XCAS Roleplay

[Mouse Nightshirt]

For all you RPers on the old XCAS forums, this is your new pinned topic. So roleplay here.

[Ion Mage]

<<ok, then. This little roleplay of mine will be based off of what happens after our last sim, from Corporal Howardson's point of view. For those whom don't know, our base, Nova Alpha Omega, was attacked. Thats basically all you need to know. You could likely fill any other gaps>>

 

Corporal Howardson sat there, sweating. He was in the dark, cold, sterile hangar, with the UGS patton behind him, and 2 blast doors to the rest of the base in front of him. Only two things could come out those doors: Aliens, or his own friends.

 

"We got 3 commanding officers heavily injured! Repeat, 3 commanding officers needing evac to the med rooms immediately" echoed out of his com unit. Howardson had a tough decision to make on the fly. Was his help really needed? Could everyone else handle the situation on there own? If he abandoned the patton, it could easily be captured by the enemy, as he was the only man guarding it.

 

As he thought about it, he glanced at the pile of rubble that was a few trashed sectopods. He knew there were others, but had his friends managed to take them on?

 

"Guys, this is howardson. Did you take on the sectopods that had retreated from the hangar earlier?" Howardson radioed.

 

"We took down a few that came from the hangar's direction, so I'd say it was a yes" Sergeant necro had replied.

 

Afterwards, a few gun shots could be heard in the distance. They came from the general direction of the base entrance. Considering that he had never heard what sentry guns sounded like, and that this happened to be the first time he had heard this kind of gunshot before, he assumed the aliens had just met some of X-com's automated wrath. The security system was back online.

 

The base intercom had then sounded throughout the base "This ascidian forze! Sekeritee sisten onine! Proseture hostile scannink". From the sounds of it, the Ascidians were to thank for the security system. Now, all it took was for them to look through all the base cameras to see if any hostiles remain. He assumes the Ascidian's last sentence was supposed to mean just that.

 

A few minutes later, Howardson had heard what he had been waiting for, confirmation of the base's security. "Finally..." Howardson mumbled to himself.

 

"Ok, guys. Since everything is secure, I'm coming to evac the wounded"

"Good, though only one remains. Jackson should still be lying there, in the armory"

"Roger".

 

When Howardson arrived, he wasn't exactly overwhelmed. A variety of sectopod heaps, a few ethereal corpses, and a lot of blood, dispensed ammo clips, and general destruction was all he could really see in it. Oh yeah, he saw jackson too.

 

"Hit again?" Howardson asked Jacko as he heaved him over the shoulder.

"..."

"Oh wait, thats right, your unconscious."

 

After Howardson had brought jacko to med, he was then ordered to stay for a late decontamination procedure.

 

"Hey, you missed the first one" Was the only real reason the doctors would give. Realizing he had no choice, he willingly subjected himself to the decontamination procedures.

 

After it was over, Howardson finally had some free time to himself. Finally, he was off duty. The Ascidians were doing the cleanup for us, being the fine chaps they are.

 

"Finally, i get to see what home is like" Howardson thought. So far, all his duties were either aboard the patton, or aboard some alien craft. Never in some full-fledged base!

 

The first stop on the tour was the mess hall. All this fighting made him hungry, and so did the decontamination process. After seeing that a battle between ethereals and ascidians had taken place there, however, he decided now is not the time for food.

 

Afterwards, he checked out the general stores. Not much of interest there, as most of the things were wrapped up in ugly cardboard boxes until they were needed.

 

He decided to end his tour rather early, after noticing that the base was on lockdown, just in case some aliens are in hiding. The only real place left to go was in his living quarters. Room 4b.

 

At least the Ascidians were kind enough to grant us some recreational material. Some of it included novels, some equipment for sports, and some electronic gaming, namely. Unfortunately, all of it was in Ascidian, whom Howardson had known none of.

 

Fortunately, he finds a book on learning to speak Ascidian lying around. With nothing better to do, and realizing it will remain this way if he doesnt do so, Howardson makes the undertaking of learning Ascidian.

 

<<END ROLEPLAY. Long post. Can i make the "Howardson learning Ascidian" thing apply in the sim itself? I did provide a good reason and all for learning it. And i don't mean learn it all at once. I mean start with very robust Ascidian, and then over the course of a few sims slowly learn it. Know what I mean?>>

[Vikernes]

After the ambush, McBannok headed for MedBay, since he had heard Yorke's announcement and needed medical treatment badly. Well, not as bad as the three guys who got blown up and fried, but ... well, maybe a bit of alcohol would do it.

