Cattle, People, Anything Seems to Go

Argentina reported of an unusually large UFO landing on their soil. Reports recalled that soon after the phenomenon was detected, people and animals started disappearing. Silently, but all the same. XCOM sent their best to observe, Megawatt had recovered from her wounds and was replacing the gravely wounded El Fenrir.

Skyranger dropped the squad onto a plateau on which the giant rectangular alien ship was looming in the distance. Harmony Lad found himself a position shoot and the squad spread out. Sureshot found the muton patrol first, but again, the fight was terribly one sided. Squad was well-spread and the big aliens found themselves in a fatal crossfire. The last remaining one tried to flee back towards their safety, but Harmony Lad ended its life by planting a laser beam through the back of its head. After the patrol, everything was silent. Much too silent; Sureshot thought. The aliens must have been waiting for them already.

Entering a large ship like this when it had just landed on its own, with its crew ready to unleash hell, was nervewracking. The squad made short spurts at a time and took cover behind containers, that seemed to have abducted humans in them.

[TACTICAL COMMS TRANSCRIPT]

Megawatt: Oh my God, what are these doing to humans? Their eyes look oblivious, but somehow...not dead.

Sureshot: They could be capturing us for food. Or for poking and probing around, like we tend to do to them.

Ironside: Ahem, becoming sentimental now? Hang on, I call Proxy.

Sureshot: Go ahead an call Mad Marl as well, you almost killed Proxy yourself a few months go.

Harmony Lad: Guys! Focus. I seek a camp on the perimeter, just outside the platform behind these first containers. Hipster, take right ramp. Megawatt, take left ramp.

[TRANSCRIPT ENDS]

Sureshot and Broden advanced to the rightmost huge door, past the center corridor. Nothing came crashing down from there. Broden nodded and Sureshot opened the huge loading bay door on the front platform. It housed two mutons and another of those big, unarmed mutons that had got the nickname "berserker", for very obvious reasons. Hipster hit one muton with a heavy laser blast, that was art in itself. The muton staggered for a moment, after which it timbered down. Another was caught by Sureshot's laser beam, but it did not fall. Ironside waited until it roared through the doorway and cut it down with his scatter laser. Broden stood still and waited what the berserker was about to do.

It did exactly as the squad had hoped: it ran to doorway, into a relenting crossfire. Barely standing, but still formidable as ever. Broden panicked and buried his head into his knees, but Sureshot stood up, in decision to try to stun it. There was momentary cheering, unless Sureshot and Ironside glanced at each other and then the other loading bay door on the left. Quickly taking position, Ironside opened the door. There was a group of thin men, but Harmony Lad made short work of them all from his perfect post.

Hipster climbed the right ramp and advanced slowly. He could see through both bays that were now filled with corpses and poisonous gas to the other side where Megawatt was making similar progress. He continued along the corridor, and caught something in the corner of his eye: a group of mutons and thin men emerged from the center corridor and spread out to the left cargo bay and to the left corridor. All of a sudden Megawatt was swarmed with enemies out of nowhere and got badly shot several times. Hipster could not tell how many of those hit, but he felt nauseous.

Harmony Lad had a perfect bead from his position to the mutons that were emerging through the center corridor and the left bay. He nailed one of those, and Broden nailed another. Third was hiding somewhere around the corners. Sureshot rushed to the top to help Megawatt and two of the thin men died, leaving only a thin man and a muton. The muton ran directly into the firing line of Ironside and fell right there. The last thin man decided to retreat, but Broden terminated those plans prematurely.

The battle had ended and the squad continued to comb through the corridors of the gigantic ship. They came across to a small hall, that had more of those abduction containers laying around. In front was what seemed to be the bridge, and by now, the team already knew that the bridge was always housing an outsider. Manning all the doors and opening the main hatch revealed two, neither of which did not have time to react. The abduction ship had been secured and also one berserker had been stunned for bringing back for further examination.