XCOM: Tackling a Giant

The sirens sounded, klaxons blaring, and I spilled my coffee in fright. The inevitable time had arrived, and it had done so on my shift. "Fantastic," I muttered, pulling on my flight suit as a robotic voice spoke over the intercom.

"Attention, all personnel. Hostile contact reported in Canadian airspace. Overseer-class contact. Scramble interceptors immediately." The message looped back to its start, just in case there was anyone in the facility that hadn't noticed. Although we'd never successfully brought down an Overseer before, according to the map that was beeping in the room, this new contact was closer to the base than any previous encounter. There was a significant chance of us bringing this one down. I sprinted to the hangar, my coffee forgotten.

~

We are at war. No-one wants to admit it, but humanity is under attack. We face an enemy unlike any before, an enemy that strikes from the shadows at where we are most vulnerable. We face an alien force, one with an almost insurmountable advantage in technology. We are XCOM, and we are humanity's first and last line of defence.

~

I arrived at the hangar bay, out of breath. My plane was waiting; Raven-23, a fighter built from the finest components money could buy. I had flown it a hundred times, in training and in combat with the enemy. This time, there was something new. A bulky cylinder surrounded by cords like knotted muscle clung to the underside of the wing. "Hey, techie!" I shouted at one of the scurrying mechanics preparing my jet for takeoff. "What's that thing?"

The mechanic glanced at the chrome parasite under the wing. "Plasma cannon!" he replied, struggling to make himself heard over the hustle and bustle. "Some guys from the lab rigged it up! Don't let it overheat!" Having decided that was as much explanation as I needed, he walked away. I shrugged and clambered into the cockpit.

Even here, changes had been made. There was a new, bright red button on the controls, marked "Plasma Cannon". A gauge next to it read "Heat Build-up". Everything else was the same, though; the same worn chair, the same stubborn smudge on the canopy, the same bobble-headed dog a friend had once given me for luck. I performed my usual checks. Flight suit sealed, fuel at maximum, air pressure normal. I gave a thumbs-up to one of the mechanics, and the hangar doors in front of me began to slide open.

I took a deep breath and let the plane move. It was like restraining a wild animal. It had a need, no, an urge to fly, and I could barely hold it back. I accelerated, exiting the hangar, moving faster and faster until, with a bestial roar from the engines, I left the ground. The base rapidly shrank behind me as I retracted the landing gear. Checking the location of my target (due north), I turned to face it and let the monster in my engines loose with the flick of a switch. The plane screamed in joy as it shattered the sound barrier, and I screamed with it. Nothing compares to flight, nothing in the world.

It was peaceful, up above the world. I flew across a rocky plain of clouds, which parted occasionally to reveal a glimpse of the icy Canadian landscape below. The plain stretched to the horizon in all directions. Above me was the deep dark blue of the sky, studded infrequently with twinkling stars. I was jolted from my reverie by the gruff voice of Central Officer Bradford in my ear. "Raven-23, you are approaching the target. Prepare to engage."

Already? There was nothing on my radar, and I couldn't see anything. Then it hit me, and I silently cursed my own foolishness. The aliens were known to possess an optical cloak, a device that rendered their ships invisible to radar and the naked eye. Perhaps that was what I was dealing with? Whatever high-tech setup they had at HQ could detect it, but I was helpless. I willed myself to remain calm and think. I could-

Something caught my eye to my right. I looked, and saw a bizarre sight. There was a trail forming in the clouds, a gap where something seemed to be carving a path through them. I grinned, targeting the spot where the invisible ship was. "Engaging target," I reported to HQ before firing.

The conventional missiles corkscrewed through the air to make it more difficult for them to be hit. One exploded before it reached its target, destroyed by some alien targeting algorithm, but the other struck home, creating a brief fiery blossom in the sky. It must have damaged something vital, because the patch of air rippled like water before the cloaking device failed altogether and the Overseer became visible.

The Overseer must have been twice the size of my plane. It was a disc of dark steel, patterned with glowing lights and panels. Spaced equally along the rim were four massive iridescent panels, and i knew from experience that these served as engines. As I sped up to keep pace with the alien ship, a central turret rotated and locked onto my plane. I swore loudly and went into a barrel roll just as it fired. I could barely see as I spun, going from having the sky above me to the clouds and back again. I regained my bearings and decided to try my new weaponry.

I hit the button, and the cobbled-together cannon on my wing angrily fired a bolt of hissing green plasma. It hit the Overseer's weapons dead on, blowing them to pieces. The alien ship ducked below the clouds, trailing smoke, and I pursued. We fought over the forests and hills below. The Overseer had an amazing range of motion, constantly making turns so sudden they would have killed a human pilot. Whenever I fired my plasma cannons, more often then not the craft would veer to one side. Even when my shots landed, it would always be a non-vital part that was hit.

I checked my fuel gauge, only to find it almost half empty. If this kept up for much longer, I would never make it back to base. I needed a plan, and it was not long before I thought of one. Making sure that the plasma cannons had cooled off, I took a deep breath and set my plane into another roll. At the same time, I held down the buttons for the plasma cannons. I created a spinning storm of bright green fire which engulfed the Overseer. By the time my Raven had stabilised, the alien ship was sinking towards the ground, leaking thick smoke from half a dozen wounds in the hull. "Enemy down!" I said into the headset as the Overseer crashed into a forest, felling trees as it went. It finally halted, leaving a trail of burning wreckage behind it. There was a cheer from HQ. I had tackled a giant and won.

"Nice job, Raven-23," the Central Officer said, relief evident in his voice. "Return to base. Sending the Skyranger with ground team now." It was then that I noticed the flashing red lights on my controls. Firing the plasma cannons so rapidly had overheated them! I glanced at the wing, noted that it was on fire, and hit the ejector seat. I was flung out as my jet spiralled downwards. An explosion ripped it in two before it reached the ground.

"Er, Central?" I asked. "This is Raven-23. I seem to have crashed my plane. Could the ground team pick me up en route to the crash site?" I could hear laughter from my headset as I drifted gently downwards, suspended from a parachute. "Copy that, Raven-23. Ground team will be there in twenty minutes."