Keller and the rest of X-COM Team One arrived at Pearl Harbor eight and a half hours later. They had left Cheyenne Mountain in their V-22 Osprey, landed at Colorado Air Force base and then crossed the Pacific in two squadrons of double-seater F-15Es. Flying at their maximum non-afterburn speed the Eagles had tanked once over the ocean from a converted Boeing 707, extending the aircraft's range to its 2,800 mile maximum. From Hickam AFB a couple of Blackhawks had flown them to the combat zone in record time.
        The sun, rising slowly over the horizon as they arrived, bathed the base in blood red tones. Dawn imminent, fires still ranged on, the ones closest to the fence partially controlled by Honolulu Fire Fighters, the ones by the ordnance depot still consuming wood, twisting metal and exploding abandoned ammo.
        Keller saw dozens of police lights flashing behind the fence. Several TV vans were parked as close as allowed, reporters jostled back by military police. Great. CNN broadcasting to the world. An improvised HQ had been erected inside a tent close to the gates. Groups of soldiers stood guard at regular intervals, shouldering anti-tank weapons and heavy machine guns.
        Several campaign lights blazed brightly illuminating the surreal scene, reluctant to hand over their reign to the morning rays. They had come in low, describing a wide arc over the bay and landed quickly. Keller jumped out as soon as the helo touched down and ran towards the tent. Colonel Serring looked up as he entered.
        "Colonel. Captain Keller." He saluted smartly. Serring motioned him over and updated him on the previous night's events.
        "I don't know who you guys are, Captain, but I've had orders not to intervene until you got here." His gaze bore down on Keller with animosity. "And let me tell you I don't like it one bit. But be warned. If you fuck up, I'm coming in with all I got, understand?"
        "Yes sir," said Keller. It must have been hard for the Colonel to remain inactive for so long, but it was X-COM's show now. He turned and ran back out.
        "Ridge, John, Gator. Listen up. Chris, " he said turning to Lieutenant Ridge, "as planned, Squad Alpha to the Admin. Building. John," turning to Sergeant Wales, "sniper escort to the top the chapel. Gator, Squad Bravo to the Supply Building. Awright, guys, no fucking about. Don't need to give the bugs something to cheer about. Let's go." They had checked the base plans aboard the Ospreys at the beginning of the trip. Using their laptops to stare at the 3D generated computer plans of the base, they had run quickly through a simulation. Hammett had come over the intercom as they flew over the Pacific in the Eagles, explaining the probable reason for the alien's attack. Keller's blood had turned cold. Pearl Harbor ordnance depot housed 24 TLAM-N surface-to-surface missiles. The weapon, better known through its stellar appearances on television in the Gulf War, was called the Tomahawk. It was designed to complement carrier-borne aircraft in attacks upon shore-based strategic installations. In this case, they were armed with a W80-1 200 kiloton nuclear warhead, equivalent to two million tons of TNT explosive.

