bonus on this, what happens'?
EDIT: I don't think spending a bonus is warranted. The opponents don't seem that dangerous, were in cover, and probably out number and outgun.
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Canas Dark
Living comfortably in his own head
- Location
- Elsewhere
On the subject of Charmed Life: The Aliens will get tougher. I already have a basic list of armor/defense DCs you guys will be competing with. At this present moment, most of the squad is physically incapable of landing a solid hit on some kinds of late-game enemies with their current equipment. As in, literally can't wound them. Your later equipment and such will hopefully compensate for this.
To answer @Jirachi47 's question, at the end of the last chapter's votes, I decided against awarding anything specific after the individuals spending most of their time debating over the equipment loadout agreed to simply spend any bonuses they would have otherwise received on, well, just improving their odds in the chapter.
Instead of giving them something small for later, which I was having trouble deciding a value for (if any), everybody just said to use it more or less as I did. In future chapters, especially if people are arguing for its own sake, this is not likely to occur.
Thus, I had a small pool of points I could use to aid bad rolls, and it was used up where the BONUS color is seen. This was actually one of the minor things that made me redo the chapter originally, as I'd ended up spending what I came to calculate was worth more than had been earned, then tried to overcompensate the other way. I can write a short Omake with some of the things that ended up messing up the chapter if people would prefer to have it.
EDIT: I don't have a problem giving some explanation about what a bonus will likely do (and won't hesitate to warn somebody off when they're using one outside where it works best).
Also: Jon has 3 frags and 2 flashbangs; if you're using the frags, please say how/what you're hoping to do with them primarily.
In unrelated news, XCOM 2 is getting more content. So anybody who doesn't own the WOTC expansion and is interested in a free upgrade to that, it'll apparently go live in a just a couple days, with new (old) missions being the primary draw, from before the Commander was released from captivity. If you don't own WOTC by December 3rd, you miss the free upgrade and it's $7 or $8 after that.
Further Edit: So I just realized I'd made the switch from first person to third person during 7.2, while connecting the Omake to the story. I'm going to have to go back and fix that at some point over the next few days...
To answer @Jirachi47 's question, at the end of the last chapter's votes, I decided against awarding anything specific after the individuals spending most of their time debating over the equipment loadout agreed to simply spend any bonuses they would have otherwise received on, well, just improving their odds in the chapter.
Instead of giving them something small for later, which I was having trouble deciding a value for (if any), everybody just said to use it more or less as I did. In future chapters, especially if people are arguing for its own sake, this is not likely to occur.
Thus, I had a small pool of points I could use to aid bad rolls, and it was used up where the BONUS color is seen. This was actually one of the minor things that made me redo the chapter originally, as I'd ended up spending what I came to calculate was worth more than had been earned, then tried to overcompensate the other way. I can write a short Omake with some of the things that ended up messing up the chapter if people would prefer to have it.
EDIT: I don't have a problem giving some explanation about what a bonus will likely do (and won't hesitate to warn somebody off when they're using one outside where it works best).
Also: Jon has 3 frags and 2 flashbangs; if you're using the frags, please say how/what you're hoping to do with them primarily.
In unrelated news, XCOM 2 is getting more content. So anybody who doesn't own the WOTC expansion and is interested in a free upgrade to that, it'll apparently go live in a just a couple days, with new (old) missions being the primary draw, from before the Commander was released from captivity. If you don't own WOTC by December 3rd, you miss the free upgrade and it's $7 or $8 after that.
Further Edit: So I just realized I'd made the switch from first person to third person during 7.2, while connecting the Omake to the story. I'm going to have to go back and fix that at some point over the next few days...
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- Location
- Canada
[X] He's got guns, and he's going to use them.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
Terran Imperium
[French]
- Location
- Southern France
[X] He's got guns, and he's going to use them.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
- Location
- Tarn-Vedra
[X] He's got guns, and he's going to use them.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] His Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing them to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
[X] He's got guns, and he's going to use them.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] He'd put the biggest threat to sleep before it could get close enough to do any real damage (specify which threat). (Snakeman)
-[X] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
-[X] It may mean he has to stand up to fire it, but he's going to hold the trigger down on his minigun until the biggest threat is down. (OLD-COM Lid)
[X] All that Psionics training has led to this.
-[X] He'd put the biggest threat to sleep before it could get close enough to do any real damage (specify which threat). (Snakeman)
-[X] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
Canas Dark
Living comfortably in his own head
- Location
- Elsewhere
Seems like a good a time as any, as I have to call an extremely early day for the next two to three days. Assuming I manage to get the bulk of my work done fast enough (due date of Saturday), I'll see about having as much of the mission done as is reasonable to do without an additional vote; depending, there may be one more vote before the probable decompression section after the mission.
Also: while I still must find time to go back and fix the third person changes, I should have the next segment done in our traditional first person. Not sure exactly how I messed that up, though I suspect it was being blinded by the awesome Omakes by the players.
See you soon.
Also: while I still must find time to go back and fix the third person changes, I should have the next segment done in our traditional first person. Not sure exactly how I messed that up, though I suspect it was being blinded by the awesome Omakes by the players.
See you soon.
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Canas Dark
Living comfortably in his own head
- Location
- Elsewhere
Grenades and wide-area attacks bother me. A lot. We're going to have to decide via a vote and/or discussion some time after this how to deal with that in the future, because while it goes both ways on putting them to use, you don't have the literal napkin I had to draw out most of this chapter's battle on. There were explosions on the napkin! Kraka-THUM! The fates of lives relied on the tiny sketch of a battlefield, with tiny L figures for 'lids and triangles for soldiers!
Seriously. Napkin drawings with little arrows to decide where the aliens did what and when. Pain in my ass. Hope it comes out alright, though!
PS - Regarding the rolls: true randomness doesn't give a damn about conforming to the feeling you get when you're doing a multiple choice test and it comes up C 8 times in a row. It simply gives me numbers, and I put them in the story in the order they're received.
PPS -I totally whiffed on the wounds system when armored with Nano-fiber and Carapace both, which brings it up to 4 for the average non-conditioned soldier; I said Ceathya had 3. That didn't matter before. It doesn't help that Charmed Life has zero impact on damage atm. You don't get to see the wound system most of the time even when I want to show off the ridiculous levels of not-dying you're doing anyway, so feel free to ignore that.
Seriously. Napkin drawings with little arrows to decide where the aliens did what and when. Pain in my ass. Hope it comes out alright, though!
PS - Regarding the rolls: true randomness doesn't give a damn about conforming to the feeling you get when you're doing a multiple choice test and it comes up C 8 times in a row. It simply gives me numbers, and I put them in the story in the order they're received.
PPS -
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08.1-Operation Heavy Rain
Canas Dark
Living comfortably in his own head
- Location
- Elsewhere
[X] I had guns, and I was going to use them.
-[X] It may have meant I needed to stand up to fire it, but I was going to hold the trigger down on my minigun until the Hunter Chryssalid threat was eliminated.
[X] All that Psionics training had led to this.
-[X] My Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing the team to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; I needed to Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
I felt a disconnect, like I'd stepped back and away from myself on the battlefield. I could see all the threats, all the movements that we could have made, everything. In an instant, I knew what I had to do.
As fast as thought, I stood up and drew energy from my Psi-amp with my left hand, hefting up the minigun with my right and spinning up the barrels in what felt like slow motion, keeping the gun aimed at the figure coming up out of the water while the energies in my mind coalesced into a barrier, giving the air heft and twisting it upwards against incoming fire and ignoring the fire of my team. With a moment of concentration, I opened my left hand, and the air began to melt.
The rest of my team was catching up and taking cover while the bugs slowly moved forward, all save the larger one, who had started sprinting to the side away from the road and our prepared explosives at incredible speed, to catch us off balance. It was fruitless; I'd already sighted it in, and the Gremlins in the air interfaced with the SCOPE on my minigun while I waved it past my allies, keeping the Hunter in sight. Even as I started firing, I drew more energies into my left hand.
DC 125, roll d125
ROLL d125: 85+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=120, Graze
The bullets tore through the wall, glancing off the beast's hardened armor, but I couldn't focus on that, instead throwing the energies of my prepared Mind Merge at Ceathya, healing her wounds and sharpening her senses with my own.
"Kill the 'Lids!" I shouted, knowing my TK field would help destroy the Sectoids' and Snakeman's aim.
And all at once, whatever had sped up my senses was exhausted.
Time seemed to catch up with us even as I kept the trigger pulled down on the Hunter 'lid, and the team jumped to focus on the bugs coming from the water and through the windows. I poured fire on against the Hunter while everyone else aimed at the other targets-
DC 125, roll d125
ROLL d125: 122+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=157
CRITICAL ROLL! 43 (+25)=68, No Critical Success.
-and while I didn't manage to hit anything important, the sheer volume of fire was enough to stagger the massive armored figure, just as it came bursting in through one of the walls, destroying Ceathya's cover with chunks of the wall.
With a violent tearing noise in its throat, the Hunter screeched (Panic roll Low power Solace interrupts), and took one powerful swing at the nearest target (1d8; 2), me, as Teasdale scrambled out of the way and Ceathya tried and failed to aim a shot at it.
