EQUESTRIAN ATTACK HALTED BY THE COMBINED EFFORTS OF GERMAN ARMY AND GSG9 FORCES, GOVERNMENT PRAISED FOR THE FAST RESPONCE TIME;

A BODY OF EQUESTRIAN SOLDIER BURNED AT STAKE IN VIENNA TO A MIXED RESPONCE, AUSTRIAN OFFICIALS DENY THE INVOLVEMENT OF GOVERNMENT FORCES

15:30, 14/07/2050 BRIEFING ROOM

The entire room was filled with the buzz of an agitated conversation. Commanders of Strike One, Two and Three were discussing the upcoming battle, while the soldiers were eiether making bets, saying their prayers or generally enjoying the calm before the storm. The chatter quickly died down when the door opened and Bradford entered the room. After a round of salutations everybody sat down and concentrated their attention on the Commander.

"At 12:00 our satellites observed an unknown type of UFO entering Earth's atmosphere above Equestria." A satellite image appeared on the whiteboard beside the man, depicting a rectangle UFO. "It was observed hovering over major population centers. However, when the target hovered over Canterlot, two small figures attacked the craft, damaging it, but not enough for it to go down." Another picture appeared, small dots could be seen hovering near the UFO, lines connecting them to the craft. "The vessel escaped, but suffered enough damages to provoke what we believe to be an emergency landing in the Siberian wilderness." A sattelite image of the craft, now amidst a snowy landscape appeared. "Your objective is to secure the landing site, neutralise any opposition, and capture the "Outsider" piloting the craft. Strike One will go from the front, while Strike Two and Three approach from the back." An image of a humanoid alien made of metal appeared. "Preliminary scans show a high concentration of mechanised enemy forces, so prepare accordingly. Any questions?"

"What was the target doing in Equestria?" Sergeant Friendly, the leader of Strike Two asked. "Are they working in tandem now?" Sometimes Bradford regretted the communication blackout put in place on the XCOM base.

"Our current working theory is that the craft was abducting local populace," he explained "In addition, previous encounters showed aliens attacking indiscrimenently, so the chances of their cooperation are slim, to say the least."

"What are the orders on any equestrian targets on the ship?" Tech Sergeant Petrovic asked.

"Hold your fire unless they attack. Attackers are to be subdued or shot on sight. Unicorns are to be considered priority targets." Bradford replied.

When no more questions surfaced, Bradford made his way to central command room, leaving the soldier to suit up for the mission.

"I don't know about you, but i'm not taking any chances out there." Davorka Petrovic commented grimly after making sure Bradford was out of hearing range, which earned her a stern look from Glenn Friendly.

"Petrovic, you will not shoot unarmed civilians under my command, got it?" The woman smirked before replying.

"Aren't they all unarmed, technically?" The response elicited a round of chuckles across the room.

"Just categorise them as unarmed *combatants*, that should get humanitarians off our backs." Friendly replied.

16:30, 14/07/2050 UFO CRASH SITE

"Command, This is Big Sky, Strike One is in position and ready to engage the craft." The ramp dropped and the aformentioned strike team stepped into the snowy crash site. A smell of Pine tree sap entered their noses, and they shivered from the cold wind.

"Command, Big Brother reporting, Strike Two is ready to make some heads roll."

"Central, Beaglerush online, Strike Three is ready to boogie."

"Copy that, skyrangers are to remain on standby to provide close air support."

Skyranger ascended with a loud humming noise, ready to rain hell on hostiles on command. The group moved towards the ship, going from cover to cover to insure their relative safety in case of an ambush. The eerie silence of the place making the sound of cruncing snow ever more louder. No animal life was present at the scene, and the silence did not go unnoticed.

"Big Sky, Specter requesting recon on the outside of the saucer." Feng said, raising her hand to halt her squad.

"Got it Specter, initiating area scan." One of the Skyrangers hovered over the area in a an ellipsoid trajectory before the Ying's radio crackled to life. "No X-Rays spotted on the outside, internal scanning in process..." The squad advanced towards the massive entrance into the craft. The ship itself was easily five stories in height and just as wide, making the front entrance a very dangerous area to go through. The group was about to enter the UFO when an agitated voice stopped them.

"Sonova- Strike teams be advised, the inside of that UFO lights up like a christmas tree, watch your backs out there!"

"Heard you loud and clear Big Sky, be careful boys and girls." Glenn replied over the radio.

The giant room the strike team entered seemed to be a maintenance/cargo area of sorts. In the middle of the room was a flat surface filled to the brim with operating equipment, strange alien pods and, most importantly, unmoving ponies. On both sides of the room were platforms housing one alien power source each, both of them surrounded by alien computers. Rosa approached the bodies, and checked the pulse on one of them.

