Operation Rug-Pull
"Operation Rug Pull" is a story set in Dimension Delta Zeta 17-46 during a period of intense conflict between the North American Federal Republic (NAFR) and the British Empire. The NAFR, seeking to gain an advantage, undertakes a dangerous covert mission targeting a critical Imperial nuclear research facility in Occupied Tehran. The story introduces a team of highly skilled special forces operatives commanded by Colonel Jameson and led by Captain Marks, who are tasked with infiltrating the facility. They are joined by Samantha Grey, also known as Agent HR-713, a unique individual with classified abilities, from the Federal Security Bureau (FSB)'s Super Force, who plays a role in the mission. This operation is shrouded in secrecy, with all involved operating under the highest level of classification.
Mission Briefing
The briefing room was dimly lit, with only a few flickering fluorescent lights overhead to illuminate the rows of stern-looking faces. The air was thick with tension as Colonel Jameson stood at the front of the room, his eyes scanning the assembled special forces operatives. "Men," he began, his voice low and even. "Today marks a new chapter in our long-standing conflict with the Imperials. For too long, we've been stuck in a stalemate, despite our tech advantages, unable to gain the upper hand against their superior numbers and resources." He paused, letting his words sink in before continuing.
"But today, that changes. We have received intelligence that the Imperials are hiding something big – a nuclear research facility, that could give them the edge they need to finally catch up to us in high yield atomic weapons."
The room erupted into murmurs and whispers as the operatives exchanged worried glances.
"Your mission," Colonel Jameson continued, his voice rising above the din. "Will be to infiltrate this facility, locate the control room, and use it to destroy the quantum centrifuge reactor. And you won't be going in alone."
He glanced around the room, his eyes lingering on each special operator before settling back onto their faces. "What I'm about to tell you is classified Top Secret," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "You are cleared for this information because of your exceptional skills, capabilities, and loyalty to our nation. But remember – what I'm telling you now never existed, does not exist, and never will have existed."
He paused, letting the weight of those words sink in before continuing, "For the duration of this Op, you are all granted code-word Penumbra Top Secret."
The Asset
"Now. We have... assets that operate outside the normal boundaries of human capability. People with powers beyond explanation or understanding; and one of them will be working alongside us to ensure our success today."
The operatives exchanged skeptical glances at this mention of super-powered agents.
"This asset," Colonel Jameson continued, "will be joining you on your mission. She is Agent HR-713. But remember – her existence is classified Top Secret. You are not cleared for any information about her beyond what I'm telling you now." Do not ask. Do not ask me. Do not ask her. Do not ask each other. You are allowed to call her Samantha Grey. After this mission, you will forget that name, forever.
Samantha Grey strode into the room on wedge-heeled combat boots, her black leather tactical gear accentuating every curve as she moved. Her pointed ears and ram's horns on her head drew gasps from some of the operatives, and others even looked away in discomfort -- their society's distrust of magical beings not having faded even in the decades since The Great Cleansing... a violent episode they had all thought had totally eliminated things like her from the face of the Earth. Doubling down on that unease, the bat wings on her shoulders seemed to flex with an otherworldly energy.
Colonel Jameson cleared his throat before continuing. "Agent Grey is a member of an FSB group informally called Super Force – people who possess extraordinary abilities and are dedicated to serving our great Republic. Super Force includes many people like her, others born with amazing powers, or since transformed by the Atomic Age." The men slowly settled.
Samantha's eyes locked onto the colonel, her gaze piercing as she listened intently.
"Your mission," Colonel Jameson repeated, "is to get Agent Grey to the control room of that facility. She will use her powers to ensure your safe passage and provide an... insurance policy against any Imperial Metahumans who might show up."
The operatives exchanged uneasy glances at this mention of super-powered enemy operators. Rumors of such had been around for years, but dismissed by serious men.
"Remember – what I'm telling you now does not exist," Colonel Jameson emphasized once more, his eyes boring into each operative. "You do not have need to know for any further information about Agent Grey, Super Force, or the existence of Imperial Metas beyond what I've told you today. Your mission is to complete the objective and get back alive." The Colonel then nodded to Samantha.
Samantha turned her attention to the special operators, and spoke. "Boys, welcome to Special Tasking Group Nine, and Operation Rug Pull. We'll be launching off the Carrier Defiant, in the Arabian Sea, in 12 hours. Defiant will then launch a diversionary raid on the British Imperial Orbital Launch Complex on Diego Garcia." She pressed a remote, and the briefing screens lit up with maps and diagrams. "This is Imperial Nuclear Research Station Tehran. The Imps have a quantum reactor there breeding superheavy elements for ultra high-power nuclear weapons. Super Force has provided me with special technical gear to defeat the reactor's systems. You just need to get me in the control room, and in turn, there are a few things I can do to improve your chances of getting back out alive..."
