OPERATION FIRST ENGINE
4.27.2015, 1336
Germany
The squad deploys in a wooded area, but it's a canyon of some sort. We've got to get out of this onto higher ground, it's an ambush waiting to happen. There are better fields of fire to the right, so Kim heads that way. Initial sounds appear to be mostly sectoids, but also something that sounds ... massive. A deep guttural growl. Not appetizing.
We seem to hear the enemy first just up an incline in the direction Kim has chosen to find higher ground -- figures. This is our beachhead, so to speak. It seems to move away from us though as we slowly advance ... perhaps drawing us into a trap? Or am I just paranoid? The trees ahead of us burn, and beyond that, a devastated clearing. It's not hard to figure what's there.
Finally, in the desolate clearing, Kim spots a trio of sectoids. Not a bad way to start, they've got to cross a stretch with no good cover to reach us. Defensive positions are not plentiful but we've got the advantadge of terrain here if they want a fight. Kim wounds one that is fairly exposed by a log, but Path Twelve has to finish it off. The other two move forward, one looking for us to advance and the other landing an unlikely shot against Kim ... but it's just a flesh wound. Khumalo returns the favor, but Dean Hoo is not content with that. A fine shot gives him his first kill! We probably aren't going to get a better chance to deploy the arc thrower, so we try to move in for that, but the sectoid just retreats. So begins a slow chase across the clearing, both Kims moving in and the big guns staying back in the trees for fire support.
Finally presented with a chance, Seung-yeon Kim checked the readout. About two chances in five of success. And to think these things were state of the art. She closed the distance, with her countryman ready with the flashbang in case it failed. It worked! Oh my goodness, it worked!! Numbed by the electric shock, the sectoid fell to the ground, immobile but still alive. Dr. Vahlen was gleefull -- 'Now we can begin the interrogation!' Um, not yet doctor. Need I remind you the aliens still control this area? Still, it was a great moment.
A historic moment in time is captured here. The first deployment of the arc thrower meets with success and an incapacitated sectoid!
The team retreated to the tree line and wheeled left towards the canyon. Spending more time in that clearing was not on our happy fun list. Unfortunately, the sounds came from that way. Further left, but back in the open. Khumalo took care of SY Kim's wound, and back that way the squad angled. This was slow going, but slow and safe sure beats the alternative. She spotted the ship, and we purposed to go no further in that direction. I sure wasn't going to approach that thing from here, not without checking out the perimeter. The last sounds had thankfully been some distance from the vessel.
What happened next was bizarre. Two seekers arriving from the clearing wasn't a big surprise. One advanced, and one went to stealth. Hoo's reaction shot missed wide. But a drone also appeared to the rear. A single drone apparently. I'm not sure if it saw us, but Path Twelve saw it. She had a crucial shot here -- she needed to take it down or we would have to fight on two fronts. Missed.
It's never a good idea to fight on two fronts, even when one is just a lowly, solitary drone
That one hurts. It's only a drone, but I don't like getting flanked by anything. Practically underneath it, the 'other' Kim damaged the first seeker. Gale showed off her skills in the incinerating-the-air department, but got the job done on a second try. Time to try out this battle scanner -- it worked! The second seeker 'appeared'. Khumalo's burst just bounced off it though. Soares' did the same. Hoo took a big chunk out of it as it advanced, but that didn't stop it from landing a significant blow against our brazilian rocketeer, who immediately panicked. Meanwhile the drone advanced but couldn't get into range.
There you are! Kim is 2-for-2 on experimental XCom technology already on this operation. The seeker can no longer hide from us.
Dean Hoo takes aim at the mechanical menace. His aim was true, but it just kept coming.
The Kims took over at that point. Seung-yeon closed to point-blank range and finished off the seeker, while Su-Min dashed the other way and handled the drone, with Path Twelve's sniper rifle actually too close to it now. A bit of a strange and unorthodox fight, but we survived it. Khumalo burned another medkit to get Soares close to operational again, and it was time to resume the sweep. So far we've learned that the arc thrower and battle scanner do work, thank you very much. But the sounds of the forest indicate this fight is far from over.
Soon we hear more of them, back into the forest the way the drone came from. Perhaps it has 'friends' out there. Err, had friends. There's only one narrow path up the hill, and the approach is cautious -- particularly since the ship is not far away. It's a very dangerous way to approach but we see no other option.
Moving up the hill, Kim sees it ... that must the big one we were hearing. Vahlen refers to it as an obvious front-line unit. Just a massive green hulking thing. Shen -- "I don't envy anyone who has to go up against that thing". It doesn't see us yet, so Kim takes advantadge of that and fires. It's wounded, but still alive -- and there'a another, even larger one and a floater with it. Stupendous. Soares tries a rocket, which is off-target and only manages to finish off the wounded muton. The other two are still alive, and she's exposed if they advance. Fabulous. This could go bad quickly. If that thing charges ...
Seung-yeon Kim gets our first glimpse of a new kind of enemy, the massive muton. Barely visible in the shadows, it is greeted with her assault rifle and soon exterminated by a Soares rocket.
We scramble to get into the best firing positions we can. Khumalo and Hoo can only find overwatch, others firing positions are too far away to allow an immediate shot. Su-Min Kim dashes forward and gets a mid-range shotgun blast on the flanked floater, taking it out. We can do nothing to that muton though ...
