October 1st, 1979

Throughout the Earth's orbit, satellites began to inexplicably go dark. As the governments of humanity scrambled to find an explanation, observatories the world over reported scattered heat signatures and dark shapes all around in the Earth-Luna sphere of space. All over the planet, reports of UFO sightings and disappearances began to happen with ever-increasing frequency. For most of the denizens of the planet, the day marked the beginning of the alien invasion.

For the Xenonauts, it marked the end of a twenty year grace period.

-ooOOoo-

October 17th, 1979

Lars Holmberg watched from his anti-aircraft post as a pair of Saab 37s dueled with the...thing in the skies. Never before had he been more grateful to be part of the Flygvapnet ground crew instead of being a pilot than when he saw the two jets suddenly torched by some sort of...ray gun or laser beam or God knows what. The burning remains of the jets crashed violently into the Stockholm city-scape below them, and Lars could only hope that they hadn't killed anyone else where they crashed.

The hostile craft suddenly made an impossible turn and shot back out towards the sea, making loud thunder claps as it broke the sound barrier.

As it made its way out to the sea, Lars could see another pair of jets rapidly making their way towards the craft, coming in from the South. As they got closer, Lars could just barely make them out. They looked like F16s to him. Americans operating in Swedish Airspace? Things must be worse than I thought!

The F-16s made an attack run on the craft. Lars expected to see them get fried just like the Saabs from before, but the only thing he saw was a puff of smoke from the fighters, leaving a charred-looking spot where they had presumably been hit by (and survived?!) the ray gun.

The fighters opened up on the craft with their cannons, showering it with lead before shooting over the craft and immediately moving to turn back around for another run. A strange purplish sheen appeared over the craft, and it was at that moment that Lars finally began to believe the rumors of UFOs. He'd thought (or, more accurately, "hoped") it might be Soviets when he first saw the craft, but he highly doubted there were any Soviet planes that could survive a minigun barrage without even getting their paint scratched. And there definitely weren't any Soviet aircraft with a purple energy shield around them.

The F-16s came back around towards the target. The UFO seemed to be wise to their tricks now, and this time it fired on them with some kind of projectile weapon as well as the lasers. One of the F-16s dove to dodge the incoming fire, being lightly peppered by the projectile weapon and scorched by the laser in the process. However, its wingman fired a pair of missiles at the UFO before breaking off. One of the missiles burst into flames short of the target, a victim of the ray gun presumably, but the other struck home.

To Lars's surprise, the UFO was actually damaged by the missile, and it went down in flames, crashing into the Baltic Sea. The F-16s, battered but still flying, made their way back over Stockholm and away to who knows where.

-ooOOoo-

October 27th, 1979

Commander John "Jack" Miller entered the conference room, and sat at the head of the table. He looked at the five people around him, the heads of the various departments of his organization, and he began speaking.

"Alright, people. I've finished the last round of phone calls,and we are in business again. Our Condors' little 'demonstration' has paid off big time. We haven't been idle for twenty years, and we've just proven it to the governments of the world. I've secured funding from both of the major power blocs and every non-aligned government I could get to answer the phone. We've also got leave to use their airspace, meaning we can effectively operate with impunity anywhere we can get our interceptors to. Let's make sure our sponsors' investment pays off. Doctor, " he said, turning to Chief Scientist Doctor Edward Brown, "what's your analysis on our interceptors' performance?"

The Chief Scientist turned to the commander, his trademark sardonically amused expression on his face, "Our F-17s did well. Better than they had any right to, truth be told. I suspect that they weren't facing a proper combatant. Likely some kind of support or reconnaissance craft."

He adjusted his glasses. "The laser-resistant layer of their hull performed admirably, but I wouldn't get our hopes up too much. This UFO was much smaller than the one from 1958, its lasers were likely of significantly reduced power. Though I must say I was pleased with how well Condor-2 handled taking a beating from that projectile weapon of theirs. I doubt it could handle a direct hit, but the results are still promising."

The Chief of the Air Wing, Ted Green, spoke up at that. "I'd say it's a damn sight better than promising. It's downright exciting! It took damn near a hundred planes to bring down the UFO from '58, and that was only at the cost of dozens of pilots' lives. Now we're able to bring one down with a pair of jets, and both of them survive the encounter? It's enough to make me giddy."

Ted knew better than anyone the power of the enemy in the air, as he was the lucky survivor from the disastrous first contact with the '58 UFO. Jack had found a friend in the man, and he couldn't refrain from taking the bait.

"Please refrain from being giddy in the conference room, Chief Green." he said with a completely straight face. Having sated his comedic desires, the Commander went back to business without missing a beat.

"While I'm also pleased by the performance of our planes and pilots, combat is only one half of the problem. We have to be able to actually catch the enemy to fight him, and our Condors' targets outran them in our first two sorties before they snagged the one in the Baltic. We need to start work on a high speed interceptor." he said.

