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

Operation Gasping Shroud

The Commander looked over to Corbin and smiled. "Finally! I mean, I know they are a little jittery, but..."

"Sir! It's alien contact! Ship closing in and fast!"

"FULL retreat!"

"SIR! We can't out-run it! It's already on top of...."

The ship shuddered with an impact that sent the entire bridge crew to the floor. The lights flickered once, then twice before they disappeared entirely. A few seconds later, the emergency lights returned, and the bridge crew slowly returned to their feet. Corbin felt her head, her hand coming back red from the collision she had suffered with her console.

The Commander looked around briefly. Everyone seemed alive, for now. The same couldn't be same for the ship. Sparks seems to be jumping from one console to another, and nothing was responding.

The Commander started hitting comm lines to Engineering to no effect. With frustration, he slammed his fist down on the console when he suddenly heard activity down in engineering, "SHEN! WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE!"

***

Shen looked around her engineering bay. The engine core was emitting sparks and her consoles were not responding. She could feel the ship slowing which would mean a long drop and sudden stop if something wasn't done, and quickly.

"SHEN WHAT IS HAPPENIGN HERE!"

She was actually amazed someone had found a working channel, "It's some kind of EMP, the aliens apparently want to keep the ship, but don't care if we come out alive here. If we..."

"JUST FIX IT!"

Shen looked around. Where could she start. She tried prying open a panel, but the sparks shocked her and she fell on her butt.

Gill had been sitting in the corner watching as she calmly pet her "kitty", his head forcefully held in her lap. "It's ok kitty, it's ok. We'll be just fine." Gill sat there a few more seconds before a streak of pulse electricity shot up and down through the engineering consoles. Gill grit her teeth, "Don't go anywhere Kitty!"

With a determined purpose, she strode over to the main engineering console and shoved Shen aside. The startled engineer looked on in disbelief as Gill purposely studied the damage schematics. "I don't see what your problem is here. This is obviously a reciprocating flux variance caused by one of the alien nadion pulse lasers. Anything you do is not going to matter unless you're able to dampen and then compensate the electrical wavelength variance." Gill walked over to one of panels close to the engine core and kicked it. The panel violently ricocheted off the console and Gill dropped to her knees before crawling halfway into the console.

Shen slowly walked over to the console while Gill prattled on, "...are nasty things. They will mess up the ionic dampening matrix, which will pretty much reset your entire databanks array." She pulled her head out. "Are you familiar with the writing of binary for multi-phase photonic data streams?"

Shen just stood there staring at Gill. Gill shrugged and shoved her head back in, "Fortunately, if you're able to reverse polarize the flux, you'll have a short window to reinitialize, reboot, and then regain control of your system modulators."

She pulled her head out again looking around frantically. 'KITTY! GO HIT THE BIG RED BUTTON! THE RED ONE! IT'S BIG! AND RED! OK KITTY? THE RED BUTTON!"

The poor engineer, looking ridiculous with a bow in his hair, a pet collar around his neck, and a leash dangling at his side, rushed across the deck and hit the button while Shen looked on in total disbelief. The entire engine room dimmed as the main power distributor was turned offline.