Second installment, here we go. The soldiers first to be added to the roster are: ZerG~Ling, Decay, Epoch, and Desert Demon. ZerG~LinG got a HW classification, while the other three got G classifications. I also changed Kevin's classification to G, deciding that his Accuracy wasn't quite good enough to merit a SS. Here are the new recruits stats.

Character	ZerG~LinG	Decay	Epoch	Desert Demon
TUs	52	50	51	53
Stamina	50	65	69	56
Health	30	40	36	34
Bravery	60	20	30	50
Reactions	41	39	55	41
Accuraccy	50	56	59	64
Throwing Accuraccy	62	52	63	71
Strength	33	30	22	26

With the first mission under our belts, the two planes return home, to refuel, rearm and restock. All four new named soldiers are added to the plane, as are more weapons. As far as base management goes, I sell all the alien corpses and weapons that we got from the last mission, and hire three more soldiers and four more scientists, officially maxing out the living space in .php.

Kevin, Enders and Lithium_ all cheered the new arrivals as the small helicopter touched down, much more gently, Kevin noted, than the Skyranger-1 did. Four soldiers got off the craft, grinning sheepishly as the staff applauded. Four was not present. The new men were a large Danish fellow, calling himself "Zhërg Leing," two unremarkably American Americans -- the Desert Demon and Decay -- and a wild-eyed Frenchman who insisted people call him "Epoch." What a crew, Kevin thought to himself. Who hires these people, and why?

All that's left to do for now is wait for something to happen. So I wait. After a day, UFO-2 shows up, and I dispatch an Interceptor and Skyranger-1 to take it out. Since it's flying and almost out of radar range, I decide to shoot it down.

Plane to UFO combat engages. Your Interceptors standard weapon mounts are a Cannon, a rapid-fire short range weapon, and six Stingray class missiles. After a short duel, the UFO is brought down, and the Skyranger-1 lands at the crash sight. After arming the soldiers appropriately, that is to say, pistols or rifles for the G and SS soldiers, rockets or autocannons for the HWs, and grenades for everyone. Including the CF guys. Onward!

Whoa-ho! As soon as the tank de-planes, a plasma autoshot comes flying out of left field, missing the tank, but giving away the position of... Floaters. We'll detail those after the mission. The tank then moves farther away from the ramp, spotting the UFO and not one, not two, but three Floaters standing outside. Each of them probably toting Plasma Rifles, if not the dreaded Heavy Plasma. I move a CF guy off the plane to draw fire, and tell Epoch to take out the middle floater. He aims, fires, misses, aims, fires, and kills the floater. Good shot!

After the excellent slaughter of the first Floater, Epoch deplanes, and then a whole slew of really, really bad aim is thrown in my face. Kevin, Lithium_, Mark4, Desert Demon and Decay all completely fail to hit anything. ZerG~LinG and Endersshadow don't fire, due to carrying heavier weapons. Two floaters still alive as I end the turn...!

Okay, that could have been worse. The right floater fires off an aimed shot at the CF in front of our men, killing him, and then it runs inside the UFO door to hide. The left floater scurries around a bit before firing at our tank, dealing five damage to it. Hah.

Decay, rifle in hand, fires two autoshots and a snapshot (read: seven bullets) hitting offending trees, pieces of the UFO, and once, the Floater. Doesn't kill it, go figure. It's up to Desert Demon to finish the job, and in two shots, he does. The tank scouts around, and finds another Floater behind a hill. Kevin, ZerG~LinG and Mark4 move up to the base of the hill, ready to rush over and take it down next turn. Everyone else moves towards the UFO door, and the second round ends.

The floater who went into the UFO to hide comes out, shoots at Decay, misses, and goes back in. ZerG~LinG, apparently not too quick on the uptake, fires an opportunity rocket. But guess where he shoots it? Oh, yeah. Into the hill. Right where Mark4 and Kevin are standing. Great job, ZerG~LinG! Fortunately for the two victims of friendly fire, they are mostly unharmed -- it was the hill that took the most damage. Kevin lost three health and took no fatal wounds. Mark4, who was closer to the blast, took six health damage and got, wonderfully, three fatal wounds. Fatal wounds work like this: each round, you take X points of health damage, where X is the number of fatal wounds you have. So in other words, Mark4 dies in seven turns. I think I can win before that, but we'll see.

