A loud buzz awoke Captain Keller. It took him a few seconds to push the sleep away from his head and realize that activity from the phone next to his bed at - what time was it? - five a.m. was not normal. He snatched it, opened his eyes as wide as he could and answered in what, he hoped, sounded like an alert voice.
        "Sorry to wake you up, Captain, but General Sacks wants you in the control center right away, sir."
        Keller sighed, "be right there," he said. It took him under three minutes to dress, splash water onto his face and step out into corridor A, second level (underground), of the base. The corridor, at this hour was still brightly lit, accentuating it's aseptic look. Actually, it reminded him of one of those James Bond movies. He turned right and walked quickly towards the elevators, which would take him down to level four.
        It had taken him two full months to recover from the injury in his right thigh, but savage exercising, mile runs and grim determination had done the trick. The memory of his dead team mates, however, was harder to erase. It lingered every waking moment in the back of his mind, and only hard work kept it under control. At night it surfaced. For the past months, his sleep had been racked by nightmares, men - his men - exploding, being burnt, dying. Eyes turning towards him, pleading, helpless. The military board had declared him not responsible for the mission fiasco, but he blamed himself one hundred percent. The following morning a contingent of 250 marines had boarded the Caribbean and found nothing but signs of battle. No passengers, no dead bodies, no aliens. Nothing. The Dakota had also been found, lying split down the middle on the ocean bed. A team of deep sea rescue divers had entered and found the remains of the drowned crew. The Navy had mounted an operation to recover the sub and was still picking up the pieces.
        The months that followed the Caribbean disaster had been intense. Captain Keller had been assigned to the Extraterrestrial Command Group, X-COM for short, as head of Ground Forces under the command of General Sachs, X-COM's Chief Commander. The first days had come as a surprise. Learning that alien lifeforms did exist. That there had been sporadic contact since the 50s. That a full 30 men and women team had been operating for the past thirty years in secret facilities. That nothing was really known about the aliens. Then the hard work. Training a reduced unit of SEALS and Delta Force volunteers in advanced commando tactics. Trying to understand, synthesize and transmit his experience on board the cruise ship. Fighting for better, deadlier weaponry. Setting up, in essence, an effective machine, a deadly group of commandos that had to be ready to stand ground and beat the aliens next time around.
         United States' first Extraterrestrial Command Base was located in Colorado in what had originally been planned as an extension of the NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) facility.
         NORAD, born in February of 1966, was a complex sci-fi facility excavated from the rock in Cheyenne Mountain in the Colorado Springs area.
        The original requirement for NORAD was to provide command and control in support of the air defense mission against the Soviet manned bomber threat. Several events and emerging technologies drove this mission to evolve. The launch of Sputnik, the world's first man-made satellite, on October 4, 1957, demonstrated not only the accomplishments of the Soviet space program but also the capability to launch nuclear warheads from one continent to another. On November 30, 1957, the Air Research and Development Command established the first Space Surveillance Center at Hanscom Field, Mass., designed to receive, process, and catalog data on space objects. This Space Surveillance Center and its mission would eventually move to Cheyenne Mountain. In the early 1960s, the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles added another mission area for Cheyenne Mountain. Warning of a nuclear missile attack against the U.S. became a top priority.
        In early 1979, the Air Force established a Space Defense Operations Center to counter the emerging Soviet anti-satellite threat. Although the space defense capabilities and systems established in Cheyenne Mountain were in their infancy, this marked the beginning of an increasing role in space.
        The evolution continued into the 1980s when Air Force Space Command was created and tasked with the Air Force Space mission. Air Force Space Command formed the Space Combat Operations staff which absorbed control of the space/missile warning activities in Cheyenne Mountain. In April 1981, Space Defense Operations Center crews and their worldwide sensors, under the direction of Air Defense Command, supported the first flight of the space shuttle. Cheyenne Mountain has continued to support every shuttle mission since.
        In the latter part of the 1980s, the air sovereignty mission received renewed emphasis and continues to play a role today in working with U.S. and Canadian Customs Agencies. The Air Defense Operations Center uses its air defense network to provide surveillance and control of air operations to North America and unknown traffic including illegal drug traffickers.
        Recent studies determined that the facility would be unable to survive a direct hit from today's accurate and high-yield nuclear weapons and a separate facility was excavated - deeper and better protected. However, increasing military cutbacks, and an evolving preoccupation with alien activity transformed the newer base into a Special Research Laboratory (including all things related to extraterrestrial lifeforms) jointly funded by the three armed forces under the ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) umbrella. The money came out of the 'Reserved and Secret Government Funds' to which only a handful of people had access. Although the base's location was not a secret, what it was involved in was. Finally, when X-COM had been created, the new team started calling it home.

