A fleet of flying saucers established a standing orbit over the old Earth, way beyond the range of earthbound radars. The Ethereals called for a crisis meeting, to discuss about the rising unrest all over the planet.
When the Ethereal first attacked Humanity centuries ago, they put the human race through three tests. The first test was a success when the humans created their own weapons and armors out of the materials ‘given’ to them. Their second test was also positive when the elite force humans assembled to protect the planet has succeeded against a sample of their combat force. The final test was passed when a sample of the population was found to have a latent, but strong, psionic power. At the time, the Ethereal realized that they found they perfect slave race and dealt shallow deals with leaders to rob them their independence.
Finding such power in a creature without a frail muscle mass proved Earth to be a treasure. Entire worlds begged for mercy after mere squads of engineered humans led a guerrilla against them. But Earth was a dangerous beast to tame, and once again the Ethereals found themselves struggling to eliminate its resistance.
An additional ship joined the committee. The mercenary commander came personally to negotiate a raise in payments.
01 Feb 2601 Gals worked day and night at Troy to make more space. They had a dormitory and the workshop was nearly be complete. Runts were also assembling the hyperwave relay and soon they’ll be able to catch ships all over Europe.
Under the shadow of more experienced gals like Hecuba, a swabbie kept shooting targets all day. She intended to be the best shot on this part of the world.
2 Feb 2602Eve Jobs-sama watched the hyperwave relay feedback with interest. She caught up rumors about competition. Unlike the smugglers who mainly dealt with illegal commerce (and were a pleasure to speak at when they were not shooting or stabbing), the ‘raiders’ were directly walking on their line of work, without any regards to the mutant cause.
There was no place for two mistresses of global piracy. The Predator launched and shot down the raider ship. Soon enough, the Bonaventura landed in the crash site, ready to give the hover suits a try.
Crash site (raiders)Ema Ninjaston was also fabulous in her new synthmuscle suit.
The gals proceeded carefully, surrounding the ship while a small team breached both doors.
Inside they found only one survivor who attacked the gals with his archaic shotgun. He was quickly subdued and brought back to the base. Chylie however expressed concerns that her hover belt was not enough protection and asked to use a power armor again.
03 Feb 2602The weaponry research continued. The runts mastered the manipulation of plasteel by sharpening blades out of the semi-metal. Those swords were going to replace all the cutlass and axes the gals used for over a year.
At the same time, they worked on the eternal request from Eve Jobs-sama: to produce more ‘dakka’, adding ‘dakka’ on the ‘dakka’ for more ‘dakka’.
MORE DAKKA!
This ultimate evolution of the boarding gun was too large to be ever used for anything else than filling the entire area with lead, but in comparison to its previous tier, it could fire almost twice as fast, with better accuracy!
05 Feb 2602The academy started a new observation mission. Eager to not let them perform science at peace, the Wako Base team attacked.
Landing site (academy)As usual, the team carefully approached the ship, then kicked the door (despite those opening vertically) to let Ivanaya roast the passengers, which she did... along with a swabbie. She survived so all was forgiven, after the swabbie left sick bay that is.
06 Feb 2602The air game is getting more complex every day. The major powers losing grasp of safe shipping, the local governments started enjoying their skies with impunity.
Eve Jobs-sama decided to not disturb them to honor her side of the bargain.
Another academy ship landed near Wako base, so nice of them.
Landing site (academy)Deploy, kick, bang, pow, etc.
Interestingly, the brainers spent a lot of time analyzing hyperwave data. The relays could reveal a lot of information from the ships, but it was achieved by plugging a ship’s communication device to a screen. The gals had little knowledge on how it worked.
Somehow the brainers felt that they were moving backwards, starting with an end product and moving towards the basics.
07 Feb 2602More guns! First the interrogation of a prisoner revealed the specifics of heavy cannons, a long overdue.
Then the runts kept playing with antigrav units, strapping one on an autogun and giving it a pompous name. It turned out to be a great idea even if the gun itself is a bit weak. It was a machine gun that even swabbie could use.