Mission Ops
Samantha stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier surrounded by her team of two dozen commandos. All men, battle-hardened, dressed in full tactical gear and ready to embark on the waiting helicopters as the Sun set.
She gave a nod to the officer in charge of the men, Captain Marks, and he gave the command. "Saddle up boys! We've got a long way to go!" She leapt up onto the chopper assigned to her, gripped the webbing strap with her tail, slid in between two heavily armed soldiers, and worked a headset on despite her horns. She grinned at one, and he stared back, obviously trying to control his expression. From experiece, she knew he was feeling simultaneous lust and revulsion, and it could be a problem. She spoke on the open comm, "If it helps any, I'm older than your grandmother." He nervously laughed. The others seemed to relax a bit, maybe she wasn't quite as alien as they feared.
The five stealthy helicopters lifted off the deck, their rotors whirring as they flew over the sea. The commandos were strapped in tight, ready for the mission ahead.
As they approached the research facility in the dark of night, Samantha's eyes scanned the horizon. "We're approaching the perimeter fence," she said. "Captain, get your men ready for action."
The helicopters landed outside the facility, and the commandos disembarked, moving swiftly to surround the perimeter. They moved silently, with purpose, using their training and experience to avoid detection.
Despite their stealthy approach, lights began to come on within the facility -- they had been detected. Ground radar? Nanosniffers? Terrasonics? Electrodynamic sensors? Who knew... An alarm blared, and groups of soldiers -- Imperial Security Marines! began to take up defensive positions. Samantha thought to herself, This just went to hell, and turned to Captain Marks. He whispered, "So much for keeping it quiet," and waited for her response. Without pause, she answered, "We can still do this. Hit them hard, now, I'll support." He gave the hand signals.
The commandos began moving forward by fire teams, and as each moved up, Samantha's eyes briefly glowed in the darkness, and the soldiers began to move faster, more confidently, more precisely, as they found positions with defensive cover. The commandos began to engage the defenders, sending withering fire at them, and then the battlefield came alight with a dim red glow. Samantha hovered low in the air behind them, sheathed in flames, drawing gunfire from the defenders. The air around the Imperial Marine security forces shimmered, and their gunfire flew wild. She threw spells at her own forces, enhancing their fighting abilities. The American commandos pressed their attacks, and one by one, their precise shots took out one enemy marine after another. A loud bell rang out, or perhaps a sonic boom, and Samantha suddenly appeared in the midst of the perimeter gate, wound her clenched fist in a gesture, and the last surviving enemy marines blipped into existence before her, and fell to the ground, on fire. "We don't have much time now," she said, as she dimmed her fires and landed softly on the pavement. One British marine started moving. She deftly took her sidearm, and shot him in the head.
Once they had cleared the gate, Samantha's team entered the research facility itself. The air was thick with tension as they moved silently through the corridors, moving purposefully, taking out cameras, breaking doors off hinges, raiding documents, and killing individual guards, technicians, and scientists they came across.
The Adversary
As they approached the central control room, a figure emerged from the shadows - Commander Flint, A.K.A., Exeter, a British superhuman with the ability to move at incredible speeds.
"Ah-ah, No further," he sneered, his eyes glinting with amusement. "You've done enough for this day; surrender and your deaths will be merciful."
Captain Marks gave a hand signal, and his commandos moved swiftly to take down Commander Flint, but he was just too fast. They brought their weapons to bear, but he would already be out of their lines of sight before they could pull triggers, and in rapid succession, he killed several of the American commandos.
In those fractions of a second, Samantha's eyes came alight with fire, and to two of her team's soldiers, time seemed to slow down around them. Vast kinetic forces filled them, accelerating their perceptions and speed boosted to inhumanly fast levels. They could see bullets moving through the air, leaving trails of shockwaves behind them. Their own guns fired in slow motion, bullets moving in slow motion around Flint, as he easily dodged them. Both soldiers released their assault rifles, and they merely drifted towards the ground. Their hands went to their K-Bars, and Flint's face turned, aghast, as he saw two American soldiers moving just as fast as he, combat knives glinting in the red-shifted light.
There was blood everywhere. Flint had exploded like a balloon under the soldiers' assaults.
Captain Marks broke the tension. "We're there, the control room; Agent Grey, you need to get it done before their ready reaction force arrives. Edwards, Johnson, Evans, Hughes; escort her inside. Everyone else, hold the perimeter and be ready to exfil."
