Prologue

General John "Bull Dog" Torrent sat behind the desk in his new office and looked around him in satisfaction. It had been a long struggle and as usual most of it political, an arena that he despised but was surprisingly effective in.

Last year, the aliens had come. Unlike the previous 20 years of scattered unconfirmed reports, this time they arrived openly. In ships that humanity had no counter for. They laid waste to towns and villages, abducted humans and cattle. Unconfirmed reports of human experimentation and the ghastly results struck fear in the general populace. They demanded protection from their governments. While the governments argued and evaluated the attacks continued.

Japan had been the first to take decisive action. With a media blitz designed to soothe the populace as well as bolster Japan's status as a world power, the Kiryu-Kai (anti-alien combat force) was formed. Equipped with the latest technology and weapons, it seemed a potent force for dealing with the aliens. John had visited their base, been privy to their internal organization and had been an observer during several interception attempts.

He had seen several holes in the Kiryu-Kai strategy, he had attempted to communicate his concerns to the Japanese but he was ignored. His reports to the Joint Chiefs of the U.S. were highly critical and he took a lot of heat because of them. Ignoring the pressure, he began working on a plan for a new force that would have a chance of countering the alien threat, and after months had passed without a single successful interception by the Kiryu-Kai his views were vindicated, and his superiors began to take more notice of his reports.

As the countries of the world met in a special United Nations council to plan a counter to the alien threat, many ideas were evaluated and discarded. Finally after four days of relentless work, despite Japan's objections everyone agreed that a unified multi-national force was required to prevent nationalism from changing priorities.

A new force, dubbed the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit (X-COM) was formed and given the charter to defend the peoples of the world from the alien threat. The council's attention then turned to selecting a leader for the new organization. To no ones surprise, John Torrent topped the list. When he showed a well developed plan for the force he was quickly assigned to the post.

Funding for X-COM was debated. Originally it was thought to come from the coffers of the UN itself, but Japan convinced the members to fund the force individually, with the amount based on X-COM's ability to defend the populace. Johns complaints that his new organization would take time to be built and would not be a effective defense force until then were dismissed.

Leaving the UN with the safety of the world on his shoulders and a bank role of four million US dollars in his pockets, John had been sure of what his next move had to be. He needed a base of operations. Contacting some old friends in the US military he had obtained approval to take over a fairly small underground US Army base in Kansas.

Pulling some strings and cashing in on some old debts he had managed to outfit the base for flight operations, set up a independent radar system and even stock the base with two of the latest Interceptor craft and a Skyranger class troop transport craft. Working from a hotel suite while the base was being fitted, John had stocked the base with weapons small and large, brought in a force of scientists, engineers and soldiers ransacked from the best of the UN.

He brought in three department heads, Major Ivan Belov boasted years of active combat duty and a knack for keeping his people alive. Recognizing the urgency of the task and relishing the new challenges of alien warfare, he quickly agreed to head up the active duty branch of X-COM. Sarah Jonlan had multiple doctorates in different fields, coupled with her skill at leadership and budgets made her an obvious choice to head up the scientific group and Louis Luget agreed to provide leadership to the engineering branch.

With the department heads he went over his information, plans and expectations. Learning from the results of the Kiryu-Kai, John had given his preliminary orders.

Ivan was to begin training his men for small squad tactics and guerrilla warfare. They both agreed that in an effort to promote unity and a sense of camaraderie everyone would begin as privates, no matter what their previous rank was.

To Sarah, he directed that the scientific group begin work with the only information they currently had. They were to begin going over the records of the alien raids to try and discern some pattern, some clue that would give them a lead.

With the engineering group, the Bull Dog knew exactly what he wanted. He had maintained that the biggest problem with the Kiryu-Kai interception technique was the planes. Louis was instructed to increase the top speed and distance capability of the interceptor craft. To do this he would have to sacrifice most of the weapons systems and the electronics, however this was an acceptable tradeoff if the plane could actually catch a alien craft, he said.

And so the months of preparation had culminated in the official opening ceremonies. The party last night had been a doozy, with heads of each major government in the world ceremoniously turning on a piece of equipment, and endless speeches about how this was the best hope for mankind, etc. The cheer that went up as the radar made its first ever sweep of the night sky. The soldiers in their specially designed dress uniforms. The tours of the facility, where the Bull Dog has impressed everyone with what he had managed to put together in so short a time.

This morning, the press had all gone home. The heads of the governments were all on their way back. The soldiers were back in their kevlar combat fatigues and the morning shift was just coming on duty. The base was ready for action.

Chapter 1

General John "Bull Dog" Torrent sat behind the desk in his new office working on the seemingly endless paperwork when the main alarm went off. His office was wired to accept all alarms from the central command post. Sprinting down the hall to the command post he raced inside and into the middle of pandemonium. Everyone was talking excitedly and pointing at the main screen where a UFO track was being displayed.

"Allright, settle down everyone," he said loudly and the noise abated somewhat. "You all know what to do. Have you launched the interceptor yet?"

"Yes Sir," said one of the technicians at a console, "they received the alert also. In fact there he is sir!"