        At about the same time, Katherine Clark threw her clipboard down in disgust. Chen's progress with the alien laser weapons had been spectacular leaving her to admit each morning that breakthroughs inside the UFO just weren't happening. A mechanic from the engineering division had finally managed to open the rear section door using a high intensity cutting laser. In the newly discovered area they found further weapons, diverse instruments and what looked like resting berths for the gray aliens. The engines were located directly beyond this area behind a connecting alloy wall. The wall, buckled and torn from the missile impacts in the brief and intense battle that had felled the UFO, had similarly been cut open revealing a complex drive mechanism.
        She turned to the cockpit and sat heavily on the command chair. X-RAY analysis revealed a complex circuit diagram inside the chair. At least, she mused, the aliens used circuits of some kind. Speculation led her to believe that these circuits somehow amplified brainwaves in order to pilot the craft and operate the various systems. Careful forensic examination of the recovered alien corpses had revealed interesting data. Essentially a carbon based organism, they functioned much like humans do. A head, a thorax with double extremities and a series of major and minor organs, different but similar to ours. Two races, light years apart, with basically the same physiological structure. Three theories had been set forth. First, coincidence, discarded immediately. Second, common predecessors. Did both our races come from the same Adam and Eve? And third and last, that this was the basic universal configuration for superior life, nature's best and most advanced diagram for intelligent beings.
        The alien's head contained a brain. That much they knew. And there were no dials, buttons or levers in the cockpit thus functionality was reduced to three possible methods: control through voice, through movement or through brainwaves. Something nagged at the back of her head telling her that she was missing something, but whenever she came close the thought eluded her.
        Her PDA beeped once informing her that the morning meeting was about to commence. Damn. Catherine stood up warily and exited the UFO. She arrived in the meeting room minutes later, found everyone already assembled. The conversation centered around the ongoing events in Hawaii. The scientists had spent half the night awake, glued to CNN watching the events unfold. Another reason to produce results faster. Catherine couldn't get Keller out of her mind. She fretted at the fact that friends, people she knew where in danger while she was comfortably secure in the base. Especially Keller, with his warm hazel eyes and soft voice.
        "Morning, Kate," smiled Chen warmly. Okay, so maybe it wasn't his fault that his results were better than hers. She wasn't getting much sleep lately and was a little cranky. She smiled back.
        "Hi. What's new in Hawaii?" she asked anxiously.
        "So far nothing. Keller and his guys aren't due for another half hour." Chen shrugged feeling helpless like the rest of them.
        Dr. Richards hurried to the front of the room. He held a cup of coffee in one hand and a bunch of computer printouts and papers in the other. A half eaten doughnut was clenched in his mouth.
        "Good morning everyone. Good news for a change," he said beaming widely. Around him, heads perked up expectantly. Good news would be a welcome change, thought Katherine.
        "I have here some notes from Los Alamos National Lab," he said fumbling slightly with a dossier. "On the Elerium fuel." He put down the steaming cup and opened the dossier to a certain page. Elerium had been discovered in the second week inside the main reactor.
        "Also have some stuff from JPL." Dr. Richards always spoke in this way, jumping from one subject to the next, but somehow always managing to come back to the original idea and tie it all in. JPL is the acronym for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
        "They confirm that the UFO is powered by an ion impulse drive." Dr. Patrichs, the resident propulsion expert snorted. He had pointed that out as soon as he inspected the rear compartment. However, reluctantly he admitted that X-COM did not have the amazing facilities of JPL to run the necessary tests needed in order to determine maximum power levels and other relevant data of the engines. X-COM base simply didn't have the manpower and technical installations to do this by itself. In any case, it's job was to coordinate the different investigations into a coherent data stream.
         Ion impulse drives function on a relatively simple principle, based on the Newtonian action-reaction principle, analogous to rocket based engines. Something goes in through the front of the engine (in an aircraft, it's air), gets accelerated inside (in an aircraft this is achieved by burning jet fuel) and then expelled (again, in an aircraft through a nozzle in the rear). The resulting difference in air velocity generates the planes forward movement. An ion impulse drive uses energy to convert deuterium (or other such material) to a state called plasma, which is then accelerated and expelled using a force-field. Simple. Not quite. The problem resides in generating enough electricity (energy) to move the plasma particles at sufficient speed. JPL experiments involved using solar panels on satellites in Earth orbit, consequently able to receive strong energy from the Sun. However, inside the atmosphere the problem arose when considering the size of the batteries needed to generate the electricity.
        "This report states that JPL is generating," he hesitated, leafing through pages. "Darn, where is it? Ah." He read silently the lifted his head. "Two point five megawatts from the Elerium core we sent them." There was a stunned silence as the audience digested the information. Dr. Richards smiled.
        "Holy mackerel, Batman," someone said from the end of the room. Patrichs slapped his palms together.
        "That's right," he said excitedly. "That's enough to power the UFO. Send that much energy though a coil and you've got ions pouring from the back. Does JPL say anything about how the core is generating those power levels? How about a matter-antimatter reaction?" he asked.
        "Not yet, but I think that's a pretty good assumption," purred Richards.
         The scientists started to chatter loudly. Theories came and went, some wild some more on the mark. Dr. Richards held up his hands.
        "All right, all right," he said half laughing. "Calm down. JPL still has two problems they're working on. First, exactly what is being ionized. Oxygen we know does have nearly enough weight and it tends to wreck havoc on metal when ionized. And spectrograph analysis hasn't found traces of noble gases in there, so they're still guessing. Second, they're still probing the antimatter angle. It seems like the core is, uh," he flipped to the back of the report, "encased under a heavy pressure load. But there it is."
        "Which gives us a peak into how the aliens are traveling in our atmosphere," interrupted Patrichs. "The million dollar question is space travel. Do we consider Einstein's theory on speed of light or Casek's on transluminar velocity." He paused and waited smugly. Someone had to ask. Carol Yeng fell for it.
        "Trans-what?"
        Catherine noticed a faint smile appear on Patrichs' lips.
        "Transluminar. That means past the speed of light. Einstein said that you couldn't travel at the speed of light. The net effect of the Theory of Relativity in this case is that a body traveling at the speed of light would have to generate an infinite amount of energy. Thus, in normal space time would stop and an object would be rendered infinitely small. Not possible."
        "Or desirable. Squish," added someone. Patrichs gave him a dirty look. He didn't like being interrupted.
        "However, Casek states that a traveler passing 0.7 lightspeed would hit the worm continuum leaping effectively past the speed of light without actually going by it."
        "Whoa, Doc, you're losing me big time here," said Chen.
        "OK, it's easy. You go from 0.7 light speed to 1.3 in a flash. Bang. Matter never goes infinite, sort of changes sign. It's analogous to an aircraft. Mach 1.0 is very unstable. Pilots go from subsonic to supersonic quickly, passing from one stable state to another. Similar, but you have to consider greater margins of instability."
        "Yah, I see," said Chen dubiously. There was a moment's silence, then Dr. Richards spoke again.
        "Unfortunately, Los Alamos is having no success replicating Elerium. It's some kind of polarized mineral with a strange subatomic configuration. However, they're ecstatic. Turns out the Elerium is giving them a clue into finding the last and most elusive of quarks. Something popped up in one of their cyclotron experiments but they're reluctant to say. In any case, Patrichs what's the next step?"
        "Well," the scientist leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms behind his head. "I'd say we need to study three aspects of the drives; the force fields and electrical components used in the plasma ejection, the Elerium and the matter-antimatter fuel."
        "If indeed that is the fuel," interrupted Richards.
        Dr. Patrichs held his gaze a few seconds. "It is, believe me. Problem is, how do they contain the antimatter in the core? I'd say our first and most imperative priority is the electrical fields."
        Richards nodded and made a mental note. Chen took a deep breath.
        "Which, if we're done on this aspect, brings us directly to the weapons section."
        "How so?" asked Dr. Richards.
        Chen smiled. His turn to deliver good news. "Guess what we found yesterday inside the laser weapons?" Two could play the smugness game.
        "Come on, Chen," snarled Catherine. "Spit it out already." Chen smiled again.
        "The big E, babe." Dr. Richards eyebrows rose. "Elerium. And what probably is happening, bear with me cause I'm improvising, is that the laser is functioning sort of like an impulse drive, only the weapon focuses photons in a coherent waveform. Readings indicate 15 kilojoule blasts, enough to drill a hole right through your average Joe or Jane. The firing mechanism is simple, much like to a conventional rifle as is the loading and unloading of the clips. Plasma weapons, however, are an entirely different matter."
        "Trouble firing the plasma?" asked Richards. Chen nodded.
        "Uh-huh. Zipo success. Current technology points in two directions. One is a device where a certain fuel, maybe Hydrogen, is heated to a plasma state by a powerful laser ignition system, then released through a magnetically focused field along the weapon's barrel. We can't get the laser igniter to fire. Another is what's termed a self-pinching plasma wave generated by a laser. By providing a ramped-density plasma and firing a laser through it, the plasma medium generates magnetic polloidal fields, a magnetic field wrapped around a toroidal shape, on the size order of the laser. The result is that the laser beam has an upshifted frequency. Basically, we're talking about a plasma-enhanced laser, or laser-enhanced plasma if you prefer. Only problem is that this trick doesn't work very well except under vacuum conditions. In space it would be fine but down here, uh, we're still working on it."
        "Okay," said Richards. "We're close. At least we know how the laser works. If we supply the techs with enough captured Elerium we could produce some weapons."
        "Make some happy campers."
        "Let's hope they're coping with what they have now." Richards addressed Chen. "Get together with Michael Roberts of Engineering and help them with the construction plans. We need to start producing lasers right away. I'll tell Hammett to have his men recover as many laser clips as they can find."

