XCom begins the new year with the arrival of several new members. Dmitri Checheyev arrives, accompanied by his personal assistant, a Mr Joshua Smith, to take over the post of Director of Operations. Having had experience running a major research institute, Checheyev has a reputation as a brilliant administrator and immediately highlights several areas for improvement. On the same helicopter is Colonel John ‘Joe’ Moore, formerly USMC, with a set of sealed orders in his pocket.
Unfortunately, the transport arrives in the middle of a UFO incident and comes under attack from a flying saucer. XCom Interceptors are unable to get a lock on the UFO, which buzzes the chopper coming within metres of collliding. Desperately, Colonel Moore takes the controls of the chopper and performs a barely controlled crash landing, which immediately leaves the UFO open to be destroyed by the Interceptors.
When they arrive at Swiss Base, Checheyev and Smith receive a cool welcome, largely due to Smiths nationality (British), but Colonel Moore is treated to a severe dressing down for endangering the chopper. Things get worse when his orders are revealed: By order of the United Nations Security Council, he is to relieve Lt Cdr Dinova as Commander of the Military Division. She is to retain command of the Security Division as Moore’s inferior. This, he confides to Admiral Greer, was partly the result of political manouverings by the US government, and partly that Dinova was judged not to have sufficient experience or seniority to command the new enlarged XCom forces. Admiral Greer takes an instant dislike to him, in order to save time later.
Within a few days, the newly refitted XR-71 Blackbird is ready for trials, with its new gravitic drive system. If successful, this will pave the way for the next generation of XCom Interceptor, however following the earlier accident with the grav drive tests, very few qualified personnel are willing to risk it. Sqdn Ldr David Barnes (callsign ‘Ace’) volunteers to pilot the aircraft, Smith volunteers as co-pilot, claiming some piloting experience, as well as technical expertise.
The test goes well up to the point that XCom picks up incoming UFOs. They attack the unarmed Blackbird, and Barnes manages to evade them long enough for the Interceptors to get into the fight, splashing the UFOs. But in the last desperate evasive maneuver, the Blackbird loses control, and spins off towards the edges of the atmosphere, its grav drives stuck on full power. Only after a desperate struggle to re-route damaged systems and wrestle the plane back under control do Smith and Barnes bring their plane back in one piece, albeit to an emergency landing in the Ascension Islands.
A few days later, XCom detects a landing in Spain, in the town of San Josef. This town is nestled in a hanging valley, and is so out of the way that in can only be accessed by the air or by a small tunnel. XCom troops, led by Captain Andrew Jackson, landed at the Gujar Falls end of the valley, and approached the town from the South. They encountered heavy resistance, and lost one man to anti-personnel mines. After accounting for six Slugs, they see the saucer lift off and open fire on it. It explodes with a satisfying kaboom, and the Rangers go home, patting themselves on the back for a job well done.
Unfortunately, XCom never discovers that the saucer was in fact rigged to explode, and another half dozen Slugs escaped the incident, and were picked up by a MIB team after several days living off the land in the surrounding countryside.
Episode 2: Deliverance of the Beast
XCom receives a call from Peter Gates, Professor of Metallurgy and Material Science, University of British Colombia. A colleague on a field trip with some students in the Glacier National Park near Vancouver had discovered an alien vehicle, seemingly abandoned. The object was roughly pear shaped, and seemed empty and devoid of instrumentation. Troops from the US base are dispatched to the site, and Tregear puts together a small team to head out from Swiss Base.
Meanwhile, Astrodyne Industries start a major lawsuit against XCom. Since XCom revoked their licence to produce alien alloys, they have suffered financially. Admiral Greer is angry, and orders a detailed investigation into Astrodyne. Local US Bureau 13 agent Woodrow Cooper is joined in Washington DC by Checheyev, Smith and Lt Andrew Jackson. Smith and Checheyev use their own resources to hire a number of Private Investigators to tail known Astrodyne employees, while Jackson works at setting up a cover story to allow him to infiltrate the organisation.
In Vancouver, the XCom forces arrive only to find the student’s camp wrecked, and a dozen corpses. Something had torn the place apart and savaged the students. The alien object is still in the camp, it’s wide open doors leading to a large compartment completely devoid of any features. However, there are hidden compartments above and below this, that contain a basic grav drive and some sort of control aparatus. Scouting around the camp, the soldiers find a set of tracks heading north. It looks like no known animal, but they estimate it to be about the size and mass of a grizzley bear.