         Keller entered the elevator and pressed the appropriate button. The doors opened into a large square room that housed the control center of X-COM. Directly to the right of the elevators three large 6 by 12 foot screens towered above the busy operatives. Normally, at this hour a skeleton crew kept watch but today, or rather tonight, the control center was fully manned. In the center of the room several banks of computer consoles allowed techs to monitor and update information manually as well as introduce new options into the system, run simulations and, in essence, run what was probably one of the most sophisticated computer rooms in existence. Keller looked to the left and spotted General Sachs, X-COM's base commander. He was deep in conversation with a junior officer who was busily introducing some figures into a PDA. Keller walked quickly down the aisle that circumnavigated the room towards the General.
         "Captain, seems we might have some good news for a change." After the USS Dakota and SS Caribbean disasters, over the past few months there had been several skirmishes with the alien forces unfortunately all with negative results. UFOs were too fast and elusive for the Air Force, USOs were undetectable and results were not forthcoming.
         Keller looked at the screens. "What have we got, sir?"
         Sachs pointed towards the large center screen on the other side of the room. From their elevated position the screen was only slightly higher than them. "Montana," he said. Keller quickly checked the left screen which represented a large scale map of the United States in military outlines. The UFOs trajectory was displayed.
        "It's come down from western Canada, through Washington and now its headed for Montana. We've just received the feed ten minutes ago. Right now it's somewhere in central Montana, probably east of the Rockies." The central screen represented a much smaller area centered on the UFO. Numbers, indicating altitude, heading, speed and other relative data, blinked on and off next to the small blip that was drawn in the middle of a large red circle. This circle denoted the area the UFO was most probably in. Unfortunately, as time went by and further contact was not established, the circle tended to grow as the position became more uncertain.
         Sachs had explained the underlying technology when he had first arrived at the base: information was relayed from a host of different locations, such as the US Space Command, US Strategic Command, the Pentagon, White House, and several aerospace defense command posts using satellites, microwave radio routes and fiber optic links. The resulting collage resulted in what was displayed on the central screen.
         "Right now we're receiving the feed from NORAD. The Air Force is moving a satellite into location which should be in," he checked the computer in front of his post," five minutes." Sachs pointed at the left screen." We also have an AWACS from the 72nd Air Base Wing in the area and an E-3 Sentry off San Diego Naval Base. We'll be patching in their feed as soon as possible." Sachs looked at Keller. His eyes held a different look - they smelled the possibility of victory for the first time in many months.
        "And this is the good part," he continued. "Air Force has over one hundred planes on the chase." The main reason for their low effectiveness to date was that the UFOs were hard to catch. They were very fast and incredible maneuverable. This time though, the screens told another story. The Air Force had learned the lesson: chasing the UFO around was useless. The best method was to stalk it. Groups of four aircraft were positioning themselves in strategic places to intercept the alien craft in every direction it chose to run. It was being, Keller reflected, truly cornered.

