Task Force 60 - October 8th.

        Captain Mark Owens, commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosvelt (CVN 71), leaned against the port rail of the 97,000 tons of nuclear aircraft carrier that constitued the heart of the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet. Looking out over the scant mile of ocean that separated him from their homeport at Gaeta, Italy, he bed one last silent farewell to his family. He knew his wife would still be sitting in their porch in company of other officers wives, steeling glances as the battlegroup got under way.
         He squeezed the railing fondly and looked over his ship - yes, dammit, his ship. He had left the US Naval Academy in 1970 and had been designated a Naval Aviator in 1976 completing A-7E training and squadron assignments with VA 27 on board USS Enterprise (CVN 65) and as both Executive Officer and Commanding Officer of VA 86, embarked in USS Nimitz (CVN 68). He had worked his way into the Strike Test Directorate at Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland, and participated in the early flights of the F-14B. He had then gravitated to Executive Officer of the Roosvelt, Commanding Officer of USS Caloosahatchee (AO 98) and was now returning as Commanding Officer of the Roosvelt.
         He smiled. Damn, his father would be proud. It was a beautiful morning, a light breeze blowing from land. He looked down at the 4.5 acres of flight deck. F-14B Tomcat fighters parked orderly, two of them already hooked up to the catapults, ready for launch in under five minutes.
         He looked back at the ocean, away from land this time, and distinguished USS Rampage (DDG 61), one of the group’s Aegis class cruisers, already moving to its assigned point position. Closer in, frigate USS Carr (FFG 52) moved silently in the water. The other five ships, plus two submarines from Task Force 69, were also under way.
         He breathed the morning air deeply and turned when a communications ensign trotted up.
         "This just in, sir." Owens thanked him and read the message

FROM : CINCLANT

TO : USS THEODORE ROOSVELT

TOP SECRET

INITIATE GRID SWEEP MED. ITALIAN GRP AND SPANISH CARRIER GRP (PRCP ASTURIAS) IN AREA.

PROCEED TO ESTABLISHED COORDINATES AT MAX SPEED.

GOD BLESS.

        He cast one last look around and ducked back into the bridge, heading for CIC. The main battle room of the aircraft carrier was located below decks, banks of computer consoles, radar equipment, aircraft plotting tables and other vital systems converged in the darkened center, where a team of sailors analyzed the data. As the Captain strode in, the XO was handing out orders.
        "Captain in CIC!" someone said and the men straightened briefly.
        "As you were," ordered Owens. "XO, situation?"
        "Fully under way, skipper. Rampage and La Salle are already on station. We’re tracking the Spanish carrier group to the west and a couple of Italian frigates to the northeast. We’ll be under full steam in ten minutes."
        Owens turned to the Commander of the Air Group. "CAG?" he asked.
        "A Hawkeye is up on AWACS duty and two Tomcats are at plus-five." He referred to the two F-14s presently hooked up to the catapults and ready to launch in five minutes. They wouldn’t be able to take off until they were outside the twelve mile limit. "Tracking some commercial flights and a squadron of Italian F-16s. The Spanish carrier group has an AWACS up, we’re picking up their radar emissions, and most probably a CAP of Harriers."
        "Okay. I’ll be in the bridge. Start air ops as soon as possible."

