AN: This chapter contains a single very descriptive and violent verb. If you are squeamish, read with caution.

The early days of the war were absolute hell. I was fighting in Tunisia before the aliens arrived. I thought I knew carnage and confusion, but this... out of all those early skirmishes, though, I can't come up with a bigger disaster than the very first. Operation Cryptic Summer. There were some with higher losses, sure but that was the only one where we were totally unprepared. The panic there was unequalled anytime later in the war. We still didn't know what we were dealing with, and when the Algerian army got involved... well, they call it the Amsel Gorge massacre for a reason.

The Sahara desert, Yi reflected, was a lot bigger than it looked on a map.

He and his wingman, Maha Ghoshal, had been tailing this UFO for the better part of an hour, and in that time they had never once left the bounds of the Sahara. The rocky landscape whipped past under him at speeds of 3000 kilometres per hour, interspersed with areas of sand that raced by so quickly that the dunes blurred into streaks of gold and brown. He could see the target occasionally, little flashes of reflected sunlight way up ahead. He couldn't make out its shape. It was staying just out of the range at which he might have been able to do that, and whatever stealth composites these things had coating their skin, they were doing far too good a job of masking its shape, as far as Yi was concerned.

"It's kiting us," observed Ghoshal over the radio. "Look at that. It just reduced speed again. It's holding station on us."

"Why?" Yi muttered the question under his breath. His radio picked it up, but it was clear that he wasn't actually looking for an answer, so Ghoshal didn't offer one. He glared at the infuriating little spacecraft, then down at his fuel gauge, the needle of it sitting directly on the "40%" mark. Testing us? Do they not know the capabilities of these interceptors? It was only a guess, but it was the best he had. He shook his head in frustration and bit out the words "Hurricane one to Central. Come in, central."

"Central here. Go ahead, Hurricane One." The reply was crackly and had more of a delay than usual. Without the satellites, these communications were having to be relayed via landlines from communications outposts on the desert itself. Yi found himself glancing downward, trying to spot the antenna he knew was down there somewhere, but couldn't spot it. "Permission to reduce speed, sir." Another pause. A crackly reply. "Explain, Major." "Sir. We believe this yoo-eff-oh is deliberately kiting us. We've seen how fast they can go if they want to." "So it's testing you? Trying to find out your maximum range and fuel capacity?" "That's my theory, sir. I believe Airman Ghoshal agrees with me on this." Ghoshal jumped in with a quick "Affirmative, sir. I agree with the Major's assessment."

There was another pause, longer this time. Not just communications delay. Bradford was thinking.

"I'll check with the commander," he said at last. "Give me a moment."

Another pause. Yi felt the vibration of the powerful aerospike engines reverberating through his seat. The silence stretched out, leaving his mind to become entirely focused on that roar. His hands darted over the controls automatically. He was in the zone. He no longer had to even think about that, and barely noticed it. Tap, tap, twiddle. The engine's roar vibrated through the aileron controls, up his arm, tickling his elbow.

"Acknowledged, Major." The reply was immersed in a burst of static, making Yi jump. "Re-u-ce thr-le to one th-r-... er..." "Central, you're breaking up." A rush of static was the only reply. "Central? Central, please repeat." Static. "Damn," Ghoshal commented quietly. "Did you hear any of what he said?" Yi nodded, then, realizing Ghoshal couldn't see him, added "Yes. I made out some of it. It sounded like he was ordering us to reduce throttle." "By how much?" "A third, I think. That makes sense. That way it looks like we're concerned about fuel, but still trying at least a little bit to maintain visual contact." "On your order, Major." "Alright. One-third power on my mark." He moved his hand over the appropriate controls. "Mark!"

Hurricanes One and Two decelerated in almost perfect unison. Ghoshal hit a thermal, and had to adjust slightly, bringing him a bit lower and a bit further forward than he had been before, but otherwise the manoeuvre was executed perfectly. The two interceptors dropped from 3000 kilometres an hour to "only" 2000 in a minute and a half, before their speed stabilized, now moving far slower than the object they were supposedly chasing.

