Right now at the moment none of the civilians were moving towards the safety of the Sky Ranger.   Fear had them paralyzed in plae, fear of what was happening, fear of X-COM unit as in their body armor and weapons they were very intimidating.    They huddled down as much as they can, their heads down as far as they can and shuddering so hard it was no wonder that the team didn't hear their teeth rattle.   Arabic could be clearly heard and while it might not be understood by everyone present, the sound of praying for one's life was understood in all languages.    The old attache was true, there were no atheists in a foxhole.<br/><br/>From her slightly higher viewpoint still on the ramp of the ranger, Ren saw movement on the scope first.   Three shapes, vaguely smaller than a normal human and of the rough silhouette of the Sectoids.   Two on the ground, one of the roof.   The one on the rough popped out of cover to take a look about, presenting an lovely profile as the clouds clean and the waxing moon to dull displayed it.   The other two moved up to the the building about 75 meters away from the butcher shop to the left of O'Byrne's ground team.   One alien hung back a further then or so meters.   There was a weird purplish glow that flowed from the one alien to the other.    The caused the closer Alien to cry out a cry and take a shot at Sarah.<br/><br/>Bright, almost vile, verdant green energy streaked through the night air an when it passed by Sarah.   As ti did there was the sharp, metallic stench of ozone in the air about her.   Her hair writhed and the fine hairs on her arm and back of her neck stood up on edge.    Then came the wash of super heated air that when it brushed against bare skin made it felt like the skin got a light sun burn.   A total of three shots were fired, all of them missed, but the last one was so close that it near kissed Dahl.   One came close to Steen as well even though it did not seem like he was the target.   However the thing seemed to have the range on both them.<br/><br/>To the right of the butcher shop come a bull rush of two monstrous forms that stand neat six feet in height and loon vaguely like the alien monster from the old Aliens movie of that creature scampered on all fours.   It gave a chilling warbling cry and fixed its what could only be eyes upon team one on the ground near Clulski and Yoshia.   Yoshia curses and moved fast sprint putting it in the path of the two menacing aliens and skidded onto one knee and laid down cover fire in an effort to turn the aliens away from Clulski.    The two aliens however presented a great target for Danuka and Geoff.<br/><br/>The aliens had engaged X-COM and what was once a far out possibility or a scenario dragged up from some bad SyFy weekly movie of the week has become earnestly and deadly real.<br/><br/>