Tatyana Torban opened the door to the equipment locker and grabbed her thick Power Suit. Congo Base was renown amongst X-Com bases for being at the pinnacle of technology, alien technology that is. They had recovered more artifacts than any other base so far, and thus they had the most raw materials to construct new hybrid technologies. Tatyana was a Colonel and Commander of Congo Base deep within the jungles of Africa. Africa was one of the most difficult continents to defend since the funding countries were spread far apart from one another. South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt were at the extremes of the continent, and Congo was in the best location to defend all of them, but it was still hundreds of miles away from the nearest one, Nigeria. Responding to the local alien threat proved difficult in the slower than slow Skyranger. Tatyana remembered the night the aliens launched a terror attack against Capetown. She was only a Captain then, and Colonel Boris Kolotov was in command that night. It took them 7 hours to respond to the attack. When they landed, it was 12:00 A.M. right on the second and black as coal. The lights on the Skyranger surveyed the devastation. Building after building was pummeled by unknown alien weapons. The Skyranger started its descent, but just before sitting down, something smacked the hull of the less than mighty vessel. It completely blew off the front of the plane, and the rest of it fell to the Earth in a thunderous ball of smoke and fire. The crash killed everyone who was not strapped down to their seats. That accounted for 8 of the 12 of us. Colonel Kolotov, two rookies named Maria and John Davies, and Tatyana herself were the only ones not impaled upon something or battered beyond recognition by the crash. The remaining X-Com agents all climbed out and opened fire on a squad of Floaters. She remembered feeling mad that they could "fly" and she couldn't. Maybe someday she would have that ability too. Boris ordered Tatyana to take John Davies and to flank the Floaters so that they could setup a crossfire. She managed to get behind a fence that had some plasma holes in it without being noticed. The Floaters moved in closer the wreck of the Skyranger to see if they could get a few cheap kills. Boris ordered them to open fire, and Tatyana and John started picking off bad guys. Floater upon Floaters yelled out in agony and died. After the last one fell, Tatyana looked over at Boris's side and saw a Chryssalid slice off Maria Davies' head with its sharp as a razor pincher. It then took Boris by the throat and implanted him with the embryo which all X-Com members feared. Tatyana took her time and aimed a shot with her Heavy Laser weapon and drilled a cauterized whole through the Chryssalid's head. John Davies ran over to help Boris, and since he was a rookie, he did not know how fast the embryo grew inside you once it was implanted. Boris's poisoned body took John around the waist and squeezed him in two. Tatyana readied her weapon again and nailed Boris in the chest, but a young Chryssalid popped out. She readied her weapon again, but this time it jammed. The Heavy Laser Cannon was cumbersome at best, and it was prone to lockups more than any other weapon. She knew this, but preferred its power to the Laser Rifle. She pulled the Standard Issue X-Com Pistol off her belt, cocked it, and fired. She hit the newly formed Chryssalid 5 times, but it still was running toward her. She kept firing, and the Chryssalid finally fell but it sliced a good chunk of her leg off in the process. It was a good thing that the Floaters only had one Chryssalid on this attack, or she would have been dead.

"Tatyana? Let's go." "Oh, sorry, I'll be there in a minute." Today she was going to take out the first transporter built using UFO technology on a test flight. The Lightning-1, if it worked out, was to become Congo Base's answer to the plethora of distance it had to sentry. It was capable of over 4200 knots top speed and could take 12 X-Com troops into battle. It also was equipped with a Plasma Cannon, and that single fact would allow Congo to save huge amounts of money and resources by sending only 1 craft to shoot down and salvage UFOs instead of 2 craft. The lightning looked like a flying can of cat food. It help little fuel, but it still had enough to make it to anywhere in Africa and many places in the Middle East and Europe. Tatyana walked into Hangar Bay 4 and looked in awe of the Lightning. It was a lot better than she had imagined it would be. It really looked cool to her. "Well Uta, are you ready to take her out for a spin?" "You know I am! I've been really looking forward to this for a long time." "Then let's go." The Lightning had 4 chairs for operation of the ship, but only two were actually needed. The other two stations were redundant in the case of malfunction of the primary stations. Tatyana set down at Navigation, and Sergeant Uta Faerber took the Helm. "Lightning-1, this is Congo Control, you are cleared for departure." "Roger that Congo, Lightning-1 lifting off." "The integrated alien propulsion unit started throbbing up and down as helium and anti-hydrogen combined in mutual annihilation. The lights dimmed, and Lightning was away.

