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The explosives failed to kill all the snakemen inside, as Captain Wychin and the team he took inside to finish the job discovered. They also found several humans, both dead and alive, wearing Russian and US uniforms. After completely flushing the snakemen out of the cave complex, the Cold Force moved in and established a sort of base camp inside the caverns. The only casualty was Private Johnson, who was perforated by plasma fire.
The brief respite allowed the C4 to rest and recover... with the exception of Clark who fell asleep but never quite made it back to consciousness. The next day, a small-sized UFO with a sectoid crew flew overhead and landed near the cave complex. Wychin, taking no chances, took out six-strong assault team. After a brief firefight with a few unprepared sectoids, the team approached the UFO. Apparently the aliens weren't too well prepared for the Alaskan cold since when the UFO tried to lift off it couldn't because it had frozen to the ground. After a pair of rockets delivered by Private Dmitri Mendelev, the UFO's plasma cannon was disarmed. Rather than try to open the door, Wychin ordered grenades thrown through a hole in the roof. Needless to say, the sectoids didn't survive.
In the next few days, it became evident that the Cold Force was running very short on supplies - everything ranging from food to ammunition. From Mike Thornside's analysis of the UFO's somewhat damaged navigation systems, the location of a nearby town was deduced. Leaving the chief medic, Sophie Thornside in charge of the wounded, and the base, Captain Wychin took out a scouting team and headed for the town.
Anderson, Alaska was a small, peaceful, and completely abandoned town. The inhabitants were probably evacuated before the alien invasion. Only a few minutes after entering it, Wychin's team found that one of the residents was apparently stockpiling weapons before the war. Before they could call in their findings back to the cave complex base, a ship full of floaters landed just outside the town and deployed a large squad. Systematically advancing through the town and leveling several buildings, the floaters eventually became engaged in a firefight with the team. After a few minutes of intense combat, the floater squad was destroyed, and the C4 team advanced towards the UFO. Once again, the UFO got stuck to the ground, and the C4 team had no trouble getting inside and slaughtering the occupants. When one floater attempted to surrender, it was shot by Wychin.
About a half a day afterwards, when reinforcements arrived from the cave complex, a set of tank tracks were discovered outside of the small town. Wychin ordered the now-larger team to assemble and follow the tracks. Soon, the C4 came upon an ongoing battle between a force of Russian tanks and a pair of UFO's. During the pitched battle, a large portion of the Russian force was destroyed, but both UFO's and their complement of aliens were destroyed thanks to the timely arrival of the Cold Force. After a few tense moments, both human factions agreed to cooperate instead of fighting each other. Thus, the Russians used their tanks to transport the supplies from the small town to the cave complex.
The next time the Cold Force encountered the aliens was upon investigation of a large RADAR blip showing on the Russians' mobile RADAR unit. When the C4 arrived on the scene, an abductor-class ship had finished destroying a Russian tank column and was gathering bodies and live prisoners, no doubt for use in some sort of sick alien experiments. Captain Wychin ordered an immediate assault. Despite Lieutenant Harrison's best efforts, his team was unable to rescue any significant number of prisoners, a greater number of them being taken when the UFO took off.
An interesting development was seen during the next week. Investigating the reports of an alien battleship landing very close to the base, Captain Wychin led a team to investigate. The team was met by power-armored mutons, and only defeated them with great difficulty.
Soon, the newly-promoted Lieutenant Julius Heide pinpointed the approximate location of a minor X-Com storage/manufacturing base. Upon investigation, it turned out that the base was completely abandoned, although structurally intact. Soon after the C4 team's arrival, a battleship full of snakemen descended upon the base and launched a full assault. Luckily, Russian tanks arrived just in time to help decimate the enemy and force the battleship to retreat.
It was then decided to relocate from the cave complex to the X-Com base, since it was... well... a better place for a base. Captain Wychin took out an APC to the small town in order to remove any remaining useful equipment as well as take the UFO apart. In the week or so of the C4's absence from the area, the aliens had initiated a repair and recovery effort. Their presence was somewhat a surprise, as evidenced by the unfortunate death of Private Rembrandt. However, the opposition was easily overcome. Near the end of the mission, a case of gross insubordination by Lieutenant Heide led to his demotion a few days later...
