[X-COM] Five Rounds Rapid (Keith)

Keith leans back, idly wishing for a cigarette.


"The hell were those, anyway? Somebody been playing silly buggers with stem cells?"
 
They all look at one another for a beat.


"X-Rays--infiltrators--or so we think." The woman next to you says. "That craft that hit wasn't exactly built by the Skunkworks or BAE. Those weapons didn't exactly look local, did they?"
 
Keith shakes his head again, quells a rush of nausea.


"Well, that's one down, innit?" He says. "Must've been a dozen of the buggers taken with it, too."
 
"We hope. Want to hear a weirder thing?" The big guy says, trying to stamp down his accent. "We're pretty sure those things are far from the only ones on the ground. Afghanistan, the whole of Asia. Things are getting hairy lately. More of those things are being spotted, even by fools without tin foil on their heads."
 
Keith frowns, leans forward.


"Proper fuckin' bodysnatchers. What happens next, then?"
 
"Well, guess you're coming home with us for debriefing...and I suppose an offer you can't refuse." He gives a lopsided shrug. "I don't really know, honestly. It's rare that we make pick-ups.


The ship punches the sound barrier into the dirt and the flight is a long-ish conversation, if you were at a pub. When the ship touches down, a crew of medics dressed in white-and-rose coveralls rush in, take over on Clarke, who seems to be stable-but-critical. A soft sheen of blood glistens wetly in the bay lights as the squad files out, talking on headsets with higher ups. The big guy leans in. "They've given the okay, you're free to roam the facility under escort. Central Officer Bradford'd like to meet you in the wardroom."


The hangar is sleek, ultra-modern. A ring of wicked looking fighters line the bay. A twin to the VTOL you came in on rests one pad over. Everywhere you look there are mechanics, flight crew, pallets of parts, the flash of welders. A gigantic lattice honeycombs half of this drum hangar, refurbishing...something. The bay doors are hundreds of feet above you and soundlessly closing.


"Welcome to Home Base, my friend."
 
Keith looks around, impressed, wary, a touch excited.


"Reckon you can show me to 'em, or are you for debriefing?" He asks his expository new acquaintance. "Wanderin' around unfamiliar and surely clandestine installations without bein' hired first feels too much like being on the job." Keith manages a tired grin.
 
"Yeah."


The rest of the squad departs and Exposition meanders along with you, leaving his weapon, webbing and ammo with an armorer. They'll also relieve you of gear and knives. "Safety first." He says, shrugging. "Truth be told, I think the Commander and Bradford will take a liking to you. It's not all that often we get to see new faces. That's changed a little in the past year or so, but all the same it gets kind of generic with people.


"So aside wetwork, how long have you been in the service of Queen and country?"
 
"Twenty-five years, man and boy," Keith replies. No use in guile, nothing to lose with honesty. This is a big, black op and damned if he isn't increasingly intrigued at what might happen here. "Countin' wetwork. Enlisted as soon as I was able, see. Imagine I don't get to ask you a lot until after meeting the brass, but I can't help wonder." He gestures at the expansive hangar as they reach the doors.


"How bloody long have we been expecting the fuckers?"
 
"That is an excellent question, one we have a betting pool on. Because this," he gestures to the distinctly Ridley Scott quality of the hall you're walking, "takes time and more money than I care to imagine. I believe our benefactors have been expecting things for quite some time."


You come to a set of broad armored doors with a strange emblem and a motto in Latin (as is tradition), Vigilio Confido. The part into one of the most state-of-the-art command and control rooms you've ever seen. Broad arrays of people staring into screens, sitting in concentric circles around a giant, blue hologram of the planet.


"Welcome to X-Com, friend."
 
Impressed, Keith nods, lips pressed together, eybrows up. What kind of toys do they have, eh? This is something - not just Queen and country, but every bugger on the face of the Earth. That's a step up Keith relishes.


He looks around, inquires of his guide; "So, where's the guv'nor?"
 
He points to a series of windows overlooking the array. "Most likely talking with Central. C'mon."


