Chapter LXXIV: Order 66
1255hrs, 26 December 2013, Socotra, Yemen.
"Who decides my value? Tigers and leopards are in our hearts too, because they don't that the beasts are lurking, they stick a cheap price on me and let me go." Zoku Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Kuusou Rumba
The F-15Cs guarding the P-3 Orion got an order to shoot it down. They didn't like it as much as the next guy, but orders were orders. One of them lined up behind them, and fired two Sidewinders. It detonated right behind the lumbering plane, shattering the engines and the wings, riddling the fuselage with deadly shrapnel.
Luna and Artemis never knew who betrayed them to their fates. The debris of the Orion lazily fell toward the sea, to rest forever.
"Damn," one of the pilots said. "I wonder why we had to shoot them down."
"Must have been some leftover Nakanishi software," the other pilot said, convincing himself that he had not been in the wrong. The F-15Cs RTBed, and within a couple of hours, they were back at base in bed, after swapping sorties with their fellow pilots and somberly remembering the ones who had been lost that day.
At Yokota Air Base, things were moving less violently. The Security Forces moved in a took Dr. Kobayashi, Dr. Iwasaki, Nurse Kuroi, and the rest of the medical staff in for "protection." The Medical Facility's security detail was sent back home, having being told that their mission was accomplished, and that they would be no longer needed. Most of them found a job later…with the private sector.
"Um, excuse me," Dr. Kobayashi asked one of the SFs escorting him away to a C-17 waiting on the tarmac. "Where are we going?"
"I'm sorry Dr. Kobayashi, that's classified," was the stoic response. "However, the Japanese government has allowed you make a phone call once you reach the United States." The slip of the tongue was very deliberate.
"Wait, the United States? Why?" Kobayashi said to the SF officer.
"I'm sorry sir, that's classified. Like I said before…"
Kobayashi gave up after that conversation, and resigned himself to whatever was going to happen to him.
Within an hour, the medical staff was being flown to the United States. The security forces also took into possession several servers (rather, the computers that stood in for servers) that held important information in regards to the Nakanishi Group. These would also be taken to the United States for analysis.
Clerk Yumiko Takahashi was working a late night at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, specifically Office Complex Number 5, in Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. Terrorist attacks or not, the work of the government was never finished, and during the attacks, some social security information had gotten lost. It was her job to find it, and with twenty years' worth of experience under her belt, she was going to have to use every single one of them to fix this problem. As she was toiling away at her desk, she noticed several men coming through the office, passing the rows and rows of desks that lined the place.
Auditors? She thought to herself. It would be like them to come at an hour like this.
"Can I help you, gentlemen?" she called out. They stopped for a second, then came over to her.
"Yes, you can actually." One of them flipped out a Tokyo Metropolitan Police badge. "We need you to pull up these five names, please." He pulled out a piece of paper, with the names written on it. Yumiko noted that it came from the Prime Minister's office.
"Uh…okay. Of course." If the police came by, then they meant business. Better not question them, especially if they were on orders from the PM's office. She searched in her computer for them, and within seconds, she had the names pulled up.
"You know, you could have just called me, and I would have given you this information," she said to them, showing the results of the search.
The officer stared at her blankly. "Well, we just wanted to make sure."
"Make sure of what?" Yumiko asked, suspiciously.
"We want you to erase the information here," the officer said, giving her another piece of paper.
She examined the note again. "On all of them? They're dead though, no need to…"
"I said, please delete this information here," the officer repeated, pointing at the piece of paper. "Or would you rather we call your husband about your after-work escapades with your boss, Mr. Yamaoka?"
That made Yumiko's heart stop. These guys were really serious then.
"Alright, alright. I'm doing what you ask, just…just leave me alone."
Yumiko proceeded to wipe out every trace of information that the officers asked her to get rid of. All across Japan, at different departments, officers had been dispatched, whether from the JSDF or the police, and requested that data from that department be deleted. Sometimes, it wasn't even that. An innocuous email from a boss or chief would set the ball rolling for data removal.