Sincerely, McBannok didn't know. Everything had gone wrong, this was suposed to be just a trip home. HOME! The safe, cozy place! He was still in shock... he had parted with military a long time ago, and had accepted the mission to go on the Patton for it's scientific value, not for war.

Now, a Sectopod had exploded, ramming three officers against the wall, and throwing flying debris into every body in the room. McBannok didn't get very injured, but a big bit of flying metal had cut off a bit of his ear's top, and he was bleeding badly from there, and his nose, which he had rammed twice while he was controled by Ethereals, and once when he was running/rolling away.

Yorke just threw him a little patch, a bottle of alcohol and cotton, and returned to take care of the wounded. McBannok just sat in the nearest chair and stood there for a lot of time, just thinking...

 

 

The next day, he was ready for R&D.

[Loonie]

The Patton descended into the atmosphere of Arkunis IV. Already confused by the sudden arrival of several SFCs and somewhat shaken from the coaxial warp private Kacur was in a state of confusion. After being thawed out of the deep freeze on the way back to the NAO he found it rather shocking that what was supposed to be a mission involving only scientific personel had turned into a bitter battle for survival 60 light years away from Earth! Still after some initial observations of his fellow soldiers he decided that, at least for the time being, it would be best to focus on his orders and abilities rather than converse with the rest of the team.

 

The pilot landed the craft in the hangar and Kacur was quite curious about the base and even more about the alien race that called itself the Ascidians which was apparently allied with the X-COM band of soldiers. However this would regretablly have to wait as Kacur suddenly detected an extremely hostile presence somewhere in the base. It seemed that despite his long stay in the cryo pod his psionic skills were nevertheless quite sharp. Quickly he recognized that the team could be in serious peril and informed them of this insidious presence. However many of them found it hard to believe that the enemy could be nearby but Kacur kept on concentrating always trying to find the source of these hostile beings. He might have found it if a group of Ascidians had not bumped into him and broken his concentration. Then another nasty thought raced through his mind. Could these Ascidians be part of an enemy faction? However the answer to that was quickly obvious when all of them suddenly dropped to the ground. And that was when he had finally established the hostiles.

 

Only the Ethereals could possess such awesome powers and sure enough several of them appeared at the hangar doors and began firing on the team. After some fighting and serious PSI attacks that almost left everyone blown to bits by their own grenades, several Sectopods charged in and the Ethereals retreated to other parts of the base. Soon enough the commander ordered a retreat towards the armoury where the team would be issued plasma rifles. After some hard fighting the Sectopods were destroyed but soon enough another wave arrived. It took a long time to wipe out every last one of them but finally they were all blown to bits with the last one critically injuring three senior officers. Soon after the alien robots were wiped out, the base was deemed clear of hostiles as the remaining Ethereals had also been hunted down.

 

And with that Kacur's first mission was over. Whilst the others were all around the base or in the infirmary Kacur instead decided to find the Living Quarters where he could recollect his thoughts. His first mission being much harder than any of the sims back on Earth gave him quite a shock and soon he began to wonder if they would ever return back to Sol. Still he had to admit that if you are part of a team which has a somewhat comic but nevertheless very efficient way of doing things you could bet your life that anything was possible.

[DragonHawk]

*****

 

Guys and gals, try to keep your posts nice and formatted. If they are not formatted, they become hard to read, and then things start to suck.

 

Someone give me mod powers, dammit, so I can format the above post!

 

*****

[Ion Mage]

<<Note: I'm fast-forwarding this over to the end of last sim>>

 

2 hours later... back at NAO.

 

 

Standard post-mission procedures took place. Thanks to some 'coercion' on Jacko's part, the team had managed to get the pirate's avenger returned to NAO, along with any equipment the pirates may have had. Plus, we had taken a large amount of the pirate's in alive, for questioning.

 

Howardson was still quite bewildered. How did the pirates get here? How did WE get here? He never was briefed on how the patton reached the arkunis system <<BTW, neither the 'background story' section nor the 'stories' section cover that, so don't throw that excuse at me >>, now that he thought about it. Was it some weird wormhole appearing? A rip in the space-time continuum? What? Whatever the case was, he would have to do that later. There was some 'escort' duty to take care of first. Leuitenant Ong was leading the ecort duties.

