Chapter 6: The Swarm
Mar 1st to Mar 6th 1999
Overheard at X-Com Command:
"UFO Detec- Two UFOs de- THREE UFOs detected! And two of them are huge!"
March '99. There comes a moment in any war when things start escalating into something huge. The first week of March was one of those times.
At first, though, things were going very well. Thanks to our success in January and February, we could afford to found a brand new base, not a Cold War hand-me-down, but an X-Com specific base. Various base sites were scouted, but in the end, the continued presence of UFOs over Russia meant that south east Asia had priority over the Americas. We dubbed the new installation "Forge" as it was intended to become out main manufacturing facility, so Vanguard could be retooled as a science facility.
A Scout UFO appeared, was shot down, and recovered in a standard UFO recovery mission.
Just when shooting down aliens and recovering their flying saucer became standard is unclear, but you can get used to a lot.
Then the science division pulled it off. The broke the alien encryption, allowing us to build a listening device that they called the Hyper Wave Decoder. It is a very expensive installation, but the ability to listen in on enemy communications is any commander's dream.
I asked them to come up with ideas to better protect our troops after that, and dismantled the Small Radar to make room for the quite expensive Hyper Wave Decoder.
The 5th of March 1999, however, was a very busy day. First, the science team reported they had found a way to use the alien alloys to make armor for the troops. Good, I told them to find out how to heal plasma burns and turn that into a portable device next.
Then we saw the biggest single alien assault yet. We dubbed it "The Swarm". UFOs 9, 10, and 11 arrived at the same time, three big UFOs, one of them massive.
An Interceptor was sent out to recon the big ships, but was told to say out of weapon range, as we had no idea just how powerful these things could be. The images we got back confirmed, at least, that these UFOs were a whole other breed than the usual ones.
The biggest one we had to let go, as we had no idea if we with our current tech even had a chance if we attempted to board it, but... one of the two "smaller" ones came in for a landing, which the Skyranger-1 team was sent to intercept, with orders to enter the UFO, gain intel, and capture the captain of the ship if possible.
It was night when the Skyranger arrived, but this time, there was Electroflares on board the craft.
Several aliens guarded the outside, but the team fought bravely until they reached the doors. The tank was left outside to patrol for any aliens trying to sneak up on the team.
The first floor was swept, and a strange device was found. Turned out to be an anti gravity based lift. Seems a bit over-engineered if you ask me, though.
The second floor was full of all these odd canisters, later discovered to be alien food, and surgical tools. But, after a thorough sweep, no aliens were found on that floor.
On the top floor, Myke Greywolf, perfect free and NinajHeartless found themselves at the door to the bridge. In the fight that followed, both aliens on the bridge were stunned, but at the cost of NinajHeartless' life. Both Myke and perfect got hit, too, but they managed to hold together long enough to secure the bridge.
And with that, the biggest damn UFO we had ever assaulted was ours. Including, I might add, its captain, a Floater Leader.
Judging by all the food, we gathered it would have to have been a transport or supply ship of some kind. Which implied something we didn't really wanted to think about... Supplying what? Also, the wounded troops was a concern, and we would really need to step up the production of Personal Armors soon, and get the Medi-Kit prototype ready.
A Scout then appeared, possibly to look for the missing Supply Ship and Interceptor-2 was sent out to handle it. It was not as easy a fight as most Scouts, as the Interceptor took a hit, but still managed to force the ship down.
After a refueling and rearming, both Skyranger-1 and Interceptor-1 was launched again.
Skyranger-1 was sent to pick up the remains of the downed Scout, but Interceptor-1 had a different objective. To spot whatever the alien Supply Ship was supposed to have sent supplies to... The result wasn't good.
Looks like X-Com wasn't the only ones to establish a new base this week...
(Notes: That Supply Ship mission... Wow. If you're doing a proper Ironman, don't do what I just did, it took a lot of retries to get a result as good as one dead and two wounded.
Also, I want to explain how I knew where to find that Alien Base. If you recall, you Small Scouts were blown away in the sky over Russia in the previous chapters. Those are precursors to an Alien Base, although they can be a lot of things. But the trio of two large ships and a Battleship? That means a new base has just been founded, it's the Battleship's appearance that seals it. The third ship was likely a Terror Ship, they can do base building, too. And where do you look? Well, as mentioned, X-Com is sometimes very logical. Since Supply Ships exist, they will, of course supply something. That is the alien bases. So shadow the Supply Ship and it'll lead you right to it. Send up an Interceptor or use the Skyranger to patrol the area where the Supply Ship landed, and you can find an alien base nearby.
Speaking of that alien base, I need opinions on it. I don't think raiding a base with troops in coveralls is a wise plan... In fact, I don't even think it's a good idea in Personal Armor. And I NEED the Small Launcher to take down the base Commander so I can finish my set of mission critical aliens. All I want after it, is a Psionc one. So what to do about the base? Leave it alone for a while and pick off Supply Ships for money? Or go for it despite not having the tech ready? I'm thinking of leaving it alone for a while longer...
Also, after the Medi-Kit, what's next for SCIENCE? I'm thinking Elerium and Small Launcher. Keeping 10 on Alien Origins, though.)
