The good news: most of the month passed quietly.
The bad news: our first deployment is on land. The aliens have attacked the dock districts of Toyko. Triton-1 just went feet-dry over Sendai and is less than twenty minutes from the target area. We will land in daylight, which is a minor consolation.
Welcome to Japan. Remember that any tentacle monsters sighted here are actually
not normal. Also note the Triton doesn't have landing gear in a traditional sense; we're disembarking directly onto the ground via an actual door, which closes when not in use. Back in the First Alien War we always sweated with possibility of alien throwing a grenade or firing a Blaster Bomb into the back of the Skyranger. Fortunately this is no longer possible.
Here's another improvement: we've actually taught people to open doors without going through them!
"Contact! Single hostile in the open with a pistol. Looks like some sort of...reptile man." Sandwhich steps up with his Gas Cannon and says he's got this. Then he goes down dead after missing his first shot. Polpolion brings the alien down with an HE round from his own Gas Cannon. We've barely stepped off the damn Triton for the first time and we're already losing people. (Seriously, Sandwhich died right outside the door.)
Two more aliens, on the other side of the Triton.
SpardaSon does something no HLPX-COM operative has ever been required to do in live combat before: he throws a grenade. It's actually a very good throw, too. He dropped it right between the alien's legs.
Good kill!
SpardaSon and StarSlayer, moving to flank the first alien, come under fire from the Southeast. No source is visible. Popolion's Gas Cannon rounds do not prove sufficient to mousehole buildings for a thorough check. Polpolion advances and spots the alien, but his round misses and blasts the building it's standing next to shreds instead.
Everything you ever heard about the ****tiness of the HLPX-COM Rifle was true. Everything you ever heard about the ****tiness of the Jet Harpoon was
far too ****ing kind. Scourge of Ages and Talon 1024 fired twelve rounds at this alien for two hits. It's still standing. BlueFlames finally drops it with one last hit, but it's simply clutching at the wreck of its gun arm rather than actually dead!
One more contact to the south. The second north alien takes a potshot at Polpolion but misses by a couple meters. StarSlayer then walks up behind it and demonstrates to it Earth legend about aliens by shoving his Thermal Taser up its ass.
The southern alien takes a carefully aimed round from Polpolion's Gas Cannon between the eyes. An HE round. The Biology division isn't going to be very pleased with the mess you made of him, man.
The greyish alien demonstrates none of the resilence of his comrades. Talon 1024 took him down with a single Jet Harpoon round after StarSlayer determined another surprise tasering wasn't feasible.
Another alien tries to shoot BlueFlames as he sweeps around a building. The alien misses by a couple of meters. BlueFlames one second later comes all the way around the corner and, demonstrating remarkable accuracy, drops the alien with the first fully successful auto burst ever fired by an HLPX-COM operative. And he did it with a Jet Harpoon. (Though, to be fair, Goober would have fired this back in the other game if the first Sectoid he shot inside the Medium Scout from Mission 1 had been resilient enough, or his gun had been ****ty enough; the same can probably be said of some Heavy Plamsa auto bursts.)
SpardaSon is fired upon by another pistol-packer in the alien turn and returns a round successfully after it misses. But the Jet Harpoon's ****tiness denies him a kill. Scourge of Ages reports another greyish brown alien on top of a port crane.
Polpolion takes careful aim, and for the first time misses. Talon 1024 takes over, with a single perfectly aimed shot to the left eye. Impossibly, the alien remains on its feet.
SpardaSon locates his previous tormentor and places a second shot into their chest, but again the alien stays on its feet. It takes another four rounds, and one good hit, from Scourge of Ages to bring it down.
The alien on the tower hasn't engaged anyone yet. It apparently doesn't have a gun, so in the new StarSlayer Tradition, it's proposed to try and sneak up and taser the bastard. Talon rejects this plan and instead puts a second Jet Harpoon bolt into the alien's right eye, which does finally kill it.
Polpolion spots another below the crane and fires another shot, which also misses but sprays it with shrapnel from hitting one of the supports. He yells for help and ducks. SpardaSon, well over forty squares away, turns and fires from the hip.
He hits. I wish the Jet Harpoon would decide if I'm supposed to be damning or praising it.
One more along the dockfront. Polpolion trades several shots and tosses a grenade, but the grenade is short and the shots miss high. MP-Ryan and BlueFlames burst into the second level of a bypassed building and confront an apparently unarmed alien and a second grey-brown one. Two hits from the Thermal Tazer are required to stun the first, and then both grab cover while the grey-brown isn't looking at them.
Across the way, Polpolion goes down with an alien weapon round in the gut from his opponent of the last few turns. CommanderDJ and BloodEagle both put six rounds downrange to try and kill the alien, but only BloodEagle strikes home; the single round was exceptionally well-aimed, as it suffices where other times the Jet Harpoon has required three shots.
BlueFlames manages to sneak up behind the grey-brown one while it checks on its compatriot and Thermal Tazes it in the ass. A final alien, one of the grey-brown ones, ducks out to check on the alien BloodEagle just killed, then charges back behind a large group of crates. CommanderDJ, unwilling to risk more HLPX-COM lives pursuing it, elects to sacrifice the dead alien's corpse and tosses a grenade. He gets his kill.
Mission Complete.
All four stunned aliens are apparently different; a squad leader, a techie, soldier, and a terrorist. It's not a bad haul for a first mission.