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The next few days were busy, and since I don't need the decisions yet, I'll keep things moving:
April 6, 0125 -- Excavation finished. Work begins on the final section of sublevel 2.
April 6, 1749 -- Small scout detected. 'Mangler' Neale goes up and gets in two shots, the second one leaving it barely operational, but can't finish the job. 'Boss' Bordoni gets his first kill with the first missile, and the UFO splits into pieces. Once again a 10m bounty is awarded by the council.
April 7, 1219 -- Thermal generator is finished. Engineering reports that only half(27 of 55 GW) of our power capability is now being used. It's time to make some decisions about expanding the base.
A workshop is begun(12m) which will take three weeks. The additional resources will improve the efficiency of the engineering teams, allowing them to build equipment, satellites, etc. with a minimal use of vital resources. Another 20 million goes to a new satellite uplink, which will upgrade our potential maximum deployed birds from just one to three. This lowers our air war budget at the moment to just 550k, but once more resources are available, more satellites will be constructed to take advantage of this. The uplink will also require three weeks' time to build.
The general fund has more to spare, but further constructions will wait until we have word from Dr. Vahlen on her latest project regarding alien capture, word which is expected soon.
April 8, 0319 -- A low-flying unidentified UFO has been spotted. It's bigger than the scouts we are now familiar with, but not as big as the huge ship we saw a year ago. We have five available fighters, so this seems to be an appropriate time to send up our experienced pilots in the stingrays and see if we can take this thing down.
'Notso' Sharpe is up first and takes severe damage, forced to break off early. He got in a couple of hits but it appears the ship, of the same saucer-type of shape as the smaller scouts we've seen, is still fully operational. Perhaps it's just a beefed-up version of the same design?
'Blinker' Kamala is up next, the second fighter that has the stingrays. The first shot strikes true, and the UFO is badly damaged. He can't finish the job though.
We can't afford to use all our fighters on this one ship, but Lt. 'Chainsaw' Katz is ready and equipped with avalanches. Given the damage to the UFO, we hope he can finish the job. He takes heavy damage as well but the second shot downs the craft at 0440, almost an hour and a half after initial contact.
This is the first UFO of significant size we have taken down, but we paid a price for it. Four fighters, including three of the four pilots who have at least one kill to their name, are damaged. They will not be flight ready for two weeks, a couple of them a few days longer than that. That leaves us with two operational, both of which are now being equipped with stingrays should the worst happen. We don't have a reserve now to justify going after any scouts that might appear, as that pair of fighters will need to be held for use for any more important targets.
Securing the crash site is a priority mission for XCOM. We must make sure the cost was worth it. Both in terms of potential resources and learning more about this new class of enemy craft, not to mention what other potential discoveries might be made, it's time once again to send our best.
Strike Team
LCPL Rebecca Burke(USA, Scout)
LCPL Lily Brodie(SCO, Medic)
SPEC Brooke Carter(USA, Infantry)
SPEC Su-Min Kim(KOR, Assault)
SPEC Yolanda Pena(ESP, Engineer)
SPEC Sophie Deschamps(FRA, Rocketeer)
This time, FOFC strikes out in getting anyone on the alpha squad. Gonna need to step it up a notch, people.
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