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Some further massage: "Commander, after that alien assault on our base we have frantically tried to analyse the event as well as collect any information we can on similar events happening to our sponsors. To start with the latter part, I've squeezed intel out of an old friend in the armed forces about a ground assault on a deep nuclear launch facility. A covert group of ETs was able to access the base despite most of it being half a mile underground, and beat the hell out of base security. It was only by deliberately collapsing the residential wing that the base commander saved anything. Unfortunately, secrecy has prevented us from getting to prepare for this threat, as it was only by mentioning our own experience we were able to take part of theirs. Although this information comes too late to serve as a warning to us, it strengthens our analysis of how the aliens behave: It's clear the aliens divided their efforts between destroying the base assets and trying to take over the base completely. The loss of a base will obviously mean the loss of all assets in it, and will leave the area it protected undefended until a new base can be built. Even if we drive them off, the ETs can cause lasting damage by wrecking hangars, destroying labs and demolishing workshops, and it's obviously in our interest to prevent that, so try to take the fight to them, Commander, and go and meet them in force! Without a way of intercepting and decoding alien communications, it will be hard to tell if a UFO is going to mount an attack on our base (and, if so, which base) or if they’re intending to attack a city. Look for escorted Massive class signals. They aren’t going to make it obvious that they’re going for us, but sooner or later they will have to head directly to our base. The bases most likely to be attacked will be the ones they have the most operational data on – i.e. typically the oldest ones, but don't rely on "most likely" overly much. It would probably be a good idea to station a garrison or erect defenses at the bases most at risk, and to ferry troops to bases suspected to be targeted. Also note that defensive base batteries won't do us any good if we can't see the enemy, so a base out of radar coverage (its own or that of another base) is a sitting duck. As for the base assault craft, we have made some interesting observations. After action analysis of surveillance of the craft indicates it had mounted populated drop pods even before we were able to observe them. This implies they prepared for the assault well in advance and intended to launch it as fast as (in)humanly possible to deny us the chance to deploy our troops closer to the breach points and to set up booby traps in our base. While interesting in itself that they consider our bases to be something of a threat, it also provides us with a tactical advantage: Damage sustained by UFOs rarely if ever kills any crew members: all casualties usually occur due to the impact of a crash. In this case, however, damage to the UFO is likely to also cause damage to the troops in the drop pods. Our best estimates are that we may be able to kill up to 50% of the crew if we damage the craft to 100% (at which point it will crash), with the casualty rate essentially increasing linearly with the damage inflicted (20% damage to the craft = approximately 10% of the crew killed). We also estimate that damage inflicted by base batteries has the same effect as damage cause by our airborne forces when it comes to killing ETs. Interestingly enough, the aliens don't seem to be nearly as interested in a rapid deployment on terror missions, where they mount, enter, and deploy the drop pods only at the last minute, which indicates they're not nearly as worried about local forces that they are about X-Divison ones, which we can take some meagre pride in. While the drop pod deployment strategy difference ought to allow us to determine if a mission is a terror or a base assault one, our current technology only allows us to determine that by examining surveillance images in detail back at the lab, which takes hours, at which time the attack has already taken place. I hope we'll be able to develop a technique to transfer photos over a radio connection and perform automatic analysis of them, or have the rather unlikely luck of acquiring the means to intercept and decode the aliens' communications. And, finally, let's go over our emergency protocol for in the event of a base loss: Our pilots have instructions to seek out free hangar space on other bases, and, if that's not possible, perform emergency landings wherever they can, preferably at some kind of airport. However, I'd expect the local authorities to be too greedy to let us have working aircraft back, although they'll likely let the pilots return. We can expect to lose all soldiers at the base, as they'll be tasked with protecting the civilian evacuation, which means they have to be at defensive positions as the evacuation craft takes off. Engineers and scientists will be evacuated in a flight to the base that can make the most of them, i.e. have available berths and free lab/workshop space, while the remainder will seek shelter among the local population, but we can't forward them to other bases even if there is free space in them. Our guess is that the lost base will be converted into an alien base rather quickly, but we hope that if we can retake it reasonably quickly we may be able to recover it to a larger or lesser extent, and that hope extends to stored equipment, as they have little use for our equipment. The only way to know for certain is to actually lose a base and then try to retake it, and that's a proof I'd rather not get."

That's a rough cut in the red line. How about something along the lines of "Even though that info came late for us, it gives us enough data to be very sure about the tactics the ETs are employing:" "And finally, let's go over the emergency protocol for an attack on one of our bases:" while the remainder will seek shelter elsewhere. We can re-hire them later.