{March 1st, 2015, Germany, 7pm}

Zect 050 watched carefully in the building for any more human soldiers, as his control remained constant on the "German" he had taken over. The Grand Elders had tasked him with identifying any significant threats to the plan with this first landing. He was happy that his first operation was going smoothly after the pods had landed in the city… though his current forces were not very good. The 3 were from the Helix batch, and one had nearly blasted his head off in the confrontation! If he hadn't taken over this one, one of them might have even died!

"You really think we were bad? You failed to even fire a shot!" Helix 398 telepathically said to him, though it wasn't supposed to.

"I needed only to take this one's mind. My weapon is only for an unexpected failure!" It had sent in response hoping to stop the unwarranted conversation.

About this time, a small jet appeared to land, and let some troops down. Zect 050 commanded his puppet to ready a grenade when a second landed, interrupting him. Zect stops as yet another landed "They shouldn't be ready with three crafts yet, the invasion has just started."

Zect's mind then filled with primal fear as the troops of their enemy began to blindly fire into the building, and managed to strike down 2 of the 3 sectoids under his command, as well as his controlled human! It recognized it needed to run for its life when the last was destroyed by a grenade!

It ran as quickly as it could, needing to find a place to relay this information to the Elders! It then stopped as it heard another jet, and when it looked up to find it, he saw the faces of a squad of human soldiers, and was quickly dispatched.

OPERATION: Devil's Moon: COMPLETE

STRIKE-1 REPORTS 0 KIA, 0 WIA

STRIKE-2 REPORTS 0 KIA, 0 WIA

STRIKE-3 REPORTS 0 KIA, 0 WIA

STRIKE-4 REPORTS 0 KIA, 0 WIA

RECOVERY TEAM INVENTORY:

(Documented by Rookie Ericson)

PLASMA WEAPON FRAGMENTS (6 total)

SECTOID CORPSES (2 total)

SECTOID COMMANDER CORPSE

OPERATION EVALUATION: PERFECT

{Mission note: Commander [REDACTED]}

The Xcom project has officially been activated by the Council. We are now the last line of defense for earth.

It appears that this first attack was a scout group that was unprepared for our forces numbers, consisting of two three of what has been referred to by the strike team as a "Sectoid", as well as a single extra one with an altered head, currently believed to be the "Commander" of the forces at this time. In addition, one soldier has reported that they had seen this commander seemingly controlling a German soldier, which explains the corpse in the building seeming to have been killed in our attack...

I have ordered Dr. Vahlen to work on the autopsy immediately to investigate it's supposed mind control, as well as a way to capture an alien specimen alive, and contain it. She has also asked to have official records show that she now suggests that use of grenades be kept to a minimum, given the loss of possible research materials one of the alien's was carrying. This applies only then it is safe to do so.