Next turn rolls around. ZerG~LinG reloads his launcher and crests the hill, failing to see the Floater. The tank gets up on a high elevation and spots it. Mark4, accuracy reduced by 20 due to his wounds, still manages to have a 50% hit ratio, but doesn't bring it down. Nor does Kevin, who fires off an Autoshot but only wounds the Floater further. The rest of the troop moves closer in to the UFO, except for Epoch who, disgusted with his teammates' lack of weapon proficiency, takes out the floater with a snapshot. Epoch: 2, Floaters: 0. The troops come closer to the UFO. End turn.

Darn that Floater! It comes out of the UFO again and kills the other CF, leaving me with zero meat shields. And to add insult to injury, it walks (floats?) back inside the UFO. Hmph. Also, some badly aimed plasma comes flying out of left field. Looks like there's another Floater out there somewhere. A quick glance shows that there is, standing (floating?) in a grove of dead trees. Decay attempts to show it the error of its ways with two Autofire bursts, but only one out of six bullets connects, merely wounding the alien. Lithium_ steps up and finishes it off with two aimed shots, getting his second kill.

Having maneuvered Desert Demon, Kevin, Endersshadow and Epoch into position covering the UFO door, and Mark4 kneeling on a hill above, I cackle with glee and end my turn, hoping that sneaky Floater will pop his ugly head out again, so my troops can blast it. My plan is to marshall everyone at the door, and rush in, Zerg style, cutting down the Floaters before they can react. However, it seems this Floater can see through walls, as it does not come out. Shrugging my shoulders, I pick Endersshadow to be the unlucky one through first. He steps inside the door, and bumps into a Floater. Which he then autocannons down. Kevin aims over his shoulder and kills a second floater inside the UFO which, as evidenced by this screenshot, was turned into a flaming ruin by my Interceptor.

Desert Demon gets a promotion to Sergeant despite consistently displaying all the tactical genius, marksmanship and general soldiery of a salmon on amphetamines, and Endersshadow gets promoted to Captain. However, the news is not all good: Mark4, wounded badly by the Dane's misaimed rocket, has a recovery time of twenty four days. In other words, Mark isn't seeing any action until February rolls around. Tough break. Oh, and here's that Floater report I promised you.

The call went out once more. Another UFO had been spotted. The new recruits, along with the old hands, leapt into the Skyranger-1 and flew off into the midday sun. After a brilliant high-speed battle between the Interceptor escort and the UFO, the Skyranger-1 touched down near the crash site. As the squad deplaned, they spotted the aliens -- not the tiny grey men Four had dubbed Sectoids, but tall, brutish floating creatures. "Ugly," remarks one of the bullies. "Not as ugly as you," Enders says. Four begins to issue orders. Despite he and Enders being of a rank, Enders defers to Four. Four is just like that. The two bullies mysteriously wind up in front of everyone else -- much to their displeasure.

"Right," Four says. "I want everyone to take down those three flying creeps. Ready, aim... Fire!" The entire squad is lit up by the muzzle flashes of their firearms, and the nearby hills and woods echo with the sharp report of bullets hitting metal. The Frenchman, Epoch, takes down one of the aliens that Kevin mentally classified as "Floaters," but the rest of the squad misses. The two remaining aliens react quickly, one of them firing off a plasma blast and floating inside the crashed UFO, the second hitting the tank. One of the bullies goes down to a bolt of plasma. The squad begins to fan out and keeps firing, as plasma blasts fly out of a tree grove on the left. The two Americans team up on the unlucky exposed Floater, taking it down. The tank driver crackled over his com; "Hey, got another one of these things over the hill." Four motioned for Kevin and the Dane, Leing, to get ready to rush the alien. Enders begins to gather up the remaining troops with superb coolness under fire, and another bully falls to another bolt of plasma from the UFO door. More shots fly out from the tree grove. "Lithium, Decay!" Enders shouts. "Take that thing ou-"

Kevin's world went black, then red, then orange. He opened his eyes. He was on his back, Four was on the ground, groaning, and the hill in front of him was completely destroyed. Leing coughed.

"I am sorry," he said in a thick Danish accent. "Are you badly hurt?" Four nodded grimly. Kevin shook his head. Four said, "Enders, you have command. I need to rest." Enders nodded, ordering the troops to move up. Decay and Lithium finish off the Floater in the grove. "Kevin," Four rasped. "Help me up." Kevin numbly assisted Four in standing, and the large man immediately shot off two bullets, and a grunt of pain sounded from the other side of the hill. "Finish it," Four said, slumping to the ground. Kevin, hands shaking, took aim down the hill, fired off a burst, and missed. Kevin swore. Epoch carelessly fired off a one-handed pistol shot, ending the wounded Floaters life.