As the last APC's made their way from the cave complex towards the X-Com base, they were attacked by a pair of UFO's. Both APC's were disabled, but before the first UFO finished them off, it was shot down by the second UFO. The second then proceeded to land and deploy several squads of sectoids and cyberdisks armed with stun weapons. The team led by Master Sargeant Sophie Thornside fared quite well, but Captain Wychin's team was nearly disabed - until the snakemen from the first downed UFO came over and opened fire on the sectoids, who died rather quickly and messily. When the firefight was nearly over, a stray grenade landed near Master Sargeant John Poole, who tried to throw it away - but didn't quite coordinate his efforts with Lt. Heide, who tried to kick it away. The grenade exploded, severely wounding both. Heide was shortly demoted to Squaddie.
Nearly a week passed before the Cold Force saw any more action. The team took the time to recover, rest, and heal those nasty burn wounds - with the exception of M-Sgt. Sophie Thornside, who caught a major fever, and as a result was unable to participate in the events of January 30th...
A Battleship, filled to the brim with Mutons, Floaters and all kinds of other aliens, descended upon the old X-Com bunker. Quickly dispatching the remaining Russian armor units, the Battleship proceeded to disgorge a horde of aliens. The remaining Cold Force troops fell back inside the base, taking heavy casualties while facing squad after squad of alien soldiers. A series of demolition charges dropped by aliens down an elevator shaft effectively split the C4 into two teams. Neither fared very well in the long run. An attempt by Squaddie Michael Thornside to overload the base's fusion reactor was cut short by a Muton's stun launcher. This battle saw the death of Lieutenant Kevin Harrison, who was melted to slag by a silacoid which bored a hole through the debris blocking the aliens' access to that part of the base. Also, Squaddie Julius Heide was killed in action.
It seemed that the existence of the Cold Force was over. At that time, however, the famed N.A.A.R.O. launched its assault on the alien control center at Cydonia. The destruction of the alien brain threw the alien forces into Chaos, and caused the crash-landing of the battleship where the remnants of the Cold Force were being held. Captain Wychin awoke to find his command reduced to less than ten able-bodied troopers. Wasting no time, the team made their escape from the holding facility and secured the entire UFO - no small feat, given that they started out with no weapons or equipment whatsoever.
Soon, Michael Thornside tapped the UFO's navigation systems to discover the location of a nearby settlement. Grabbing what supplies they could, the C4 set out in that direction. The settlement turned out to be inhabited by humans and sectoids. In an unexpected move, Captain Wychin ordered an assault on the settlement. Despite grumbling and objections, the team proceeded. The initial assault went pretty well, with the team securing two outlying bunkers. It was at this point that the battle was interrupted by a large group of snakemen attacking on hovercraft. Both sides were forced to stop fighting and deal with the new threat. However, not everyone had their priorities straight, as Squaddie Irvine Kienas was shot in the chest by projectile rifle fire. The only thing that kept the fight from ending up in the Snakemen's favor was Squaddie Leon McManus' deft handling of an autocannon in the bunker where his team was holed up. The battle ended with the Snakemen annihilated, but most of the higher-ranking officers badly wounded. Thus, it fell to Sophie Thornside to take charge of the situation.
Negotiating with the villagers, it was agreed that several of them would guide the C4 towards an abandoned US military base. As it turned out later, Area 26 was a top secret research and development installation. The base looked like a major battlefield between Russian and American forces. When Wychin and about a half of the remnants of the C4 entered the base, it didn't turn out to be very abandoned at all. In fact, it was inhabited by a horde of chryssalids and reapers. To complicate matters, the team got lost in the convoluted underground bunker, and only the discovery of a weapons storage area allowed the team to survive. Shortly afterwards, the Cold Force was firmly established in Area 26.
As the human guides made their way back from the base to the village, they were intercepted and captured by a Snakeman patrol. Wasting little time in interrogation, the snakemen, dragging their captives along, launched an assault on the base. A team led by the newly-promoted Lieutenant Sophie Thornside diverted most of the snakemen from the main base, allowing them to be taken out piecemeal. Unfortunately, several hostages were lost in the ensuing battle.
Using the captured snakemen hovercraft in conjunction with maps pinpointing a high-tech factory complex, Captain Wychin took out a team to scout the place out. Upon their arrival, the team discovered that despite its quite decrepit and destroyed appearance, the complex housed a veritable army of snakemen. After a brief firefight, it became obvious that the C4 couldn't win the conflict, so Wychin ordered a full retreat on a hovercraft. This resulted in a chase and full-scale vehicle battle. Luckily for the Cold Force, the Snakemen lost, and died horribly.
