X-COM II: The Earth’s Revenge (Part IX)

[Poli]

HEHE

[Kodos]

This can't be good...

[Thomkal]

GB,

You really need to stop eating sushi before you go to bed-that will stop those bad dreams right away.

<---hate terror missions glad never to be on one

[Poli]

How did that messed up riddle go again?

[revrew]

Well, that ought to do it. No more Kodos getting my kills anymore. Shee-ooot, I mowed down at least 4 X-com agents with that blaster rocket! Got me an alien, too! A big, multi-tentacled one.

Later, I'll just do a Justin Timberlake and declare it "a wardrobe malfunction".

Huh. You don't think that PSI training messed me up or anything, do you? I've been saying the wierdest things...

[Sublime]

Glad I got moved from USA Com over to EU Com...no bad terror mission for me!

[Godzilla Blitz]

"All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of
us, they're behind us...they can't get away this time"--Lewis B. Puller, USMC

82nd Mission: Terror in Nairobi

The EU COM Skyranger cuts through the dark skies over the Sahara desert on route to Nairobi. This will be our 82nd airborne mission. The ten men inside fiddle with weapons, run equipment checks, and prepare themselves for the carnage that waits. Second only to base assaults in ferocity, terror missions have been some of our most deadly missions to date. The last two have been against Ethereals, and every man inside the craft says a silent prayer to Thor, the Norse god of war, that Ethereals are not our target today.

We’ve got some of our best agents on board today, and the mood inside the Skyranger is a veteran calm. However, we do have two rookies, Sachmo III, whose family has a long line of (dead) X-COM heroes, and Chuck U Farley, legendary football player of the Silicon Pirates.

The green descent light goes on as the orange glow of sunrise lights the eastern edge of the horizon. We’ll strike at dawn, in limited light. The Skyranger drops altitude and slows…

Our troops today:

Left Side:
1. Jfbbis (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
2. Revrew (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
3. Real Deal III (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
4. Coffee Warlord II (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
5. Sachmo III (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)

Right Side:
1. Kodos (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
2. Breeze (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
3. Naiwf (Blaster Launcher, Power Suit)
4. Swaggs (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)
5. Chuck U Farley (Heavy Plasma, Power Suit)

The Skyranger begins its vertical descent through clear skies to the dusty city below. It’s hot and still down there; ground temps are already at 87 degrees. In the early dawn light we get a glimpse of the battlefield. We’ll be coming down on an empty plot of land at the corner of an intersection in the center of the battle zone. To the rear of the Skyranger, where we’ll exit the craft, we can see an open lot of land. Immediately to the left of our exit is a large, two-story shopping complex: a hive of shops and stalls. On the other side of the exit, to our right, a two-lane road runs parallel with our craft. On the other side of the road there are some one- and two-story houses. The nose of our Skyranger will come up against another two-lane road. On the other side of this road, we can see more houses. In short, we’ve got one of the worst landing spots I’ve ever seen in a terror mission: we’re surrounded, with no immediate cover to our rear, and with lots of buildings on the other three sides. We could take a ton of fire from well concealed enemies before we make it to safety. We’ll need our best performance today.

The wheels of the Skyranger touch down on African soil. The ramp falls away with a thump and sends a cloud of dust swirling up in front of our exit. Seconds later, the red warning light flashes and the alarms go off: hot landing!

Our tank picks up the outline of a Floater, in a small park to the left of the open plot at the rear of our craft. Incoming plasma streams towards then past our exit, missing the entrance by inches. Our tank rumbles onto the exit, followed closely by Kodos and Jfbbis, who are right on its heels. The two men stop at the exit, drop to their knees and open fire over the hull of our tank. Kodos’ first shot catches the Floater in the chest and blows a hole right through the creature. It tumbles to the ground with a howl. X-COM 1, Aliens 0.

Kodos and Jfbbis hold at the top of the ramp, but our tank continues to the bottom, where it spins left: Holy Crap! Two reapers—those big, hairy, man-eating beasts—lie in wait for us at the edge of the shopping plaza, about 10 yards away. Our tank spins right: two Floaters are scrambling into firing positions next to a house across the street, about 25 yards away! Ambush!