After some research into Astrodyne’s background by Checheyev’s team, the following history emerges. Astrodyne was formed in 1976 by the ‘Gang of Four’. Young maverick scientists from the tail end of NASA’s Apollo space program, their aim was to develop space-age technology for the commercial market. Their technology is consistently six months ahead of their nearest rivals, and Astrodyne Technologies hardware accounts for 60% of the advanced electronics in use by the United States Armed Forces. In 1991, the Gang of Four, now elder statesmen of the advanced technology industry, withdrew from public life, and had not been seen in public since. While still believed to be in overall control of Astrodyne, they now ran it from behind the scenes.
By 2001 Astrodyne has an office building in Washington DC, which handles most of the company’s business affairs in addition to carrying out some low security R&D work, plus a secure facility out in Silicon Valley, where the more sensitive work is carried out. Even the highest ranking customers are rarely allowed access to the Silicon Valley site. The team start looking into the whereabouts of the Gang of Four, trying to check signatures before and after their disappearance in case they may be under alien control. Meanwhile, Checheyev arranges 24hr surveillance of all known Astrodyne executives by private investigators, hoping to scare someone into acting rashly.
Back in Vancouver, the troops begin to search the area while Tregear heads the examination of the alien craft. The soldiers come across the dead bodies of three hunters and their wrecked truck, evidently the work of whatever alien beastie is out there. Whatever it is, it seems to know where it’s going, and that’s north.
Meanwhile, Cooper finds Smith being attacked and beaten up by six youths. He intervenes, and after beating two of them, the third manages to knock him out with a lucky blow. For a minute it looks like curtains, but Smith manages to break free and scare off the thugs with a couple of pistol shots. With Cooper barely conscious, the two manage to stagger back to the Bureau 13 safehouse where Checheyev and the others were staying.
That night, in Canada, the Rangers on guard duty are attacked by the beast. One is killed, another is slightly injured but the beast escapes. The soldiers catch a glimpse of the alien on their helmet cameras, the resulting footage is sent back to Swiss Base for analysis. The creature is black skinned, around ten foot tall, humanoid, with bug eyes. Tregear resolves to capture this creature.
The next morning in Washington, the Bureau team go to see a friend of Smiths in the Police Department. Inspector Michael Doyle hears Smith tell what happened, and helps identify the gang responsible. One of the gang members Smith and Cooper recognise, and Doyle tells them his name, Miguel and the address where he can be found. Smith and Jackson head off there to have a word with him.
While everyone associates Washington with the bright image of Capitol Hill, the city has a darker side. Miguel lives in a slum in the downtown part of DC, where poverty and violence are endemic. He shares a squalid apartment with his sister and her baby, and although initially defiant, when threatened by Jackson & Smith he tells them everything. A couple of suits came by the gang hangout, offering money if they’d rough someone up (Smith), saying he’d been sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. They paid a thousand dollars in cash to each gang member, and then left them to it. Miguel didn’t know who they were, or where they were from. They were only instructed to beat Smith up, not kill him, and there was no mention of anyone else on the Bureau team, only a picture of Smith. After some whispered threats from Smith, the due leave, somewhat dissatisfied with what they’ve learnt.
The team in Vancouver pick up on the trail of the beast, and track it through the forest. Suddenly one of the Rangers shouts, pointing to the sky, the glowing streak of a UFO coming in from orbit is clearly seen in the morning sky, impacting somewhere several miles to the north of the team’s current location. They decide investigate, as the beast’s tracks headed in that direction anyway, while the teams Skyranger takes off and does a quick arial reconnaissance. They find a medium sized saucer landed in a clearing, with several Slugs surrounding it. The Ranger leader called Swiss Base for further instructions, and Admiral Greer personally orders the team to ‘capture that saucer at all costs’.
A plan is hastily concocted, the VTOL is to lay down a desultory covering fire in order to distract the aliens, while the Rangers approach the saucer from the opposite side, gaining the element of surprise. This plan is actually helped when some of the Slugs start heading off into the forest away from where the Rangers are hiding. Tregear and Sparky remain with the VTOL, planning to produce some sort of ECM jamming signal to add to the confusion.
The plan initially looks to be working, and the slugs head off in the direction of the teasing VTOL, but the Rangers are spotted before they can get close enough to the saucer. Remembering their orders, instead of retreating to cover they stand their ground and begin to take heavy casualties. Tregear orders the VTOL up to give more fire support, but the craft is struck by a plasma blast from the landed saucer and crashes into the forest. As the squads of slugs make their way towards the stricken vehicle, Tregear and Sparky struggle to bring the Skyranger’s systems back on line. Meanwhile, the Rangers are slowly wiped out, falling one by one to the aliens’ superior weaponry.