        Keller felt his heart thumping in his chest. It was always like this, never changed. Adrenaline started pumping and his mind focused on the job, perfectly and professionally. But his heart jumped like crazy. He loved the feeling, though, of knowing that you're the best in a very dangerous job.
        He peered round a corner of a white wooden building. The sign at the front said S3, Intelligence Office. Glass lay strewn around the floor from smashed windows. Keller peaked inside and saw the mess. A gaping hole offered an unobstructed view from the opposite wall. The stricken UFO occupied most of the center of the ordnance square, its alloy rear section twisted and buckled under the impact of the Hellfires. A few bodies lay strewn around and Keller noticed a couple of small gray corpses lying close to the open access doors of the vessel. A few lights blinked on and off on the UFO. Steam rose silently from its damaged drives.
         He moved silently to the corner and then dashed around it, heading for the next building, fifty yards away. He ran in a semi crouch, silently. His plastic-ceramic body armor was very light, lighter still than the standard SEAL kevlar armor and, they had assured him, offered more than three times the protection. He reached the building and took cover, his cover man arriving seconds later.
        "One is position," he breathed into the mike. "Bat, you there?"
        "Bat's here," came the muffled reply. "Clear view of the ordnance depot doors. Don't see anything yet." Bat was the call sign of the X-COM sniper. In company of Sergeant Wales, he lay prone on the chapel's roof, three stories from the ground with a good view of the depot square.
        "Units, report in," said Keller quietly.
        "Alpha in position." Lieutenant Chris Ridge hiding behind the Administration Building -or what was left of it- on the far right side of the ordnance square. Three men plus Ridge.
        "Bravo in position." Gator Kowles on the far left side, behind the Supply Complex. Three men total.
        "Ok, one in position." Keller, callsign 'one', crouched two hundred yards directly in front of the ordnance depot. "Bat, cover. We're moving." He stood and raced quickly to where an overturned HUMVEE lay no far from the UFO, followed by his two squad mates. Nothing happened.
        "One, Bat here. Wait up. I may have something."
        The sniper scanned the area below through the optical sight attached to his G3 SG-1 rifle. Nothing. He turned a dial and switched to infrared, looking carefully. He traced from left to right, slowly and then saw the alien. It was hiding behind a group of large black barrels, probably oil.
        "Got one. Twenty meters in front of the depot door. Left side."
        Keller used his field glasses to look through a hole in the HUMVEE's side but saw nothing.
        "Neutralize," he said succinctly.
        The sniper breathed in and then let the air trickle out as he squeezed the trigger. At five hundred yards there was no way he could miss. The explosive round hit the alien squarely between the eyes, taking off half its head.
        "Done," whispered the sniper. "Clear."
        "Alpha, move in."
        Ridge moved his squad quickly until he was a hundred yards from the depot door. Keller was about to order Bravo squad to move when the sniper came on-line urgently.
        "Wait, wait. Something moving the left." To the left. Shit. Squad Bravo would have run straight in the alien. "Holy fuck. Some kind of robot. Big motherfucker."

