Battle Report, 5 July - OPERATION STONY PALACE

The Skyranger sets down on rolling scrubland, the sun setting orange behind the Mantaqueira Mountains on the horizon.

Alien contact is made quickly.  The silhouettes of two Mutons among the bluffs; green fire sizzling overhead.  Sprawling behind boulders and dusty hummocks, the squad opens up.

A lucky shot from Voodoo hits one in the shoulder.  To his surprise, the X-ray bursts out of cover, crashing through the brush like a runaway train.  Shocked, the squad focus their fire, but the beast shrugs off their lasts, seeming to gain momentum with each hit.  Bowling through light and shadow, it is a hulk of heavy flesh and muscle, bound up in red armour and a face-hugging mask like some kind of insane luchador.

Hastily I order them to fall back, scatter.  But it's too late, the beast is already upon the nearest rookie, lunging with paws like bowling balls.  I look away, fearing the worst - then a coms specialist whoops beside me.

On screen, the rookie dances aside once again as the beast strikes.  Then, with mad, foolhardy courage, she throws down her gun, brings up the arc thrower at her belt.

There is a blinding magnesium flash.

I blink back coloured lights.  A dark bull-shape digs a furrow in the earth, steaming, unconscious.  The rookie - Rk. Charlotte Garner, according to her head cam - is stunned.  Mission Control rumbles with cheers and applause, which I quickly shout down as the night lights up with plasma fire once more, and Garner dives for cover.

Making a mockery of our instruments, a Cyberdisc and a drone appear as if from nowhere.  Spurred on by Garner's success, another rookie, Woods, leaps up a rock face, unleashes his arc thrower on the drone.

It doesn't do anything.

The 'disc swoops round, unfolding like a deadly flower.  Its cannons rip Woods to shreds.

"Shit," I hiss.  "Take it down!"

Cyclops quickly targets its weapon systems, jamming them with a well placed bolt.  A rocket from Baron wastes the drone and shocks the 'disc back into its protective shell, spinning off into the dusk in search of safety.  Voodoo has his eye on it, however.

Baron moves up to Woods corpse.  There's not much to look at.

More subdued, but keyed up, the squad take up positions around the UFO.  Swirling with alien energies, the X-ray pilot, the so-called Outsider, leaps into one of the doorways.  Baron edges up close under cover of smoke from Voodoo, lobs in a grenade.  The wall of the UFO explodes in a shower of valuable alloys.

Cyclops takes the shot - misses.

Reeling from the explosion, the Outsider scuttles behind a line of wreckage, scores a hit on Baron's flank.

Then, out of nowhere, Garner dashes through the smoke.  Vaulting over the wreckage, she rolls up next to the pilot, arc thrower in hand.  The thing gives an inanimate scream, then devolves in a whirling implosion of energy, resolving into a thin yellow crystal.  Garner catches it onehanded, a little nonplussed.

We've done it.  Two live aliens in the bag.  On their way back to XCOM Knowle.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 4 July

Another UFO shot down over Brazil.  There are three applications for transfer to Brasilia on my desk from Lt. "Skybuck" Moore.

The swirling black maelstroms obscuring Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa on the virtual globe in Mission Control are like a kick to the face.  Without Council infrastructure in Africa, we are essentially blind there.  It's truly the Dark Continent, now, and I've made it that way.  It's a relief to watch the globe turn, as we follow the glowing blip of Skyranger over the Atlantic.

Wallowing isn't a luxury I can afford.  XCOM is reliant on the backing of the Council nations - if five more of them were to withdraw their support, as the African nations have done, that would be the end of us - and the fight against the invasion.  I need to show them some solid progress, a victory.  So we're going for a live alien.

The rookies have been training with arc throwers for weeks now.  Three of them will soon try them out for real, with Cpt. "Cyclops" Gryspeerdt, Lt. "Voodoo" Ash and Sgt. "Baron" Arnold on board to protect them.  I hope we're lucky.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 2 June

We held the service for Cpl. Calum Mitchell today.

