On Tuesday, April 27th I had received a stack of testing results for both existing personnel and new recruits. Since the base had been relatively quiet I had plenty of time to sift through them and make note of interesting files.
First was the new pilots. Sergei Danilev, a very enthusiastic pilot from Ukraine. He came highly recommended for his skills in the air. In his superior's letter of recommendation, it appears he tried to engage a UFO recently but due to the quality of his jet fighter, the UFO easily outdistanced his weapons. He will make for a very effective pilot.
The next pilot was Gary Bennett, also known as "Jinx". Jinx was a jet fighter savant, boasting a perfect record in all aspects of his training and service. He gained the nickname "Jinx" in flight training because of his lack of modesty. His fellow students would warn him that his attitude would jinx him in the future. Preferring to fight in the air and not on the ground, it was difficult to get him to agree to the soldier performance tests. He decided to go with them though so as to not leave an imperfection on his file.
The next pilot was Bob the "Swordsman" submitted himself to testing but his results had not yet come in. Bob earned his nickname for his obsession with swords and blades. His obsession has gotten him into repeated trouble with his superiors and with no where else to send him they offered him to us. Aside from delinquencies from the personal weapon rules, Bob was an extremely skilled pilot for the US navy and had a lot of experience with vertical takeoff jet fighters.
It came to my attention at this point that we had a problem with someone trying to report on the program on an independent blog. This person was Lucsly who was an ex-paratrooper and pilot for the United States. He was quickly shut down to prevent spreading important information on our abilities to the alien enemy. We had gone to great lengths to deprive the enemy of information on our equipment or personnel and Lucsly was doing his best to get that information out to the public. One of my X-Com operatives had discovered and disabled his blog and any mention of it from the internet, I heard it was no small task. Lucsly then turned to his old military superiors and started trying to uncover the X-Com program from within the military. The issue was dealt with and we decided to contact Lucsly and gave him the choice to join us in the fight. He agreed and passed the soldier testing. While relatively weak and skittish he was an amazing shot and had very fast reaction times. We decided to secure his loyalty by allowing him to pilot the Skyranger, giving Lucsly the chance to fly again.
Next were the new recruits.
At first I had thought Quibble had put an alias in under his name but apparently that was what he has always called himself. I had thought that Dash Gunmetal had taken the cake on weirdness but Quibble took the cake and cut the mustard with it. Quibble had been working on base as a scientist. While extremely intelligent and innovative, Quibble cannot speak any known languages and writes in nearly indecipherable code. Needing time and effort to understand his communication system, it would make little sense to thrust him upon the battlefield. However Quibble insists on joining the ground team as a combatant. It appears this is because of his enjoyment of explosions. Quibble is a bit obsessive with his explosives and because of the strict restrictions on explosions within the base, he wishes to make use of them against the enemy. His test scores show that he has overly average test scores. He appears to be highly resistant to low moral but it is not determined if that is because of a strong personality or a lack of attention.
Next was Sigvard. Sigvard was the kind of person who shot first and then shot someone else second, then let someone else ask questions. Always ready for a fight, Sigvard is a bit of a berserker. Armed with whatever is on hand and his own furious courage, I would not put it past him to be the first through a UFO's front door. His attitude and lack of patience cause him to have difficulty with placing thrown items accurately and despite his headstrong habit of rushing around, he reacts quite poorly to sudden changes.
Samuel Grover was one of those people who couldn't keep his hands still. Always doing something with them, he was more at home juggling objects than holding them still. Samuel was a world class grenadier and while his test results with a firearm were rather abysmal, he could place a thrown object anywhere he wanted with little difficulty.
The next recruit had some impressive test scores. Neil Stranek was an ex-French legionnaire and had an unshakable sense of duty. Neil always volunteered to do anything that would put him at risk so that his teammates would not have to. His bravery and reaction tests were inadequate to prepare you for his intense attitude when it came to the mission and the safety of his fellow teammates. He was an ideal candidate for the X-Com project.
