The goal of this mission was to escort a sniveling little politician through some city streets to a extraction point. Squaddie Handorf proceeded up the middle alley while Corporal Ivanoff scaled a building to get a vantage point from up high. The plan was for Corporal Dowell and Crow to escort the package through a a department store with cover from the alley.
Handorf encountered a new kind of alien in the alley looking mostly human and wearing sun glasses of all things. We are dubbing that alien a “thin man”. The thin man climbed a ladder up onto the to top of the buildings on the other side of the alley thus gaining high ground on Squaddie Handorf, causing him to take cover from within the department store quickly. Corporal Ivanoff crept up closer from his perch high above the story but was unable to get a good shot.
Despite taking cover from within the department store, the Thin Man fired upon Squaddie Handorf and connected, wounding him lightly. Handorf quickly returned fire and obliterated the Thin Man which, I decided, would earn him a promotion this time should he survive.
Suddenly a wave of aliens dropped in on the team from outside the department store prompting several of the men to fire. I wasn’t even clear who hit him at first, but another Thin Man exploded to into a green vapor and vanished. I’ll be damned though if it didn’t like like Handorf racked up his second kill this mission.
Corporal Ivanoff continued to skirt along the tops of the store and revealed the location of a little grey below in the alley but the alien’s cover gave Ivanoff little chance of hitting his mark. He took the shot anyway and missed. Unfortunately the grey returned fire and hit. That wound looked bad from my vantage point. He was going to be out of commission for a while if he makes it back.
Within the store, Corporal Burk Dowell moved up and revealed another grey inside the store with them. The grey quickly jumped out a window on the opposite site of the store but not before Corporal Burk snapped off a shot. It was a direct hit! Another alien dead. But he wasn’t done! hearing an exchange of fire out in the alley between Corporal Ivanoff and the aliens, Burk rushed back out into the alley, located the grey who’d just hit Corporal Ivanoff and dispatched the grey with another quick reaction shot. Is this really the same kid I feared I needed to keep out of harms way? Medic my ass!
The entire team moved up, very close the the extraction point and had their eye on the prize for sure. Still, there was enough distance that now was not the time to throw all caution to the wind. Corporal Dowell took cover and reloaded his weapon, preparing for the final push to the extraction.
Corporal Ivanoff moved to the front on top of the department stores and took up a firing position above the extraction point. Corporal Burk followed suit and out popped a little grey as expected. Without hesitation, Burk fired on the little grey and dropped yet another one. This was starting to become a one man show today. Burk was putting on an exhibition!
Another Thin Man seemed to drop in just as the team was about to make their sprint to the extraction and three of our team unloaded at the same time, Squaddie Handorf, Corporal Ivanoff and Corporal Crow. Once again the kill was hard to descern but my money was once again on Squaddie Handorf. Guess today was a day for surprises.
With then extraction site in view, the team rushed forward and won the day. Six total kills in all and most of that divided between Handord and Dowell.
Reviewing the after action report I realized now that Michael Handorf had four missions and four kills. It was time to promote him to Corporal. Corporal Handorf requested to be trained on firing his heavy weapon more efficiently for which I gladly agreed.
Corporal Rich Ivanoff now had four missions and five kills and was developing into a very good sniper. I decided now was as good as any time to promote him to Sergeant. Sergeant Ivanoff vowed to work on his aim from elevated positions in his downtime and I’m excited to see how that will pay off later.
Corporal Shannon Crow also had four missions and five kills and, considering that my team was doing such a great job, I decided to promote her as well to the rank of Sergeant. Sergeant Crow vowed to work on developing lighting fast reflexes so she’d be even harder to hit. Sounds like a solid plan!
Alas, good ol’ Corporal Burk Dowell. It was hard to believe this from early assessments but Dowell was now our top shot, boasting four missions with seven confirmed kills! I decided to promote him to Sergeant as well and Sergeant Dowell asked if he could focus on being more effective at patching up injured soldiers in the field. Almost seems a shame training him to do medical work considering how great a shot he’d become, but I reluctantly agreed. How could I not reward the young man for what he feels he can do best? Obviously it’s not going to stop him from dispatching aliens.
Unfortunately Corporal Handorf and Sergeant Ivanoff were going to need a few days to heal up after this one. I just hoped they would be back in time for the next fight.
Although I had a couple injured soldiers, I did receive some great news back at camp. The drop ship had been modified to allow five soldiers instead of four to be deployed. That can only be good things for us moving forward.
Our first monthly review from the counsel was approaching fast so I ordered our lone satelite in storage to be deployed over France in hopes of ensuring their support and funding. I also had some more of the off duty soldiers to clear up more debris from the base to make room for new facilities.
Just before the counsel report was due however, several new missions were offered to my team. Two of the three missions proved intriguing. One, I was told, would come with us receiving a new Sergeant to join the team, one trained in the support role to complement Sergeant Dowell. The other was two hundred credits in more funding. I opted for the mission or adding another support unit to our team.
Corporal Handorf was healed up enough by the next mission to join us but unfortunately Sergeant Ivanoff needed another day or two so had to sit this one out which mean it was time to bring in another Rookie and see how he does. I wondered if I should bring along Sergeant Shannon Crow’s husband. Would that be a mistake or not?