DC 65, Roll d150
ROLL d150: 88, (-25)=63, Graze
The massive armor-piercing rounds I'd fired through the wall had done enough to the beast that it collapsed while taking the wide swing, clipping me in the leg. I grunted, but kept the fire on, trying to get my other hand back on my gun to steady my aim.
DC 125, roll d125
ROLL d125: 73+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=108, Miss
I failed; the bullets glanced off its thick armor as the beast shoved itself up, then swung wildly at everyone in range-
DC 65, 70*2; roll d150*3
ROLL d150: 56-25 (Charmed Life)=31, Miss
ROLL d150: 95-25 (Charmed Life)=70, Hit
ROLL d50: 126-25 (Charmed Life)=101, Crit
CRITICAL ROLL! 82, No Critical Success.
-clipping Ceathya and screwing up her aim with one massive crab-clawed arm while another tore at Teasdale, all but destroying his carapace armor and breaking several of his ribs as it smashed into him. I kept on the fire, not letting up at point blank range as it screeched again in rage.
DC 125, roll d125
ROLL d125: 112+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=147, Hit
The bullets made it focus on me, and it shook under the force of the gun's unrelenting fire. Its muscles twitched as it tried to stumble forward, and in a final effort to kill me those muscles ripped themselves apart, spraying blood over the ground. It fell. The other 'lids were quick to try to capitalize on the confusion even while the team took aim at the charging bugs, both inside the building and a few laggers coming around where the Hunter had led them.
Ceathya quickly turned her gun from the downed Hunter and took aim at the nearest bug in the building, once again moving her hands to fire with both her underbarrel shotgun and rifle at once-
DC 70, roll d75*2
S1: ROLL d100: 26+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)+10 (Mind Merge)=71, Hit
S1-1: ROLL d100: 27+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)+10 (Mind Merge)=72, Hit
-and this time, she kept on target, barely, taking down the 'lid with both barrels through whatever haze of pain she was suffering through. Both Vasiliev and Silva were almost as quick, turning their respective grenade launchers up the middle of the room at two more Chryssalids that had come up through the water rather than smashed through the walls.
DC70, Roll d100*2
S5: ROLL d100: 19+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=54, Miss
S6: ROLL d100: 38+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=73, Hit
Their explosives managed to hurt the bugs, but they kept coming. My SCOPE system showed another 'lid coming around the outside, around where Silva had planted her SLAM mines-
DC70, Roll d100
Roll d100: 71+25 (Charmed Life)=96, Hit
-and it stumbled over the first, but the SCOPE showed it didn't stay down.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 41+25 (Charmed Life)=66
Encounter! Roll d4
ROLL d4: 4
Ngcobo and Olson were quick to follow up on the 'lids actually in the room with us, even while Teasdale stumbled up away from where he'd been shoved to take cover by the wall, pointing his machine gun out the window where Plasma was still streaming in, twisting up away from the team more often than not.
The rookies' shotguns were fired full auto against the bugs rushing forward, and-
DC 70, roll d100*2
S7: ROLL d100: 46+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=81, Hit
S8: ROLL d100: 55+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=90, Hit
-it was more than enough to drop the last two Chryssalids in the room with us, the repeating roars of the guns signaling ever more enemies falling before us. Teasdale's own gun fired at something beyond my sight, revealed by the SCOPE; two 'lids were coming around the side of the building farthest from the road, and he cursed under his breath as he held the trigger down-
DC 70, roll d75
ROLL d100: 39+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=74, Hit
-and managed to hurt the closer of the two, while Jamball's own gun quickly pointed between the two closest threats, hand forward at the ready to fire her last under-barrel grenade if she needed to.
The 'lid that had stumbled over an explosive outside hadn't been stopped, and it tried to sprint inside-
DC70, Roll d100
Roll d100: 88+25 (Charmed Life)=113, Hit (Critical Success not relevant)
-only to stumble over the second explosive Silva had planted, the SLAM mine catching it full on and blowing it to pieces. I was so caught up holding the telekinetic field that the other two 'lids coming in on Teasdale's side were faster than I could draw my shotguns against, but with the other threat dead, Jamball had fired on them as soon as they'd come into her view-
DC 70, roll d100
ROLL d100: 6+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=41, Miss
-and the grenade went wide, blowing up the corner of the next building over. The first injured 'lid sprinted for Teasdale, who shouted, "fucking BUGS!" as-
DC70, Roll d150*2
L1: Roll d150: 93-25 (Charmed Life)=68, Graze
L2: Roll d150: 63-25 (Charmed Life)=38, Miss
-the first tore into his broken Carapace armor and he dodged back, barely, to get away from the second's claws. He stumbled as he dodged, bleeding heavily from his chest, (DC 50 to remain conscious, roll d100+25: 32), then fell to the ground, dropping his gun as he collapsed.
Plasma fire rained into the building from the Sectoids and Snakeman outside-
DC 115-120 effective (CL+TK Field), Seek targets on hit or "crit"; 1d100*4, 1d150*1, 1d125*3; Crits on 140 or 145
Rolls: 74, 94, 85, 23, 145, 7, 118, 26
Crit Checks (100): 6, No Crits
Hit Check 1d8: 3
Graze Check 1d8 (Full Hit on 2, 5, 6): 5
-and three more shots came in from something the drones hadn't even seen yet! The majority of the plasma fire swam through my telekinetic field, and the green bolts of plasma death were twisted and turned in the air, some shoved up into the roof and others down into the snow, but somehow, a larger bolt punched through the haze and turned suddenly through the field into Jamball's chest. She looked down at her glowing chest piece, transfixed, as she fell backward to the ground.
It was distracting enough that I almost missed the second bolt of plasma, from the unknowns, swerving into Silva's side; she screamed.
I heard Central shouting in my ear, "Get back into cover, Strike 2, move it now! Strike 1, eliminate those Chryssalids! Strike 6, take out the Sectoid's cover and blow as many of them up as you can! Strike 7 and 8-"
It broke my concentration, and the telekinetic field fell.
I diverted my mental energies into another form of telekinesis, drawing all three fragmentation grenades off my chest and pulling their pins. Ceathya rushed to follow Central's orders-
DC 70, roll d75*2
S1: ROLL d100: 75+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)+10 (Mind Merge)=120
CRITICAL ROLL! 4 (+25), 29, No Critical Success.
S1-1: ROLL d100: 26+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)+10 (Mind Merge)=71, Hit
-And she pulled up her FN P90 to do it in her off hand, pouring fire into both Chryssalids at once. The concentrated fire managed to drop both bugs before they had a chance to finish Teasdale off.
My own attentions weren't diverted as I watched, moving the grenades into position near where the SCOPE system showed the Sectoids and Snakeman had all taken cover, all too close to one another to be safe from the members of our squad.
It all felt distant, at that moment, as I hunkered down by Jamball's body, her eyes staring into mine as she blinked, and my mental energies were put to use in dragging her back to the fight.
Behind me, Silva and Vasiliev were taking cover by one of the windows, the former apparently still in the fight, smashing it open to fire their grenades through-
DC (65-25=40)*4; roll d50*1, d100*3; Crits on 65+ (1/2) and 75+ (3/4)
S5: ROLL d100: 25, Miss
S6: ROLL d100: 82, Critical Roll!
Crit interrupts! (77)+25= 102, CRITICAL HIT!
-and blowing up not only the Sectoids' cover, but also all four of the aliens themselves. The two drones that had been dropping closer to zap the distracted aliens diverted their attentions to the Snakeman, now exposed to the world and trying to slither back into cover. Distracted as it was, both Gremlin Drones managed to zap the alien and dart away without any threat of retaliation, even though the damned snake was somehow still moving!
Not for much longer. I'd sent a primed grenade over that way to help, the other two still hovering around, their levers held down to prevent them from priming. It wasn't easy getting the grenade into place-
DC 90, roll d100
ROLL d100: 19+25 (Charmed Life)=44, Miss
-which made the explosion go wide, barely hounding the injured snake. It took the opportunity to fire a few pot-shots back at one of the soldiers it could see, (1d6, 4) Silva-
DC 65, roll d100
ROLL d100: 36-25 (Charmed Life)=11, Miss
-which went wide, nowhere near the squad.
"I've had enough of that damned Snake," the Commander's voice grumbled into our helmets, and one of the drones that had shocked it flew down directly at the reptile, and exploded. Already wounded, the Snakeman went down and stayed there.
"Ngcobo, throw a battle scanner forward right, around the hidden threats, everyone be ready with grenades and explosives to follow up," The Commander continued, voice barking out quickly, "Smith, get Jamball up and over to Teasdale, he's wounded but alive. She's wounded, not dead. Can you raise that telekinetic barrier again?"
I nodded, forgetting he probably couldn't see the movement, still focusing some background attention on my primed grenades, and I brought my mind back around to Strike 3 on the ground beneath me. She'd been staring into the ceiling, awake but stunned or in shock. With a burst of Psi and willpower, I helped her focus back on the present, and she blinked.
"Is Teasdale…?" she whispered as I hauled her up, but I didn't answer, instead focusing on re-raising the TK field. With a headache, I managed to shield us again.
Right as three more blasts came in from wherever the hell the missing contacts were.
DC 115-120 effective (CL+TK Field), Seek targets on hit or "crit"; 1d125*3; Crits on 140 or 145
Rolls: 7, 63, 102
The first shot went wide, the second was barely deflected by the field, and the third turned away from my face by mere inches. A cold feeling wormed its way down my spine as I blinked away the green glare floating in my vision, an aftereffect of the near-death experience I'd just had.
