X-COM Season 4 Role-Play Journals

[inhumanehuman]

"Video Essay #1 - Christopher Cole - 0517895123"

Hey... hello? Is this damn thing recor- oh there we go...damn new-fangled e-crap...I never was good with the pen (or in this case, some strange speaky-box-thing that took me 30 minutes to turn on), but that kook Odd told me I have to fiddle with this thing once a week for ..."visibility"...(I dunno what "like comment, subscribe" means but he was pretty adamant about it)..., and he seems like he knows what he's doin' (or at least he might shoot me if I don't), so here goes nothin':

My name is Chris Cole
My title is the XCOM Slicer Dicer/Professional Cookmeister/Alien Ration Poisoner Extraordinaire/That Guy Responsible For The Awesome Meatloaf on Tuesday; You're Welcome
Today's date is March 1st

Hell of a week here at the XCOM facility. Hell of a week. You know I never formally got a letter of acceptance or anything. Two big bastards in armor larger than Missouri showed up at my home, loaded me into a jet, and hauled me off to this secret base in, well, I'm not supposed to say where we are. Maybe we don't want the Russians to know...meh

After dropping my things off in our new lovely abode, I got the kitchen up and running, whipped up a damn fine meatloaf for the boys and girls of the unit, and made myself comfortable in the barracks. First thoughts: These. Toilets. Are. Awesome. You wouldn't think a place this tight would have nice amenities, but this bathroom is like staying at a Motel 6 or somethin'. It's the little things that help you through the tough times. They are certainly keeping my wits together while I get established, and make peace with the fact that I might actually have to go out there and shoot at these martians.

Anyway, the aliens: They are from Mars, right? They haven't really told me anything yet to be honest. I figure when they need one of those green things either blown to smitherines, or cleaned, filet'd, and chargrilled they'll let me know. Doesn't really matter to me. I'm just looking forward to getting out there and filling some little green men full of large grey lead.

Unfortunately, I never really got the chance to meet any of the fine soldiers (or anyone else for that matter), but I did find my way to the staff watering hold, and put a small dent in the small batch bourbon. Funny how the jukebox skips over and over when the classic R.E.M. song "End of the World As We Know It" plays. Someone should probably fix that. Seems like it could make some of the more skiddish soldiers nervous. Then again, that sounds kinda funny, scratch that last bit about repairing the juke machine.

Anywho, let me stop ramblin' on. Maybe next week I'll have figured out this recorder-thing I'm talkin' at, and I can give some real in-depth commentary on the in's and out's of this joint. Starcrest Out... heh heh, this stupid thing makes me feel famous....




...is thing thing still on?...

...howthehell... there, I think I go-

"end transmission"

 

[BMPixy]

Personal Log of Dr. Raymond Shen, Chief Engineer of the XCOM Project
Date: 2015-03-01
Time: 2257 Local Time

After ten months, the time has finally come. Funny, that the first day of the invasion would happen on the first of March. As I’ve mentioned previously, these past ten months have been a hectic mess of flying between XCOM facilities across the world, ensuring their preparedness for activation. The last two months were the worst, as the interceptor base in South America had at least three dozen infestations of various Amazonian insects, all of which required different pesticides to be eliminated. Then we had to quintuple check all the launch systems for defects, and surprise surprise, there was a glitch in the mainframe that would randomly activate the emergency lockdown on the launch bays. Imagine if that happened when an interceptor was being launched! The jet would be able to get out, but it would likely be in a flaming, slightly exploded wreck. And when that glitch got fixed, we had to check the other interceptor bases, in case they had the same problem, and fix it when it did. Why did it necessitate sending the contract out to the lowest bidder? It isn’t like the fate of mankind rests of these kinds of things working.

But, as I said before, everything is fine now, or at least as fine enough for being activated four months earlier than scheduled. For now, we have enough satellite up-link space to cover another country, in addition to Japan. Hopefully the Commander understand the need to get another satellite up-link going, but for now he’s having the sparse engineering team excavate another room on the east side of the facility.

Speaking of the engineering team, I finally met the few who were ready for activation in time for the first abduction. There are five of us at the moment, including me. Two of them were the contractors I worked with out at the interceptor base in Europe, so no need for introductions there, but there are two new dedicated engineering staff, Dr. Roger Straten and Abbygail Penhallow. I received both of their files a couple hours before they arrived, and they look like promising engineers. No, correction, are promising engineers. I already have in mind some positions the two can fill in due time, provided Dr. Vahlen and her small male harem in the labs can provide us the schematics, of which she has provided two: a design for what amounts to a ‘spray-and-pray’ med-kit, made to keep a soldier on their feet even when grievously wounded; and a simplified version of the current satellite present over Japan, so that even our drastically undersized engineering team can produce them given a few weeks.

Now, back to Straten and Penhallow. I only talked with the two for a small while, not enoguh to really get to know them, though their files, again, do help in learning of them. Note to self: See if you can find time to talk to the two outside of work, learn how they think. From Dr. Straten’s file, it seems like he’s one with the perfect combination of luck and skill. High praise, I know, but from one who went from nothing to the ISS, it is worthy. Penhallow, on the other hand, seems to have a lot of skill, but not much luck. Great work on the Dimetro, though shame about the glitches. Second note to self: Put in a request for the Commander to...encourage the Canadian military to send a copy of the schematics of her drone, perhaps we could find a way to solve the bug and re-purpose it for our own uses. Also, why am I complimenting people in a medium in which they won’t hear the compliments? Seems vaguely pointless.

And speaking of the Commander, I nearly forgot the most important event of the day, I even mentioned it in the first paragraph! The aliens made their first attempt at abducting live humans today, in Brisbane. The Commander sent four men to stop the xeno incursion, and managed to do so with no injuries or casualties. Seems impossible that a foe advanced enough to travel the stars was thwarted by a species that can barely put two probes into the Kuiper Belt, but I suppose they were caught off guard, having not expected such rapid response, or even any response.

The Commander does seem a bit eager to have his soldiers use explosives to deal with the aliens, and I must share sentiments with Dr. Vahlen that we take care to try and recover as many artifacts as possible. But, then again, a soldier living by fragging an alien can metaphorically pay for themselves by killing other aliens in a less explosive manner. And, of course, there is the fact that a human being comes out alive in that arrangement.

Unfortunately, I was not able to greet the returning soldiers, as one of the spot welders, specifically the one to attach solar panels to the satellites, was malfunctioning, the contractors were busy directing the excavation, and Straten and Penhallow were doing what I was wishing I could have done. I suppose I could have taken the time off, but such procrastination would not have set a good example for my subordinates. “Work to be done, do it. If not, make some,” as my father always said.

Before I end, third note to self: fix the jukebox in the bar. Heard it looping on the way to pick-up dinner about an hour ago.

-Shen

 

[Cpt. Lokken's Moustache]

Name: Tariq Hassan
Occupation: Soldier
Rank: Rookie

The first day on the base has been... unusual. I have not made much contact with my fellows, thus far. While I have a passing understanding of their names and specialties, I did not much involve myself in the socialization. Most of the greetings were aimed at the four who responded to the first alien attack. I opted to clean my weapon, instead. For three hours. The rest of the day was spent at the shooting range. I had thought before that my aim was excellent; the recruits of this program have shown me just how wrong I was.
It seems almost laughable, the thought that I've been drafted in a war to fight against a menace from beyond the stars. I'm fairly sure nobody has ever held me up as an ideal human example before. At very least, nobody seems to have recognized me yet- though it's certain that at least the commander and some of the base staff have to know.
I'll need to pick a bunkmate soon though. I'm not particularly looking forward to that. Having been out of active military service for more than a decade, it's proving difficult to adjust to barracks life again. Nevertheless, I'll do what is needed- as I always have.

 

[PrismaCube]

Soldier Name: Caroline Southway
Rank: Rookie
Class: None

Personal Journal Entery #2


Locked in the Past (Part 2)
Let me tell you some more things about me and my past, you dirty little stalker who is reading my personal journal, seriously shame on you. Anyway back when I was just a small lad, my parents being as rich as they are, decided to hire me a private teacher to teach me how to be a women, not just that but a Royal one too at that. As if having my first period wasnt bad enough now I got this stranger nagging me about everthing I do. "Sit right!" "Walk proper!" "Use gloves!" GLOVES! Royal white gloves. So your royal hands dont get royal dirt on them. Seriously I'm telling you being royal, is a pain in the arse. The only thing ace about it is having all that cash to blow. In time I got used to all them fine details. Yet something tells me if I ever become Queen of England there will be a whole 'nother level to this Royal behaviour learning. Sooo... Yay? I quess? Anyway I think I will tell you some more another time so Bob's your uncle. Cheers.