"Now we see what he does." Yi's voice had a predatory edge to it; a wolf feeling very pleased with itself for having outwitted a bear. His eyes stared hungrily at the object, glancing down at his radar display every time he heard the tiny "blip" of its beam passing over the target. Approximate target speed: 3010 km/h. 3014. 3012. 3005...

Seconds passed. The UFO's speed was still hovering around 3000 It was gaining distance. Yi started to wonder whether he had made a mistake.

3001. 3004. 3008.

He had. He'd lost a target that he actually had a chance of catching. It was only 30 kilometres away when he had reduced throttle, but now it was gaining distance, 200 metres every second. It would be out of visual range soon, and radar range shortly after that. And without communications to the base or access to its more powerful radar arrays, he would lose it. Damn. Maybe Bradford hadn't given the order to reduce throttle. Maybe-

3004. 3006. 2970.

Wait. Was that...

2934. 2840. 2711.

It was! It was reducing speed!

2614. 2568.

...And doing it really, really quickly, too...

...And turning...

"Central in the blind, this is Hurricane One. Hostile is coming about and reducing speed. Entering missile engagement envelope in twenty seconds. Ghoshal, hold your throttle. Wait until it gets closer, then we'll throttle back up to full and engage afterburners. Let's surprise the bastards."

"Yes, sir. Holding throttle."

The two aircraft screamed across the desert towards the rapidly turning alien spaceship. With surprising clarity, Yi's mind registered the fact that it was turning at a rate that must have easily brought it into the 20 to 30g range, if not more. He didn't have time to do the calculations right now. The intercept estimate in the corner of his helmet display kept ticking down at an alarming rate. He breathed out; long, slow, steady; and his hand came to rest on the throttle controls again.

22 kilometres. The range estimate numbers dropped like a stone, racing towards point blank range. They were already easily within their missile envelope, but Yi held fire. He had no doubt that whatever that thing was capable of, it would be more than enough to shoot down or evade whatever he could throw at it from this range. He would need the element of surprise, to give the pilots of the craft as little time as possible to react.

16 kilometres. He could make out the shape of the craft now. It was circular, almost like one of those old black and white photographs of the silver streaks flying through the sky. Hoaxes? He'd been so sure of that. Now he wasn't certain.

14 kilometres. Why hadn't it fired yet? It was clearly high-tech. Engagement ranges increased as tech level got higher. That was the trend. That had always been the trend! What were the aliens doing?

12 kilometres. 11. 10. "Mark!" As he said the word, his hand on the throttle controls thrust forward, and the roar of his engines almost drowned out his voice as the afterburners engaged and he was thrown back into his seat's embrace, feeling for that one moment as if he weighed five times as much as he really did. A glance at his radar told him Ghoshal had done the same and was struggling to keep station on Yi's tail. "Hurricane two, attack run, breaking left. Deploy half munitions at 5 kilometres." That was dangerously close, even against a human aircraft, but there was no time to second-guess himself. He heard the affirmative reply, watched the range drop. Ghoshal broke left, Yi went right. 7 kilometres. 6. 5. His thumbs squeezed down twice in quick succession, and four of his eight air-to-air missiles dropped from the wings and roared off towards the target at hypersonic speeds.

Yi had no time to watch them. He pulled left, breaking off his attack run, black appearing around the edges of his vision and white spots swimming across his eyes as his heart struggled to pump blood to his head against a downward force of just over 7 gees.

Unnoticed for the moment by Yi, those four missiles roared in towards the target, joined by four more from Ghoshal's rails. The eight missiles screamed in towards the target at a speed of over 5000 kilometres an hour, still accelerating.

They were radar guided. Three were thrown off by the stealth systems onboard the spacecraft. Two simply missed as the ship turned edge-on just before impact in an expertly-timed evasive manoeuvre. The remaining three slammed home, their kinetic energy alone enough to kill most human fighters, and their high explosive warheads just adding insult to injury. The alien spacecraft bucked. Three large, blackened pits appeared on its side. One penetrated all the way through its outer skin, forming a small hull breach clear through to one of the crew compartments.

But it kept flying.

"I read two hits," said Yi, his voice tense. "You?" "One more on my end," Ghoshal replied.

"You think that did it?"

"I don't know, Major. I-"

BLAM!