"Well, would you look at that, we've got a live one." She moved on to check the other bodies. "And another, and another, and another... I almost pity the poor bastards. Almost." She stopped examining the bodies and moved to cover. The rest of the squad followed suit.

"Command, are you getting this?" Came the voice of Iris.

"Affirmative, proceed with the mission." Bradford replied.

Feng was in the back of the formation and was observing surroundings when she noticed an out of place cloud of vapors. It was gone quickly, but it's presence alone made the woman worry. Translucent shapes moved in the dark of the ship, and just as Yin finally understood what was going on, a green bolt of plasma hit the ground mere millimeters away from her.

Rosa Guzman was in the spearhead of the formation, and was prepared to endure the brunt of enemy attack. Her carapace armor, providing the best protection XCOM's R&D could offer, was further reinforced with improved alloy plating, able to withstand a direct hit from muton's rifle. She fully expected the next blast to be aimed at her. What she did not expect, however, was a metallic squid emerging out of thin air, and wrapping its tentacles around her body, crushing it. She tried to take a deep breath, but coughed when the smell of noxious fumes exuded by the thing entered her nostrils. She felt the heat as a number of near misses grazed her armor, and the alien dropped dead. She coughed and sputter before bolting for cover, but her delay caused a few green bolts to connect with her chestplate.

Green shapes sizzled in the air as the group dropped behind the nearest collection of obstacles in an attempt to cut line of sight. The plasma shots were soon joined by a myriad of red lights as the group's two gunners provided suppresing fire, giving Adam and Courtney enough time to get a few lucky shots in. A few squid creatures dropped from the air, but it barely made a dent in the sea of robots floating towards them.

"Bozic, shredder rocket, now!" The lieutenant commanded.

"Firing shredder rocket!" Dubravka exclaimed while pulling the rocket launcher from her back. A rocket flew at high speeds before exploding with a wave of shrapnell sooner than expected, seemingly connecting with thin air and dousing the operating tables with sharp metal. Feng and Mark were able to shoot down about a dozen of flying targets before their worsened. A couple of the creatures managed to sneak into the back and land a lucky shot on the second sniper's back.

"AARGH!" was the noise the sniper made as he fell to the ground. Courtney noticed the enemy and managed to dispose of them with a couple of shots, running out of ammo in the process.

As the squad leader moved to inspect her injured comrade's condition, her cover was obliterated by a torrent of yellow light. "Cyberdisks spotted, stay frosty!" Heijden yelled, retreating into cover to reload.

"Jesus Christ, they just keep coming! We're getting overwhelmed!" Adam exclaimed, firing another shot of coherent light.

"Big Sky, Strike One requires heavy ordinance this instant, multiple Cyberdisks and unknown enemies on our position!" The Liutenant said as Rosa was dodging fire from a group of drones.

"Heard you loud and clear Strike One, get down on my command and prepare for a lightshow."

The hum of skyranger's VTOL engines flooded the room as the aircraft lowered itself near the entrance, the superheavy laser mounted on its nose beginning to spin slowly.

"BRINGIN' THE PAIN!"

The squad dropped to the ground as the air above them heated up in a spectacular lightshow that was the fire exchange between the opposing forces. The onslaught continued for ten more seconds before finally coming to a stop. While the ship's laser was a glowing cherry red color as it stopped spinning, the vessel itself had only minor scratch and burn marks to show for it's effort. The same couldn't be said about the aliens. Metal carcasses littered the battlefield, making the task of traversing the room almost impossible. Cyberdisks chassis remained intact, while the smaller alien machines were torn to shreds, molten metal glowing brightly on the torn edges. The squad got away with minor wounds from the encounter, the same could not be said for the ponies.

"Krščen Matiček!" could be heard from Dubravka as the shocked soldier approached an operating table.

The pony, or the mess of blood and gore that once was a pony, laid there. The woman observed the other tables and to her horror, some of the ponies were still alive, mainly those that were on the edges of a room. Some were missing limbs, some were burned, some had shrapnel imbedded into their bodies, but all were still unconscious.

"We don't have time to dwell on that." The leader of Strike One said, using a medkit to patch up the second sniper. "We have to secure the rest of the ship."

"Y-yeah, let's get going. We can't let Strike Two and Three have all the fun." A somewhat shaken Courtney uttered.

"Can you walk?" Feng asked the sniper. He took a few deep breaths before responding.

"Yeah, i just got my back tanned, no worries."

The group reloaded their weapons, and proceeded through the ship using the antigrav lifts near the power sources. The group approached one of the lifts, uncertain of it's function at first.