Just a simple ceremony, as always - simpler even.  There was no body to inter, no ashes to scatter.  The latter might have spread alien contaminants for miles across the countryside, while the former couldn't be trusted not to crawl out of the grave.

But the turnout was astounding.  Not only vets and rookies, but engineers and research scientists, pilots and greasemonkeys from the hangar floor, medical orderlies from the Cauldron and coms specialists from Mission Control.  Seems Mitchell knew everybody, and everybody knew him.

Apparently there are regular amateur folk sessions at XCOM Knowle.  Two labcoats, the quartermaster and an engineer played a lurching, mournful rendition of Sloe Gin as they lowered Mitchell's fiddle into the empty coffin.

Someone else let fall a tatty script, scrawled with notes, saying that the show wouldn't be the same without him.  Another dropped a sheaf of sketches and skits, with a valiant attempt at cracking a joke.  Projects put on hold by the invasion.

I gave a speech, raising my voice above the white noise of the wind turbines all around.  Pinned medals for valour, service and sacrifice to a velvet square, lowered them in.  There was something else in my hand too.  A postcard forwarded to me by the Council - a rare kindness on their part.  The front bears some scene from provincial France, the back a message of thanks for Cpl. Mitchell (l'homme à la grande barbe) from two women, a man and a child.

I'd meant to bury it with his medals, but somehow it was still in my hand when I sat down here, at my desk.

Cpl. Calum Mitchell, KIA.  We will remember.

XCOM Project Monthly Report - June 2015

Despite the grade, there was an air of smugness about the Council's representative, smugness tinged with relief, the sense of a precipice avoided.  The patronising tone you reserve for a willing, gullible fall guy.

I made the difficult decision for them.  Turned my back for the greater good.  To avoid overstretch.  To preserve our resources.  To cut losses and fight where we're strong.

This was worse than racism and more dangerous than bigotry.  This was the sly, subconscious act of a white, middleclass male given power - once again - to impose himself on the rest of humanity.  The unthinking contempt of the developed world for what we deem the "undeveloped".

Why would Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt continue their support of XCOM, when we've done so little to deserve it?

Where are our satellites and birds?  How often has the Skyranger flown for Montreal or Toronto, Manchester or Tijuana or Tokyo while people were kidnapped and killed in Pretoria, Cairo and Lagos?  How many died at Kaduna, despite us?

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 29 June

I launched satellites over China, Australia and the USA.  It's one of the most despicable things I've ever done.

It doesn't matter how I justified it, what arguments I made, debated.

A whole continent abandoned to the enemy, condemned to an unknown fate.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 28 June

Acceptable losses.  A concept I am coming to terms with, must come to terms with.  At least Mitchell died a hero, saving people, and with a clean conscience, I hope.

Sgt. James "Baron" Arnold

We lose soldiers, and brave souls step up to replace them.  James Arnold handled himself well in Marseilles and will get his Sergeant's stripes.  Anja Meinhardt has what it takes - she's not a rookie anymore.


I'm also promoting "Enigma" Lambert and "Cyclops" Gryspeerdt to Captain, not before time.

Sq. Anja Meinhardt

There's a lot of excitement in the labs.  They've been researching the alien energy sources we've recovered, specifically the fuel, a substance they've dubbed Elerium.  Apparently it's revolutionary, the kind of thing that could solve all our energy problems - the whole planet's energy problems - if we can only learn to duplicate and exploit it.

That's a dream for another day, however.  One I don't have time to be excited about.

There are three satellites down in Engineering and we finally have the uplink capacity to run all of them - but where do we launch?  We've bought a little breathing space in Europe but I'm facing mass hysteria across the rest of the globe.  The Council Nations are in uproar, squabbling amongst themselves.  Australia and China sending joint demands for more coverage over Asia; then going behind each others' backs, fishing for the first satellite with a mixture of incentive and intimidation.  Canada still bitching, the USA stridently shouting down the concerted pleas of Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa.  A dirty little message from Mexico, full of veiled references to secrets from las Grutas de Cacahuamilpa and dark threats of blackmail if Mexico isn't given priority.

There's talk of sanctions, trade embargos, even police actions.  The charts and reports scattered across my desk are giving me a headache already.

