🚀 go-pugleaf

    It was the third drop for the Skyranger team of Altair base.
    The first ever interception attempt by Xcom only a week or two earlier
was a complete bust.  Everyone thought after that first day that Xcom might
be facing the same fate as the Kiryu-Kai - never a successful interception.
Interceptor 2 had been scrambled on a fast mover coming in over the Urals
and simply fell further and further behind after getting no closer than a
couple hundred miles when not far East of the base.  When the chase was
halfway over the Atlantic the second bogie came into contact somewhere over
Sweden.  "2" abandoned the first blip and was redirected to make for the
second.  Before it could get there it went bingo fuel.
    As "2" headed home Interceptor 1, in a mad rush, finished its ill-timed
refit from a Stingray/cannon configuration to dual Stingray launchers and
was scrambled after the second bogie.  But it, too, failed to even get close
enough for a radar lock before the bogie put the pedal down and also headed
West.  It was chased into the American midwest before all tracking was lost.
    Two bogies, two exausted Interceptors, and nothing to show for it.
    But it got better.  The first recovery mission was in northern Greece
and it went fairly well with only one Xcom casualty.  The second drop was
nearly identical even though it was against a fully loaded, fully functional
UFO caught napping on the ground in southern France. Again, one casualty.
    Drop 3, as it unfolded, looked like a cakewalk.  Nothing but open fields
everywhere save for a lonely farmhouse, a barn, and the cross-shaped UFO in
plain view.  The sweep of the area picked up a few sectoids but they were
all easy kills and not a one even got a shot off in response.  Uta saw one
through a window of the farmhouse.  The HWP popped a nice hole through the
wall right where she could see it and she tagged it neat as you please.
Then Gunther and Helga let fly with the heavy rockets and blew the whole
upper floor to kindling, opened up the walls on the ground floor but nothing
else was inside.
    The HWP widened a hole in the hedge and scouted around the back of the
barn, then out to the edge of the wheat fields south finding nothing.
Gunther blew the orchard into a smoking, flaming ruin.  He was the last into
the UFO door save for Helga who volunteered to sweep the last edges of the
fields to the southwest.  She was hot-footing it to the tincan and listening
to the interior sweep unfold.
    Sergeant Carr took two men to the right, three others went left led by
Pierre, the deadliest shot we had.  They were swift, but cautious.  Pierres
squad had an extra door to go through before getting to the control room.
It was tight spacing in there but the team kept cool and professional.  When
they hit the control room Uta was first in and saw three of the grey
buggers.  Three short, controlled bursts later and the control room was
clear.
    The team quickly assembled in the control room, with Guther having
expended all his rockets and now brandishing his laser pistol.  Seven highly
accurate, deadly lasers trained on the door leading to that engine core.
Each soldier with full attention and all the time in the world.  But not
enough time.
    Seven pairs of combat boots on metal floors makes a lot of racket.  The
alien engineer knew what waited for it beyond the door and was ready.  Even
as the door slid open a ball was popping through and arcing to the floor
amid the Altair team.  Noone had a chance to react.
    Helga heard an electric screech over the comm - and then nothing.  No
responses at all.  She broke into a dead run, heedless of her own safety.
Knowing what deadly explanation lay behind the radio silence she dreaded to
see the truth.
    The truth was that there were eight casualties.  5 squaddies, 1 rookie,
Sergeant Carr, and the alien - who had knocked them all _unconcious_, itself
included, with a stupidly placed stun bomb.  Helga dragged them all back to
the dropship, policed up the corpses and gear, and had a very quiet ride
home.  No casualties, but 7 VERY wounded prides.

    Standing Order #1 - Never, EVER, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your
entire platoon in a hot LZ.  You are ASKING to have your ass kicked out of
the world.

-- 

Duane VanderPol
http://home.earthlink.net/~duanevp
last site update: 6/6/03