November Point XCOM Logistical Support Base: 0146 Hours
"This sucks!"
Corporal John Lewis thought to himself as he walked stolidly along the
rust streaked pier high on the bluff overlooking November Point harbor.
"That fat fuck Warren just had to get sick the day before the monthly resupply
shipment." The weather had been totally balls up all week and the logistics
teams had been busy a full three days before, moving ammunition and research
material from the massive Sealift command freighters to the smaller resupply
"flying" subs scheduled to make the run to COMBASE:NOVA, the XCOM Earthside
command base submerged deep under the North Atlantic.
Everybody had been in a
hurry to get done and go on leave, but security still came first, Lewis
mimed disgustedly to himself. The bone chilling rain streaming down out
of the massive storm front did nothing to improve his mood and he couldn't
even keep a smoke lit in the salt saturated night air. An extra added bonus
included the fact that the wind and rain coming off the harbor made the
beat up old pier that much more slippery and he had to watch his step lest
he become the next unwitting sea story for the search and rescue teams
to tell in order to lighten the monotony during chow.
Even during the Second Alien
War, nothing ever seemed to happen around November Point, the small but
strategically located harbor near the southern tip of Greenland. All the
real action had occurred underwater and been directed by the top brass
based at NOVA command base which just happened to be where most of Point
November's supplies ended up at. Hell, Lewis had just finished basic training
and was in the process of being shipped out to a subsurface defense base
when the reports came through that T'leth had been destroyed and his career
had been on the rocks ever since. The tired and chilled soldier paused
to check the action on his outmoded Bearcat A2 assault rifle before moving
on to the next checkpoint, hunching deeper into the warm folds of his insulated
poncho as he walked.
Had the Corporal been a
little less concerned with his own sense of deep personal injury, he might
have looked back down the patrol footpath long enough to see a small
shadowy figure crawl up and out of the storm tossed water and up the rusty
pier. Four other small shapes followed the first, stealthily padding up
and over and then advancing in a diamond formation. The shadowy creatures
were far to small to be human and they regarded the retreating form of
the sentry with bulging green eyes before taking position around their
leader. Webbed fingers flexed silently, disengaging safeties on assorted
alien weaponry. A low hissing and sucking sound emanated from the assembled
group as alien gills sucked in the wet night air so much thinner than the
native water normally used for respiration. Finally, the small device attached
to the neck of the Aquatoid leader activated silently, relaying unspoken
commands. The alien warriors moved out quickly and efficiently, weapons
ready, melting into the shadowy trenches and culverts surrounding the base
perimeter fence.
Less than a thousand meters away, another poncho clad figure surveyed the
storm racked night from his position atop perimeter guard tower four. Master
Chief Grant Sullivan paused to check the ammunition tray feeding the MSAW-2A
Gauss Accelerator Cannon that served as the tower's primary defensive weapon.
The massive weapon still saw regular use by XCOM and was a cheap and reliable
alternative to contemporary laser or sonic based weapons. Either way, the
massive pintle mounted gun gave Chief Sullivan something to do instead
of sitting in the tower's claustrophobic interior cubicle, slowly and quietly
going nuts. It had been a particularly taxing week for the dedicated soldier
and he looked forward to the coming weekend when someone besides him would
be responsible for security at the sprawling supply dump. Unfortunately,
for the Chief and everyone else left on duty at Point November, the situation
was about to get much worse.
From the northernmost extension
of the base proper, a concealed laser range finder focused in on perimeter
security tower five. Shadowy figures spread out along a nearby sand berm
crouching low in the wet grass. Sullivan had just lit his second to last
cigar and was turning to head back into the tower guard room when a loud
bang redirected his attention long enough to see tower five explode in
a massive globe of white hell-fire. The tac-net resounded with human screams
before another Predator anti armor missile slammed into the perimeter fence
below tower five's remains, finishing the job.