It's going to be a long night.

Battle Report, June 27 - OPERATION VENGEFUL SENTINEL

The Skyranger spins on a dime, touching down outside a fashionable cafe in France's second city.  Flames erupt from the tiled roofs.  The streets are chaotic with screaming civilians and the swift, flesh-crawling forms of Chrysalids.

The strike team are firing even as they skid down the ramp of the Skyranger, but it's not enough.  A Chrysalid leaps upon one of the fleeing Marseillais, piercing him with hollow spines.  Viscera splatters against windows of the cafe.  The man's body bulges grotesquely, ballooned with the Chrysalid's gestating larvae.  The monster flexes, turns, begins clicking towards two women paralysed with shock.

Cpl. Calum Mitchell is the first to react.  Head down for speed, he dashes across the forecourt.  Grabbing a cowering man by the shoulders, he throws him into a stumbling run towards the evac zone, then brings his shotgun to bear on the menacing Chrysalid.  It falls with a skithering shriek.

Mitchell ushers the women towards the Skyranger, keeping a weather eye on the bulging body, which already begins to twitch and stir.


Suddenly it leaps for him, but he is already slipping away into the cafe's portico.  Boghead and Rk. Meinhardt make short work of the zombie.

Their is a screech of metal, an electronic squeal.  The viewscreens buzz and static in protest.

"Cyberdisc!"


We get a good look at it this time.  Clawed, winged, a surgical terror that contrasts sharply with the organic horrors of the Chrysalid.  It advances smoothly, eerily.

Fearlessly, Mitchell sprays it with scatterlasers, which zap and zing off its platinum skin.  It shakes itself, strangely dog-like, then slips forwards again, closing on the Corporal's position.

A shocking jerk, like the alarming dart of a spider.  A grenade bounces at Mitchell's feet.  He throws himself to one side, the blast catching him and catapulting him out into the road.  All around, more Chrysalids scramble over the rubble, leaping out of broken windows.

Desperately, Enigma and Cyclops fire at the Cyberdisc, scoring its silver hide.  I bark an order to Cpl. Arnold.  Steadying the launcher on a car door, he lets our a whoop as the rocket roars across the forecourt, crashing the 'disc against a smoldering bookcase to lie, inoperable, among the charring pages.

There are cries from above.  Using the grappling hook built into his prototype body armour, Cyclops slingshots himself onto the roof of the cafe, sending quaint parasols and white metal chairs clattering as he lands.  A Floater soars above, taking potshots at the men and women hiding beneath tables and awnings.  A grim smile, a trigger pulled, and it careens into a nearby building.

The Chrysalids are everywhere.  Cpl. Arnold sweeps his LMG across the street, flooring one after another.  But there are always more.

Wounded, Mitchel drags himself into an alley, a wide trail of blood scraped along the floor behind him. It leads the Chrysalids right to him.  Cornered, battered and bleeding, he can barely scream.  A dark splash obscures his headcam.



"Dammit."  My head is in my hands.  "Strike team!  Mitchell is KIA, repeat KIA.  Expect a zombie at 10 o'clock, any minute now."

A sliver of brickwork, a blue awning, a faint star, are visible in the corner of Mitchell's splattered cam.  Then the view shivers, jerks.  A lurch into an upright position.  Shuffling forwards.  Moving figures, shooting.  A flash of red fire.  Then only static.

*

The Skyranger is packed on the return journey.  Fourteen survivors to be dropped off in safe rural areas in the French interior.

They have Cpl. Mitchell to thank for that.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 26 June, cont.

Alarms woke me after less than an hour of sleep.  The aliens have commenced a second wave of terror attacks.

Cpt. "Boghead" Borg is heading up the team on the Skyranger, with Lts. "Cyclops" Gryspeerdt and "Enigma" Lambert.  Cpls. Mitchell and Arnold on fire support, and another volunteer - Rk. Anja Meinhardt - wielding an arc thrower, round out the squad.

They'll see Marseille before morning.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - June 26

I found time at last to write the letter to Sentinel's family.