The soldiers assembled by the UFO door. Taking a deep breath, Enders went in the door. A Floater, surprised, floated three feet off the ground in front of him. "Die, you filthy alien!" Enders called, sending three Autocannon rounds into the alien, which falls instantly. Kevin aims over his shoulder at a Floater hovering inside the UFO, and brought it down. The soldiers stepped inside. The interior of the UFO was a smoking ruin. Enders pulled out a communicator. "This is Sgt. Ender's Shadow to .php. .php, do you read me?" A moment later, a perky female voice answered: "Good afternoon, sir. This is the .php automated customer support system. To receive assistance regarding weapons or equipment malfunction, press 'one.' To receive assistance regarding information regarding alien lifeforms or technology, press 'two.' To receive assistance re-" Enders cut it off. The squad stared at the communicator held at arms length in the Sergeants hand. "Well," Enders said after a moment, "I guess we'll just be dropping in."

The squad was gathered around Fours hospital bed, Leing looking sad and guilty. Four had spoke eloquently about Ender's Shadows calmness under fire and his worthiness for command; General General Eldritch had immediately promoted him to Captain. Desert Demon has also been picked for promotion, for no easily discernible reason. "Will he live, doc?" Decay asked the doctor. "Of course he'll live," the man said. "I didn't get my degree for nothing, you know! He'll just have to stay in bed for, oh, twenty four days until he recovers." Four grimaced. "Looks like I'll miss the next few missions," he said. "Take good care of the squad, Enders."
"I will, sir," Enders promised, using the honorific despite the fact that he outranked Four. Kevin left the hospital room to think.

Back at .php, I sell almost all the alien weapons and corpses we recovered, making a nice profit. The weapons I saved were a Small Launcher and two Stun Bombs, which I will research after Laser Rifles. At this point, a bunch of things happen at once. As the picture suggests, UFO-3 has arrived. As soon as I dispatch the two planes, Laser Pistols finishes, and I start research on Alien Alloys. Then I start production on eight Laser Pistols for our squad. In the mean time, let's take a look at our new weapon technology.

Laser weapons are a huge step up from conventional ones. Although they don't cause as much havoc and widespread devastation as rockets and AC-EX/AC-IN ammo, they do a lot more single target damage. The Laser Rife is overall the best squaddie weapon in the game, being very accurate, dealing good damage, and being useless against armor -- something that you will come to appreciate should you be unlucky enough to fight Ethereals. The Laser Pistol is much weaker than its Rifle counterpart, but is cheaper and quicker to research. It's still more powerful than a standard Rifle or Pistol. And, as a final good deal, they don't use ammo. In six days, six hours, we will have eight of them. Now -- to take care of UFO-3, without the aid of Mark4's excellent accuracy.

Sneaky aliens! It ran out of radar range, but the Interceptor found it again -- landed in central Spain! Sneaky indeed. Let's show 'em who's boss. Skyranger-1 lands, tank rolls out, looks left, nada. Looks right -- aha! These aliens continue to show a sneaky nature and have posted a sniper looking out of a second-story window, down on the Skyranger-1. Lithium_, Kevin, Desert Demon and Epoch all open fire on the window, but completely fail to kill the Sectoid. Lithium_ does score a hit, though. The wounded Sectoid opens fire, destroying the wall and the window, but not hitting us. It then runs under cover. Next round, I use Kevin's autofire to dismantle the walls of the second floor, revealing a second Sectoid! I keep maneuvering my men about, and use Lithium_ to kill the first alien, and try to use Epoch to kill the second; but it seems the good aim that blessed him in his first mission didn't carry over.

On the aliens turn, the Sectoid runs to the other side of the second story, presumably to escape. Epoch ain't havin' none o' that, so he primes a grenade and tosses into the middle of the second story. Even if the Sectoid manages to avoid death, it won't be able to snipe anymore, since the floor will be on fire or gone. Scouting continues, revealing a medium sized UFO. I slowly advance the troops, keeping Kevin and Lithium_ by the building to make sure that Sectoid doesn't do anything tricky. As ZerG~LinG deplanes, he spots the Sectoid in question, still on the second floor -- and well within the grenades blast radius. Bye bye, Sectoid!