The battle scanner beeped, and the missing three contacts were revealed hidden in a house not far from the wearhouse where Strike 7 had thrown it. I didn't stop to think, flying the grenades in through the windows of the enclosed space and dropping them, letting them prime as they fell. I turned my minigun that way alongside the grenades of Strike 5 and 6 and the .50 caliber revolvers of Strike 7 and 8, and we fired at will once more.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 98+25 (Charmed Life)=123
CRITICAL ROLL! 67 (+25), 92, No Critical Success.
The little house exploded.
For a few moments, we held our fire, breathing heavy, looking around for more contacts. Silence, while we listened for something, anything else that might have been coming for us.
It was almost anticlimactic when the zombie shuffled out of the water. Ceathya growled at it, then held up her X-9 and fired a full clip into the fast-shambling incubator-corpse while our demolitions experts pulled out their sidearms and helped finish it off. It fell. Ceathya reloaded calmly, then fired half another magazine into the body, just to make sure it stayed down.
"Is everybody alive?" she asked, not turning from the zombie.
A chorus of yeses (minus Teasdale on the ground where Jamball was treating his carved chest) confirmed that we'd somehow come out of the fight intact.
"Good." She turned from the corpse, drew out one of her two hand cannons, and walked over to me, where I was rubbing my temples. She put the gun under my chin and stared me dead in the eyes. Even Jamball stopped treating Teasdale, just for a second.
"Uh, Ceathya?" I said, leaving the question implied in my tone.
"Get. Out. Of. My. Head," she ground out word by word, and I very slowly nodded; I'd more or less forgotten I'd mind-merged her with everything going on.
I let the Psionic effect fall, and her eyes widened before she all but collapsed, dropping her gun. I failed to catch her as she went sideways, nearly tumbling to the ground and ending up on one knee, groaning. She drew her arms in, hunching a bit over her hands.
"A-ah, fuck," she grunted. "B-big fucking bug broke something," she exhaled the words. She refrained from calling the medic, just trying to grab her pistol back up with fingers that were changing color. She must have been relying on the Mind Merge, however much she seemed to hate it, to ignore the pain. It must have played hell with her hands to fire two guns at once through that.
"Agent," the Commander's voice cut in, "please remind us what the hell those two creatures were? A chryssalid of some kind and a male snake?"
I shook my head, rubbing it as I walked over to the freezer Teasdale and I had moved at the start of the fight, taking a seat on one of the few pieces of furniture in the building not turned to slag or burned. The Hunter had clipped me in the leg. Nothing I couldn't handle, but it throbbed a bit.
"A Hunter Chryssalid and a Snakeman," I began, thinking back to the warning files. Best as I could remember, they were more rarely seen breeds. "Both terror units, both from the same planet of origin. When some versions of a standard 'lid grow up, assuming they don't just keep getting bigger, they turn into that. Other times, it's a special unit custom made by the aliens to kill human civilians as efficiently as possible. It's supposedly smarter than most of the other bugs, and as we just saw, it's a damned sight tougher, too. Heavier armor, thicker muscles, and unlike the regular nightmares, it'll do more than just run at you as fast as it can."
I paused, considering the fight for a moment.
"Was it faster than the others by a whole shitload, or was that just me?"
"It was," Ceathya growled. "Don't know how you kept up. Oh, wait, I do. Lucky prick…"
"Ngcobo, Olson, take opposite sides of the perimeter, keep your eyes roving," the Commander ordered the rookies. I could barely see their faces, but it looked like both had been ready to say something; Angel just nodded, face still stone, while Dale was looking at the wounded with concern. "Vasiliev spot for them."
The two grenadiers finished reloading their heavy launchers and, unordered, Silva joined the others went on their way, though Vasiliev was quick to say, "Wish us good hunting, da?"
"I'm leaving the channel open on half volume so they can listen to your description of the 'Snakeman' as well, Agent," the Commander continued. "You're also being broadcast to the Beta team, just in case they run into similar trouble."
"Right, right, the snakemen," I exhaled, putting thoughts of the plasma bolt that had almost ended my Mission out of my head. My luck would have spent itself completely before letting something like that get through, especially this soon. "The Snakeman. ...damn it, I know this…"
"Performance issues?" Ceathya smirked, but was instantly reprimanded by Bradford's voice coming through-
"Strike 1, your injury only excuses so much behavior on the battlefield. You're interrupting important intel for two missions, now stow it!"
She grimaced as Teasdale's groan let us know he was coming around.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 87+25 (Charmed Life)=112
CRITICAL ROLL! 62 (+25), 87, No Critical Success.
"The Snakemen are heavily defended against Psionic attacks," I blurted out, "and they're extremely accurate with their large plasma weapons, probably on par with the Mutons we'll need to be ready for in the not-too-distant future, like the one we have chained up. Depending on the variation of Snake, it may have a number of snake eggs held in its torso, making it as much of a threat as the Chryssalids in the very long term. They're supposedly slow, tough, and somewhat resistant to fire. If they're the kind of alien I think they are, they may be asexual. It'll be up to the Scientists to find out if that's true or not."
"We'll add it to the files," the Commander rumbled. "Get everyone checked up on, then prepare for any more incoming attacks. We're only a few more minutes out from having access to a nearby aircraft carrier, which will be ready to deliver an air strike capable of destroying the entire village if it becomes necessary. If there's a core to this nest, find it. If you'll excuse me, Beta team needs my attention for the moment. Central, take over."
"You heard the man, people," Bradford agreed. "If you need to evac any of your soldiers, now's the time."
"Don't you dare," Teasdale mumbled. "If we can walk, we can fight."
"You can't walk," Jamball retorted. "Stay down."
He shook his head, then caught my eyes. "Jon, I need a favor. Patch me up with your magic, will you?"
I blinked again, but the headache was going away. "You sure?"
He scoffed. "The hell do you mean, 'you sure?' Get off your ass and get me up!"
Ceathya grumbled something, finally standing up herself. The back three fingers of her left hand were swelling up to an uncomfortable size, and her wrist had clearly been wrenched around when the Hunter had hit her. She came up next to Jamball and asked for tape while I came around the other side to Teasdale's head.
"Come on, we've got bugs to step on," Teasdale chuckled. "Can't really do that from down here! I mean, I could probably stand if I really wanted to, but I'd rather you made that a little easier."
I shook my head. "Unless I concentrate, I won't be in your thoughts, but it'll still feel weird, even wrong. Last chance to back out: do-"
"Stop yapping and put me back together, already!" his voice increased in volume, finally sounding angry.
I closed my eyes, drew energy from my thoughts and amplified them through the glowing device on my chest, and Merged with Strike 4's mind.
Had I practiced the technique over and over and over again, it might have been possible to spent minutes healing all his wounds (if the aliens left us alone that long), but right then I was only able to finish holding together the quick stitching Strike 3 had performed on Teasdale's chest, and then to clean up some of the internal bleeding. His ribs were still broken, even with the energies helping hold them in place, but he was injured, not dying.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 70+25 (Charmed Life)=95
Success
The sound of tape being torn brought my attention back to Ceathya, who Jamball was helping bind the fingers of.
"He's not going to collapse under the strain of you letting him go at the end of this, will he?" Ceathya asked. "Felt like hell when you dropped me."
I shrugged. "Not likely. I mostly kept you together from getting injured before. The only thing that hit you was the sudden pain, and realizing your hands were messed up and that you were using them anyway, the Psionic energies possibly preventing it from getting worse from what you were doing. I actually fixed things up on purpose in Teasdale, closing the hole in his chest. He won't drop, not unless he gets hit by something else."
"I'll try to avoid it," he smiled, reaching a hand up to me. I hauled him to his feet, and he looked down at his ruined armor and nano-fiber vest. "Probably wouldn't make it through something like that at all, would I?"
Jamball finished up with Ceathya, who recovered her pistol and put it away. The medic gave Teasdale a sickly smile, poking him in the shoulder. "You'll be fine, you big baby. Right as rain soon as the mission's done. I can even give you another shot o' morphine if you need it later."
"S'at why I'm feeling swell?" he looked at his hands. He shrugged, double-checking the straps on his ammo-backpack. "Maybe when we're off duty." He waggled his eyebrows at her, then stopped and really looked at her. "Fuck me, when did you get shot?!"
Jamball looked down at her own chest, which I'd seen more than enough of earlier to know the state of: half-melted armor, and if it didn't hurt, either no burns or she had them to the third degree.
Out of everyone still in the room, I was definitely the one least injured.
"Ah, I'll be fine," she ignored his concerns.
"You wanna call everybody in, get this show on the road?" I asked Ceathya. I didn't know her XCOM rank off the top of my head, but I wasn't dumb, either. I figured she was Strike 1 for a reason.
She paused, considering something. She looked at her hands, then out through the wall; the SCOPE system didn't hide that she was looking at Silva, who was standing next to Vasiliev, favoring her injured side.
"Smith- Jon," she sounded like she was forcing herself to talk. "If- I mean-"
"There are more Chryssalids out there, Strike 1," Central warned her, but he didn't say anything further.