        X-COM Base - Colorado. October 15th. One week later

        "- and, fire!" said Peter Chen.
        Brraaaaaap.
        The experimental laser rifle bucked slightly in the hands of the tech as he fired a dozen shots on automatic at the metal dummy twenty feet away. Blue light flashed briefly cutting large sections of the target. The dummy rocked back violently.
        "You see," said Chen excitedly. "The laser doesn’t burn the dummy. It’s designed so that it delivers energy bolts. It’s like a photon bomb hitting you, kinda blowing up against you. You know, it would be useless if you shot a beautifully round and cauterized hole through someone’s arm. What you need is stopping power, and boy this delivers!"
        "What’s the rate of fire ?" asked Keller.
        "Four hundred shots per minute. Each shot can penetrate light metal."
        "Yikes. Serious firepower."
        Richards was impressed. "Excellent." He turned to Roberts of Engineering. "How fast can we get a dozen of these built?"
        "Don’t know. Maybe a week, if we work overtime. We’ll get right on it." Richards nodded and removed his plastic goggles. Handing them over, he turned and walked towards the door conversing with Marge Carnet, from Dr. Patrichs’ team. Catherine followed, smiling slightly as always at the sight of Einstein sticking his tongue out on the back of Richards’ lab coat. They left the firing range and walked down towards the containment center. Time to check progress on Mr. Alien. They passed through a few security stations. They reached the entrance to the center and stripped their clothes in the bathrooms, donning clean lab coats. Containment Center One was a Class Two clean room. Airlocks, secure ventilators and biological warfare systems assured that no viruses or bacteria contaminated the alien humanoid. And viceversa.
        They took turns entering the airlock. On the other side Van Bert and his team were comparing notes. Catherine remembered laughing when they had shown him the prisoner for the first time - his jaw dropping open and then start drooling at the prospect of exploring non-human communication. He looked up as Dr. Richards and the rest of them walked in.
        "Good morning," he said. The alien interrogation had not been going well. The alien had not eaten, if indeed they did, in over a week. Over the past hours it seemed to have deteriorated rapidly. They had tried every form of communication possible; from different languages, to mathematical equations, music, diagrams, among other things. All to no avail. The alien didn’t understand them or chose not to. Van Bert was at a loss.
        The alien slept, operating on a different sleep cycle than human. Brainwave receptors were attached in those hours to its head, recording alpha waves. REM - rapid eye movement - so important in human conduct, was noticeably absent. It moved around the room frequently. Exercise? Claustrophobia? Anybody’s guess.
        The control room was separated from the alien’s quarters by a large reinforced plexiglass window. The alien sat on it’s bunk, ignoring the two linguists sitting in front of a table showing hiom drawings and photographs, looking for some reaction.
        "Any progress?" asked Richards.
        Van Bert shook his head in frustration. Later in the afternoon they would escort the prisoner to the recovered alien vessel, under heavy guard, in hopes of forcing some kind of emotion from it.
        Catherine approached the glass partition and observed the humanoid. It turned its head and directed and unblinking stare at her. She felt goose bumps crawl up her arms and neck. She felt something prodding her mind, a strange feeling, as if he were trying to communicate. Creepy.

        The alien was growing restless. Being detained by terrans - an inferior species - was humiliating and most of all dangerous. They were stupid. He brushed their feeble attempts at communicating with indifference. Idiots. But then again, he did need to consume nutrients. It had been more than a week since his last meal and his organism was starting to suffer. Not that he couldn’t keep going for another week. But he needed the energy if he was to mentally contact High Command. Unfortunately, the food they offered him was as good as poison. His organism was unable to break down and assimilate the abnormally high content of vitamins and enzymes contained in the food and he would overload easily. Transenzymatic shock would occur and he would die within hours. He made a decision.

        Catherine’s eyes widened. She glanced at Richards who was speaking with Van Bert, facing away from the partition.
        "Doc," she said. "Doc!" she said louder when they ignored her and then nodded her head at the alien’s quarters.
        Inside the humanoid stood up and walked over to the linguists. Calmly he reached for their laptop computer and turned it towards him. The linguists exchanged surprised looks. The alien bent over and tapped repeatedly on the keyboard, long fingers delicately pressing keys. Then, he straightened and rotated the screen back towards them. The linguists sat in shock, eyes bulging. On the screen, a simple message:

        Keller looked over at the Hyper-X techs standing in the shade trying their best to feign indifference. They wore white NASA overalls or white shirts, black ties and black pants. They talked amongst themselves and smoked casually, but Keller could feel the tension. It was, after all, still an experimental project. The young captain checked his watch. It read at half past twelve, a little off schedule. A couple of firetrucks parked to one side, engines on idle ready to dash forward at a moments notice.
        A loudspeaker squawked to life. "Hyper-X is ETA in five minutes." Keller strained his eyes, squinting in the midday sun but distinguished nothing. Someone shouted, pointing at a speck in the sky. Nah, maybe a bird. A couple of minutes past and Keller noticed something. Faint. Growing larger until the shape could be perfectly distinguished.
        Back in 1982, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project called Copper Canyon was initiated in collaboration with NASA and Boeing. The reason behind the birth of the project was twofold. Firstly, as a substitute for the aging fleet of SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft and secondly as a result of NASA’s Strategic Plan which specifies the development and demonstration of technologies for air-breathing hypersonic flight. The goal was to develop an aircraft capable of sustaining Mach 20 and above speeds in stratospheric flight parameters.
        The project, re-termed as the National Aerospace Plane (NASP), designated the X-30, was canceled in November of 1994 by former Secretary of Defense Richard Chenney, due to inconsistencies in the development and a huge overbudget deficit.. Hyper-X, capturing NASP technology and conducted jointly by Dryden and Langley, became the continuation of the project. NASA in conjunction with MicroCraft, Inc. of Tennessee began constructing an experimental prototype in March of 1996.
        The new and more realistic goal of the Hyper-X program was to build and validate an air-breathing hypersonic aircraft at over Mach 8, several times in excess of the world's fastest air-breathing aircraft, the SR-71, which can cruise at slightly above Mach 3.
        Powering the aircraft, a huge double-intake scramjet hangs under the belly. Basically, there are three types of aircraft engines: conventional, where a turbofan-compressor mechanism (fan blades) compresses air into a burner section; ramjet engines, operated by subsonic combustion of fuel in a stream of air compressed by the forward speed of the aircraft itself ; and scramjets (supersonic-combustion ramjets), essentially ramjet engines in which the airflow through the whole engine remains supersonic. Scramjet technology is challenging because only limited testing can be performed in ground facilities. The scramjet, fueled with hydrogen, burns oxygen scooped from the atmosphere.
        The Hyper-X plane became plainly visible, arrowing towards them at incredible speed. The sleek shape resembling a stingray sliced through the air, air brakes on full, reducing its forward velocity to its 160 knots landing speed. As it slowed from supersonic, a sonic boom rocked the ground below. It came in beautifully and executed a perfect landing, parachute billowing out behind.
        The Hyper-X plane taxied to a stop several hundred feet away, surprising Keller at how quiet it was. He had expected a thunderous noise, but the scramjet engines had been specifically designed to reduce noise levels to a minimum.
        The head of the project, a Dr. something (Keller forgot the name) smiled and spoke to both Hammet and Keller.
        "Well, there you are! New York to Paris in under one hour. How’d you like that?" he asked rhetorically. Several trucks converged on the plane.
        Hammet turned to Keller. His single blue eye twinkled. "Seems like we’re gonna dump you in the bugs lap that much faster!"

         Task Force 60 - October 17th.

        Captain Al Garcia pulled on the Sikorsky SH-60F Seahawk’s collective and sent the helo into the evening sky. Beneath him the USS Hawes, acting as the group’s point ASW platform, glided through the calm Mediterranean seas at fifteen knots.
        Steadying the helo at five hundred feet he accelerated in an easterly course, setting off to meet the patrolling PC3 Orion aircraft laying sonobuoys for the group. Ten minutes later, he visually spotted the Orion.
        "Hummingbird to Gull One, over," called Garcia.
        "Go Hummingbird."
        "In position." He checked that the data link was working correctly between himself, the circling aircraft and the frigate 20 miles behind them.
        "Roger, Hummingbird. We’ll lay down one last grid and then we’re returning for fuel."
        Garcia acknowledged and called the sensor operator sitting in the rear of the helo..
        "Mike, start listening. We’re in position."
        Behind them, inside CIC in Roosvelt, Captain Owens monitored the conversation. The southernmost edge of the grid he was patrolling left him dangerously close to the Libyan coast. A lone helicopter out there could be too big a temptation for some lunatic. The CAG and Air Warfare Officer were keeping a close eye on the maneuvers. Add that to the fact that the aliens had vessels that could transition from under water to air flight, spelled problems in his book. To the south, between Roosvelt and Libya, guided missile cruiser USS Leyte Gulf kept station guarding against possible attacks. Time passed slowly as they sailed east.
        Aboard the Seahawk, the sensor operator clasped his headset against his ears and leaned over.
        "Cap’n. Picked up a weak signal on number seven sonobuoy," he said excitedly.
        Garcia radioed back to the frigate.
        "Hummingbird for Nest, over."
        "Loud and clear, Hummingbird."
        "Uh, we’re picking a weak contact on number seven. Moving to investigate."
        "Roger and concur, Hummingbird. Numbers six and eight are silent."
        "Roger, out." Garcia heeled the helo over on a southern course for five miles and then cut the airspeed until the Seahawk was barely moving. Below him the sea was calm, allowing for optimal sonar conditions. Good.
        "Mike?" asked Garcia.
        "I don’t know, boss. Real weak - wait, six is now weak to medium strength."
        "Okay. Let’s move towards six," he said turning the throttle. Further south.