The next few days probably housed some of the most important events in the history of the C4, and the USSA itself. As the Cold Force got settled in, a lone figure approached the base during the blizzard. It turned out to be a sectoid - lost, and with a healthy dislike for all alien-kind. For some reason, Captain Wychin didn't order it blown away immediately. Whatever that reason was, it had to wait, as a large force of Sectopods and power-armored mutons advanced on the base. Thanks to the discovery of additional weapons, including anti-tank rifles and a prototype laser cannon, the alien forces were defeated. Even though Krotyla, the sectoid, professed loyalty towards the human cause, it was put under guard.
Soon, radio traffic reached the base's communications array. Apparently, some sort of battle was going on between human and alien forces. The C4, in almost full complement, sallied forth towards the reported battle coordinates. There, they encountered elements of Russian and US armed forces locked in battle with the aliens. Doing the best they could to help, the C4 team started whaling on the alien force. During the fighting, more than a half of the C4 was disabled, but those that remained conscious encountered live elements of this large army, commanded by one General Jackson.
Apparently, right before X-Com's defeat, the aliens had gained control of the Russian government. To help speed up their takeover of the world, they had the army mobilize on Russia's east and west borders. A large force crossed the then-frozen Bering Straight and entered US territory in Alaska. Only a few hours before the massive alien assault on Earth started, the Russian force had advanced several hundred kilometers inland, and was engaged in some heavy combat with US forces, including a major battle around Area 26.
With the added firepower of the United Alaskan Army, the C4 returned in force to the John F. Wilkins factory complex. A major assault took the snakemen there completely by surprise - many were captured, while human losses were very low. Most of the captured snakes were immediately put to work building weapons and equipment for the army.
With the new supplies provided by this factory complex, the UAA was able to mount an offensive to recapture Anchorage, where it was reported that a large concentration of aliens had established a fortress. The Cold Force was ordered on a reconaissance run to the city using captured hovercraft. Upon arriving, the C4 split into two teams. The team led by Lieutenant Sophie Thornside encountered fairly light opposition... some of it composed of Ethereals who mind controlled Mike Thornside into knocking her out. Captain Wychin's team ran into several muton and floater patrols. After a brief firefight, the team retreated to its hovercraft... which was promptly shot down by a sectopod. Luckily, the second team arrived to recover the badly shaken, burnt and crashed first team.
Unfortunately, while the C4 team was battling it out with the aliens in Anchorage, Master Sargeant Leon McManus was captured by alien forces and taken to a holding facility.
Leading a patrol into the outlying suburbs, Master Sargeant John Poole encountered a group of floaters and mutons along with several humans who appeared to be working with the aliens. After a brief firefight, the Cold Force team took those remaining alive prisoner.
The prisoners quickly told the location of a small alien prison facility located in the city suburbs. Captain Wychin led an assault team with the objectives of rescuing the prisoners and destroying the facility. During the assault, Squaddie Paul Augsberg shot himself for unknown reasons. Also, Private Freeman perished when the team made it inside the alien base. Once inside the 'prison', an intense firefight ensued. Eventually, the team was almost stopped cold by a trio of Ethereals... who wound up being brutally slaughtered. As an added bonus, Master Sargeant Leon McManus turned out to be among the prisoners.
Interrogation of the prisoners captured by Poole also revealed the location of a major Ethereal controlled storage depot. As the UAA launched a full-scale offensive on Anchorage, Captain Wychin led a full assault team, dropped off by helicopter, to assault and hopefully take over the depot. A full-scale firefight followed, resulting in the destruction of a huge number of aliens - with minimal losses on the C4 team. Krotyla's loyalty to the C4 was thrown in question when it attacked Captain Wychin upon being mind-controlled by an Ethereal. Both survived - partially due to the timely arrival of additional UAA forces which destroyed the remaining aliens or forced them to retreat.
As the battle progressed, it became evident that human forces would eventually emerge victorious. Elsewhere during the assault on the supply depot, Squaddie Kathrina Bowman was killed in action. A short while after the assault, the newly-promoted Lieutenant McManus led his first patrol, destroying a small force of power-armored mutons.