John whirled back to the viewscreen, watched as Interceptor 1 appeared on the main screen and headed for the UFO. A breathless quiet settled over the room as all eyes watched those slowly converging pair of tracks.

"Do we have confirmation from the US that this is not one of their birds?" John asked quietly.

"Yes Sir," came a voice from the back of the room, "we are patched into their system and the computer automatically dismisses all known traffic."

"Notify Major Ivan Belov that his soldiers are to prepare for immediate departure," John told the room. There was a scurry of activity in response.

"The Major reports they are ready and waiting," another voice replied.

John fell silent, watching with all the others as the tracks converged on the screen. Something was nagging at him and he took a minute to realize what it was. "My god, we are going to catch one!" he thought as he realized that the interceptor was faster than the UFO.

As the tracks converged the speaker crackled into life. "Central, this is Mariko in Interceptor 1, I am getting an intermittent echo on active radar. It must be jamming or partially radar invisible or something. Unable to get missile lock, switching to infrared."

The seconds ticked by as everyone in the room held their breath, then the radio crackled into life. "Central, I can see no; repeat no; engine exhaust, no heat signature of any kind. Switching to visual track."

Once again everyone waited, finally the speaker burst forth. "Central, this is Interceptor 1, I have a visual on the intruder. Its a alien craft all right...kind of boxy shaped....small...silver colored....no visible engines or ports of any kind....arming missiles...

A few seconds later a strange whine came over the radio along with a burst of static and the sound of explosions.

"I'm hit, repeat I'm hit," came the strained voice of Mariko over the radio, "lost part of one wing and most of the tail, control is very bad, some kind of green beam came from it. I am breaking off the attack run."

John watched silently as the lines diverged and the suddenly wobbly track of the interceptor turned and headed back. The mood in the command post disintegrated as depression set in. Sensing the change John turned to the room.

"Don't worry people, this is merely the first. We will learn from each one and do better the next time. We are dealing with the unknown here, and if we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be the unknown." This brought a few low chuckles and the mood lifted somewhat. With that John hurried from the room and raced for the hanger.

At the hanger the warning lights were all on and the emergency crews were in position, ready to spray foam on any crash and rescue the pilot. As they waited breathlessly, watching the landing pad, John heard the sound of a plane a long ways off.

He knew immediately the pilot was in trouble, the engines had that broken sound that planes get when they are in serious trouble. As the interceptor wobbled into view, John was amazed at the skill of the pilot. He didn't see how the plane was still in the air, it was so shot up that it looked as though half of it was gone.

The interceptor weaved and bobbed around drunkenly. John could see the control surfaces moving as the pilot desperately tried to maintain control. It swooped in towards the landing pad, banked at the last minute and miraculously righted itself just as it hit. Hitting hard, the front nose wheel crumpled but the plane was surprisingly intact.

As the emergency crews covered the plane with foam, the pilot was lifted out and raced for the base hospital. John watched, observing how smoothly the various groups operated. As the pilot vanished down the corridor he finally noticed his hands were clenched into fists, forcing them to relax and realizing that there was nothing for him to do here, he headed back to his office.

Chapter 2

Rubbing his eyes and giving in to a giant yawn, the Bull Dog struggled to make his tired brain work. After receiving a complete report of the interception attempt, he had taken all the paperwork into his study and sat down to try and come up with a solution. As he had told Sarah, the head of the scientific group, "it won't do us much good to be able to catch them if we can't shoot them down."

Now, 24 hours with no sleep and he still had not come up with a solution. After going over the papers for the hundredth time something was nagging at the edges of his tired brain but he just couldn't grasp it. As he struggled to bring the thought to the front of his brain his body finally won and his head bumped the papers as he fell asleep seated at his work desk.

He woke with new energy and the solution. Calling a quick meeting he splashed water on his face to wake up while they assembled. At the meeting he outlined his thoughts.

"Assuming the distance the alien craft fired from was the maximum distance their weapon is capable of, our best course of action is to use weapons that can fire from beyond that range. Now the Stingray missile that our interceptors currently use are fine missiles but they are short range. The Avalanche, packs more firepower and has a long enough range that the pilot can remain safely outside the expected alien firing radius. I want both interceptors rearmed with Avalanche long range missiles at once."

There were no questions, so he headed for bed.

Spencer Bradley popped up from behind the bush he was hiding behind and swung his heavy cannon around , letting off a armor piercing round into the blue alien (the "blue fuzzy" as it was popularly called) that just popped out from behind the hill. The round blew a hole a foot wide in it.

"Wee Hoo!" he sang out exuberantly, "got me another fuzzy". But before he could drop back down out of sight, a thud was heard and he looked down at the red stain on his Kevlar overalls.

"Damn," he gasped, as he sank down to the ground.

"Yea, and you went and got yourself killed." Uta Faerber retorted angrily as she crabbed sideways behind the low ridge that protected her. Popping up, she loosed three rounds from her sniper rifle in the direction of the fuzzy that had shot Spenser. One of the rounds must have hit because she heard the telltale whistle as the computer dropped the plywood alien target to the ground and deactivated the paintball gun behind it.

