(Previous entry — first entry)

May 1
9:59

Infiltrating alien base on Fiji. I don’t know if we’re ready, but we’re as ready as we can be and this isn’t a chance I’m going to let slip by.

—

Located two ground-level elevator shafts. Split into two teams to make the descent. Don’t like coming down blind like this.

Gazelle is first down to what appears to be ground level of the alien base. Big place, lots of corridors. Same general material as the alien crafts we’ve seen — is this thing a pre-fab structure flown in from wherever the xenomorphs came from, or is this earth-side construction? I’m not sure which answer I’m less eager to hear.

Immediate contact, a grey. Clean take for Gazelle, and proof that these plasma weapons work just as well when we’re the ones firing them.

Hamster nailed coming down the elevator. Dammit. Wolvie gets revenge.

…

Wolverine loses his shit. Drops his gun and streaks across the room. Possible psyche weapon, like I suspected on the Casablanca mission. This could be bad.

…

Ancillary elevator sighted, with a grey moving down to our level. Barracks above? In any case we need to secure that thing pronto. Labrador scratches the grey.

…

Rottweiler almost bumps into a grey in some sort of alien topiary. No time for a clean shot, ducks back behind the corner for the moment, Sgt. Goat covering his tail.

…

Sparrow losing it now, waving his gun around. Wolverine still panicking. These soldiers aren’t cowards; someone is playing dirty pool, and we’re going to put an end to it.

Beagle playing plasma tag with a grey in a northern corridor, took a bad hit. Col. Tiger’s medkit seems to have helped some there, cut the bleeding back a bit, but the wound’s still oozing a lot.

…

Labrador checks that new elevator; upstairs isn’t a barracks but a small…zoo? Specimens of some sort. Human skeleton, it looks like, along with god knows what else.

…

Sparrow still wigging, but Wolvie seems to have his shit together again.

Spotted multiple greys east of the main squad’s elevator landing — possible the command center is there. Also sighted one of those damn cyberdiscs. Some incoming fire but no one injured.

Porcupine blows the disc to pieces; Cpt. Eagle notches a grey; Sgt. Goat puts several holes in the walls near another.

Tiger finishes patching up Beagle, who goes back and finishes the job on the grey who shot him.

…

Rottweiler appears to have discovered a discotheque.

…

Goat takes it in the face point blank from the grey he missed. Dammit.

More movement, another cyberdisc spotted and at least one other grey on the move. Attempting to flank this possible command center.

Wolvie, looking more like a soldier than ever, grabs a pistol on the run and ices Goat’s shooter.

…

Sparrow completely unresponsive now, possible meltdown. Possibly under direct alien control? Don’t know what to make of this, but may have to pursue a shoot-on-sight policy if behavior doesn’t become less erratic.

Some sort of explosive fire from the north end of the structure we’re currently flanking. Possible the gas weapon we’ve seen before. No one fazed, Beagle takes the shooter down.

Pork aces another disc. Nearby alien gadget goes up in a chain reaction when it explodes. They shall know us by the trail of debris.

Wolvie caps a grey through a window in that command structure. Peaking through, it looks like it’s an outer corridor leading to an inner chamber.

Notch another, Cpt. Eagle. Got it on the run after it took a potshot at her.

Beagle breaching outer corridor of the command center via a hole one of our plasmas put in the wall. Good to know something can tear that stuff down.

…

Sparrow responding to communications again, but only with gibbering. Beagle loses his shit closing in on the presumed command center inner chamber. Not sure how many uglies can be left, but the perimeter of the base is pretty much clear at this point so they’re almost certainly in that room.

Time to end this.

The team with brownpants McBeagle — too much brass, but they’re on the scene, Col. Tiger and Cpts. Eagle and Ox — is setting up outside the inner door; the team at the outer door to the west is pushing in through the south side of the corridor. Lemming catches a grey distracted and lasers him down.

…

Inner chamber full of what looks like utility equipment of some sort, and a very large elevator pad dominating the center of the room. Looks like we need to take a team up.

…

Sgt. Bull just gunned down two scouts and took a shot at Cpt. Eagle as well. God dammit. Fucking mind ray bullshit. This situation is deteriorating rapidly.

…

Sending Eagle up the lift. Three contacts; she guns one down, takes a bad hit from another from behind. Two left standing.

Ox nixes a second, firing from below. These alien lifts don’t get in the way of gunfire. I’ll take it.

Wolverine gets the last grey from the trio, shooting from below again.

Which is probably the last of the aliens. But Sgt. Bull just shot two of our men and I have no idea if this mind control shit can outlast its masters. Assuming that WAS even all of them.

I’m clearing the room; hopefully we can give Bull a minute to prove he’s not completely gone. If not, we’ll have to take him down.

…

Bull reporting in. Ordering him to keep his distance but that’s still good news.

Reports of door sounds elsewhere in the base, though. Looks like our perimeter sweep came up short. There’s a structure we could look more carefully at, east of our current position. Redeploying.

Eagle just lost consciousness. Smoke inhalation and her wound, likely. Ox on med duty, patches up the bleeder on her arm and provides some stims. We’ll see how that works.

…

Sparrow breaches door to suspicious chamber before he remembers he dropped his gun. Staring a grey in the face. Wheels out before the thing can get a shot off. Lucky.

Porcupine pops a couple HE rounds through the door blind. Enemy down.

…

Base is clear.

—

Debrief:

Lost four men. Two to what can only have been mind-controlled friendly fire.

The base is a treasure trove, and having it out of operation is invaluable. It wasn’t big enough or nearly well enough supplied or defended to be their core base of operations, but its a start. In the roughest calculus, this was a big win, I suppose. But.

But we weren’t ready. Physically, we’re solid; our weapons are good, squad training and readiness is excellent. But we weren’t ready for that whatever this mindfuck technology is.

Until we can figure out what’s letting them get in our heads, and how to stop it, every soldier is a potential turncoat. How am I supposed to deal with that?

I want a solution and I want it ASAP. I need to talk to the science team.

(Next up: Vampires!)