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 Williams 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. 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 one frustration after another
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 obsessed with his own sense of righteous
personal injury, he might have glanced back down the patrol footpath long
enough to see a small shadowy figure crawl up and out of the storm tossed
surf 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 inner 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 himseld
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
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 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 sound of massed,
coordinated gunfire as he racked the bolt back on his own weapon, 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
thrust of the 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 the now red-hot barrel out, everything
was falling aprt 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 excess 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 backblast of the launcher wielding
sniper was a white corona in the security chief's panic streaked vision,
the heat warped pin finally gave, burning his knuckles as he tumbled over
the tower railing and down after the MSAW cannon. Tower four went up like
a roman candle.