Oh Brother!
I went to visit Hokuchiyo Ritofuto in the medbay today. He told me all about his missions and such, he seems like an nice guy. He told me about how the battle turned out rather close, it seems like our comander really wants to have that orange stuff from those canisters we've been finiding. Bad descision to make apperently, Hokuchiyo and his team got into a real fuzz. Arsène Lemarque got shot and panicked, I hope he is alright, having that guy as an ally could be rather dangerous for me I need someone who has a lotta bottle but I shoudnt judge on thinks that I hear, on the other hand Hokuchiyo himself was out for revenge and tried to shot the law breaker... let's just say shots were fired, none connected, or so I was told. Still someone who is out for revenge seems like a great guy to be around and call friend. None the less the team did well clearing that area. Respect for Richard Kuklinski and Rebecca Robinson those two know how to handel a gun atleast that's what I have been hearding around base. Might try to get to know those two a little bit better. Also something I have been hearing about those martians is that they appear to be linking there brains or something like that, if the Martian who created the link dies, so does the other one. Got to keep that in mind when I'm out there fighting these... things. Anyway I hope the ground team will get well soon and I'm greatful for Hokuchiyo for telling me all about it.


Alexander our Ace Hero.
Alexander McCraig our Fighter in the sky just shoot down a UFO! Respect for that guy, must have been one hell of a flight, I mean this isnt just the average human jet. Man, takes the words right out of my mouth, now I want to meet him too. Maybe he can teach me a thing or too.


BOOM! with some Purple History.
Spend pretty much most of my time in the Shooting range, I' aint the only one there I see several fellow soldier's but I have no reason to talk to them just yet. Which reminds me I don't want to head there because I got a fatal wound on my head, so I got to ask the commander to give me a helmet with cover incase I ever get send out in the next couple of days. But that might have to wait anyway, the commander has a lot on his hand, and he also got a flu, so having a ginger like me floating about nagging about a helmet woudnt be the best way to get loved around here.

So we got some more Soldiers rolling in this week, I know exactly how they must be feeling right about now. But then again I'm still a rookie too with my ace purple armor. Really I have never heared of that before. Soldiers in purple. How will that be written in the history books? "...and the mighty X-Com team arrived to slay the aliens. With there Purple armor the aliens could do no more but run and hide for purple was there only weekness..." Ok sorry that was bad but still. Not that I'm complaining. Its a great way to say fuck you history I can wear what I want to safe the world.

 

[Brian]

Name:Jym Samty
Occupation: XCOM Scientist

March 10th, 2015
A few soldiers have just arrived back from the mission a few days ago. Obviously, something went wrong, they were all wounded. At least there were no causalities...Perhaps I could question one of them about how these aliens think. I should make a mental note of that. We finished researching the weapon fragments, and we manages to make an improved S.C.O.P.E for our troops.Hopefully that will give our solders an aim advantage. Anyway, Commander Odd assigned us to research alien materials. Not as good as researching this....Meld, but this will do. If only the weapons didn't explode into fragments when the user dies...then,we could research them...and give them to our soldiers, of course. For some reason I'm half tempted to ask Commander Odd if I could go on a mission for research possibilities, but the answer would be no. One of the last things we need is a scientist shortage.
Earlier today when I visited the lounge, I saw a group of people playing pool...it's amusing that even though aliens are invading, we still play games like that. -ALARM- Another mission alert? I hope this goes better then last time.....*yelling in backround* A UFO?
*Camera shows Jym running without realizing the camera is on*
*After being on for a period of time,the camera records cheers and claps*
I didn't realize I left this thing on...
-Recording End-

 

[PrinceZarek]

Personal Log 002
Name: Arsène Lamarque
Rank: Squaddie
Current Status: Wounded
Confirmed Kills: 5 Sectoids


Five years ago... Paris, France

I was walking along the Rue Saint-Denis, when I heard an commotion...

"You seriously thought I was going to pay, you whore?!"

A crashing sound from an upstairs window brought my eyes upward. A man had his hands around a woman's throat. She was able to get free and was fighting back, which was apparently only making him more upset.

I rushed upstairs and asked, "What seems to be the trouble here?"

"Back off, this has nothing to do with you. Just discussing business with my lady friend here."

I smirked, "Well, your business seems to involve you hurting her, I can't allow that."

The woman, who was bruised and had a bloody lip, said, "I'm fine... just leave."

"Yeah, you heard her, leave." the man sneered.

I took a aggressive stance, and said, "I don't think thats going to happen."

"Your funeral, my friend."

The man swung at me, wildly missing. He was strong, but he was also slow. I easily gained the advantage and pinned him down.

"Alright, alright... I'll leave. Just let go of me."

I bent down to his ear, "I'll let go, but first..."

I pulled back on his arm, breaking it.

"AHHH! Fu... you... bastard..."

The man got up and ran off. The woman, who had been standing in the corner the whole time, came up to me.

She twirled her blonde hair, "Thanks for that, I guess."

I replied "No problem, I was happy to help."

"Is there anything I can do for you? I can't offer you a discount or anything because I'm already running short thanks to that asshole."

I chuckled, "Uhh, no thank you. I'm just a Good Samaritan. I didn't help you for a reward of some sort."

She was somewhat confused, "A chivalrous man, a rare breed in this day and age. So what's your name, handsome?"

"Arsène Lamarque, and yours?"

"Véronique, Véronique de Launcet"




I awoke with sweat dripping all over me...

That dream again... Why here? Why now?

I washed my face and touched the locket around my neck, and I opened the clasp...

Véronique...

I didn't have time to think on it any further as the alarm rang once again. I got suited up and met up with Rebecca, Hoku, and Richard. The commander told us we had another incident, this time in Shanghai, China.

On the ride over, I pulled out my locket.

Why is this happening again? Here of all places... I really don't have time for this right now...

The Skyranger landed and we all spread out. The commander had appointed myself as squad leader, so I had to show everyone that I could be trusted in command. The operation's name "Cursed Mountain" was ironically quite appropriate. We made a push to one of the glowing canisters similar to the ones we saw in Brisbane. Rebecca took point and made contact with the enemy. She was able to injure one of them, but he was able to take a shot at me, and hit my right shoulder.

The pain was... unimaginable.

I've been shot, stabbed, burned, you name it, its happened to me. But the searing pain... was another thing altogether. It felt like my skin was just melting away and what was left of my armor was now fused with my scarred flesh.

I... panicked...

I fell to the ground... writhing in agony...

I scrambled in my pack for the med-kit that was given to me. All it did was stop the bleeding and ease the pain somewhat, but it was better than nothing, I suppose.

By the time I was back in the fight, Rebecca was charging headfirst into the enemy. I knew I could count on her bravado. She found herself surrounded though, and took a hit of her own. Hoku tried to back her up, but he also got hit as well. I tried to give her some support, but my aim wasn't the best due to my wounds. Hoku took care of him for me though, which made me proud. For all my failings in my first mission in charge, Hoku showed remarkable improvement from our first mission.

We moved up together, and I took point this time. Three aliens came running past, and I took the shot. Personally, I don't know how I made it. With my injured shoulder and a somewhat inaccurate rifle, the odds were against me.

Kuklinski fired off his rocket, and damn was it loud. More contacts came out from the woods, and I tossed a smoke grenade in case they decided to fire at us. Richard moved to get a better shot, but he also took a bad hit as well. I got shot once more, but thankfully, it only grazed my armor this time. Kuklinski and Rebecca mopped up the rest of the enemies, and we signaled Jenkins to take us home. The return this time wasn't so joyous as before. The recruits who greeted us with huge smiles when we came back last time stood frozen, mouths agape at us and our injuries. We were immediately taken to the med-bay to recover from our grievous wounds.

At least some women think scars are sexy...

The doctors kept running tests on our wounds, as we were the first ones injured by the aliens' weapons. I assume they were also interested in seeing how well their new med-kits worked when applied on the battlefield.

The following encounter is a collaboration between myself and Thenlar "Ryan Chen"

The door popped open and a leg was shoved through. The owner's voice drifted in. "No no, I swear, it'll be just a minute. Just giving them some things to keep busy while they're stuck in bed! Promise!" Making placating gestures, Ryan Chen backed through the door and then swiftly swung it shut.

Turning around, he started to speak. "Right, now that's- holy fuck! Dude, you look like overcooked steak!"

Arsène propped himself up in bed, "Overcooked steak, huh? That's a new one. It looks worse than it feels."

Peering at all the machines and tubes around him, Arsène continued, "They've got me doped up worse than a Hollywood celebrity. At least the food in here is better than what we usually get in the mess hall."

Arsène grabbed his right shoulder, "But I don't think you came to find out the menu down here. What's up?"

"What, they're not just stuffing you full of jell-o?" Ryan grinned and surveyed the monitor next to Arséne's bed. "Oh perfect, touch screen and a USB port."

He reached into the cargo pocket of his uniform, rummaging around in it, pushing aside an object with an outline that looked suspiciously like a flask. Finally, he extracted a thumb drive, and held it out with a flourish. "Monsieur, your entertainment," he gravely intoned with an atrocious French accent.

Grinning, he continued in his normal voice. "Every blockbuster movie from Hollywood coming out this year... even ones not released yet. Plus all the winners from last year's Cannes, and international independent film festival."