 

"Ok, people. We have some pirates to lead into the alien containment area. Since we don't have normal jail cells, those will have to do for the moment." Ong said coldly. Howardson, Jackson, Necro, and a few others were helping Ong perform the transfer. Everyone proceeded to 'ecort' the prisoners into the AC, each with the aid of an auto cannon, an Ascidian high-powered sniper rifle, another autocannon, and a slew of X-Com standard issue rifles, respectively. As if we did not have enough loonies running around, Ong used a sword as his 'escort aid', which Howardson never realized until this moment. After the proper access was granted to everyone, the team entered what is normally a restricted area. Howardson never noticed we even HAD an alien containment system. And here he is, entering it.

 

"Scanning...... agent KO-9F3. Leuitenant Kevin Ong. Access granted" the security system buzzed. The blast door opened for him and his 'escortees', and closed before any more followed.

 

"Scanning...... agent DJ-0D1, Sergeant Daniel Jackson. Temporary access granted for duration of escort duty. Afterwards, you are immediately to leave the area, and report for debriefing in RW-9T2, Richeter Weindhoven's office." Buzzed the security system. Apparently not even sergeants were allowed standard access, but then again, maybe it was just Jacko.

 

"Lobster magnet" Jacko replied. Apparently he was high on morphine after having given some first-aid on the way home, when one of the SFCs exploded in his face.

 

"Scanning...... agent AN-4D8, Sergeant Andy necro. Access granted" the system buzzed. It appeared that it was, in fact, just Jacko who was excluded from sergeant level access.

 

"Scanning...... agent SH-8T2, Corporal Samuel Howardson. Temporary access granted. Afterwards you are to report to commander Weindhoven's office for debriefing."

 

And in he went. As he escorted the prisoners to their' cells, Howardson decided to get as much of a glimpse of the area as he could. Live specimens were few, but there was a creature that bore some major resemblances to a tyrranosaurus rex! He remembered seeing it listed as an 'available project' under the science section of the UFOPedia, but had never witnessed it before in person! The thing was large indeed, but not quite as large as some of the T-Rexs he saw in those old dinosaur books he read when he was young.

 

Elsewhere, there were 3 sectoids being contained in some cryopods. Howardson could only assume they were the live ones gained from the mission that occured about 3 weeks ago. Elsewhere, there was a variety of corpses stored away. He noticed Ned Yorke performing an autopsy on one of them. Must have been gruesome work. Sam wanted to say hi to Yorke, but decided against it, as his permission to enter the area was rather tight as is.

 

After the pirates were stored away, Howardson left the area and proceeded to the Commander's office.

 

"Commander Weindhoven is busy at the moment. Go have something to eat at the mess hall. We will call for each of you to come to his office at the time of your debriefing." the autosecretary buzzed. It was at this point that he was getting a little annoyed by the fact that so much of NAO is automated.

 

At the mess hall, the meals available ranged from some kind of Ascidian omelet, which Howardson remembered having eaten during his first mission. There was also a bit of green beans, and some mashed potato. Finally, some real human food! To bad most of it was cloned, as not much Earth food grows around here. Jackson vomitted at the sight of the mashed potato.

 

After Howardson was finished eating his Omelet, and some mashed potato as well, he opened up his book on learning Ascidian, just to pass time until his debriefing.

 

"Sofri`naol is hello, goodbye is Naol`Sofri, all i need to do is reverse the two.. got it." Ironically, the term for 'keyboard' in Ascidian just so happened to be 'qwertyuiop'. the entire first row of letters on a standard english keyboard. Whether to be amused or scared of this coincidence, Sam couldn't tell.

 

"Anyone involved in today's mission, report to Weindhoven's office for debriefing" the com unit buzzed.

 

Later, inside the office for debriefing...

 

<<I'll end it here, since it would be best to let the commander handle this scene himself. Oh, just one request. Sometime during debriefing i want to ask how we got all the way from mars to here. As i mentioned earlier, neither the background story nor the stories section explain it. I'll need Howardson to ask this sometime during the briefing, please. Thank you, all yours, mouse>>

[Mouse Nightshirt]

<<I'll end it here, since it would be best to let the commander handle this scene himself. Oh, just one request. Sometime during debriefing i want to ask how we got all the way from mars to here. As i mentioned earlier, neither the background story nor the stories section explain it. I'll need Howardson to ask this sometime during the briefing, please. Thank you, all yours, mouse>>

 

<<I'll make this breif, little time. We don't know how we got here ourselves, or rather X-Com don't. I can't reveal that until near the end of XCAS.>>

[Ion Mage]

<<What? Don't copy... you mean that we didn't make it back to base? And what exactly did you mean 'til near the end of XCAS'? Does that mean near the end of it all?>>