As shots from the Floaters ping off the side of the Skyranger, our tank heads straight towards their position. Kodos screams to Naiwf to fire the Blaster Launcher out the mouth the Skyranger at the near Reaper. Naiwf checks his HUD, slaps the coordinates into the Blaster Launcher, and pulls the trigger. Kodos dives left behind Jfbbis just as Naiwf’s missile tears through the spot he vacated. The missile roars out the back of the Skyranger, breaks down and left, cuts back into the shopping center, drills the first Reaper in its bulky torso, and explodes. The front of the shopping plaza disintegrates in the explosion and the Skyranger rocks violently right as a massive fireball engulfs the craft. Still under enemy fire, our tank spins to check the damage: the two Reapers are piles of gore, and the corpse of a third alien—another Floater—lies just inside the shattered façade of the shopping center. Wow! Naiwf gets himself a hat trick in one shot! X-COM 4, Aliens 0.


Alien corpses lie in a shopping complex hit only seconds earlier by an X-COM Blaster missile. Miraculously, the civilian in the photo was unhurt. October, 2003. X-COM Archives Photo

A cheer goes up from the men in the Skyranger, but before it settles Breeze and Jfbbis are out the exit and into the smoky, flaming air. They dive off the ramp to the right and land right behind our charred tank. They stand up and trade shots with the Floaters dug in beside the house across the street. Plasma blasts fly back and forth, but no one has yet to beat Jfbbis in a marksmanship duel. With brutal efficiency, he drills one Floater right between the eyes, then switches aim and guts the second Floater. Breeze can only admire the master’s work, as all of his shaky shots sailed badly wide. X-COM 6, Aliens 0.

Before we can catch our breath, there is motion up past the nose of the Skyranger. Breeze and Jfbbis turn and spot a Floater, about 30 yards away, cutting towards our position from a house across the street that runs perpendicular to our Skyranger. Breeze opens fire first. This time his aim is true, as he catches the Floater in the shoulder with a blast that sends him spinning to the street. Blood gushes onto the street out of a hole in the creature’s upper chest, and within seconds it dies. X-COM 7, Aliens 0.

Finally, we catch a moment to move out. Chuck U Farley and Sachmo exit the Skyranger and take up firing positions around the rear of the craft. Breeze starts toward the front of the Skyranger. Revrew exits, takes up a position behind our tank, and together the two of them start towards the street to the right of our exit. With our exit now cluttered with men, Jfbbis steps back into the Skyranger to let things clear.


X-COM forces advance across a Nairobi street. October, 2003. X-COM Archives Photo

Suddenly, a plasma blast comes streaking towards our tank from across the street to our right. It clangs off the turret and ricochets away. The tank and Revrew scan the other side of the street…There! A Floater sniper, over the back end of a house on the other side of the street, about 40 yards away. The Floater ducks out of sight, but Revrew and our tank train their weapons on his last position. Sure enough, the Floater pops into sight again, and Revrew instantly opens fire. His first shot is perfect: it blows apart the top of the Floater’s head in a splash of purple goo! The creature falls back out of sight. Well done, Captain Revrew! X-COM 8, Aliens 0.


Floater corpses litter a Nairobi house. October, 2003. X-COM Archives Photo

Suddenly, from across the street by the nose of the Skyranger, two more Floaters bear down on our position, firing plasma weapons as they advance. Revrew and Breeze dive for cover while Chuck U. Farley and Sachmo shift to firing positions and Swaggs runs out of the Skyranger to add his firepower. All three men open fire at the same time. Streaks of plasma race alongside the Skyranger and into the street. Chuck Farley is the first to score, as he catches a Floater in the groin and sends it crashing to the ground. The second Floater veers right and makes it to a hedge on one side of the intersection, but just as it gets there Swaggs hits it in the head with a shot that scalps it. The Floater roars, grabs for its open skull as purple blood rushes down its face, and falls backwards dead. Boo yah! X-COM 10, Aliens 0.

Finally, things go quiet for a moment. We can see civilians scurrying through the houses on the other sides of the street, but there are no signs of the remaining aliens. We take this opportunity to get Coffee Warlord II and Real Deal III out of the Skyranger and into action. They’ll push the point as we search for more aliens. Coffee and Real exit the Skyranger and work their way to the nose of the craft. We send our tank forward, then have it sweep by the front of the Skyranger and down the long road that runs to the left of our position.