        The Commander slammed his arm viciously against a metal cabinet, denting the side and leaving a series of small holes from his upper arm spikes. Things were going very badly. High Command informed that a standard air rescue mission was out of the question due to heavy terran air cover. They were sending personal extraction modules, but it would take them another twenty minutes to get there. He disliked the modules. Maybe he didn't have that much time, he had argued. No avail. All right. He set a strong defense. Let the terrans try to get at him and they would know defeat.

        The tank moved slightly on its triple axis rollers. For a brief period of time it could hover, achieving a considerable height, but that wasted precious fuel and, for the time being, it remained silently on station at ground level. Energy level: 95.5%.
         Its sensors continuously scanned the area around it. It had picked up three terrans when they where two point five parx distant, classifying them as hostile targets. However, it had decided not to fire so as not to give away its position. The main computer bank decided that five terrans could alter its concealment directive. The Phase Four Semi-Artificial System checked the surrounding structures for the origin of the shot that had killed the Sectoid. It switched between optical tracking, infrared, radar frequency, tachion pulse measurements and non-visible phase spectrum. Nothing. The three terrans still huddled behind the ground vehicle. It would wait. If they moved, it would fire.

        The sniper studied the robot carefully. From where he lay, only the barrel of his rifle and the optical sight protruded. His head, darkened with black and green grease, didn't move an inch. He spoke slowly into his mike, barely moving his lips.
        "Bat here. Robot is left of depot. Thirty yards. Looks extremely armored. Suggestions?" He breathed.
        "OK," said Keller as low as he could. "We need some heavy power on this. Wait. Base, do you copy?"
        "Affirmative." The voice barely audible. He turned the volume up minutely and pressed the radio against his lips.
        "Can you help?" Cheyenne Mountain had been listening in to all their conversations through the satellite radio. Standard op procedure.
        "Affirmative. We're contacting Pearl. Patch you into channel two, over." Keller keyed the mike to channel two.
        "Pearl, go ahead." Silent. Hardly moving.
        "Read you clear." Keller recognized the voice of Colonel Serring.
        "Need a target neutralized thirty yards south of depot entrance, parallel."
        "Type?"
        "Hard target. Gonna need some penetrating shell."
        "Can you paint?" Serring referred to illuminating the target with a laser to guide a missile. Keller weighed the options. His position was too exposed, but the Bat...
        "Hold." He switched to channel one. "Bat, can you paint the robot?" All Special Force standard issue laser sights are configured with designator in the 1.06 micrometer wavelength.
        The voice came back clearly. "Sure thing."
        "Kay. When I tell you." He flipped back to channel two. "Painting affirmative.
        "What are you delivering?"
        On the other end of the conversation, Serring considered his options. That close to the depot, he dared not his mortars. Not that the nukes would exploded, but there were conventional Tomahawks in there as well as JP-9 rocket fuel. It would have to be surgical and low explosive. He called Hickam AFB and conversed briefly with Colonel Moave. Seconds later he called Keller.
        "Mavericks," he replied. "F-16s circling above."
        "Affirmative. When you say the word, we'll paint."
        "Wait one." Serring turned to his radio man and asked for Colonel Moave again. He explained briefly and set the mike down a few seconds later.
        "Special Ops, over," he queried the mike.
        "Go ahead," said Keller.
        "Paint in twenty seconds. On my mark, over." Keller switched to channel one and told the sniper to prepare to illuminate the target. On the roof of the chapel, the sniper moved his hand slowly to the laser designator switch on his scope. It wasn't a high powered laser, but it would be more than enough.
        The seconds ticked by at a snail's pace. Keller kept his eyes riveted on his watch. Five seconds to go.
        "Special Ops." He jumped slightly, the voice startling him from his concentration. "Five, four three, two, one. Mark!"
        Keller switched quickly to channel one and repeated the call. High above the compound, the sniper flipped the dial, sending a beam of red focused light at the target. At five thousand feet, a pair of F-16's broke from their patrol pattern and headed for the target. The AGM-65E Maverick missiles under their wings 'saw' the reflected beam and immediately locked the coordinates. The Falcon's Targeting Computer briefly calculated the ejection trajectory and launched the missile.

