We disembark, and immediately spot a sectoid watching the dunes in the opposite direction. Also, that's not a Medium Scout. Oh dear.
We treat him to a spot of Rifle Fire. He responds by falling over, dropping what appeared to be some sort of grenade launching device. It'll be analysed later.
(Unfortunately, Alien scrambling blanked out several of the photos we had of the battle.)
Our replacement sniper, who had done so well in the previous battle, put down the first alien to egress from the UFO with a single shot, while the scouting party headed around to the other side. As they're heading over there, another sectoid, no doubt having the same idea as us, slowly walks into view. Despite both scouts having reactions much akin to treacle, he receives a bullet and promptly falls over.
The scouts take positions to get any other aliens taking that route, but it looks like they figured it out. Blast. Another alien hefts a grenade in the direction of our Sniper, but the throw falls short and misses everyone.
One of the ambushing scouts heads down to see if there's anything holed up in the area sheltered from their view, and receives a sound Plasmaing for her troubles. The other one readies and throws a grenade, but completely fluffs the throw and drops it at his feet. Fortunately for him he was in the Personal Armour, and just managed to shave a fair amount of the Alien Alloy off it rather than receive any injury.
A soldier takes a look inside the UFO, but spots nothing and quickly retreats around the UFO, hoping the men (including our sniper) covering that area will be fast enough to stop any Aliens following him. They either don't spot the sectoid, or it moves like greased lightning. I'm not sure. They move forwards just in case. Another grenade is hurled at the sniper, but it's off target and any shrapnel is deflected by his Personal Armour. The girl with the Autocannon moves up and fires a shot at the grey that downed the scout earlier, but is caught in the blast of her own weapon (Much larger radius than I was expecting), and promptly finished off by the sectoid lurking just inside the UFO, although he then takes a .50 cal bullet in the back for his troubles.
The grey that took the AC round actually survived the blast, and moved up to threaten the butterfingered scout, although he was so distracted by his wounds all of his shots missed. He promptly passed out. The scout moved up and was promptly mown down by another sectoid, who was then subjected to the tender mercies of the Sniper. (Apologies for no pictures, I had several of my screens just turn out blank. Including the ones for that part.)
The aliens seem to be on the defensive, so we move inside.
One of the grunts grabs a Motion detector off the corpse of a scout, and heads around the outside of the UFOs to see if she can get any reads. Nothing comes up, unfortunately for us. Looks like we're flushing them out the hard way.
We hear a bit of movement inside; doors opening, footsteps, but nothing visible. A grunt heads through the northern door, and is promptly cut down by the grey stood inside.
We cautiously move around the other side, and soon hear another door opening. It looks like there's a central room, and the last sectoid's camped out in it. We take up guard positions, and grab a few Grenades to hurl into it. The sectoid, however, pre-empts that and uses the extreme power of his Plasma Rifle to blast through the interior wall just in front of one of the guards. He's so surprised by this that he doesn't even attempt to ready his rifle as the sectoid walks directly in front of him, checks the cockpit and moves to head back into his hiding place. On his way back the grey notices the gobsmacked guard, quickly introducing him to what Plasma rifles do at short range.
This, however, gives the sniper time to rush into the room and 'noscope' the diminutive alien, ending the engagement.
6 Soldiers down, for the largest Alien craft we've yet seen. We can't survive that kind of attrition, and I think the alien craft will only get larger from here. Still, the captured alien had some interesting things to say about Laser weaponry, and our scientists used it to finalise a design for a Laser Rifle. It'll be rolling off the assembly lines as soon as we run out of Alloys for Armour. I placed an order for some 'Proximity Mines', as well as blasting charges. Hopefully we can use these to make our own entrances to UFOs like these or trap the ones the Aliens use, placing the element of surprise firmly in our possession.