She ground her teeth a bit. "Can you fix my hands and stay out of my head at the same time?" She held them up at me, and I caught that while her left hand may have been busted beyond use, her right had serious bruising as well. "I can moan about it later, just get it done. But if you try digging around-"
She made to pull her revolver out again, but stopped when I raised both hands defensively. "You're going to have to leave your hands empty while I'm working on you, and I'm pretty damned sure I can help you out without going through your thoughts."
She nodded, then held them out, clenching her jaw and tensing up.
I shook my head and just pushed Psionic energy to and through her, working through another Mind Merge, one as distant as I could manage. It was easier when we weren't being shot at or stabbed, and while I couldn't avoid touching her mind (I might be able to figure out some bypass if I studied it), I was in and out in moments.
She pulled her hands back like she'd been holding them in boiling water as soon as I released the energies. The effort also broke my connection to Teasdale, who caught himself, but was otherwise able to stand on his own. Either he had a higher pain tolerance, or his injuries just plain hurt less.
The others rejoined us, and even through the beginnings of a headache, I managed to touch up Silva as well; between her and Jamball, we at least knew Silva was a stiff breeze away from going down, while our medic's health was more in question. Maybe she was fine, maybe she was half dead. I didn't look forward to finding out which it was.
We got moving.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 66+25 (Charmed Life)=91
Success
Now that we knew there might be both ranged threats and terrors capable of closing the gap in a heartbeat, the team kept closer together, and was more than a little more on edge. Personally, I was ignoring the minor migraine I'd recently developed, courtesy of too little hard practice in the branch of Psionics I'd been using, and instead tried to drop myself into the same zen state that I knew would one day protect me and the rest of the team from all mental threats on the battlefield we'd face, but I wasn't there yet. The parts of my mind not recovering from or using Psi were mainly focused on the mini-map the remaining three drones provided for us, watching for sudden movements.
We kept a good distance away from the water. After what had come out of it, we weren't eager for a second round.
"Strike 8," Central's voice was loud enough to startle almost half the team, hardened soldiers or not, "throw a battle scanner into that open air market."
He didn't elaborate, but then, he didn't have to.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 78+25 (Charmed Life)=103
CRITICAL ROLL! 60 (+25), 85, No Critical Success.
A single Chryssalid popped out of a hole dug in the middle of the fish market, and it ran straight at us.
Straight into a hail of gunfire.
We pointed our guns around, standing half out in the open, waiting to see what kinds of things the gunfire might draw in.
...but we might as well have been in a graveyard. The wind was picking up a bit, and the near-silent howling we heard wasn't from any bugs.
With the area at least tentatively scouted, we moved into the circle, keeping our eyes out for anything out of the ordinary, or for any sharks that might have been hung up where Chryssalids might have found them.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 94+25 (Charmed Life)=119
CRITICAL ROLL! 52 (+25), 77, No Critical Success.
It was eerie. It felt wrong. And it gave us a chance to spot the thing I wouldn't admit to myself that I'd been dreading to see.
Just up the way, a whaling vessel had crashed into the shore, half-destroying a warehouse that was suited to a much smaller boat.
"Oh, hell," I breathed, and while the squad didn't all turn to me, I clearly had their attention. "I think there might be a whale on that boat, and if there is, we probably just found the source of the Chryssalids."
"So let's bomb it and get the hell out of here!" Teasdale whispered as loudly as he dared.
I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped.
This wasn't a videogame, and unless the 'lids had done something unexpected, there wasn't much of a good reason not to just turn the area to ash. We'd pretty much already succeeded, and there was no reward to be gained sticking around any further. The Drones weren't capable of running the mission themselves, at least not yet, but there wasn't any reason we had to stay a moment longer than it took to verify that this was the origin of the bugs.
"Yeah," I agreed. "Central, can you tell the guys running the Drones to recon that boat? If there's a whale inside with a bunch of blue and orange coral-looking outcroppings, then that's probably what we're here for. You don't need us any closer to the target than this, do you?"
"They're moving now, Strike 2," Bradford confirmed as two of our drones flew off. "Keep an eye on your surroundings, just in case the aliens have prepared an ambush or the drones are shot down."
He didn't have to tell us twice.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 90+25 (Charmed Life)=115
CRITICAL ROLL! 50 (+25), 75, No Critical Success.
It was the best kind of boring, standing there in the snow while the Gremlins did our dirty work. After checking to see that there was a whale, and that it was indeed covered in alien growths, we called in the Skyranger to pick us up from right there in the village center. The sun was just barely coming up, giving me an easy view of the ship's exterior as I telekinetically sent a couple of signaling smoke grenades out to attract the military's attention. Even the metal bird's engines wasn't enough to rouse the quiet, empty village, except in the last few moments.
"Everybody's alive," I muttered. "Better than it could have gone. Newfoundland's always a shitshow."
"Compared to Strike Team Beta, you got off light," Bradford informed us as the smoke rose higher and higher. "They may not have had to deal with any Hunter Chryssalids, or any Snakemen, but their helicopter was shot down by plasma fire around that time. It nearly broke the local militia's line."
"Are they done, too?" I asked, turning one of my own battle scanners over in my hands. After a moment's thought, I decided I really, really wanted to know. I threw it out the back of the Skyranger, and used a touch of TK to ensure it landed inside the Whaling ship.
"They're still in the clean-up stages."
I looked over at the rest of the Strike team, half of us injured in some way or another. I'd gotten off light, and our rookies had gotten out clean (along with Vasiliev), which wasn't good, per say-
The battle scanner beeped, and we all looked back toward the ship as the SCOPE system did it's best with only one good focal point.
More than two dozen figures must have heard the sound and frantically started sprinting around the ship while the whale inside started seizing, turning in on itself and sprouting more and more contacts, another dozen, two-
Three bomber-class aircraft passed over the village, bathing it in fire and death. The battle scanner's signal died instantly, and several more missiles struck the boat directly even after it had been bombarded with most of the surrounding areas.
The back of the Skyranger closed, and we started accelerating home in earnest.
For all it was, I got the feeling everything could have gone much, much worse.
The ride back was quiet enough. Jamball was laying back, resting her eyes, and Teasdale was visibly restraining himself from scratching at the stitching in his chest. Ceathya let her guns dangle by their straps, and she was staring at the wall. Silva was holding a cloth to her side, and Olson looked caught between wanting to say something to possibly try to cheer us up, and realizing it maybe wasn't the best time. Angel wasn't looking at much, clearly lost in thought. Vasiliev was leaning on Olson, and snoring.
I double checked Jamball's chest, verifying that it was rising and falling steadily under the mangled mess her armor had turned into. She was still breathing. I had a really, really rotten feeling about how close to dying she'd actually come.
"Smith?" Ceathya was the first to speak.
I was half ready to fall back asleep myself, now that the fight was over, but I looked over at her, watching me.
"You…" she paused again. It was a little less than a minute before she continued. "Can you not do that mind-thing on me again, unless you really have to? If I'm dying, yeah, go for it, but otherwise… could you not?"
I just nodded, once. She returned to looking at the wall.
Maybe we'd celebrate later, once the dust cleared. I just had to hope we'd done the right things.
I had to hope that I'd done the right things.
Choose 2:
Interlude options:
[ ] [ ] The other Strike Team. (Requires both choices)
[ ] Ceathya.
[ ] Teasdale and Jamball.
[ ] Silva and Vasiliev.
[ ] Ngcobo and Olson.
[ ] Another XCOM person of interest. (Write In; you may select anyone, even the janitor, and they will become a PoI if they weren't already.)
[ ] ???
Training:
[ ] Psionics in general.
-[ ] A specific technique. (Write in)
[ ] Gunplay
[ ] New tech
Interrogations:
[ ] The Muton.
[ ] The Thin Man.
[ ] Write In.
-[X] It may have meant I needed to stand up to fire it, but I was going to hold the trigger down on my minigun until the Hunter Chryssalid threat was eliminated.
[X] All that Psionics training had led to this.
-[X] My Telekinetic Field would divert the incoming enemy fire, allowing the team to focus on the threats coming in up close and personal.
-[x] Ceathya took a hit. There's no time to ask permission; I needed to Mind Merge her, healing her and getting her back in the game, pronto.
Day Nine, 04:50, Newfoundland - Five days before The Chosen may arrive
OPERATION HEAVY RAIN
OPERATION HEAVY RAIN
I felt a disconnect, like I'd stepped back and away from myself on the battlefield. I could see all the threats, all the movements that we could have made, everything. In an instant, I knew what I had to do.
As fast as thought, I stood up and drew energy from my Psi-amp with my left hand, hefting up the minigun with my right and spinning up the barrels in what felt like slow motion, keeping the gun aimed at the figure coming up out of the water while the energies in my mind coalesced into a barrier, giving the air heft and twisting it upwards against incoming fire and ignoring the fire of my team. With a moment of concentration, I opened my left hand, and the air began to melt.
The rest of my team was catching up and taking cover while the bugs slowly moved forward, all save the larger one, who had started sprinting to the side away from the road and our prepared explosives at incredible speed, to catch us off balance. It was fruitless; I'd already sighted it in, and the Gremlins in the air interfaced with the SCOPE on my minigun while I waved it past my allies, keeping the Hunter in sight. Even as I started firing, I drew more energies into my left hand.
