Battle Report, 12 April - OPERATION CURSED PALACE

Cursed indeed.

The crashing UFO has scored a writhing, heaving rent across the forest, lit red with brush fires and burning trees.  Cinders are rising into the air, and lightning flashes throw themselves across the night at irregular intervals.  There is no thunder, however, only the crackle of flames - and the uncanny bellows of the enemy in the darkness.

Cpl. Hill stations Gent, his sniper, on a rise near the LZ, then leads the rest of his squad in a wide circuit around the UFO, wary of survivors.

Two Thin Men slither into view.  With no more than barks on the radio and movement in the black to go on, Cpl. Gent whips up his sniper rifle and shoots - one X-ray down.  Wielding our lone laser rifle, Cpl. Ash reveals its potential, steadily burning away the stump behind which the enemy is hiding, clearing the way for Gent's second shot.

The noise brings a pair of Floaters swooping through the pines.  

Luring one in, Cpl. Saxby ducks around it and shoots it down at close range, while Gent brings his own rifle to bear on the other from his elevated position.

Before the squad has time to reposition, three more Thin Men are all over them.  A snap shot from Ash takes one out of the equation, but his luck doesn't hold: as he sprints for the nearest tree, he takes two shots to the chest, rolling and tumbling up against the trunk.  Suppressive fire brings twigs and leaves down around his ears.  Bleeding heavily and seriously burned, he tears the tab off a medikit with his teeth and applies swift-congealing gel to his wounds. Meanwhile, another Thin Man oils its way into a flanking position.

Saxby tosses a smoke grenade over the wounded soldier, but Ash's situation is bad.  Concerned for his safety, I send Sq. Joy sprinting round the back in a flanking manoeuvre of my own.  A lucky shot from Gent sends one snake sprawling.  Splashing through a brook, Joy thumps into cover above the other Thin Man's position, takes aim - and the creature twists inhumanly, wrists backwards, and shoots her in the head.

Hill curses under his breath, chucks a grenade into the gully.  Advancing through a cloud of shredded leaves, Saxby guns down the killer on the spot.  But it's too late.

Tense, angry, the remaining soldiers sweep the area, but find nothing.  For the first time, they enter the UFO itself.  Nothing but empty corridors, flickering erratically.  With all the exits covered, Hill coolly dispatches the alien pilot and takes possession of the vessel.

Cpl. Ash is medivacced with all speed.  Engineers swarm over the prize, while the squad, weary, traipses back to the Skyranger.

But there's one left behind.