Chapter 9: April's Fools
Apr 1st to Apr 16th
From the mission log of the UFO-21 recovery mission
"Medic!"
There's a certain irony in aliens attacking a city on April 1st. It's one of those cases where we could say the truth and people wouldn't believe us anyway. But we spun up a cover story as usual, you don't keep being the secret UFO concealing conspiracy if you blabber on about aliens all the time. Like I'm doing now. Anyway, Casablanca, Terror Site-3.
Like last time, the Floaters had surrounded the Skyranger as it landed. It's unfortunate, but that's how Terror Missions work, the aliens set up a trap and we spring it. Doesn't mean we have to like it, or just walk into a rain of superheated plasma. The team rushed out of the Skyranger, guns blazing while setting up smoke cover to avoid counterattacks.
The Tank guarded a back alley, where it took out several Floaters, a Reaper and unfortunately, a civilian. It serves as a lesson in using high explosives in populated areas, as in "be careful when you do it".
The team broke into squads, some covering the road to the south, and other advancing west.
Thnikkman and PKrockin took out several Floaters together.
Thnikkaman got the trick shot of the mission. That is, across the street, through a hole in the wall, out through an open door, and killing the Floater on the far side of the building.
After that pocket of Floaters was taken down, only a pair of Reapers remained, and they were easily picked off from range.
Casablanca was alien free. And a little on fire. But fires can be handled by the locals. *ahem*
What I meant to say was that these Terror Missions were perhaps the greatest known threat to X-Com as a whole, as it'd just take a few civilians with a camera getting a good picture of either an alien or us to start rumors. Some rumors can be managed, but too many get the attention of the press, and as you know, a journalist on a hot case is not easily shaken. You most certainly weren't...
But this attack on Casablanca had taught us one extremely valuable lesson about these Terror Attacks. The aliens can't just teleport directly into the city, they use a special transport ship, perhaps not unlike our Skyrangers, to transport their troops into cities. So it stands to reason that if we shoot these down before they reach the city, then the attack could be thwarted altogether. But an Interceptor with standard Earth missiles against a Terror Ship? That'd be crazy to try. And while we DO do crazy rather well here, we wanted to even the odds a bit before trying.
Speaking of evening the odds, we found out how to use the aliens' Heavy Plasma guns. A truly powerful weapon, but with a drawback. It uses Elerium for ammo. So every shot fired is less of a resource we can only get by raiding it from the aliens.
We spotted another Supply Ship, but again it got away... The plan to siege the alien base wasn't going quite as well as we wanted it to...
It was then one of the scientists approached me as said that while the Heavy Plasma was a mighty weapon, they believed they could scale it up to fit on an Interceptor. I immediately gave them the go ahead for that. With Plasma Cannons on our Interceptor, we would be able to fight almost any UFO. It didn't take long to get great news from the science division: The Plasma Cannon was working, which explained the hole in the wall at Laboratory 2.
(Notes: A Plasma Cannon beats every UFO but the Battleship with no damage to the X-Com craft. Basically, you want this.)
The Hyper-Wave decoders around the world started coming online, and we got a hit in Siberia. The race of alien was "Sectoid", a name we didn't know yet. The UFO was shot down and a recovery mission was sent out.
As it turns out, "Sectoids" are just the little grey aliens. Had us worried for a second. The mission was a fairly standard hunt, although we got to field test the Heavy Plasmas, until the time came to enter the UFO.
A Sectoid came out and shot Thnikkaman three times. Then he got shot in the back by friendly Heavy Plasma fire.
But he didn't die. He didn't even drop. He just called over a medic to tend to his wounds.
(Notes: How to use Medi-kits! You stand next to an injured soldier, or on top of his unconscious body, and select Use Medi-Kit. You get a screen with a silhouette of a man, with the wounded areas in red. As you can see, Thnikkaman has one wound in the torso, so you click on that and click Heal. Thnikkaman now has no wounds. Be aware that this only recovers a tiny bit of Health, use it to stop the bleeding and lessen the wounded recovery time.)
Narag entered the UFO and finished off the last Sectoid. UFO recovered. Thnikkaman would be out for 17 days.
Another Snakeman UFO was spotted and Interceptor-1 with its brand new Twin Plasma Cannons was sent out to greet it. Unfortunately, the pilot got a bit eager, and sent the UFO crashing into the sea. We would have to wait a bit longer to see what a Snakeman was.
After that brief encounter, the science team had figured out how the UFO's power sources work, and one of them spoke up about an interesting idea for a miniaturized version of this... A Power Suit. Sound like a bad science fiction movie, but he was adamant that it could be done.
On the 16th we got another Supply Ship alert, but this time, we were ready for it... Operation Privateer was go.
Notes: That's a lot of shooting this time around. And Thnikkaman takes the "You REALLY should be dead from that!" award. Four plasma shots, one from a Heavy, and he's still standing with half his health left and only one wound? That's just crazy.
Next up, a Supply Ship. Those take a while to clear, but at least I don't need prisoners this time. Shoot to kill! (And to show off a cute little trick with the Heavy Plasma, I hope.)
Also, what do you guys think of moving Interceptor-2 to Forge as the Snakemen are setting up to terrorize the US? My plan for the Snakeman Terror mission is basically this: "Chryssalids can't swim." Now ain't that just a dirty trick? But I need a Twin Plasma equipped Interceptor in America to have a shot at that.