Serena Tsukino, Raye Hino, Lita Kino, Amy Mizuno, and Mina Aino ceased to exist.
"Alpha 2-5, this is Overlord, come in, over."
Several groups of Special Operations Forces from SOCOM were already landing on the island, making their way through the destroyed first wave of marines, and past the second wave that had landed in the lull after the firing had stopped, sent in by a nervous COMUSNAVCENT.
"Yeah, we're here Overlord," Alpha 2-5 replied.
"Orders from above, Alpha 2-5. Standby."
"About time," Alpha 2-5 leader said. He was a Navy SEAL (Sea, Air, Land), operative, and he was ready to go. The four man element that he lead was an exceptional group of warriors that had the training, technology and experience to eliminate any threat. While he himself had not been at the killing of Osama bin Laden, Alpha 2-5 had certainly wished he had. This however, was more than going to make up for that.
"Poor bastards," one of his element, "Davies", said to one of the dead marines nearby him. The remains of the village was smoldering now, after the bombardment from the final, danger close fire mission that the forward observer had called in before he was killed in a hail of 57mm shells. They didn't find his body until a week later, and what was left could only be identified by DNA samples.
"They knew the risks," "Pompey," the demo expert on the element, stoically commented. "Although they certainly didn't deserve this."
"Huh," "Gallant," said. He looked at one of the dead marines; his name tag said "Hartman." "That was one of the gunnys that helped train Team 2, wasn't it?"
"Gunny Hartman? What the hell was he doing here?" Davies leaned over and looked at the guy. He was older than him, in his mid-forties. Or was, considering what had happened here. It looked like he had gone down fighting.
"Alpha 2-5, you are to proceed to a location marked on your HUD and enter the underground facility. Mission objectives to follow, out."
"Roger that, Overlord. Out." Alpha 2-5 terminated the radio call and noted that his SEALs were talking instead of paying attention to the mission.
Alpha 2-5 got them back on track. "Enough chit-chat. Let's get into that base." The Navy SEALs activated their HUDs and moved toward one of the hidden entrances near the base of the Haghier Mountains that ran on the east side of the island. Thankfully, they didn't have to leg it all the way there; The Light Strike Vehicles that had been airdropped in for them via Chinook helicopters certainly went a long way in enhancing their range of operations, and soon enough, they had reached the mouth of the riverbed that would take them to the huge mountain fortress.
Alpha 2-5 looked at his HUD, looking for the exact coordinates of the entrance. "Where is this entrance again?" he asked Davies.
Davies shifted in his seat and checked on his tablet computer. "Coordinates are at 39, Papa, Yankee, Papa, 97188."
"Oh thanks, I would have never figured it out myself," Gallant coolly said to Davies.
"You're most welcome." The buggy rattled a little bit as it hit some of the rough terrain that made up the riverbed.
"Focus," Alpha 2-5 said to them. "We're coming up on the highway, uh, "S-1", here." After determining their position, Alpha 2-5 decided to tell Overlord of their status.
"Overlord, this is Alpha 2-5, break. We're coming up on the highway and making our way to the entrance point at the grid reference provided, over."
"Acknowledged Alpha 2-5. Be advised, there have been some sightings of enemy Unmanned Ground Vehicles, and they have fired upon Allied units, break. Advise caution, over."
"Unmanned Ground Vehicles? They certainly didn't mention that in the briefing today." Gallant said to the rest of the SEAL team.
"They didn't mention much of anything, period," Davies replied.
"Stow the chatter," Alpha 2-5 said to them. "We're here." The buggy came to the stop by a dried sandbar, and the SEAL team piled out of it.
"Davies, Gallant, camouflage that buggy," Alpha 2-5 ordered. "Pompey, try and see if you can find the entrance."
"I don't see the entrance," Pompey noted, looking around the area.
