As your troops begin their rapid trek towards the hangar where a pilot is getting an Avenger warmed up for their use, several things happen at once. First, you turned your gaze to the hologlobe in the center of the command center, and watched as it shrunk to show a color-coded map of Earth's Orbitals. The thousands of white dots representing satellites along with other civilian space assets only marginally clutter the display, but you still tune out all of them save the ISS and other ones of similar importance.
Your assets on the other hand, are colored in cyan for the 8 detection satellites allowing you to spot the alien ships with great accuracy. The Firestorms and Vikings streaking away to their objectives are a bright yellow, and the missiles streaking from your anti-orbital batteries are brilliant orange streaks rocketing up towards the red alien ships, each of which is tagged with a basic representation of its hull profile and size. Transient green lines lance out from the ground, representing plasma beams lancing into space.
You also place a phone call to the US National Guard, and get your techies to hack the system to ensure that you don't get stuck in the 'on hold' music for hours. The line opens up with "Greetings, as you no doubt know by now, there are hostile aliens attacking Cleveland Ohio. I am not affiliated with them, but I'm sending in troops armed with similar technology to stamp out the threat and wanted to curtail any possible misunderstandings. The aerospace craft carrying them will arrive in roughly 15 minutes."
the operator on the other end asks "Who are you and how can we be sure you aren't with the aliens?"
You briefly debate how much to reveal, before saying "I'm the man running the organization with the most advanced technology, including military hardware, on Earth." With that you hang up, hoping that the operator will pass the message up the chain well enough. As you hang up, you spot the indigo dot that is the Avenger streaking away from Switzerland.
At the same time several things happen. Your first salvo of Blaster Missiles strike home, blowing 4 of the largest alien craft clear out of the void. But then things start to go horribly wrong as a line of green plasma streaks from the remaining alien heavy ship towards Earth and the base rumbles. This far down the Weisshorn you don't feel it as anything but the most minor of tremors, but you still hear the alarm saying "Anti-orbital battery has been hit!"
You immediately ask "Is it still in good enough condition to fire?" one of the technicians tells you "Barely, only 2 plasmas and a single missile silo are still able to fire, but I'm not sure if we should." Wise, revealing that you were still alive too soon was liable to get your anti-orbital battery shot again, rendering it completely unsalvageable. Thus, you hold fire until your squadron of Firestorms engage.
By the time the Firestorms make it up there 5 minutes later, the remaining 9 ships in orbit have come together in a fleet only 1,000 km across. Your Firestorms slow to a 'mere' 12 km/s as they come in for their first attack run. It can't really be called an 'attack run' given the whole 'space' thing, but terminology tends to stick. Both sides fire, and 2 alien ships die. You gasp briefly as two of your Firestorms take glancing hits, but Flame 1 reports only losing the first 2 armor layers out of 5 off his belly, and Flame 4 only lost one of 3 on the rightmost weapons pod.
The next 10 seconds see the deaths of 3 more alien ships, one of which had been damaged by the first attack run. On the other hand, you gasp with panic as Flame 1 gets mission-killed. The pilot sends a transmission, saying "Main and secondary power plants are down, I've got no thrust whatsoever, and all my guns are shot. Pretty much the only sort of good thing is that my trajectory will have me re-entering Earth's atmosphere within an hour, but I'm not sure I'd survive the landing given that there's no power for the inertial dampeners. Here's hoping you see fit to send a rescue mission my way."
You answer
[] Sorry, can't manage that (-1 skilled Firestorm pilot, -10 rep{X-COM}, all other aerospace craft available)
[] I'll send the other Avenger (no spare Avengers for rapid deployment, guaranteed success, recover partial Firestorm, +10 rep {X-COM})
[] I'll send a Medivac (have a spare Avenger on standby, lower Delta Vee budget gives less of a window for successful recovery, +10 rep {X-COM})
Also, now is when the aliens start to retreat, accelerating towards Sirius. Once it becomes clear to them that they won't be able to shake your Firestorms via conventional thrust, the surviving 2 ships jump to FTL. Your attention now drifts back to the Avenger you have en route to Cleveland, scheduled to be arriving in 2 minutes and already undergoing re-entry.
You've also got some orders for the base personnel at the time being, namely (pick 2)
[] damage control for the anti-orbital battery
[] write in
