The Hunt for an Outsider

Catching one of these things had become a priority in order to find out the next piece to the puzzle of where these aliens are coming from. Germany was on the spotlight once again for a downed UFO and a team of five seasoned veterans and rookie Megawatt made a quick clearance of the German woods from any wandering visitors. Fortunately the UFO was loaded with lesser species that the team had learnt to dispatch efficiently and without much problems. Luring the outsider into a gunfight with Proxy and Ironside opened up the perfect slot for Megawatt to rush in and hopefully bag this missing piece for the abacus-wielders back in the base. Megawatt stepped up at the back and clicked on the unholy alliance of a calculator and a common taser.

The outsider trembled and shook violently and then collapsed back to its crystal form.

[TACTICAL COMMS TRANSCRIPTION]

Megawatt: I...uh, did something to it. It does not certainly move.

Ironside: It's not like they ev--

Proxy: Just keep aiming at it and be ready to give it another shot if it wakes immediately up.

Megawatt: It does not look like that--

Ironside: Well I was saying that they do som--

Proxy: Come ON Ironside, even though I don't like missions in Germany, it does not mean that you have to paint demons on the wall.

Harmony Lad: I heard THAT!

Proxy: All right, bag him and if he moves...well, that's gotta be another story.

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

Back at the base this crystal was put under the microscope immediately and research went to hard work. It indeed brought results fairly quickly and analyzing what the outsider-crystal was communicating with left the mission control room silent and devastated.

These things were inhabiting Earth. Deep in the middle of Siberian wilderness in Russia, the aliens had barbeque party at their backyard and it was instantly very obvious, how they can pinpoint their shopping and other activities so well. The crystal acted as some kind of an access method for the alien base and a skeleton key was needed to build to go see if it opens doors. Before that, more and more satellites was needed on the sky to keep the supporting countries in the game in the middle of all the alien ball and also men and women needed better equipment. With laser-based weapons, sure, things were better off than with conventional firearms, but the missions were too often balancing on the ledge. This would be some supermaster-level resource juggling contest from now on.

Megawatt did another very good job in Cologne. This time it was not about raiding warehouses or checking UFOs our Interceptors had shot down. This time it was about saving some Council's puppet from the thin men and whereas Megawatt was already solid with how this squad works and guided Thomas Hutch to safety, she was more than once just a second away from putting a laser beam right through the arrogant VIP. XCOM soldiers combined had not whined about the "food" they get served at XCOM Central as much as this brightest star on the sky was complaining about his almost-impending demise. Plasma was flying around from the weapons of the agile thin men and he kept on going about things taking too long and his three-piece getting dusty.

Monthly report proved slightly problematic; whereas XCOM was still doing a decent job, half of Europe was on the brink of panic and so were some other countries from Americas and Africa. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.