In the early hours, I slipped down to the barracks, seeking inspiration from Saxby's old locker.  As I remember, it used to be stacked full of tabletop board games.  These were his downtime passion, a joy he wanted to share with everyone around him.  The XCOM database inform me that he'd even started writing articles about them. They made me smile.

Unsurprisingly, I never had much time to join in.  In any case, the thought of moving pieces around a board, making tough calls, losing here, winning there - just didn't appeal to me, somehow.

The games are all gone, now.  To family, or shared in the barracks.  I know Cpl. James Arnold had his eyes on them. Sentinel's locker was empty but for a sad pile of dust, a little lint.  And tacked to the door, a rectangle of card.

A game component, I thought at first.  But no, or not exactly.  It was a tarot card. The Magician.

I flipped it in my hands idly, curiously.  On the back, someone had penned a kiss.

Cpt. Jordan "Sentinel" Saxby, KIA.  We will remember.

Battle Report, June 25 - OPERATION STONE PALACE

I'd like to think that training is paying off.  Yesterday, Raven-1 shot down a small alien scout over Brazil.  Lt. "Boghead" Borg, Sgt. "Enigma" Lambert and Cpl. Zoe McGee took Sqs. Mitchell, Arnold and Glanville down to the crash site.

The fight was vicious but tidy.  Two dead Mutons felt like an iota of payback for Twitch and Sentinel. Cpl. McGee showed some serious grit, coolly standing her ground for the killshot even after her cover had been blown away.  She bore the wounds without complaint.

The squaddies fought well as a team under Borg's direction, with particular distinction going to Mitchell, who put on a burst of speed to get on the X-rays' six when they had Boghead and McGee at a disadvantage.  They'll all make Corporal, and I'm bumping Boghead up to Captain.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - June 22

There is something unreal about XCOM Knowle now.  I traverse the corridors, expecting to find Twitch leaving the armoury, Sentinel setting up games in the bar...

I've been visiting Nix in the infirmary.  He's in a bad way.  He almost died in Manchester, going lone wolf on the far side of the cemetery in an attempt to flank the X-rays.  Hunted by a pack of Sectoids, he ended up in a life or death duel with the last of them, trading pistol fire from opposing sides of a vending machine.  He'll be in the Cauldron for a long time.

I've promoted him to Major, little though that means to him right now.  He has a brother and a comrade to mourn.

I've also promoted Pip Ash to Lieutenant.  There's no denying Voodoo panicked in the cemetery, but he put a lid on it too.  He was the one the who pulled the team out of there, dragged Nix back to the Skyranger full of holes.

Morale has taken a steep dive.  Twitch and Sentinel were two pillars around which the garrison was built.  Something had to be done, so yesterday I gathered everyone together in the armoury.  

This was a deep and painful loss, I said, one which inspires disbelief.  Twitch and Sentinel were some of the best - friends and soldiers.  We will not forget them; nor will we let their loss weaken us.  We must train harder, fight harder - for each other, for survival.  And for revenge.

They seem to have taken this to heart.  Cpl. Zoe McGee, in particular, has started training with a grim zeal.  Her example can't be ignored; the others are following suit.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 20 June

Now I feel truly numb.

That graveyard was a deathtrap.  Nowhere to hide, no room for manoeuvre.  Pinned on the road, a squad of the alien heavies we call Mutons and a sea of Sectoids prowling among the gravestones.

Stone shards flying, masonry leveled.  Grave dirt scything through the air.

Rk. Perez wasn't ready for this.  She was a volunteer, eager to bag the first live X-ray.  I'd made use of the arc thrower volunteer-only, and forbidden the more experienced officers from stepping forward: too much risk, too much to lose.  Perez came up to my office the next day - nervous, confident, tightly wound.

When the plasma fire began to erupt around her, it was too much, too soon.  She panicked, dropped to her haunches, sobbing into her mic.  Tipped over the edge by her breakdown, Voodoo lost control, breaking cover and firing wildly at the enemy.  Seizing this momentary distraction, Perez made a break for the Skyranger, sprinting across the open, head down.