DC 125, roll d125
ROLL d125: 85+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=120, Graze
The bullets tore through the wall, glancing off the beast's hardened armor, but I couldn't focus on that, instead throwing the energies of my prepared Mind Merge at Ceathya, healing her wounds and sharpening her senses with my own.
"Kill the 'Lids!" I shouted, knowing my TK field would help destroy the Sectoids' and Snakeman's aim.
And all at once, whatever had sped up my senses was exhausted.
Time seemed to catch up with us even as I kept the trigger pulled down on the Hunter 'lid, and the team jumped to focus on the bugs coming from the water and through the windows. I poured fire on against the Hunter while everyone else aimed at the other targets-
DC 125, roll d125
ROLL d125: 122+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=157
CRITICAL ROLL! 43 (+25)=68, No Critical Success.
-and while I didn't manage to hit anything important, the sheer volume of fire was enough to stagger the massive armored figure, just as it came bursting in through one of the walls, destroying Ceathya's cover with chunks of the wall.
With a violent tearing noise in its throat, the Hunter screeched (
DC 65, Roll d150
ROLL d150: 88, (-25)=63, Graze
The massive armor-piercing rounds I'd fired through the wall had done enough to the beast that it collapsed while taking the wide swing, clipping me in the leg. I grunted, but kept the fire on, trying to get my other hand back on my gun to steady my aim.
DC 125, roll d125
ROLL d125: 73+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=108, Miss
I failed; the bullets glanced off its thick armor as the beast shoved itself up, then swung wildly at everyone in range-
DC 65, 70*2; roll d150*3
ROLL d150: 56-25 (Charmed Life)=31, Miss
ROLL d150: 95-25 (Charmed Life)=70, Hit
ROLL d50: 126-25 (Charmed Life)=101, Crit
CRITICAL ROLL! 82, No Critical Success.
-clipping Ceathya and screwing up her aim with one massive crab-clawed arm while another tore at Teasdale, all but destroying his carapace armor and breaking several of his ribs as it smashed into him. I kept on the fire, not letting up at point blank range as it screeched again in rage.
DC 125, roll d125
ROLL d125: 112+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=147, Hit
The bullets made it focus on me, and it shook under the force of the gun's unrelenting fire. Its muscles twitched as it tried to stumble forward, and in a final effort to kill me those muscles ripped themselves apart, spraying blood over the ground. It fell. The other 'lids were quick to try to capitalize on the confusion even while the team took aim at the charging bugs, both inside the building and a few laggers coming around where the Hunter had led them.
Ceathya quickly turned her gun from the downed Hunter and took aim at the nearest bug in the building, once again moving her hands to fire with both her underbarrel shotgun and rifle at once-
DC 70, roll d75*2
S1: ROLL d100: 26+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)+10 (Mind Merge)=71, Hit
S1-1: ROLL d100: 27+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)+10 (Mind Merge)=72, Hit
-and this time, she kept on target, barely, taking down the 'lid with both barrels through whatever haze of pain she was suffering through. Both Vasiliev and Silva were almost as quick, turning their respective grenade launchers up the middle of the room at two more Chryssalids that had come up through the water rather than smashed through the walls.
DC70, Roll d100*2
S5: ROLL d100: 19+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=54, Miss
S6: ROLL d100: 38+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=73, Hit
Their explosives managed to hurt the bugs, but they kept coming. My SCOPE system showed another 'lid coming around the outside, around where Silva had planted her SLAM mines-
DC70, Roll d100
Roll d100: 71+25 (Charmed Life)=96, Hit
-and it stumbled over the first, but the SCOPE showed it didn't stay down.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 41+25 (Charmed Life)=66
Encounter! Roll d4
ROLL d4: 4
Ngcobo and Olson were quick to follow up on the 'lids actually in the room with us, even while Teasdale stumbled up away from where he'd been shoved to take cover by the wall, pointing his machine gun out the window where Plasma was still streaming in, twisting up away from the team more often than not.
The rookies' shotguns were fired full auto against the bugs rushing forward, and-
DC 70, roll d100*2
S7: ROLL d100: 46+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=81, Hit
S8: ROLL d100: 55+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=90, Hit
-it was more than enough to drop the last two Chryssalids in the room with us, the repeating roars of the guns signaling ever more enemies falling before us. Teasdale's own gun fired at something beyond my sight, revealed by the SCOPE; two 'lids were coming around the side of the building farthest from the road, and he cursed under his breath as he held the trigger down-
DC 70, roll d75
ROLL d100: 39+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=74, Hit
-and managed to hurt the closer of the two, while Jamball's own gun quickly pointed between the two closest threats, hand forward at the ready to fire her last under-barrel grenade if she needed to.
The 'lid that had stumbled over an explosive outside hadn't been stopped, and it tried to sprint inside-
DC70, Roll d100
Roll d100: 88+25 (Charmed Life)=113, Hit (Critical Success not relevant)
-only to stumble over the second explosive Silva had planted, the SLAM mine catching it full on and blowing it to pieces. I was so caught up holding the telekinetic field that the other two 'lids coming in on Teasdale's side were faster than I could draw my shotguns against, but with the other threat dead, Jamball had fired on them as soon as they'd come into her view-
DC 70, roll d100
ROLL d100: 6+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)=41, Miss
-and the grenade went wide, blowing up the corner of the next building over. The first injured 'lid sprinted for Teasdale, who shouted, "fucking BUGS!" as-
DC70, Roll d150*2
L1: Roll d150: 93-25 (Charmed Life)=68, Graze
L2: Roll d150: 63-25 (Charmed Life)=38, Miss
-the first tore into his broken Carapace armor and he dodged back, barely, to get away from the second's claws. He stumbled as he dodged, bleeding heavily from his chest, (DC 50 to remain conscious, roll d100+25: 32), then fell to the ground, dropping his gun as he collapsed.
Plasma fire rained into the building from the Sectoids and Snakeman outside-
DC 115-120 effective (CL+TK Field), Seek targets on hit or "crit"; 1d100*4, 1d150*1, 1d125*3; Crits on 140 or 145
Rolls: 74, 94, 85, 23, 145, 7, 118, 26
Crit Checks (100): 6, No Crits
Hit Check 1d8: 3
Graze Check 1d8 (Full Hit on 2, 5, 6): 5
-and three more shots came in from something the drones hadn't even seen yet! The majority of the plasma fire swam through my telekinetic field, and the green bolts of plasma death were twisted and turned in the air, some shoved up into the roof and others down into the snow, but somehow, a larger bolt punched through the haze and turned suddenly through the field into Jamball's chest. She looked down at her glowing chest piece, transfixed, as she fell backward to the ground.
It was distracting enough that I almost missed the second bolt of plasma, from the unknowns, swerving into Silva's side; she screamed.
I heard Central shouting in my ear, "Get back into cover, Strike 2, move it now! Strike 1, eliminate those Chryssalids! Strike 6, take out the Sectoid's cover and blow as many of them up as you can! Strike 7 and 8-"
It broke my concentration, and the telekinetic field fell.
I diverted my mental energies into another form of telekinesis, drawing all three fragmentation grenades off my chest and pulling their pins. Ceathya rushed to follow Central's orders-
DC 70, roll d75*2
S1: ROLL d100: 75+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)+10 (Mind Merge)=120
CRITICAL ROLL! 4 (+25), 29, No Critical Success.
S1-1: ROLL d100: 26+25 (Charmed Life)+10 (SCOPE)+10 (Mind Merge)=71, Hit
-And she pulled up her FN P90 to do it in her off hand, pouring fire into both Chryssalids at once. The concentrated fire managed to drop both bugs before they had a chance to finish Teasdale off.
My own attentions weren't diverted as I watched, moving the grenades into position near where the SCOPE system showed the Sectoids and Snakeman had all taken cover, all too close to one another to be safe from the members of our squad.
It all felt distant, at that moment, as I hunkered down by Jamball's body, her eyes staring into mine as she blinked, and my mental energies were put to use in dragging her back to the fight.
Behind me, Silva and Vasiliev were taking cover by one of the windows, the former apparently still in the fight, smashing it open to fire their grenades through-
DC (65-25=40)*4; roll d50*1, d100*3; Crits on 65+ (1/2) and 75+ (3/4)
S5: ROLL d100: 25, Miss
S6: ROLL d100: 82, Critical Roll!
Crit interrupts! (77)+25= 102, CRITICAL HIT!
-and blowing up not only the Sectoids' cover, but also all four of the aliens themselves. The two drones that had been dropping closer to zap the distracted aliens diverted their attentions to the Snakeman, now exposed to the world and trying to slither back into cover. Distracted as it was, both Gremlin Drones managed to zap the alien and dart away without any threat of retaliation, even though the damned snake was somehow still moving!
Not for much longer. I'd sent a primed grenade over that way to help, the other two still hovering around, their levers held down to prevent them from priming. It wasn't easy getting the grenade into place-
DC 90, roll d100
ROLL d100: 19+25 (Charmed Life)=44, Miss
-which made the explosion go wide, barely hounding the injured snake. It took the opportunity to fire a few pot-shots back at one of the soldiers it could see, (1d6, 4) Silva-
DC 65, roll d100
ROLL d100: 36-25 (Charmed Life)=11, Miss
-which went wide, nowhere near the squad.
"I've had enough of that damned Snake," the Commander's voice grumbled into our helmets, and one of the drones that had shocked it flew down directly at the reptile, and exploded. Already wounded, the Snakeman went down and stayed there.