"Right everyone," said Ivan Belov stepping from the command post of the training ground, "simulation over."

All over the grounds, soldiers began to rise from their hiding places. The training complex was adjacent to the X-COM base and was carefully designed to simulate differing types of terrain. This mornings simulation had taken place in woodlands, with imported trees and shrubs, while the ground crews rebuilt the desert simulation for the afternoon training. Major Belov believed in training with real weapons as much as possible, so the procurement and fabrication divisions were kept hopping as they provided a continuous stream of trees, buildings, and other expendable terrain features as well as the disposable computer guided plywood target and paintball gun arrays.

Now the two dozen men and women designated as the primary strike forces came into sight. Everyone began talking as they converged on the performance review area. Finally quieting as they sat down to await the evaluation.

Major Belov walked to the podium. "I am most disappointed," he began as he faced them. "Three dead on this mission. The shot percentages are improving, but we still have too high a loss rate for the simulations..."

"...and this is only against computer targets," he thundered at them.

"Sir, " Spenser stood up, "the weapons are unwieldy and difficult to maneuver quickly. Also they make it difficult to hide and move quietly."

Belov bit back his angry words, remembering how he had instructed his people to speak their minds and think rather than blindly following orders. Calming himself he replied, "this is true. However we have no knowledge of the aliens abilities, it is possible that a standard rifle will have no effect and our only hope will be weapons with more firepower. That is also why we practice with incendiary as well as armor piercing rounds."

As Spenser sat back down, he turned to the group," any more questions?" No answer from the group.

"Good," he looked them over intently, "post-op debriefing, weapons check and then the afternoon mission."

As they all got up to go he gave them one final word, "Anybody that dies in the afternoon mission will participate in a special night mission." The groan that went up gave him a smile at last.

This time when the main alarm went off everyone knew what to do. As the General walked into the main command post he went into an atmosphere of quiet excitement. The tracks were beginning to converge already on the main screen, quiet murmuring came from a dozen consoles as people went about their jobs with frequent glances at the main screen.

"Interceptor 2, tracking alien craft," came the voice over the radio, "I am coming within missile range. I am adopting a minimal attack pattern and staying at maximum range for Avalanche launch."

"Give me a close up tactical view," John spoke to the technician. Quickly the global view was replaced by a tactical computer generated view showing the Interceptor at the bottom and the alien craft just coming into view on the top. The computer overlaid the maximum range of the Interceptors weapons systems. John winced as he saw the pitifully short range of the aircraft's cannon.

"That’s something I am going to have to fix...someday," he grimaced. But then his attention was again focused on the two craft doing a deadly life and death dance. Slowly the Interceptor closed, shown on the tactical map as the alien craft moving down the screen.

As the alien crossed the line showing the maximum range for the missiles, John could see the dot leave the plane and head up the screen at the alien craft.

"Missile away," came the voice from the speaker. Everyone held their breath as the missile converged.

The missile dot touched alien dot and flared briefly.

"A hit!" came the voice from the Interceptor, "wait...no apparent damage. Missile two away"

Again the dots converged. "A hit!" came the voice again, "alien craft appears damaged this time. Its trailing smoke. Its going down."

At this a mighty cheer went up from everyone in the room and John found himself joining in. "We got one!" he though to himself, "we finally got one."

As the pilot radioed the position of the downed craft, John got his wits organized enough to turn to the comm officer and say, "tell Major Belov to get his soldiers cranked up, they've got work to do."

Chapter 3

The Skyranger sat in the clearing, powering down. Everyone held their breath, expecting some kind of phaser to cut the plane to ribbons. The seconds ticked by and nothing happened, no alien energy weapon boiled them in their suits. Everyone relaxed slightly.

"All right, out by twos. Don you go left, Hans you go right. Secure the ramp, move, move." came the calm voice of Samuel Miller, the leader for the mission.

As the ramp in the back of the plane slid down, Donald Nash jumped down on the left side and quickly spun around looking for anything out of the ordinary. He saw that the Skyranger had touched down in a farm district with fields of wheat and low stone walls separating them. Nothing unusual was in sight.

Hans Berger jumped off the ramp to the right and crouched where he was, trying to look everywhere at once. Far off in the distance he could make out what looked like the alien craft wreckage. Mastering his impulse to stare at it, he looked in all directions before giving the "all clear" sign.

Advancing by twos the squads fanned out. Spenser Bradley found himself teamed with Nash as they headed for a wheat field. As they crept along looking for anything out of the ordinary, Spenser spotted a unfamiliar object in the field. He was just going to point it out to Nash when it moved, the surprise causing him to instinctively drop to the ground. Nash followed his line and squeezed off a quick three round burst of his rifle.

The first shot went wide, but the next shot hit the little alien square. Spenser was just about to congratulate Nash on the first-ever alien kill when he saw the third shot go wild and the alien turning. He tried to shout a warning but was far too late and watched a blueish fuzzy ball of energy hit Nash square in the chest and burn a fist sized hole right through him.