The four SEALs looked around for an entrance for a minute, before Alpha 2-5 finally found a small lever, camouflaged as a couple of loose branches. He pulled it back, and sure enough, a large door opened up in a hill, leading toward an elevator and some stairs.
"Sure is hot down here," Pompey noticed as they entered the cave.
"Dunno why that is," Alpha 2-5 replied back, trying to keep on the lookout for enemies. "Maybe it takes a lot of energy to run a place like this, and I guess the heat sinks aren't doing their job."
"Oh, that's brilliant answer,' Davies sarcastically replied. "You should stick to killing people than scientific analysis."
"New orders for you," their radio chirped to life. It wasn't Overlord, but another staff officer on the JSTARS.
"Dammit, Overlord must be busy," Gallant said as Alpha 2-5 responded to the radio call.
"This is Alpha 2-5, go ahead."
"Bravo 3-2, got orders for you," Overlord said from his somewhat comfortable chair, in the lumbering JSTARs aircraft over the Gulf of Aden.
"Go ahead, Overlord."
"Be advised, we have some 'special packages' that need to be retrieved and secured for a MSOR team."
That took Bravo 3-2 off guard for a second. "Special Packages," weren't unheard of in this business, but it would be nice to know sometimes what the hell it was sometimes. "Uh, understood. Can you be more specific Overlord, over?"
"That's a negative. From the intel that we've received, all that we know is that they're in a hanger in the main facility, about five hundred meters from the main train station on the base, break. The hanger should be on the left side of the facility, over."
Bravo 3-2 was with a Delta Force unit, from "A" Squadron. They had just found another hidden entrance, this time on the other side of the island and had made their way toward the main base in record time. It also helped that there wasn't much in the way of resistance, although they had run into those UGVs, which had been quite a shock.
"Understood, Overlord."
The Delta Force team was already in the tram station, looking at the carnage there.
"Jesus, what the fuck happened here?" one of Bravo 3-2's operators said to him. Dead bodies were sprawled everywhere. One man had been completely cut in half by an explosion, while another one had been tossed about like a child's toy. They continued on, cautiously, down the hallway toward hanger A1. The hallways were just as bad, with several dead PMC soldiers lying about, along with more of those UGVs.
"Okay, there's something going on here that really freaks me out." The massive amount of carnage that the Delta Force team had seen coming from the train station all the way to the hanger had been extremely unnerving, even to battle hardened and experienced soldiers as themselves.
"Shit," another operative said, upon seeing the carnage in the hanger. UGVs lay smoking everywhere, bullets had riddled almost every surface in the hanger, and more dead PMC soldiers lay sprawled about.
"Stay on your guard," Bravo 3-2 said to the rest of the team. "Overlord, we're in the hanger. Where is the special package, over?"
"It should be in a room. You might have to force it open, over." Overlord highlighted the room on their HUDs, and the Delta Force team jogged over to that particular location.
"Get that door open," Bravo 3-2 pointed. Two of the operatives went over to it, and upon finding the door locked, set some small explosives to the door.
"Fire in the hole!" They hit the detonator, snapping the door off of its hinges. The operatives stacked up and entered the room.
"Hey, take a look at this," one of the Delta operatives said to Bravo 3-2. There were about five packages on the ground, and despite the markings that said "meat" on them, they looked suspiciously like nuclear warheads. This was confirmed when Bravo 3-2 lifted up the lid one of the closest boxes to him; a warhead stared him back from its position on the floor.
"Overlord, we have the 'special packages' recovered," Bravo 3-2 reported, looking closer at the packages. "Looks like they might be nuclear weapons, rendered inert or otherwise disabled. Got several launch vehicles in the hanger as well, probably Tomahawk missiles."
"Damn," another operative said, shaking his head. "That could have been bad. Glad we got here in time. Who do you think disabled the Tomahawk missiles over there?"
Bravo 3-2 shrugged. "I dunno. Perhaps they thought that it wasn't worth it to use nuclear weapons?" He thought it very strange that only the launch vehicles had been left untouched. Upon further inspection, he saw that someone had maybe looked at disabling it, but it was still a function weapon nonetheless.