Chuckling, Arsène replied. "Your accent needs a little work, but I think I'll let that slide this time."

He leaned over and plugged the USB into the nearby monitor, "Well, now that I've got my entertainment squared away, all I need now are the refreshments. The docs found my stash on me when I got examined, said it would "interfere with the healing process". I'd like to "interfere" his face with my fist. What I'd give for a stiff drink." Arsène gave a smirk, "I don't suppose you might be able to help in that regard?"

"Well... I might have brought a little extra, but painkillers plus booze is one of those 'turns your liver into mush' things, y'know?"

He pondered for a few moments.

"If there weren't any painkillers, though... Okay tell you what. Gimme your percs or whatever they got you on, and you can have my flask of Chartreuse. I think it's the VEG stuff, very good."

"Yeah, I knew he was right, but he could've at least let me have one last swig."

Arsène reached over to the tray, and grabbed the various pills, "I'm not going ask what you're going to use them for and I don't want to know."

He reached for the flask and placed the pills in Ryan's outstretched hand.

"A pleasure doing business, my friend."

Arsène placed the flask under his blanket, and Ryan placed the pills in an inner pocket. Soon after, one of the doctors came by, "I'm sorry sir, but I must take Mr. Lemarque into testing now. I'm afraid I must ask you to leave."

Arsène groaned, "Again? Haven't you poked and prodded me and my comrades enough?"

The doctor gave an understanding look, "I'm sorry, I'm just following orders. I know you and your fellow soldiers went through a lot in Shanghai, but this research will allow us to better understand the effects of the aliens' weaponry on the human body."

Relenting, Arsène replied, "I know, I know, the greater good and all that."

He looked at Ryan and smiled, "Thanks for coming by", he patted his blanket and chuckled, "and for the 'morale boost', I sure as hell needed it."

Ryan just smiled and nodded. "Enjoy your stay, sir. XCOM hospitality is here to please." Chuckling to himself, he shoved his hands into his pockets and ducked around the doctor for the door.

End Collaboration

A few days later, Richard and Hoku, who recently got his well-earned promotion, were discharged from the infirmary, leaving only Rebecca and myself still in recovery. Perhaps I could learn something about her while we are both cooped up in here. One of the rookies came by and told us that one of our pilots, McCraig, had shot down a UFO, and that they're sending a squad in to salvage it. I told him to tell Richard and Hoku to kill a sectoid for me.

I snuck out from the med-bay that night and took a walk around the base to clear my head. I stopped next to a laboratory window, watching Dr. Vahlen run around giving orders to her beleaguered scientists. I sat down against the wall, and pulled out my locket once more.

Véronique... I'm... sorry...

 

[Rosen0x5]

Name: Richard Kuklinski
Class: Heavy
Rank: Squaddie
Confirmed Kills: 6
Journal Entry #2 / March 6th 2015

I knew things went too smoothly on my first mission, I just had to feel the burn of an alien blast at some point. Not just me either, everyone from my squad are lying here on beds. And considering how much shots went right over my head, I'd say im the lucky one here. Even if Im the only one on my stomach since I got shot from behind, I fear the others might be making jokes in their journals behind my back, literally!

The mission was simple, and to the point. Clear all hostiles. I was accompanied by Robinson, Lemarque and a rookie by the name of Ritofuto. As we were flying towards our destination we were told something about being the last hope of everyone, its a good thing I work better under pressure. As the skyranger landed and the doors opened, the rookie took the left flank and Lemarque took the right flank. Robinson and I proceeded in the center, eyes ahead as we proceeded to climb out of the airship.

The surrounding area was hit hard. Trees broken in half, no sign of life anywhere, only the sound of those yellow pods we were ordered to secure on sight. As it rained and poured around us, my helmet was getting foggier by the minute, we followed the sound and after awhile we spotted the container. We sent in the rookie to scout ahead, it was clear. One by one we proceeded towards the objective. Robinson ran to secure the goods, and she did. But in doing so she gave our position away to a squad of Sectoids that were... huddled around a corpse that looked like it was covered in mold.

As they took notice of our advancements they took cover behind some building equipment, wisely spreading out as they probably knew we had grenades with us. As we did in our first encounter, fast learners those greyheads. At that point I was falling behind, and had to make up ground so I dashed behind a bulldozer and kept my head to the ground. Right after that I saw shots flying right infront of my face, you could almost feel the heat.

Lemarque got hit during the crossfire, screamed something I couldnt understand and just hit the dirt behind a dead tree. The rookie lost his head aswell, started screaming for help and just began spraying. I thought I was working with professionals, but that situation just made me realize how dire things actually were. I couldnt help but feel like a distraction, buying Robinson time to take the aliens out one by one.

It kept coming closer, and closer... to a point where I was staring the sectoid right on the other side of that bulldozer. Robinson was right on time, she took down the sectoid melder, killing off the melded one that was right infront of me. However, that was only one squad, Robinson was spotted by a second one. The rest of us moved up to engage, recieving enemy fire at the same time. I could barely see a thing, the glass inside my helmet was so foggy all I could hear were shots being fired around me.

Then a grenade explosion revealed one of them, he started running towards Lemarque, thats when I missed a prefect shot. My squadmate could have been dead right there, im glad he dodged my misstake. When we finally wiped out the second squad, I moved in to heal him, hopefully that made up for my incompetence. The best part however, is when we confronted 2 squads of sectoids all at ones!

Lemarque managed to pick off a sectoid from the squad on the left, leaving me with the liberty of using my very own rocket launcher. The explosion was out of this world, I made that explosion! But do you know the most satisfying thing about that explosion? No, its not the death of the 2 aliens... it was the police car... it was that goddamn police car that would always chase me down and bring me to a damn cell in a damn Jail! The flames were pleasing to the eye during the rest of that mission.

The sectoid squad on the right just kept taking potshots at us, most of them were aimed at me I thought. So I decided to move in to a more defensive position a little further back. Thats when I felt hot plasma dripping from my back, shrugging off the pain I turned around and repayed him in kind, as he fell to the ground with smoking holes in his giant grey head. The last 2 were cleaned up by Robinson and that was our que to get the hell home.

Hopefully the rookies around the base will think twice before skipping the shooting range for a game of pool in the bar, now that an all injured squad "nearly" got wiped out. Atleast thats what I'll keep referring it as when asked, keeping people on their toes is just as important as a good shooting session.

Well, its time to get some sleep... but the doctors arent coming. Problem is, no matter how hard I try to sleep on my stomach, I never fall asleep, even before these aliens. I've asked them to give me sleeping pills every night, but no one came tonight. I can see the bottle but I cant reach it with this body cast... Shit.

 

[Jacob Applehoof]

Name: Alexia Concerto
Rank: Recruit
Entry: #1

Alexia sighed contently as she stepped out of the truck, cracking her knuckles and popping a few joints on her way through the base. She wasn't the first, but the vastly under-developed base was a clear indication that she was relatively new. Violin hanging at her side, the girl looked at her nails, smiling as she saw just a faint tint of violet. Her fancy attire was slowly degrading in leu of her military career. This was, in part, just another job for her. While her biggest and probably the most important job of her career, she didn't fret with things such as "importance" or "danger". This was just a job that needed to be done, and her stoic look said it all. She rested her violin on her bed, sitting next to it and strumming the cords idly as she looked around.

She rose up a few minutes later, making idly glances at the four soldiers in the sick bay. She didn't want to do anything wrong, or possibly upset them, so she hesitantly strode past and kept looking forward. Her hands came to rest on the railing overlooking the mess hall, humming idly."Well...suppose it could be worse" she let out softly, that semi-transcontinental accent shining through her military appearance.

 

[Choppychop]

NAME: Alexander McCraig
OCCUPATION: Interceptor Pilot
KILLS: 1
PLEASE TELL ME YOU SAW THAT COMMAN- Oh man it was awesome, totally awesome!
So get this right? One second I'm taking a shower thinking about what the benefits of parmesan cheese over provolone are and of course I'm also pondering the recent Cursed Mountain mission which saw our grunts take some serious hits (engineering better make some better armor fast, those suits melt like cheese- hence why I was thinking of cheese) and then an alarm goes off.

it wasn't the standard ground team alert: IT WAS A UFO ALERT.

Being the professional fighter pilot I of course took action according to protocol and proceeded to urinate (I WAS IN THE SHOWER IT'S OKAY), put on my flight suit, urinate again...in my flight suit, and sprint down to the hangar. Then I saw it, my baby, Raven-1. While I generally wouldn't name such a sexy and sleek piece of modern technology after such a generally depressing bird (let the record show that I opted for Toucan or Condor because those are more exotic) I couldn't help but feel an immense surge of pride and anxiety as I stood before the machine. I was about to make first contact with an alien race, and they were going to feel hot metal piercing straight into their bulbous organs...or I was going to be liquidized mid-air by energy weapons. Either way I was going to make history.