        The two MiG-21s took off from Al Bumbah base in Libya, engines screaming in the hot desert climate. Climbing to two thousand feet they crossed the beach and headed for the SeaHawk. Aboard an E-2 AEW (Airborne Early Warning) providing air warning, a radar operator flipped his mike on.
        "Mike Tango, this is Owl One, over."
        "Go ahead," came the reply from the Roosvelt.
        "Be advised. Two bogies on incoming vector towards Hummingbird. Speed three hundred knots, bearing two-one-zero. Range is one-one-zero miles."
        "Roger, Owl. Out."
        The Air Warfare Officer of the aircraft carrier instructed a radio operator to call the CAP - Combat Air Patrol - Tomcats and vector them towards an intercept. Then he ordered the launch of the plus-fives, the two Tomcats sitting on deck.
        At fifteen thousand feet, a pair F-14A Tomcats from VF84 Jolly Rogers squadron rolled their wings and dropped to the sea.

        "Nest, Hummingbird," called the Garcia. "We’re dropping the sonar." The tactical officer sitting next to Garcia flipped a switch and lowered the Allied Signal AN/AQS 13F dipping sonar. Instantly, the sensor operator received a signal.
        "Real faint, sir. Maybe something, but I can’t tell."
        "Okay," said Garcia. "Hit the active sonar." The tactical officer thumbed a switch, sending pulsing waves of sound energy into the water.
        "Contact! Positive contact," yelled the sensor op. "Contact is right below us. Range is three hundred yards, depth four hundred, bearing one-eight-eight." Garcia wondered briefly how the hell had the contact remained only a ‘weak signal’ at that distance. "Contact is accelerating. No blade count, sir. Wait - changing to Doppler." The operator referred to the Teledyne Ryan AN/APN 217 radar-coupled sonar. "Uh, that’s thirty knots and climbing." Garcia called the frigate. "Nest, this is Hummingbird. Positive contact. Request weapons free."
        "Hummingbird. Whiskey Foxtrot, I repeat Whiskey Foxtrot," said the ASW officer on board USS Hawes.
        "Okay. Arm torpedo and launch when ready."
        "Torpedo armed. Set for standard attack." The tactical officer hit a switch, releasing the Mark 46 from the right station. "Launch!" he said.
        "Torpedo in water," said the sensor operator behind them. "Torp has acquired the target. Doppler count on target is - shit, fifty knots." Garcia did a quick calculation. The Mark 46 torps had been re-engineered six months earlier, extending their max speed to sixty knots. Even so, at that speed, no way was the Mark 46 going to catch the USO. He had to corner the bastard.
        "Up dome!" he yelled. He pulled on the yoke and sped south half a mile. He stopped the helo and lowered the sonar again.
        "He’s right there, sir. Coming straight towards us, bearing three-five-five, course steady on one-eight-eight. Speed steady at fifty knots."
        "Okay, guys," said the pilot. "We drop on his ass. Steady, now."
        "Range is five hundred." Garcia waited until the range crept below one hundred yards and dropped the torp.
        "Torpedo in water," called the sensor operator again. "Acquired target. First torp is still tracking, sir." And then what they had hoped would never happen, happened.

        Aboard the USS Hawes the ASW officer blanched.
        "Target is rising quickly," he said urgently. "Possibly surfacing!"
        The XO grabbed a mike and called Roosvelt.
        "Mike Tango, this is Hotel Lima, over."
        "Go," came the short reply.
        "Possible attack on Hummingbird. Request air cover."
        "Roger. On the way!"

        The CAG aboard the Roosvelt ordered the Tomcats rocketing towards the Libyan MiGs to turn on full afterburn towards Hummingbird and then directed the recently launched plus-fives towards the bogies. Damn, the caca was hitting the fan all at the same time.