        The tank's alarm went from Mode Three to Mode Two as the laser struck its body. In milliseconds it measured its energy level, confirming that it could not damage systems. Running through its huge database of information, it immediately encountered the 'designator' functionality of the light beam. It did a quick Doppler measurement (found the source stationary) and then calculated the origin of the light. Ten seconds later, the air defense systems notified the central unit that two of the terran's air vehicles had moved within firing distance and had launched a torpedo. Point five seconds after that, the tank upgraded its alarm to Mode One. It prioritized its targets. One, the torpedo. Two, the laser origin. Three, the terrans behind the vehicle.

        Keller winced as the robot fired its first plasma shot. Shit. He felt suddenly very exposed, too close to the awesome firepower of the robot. He peaked over the frame of the broken HUMVEE and saw a second shot thump from the robot. He recalled briefly the explanation that Catherine had given him a few days ago. Plasma and laser shots were invisible, moving too quickly for the eye to see. What you actually saw, she had said, is the trail of the beam. Photons are excited as the high energy pulses by them, and they escape their atomic orbits, generating light.
        Well, he certainly saw that one, and he was getting excited. Nervous. He turned to his squad mates.
        "Don't like it here, guys, " he said. "We fall back, but keep out of sight. Move in line with the HUMVEE." The other two nodded relieved, and started to move quickly, crouched low, towards a building fifty yards behind the upturned car. If they kept real low they would always have the jeep between them and the robot.

        The Tank's air defense system re-calculated the plasma cannon and fired again. Missed. The missile was already less than 15 parx away, moving quickly, its trajectory angling down in a shallow arc. The Tank switched to low intensity, rapid fire pulsing shots. Double barrels extended with a snap and started pumping. At 5 parx the Maverick exploded showering the area with metallic fragments. Target One vanished from its list of priorities. Target Two. Multiple fire EM gun. Pivoting in mid hover, it trained the gun topside of the construction in front of it, and opened up.

        Five kilometers away, the F-16 pilot cursed, executing a high roll maneuver in order to gain height. He selected a second Maverick, this time a standard A/B TV guided version and flipped on his tracker cam on the weapons display. He centered the crosshairs on the target, a large black robot, and fired again.

        Keller ran behind his two squad mates away from the robot. He had taken five steps when a series of plasma pulses erupted from a nearby office to his right. Without stopping, he swiveled his head and caught a brief glimpse of a gray head behind a large weapon. The first shot struck the HUMVEE with a jarring crash. The barrage moved forward, missing him, exploding dust and earth beneath the man in front of him, then blasting the building to their left. The X-COM squaddie tripped and fell heavily and Keller, hardly breaking his stride caught him by the armpit and dragged him forward and up.
        "Go, go, go," he bellowed. "Cover!"
        In front, the first man crashed through the door of a squat, white building and pivoted around, firing his MP5 in a long burst. The window, its glass pane already broken, splintered viciously. The squaddie stopped firing, cocked the M203 grenade launcher attached under the barrel and foregrip of the machine gun, and sent a 44mm shell through the window. Whump. He sent two more, covering Keller's last steps.
        "Gator," called Keller. "Bug in the front building, south side. May be hit." Gator acknowledged and moved forward with Gonzalez, crouching behind what little protection they found, moving quickly.

        Bat and Wales were in trouble. Barely escaping the hail of shots that rained on them, they cowered flat on their faces. The roof of the chapel exploded around them, as Electromagnetically accelerated Elerium slugs ripped the wooden structure around them.
        "Bat here," screamed the sniper. "Under heavy fire. Need assistance, fast!"
        "Bat, this is two." Ridge, on the far right side of the square. "Hold tight. We got 'im." Lieutenant Ridge grabbed the LAW missile launcher from a squad mate and stepped around the half destroyed building that served as their cover. He aimed the LAW and fired the 66mm warhead at the robot, tracking the missile all the way in.

        The Tank's alarm came on. Terran torpedo approaching. One point two seconds to impact. No time to intercept, full power to shields.

