The laser pistol was a weapon that somehow fired beams of light. It looked much like a normal pistol, but was a little bigger. It could fire faster than a pistol, but did about as much damage as a rifle. Six members of the squad had laser pistols, two had rifles, Shigeo Tanida had a rocket launcher and a laser pistol, and Clarence McNeil carried the heavy cannon. All had a grenade, a smoke grenade, and a proximity grenade - an explosive device received with the last weapon shipment that exploded when something moved nearby.
The other addition to the squad was in the back of the tank, not moving, not speaking. The techs called it a Heavy Weapons Platform, or HWP, but to Bailey it looked like a robotic tank. From its turret protruded a weapon that looked much like a heavy cannon. In tests, the HWP could outrun a man, and aimed nearly as well. But Bailey was skeptical as to how the lump of metal would work on the battlefield.
Patrick Bailey was snapped back into reality by the shifting pitch of the Skyranger's engines as it prepared to land. This UFO was bigger, but the base still called it a small one. The Interceptor pilot had estimated that the UFO carried a crew of four. But this was an estimate, and Bailey knew that the X-COM troops could easily run into twice that number- or more.
The Skyranger touched down on the soil of Georgia. Gudrun Esser - promoted to Sergeant because of her kill on the previous mission - ordered the ramp lowered. Bailey's muscles tensed, his finger moved inside the trigger guard of his laser pistol, and he waited for the soldiers in front of him to move out of his way, out into the battlefield.
As soon as the Skyranger's ramp clunked against the ground, the tank began rolling out. It didn't even get off the ramp before three shots sprayed from the right, one striking its main chassis, spraying hydraulic fluids and chemicals out into the air like mechanical blood.
The tank was hardly slowed down at all. The tank's wound was still smoldering when the tank's turret spun ninety degrees to the right, blasting out two huge cannon shells. Bailey heard the concussion of the first armor piercing shell exploding, then the second shell exploded, muffled inside of alien flesh. Bailey heard the dying croak of a sectoid.
X-COM soldiers were already dropping out of the Skyranger, taking up positions under the landing gear. As the soldiers moved away and began searching for aliens, Bailey dropped down behind the wounded tank. It began moving away from the Skyranger, still sparking from its wound. Bailey surveyed the situation, and out of the corner of his eye saw Gudrun give him the follow signal.
Patrick Bailey and Gudrun Esser set out behind the tank, covering its flanks. Bailey moved along behind the tank's right tread, against the wall of a barn. As he advanced, he spotted the UFO, a metal square with rounded corners. It was still quite a distance away, but he reported it, saying "UFO in sector four."
The words were hardly out of his mouth when he heard Bryant call, "Bug right, moving west between sectors six and fourteen."
Bailey's headset comm called out, in the voice of Maria Evans, "He's mine." A moment later, Bailey heard a rifle crack three times, and heard a sectoid scream as it went down. A moment later, Evans called "Okay, that's two down!"
Bailey permitted himself a tight smile as he moved closer to the UFO. The tank had set out to the south, heading through a cornfield to get to an apple orchard. It was unwise of the tank to turn its back on the UFO, but it did. Bailey and Sergeant Esser had nothing better to do than cover the UFO's door, so they moved in, with Tanida and McNeil covering them with rockets and heavy cannon.
Crossing the UFO's front face, Bailey noticed that it curved inward, leaving a blind spot big enough to hide an alien. Moving back to investigate, he heard the hissing noise of an alien door opening. A moment later, an alien weapon fired. Bailey spun around, quickly checking the blind spot behind the UFO. He dashed back toward the front of the UFO, wondering what had happened. Sergeant Esser called out "Bug inside the UFO, shots fired. Went high, over the tank."
Bailey took up a position kneeling against the UFO's front face, Sergeant Esser to his left, about two meters away, against a low stone wall. McNeil and Tanida were covering the door also, with their weapons at ready. In the distance, he could see Maria Evans moving across bails of hay, her rifle aimed. The heavy drone of the tank was also getting louder, as it moved closer to the UFO.
Something was tugging at the back of Patrick Bailey's mind. Something was terribly wrong with this picture. Tanida's rocket launcher... the blast radius was too big, it would take out everybody if the rocket hit an alien by the door. Apparently, Sergeant Esser had the same thought, as she hissed, "Tanida, put away your launcher! We're grouped too tightly for you to go blowing things halfwa -"
Esser's voice was cut off by the hiss of the UFO's door opening. Bailey's mind slowed down, his eyes saw a short gray alien step from the UFO, gripping a pistol of some kind. Esser's laser pistol fired off two shots, which both went low to the alien's right. Two rifle shots ricocheted off the UFO's hard metal skin, fired by Maria Evans. The alien spun, and brought up its pistol, taking aim at Bailey.
His self preservation instincts took over immediately. He sprung toward the UFO, bringing his laser pistol up to aim at the alien. His first shot hit to the alien's left, but the second dug into the flesh of the alien's shoulder, knocking it off balance. It snapped off two shots, hitting the ground where Bailey had just been. The scorched ground steamed and hissed, but Bailey had bigger things on his mind. The alien brought its pistol up, taking careful aim, going for a killing shot. Tanida, who had been struggling to draw his laser pistol, finally got it out and fired over his just-dropped rocket launcher, putting one shot into the skin of the UFO. A heavy cannon shot boomed out of McNeil's weapon, kicking up the ground by the alien taking aim. The tank fired off a shot with a massive concussion, the shell sailing high over the alien's head.
Bailey flew through the air, propelled by his dodge. As he flew, he pointed his pistol in the alien's direction, and squeezed off one more shot. The laser bolt sailed through the air, hitting the alien in its head, boiling the flesh that protected the alien's brain. Then, everything went black as Patrick Bailey's flying dodge ended, stopped by his skull's hard impact with the unbending side of the UFO.
"Yep, he's awake."
Clarence McNeil stood over Bailey, looking down on him. McNeil moved back, letting the light in the room flood into Bailey's eyes, blinding him.
"The concussion must not be too bad, his pupils responded normally to the light." As an afterthought, McNeil added, "It's a good thing your hard head didn't damage the UFO."
Johnston, an Interceptor pilot, joined in. "Don't worry, those UFOs are pretty hard to damage. They keep going even after a Stingray or three."
"Well, Bailey's skull is harder than any lump of metal," Dreyfuss put in. "Better recheck those alloy panels for dents matching this clown's head."
Bailey sat up, finding himself on the hangar floor, back at the base in Chicago. The Skyranger's landing ramp had been serving as his makeshift pillow. People were crowded all around him. As Bailey and all of the X-COM warriors watched, Clarence McNeil, the ex-rookie, walked into the Skyranger's cargo bay. Pulling a long Bowie knife, he put three scratches in the metal finish of the Skyranger's wall. That done, he said, "Well, since I've been here, things have gotten better." He looked at Bailey and said, "Well, sergeant, the score is: X-COM: 3, aliens: 0. Must be my good ol' Irish luck."