Or, I thought it was in the blast radius. The little guy escaped! Epoch, upset that his grenade failed to kill the little alien, fires an aimed shot and finishes it off. Scouting reveals at least two aliens still outside the UFO, one in a field on the other side of the now-burning building, the other somewhere else. The last of our Cannon Fodder troops dies to plasma fire. No more meat shields! Decay steps forward, lets loose two autofires, But it looks like his Poor Aim Disorder is catching, because the alien he was shooting at misses with all of its opportunity shots. Lithium_ steps up next to Decay and takes the alien out with one bullet. Next turn, a Sectoid shoots at the tank, missing. Lithium_ and Decay double team it, Decay getting the kill. The squad is now bisected: Lithium_, Decay, Kevin and the tank are going around the right side of the UFO, while Endersshadow, Desert Demon and Epoch are going around the left. ZerG~LinG is bringing up the rear -- I overestimated his Strength score and gave him too much stuff. By accident, I swear. Oh, and he's using the Autocannon now, not the rockets. Enders has those. The left squad blasts a hole in a hedge and darts through. The plan is to get to the UFO pincer style, then send in the HWs, Enders and ZerG~LinG, to clear out the UFO itself.

A few turns later, the squad is arranged in front of the UFO like this: ZerG~LinG, getting his reward for the friendly fire incident last mission, has been picked to go in first. Behind him is Enders, ready to blast the UFO into smithereens with his rockets. Covering them are Kevin and Epoch, ready to provide support fire. Meanwhile, the tank, Lithium_, Desert Demon and Decay patrol the rest of the map, making sure no straggler Sectoids show up and ruin the plan. ZerG~LinG rushes in, killing the sectoid inside the first room. The rest of the squad hustles in, covering the two doors, and prepares to make a cautious assault on the main room.

Decay, Kevin, and Epoch make up the right-side team, while Lithium_, Desert Demon, ZerG~LinG and Endersshadow make up the left. Left side goes first! Lithium_ busts through the door and runs smack into a waiting Sectoid. He hits it with an aimed shot, and gets blasted by Plasma in return, taking half his life in damage as well as three fatal wounds. Ouch! Desert Demon runs in the next door and spots a Sectoid, killing it. With the left side blocked by Desert Demon's TU-less form, the right side jumps in, with Epoch killing another Sectoid and clearing the main room out. The alien Epoch killed seems to have been the last one -- the mission ends.

No promotions this time, as no rookies got promoted to Squaddie. Back at .php, I sell eight(!) Plasma Pistols and their clips, as well as three Mind Probes for a neat one million seven hundred thousand USD. A few more soldiers came in as well, so let's get acquainted with the new faces! eU)NiCk got a SC, or Scout, classification due to his high TU and decent Stamina scores. I'll probably use him as a grenadier and cover destroyer. SnK-Arcbound got a SC classification, too, and has much better reactions and accuracy than eU)NiCk. TheCheeseManCan got a G classification, with nothing really standing out as awesome. Convider, meanwhile, got a super set of stats, with almost enough TUs to make him a great scout, good Stamina, decent Bravery, amazing Accuracy and great Strength. He got a SS classification due to his accuracy, which is rivaled only by Mark4s.

Character	eU)NiCk	Snk-Arcbound	TheCheeseManCan	Convider
TUs	60	60	51	59
Stamina	50	52	65	70
Health	38	36	27	32
Bravery	40	30	20	30
Reactions	46	51	50	30
Accuraccy	44	57	54	70
Throwing Accuracy	62	79	72	73
Strength	31	20	25	37

Oh, one other thing: Lithium_ is wounded for about 13 days. Sucks to be him, but such is life on the line, or something.

Another call rang out. A third UFO had been detected. As Kevin boarded the Skyranger-1, he reflected on the past two missions, and how he had fared. Again, his mind turned to his fellow soldiers. He knew nothing about them. Since the UFO was detected in central Spain, and .php being located in Russia, he felt he had time to inquire.