"Ngcobo, throw a battle scanner forward right, around the hidden threats, everyone be ready with grenades and explosives to follow up," The Commander continued, voice barking out quickly, "Smith, get Jamball up and over to Teasdale, he's wounded but alive. She's wounded, not dead. Can you raise that telekinetic barrier again?"
I nodded, forgetting he probably couldn't see the movement, still focusing some background attention on my primed grenades, and I brought my mind back around to Strike 3 on the ground beneath me. She'd been staring into the ceiling, awake but stunned or in shock. With a burst of Psi and willpower, I helped her focus back on the present, and she blinked.
"Is Teasdale…?" she whispered as I hauled her up, but I didn't answer, instead focusing on re-raising the TK field. With a headache, I managed to shield us again.
Right as three more blasts came in from wherever the hell the missing contacts were.
DC 115-120 effective (CL+TK Field), Seek targets on hit or "crit"; 1d125*3; Crits on 140 or 145
Rolls: 7, 63, 102
The first shot went wide, the second was barely deflected by the field, and the third turned away from my face by mere inches. A cold feeling wormed its way down my spine as I blinked away the green glare floating in my vision, an aftereffect of the near-death experience I'd just had.
The battle scanner beeped, and the missing three contacts were revealed hidden in a house not far from the wearhouse where Strike 7 had thrown it. I didn't stop to think, flying the grenades in through the windows of the enclosed space and dropping them, letting them prime as they fell. I turned my minigun that way alongside the grenades of Strike 5 and 6 and the .50 caliber revolvers of Strike 7 and 8, and we fired at will once more.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 98+25 (Charmed Life)=123
CRITICAL ROLL! 67 (+25), 92, No Critical Success.
The little house exploded.
For a few moments, we held our fire, breathing heavy, looking around for more contacts. Silence, while we listened for something, anything else that might have been coming for us.
It was almost anticlimactic when the zombie shuffled out of the water. Ceathya growled at it, then held up her X-9 and fired a full clip into the fast-shambling incubator-corpse while our demolitions experts pulled out their sidearms and helped finish it off. It fell. Ceathya reloaded calmly, then fired half another magazine into the body, just to make sure it stayed down.
"Is everybody alive?" she asked, not turning from the zombie.
A chorus of yeses (minus Teasdale on the ground where Jamball was treating his carved chest) confirmed that we'd somehow come out of the fight intact.
"Good." She turned from the corpse, drew out one of her two hand cannons, and walked over to me, where I was rubbing my temples. She put the gun under my chin and stared me dead in the eyes. Even Jamball stopped treating Teasdale, just for a second.
"Uh, Ceathya?" I said, leaving the question implied in my tone.
"Get. Out. Of. My. Head," she ground out word by word, and I very slowly nodded; I'd more or less forgotten I'd mind-merged her with everything going on.
I let the Psionic effect fall, and her eyes widened before she all but collapsed, dropping her gun. I failed to catch her as she went sideways, nearly tumbling to the ground and ending up on one knee, groaning. She drew her arms in, hunching a bit over her hands.
"A-ah, fuck," she grunted. "B-big fucking bug broke something," she exhaled the words. She refrained from calling the medic, just trying to grab her pistol back up with fingers that were changing color. She must have been relying on the Mind Merge, however much she seemed to hate it, to ignore the pain. It must have played hell with her hands to fire two guns at once through that.
"Agent," the Commander's voice cut in, "please remind us what the hell those two creatures were? A chryssalid of some kind and a male snake?"
I shook my head, rubbing it as I walked over to the freezer Teasdale and I had moved at the start of the fight, taking a seat on one of the few pieces of furniture in the building not turned to slag or burned. The Hunter had clipped me in the leg. Nothing I couldn't handle, but it throbbed a bit.
"A Hunter Chryssalid and a Snakeman," I began, thinking back to the warning files. Best as I could remember, they were more rarely seen breeds. "Both terror units, both from the same planet of origin. When some versions of a standard 'lid grow up, assuming they don't just keep getting bigger, they turn into that. Other times, it's a special unit custom made by the aliens to kill human civilians as efficiently as possible. It's supposedly smarter than most of the other bugs, and as we just saw, it's a damned sight tougher, too. Heavier armor, thicker muscles, and unlike the regular nightmares, it'll do more than just run at you as fast as it can."
I paused, considering the fight for a moment.
"Was it faster than the others by a whole shitload, or was that just me?"
"It was," Ceathya growled. "Don't know how you kept up. Oh, wait, I do. Lucky prick…"
"Ngcobo, Olson, take opposite sides of the perimeter, keep your eyes roving," the Commander ordered the rookies. I could barely see their faces, but it looked like both had been ready to say something; Angel just nodded, face still stone, while Dale was looking at the wounded with concern. "Vasiliev spot for them."
The two grenadiers finished reloading their heavy launchers and, unordered, Silva joined the others went on their way, though Vasiliev was quick to say, "Wish us good hunting, da?"
"I'm leaving the channel open on half volume so they can listen to your description of the 'Snakeman' as well, Agent," the Commander continued. "You're also being broadcast to the Beta team, just in case they run into similar trouble."
"Right, right, the snakemen," I exhaled, putting thoughts of the plasma bolt that had almost ended my Mission out of my head. My luck would have spent itself completely before letting something like that get through, especially this soon. "The Snakeman. ...damn it, I know this…"
"Performance issues?" Ceathya smirked, but was instantly reprimanded by Bradford's voice coming through-
"Strike 1, your injury only excuses so much behavior on the battlefield. You're interrupting important intel for two missions, now stow it!"
She grimaced as Teasdale's groan let us know he was coming around.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 87+25 (Charmed Life)=112
CRITICAL ROLL! 62 (+25), 87, No Critical Success.
"The Snakemen are heavily defended against Psionic attacks," I blurted out, "and they're extremely accurate with their large plasma weapons, probably on par with the Mutons we'll need to be ready for in the not-too-distant future, like the one we have chained up. Depending on the variation of Snake, it may have a number of snake eggs held in its torso, making it as much of a threat as the Chryssalids in the very long term. They're supposedly slow, tough, and somewhat resistant to fire. If they're the kind of alien I think they are, they may be asexual. It'll be up to the Scientists to find out if that's true or not."
"We'll add it to the files," the Commander rumbled. "Get everyone checked up on, then prepare for any more incoming attacks. We're only a few more minutes out from having access to a nearby aircraft carrier, which will be ready to deliver an air strike capable of destroying the entire village if it becomes necessary. If there's a core to this nest, find it. If you'll excuse me, Beta team needs my attention for the moment. Central, take over."
"You heard the man, people," Bradford agreed. "If you need to evac any of your soldiers, now's the time."
"Don't you dare," Teasdale mumbled. "If we can walk, we can fight."
"You can't walk," Jamball retorted. "Stay down."
He shook his head, then caught my eyes. "Jon, I need a favor. Patch me up with your magic, will you?"
I blinked again, but the headache was going away. "You sure?"
He scoffed. "The hell do you mean, 'you sure?' Get off your ass and get me up!"
Ceathya grumbled something, finally standing up herself. The back three fingers of her left hand were swelling up to an uncomfortable size, and her wrist had clearly been wrenched around when the Hunter had hit her. She came up next to Jamball and asked for tape while I came around the other side to Teasdale's head.
"Come on, we've got bugs to step on," Teasdale chuckled. "Can't really do that from down here! I mean, I could probably stand if I really wanted to, but I'd rather you made that a little easier."
I shook my head. "Unless I concentrate, I won't be in your thoughts, but it'll still feel weird, even wrong. Last chance to back out: do-"
"Stop yapping and put me back together, already!" his voice increased in volume, finally sounding angry.
I closed my eyes, drew energy from my thoughts and amplified them through the glowing device on my chest, and Merged with Strike 4's mind.
Had I practiced the technique over and over and over again, it might have been possible to spent minutes healing all his wounds (if the aliens left us alone that long), but right then I was only able to finish holding together the quick stitching Strike 3 had performed on Teasdale's chest, and then to clean up some of the internal bleeding. His ribs were still broken, even with the energies helping hold them in place, but he was injured, not dying.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 70+25 (Charmed Life)=95
Success
The sound of tape being torn brought my attention back to Ceathya, who Jamball was helping bind the fingers of.
"He's not going to collapse under the strain of you letting him go at the end of this, will he?" Ceathya asked. "Felt like hell when you dropped me."
I shrugged. "Not likely. I mostly kept you together from getting injured before. The only thing that hit you was the sudden pain, and realizing your hands were messed up and that you were using them anyway, the Psionic energies possibly preventing it from getting worse from what you were doing. I actually fixed things up on purpose in Teasdale, closing the hole in his chest. He won't drop, not unless he gets hit by something else."
"I'll try to avoid it," he smiled, reaching a hand up to me. I hauled him to his feet, and he looked down at his ruined armor and nano-fiber vest. "Probably wouldn't make it through something like that at all, would I?"
Jamball finished up with Ceathya, who recovered her pistol and put it away. The medic gave Teasdale a sickly smile, poking him in the shoulder. "You'll be fine, you big baby. Right as rain soon as the mission's done. I can even give you another shot o' morphine if you need it later."