        Flight Spade Five- four F-18s somewhere over Montana. 0525 hours

        Captain Mallory pulled his F-18E slightly to the left. Ten minutes ago they had been flying a standard racetrack pattern at ten thousand feet when they had been ordered by the controlling AWACS to hit the deck - 'ass to the grass' as was referred to in their squadron. Captain Mallory was lead of the flight, his wingman taking position behind and to his right.
        Below the aircraft the Montana Rockies raced by. Far away on the horizon, this first morning light was trying to climb over Darman's Ridge, the easternmost side of Darman's Canyon. Mallory glanced automatically through the banks of instruments, checking that his F-18 was functioning perfectly. Satisfied, he looked up again and peered at the desert through his HUD. He was relying on his Navigation Forward-Looking Infrared (NAVFLIR) system (AN/AAR-50) to navigate. The NAVFLIR pod mounted on the starboard fuselage in a fixed, forward-staring position, is a thermal imaging system that projects a TV-like image of the upcoming terrain on the pilot's head-up display during high-speed, low-level flight. Basically, it allowed Mallory to rocket at tree top level, it's twin General Electric F404-GE-400 pushing him at over four hundred miles per hour.

        Flight Sierra One - one AWACS. 0535 hours

        Onboard the converted Boeing 707, a dozen radar operators had their eyes glued to screens. The UFO was somewhere in the area. Above the 20 mission crew members, a 30-foot rotating radome scanned the airspace surrounding them for over 200 miles. Below them, a radar antenna housed under the fuselage compromised the heart of Joint STARS, a system that has the ability to detect and track ground movements with such precision so as to distinguish between wheeled and tracked vehicles.
        Additionally, the AWACS is equipped with a pulse-Doppler radar with downlook surveillance capability (AN/APY-2). This radar looks down at the ground and distinguishes between ground reflections (clutter) and radar returns from aircraft hugging the ground to escape detection.
         Of the technicians made a slight adjustment to the AN/APY-2 control and started sweeping the area directly below. Above the drone of the engines nothing could be heard - nobody was talking just concentrating on then task. The system beeped and the technician sat up straight.
        "Lieutenant, sector alpha 4, I may have something!" The controller, a young Lieutenant, walked quickly down the aisle and leaned over his shoulder. "Yep, good contact. Pass it to Joint STARS, see what we get," he said.
        A couple of stations away, the J-STARS operator received the signal and confirmed the contact: a low flying aircraft.
         "OK, good contact at, uh, zero feet, on the ground and not moving - wait, here goes sir, target is airborne. Either its a chopper or, well, our friend." Excitement had crept into his voice and was now in full swing. "Sir, I feel it, we've got him."
         The Lieutenant flicked a switch on his belt transmitter which opened the intercom from his headphones to the pilots. "Captain, we have a positive contact. Bearing one-nine-five and, " he checked the screen, "five-zero feet. Moving slowly north." Next he radioed the message simultaneously to NORAD and his flight of F-18s.

        Flight Spade Five. 0541 hours

        Captain Mallory ordered the course change and waited until he had received three confirmation clicks from the rest of his team. Then he nudged his yoke to the right until he was on a heading of zero-three-four, northward bound. He kept his aircraft and the same speed and height and his radar switched off. His eyes were those of the AWACS - and a little camera mounted on the front of his Hornet. He looked down quickly and pressed a button on his main console. The center display lit up and gave him a green, infrared enhanced view of the outer world. He adjusted the zoom to maximum.

        X-COM Base - Colorado. 0545 hours

        Keller felt the tension rise in the room. On the large center screen, a white dot had appeared within the red circle that determined the probable location of the UFO - right smack in the middle of the Montana Big Belt Mountains. It could represent an alien craft; then again, it might not. Until they had visual confirmation, nothing was certain.

