It's good to be me, unless you're me getting killed.
May 5th : Research complete on the M.C. Lab. We'll start construction of the labs immediately, and start screening for aptitude.
And then for quite some time, nothing particularly exciting happens. Well except for this. Boo yah.
We also do some more cool researches:
We spot some rather alarming subs, but nothing comes of them. And we can't even attack them, since we still only have three total barracudas, and only human-designed torpedoes:
Construction of sub pens finishes at Eight Samurai, and it finally has a full complement of everything needed to make a good attack outpost. I transferred over the seat-filler soldiers to take command of the new squad.
May 22nd : Terror attack on Bangkok! Hey, it's something. Triton 2 is low on fuel from a scouting mission to the Antarctic, so Triton 1 is sent out. In the time since we researched the M.C. Lab, we also researched Mag. Ion Armor, and built enough to equip the majority of Squad 1 with them. So yeah. The aliens are in deep trouble.
Tank exits, turns toward the aft of the Triton, and
hello, what do we have here? 
Little UFO brain things? Cool, let's see if they die like the rest. The tank fires twice and hits, nothing. Polpolion exits the sub and fires, hits. Nothing. Next turn, Alex Heartnet does the same, and it collapses in a heap. And then explodes.
We don't know much about this new threat. Just that they're tough, about as tough as Lobstermen it seems. And they explode when killed. And really, really hate civilians. I heard so many death-screams that turn, it was kind of insulting. Oh yeah, they hate tanks too.
After that UFO thing, we killed two more, and a Lobsterman carrying a stun bomb launcher. Even after that, there's another lobster somewhere that looks unarmed, and one carrying a sonic cannon. One of them throws a grenade, and blows the back off of the Triton.
Right off.
On the plus side, our new armor is incredible. Trashman took two directs hits from the UFO things' weapon, SpardaSon took one, some of the other guys took a couple hits, and the firing line absorbed a stun bomb without going unconscious.
z64555 didn't come on this mission, so it's LieutenantDJ who's carrying the thermal tazer (stun rod) this mission. Since we saw that one unarmed Lobsterman, and shot it at least once, DJ charges it with the tazer and knocks it out. Navigator!
TrashMan, NGTM-1R, and Alex Heartnet move forward, boldly absorbing incoming fire, and returning it twice over. NGTM-1R makes contact with a Lobsterman, and shoots it once.
Alex is in range, but doesn't have a clear shot, so throws a grenade. The grenade explodes but doesn't do much, and on the next turn the Lobsterman shoots NGTM-1R right in a weak spot in his armor, and kills him.
TrashMan is already in the building, leaving Alex Heartnet to deal with it. Lobsters sound like cows when they die, heh.
While approaching that office/warehouse, LieutenantDJ came under fire from behind, and also from the right. He spots a lobster, but can't get close enough to stun, and hasn't seen the other shooter yet, so heads inside the shack. Gortef and Scotty move toward the building cautiously.
Dekker draws it's attention, and two pistol shots that simply glance off his armor, and then LieutenantDJ burst through the door and proceeds to lay the ice-cold beat-down on it. It's just a soldier though.
Scotty makes a mousehole in the wall to duck inside and try to avoid fire from above, and runs smack into a Lobsterman. Scotty excuses himself and ducks back outside.
Not sure quite how to proceed without getting somebody reaction-blasted, Dekker peeks around the corner of the fence he's taking cover behind, and shoots it in the back. It doesn't respond, so Dekker ducks back around the fence before it can.
Scotty pops in, snaps a shot off, misses, and pops back out. Through a window slit, jr2 can see it though, and shoots it down cleanly.
We know there's something behind that building, it shot a Gortef a few times. SpardaSon tried to flank around the corner to see what it was, and it shot him in the side, and again found a weak spot in the armor, killing him.
Ah, it's just a Lobsterman that's been causing all that trouble. As jr2 prepared a grenade to flush it out, it flushed itself out and shot him in the chest. His armor absorbed most of it, but he's still a little shaken and internally bleeding. But he now has a clear shot and full TUs. He fires twice but only hits once, and TrashMan saves him by getting the second hit. Now jr2 just needs some medical attention. Alex Heartnet is right there with a heal and a stim.
LieutenantDJ heads up the stairs to the third floor of the office building, where we knew a Lobsterman was hiding. When he got high enough on the steps to see it, he spotted a second one there too. He promptly turned about and headed back down the stairs to bide his TUs and wait for reinforcements.
Next turn, when reinforcements arrived, the four of them stormed the third level, each firing one shot (DJ hitting one with a tazer instead), and both Lobstermen went down.
Meanwhile, Scotty was on the ground outside the building, and one of the lobsters nonchalantly tossed a sonic pulser out the window at him. Scotty had time only to shield his face before it went off, but it was enough to save his life. His ears are bleeding, and he feels a minor sonic aneurism, but that's nothing that a good medi-kit can't fix. Alex Heartnet does the medic thing again.
As we storm the final stronghold, jr2 spots a lobster in the shed, and it fires at him but is ineffective. On closer approach, in order to get behind the cover of the wall, jr2 also spots a second Lobsterman through the open door. This is bad news, as he's out of TUs. The three sonic cannon-armed soldiers on the third floor of the office building try to snipe the second lobster from the windows. They score two hits, but this bugger is tougher than the others.
One of the aliens shoots jr2, but doesn't hurt him, then they throw two grenades. One misses jr2, one lands at Alex Heartnet's feet. When they explode, Alex dies.
We're proper angry now, and the massed fire from the office building, TrashMan, jr2, and Gortef finish off the mission.
These are the heaviest losses I've suffered in a long time, but in a way, still our most triumphant victory. We killed 13 aliens, and captured 5 alive. Each one was either a Lobsterman or an equally tough UFO Brain thing. We've now proven conclusively that one X-COM aquanaut is a match for roughly six of the enemies toughest soldiers. Let them chew on that.
Properly recognizing the contributions of those who survived, promotions all around! Dekker made Captian! And CommanderDJ finally made Commander!