[DragonHawk]

>

[Ion Mage]

<<ok, i understand now. I thought mouse was answering a different question. Ah, well, i still need mouse to do the debriefing scene for us. He might want to do it soon, while the last sim is still fresh in his memory>>

[Ion Mage]

<<we need a debriefing soon. or i'll handle the debriefing mysellf . Note to self, and all others; do NOT rely on others to continue the RP, since as this experience shows, the person needed takes forever to reply >>

[Vikernes]

Everyone was at the doors of the debriefing room. Some were standing, some weren't. McBannok was sitting down, against the wall, waiting for the Commander. Jacko was next to him, petting his SFC. He turned to McBannok and said: "Hoyee private, wanna pet my thing?".

 

McBannok turned himself against the wall, and pushed with his legs, so he ended up on the other side of the hall, away from Jacko. The rest of the guys were talking loud and laughing. From down below, McBannok could clearly smell the scent of alcohol from most people arround...

[Mouse Nightshirt]

<<You might want to read the new story, as it contains a similar situation>>

 

The tannoy rung out:

"All XCAS personell to enter Commander's office."

 

The crew entered, to see a rathe stern faced Weindhoven looking at them. The crew cringed a bit before sitting down.

 

"Terrible. Your military discipline is terrible. One of our Senior officers in is a coma. Several express commands were disobeyed. For example, when I say 'Do not fire unless I say so'. What does that mean?"

 

He was greeted with silence.

 

Richter raised his voice. "I asked you a question! When I say 'Do not fire unless I say so', what do I mean!?"

 

Yorke replied "It means you do not wish us to fire Sir."

 

"Thank you. I had two incidents in the last mission when that order was plainly disobeyed. Not only that, I had several of my troops abandon the situation at the Avenger, without stating or asking that they went. Usually, I am happy with your team-work and efficiency, but recently, the only thing I can commend you about is your ability to speak proper English. I'm hoping I don't have to give you another pep-talk on this. I'm tuning down the amount of grenades people get as well. I'm still getting indiscriminate throwing of these extremely DANGEROUS devices. Just because you have grenades doesn't mean you should throw them all willy-nilly. When we get our Improved Zrbite Core grenades, I am restricting their usage further until I believe that you will be more mature with them than you currently are. Now don't get me wrong, you all are good usually, but I'm hoping that this is just a temporary lax in skill. I will be observing you all much more closely in our next mission, and I'm definately not reserving taking back a rank or two if this continues. Is this perfectly clear?"

 

"Yes sir" replied the team.

 

"Well in that case, you are dismissed."

[Ion Mage]

After being dismissed from the debriefing, Howardson was quite embarrassed. It was so obvious that last mission, he was both problems at the same time. Throwing a grenade without orders while a hold-fire order was sent was most likely wwhat got the commander so damned upset.

 

Howardson decided it was time for more discipline. And less grenades. However, he would not get a chance at that until next mission.

 

Therefore, Sam decided to just go to his bunk and study up on speaking Ascidian some more. Quite boring and tedious work, it was. At one point he fell asleep in the middle of a chapter! But a dream that had something to do with an armpit woke him up and reminded him it could be MUCH worse.

 

He then heard a bit of commotion in the personnel quarters.

 

"Trust the pirates? Has Weindoven gone MAD?!?"

 

"Its not like they have a choice. Either that or get executed by whatever weird execution devices the Ascidians employ..."

 

"The moment they can get back home they'll slit our throats"

 

Were some of the lines that were included in the heated arguments outside. Not being in an arguing mood, he just stood there and listened. Apparently, our clocks were off scale, we've been out here for a few more years than we thought... and that x-com at home has grown more powerful technologically.

 

Whatever the case was, the pirates would have a chance to prove themselves to the team in the not so distant future. Apparently we'll be moving against API soon...or rather, they were going to move against us. So sad that racism once again is going to lead to war, death, and loss. So sad that people can't get along.

 

"So why exactly are these API guys so against us? I can understand against the aliens, but us? We've been doing nothing but helping" Howardson asked, butting into the conversation.

 

"Oh, they determined humans to be inferior to Ascidians using similar logic to the one that the Nazis used to determine Jews to be inferior. Shows how smart they are" someone replied.

 

"No other reason?"

 

"Nope, none at all"

 

Howardson then let out a sigh, then left for his bunk again, and tried going to sleep, though he had trouble doing so thanks to the argumentsgoing on outside...