        Gator and Gonzalez arrived cautiously at the building where the bug had fired at Keller. Two doors, separated by ten yards, and three windows. He signaled Gonzalez towards the furthermost door, and moved quickly to the other one. From beyond the building he could hear sounds of escalating gun fire and an explosion. He slowly tried to rotate the knob and felt resistance. Locked. Pulling a wad of plastic explosive C4 from his equipment bag, he pressed the putty-like substance against the lock and attached a small wire to it. He moved two steps to the right and confirmed that Gonzalez had mimicked his movements. Raising his hand, he counted off from three with his fingers and then depressed the firing mechanism. The door blew, frame and wood splintering outward, but he was already moving, racing through the door, eyes scanning the room. He had done this countless times before in training exercises. Time slowed down. To the right, an alien turned startled from a window. Gator trained his MP5 on it and discharged a three-round burst catching the alien in the gut. He moved forward and fired a second burst, hitting the bug in the head before it had hit the floor.
        "Clear," said Gonzalez in a strong voice. Gator reached the toppling alien and fired again. In movies, the good guys fired a single shot, normally wounding the villain who then makes a final comeback towards the end of the show. In Real Life, his combat instructor had insisted over and over again, when you fire at someone you do so repeatedly, making absolutely sure they're dead.
        "Clear," said Gator. "One, room is clear. One bug down."

        Keller acknowledged and poked his head from the door. His next priority was the robot, or whatever the hell it was. He needed to get back in to firing position on it soon, destabilize it, get it on the defensive. At the moment it had all the advantage and was firing at them unchallenged. As he left his hideout he spotted an alien crossing the access hatch of the downed UFO. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, a primal fear enveloping him. He instantly recognized the frisbee launcher it carried. The alien fired quickly, a sickeningly familiar low-pitched warble invading the air, and then retreated into the safety of the alloy hull.
        "Gator, get the hell out of there, now!" he screamed into the mike. "Frisbee!"
        The sergeant needed no second warning. At a dead run he reached the shattered door and launched himself through it, hit the ground with his right shoulder and rolled away, just as the frisbee entered through the window and angled down, exploding against the floor. The walls of the building collapsed and the roof toppled in, a tremendous blast ripping the air. Fire bellowed into the morning sky. Ridge shook himself and gasped for air, as pieces of wood dropped around him. He checked gingerly that nothing was broken and then looked for Gonzalez. He found him in a collapsed in a heap twenty yards away and quickly pressed a couple of fingers against his jugular. Gonzalez stirred.
        "Wha..." he mumbled.
        "You OK man, just don't move, hear?" growled Gator. He flipped his mike in response to Keller's calls. "We're okay, just a little banged up. Reckon these plastic suits held the blast." Keller assented and told him to get back to his position. He would take care of the alien in the UFO. Gator lifted Gonzalez slowly, making sure that no bones were broken.

        Damage Control. All systems nominal. Power: 80.24%. The tank included the new torpedo-launching terrans in its threat control and swiveled around. He fired his thrusters and rose in the air, EM cannons blasting at the building that stood between it and the terrans. Wood burst wildly, shattered in a hundred directions, leaving great holes in the building. But Chris Ridge was no longer there. After firing the LAW, he had moved his team as fast as he could towards a position slightly closer to the depot entrance. Maybe, if the tank was distracted he could get in. ALARM! A second torpedo coming from the terran air vehicle. Time to impact five point three seconds. The Tank cut the hover thrusters and slammed into the ground. It pivoted and engaged the incoming AGM-65A/B Maverick with the short pulsing plasma that had felled the first one. But it was too late. The missile, moving at a speed over the sound barrier, came in too fast. The Tank's main shields came up again on full power. Not enough. The 57 kilogram High Explosive warhead impacted on the center of the main section. The explosion reverberated around the compound, clapping strongly against eardrums.

        Bat and Wales looked at each other as the barrage stopped, replaced by a thunderous noise and then silence. Their position was seriously compromised. Getting off the roof and finding a new high spot became their utmost priority. Wales crouched and silently mouthed a "Let's go" to the sniper, heading for the roof door.

        The Commander fumed. Ten minutes till the extraction modules arrived and he had already lost five of his defense Sectoids, three in the initial missile blast on his transport. He maintained mental contact with the other seven. He checked a panel in his battle control unit and pulled up the operational status of the tank. Shields, gone. Power, extremely low. Main Pulse Cannon, inoperative. Secondary Rapid-Fire Plasma Cannons, destroyed. Main Electromag. Cannons, one operative. Hover system, nonfunctional. Ground Thrusters, 22% functional. Not good. Actually, very bad.

