Part 12

Tuesday, March 14, 2084, 10:00

*BEGIN RECORDING*

Our ships are patrolling what's left of the building our base is built underneath. An explosion in the building set off a chain reaction of collapses that severely damaged this and nearby buildings.

In the time we've had, we've figured out a few things. The explosion was caused by a large quantity of silver nitrate. It's cheap, easy to make and hard to trace. The blast came from an empty apartment, a place where there certainly was no reason to have any quantity of explosives. The rest of the apartments in the building housed poor and some homeless, but were largely empty. We can't say the same for the buildings north of us, the Angel Heart Heights. It's a slum owned by S.E.L.F., and largely occupied. The buildings were condemned, but the androids who lived there had nowhere else to go. A walkway connecting our two buildings collapsed and was enough to bring both buildings down.

We can only conclude that this bomb was set specifically to damage X-COM. Fortunately, the foundation of the building was not damaged, and our 'secret' base Evening Star remains fully functional. Rebuilding and repair will commence immediately, but as part of our deal with the government, X-COM is forced to pay part of the repair for buildings we're occupying.

We need money to fix our building.

We need money to buy a better ship.

We need to finally go on the offensive and give some payback to those responsible. We, as usual, have no proof, but we all know who's to blame.

With one attack, we plan to completely eliminate the Cult of Sirius as a credible threat to us. I'll never forget Tempest56's words:

Tempest56 posted:

Sir! Requesting permission to lead an immediate raid on the Cult of Sirius and blow those worthless alien-loving freaks to hell. Also, requesting as much incendiary ammo and high explosives as we can carry to do so for the purposes of leveling that place.

The Senate attackers were obviously imposters. We should show them proof - when X-Com decides to destroy a building, we don't leave it half standing. We flatten the Whole. Damn. Thing.

"Temple of the Apocalypse". Such a beautiful name for a soon-to-be pile of rubble.

----

Coolswa: You want me to what?
Mindfish: Coolswa, listen to me very carefully. I want you to fire that incendiary missile at the Sirians over there. Not backwards at me. Over there.
Coolswa: I'm going to do my best sir. However you might want to take another step back.

Coolswa: HOLY SHIT! I HIT WHAT I WAS AIMING AT!

Coolswa: HA HA! Look at those fuckers burn! I'm gonna do it again!

Coolswa: Uh...oops. Well, at least I didn't kill one of our own guys this time.

Sirian: OMG FIRE!
Sirian: This is NOT the eternal bliss I was promised!

Sirian: Fuck this I'm getting out of...X-COM! Run away!

Sirian: Run back into the fire! They won't follow us there!

Sirian: *yawn* Randy, is that you? What the hell are you yelling about?

Sirian: Uh..hey! You're not Randy! You're OH GOD MY INTERNAL ORGANS....

Manjaw Sally: This is way too much fun!

Sirians: THIS IS NOT FUN AT ALL!

Sirian: Seriously, how long does it take for a human being to burn to death?

Mindfish: I'm taking cover behind this wall and humping a corpse. I've got a good bead on them. We're not getting much resistance from them. Surely they knew we we're coming someday, right?

Sirian: X-COM bastards, you've ruined our perfectly good velvet drapes!

Sirian A: Well buddy, this looks like the end.
Sirian B : I think so. It's been an honor to have been your friend.
Sirian A: You think they're going to shoot us?
Sirian B: If we're lucky.

Sirian A: Hey! Stun gas! We might just survive this!
Sirian B: Truly our benevolent alien masters have blessed us with this peaceful end!
Sirian C: Breath deep boys, it's better than being burned alive.

Sirian A: Well shit.
Sirian C: At least we'll have a few more seconds to tell each other goodbye. Right guys?

Sirian C: Guys?

----

This was the first of four separate missions we fought in each tower of the Temple of the Apocalypse. No fatalities or casualties reported. It's almost like they weren't expecting us to come at them so soon after they bombed our base. (They are responsible, right?) In addition to a cache of weaponry used by the soldiers, we managed to steal a large quantity of Psiclone.

Psiclone is directly related to the "Alien Entertainment" technology captured from the first war. Simply put it's a powerful hallucinogenic device. We suspect the Cult uses modified Psiclone as a brainwashing tool to recruit new members. The reason we're so eager to get our hands on it ....

...is that it fetches a high price on the black market. The gang that originally built Psiclone, Psyke, is very keen on buying back any units they can get for resale on the black market. It's not exactly the most honorable way to make money, but it's a small price to pay to get X-COM back on its feet.

Before we left the Temple, we had once piece of business to attend to:

Two towers fully collapsed. Hells. Yeah. It'll take the Cult years to rebuild and reorganize after this. Put that on the six o'clock news and smoke it.

With the money we've gathered from these raids, we were able to do a little spending:

X-COM is now the proud owner of a brand new, soon to be named, Hawk Air Warrior. The Welcoming Committee will be retuned specifically for combat instead of its previous combat/transport role.

When things are going this well, I always get worried. It means something horrible is usually about to happen.

*END RECORDING*