Apr 1st to Apr 16th
From the mission log of the UFO-21 recovery mission
"Medic!"
There's a certain irony in aliens attacking a city on April 1st. It's one of those cases where we could say the truth and people wouldn't believe us anyway. But we spun up a cover story as usual, you don't keep being the secret UFO concealing conspiracy if you blabber on about aliens all the time. Like I'm doing now. Anyway, Casablanca, Terror Site-3.
Like last time, the Floaters had surrounded the Skyranger as it landed. It's unfortunate, but that's how Terror Missions work, the aliens set up a trap and we spring it. Doesn't mean we have to like it, or just walk into a rain of superheated plasma. The team rushed out of the Skyranger, guns blazing while setting up smoke cover to avoid counterattacks.
The Tank guarded a back alley, where it took out several Floaters, a Reaper and unfortunately, a civilian. It serves as a lesson in using high explosives in populated areas, as in "be careful when you do it".
The team broke into squads, some covering the road to the south, and other advancing west.
Thnikkman and PKrockin took out several Floaters together.
Thnikkaman got the trick shot of the mission. That is, across the street, through a hole in the wall, out through an open door, and killing the Floater on the far side of the building.
After that pocket of Floaters was taken down, only a pair of Reapers remained, and they were easily picked off from range.
Casablanca was alien free. And a little on fire. But fires can be handled by the locals. *ahem*
What I meant to say was that these Terror Missions were perhaps the greatest known threat to X-Com as a whole, as it'd just take a few civilians with a camera getting a good picture of either an alien or us to start rumors. Some rumors can be managed, but too many get the attention of the press, and as you know, a journalist on a hot case is not easily shaken. You most certainly weren't...
But this attack on Casablanca had taught us one extremely valuable lesson about these Terror Attacks. The aliens can't just teleport directly into the city, they use a special transport ship, perhaps not unlike our Skyrangers, to transport their troops into cities. So it stands to reason that if we shoot these down before they reach the city, then the attack could be thwarted altogether. But an Interceptor with standard Earth missiles against a Terror Ship? That'd be crazy to try. And while we DO do crazy rather well here, we wanted to even the odds a bit before trying.
Speaking of evening the odds, we found out how to use the aliens' Heavy Plasma guns. A truly powerful weapon, but with a drawback. It uses Elerium for ammo. So every shot fired is less of a resource we can only get by raiding it from the aliens.
We spotted another Supply Ship, but again it got away... The plan to siege the alien base wasn't going quite as well as we wanted it to...
It was then one of the scientists approached me as said that while the Heavy Plasma was a mighty weapon, they believed they could scale it up to fit on an Interceptor. I immediately gave them the go ahead for that. With Plasma Cannons on our Interceptor, we would be able to fight almost any UFO. It didn't take long to get great news from the science division: The Plasma Cannon was working, which explained the hole in the wall at Laboratory 2.
(Notes: A Plasma Cannon beats every UFO but the Battleship with no damage to the X-Com craft. Basically, you want this.)
The Hyper-Wave decoders around the world started coming online, and we got a hit in Siberia. The race of alien was "Sectoid", a name we didn't know yet. The UFO was shot down and a recovery mission was sent out.
As it turns out, "Sectoids" are just the little grey aliens. Had us worried for a second. The mission was a fairly standard hunt, although we got to field test the Heavy Plasmas, until the time came to enter the UFO.
A Sectoid came out and shot Thnikkaman three times. Then he got shot in the back by friendly Heavy Plasma fire.
But he didn't die. He didn't even drop. He just called over a medic to tend to his wounds.
(Notes: How to use Medi-kits! You stand next to an injured soldier, or on top of his unconscious body, and select Use Medi-Kit. You get a screen with a silhouette of a man, with the wounded areas in red. As you can see, Thnikkaman has one wound in the torso, so you click on that and click Heal. Thnikkaman now has no wounds. Be aware that this only recovers a tiny bit of Health, use it to stop the bleeding and lessen the wounded recovery time.)
Narag entered the UFO and finished off the last Sectoid. UFO recovered. Thnikkaman would be out for 17 days.
Another Snakeman UFO was spotted and Interceptor-1 with its brand new Twin Plasma Cannons was sent out to greet it. Unfortunately, the pilot got a bit eager, and sent the UFO crashing into the sea. We would have to wait a bit longer to see what a Snakeman was.
After that brief encounter, the science team had figured out how the UFO's power sources work, and one of them spoke up about an interesting idea for a miniaturized version of this... A Power Suit. Sound like a bad science fiction movie, but he was adamant that it could be done.
On the 16th we got another Supply Ship alert, but this time, we were ready for it... Operation Privateer was go.
Notes: That's a lot of shooting this time around. And Thnikkaman takes the "You REALLY should be dead from that!" award. Four plasma shots, one from a Heavy, and he's still standing with half his health left and only one wound? That's just crazy.
Next up, a Supply Ship. Those take a while to clear, but at least I don't need prisoners this time. Shoot to kill! (And to show off a cute little trick with the Heavy Plasma, I hope.)
Also, what do you guys think of moving Interceptor-2 to Forge as the Snakemen are setting up to terrorize the US? My plan for the Snakeman Terror mission is basically this: "Chryssalids can't swim." Now ain't that just a dirty trick? But I need a Twin Plasma equipped Interceptor in America to have a shot at that.