Eve Jobs sama spent the evening with her raider guest. It has been years since she had any contact with a male of her own breed.
The thug proved to be aggressive and illiterate, like the gals were when they started their adventures. After making sure he understood that, yes, she is in charge and, no, she does not want to make little ubers, the Big Boss could figure what he was going after before crashing.
The thug was then shown the way out, with a liberal use of kicks.
08 Feb 2602The captive reverend who was translating the Liber Occultus finished his work, then committed suicide. Losing such helpful prisoners is always disappointing but reading the translation was enlightening, especially the voodoo rites described.
Wait, voodoo rites?
Every brainer dropped their current activity on the spot to concentrate on this. This was the most important discovery they made so far!
Later this day, another academy ship had an unfortunate encounter with a Predator. This time Eve Jobs-sama ordered the Wako Base team to stay warm at home and instead put the Troy team into test.
Crash site (academy)The Kraken landed near the crash site, facing its victim.
The academy security tried throwing grenades but it’s been a long time since their explosive were of any threat. Martian Max made a quick job of the guards with her acid filled blunderbuss. Then the other gals assaulted the ship.
09 Feb 2602Up in orbit, negotiations were concluded and payment was made. The mercenary commander took no delay and landed his ship near the designated target. He gathered his men and sent them details of his contract through long range channel.
This last move proved to be a mistake. The hyperwave relay captured the echo signal and the gals prepared for an incoming pogrom led by the mercenaries.
Mutant Pogrom (mercs)Mercenaries proved to be a deadly enemy in the previous pogrom, but now the pirates had much better intel. They knew the specification of their synth suit, even creating a prototype, and had a plan.
Synthsuits stopped bullets and explosives, grenade and flamethrowers were also not effective. Using gauss weapons would be a waste, but laser could work. So the gals dropped their machine guns and launchers and fielded as many lasguns as possible. Only Mother Oab and Angel used acidic weapons, as the synthsuits offered no protection against this class of weaponry. Amperzand kept her rocket launcher but used a laspistol as sidearm.
The mercenaries were a difficult bunch, but should the gals get the initiative and land a few shots, the wounds would bring the fight to their level. A wounded merc would have to fight back with crippled abilities and miss most of the time.
Ema Ninjaston spotted the first merc soon after deploying. The commando took the fight to the skies but immediately regretted this when he got hit by a dozen of laser shots.
Most of the pirates moved North. Roadkill pointed towards the mercenary commander, the same one that nearly killed the whole Wako Base team. The purple faced muton gave some quick instruction to his men and moved back to supervise the extermination.
Chylie had no time to understand what happened. She came under fire from three tanks shooting, from different directions. The salvo of rockets tore the buildings apart and pushed the gal left and right. When the shots calmed down, she painfully stumbled towards Natty Compa for help. The medic found so much shrapnel stuck into the power suit’s joints that she prefered not removing any and only treated the open wounds.
The main force could not progress further. The tanks and many mercs there kept suppressing the gals. A couple tried moving around the hangars to flank the tanks but were intercepted and killed. They did not die for nothing however as one of the lost gal died shoving her brand new tech blade into a merc’s chest.
Further south, Angel took a squad to the South to clear more areas and perhaps save a few mutants. They kept their distance, firing single shots to wound the mercs, slowly surrounding them.
Rince Wind stepped off the Bonaventura, her flying suit giving her an advantageous position, and took aim at one of the tank. Both shots from Godslayer Mk.2 penetrated the turret and blew up the ammunition. With the other two tanks in the hangars, the gals were not flanked anymore and could retreat when they were too wounded.
Firing laser rifles at full auto at the mercs proved to be very effective. Wounded mercs indeed had trouble firing back and by spotting first the ones manning gauss muskets, the riflegals could maintain a relative security. Slowly but surely, the mercs died, their faces frozen in surprise.
