*** CLASSIFIED: ABOVE TOP SECRET ***
X-Com Command Staff Eyes Only
The Final Assault
After the main elevator into the facility, the entrance had split into two. The team broke up into two assault elements to hit both entrances simultaneously.
Both squads went in hard and fast, securing their intial entry points to prevent the surface being cut off. At the southern entrance, a chittering shrieking Chryssalid rushed at the squad.
Armitage Shanks was on point, and blasted the creature before it could get in among the men.
To the west of that position, Vanilla Gorilla spotted an Ethereal approaching with a Blaster Launcher.
One shot from that could have annihilated the entire southern attack, but Vanilla Gorilla ensured that shot never came.
Light glinting from a hideous carapace to the east revealed another Chryssalid, trying to sneak up on Dekkarax.
Once spotted, the creature was easy prey for Dekkarax' plasma bolts.
Armitage Shanks began to advance southwards into the large store room next to the entrance. He quickly spotted a Celatid floating among the containers.
And something much more worrying to the north, a heavily armoured war machine, with high calibre weaponry.
With no information on the capability of this machine, but no time to take chances with it, Shanks called for heavy fire support. Valiance programmed in the flight path to take a blaster bomb to the alien war machine, and let the missile fly.
The missile struck home, and the heavy armour of the alien device buckled and ruptured, it collapsed in a smoking heap.
Meanwhile, to the northeast, AceDiamond had spotted another Celatid on the hovertank's camera. He opened fire on it, but the creature floated away from the plasma bolts.
And RootOfAllEvil encountered another Chryssalid in the darkness of the central caves. He opened up with the heavy plasma, and the monster was blasted off it's feet.
The explosion of the blaster bomb having cleared, Jack Lavish moved up to support Armitage Shanks, he sighted on the Celatid still moving in the storage facility, and blasted it out of the air.
Whilst the one engaged by AceDiamond's hovertank had finally run out of luck, and took a plasma bolt right through it's body.
No sooner had that fallen, than RootOfAllEvil came under attack from a Silacoid in the caves, attracted by the heavy alloys in his power suit, it began attempting to digest his leg. He shook it off and blasted it before it could break the suit's pressure seal.
Behind him, the first Chryssalid the squad had encountered had staggered to it's feet and attempted to lumber after Vanilla Gorilla. It was obviously not quite dead. As the monstrous alien bore down on him, Vanilla Gorilla managed to bring his heavy plasma up and incinerate it's head, putting it on the floor for good.
Taking no chances with the remaining two corpses, Cyberoth II set a blaster bomb off to vapourise them. This flushed out another Celatid and Silacoid, which both scattered into the corridor in front of Higurashi.
He opened up on full auto, and first one, then the other fell to the searing bolts of plasma.
The base facility was clear now, except for one room on the upper level. This must be the command centre, the heart of this invasion. Commander Birras was first up the lift, and was greeted by an honour guard of four ethereals.
One was blocking the other lift, so the Commander fired on that first, ignoring it's attempt to fire back, he blasted it to the floor, and destroyed one of the aliens's psionic projectors behind it. The psychic backlash killed another ethereal standing too close.
With the second lift clear, Schizzy entered and opened fire on the second two guards, felling one, then the other in turn, and was followed in by Cyberoth II.
As soon as the last guard died, a voice boomed out of the giant computer system at the far end of the room, it spoke an amalgam of human languages, intelligible to everyone in the room.
The voice made promises and threats, it spoke in half truths and outright lies.
Commander Birras' reply was not directed at the alien computer, but at Cyberoth II. "Blow that fucker up son."
Cyberoth shouldered his Blaster Launcher one last time.
The alien computer had time for one plaintive scream of frustrated rage as the guided missile shrieked towards it's target.
Mankind would be slave to none whilst X-Com survived.
