Part 37

Thursday, April 27, 20:00

*RECORDING CONTINUES*

Note from Otto Zander

I think I may have overlooked the human element part of this war. We've had many soldiers die fighting in this war, over two dozen. Some of them I can barely remember their faces. I have to send them into dangerous situations where they get killed, and they're soon forgotten about. Coolswa is the only soldier I truly miss, but that's only because I'm reminded about him daily since we named a base in his honor. One thing we have learned though, is there are things worse than death. BeerDeer, Jimmy Tango and Xmas Future remain confined and strapped down after their encounters with brainsuckers. No cure is yet in sight.

And then there's Tynam.

When Tynam returned from the alien dimension, he gave us a huge scare. Remember, we had no idea what had happened to our troops, and we had no skilled soldiers at base. So when Tynam showed up and started shooting at everything, my God, did I fear the worst. As it was, he didn't do all that much damage, and we've repaired the diplomatic rift that formed between us and MegaPol as a result of the following incident.

Tynam remains in medbay under constant watch. We do not believe he's a threat to anyone anymore, but we can't be too sure. Tynam's journal will say things better than I ever could.



*CAPTAIN TYNAM'S LOG ENTRY - January 1, 2067*

The doctors here think it would be a good idea if I were to write a daily journal of my thoughts and recent actions. I think they're just trying to keep me busy until I can fly again, but I've seen Zander with his journal before, so maybe it's a good idea?

Anyway, they told me to start with my most recent mission. We had to explore the alien farm to look for some of our missing soldiers. Lt Smash was under popper attack and called me over to help.

Then, I started feeling...


...weird.

Next thing I knew, I was somewhere else!

The aliens must have been affecting my mind. I broke through their attack though, and I could see the truth! We weren't fighting some crazy biological species, we were fighting sectoids!

I killed that bug-eyed freak with my sword.

I could see more sectoids over in the distance, so I ran back to the ship.

I took the ship, and flew off towards home. Into outer space!

But as I was returning home, my sensors detected something.

Aliens! The aliens were attacking us from space!

This one was the 'spectre' class of UFO, piloted by a muton. Mutons are good soldiers, but piss poor pilots. I closed the gap between us.

And fired!

Victory! The muton went down in flames!

My victory was short-lived. I detected a sectoid piloting a wraith up ahead.

I charged my lasers to max, and fired on him too!

Splash another one! I was doing okay in the dogfights, but I was getting worried. Where are these guys coming from? I looked over my right shoulder and saw it.

No doubt about it, it was an alien base.

I turned on my afterburners and came straight at it, firing lasers all the way.

I was able to damage the base, but my ship isn't equipped with the firepower to destroy it.

I broke off my attack and entered hyperspace, to return home.

Evening Star. She's a sight for sore eyes. I began my docking approach, and was glad to see they were sending ships to escort me home.

When I got back I was greeted by a security force and a team of doctors. They told me I had to go to the medbay and not to resist or they'd shoot me. I don't know why they said that, I feel fine, and why would I fight against X-COM? Silly people.

Out here in the Frontier, you need all the friends you can get.

The only other humans around besides X-COM are the companies mining nearby systems for elerium.

And of course, there's the aliens. When I get cleared to fly, I'm going to smoke them all!

*END TYNAM'S LOG ENTRY*


We had to connect Tynam up to a psionic holographer to get these images out of his mind. Clicking on each picture will show you the truth. Tynam was attacked psionically, and started hallucinating. Thinking he was fighting aliens in the Frontier, he shot down a civilian craft, a MegaPol police cruiser, and damaged Coolswa's Pad. We launched our own ships to intercept him just as he contacted us, requesting to dock at base.

Tynam possesses a previously undetected genetic flaw in his brain that prevents psionic attack from taking hold - at the expense of brain damage. We cannot let Tynam back into active service until we can control these hallucinations of his. Tynam believes that he's fighting a war that was won seventeen years ago. He's read the mission reports of pilots who fought in the Frontier, and he's hallucinating most of the facts correctly, with some glaring omissions. Our Frontier base wasn't called Evening Star, he believes that laser fire is visible and travels at sublight speeds, and his most glaring mistake, his ship has a top speed despite being in deep space. Newtonian physics was never Tynam's area of expertise.

Tynam's journals give us an insight into the mind of a soldier devastated by this war. I will include his journal entries into my journal to show the cost and sacrifice our brave soldiers are making, as well as the dangers of failure. There are things worse than death, and Tynam's living one of those things in his head right now.

*RECORDING CONTINUES*