Knowing it was too late for Nash, Spenser turned to his own survival. He was pinned down and unable to return fire. He yelled for help over the radio, "Nash is down, some kind of kid-sized alien burned a hole right through him. I'm pinned down over here, I need some help."

"Relax, I've got you covered," came the tense voice of Uta Faerber, who was covering back at the Skyranger. She squeezed off several shots but the range was too great.

"Damn, guess I gotta do it myself," muttered Spenser as he carefully got up on one knee and sighted on the alien. He saw it turn toward him and raise its weapon. Firing off a three round burst he felt something hit him. It felt like a giant hammer had smashed into him and was beating him into a pulp. As he spiraled into blackness, all he thought about was how much different it felt than a paintball. Then he knew nothing more.

Uta saw Spenser and the alien go down at the same time. "Oh Damn," she cried as she hurried to his side, keeping one eye on the crumpled form of the alien.

Meanwhile, Hans and his second were advancing when they spotted a small gray alien standing in the open ground. Dropping to one knee, Hans pumped three rounds of his rifle into the creature, only to watch in horror as it turned and fired some kind of weapon. Too late he tried to roll to one side, the bolt of energy caught him as he started to turn and he fell lifeless to the ground.

His partner, Marcelle, swung around the heavy autocannon and fired off a burst of high explosive. The alien was shredded by the exploding fragments. Rushing to Hans' side, Marcelle realized it was too late. Ignoring the possible danger all around him, he knelt, his face a mirror of the emotions surging within. At last, rising from the slain body of his friend Marcelle moved on, grim purpose on his face.

Isaeo Noguchi headed up the team that headed straight for the alien ship. As they came closer, he could tell it was like nothing ever built by humanity. Shaped like a big plus or cross, it was only about ten feet high and showed no signs of exhaust ports or openings of any kind. They closed in on the ship warily.

Uta was searching through a barn when she thought she heard movement in one of the stalls. Sliding around the corner as quietly as she could, she could see the outline of one of the aliens, silhouetted in the window it was looking through. Uta was horrified to see that it had a commanding view of the approach to the ship and her teammates would soon be under its sights. She brought her rifle around quietly, wishing for something with more punch to it.

The rifle was set for semi-auto (three round bursts) and she dared not switch settings as the noise might attract its attention. Sighting carefully she unloaded a burst into its back. Surprised it turned towards her as she unloaded another burst, watching with grim satisfaction as it fell to the ground. She put another burst into its head just to make sure and went on, looking for more.

At last Isaeo's team converged on what they thought was the opening. pushing on several likely looking spots on the hull they finally succeeded in opening the door and moved cautiously through.

Tatyana muscled her heavy cannon through the door and squibbed to the right to make room for the others as she crouched on the metal deck, looking for aliens. The room she was in went both left and right, she moved towards the right opening, hugging the wall.

Isaeo took the left opening as Marcelle caught up. Right away Isaeo could tell that Marcelle should not be there, the look on his face told Isaeo everything. He was walking right down the middle of the corridor, not bothering to take cover. His weapon hung at the ready and he looked like he was hunting for trouble and not caring if he found it the hard way.

Marcelle walked right by Tatyana, ignoring her hiss of warning. Rather than slowly advancing along the wall he walked right down the middle of the room toward the door at the far end.

At the hiss of the opening door, Tatyana threw herself sideways trying to bring around her weapon. Marcelle calmly stood in the middle of the room and pumped a high-ex round into the alien as it came into view throwing shrapnel around the room. Tatyana felt the pieces tearing into her flesh as she vainly tried to shield herself. She looked up to see Marcelle standing calmly in the center of the room, miraculously untouched, then with the echoes of the explosion still ringing in her ears she saw him begin his advance towards the door, jacking another round into the chamber as he went.

Marcelle went through the door, stepped over the bloody pulp and turned left towards the corridor. He felt nothing except the deadly calm that had swept over him, leaving nothing but cold hatred in its wake. Somewhere back in the corners of his mind his Marine training was screaming at him to take cover but he ignored it. He turned the corner expecting death to strike him in a dozen different ways. A part of him welcomed it, hoping it would come. But his training took over and he pumped a three round burst into the main control room and heard the alien scream of death ring out. The battle was over.

After a final sweep of the area was made the salvage team was called in to recover everything and anything they could. Samuel's elation at the teams first victory was tempered by the deaths and the look on Marcelles face.

"The psych boys back at base will have to burn the midnight oil on him," Samuel thought.

Chapter 4

“I’m telling you, we need some new kind of automatic field medical kit,” John Torrent thundered at Sarah Jonlan, head of research.

“But John,” she soothed, “we’ve been through this before. All my scientists are working on the alien corpses the team brought back.”

“If I bring in some more people, will you split your forces and work on a medical kit?” he asked, the look on his face suggested this was as far as he would go.

Seeing the look, Sarah sighed and said, “Ok, Ok, you bring me another 10 scientists and I will put them all to work on a medical kit”

“Fine. How is the research on those beasties going? Anything of a practical nature we can use?”

