There was no rest in the hour prior to the meeting with the council. I had gathered my notes and was starting to read through them for one last time when someone started knocking at my door.
"Commander, could I get your help in the HWP department please? There's some crazy girl in a lab coat cutting apart my tank!" Mario yelled through the door.
"Give me a minute, I'll be right out." I replied, thankful that it wasn't a ufo detection to interrupt me this time.
I followed an angry Mario to the repair facilities that housed the HWP's when they were not in use. From outside I could hear the sounds of someone using a blow torch.
"You gotta stop her commander, There won't be a tank left soon, None of the repair techs are willing to get near her while she has that welding torch in her hands." Mario says in despair.
Just then the sound stops, a moment passes as I start to open the door, I'm greeted with the sight of a small woman in a white lab coat with long messy purple hair tied back into a pony tail. In her hand, held above her head, is a mallet which she quickly brings down against a chisel she had been holding against the turret of Mario's tank. A loud clang is followed by another as a chunk of the tank's armor falls loose onto the ground.
"What are you doing?!" I shout out to the small woman.
She turns her head, wearing purple lipstick to match her hair she stared at me through small, custom made welding goggles. "SCIENCE!" She replied as she lifted her goggles up off her eyes and jumped to the concrete floor where the piece of metal had landed. Scooping it up quickly she takes out a loupe and inspects her work.
"Stop what you're doing now, identify yourself and explain why you are damaging a very expensive piece of equipment." I said forcefully.
Without looking up She replied. "I'm head scientist Zilvara Dejewels and I'm recovering data on the alien weapons. And this, this is gold!" She holds up the chunk of metal she had cut off the tank.
"Well Zilvara, how about we let the hard working repair technicians put this machine back together so it'll be ready for it's next mission." I replied. "Meanwhile, why don't you show me what your talking about."
"Sure I can do that!" She replied both loudly and enthusiastically. She tosses the chunk of metal into a satchel she had nearby and slung it over her shoulder.
While we walked towards the base laboratory she tried to explain why she had been cutting up the HWP. "Mario's tank has been taking a lot of hits from the alien weapons but all we have been doing so far is patching it up and getting it ready for the next mission. I thought we should know what the effects of the alien weapons actually were and why they are so deadly." She pulls out a chunk of metal from her satchel and points to a burn mark on it. "see how the alien weapon causes a burn? How the metal seems to have melted in this spot? Well if you look at it under a microscope there's actually foreign metals imprinted into the armor. This one is palladium." She puts it back into her satchel and pulls out another one."This one has specs of nickle and the one you saw me take just a minute ago is imprinted with a spec of gold. What does it all mean commander?" She asked quizzically.
I stared at her blankly. "What does it mean? Your the scientist." I replied confusedly.
"I've found plutonium, thorium, carbon, mercury... Commander, I believe the alien weapons fire a mix of random periodic elements. I need more information though." She stated as she set each sample of the tank's armor on a table, 12 in total.
"Well... Let me know when you figure something out..." I left, confused. She was obviously very intelligent but also very eccentric. I checked my watch and cursed my idleness, the meeting was in 15 minutes. I nearly ran back to my quarters to gather my notes and head to the meeting room.
In the meeting room I met With the 16 representatives from the funding nations. I greeted each in turn and beckoned for everyone to take their seats. "First of all I thank you all for coming. Since my arrival one month ago we have detected 6 ufos and recovered 4 of them. If you look to your third page you'll see that we failed to recover 2 of the ufos because of limited air capability. We have Killed or captured a total of 26 aliens combatants. I feel this has been a good first month up until the Los Angeles fiasco."
"What exactly happened in that case commander Snow?" Asked the American representative.
"If you will turn your attention to page 16 of my report you'll see that a fully armed interceptor jet plane. These jets are the best of the best of human engineering. In this case the interceptor engaged the ufo, hit it with every bit of explosive power a human organization can muster short of a nuclear or hydrogen warhead. The ufo was damaged but we failed to deter it, it landed and released it's payload of soldiers, including two floating discs that we believe are their heavy weapons platforms." I stated, pausing for a moment. "We sent in a ground team to neutralize the threat while the ufo left earth's atmosphere. Our ground troops were successful and civilian casualties were relatively low."
