OPERATION SPECTRAL SLEEP
Stuttgart, Germany
March 5, 1:21 AM
Intelligence indicated that the area of operations would be a large urban structure. Overall, the squad was not an impressive ground.
Path Twelve was the only above-average shooter, and will probably need to do a lot of the heavy lifting.
Eliana Soares of Brazil has toughness and slightly above-average defense, earning her the role of scout, albeit a slow one.
PFC Thozama Khumalo(ZAF)
PFC Eliana Soares(BRA)
PFC Courtney Mason(UK)
PFC Path Twelve(DEU)
PFC Ches O'Peake(UK)
PFC Coffee Warlord(ISR)
The squad was given laser sights all around to help with accuracy, but even so only Twelve and O'Peake are carrying assault rifles. Most of the others have carbines, and Twelve had to sacrifice the second elective inventory slot to retain a decent movement rate since she's flimsy enough to need full armor. O'Peake has a flashbang and Warlord a medikit, with one of each also carried by Khumalo/Mason. For the most part, this group will need to nibble the enemy to death, and disable them or get out of dodge of things get too hairy.
They moved cautiously towards the building, and almost immediately heard to tell-tale sounds. From study of the audio from Hot Dirge, that was unmistakable. Sectoids. Pasty white fiends with bulging eyes and oversized heads. Miserable interlopers that needed to die.
As the squad reached the building, some could be heard a ways insides, but three approached, then ducked out of sight down the alley to the left. No need to alert them all at once. Best firing positions on the alley left of the building were assumed, with Path Twelve and Ches O'Peake featuring on overwatch. Twelve had a shot that was well off target, two of the enemy went on overwatch and another missed well high for Khumalo. Looks like the first firefight of the operation is upon us.
We had only a couple of decent shots, and Khumalo and Path Twelve made amends by gunning down their targets in quick succession! That was unexpected, but really gives us the edge now with only one left. The survivor tried to retreat, while we spotted movement inside the building. This could still get troublesome if we have to fight another group at the same time.
O'Peake and Soares led the way as the squad wheeled down the street past the building. We saw nothing, but can still hear them out there. A cornered enemy is a dangerous thing, and that's exactly what we have here. As Mason came around the corner, she was just in range of the sectoids inside ... three of them. They saw us. Well, that's exactly what I wanted to avoid. We weren't careful enough, and now there's potentially four out there.
One moved toward us inside the store, while the survivor of the first group reappeared far down the street. Not worrying about that one, at least for now. The other got itself a faceful of Coffee Warlord's carbine, as he was best positioned for a shot. Three down, at least three to go. Retreating, Mason spotted three more inside a garage of sorts behidn the auto shop. Well, that could have been better. Six of them now. This is what's known as 'light' resistance?
Some sort of mental attack on Mason, and she appears to have been damaged somehow, by one of them inside the store. Twelve misses, they move forward and miss a couple shots, reaction shot off target by Peake ... this is getting crazy and we're getting nowhere. It's an even fight in numbers, but we look out positioned here. A second mental attack on Mason, and she panicks.
The good news is that in their aggressiveness they gave up overwatch coverage, so we can adjust ... and one of them left themselves open. From her position on the corner of the building, Path Twelve slides along the near side for a flanking shot. The fight is no longer even. Khumalo and Soares move inside the building for better cover, allowing them to take a less defensive posture and potentially add to the fight.
A third straight attack on Mason succeeds, and she'll burn a medikit. Otherwhise they overwatch, not wanting to compromise good cover positions. Soares wounds the nearest one just behind the doorway, but it's still up and both Ches O'Peake and Path Twelve miss. Twelve is out of ammunition.
The sectoids advance a bit, using that panic attack they seem to love so very much. Mason holds firm this time, but it's O'Peake's turn to babble incoherently from her good defensive position on the street. I mean, now-useless defensive position on the street. She's now screaming randomly to 'get me out of here!'. Um, not till the fight's over dearie.
One has moved close enough to give the Warlord a shot. That's two kills for him, as a Sectoid body falls on a previously-eliminated corpse. He's showing some clutch in that maligned trigger finger of his today!
Khumalo puts a hole in the wall and that's it.
I still spot three. One moves up and misses a fairly close-range shot at Soares. She's pretty well covered, but that was still dangerous. the other two overwatch, preventing us from overrunning their position.
Soares returns fire and misses, and now not only is she out of ammo, but another advance would leave her flanked. We need some of these bastards dead. Mason has regained her composure in the nick of time, but fires high. Twelve breaks only a window. Khumalo looses a flashbang to temporarily knock the near one out of commission, it still shoots again, and misses again, at our Brazilian scout.
The blinding light of a flashbang, buying Soares a little time
Meanwhile a fourth comes at us from the back. That has to be all of them that are left. This fight has gone on too long. Warlord tries to plant a third body in the same heap, but it's just a flesh wound that simply bounces off the sectoid's hide. Ches O'Peake wounds, but does not kill, the same enemy with her last burst. At least two of them are hobbled now, that will help. More shots misfire both ways, and they are suppressing Soares as well. That doorway she is using for cover is disintegrating by the second ...
Khumalo plants the suppressor, freeing up Soares to take out the second injured sectoid. That was huge. Now we're in business again with two left. Again they move up to take out Soares ... missing, but the wall is gone now! She retreats, Mason gives out only a flesh wound, more reloading, Warlord relocates, but it's mostly just a positioning battle. We're winning it, but it's not over yet.
Another wall explodes, and this one exposes one of them! The second one had retreated, and only Ches O'Peake has a decent shot. Missed. Again. Khumalo takes the other one in a gimme to finish off her magazine, and it looks like we're down to one foe here.
Probably the best of Ches O'Peake's many failed opportunities to be more than a bystander in this operation.
Faced with little choice, it tries to move forward for a shot ... and there's the Coffee Warlord again, gunning it down just before it reaches a pod in the street! Half an hour later, a sweep reveals that was it for this dust-up.
Warlord's mission-ending bullseye, probably the most impressive part of the Stuttgart operation
POST-MORTEM
9 kills, all sectoids, and no soldiers lost.
Courtney Mason made an embarassment of herself with her panicking, and she'll get to spend almost a week keeping
Dean Hoo company in the medical ward. Special services has termed the attacks on her to be of two types. One was mindfray, which caused her to hallucinate out there along with physically weakening, the other was psi panic, the one that got to Ches O'Peake and made her go nutso.
I hate Sectoids. All in favor?
Fellow goat of the mission is O'Peake, who failed to record a single kill despite several opportunities. Hope you enjoy life as a lowly PFC, because guess what? YOU STILL ARE ONE!! Get your behinds to the practice range and freaking learn to hit something, slackers!
The other four were promoted, with Khumalo and
Coffee Warlord bagging three apiece. Warlord is the unquestioned and surprising hero of the day. He was in a rear position almost the whole mission, spending a lot of time at the back of that full-size green van in the street. But the enemy learned that despite that, he was not one to be ignored. Opportunistic and stunningly accurate, he did well for himself out there. After a fast start,
Path Twelve couldn't hit much at the end but still had two kills, and Soares finished with the one tally.
Artifacts Recovered
9 Sectoid Corpses
9 Weapon Fragments
Another oz. of the mysterious orangish goo
With the reward money deposited in the treasury, the Air War fund is back up to 11.3m, 14.3m in the General Fund. The team was on site for over an hour and twenty minutes, and returned to base at 2:52 AM.