AN: I wanna give a special shoutout to Kargan3033 for the reviews and interest in my story. One person enjoying the story is enough to make it worthwhile.
Sorry for the wait guys, also sorry that this chapter is yet another short segue. But we have to get to May. I know I'm glossing over the issue of the "increasing number alien colonies on Earth as XCOM struggles to get ion armor, MC, and displacer tanks" by having them "go dark." But even with those things, colony assaults suck dick. They are long, tedious, and lobsterman are running around with disruptor launchers.
Artifact sites are slightly less so. Speaking of which...
April
[1]
April wasn't generally what a lot of Americans think of when asked "What is your favorite month."
For a lot of people—even adults—that honor went to December. When you got past the snow (referred to by at least one man in Michigan as "that worthless white shit") you had Christmas. Spending time with the family, opening presents that hopefully had expensive tech shit, and getting absolutely plastered on eggnog and cheap wine.
And some mentally deranged people actually liked the snow too.
July was popular, and why wouldn't it be? The Fourth of July, celebrating the country's independence from those tea drinking fairies across the pond, and the eventual near-genocide of the first actual Americans. But hey, hot dogs, hamburgers, and fireworks. And plenty of piping hot weather, with that "worthless white shit" still five months away. Hopefully six.
For Able Seaman Jessica Throne, April was by far the best month. Not because of any holidays, or special birthdays, but because it was the month her mother had finally given up drinking for good.
"I'm proud of you mom." she wrote in the letter. "Words are inadequate, of course, but I'll give it my best shot. You've had a steady job for five years, and a damn good one (sorry for cussing). I never would've believed such a thing eight years ago. But that's not what's important. What's important is you have your life back now. You have me, and Tammy, and daddy back. And now we have you back, I love you."
Throne put the letter in the mailbox, wiping tears out of her eyes and grinning.
[2]
For XCOM, the rest of April was pretty decent as well.
On the fourteenth, a few small USOs were seen prowling around the Indian Ocean. Ripper and Cutter took care of those without much hassle. The gauss cannons were doing their job.
The second one was destroyed completely, saving Sea Metro and the Divers stationed there the trouble.
The first one crashed off the western coast of Australia. An Aquatoid with a sonic rifle was the lone survivor, and he didn't survive a gauss rifle bolt from Gary Bolt.
On the sixteenth, a survey craft went over Japan, and hovered around Free China, which responded immediately with not one, not two, but three squadrons of Su-40s (NATO nicknamed Flanker-H) armed with advanced laser cannons. They managed to shoot the bastard down, at a cost of two Flankers.
This was followed by a military engagement, with the Liberated People's Army raiding the USO with a full battalion of infantry and vehicles, every single one of them armed with laser weapons. The alien type was classified of course. The raid was successful, so Vargas and Rankin guessed that whatever was inside hadn't been the "lobstermen."
On the twentieth, Rita Mendoza's wounds were finally healed. Her prosthetic worked just fine, thanks for asking.
The first thing she did was challenge her SP buddy Zack to an arm wrestling competition in the mess hall, using that same arm. She lost. Zack McCool was left-handed and she was not. But it had been close.
"Maybe I need to get one of those." he said, grinning.
"Maybe you can stick this one up your ass."
That cracked them both up.
[3]
On the twenty-second, Rankin completed his research on the new armor. "Ion armor" it would be called. It would use the zrbite recovered in USOs as a power source as well as shield, with aqua plastics for the rest of it.
On the twenty-forth, a new alien colony was spotted in the north Pacific, off the coast of eastern Russia. It explained the sizable USO activity in that area, although no very-large USO had been detected.
The second colony was active for about thirty-six hours, and then went dark, just like the first one.
"A different faction of aliens." Rankin told Captain Vargas in his quarters. "It has to be. It's the only thing that makes sense."
Vargas shook his head. "We'll see when we get there." He hoped to God it wasn't that. One faction was a pain in the ass to begin with.
Again Superbus and the Divers of Sea Metro were sent in. It was a similar story to the first one. On the dark seabed surrounding the complex, dead aliens were strewn across. Many of them were clutching at their heads. Some of them had actually clawed at their heads, as though trying to extract brain parasites or something.
The alien types ran the gambit of those seen so far. Eight of those lizard-things, five aquatoids, two Hallucinoids, and two lobstermen, and two dinosaurs with the Honda Element-sized sonic cannons on their backs (Rankin called them "Triscenes" for some idiotic reason).
Inside, more of the same, but there were two survivors, but just barely. One of those dinosaur-Triscene-things had fallen face-first onto a cryogenics pod. Seaman Stan "The Man" Botham thought the thing was dead, until it groaned.
He screamed, retreated into the next room, and called for backup.
The only other living thing was a lizard. Rankin was a fan of HP Lovecraft, and wanted to call them "Deep Ones." Scientist Mahmoud called them "Tasoths" and that name stuck. For some idiotic reason.
[4]
On the twenty-sixth, the zrbite-tipped gauss rounds were tested against an entire block made out of the material of the old power suits from the First Alien War. The rounds went right through..
On the thirtieth, at midnight (it was now officially May) the captain got the monthly report: 1028, an excellent rating in spite of the badly fucked up colony assault. The two destroyed colonies helped the score. Vargas wondered what the funding nations would think if he told them none of it had to do with XCOM (although, on that subject, he would've been wrong).
The first artifact site was only two weeks away.
AN2: Almost three years in. That's neat. For all of those stick with this, thank you. Next up: part fucking four. Y'all know what it's called.