Buenos Aires: 8.7 Million Dead

Proxy's death and constant injuries brought Hipster back to action, and also new recruits were needed. Talia "El Fenrir" Poulos-Åström, a feisty heavy weapon specialist filled the gap and cut her teeth in an UFO landing in USA and abduction incident in Mexico City. Not long after, Argentina needed help. Buenos Aires was on fire and alien terror troops rampant on the streets. First encounter was within a small warehouse with a group of mutons. The same species had taken Proxy, but that was not the case today. Mutons were dispatched quickly, and then came the chryssalids. Those terrible arachnid-like enemies swarmed in circles around the squad, but none of them could get closer than ten meters. Back in the back alley, more mutons emerged along with floaters, but the mutons ran all too close to Svensson and Ironside to stand any chance. The floaters were ripped apart by Sureshot and Harmony Lad. It looked like the squad was back with vengeance and the alien resistance seemed to abate, but then something else happened.

A silvery floating disc roamed around the corner, accompanied by humming and whirring noise. Harmony Lad was in perfect position to take a bead on the thing, which nobody really wanted to figure out what it's capable of doing. The disc advanced a bit further - into a devastating crossfire. Laser beams cut it like a knife and finally it spiraled down to the ground and exploded on a great fireworks, splattering shrapnel around. Nobody in the team took a single hit during the whole terror mission, as if they were protected by force field. Post-mission briefing produced three colonels at once: long-time veterans Sureshot, Ironside and Harmony Lad were all promoted into the highest rank attainable. There was no shortage of spirits in the canteen.

Then came the Council news: Egypt and Australia had withdrawn their funding and resigned from the project. Either they had been disappointed by our efforts, or taken over by aliens. Whichever was the case, the clock was ticking even faster now. To top this, Japan, France and India were already in a state of panic.