        Flight Spade Five. 0551 hours

        Captain Mallory looked at the TV camera's display. The magnified image had a green hue, but he couldn't make out any shapes yet. He looked back up through his HUD. He knew exactly were his 'target' was : a small square in the middle of the HUD pointed him straight at the unknown vessel. His own radar system was switched off to hide him from the enemy; all information was coming directly from the AWACS through the com link. Basically, his eyes and ears where now on an aircraft above him at fifteen thousand feet.
        Range to target was now ten miles and closing. He looked down again at his multi-function CRT and caught a glimpse of a metallic form.
        "Spade lead, Whisky Oscar," he said into his radio. The code words told the rest of Spade flight to arm their AMRAAM missiles. He flipped a switch on his right hand console and immediately heard the low warbling noise of the missiles locking in on the unknown craft. In the center of the small square in his HUD, a diamond had appeared and the legend AIM-120B popped up in the lower right hand side of the display. This marked the targeting direction of the AMRAAMs. Flight Spade Five was seven miles away and closing rapidly. He checked the CRT again and caught his breath. A sleek metallic object occupied most of the screen. It was moving slightly parallel to their direction, offering them a near perfect view. It compared perfectly with the series of photographs he had been pouring over the past few days at the base - photographs taken from several unsuccessful pursuits.
        "Spade lead, " he called, "positive recognition, I repeat, positive contact." Aboard the AWACS the Lieutenant bunched a fist in the universal "All right" signal and switched his mike on: "Weapons free, Spade flight, I say again weapons free." He then turned to relay the information to NORAD.
        Capatin Mallory smiled under his mask and pressed the trigger on his yoke. "Lead, Coors One out," he called. This was a tradition he had picked up during Operation Desert Storm. Air Force regulations demanded that pilots call out their missiles when fired and during the Kuwaiti offensive, US pilots had gotten into the habit of using beer names. Once during the return flight from a raid on Baghdad, a mobile anti aircraft radar had switched on and acquired him at near point blank range. Without thinking he had called out a beer name and had sighed with relief when the radar had immediately shut down, no doubt in fear of having a Hawk anti-SAM site missile directed its way.
        He felt a slight shudder as the missile dropped from its pylon and its motor ignited. The AMRAAM went into active mode and locked on the UFO. Beside him, his wing called "Spade Two, Bud One out." Two more voices echoed their calls and soon four AMRAAM missiles streaked towards the UFO.
        At two miles, with the missiles moving at over Mach 2, the UFO kicked into life. Dropping to near ground level, it shot behind a large clump of trees. The first AMRAAM lost contact and veered off into the night trailing a plume of smoke. The next two, with their lock still true, exploded into the trees, showering the dull metallic shape with wood shards. The fourth AMRAAM shot between two trees and exploded into the starboard side of the UFO. Captain Mallory saw the explosion and knew it wasn't enough. He hauled on his yoke and sent his F-18 into a steep climb. Behind him, his wingman executed the same maneuver while the other two Hornets blasted off to the left in a wide arc designed to cover their six. At five thousand, his aircraft inverted in order to keep track of the smoking UFO, he flipped the Hornet over and shot back down towards earth. He grunted as the G-level indicator reached up to the 5 mark and the blood was pushed violently to his feet by the centripetal force. Quickly, he scanned the ground below him. The UFO seemed to have moved very fast to the east in pursuit of Spades Three and Four.
        "Lead, " he called, "Coors two out." Mallory switched to his cannon by flipping a lever on his yoke and watched the missile arc towards the UFO. A sixth AMRAAM raced by his Hornet on route to the UFO, courtesy of his wingman. But the UFO was still moving quickly away from. Time seemed to rush and he was very near ground level. He watched his wingman's missile go wild and hit the ground, but his own held steady and impacted against the rear of the UFO. Man, that should have been more than enough. "Shit," he muttered under his breath. He flipped his aircraft over and pulled on his yoke to break the descent. Once again the blood was pushed to his feet.
        He checked his radar. Spade Three and Four were seven miles ahead, arcing to the left and gaining altitude. Behind them the UFO was moving quickly at near ground level.
        "Spade Three, " he called, "you got him on your tail. I'm right behind him."
        Mallory's left hand grabbed the throttle and pushed it all the way to the stops, engaging the afterburners. Through his G-suit he felt the kick of the 32,000 combined pounds of thrust as he was pinned to his seat. With two friendlies in front he did not dare use missiles. Missiles were essentially dumb and never distinguished between friend or foe. Damn, two missiles in the rear and he can still fight.
        A bright light pulsed from the UFO and Spade Three screamed "Shit, I'm hit ! Fuck, the wing is..." and his Hornet exploded. Spade Four rocked wildly and broke to the right, partly an evasive maneuver, partly from the shock of seeing his buddy's plane fireball.
        "Lead," called his wingman, "got a clear Sidewinder shot !" Spade Four had put enough angle that the shot was good.
        "Go for it," he said quickly. The seventh missile raced towards the target, its infrared sensor locked into the alien craft's heat signature, as Mallory brought the range down, at full afterburner, to one point five miles. The UFO didn't try to evade the missile. Maybe its maneuvering capabilities were shot. The Sidewinder exploded into the UFO which lurched violently under the impact. Mallory clenched his teeth and centered the alien craft in his sights and depressed the cannon trigger. Shells streaked towards the target and even at this distance he could clearly see shards of metal ripping off the UFO. The range to the UFO closed quickly as he disengaged the afterburners and screamed over the alien craft in a tight left turn.

