Collection item #38973:
Personal journal of Gregory Hamlet, X-Com Chief Intelligence Officer
Jan 1, 1999 - Open for Business
Massive was declared fully operational today by the suits. What a joke. Just because the base's main lift finally works and the last damn egghead waddled into the lab they say we're operational. Macbeth sat down with me this morning and said I was in charge of purchasing AND intel. What a hardass. He didn't wait for a response, just went straight into the game plan: Bigger radar, more storage space (though what he plans to put there I can't imagine, this place is packed to the gills with firepower already), living quarters within the month (A MONTH!?), a couple more warm bodies and a carton full of more eggheads. Macbeth is serious, I've read the reports myself but I'm more scared of him than a couple missing persons and a little grey space baby. Hopefully some small part of the world's pocket change can be siphoned off to pay for a logistics officer.
Until then these defective heavy cannons are gone, and I'm to order a "wide-area suppression" vehicle. The Chinese have some sort of riot tank we can load with rockets if we just rip out the 50 calibers, that'll have to do.
Jan 4th, 1999 - Shoot on Site
Radar contact today. Macbeth sent out the MiG but the thing was small, fast, and didn't want to shake hands. HE was PISSED. When he called me in I just nodded, kept silent, and sent out a request for more explosives. Next time we'd be sending the F-15 with Avalanches under each wing. Our proximity mines never showed, I'll have to order a couple crates. Also I'm firing Uta, she almost gutted Macduff yesterday.
Jan 7th, 1999 - Ambush
What the f*ck. I'm the f*ckin' Chief Intelligence AND LOGISTICS officer of this whole crap-shoot and they send me out on first contact? When Macbeth got the news he saddled everyone up, launched the F-15 for overwatch and sent the Skyranger up its skirts. And he packed me along with these jarheads. I didn't want it, Macduff didn't want it, but Big Brass wouldn't listen. They just packed me into a flak jacket like the rest of these goons and tossed me a rifle. I did well enough in basic, but a serious marksman I am not. At least the others are armed to the gills and I'm to stay well back. Rockets, auto-cannons, grenades, rifles. The tank. I feel a lot better with that thing out front; I might just dig up its receipt and mount it if I live through this.
Alright, we've landed. Take a quick look out the windows, just farmhouses and darkness.
Can't wait.
....
Shit, shit, shit. That was a f*cking suicide mission. Seven of them, three of us dead. The kevlar melted like butter. We either saw them and killed them or they found us and we died. The tank rolled out, we followed. We blew a barn to rubble just to take out the first little grey man we saw. 'Overkill' I remember thinking. We should've nuked the bastards.
Antony died under the wheels of the skyranger, he was just the closest to the orchard when one of them opened up on him. Macduff opened up when the monster peeked out a second time, but couldn't hit him before he blew Brutus away. A volley of grenades over the hedge wall ended that. There was some sort of run in at the horse stables (horse stables for gods sake, what do these things want from us?). Macduff lit one of them up with Incendiary rounds but the thing just skittered back around the barn. ON FIRE. Grenades again. Actually took out two of them there. Four of guys went into the ship to end it. They told me to wait outside, cover the rear. Thank god. Three more aliens inside. One of them blew a hole straight through Harvey Dent's chest in what must have been the cockpit.
We radioed in mission success to African Command, got the go ahead, and left. All the talk about medals and shit was just hot air. Macbeth was waiting for us in the hangar back at Massive. No medals or congratulations were forthcoming. An intact ship and a load of their damn plasma weapons and not even a thank you. What a hardass. The spaceship was taken apart and back at the base before we were. The funerals are tomorrow.
Jan 26th, 1999 - A Prayer for Russians
I was out of base at an operations report when they attacked the Russians. We picked up the ship on the way in, it was massive. They started replacing the MiG's cannon with a Stingray and sent the dual Avalanche loaded F-15 out to intercept with the Skyranger following. Then it just dumped a load of floating science experiments and miniature T-Rexes on the Reds and took off. We had to bring the 'ranger back and re-equip. Just before dark the team landed, I'd secured another of the tanks for them so they were really jammed in their this time. The new laser weapons the eggheads had been hatching worked like a charm, a half dozen rifles and a handful of pistols kept our boys safe and sound. Five civilians were killed and six survived. There wasn't much left of the town when Russian Command finally moved in, but there weren't any of those bastards left either. Next I think the boys in white are cooking up something a little better than the flak jackets.
Feb 1st, 1999 - Good News
Our first progress report. 3 dead soldiers, 5 civilians killed, and more than twenty enemy dead. A wide array of captured technology and a faint hope of understanding what drives these creatures. The council was pleased, Russia was especially generous. We're also a large profit on the unused alien materials, it seems that novelty, even in the midst of fear, has a high selling price.
Feb 24th, 1999 - Happy Birthday
Nothing at all this month. Brazil is pissed, they'll probably cut funding over something but we can't really figure out why. There wasn't even a peep. Happy birthday me. At least the new armor looks good and we've got some sort of motion tracker up and running. The boys used the prototype to lead me to the surprise party. I almost pissed myself when Macduff walked out of the shadows in the warehouse. Damn scanner is too hard to read if you ask me. The cake had "Shakespear" written on it. There wasn't room on the cake for the 'e' but hey
March 3rd, 1999 - Crash and Burn
A small craft again, like the first one in February. Macbeth was with the Bigger Brass and Macduff sent out the MiG instead of the F-15. He'll catch hell for that one. But it worked out, this one was more interested in blowing us away but our boys in the sky took it down hard. When we went to salvage the site the men tried to test the motion scanner. So far the aliens haven't shown anything that could take out the Skyranger on the ground and they just holed up for a bit, getting their bearings, arming the explosives, waiting to see if something moved. The only surviving floater (as we've come to call them) must have been circling the drain already because he wandered right in front of the tank (which hadn't even moved) and left bits of purple goo all over the inside of the Skyranger.
Mission successful, nobody even stepped off the 'ranger.
March 5th, 1999 - South American Blues
I was in the middle of planning the new laboratory we're going to add on when the alert came. Chile is in trouble, they're scattered reports and some horrific video going out on the web of people being blown to pieces in the streets. No positive on the specific critters yet. The team will go out and I'll try and make sure we've can replace whoever doesn't make it back. A couple rookies goin' this time, I hope things go as well as the last mission.
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