The technicians came quickly and hooked me up to my G-suit in record time, and then I was in Raven-1 getting my orders: Take out the Raven-1 to take out the UFO. Well shucks, commander no shi- I mean, damn good word choice sir! (I keep forgetting you read these). So there I was, doing pre-flight ritual and being hoisted up onto the slingshot and I see out of the cockpit members of the this whole X-com thing just lookin' at me. It was kind of surreal you know? Like I was looking on the whole population of earth. Not literally of course, but there was enough ethnic mix to realize that...shoot, I lost my train of thought!

And then I was airborne. G-forces pullin' on me and trying to keep calm as I head towards what realistically is my doom. Nothing but negative thoughts right now, but they weren't enough to let the people of earth get ruled by some "Marvin the Martian" knock-off so I kept trucking towards that tiny blip on my radar. Next thing I know, I'm over rural Japan and this...disk is just plowing through the clouds like it owns the place! The craft must've noticed me because the thrusters on that thing began to glow a little brighter. I engaged the afterburners thinking of course that there was no way I could go any faster and that this alien scrap heap was going to really mess up some the Japanese infrastructure.

I'd just like to give a quick shout out to the engineers of X-com because lo' and behold, I closed the distance on that bad boy! Next thing I knew, the UFO had swiveled some sort of gun-turrets at me and I was dodging globs of snot (I've been informed now that the snot globs were in fact plasma based projectiles). I flipped the safety and pulled the trigger. First shot: Hit. Second Shot: Miss. Then i got hit, just a glancing blow, but enough to enrage the warrior within. Locking on the reticle was a real matrix moment as I saw the third missile stream straight into the hull.

The UFO plummeted downwards and I did a little victory maneuver, "DO A BARREL ROLL" and all that. Then there was clapping, and loud cheering...and I remembered I was live with central! Overcome with excitement I reported in. For whatever reason my call sign is designated as Voodoo-1 so I guess I'm going to have to act all Jamaican around the base now...as if they even have any of that stuff around here! The trip back to base consisted of me thinking of ways to thank the people of Earth for the awards I'll no doubt be getting...soon...hopefully?

Landing back at base I decided against by impulse to do a fly-by seeing as nobody would be able to hear/see it because the base is underground. But getting out of Raven-1? Oh boy, now THAT was something. Soldiers and staff alike clapping for me! The fighter-pilot in the pee and sweat stained G-suit. One girl even called me an ace...which is wrong of course because I only shot down one alien craft. She was pretty enough though that I might want to explain to her what an ace truly is. Standing in front of all those citizens of our great blue planet I only had one thing to say:

"WELCOME TO THE DANGER ZONE FOLKS"

 

[too_spooked]

(This is a collaboration between too_spooked or 'Roger Straten,' Thenlar or 'Ryan Chen' and Sarge-Pepper or 'Steven Maltus')

Name: Roger Straten Occupation: Engineer working with the X-COM Project
Age: 38 Current Whereabouts at the beginning of this journal: The engineering bay
Date: March 10th, 2015
//Begin Journal

Today marks the tenth day that has passed since I abandoned my life and joined the X-COM Project to fight aliens. Those ten days have drawn on every bit of experience I had in the fields of engineering, which was a lot to say the least. So far, my fellow engineers and I have built several pieces of technology based on the schematics we've received from the lab boys a door over. We built two highly effective med-kits which work by applying a combination of painkilling and infection-fighting chemicals like penicillin and morphine along with a new substance that when applied to open wounds, speeds up the healing process drastically. The two slurries of chemicals sprayed onto a non-critical injury allow a soldier to act as if the wound hadn't occurred at all, of course, the solution is only temporary, and soldiers will still need to be treated in the infirmary for more extensive tissue damage AFTER combat.

Surprisingly, the collaboration between our small crew of engineers has allowed us to be amazingly effective. Abbygail Penhallow, my bunk-mate, is the one I've gotten to know most out of our five person crew. We've talked quite a bit since our first day together, and we've shared a couple stories about our lives before X-COM. Most of her's were pretty vague, but I had a feeling trying to get her to elaborate wasn't the best of ideas. Secrets are secrets after all. Anyways, asides from making friends with equally gifted individuals, we've also made some equipment based upon the findings from REAL ALIEN ARTIFACTS. The med-kits which we had made were based upon existing knowledge in medical technology, but the S.C.O.P.E, as techies have come to call it, are almost completely fabricated based upon alien optical technologies. This is huge to me, and the weapon fragments scrounged from the aliens almost assuredly have more applications yet.

The S.C.O.P.E works by using a quasi-solid glass-compound with integrated electronics inside the body of the scope and suspended within the glassy substance, in layman's terms, it's partially melted glass with computer parts to help with aiming. The electronics work in tandem with semi-liquid glass to provide real-time information to the weapon's operator as he or she aims down the scope, such as, where to aim to compensate for bullet drop, how much ammunition is left in the weapon's magazine and even highlights the shooter's target in situations where visibility is an issue. It's truly ingenious, and although it doesn't guarantee a shot, it helps drastically when a game-changing head shot is needed. A total of four of these rolled off the production line after the schematics came in, as requested by our commander, and I'm hoping that they give our soldiers the edge in future operations.

The S.C.O.P.Es didn't take all that long to finish, but the satellite we were ordered to construct required most of the engineering staff to build. The design is highly efficient for it's relative ease of construction, and it should only take us a couple of weeks to get it orbit-worthy. It was hard not to mention this earlier, but one these satellites we built allowed our interceptor pilot to down our very first U.F.O! The Avalanche missiles proved adequate against the small U.F.O, which I only can assume to be an alien scout by it's reported size and ease to down. I'm incredibly proud of our fighter pilot, and of the cooperation between everyone in Mission Control. I'm only assuming Commander Odd is rallying the troops to invade the thing as we speak.

Aside from the successful abduction mission in China, which I'm glad took place no where near my hometown where I grew up, and the downing of the U.F.O by Alex McCraig, most of the fun in this past week and a half has really been in the lounge. Everyone I've met including the people I'm actively working with have all been very sociable, great people. Earlier today I was in the lounge, sitting on the couch and reading some National Geographic, when two people I had met a couple days earlier approached me.

"Hey Rodge, Ryan and I are gonna play a game of pool. You in?" one of the faces, which I recognized to be Steve Maltus, asked. The nickname he gave me wasn't my favorite in the world, but I didn't mind it.

"Sure, beats reading about ice caps and alien invaders." I responded, picking myself off of the couch. I took a few seconds to stretch my legs, when the other, Ryan Chen, put his arm around me as I got up.

"Ahh, feels great seeing some other people with Chinese backgrounds here. And other people who also hate the drinks they're serving in this place." he chuckled, "Hoping I'd meet people I'd have stuff in common with." he continued. "The bar does suck a fat one." I joked, "But at least the facility has good TV and books."

"You ladies ready?" Steve asked, I raised an eyebrow and crossed my arms. "Yeah... ready to whoop your ass!" Ryan exclaimed, I stepped in the middle of the two, raising both my arms to prevent them from going wild and tossing shit at each other. I relaxed my arms when I felt the two had settled down from their 'play-fight' disposition. Then I asked the question on everyone's minds, but not before a snarky comment of course. "Hey, hey, hey. You guys settled down? And if anyone's winning this thing, it's gonna be me, cause ya both suck. So, uh, whose going first by the way?"

"Uhh, coin toss, roll of the die, ever heard of that?" Steven asked, not garnering any response from either me or Ryan, he muttered something as he fumbled around in his pocket. Rolling his eyes, he plucked a black and red pair of dice out from inside his pants' pocket. The look on Ryan's face was priceless! A mix between 'are you fucking serious, mate?' and pure shock. "Do you honestly just carry dice around everywhere, Steve?" I asked, to which he responded matter-of-factually, "Yeah, who doesn't?"

"Regular people?" Ryan interjected, Steven shrugged off the comment, and rolled the dice. They clattered wildly on the pool table surface and after a few seconds of deciding, the dice promptly stopped rolling, revealing their numbers. "A five and a one. Just my luck..." Steve groaned, "Guess I'm next." I said, picking the two dice up. I wound up my baseball arm and let them rip. I rolled a six and a four, admirable roll, honestly. Perhaps admirable enough to secure the game? "Huh, fuck me. I'm gonna need a good pair of doubles here, don't fail me now Steve's pocket dice." begged Ryan, but the odds apparently weren't in his favour, landing him a one and a three.

"Oh COME on, I guess I should have prayed to the Luck God some more. God damn..." Ryan complained, but realizing that he played his cards wrong this time, backed down fairly quickly.

The game of pool went like any other, aside from the fact we were playing in a facility completely dedicated to finding and eliminating alien incursions. There were a couple of highlights during the game, and although I didn't win, I DID manage to sink four in one go, but despite that, me and Steve unfortunately lost to Ryan. We didn't hear the end of it after that, the vulgar alcohol I downed being the only reprise from his endless yapping. "Yeah, that's right, Roger and Steve! Turns out, the Luck God heard my prayer! And as long as it's on my side, aliens beware, Ryan Chen is on the case!"