        "Holy shit, he’s coming up," yelled the sensor operator. "Torps are on target. Target steady on fifty knots now at depth of two hundred feet - climbing quickly. Doppler reads zero change!"
        That could only signify that the USO was in a near vertical ascension.
        "Keep it coming, Mike. Get ready to raise sonar. Ready chaff and flares!" warned Garcia.
        "Target now one hundred. Torps are going to miss if he breaches, sir. Target now fifty, twenty, oh, man, here he comes!"
        "Raise dome!" screamed Garcia. In front of them, a huge sleek brown shape erupted out of the sea. Water fountained around it, hundreds of feet in the air. The USO, now UFO, hung still for a brief moment and then dropped back into the water with a thundering crash. Both torpedoes exploded below it as the water turbulence activated their explosive charges. The UFO fired its impulse drives and climbed sluggishly into the sky, shedding tons of water from its sides.
        "Nest, this is Hummingbird. Target is airborne, repeat, airborne. We’re on mayday evac!"
        "Affirmative, Hummingbird. Tomcats are incoming," advised Roosvelt.

        The two Tomcats blasted back towards the racing helo at close to six hundred and fifty knots, their twin General Electric F110-GE-400 turbofans providing them with an afterburning thrust of 27,000 pounds. Seated behind the pilot the RIO - Radar Intercept Officer - activated the Hughes AN/AWG-9 long range search radar, instantly picking up the target thirty miles away.
        "Bogie contact," called the first Tomcat.
        The pilot selected an AIM-7M Sparrow and waited a few seconds for the range to decrease below twenty eight miles. He then mashed the trigger once, twice. The twelve foot long, five hundred pound missiles left the bottom rail of the wing glove pylons of the Tomcat and crossed the sound barrier on their way to the UFO. His wingman imitated his movements.

        The UFO dropped to one hundred feet and engaged the drives at maximum, non-emergency power. Basically a light transport, it was not configured for attack roles and was outfitted with bare bones defense measures. In any case, it still carried a pair of double plasma coils. It reality, it sported quiet a lot of firepower.

        The ground controller in Al Bumbah base didn’t understand why the Americans had turned and left so quickly. They should be converging on the MiGs, not running away. Hesitant, he ordered the fighters onwards.

        The four Sparrows converged quickly on the UFO, gobbling the distance in seconds. At three miles, the plasma guns on the UFO opened up on the incoming missiles. The defense system managed to destroy one of them but missed the other three. Counter measures came on, creating a powerful ion field behind the fleeing craft. A second missile was fooled and angled towards the ghost contact, flying harmlessly into the sea. Full power to shields. In normal conditions, the UFO could have tried to evade the missiles but the radical evasive maneuver avoiding the terran torpedoes and the subsequent crash into the water had left the Sectoid pilot disoriented. The remaining two slammed into the UFO, their 85 pound (39 kilogram) high-explosive blast fragmentation warhead wiping out the shields.
         The pair of Tomcats blasted over the UFO, breaking right violently, angling away from the battle group. Both pilots pulled the nose of their aircraft up in order to bleed airspeed and set up a second run on the UFO.

        The Sectoid commander inside the UFO cursed his luck. He had been running a routine supply assignment to the Central Base when he had stumbled on the terran convoy. Shields down and power pushing the middle of the spectrum, he needed to leave the area quickly. Two terran vehicles had just crossed above him, moving quickly away from his arc of fire and four more were in front, between him and land. Putting distance between himself and the terran convoy became his main priority. He selected his targets and ordered the system to fire. Above the UFO, dual cannons pulsed twice. Not that he expected four kills. Being a cargo transport, the vessel was equipped with low-power self defense cannons. Additionally, the ion blasts had a tendency to degrade rapidly in the high ozone sea-level conditions.
        The first ion shot hit Tomcat 102 in the main left engine. At a distance of twenty miles the ion blast had lost most of its power but still managed to destabilize the plane, pushing it into a uncontrolled spin. The pilot ejected after trying unsuccessfully to recover the craft. The second shot punched Tomcat 105 in the tail section, damaging the rudder and hydraulic system. The third shot caught the Libyan Fishbed in the canopy, leaving the pilot blind and stunned, crashing into the sea a mile below. The fourth shot simply missed.
        "Jesus," screamed the Tomcat pilot. "I’m hit. 102 is down. Repeat, down! I see parachutes." He pulled on the stick leveling the aircraft and checked the position of the Libyan MiGs. Where as before they were no match for the American Interceptors, they now constituted a serious menace. The Hydraulic Alarm came on, a shrill sound informing the pilot that he was losing fluid.
        "One bogie is down. The other is on vector to us," said the RIO urgently. "Range, seven miles."
        "Mike Tango, I can’t respond to the attack. Need cover, now!"
        "Roger. Vectoring assistance," informed Roosvelt’s CAG.
        Miles away, a Tomcat peeled away from the UFO’s pursuit and rocketed towards the MiG on afterburn.