The tank makes it about five yards past our Skyranger when it picks up the hulking shape of a Reaper advancing down the street on our position. Real Deal has a shot from where he is near the front of the Skyranger, and he opens fire while Coffee Warlord, slightly behind Real, preps a grenade and tosses it at the Reaper’s positions over the corner of the ravaged shopping center. Plasma races down the street; the grenade lands and rolls to within two meters of the slowly advancing alien. Most of the plasma tails wide, but one shot slams into the Reaper’s chest, sending a spray of green out of the creature. Enraged, it hunches to charge, but Coffee’s grenade goes off a fraction of a second later and blows the thing apart! X-COM 11, Aliens 0.

And that is the last alien! Wow! Amazing! Not one civilian got killed after we touched down! Outstanding job, men!

Kills: Kodos, 1; Coffee Warlord II, 1; Naiwf, 3; Jfbbis, 2; Revrew, 1; Swaggs, 1; Breeze, 1; Chuck U Farley, 1.
KIA: None.
Wounded: None
Attribute Improvements: Kodos, Coffee Warlord II, Naiwf, Jfbbis, Revrew, Swaggs, Breeze, Chuck U Farley, Real Deal III.
Final score: 686! A record!
Mission Notes:
That mission was so fast and so furious that we didn’t have a chance to take good combat photos. All we got were shots of dead aliens littering the streets.

Usually on terror missions all but one or two of the civilians in the battle zone get killed. I think the fewest we’ve had is a half dozen or so left. But today, all 15 civilians were left alive. Unbelievable job, men! Simply outstanding! Nairobi thanks you!

I wonder if such a high score will entice the aliens to start looking for our Africa base. Maybe we should hire more guards?

[Travis]

Simply put...

wow

Excellent job gentlemen.

[Coffee Warlord]

Thats right, you alien scum!

We earned our 5 dollar paychecks today, boys.

[Fonzie]

Nice job, GB!

[Godzilla Blitz]

RING RING RING

Joker Ace is AWOL, so we call...

ShaefIllini! Your planet needs you!

Also, CapnMorgan, the USA COM pilot, has been AWOL for a long time. If anyone on the waiting list wants his job, let me know and it's yours. We'll go in order of agent number if more than one person is interested.

[jfbbis]

To badly paraphrase an old song , "I survived Nairobi"

[Barkeep49]

GB your ability with the game has just gotten too good. Not one death on that mission? Man you're smokin'!

[illinifan999]

Damn GB, noyce!

[NAIWF]

Thanks for making me think I killed everyone GB

Once I saw Naiwf (Blaster Launcher) I almost didn't want to read, but then there was this . . .

"Wow! Naiwf gets himself a hat trick in one shot!"

Most excellent job dude! [/Keanu Reeves]

[RealDeal]

I need more action that that. I am being underutilized.

[Blade]

Awesome job!!!

[Chuck U Farley]

Chucks first kill, cool.

[kingfc22]

Mighty fine job. If I was there, I would of had 4 kills though.

[Poli]

Nobody died?

Crapt.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by ardent enthusiast

Nobody died?

Crapt.

What a team player... You guys voted for AE over me in the Survivor finals? For shame!

[Poli]

Someone is bitter.

[Vince]

Wow. Nice terror mission, GB.

And my recruit...looks like he's kind of ripped, but kind of yellow, too. Should be interesting

[PsychoCop]

Good job people!

[tucker342]

wow... awesome job GB!

[Thomkal]

That was simply brilliant GB. Those terror missions are hell themselves and I wouldn't have thought it possible to survive one with no civilian or soldiers casualties. Well done!

[Coffee Warlord]

The no civvy casualties is still unhead of. They usually gun for civilians as a target over X-Com ops. I've had my men in plain sight of the enemy, and they took out the civilian nearby without firing a shot at me.

('Course, that might be because that was an early point in a game, and my guys couldn't hit SHIT. We unloaded at the alien and hit nothing. Guy prolly thought he had time.)

[Swaggs]

Wow... I must be one of the youngest Sgts ever.

[Tasan]

Good job guys. Wish I had been there ;- )

[ShaefIllini]

ShaefIllini reporting for duty.

[Godzilla Blitz]

ShaefIllini: Welcome aboard! You, The Herd, and Hoops Guy are on your way to lovely Africa!

Swaggs: Actually, you're getting up there in missions. The game seems to like bravery too.

Thomkal, Coffee: I was amazed that no civilians died. I think the best we've done up to now has been about 10 dead. The amazing thing about this last mission, though, was that I think it was only about five turns long. We took out four aliens on turn one, two more on each of the next three turns, and then one on the last one. There were civilians near the Floaters, but I think the civilians were in the houses and the aliens were outside. Because we came down in open ground right in the middle of the battle field, with good sight lines to our Skyranger, I think the aliens just came for us instead of looking for the civilians. Our crappy starting position was probably the best thing for us on this mission.