"Yeah, yeah." I groaned, I knew losing to him would mean this. If goofiness had a human representation, personally, I say Ryan fits the character pretty well. His brain might have been clouded from too many drinks, or he just was utterly surprised he won, either way, he's annoying but still a great guy to hang around. Steve on the other hand, showed a more sophisticated demeanor, although possessing an errant aloofness, he arguably showed twenty times over the restraint that Ryan did over the course of the game of pool. Steve and I talked extensively about our pasts too, and about our current roles in this whole mess. He seems pretty interested in what us engineers do, probably because he worked in the Engineering Corps in the Army. But there's obviously a reason why I'm an engineer and he's not, but I still haven't learned that. I'm actually rather glad I'm the one building the guns and not handling them, for one, I'm not in nearly as much danger as the troops in the field. Two, I have at least some security knowing I won't be called for a surprise abduction mission in the middle of the night. And finally, I never actually learned how to shoot one.

"You're serious." Steve told me when I first said that him. "Never, not even once?"

"Nope, not once. For better or for worse I guess."

"Roger, man, I gotta bring you down to the range sometime later, I've served for a while, even worked under the Quartermaster back in the Sand. I can give you a couple tips on how to use one. At least so you know how to reload, clean it, aim and all that, in case for some god forsaken reason you need it as an engineer."

"I'd like that Steve, I mean, it's probably not too late, since I'm not even the one doing the shooting out there."

"Yeah, meet me there next shift change, I'd be glad to give you a few pointers"

"Thanks, Steve."

P.S. I'm actually heading to the range now, and this journal was kind of my way of filling in the time between my time at the bar and now. Hopefully Steve can teach me how to use a gun in the short shift change, cause after then, it's back to working on satellites and maintaining equipment. Whoo boy...
//End Journal

 

[Wisekill1]

Just outside shanghai, China
Two hours after operation: CURSED MOUNTAIN
Helmet camara recordings Johan De Fries; leader of the X-COM recovery team.

The video started as just as Johan was watching the Chinook helicopter that brought him and his team here take off.

There was little talk on their way to the battlefield, only Johan's second in command; a woman by the name of Hera mentioned the previous recovery team who had apparently moved the dead aliens in wooden crates locked by a simple padlock, Johan had no idea how Hera knew but she was a hundred percent sure that the science labs still smelled of dead alien.

When they finally arrived after five minutes of hiking Johan surveyed the damage, there was a burned Excavator and police car, but damages like that were of no concern to him.

The twelve alien corpses however were. "Hera, make a sweep for these weapon fragments that our briefing mentioned, the coats are pretty sure that they are important." Johan said before he moved towards the nearest alien corpse, the other three members of his team followed.

He and one of his colleagues dragged the gray corpse into the body bag that was held open by another person. The team knew better than to poke it, or damage it any more that the X-COM squad had done, so Johan resisted the urge to kick the dead creature's head in for invading Earth.

As the bag with the valuable gray corpse was dragged away Johan knelt down next at the ground where the thing had died, there was some sort of green goo on the ground, with little bits of gray in it. Johan spend a few moments getting as much of the stuff as possible into a metal canister, it didn't take long until the ground was only a little bit greener that the rest of the tarmac. When that finally was the case someone dropped a box of Kleenex™ in front of him, Johan took out a tissue and swiped away whatever little was left of the alien.

-Video recording ends, only sound is left-
"Ha! I'm sure I can sell this for a fortune when we've finally kicked these buggers of our rock!" Said a voice that clearly belonged to Johan.

"Only if we make it." Mentioned another male squad member, his remark was met with lance by the rest of the team.

"Are you sure you've turned of the recording?" Asked Hera.

"Yeah, yeah." Answered Johan "I'm not a total technophobe, I know how to stop a recording."

"Just saying..." Was the response.

- About an hour of idle chatter later-
"Total count is twelve alien corpses, eighteen weird fragments and a single glowing orange thing that may or may not be radioactive. I'm calling the transport, I'm pretty sure that we're done here."

"Hey! Idiot! You see the red glowing thing? That means you're still recording!" Called Hera out suddenly as they were waiting for the Chinook to return.

There was a short pause before Johan answers "You're seeing things, there is no r-" -Voice recording ends-

When the "Tidy Team" (as they were called by everyone who wasn't central officer Buster Bradford) arrived at X-COM HQ Johan allowed his team go to bed, it was 6 AM after all. He himself stayed behind just long enough to tell a nearby X-COM security personnel to get a few people together and move the small pile of canisters and body bags to the science labs.

As he walked towards his own bunk he wondered briefly if there were people working at the labs at this time, but he quickly decided that it didn't matter to him. Worst case scenario was a pile of dead aliens next to their closed doors.

 

[Hokucho]

Log Entry #2: 10:12 March 10th 2015 of Squaddie Hokuchiyo "Hoku" Ritofuto. Sniper Division.

I am recording these logs between flights to an from the base when applicable now, it helps calm my nerves and recap the do's and don'ts to concider before touching down again.

The first mission was a fluke. Noone went home without a battle scar on the last mission. Operation Crystal Mountain looked like it could be a glass house as it were.

When we touched down we began to sweep east of the dropzone. We made our way forward until we caught sight of another one of those yellow canisters. It seemed to good to be true but we had to grab it before it broke down again. Robinson volunteered and took a jog over.

I wish those grey ones weren't so short, not easy to see.

We're still throwing names around for those short grey ones, but the general concensus around the base seems to like the word 'Sectoid' so I'm going with that until the techs settle on an official name. The three Sectoids split off from another so make their position more avantageous and it already was working in their favor.

At first we posted up ourselves and began to hold our ground, see what we could abuse. The Sectoids did that brain melding thing again and the one taking the shot fired at Kuklinsky. The shot went wide. I'm wondering if when these aliens link brains if they gain some sort of extrasensory advantage, aside from the 'mind over matter' principle I'm trying to rationalize why they do it. Maybe some Sectoids are just... Dumb? The addition of a second brain makes them smarter or something, I have no idea.

Things got worse immidiately after that however. Robinson was able to shoot one of the aliens advancing on us which stopped the thing where it stood, leaving it exposed, but the thing took a shot at Lemarque and I heard a sizzle that I hadn't heard yet. Lemarque got hit and he screamed. I heard a thud as well, for a moment I thought Lemarque had died, but his panting reassured me that he had just dove down after getting wounded. I couldn't blame him in retrospect, he was the first person on Earth to have been shot by one of these things and survived to feel what it was like. I had to take a shot, if they hit Lemarque again I couldn't say what would happen. It was reflexive and wild so needless to say, I missed the shot. My adrenaline was pumping hard but I had to take a moment to calm down. Now that I had given Lemarque room to breath, at least, as much as one can expect after being hit with searing plasma, I had to take cover myself and calm my mind. Frenzied heads make no progress, that is, unless you're Robertson, but I'll get to that soon.

Robinson made sure that the Sectoid that shot Lemarque didn't have a chance to do that again. She gave that alien more then a glory wound to the ass when she hurled a grenade at it and turned the thing into a shrapnel-filled corpse. I'm suspecting 'death by grenade' is going to be a popular method of execution for a while. Thankfully Lemarque had recovered from the panic of being hit by our adversaries and ran over to some more concealable cover next to me. He then whipped out the medical kit that had been bought and produced for us and used it on himself. The man was trembling quite a bit and the spray got everywhere, even sprayed me a little, not that I needed it. Lemarque seemed completely rejuvinated physically. The chunk in the armor was missing, but there wasn't any more open burn wounds.

We all hunkered down and started playing defensively while Robinson moved out of sight behind a truck. I didn't hear her say anything so she was off on her own there. The aliens began to avdance even further, at least, one of them did. The other seemed content to playing overseer and controlling his ally rom afar, not that it helped because right then, Robinson came running from behin the truck she had gone around earliar and just blew the thing away. Just like before, the Sectoid next to Kuklinski seemed to have a brain anyurism and died there, crumpling to the ground.

Unfortunately, Robinson's charge had alerted more Sectoids to our pressence so we all shifted our positions to compensate.

Then we got our second injury. Robinson took a shot almost at point blank range. She was either tough as granite, or the wound didn't hurt that much, because she kept a determined stance and held her position there despite getting shot at from another Sectoid without so much more as a small duck to keep her head from being melted. A third Sectoid seemed to think it was being smart and started sweeping around to our side.

I tried to move forward and took a shot to the upper arm to show for it. Apparently, when you get hit with plasma it tends to burn, and burn, and burn. How Robinson didn't cry out when she was shot was amazing. It felt like what one feels when you put your hand on a hot stove, only hotter, and decide to leave it there to make sure it really is hot.

I decided it only fair to return the favor and hurled a grenade back at the Sectoid who had shot me moments ago. I threw the thing with my burned arm, which didn't help the situation. I did however get to introduce the Sectoid to the wonderful world of grenade injuries. Lemarque tried to follow up my grenade with the now-typical grenade and pistolfire combination we seem to have adopted.