        "One. Looks like the robot took a good hit, but it's still moving. Chris, see if you can finish it. We gonna take the UFO dude out. Report in guys." Keller covered the entrance to the UFO with his MP5. If anything moved it would stop doing so in a hurry.
        "Alpha here." Ridge. "We've cut back to the depot. Fifty yards to the north. In position."
        "Bravo." Gator. "Whacked another alien here. He seemed to be back up for the oil drum bug."
        "Four's moving to new location." Wales' callsign.
        "How about 'bot?" After experiencing its firepower the robot, even damaged, was presently Keller's major concern. Ridge came back.
        "Got one more LAW here. If it don't work, maybe we could get the Falcon back?" he ventured. Keller grabbed his radio and switched to channel two again.
        "Pearl, this is Special Ops. Target is down. We might need another pass."
        "Affirmative. We'll call the birds around. Your call."
        "Roger. Alpha. Take the 'bot." On the other side of the compound, Chris Ridge grabbed a second LAW and, taking a deep breath, raised his head above the pile of rubble he crouched behind. The robot stood stationary about a seventy five yards away. Ridge took aim and pulled the trigger. Through the sight he saw the robot start to turn slowly, training a cannon on him.
        The explosion rocked the compound and Keller knew that the robot was finished. Probably had some self-destruct mechanism in there. Time to start thinking seriously about entering the depot.
        "All units, listen up. Alpha and Delta are going in. Bravo stays outside in case of strays. Bat, you airborne?" he asked.
        "Affirmative, One. We're further back now. Small water tower to the north." Bat and Wales had sprinted to reach a good position and had barely had time to set up.
        "Bat. Keep the access door of the UFO covered. There's a bug with a frisbee in there." Keller heard the sniper acknowledge, and then raced forward towards the ordnance depot. He reached the destroyed guard post and dropped to the floor behind an intact concrete car-stopper.
        "Alpha, move," Keller said. Ridge and his three men team leapfrogged towards him and then plastered themselves against the side of the gaping hole.
        "Ridge, check for traps." He saw the Lieutenant inspect the hole briefly and then shake his head. None. His radio came on.
        "One. This is Bat. Alien moving to the north. I got him." Keller heard a sharp report. He was still concerned with the one inside the UFO, but it would have to wait.
        Keller jumped up and ran through the door, his cover man right behind him, taking positions immediately inside the broken doors. Other X-COM members raced in, fanning out in several directions. Keller heard low calls of 'clear' echo from each man. Good. The corridor was dimly lit, wide with red lights flashing at regular intervals. A railing system ran along the ceiling, used for moving the 1,500 kilogram Tomahawks around. Twenty feet from the entrance, a wire mesh gate lay buckled to one side. Beyond that another corridor that ended in a corner. Several marines lay where they had died, faces contorted in surprise and agony, tremendous wounds from the superheated particle weapons. Keller motioned his men forward, covering the gate with his machine gun. They reached the gate, passed it and arrived at the corner. Using a small mirror, Ridge looked around the corner and quickly drew back.
        "Bug," he whispered. Keller pulled a grenade from his belt, primed it and tossed it around the corner. A shrill scream, a bang and silence. Ridge bolted down the corridor before the sound had died, firing quick burst at the alien, just in case. The corridor opened into a large room, twenty yards across and eighty yards long. Inside, aligned on metal braces, sat rows and rows of torpedoes, rockets and diverse armament. The nuclear weapons room was at the furthermost end. However, the room was a rat-trap. Anyone could be hiding behind the innumerable racks of equipment and ammo. Two dead marines lay in the center.
        Keller signaled Ridge and his four man squad to move down the right side of the room, while he led his men down the left.
        "Stay alert. Good ambush locati..." he was interrupted by a series of plasma bolts fired in rapid succession. He hit the deck. Jesus, the aliens were firing right in the middle of the ammo depot. Couldn't all this shit explode? Well if it did, Honolulu was going to be lit up real nice and they would be treated to a bird's eye view. He rolled quickly forward, checked the rest of his squad. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Ridge advancing quickly, taking cover where he could. He heard the familiar zipper noise of the MP5 and screamed "go, go, go," rising in one fluid motion, heart thumping against his ribs. The alien, caught by surprise, stepped from behind its hiding place to repel Ridge's attack. Quick on the draw, Keller's cover man placed a three-round burst in its head. Keller continued running and slid, baseball style behind a large Mk-50 torpedo. Ridge's squad ran by him and yelled clear when they reached the further end.
        "OK guys, one room left." He looked at the sign above the door, feeling a queasy sensation in his stomach. It read: 'Nuclear Arsenal.' Involuntarily, Keller remembered the Tomahawk specs Hammett had read to him during the Pacific flight: six point thirty two meters in length, six hundred and ninety three millimeters wide weighing nearly fifteen hundred kilos. A single Williams F-107-WR101 turbofan engine, operating on JP-9 fuel, could fly it more than twenty five hundred kilometers with incredible precision. The warhead, a W80-1 model, could leave Honolulu in a smoldering mess. Theoretically, the nukes couldn't go off until armed. The rocket fuel was altogether another proposition.
        The door stood slightly ajar, metal burning at the plasma rifle impact points. He looked around.
        "Ready?" he mouthed.