The flash erupted from somewhere just ahead of Yi's interceptor, searing his retinas and blinding him, just for a moment, even through the tinted window of the aircraft and the reflective glass of his helmet's visor. The sound of it hit him a moment later as his supersonic aircraft roared through the shockwave of the weapon blast. He sent his plane into a roll, instinctively, blinking to clear the stars from his vision. "Holy shit! No, I think it's safe to say that our missiles weren't enough," commented Ghoshal. "Shut it!" Yi yawed wildly, trying to get the enemy craft back into his field of vision. A crackle of static filled his ears, and Bradford's distorted voice came through. "-peat, we've just seen a huge energy spike! Hurricane one, report!" "Taking fire! We are at CQB! Ghoshal, give me a rundown of the damage!"

"Alien craft is still flying. At least two missile hits confirmed. I see its engines. They look exposed. Permission to engage?" The crackling voice came again. "Negative. Hurricanes: withdraw. Return to base." Ghoshal replied immediately. "Yes, sir! Withdrawing!" Yi finally managed to get the alien craft back into his field of vision. There was something on the top of it. Something rotating. A turreted gun? If so... he followed its trajectory with his eyes, and they widened in alarm. "Ghoshal! Evasive manoeuvres!"

BLAM!

Airman Maha Ghoshal had been one of the most promising young pilots in the Indian Air Force before his transfer to X-com. He'd been sent there after his failure to follow orders resulted in the death of a soldier on the ground. However, that same incident had resulted in twenty-nine civilians surviving a hostage situation that they almost certainly would otherwise have died in. His superiors weren't willing to risk the PR nightmare of removing him from the service after that, but at the same time, they hadn't wanted to deal with him still being on the force. So, like so many other embarrassments and problem personnel, he was sent to Sahara Base as a "volunteer". Still, he wasn't sent there for being incompetent. He was a good pilot.

In fact, he was one of the most skilled pilots to have ever flown in a Raven Mark 1. In some ways, he was better than Yi himself. As soon as he heard the word "Evasive", he jolted the controls to the right, then to the left. He cut throttle entirely. He went into an aileron roll, and simultaneously twitched the elevators to send him into a controlled tailspin. He could get out of the spin and pull up before he hit the desert. He was confident of that. These Ravens had a lot of power behind them.

He did everything right.

It was almost enough.

The stream of plasma cleaved through Hurricane Two's left wing, shattering the control surfaces and tracing a line of melted metal across the bottom of the craft. Then the weapon was done firing, and it was over. Just like that. The interceptor's airframe came apart like wet tissue paper, and Maha Ghoshal was liquefied as the fuel tank exploded less than two feet behind his head.

Yi screamed in rage and disbelief as his friend's plane turned into a fireball and a shower of debris right before his eyes. Even Bradford sounded shaken, almost shouting "Yi, get out of there! Yi! Go! Full throttle! Head for-" He punched the comms button on the side of his helmet, muting Central's voice. The shock faded as quickly as it had come, blown out like a candle. It was replaced by a raging furnace. Yi sent his interceptor into a hard turn, murder in his eyes.

In its movements to line up the shot that had killed Ghoshal, the alien had presented its engines to Yi. That was a mistake. One he would make them pay dearly for. He watched the range counter drop again, seeing the UFO try in vain to turn in time to face him. A savage grin came to his face. He watched the kilometres count down.

6. 5. 4.

His thumbs moved to the buttons on his twin joysticks.

3. 2. 1. The meters raced by. He tapped the buttons twice, then pushed the joysticks forward, roaring past under the larger frame of the spacecraft just meters from its hull, just as the four missiles in his second barrage arrived right alongside him.

This time none of them missed. At that range, there was no way any of them could. Even the ones without a radar lock blundered into the UFO's engine block, and the airborne behemoth staggered, then began to fall. It plummeted away beneath Yi, trailing smoke and ugly red flames, its spine-mounted weapon trying and failing to lock on to Yi's rapidly retreating interceptor. Another shot roared past, far behind his aircraft's tail, and he left the shockwave in his wake, not even hearing it this time. And before a fourth could follow, the spacecraft slammed into the dry, rocky landscape below, ploughing up a plume of dirt, sand and broken chips of stone.