[Loonie]

Kacur was just walking away from the debriefing. He had wished that he could proclaim Richter's ranting simply as a result of the new pirate problem. But although it probably was in a small part just his tension, the fact still remained that the team, including Kacur himself, had made several quite nasty mistakes.

 

He could count his own faults right away. Trying to establish contact with the pirates before the order was given, coercing Jackson to start sniping out the pirates without permission and not asking the commander if he and Howardson could go and help B team out.

 

Things were not progressing the way he wanted them at all. In his first mission he had proven himself to be perhaps even better than some of the corporals on the team. Now it was as if his skill was slowly deteriorating. And no matter how hard he tried to focus, it was never good enough. It was as if the scar on his forehead was somehow determining his preformance.

 

As he went back to the personnel quarters, he could already sense that many minds were at unease inside the place. As he entered the room he found most of the team in the middle of a heated discussion.

 

"These Kabron pirates have absolutely no honour. They do not care for anything but profit, therefore they will betray us and the Ascidians as soon as we do not serve their needs any longer" exclaimed Ong.

 

"Yeah, but can't we just tell this to Richter? He could change his opinion to put some of these guys into our next mission"

 

"Trust me he already knows this and besides do you think we could possibly change his opinion considering the mood he's in these days?"

 

"Well if we are gonna have some of these guys with us on the next mission then I suggest we keep a close eye on them."

 

"The gits will be doing that for us."

 

"Yeah but they don't know them that well now do they?"

 

"I agree. We should get each of those pir..."

 

Kacur just phased the voices out so that he could think to himself. Just what we need! Instead of the group trying to improve their preformance on the battlefield, they are going to use that time to be suspicious of the pirates! He was certain that if Richter happened to hear, that they are going to be secretly watching the pirates, he would pull a stripe or two right away!

 

He just hoped that this thing would settle down before the next mission. Fortunately Howardson butted in and changed the subject from Kabron Pirates to the API. But as Kacur heard someone's statement, that the only reason for the API's hostility was racism, he could not help but jump in.

 

"Actually there is quite possibly a better reason. From what I've read in the UFOpaedia the API openly proclaim racism, but that doesn't neccesarily mean that they believe in it. The Nazis may have believed in racism, but I assure you that their true leaders simply used racism as an excuse to take money and property away from the Jews. Why wouldn't the API be trying to do the same, only that in this case the aliens and ourselves have taken over the role of the Jews?"

 

Not wanting to get into an argument, Kacur just left the personnel quarters. As he left the room he could sense that a few of the soldier's minds were contemplating the new possibility, a few were just perplexed by what he had just said and one or two were even angry with him. Most likely because they found the concept hard or even impossible to grasp or because they mistakenly thought that Kacur was actually defending the API.

 

But no matter what he said, Martin knew that his words would have little impact on the crew since he had been around for quite a short time. He didn't want to think about this anymore since it could interfere with the target practice that he was going to have.

 

<<Just so as to give you a new perspective on the API (and the Nazis too for that matter) >>

[Ion Mage]

Since we are all now stranded in the med-bay, there isn't much to do. For Howardson, its just a mixture of studying some more Ascidian (apparently a call for "Drop your weapon" turned into "Hit the self-destruct button" last mission), and playing floor-pool (Save any major contributions towards FP for the social roleplay forum). He was, however, interested in what happened to 'ninja' last mission, as all Howardson knew was that he turned traitor. However, there were two problems; no one was in the mood to talk, and most of the troops obviously just didn't want to talk about the pirates, as trust for them was lower than ever. After hearing of Ninja's betrayal, even Howardson was starting to grow wary.

 

There was one major problem at the moment; almost everyone was in the med-bay except the pirates! Thankfully, the Ascidians were there to keep an eye on them. But even still, having a ton of fully capable yet untrustworthy pirates around while all your friends are in no condition to do anything to help is quite unsettling.

[Loonie]

<<Hmmm. I might have put you all in a difficult position to respond with the med-bay, so if anyone feels like getting better sooner so that he can post a reply, then I guess I won't complain THAT much. In the meantime though I'll just have to post another one here.>>

 

Kacur was walking along the corridors of NAO. The situation was not good at all. Six soldiers wounded and a base full of pirates that have certainly not proven themselves as trustworthy. The pirate that tagged along with the X-Com team was definetly willing to do only one thing: Save his own skin. Unfortunately for him that gamble apparently didn't pay off since there wasn't that much left of him when Kacur saw his dead body.

