Informal AAR 20040912

I went on my first rescue mission today, first for everyone really. The military can teach you a lot about fighting human opponents, but most of us were ill prepared for what happened on the freighter Nancy. The Nancy was a cargo ship, just west off the coast of Africa, some 50 miles into the atlantic when it let out a distress call. Fortunately our deepwater naval base was close enough to react timely.

We touched down aft on the ship, on it's heli pad. Some fool thought it would be a good idea to bring a subersible tank for the extra armored firepower. Too bad it sat on the helipad for all of the fighting, since it was too big to roam around. It did manage to help clear the LZ so we could all get off safely. Fighting was fierce, and those damn creatures can take a lot of punishment. We were even using their own weapons against them, the sonic rifles and cannons, but even with such imense firepower, they would take multiple hits and still fight. Even the new grenades the techs built for us weren't always effective.

The upper deck was the worst, we lost four good soldiers there. Three cut down by some strange, immensely large biped which finally was blown apart after a hail of exposives. Jenson, the other, was cut down by a couple aquatic lizard freaks coming around a corner. I tossed a grenade into their room and managed to avenge his death.

Jacqious blacked out a few times, or so she said while we descended down into the lower decks. I don't know what happened other than that, because she later died of her wounds. Actually, she passed out, and while she was dying, she let the grenade that she was holding slip out of her hands. Fortunately, no one else was caught in the blast.

Markov...well, no one know what happened to him. He went to secure our right flank as we searched one of the levels, and when it was all over, we found what was left of him next to pieces of saucer. I suspect he shot one of those mechanical things and it blew up in his face.

They said we did an excellent job, saved some civvies from death, and recovered numerous "artificats" to help research. Out of ten of us tho, only four of us came back on our own two feet, and somehow I don't feel that's exactly a great.