"S'at why I'm feeling swell?" he looked at his hands. He shrugged, double-checking the straps on his ammo-backpack. "Maybe when we're off duty." He waggled his eyebrows at her, then stopped and really looked at her. "Fuck me, when did you get shot?!"
Jamball looked down at her own chest, which I'd seen more than enough of earlier to know the state of: half-melted armor, and if it didn't hurt, either no burns or she had them to the third degree.
Out of everyone still in the room, I was definitely the one least injured.
"Ah, I'll be fine," she ignored his concerns.
"You wanna call everybody in, get this show on the road?" I asked Ceathya. I didn't know her XCOM rank off the top of my head, but I wasn't dumb, either. I figured she was Strike 1 for a reason.
She paused, considering something. She looked at her hands, then out through the wall; the SCOPE system didn't hide that she was looking at Silva, who was standing next to Vasiliev, favoring her injured side.
"Smith- Jon," she sounded like she was forcing herself to talk. "If- I mean-"
"There are more Chryssalids out there, Strike 1," Central warned her, but he didn't say anything further.
She ground her teeth a bit. "Can you fix my hands and stay out of my head at the same time?" She held them up at me, and I caught that while her left hand may have been busted beyond use, her right had serious bruising as well. "I can moan about it later, just get it done. But if you try digging around-"
She made to pull her revolver out again, but stopped when I raised both hands defensively. "You're going to have to leave your hands empty while I'm working on you, and I'm pretty damned sure I can help you out without going through your thoughts."
She nodded, then held them out, clenching her jaw and tensing up.
I shook my head and just pushed Psionic energy to and through her, working through another Mind Merge, one as distant as I could manage. It was easier when we weren't being shot at or stabbed, and while I couldn't avoid touching her mind (I might be able to figure out some bypass if I studied it), I was in and out in moments.
She pulled her hands back like she'd been holding them in boiling water as soon as I released the energies. The effort also broke my connection to Teasdale, who caught himself, but was otherwise able to stand on his own. Either he had a higher pain tolerance, or his injuries just plain hurt less.
The others rejoined us, and even through the beginnings of a headache, I managed to touch up Silva as well; between her and Jamball, we at least knew Silva was a stiff breeze away from going down, while our medic's health was more in question. Maybe she was fine, maybe she was half dead. I didn't look forward to finding out which it was.
We got moving.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 66+25 (Charmed Life)=91
Success
Now that we knew there might be both ranged threats and terrors capable of closing the gap in a heartbeat, the team kept closer together, and was more than a little more on edge. Personally, I was ignoring the minor migraine I'd recently developed, courtesy of too little hard practice in the branch of Psionics I'd been using, and instead tried to drop myself into the same zen state that I knew would one day protect me and the rest of the team from all mental threats on the battlefield we'd face, but I wasn't there yet. The parts of my mind not recovering from or using Psi were mainly focused on the mini-map the remaining three drones provided for us, watching for sudden movements.
We kept a good distance away from the water. After what had come out of it, we weren't eager for a second round.
"Strike 8," Central's voice was loud enough to startle almost half the team, hardened soldiers or not, "throw a battle scanner into that open air market."
He didn't elaborate, but then, he didn't have to.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 78+25 (Charmed Life)=103
CRITICAL ROLL! 60 (+25), 85, No Critical Success.
A single Chryssalid popped out of a hole dug in the middle of the fish market, and it ran straight at us.
Straight into a hail of gunfire.
We pointed our guns around, standing half out in the open, waiting to see what kinds of things the gunfire might draw in.
...but we might as well have been in a graveyard. The wind was picking up a bit, and the near-silent howling we heard wasn't from any bugs.
With the area at least tentatively scouted, we moved into the circle, keeping our eyes out for anything out of the ordinary, or for any sharks that might have been hung up where Chryssalids might have found them.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 94+25 (Charmed Life)=119
CRITICAL ROLL! 52 (+25), 77, No Critical Success.
It was eerie. It felt wrong. And it gave us a chance to spot the thing I wouldn't admit to myself that I'd been dreading to see.
Just up the way, a whaling vessel had crashed into the shore, half-destroying a warehouse that was suited to a much smaller boat.
"Oh, hell," I breathed, and while the squad didn't all turn to me, I clearly had their attention. "I think there might be a whale on that boat, and if there is, we probably just found the source of the Chryssalids."
"So let's bomb it and get the hell out of here!" Teasdale whispered as loudly as he dared.
I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped.
This wasn't a videogame, and unless the 'lids had done something unexpected, there wasn't much of a good reason not to just turn the area to ash. We'd pretty much already succeeded, and there was no reward to be gained sticking around any further. The Drones weren't capable of running the mission themselves, at least not yet, but there wasn't any reason we had to stay a moment longer than it took to verify that this was the origin of the bugs.
"Yeah," I agreed. "Central, can you tell the guys running the Drones to recon that boat? If there's a whale inside with a bunch of blue and orange coral-looking outcroppings, then that's probably what we're here for. You don't need us any closer to the target than this, do you?"
"They're moving now, Strike 2," Bradford confirmed as two of our drones flew off. "Keep an eye on your surroundings, just in case the aliens have prepared an ambush or the drones are shot down."
He didn't have to tell us twice.
DC 75, roll d100
ROLL d100: 90+25 (Charmed Life)=115
CRITICAL ROLL! 50 (+25), 75, No Critical Success.
It was the best kind of boring, standing there in the snow while the Gremlins did our dirty work. After checking to see that there was a whale, and that it was indeed covered in alien growths, we called in the Skyranger to pick us up from right there in the village center. The sun was just barely coming up, giving me an easy view of the ship's exterior as I telekinetically sent a couple of signaling smoke grenades out to attract the military's attention. Even the metal bird's engines wasn't enough to rouse the quiet, empty village, except in the last few moments.
"Everybody's alive," I muttered. "Better than it could have gone. Newfoundland's always a shitshow."
"Compared to Strike Team Beta, you got off light," Bradford informed us as the smoke rose higher and higher. "They may not have had to deal with any Hunter Chryssalids, or any Snakemen, but their helicopter was shot down by plasma fire around that time. It nearly broke the local militia's line."
"Are they done, too?" I asked, turning one of my own battle scanners over in my hands. After a moment's thought, I decided I really, really wanted to know. I threw it out the back of the Skyranger, and used a touch of TK to ensure it landed inside the Whaling ship.
"They're still in the clean-up stages."
I looked over at the rest of the Strike team, half of us injured in some way or another. I'd gotten off light, and our rookies had gotten out clean (along with Vasiliev), which wasn't good, per say-
The battle scanner beeped, and we all looked back toward the ship as the SCOPE system did it's best with only one good focal point.
More than two dozen figures must have heard the sound and frantically started sprinting around the ship while the whale inside started seizing, turning in on itself and sprouting more and more contacts, another dozen, two-
Three bomber-class aircraft passed over the village, bathing it in fire and death. The battle scanner's signal died instantly, and several more missiles struck the boat directly even after it had been bombarded with most of the surrounding areas.
The back of the Skyranger closed, and we started accelerating home in earnest.
For all it was, I got the feeling everything could have gone much, much worse.
Mission Completed!
OPERATION HEAVY RAIN
Bug Hunt
Newfoundland, Canada, 04:31
Aliens Killed: 34
XCOM Operatives Lost: 0
OPERATION HEAVY RAIN
Bug Hunt
Newfoundland, Canada, 04:31
Aliens Killed: 34
XCOM Operatives Lost: 0
The ride back was quiet enough. Jamball was laying back, resting her eyes, and Teasdale was visibly restraining himself from scratching at the stitching in his chest. Ceathya let her guns dangle by their straps, and she was staring at the wall. Silva was holding a cloth to her side, and Olson looked caught between wanting to say something to possibly try to cheer us up, and realizing it maybe wasn't the best time. Angel wasn't looking at much, clearly lost in thought. Vasiliev was leaning on Olson, and snoring.
I double checked Jamball's chest, verifying that it was rising and falling steadily under the mangled mess her armor had turned into. She was still breathing. I had a really, really rotten feeling about how close to dying she'd actually come.
"Smith?" Ceathya was the first to speak.
I was half ready to fall back asleep myself, now that the fight was over, but I looked over at her, watching me.
"You…" she paused again. It was a little less than a minute before she continued. "Can you not do that mind-thing on me again, unless you really have to? If I'm dying, yeah, go for it, but otherwise… could you not?"
I just nodded, once. She returned to looking at the wall.
Maybe we'd celebrate later, once the dust cleared. I just had to hope we'd done the right things.
I had to hope that I'd done the right things.
??? Increased by 25, ??? Increased by 25, ??? Increased by 25
Panic has decreased across North America!
Panic has decreased across North America!
Choose 2:
Interlude options:
[ ] [ ] The other Strike Team. (Requires both choices)
[ ] Ceathya.
[ ] Teasdale and Jamball.
[ ] Silva and Vasiliev.
[ ] Ngcobo and Olson.
[ ] Another XCOM person of interest. (Write In; you may select anyone, even the janitor, and they will become a PoI if they weren't already.)
[ ] ???
Training:
[ ] Psionics in general.
-[ ] A specific technique. (Write in)
[ ] Gunplay
[ ] New tech
Interrogations:
[ ] The Muton.
[ ] The Thin Man.
[ ] Write In.
