April saw some new developments.
Two grounded scout UFOs were detected, one in France and another in Siberia. Strike teams were dispatched to deal with them.
The Siberia UFO was standard fare. X-COM suffered zero casualties, brought down six floaters, and inflicted horrific ecological damage on the Russian landscape.
The France UFO was something different. We realized this as soon as the assault team disembarked.
These things had never been seen before. the troops dubbed them "snakemen" during the brief and one-sided battle. Rekkon continued proving his worth while also proving these new aliens were as vulnerable to exploding death as anything else.
We had no idea of their capabilities, so we took no chances, leveling every building we saw.
It turned out that these new xenos monstrosities were well aware of X-COM's proclivities with regards to high explosive, which became apparent when we breached their medium scout UFO.
Robo-Vendetta proved his cybernetic augmentations here, gunning down all three snakemen with two bursts of autofire from his laser rifle. A pretty awesome piece of badassery.
Incidentally, PeZook dropped the UFO in Siberia after it lifted off. Most of the floater crew were wiped out in the crash, and the survivors were too dazed to put up much of a resistance.
Laser cannon and artifact sales contributed heavily to our income this month, which was good news, as the money finally enabled us to build a new base.
Per Doctor Bear's suggestion, we relocated the Perseus facilities to Texas, and began construction of a monitoring base there. We're planning for this to expand into an interception base as well.
More excellent news came from Doctor Surlethe's team.
This "hyperwave decoder" will enable us to detect and decrypt alien communications. It is believed that the design of the aliens' vessels and the nature of hyperwave transmission will allow us to zero in on the aliens with near perfect clarity, unlike the dodgy nature of our standard radar. In other words, not only will we be able to determine the species and intentions of the invaders, but we will be able to do this with a close o 100% success rate; a UFO that enters the coverage of a base equipped with a hyperwave decoder will be detected, instantly.
Doctor Bear theorizes that the aliens' belief in humanity's inferior technology and overall intellect - indicated in his interviews with the various prisoners, who all seem to hold a negative view of the human species' capabilities - may mean that the xenos do not believe it possible for us to understand, adapt to, and exploit their technologies. As the hyperwave decoder will no doubt prove, this is an erroneous assumption.
Decoder construction has begun at Skynerfed, though other bases will no doubt receive their decoders in time. These facilities are quite expensive, and with all the new construction going on, we won’t have the funds to supply every base with these facilities for some time.
On the 12th of April, another large UFO was spotted operating over the Indian Ocean. Recognizing the danger these craft represented, all X-COM craft were scrambled.
As the UFO approached Saudi Arabia, both Phred and Coalition’s interceptors reached it first. They trailed it across the Middle East until PeZook’s interceptor could arrive, and then all craft moved to engage the UFO.
Due to the shorter range of Phred’s laser cannons, he bravely moved forward to draw fire from the other two interceptors, while they unleashed their Avalanche missiles. As the heavy air-to-air ordnance hammered the UFO, it seemed as if we would bring down the monster.
Then . . . .
Zablorg readied his autocannon, loading it with new, special ammunition: incendiary shells. He turned to face the men and machines assembled outside the launch hangar, looking over them.
“GET TO DA SKYANGER,” he ordered, his glorious, flowing locks waving in the air. “WE GOTS A TEENY WEENY ITTY BITTY PILOT TO AVENGE!”
The troops let out a hearty, drunken cheer, the HWP began doing a donut around the hangar bay, and the mechanics just sobbed as they imagined having to clean up this mess.
Zablorg simply smiled as he watched his men file past, and he flicked the shiny pins on his jumpsuit’s collar.

Commander Zablorg. Truly, no more terrifying sight could await the wretched xenos.
Note: Salutes to Phred, the first X-COM pilot to die in service to humanity. Your mad lazor skills will be remembered for a few weeks. Pay no attention to the remains recovered from his ejector seat being shipped to Texas....