“No, nothing yet. The early lab results will be in tomorrow,” Sarah said as she answered a page. Looking at the display, she turned and raced off calling over her shoulder as she ran, “I’ll let you know later”

John headed into the infirmary with his box. The contents of the box were absolutely unique, nothing like it had ever existed in the history of Mankind. It was an unbelievably historic occasion, yet he felt sick in his gut. Only a lifetime of military service enabled him to keep his composure as he opened the box, removed its contents and gently laid it on a pillow.

The main alarm rang and John sprang out of bed, his heart racing. By the time he had reached the main command post though he had regained his calm and when the doors swept open the staff was greeted by the familiar stony face of the “Bull Dog”.

“What’s the status?” he requested as he came in. Looking at the tactical display told him everything but he still liked to have the reassurance of a human.

“Situation green sir,” came the reply from a technician hovering over his console. “The Interceptor is about to make contact.”

John held his breath as the now familiar blips did their deadly dance on the main display, letting it out in a silent prayer of thanks as the missiles struck home and the alien craft went down in flames.

“Where did it go down?” he asked.

“Central Canada sir, 100 miles west of Lake Nipigon.”

“Near any population centers?”

“No Sir, looks like empty forest.”

“Well, thank God for that,” John replies as he gave the OK to send the Sky Ranger. “Tell them to be careful, the sun is going down.”

Everyone checked their auto-cannons as the Sky Ranger touched down in a clearing close by the wreck of the alien ship. Carrying flashlights and night goggles the team felt confident that the darkness of the night would be of little concern.

The first man out jumped down from the platform and turned just in time to take a energy ball in the center of the chest. He went down with a cry of despair. Fortunately, Uta Faerber had seen where the flash originated from and let off a three round burst into the darkness. A cry echoed through the forest, pulling a grim smile from Uta as she dropped to the ground beside the Sky Ranger, trying to look in all directions at once.

Death did not come shooting from the forest at her and after a minute, several other people jumped down and fanned out.

Marcelle took point as Tatyana tried to keep up. Heading directly for the alien ship, he was using minimal cover and ignoring Tatyana’s whispered pleas to slow down and be more careful.

Uta and Isaeo headed for a small tree covered hill to the south. As they crouched behind a large shrub Iseao saw Klaus Hafner to their left. He rose from behind his ridge of ground and ran at a crouch towards the shelter of a large tree. From off to his left an arc of light shot in and when the light went out Iseao saw only a shape sprawled on the ground where Klaus had been. Calculating where the shot had come from, Uta and Isaeo wormed their way out from behind their cover and began the advance.

“Man oh man we’ve lost another one!” said Paul Stewart, the perspiration breaking out on his face as he held his auto-cannon tightly. “Were losing the battle!” he said to nobody as his eyes darted wildly around the interior of the Sky Ranger.

“Shut Up Paul,” said Maria Evans as she monitored the various displays inside the Sky Ranger. “Get out of here, you’re making me nervous.”

Paul inched his way off the ramp and hit the ground looking wildly in all directions. He thought he saw movement to his left and slowly brought his gun up, latching it to a semi-auto three round burst.

Marcelle arrived at the door of the ship. This one was much smaller and almost square. He opened the door noting some kind of central glowing power column but then his attention was wholly focused on the aliens next to it.

Uta slowly inched her way around the small hill, trying to stay low. Isaeo had chosen a more direct route and was nearing the crest of the hill. He had just stepped up and was heading for the shelter of a tree when a fireball flashed through the forest. Coming just behind Isaeo it lit him up in stark contrast as he dived for cover, another ball of fire going over his head. Then Uta had surged up from the right side of the alien and loosed a three round burst of high explosive in its direction. Another inhuman cry slit the air.

Marcelle had the element of surprise and instinctively pulled the trigger as one of the aliens started to turn towards him. He had forgotten that the gun was set to auto-burst and three high explosive rounds hit the alien almost simultaneously and exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions inside the tiny ship.

When Tatyana opened the door to the ship there were only bits and pieces on the floor and she turned quickly away as she tried unsuccessfully to erase the image.

The monitors in the ship beeped another loss of life sign. Paul heard the beep and the sweat poured down his face. “Oh God, another one,” Paul whispered to himself, his voice croaking over a dry throat, then he thought he saw movement to his left. Spinning he tightened his finger on the trigger only to relax it as he saw it was nothing. Out of the corner of his eye he saw an alien sneaking up on him, he spun with a cry and tightened his finger convulsively on the trigger. The high explosive round hit the landing strut two feet away and exploded.

When they tallied the total, they had lost ten of fourteen. With only four aliens killed. The ride back in the now almost empty Sky Ranger was silent and painful. Each survivor mourning dead comrades and dreading the round of drinks for the dead. A tradition that had sprung up quickly at the bar following the missions.

Chapter 5

“A few more victories like that one and we can close up shop,” John thought as he looked over the reports. The stunned silence in the base would have been enough to inform even the most casual of observers that things had not gone well.

“I’ve got some good news John,” said Sarah Jonlan as she strode into his office.

“We could sure use some,” he growled looking up at her from a face haggard with lack of sleep.

