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April 27 -- Benton Gale was cleared for duty by the medical staff in the mid-morning. At 1256, the aliens decided to show themselves again. A medium Raider-class ship, at low trajectory, inbound to Germany from the north polar region.
Of the two kinds of UFOs that we are reasonably familiar with(raider and scout), the raider are the tougher and more versatile combat vessel. This won't be an easy takedown. I send up our best('Chainsaw' Katz) to see what he can do. Whether we pursue the target further will depend on his success.
It goes decently. They trade shots at about an equal rate, with Chainsaw getting in three confirmed hits with his Stingrays. 'Mangler' Neale, still looking for his first kill, goes up next. If he can down it or nearly so, we'll send up a third to finish it off. If not, I'll hope to have disuaded it. I don't want to use the entire contingent of fighters on this thing.
Mangler takes heavy damage as well, but about halfway through the dogfight the raider started listing. A couple more hits and it went down, just seconds before he would have had to break off. Hard to complain about those results.
So, we've got a medium UFO to go after. We've only done one of these before and a significant number of enemies is expected. This is kind of a 'tweener' mission, maybe the first of it's kind. It's not a priority mission but not one we want a bunch of greenhorns going out on either.
I have Bradford consult the archives, since I don't really remember how the last one went. It was Devil's Hammer, less than three weeks ago on the 8th. We faced what I think is still a record of 14 enemies, but two lance corporals and four specialists were able to handle it. We can now take an extra soldier with us, but can't really improve on that squad in terms of ranks and experience. The decision on who to take is a difficult one. We've got four still on the injured list and another dozen in recovery, most of them with around 48 hours left before they'll be ready to go. In the end I decided we need a standard squad here. It's a risky decision. If we get a priority mission before some of the others recover, we could find ourselves starting down a dangerous path in terms of readiness and fatigue.
Strike Squad
SPEC Seung-yeon Kim(KOR, Scout)
SPEC Thozama Khumalo(ZAF, Medic)
LCPL Benton Gale(JPN, Infantry)
** Ranger
LCPL Su-Min Kim(KOR, Assault)
** Resilience
SPEC Dean Hoo(UKR, Gunner)
SPEC Eliana Soares(BRA, Rocketeer)
SPEC Path Twelve(DEU, Sniper)
Three FOFC soldiers will be going out this time. Dean Hoo will be looking for his first kill, and probably put on suppression duty a lot so it may not be that likely. Path Twelve is the first sniper to see action in weeks, and Benton Gale, fresh out of the medical bay literally four hours ago, will have no time to rest. Seung-yeon Kim will be the first to take out an arc thrower. We may not have an occasion to use it, and it has but a single charge, but if the opportunity presents itself it will be taken.
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