Backed up against the cemetery wall, Twitch cursed, head falling.  For a moment, his whole body slumped.  Then a growl.

"Not again."

Bringing up a grenade, he wrenched out the pin with his teeth, launched it at the cluster of Mutons.  Gritting his teeth, he pulled up his trusty shotgun for the kill.

The night before the op, I'd found Twitch in the bar, a chair pulled up in front of the memorial board.  He was toying with a notched combat knife, one he'd kept strapped to his shin since he came back from Norway.  There was a newspaper clipping on the table, a blurred monochrome photograph with a scrap of prose.

We sat in silence for a time.  At last, he spoke, eyes downcast.

"How do you stand it, sir?  The killing?"

"You're not falling for the X-rays, Twitch?"

He didn't laugh.  "We killed them, sir.  Lin, Jang... her."

He pushed the newspaper clipping towards me.  I recognised a fuzzy shot of Willie Thorne, the Canadian politician suspected of collaborating with the aliens.

"I ordered those boys into that UFO," he continued.  "I threw that grenade."  He stabs the knife down hard into the wood, leaving it there.

"Listen, Twitch," I said, leaning in, "this isn't easy.  I know.  But you did your duty.  You followed your orders, my orders.  You did your job."

The Captain stood up, looking at me with pale eyes.  "They'll be payment for what we've done, sir.  There's a reckoning coming."

"It's game over, man.  Game over."

Two Mutons were momentarily stunned by the blast.  The third sighted expertly, shot Twitch right in the chest.  He was dead before he hit the ground.

"Twitch is dead, sir."  Sentinel's voice was heavy. Removing his fingers from the corpse's neck, he looked over at Voodoo where he was cowering behind the bonnet of a Renault, caught his gaze and signaled curtly.  Voodoo tensed, ready.

There'd been something jaunty in Saxby's step that last week.  A spring I'd not seen since he weathered the terror attacks in Kaduna, with the other vets.  Did I wonder about it for more than a second, between plans and reports, risk assessments and briefings?

Sentinel stepped out, bestriding Twitch's body where it lay in the litter of the street, spraying suppressive fire across the Mutons' flanks.  Voodoo leapt up, dropping one Muton; Cyclops took down the other.

The third was squatting behind one of the last of the gravestones, bulky arm raised to protect its eyes from Sentinel's precise fire.  It's other arm jerked.

The grenade chuckled across the pavement, coming to rest in the crook of Twitch's knee.  The explosion ripped off one of Sentinel's legs, sent him tumbling in a cloud of blood and dust.  His screams pierced the coms.

Voodoo and Cyclops were wounded, hounded by Sectoids.  Nix was fighting for his life on the far side of the cemetery.

Saxby bled out on the concrete.

Battle Report, June 19 - OPERATION ENDURING FOG

A small cemetery in Manchester.  A graveyard in the night.

We made it our own, claimed it with our dead.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log

I can't ignore the situation here in the UK anymore.  Above us, in rural Devon, the roads are being disrupted by cars piled high with haphazard salvage: refugees from violence in the cities.  There's been talk of relocating Parliament, moving the royal family to the Isle of Wight.

The USA are putting a lot of pressure on me to intervene against incursions in Miami, but the Skyranger is flying for Manchester as we speak.  Cpts. Twitch, Nix and Sentinel, Lt. Cyclops, Sgt.  Voodoo and Rk. Esmeralda Perez - good hunting.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 17 June

The medical team in the infirmary perform miracles every week that are unsung in our monthly reports.  Soldiers routinely brought back from the borders of death.  Men and women with bodies torn open, burned, sluiced with poisons, returned to duty in time to prevent the next abduction.  We call it the Cauldron, ever since since Sq. Mitchell likened it the cauldron of Celtic myth, which could revive the bodies of fallen warriors.

The Cauldron is an odd place.  Too hot, smelling of antiseptic, sweat, Thin Man venom that won't scrub out.  A place of sickness and death - yet with half the garrison in there at any one time, it's as much a social gathering place as the bar.  Injured soldiers never get lonely there.

