January 29, 1999, 8:58:50 - A Hot Knife Through A Sectoid Skull

At the morning briefing, Commander LUEshi met the squad, including the four newest recruits, with a wide grin on his face. "I have something very special for you men today. Your XM-1044s and DD-44s have been officially retired."

A slight murmur passed through the assembly as Commander LUEshi withdrew a rather strange looking pistol from a holster.

"Gentlemen, R&D presented me with this little beauty today. It's been dubbed the Phoenix. The world's first weapon-grade laser technology." At this, the murmur became more pronounced, and several hands shot into the air. Commander LUEshi waved them down, continuing: "These puppies can fire focus beams in either of the standard assault fire modes, single fire or three-shot burst, with a nearly unlimited range, and slightly greater accuracy than a standard rifle. Plus, you don't have to account for drop at longer ranges, and windage is no longer an issue. Not to mention, the tech boys were playing around with this on some of the old sectoid corpses in the morgue, and this thing will slice through a sectoid skull like a hot knife through butter. It should be quite an improvement over the weapons you've been working with. Additionally, so that you don't have to worry about carrying batteries or running out of juice in the middle of a firefight, R&D outfitted them with biomechanical generators. That means unlimited ammunition, no clips, no hassles with guns jamming or running empty, a whole world of improvements over conventional weaponry. They're working on a rifle-model, but it'll be your personal choice as to which weapon you carry. Preliminary tests indicate that there won't be much difference in killing power."

An alarm blared through the base. "Well, looks like you'll get to test them in the field soon enough. Report to Hangar Alpha. The ordinance team has one of these for each of you. Hand in your DD-44s there. Lieutenant Jinjo will brief you at the hangar bay."

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At Hangar Bay Alpha, Lt. Jinjo was beside himself with glee. "Simple mission, guys. Interceptor 2 just shot down a bogey about 350 miles northeast of us. It went down hard, so resistance should be light. And feel free to test out those new weapons. They should make trailblazing a snap!"

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Skyranger 1 settled down next to a cabbage field, and the team fanned out around the farm. Things seemed a little too quiet...had it not been for the wreckage strewn all over the place, it might have seemed nothing was amiss. Grammar Police01 was the first to test-fire his new laser pistol, taking aim at a fence blocking his path and vaporizing a section of it with a single blast, howling with glee over the sheer destructive power of the new weapon. His old assault rifle would have never cut through it so cleanly. Polaris, similarly obstructed by a hedge, simply sheared two vertical lines through the vegetation and pushed a section of it away, making his own personal doorway. Yes, these new weapons were appreciated quite quickly, as everyone in the team took their turn to test-fire the new devices, all to similar result.

They fanned out across the area, Polaris, Child of Asuka, and The Haunted on a wide sweep of the buildings, and the bulk of the force assaulting the craft. Prime led the assault into the ship, spotting a single wounded sectoid across the main chamber. In his excitement, he aimed a little too high, his laser blasts scoring deep lines in the alloy substance of the craft's hull, and drawing a surprised yelp from his intended victim. Grammar Police followed shortly behind, his own laser blasts slicing neatly through the thing's skull and dropping it dead to the ground. "I'll be damned. Like a hot knife through butter, just like the Commander said..." The rest of the search proved uneventful for the assault team, as the rest of the aliens in the craft all proved universally dead.

Polaris, Child of Asuka, and The Haunted agreed to split up, each checking their own building. Polaris discovered a stairway ascending to the roof, and went up to find a better vantage. Apparently, one of the Sectoids had similar ideas...the ghastly thing was perched on the edge of the roof, levelling a heavy plasma cannon towards the entrance hatch of the downed craft. It didn't even have time to scream as a searing bolt of coherent light blasted into the base of it's skull, dropping it into eternal darkness.

A systematic sweep of the area showed no further alien threats. "Mission accomplished. We're coming home", said primetime8880, as the squad boarded the craft and soared safely home to Europa Base.

SUCCESS
Aliens Killed - 2
Corpses Recovered - 3

Total Kills (all missions):
The Haunted - 1
The Grammar Police01 - 4
Crazy Howard Dean - 1
primetime8880 - 4
ConkerTheHedgehog - 2
Polaris - 2

Promotion: ConkerTheHedgehog promoted to Sergeant.




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