Base Assault
I'll admit, I'm pretty terrified. We're all strapped in to the Skyranger, about an hour out from landing, and no one has said a word for the last 30 minutes. We're normally quiet on ingress flights anyway, but today you could cut the apprehension with a knife.
Theoretically, today wasn't supposed to be much different than clearing buildings in any urban combat environment. There were even three XCOM teams assigned to the mission. The US and Eurozone team would assault the base, with the Chinese team keeping watch around the perimeter to make sure no nasty surprises sneak up on us. Our job is to assault the secondary lift the scout teams found in the jungle. The Eurozone team would ingress from the main Hangar. They even had a general layout of the base for us. Overall, it's rectangular in shape, the length being roughly aligned East to West. The Hangar is on the Eastern edge, the secondary lift on the Western one. Down the length of the base is what appears to be a long corridor, with rooms lining the main, axial corridor to the North and South. They suspect there is more than one level, at least two, up to four. The survey satellites couldn't give us much more than that. Hey, way better than going in blind, right? The plan of attack was briefed to us yesterday. Basic idea is a classic pincer attack, minimizing the aliens' ability to hide from us, while maximizing our firepower against them. We'll clear out the first level, outside to in. Then, muster back up at our respective lifts, rinse and repeat for however many levels lie below. The US and Eurozone teams would be doing the clearing, while the Chinese team would send half their team to cover the lifts as we descended down, make sure no nasty surprises sneak up behind us.
Simple plan, right? Well, like they say, War is simple, but very very hard. Murphy always shows up, and it's almost never in your favor. Why is that? Why can't the enemy ever have Murphy come by and mess all their plans up so we can just waltz through a mission? Lame and unfair, if you ask me. Anyway, looks like my ruminating has brought me pretty close to the LZ, and Lt. White has begun his pre-drop primer.
"Alright, we've been working this problem for three weeks. We're as ready as we'll be. Son and I'll be in comms with the Chinese and Eurozone team leads today, so everyone will be on the same net as a single US squad. No comms from me for three minutes means either me or my radio is out of commission. Son will take over comms and coordination at that point. OK, Comm check!"
One by one we check in on our squad net.
"Everyone is 5x5. This is an assault, and the Aliens almost certainly know we're coming. Everyone, we need to take all we can intact from this base. Explosives in passages and against heavies only. That being said, if a little Alien tech 'accidentally' gets shredded to save some of the squad, I'll take the heat."
The PA clicks as Broski announces "Interceptors report perimeter and skies are clear. We're inbound for vertical landing. 10 mikes to touchdown."
"OK team! Strap in, today's a big day!"
The last few hundred meters are a little bumpy; Broski has to maneuver the Skyranger through a tight space in the trees to get us down. Once the Skyranger settles, we file out 2x2 in to the jungle. Mike is taking Stan with him as a scout team. Don had been his partner, and he was the more experienced agent between him and Sumie. The Chinese team was already in position near the lift, and wave us over as we approach. We wait as Lt. White and Son chat with the Chinese leads. Everyone is on edge, no one on either team feels like meeting and greeting as the Chinese show us where the lift is and how to operate it. It's pretty simple really, a few steps down some familiar Grey alien metal to a door like the ones on their UFOs, then in to the lift. There is room for about four Agents, with a little space for cover on either side of the internal door. There are 4 buttons aligned vertically, which would seem to correlate to levels of the base. Did I mention there's no actual floor in an alien lift? Just a weird red-tinged force field that eases you up and down. It's the creepiest feeling ever, you can see all the way up and down the lift shaft. Lt. White and the Chinese lead shake hands and pat armored gloves to armored backs.
One of the reasons we waited a few weeks to assault the base was for the fabrication teams to build up enough armor for every agent to have their own set for this assault. The only markings on each suit are subdued. The XCOM emblem on the left breastplate, the Agent's name on the right, and the Agent's home base flag on the left shoulder.
Lt. White's squad is going to ingress first, leaving Son's squad, including me, to wait on the surface until they can clear out and find cover on the first level. The Eurozone team reports ready, and Lt. White does the same. There is a three count, and both teams send their first squads down the lifts. This is horrible, waiting to hear shots and hoping the aliens die instead of my friends. Lt. White reports arriving on the first level, and the ugly, familiar sound of shots from those damn plasma rifles starts up right away. I hear two satisfying whumps of human grenades, the hiss of a smoke grenade, and the still unpleasant sound of an alien grenade detonation. Luckily, that one was thrown my Mike. Jesse's time fiddling with those things had finally paid off. I don't hear any alien screams. Either they're muffled by the lift, or the aliens were just blown into tiny little bits. I'm hoping for the latter.
