March 10th: Replacement soldiers have arrived, and enough armors have been manufactured for all 10 soldiers. A small sub was spotted in the Atlantic, and Barracuda-1 dispatched.
It's heading South, and it doesn't look like we'll be able to catch it on a single tank of gas. Sure enough, 'Cuda-1 catches up, but it escapes immediately, and my sub hits bingo fuel shortly thereafter. Barracuda-2 and the Triton are dispatched (so that I could land and attack during daylight if it's shot down), but the alien ship goes out of range and tracking is lost on it. All ships return to base for refueling. Alien sub 6 resurfaces soon, over North America. Barracuda-2 is on the case, and after a brief battle, shoots down the alien. It's a new model, one I haven't seen yet, this game.
The Triton lands around dusk, just in time to not be too dark to operate. It's a fairly mundane mission. Only aquatoids about, and the rookies make a good account of themselves. There's only one loss, a rookie who died to a sonic pulser. We captured 2 live aliens, but I don't know what their roles were; they must have been knocked unconscious in the crash.
And so ends the pre-recorded buffer! Finally! Next up, we get the whole custom squad out.March 14th: Small sub spotted, 'Cuda-1 out. The alien sub escapes, my sub runs out of fuel, and Barracuda-2 can't get there before it disappears. It comes back by our base on the 17th, the fool!, and I go after it again. A fierce battle ensues, but despite taking minor damage, Barracuda-1 prevails and shoots down the alien.
Before dawn even rolls around, another small alien sub pops up near my base. Barracuda-2 chases it to the southern coast of Africa, and dual torpedoes knock it down.
The Triton takes off for the first crash site once dawn... dawns.
On mission start, the tank goes out as usual, followed by Dekker and Sparda, and TrashMan on the next turn. It's another volcanic map.
During the aliens' turn, we spot one moving around behind a hill.
Dekker's nearby, but opposite of another hill. He primes a sonic pulser and hocks it over.
The grenade explodes quite well, and on the next turn the tank surveys the damage. Two bodies! And check out the chunk missing from the hill too.
As our soldiers swarm over the map, we spot the enemy sub. We know there's at least one alien hiding out in there. And Dekker spots another Aquatoid wandering around outside, sneaks up on it, and shoots it until it dies.
While my soldiers form up around the sub, Son of Dudeski puts explosive rounds through the gap in the hull.
If there's any aliens near that gap, they're going to be well pinned down. That's the theory anyway, I'm not sure the AI is smart enough to stay pinned down.
Anyway, we storm the sub, and Rakshasa spots him first, and she gets the kill.
At the daily briefing for X-COM soldiers, Lieutenant Dekker speaks.
"Now that the commander finished up that training sim codenamed "FO:NV", we can get back to work. Hold your cheers, we have a spot of bad news first:
Our sister program, HLPX-COM lost all hands on a disastrous mission just two days ago. HLPX-COM will be back on its feet shortly, and I've already received word of a successful first mission and some temporal hijinks. But this just underscores the importance of keeping our wits and finishing this fight! First if possible! OK, you can cheer now."
*cheers*
April 15th : We spot a small sub lurking, and shoot it down. This will be an excellent opportunity to test the sonic cannons in a real-world situation without too much stress. On touchdown, SpardaSon parks next to the front of the Triton. An aquatoid spots him, takes a long-range potshot, and splashes him full in the chest. Most of the blast is absorbed by his armor, but two internal injuries promise to put him in the ground if not tended to.
SpardaSon fires a quick shot back at the alien, but misses. He dives behind the nose of the sub, so that he can still see over, tosses the med-kit he's carrying on the ground next to him, and more carefully snaps another shot at the alien. It connects, and the aquatoid explodes in a cloud of green and reddish.
Polpolion steps out to help, and uses the med-kit to administer some coagulants and tissue regenerators. The healing boosts SpardaSon back up to full health! After a quick visit with a doc back at base, he should be clear for duty.
Vengeful Mongoose and z64555 exit the sub next. As rookies, they'll be the second line of attack, so hopefully they can get their kills, promotions, and sonic cannons. (And then I remembered that z64555 specifically asked for a rifle, so he'll keep that later, and the stun rod)
As Mongoose scouts out to the south, an Aquatoid spots him and lobs a grenade with its flabby, squishy little arms. The grenade falls short and hits a rocky section one level above Mongoose. When it explodes, it does nothing but mess up the scenery.
Mongoose then proceeds to get line-of-sight on the alien, and pumps 6 rounds from his gauss rifle in that general direction. None hit, and Mongoose doesn't have enough TUs to get to cover. Fortunately, Polpolion is close enough and lobs a grenade of his own over there. It lands wide, but more than close enough to blast it to flinders.
As we move forward toward the sub, another Aquatoid takes a shot at Polpolion, but hits a bit of sea flora instead. Our new seat filler-stunner, Artemis fires a trio of gauss pistol shots at it, but only one hits and it's not enough. z64555 is close by, and puts a rifle round cleanly through its ear-holes for his first hit and kill of the game.
Artemis breaches the door to the enemy sub, with three members of the squad providing cover.
She surprises an Aquatoid solder standing right there staring back at her. Before he can even raise his sonic rifle, she squeezes off a trio of quick shots. One digs into the alien's left shoulder, but it's not enough, and even as she holds the trigger, the alien shoots her down.
z64555 covering the breach from behind a rock, yells and sprays rounds into the sub. The Aquatoid, looking continually more surprised, is split into bitty pieces from the weapons fire. Bursting through the remains of its companion, another Aquatoid fires its own weapon, but the shot hits the rock that z64555 is taking cover behind, just as the doors slide closed.
Vengeful Mongoose continues to scout vengefully to the south, and sees one more enemy. This time, he cannot fail. He crouches, lines up the shot, and shoots the alien through the chest.
Vengeance!, he cackles maniacally.
The last alien is shot dead inside the sub when Alex Heartnet flanked through the busted hole in the front of the sub, and SpardaSon charged through the door.
April 24th: Transmission resolver construction complete, which will help greatly in spotting subs, and also in planning a method of attack. Also, finished that day, research on Ion-Beam Accelerators.
That's on the right track for the endgame, and some extra awesome tech down the line. Meanwhile, construction at Eight Samurai continues, and we stock up eight more (generic) aquanauts and transfer in some equipment from Blue Canary. Sub pens are going to take another half-month, at least, and then we'll be able to launch missions.
April 25th : Now THIS is interesting. Floating Base Attack mission, you say? Bring it.
Well, they didn't go for the attack. I guess they're still scouting for me. Losers.
April 29th : Another sub like #18, is spotted in the Atlantic, and we shoot it down. As the Triton is on its way, Eight Samurai gets its first hit on the transmission resolver. I find this ones mission also interesting.
I dispatch Barracuda 2 to follow it to ground, but it's too far out of range.
April 30th : Touchdown just after midnight at the site of the crash of the cruiser-size sub. Everything went smoothly, and all hands distinguished themselves by ample application of badassery. Mongoose extracted more vengeance by means of a sonic grenade. Lilith was shot and wounded, but survived.
Promotions!
And more research complete!