 

Although he might have done this in spite of the pirate commander's orders, Kacur didn't have much hope for that. He could predict what the pirates were going to do. Just stay neutral as much as possible until an opportunity, that could get them home, comes up. Then they will pursue it without any regard for anyone be it friend or foe. Currently X-Com didn't have much to fear from them, since a way home was far from being discovered. But the pirates still could have been building up to it, namely by stealing supplies and equipment, maybe even weapons. That's why Martin decided to patrol around the base, since it was currently quite a bit undermanned.

 

The pirates weren't the only thing that troubled him. On the last mission he also experienced two events that he considered impossible until that point. The first was an Ascidian scout that managed to resist his psionic attack almost outright. The Ascidians were generally very weak in PSI-Defence, but this one actually smiled at Martin before he imploded some explosives that he had strapped on himself. Kacur did all that he possibly could to prevent him, but it was of no use. Even if he had focused his mind on nothing but the scout, he still felt that the results would have been the same.

 

The second one was even more disturbing. Only seconds after the explosion another Ascidian actually managed to psionically take control of Jackson. Not only did some of the invaders have good PSI-Defence, but even good PSI-Attack! But fortunately the team managed to capture him for interrogation. As he was escorted back for Grey Skull interrogation, Kacur could only feel, that compared to an average Ascidian soldier, his mind was very warped indeed.

 

Kacur feared that the API have somehow discovered a way to activate the psionic abilities in Ascidians. This was certainly not good, since they could have removed a major Ascidian disadvantage. They could continue to use this ability in battle or invent a much worser scenario for X-Com. They could offer it to the Ascidian council in exchange for X-Com's elimination! But Martin refrained from thinking about these things even more. He had already informed the CO's about the previous two events, so that all he could do now was to wait.

 

As he neared his quarters he felt tired. He wanted to continue his patrol, but then he decided to forget his responsibilities to the team for at least a while. Since he donated his music collection to the med-bay, he decided to read his favourite comic: "Dogodivscine Zvitorepca, Lakotnika in Trdonje"

 

<<Sorry for the confusion but that happens to be it >>

[Ion Mage]

<<I hate having to go into another cliffhanger after recently having had to hang onto one for half a week, but the following one can be responded to by anyone who was in Team B last mission>>

 

A couple of days had passed. The less-than-injured, and the commendable Dr.Yorke were being very caring for the wounded. Some were already capable of walking again, though some had only recently gained consciousness. Howardson was still in bed, though he was finally able to eat real food, in contrast to having it injected directly alien-style. Either way, since moods were getting better along with the injuries, Howardson decided to finally ask...

 

"Say, what happened exactly to that 'Ninja' guy last mission? All i know is that he betrayed us, but never heard of why he did exactly. Was it a personal thing or could it be an act of all of the pirates together?"

 

<<This is said cliffhanger. Not as bad as the debriefing one, as half the team can answer it. Oh, and come next sim we need to advertise these forums a bit more. not everyone seems to know of there existence, even though the main XCAS site links to it.>>

[DragonHawk]

Anne Rallwell looked around the medbay at all the injured personnel. Doctor Ned Yorke had assigned her to look after some of the less injured patients.

 

Walking over to Howardson's bed, she looked at adjusting some nearby medical equipment. Turning slightly, but keeping her eyes on the screen, she asked, "What Ninja? It sounds to be a rogue thing to me. We're not all the same, why should they all be the same?"

 

Rallwell looked briefly over at the Commander, to see if he would issue a comment on the matter.

 

>>

[Ion Mage]

<<Ok, we'll have to assume that no one even bothered to reply to the question at hand....

 

Fastforwarding a little... or maybe a lot....>>

 

The team returned to NAO, after a nice, long trip back after almost drowning in a lake.

 

The pass in which the battle took place was now nothing more than a crater.

 

"Geez, the API is on the PROWL these days"

 

"And they are somehow gaining more and more recruits it seems. How else could they afford to stage such an up-front assault?"

 

"With luck, they can't anymore. We did take a hell of a lot of them down back there"

 

Were some of the things being said.

 

"Well, judging from how they were willing to self-destruct to take us down, probably not. The API is intent on destroying everything thats not Ascidian in nature. That includes both us and the Aliens. If they were the last of the API forces, They would have retreated instead. Their' goal is to destroy both us and the aliens, as i said, and they would only do the former if they self-destructed. The Ascidians, though psychically weak, are quite smart. They would have known that,if they were the last of the API, that going kamikaze would only be able to destroy us, but not the Aliens as well." Howardson explained, with a bit of concern in his voice.