Doctor Benjamin Waterhouse has the care of the Cauldron.  Primarily a research scientist, he took over when the previous doctor in charge disappeared during abductions in Exeter.  He has taken good care of us so far.  He insists on regular checkups for all personnel, concerned - and intrigued, too, I don't doubt - by the danger of alien infections and other unexpected maladies.  It's a useful practice, helping me to keep tabs on how everyone is doing.  Without Waterhouse, for example, I wouldn't know that our new hotshot pilot, Lt. Hannah "Skybuck" Moore, reported to the Cauldron with a seized up jaw yesterday.  Without a chance to try herself against the X-rays yet, she's been grinding her teeth for days...

There's a new nervousness amongst the rookies and squaddies since the casualties in India.  On the other hand, Gabriel "Enigma" Lambert, recently promoted to Lieutenant, is feeling cocky and not above showing it.  He's a thoughtful fellow, however, and has time for the nuggets - he might be what they need right now.

Lt. "Boghead" Borg is running low but won't let that stop her.  Nothing seems to faze "Cyclops" Gryspeerdt - he is as grizzled and grumpy as ever, although we seem to have reached some kind of accord.

Despite everything, Cpt. Jordan "Sentinel" Saxby seems happy about something.  Sgt. Pip "Voodoo" Ash is twitchy, on edge.  Cpt. Charles "Nix" Gent is quiet - but then he always has been.  Cpt. Harvey "Twitch" Gent, conversely, is as loud as ever, telling wild stories about troll hunting in the Scandinavian wilds.  But Waterhouse tells me he's depressed, and there's something dead behind Twitch's eyes these days.

The Cauldron.  Somehow, the comparison doesn't sit comfortably with me, although the name has stuck.  In the myth, it is an ill-omened gift.  It brings back men without speech, perhaps without souls.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 14 June

Well, it seems we have the X-rays attention then.  Everything we've got - observations in the field, results from xenopathology - suggests that those things the strike team encountered in India were heavy frontline troops - not unlike our own - and that Cyberdisc was something else entirely.  Clearly, we've proved that XCOM isn't something the aliens can just ignore.

I'm certain now that those UFO landings were a trap, an attempt to lure us in and thin our numbers.

Two rookies died in that jungle and I just feel numb.  I hadn't even learned their names yet.

Rks. Minjoon Jang and Cheng Lin.

Will we remember?

Battle report, 13 June - OPERATION LAZY STRANGER

Another unexplained UFO landing, this time in the jungles of southern India.  Twitch and Nix are sent to investigate, taking newly promoted Cpt. "Sentinel" Saxby, Sgt. "Enigma" Lambert and two rookies.

The drop is in the middle of a wide, shallow river, thick with fronds and weed, humid and muggy.  The river is littered with rocks and logs flung down by some seasonal flood, and the hillside to the west is oppressed with jungle foliage, limiting visibility.

Sometimes a rookie's twitchy trigger finger is exactly what you need, as it might be the first warning you get when the enemy's on top of you.  Unfortunately, they tend to miss.

Soon there is blood in the water, both ours and theirs.  As if drawn by it, three hulking brutes crash out of the foliage, taking up good positions along the riverside.  We have not seen their like before.

They are dangerous, brutal bastards.  Sentinel, Nix and Enigma make short work of them out in the open, but the last retreats into the downed UFO.  Wounded, back to a corner, snarling to itself no doubt, it proceeds to tear our rookies apart.

One, water lapping around his thighs, back to a rock just outside the UFO, has his head blown off before we know what's happening.




The other is pressed up against the side of the UFO itself.

Somehow, it knows, it fucking knows he is there and shoots him straight through the wall, as if it wasn't there even there.

Twitch brings the killing to an end, but the bastard's work was done.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 12 June

We're taking long steps.

The thermal generator is built and it's an awe-inspiring thing.  There is such power down here, beneath our feet, in the Earth.  Power we can harness, use to defend ourselves.