"Alpha, break to right passageway!" Lt. White snaps over the squad net. "1 and 2, continue down and check that corner!" I imagine Mike and Stan rushing down a hallway, Lindsay raining cover fire down the main corridor while Lt. White covered...
"Down!" he commands. Two pops from his rifle must mean trouble had been lurking around a corner.
"Bravo team, ingress. Immediately break left upon arriving on level one, there's another corridor to take cover. It dead ends and is clear." Son rogers up and we head down to the first level. Sumie and I break left first under Lindsay's cover fire, throwing a couple grenades down the passage for good measure. As Son and Mikhail file in behind us, Lt. White reports the Euro team is seeing a similar layout to ours and meeting much heavier resistance. We need to get down the passage to put pressure on the aliens as soon as possible. Luckily, we haven't lost anyone yet.
"Alpha, continue moving down the southern passage, leapfrog 1, 3, 2, 4. Bravo, you mimic in the northern passage." Son rogers up. There is minimal cover in the base, just a few boxes and containers in the hallways. I guess lucky for us the aliens were still unpacking. It gives us a little to work with as we start to leapfrog down the corridor, looking for tasty alien backs to shoot at. The base isn't that long, maybe about 100 meters. As we start working our way down the corridor, dashing from cover to cover, I see several doors lining the main passageway. Reporting this to Lt. White, he orders us to stop advancing.
"Bravo 2, how many doors do you estimate are down the corridor?"
I do a quick count. "Looks like about three smaller rooms to a side with 2 larger ones near the end, I can see fire being exchanged near the larger rooms."
"Copy, we can't afford to have anything sneaking out behind us while we advance. We'll have to wait to get to the Eurozone team while we clear out the rooms. Bravo 4, set up and try to see if you can get any clean shots down the corridor."
"Da"
Stan reports in. "Sir, it doesn't look like there are any doors along the southern passageway."
"Copy Alpha 2, You and Alpha 1 maintain overwatch in the southern corridor. Alpha 3 will shift to assist Bravo in room clearing. I will maintain overwatch on uncovered doors. All copy?"
Everyone rogers up. "Execute Romeo 2."
Remember how slow and deliberate we cleared out the floaters on my first mission? Well Romeo 2 is nothing like that at all. It's more like kicking in the door. We slap open the door, throw in a flash-bang, then file in guns up and just try to shoot everything before it shoots us. It's risky, but we have to get to the Eurozone team, and don't have time for methodical clearing.
We line up, Sumie first, then me with the flash-bang Son and Lindsay behind me. Sumie slaps the door and I toss in the flash-bang After the boom we rush in to the room. It's pretty open, about 30x30 with a large pedestal console in the middle and indecipherable displays lining the walls. A single Snakeman is wildly shooting around, assuming quite correctly that humans are coming in to kill it. Sumie makes quick work of the stunned technician and we rapidly clear the remainder of the room, finding no further targets.
The room across the hall is similarly set up, but with no one in it. My best guess is the aliens figured the strongest group would come in from the Hangar. They are right, by the way. Europe has several XCOM funders, and they don't mess around with trying to keep them all happy. Their Agent contingent is three times the size of ours, with two Skyrangers.
The next set of doors down the corridor are splattered with green and gray alien bits. My favorite. The rooms to the north have several individual stations with some knobs and probes. Curious, but no time to try and figure out what they are. The rooms to the south are clearly barracks, with bunks and weird wall mounted rack looking things that must be for the Floaters. While we're clearing rooms, we hear a couple shots from Mikhail's sniper rifle, and Stan dropped his first Floater as it tried to sneak between some cover down the southern passageway. Lt. White kept us posted on the Euro team. So far they had two Agents down, and fire was lightening as they cleared out their first two rooms. As
we come up to the largest rooms, Lt. White reports the Euro Team is out of immediate danger. I can see them forming up on the other side of the two larger rooms I saw earlier. Light from the huge hangar bay is filtering down the passage, back lighting the Eurozone Agents. The dramatic lighting makes them look like larger than life heroes in their armor. I hope I look like that in dramatic lighting. I bet slow-mo would be a nice touch also.