The final alien fortification, a large, blue, alien-infested structure was soon the only alien-held location in the entire city. The Cold Force, slightly reinforced, was ordered to spearhead the assault in the buidling. They did so, slaughtering the initial opposition, and breaching the front door. Deep inside the base, the firefight continued as a large Russian force arrived to hold down the fort outside. Unable(or, perhaps, as it later turned out, unwilling) to reinforce the C4's assault, the Russians maintained a stalemate outside with a large Muton force. Meanwhile, the C4 sliced through alien defenses, taking only minor losses, and reached the alien control center, slaughtering the inhabitants. From that moment on, all organized alien resistance essentially collapsed as remaining pockets of Ethereals and their minions were simply crushed.
General Jackson, coming to tour the captured alien base, never got to see the results of the C4's work. He was asassinated by Krotyla as he got out of his jeep. The APC's following him housed Snakemen, apparently 'liberated' from the factory, and fully armed. Following was a fierce firefight, in which a number of U.S. Army personnel were killed. Krotyla turned the fight in the C4's favor by running up behind a dense cluster of snakemen, where the high-density C4 plastic explosive, strapped to his vest earlier by M-Sgt. Poole, was remote-detonated by Captain Wychin. The remaining snakemen tried to flee in one of the APC's they arrived in - unfortunately for them, they had killed all the drivers, and didn't know how to drive the APC themselves. Gassed out of the APC, they were slaughtered as they slithered out, choking and gasping.
Soon, Captain Wychin took control of all remaining human forces and began down the road to the glory of the U.S.S.A.
[Author's note: At this point, the sim plot tree moves ahead ~30 years.
To find out more about what happened to the various characters, read the
stories between
'Hidden Agenda' and 'Fresh Meat', as well as check out some of the
bios on the new roster.]
In the intervening 30 years, most of the original C4 team either retired, was discharged, or killed in action. In 2006, since only two members of the original team remained on active duty in the actual team, the newly-"elected" President Wychin officially declared a recruitment drive. Since then, the C4 has been an elite commando unit, drawn from the best of the USSA's army. Captain Leon McManus was put in charge of the C4 unit, which he led quite successfully, achieving a low casualty and a high mission success rate. In December 2031, after a major tactical blunder which resulted in the downing of the 34th Air Wing and the dropships it was escorting, the bureacracy once again went into motion to gather up fresh meat into the Cold Force. An up-and-coming star within the army, Lieutenant William Shade, was made XO, and a 50-year-old Master Sargeant John Poole resumed his old role as the 'commander's bully', muttering something about "young whippersnappers" and "not knowing how to do a job if it was right in front of them".
The first C4 mission was a live-fire training exercise against a small group of snakemen in a heavily wooded area. The C4 team performed admirably, racking up all twenty snakemen, only taking one casualty in the process.
In support of the 3rd Army's current efforts in taking over San Antonio, the C4 was deployed to infiltrate and destroy a Snakeman command center - a battleship landed on the ground, which they did admirably, according to all reports.
Following a snakeman-used sewer line from the city to the desert, the C4 was ordered to demolish another Snakeman stronghold which was located inside a mansion. After an intense firefight, the building was gassed. When the C4 team entered, they discovered corpses in USSA uniforms, along with a few chryssalids, one of which managed to impregnate Private John Milner. As the situation was rapidly deteriorating, Captain McManus ordered a pullout, and the building torched - which it was, in a spectacular display of fireworks.
With San Antonio secure, the C4 was temporarily quartered at Nowhere - a base, which, as the name implies, was located in the middle of the Texas prairies. With the arrival of several new recruits, including a pilot, the C4 team was dispatched to 'recover' a downed UFO. With President Wychin tagging along, the mission started out easy. The UFO was gutted nearly completely, although the aliens had apparently destroyed their own nav systems. The lone muton remaining inside the UFO was gunned down. It was after the C4 started to pull out that it was ambushed by a force of mutons hiding within a sandbank. The mutons' ambush backfired on them, however, as they were all killed by the superior C4 team, both in training and technology.