“What have you got?” he finally asked her as she stood there without saying anything, obviously expecting him to take the bait. “I don’t have time to play games”

“Sorry,” she said and dropped her playful manner. Throwing a large binder stuffed with papers onto his desk she said with a flourish, “here it is.”

“What is it?” he asked doubtfully, opening the cover.

“The technical specs on an automated field medical kit. We analyzed those plasma bolts they are shooting and what it does to human tissue. This little baby,” she tapped the folder, “will analyze the area of damage and stabilize the patient for transport back to the hospital.”

“You mean you can heal them?” he stood up, looking at her incredulously.

“Sure, once we figured out what the plasma was doing it was a piece of …”

“Too late, too late,” he interrupted her, anguish in his eyes.

“What?”

“Its too late for Spenser.”

“Oh I was going to tell you about that,” she answered, a twinkle returning to her eyes. “Sorry for keeping you in the dark but we weren’t sure till recently…”

“Sure about what?” he asked, confusion in his voice.

“Sure if I’d make it,” came a cocky voice from the hallway. Turning John saw Spenser walk in through the door. He had a cast on his arm and a large patch covering most of his upper body, but right in the correct spot, shining for all to see was his medal. The only one ever created and ever would be created. The medal that read, “Medal Of Valor, First Alien Killed By A Human”

“By God man, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” John shouted as he ran from behind his desk to pump Spensers good hand.

“Thank you sir,” Spenser replied grinning. “The doctors say I’ll be as good as new and ready to rejoin the team in a couple of weeks. Looks as though I will be needed.”

“Yea, you’re right about that,” John replied sobering. “You just get better, let me handle that end of things, I’ve got some ideas.”

“Back to bed,” said Sarah as she scooted Spenser out the door. Turning she said “sorry for the surprise, but I just couldn’t help it. Besides you looked like you needed it.”

“You’re right about that,” he said as he went back around his desk. But now there was a new spring in his step and his eyes had that gleam that she knew of old.

“Sarah, those scientists that were working on the medical kit. I want you to start them on a new project, in fact I will bring in some more and I want as many as you can spare on this one.”

“Sure, what is it?” she asked.

“We need some better weapons. The high explosive works in some cases but its too dangerous, we lost several men accidentally from their own shots.” He said grimly, tapping a sheaf of reports.

“You want us to start playing with those weird weapons we’ve picked up from the aliens?” she asked, “you know we tried to use one and it exploded killing several people.”

“I know. No, what I have in mind is this,” and he tapped a different report.

Sarah noticed this was not a standard internal X-Com report folder but a research paper from the outside. She wondered for a minute how she had already come to think of anything not X-Com as “outside”.

“It a research paper,” he said in answer to her silent question, “detailing some significant breakthroughs in laser weapons.”

He leaned over the table and impaled her with the intensity of his gaze, “I want better weapons. I want guns that my teams can carry that are not cumbersome, but will punch a hole through those bastards. I want guns I can mount on my planes that will reach out and shoot down their ships. I want radio controlled tanks that I can use to send into dangerous areas. I want Star Wars-like laser guns. We can wait until later to play with their weapons”

“Yes sir,” she said, serious in the intensity of the moment. “I’ll get my people right on it.”

As she left the room, Ivan Belov came in. “You called me?” he asked.

“Yes,” John replied, “I’ve been going over the reports, the major cause of deaths were self-inflicted on the last mission. Either from inappropriate weapons or panicked men.”

“I know,” said Ivan heavily as he sat down, “we shall have to intensify their training.”

“Well, I’ve got Sarah working on the weapons angle for us,” said John, “what I wanted to talk to you about was the men. I don’t think our standard screening procedure is good enough. I want you to give your people some standardized tests and then we can look at the results.”

“What are you looking for?”

“My biggest concern right now is what I’ll call bravery for lack of a better term. All your people are brave enough but when faced with the unknown threat of the aliens some react better than others. I want to weed out the ones who are liable to panic when things get tough. Give them the tests and give me some kind of arbitrary 0-100 scale, then we can go over the people and see if we need to let any go. I’m thinking anyone with a bravery score of less than thirty should go.”

“It shall be done,” said Ivan rising to his feet.

As Ivan left the room, John buzzed his secretary. “Come on in here, we’ve got some buying to do”

“OK,” he said rubbing his hand together as the door closed, “lets get down to business. This fiasco in the dark on the last mission highlights the ineffectiveness of our night vision goggles. Those things must be camouflaged somehow. We will have to resort to more traditional methods. I want you to order some electro-flares.”

“Electro-flares?” his secretary asked, typing on his keyboard.

“You heard me, standard old flares. The men will throw them around to light up the area. That should give us a chance.”

“Sir, if I may bring this up?” his secretary asked, forging ahead when he received a nod in reply. “the X-Com funds are dangerously low.”

“I know, I know,” John replied, shaking his head, “the idiots that came up with our budget obviously have no concept of what it takes to run this place. I don’t know what I am going to do.”

“Sir, if I may. I have been in secret contact with a university in England that would be willing to pay handsomely for an alien corpse. I understand we have several…” he trailed off as John jumped to his feet.