As the Slugs are almost on top of the Skyranger, Sparky manages to make the vital connection that restores power to the ship, and the VTOL makes a very narrow escape. An XCom Interceptor scrambled to the area arrives in time to take a passing shot at the saucer as it leaves. When Canadian Government investigators eventually return to the site, no trace can be found of the aliens, the bodies or the pear shaped craft. No further reports of beast attacks come from this area.
In Washington, the Bureau team get a call from an anonymous source, telling them that if they want to know about Astrodyne, they should go to the ‘Exotica’ Cinema, in one of DC’s less salubrious areas. The team follow the lead, Smith and Cooper entering the seedy cinema while Checheyev and Jackson remain outside as backup. Once inside, the duo encounter a very nervous individual by the name of John Miller. Miller claims that he is on the run from Astrodyne. Talking to Checheyev outside in the car, he explains that he used to belong to an Astrodyne field team, as a technical consultant. The team’s job was to ‘acquire’ advanced technology from wherever possible, by fair means or foul. Miller cites one example that XCom later confirms: Three months previously he had been involved in an attempt to obtain details of a Microtech Optical System’s (a rival company) new optical recognition system. The team leader opted to do this by kidnapping the head researcher George Muldaur’s young daughter Sandra, in return for the plans of the new system. When the researcher delivered, both he and the child were killed. At this point Miller decided to leave Astrodyne, and he has been hunted by at least two field teams since then. He estimates that 35-40% of Astrodyne’s technology is acquired by field teams, sometimes legitimately, sometimes covertly. Research projects in the Former Soviet Union that lost funding during the economic crash were often bought up by Astrodyne, and rival corporations often found their projects being pipped at the post by Astrodyne versions.
Miller knows very little about top secret Astrodyne research projects. He only knows two project codenames, Joshua and Excalibur. Both are above top secret, and are whispered in hushed tones by those who know of them, so he assumes that they are the company’s "holiest of holies". He has no information to suggest that the company is dealing with aliens, and a quick scan confirms that he hasn’t been implanted.
Somewhat impressed by Miller’s testimony (although not entirely convinced of his veracity), the Bureau team decide to abort all their operations in DC in order to get Miller back to Swiss Base for debriefing and interrogation. They arrange an XCom aircraft to be waiting for them at the airport, to ship them directly to Swiss Base, but on the way there, they spot a car tailing them. Jackson, the driver, tries to lose them on the busy freeway, but only when Cooper opens fire on them do they crash and abandon the pursuit.
The team race to the airport, and are almost on the plane when they are confronted on the airport tarmac by a dozen or so FBI agents. The Bureau team are actively uncooperative and abusive towards the agents, distracting them while Checheyev makes a call to Swiss Base. Based on their attitude, (not to mention the fact that they had previously opened fire on an FBI car in the middle of a packed freeway) the Agent in charge of the operation, Agent Anita Hunter decided to take them in for questioning. When, in custody, they refuse to answer any further questions, she keeps them locked up.
Meanwhile, Greer makes calls to the Whitehouse to get his team released. At first the response is ‘we’ll get right on it’ but curiously after that the response is much more guarded. Finally, Greer is ‘invited’ to speak to the President in person, and flies out to America to meet him.
The Bureau team are brought to the Whitehouse for the meeting, in order to explain their actions. The reason for the FBI involvement is explained to them: Astrodyne being a major defence contractor, standard surveillance is maintained to prevent hostile espionage against the company. When Smith launched the private investigators at Astrodyne, it triggered alarm bells, and the FBI became suspicious, being unaware of the Bureau 13 connection. When the team opened fire without warning, it was decided to pick them up. When they refused to co-operate, news of their activity passed back up the hierarchy to the Whitehouse, arriving shortly after Admiral Greer’s first call.
At the Whitehouse, The President, General Curtis and Astrodyne’s lawyer meet with Admiral Greer. Greer refuses to say anything more while the lawyer is present, saying that XCom believed Astrodyne to be in league with the aliens. The President stood firm, refusing to pander to what he describes as ‘an unreasonable, maverick operation’. Bureau 13’s actions were, he said, effectively an act of espionage against the United States, made worse by their actions against the FBI. With neither the Admiral or the President willing to budge, a stalemate ensues. Greer leaves Washington, and the members of the Bureau 13 team are deported along with him.
