Alright, time to go kill some aliens! Everybody on board: Zed, Shepard, Alexi, Mary, Daniel...wait, where's Daniel? A quick look at the roster shows that he's injured and out of action for a while. Apparently some glass from that exploding car (which so tragically flunked us out of our last mission) caught Daniel in the arm. Being the quiet, shy sort of trooper he is, he didn't say anything but decided to deal with it himself. Turns out the scratches got infected and Daniel has a half-a-degree fever. Since the fate of humanity is in our hands, any sort of fever is a non-starter for going on a mission, so Daniel's sitting this one out. Time to call up the man on the roster...or, er, woman on the roster, as the case may be.
Sophie Brown
Sophie is from rural England and has been defending the cows on her family's farm from alien abduction since she was old enough to milk them. She joined the army at 18 hoping to see a little more of the world and by 20 had been flagged as a tactical prodigy with an amazing gift for predicting enemy movements on the battlefield. Unfortunately that meant that the parts of the world she saw most were inside military think-tanks and briefing rooms writing and reviewing strategy manuals.
XCOM plucked her from the shadows (or florescent lighting, as it were), offering her a chance to get back in action in exchange for her help unraveling the mind of an enemy unlike any other. Sophie is smart, thinks fast on her feet, and possesses a wealth of knowledge about all things military and strategic. She's a bit of a light-weight when it comes to pop-culture, however; her whole life has been on a farm and in think-tanks. Shepard's joke about trying to infect the aliens with "Bieber fever" went right over her head.
Operation Glass Calm, (Abduction) Mendoza, Argentina
So Sophie is in for Daniel. We'll give her the med-kit for this mission. Zed still his had grenades. We're taking the Arc-Thrower along this time, hoping to catch us an alien for interrogation; it'd be nice to know a little more about what these guys are up to. The problem with the Arc-Thrower is that you have to be really, really close to the alien to use it and it doesn't always work. That means there's a chance you could find yourself staring straight into the muzzle of plasma rifle held by a very conscious ET who is more than a little perturbed that you just tried (unsuccessfully) to taze him. The job has a suicidal, take-one-for-the-team quality to it that is right up Shephard's ally, but Zed says "no," he wants his assault trooper loaded down with extra body-armor, not stun-guns. If someone else tries a stun and it doesn't work, Shepard might be able to get to them in time to blast the alien, but if the point man himself is left holding the bag he'll be on his own.
Mary's the next to volunteer; she still want to prove her worth, especially since her first mission was a failure and she'll be the only Ryan going this time around. Zed doesn't like this idea either, but he's running out of choices. Sophie's playing medic; as a sniper Alexi will be too far away to use the Arc Thrower; and, loaded down with a rocket-launcher and grenades (which he isn't about to give up), Zed isn't agile enough to do the job. Looks like Mary will get her wish.
Here's the team for Operation Glass Calm:
We're headed to Argentina. We had several calls for help, but I can only go to one place at a time and Argentina offered to bolster XCOM's engineering staff and, at the moment, I really need some more engineers. One of the other calls came from Asia. Not responding means that panic there will increase, which is problematic since our failed mission in India means that they're pretty freaked out already. Hopefully they'll hold on a little longer; the engineers will help us get some satellites up so we can see the alien's coming. That should come everyone down a bit.
We touch down outside a convenience store. A freaky alien pod is sitting outside. Civilians seem to have already evacuated the area or been rendered unconscious by the aliens. We should be able to revive them once the ET's are dealt with. Shepard checks the store and spots 2 sectoids inside investigating the candy bars; maybe they're intrigued by all the chocolate that says its from "Mars." Sectoids are the smallest and weakest of the aliens; they're genetically designed cannon fodder, pumped out of cloning facilities en masse (we know this because we autopsied one earlier). Since these guys aren't too touch and they're cornered, Zed decides to let Brown and Ryan (the rookies) take them down for the experience. If they can wound one of them we might be able to go in and capture him.
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| They have everything at these places: sodas, candy, coffee, aliens... |
Shepard positions himself by the door; if they rush out he'll blast
them. Alexi takes a position behind the alien pod to keep an eye on all
approaches, lest something unpleasant come along while we're in the
7-11. Mary and Sophie take position and open fire...and miss...and miss
again...and keep missing. This is not encouraging. If it weren't for the
fact that the aliens are also demonstrating remarkably poor
marksmanship we would have a problem. Finally, one of the sectoids fires
out a blast of plasma and incinerates a chunk of concrete about 2
inches from Mary's head; her pony-tail catches on fire. She puts it out
and is fine, but that's enough waiting for Zed; he opens with his heavy
Gatling gun and he doesn't miss. Two dead sectoids. Clean up on aisle 5!
Mary isn't at all happy about this show of over-protective paternalism, but the middle of an alien abduction isn't the time to discuss it. Two more sectoids are in an alley around the corner. One disappears through a doorway into what looks like a library. The other scampers up a drainpipe to the roof and prepares to rain down plasma on my squad. This is why we have snipers! Alexi scopes in on the sectoid on the roof but before he can pull the trigger and blow the little guy's head off, Sophie, to the shock and wonderment of everyone, blasts him off the roof with a precisely aimed burst from her rifle. Apparently, while she isn't comfortable yet with the idea of spraying bullets around a convenience store, she did get a lot of practice shooting pigeons off the barn roof when she was growing up. Seeing that little grey alien up there brought it all back.
That leaves one left in the library. It's alone, it's cornered, and by God Mary Ryan plans to take this one alive or die trying (which is a distinct possibility). Zed doesn't like but realizes this the best shot they're going to get and there's no point in letting Mary carry the Arc Thrower if he isn't going to let her use it. Also, he's pretty sure she's going to try it no matter what and there's no point in losing a good soldier to the brig for disobeying orders if you don't have to. Shepard kicks in the door and spots the sectoid hiding behind the paranormal-teen-romance section; it's big enough to provide a lot of cover. The next few moments go like clockwork. Zed's heavy automatic rifle lays down a steady stream of suppression fire, keeping the sectoid's head down. With the alien cowering and unaware, Mary charges in the room, Arc Thrower at the ready, Shepard is two steps behind her with his shotgun; if the high-tech taser doesn't work on the first try he'll have one shot at the alien before it reduces Ryan to cinders. Seconds later the sectoid is passively twitching on the ground as electrical currents shot-circuit its nervous system. We have our first live captive and Mary has her self-confidence back.
She also gets a promotion to "squaddie" and a specialization. She's a sniper now, our second, and will stay in the back row, though I suspect she'll be more inclined to get into the thick of things than the brooding Alexi is. With all the indoor fighting in this mission, and Sophie picking off the one sectoid on the roof, he didn't even fire a shot. Sophie get's promoted as well and, thankfully, specializes in support. She'll carry a med-kit from now on and a smoke grenade too. Nice work team.
Back at the base our sectoid goes into the Alien Containment Facility to await its "interview". Zed and Mary get a chance to hash things out. Her nabbing the sectoid impressed him and he's willing to admit that he doesn't need to look out for her...well, not any more than he looks out for the rest of his team. In exchange for that respect, she agrees that he's in charge and promises not to do anything stupid to try and prove herself. Over the next few days that spend a lot of time together, mostly working out in the gym, discussing tactics and past experiences. Zed has finally found someone willing to listen to his old war stories.
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