"So," Kevin said, feeling awkward, "We've all lived through one or two missions together. Why don't we, eh," he said, interrupted by Desert Demon.
"What, you mean, share our feelings, names, one thing we like, favorite animal? No, thanks. I did that in boyscouts."
Kevin hesitated. "Ah, fine," Desert Demon said, "Hi, my name is Desert Demon, I'm feeling confident, I enjoy cheesecakes, and my favorite animal is a scorpion." The soldiers snickered. "That wasn't what I meant," Kevin said. "Look; here we are, tossed into combat against a technologically advanced alien army, where we have to work together, count on each-other to survive, and we don't know anything more than each-others names! It's insane!" The soldiers quieted. "Yah," Epoch said, in a French accent of such ostentatiousness that it seemed fake, indeed, that it has to be phonetically detailed in print, "But I am zinking zat zis iz eententional, as it ver, a plot of zee management." Kevin thought about this.

"What?" he finally asked. "Bah!" Epoch replied. "Amerikans."
"I think," Ender's said, "That we should tell each-other about ourselves, look for patterns. I'll start. I lived in America, and hung out on the internet a lot. I went to Japan once. It was awesome! They had a Godzilla themed restaurant." Lithium shrugged.
"I lived in Britain," he said, "I dabbled in chemistry and hung out on the internet a lot."
Decay frowned. "Hey," he said, "I used the internet a lot, too!" The soldiers glanced at each other. And nodded. "Okay," Kevin said, "So they hired a bunch of internet geeks." Nobody spoke. The Skyranger-1 flew on.

The mission was quick and brutal. They fought Sectoids again, rushing forwards in a block, then splitting into two halves, cutting down the aliens as they fled back towards the UFO. The last remaining bully, realizing that he was the last of his species, tried to hide under a rock wall, and was (proving that the gods have a sense of humor) gunned down. The squad convened in front of the UFO.

"Okay, Leing," Enders said. "You get to pay up for nearly killing Four and Kevin that last time. You first." Leing shrugged. It did seem only fair. He walked in, calmly gunning down a passing Sectoid with a quick burst of armor piercing Autocannon rounds. "Alright," Enders ordered, "Epoch, Kevin and Decay, go up and through that door. Leing, Lithium and Desert Demon, with me." The parties moved up to the doors. "I'll go in," Lithium offered. Enders motioned for the right party to wait for his order.

Lithium cautiously stepped through the door, and almost stepped on a child sized Sectoid. Kevin remembered that everything happened at once -- Lithium fired two bullets into the alien, but before it fell, it shot a badly aimed globule of plasma that burned off part of Lithium's leg. The man fell over, blinded by pain. "Oh, shit!" Desert Demon said. Enders reacted fast. "Desert, go in the clear the room! Right side, move in! Leing, help me get Lithium to the Skyranger."

Desert Demon rushed into the room, gunning down an unprepared Sectoid, and Epoch calmly shot a second one with his pistol. They stripped the UFO and went back to the Skyranger-1.

Lithium lay unconscious on the hospital bed, next to Four, who was sleeping. "Will he live, doc?" asked Decay. "Of course he'll live!" the doctor snapped. "But re-growing part of your leg takes time. He'll be up in two weeks or so." The squad left the hospital, waiting for the next UFO to arrive, wondering if they were the next one to be injured.

I sit back and wait for events to occur. A UFO appears in Scotland. I dispatch the planes, complete with new recruits, and begin the mission. It is dark. You are likely to be eaten by a Gr- Sorry. Wrong game. The tank deplanes and looks about. It seems that we are in the middle of a farm, right next to the UFO, which is medium sized. No opportunity fire is, well, fired as the tank rumbles about, so I dispatch some soldiers to camp outside the UFO while we make certain no aliens are hiding in the nearby countryside. Epoch, Convider, Kevin and Decay will cover the UFO, while the rest of the squad combs the map for aliens. Three turns pass. The UFO squad is carefully moving towards the door, and the rest of the team is setting up cross-fires, using trees as cover, checking windows, etc. but there is a... Rather disturbing lack of aliens. For a medium sized UFO, there should be at least five aliens. Could they all be in the UFO? A turn later reveals the answer to be "no." eU)NiCk, being the scout that he is, was going up some stairs when an alien walked out of a room on the second floor, walked right past him, and then turned to face him. And did nothing. Not expecting a peaceful resolution to any alien confrontations, I order eU)NiCk to shoot. And he does. Three times. At almost point-blank range. And he misses every time but the last one, only wounding the Sectoid. Hoping that the wound will reduce its accuracy to terminally low levels, I use eU)NiCks remaining TUs to crouch down in the stairwell, hoping the alien will miss.