"Jesus Christ!" Sullivan
was at the Gauss mount, horsing the heavy weapon around to cover the gap
in the perimeter even as two more explosions lit the base from the seaward
side. The klaxon horn atop the base command center wound up as alert hooters
went off adding confusion to the carnage. "Get me the ready reaction team,
now!" Sullivan screamed over the sounds of further explosions as he racked
the bolt back on the gun, safety off. The rain washed night was alive with
inimical movement all along the base perimeter, sappers exploiting the
surprise attack. The Chief sighted the gun's optical tracking unit on several
figures ducking and rushing for a hole in the fence, the targets were..
"Aquatoids!!!"
The Gauss Cannon was loaded
with anti-personnel flechet darts, when fired on automatic, the tiny
missiles were accelerated to transonic speeds by the cannon's electro-magnetic
field. The lead Aquatoid was torn apart in a heartbeat as Grant walked
rounds down the perimeter berm and into the advancing aliens. Inhuman screams
were faintly audible in the night, but Sullivan didn't have time to enjoy
them, all hell was breaking loose. Sonic weapons fire from the advancing
enemy forces was zipping by the perimeter tower even as Grant tried to
make sense of the hopelessly garbled tactical frequencies, he switched
over to the secure command channel on his headset. Answering fire from
sentries inside the base proper was keeping the sapper force busy but the
alien sonic weapons seriously overmatched the outmoded first generation
weapons most of the guard force was fielding. The main attack would
get going at any moment and the Chief's lightly armed sentry troops couldn't
do a thing about it..
"Sullivan, I say..." the
radio signal dissolved into static before clearing, "Are you there?" Grant
switched fields of fire in order to engage another grouping of shadows
even as he responded, "Captain Howard's, we have aliens on the perimeter!"
"Nonsense, man" the indignant voice with the oily accent set Grant's
teeth on edge, "the Alien War's are over!" Howard's was a career
XCOM soldier whose specialty was administration and logistics, in that
order. Sullivan had never had any particular grudge against the man,
but golden boy Howie always seemed to pop up at the worst possible moment,
like now. To give him his due, the Captain was indeed a hell of an
administrator and supply officer, but he had little if any combat experience.
Lightning from the storm front obscured the tac frequency again before
the Chief could reply, the outer perimeter was quickly becoming untenable.
"Sir, listen please!!"
the flaming remains of tower five were beginning to cool under the continued
rain, "we're being overrun out here, I need the ready reaction team soonest,
and...." another cataclysmic explosion blew the link dead.
The fuel farm near the Southern tip of the base had taken a missile causing
the massive fuel tanks to chain react, nearby wharehouses burned
despite the pouring rain. "Tell the base armory to issue everything
they damn well have!!" Sullivan had switched to the base general
push in the interim, "I'm authorising laser rifles, sonic, gauss, whatever,
I don't care, perimeter security is falling back to the inner compound!"
Rain drops were beginning
to vaporize into steam upon contact with the MSAW cannon's massive
barrel. Continuous automatic firing had pushed the big gun close
to overheating and Grant didn't have time to change it out, everything
was going to hell too damn fast! Sonic charges had left the outer
perimeter fence a melted, smoking, mass of holes and the surrounding moats
and defensive earthworks hadn't fared much better, return fire from
inside the perimeter had slackened noticeably. The Chief was swinging
the gun back again in order to detach it from the mount when movement in
the holographic targetting scope caught his eye, he had about a nanosecond
to stare with slack jawed incredulity at the two enemy troops square in
his sights before tower three blew apart with a roar, Sullivan's tower
would be next. "Come on goddamnit, come on!!" the heat from
continuous firing had caused the lock pin in the mount to expand, it wouldn't
budge. Cold sweat sluiced down the soldier's poncho clad back as
he cursed and hammered at the lock pin, he had about a full second to live.
The white backblast of the launcher wielding sniper was a white corona
in the security chief's panic streaked vision, the heat warped pin gave,
burning his knuckles as he tumbled over the tower railing after the MSAW
cannon. Tower four went up like a roman candle.
Chapter 2