You'll both run into a haggard gentleman wearing the green sweater-vest with leather elbowpads normally reserved for top brass. Your friend goes rigid, salutes. The man returns the same, eyes on you. "See you've brought a friend, Hector. At ease, gentlemen." He looks a bit frazzled. "Why don't we hit the mess? Sound like a more comfortable place for debriefing...?" He incline his head toward you, waiting.
 
Keith's splits into a very tired grin. "Yessir. 'specially if you've got a camp bar." He says.
 
The bar is quiet, virtually dust free and looking freshly remodeled. "Which is ridiculous," Bradford, Central, says. "We just built the damn thing not a year ago." Boxes of various and sundry liquors, cheap mixed with fantastic, line the floor. He pulls out a bottle of Macallan 18, pours a few fingers all around.


The tumbler edges toward you with a gentle push of the back of his hand. "Give me your story, son."
 
"Once we're past the miles of 'redacted' markers," he begins, sniffing the Scotch. "Pretty standard story of a slow kid who had a choice between prison or soldierin', ended up being good at the latter. So we get back to the blacked-out files, and then to... last night? Looking for a splashed drone, found a bloody UFO, and lost a good man to some poisonous fucker in an ill-fitting man costume."


He raises the glass.


"And here we are. Heard there might be a job offer," his eyes glint, smile cruel. "So what do I need to sign to return the favour?"
 
"Your wounded second will obviously be turned back over to the British government with no strings attached. We're not really into stepping on national toes nor do we carry any ill will to any government on Earth. We are the first," Bradford pauses, thinks, continues, "neutral organization with guns on Earth. We're here for all of humanity in a way the U.N. dares to dream."


Knocks back his drink. "And feel proud. That 'drone' report was something of our fault. We shot the thing down, but had some start-up issues trying to scramble the squad. That's where your people came in. I dare say it's the largest incursion we've had so far since Paris a year back."
 
Keith had only murky memories of the Paris incident. Coverup after coverup - he'd been told the official line was cover for a terrorist attack. But that was smoke and mirrors, too.


"Proud, to make it home with our arses barely intact?" He knocks back the whiskey, grimaces. More of a bitter man, is Keith.


"They didn't seem like especially tough sods, but they're sneaky bastards with big guns." He grins. "You give me bigger guns, sir, and I'll show 'em a real sneaky bastard."
 
"Trust me, survival is a great victory in the face of these odds." Bradford knocks back his own, makes funny with his face. "Whew. Well, I was--God, that's strong--hoping you'd say something much the same. We've been recruiting, quietly, in the past few years. Though our typical recruit isn't quite as experienced nor found in so dramatic a circumstance." A thin, sleek iPad looking thing is slid your way with the same logo as a screensaver. "If you accept, you'll be released from the SAS honorably, though classified, and into our hands. Then the real fun begins."


He considers again. "The infiltrators are a sneaky lot, though not so...shifty in broad daylight. There are, by our estimates, a few hundred here at present. Doing what with their penetrations of society, who the hell knows."
 
Keith tugs the pad a little closer, looks at it, wonders dimly what he's meant to do with it, and glances up at Bradford.


"I'm in."
 
With a handshake, the contract is signed. The actual paperwork, the black tape set over your SAS record, all of that is the smoke and mirror. The ink, as it is, dries as soon as you two share another drink. They're very informal, X-COM, in how they recruit. You learn that well over the next year before it all begins in earnest. There are classes, training, viewings of the new toys Dr. Shen and his boys are tinkering with. Demos of the new lattice-wear armor, most advanced any army on Earth has ever fielded*.


And hands-on work. Training in West Bengal, the steppes of Central Asia, a memorable night hunting through Oslo, back to that lonely field in Afghanistan. All of it is training compared to what's coming. Only once or twice do you even get a hint of their activity until what happens that fateful night in Germany...


It's the way the world ends, only with a bang instead of a whimper.

End of thread! Excellent roleplay, sir. Take 10 XP.


* This is the basic armor seen in game on your beginning troops.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Back
Top