The Chief Scientist spoke again at that. "That may not take as long as you might think. We don't have to design one from scratch. I spied something in the technology-sharing dossiers that caught my eye. The Soviets have been working on an experimental supersonic interceptor, the MiG-31. It's supposed to be a superior version of their MiG-25, which for those of you who aren't aware is one of the fastest fighter jets in the world. It hasn't entered proper production yet, but I think the design will suit our purposes, with some modifications."

Jack grimaced at that. "It was like pulling teeth to get the US to give us F-16 schematics and parts, and that was an in-production plane. It's gonna be a challenge to get Moscow to cough up the designs for their secret experimental interceptor."

The Chief Scientist raised an eyebrow. "I have full confidence in your abilities commander, truly. Get me those schematics, and I can get you a new interceptor design within a week."

Jack sighed and turned to the chief engineer, a burly Russian by the name of Adrian Federov. "I can probably weasel some parts shipments out of the Kremlin, but the plane itself will need to be assembled in-house, I doubt they're going to be willing to part with any of their prototype models. That's a bigger job than anything we've ever done before. Are your people up for it?"

The engineer scratched his chin. "Is no problem. Always need more hands, but we can get job done. We'll need larger workspace if we are going to build more than one or two."

Jack smiled. "Well, with the funding we've secured, I've already ordered a full expansion of the base. Every department is going to get more space and more hands. This is the real deal, people. We're not just going to be sitting around and hypothesizing and experimenting like we've done for the last twenty years, we're going to take the fight to the enemy. The governments and militaries of Earth are going to be too tied up just trying to hold the line and put out all the fires to go on the offensive. We're the only hope of winning this war. We're humanity's sword against this new threat."

A man wearing a beret cleared his throat at that. "And on that note, I think we need to have a discussion about our Xenonauts." It was Eric Wilson, the English officer Jack had met during the Iceland Incident, and another old friend

Jack nodded for him to continue.

He did. "While I have full confidence in their training and skill, I'm concerned about their equipment. They're going to be at a serious disadvantage in combat, and they won't have the advantage of numbers like we did twenty years ago. I think giving them an edge should be a priority for our research."

The Commander turned to the Chief Scientist. "Any news on that front, Doctor?"

"Well, without a sample of their weapons to test it's difficult to say, but from what data we've managed to get from the 1958 incident we think that some of their small arms hit with the same force as a .50 caliber round. We can't realistically protect against that with trauma plates and kevlar, which is why our men's gear is centered around flak protection for the most part. No point adding the extra weight of a plate when it won't even stop the round. We'll need a working example of the aliens' weaponry to devise a method of defending against it." the Chief said.

The Commander turned to the Intelligence Chief, Todd Sterling, next. "Anything to add, Todd?"

The man nodded. "From what I've been able to glean from the intelligence given to us by our partners, the aliens haven't taken any kind of serious offensive action as of yet. Speculation suggests that they're focused primarily on gathering information at the moment, although they have been seen going after targets of opportunity from time to time, usually in the form of any war planes they detect. We don't know what they're looking for, or what they're going to do when they find it, but shooting down their scouts will disrupt their activities at least somewhat. It's the only way we can realistically hit the enemy right now."

He went on. "This is the calm before the storm, we should use this time to learn as much as possible about our enemies and their technology, just as they are doing now. We need to give our men an edge for when the real fighting starts."

The Commander nodded. "We'll need to shoot down one of these scout craft again, overland this time, so we can more easily scavenge it. On that note…" He turned to the Quartermaster.

"How are we for fuel?" he asked.

The Quartermaster, a woman by the name of Denisa Kvasnicka, spoke after a slight nervous hesitation. "We used up most of our pre-invasion fuel reserves in the recent sorties, but fortunately basic supplies like fuel, food, medicine, and munitions won't be a concern anymore with the support of our sponsoring nations. As for personnel, getting our hands on qualified individuals should be much easier now that we have the funds to pay for them."

She looked at the other department heads in the room, and continued. "If any of you have any contacts that could be of use to us, send their information to my office. I'll get in touch with them and handle recruitment."

She received nods in return.

The Commander spoke. "Thank you, Quartermaster. I would also like to discuss locations for future sub-bases. We simply won't have enough coverage with one location..."

The discussion continued on, but all who were present noted the change in the demeanor of their fellows compared to the last 20 years. To say they were happy to have been right would not have been accurate. In truth, they would very much have preferred to have been wrong. Yet, none could deny that the invasion gave them a sense of grim validation. It was energizing, in a way.

While the situation was the culmination of their worst fears, it still felt good to be taking action again, instead of languishing in their base, engaging in the same pointless debates over the same hypotheses they had been discussing for twenty years. Now, was the moment where they could prove that it hadn't been a waste of time.