Despite the fact that the C4 failed to capture any prisoners, one of the UFO's snooping around USSA Army positions was eventually tracked to a small refueling depot. Lieutenant Shade led a small team in destroying the base. Infiltrating the converted alien supply ship was simply a matter of Private Dominic Geller mind-controlling a floater which, after its squad was slaughtered, signaled the base's defence systems to stand down. Detailing Private Alexander Philips to carry an exhausted Geller back to the APC, Lieutenant Shade took the rest of the team inside. Once the squad got inside, they ran into a bit of trouble as a UFO landed to refuel. Blowing up the fuel dump on the first story didn't turn out to be the greatest of ideas, as it caused the entire first floor to collapse, trapping the team inside, except for Philips and Geller, who at the last moment managed to rescue the team by blowing a hole in the UFO wall and slaughtering the remaining mutons. Private Arthur Parker would get credit for the headshot on the final Ethereal which managed to mind control about half the team.
Another training mission was authorized by President Sam Wychin in preparation for a high-risk and strategic-value infiltration mission of a suspected alien base. The mission started out with Private Dominic Geller mind-controlling an outgoing truck driver to turn his truck around and crash it into the guard post, causing a commotion and allowing the C4 team to slip in. The mission was a marginal success, with the C4 team reaching the designated objective and leaving a 'tag' in the base computer of a heavily-guarded USSA base - soon afterwards, however, they were discovered and 40% of the team "eliminated".
As Captain Leon McManus was retired to fill a training post, the newly-promoted Captain Alexander Philips' first mission didn't go off too well. Before the team even reached their general mission area, their dropship was shot down somewhere over the mexican badlands. Philips, unable to take control of the situation, unwillingly deferred to Master Sargeant John Poole's judgement, effectively giving him tactical command. The team was able to call up air support and reinforcements, and managed to hold on long enough to survive an attack by superior alien numbers. During the mission, Squaddie Arthur Parker demonstrated a certain degree medical skill, while patching up a critical wound inflicted by a mis-thrown grenade on M-Sgt. Poole.
The C4 was then assigned to investigate the source of unidentified radio transmissions to and from alien territory. It soon became clear that this was a listening post. Furthermore, this base was run by humans. The C4 team easily overwhelmed the under-equipped opposition, avoided a badly-placed boobytrap, and only took superficial wounds. Although the mission was successful, with several prisoners being taken, and an excellent combat record for the newly-recruited Private Charles Wander, this mission was marred by an act of treason. As a result of firing upon a fellow USSA soldier, Squaddie Arthur Parker was detained upon returning to base and placed in the brig.
Just before Squaddie Parker was about to be executed, however, Captain Philips was restrained and removed from command by Master Sargeant John Poole. Lieutenant William Shade, ordering the troops present to stand down, allowed this removal to unfold - finishing in Philips pulling his Desert Eagle and blowing his own brains out. At nearly the same time, an enormous alien force attacked the base - Lieutenant Shade led the escape to a hangar which housed an Air Ranger dropship. In the intense firefight to get to the Ranger, Squaddie Mark Jorgenson nearly perished in a "heroic" attempt to slow down a pair of sectopods. Eventually, the C4 unit and accompanying USSA troops managed to punch through the floater and muton forces, and with heavy casualties made it to the Air Ranger.
After a long march to a small alien refueling station, the C4 team spotted a 'large scout' landing. The C4 squad led by Lt. Shade, avoiding a muton patrol, entered the UFO and executed a quick, clean sweep, gassing the aliens out of the power core. The second squad, led by Mark Jorgenson, entered the UFO. The team's cover was blown when a pair of mutons walked into the UFO. One was shot down inside, while the other made it halfway to the alien 'building' before being killed. Unfortunately, soon afterwards, mutons began piling out just as the UFO, now hijacked by the C4 team, took off. After a brief strafing run, the C4 was on its way to the coordinates of an alien city.
As the craft approached the city, Lt. Shade communicated the coordinates back to the base, calling in a nuclear strike. The city itself was built over the ruins of some long-forgotten South American city - a giant metal plate with an alien city on top supported by several pillars. Almost immediately after getting the transmission out, the C4 craft was attacked and shot down by alien ships.
After crashing, the C4 team evacuated the craft - taking a while due to the extreme disorientation caused by being shot down and crashing through a metal plate. A few minutes later, the nuke launched from USSA territory hit, annihilating the city on top. The bottom was fairly well protected by the metal plate.
The team moved along, through the ruins, when they were attacked by a reaper. Quickly killing the creature, the team had no time for celebration as a few mutons arrived by hovercraft, dropping two reapers off for a ground assault. After a brief, but intense battle, the C4, with only minor casualties, captured the hovercraft and were on their way back to USSA territory...