"Well, if they did…man, there wouldn't be anything left." That was a very unnerving thought, even to battle-hardened and seasoned Delta vets likes these.
Bravo 3-2 wondered what was taking the MSOR team so long to get to their position. He reached for his radio. "Charlie 4-2, this is Bravo 3-2, status."
"This is Charlie 4-2, we're about two minutes behind you," was the response from the MSOR team. Two minutes later, they showed up, and were just as surprised as the Delta team when they entered the spacious hanger.
"'Sup jarheads," Bravo 3-2 said to the Marine Special Operations Regiment troops as they entered the hanger.
"Holy shit," Charlie 4-2 said, examining the carnage around the hanger. "You do all of this?"
Bravo 3-2 shook his head. "Negative, we found it this way,"
"Looks the Predator struck here or something," Charlie 4-2 quipped. He had been in this business a long time, and he hadn't seen carnage like this since…well, since Iraq. And even that didn't compare to the intensity that the firefight that had apparently happened in this hanger.
"Anyway, wanna see what you're guarding?" Bravo 3-2 asked the Marine leader.
"Sure. Walked all this way to get it, so why not." Charlie 4-2 left his element guarding the hanger and walked over to the room that the Delta Force team was guarding.
"Goddamn," Charlie 4-2 said, looking at the packages still sitting on the ground, all nice and tidy. "That what I think it is?"
Bravo 3-2 nodded to them. "You betcha."
"Well, we'll lock it down tight here, you guys get going to…where ever you're going to."
"Thanks, see you on the other side." Bravo 3-2 led his other three operatives out of the hanger, and left Charlie 4-2 with his squad of MSOR troops guarding the nuclear weapons. They would later be picked up later by a NEST team, and quickly disposed of.
"New orders for you, Bravo 3-2," Overlord announced over the radio as they walked down a hallway.
"Go ahead," Bravo 3-2 replied.
The President dialed another number from the phone on the desk she had just held the conference from for her COS.
"Madame President." The COS' voice was stoically tired, after putting in more hours than the President.
"Jorge, get me General Williams, I need to speak to him personally."
"Right away." There was a long pause as the call was sent out to the JSTARS plane. Overlord finally answered after a minute of waiting. That was one minute too long for the President, but they were in a middle of a battle.
"General, this is the President," POTUS said to him.
"What can I do for you, Madame President?" Overlord replied.
"I have recently come across some information about a very dangerous group that is part of the Nakanishi Group operating inside the Socotra fortress. I will send some more information about this group, but I want to let your special operations forces on the group there to be fully aware of this group." She turned away from the phone for a second to see the COS come into the room.
"Jorge, what do we have on the SAILOR team?" she asked him. He had the answer immediately, looking at his tablet computer.
"We have the information from that 'Luna' person sent over," he replied.
"Good, have it transmitted to CINCUSSOC, please." In a couple of seconds, Overlord had the information that had been sent to him, puzzling over the odd facts on it.
"The SAILOR team?" he asked the President quizzically.
"Yes, don't call them that. They're a part of the Nakanishi Group, and have been kept extremely secret until now. NSA decrypted some information leftover on their destroyed servers in the UK, and have come across this unit. They are extremely dangerous and are trained especially to take down special operations units." POTUS was glad that Overlord couldn't see her, or else he would have seen that she was sweating bullets. Maybe that wasn't a good analogy, she thought, considering what was going on right now.
"Uh…'specifically trained to take down special operations units?'" That made Overlord's stomach churn a little bit. Units designed to take on special operations units? That certainly sounded a bit farfetched in the slightest, but it was possible. That was the purpose of any country's specops program... "Can you elaborate more specifically on that?" he asked.
"I'm sorry General, that's all the information we have on them at the moment," POTUS replied to him. She was lying, as usual, but they didn't need to know.
"Understood, I'll get the word out to my teams on the ground."