"…Sergeant Keith and Sergeant Dittrich to the Ops room immediately…" the intercom said as it blared announcements. This one concerned me as I was Major Austin Keith, and Major Justin Dittrich was in my squad.
"Hey, Jus, let's go," I said, turning to my bunkmate. He nodded and stood up, walking with me to the Ops room. Justin and I, along with the three other members of our squad, are members of a special team in a British special operations group known as the Special Air Service or SAS. As we stepped into the Ops room we immediately spotted Sergeant Wallcroft, our squad leader.
Alongside Wallcroft were our two other squad members, Sergeant Anderson and Sergeant Shnyder. Justin Anderson and Joseph Shnyder, both Lucarios, were the heavy guns of our squad. They were dressed in black gear and armor like us, with holes for their bulletproof chest spikes. They were equipped with grenades, smokes, combat knives and desert eagle sidearms in addition to their light machine guns. They also have the ability to use Aura Spheres and other moves, making them extremely useful.
Sergeant Wallcroft is a veteran SAS squad leader, assigned to our squad thanks to his impressive service record. He's insanely strategic, and Sergeant Dittrich once said he'd never been lead by a better man. Like the rest of us he wears a black uniform with armor. His equipment consists of an MP5SD submachine gun as a sidearm, frags, flashbang grenades, and a combat knife. His main weapon is an M4A1 assault rifle with scope and optional silencer.
Speaking of Sergeant Dittrich, he's an anthro Raichu, and a damn fast one. He can accurately assess a situation in seconds, and often helps Wallcroft with tactics. Their two minds together have a mission success rate unparalleled by anyone else in history. Justin's equipment consists of a Desert Eagle sidearm, frags, flashbang grenades and an M4 SOPMOD assault rifle. As if all this wasn't enough, any enemy coming in physical contact with him is instantly paralyzed, making hand to hand combat a piece of cake.
As for me, I'm rather secretive. There are innumerable different types of grenades and other equipment in my many pockets, and my appearance is always changing. I'm the versatile man on the team, which means I have to adapt to many different situations. Not even Wallcroft knows my full abilities.
Our squad, a special team known as Delta 51 after the U.S. military facility Area 51, is the best of the best. The SAS counts on us to succeed when all others fail, or in most people's words, to do the impossible. By now we'd completed an innumerable amount of missions, and I'd be lying if I told you it wasn't getting a little old.
"Alright, men, listen up," Wallcroft started. I tuned out any other noise, paying strict attention to what our squad leader was about to tell us. I expected it would be the background of the mission.
"We've got a major threat to the country's security on our hands," Wallcroft continued. He brought up a man's picture on a screen in front of us.
"This is Mariano Cabrero. He's the head of a paramilitary company that stands to gain tens of millions of dollars if the new security bill passes in parliament. Of course, there's no way that bill's going to pass-," Wallcroft said.
"Unless we're in a code red situation!" Sergeant Dittrich exclaimed, cutting him off. Wallcroft nodded.
"Exactly. We have intel that shows that Mariano has obtained at least one large chemical bomb, and he plans to detonate it in a crowded area and send the country into chaos. Parliament would be crazy to not pass a security bill in that kind of environment," Wallcroft finished.
"Sounds simple enough," Shnyder commented. Wallcroft shook his head.
"It's not. The bomb is currently stored in a warehouse ten miles from here, and it's crawling with Cabrero's men. Our mission is to get in, get the bomb, and get out as quickly as possible. We'll try to stay undetected so we can pull the job off as cleanly as possible," he explained.
"Well, this'll be tricky," Sergeant Anderson remarked.
"Anderson's right, this is going to be a challenge," I added. Wallcroft nodded.
"Do your best, men."
Not twenty minutes later we were exiting a chopper on a rooftop near the warehouse. We couldn't land too close or we might be spotted, so we had to make our approach on foot. After rappelling to street level, we made our way towards the warehouse. It seemed that Cabrero's men knew of the path we were taking, as it was lightly patrolled. We took out about fifteen tangos en route to the warehouse before arriving at a small street with a few people milling about.
"Keith, crowd control!" Wallcroft ordered.
"Yes sir!" I responded. Suddenly my appearance completely changed; my uniform altering to that of the intergalactic police force SPD. I pulled out my legitimate SPD badge and stepped into the street.
"Attention everyone, this area is being evacuated due to a serious threat! Please move out towards the Big Ben area immediately!" I barked. Big Ben was a few blocks away, and I figured that'd get them moving posthaste. Those in the street took my orders seriously, especially because I really was an SPD officer. Soon, the street was clear, and I waved the others across. Wallcroft led them to the opposite alleyway in a sprint. I joined back up with them, returning to my default SAS uniform and appearance.
"Well done, Sergeant Keith! Let's move, men!" Wallcroft ordered.
"Thank you, sir!" I responded as we continued our route to the warehouse.
When we finally arrived, Dittrich assessed the situation. Shnyder didn't like it at all. The warehouse was crawling with what must have been nearly a hundred men, all armed. Even with silenced weapons we would have a big problem overpowering them.
"Sergeant Dittrich, what is your assessment?" Wallcroft asked.