In a last vain hope to save eU)NiCk, I try to get SnK-Arcbound, the other scout who is also on the second floor of a building next to the one eU)NiCk is in, to shoot through the walls and take out the Sectoid. Unfortunately, conventional weapons don't work very well against brick walls, and he only manages to break one of them down. Desert Demon, the closest ally, runs inside the first floor and almost reaches the stairs -- but he is too far away! Could this be the end for eU)NiCk? The next turn will tell!

But meanwhile, in this turn, nothing happens. Scouting continues, and but for a few remote orchards, the map is fully explored. The UFO-camping squad reaches the door and starts to position themselves around it, ready to fry any Sectoids stupid enough to try something. The turn ends -- the fate of eU)NiCk hangs in the balance! And it seems that eU)NiCk is either the luckiest human being alive, or the Sectoid can't see very well. Apparently, the Sectoid can't see where he is, despite the fact that he's crouching in the stairs a few feet in front of it. eU)NiCk exploits the sensory ineptitude of the Sectoid by filling it full of lead, and proceeds to explore the rest of the building. It seems there is a third floor. Desiring to avoid a situation like that last one, Desert Demon follows eU)NiCk to provide support. Continued exploration convinces me that there are no more Sectoids save the ones inside the UFO. A few turns pass wherein I assemble everyone near the UFO door.

Finally, everyone is assembled. eU)NiCk is picked to go inside the UFO first on the ground of being, and I quote, "The luckiest son-of-a-gun we've ever had." He steps in, shoots the Sectoid that was standing around, and then the rookies take turns at "who can miss the most." TheCheeseManCan loses, and finishes the Alien off. )Note: Convider couldn't play because he didn't have any bullets in his gun. Way to go, smarts! Note to self: Buy more Pistol clips.) The squad hustles inside the UFO, and prepares to rush the main room. And rush they do! eU)NiCk takes down a Sectoid in one shot, and then is hit by a plasma blast. And takes five damage. He's invincible! Aliens almost never see him, and when they do, they can't kill him! SnK-Arcbound gets a kill, as does Kevin, and then the squad converges on the last room. Kevin goes first, autoshotting the last Sectoid. Mission accomplished! Back at .php, I sell off the plasma weapons we got, as well as all the Sectoid corpses. Funds are now at 3,419,580 USD! I use them to buy some more Pistol clips and a few more Cannon rounds for our fighters. As a final note, eU)NiCk is out of action for five days because of that plasma wound.

Four more recruits arrived in the downtime inbetween UFO detections. They were "named" SnK-Arcbound, eU)NiCk, TheCheeseManCan (this one made no sense to Kevin) and Convider. As they became adjusted to the station, Enders came in to Kevin's room. "Hey, man," he said, in greeting. "I was thinking more on what we found out, you know, the whole internet geeks thing, right? Well, these four guys, see, they're just like us! Internet geeks! As far as I can tell, only Four isn't an internet geek, but I haven't asked him. Or you." Enders looked at Kevin. "What'd you do, before they hired you?"
"Well," Kevin answered, "I wasn't hired so much as shanghaied. Besides, you wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"C'mon, man!" Enders said. Then he had an idea. "Hey, I order you to tell me, 'cause I'm a Captain now! Hah." Kevin grimaced.
"Fine," he said. "I piloted a shuttle along the space lanes of the Federation. At the time, I was insane. I got killed by a Auroran Carrier, and then I woke up in a suburban home. The next day, an XCOM official drugged me and I ended up here." Enders blinked.
"Yah," he said, "I don't believe you." Shaking his head, he left. Kevin rolled his eyes.

Later, another UFO was found. The new recruits acted admirably, clearing out the farmhouses (including a tense situation on the stairs, that eU)NiCk almost certainly exaggerated. Something about emo Aliens.) and gunning down the child-like Sectoids where they stood. eU)NiCk took a nasty superficial plasma wound, and the doctor said we would recover in five days or so. Kevin, looking back on it, noted that there were no deaths. The squad was starting to become better at fighting aliens. It felt like they were achieving something.

I will end this second report here. I do have a few people on the queue for soldership, but won't be able to add them until the Living Quarters finishes. So, feel free to comment saying, "EldritchEvil, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MAKE ME AN X-COM SOLDIER," and I will do so. Thank you, and good night.