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Can we have some consequences for strike one pulling a gun on a fellow team member and threatening them twice while on an extremely dangerous mission?
I don't care if she doesn't like him, that shits unnacceptable when he saved her fucking life.
[X] Ceathya
[X] Gunplay
-[X] Let's figure out how to aim our heavy weapons properly at close-quarters targets, shall we?
I don't care if she doesn't like him, that shits unnacceptable when he saved her fucking life.
[X] Ceathya
[X] Gunplay
-[X] Let's figure out how to aim our heavy weapons properly at close-quarters targets, shall we?
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- Location
- Canada
In an actual military organization she would be censured for certain, the issue arises whether or not the mind meld could be considered a hostile action since she had no forewarning. Although I doubt that we will wind up back under her command after a reaction such as that.
Edit: vote changed
[X] The Muton
[X] Psionics in general.
-[x] Mind Meld.
--[x] Offer to use it to heal up our injured in the med bay so we can treat our wounded, give the science team more data on how our healing/psy effect works and gain more skill with mind meld.
[X] Position based effectiveness - Grenades hit like XCOM thinks they should, targeting multiple aliens and threatening allied damage in close quarters. Damage is fixed, assuming the aliens don't dodge outright; may ignore some DC. Minor armor shredding at current level, raises over time with tech. Some corpses/resources risk being lost when grenades are used.
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Tale Swapper
(Unverified Madman)
- Location
- Lost Among a Sea of Imaginings and Dreams
[X] Ceathya
[X] Gunplay
-[X] Let's figure out how to aim our heavy weapons properly at close-quarters targets, shall we?
[X] Gunplay
-[X] Let's figure out how to aim our heavy weapons properly at close-quarters targets, shall we?
Terran Imperium
[French]
- Location
- Southern France
That was uncalled for from Ceathya, indeed but her reaction is kind of justified. Frankly, it'll be weird if she didn't get a gentle but firm reprimand. Although, I have to say that for someone who isn't expecting it and not consenting? It is quite unpleasant. Quoting the QM on it.
[X] Ceathya
[X] Psionics in general.
-[x] Mind Meld.
--[x] Offer to use it to heal up our injured in the med bay so we can treat our wounded, give the science team more data on how our healing/psy effect works and gain more skill with mind meld.
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- Location
- singapore
[X] Ceathya
[X] Gunplay
-[X] Let's figure out how to aim our heavy weapons properly at close-quarters targets, shall we?
[X] Gunplay
-[X] Let's figure out how to aim our heavy weapons properly at close-quarters targets, shall we?
On the whole Ceathya thing guys, you got to remember who she is too. She is the sole survivor of the NuCom trainer mission, you know the one that sees her entire squad taken out by mind control and the like, so her having some PTSD about sudden unknown psy influence is kind of expected honestly and I'm sad I missed that. Still it was much better then it could have gone, as soldiers getting a relapse in a live fire encounter so soon after the first trauma usually does not end well for anyone.
Still all told, we got off great this mission, since a no death run this early in the game is usually more luck then anything else and it was only thanks to our gifts and wise choices to invest in armor tech that allowed this. Though we will likely be down most our current vets for the next mission if things hold as recovery from the wound half our squad took are not things people bounce back from quickly most the time. Well not unless we try to cheat and offer to use our mind meld to play doc in the med bay, which now that I think about isn't a bad idea. As it likely would help us alot with practice, give the science team a first hand look of how our healing works and get people back into the good heal sooner.
[X] The Muton
[X] Psionics in general.
-[x] Mind Meld.
--[x] Offer to use it to heal up our injured in the med bay so we can treat our wounded, give the science team more data on how our healing/psy effect works and gain more skill with mind meld.
Explosives Vote
[X] Position based effectiveness - Grenades hit like XCOM thinks they should, targeting multiple aliens and threatening allied damage in close quarters. Damage is fixed, assuming the aliens don't dodge outright; may ignore some DC. Minor armor shredding at current level, raises over time with tech. Some corpses/resources risk being lost when grenades are used.
Also going to go with dealing with the Muton now, since that guy is the biggest threat we have on base right now so the faster we can deal with him the better. Plus dealing with him should give should give a good boost to our energy weapon research so we can help get better weapon out faster for our guys and that more then anything will have largest impact on xcom progress and survival chances of our soldiers in the short term. Since not needing to drop entire clips with focus fire should help a lot and give our guys a much better chance to take out higher level threats without wipes if the Elders try to get funny and start dropping cyberdisks on us here soon.
Oh and @Canas Dark mate, if you having some issue with mapping things out, might I suggest this free program to help with that? Since being able to create and save maps might be helpful for you with the kind of chaos combat seems to be causing you.
Free Version
Still all told, we got off great this mission, since a no death run this early in the game is usually more luck then anything else and it was only thanks to our gifts and wise choices to invest in armor tech that allowed this. Though we will likely be down most our current vets for the next mission if things hold as recovery from the wound half our squad took are not things people bounce back from quickly most the time. Well not unless we try to cheat and offer to use our mind meld to play doc in the med bay, which now that I think about isn't a bad idea. As it likely would help us alot with practice, give the science team a first hand look of how our healing works and get people back into the good heal sooner.
[X] The Muton
[X] Psionics in general.
-[x] Mind Meld.
--[x] Offer to use it to heal up our injured in the med bay so we can treat our wounded, give the science team more data on how our healing/psy effect works and gain more skill with mind meld.
Explosives Vote
[X] Position based effectiveness - Grenades hit like XCOM thinks they should, targeting multiple aliens and threatening allied damage in close quarters. Damage is fixed, assuming the aliens don't dodge outright; may ignore some DC. Minor armor shredding at current level, raises over time with tech. Some corpses/resources risk being lost when grenades are used.
Also going to go with dealing with the Muton now, since that guy is the biggest threat we have on base right now so the faster we can deal with him the better. Plus dealing with him should give should give a good boost to our energy weapon research so we can help get better weapon out faster for our guys and that more then anything will have largest impact on xcom progress and survival chances of our soldiers in the short term. Since not needing to drop entire clips with focus fire should help a lot and give our guys a much better chance to take out higher level threats without wipes if the Elders try to get funny and start dropping cyberdisks on us here soon.
Oh and @Canas Dark mate, if you having some issue with mapping things out, might I suggest this free program to help with that? Since being able to create and save maps might be helpful for you with the kind of chaos combat seems to be causing you.
Free Version
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Canas Dark
Living comfortably in his own head
- Location
- Elsewhere
I'll take a look at that soon, thank you.
Depending on how things go, I will tentatively try to get another chapter in over the next few days, but will hold off on calling the vote too soon just in case.
If people have some time to discuss how powerful explosives should be, I would appreciate it. If it helps, I'll leave the following here:
[ ] Single target removal, armor piercing grenades - removes DC from armored targets (permanently reducing DC on future attacks, allows for some additional wounds), but the splash on these things is embarrassing. Does higher damage than expected. Corpses are damaged, but not any worse than from any other weapon.
[ ] Position based effectiveness - Grenades hit like XCOM thinks they should, targeting multiple aliens and threatening allied damage in close quarters. Damage is fixed, assuming the aliens don't dodge outright; may ignore some DC. Minor armor shredding at current level, raises over time with tech. Some corpses/resources risk being lost when grenades are used.
[ ] And your little dog, too! - grenades are literally made of explodium. A well placed grenade always threatens attacks against all targets in range. No armor shredding, but multiple grenade attacks can threaten to hit an entire enemy pod with a single roll. Ignore corpse damage, the aliens' armor prevents that.
I'd prefer a discussion, but if you don't want to, here are some options that I was debating myself.
On the subject of Ceathya: more than a stern talking to, less than expulsion or prison. She will likely be stripped of command regardless of how things turn out, though whether she rejoins Smith's team remains to be seen (injuries pending). If people keep voting for it, you'll see the process.
Opportunity costs. Every option above has an impact on the story, in one way or another.
Depending on how things go, I will tentatively try to get another chapter in over the next few days, but will hold off on calling the vote too soon just in case.
If people have some time to discuss how powerful explosives should be, I would appreciate it. If it helps, I'll leave the following here:
[ ] Single target removal, armor piercing grenades - removes DC from armored targets (permanently reducing DC on future attacks, allows for some additional wounds), but the splash on these things is embarrassing. Does higher damage than expected. Corpses are damaged, but not any worse than from any other weapon.
[ ] Position based effectiveness - Grenades hit like XCOM thinks they should, targeting multiple aliens and threatening allied damage in close quarters. Damage is fixed, assuming the aliens don't dodge outright; may ignore some DC. Minor armor shredding at current level, raises over time with tech. Some corpses/resources risk being lost when grenades are used.
[ ] And your little dog, too! - grenades are literally made of explodium. A well placed grenade always threatens attacks against all targets in range. No armor shredding, but multiple grenade attacks can threaten to hit an entire enemy pod with a single roll. Ignore corpse damage, the aliens' armor prevents that.
I'd prefer a discussion, but if you don't want to, here are some options that I was debating myself.
On the subject of Ceathya: more than a stern talking to, less than expulsion or prison. She will likely be stripped of command regardless of how things turn out, though whether she rejoins Smith's team remains to be seen (injuries pending). If people keep voting for it, you'll see the process.
Opportunity costs. Every option above has an impact on the story, in one way or another.
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