Anne Maxwell was devastated by the attack on Los Angeles. She returned from a black ops mission to find her entire family had been caught in the attack and her home destroyed. With everything she had fought to protect gone, Anne was hit by a mental breakdown. Once she had steadied herself with the help of her teammates she vowed to hunt and kill any alien threat. She appealed to her superiors for any information on the alien attackers that was available but they did not have much for her, just the contact number for a local X-Com operative. Anne followed the lead with vigor and was soon taking the soldier tests. Anne is an impressive physical powerhouse who tested high on strength, speed, stamina and bravery. She is very accurate with both firearm and thrown weapons but lacks the quick reaction time we had hoped for, perhaps a lingering effect of her mental breakdown. Anne Maxwell wanted nothing more than to slaughter any alien foe in her path and we were eager to let her.
Added to the pile were a few reports from existing staff. Jack Bladestar was first. Jack had always been a slow on ponderous soldier and was much more suited to making a hard decision than being in the middle of a firefight. Jack, however, was an excellent marksman and his love of hiking gave him a large amount of stamina. I suspected that his low bravery score was the result of trying to win over the testers by amusing them. Jack was definitely blessed with a silver tongue.
Urist McGyver submitted himself to the testing as well. Despite his stout stature, Urist proved to be an excellent soldier. While he was no scout and could not be relied upon to move quickly, Urist was strong in all other tests. A bit of a weapons nut, Urist was quick and accurate with any weapon and strong enough to use any heavy weapon with ease. He expressed interest in testing new weapons in the field once the personal armor was rolled out.
Last was Steve's newest test results. It appeared that the cloning process was imperfect, Steve's results were starting to drop sharply in comparison to his original results. Though it was possible that it was merely that he was still getting used to his new body. I decided to get to the bottom of the issue with the scientists in charge of the cloning program.
I promptly ordered the engineers to construct all the laser weapons the new recruits would need. Urist and his crew were ecstatic and began their work immediately.
Looking over the inventory lists, I decided to stock up on our explosives as well.
Later in the day I received a message. The doctor who had been treating Ashley Smith and Cerapa was waiting for me in the meeting room. I quickly collected my thoughts and made sure I was presentable. Upon arriving I met up with an older, unshaven man wearing a lab coat and a scowl.
"Amazing the amount of red tape around here. Just what is going on around here?!" He demanded as I entered the room.
"The red tape is because we don't exist officially doctor..." I replied, asking for his name.
"Ross, Dr. Ross McFarlen. I thought it was odd that I had two patients with similar green burns. I was told that the patient's continued service was of the highest priority. Any other doctor would have amputated Ashley Smith's arm before she bled to death but I devised a miracle and kept it alive long enough for the wound to close. A month later another mysterious soldier wrapped up in red tape and secrecy comes in with the exact same wound and I'm expected to pull the same miracle out of my ass!" He seemed overly upset about the situation.
"Ashley Smith and Cerapa are serving in possibly the most important world event since World War two. Tell me doctor, what can you tell me about these?" I asked as I spread out several news reports in front of him.
Dr. Ross looked over the news clips and quickly replied. "The earthquake in Los Angeles and some other disasters in cities in other countries. So what? Disasters happen." He replied, annoyed that I was changing the subject.
"These are cover ups Dr. McFarlen. This base is tasked with the interception and detaining of alien forces. I'll let that sink in for a moment while you read this..." I handed him a detailed report on the plasma based weapons we had so far encountered.
"Aliens?! You expect me to believe in that bull shit?!" He ranted as he began to read the report.
"Yes, and you so far have been treating the effects of their weapons. I have an offer for you. We need a talented doctor like yourself because were most likely to continue receiving these kinds of wounds and injuries in the future." I explained calmly as I watched him become even more agitated.
"I don't believe this story. I think you're testing new weapons down here on live targets and watching the after effects." He interrupted as he crumpled the report in disgust.
"Here is an example of our first survivor of plasma based weapons." I hand him another report, this time a medical report of Tamunshin's recovery. "This woman was at first the victim of a new kind of warfare that attacked the mind directly. She was mentally violated and forced to fire on her teammates. Once she recovered she was eager to get back in the fight but was promptly hit squarely in the chest with the deadly plasma fire. Tamunshin suffered near fatal burns to the chest. The doctors we had access to at the time managed to put her back together but as you can see from the report she is left maimed and disfigured."