"There are over a hundred guards here; even with silenced weapons we'd end up dead if we tried to overpower them. I suggest grenades, and lots of them," Dittrich responded. With Wallcroft's approval, we each took out two frag grenades, preparing to throw them. Dittrich blinded our enemies with a flashbang, and then we let loose hell. After the initial explosion, which seemed much louder than anticipated, we saw a lot of the survivors coughing. There was a massive cloud of green gas encompassing the warehouse, which had me worried. We must have detonated the bomb.
"GAS MASKS, NOW!" Wallcroft barked hurriedly. We immediately donned our emergency masks and fled the scene. As hazmat began clean-up, we were evacuated via chopper.
"A white van escaped the warehouse before you took it out; we think there might be a second bomb inside it!" the pilot informed us.
"Follow it!" Wallcroft ordered.
"The van has stopped by the British Museum! We've got to stop them from detonating it!" the co-pilot suddenly cried.
"Step on it!" Wallcroft ordered.
We arrived at a rooftop overlooking the British museum minutes later, and were shot at by Cabrero's men as we descended from the chopper. We all managed to make it down safely, and immediately dropped to our stomachs on the rooftop. We fired down at Cabrero's men, who were in the process of moving a bomb into the museum's vent system. If we didn't act soon, a lot of innocent people were going to die.
The men carrying the bomb were priority, so I ignored the others and shot the larger of the two bomb carriers in the arm. Sure he could stand, but his arm was pretty much useless. Much to my dismay, he swapped with another man and began firing at me with a pistol. I put a bullet in his forehead and moved on.
Cabrero's men quickly began to retreat. Those remaining carried the bomb towards the other side of the museum- which was quite large mind you- while our squad rappelled down from the rooftop we were on. We all landed safely, except Wallcroft, who seemed to be entangled in his rope.
"Sergeant Wallcroft!" I cried, running to assist him. He waved me off.
"Go on without me; Dittrich, you're in charge!" he ordered. The four of us nodded and pursued Cabrero's men.
"I'm getting too old for this…" Wallcroft muttered as we left.
We caught up with Cabrero's men after a minute-long run across the museum's roof, and arrived just in time to see them dump the bomb into the ventilation system. We opened fire, killing all the tangos before they had a change to retaliate. Running over, Anderson and Shnyder pulled the bomb out and set it down on the roof.
"It's on a timer; we've got to disable it!" Anderson remarked.
"I don't know how to do that!" Dittrich remarked.
"Out of the way, I've got it!" I barked. The others stepped aside and I examined the detonation device. There were fifteen seconds left on the clock, so I quickly looked at all the wires. It was probably tamper-resistant, so I couldn't stop it by just clipping the right wire.
"Everyone stand back!" I ordered. Despite not being in charge, the others did as I commanded. I produced a strange grenade-like object from one of my pouches with light blue area on it.
"What's that?" Dittrich asked.
"V5 EMP grenade; shuts down electronics," I responded quickly. Not a second after I stopped speaking, I threw the grenade down on top of the bomb. The grenade detonated, sending out an electromagnetic pulse that disabled all of my electronics as well as the bomb's electronic detonation device.
"Nice!" Anderson remarked.
"We're not out of the woods yet; it'll wear off soon," I responded tersely. I quickly produced some wire cutters and clipped all the bomb's wires, removing the detonator while it was disabled. Now we just had to wait and see if my efforts had been successful. I looked at my tactical watch.
"You're choosing now to check what time it is?!" Dittrich questioned.
"No; when my watch starts working again, I'll know that the grenade's effects have worn off," I explained.
"Then we'll know if the bomb's been defused," Shnyder added. I nodded. Just then, my watch resumed operation. The bomb did not detonate.
"Well, looks like we've saved the day. Anyone got the right time?" I asked.
"Good work, guys, let's get this bomb out of here," Dittrich remarked. Anderson provided me with the time, so I was able to reset my watch. Wallcroft arrived minutes later in the chopper, and congratulated us on a job well done. After loading what was left of the bomb into the chopper, we headed back to base.
(The next day, 0900 hours)
Sergeant Dittrich and I arrived in the Ops room just in the nick of time; the clock struck 900 hours right as we entered. Sergeants Anderson and Shnyder were already there.
"Keith, Dittrich, glad to see you made it on time," Wallcroft remarked.
"Sorry we weren't early, sir," I responded.
"Well, at least you weren't late. Anyway, I've called you all here to discuss a change in the squad. That incident with the rope yesterday has made me realize that I'm not getting any younger, and I'm starting to lose my touch in the field. With the approval of higher-ups, I've decided to move my command to Ops. Sergeant Dittrich will be the squad leader now," Wallcroft announced. My bunkmate saluted.
"Thank you, sir," he responded.
"Make me proud, Sergeant," Wallcroft replied. Justin nodded.
"Well, now that that's out of the way, you four have a new mission!" Wallcroft remarked. Luckily for us, this one ended up being a bit more routine. As we headed out towards the chopper, I turned to Sergeant Dittrich.
"Good luck out there, squad leader," I remarked. He smiled.
"The same to you, Sergeant," he responded.