-ooOOoo-

XENOPEDIA: ALIEN INVASION

You've probably already noticed we're being invaded, Commander, so I won't state the obvious. The situation is bleak; none of the major powers are able to defend their own airspace, let alone protect the rest of the planet. It seems things are up to us. My team stand ready to help - there may only be a handful of us, but some of the finest minds on the planet are at work in your laboratories (this organization offers a certain freedom from intrusion that appeals to those of intelligence). The key to beating our enemies is to understand them; we are keen to study any extraterrestrial equipment you can recover from the battlefield.

In the meantime, we have been gathering intelligence on the size and composition of the alien fleet orbiting our planet - mostly images and data obtained from orbital satellites or ground-based observatories. Given the depressingly disjointed response from the rest of the planet, this is probably the most in-depth study of the invasion to date. We have conclusively identified over five-hundred UFOs in the Earth-Luna sphere of space, with several times that amount of additional probable signals. From what we can gather, the largest UFOs are remaining in Lunar orbit at the moment. The smaller contacts are in high orbit over the Earth itself. The craft we see in our skies at the moment are likely some kind of parasite-craft launching from a mother ship. We won't be able to learn more until we get a (relatively) intact sample of one of these parasite-UFOs.

Right now the enemy appears to be operating mainly in an information gathering capacity, with no significant offensive actions being taken as of yet. We need to take advantage of this relatively calm period to learn as much as possible about our enemy, and find ways to adapt against their technology.

In light of this, I have two recommendations: that we consider supplementing our existing F-17 Condor aircraft with a heavier interceptor capable of carrying more powerful weapons, and that we investigate some form of battlefield support vehicle to aid our soldiers when securing crashed alien craft. Both proposals are already on your desk.

XENOPEDIA: F-17 "Condor"

The F-17 Condor is the primary Xenonaut interceptor aircraft, a general purpose dogfighter derived from the F-16 Fighting Falcon. The Condor's Autocannon makes it well-suited to destroying smaller craft, whilst it also carries Sidewinder light missiles to make it a credible threat to medium-size vessels

The Condor has broadly similar performance to its parent aircraft but uses a modified airframe that dramatically increases its operational range and survivability against alien weaponry, at the cost of top speed and payload. The alterations to the airframe have been made based on our studies of the UFO's weapons and tactics used that day. The UFO's laser weapon seemed to fire at all possible targets at once, and then go into some kind of cooldown phase. Based on this, we designed an aircraft capable of surviving the first shot, and then getting its missile or cannon barrage away in the cooldown period before breaking off.

We have dramatically increased the range of the craft compared to the stock F-16, but not without cost. The increased range is believed necessary - we have rather a lot of planet to protect. Doing this has reduced the payload of the Condor, but it is still able to carry two light missiles and a craft cannon. This is a versatile combination; Sidewinder missiles have been proved effective and reliable against human aircraft, but we do not even know if we will be able to get a missile lock on alien vessels. The cannon has a shorter range and fires powerful shells that should be useful in a dogfight. One of the two weapons should hopefully prove effective against an enemy vessel.

XENOPEDIA: BASIC ARMOR

The Basic Xenonaut armor is derived from the experimental US PASGT Armor system. There are some minor modifications to suit our ergonomic needs, along with changing the color scheme to our standard mottled grey-brown color. We tried to design our Xenonauts' uniform colors to blend into as many environments as possible (They'll be fighting all over the planet, after all.) but it may very well have been a waste of effort. We don't even know if the aliens see on the same color spectrum as we do.

Our studies of the Iceland Incident have led us to conclude that the primary small arms of the aliens are some kind of incredibly advanced projectile weapon. If our ballistics models created from recountings of the event are accurate, an alien "rifle" slug hits with the same force as a .50 caliber machine gun round. Even the most state-of-the-art trauma plates and kevlar armor has trouble stopping rounds in the .30 caliber range and often below that, which means that any extra armor given to our troops would just be useless dead weight. As such, the Basic Xenonaut armor has no plating, and instead relies on kevlar and other ballistic materials to protect the user from fragmentations and ricochets, not direct hits.

Until we get our hands on some samples of the aliens' weapons, this is the best we can hope for.

-ooOOoo-

Author's Note: Hey all, thanks for reading that chapter. There was a bit of a delay to this chapter, as I always seem to have difficulty getting the first few chapters of a story out, as planning a chapter out in this phase is difficult for me, so I have to free write.

I'm going to be focusing on my other two stories for the next stretch (links in my signature), so work on this particular story is going to go at the bottom of the queue while I get a chapter out for the other two. I have a lot of free time coming up in the next few weeks, so hopefully I can get some rapid fire chapters out the door.

Next chapter: We finally get to see the Xenonauts in action!

As always, thank you for reading and please leave your thoughts in the comments.