 

"Well, maybe they assumed that the other Ascidian factions would be able to destroy the Aliens themselves." Andy Necro suggested

 

"True, but the API has considered the other factions to be 'cowardly pacifists' on occassion. If anything, they'd be concerned about the other factions forcing the aliens to surrender, when the API's agenda is total eradication of them." Howardson Argued

 

"Yeah, but even so... we just won two battles in a row! They'd have to be stupid to continue their' aggressiveness" McBenneth added in.

 

"I don't know. Ascidians can be a determined folk. Or at least the API. If API needs recruits, it'll get recruits. Whether by coercion, force, or propaganda, they will get them" Howardson added in.

 

 

Meanwhile, somewhere in NAO, wherever the cryopods are located...

 

"Cryopod DM-7Y6 activating...

Heating pod...

optimal reanimation temperature achieved, beginning reanimation process...

vital signs stabilized...

Sensory organs stabilized...

circulatory system online...

All primary body functions activated, beginning final defrosting process...

Estimated time until completion: (Insert whenever mouse next checks his mail AND updates the roster here)"

 

<<Ok, a bit of foreshadowing. One on my upcoming story, and one on my up and coming friend here (whom i mentioned in the recruitment thread)>>

[Loonie]

The sun was shining quite brightly on the team that was returning back to NAO. Once again Martin Kacur was inaccsessible to conversation as his thoughts wandered to an event that happened just before the X-Com team crashed into the lake. A split second before the APC fell to the surface of Arkunis IV, he experienced a flash of his rainbow dream as well as a strange feeling from his scar on his forehead. He could not even fathom what this meant, but his only thought at that single moment had been that he was about to die. Perhaps it had something to do with it?

 

By this time Martin was convinced that the scar was somehow affecting his psionics. Although Yorke waved the idea off, Kacur knew for certain that ever since the paintball bullet had induced that scar, he felt changed. At his first missions he felt almost incapable of properly controlling his psionics, but as time passed by he could feel that he was growing stronger in his special ability. The recent skirmishes with the API had proven him to be a formidable Psionisist indeed, despite the fact that Ascidians were generally more susceptible to psionic attack. Since the APC crash he felt new sensations go through him, as if the near death experience had somehow opened his mind. "What will these sensations bring me?" he pondered. "A lapse in psionics as it happened the first time, or perhaps quite the opposite?"

 

"Well this mission proves it! We need more soldiers in case these kinds of all-out war situations occur." Kacur was interupted in the middle of these thoughts by Wiendhoven's statement and with that the Commander turned his communicator on and sent a message to the NAO computer. "Computer! Activate cryopod DM-7Y6 and prepare the subject by the time we arrive. Recognize voice identification: Commander Richter Weindhoven." A mechanical voice responded "Access approved. Beginning Cryopod DM-7Y6 re-animation cycle."

 

A recent malfunction in the cryopod system had put nasty constraints on the X-Com team. Already the team was a bit undermanned and the lack of Engineers had not been helpful in solving the cryopod problem. Finally after another one of his mad ideas, McBannok managed to get it back online although suffering an injury on his leg whilst doing it. But the cryopods were still not completely fixed as a nasty malfunction sometimes occured, that thawed out the wrong person before anything could be done to prevent it. Scientific presonell including Engineers and Medics were badly needed, but now it seemed as if the X-Com team might be recieving more assaulters instead of the badly needed support personell!

 

Then a strange thought flashed inside him. What if the Kabron Pirates could somehow be utilised? Even though most of them were nothing more than marauders and bullies, a scant few of them nevertheless had to have been previously serving as their own support personell. But he was very reserved about this possibility, as he remembered Richter's briefing on the traitourus "Ninja" pirate Chris...

 

<<Mouse. Now or never! >>

[Ghost]

<<going to hook in at the point where you would be returning at the base, I doubt Mouse is going to hook into where you left the story. This is the return of Ghost, who has been over with the Ascadians for a while, helping in a covert Ascadian operation.>>

 

Shortly after the squad returned to the base a transmission came in at the control center. The only one present there at that time was Colonel Cyriacus as he was running a diagnostic of the Patton, so he answered the call.

 

"Good day Colonel, or is it night now at NAO?", said an all too familiar voice with a light russian accent.

"It's day here, hey there Ghost, it's been a while since you've last been in touch."

"Da, I know. It has been busy here and I did not really have time to contact you. The Ascadians have been doing quite a good job at keeping me busy here."

Brad nods and asks: "So how are you Lieutenant? I hear you've survived the operation, did all go well?"