Inside the control room, Samantha removed the pieces of the "Philadelphia Special" from her tactical harness, and connected them to the control console. Doctor Philadelphia's gadget woke up, and the lights on the console started blinking and flickering. The hum of machinery in the background began to increase is volume and in pitch. The centrifuges that bled off transuranics from the reactor core were overspinning, and would wreck themselves. Without the centrifuges injecting those elements into the outer containment cyclotron, their short half-lives would build up to criticality, and the reactor would melt down, or even explode. Samantha knew the words, and could go through the motions flawlessly, but her three hundred year old mind was not one for science. The mission had intended this to seem an industrial accident, with the resulting disaster hiding all evidence of their raid, but partial success was still success.
Exfil
"It's done, Captain, get the men out of here."
Captain Marks was in a hurry. "To the choppers! Now!!" There was no time for the bodies of their fallen, just dog tags. It was bitter choice, and all too common. Ten klicks outside the INRST was a Imperial Janissary Heavy Armored Division HQ. They could scramble ground effects armor to the INRST inside thirty minutes, and that clock had probably already started counting. Fifty klicks, there was a Fighter Command base with three squadrons of Hurricane Mark IV's; elite Citizen Forces in supersonic jets, not the ground pounder Janissary slave troops. "Mount up! Get us out!" Agent Grey flew next to them in close escort as they ascended, and only pulled herself into the open cabin of the chopper after they cleared the tree-line and the engines roared to full power. Both their eyes surveyed the dark horizon, looking for the tell-tales of missiles inbound. They were not disappointed.
The choppers blew flares and took sudden evasive maneuvers, and missiles missed. Special Operations choppers had the very best countermeasures to be had. Roars of jets surrounded them, and the chopper pilot called back "We have friendlies inbound, CAP from the Defiant! Hang on it's going to be a rough ride -- NOE to the coast!"
Above them, the British Hurricanes were engaged by NAFR F-19's, dogfights being out of style, the two groups of planes traded long range guided missiles and high output electronic countermeasures. Sudden death to anything in the sky that didn't focus on surviving. From the choppers, all they could see were the streaks of missile traces and sharp pinpoints of explosions. The commandos held on, silently, not knowing if the CAP would keep the British jets off them long enough to escape, or if the Imps would get the upper hand, and they would be in burning wreckage falling to the ground.
The sky lit up through the clouds, from high above. Static screamed across their headsets. An atomic, probably orbital. A NAFR Minuteman satellite had detonated. Before it did so, it had flung bundles of rods out into an intricate pattern, each one oriented on a sightline through a British Hurricane identified for it via Command Data Link. The radiation from the nuke energized the heavy metal nuclei in the rods momentarily to high quantum states, and as they returned to their ground states they lased coherently in the gamma range. Spears of unstoppable power lanced through the atmosphere, impaling half the British jets. The rest broke off. Distant thunder peeled. The American F-19's broke off as well.
It was over.
Debrief
Samantha Grey, Agent HR-713, stood in the carrier's briefing room, the surviving members of the ops team seated around her, all of them still near exhaustion, as Colonel Jameson addessed them.
"You achieved the base mission parameters, and brought out sensor data regarding new, improved security detection capabilities of the enemy. INRST melted down completely, sure to have a significant impact on their weapons programs." He paused. "I also note that you suffered heavy casualties, losing six men and several wounded. But, gentlemen, we've done what we set out to do," he said finally. "But the cost was high. Damned high."
Samantha shifted uneasily on her feet. It was her fault. It was always her fault.
The Colonel continued, "Captain Marks, I'll expect your full report, and individual citation recommendations."
The captain answered with a stoic, "Yes, sir."
"Agent Grey, you have the floor."
Samantha nodded solemnly, her eyes lingering on Jameson's face. "Colonel, I take full responsibility for the casualties, on behalf of myself and Super Force. The Director will insist no adverse service record actions be handed out to any War Department personnel. These operations are always considered above and beyond the call, for the men."
She turned to face the men who'd followed her into the Lion's Den. "Unfortunately, your service in Operation Rug Pull cannot be entered into your records as such. However, please know that FSB works closely with War at the highest levels, and the right wording will be in your records to reflect your service. And as for me, I have tokens of my appreciation for each of you." She continued. "Super Force has a tradition; after an Op with conventional troops, we leave you a token to remind you of the extraordinary service you gave, in the company of we metas, we who face much less personal risks than you. Tokens I hope you can wear with some pride. Words will never be spoken of them, but those who know, will always recognize them and what it means that you wear them on your shoulder. You have become the elites of the elite. And more so, I personally owe to you, and to your fallen comrades, the full measure of the success of this mission."
She walked slowly through the group of soldiers, and to each, handed a black uniform patch. Upon it, a silver embossed icon of a serene woman's face, adorned with ram's horns, surrounded by wings and red flames, a pentagram and silver stars, and lettered on the outside "STG-9" and "RUG-PULL 1968".
