Monday March 27th, 2084

Aliens in the sewer. Wasn't that in a movie?

The sewage works looks like an unpleasant place to fight, with a number of raised walkways where short ranged aliens could be hiding and minimal useful cover near the entryways.

Because the side of the building X-Com entered from has almost no fire lanes to the central area, all four squads moved out immediately to find better locations. Squad 4 attempted to move up onto the walkways (though these quickly became too heavily damaged to be useful), squad 1 checked the outer edge of the building, squad 2 checked nearby rooms to ensure no aliens could get behind squad 3, while squad 3 charged forward to a more open space where they could intercept poppers and flying Skeletoids.

The action that followed was almost too chaotic to follow. Though our new devastator cannons ripped through poppers, spitters, and brainsuckers with ease, Anthropods and Skeletoids on this mission had some sort of energy shield device that could absorb sometimes as many as 5 devastator blasts before the alien was injured. While squad 4 dealt with a multiworm, spitter, and a Skeletoid on one side of the building, Skeletoids in the center engaged squad 3. Squad 4 killed off the Skeletoid, but not before it brought down part of the walkway, blocking squad 4 from moving any higher. Lane discovered that the alien shields do not prevent aliens from catching fire, and a combination of the flame and John's machine gun, along with some earlier hits from squad 3, were able to drop the Skeletoid's shield just as the Skeletoid was flying over John's head.

James was very badly injured by a Skeletoid that attacked squad 3 and left the building to seek medical attention. Squads 1 and 2 finished checking their sections and began moving to assist with the two Anthropods approaching the center. In squad 4, Lane continued to hammer the remaining multiworm with incendiary rounds while John moved up to search the Skeletoid for it's shielding device. Unfortunately, these devices seem to disintegrate when their power is drained. Scott, having recovered from his failed attempt to mind control a Skeletoid, moves forward to have another go at the Anthropods, who are already panicking due to the speed at which X-Com has burned through their allies. This time, Scott successfully forces the Antrhopod to throw away its shield; by the end of the operation, that was the only functioning shield we recovered from this site. Squads 1, 2, and 3 all advanced on the remaining Anthropods to ensure that neither tried to recover the shield. They thought one might have escaped, but it was merely hiding, and died moments after breaking cover.

The appearance of shielded aliens would have been disastrous without the devastator cannons. By advancing quickly, X-Com agents were able to engage the most dangerous aliens one or two at a time, but even one Skeletoid with a shield could easily have wounded or killed multiple agents if they were relying solely on disruptor guns or more conventional weapons.