Lemarque's shot went wide. Maybe it was a mixture of phantom wounds and medical drugs that was affecting his aim for the moment, who knows. Kuklinski tried to take the thing out as it moved for cover but they are too small and quick sometimes for us to hit them. While that was happening Robinson had managed to take out the Sectoid that had hurt her moments before. Apparently her gun is bigger.

I was growing tired of the situation and rushed the Sectoid on the other side of the crane from me and shot it right between the eyes. It felt good to get my own kill, much more than just doing it to do it, but for the sake of helping the others.

That seemed like just the thing we needed. After my successful takedown, Lemarque had moved to where I was and I saw another Sectoid get shot down. The adverse effects of the medkit must have worn off or, with Lemarque seeing me take down something might have helped him gain a new zeal of his own.

After that we all took a breather. Robinson got herself fixed up by Kuklinski.

Explosives is our motto as we advanced. We had alerted six more of Sectoids when we moved up and Kuklinski opted to use the rocket launcher he kept on his back and took out half of them in one shot.

We all took defensive positions and try to wait them out. Despite Lemarque using his smoke grenade Kuklinski still ended up getting hit while OTM. Either we're getting sloppy, or the aliens are getting better.

Defensive doesn't do as well for us in my oppinion, that said, I felt bad for Lemarque as he took a shot at the last Sectoid and missed. Thank god Robinson got the shot.

Our arrival was met with a nice reception from the staff that left their labs and the new recruits that have yet to go ou. If there were any jealous soldiers from getting no action, it was a sobering reminder of what we were fighting for. Many applauding or smiling member went from joyous, to one of seriousness. There was still some congratulations thrown around but as the medical team escorted us to the infirmary it was quieter.

The medical team all things concidered, is rather cordial. We were told we would be stuck in bed for a few days. I used some of the downtime working on my cardio, running the treadmill and other leg-based excersizes. I was even there to welcome the new recruits to the operation.
On the last day of recovery I had the pleasure of meeting Caroline Southway. She was one of the first-ons that had been here since I touched down. She hadn't seen any action herself, but she seemed interested in talking to me and learning what I had found out while on missions. Hopefully I was able to incur some new wisdom that will help her.

Me and Kuklinsky were released on the same day and I was granted my promotion! The role? Sniper...

Have they seen how my shooting is at range?

The engineering team was able to manufacture some new weapon attatchment called S.C.O.P.Es, straight forward in its purpose an design. This should help my aim as S.C.O.P.Es seem to calibrate shots rather then using our 'primitive' scopes that come standard on these long-range rifles. They also gave me a new set of armor, this one black in color to help conceal me I suppose. Though I heard the research deparment is currently researching the alloy we've been bringing home to tailor some better armor. The stuff we got melts like tissue paper right now so that's good.

Our pilot, McCay was sent out to intercept a UFO located flying over China. I found McCay had been able to down the UFO and only lost a bit of paint on the wings as a result.

As luck would have it, I'm up for the third time in a row. Kuklinsky is joining me on the operation as well. The other two from our original Go-Team is still resting their wounds, understandable. They got hit hard despite Robinson being how she is being stubborn and not willing to let us see her getting hurt. There are two recruits coming with us that I have not met yet. I got their names, Dennis Largo and Tarmis Gorefest. Here's hoping they're better shots then me!

 

[Meaningofbread]

How to survive an Alien Invasion

By E. Gray

Chapter one: Boots on the Ground - Getting to know your base of operations.

XCOMM.... XCOMMMM Strange isn't it? One minute it's the end of your life, and the next moment you're flown out in some unmarked helicopter to an underground base in the middle of nowhere. I took an exploratory look around, and I'm not too sure about this place. Sure, it makes an excellent hide-out to wait and go into battle, but I am concerned by the people in this place. A man with full pilot's gear ran by here a little while ago, and he smelt like piss. What the hell? Isn't this supposed to be some sort of world class fighting facility, and our pilot smells like an old tramp that slept in a pile of dog shit?

After passing the pilot, I made my way to the bar, with an intent of washing the smell out of my nose. Bumped into a scared looking scientist who immediately freaked out as if I had given him cancer. Jesus. The nerve of some people. I barely had time to give him the stink eye.

I had to pass by the infirmary to get to the bar, and let me say. I am not too confident with our chances if we all come back looking like that. Three men and woman, all lying on their respective beds, and they all seem to be in serious pain. Hopefully our commander can do a better job keeping us alive.

Otherwise, not much else to report. I am going to need to build a network of people here. But not get too close. You can never tell with strangers. These people are supposed to my teammates and allies. I have a hard time not laughing at half of them. I bet half of the others are just random people the recruiters picked out from dumpsters around the world.

The base is still being built. Why was it not completely constructed in case of an attack? Who had such horrible planning skills? God knows. The only thing that I can figure out right now is that we are not winning this.

- End of Chapter One

 

[MarineAvenger]

Name: James Nightingale
Rank: Rookie
Status: Active Reserves

Audio Journal 2 10:34 A.M. March 10th 2015

People say animals deserve to be put in cages. Are soldiers the same? Do we live in two different worlds when we are deployed? I believe that we are. My headaches get worse by the day and my drinking still hasn't slowed down, though it seems no matter how much you drink or run away, your demons catch up to you one way or another. While on my laptop I when looking through my hard drive to free up some space. That's when I came upon some old videos long forgotten. Videos of my youth, videos of birthdays, videos of first deployment. Its hard to see the rest when my eyes well up and I forget about the constant noises throughout the base. I feel as if a small peel of sub-conscious is ripped away during every damned moment in this base. Why me? Why me? Why... (Small interference blocks some audio but there is distinct sounds of sobs.) Ah, (Sniff) and who says grown men don't cry. That's just another load of bull to add to my long list. (Recording Ends)

10:26 P.M. March 10th 2015

Just got back from a small debrief and apparently one of our guys shot down an aircraft, I was once again half drunk so I didn't catch all of it. I headed down to the range. Bad idea, I just snapped. Holding a gun again, it just over-powered me, I unloaded, round after round, clip after clip, gun after gun. It felt relieving almost, therapeutic is the correct word. Before walking out I got a few stares from some of the other recruits that are here with me, all I do is stare back and leave. They don't understand.

I finally decided to wipe my hard drive. I wanna say it was hard but it wasn't. Not at all... now that says something. I have decided to completely abandon my old life, start anew. That is the chance XCOM has given me I now realize. James died a long time ago, in Iraq with his two brothers. Fallen brothers in family and fallen brothers in arms. That James is gone... And a new James shall take his place.

(Recording Ends)

 

[Suryce]

Squaddie Rebecca Robinson (Assault), Journal 02, recorded on March 10th at 9:53pm.
Hunting collection: Sectoid

“I can go!” I told them, but the doc was unrelenting.

“I’m fine now, I could juggle with all you’ syringes while doin’ push-ups! Listen, I’m not goin’ to force myself on the mission, but what if the Commander needs a good shotgun?”

The white-clad fellow gave a slap on my bandaged shoulder and I shrieked in an embarrassing way.

“I-it hurts but it works fine, it’s ‘cause of this plasma stuff from hell, I can withstand the pain!”

In the end, it was useless and I had to go back to bed like a child. “If it still hurts, then it is still healing,” they said, "the Commander has other soldiers he can counts on". I have rarely been hurt since the end of the civil war, the worst being that one time where a crazy dude thought he could bash my skull with a machete and left me with this ugly scar (the kids say it makes me look cool though), so I’m used to always be available for the kids, ready to jump into action at any time. But now, it’s war again, I guess. And sometimes, war is about waiting. At least I hope that this UFO investigation doesn’t go as badly as Cursed Mountain. I had to wake up in the middle of the night, again, and this abduction was, like, right at our doorstep! The ride took literally ten minutes, no time for even a quick doze. Hence I was tired, and the murky dirt we had to walk in didn’t help. But hey, if there’s one thing I learned from the war, it’s to not complain when you are given an order. That’s why I took a deep breath and ran for the shiny canister thingy the Commander wanted.

That’s when things started to get hot as I was seen by several of those “Sectoids” chilling on the road. I shot with my pistol the one who was getting near but it doesn’t have enough punch by itself, and even hurt, the gray head took me by surprise by shooting at Arsène who guarded my back with Rito… fuyotofu. Hum, they both lost their cool and Rito opened fire without hitting the bastard. I had to finish the job with my grenade before it gets worse. Another deep breath, and I also took care of the other two pressing us by flanking them. That’s was a risky order too, and I would’ve done the same if I had to take the decision myself, but that led me to understand why Arsène panicked. I got flanked in turn by a new batch of Sectoids and I took a shot in the shoulder. I like to wear light protections in order to move more easily, but this green fire burned through my body armor like it was nothing and dug into my skin. Hurts like a thousand Hells, and I had to withstand it to blast another of those Sectoids myself before the others could catch up with me and provide cover while I retreated to get patched up by Kuklinski.

