"Cydonia, we have a problem"--Untitled Piece

Jack Hogan

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 "All units, prepare to approach downed alien craft."
 Smith, once again admiring his new "personnel armor" blasted down the ramp
along with four rookies and Captain Blissard.  It was their first mission
with the new armor and the geeks in the lab said  it gave you a 50%
probability of surviving an encounter with the medium plasma weapons the
aliens used.  This wasn't’t promising, but it was better then -50%.
 The area was pretty clean, a couple of log cabins that had been evacuated
at the Canadian prime minister’s request.  Smith grinned wondering what kind
of weather balloon the Canadian government had told the people living here
about.
About 50 meters away from Skyranger-1 was a large alien scout.  The ground
in front of it was all charred indicating a not so clean landing.  According
to the reports, Interceptor-2 was locked in a stalemate with this unknown
craft.  The UFO was grounded just by a lucky shot that pierced the bottom of
the ship.  The UFO then settled in an isolated region in upper Quebec.
The small UFO incursion squad approached the entrance.  A smaller alien
Search and Destroy squad departed after them.  Poor souls Smith thought, not
only is their job very boring, it’s more dangerous than ou--.
His thought was cut off as they rounded the final corner of the UFO and
practically bumped into a Floater.
Although the rookies panicked, Blissard stayed cool and barked into her
headset, "Smith, auto-shot, fire"
Smith was way ahead of her as he locked his laser rifle into automatic mode
and let loose three volleys. Although two shots missed, one grazed its
shoulder.  The Floater started wobbling but he didn’t take his eyes off us
for a sec.  It seemed it was considering whether to fly on top of the UFO or
to arm a grenade and take us all out.
Fortunately, it never got that far.  One of the rookies hefted his rifle to
one knee and hit the alien with his stun rod like he was batting a baseball.
The Floater let out a small cry of defiance, and then crumpled on the ground
into a deep sleep.
Captain Blissard sighed and then started barking orders again, "Defensive
positions around Alien airlock."  She then scanned the squad to find the
unlucky person to go in first.  Her eyes locked with mine.
"Squadee Smith, prepare to enter UFO."


"Do you have the Elerium reactor functioning yet?" inquired navigator and
designated-unit-in-charge Float-673.  His height was very close to the
ground indicating extreme annoyance.  "The last thing I want is the
demons-who-carry-the-X to arrive."
"Float-782 is close to completing the task at hand", responded 674.  674 was
cloned right after him and he felt a certain fondness to it.  Of course his
existence was to serve the brain, and he would chew 674 and eat it raw to
serve the brain.
The navigation console in the room-of-control started sending messages to
his brain-unit.  Soldier unit, Float-432 has seised to function as required
by parameters.  The demons have taken his mind.
673 knew what that meant.  Whenever a cloned unit simply stopped functioning
instead of dying, they would reveal any information to whoever asked them,
even the demons.
"Got it." 782 shouted.
There was a moment of pure joy as all of the Float-units helped take off.
If their joy hadn’t been so loud, they would’ve heard the ship saying to
them, Warning, single demon has entered craft, recommend immediate
extermination!

Captain Blissard looked up and watched as the craft sailed higher and higher
into the atmosphere.  Smith had just entered the UFO when the door
unexpectedly sealed itself.  The UFO then took off leaving a big cloud of
dust in it’s wake.
A sergeant from the S and D squad came over.  "Sir! S and D reports area
clean,  Looks like we won’t be killing any more Floaters today."  He then
took a crisp jog over to the Skyranger.
Blissard shook her head as she walked over to the ship as well.
The rookies, this being their first mission, looked confused.  "Sir, what do
we do with this big guy." He said waving his rifle at the unconscious
Floater."
"Leave him there, X-Com cleanup crews will bring him back to Tango Prime."
"But what about Smith," Another rookie stammered.
"I doubt we will see much of Smith for a while." She replied.

Smith stopped pounding on the hatch after a while.  A large scout wasn't’t
that large that the Aliens wouldn’t hear him if they were in the square room
that housed the power core.
Maybe they knew he was here and that was why they locked the door.  But then
he looked out the nearest porthole, and saw stars and a large dark shape
looming overhead.
"Hail Mary, full of grace…." he muttered.