X-Com's Finest (An X-Com 2 play through)

Operation Iron Mask

It had been a pretty quiet couple of weeks. Engineering had begun to clear out various parts of the ship for more room while the eggheads had begun unlocking the secrets of the alien behavior. The commander had spent a week or so searching for caches from abandoned areas and Campbell had been healing up nicely.

Apparently nobody wanted her guts on the outside.

In the meantime, another quartet of rookies had been brought on board to learn the ropes; Van Dyke (Gunner), Zalewski, Svagerko, and Pritchett. As the Captain walked in, he looked at the rookies standing at attention in front of him and paused. "You've got to be kidding me, ANOTHER one?!?" He shook his head as he took one last glance at Van Dyke before going to the board.

"Ok, this is easy enough. We're going to land on this building here, grab the scientist, walk across the street, get on top of that building and take off from there. We're expecting light resistance. It's an easy in and out. Questions?"

Svagerko scratched her head for a second before shrugging and finally asking. "Why don't we just get dropped off, pick up the engineer, and take off from the same building?"

"Ok...let me rephrase this. Does anyone have any GOOD questions?"

"Well, look at this Captain, we go here, get dropped off, in and out in 5 minutes max. We would have to face any opposition going in regardless of what we did. But we get no resistance on the way out. Instead, you want us to grab this guy, run across the street with all kinds of potential for things to go wrong, and take off from a landing pad on top of the building ACROSS THE STREET. What's the difference here Cap?"

"You've been here less than 10 minutes rookie. You're about to learn how to skydive – the alien version. Do you want to try it? I'm told it's not much fun...those that survive."

"But..."

The Captain just glared and Svagerko shut up. As the Captain turned, she looked at the other rookies and shrugged.

***

OPERATION IRON MASK
Goal: Escort the VIP
Roster:
Van Dyke (Gunner): Rookie
Zalewski: Rookie
Pritchett: Rookie
Svagerko: Rookie

Sure enough, the squad landed on the roof, the scientist already waiting for them there. As the Skyranger sped away Dr. Robrertson looked around confused. "What are we doing? Where is the plane going?"

Svagerko just shrugged and pointed to the building across the street.

"You see that building over there? That's where they want to pick us up."

"But I was RIGHT HERE! I could have grabbed a cable and off we went! That building is an alien administrative building!"

Svagerko just shrugged again before turning to railing, "Oh, and we're on a timeline as well. Apparently the aliens know we're here, and it's apparently so much faster for us to get picked up over there." Pritchett, who'd been waiting impatiently finally snapped, "Enough already!" and quickly hopped over the side railing to the second floor patio.

She immediately spotted a grunt / Sectoid combo, "We got incoming!" She wasted no time priming a grenade and tossing it at the slimy Sectoid. It exploded, obliterating the cover the Sectoid had been using – much of which found itself inside the Sectoid itself.

Seeing the opportunity, Svagerko rushed to the edge of the roof right next to the parapet wall. With a quick and easy motion, she fired – sending the Sectoid to the ground in a wail of alien garbling. She looked over at Robertson who was laying low next to her and winked. Van Dyke jumped down to the balcony and found cover across from Pritchett. With a practiced motion, she easily took out the grunt who had been trying to take cover behind the wall.