"The streets of Los Angeles are in an uproar commander. Do you think that is a success on your part or the aliens?" The American representative grilled me.
"Our investigations show that the rioting is in response to the cover up system in place. My suggestion is to reveal the existence of X-Com but no specific information. Let the people now there are forces aligned against this threat. If we could employ a team of public relations specialists, we can minimize civilian casualties by educating them with evacuation and early spotting systems. X-Com ground troops could then be seen by the public as an effective response rather than a confusing conflict."
Quite discussion amongst the Council members started.
"X-Com is supposed to be a secret organization to combat a hidden enemy, now it's spreading into the streets?" Argued the American council member.
"Make no mistake council members. The aliens are stronger than us and they have made themselves known with this attack on Los Angeles. Unless this remains an isolated incident, this is the beginning of a world wide war. We need your continuing support if we have any hope of ending it." I argued back.
"Let us move on to your research exploits commander." Stated the Japanese representative. "I see here you have had great success in creating a new bench mark in field medical equipment."
"Yes, earlier this month we developed a multipurpose "med-kit" that incorporates a portable digital x-ray camera and a full set of sterilized surgical tools. The med-kit's tools are reusable without the risk of cross-contamination and includes a set of commonly used drugs. Lastly the med-kit is rugedized so that it and it's contents can survive sever drops and movements. It can even be safely thrown towards a group of soldiers who are in need of it." I continued to explain the uses of the med-kits and our success in distributing them to the open market for extra funds.
"Very good. We smile upon the advancement of useful technologies and these sound like they will be of great use if the conflict with the aliens should escalate. I see here though that you have also developed... "laser" weapons? Please explain." Asked the South African council member.
"Yes we have a working laser pistol prototype with additional copies in production as we speak. The technology is looking to be very promising. The technology requires no reloading in short term skirmishes, the power source is adequate to power it for eight hours of constant firing. The projectiles are streams of super focused light particles that can easily melt through an inch of solid steel. In relation to conventional weapons, laser weapons are incredibly efficient and power, requiring no kinetic or chemical force so there is no recoil to disrupt precision firing." I continued to explain the cost effectiveness of laser weapons and that our scientists are showing great potential with larger, stronger versions of the laser pistol.
"Earlier this month you came to us in need of emergency funds. you held an auction of alien artifacts to us. We have decided as a group to instead offer a bounty on such items. Simply contact us with the intended items for sale and we'll purchase them and divide them amongst ourselves." Explained the representative from the United Kingdom.
"That sounds very agreeable. Now about this month's funding. Would you please submit your report of promised contribution?" I asked confidently, feeling that the council was overall satisfied with my efforts. I received the paper and it was almost unanimously positive, only Brazil had not agreed to increase their contribution.
"Thank you for joining me council members. This meeting is adjourned. I hope to see each of you again next month with more good news." I smiled and stood up. The meeting had gone much better than I thought. It seemed that each council member was united with me against the threat against our world. There was no backstabbing politics to worry about, no bickering. Just serious discussion and support.
I returned to my personal quarters and checked my e-mail. Aura Luna had sent me a notification that the latest group of med-kits had been sold and the funds added to our account. I brought up the organization's account and was pleased to see that it was well above the 7 figure mark again.
It had been a very long day and I looked forward to my head meeting my pillow for the night. I readied myself for bed and was asleep before I could collect my thoughts.
TO BE CONTINUED!
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holy wall of text batman!
I know that it was mostly a recap but most of it still needed to be done, it would be weird if country representatives showed up and said "You earned x points points, you receive y extra dollars per month"
and did anyone else notice that France of all places is giving us the most funding? more than both the USA and Japan? whats up with that?
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Topic: Anya's x-com LP - UPDATED! Augest 17th (Read 90850 times)