        X-COM Base - Colorado. 0555 hours

        Major Keller was already running towards the hangar section of X-COM base on level one. Around him sirens blared as X-COM Team One was called into action. He skidded around a door that led into the locker room and collided into Sergeant 'Gator' Kowles. It was like hitting a mountain head on.
        "S'cuse me, sir !" bellowed the sergeant. He turned around already fully dressed and addressed the men that were in the room.
        "Come on, let's go." His voice could have been heard above a hurricane. Keller changed into his battle dress and raced towards the awaiting MV-22 Osprey. The rest of their stuff was stowed permanently on board. Time, in these cases was critical. Inside the hangar several events were happening at once. The outer doors were opening, revealing the first morning rays. The whine of the twin turbine rotors was growing louder, as the pilots readied for take-off and several mechanics were quickly removing the stops from under the wheels. As soon as the last man was inside the craft, the doors were closed and locked and the Osprey began to taxi towards the runway. Inside the plane, the twelve members of Team One were securing their seat belts. Keller moved to the front of the plane and sat down in his seat. He looked over at Sergeant Kowles and nodded.
        This was not the first time they had done this: there had been plenty of drills and quite a few false alarms. But for the first time, electricity ran through the air. Keller reflected that a few months ago, he had been in the same situation - a very dangerous deja vu.
        The Osprey stopped at the edge of the runway and revved its engines. They were about four hundred and fifty miles away and at 275 knots maximum speed, it would take them about two hours to get the landing zone. Captain Steven Keller looked around his rookie team. Rookie in the alien experience sense of the word but in none other. Six men from SEALS teams (including four from the original raid) and six from Delta Force teams. Pretty nasty bunch. Trained to what he considered near perfection and waiting to avenge fallen comrades on an English cruise ship.

        Flight Spade Five. 0551 hours

        Captain Mallory blasted over the fallen UFO at ground level, his wingman glued to his right side. The alien craft had crashed spectacularly against the forest, leaving a wide wake of destruction - pine trees, shrubbery and earth had been plowed aside or was burning. The craft looked relatively unscathed, except for the twisted rear and right sections, were the missiles had impacted. He judged that anybody, or anything, inside could still definitely be alive.
        The ground teams weren't due in for another two hours and it was their mission to patrol the area. Other F-18 were racing towards them and a 707 tanker was taking station at ten thousand feet for refueling purposes. The Air Force was going to blanket the area with fighters. Nothing was getting in from the air and nothing was going out that way either.
        Mallory checked his fuel gauges and settled his Hornet into a slow patrol pattern.

