"Oh God, Oh God...." I am physically shaking with fear. Pressing my back to the wall, I draw in another ragged breath. From down the corridor comes nothing but silence. Behind me is blackness, tempting safety. I grip the plasma rifle tighter, and cautiously advance along the corridor.

From the distance echo screams, explosions, the sound of gunfire. The sound of running feet, coming closer, closer. I raise the rifle to my shoulder, and crouch ready to fire. A figure rounds the corner so fast it bounces off the opposite wall, before turning my way. Thank god, its human. Its hard to see who it is, but the battle armour is dinted and scarred. Seeing me, he pauses a moment, and looks at me expectantly.

Upon closer inspection, I can see it he is in fact a she. Her nametag calls her Corporal Smithson, one of the elite xcom troopers, unlike me. "Hi", I quaver, lowering the rifle. "Can we get out of here?" The problem with deep, safe, undergound bases is that when attacked, you are trapped in them until winkled out. In this context, winkling me out means killing me. I am, coincedentally, lost in this warren.

"Who are you?" she demands. Her gun isn't exactly covering me, but its not far from it.

"I'm the new technician, I just arrived today." I gabble the explanation in my panic.

"Come with me". She jogs down the corridor, slowing herself down so I can follow without the benefit of a powered suit. She opens a door in the wall with a keycard, and shoves me inside. Once inside, she turns and relocks the door.

"OK",she turns to face me, "Can you use that gun?"

"Er.. no, not really." I confess, "We weren't trained for combat"

"Oh Bugger",then more clearly "Put the safety off, then. Your going to follow me, so just shoot at anything that moves that isn't me. We're going to outflank the attack on the command center, and all I need you to do is spray plasma around to distract them. Come on." Her voice is calming, and I find myself following her along the corridor before the fear resurges and I start thinking about my role as distraction.

"We're going to skirt the lift area and hangers" she explains "and we'll come out on the second level overlooking the com center. What I want you to do is rile them up, get them firing at you, so I can get in close and kill the ones bottling up the command center people. Then we hook up with them and fight ourselves out before the aliens nuke this place. Understand?"

"Yes... Nuke? They're going to nuke us?"

"If we're lucky. Maybe they want some research material. Come on."

Looking down from the balcony, I can see the com center. Small grey aliens bearing plasma weapons can be seen flitting through the banks of wrecked com gear that litters the floor, evidently massing for a final assualt.

"Wait thirty seconds, then open fire. The soldiers inside command will burst out, and I'll be down there as well, so mind where you aim." With that, she leaves me crouching next to the window and runs off round the blacony more quitely than I'd have thought possible in armour.

I swallow hard, and lift my gun. "30..29..28..27.." I start to count, my whisper loud in my ears, very concious of my fear. "18..17..16.." My heart keeps racing faster and faster. I aim at one grey form,trying to track its movements with my shaking gunsight. "3..2..1..0" I pull the trigger.

My shot goes wide, but I track my fire down and across in a continuous burst. My target goes down with a scream, and keeping my finger on the trigger I spray the room. As I do, I feel a sudden tug at my attention, a probing, a tearing of my mind. Dropping the rifle, I stagger back, clutching my head. Plasma fire sears the space I'd just been in. Something in my head is urging stand up... stand up...

The presence is gone as quickly as it arrived. An alien scream of pain or fear comes from below. I grab the rifle, and run to another window on the balcony. Behind me, the balcony wall has started to burn from the plasma rounds hitting it. I see my rescuer jumping down from the balcony, firing as she drops. More armoured figures enter the fray, bursting from the command center. On both sides figures fall with screams of pain.

I aim at a grey. I miss. Again. Miss. Return fire lances past into the wall. Die. I hit the grey, spinning it round, and rounds from below catch it, shredding the figure.

Searing heat singes my face. A tremendous blow on the back of my head drives me my knees. Almost before I can scream, a second slams me unconcious to the floor.

I awake to pain, trapped under a lump of ceiling material. Seeing I'm awake, the armoured figure bandaging my head me speaks. "So then. How did you like your first day as a trooper?"

"Oh shit..." I mumble. I've been promoted.