Two days later, the US government drops a bombshell. They close down Bureau 13, and confiscate all it’s assets quoting national security issues. XCom no longer has an investigative arm in the United States, and plans for a joint XCom/US anti alien force are shelved immediately.
Admiral Greer gives Colonel Moore an ultimatum: either accept a demotion to place him under Dinova’s authority or leave XCom. Moore asks for time to think about it.
Following the shutting down of Bureau 13 by the US, Greer and Checheyev hatch a scheme to give XCom espionage assets in countries where the various Bureaus are unable to operate. Checheyev takes 20 of the most likely candidates from XCom (including all psionic rated subjects except for Professor Tregear and Dr Kramer) and takes them for ‘training’ in a secret location away from Swiss Base. Once trained they will become XCom’s elite agents.
When the alert call sounds for another UFO landing, Jackson’s fireteam is short one heavy gunner, and as the nearest heavy weapons capable individual, Colonel Moore takes his place in the team. Jackson is not initially happy about this, but accedes when Moore promises to be under Jackson’s command.
The UFO had landed in an industrial complex in Germany. The Rangers deployed and fanned out through the area. Jackson’s team killed a couple of slugs who had been harvesting humans, then came across a woman who had been booby-trapped by the aliens with a bomb. Jackson and Moore try to save her, but the bomb goes off killing her.
The Rangers continue the sweep of the complex, rescuing some civilians caught in the area, and track down the saucer in the empty car lot. After a brief firefight, the Rangers outflank and destroy the aliens.
Back at Swiss Base, Moore informs Greer that he will not accept the demotion. His personal sense of honour sees it as too humiliating. He would rather accept the fate he knows is in store.
Only when the Admiral realises that as Moore knows too much about the XCom operation he must be imprisoned in "The Village" (XCom’s secure facility). While having very little sympathy for the Colonel, Greer realises that the political fall-out from the Americans would be a high price for the personal satisfaction of breaking Moore. He offers the Colonel command of China Base, a challenge which he promptly accepts.
The Aliens launch a big assault against Swiss Base involving about a dozen Medium sized saucers. Greer orders just about every aircraft on the base scrambled, including the new and untested Interceptor II ‘Tempest’, and the hastily armed Blackbird. The new aircraft operate superbly, bringing down all but a couple of the saucers, who abort the attack.
Once saucer is seen to crash land fairly intact in the south of France, so Greer orders a Ranger team out to the site. They use the opportunity to test another new technology, as Captain Andrew Jackson and Sergeant Stephan Zakalwe are both equipped with the new XCom Powered Armour suits.
The saucer had crashed somewhere in the middle of an out of town shopping centre, and fortunately the place was virtually deserted. Zakalwe’s fireteam met opposition first, his power armour’s laser cannon ripping through slugs with little resistance. Suddenly a very lucky shot hits his armour in the chest and manages to punch through, almost wrecking the suit. With virtually no protection left in the chest, Zakalwe is forced to retreat for repairs.
Further into the complex, Jackson’s fireteam comes under attack from a sniper. They burst into the building where the fire comes from and after some problems with small orange aliens, manage to capture an alien ‘laptop’ portable computer. They find themselves trapped in a building directly underneath the sniper, unable to make it upstairs without being shot. Zakalwe, his Power Armour sporting a hastily welded metal plate across its wrecked torso, joins them and they solve the problem by using their Power Armour laser cannons to blast away the ceiling, bringing the sniper crashing to the ground at their feet.
Splitting up once again, Jackson encounters some men in black suits who identify themselves as local police. Deeply suspicious of them, he disarms them and orders them to head back towards the XCom VTOL. They reveal themselves to be true Men In Black when they disobey him and head off to the edge of the complex where they are met by a car full of other MIBs. Zakalwe’s squad intercepts them, and a vicious firefight breaks out. The Rangers quickly discover that these are no ordinary MIBs, as they take wounds that would cripple a normal human and continue fighting (it is later discovered that they have a new third implant, controlling the pain centres of the brain.) Only a killing shot to the head will stop them for good. However the Power Armour suits are called up and quickly make light work of the lightly armed MIBs.
Moving on, Zakalwe’s fireteam find the crashed UFO half buried having crashed into the lower half of a building, but are ambushed by the aliens. Jackson, brings his squad up to support and a massive firefight ensues. The aliens are beaten with minimal casualties to the XCom forces.
After the debriefing, it is decided to refit the power armour with a modular weapon system, instead of just carrying the laser cannon, troops would have the choice of autocannon, grenade launcher or laser designator