"Aight', here goes nothing." Rosa said, jumping into the energy flow. "Woah!" She exclaimed, while being carried upwards by the device. "This thing is better than the carnival rides back home!" She said, her feet firmly on the ground.

The rest of her squad followed her steps, and fell into formation around the main door. The two gunners were on each side of the door, with the snipers behind them. The infantry of the squad was standing in front of the door, ready to open fire on anything that moves. Guzman and Bozic were on each side of the rifleman, ready to fire.

"Opening door in 3, 2, 1!" The door descipated, and the visible part of the UFO was empty.

"Proceed towards the cockpit, but keep your eyes peeled, there might be more of these... seekers out there." Feng instructed, and the group began making their through the centrall hallway.

The large rooms on each side of the hallway were full of alien - looking crates and equipment. They were all empty, and the group passed them in a hurry after making sure they were devoid of enemies. They were about to use the same gravi-lift encountered earlier, when the last cell presented them with something surprising. The last room had a see-through forcefield, one akin to that used on the exterior of UFOs. Behind said forcefied, was a group of alive, if beaten ponies. Their expressions fell when the noticed the approaching humans.

"Command, multiple equine civilian targets sighted, equip the recovery teams accordingly." Lieutenant reported.

"I knew it! I knew you were working with these... things!" A unicorn mare yelled, her horn glowing with power.

"Temper, please, don't do this..." a pegasus mare pleaded, but she fell on deaf ears. The squad aimed their weapons of the unicorn.

"You better listen to that mare, don't make me do something the both of us will regret." Rosa replied grimly.

"Regret? Regret!? Humans don't have regets! You monsters killed my husband!" The unicorn screamed, and shot a beam towards the group. Just when the beam was conjured up, a laser pierced her head, and she dropped like a puppet with it's strings cut.

"We don't have time to deal with your shit." Mark said, putting away his laser pistol.

"Damn, at least give a heads-up next time. Nice shot though." Courtney commented, which earned her a nod from the sniper.

"Hey, Pete, have any comments about the situation? As a UN member, i mean." Iris asked, and heard a snort coming from the second gunner's direction.

"As a part of the UN peacekeeping force, i censure such behavior. As a part of XCOM i believe we should've shot first."

The group ascended the elevator, paying no mind to the now quiet ponies.

"Strike One, where the hell are you?! Strike Three's providing covering fire, but we're pinned down by hostiles!" Glenn yelled over the gunfire.

"Strike Two, we're breaching the room in 20 seconds, hold tight!" The leader of Strike One replied.

The group converged on the door in a breaching formation, and the forcefield dissapated as the squad breached.

The room contained 10 Outsiders hiding behind assorted debris. The walls facing Strike Two and Three were mostly broken clearly the product of sustained laser fire. A number of holes were punched throught the ship's hull, the HEAT warheads coming in useful. Despite that, the aliens still held the high ground, which was bad news to the Strike teams below. The aliens dropped dead all around Rosa as she took out the Arc Thrower and made a beeline for one of the bigger one's. The alien turned around when she was right behind him. The creature towered over the woman, easily being two and a half meters tall. It tanked a laser shot to the chest, and tthe damaged parts seemed to blink out of existance, before reforming and becoming solid again.

They locked gazes and pulled the trigger in tandem.

The alien contorted, and seemingly folded in on itself along the crystal in it's chest. A glowing yellow chrystal was everything that was left of the fearsome creature.

"Target stunned … ride the lightning!" Rosa said and felt a burning sensation in her chest as the world faded to black.

OPERATION COLD SHOULDER: COMPLETE
ALIEN CRAFT CAPTURED

STRIKE ONE REPORTS 0 KIA, 2 WIA
STRIKE TWO REPORTS 0 KIA, 6 WIA
STRIKE THREE REPORTS 0 KIA, 8 WIA

RECOVERY TEAM INVENTORY:
(Documented by CPT Glenn Friendly)
ALIEN POWER SOURCE: 3
UFO FLIGHT COMPUTER: 4
ALIEN STASIS TANK: 10
ALIEN SURGERY: 30

SEEKER WRECK: 40
CYBERDISK WRECK: 20
WEAPON FRAGMENTS: 150
UNICORN CORPSES: 4
PEGASUS CORPSES: 3
EARTH PONY CORPSES: 4
NUMEROUS UNRECOGNISABLE REMAINS
ALIEN ALLOYS: 150
ELERIUM: 100
MELD: 80

LIVE CAPTURE

OUTSIDER: 1
EARTH PONY: 2
PEGASUS: 3
UNICORN: 10

OPERATION EVALUATION:EXCELLENT

Author's Note

Hope you enjoy the new chapter.