code:

UFO 2, Jan 5, Germany

Waddle Dee operating the tank

Sugary, Sanguinaire, Terashell, Anticheese, OshH, Marcade, Cicadalek, Eddy-Baby, Rookie Novolin attending

code:

Casualties:

Sanguinaire

Marcade

Novolin

Cicadalek

Dexanth posted:

Diary of L. Takakumi, 1/6/99, Entry 5
These last few days have been quite the, mm...whirlwind of events. The best news, of course, is that command's strategy of 'Throw wave after wave of our own men at them until they fall down' appears to be working. And the stuff that's come back is just delightful!

First off, there's a heap of corpses. Sure, plenty are in cold storage, and I am apparently not 'qualified' to perform dissections, but to each I say: Pah! They clearly never saw me in my anatomy classes.

It seems I'd forgotten in the intervening years how much the sight of organs and other such ichor makes me violently ill. At least I had only had a light breakfast that day, but it was still quite humiliating. The part where, when I came to, Ms. Cuddles had decided that the dead sectoid made an interesting snack didn't help either. There was...something...hanging from her mouth which she was gleefully chewing on, but I simply couldn't bear to get near that thing again.

Horribly embarrassing, but I had to call for help, and thankfully one of the security personnel managed to wrestle my kitty's extraterrestrial chewtoy from her. I was...well, I think I may have gone a bit starry-eyed when he gave her back, none worse for the wear. This environment is playing havoc on my emotional stability, and if it weren't for the fact the whole lot of them are quacks, I'd go see one of the psychiatrists. Neurologists, sure, that's real science right there, none of that 'Can't cut it as a real doctor' Penis-envy wanting to fuck daddy crap. Ok, I'll concede they do learn a bit in those silly experiments of theirs, so the psychs should confine themselves to pretending to shock people and fake prisons and the lot. Leave the real work to qualified doctors and those of us who are simply innately competent in the treatment arena.

But other than my little foible this morning, the days have been going great! I've divided my time between attempting to reverse engineer the alien weaponry recovered in the first mission, and conducting various tests on this 'Elerium' material we've recovered. It reacts like no substance naturally found on Earth, and the potential applications...it makes me giddy. And...oh, dear, that's feeling a little too enthusiastic.

Meanwhile, my subtle crusade to steal the reigns from that quack Markus continues. I spiked his coffee this morning with bits of shaved Elerium. I have no idea what it will do to him, but I can't imagine anything but at least partial success in my mission.

And no, it's not treachery, Ms. Cuddles! Stop mewing at me all disapproving like. It's clear that he's a fool, what with that voting nonsense, and seeing as I have no desire to become an alien organ donor, or scantily clad love-slave...well, the second one might be tolerable if they were all clones of Mr. Clooney and Mr. Ford. And knew how to please a girl. But given their interactions with us thusfar, I imagine the organ factory is a lot more plausible. Ick.

Oh, and one last thing! I think Ms. Cuddles memo leak isn't an issue anymore. The hostile stares of the last few days all but evaporated in the wake of the first mission, ,when people realized I was right. Getting misty-eyed upon the announcement of so many fatalities didn't hurt, and I've noticed lots more, ah...staring going on. I probably should try to go for the pent-up librarian look a little more, rather than this cute. somewhat flirty doctor phase I've been going through.


Anonymous E-mail, 1/6/99

While we all recognize the need to record our experiences for historians to pore over in the future, it would behoove those of us not talented in the lingual arts to either not contribute so enthusiastically, or else to seek out the mentorship of qualified writers to assist them in recording their experiences. This primarily goes out to the soldiers, whom I will let in on a little secret - Everything you record has a backup that's been made 'accidentally' publicly available, and it is also an unfortunate 'coincidence' that the password to the administration section of that particular mainframe has been scrambled. But cheer up! It will only take an estimated 374.232 years before it is cracked once more!

Loden Taylor posted:

Diary of Loden Taylor

Another mission, another batch of dead soldiers.