“By God man, your a genius!” John said as he started pacing the room. “We can’t sell them all of course, we need some for research but we should be able to make ends meet and get rid of our overcrowding problem in the storage areas at the same time. Set it up would you”

“Yes sir,” said the secretary standing up.

John turned and pointed at the medical kit folder, “Oh, and take that down to manufacturing. Tell them I want one for every member of the strike team and a few extra just in case.”

Chapter 6

Spenser heard a noise to his left and spun around while crouching, his arm came up and the laser pistol burned a small hole right in the head of the plywood alien, long before it could get a paintball fired. He remained standing as the “last alien down” buzzer sounded through the training yard.

As the others came from their places, he blew imaginary smoke from the barrel of his shiny new laser gun. “I love this thing, “ he said with a big grin as Uta came close.

“You would make love to it if you could,” she said with a grin as they holstered their weapons and headed for the performance review area.

The alert klaxon sounded before they could go a dozen steps. Everyone turned and ran for the staging area.

At the staging area, strike team members were putting on their kevlar coveralls when Ivan Belov thundered for quiet.

“We have just got word that the aliens have landed in Perth Australia. We have reports of strange alien creatures shooting civilians. The local police force is trying to keep people out of the area but many are still trapped inside. The military is mobilizing but have asked us to step in and try to handle things without too much destruction. “

He went on after a minute of sobering silence, “this is not some bug hunt in the woods. This time there are people, innocent people, being murdered down there. We’ve got to stop them.

“Lift off is in five minutes, you can organize your gear and review the battle plan in the plane,” he said as he stepped down from the podium. There was a second of hushed quiet then the staging area exploded into activity.

The Skyranger touched down right in the middle of the street. As the ramp came down, Spenser could see a large alien that looked for all the world like a Snake Man. It was kind of orange colored and curled upright over its tail. On its body was a weapons harness with grenades and clips of ammo, in its small hands was a large unfamiliar looking weapon. He stood there gawking at the thing, which fortunately wasn’t looking at him but was instead concentrating on a unsuspecting civilian walking inside of a house. As the Snake Man brought its weapon up, Spensers training took over and he lifted his laser pistol and pumped a three round burst into the alien. It didn’t die but the shots disturbed its aim and the civilian walked into her bedroom and out of sight unharmed. As the Snake Man turned towards the Skyranger packed with troops, Spenser let loose and sent a stream of continuous fire from his laser pistol. Several shots went wide but enough hit that the Snake Man finally sagged to the ground with a weird scre ech.

As he walked down from the ramp, keeping a wary eye on the thing to make sure it didn’t jump up and shoot at him, Uta jumped off the left side of the ramp. There in front of her was some kind of floating baglike rocklike thing. Deciding to shoot first and wonder later she pumped a three round burst from her laser pistol into it. It popped like a balloon and sank to the ground with a sigh.

As she did so, she thought she heard the sound of a grenade rolling under the Skyranger, dropping with a yell she covered her head just as it went off, shredding Yuri Ragulin who had just stepped off the platform to the right. Uta felt a large chunk of shrapnel go through her stomach and knew she didn’t have a chance, falling to the ground she saw the world spinning into blackness.

The Skyrangers armored skin prevented the grenade - though far stronger than a standard human grenade - from doing any damage to its flight capabilities and also shielding the people within. Tatyana knew she would have to be quick as she jumped off the ramp, knew an alien would be to her right and probably waiting for just such an action. As she jumped, she silently thanked anyone who might be listening for the small laser pistol rather than a bulky clumsy auto-cannon. Landing she could dimly see the alien Snake Man through the smoke and they both fired at the same time. Tatyana felt her legs grow cold as she was knocked backwards. She dimly saw the alien go down into a crumpled heap.

Struggling to remain conscious, she saw her teammates jumping down and forming a defensive ring around the Skyranger as if in a haze. Sergeant Hans Kraus came up to her and slapped the field medical kit onto her legs, she could hear the machine whirring as it analyzed her condition and then felt needles go in and salve being applied. The pain went away almost immediately and her vision cleared a little.

“She’s stabilized now, get her back in the Skyranger,” Hans directed two others as they took her by each arm and gently hauled her into the back of the Skyranger, empty now except for Uta, smiling weakly with the same med-kit patches on her stomach.

“Remind me to give whoever invented that medical kit a big kiss,” Uta said faintly as she lapsed into unconsciousness on the deck.

“Me too,” Tatyana thought as she sank gratefully onto the deck beside Uta.

Hans continued to the east side of the street. A gas station was there, offering plenty of hiding places. He grimaced, house to house guerrilla warfare was the worst kind, and he had no illusions about the X-Com teams chances. Sliding around a wall he glimpsed something impossibly large, moving in the distance. He pumped off three quick blasts from his laser and ducked back around the wall. He was sure at least one had hit the thing, but it hadn’t even seemed to notice.

“I’ve got one pinned down in the gas station,” he radioed the team, though he wasn’t so sure about the “pinned down” part. “Be careful, its a big mother,” he finished.

