Colonist Log - Gene Lawrence
So Command accepted the proposed alliance from the.. Reticulans, they call themselves. Two of their 'people' showed up with a crate of equipment. Their suits are lighter than ours but look a hell of a lot more flimsy, and don't have integrated comms or computers. Apparently they can read each other's mind, and can even sense where intelligent creatures are from a distance. I guess that's how they were able to fire on us from hiding, without even seeing us.
In other news, we built up a geological sonde in Aram Crater so we can start exploiting the hydrocarbon deposits there. Our new 'friends' claim to be allies now, so they should leave our stuff alone. The guys in the lab went nuts over some of the alien tech, and the reticulans seem very willing to help... almost too eager in fact. Its like they're trying to get in our good graces, maybe they know something else is coming and they want help? I don't know, never met an alien before so I couldn't say what motivates them.
A lot has changed this week... everything's gone to hell. We've lost contact with Earth, been attacked by mysterious robots, met and fought with and then allied with an alien race. Who knew Mars was so
busy. There we were thinking we were the only people on the planet... wait, an alert just sounded. I'm starting to dread that sound.
Home's sensors detected some kind of activity at the Cydonia dig site. Thermal indicators, seismic activity, and some kind of EM spike. Alpha Squad is heading out to investigate, and as the (apparently) foremost expert on alien tech, I am going with them. I've been told my assignment to Alpha is permanent now and I am officially the 'scientific field expert' for any alien technology or life forms we encounter. I'm told someone from the tech crew will be joining us as well at some point, but right now they're busy setting up new sondes and mines. We're going to need new resources to defend ourselves, and we can't expect any support from Earth. Even if they could send us anything, it would take months to arrive.
I've been issued Reticulan Laser Rifle. It's unwieldy and has a half-melted look. The lab guys tell me its partially organic, which is weird. The thing is
powerful though, and has a lot more punch than the makeshift laser drills. I'm told we may be able to make our own version of the rifle, not quite as good but still much better than what we have now with the benefit that we could make more weapons and ammo ourselves. I don't like us being so dependent on the greys- er... reticulans. I'm told I shouldn't call them Greys but they look exactly like the aliens in old sci-fi movies so its hard to keep a straight face sometimes.
We got back to the dig site in no time. Aerial recon showed that a large disk of metal had been uncovered in sector 3. Well I guess that's why we were getting unusual mineral readings before. The disk was asymmetrical, whether by design or because it had been broken up over the years from geological activity. In the center of the disk was a hole which glowed with a yellow light. We set down nearby, seeing no drone activity. Boy were we wrong...
Ute had fun shooting up the useless crawler drones. The alien weapons performed well, though Diego is still upset that he got a pistol. Nevermind that its stronger than the laser drill he had before, he said it 'feels puny'. Well I'm a better shot than hm, so he can deal with it. After we took care of the drones in the immediate area, we moved onto the disk. It became clear that this arrangement wasn't by accident or due to geological activity, it was made this way by design. I still don't know what the disk was for originally, or who made it, but they had a twisted sense of aesthetics.
We spotted a larger drone, oh-so-originally classified by Diego as a "Walker", over by a small device on the side of the disk. Not taking any chances, we lined up and started shooting. Harald loves the alien rocket launcher, but the ammo is very limited. After he'd fired off his rockets, he stowed it and pulled out the pistol. The walker's electron cannons packed more of a punch than the crawlers. Ute got hit pretty bad and had 2nd degree burns. Her suit comms shorted out as well, so the rest of the mission was done via hand signals. Harald took a blast in the face... his faceplate absorbed most of the impact but was pitted and scarred impairing his vision, and the suit arced a bit burning him inside. Still, our concentrated fire brought it down.
That's when it got weird.
Some.. creatures-I guess a new kind of alien-came out of the glow in the center of the disk. It must be some kind of elevator I guess? They were immediately hostile, firing some kind of weapon at us which spit out crystalline darts that punctured our suits. Command came on the line and ordered us out of there, so we booked it back to the transport. I don't know what the hell is going on, but I was glad to leave. Too bad we couldn't retrieve that walker wreck though, I know the lab techs would have gotten excited over that.
When I got back and finished my debriefing, I went down to the lab to have a chat with Jackie. She's in charge of manufacturing and fabrication. She told me that they've worked out schematics for new projectile weapons that will function correctly in Mars' low pressure atmosphere and dry conditions. Ute has a lot of trouble with her rifle... the lubricants boil off, dust gets in the moving parts... its a mess. These new rifles and pistols are sealed against the environment and designed for these conditions, so should give us a much better chance. She's fabricating as many as she can, though the work is painfully slow due to her inadequate tools.
After that I sat down with Tabbie-one of the aliens... his name is Tabatch't'leviam but we call him Tabbie and he doesn't seem to care-and started going over some of the finer points of Reticulan tech, but I didn't get very far when Alpha Squad was activated again and sent back to the dig. Our new mission: Take the beastmen down and secure the area. I have to agree, we need to secure this dig site, we can't just have hostile aliens crawling up our backside.
It didn't take us long to return, and the 'Beastmen'(Diego again...) hadn't moved much further than before. We set up a firing line as they charged us and a few well-placed shots took them out. There were only four Beastmen at the dig site, and the glow in the center of the disk had become much dimmer... maybe the elevator thing has stopped working? Anyway, they weren't all that tough against the lasers, and Harald got a pair with his rocket launcher as well. We recovered a few bodies, but the drone wrecks had been cleared away and there were tracks leading off into the distance so I'm certain we haven't seen the last of them.
With the site secured, we took everything we could find back to Home and I started training with the Reticulans again hoping to learn more about their technology. They do a lot of things differently than we do, and I may be able to apply some of their insights to our own tech.
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Topic: UFO: Afterlight - Red Dawn (Read 11512 times)