<1:53>
also, we've got so many operational Firestorms now that it's raining shot-down UFOs over much of the northern hemisphere at this point, which is presumably why they hit Argentina. perhaps an expansion franchise in South America is called for...

<1:54>
but first, I believe tomorrow I'll send my A-team to knock out _their_ base in India.

<1:54>
also, before I crash, a tale of the B-team

<1:56>
so I've got a few soldiers garrisoning the expansion bases around the world, just to give them at least a marginal chance if the aliens find and attack them. each garrison squad is mostly rookies, with a couple of people who got a bunch of experience on the main team (before coming up short on psi strength once we had the means to measure that), to lead them.

<1:57>
this has paid off once already, when some Snakemen hit the PacRim West fighter base in Taiwan and were handily dealt with by the scrub team (with some help from the defense-optimized base design).

<1:59>
a while back, when they finished building the Avenger at our main base in Stuttgart, I sent the Lightning we built before we got the Avenger research done over to PacRim East in California, because it's a decent fighter and it'd be a couple weeks before we could build them a second Firestorm.

<2:00>
I hadn't intended on actually _using_ it as a transporter, but then the radar picked up a small UFO that had landed in Hawaii and I figured, well, what the heck. it's a small one, I'll send the chumps over to see what's what.

<2:01>
we don't have a Hyper-Wave Decoder in PacRim East, though, so I didn't know what aliens they might get. figured worst came to worst, if the first one walked off the ramp and all hell broke loose I could just dust off. we already lost the US from the program anyway.

<2:02>
Lightning lands near the UFO, first soldier out is the squad leader, who got to be a fairly decent sergeant with the main team, but got sent down to double-A when it turned out she had a psi strength in the low 30s...

<2:02>
... there's an Ethereal.

<2:03>
which is looking the wrong way (I guess the Lightning is silent? :)

<2:04>
to quote Dr. Gordon Freeman, "If you think I won't shoot you in the back, you're mistaken."

<2:05>
at which point: mission ends. they sent _one guy_ to conquer Hawaii, and he got drilled in the back of the head by a person he could easily have dominated, because he wasn't paying attention.

<2:05>
aloha, sucka