Tatyana and Uta had become best friends while they were both rookies. Uta was more interested in following other officers, so she was not concerned with progressing in rank. Tatyana, however, wanted to make C.O. of X-Com one day, but she knew that position had already been filled. She was happy being base commander. Both of the ladies were schooled in aviation mechanics, and both were flight certified. "Uta, make course heading 275. Let's see what she can do." "Aye Ma'am." The lightning dashed off at top speed like a bolt of its namesake. "Tatyana, instruments show that we have exceeded top speed. We are achieving 4500 knots!" "That's impressive, but let's not burn her out. Take her down to 4000 knots and up to an altitude of 25,000 feet. We don't want any civvies to see her and think the aliens are coming for them." Uta smiled. "OK, launch the dummy targets. Let's see how the weapon systems work." "Deploying target balloons." Four balloons were dropped from hidden compartments on the underside of Lightning-1. "Switching my console to weapons mode", said Tatyana. "Make course 095, and prepare for a strafing run." "Aye." The Lightning stopped in mid-air, turned 180 degrees, and accelerated toward the balloons. "Firing!" The Plasma Cannon attached to the top of the Lightning ignited hot plasma and focused it into a tight, coherent beam of energy. It easily picked off all 4 of the target balloons. "Excellent, that would have been impossible on a Firestorm since they aren't equipped with rotating plasmas. The Firestorm would have had to come around 4 times for that attack. We did it in one." "Tatyana, that's nice, but we usually only deal with one UFO at a time." "I know that Uta, but we may have to do more in the future." Without warning, a UFO appeared a few thousand feet over the Lightning. "Uta, I'm picking up at Very Large bogey, Z+2200 feet. Take evasive maneuvers!" Before Uta could react, the Alien Battlecruiser fired a plasma pulse weapon and hits the Lightning. "Damn, we've lost inertial stabilizers, put on your seat harness Uta! This is going to be bumpy from now on. New heading, 170 mark 14, speed 3000 knots." "Aye Ma'am!" The next plasma pulse missed the Lightning completely. "I'm recharging our Plasma Cannon. Locking on, firing!" The Plasma streamed from the Lightning and destroyed one of the propulsion units of the Battlecruiser. "We've got to take this bastard out, or they'll attack Congo. I'm going to concentrate on weapons, so you have full control of our course now." "Understood. I'll fly us over the top of the UFO." "How will I be able to fire then? Uta?" "Trust me." The Lightning ascended 2400 feet while evading all enemy weapon fire. It then flipped over and zoomed over the top of the UFO. "Firing!" Hot plasma sears wholes all through the top of the Battlecruiser. One of the shots hit the Alien's bridge, and the UFO starts to plummet to the Earth. "We did it Uta, it's going down!" "Yes, take that you alien assholes!" "Ok, turn us back around, I'm getting sick." "Uh-oh." "What exactly does uh-oh mean Uta?" "This particular uh-oh is to let you know that my controls have frozen. I don't think the engineers designed her to fly upside down." "Now you tell me this?" "The good thing is that we're pretty close to the Mediterranean Sea." "That's a good thing?" "Sure, we can fly her over the Sea, turn off the the x and y axis engines, and use our z axis engine to fall slowly into the water." "I thought you had no controls?" "I don't, but we can still turn off the engines, and program the z engine to blow. We'll still have a partial anti-gravity field around us, and we'll just fall like a feather." "Wherever you learned that, I hope it works." "Trust me." "You know, the last time you said that…." The Lightning reached the edge of the Mediterranean, and Tatyana detonated the z-axis engine. The force of the blast pushed the Lightning down at around a constant velocity of 14 meters per second. "Uta, send out a general distress signal on the coded X-Com frequency. Hopefully, Europa will send out a rescue team." "Done."

Five hours later, the Lightning was floating freely in the Mediterranean Sea. All power was down except for the backup batteries, and Uta and Tatyana sat on the ceiling of the Lightning playing some cards. "You do know that even though we shot down an Alien Battlecruiser that the guys back at Congo will attribute our crashing to "Women Drivers", don't you?" "Of course Uta, but we'll just tell them that you wanted to go swimming." Tatyana smiles really big at Uta. "I don't care if you do outrank me, you better watch it." "Hey, did you hear that?" "Yeah, it sounded like footsteps." "There it is again! We're in here! Down here! Hey!" "Now the aliens know for sure we're in here." A blowtorch's sparks seeped down into the bottom of the Lightning. A 3x3-foot square is cut out and kicked down. It landed in between Tatyana and Uta. "Hey, watch it you guys!" "Hello? Anyone down there?" "Yes! We are! Get us out of here." A ladder drops down, and the girls climb out of the Lightning. "Identify yourselves." "Colonel Torban, my name is Captain Jack Crossett, and these mean, tough looking guys are the Europa engineers who are going to figure out how to get your Lightning out of the Mediterranean Sea. They'll return it to Congo as soon as they can." "You two do know that you took out an Ethereal Battlecruiser, don't you?" "Ethereal! My God, if they would have landed at Congo…Just think. It wouldn't be there now." "Yes, that's true. They're tough sonsabitches. That mind attack is a pain in the ass…and head. Anyway, Skyranger-3 from Europa, commanded by Colonel Klaus Mederow, was able to salvage the Battlecruiser and capture an Ethereal Commander. Our scientists at Europa are just now beginning to interrogate him, or her, or whatever it may be. We hope to find out how they mind control us and how to adapt it to our usage." "How in the world did he capture a live one of them? We had to nuke the last site where an Ethereal ship crashed. They started mind controlling my team before we even landed." "All that information will be available to you Colonel Torban when you get back to Congo." "Good. Uta, are you ready to go home?" "Do you really need me to answer that Tatyana?" "Captain Crossett, take us home."