We have a second UFO. It was detected on the ground in, I think, Canada. As a supranational organization we really don't care much about exact borders. (By what was this detected? Is our radar on a sonde ballon or something? I guess somebody just called us and said "hey dude there's a UFO here, please kill it.)
Interceptor 2 and Nuke are launched to hold it down while the Skyranger closes. Unfortunately we haven't been able to replace the two troopers lost in the last mission yet, so it's Sergeant Goober5000, Awesometank Spoon, and seven rookies.
The deployment procedure goes normally, until Mongoose reports an alien standing in an open field on the opposite side of the Skyranger. He takes four shots, a three round burst and a snap, but none of them connect and the alien remains blissfully ignorant it's even been fired at. Goober, on the other side of the Skyranger ramp, shoots under it, and miraculously manages not to hit Mongoose or the Skyranger. Even more miraculously, he actually strikes the alien with one of his four rounds. Unfortunately the 6.7mm of the standard X-COM rifle isn't gutsy enough for a one-shot kill, as proved in the last mission. The techheads have promised us some kind of laser weapons soon, but they complain their best
coders scientists keep burning out and going on sabbaticals.
Enter Swantz, who blows the alien's brains out the side of its head with his second round of a three-round burst and doesn't need to take that fourth shot snap.
The heavy weapons debark next. Jeff Vader and The E, who've respectively been given an Autocannon and our Missile Launcher, set up to mousehole Mongoose and Swantz an entrance into a barn. Spoon clears the first floor of another barn, while the two Heavy Cannon with Axem and Mjn.maxel deploy to cover south, towards the UFO. The last two rifles, Goob and Polpolion, also move in that direction.
Jeff Vader reports movement, a single hostile in the barn.
So The E fires a missile into the back wall to provide a clear line of fire. Since he has a Heavy Missile loaded, he actually blows
the entire back wall of the barn off. Jeff Vader, unfazed by massive explosions after having played Inferno, immediately fires a burst of HE rounds into the barn to kill the strangely oblivious alien. None of the three rounds actually strike the alien, but the first one apparently sets him on fire with flaming shrapnel, while the second, bracketing the creature from the other side, kills him with more shrapnel. The third round is way off target, landing in the front corner furthest from the alien. I choose to believe it was intentionally missed to preserve the alien's corpse and equipment.
Mongoose and Swantz move up to use the miraculously still-intact stairs to check the second level, while everyone else advances along their assigned areas.
There's no further contact until Turn 6, when Jeff Vader and The E encounter another alien moving around their UFO. The E, having not moved yet, takes his time for an accurate shot.
It pays off, as he gets a second alien who was just out of view. Unfortunately he's now out of rocket ammo, since that crap is heavy and the training regimen hasn't taken full effect yet, so he switches to his pistol backup. Having seen how effective the rifle is, I suspect he doesn't have much faith in the pistol's effectiveness either.
As Turn 7 opens, it seems the alien we thought Swantz had killed apparently just got back up. Considering it literally took a rifle round in the side of the head, I have to admit I'm impressed with its resilience.
The E is assigned to make sure it doesn't do this again, but two pistol shots miss and prove him correct about the quality of his backup weapon, and ultimately Mongoose has to do it.
We're now reasonably sure that no aliens remain outside the UFO, but Mjn.Maxel and Axem mousehole themselves entrances into the (oddly empty of furniture) farmhouse and then load AP rounds for possible close combat while they check it. It's as empty of aliens as it is of furniture. Goob and Polpolion head around the UFO for the entrance. This one's a lot bigger than the first one we fought.
The second alien that was assumed dead from The E's missile gets up and flees into the UFO several turns after it was assumed. No one fires, it left its equipment on the ground, and as we are not yet ready to assault the UFO, no one pursues. It pops up again in the first stage of the assault (surprisingly, nobody dies going in), where Polpolion fires at it, narrowly missing The E.
It ducks out several more times, but suitably chastised by The E's swearing at them, nobody fires at it again. Mongoose, first through the next door, in fact ignores it entirely to check the main control area. The E follows him through and shoots the alien with his pistol. Presumably it will now stay down. Swantz moves through the opposite door, and confronts an alien with a pistol.
The first two shots miss, but the third takes it in the neck and tears out several things the alien needs. It goes down, trying to cry out in pain, but then realizes it doesn't have an airway or vocal cords anymore so it can only gurgle.
MISSION COMPLETE! Didn't lose anyone this time, either.