Vince, Tucker, Thomkal, Illinifan: Thanks!

Vince: Yeah, except for that bravery, your guy's not bad at all. Could be interesting. If he has good PSI skills, I think he could make a good agent.

Ardent: It's going to be interesting to see who covers your back when you go into battle. You might want to warm up Ardent Enthusiast II.

Chuck: Yup. Good job. One for one!

Naiwf: Sorry to scare you. Nice shot, though. Turned the mission around for us.

Barkeep: Thanks. I'm happy with how I played that one. I thought for sure we were going to lose a few men getting out of the Skyranger. The Blaster Launcher shot worked better than I could have hoped. I'm sure I'll make up for this good mission with some dopey mistake down the road, though. It's still a very dangerous game we're playing. I always feel like we're one alien shot away from disaster, and without a doubt there's death in our future.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by ardent enthusiast

Nobody died?

Crapt.

With friends like these... I think I'll keep my lab door locked

SI

[SirFozzie]

Damn... makes me wish I was in on that.

Bing Bang BOOM BOOM BOOM.. fly home :-)

[fantastic flying froggies]

Originally Posted by Godzilla Blitz

I was amazed that no civilians died. The amazing thing about this last mission, though, was that I think it was only about five turns long. We took out four aliens on turn one, two more on each of the next three turns, and then one on the last one. Because we came down in open ground right in the middle of the battle field, with good sight lines to our Skyranger, I think the aliens just came for us instead of looking for the civilians. Our crappy starting position was probably the best thing for us on this mission.

Right on, mister. The key to terror mission is speed. You need to go as quick as possible, and forget all about cover. This was ideal because of your starting central position. Run out, shoot and shoot again ! That's the way to go !

[Breeze]

NICE!....I Got a Kill too.

[revrew]

Cap-E-tan revrew cocks his head to the side, eyebrows arched, and says to the aliens, "Again?"

(Once again, another Mask of Zorro reference. Oh, heck, why not do another...)

The alien sniper looks down into the street. He says outloud, "I thought we had them pinned down?"

Revrew responds, "That's because you are stupid." Then he wastes E.T.

[Poli]

.

I love you all, X-COM.

[fantastic flying froggies]

I think it's too late for that AE. You've gone too far, crossed the line, and all that sort of things...

[Poli]

It works for Democrats.

[Raven Hawk]

GB: I choose not to opt up, but I will take whatever the good Lord has given to Raven Hawk II. He's got some big boots to fill.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Update

We get no rest. 10 hours after the EU COM Skyranger returns to base, Superman scrambles his Interceptor and gives chase to a Sectoid scout UFO over northern Europe. He engages the craft over Northern Ireland and after a short dogfight, downs the craft there.

The ASIA COM Skyranger is airborne within minutes to search the remains. On board are the following ten men:

GlenGoyne, Rich, Jeff Nights II, 3ric IV, Fonzie II, Thomkal II, Travis III, Zippy II, Qwikshot II, and Calis.

Good luck, men.

This mission will go up on Sunday.

[Poli]

Good luck, X-Com.

[Kodos]

What. No wishing them all death?

You're slipping, man...

[Poli]

Originally Posted by Kodos

What. No wishing them all death?

You're slipping, man...

That's what you think. I'm trying to woo the X-Com community with kind words.

[Godzilla Blitz]

Thinking about picking up the pace just a bit and add more missions each week, but I don't want to overwhelm people (I think I did that last time, just before my daughter was born).

If you've got a moment, there's a quick poll here if you'd like to let me know what you think.

Thanks!

[Abe Sargent]

GB, as much as we all enjoy and participate in this dynasty - this is your dynasty. Go at whatever speed you want, man.

-Anxiety

[Poli]

Good point. Your pace. Go X-Com.

[Blade6119]

we love the write-ups, so dont worry about overwhelming us...im just worried bout you burning out

[RealDeal]

it isn't possible to overwhelm us. I can read a report in 15 minutes, yet I have over 1500 minutes per day.

[The_herd]

I'm for whatever pace doesn't burn you out. I'm a huge X-Com fan, playing it myself right now actually, and I would love to see this go all the way through. But at the same time, I don't want this to die out because you get tired of doing updates or they become more of a chore than anything else.