"Everything went smoothly, though I'll save the debrief for when I return to base, the shuttle should be entering the atmosphere soon. I should be getting buckled up now. See you all in a little while again. Ghost out."

 

Dmitri moved back from the comms panel and smiled slightly at the Ascadian that let him use 'his' comms panel. Now that he thought about it... where there even female Ascadians? He hadn't seen any to date. Or were the Ascadians he had seen so far all female? He decided to ask Yorke some time, maybe he knew.

 

He moved over to one of the seats in the shuttle, glad that he didn't have to walk bent over, despite his height, as the Ascadians made the shuttle for their size. He sat down at one of the windows, watching the ground drawing closer as they crash through the clouds. It only takes a little while for the shuttle to reach the surface, and only then does he realise they landed straight at NAO. He wonders how they managed to do that so accurately, as it was even hard for him to spot the base, and he knew what to look for. Probably some sort of tranceiver signal.

The door of the shuttle opened and he got up.

"Thanks for the lift guys.", he raised his hand at the Ascadians and grinned slightly.

"It was our pleasure Ghost. And, we will have our rematch at that drinking contest when we meet again.", said Fallli'kea'brick, pilot of the vessel.

"It'd be my pleasure to beat you again, I am looking forward to it."

 

With those words, he stepped out of the door and onto the landing pad, his sniper rifle as usually, strapped on his back, barrel pointing up (look at the sig if you want a sort of idea how I mean that). He looks up at the sky a moment and then walks over towards the base and anyone who might be waiting for him there.

 

<<If this would be too conflicting with any game-story lines or anything, let me know I've been out for a while, so I probably did miss some things that happened in the mean time.>>

[Ion Mage]

<<asides from the fact that we met some kabron pirates, and managed to kind of befriend them, not much. Though i cant speak for the time between your leaving and my joining>>

[Loonie]

<<Well, I guess Chris's betrayal will remain a mystery to most of us >>

 

Most of the team went to the Personnel Quarters for a long rest after their recon mission of Arkunis IX. But Kacur went over to the lab in order to meet Yorke, since he knew that he would be very much interested in hearing his report about the possible female Arachnomortus that he had encountered.

 

"And you say that it was much slower?"

 

"Yes, it had quite a lot of trouble wading through the snow and it was also much bigger."

 

"Did you manage to retrieve a body of some sort?"

 

"Unfortunately no and I wouldn't count on the other recon teams finding one either."

 

"Awww shute! Well, did you notice anything strange as far as psionics were considered. Did it have a less shocking effect than the males?"

 

"I wish I could say, but I closed my mind to them so well, that I almost didn't sense them at all whilst using PSI."

 

"Well okay. Say I heard a rumor that you might be transferring from second Scout to second Scientist."

 

"Well for once a rumor happens to be true. And hopefully the Commander will look favourably on this, especially since we are somewhat lacking in the science department."

 

After walking out of the lab, he thought about the mission. That was definetly an alien biological research outpost on the surface of that planet and it seemed to have been destroyed. Apparently the same attackers set the MIRV devices so as to completely obliterate the area. But why? Why was the destruction of this base so important? Was it the special metal or the special chemical that was recovered?

 

Although he would have liked to continue thinking about it, something else caught his attention. Colonel Cyriacus was just heading towards a very tall figure. At first Martin almost mistook the figure for a Muton, but after seeing the Colonel shake its hand, he remembered that only one person had his height listed as being that tall in the X-Com roster. Dimitri Schmerjchanikov or "Ghost". He had heard quite a deal about this infamous Sniper and indeed his reputation preceeded him as some other soldiers had just popped by in order to welcome him back.

[Ghost]

Ghost shook hands and exchanged a few words with his old friends that he hadn't seen for a while, glad to see them all again in (fairly) good health.

 

"I see you also pulled a few new ones out of the freezer in my absence.", Ghost says, motioning with his head at Kacur, and any of the other 'new' guys that happen to be there.

 

"Yeah unfortunately with some of the losses we've suffered over the time it was important to get some extra men from the cryo, but we are rapidly running out of pods I'm afraid...", Yorke said with somewhat a frown on his face at the last few words.

 

Ghost nods slightly and walks over to Kacur (and any other person I haven't met yet). He nods at the private and smiles slightly, as he extends his hand to greet the man (or men if there's any others there).

"Hello there, I believe we haven't met yet. My name's Dmitri Schmerjchanikov, but most people call me Dmitri, or Ghost, must be something with my surname being too long or something."

Ghost grins slightly as he greets the others.