I had to go back for a third wave of enemies that tried to pin us down, but I didn’t even think about complaining. I had long attained that point where your mind gets at the same time hazed and concentrated on a single point, and your body moves automatically but feels more alive than ever. The pain was only pushing forth the adrenaline in my veins. I filled my lungs once again, and ran into the forest to flank the Sectoids. There was only one left after I blasted his comrade, but he was doing his best to keep me pinned behind a tree while preventing my brothers from approaching him. I grabbed the opportunity when he showed me his back to shoot at them and I jumped on him to pin him down and blasted his big skull at point blank. That felt really good.

There was no party when we got back this time, we were all injured and holding your drink with a bloodied arm is probably not the best thing, but I was satisfied. I made a face when I was announced I would have to stay at the infirmary for so long though. I know I should be glad the shot didn’t burn my whole arm off, but when you come back from something like this, you feel invincible. I guess my body reminded me really soon that I should not feel super happy. The mission still had been extremely tense, and stress gives me… digestive problems. And those aren’t really fun when you have a hard time moving to go the bathroom without also peeing yourself because of the pain.

When I started to get better, the one problem I didn’t expect is me getting bored of sleeping. I want to do some gym, to practice my aim, to do everything I can so that a Cursed Mountain never happens again, but the doc is as stubborn as a mule. “Have some good dreams” a nurse told me. Well, I never dream so that’s going to be difficult. Or maybe I just never remember them. From what I heard, I never move in my sleep, but that could be a habit I got used to during the war. In any case, I don’t even know how it feels like. Probably like getting super high from what I understand, but I never took drugs either. Apparently, some dreams are nice and some others are terrible. I saw Arsène moving in his sleep one night, I hope it was a nice dream. He is the only one who is still here with me at this point, the others are already back and ready for actions, the lucky bastards.

The good news is, all of this “free” time, at least the one that I don’t spend in the dark void of sleep, allowed me to think of some names for my guns. Whoever made those weapons for XCOM is not very imaginative when it comes to naming them, which is a pity. Fortunately, I am here for them! And I have decided to call my “standard” shotgun Stan. Or maybe Stanley for a bit more personality and formality. But Stan is more cute. Anyway, that’s for him. And for the handgun, I thought of Brainiac, because he has a big head and he was the first weapon with which I made the brain of one those Sectoids explode.

Aah, talking about it makes me impatient to get out of here! I want to hold them and to tell them their names, and get them ready for the next battle. A gun needs love too! Otherwise they go bad!

I can’t wait to take them to the battlefield again.

 

[Johnny Asakawa]

Name: Buster A. Bradford
Position: Head Mission Control
Rank: Central Officer
Date: March 10th, 2015

This is the audio log of Central Officer Buster A. Bradford regarding Operation Cursed Mountain in Shanghai, China. This audio log is to be accessed only by those who have the necessary clearance and on base. Any attempts to download this audio log to an external source will carry an automatic ten-year sentence in a federal prison.

Operation Cursed Mountain was nearly a failure. We responded to a distress call in Shanghai, China regarding alien abductions. The Commander selected the same four-man team that was sent to Australia to deal with their distress call yesterday. The entire team sustained casualties but we managed to collect a Meld canister and kill all the Sectoids we encountered at the construction site. There was a decidedly less celebratory atmosphere when the Skyranger got back to base; instead of the soldiers cheering as they got out, they were groaning in pain from their burns.

The soldiers that were selected to investigate Shanghai had just 24 hours to recover from their previous battle. Admittedly, the Aliens were caught by surprise in Brisbane and were taken out easily; however this does not mean that our soldiers suffered from some sort of mental strain. In all of the euphoria surrounding our victorious first encounter, we did not take the necessary precautions in evaluating our soldiers’ mental state.

The more I think about what happened during the mission today, the more I feel some changes are needed in order to keep the men both physically and mentally fit. The decision to send the same four men barely 24 hours after they returned from their previous mission seems to have contributed to the less than stellar result. I’ll need to run it by the Commander but I’m thinking of making a few rules regarding squad selection in order for the soldiers to be a hundred percent both physically and mentally.

I’ve decided to send LeMarque and Ritofuto emails to undergo mandatory psychiatric evaluations; I’m especially concerned about Ritofuto. It is one thing to panic when getting hit by the Sectoid’s plasma weaponry like LeMarque did, it is a far more concerning when a soldier panics without getting hit. Ritofuto should undergo rigorous psychiatric evaluations in order to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

At base, Dr Vahlen and her staff finished designing something called S.C.O.P.E.; although the prototype will not boost stopping power of our assault rifles, they will help our soldiers score more hits. However, the cost of building these S.C.O.P.E.s was a few credits beyond our means and we had to sell some of the alien corpses today in order to fund our new technology. I’m sure I’ll get an angry email from Dr. Vahlen about selling research material, but what choice do we have? Funding has been extremely tight thanks to the global downturn last year and XCOM’s funding just isn’t enough. I know it doesn’t justify selling those corpses but honestly, we still have a few corpses left in storage. Selling a few dead aliens to fund our weapons is perfectly justifiable in my view.

<End of Audio Recording>

 

[Thenlar]

(( Collaboration with too_spooked and Sarge-Pepper in spooked's post here. ))

(( Collaboration with PrinceZarek in his post here. ))

Ryan Chen, Rookie.
Personal Log, March 4th.

Well, round 2 against the aliens didn't go as well. No dead, but four troopers in the hospital from some nasty-ass looking burns. This armor we've got is the lightest, toughest stuff I've seen yet, and it pretty much did a whole lot of nothing. Crap.

Anyways, I figured I'd see what I could do to help 'em out down there. Lyin' in bed gets boring as hell. Managed to talk my way past a nurse and got into one room, it was the French-Canadian guy's. Dropped off my latest drop of entertainment from that production guy at the Hollywood studio. Good guy, I need to remember to get him something local. Anyhow, a thumb drive full of movies and a bit of better booze, and he'll forget he's confined. Managed to score his pain meds from him, too; these are always handy.

Personal Log, March 10th.

Over a week without contact now and I figured I'd hit up the range. I shot Expert in the Marines, but that was with the M16, I wasn't sure how these new guns handled. Turns out, fantastic. They're probably German made. Those guys know how to make good hardware. Good balance, easily zeroed. I was punching holes into the paper alien targets from 25-50 yards like nobody's business. Decent urban combat range, I hope I don't need to practice closer range much. Not too interested in getting a sunburn.

Strange thing, though, one of the other rookies came in, and started hosing down his lane with burst fire. The guy looked pretty unsteady, I'm pretty sure he was drinking. Booze and guns don't mix, y'know? I should find out who's in charge of the base security. That'd be good information to know regardless, actually. I think we're somewhere in Indonesia. Maybe I can locate some contacts in the area. Anyways, that guy just stared at the rest of us and stalked off once he emptied out a bunch of mags.

Then the alert went off. I'm not on this mission either, but two rookies got called up since Arsene (the other Canadian guy) and Rebecca (the badass chick with the shottie) are still healing.

Sometimes, just waiting is worse. When you're in it, you don't have time to think, just fight. Waiting... all you can do is think.

 

[Gahlo]

Name: Quincy Fuller
Occupation: Research Assistant

In the Lab​

These newest samples are confusing the hell out of me. If it's a metal, it's a really crappy one. Like, not even "A for effort, but see me after class" good. If it wasn't a solid, I'd swear it was made out of noble gases. It just... melts. So then I tried to see if it was a plastic. Whatever it is, our oven doesn't get hot enough to melt it. I swear it's schizophrenic between under and overachieving. I'll have to ask engineering if there's a plasma cutter I could spend a few minutes with.

No base or acid in any of the cabinets Vahlen is letting me into, I bet she's hiding something big, has any major effect. Oh, and it floats in water, which definitely shouldn't be possible. I need more documentation to work with. What was this a part of? Piles of scrap don't really help. It almost looks like it was stitched together and trying to cut it is like opening blister packaging with bare hands.

I bet it was a torture device. Drop somebody in a vat of water and watch them suffer as, after hours, they try to get free. Maybe I shouldn't turn in my findings, if anything to avoid being turned into a test subject.

Quarters
Observation #12:​

More soldiers have been brought in. I bet they're here to keep the other soldiers in line, given the result of the last mission. There was one mean looking woman that seemed like she was looking for somebody. I got out of there before she could decide it was me.

Other thoughts:​

Interacting with the soldiers is... well, difficult at best. Only contact I've ever had with a soldier was the recruiter at highschool telling me to piss off after giving me an asthma attack. Oh shit, have to turn off the the EM scrambler before they notice I'm blocking their mind reading machine. I've been using my Newton's Cradle as a timer, since it's tamper proof. Till then I'll have to keep my theories out of conscious thoughts... but it gets so stressful. Oh well, such is the price when the pursuit of the truth is at hand.

 

[Sarge-Pepper]

Name: Steve Maltus
Rank: Rookie
Job: Shooting instructor (Temporary)

"Right. You seem to have the gist of it. Just adjust your hand...like this, and relax your shoulder more. "

"More."