         The MV-22 Osprey. 0758 hours

         The transport came in fast and shallow, blasted once over the fallen UFO and started to slow. The huge engines began rotating ninety degrees upwards, from their normal forward looking position to the vertical, helicopter style hover position. In seconds the Osprey landed vertically as a helicopter would and the doors swung open.
         The first team, Squad One, bolted out in a crouch and took cover as they could. The Osprey had landed in a small clearing in the trees. Around them, large pines surrounded them. Here and there, boulders blocked a spectacular view of the Montana Rockies. The ground was covered in pine needles, shrubs and leaves. The morning rays blasted down through the trees, but still at this height the men of Squad One felt quite cool. In fact, plumes of vapor formed in front of them when they breathed. Ahead of them, smoke still rose from the burnt ground and the stricken UFO. Birds chirped unaware of what was happening. Somehow, it all felt surreal.
         "Squad Two, deploy," said Keller. Four men, exited the Osprey at a dead run, circled to the right and dropped behind a cluster of rocks.
        Keller signaled the rest of the X-COM members to the rear and then dropped to the ground. His plastic armor was incredibly light but theoretically offered high protection against plasma shots. Keller remembered the first time he was introduced to Professor C. Clark, project leader of the X-COM scientific team dealing in protective armor. The C stood for Catherine, twenty eight the latest whiz kid from the ARPA Special Projects research facilities. Pretty as hell, and probably smarter. The armor that encased his body came from her team. A front and back plate, thigh and arm armor all designed to take a low powered plasma shot directly. They had neglected to explain about the high powered ones. Plasma, Keller learned, was some kind of superheated particle thing. All he knew was that it left a great gaping hole wherever it went. He was the only one equipped with it. The engineering team hadn't had time to produce more than one but they had promised more next week. Let's hope they didn't seriously need them this week.
        Keller took his four man squad to the left and took cover behind a large pine. He peered around and a short distance off saw a section of the UFO. It looked like the nose, buried in the ground.
        "Squad Two, move forward," he spoke into his comm. unit. Four men rose and ran to the next cover point. Keller checked his modified MP5. The double magazine sat behind the 44mm grenade launcher. On top a laser sight and movement tracking unit. They had improved the firing rate and the ammo. High velocity explosive bullets. Could stop you cold, even it hit you in your pinky.
        Keller motioned his squad to the left, north, while Squad Two hooked to the south and Squad One went straight in. He looked hard at the UFO and saw movement to the rear, concealed between two large rocks. The area was postal pretty. Maybe, if he found the time, he would return here, a camping trip someday. Bright sunlight, tall pines, greens, blues and clean air.
        "Hostile, rear of the UFO," he cautioned. A couple of F-18s roared overhead reminding them that they weren't alone.
        His radio clicked on.
        "Visual to hostile." A sustained zipping noise from a modified MP5 filled the air. A few birds chirped loudly and took flight. An alien died.
        "One down."
        Keller moved his squad forward, fanning further north. From up close the UFO didn't look that big. Maybe two pilots, if one could think in Earth sizes, and three others. Possibly, four to go.
        The tree exploded in front of him.
        "Down," he screamed. "Hostiles to the north." A second plasma bolt thundered into a small tree, leaving a charred stump as the rest came crashing down. Keller rolled away and saw his squad move forward cautiously. The shot had come from behind a fallen tree, about 50 yards away. He cocked his grenade launcher and fired a shot at the area. A loud whoomp echoed towards them. One of his men leveled an M-60 and racked the area. Another grenade crashed into the area. His squad, quickly changed positions, moving forward some extra yards. They leapfrogged until they reached the charred remains of the tree. The corpses looked like something out of a bad comic, exactly like the ones on board the Caribbean. Large heads, black eyes staring silently into space, greenish blood oozing slowly onto the ground.
        "Two hostiles down here. Possibly two left," he said. Then he heard a sound that had haunted him for months, that he had wished never to hear again: a low-pitched warble.
        "Frisbee," he screamed into his headset. X-COM scientists had speculated that the Frisbees, as he had named them, were remote controlled bombs that were preguided to way points. Once the frisbee was launched, it followed a certain flight path and exploded in a predetermined point. Standard op procedures, or what he had written so far, specified a clear course of action. One, determine if the frisbee had your name on it. Two, move quickly and with determination away from the area. Three, hit the deck and wait for the explosion. Four, get up and fry the alien bastard. He followed his own advice and scanned the area. There, goddamn it was coming this way!
        Keller ran four paces and launched himself behind a large rock. Trooper Gonzalez crashed into the ground twenty feet away and covered his ears. The ground shook and the air rushed around him. Heat wave rolled over his body. Leaves were blown from nearby trees and bits of wood and dirt rained around him.
        "Gonzalez. You OK?" he shouted.
        "Fuck, Captain, pretty nasty shit, but the green asshole missed." Keller smiled. These guys were motivated.
        Keller ignored the ringing in his ears, peered over the rock and saw a small gray shape moving at high speed through the trees, about seventy yards away, close to the UFO.
        "Hostile, north side of the UFO. Carrying a frisbee launcher." He steadied his MP5 on the rock, still lying flat on the ground and fired a three round burst. Missed, shit. The alien ducked behind a tree.
        He heard a thump of a grenade being launch from the prone rookie to his left and saw a fountain of dirt explode a yard from alien's cover. Nice shooting, he thought. The M-60 opened up again, cutting the bark from the pine and leaving the alien little chance to think his next move.
        "Squad One. Blanket fire on the alien's position. Squad Three, " his squad "move in. Squad Two, check the UFO." He stood up just as a second frisbee appeared from where the alien hid, but it had been badly programmed and it exploded harmlessly against the ground downhill. He spotted his men closing in on the tree and ordered his squads to cease fire. Both men shot around the alien's position, guns blazing and killed the fourth alien.
        "Hostile down, " he heard over the headset. "He had the launcher."
        That was it. Keller and the rest of the X-COM team spent the better part of an hour hunting around for stray or concealed aliens but found none. Either they had them all, or some had escaped. He hoped that if they had, the wolves would get them. Or the mosquitoes. Or something. This time, he would call the mission in as a success. "Base, this is Team One Lead," he called in. "Five hostiles down. UFO is pretty much intact. Several weapons to recover including a frisbee launcher." His voice carried excitement. Usually, after a fire fight he was drained and shook up, or at least that was his experience in Grenada and Iraq. This time, he was ecstatic. He felt alive and full of energy.
        "Affirmative." The voice sounded cool, but he knew there would be celebrating in the base tonight. "Secure the area. Recovery team is on its way. ETA, ten minutes."