        The Personal Extraction Modules entered Earth's atmosphere in brilliant red flash, moving considerably fast. The Commander had initially ordered thirteen, reducing the number as the Sectoids fell. No great loss, he mused. No sense in wasting modules if you didn't need them. They descended enveloped in flames towards Hawaii. The Commander waited impatiently.

        The breacher, traditionally the first man in Special Ops to enter a room, burst through the door and dove to the left. Gonzalez was the second man in and Peterson the third. A hail of plasma greeted them, streaks of blue light illuminating the room. Keller heard the breacher scream.
        "Heavy fire. Casualties!" Gonzalez, sliding behind cover, firing his submachine gun slightly high. The hail of fire continued. Wham, wham, wham. A bolt punctured the wall beside Keller leaving a large gaping hole, its smoking edges bent outwards.
        "Holy Mary," he shouted. A squaddie dropped to one knee in front of the door and fired a long burst. A shot caught him in the chest, throwing him back ten feet and leaving a sickening smell in the air. "Gonzalez," he screamed above the din of the fight. "Cover!" and pivoting around the door, ran into the room in a low crouch. Plasma fire rained around him with an incredible cadence. In front of him, a Tomahawk missile resting on its brace bucked and was cut in half by a bolt. Oh shit, thought Keller. Don't let the fuel go off. Gonzalez watched his boss dive behind a work bench attracting most of the alien's fire. He leaned over an empty brace, aiming a long burst at a gray figure. He saw another one trying to scuttle back towards better cover and then trip and crash ungracefully against a wall, dark blood blossoming on it's back. Silence.
        "Clear left aisle," shouted Keller.
        "Clear right side," echoed Gonzalez. Ridge bolted through the door, covering the center of the room, moving quickly, always mobile.
        "Clear center."

        Wales and Bat crouched behind the little protection offered by the water tower's low wall and studied the surrounding area. Through the radio they caught fragments of the gun battle as they tried to concentrate on the ordnance square. Wales was the first to pick the noise up, a far distant rumble. It grew, not in intensity for it was not loud, but as a vibration against their chests. And then, the four extraction modules (The Commander had already called off the others), retro motors on maximum fire to slow the supersonic capsules, flashed by them, a sonic boom sounding like a thunderclap as they decelerated to subsonic. Secondary rockets opened up for the final descent, filling the air with a louder noise. The modules dropped heavily on the ground and simultaneously executed three actions: fired the cooling mechanism, popped a total of thirty two smoke bombs into the square (some of them remaining in a hover at different altitudes) and opened their hatches.
        "The fuck is that," said Wales loudly. And then four aliens appeared. Bat froze for a moment and then training kicked in, instinctively taking aim on the first of the aliens to appear - then one inside the UFO. The alien moved fast as he came out through the access hatch, plasma gun held diagonally across the chest. Bat snapped a shot off hitting the plasma rifle. The supersonic slug knocked the alien back, its head cracked sickeningly against the alloy hull, crumpling to the ground in a heap. Bat trained his scope to the left, towards the others and froze momentarily in shock. A large dark figured loomed through his sights, not the familiar shape of the gray humanoids, but larger and more menacing. It moved at a pace belying its size, heading for the first Extraction Module. Bat fired straight at the aliens chest. Nothing. The alien came on. Twenty yards to go. Bat fired again. The alien hardly checked its stride. Smoke was billowing from the bombs, enveloping the square in a dense fog. Damn. It had to be armored. Wales saw a Bravo squaddie rise from behind his position and fire at the new bug. The bug, hardly stopping, jerked his rifle around and cut the young man down with a half a dozen shots.
        Jesus. Barely able to distinguish the aliens, the sniper lined up with a gray shape and squeezed the trigger, watching the alien crumple to the floor. The rest of the bugs reached the modules and hoped in, doors closing automatically. The modules blasted off on full power.

        The Commander grunted in pain as the his module accelerated madly upwards. A few terran pellets had struck him, cracking his scales in different places. Nothing some genetic implants couldn't cure. Clenching his teeth tightly, he screwed his eyes shut and cursed the terrans. Their mission had been a failure. But High Command was already changing strategies. Hit the civilians, he had argued, and we'll see the terrans cower under us.

        Keller bolted outside as the last of the modules disappeared into the sky. He spent the next few minutes combing the square carefully for left behinds but found none. His mike came on. Gonzalez.
        "Yo, boss. Think you'd better come over to the UFO. Man, this is weird." Keller walked quickly to the large mass and stopped at the access hatch, eyes widening until he felt they would pop from their sockets.
        "Well, I'll be..." he whispered.