"More."

"Jesus Rodge, you'd make steel jealous for how tense you are right now. Chill out, it's just a gun."

If the irony of the statement had registered to Steve, he wasn't showing it at all. The fact that the hunk of metal in Roger's hands had the full designed purpose to kill people somehow didn't weigh into Steve at all. It was just another tool, something else that he used on a daily basis. Steve's features were firm, posture straight as he leaned over and corrected minor things with Rodger Straten's pose. One last look over of his pupil's stance lead to a terse nod as he motioned downrange.

"Alright, try to target the upper left one." He pointed downrange, toward the paper target. Someone in the Quartermaster's thought their were a joker, because they had penciled in a Grey's head where a silhouette of a target was. Roger leaned back into his stance, and Steve could watch his mental tracking as he checked off so many things Steve had told him to do, small adjustments of posture and grip, before he seemed to focus downrange once more.

The shooting range was packed as usual in X-Com headquarters, the stalls filled with people of all nations and creeds aimed toward targets that they wanted to massacre as efficiently as possible. They were in the short range section, the yardage of the targets designed to the max ranges of pistols and rifles that were sported by all the rookies. He knew that there were two lanes in a seperate section that were in place to assist the snipers with their trainings, but he thought he had seen the new Squaddie sniper, Fucawhatsit, walking down that way a day or two ago. Steve hadn't been in there yet, but the rumor was that the course stretched a mile underground and even could simulate windage downrange.

BAM BAM BAM

Steve looked up, the sounds of the bullets leaving Roger's gun bringing him back into focus for a second. He checked the video monitor up to the right of the stall, currently showing a fairly tight grouping for the new shooter on the cardboard target. A couple through the eye, and one up over to the left. Each stall had them, the effect was mostly for time saving, as you didn't have to pull the target all the way back to the stall to check your progress for that shot. Several figures popped up on screen, math figures dancing as the exact radius of the shot grouping calculated, marked and filed for later review, amongst a flurry of other activity too fast for Steve to make sense of. He decided to stay quiet while Roger adjusted his aim, remembering Steve's pointers from a bit earlier when they covered adjustments. It was Roger's time now, might as well let him be.

BAM BAM BAM

Another grouping, green this time. Off target, but not by much. Steve glanced down to all the stalls surrounding them. The sound of clinking casings, the arid smell of gunpowder and burning ozone, the instant sound of tearing paper, it was all so familiar to him. He'd been to dozens of shooting ranges in bases all around the world, and they all held a familiarity to them that was so comforting. The heavy weight of the gun, the recoil embracing his shoulder just like the touch of a lover.

BAM BAM BAM

Sounds ringing in his ears as the bullets numbed his hearing, echoes of chambers locking in place, of bullets tracking down their targets like greyhounds on the scent of a fresh kill. Magazines locking in place with desperation. The weight of body armor, tac gear primed and ready to go, everything in its place and a place for everything, streamlined and efficient for minimum time down between magazines. Pin's hitting the ground, explosion rocking the air around him, sucking it right out of his lungs.

BAM BAM BAM

There wasn't even a grunt of recognition that the bullet had hit home, just a crumpled body. Brief recognition that his teammate wasn't even by his side anymore, just empty space of quickly taken by trees, blood on his face. Dirt in his mouth, scrabble up once more, forget that he tripped, just keep moving. Can't stop, stopping is death, bullets move too fast to outrun, but better to try than to die. Quick glance back, lights in the air, marking those bloodhound after him. Everything went pear shaped, had to bug out.

BAM BAM BAM

Commander gone in a flash. Head there one second, gone the next. Bleeding stump of teeth and a waggling tongue. Why can't my arms move, why is the ground so close? Dirt in mouth again, can't wipe it off. Metal on head, yelling, screaming at me, the screaming coming over the bullets, but I can't talk through the dirt. Sky, face, angry, more metal. Metal is a gun. More screaming, but I can't keep him in focus anymore, sky, face, spittle, pain, can't feel my face, black.

*GASP* Steve jumped back, feeling the rod iron on his arm, bullets torn through, had to stop bleeding, masked men. Gunfire, ozone, shells, who is this, arm outstretched, wait breathe.

breathe.

Breathe.

"Steve, breathe." There was gun on the counter. Look back up. Breathe, Steve. His face is familiar... Roger?

Oh shit, it's Roger.

Steve let out a long sigh as he relaxed, letting his upturned fists collapse to his sides, wiping his face, feeling sweat dripping down his face. Roger was there, hand outstretched, concern throughout his face, but unsure whether it was safe to approach the black man in front of him. A large sigh came out of Steve as he slumped toward the divide, shoulder hitting a bit harder than he wanted it to. He was suddenly so tired, like someone just took the energy right out of him with a vaccum cleaner.

"You alright Steve?" Roger was right there, and it seemed that a few other of the shooters had taken notice and were casting glances of concern his way. He waved off any attention, taking a few deep breaths before settling against the wall.

"Lets get a nurse up here..." Steve waved off Rodgers request, standing up and waving more people off.

"I'm fine, just dehydrated." He said, grabbing his bottle of water. It was a stalling tactic, but it seemed to work. Most of the rookies seemed to loose interest and return to their shooting, a few sideways glances still being aimed his way. Roger looked unconvinced, but stayed quiet for the moment, eying his partner.

"No, Rodger." Steve said, placing the now empty bottle on the table. He placed both of his hands on the counter and gazed off downrange. "I'm not okay. I'm fucked up. Spending months in an Arab black prison fucks you up." He took a deep breath as he let his head drop down.

"But I'm as good as I can get. " He snapped up the pistol sitting on the counter, lined up the sight, and fired off 6 rounds downrange, right into the center of the target.

He didn't need the computer to tell him that the grouping of shots all could be touched by a quarter in between them, nor did he need it to tell him how quickly the shots were fired. He ejected the magazine, locked the slide back and set the piece down exactly as he'd done hundreds of time before, in hundreds of places, each the same.

Cold metal. Precision. Everything in its place and ready to go. Soothing.

"I'm as good as I need to be." He said, turning to walk away.

 

[BMPixy]

Personal Log of Dr. Raymond Shen
Date: 2015-03-10
Time: 0237 Local Time

It has been a hectic past few days here at XCOM Central. One, two, three abductions across the globe, all at once, right after the Brisbane attack. Four went healthy to Shanghai, four wounded came back. Some might be inclined to say that the first mission was a fluke, but I’d say this mission was the one where we really got lucky. From what those plasma guns could do, it is very fortunate for our soldiers to have only taken glancing blows from them. Two of them are still in the med-bay to this day, actually. It seems that the war is between two forces who can dish it out, but not take it. Our armor does a poor job at stopping multi-thousand Kelvin plasma bolts, and the aliens don’t even bother with armor, allowing our weapons to rip up their organs.

More recruits arrived recently. Didn’t meet them, we in Engineering have been, and will be, busy rushing out that satellite, as well as a handful of Sight Correction and Optical Perception Enhancers, or SCOPEs (though one of the contractors did call them the ‘Silly Contraption Only for Popping ‘Eads’, I have a feeling which name will become more popular). Wonderful design from Dr. Vahlen and her team, though I believe the idea of the Commander selling alien artefacts and corpses to pay for them may dim the glory of achievement a fair bit.

To be frank, when I said it was hectic at XCOM, it was more so that vague form of hectic that is simultaneously nerve-wracking and boring. Oh yeah, update on my previous notes to self: First, haven’t been able to find a free day to meet with them, the satellite has been taking up most of our engineering hours, though I did have the others take off and get some sleep three or so hours ago. Shame they don’t work on a 26-hour day like I do, though I suppose not everyone can override their biological clocks so easily. Second, the inter-base e-mail seems to occasionally eat messages, as I found out when I sent one off to the Commander about the Dimetro. Might have to send it again later. And lastly, the jukebox has been partially fixed. It now only gets stuck on ‘The End of the World As We Know It’ a third of the time. Apparently, from looking at some of the things lodge inside the jukebox was that it was purloined second hand from a bar that was the sight of a drive-by or seven. Poor thing, so damaged thanks to the affairs of thugs.

Well, best get to sleep now, don’t want to be too tired for more satellite work tomorrow.

-Shen

---------------------------

XCOM Central Inter-base E-mail
To: Commander Christopher Odd
From: Dr. Raymond Shen
CC: Dr. Cerise Vahlen, Central Officer Buster Bradford

Commander,

I’m sure from looking over the files of the recruited base personnel, you came across the file of Penhallow, one of my subordinates. In case you didn’t, she worked on the Dimetro project for the Canadian military, a drone for bomb-disposal. I was wondering if, as a favor, you could talk to the Council and have them talk to the Canadian military and pass along the schematics to us. I believe that, with some aid of alien technology, we could repurpose the drone for in-combat purposes, so that our soldiers have the heat of alien fire taken off of them, and put on something that can be repaired easier than a human. All I ask for is consideration of this request.

-Shen