And it retreats to the rear and right, over near the ship. Ok. We've got a massive rogue tank called a muton wandering around over there now. That sounds great. We gradually move forward to pursue it, and Seung-young Kim spots the muton again. She fires off-target, and the trees block Path Twelve who doesn't have a shot. Dashing into better cover position, Su-min Kim spots a trio of sectoids. Most of them dart into the blackness ahead and on the left. This is getting way too interesting here. However, at least Twelve has line-of-sight on one of them. It's still up, but wounded.
From her setup behind a tree well back from the heat of the action, sniper Path Twelve missed an absurd number of times in this firefight. She doesn't get the kill here, but at least managed to hit the target
One of them wanders around the corner ... fires ... and Kim is gone! Oh, that was some serious horsecrap! Twelve takes out one sectoid, then Su-min Kim moves up and executes the one who took out his comrade, but that really hurts. Our scout is dead!!
In case you've ever wondered, this is what happens when a melded sectoid is killed. They do not go gently ...
The muton fires for Gale, and misses. That should be it's last chance to do a damn thing. From roughly a half-mile away, Path Twelve misses but we've got plenty of guns in the area. Dean Hoo's SAW cuts it down to about half-size. Gale misses, then hits and that's all for the leader muton. We advance looking for the final sectoid ... and Kim finds it. Or rather, it finds him. Cleverly hiding behind a crevace in the rock and without a scout to search, it tags him hard, nearly killing him! Through the pain-induced haze he sees well enough to send the evil bastard to it's grave, but this definitely hasn't gone as planned.
Su-min Kim is fortunate to live through this dastardly ambush
We've now taken down a dozen of them, including two new massive enemies. On the other hand, we've taken multiple injuries and lost our talented scout. It's time to regroup. Path Twelve hears movement inside the ship now. Looks like it's time to breach. She keeps watch with Hoo and Gale, it's the FOFC on guard duty while the others heal, reload, and prepare to join them for the assault. We are down to one of the original six medkit applications by the time Kim is nursed back to full strength.
There's no real need for a 'door', half of this side of the ship was blasted open by the impact. Hoo spots them as we move in, sort of in no-man's land here as we can't get to good cover in the ship but must leave the trees. Two outsiders, one of which dashes out of view. The only real option here is to retreat, hoping to draw them out. One comes, the other does not. We only get one shot at it, a pistol from Kim, who misses. There's no choice but to risk it now. He dashes up with a shotgun, one-shot kill!
One left now, and we need to cover our brave assault trooper. There's no safe way to do it, we just find the best cover we can and hope for the best. The other outsider was sneaky, and it got off a good shot at Hoo. We are lucky as hell he wasn't hit and lying dead on the ground there.
Dean Hoo could well have bought it here
It just missed, and now having exposed it's position, that outsider is as good as gone. Gale gets in the first blow, Twelve misses a pistol shot and Khumalo misses as well. Soares only does a flesh wound. Hoo gets a chance and incredibly manages to miss from practically on top of the damn thing. Seriously dude. It's right the hell in front of you! It's up to Kim's shotgun ... which glances off and does minimal damage. The outsider fires back at Kim, who is injured again and panics, but he'll live.
Unbelievable horsecrap. We should have been able to kill that thing damn near twice. Hoo tries again ... and finally ends this mission.
Post-Mortem
Well, First Engine will definitely go into the books as a costly success. We lost our first experienced soldier, scout Seung-yeung Kim, on what was ironically one of the least dangerous incoming fire situations on the entire operation. Often it has not been the case, but the alien tactics were frankly impressive at several points. Unfortunately, they may be learning tactically as well as the other improvements. But in this case, it was just a 'stuff happens' moment. A bloody sectoid, while she was in good cover behind the cliff rock. Su-Min Kim could
easily have been killed twice, and wasn't. Hoo never had a chance to use his suppression abilities, though I sure would have if I knew he couldn't hit an outsider standing five feet in front of him. We get our first capture of a sectoid, but it will be our last for a while.
Another 14 enemies killed, one of our lost. We have five promotions, with Su-Min Kim now out a record five weeks. Soares will miss three weeks. The main question was on Su-Min's mental state, and he appears to be fine though he's not the best in that department to begin with.
Seung-yeon Kim had 6 kills to her credit, and will be remembed as the first to successfully deploy the arc thrower and battle scanner. Her day started so well ... until it was over. For all the varied and advanced enemies we've encountered, all three soldiers that have been lost were killed by sectoid pistols.
Dr. Vahlen was breathless in her excitement -- 'I know it wasn't easy, but bringing an alien back alive could lead to great advances in our research!'. Yeah, how about you mourn the lost for a good five seconds before you concern yourself with that?
Artifacts Recovered
1 Alien Pistol
5 Sectoid Corpses
1 Floater Corpse
1 Muton Corpse
1 Drone Wreck
1 Sectoid Captive
21 kg Elerium
17 kg Alien Alloys
11 Weapon Fragments
2 oz. MOG
4 UFO Flight Computers(3 damaged)
2 UFO Power Sources(1 damaged)
2 Seeker Wrecks