The bad news is that four more guys died. The good news is one of them was Marcade, so now he'll never have to find out I was cheating on Whiskey's girlfriend with his girlfriend.

FredMSloniker posted:

1999 Jan 05

Dear Diary:

The last couple of days have been pretty quiet, but today was busy. A shipment of personnel and supplies arrived, including what I've been waiting for: the first RPV, fresh off the assembly line. I took the liberty of stenciling my logo on the side; hopefully it won't get seared off in the first fight. Still, better a logo than someone's face. As for the new personnel, well, I don't know if they're less... eccentric than the old ones, but I'm trying to assign names to faces, at least. I feel pretty bad about not even having met the guys who died on the last mission, and I want the new guys to know I'll do my best to keep them alive in the field.

I've heard some complaints about the quality of the weapons X-COM personnel are being issued. I hope that doesn't extend to my tank; it'd be embarrassing, not to mention tragic, if a plasma shot blew up the tank as it was leaving the Skyranger, trapping everyone inside.

I spent some more time on the simulator today, but honestly I think I'm as ready as I'm going to get. While part of me hopes they never have to send me into the field, another part is looking forward to the experience. I just hope it goes better than the last mission.

Until then,

--Fred 'Waddle Dee' Sloniker



1999 Jan 06

Dear Diary:

Late last night an alert went off; another UFO sighting, this time over Germany. They brought it down about 10 PM base time and immediately deployed the Skyranger, this time with the RPV aboard. It took about an hour for the Skyranger to reach the drop zone; I feel sorry for the guys who had to spend it crammed into that plane instead of in an air-conditioned control center. I spent the time running routine diagnostics on the RPV controls, listening to the squad chatter through the onboard mike, and praying I wouldn't fuck things up.

When the Skyranger touched down and the back doors opened up, my controls went live. The tank took some fire as it drove down the ramp, but nothing it couldn't handle. As I approached the UFO, though, I actually saw one of them. A Sectoid. It looked so much more... real in person, so to speak. The training seemed to do the job, though; I was pulling the trigger before I really realized what I was looking at, and a second later all that was left was scorched earth and smoking turnips. I laughed a little-- it all seemed so easy-- and gave the all-clear.

That proved to be a mistake. Even as the squad moved to secure the UFO, more Sectoids started firing on them from the fields nearby. I pulled back to try to protect the squad, but as a result they got divided up, and while I and the last guys off the plane were hunting Sectoids, the guys who had actually made it to the UFO got jumpy and rushed the interior. Four of them died before it was secured. I understand command wants to capture as much alien technology as possible, but I can't help but think that a rocket launched through the open door would have saved those lives.

Four out of ten is technically a better performance than five out of seven, but I was hoping for more my first time out. It's hard not to blame myself, especially since the worst that can happen to me is a big black SIGNAL LOST screen. Still, the brass hasn't seen fit to censure me for my performance, so hopefully I'll do better next time.

The adrenaline's wearing off; I think I can actually get some sleep now.

Until next time,

--Fred "Waddle Dee" Sloniker

Terashell posted:

Playing Log: Private Dominic "Terashell" Maxwell - January 6th, 1999 - XCOM Facility Early Light
===

Christ. Fucking brass...

They hit another UFO coming over Germany. Shot it down, and sent out a team. I was on it this time. We land, and they start shooting at the tank soon as it starts heading out of the damn jumper. He survived, only because he got to be surrounded by several feet of metal. I shot one, but it got up again to be finished off by another team mate. Took two others down on my own. Still say I was lucky not to bite it this time. Don't know if Lady Luck will stick around for next time. Still lost most of the squad...

Debriefing was hell. Kept asking us about Sectoid tactics, strength, fire power... How hard is it to look at the helmet vids and accept "They stand there and shoot green shit at us until we're dead," as an answer? Kept badgering me for something more in depth. As far as I could tell, they didn't seem to have a strategy. All spread out over the field around the ship, holed up inside of it, not even in a defensive formation.

And the weirdest thing? I swear I saw one of Eddy-Baby's rockets pass right through one of the Secs...
===
End Log