“Gotcha covered, I’m coming in from your left,” came the cheerful reply from Brett Davies. Outside of X-Com he had been a Sergeant in the U.S. Marines, now he was just a rookie. But he had joined X-Com with a sense of gusto and cheerfulness that the team had sorely needed after the debacle in Canada.

Now he moved in slowly, peering through the gloom of the half destroyed station for a glimpse of the alien.

Wolfgang Zander and Andrea Robinson went due west. Their slow cautious advance suddenly halted by the sound of an alien weapon followed by a shrill scream in the house ahead of them. Using the sounds as guidance they advanced to the wall of the house. Standing next to the wall, they began heading for the corner.

Brett pumped several blasts into the large metallic-looking alien, “body armor?” he wondered. The thing didn’t even slow down as it lumbered towards him, faster than he could run. From the corner of his eye he could see Hans firing blast after blast into it as it neared.

Wolfgang rounded the corner of the house and headed towards the door, pausing under the window as the door began to open. He brought up his laser pistol and aimed it at the door where the creature would emerge in the next minute.

As the alien came towards him, Brett began to panic. His shots didn’t seem to be doing anything to it and it would be on him before he could turn and run. As his panic grew his shots became increasingly erratic and one shot went wild, hitting a gas pump. The pump exploded in a ball of fire, setting off a chain reaction of pumps and fireballs. Windows were knocked in and half the station was destroyed in the blast. Brett was thrown backwards from the blast.

As he picked himself up he watched the smoke and flames for the alien. He could picture it striding through the flames like some kind of monster movie, but as the smoke cleared enough to make out shapes he saw the crumpled metallic remains lying amidst the ruined pumps. Turning, his spirits soaring, he went looking for the next one.

Wolfgang was tightening his hand on the trigger when the man came out of the door. He was in shock and stood in the door looking around with a dazed look. Wolfgang relaxed and walked over to him, his arm outstretched in friendship.

Andrea’s scream came an instant too late as Wolfgang began to spin and saw the Snake Man out of the corner of his eye. As he spun the blast of fire caught him on the side. He fell to the floor, his arm still outstretched.

Andrea fired shot after shot into the Snake Man, even after it was obvious it was dead. At last, her gun smoking, she walked on. Walking by the dazed man, she didn’t even turn her head. In fact later she denied ever having seen him..

Hans finished his sweep of the warehouse. It was a tedious business, and mentally draining too, sneaking through the boxes. Behind each one was a potential hiding place, each one could spout death in an instant, each one had to be checked out to be sure. Now that he was confident there was nothing in the building, he turned his attention to the double doors in the back.

Victor Romanov walked carefully down the street, looking for movement. Unfortunately this was a mistake as the alien never moved, it simply fired its gun. The others saw a bolt of light fly from a small park and into Victors arm. He went down, flopping in agony as the bolt sizzled against his arm, finally laying still. Two squaddies, who should have known better, raced to his side yelling the classic, “cover me!”

Before anyone could get into position the bolt of light came again and one squaddie fell, never to rise. The other was just winged and was still cursing as he fell to the ground behind his friends body using it for cover.

Spenser came from behind the building he was investigating in time to see the alien snake man crouch down behind the tree for cover. Lining up his shots he fired a burst at it. Seeing it turn towards him he dived for the cover of a low hedge wall surrounding the park. As shots burned holes around him, he crawled twenty feet to his left and popped up aiming for the spot where it had been. His shots went through empty air as it was no longer there. Diving for cover again amid a barrage of shots from his left he burned the alien as it broke from cover.

Picking himself up from the ground and keeping careful watch as he went, Spenser walked over to the corpse. It was obviously dead, blood draining out from it and steaming on the ground. He was going to kick it in the head but thought better of it as he noticed that the blood seemed to be eating away at the ground, instead he settled for a laser shot into the head and continued on.

Brett moved slowly into the street looking for threats, when nothing came for him he stood over the two wounded men in the street and applied the med-kit, patching them up and stabilizing them.

Later, the last sweeps of the buildings returned, confirming that the menace was eliminated - at least for now. The X-Com team had lost four, with twelve aliens killed, and thirty civilians survived, trapped in the combat zone.

As they flew home, Ivan Belov personally read the message of thanks from the Australian government. But most were too tired or in too much pain to listen, that would come later after the mandatory round for the fallen at the pub.

John Torrent sat back in his chair, the mission reports open in front of him. It was obvious that much work still needed to be done; better weapons, some method of tracking where the aliens were, answers from the various types of corpses, another base somewhere on the other side of the world - probably Europe or Asia, some kind of better body armor, all these and more needed to be done. He sighed, humbled by the immensity of the task before him.

Yet he felt curiously happy, not at all how he had expected. He analyzed this feeling for a minute and came to the realization that he was pleased with how X-Com was developing. It represented Mankind’s last and only hope for survival and he was giving them something to be hopeful about. X-Com was a success and growing more so every day.

Still, he knew he had his work cut out for him, it would be a long time before humanity could mothball the X-Com bases and he knew there would be plenty of challenges until then.