Unfortunately, the frontline merc saved time for the others to execute the population. However, the excessive use of tanks (and the grenades thrown in excess by an enraged Tah Tah) threw a lot of concrete dust in the air, and the mercs quickly lost sight of their foes.
Mother Oab could barely move in her power armor and spent most of her time behind the same corner but this led her to involuntarily ambush a strong merc who was rushing through the cloud, filling his face full of acid.
After so much casualties, the merc acted like every foe did before. A dude ran past Scorching Tina empty handed, too panicked to act properly. Defeat felt like a trauma to him.
The merc commander was enraged at the sight and quickly stabbed a gal with his signature knife before taking cover in an office, firing his plasma pistol at Chylie (who survived 4 rockets and 3 plasma shots, that is going to be a lot of scars to show). The gals fired back at him.
What the muton did not realize is that the Chylie and her team were only covering Roadkill, who laid on the stairs nearby and took her shot. The commander froze, then fell on his knee, then dropped, with a burnt hole between his eyes. That was the end of the deadly merc commander.
All that was left was the two tanks. It took the combined fire of most of the team to down each one. It was a long sweaty work but it was completed without any more casualties. Obviously the gals needed to study tanks and field more heavy weapons next time.
On their side, Darkening Kaos held the panicked mercenary against a wall. Ema Ninjaston took advantage of her own synthsuit to give him an amazing punch to the chest, cutting his breath.
Without much hope, the gals swept the settlement. They found a boy who managed to stay hidden during the whole fight, bringing a little hope. The orphaned kid was dropped at a mutant alliance hideout on the way back. Saving anyone in such situation was a miracle.
---
That was a long 10 days. But we made progress and it shows.
Also I added a new choice for research. We still use the basic surgery kit and we have a few upgrades available for research. You are all spending too much time in sick bay so we could use better field support.
Lore has been removed because I do not have many options and I'd rather mix it into other research.
Cave of Booty (Bay12)
Pirate queen Angel (Archangel): medicgal
Baroness Rince Wind: snipergal
Mistress Darkening Kaos: pyrogal
Mistress Kat Walker (Itnetlolor): meleegal, cat claws + acid
Mistress Amperzand: demogal
Mistress Snapper (Taricus), heavygal
Boss Boka (Boksi): assaultgal
Boss Ema ninjaston (Sheb): grenadegal, fuso sword
Boss Scorching Tina (Solarius Scorch): assaultgal, pistols
Boss Tah Tah (Athath): grenadegal
Gal Chylie (Hanzoku): riflegal
Swabbie Roadkill (Strawbarrel), assaultgal
Swabbie Mother Oab (RAM), demogal
Swabbie Natty Compa (Nuttycompa): Medicgal
Wako Base (Bay12)
Baroness Euchre Jane (EuchreJack): riflegal
Boss Lita Boyl (RAM), assaultgal
Boss Helga Kraus (birdy51): heavygal
Boss Ivanaya Dogobitch (IvanDogovich): snipergal, smokey
Troy (OpenXcom)
Gal Martian Max (Arthanor): riflegal
Memorial
Swabbie RAM: Pogrom #1 by guild security
Swabbie Athath: Pogrom #1 by cyberdisk
Gal Giselle Kraus (birdy51): Landing #10 by guild security
Gal Hat-hat (Athath): Landing #10 by Giselle Kraus
Gal Lorelle Harker (Iithuem): Landing #10 by power armored security
Gal Jehanne: Crash #6 by power armored security
Boss Bushmeat (Strawbarrel): Pogrom #11 by sectopod
Baroness Fatima-ann (RAM): Pogrom #11 by star god
Gal Paladinia (drkpaldin): Pogrom #11 by sectopod
Gal Princess Axespendable (Iituem): Pogrom #11 by sectopod