I start to feel a strange tingling in the base of my skull. Must be my helmet. I've been sweating up a storm, and sometimes the straps get saturated and start to slide around. I give my head a quick shake and the feeling passes. Then, I see Sumie do the same thing, then Son. Mikhail doesn't twitch, but Mike suddenly collapses. I start to get the feeling again. "Lt. White, did you... do you..." I start to try to talk, but words are getting hard to say. "Fall back!" Lt. White orders over the net. "There's a psych somewhere in here!" We fall back a bit, but the tingling is getting worse. Then suddenly it goes away as I try to stumble back to the previous intersection with my squad. No one is moving very tactically right now, we're all weaving all over the place, just trying to get someplace to try and clear our heads. Down the North-south passage I see Stan suddenly snap upright, like someone had violently pulled straight up on a string attached to his spine. His laser rifle comes up, and he swings it toward Lt. White's exposed back. "Sir!" Son called out on the net. "Down!"
Our Lt. didn't even make it to one knee. Stan opened fire on full auto and tore in to him. I think he survived the first 3 or 4 shots unscathed, but by the time the 8th rifle bolt tore through him, Lt. White was dead. With the sudden rush of adrenaline, time seemed to slow down. No one said a word, but in one tragic moment, Sumie, Son, Lindsay and I were four XCOM agents firing on one of our own. Stan was probably dead before he even collapsed to the floor. In combat, every moment counts, but that didn't stop all of us from wasting several of them in shocked silence as we tried to digest what had happened. Mikhail hadn't directly seen it and he brought us out of our shock.
"Son, report."
Son visibly shook his head, and I heard him come over the net. "Lt White, Mike, and Stan are down. We are under Psionic attack."
Mikhail remained cool as always. "This is bad, but we must continue. Suggest we consolidate to one squad."
Son shakes his head, quickly recovering. "Concur. We'll advance on the room to the south. I have a feeling that's where the attacks were coming from. Eurozone reports there is no access on their side, and are trying to patch up their wounded. They'll be available in 5 mikes. It seems like the attacks have stopped for the moment, is anyone feeling the influence of another attack?" We all respond in the negative. "Very well, we must make our move now. Sumie and Ian, get in to position." We take places on either side of the door down the side passage that leads into the large room. Son and Mikhail line up behind Sumie, Lindsay behind me. Sumie slaps the door and I toss in my flash-bang Sumie takes a quick look around the corner, then dashes in to the room, with me right behind her.
As I slide behind what looks like a control console, I try to do a quick scan of the room. Sumie is already making her report. "Son, three X-rays far end of the room. Two Mutons, something in a huge red robe. Clear for fire! Engage!" I barely have time to observe anything as I bump firmly in to the console, prudently staying down as Son and Lindsay come in, Laser Cannons blasting away. Just as I was about to try and pop up to get visual on the robed figure Sumie talked about, The whole room fades away.
Images start flashing before my eyes. Son killing my Mom, Sumie strangling my Dad, a mist of blood as Mikhail shoots my Auntie Sharon through the head. I get so ANGRY!. Then, suddenly, fear. A large alien ship, one I'm not familiar with, floats in space, a rocky, red planet receding behind it. Then, I can see another, blue, planet rapidly approaching. Just as I recognize the tiny blue planet as Earth, everything is dark again.
When I open my eyes, Son is bent over my chest, looking at the readout on his Medikit. My helmet is on the floor next to me. I've never had someone running amok with a jackhammer in my brain before, but now I think I know what it feels like.
Not daring to move a muscle, I ask Son what happened.
"Oh shit, you're up! Thank God! Right as we started to blast those Mutons, the robed thing looked right at you. You kind of flailed around for a bit, then fell over backward, hard. We got the bastards though. The return fire was sloppy. The robed guy must have been wearing some kind of armor. Took quite a few hits to take it down."
"What about the rest of the base?"
"After how bad our squad was hit, They decided to send the Chinese guys in. They're just finishing up the 4th level."
"Fuck."
"Right? The worst of it was this level for sure. They didn't run in to any of the robed aliens after this room. Sumie thinks it's some kind of control center."
"Roger, where is she and Lindsay?"
"They're checking up on Mike. Looks like he's OK. Just shaken up."
"Fuck."
"Indeed."