Dr. Ross listened as he flipped the page. He lost his attitude when he saw what was left of Tamunshin's chest after the burns healed over. She had lost much of her chest and was left with a massive patch of rubbery looking scar tissue. "How did she survive such horrible burns?" He asked in shocked amazement.
"I can only guess she survived because she was not ready to give up yet. The aliens had violated her and tried to intterupt her revenge. I think she held on because she wanted to at least take one of the freaks out with her." I replied. "Doctor, we want someone like you on site to help make sure that when this fight is over, our soldiers will not have a life of painful memories to live with. Tamunshin will never be able to stop people who see her scar from looking at her with pity. Help us stop that kind of thing from happening."
Dr. Ross looked between myself and the report in his hands repeatedly. "And... What if I still don't believe you and refuse?" He asked calmly.
"You cannot be allowed to return to your previous life before this conflict is over. It is imperative that the base location and it's staff remain as unknown as possible. Our enemy already has forced South Africa into submission. You'll be safest here in our base. If you absolutely refuse to co-operate with us, you and your family will be moved to where no one will be able to find you until this is all over. You don't speak Russian do you?" I crossed my arms and looked him square in the eyes.
"Fine, you leave me with little choice but to co-operate. I'll have a list of everything I need by tomorrow and it will not be cheap. I'll need Cerapa and Ashley Smith transferred here as soon as possible, Cerapa is in a very delicate state." He scowled as he made his demands.
"Good, you'll find that working here is quite rewarding. We are not so cruel and you'll just be a short trip away from your family and will be allowed to visit them regularly. I'll have my assistant forward to you the paperwork for your stay here." I tried to lessen the tense atmosphere by smiling. "You should visit the scientists in their lab, they will have all the "proof" you need that this is actually aliens we are dealing with and not just morally deprived weapons testing."
With that I left and had the doctor escorted to Auraluna's office to set his new practice in motion. I was quite glad that the funding nations included all medical expenses in their support.
The next few days were relatively quiet. Dr. Ross had gained an eager assistant in one of the scientists, a Dr. Fin Knick. On Thursday the 29th I had Auraluna order the Interceptors for the listening posts. This left the program with a healthy five million dollars for the end of the month.
I had also received a message from the research laboratories:
Zilvara and her team had finished designing and testing their personal armor! It looked amazing, it was a series of solid alloy plates held together in a stretchy fabric that worked like a lightweight Kevlar that also used the alien alloys. The armor was significantly more effective than the Kevlar jumpsuits that we were used to and were fire retardant to boot! A soldier wearing the suit could walk into a blaze with little fear of suffering any burns. The suit's were designed to fit a soldier very snugly to reduce any bulkiness and chafing while still offering plenty of room for equipment.
With the personal armor project complete, the scientists were free to finish their research on the psi amp needed to weaponize our understanding of psionic technology.
soon after reading the message from the scientists, a UFO was detected in eastern Canada.
The UFO was small enough that a small team would be enough to recover it. I had Hugh Mann and a small team accompany Mac on his Interceptor. Argatson, Steve, Sigvard and Samuel Grover would work together to hunt down and recover the UFO while the majority of the soldiers would be ready for any extra UFO's that decided to pop up while we were busy. With the end of the month meeting so close, we couldn't afford to let another large UFO have free reign.
Mac quickly caught up to the UFO over northern Mexico. However the UFO quickly outran his Interceptor before he could get within weapons range.
The UFO turned northwards with Mac in hot pursuit.
Mac caught up to the troublesome UFO over Michigan and re-engaged.
Like several times before, Mac expertly weaved around the UFO's weapons fire while riddling it with his explosive shells. While Mac was unable to avoid every plasma blast, the Interceptor deflected the bolts effectively. After a few minutes of sustained fire, the UFO succumbed to it's damaged systems and plummeted to the earth below.
Mac followed the UFO downwards into Manistee National Forest and prepared to land.
The command to land and begin the ground mission was given and Mac's Interceptor approached the ground quickly.
It was time to see what the new recruits could do.
TO BE CONTINUED!
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I hope this was worth the wait. I know it took me a long time but I finally got it out. We can make personal armor now! YAY! Lets hope that the month end report is a little nicer this time around.
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Topic: Anya's x-com LP - UPDATED! Augest 17th (Read 92919 times)