        The recovery team, made up mainly of a few engineers and techs and a lot of strong arms, arrived shortly in three Ospreys. A Chinook transport helicopter followed some minutes behind. Its task to carry the UFO and any other heavy equipment that it found back to the base. The scientists were going to have a field day with all of this stuff. They settled close to the UFO and opened the doors. First out were a small security team and then Dr. Richards the head of the X-COM science team. Right behind him, pushing impatiently, Professor C. Clark. Keller went to meet them.
        "Morning, " he smiled. Dr. Richards didn't respond. He stared at the UFO and muttered under his breath.
        "Incredible, just amazing." He hurried towards the alien craft flanked by a security man, his hands waving nervously as he dictated initial recon notes to an aide. Catherine Clark, on the other hand, beamed him a smile. Her face lit up and Keller's day brightened considerably.
        "Good morning, Captain. Are you all OK ?" Before he could respond, trooper Gonzalez stepped up and smiled back.
        "Everybody just fine, miss."
        Catherine nodded and hurried towards the UFO.
        "God, "said Gonzalez, "she's nice too. Now I'm going to have to worship her." He turned to Keller, noticed his dangerous look and quickly changed subject.
        "Lieutenant Ridge would like to show you something, sir."
        "OK, Gonzalez, but next time we play touch football, you're nose guard in front of Sergeant Kowles." Gonzalez's smile froze. Sergeant 'Gator' Kowles had a set of completely different rules to the game.

Thanks!

The next chapters is:

• Cheyenne Mountain:.