        The Libyan pilot didn’t fully understand what was happening. Someone had destroyed the first American fighter and the second one was running away, no doubt crippled. Under normal conditions he would have broken off contact already, turning back towards his base. His aging MiG-21 was no match for the Americans. But today was different. His wingman had been killed and he had an easy shot. Shooting down an American fighter would undoubtedly bring him glory in Allah’s paradise. Better yet, in Tripoli. He selected a AA-2 Atoll missile.

        The Tomcat’s threat receiver flashed on as the Atoll left the Fishbed’s pylon. "Warning," yelled the backseater. "IR missile on our tail, man." He twisted his head, trying to catch a glimpse of the missile’s smoke trail. The pilot activate the aircraft’s countermeasures, dropping aluminum chaff and firing off flares. He sent the stricken F-14 into as tight a turn as he dared and dropped towards the sea.
        "There, right there. Seven o’clock." The RIO spotted the missile. Rolling the Tomcat in a tighter turn, the pilot craned his neck and caught sight of the incoming arrow. He dropped more flares. The missile locked into a flare and sped behind them into the sea. Missed!
        "Bogie! He’s right over there. Six and high!" yelled the RIO again. "Rolling towards us."
        The pilot started to sweat, heart pumping like a locomotive. Evading the missile in a crippled plane had left him in an inferior position. Low on speed and height. At his range, the Fishbed would be counting on his twin-barrel Gsh 23 mm gun. Shit.
        "Hang in there, pal. On my way," the radio cackled. All right! The 7th Cavalry had arrived.
        Two thousand feet above them, the third Tomcat blasted in from a sun up position, it’s General Electrics M61A-1 Vulcan 20mm gun blazing (a missile shot with friendlies in the area was out of the question). The AWG9 weapons control system directed the hail of rounds towards the Fishbed, exploding it in a thundering fireball.
        "All clear."
        "Owe you one, man," smiled the stricken Tomcat’s pilot.

        Fifty miles away, the last Tomcat was losing ground to the UFO. The F-14’s maximum speed at low level flight was Mach 1.2 or just under eight hundred knots. The UFO must have been moving at slightly over one thousand knots. The pilot armed a Phoenix missile. Well, he thought, if there was any time to shot off a million-dollar weapon this was it. He pressed the trigger.
        The thirteen foot long, nine hundred pound AIM-54 Phoenix reached its top speed Mach 3.8 quickly, propelled by a single-stage Rocketdyne MK47 solid-fuel rocket motor. In the initial phase of the flight, the Tomcat’s AWG-9 radar directed it towards the target but at 14 miles from the target, the Phoenix's own radar took over for the final run, operating in fully-active radar homing mode. The missile slammed into the UFO, the 132 pound high-explosive warhead detonating against the top section. The shields, still operating at very low power, were unable to deflect the weapon. The UFO’s main impulse drive gas lines exploded violently.
        "Mike Tango, missile hit on bogie, over," informed the pilot.
        "Roger and concur. Please confirm through visual. We’re dispatching a helo, over." Obviously, before Roosvelt sent another helo in, they needed to positively know that the UFO was dead. "Roger," the pilot said and angled his aircraft towards the UFO’s last known position.

        Twelve hundred miles to the south, two medium transport vessels and a single fighter escort blasted into the African mainland from the Gulf of Guinea. They crossed into the desert east of Lagos at tree top level and headed north. A young shepherd tending to his sheep threw himself flat on his face as the air convoy roared over him, scattering his flock.
        The Kraal commander hunched his huge black frame in the forward chair. His powerful, scale covered arms directed the vessel towards it’s destination. Each transport contained twelve combat Sectoids, a Tank and two Chrysalids. He hated the Chrysalids - their black, slimy bodies hunched permanently forward. Worst of all, the way they attacked their prey was disgusting. But as terror soldiers, he conceded, they were hard to outdo.
        No excuses, this time. The mission was to be a success. Or they were not to return.

If you feel like contacting me with criticism (constructive, I hope) please do so at fsch@elpais.es