(Previous entry — First entry)

Monday, March 1
Morning

Good feedback again from the funding consortium. No raise from Spain this time out, though. Apparently we didn’t fly over enough.

Lab geeks finished their alloy research. Judging by all the smiles, this is some exciting stuff. And apparently we can make it ourselves, if we need to.

My interests are more practical, and they’ve learned that by now: they’re pitching a new armor design for the troops. Couldn’t have happened sooner. We need something to keep my guys alive.

I’m stationing some new men at Bram, and transferring some of our overstock of laser rifles there to arm them. After the fly-by scare earlier in the month, I’d like to have someone keeping an eye on the facility, even if it’s just a skeleton so far.

I’m also bulking up the science team some. We’ve got too much to research to do and not enough brains to throw at it.

—

Sunday, March 7
Evening

Personal Armor research complete. It’s an improvement. We’ll start manufacturing immediately.

Throwing the labcoats at a medi-kit project they’d proposed back at the start of the year, despite their protests — they’re as curious about all this alien gear as I am, but they aren’t in charge of keeping people alive, and I need everything I can get to help out on the field.

—

Monday, March 8
Morning

Engineers say it’ll take a little over three weeks to fab out a full complement of armor for the active squad. I may need more bodies here as well.

Not cheap, either. And we’ll be using up most of the alien alloy we’ve scavenged so far; worst case, we’ll start making it ourselves.

—

Sunday, March 14
2:32

Craft in the air, southwest-bound, currently over Halifax. Scrambling Interceptor. Holding transport until we can get a resolution; maybe the engineers can finish up the current personal armor suit on the fab table.

3:24

Lost it over Colorado. Patrolling.

14:11

No joy. Returning to base. Where are these things going?

—

Evening

That field-med research is looking good. Prototype medikit may be a godsend, especially if this new armor can keep my guys alive under hostile fire long enough to use ‘em.

Changing research tacks, under the counsel of one V. Lombardi. We’ve recovered a lot of what are apparently plasma weapons from combat sites. Things certainly seem to pack a punch, I want to know how they work.

—

Friday, March 19
0:11

Craft spotted on the ground in Iceland, near…well, it’s Iceland. Near not a whole hell of a lot. About 80 miles northeast of Reykjavik.

Scrambling an Interceptor to try and hold it in position while the transport heads out.

We’ve got eight suits of armor good to go. Command staff and some of our proven squaddies dressed to the nines. Hope this helps.

New recruits Sparrow, Porcupine, and Lemming on active duty.

—

0:59

Craft lifted off a few minutes ago, headed east. Just lost tracking.

—

3:56

Picked it up again, on patrol over Europe.

—

4:21

Alien craft down, western Russia. Not without a fight, though, Interceptor took some serious hits. Good thing we have a spare, that one will probably be grounded for a bit.

Pilot visually confirms what radar guys suspected — this is bigger than anything we’ve seen so far. Let’s go have a look.

—

7:12

Ground engagement, near Lychkovo. Sun is up, at least. Combat log excerpts follow.

—

Lemming notches a purple robed bastard.

Sgt. Ox trades fire with another one, who takes a hit but keeps moving.

Scratch that — keeps floating. Floating? Good god. That’s not good news. Porpoise catches the floater behind a nearby structure, puts more three more laser blasts into him before he goes down.

Craft sighted SE of touchdown point. Big goddam thing, three stories tall. What kind of crew complement are we dealing with? We saw six floaters in one tiny can, this thing is twenty times the size.

Lemming notches another floater. Sgt. Eagles takes one as well.

…

Sweeping toward the alien craft in a line. Hydraulics noises, but no visual contact.

Goat ices a floater on the roof of a building west of alien craft. We’re definitely learning to look up.

…

Two hostiles sighted, one in south buildings, the other near the south face of the ship. Still no eyes on ship entrance, likely near that point.

Goat takes out some walls and spots that south floater, plus a buddy. Takes one down. Hamster gets the other.

Cpt. Tiger and Sgt. Eagle put fire on that ship-side floater, Tiger gets the take-down. Lemming tosses a grenade toward the suspected ship entrance, just in case.

…

Fire from the south. Another of those floater bastards. They must be having a convention in that barn. Hamster takes a round to the chest, but he’s fine. I like this armor.

Hamster gets the take. We razed most of the building that floater was hiding in in the process.

Two entrances on this ship, facing south and eest. Organizing teams at both.

…

Some sort of explosion inside the ship. Please tell me these things don’t self-destruct.

…

Marmot breaching south door. Inside is a wreck. Contact on one floater. Marmot gets the kill, backs out.

Porpoise breaches east door. No new contact, but she gets a good view of a mutilated cow. Interesting. Bull and Wolvie follow, Bull takes down a floater in a nook near the center of the first level of the ship.

No stairs in sight, but there are what appear to be elevators of some sort at a couple places. Time to earn that hazard pay, troops.

…

Hearing sounds of distress from upper levels of the ship. Do aliens lose their shit?

…

Marmot volunteers to test the elevators. Doesn’t explode. Lifts move pretty slow, that’s a vulnerability.

Second floor opens into small room with three exits. Hard to get bodies through to cover all that quickly.

…

Marmot cuts down a floater who walked in the door and decided to walk right back out again. Have to give him credit for trying, I guess.

Two elevators on the main floor are in adjoining rooms; only second-level exit from the easternmost elevator is into the main elevator area. Odd layout. From there, two exits to the same corridor. This is a bit of a bottleneck. Embarrassing for the alien architects; uncomfortable for my team, against a holed-up enemy.

We haven’t seen the third level of this thing yet, either. Must be more elevators around.

…

Found another elevator, NW corner of ship. Marmot (who deserves a goddam medal) breaches third floor — one door on elevator chamber, which opens on a what looks like a large pilot chamber, based on our best guesses about the previous ships.

Contact. Two shots, clean kill for Marmot.

That’s the last of them.

—

Debrief:

Excellent op. 13 kills, no losses.

Recovered some new alien tech as well: what might be xenomorph food stores, and some home cow-dissection kits.

(On to entry #9…)