The alien containment facility is also complete.  I'm less happy about this.  I look at that gleaming glass wall and I try to imagine an X-ray in there but all I see is the soldiers they'll kill while we try to take them alive.  The troops are already familiarising themselves with R&D's non-lethal arc thrower pistol.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 6 June

The autopsy report on that thing our strike team brought back from Tijuana is troubling.

It reads like the kind of thing I might have envisaged chronicling in SPACE MARINE - speculative theories about "mechanical organisms", "alternative biochemical systems based on the silicon atom".  Even the name they've designated, the "Cyberdisc", is pure sci-fi shtick.

There's little solid to go on.  Like the aliens' hand weapons, the Cyberdisc was rigged to self-destruct after being taken down, so its insides were mostly slag.  The labcoats want a live one, of course.

There is a silver lining, of a sort.  A number of repair drones were brought back along with the 'disc and Engineering things we might be able to repurpose these to aid us in the field.  As long as we can bring one back still functional, of course.

Cdr. Amyus Bale - Personal log - 5 June

The pan's really boiling over now.  Mass hysteria erupting across the globe.  China, South Africa, Australia, Nigeria, as well as India.

We can't be everywhere at once.


Mexico forwarded us some more funding.  I've told Engineering to take whatever they need, do whatever they have to, as long as it gets me satellites in the sky.


They're tired, I know, but their dedicated, they'll keep going.  All of the engineers, the researchers - they sleep less than the troops and work as hard.  I worry about mistakes slipping in, dangerous errors.  It's bad enough having your men and women die on the
ground - industrial accidents and damnfool risks in the lab are something we don't need.

But what choice do we have?

We need to keep pressing forward.  We need to claw back all the support we can.

Battle Report, 5 June - OPERATION FIRST HYDRA

First something, anyway.

Tijuana, Mexico.  Sometimes it feels like we're policing the American's backyard.  There are abductions taking place in Pretoria, Perth and elsewhere... but it's Mexico where I've sent Cpts.. Twitch and Nix, Lts. "Sentinel" Saxby and "Boghead" Borg, Sgt. "Enigma" Lambert, and Sq. James Arnold.

Something darts out from behind a cafeteria, a silver blur.  Boghead's headcam crackles, cuts out.  Then Sentinel's.

"It's doing something to our equipment," says one of the technicians, alarmed, "we can't get a lock on it!"

"Get those cams back online!"

There is an explosion on the coms, a truncated shriek.  Sq. Arnold's cam cuts out, Twitch's.  Nix and Enigma are crouched in cover, nothing to see.

"Dammit," I mutter.  "Strike team, status report!  We're blind up here.  What is that thing?"

Twitch's voice echoes around the room.  "I couldn't rightly tell you, sir.  It's packing explosives, though, and some serious firepower.  Boghead got hit by a 'nade, she's pulled back.  Arnold took a full broadside, thought he was a goner.  Argh, die your purple mother!"

Gunfire, static.

"Sorry sir, Thin Man.  This thing's bearing down on us, what should-"

"Sir, I think I've got it."  I run over to the technician.  He's zoomed in the Skyranger cams, trying to focus on whatever it is took down Arnold and Borg.  A sort of silver disc, with satellites swirling around it, blurred even at this range by whatever it does to our sensors.

"Twitch, pull back, unleash everything you've got at it."

It takes everything we've got too.  But when the dust clears, we've got a hulk of something to haul back on the Skyranger.

XCOM Project Monthly Report - May 2015

Another month scrapes by.

The Council seem to have have swallowed whole the line I sold them about Thorne - that it was kill her or let her fall into alien hands.  If I'm honest with myself, I killed her to keep my soldiers alive - but they don't need to know that.

In the end, they were more concerned about the UFO that got away over Brazil.  So am I.

Work on the alien containment facility can begin at last.  We've also had a stroke of luck, stumbling across a steam vent below the base that could solve our power problems for some time, with a generator in place.

Everyone is restless, fractious.  Research want their containment facility built.  The vets want wounds healed, freedom from the infirmary.  The rookies want action, fools that they are.  And Skybuck is the same, prowling the corridors impatiently, eager for the next bogey on the sats.

As far as I'm concerned, the X-rays can keep us waiting as long as they like.