High off their first decisive victory, XCOM has almost two weeks of downtime without an alien craft in sight. In the meantime, the research labs work on better weapons to counter the alien threat, and the workshops start prototyping weapons based on their designs.
On January 19th, the dry spell is broken. Interceptor 1 races into the sky in pursuit, and again the alien craft is brought down over the desert. The heroes suit up and fly to the crash site.
After their experience last mission, the team tosses a smoke grenade out the rear hatch and waits for the smoke cloud to grow. As the cloud does, however, a Sectoid steps right up to the foot of the ramp and fires inside, slagging the interior wall two feet from xiaozanghou's head!
tbcr, closest to the threat, deftly vaults from the ramp and fires a spray of bullets that kill the alien. The team breathes a sigh of relief.
xiaozanghou dismounts as well and looks towards the nose of the Skyranger. He spots the alien craft, this one larger than the last one they encountered. He takes a step forward, peering through the thick smoke that protects them - in theory - and makes out the shapes of FOUR Sectoids between them and the crashed ship, one of them brandishing a grenade!
xiaozanghou opens fire on the rightmost alien, killing it immediately.
Pivoting, he fires another burst at the next alien to the left, hugging the UFO's hull, downing it too.
avianchild steps off the ramp and down between the rear landing gear, then levels her rocket launcher at the two remaining aliens - danger close! The rocket impacts short of the two aliens, but close enough to eliminate them both - and leave xiaozanghou with a few singed eyebrows to boot.
The crisis averted, the team deployed around the Skyranger's undercarriage (casting nervous looks at the blasted remains of the Sectoid with a still undetonated grenade to make sure it was 100% dead), and tbcr split off to reconnoiter the sands in the other direction. TechnoSam scouted towards the UFO and spied another Sectoid past the door of the UFO, which he could now see was shaped like a stubby 'x'. He opened fire, but his shots all missed, as did a rocket from MooterZolo-Kira. jacobbeahm scored a hit, but the Sectoid stayed standing. avianchild came forward and fired her rocket launcher, but it misfired and detonated far short, catching jacobbeahm at the edge of its blast radius, badly injuring him.
Everyone else in range steps forward and opens fire, but none have success in hitting the alien. Finally, Benoni emerges from his position between the front landing gear, pops the pin on a grenade, and lets it fly. It detonates at the alien's feet, killing it.
The team takes position around the UFO's entrance, but again there are only corpses to be found inside. They board the Skyranger and fly back to base victorious once again, the only injury due to friendly fire - but no one can dispute that without that rocket launcher and xiaozanghou's quick trigger, things could have been much worse.
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Mission Recap and Debriefing
xiaozanghou: 2 kills
avianchild: 2 kills
Benoni: 1 kill
tbcr: 1 kill
New Captain: MooterZolo-Kira
New Sergeant: Benoni
New Squaddies: xiaozanghou, tbcr, jacobbeahm
No Fatalities
Sorry avian, XCOM doesn't appreciate your greatness. :< And now we're led by Mooters, oh the irony. xD Kudos to xiao on the double tap, that's a very rare occurrance until XCOM acquires better weaponry. jacob, you're going to be out of action for almost a month - blame avian for that. Also, that UFO was also pretty light on aliens: both craft we've downed so far have ruptured their power sources on impact (otherwise they'd show up in the score screen as recovered), and those make a pretty good KABOOM when they blow. >:) A pity from a recovery point of view, and it's limiting our opportunities to capture one of these buggers alive, but at least WE'RE still alive.
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