Chapter 108: Operation Scorpius.
"Alright people listen up!" Cornel Carter said loudly as he approached the podium in briefing forty-eight.
Before him were of the Enclave's most highly trained and dangerous soldiers and another twenty of their Spectres who while not officially part of the ESF often worked closely with their teams to provide them active intel in the field.
The Spectres who were often referred to as the Spook Squad by ESF agents due to the highly clandestine nature of their work predominantly worked either alone or in pairs and their job while simple on paper was probably one of the most dangerous and intensive that the Enclave dealt with.
Their job was to infiltrate locations and organisations and to act as advanced recon and where needed spies gathering intel on organisations and potential targets to advance the Enclave agenda, whether that was locating valuable infrastructure or technology that the teams could move in and secure ahead of the main force to identifying targets of opportunity that either they or the ESF could take out weakening any potential opposition to Enclave control in an area.
To say the Spectres were tough and indeed dangerous was an understatement.
To see so many of them in one place was a supremely rare occurrence though the same was true of the ESF soldiers currently sat before him as well, usually at most you would see eight maybe twelve if the situation called for it but fifty of them was almost unheard of but orders had come down from both the Generals in command and from the Bio-Weapons division that a number of high priority operations needed handling immediately and in Carter's mind this was the quickest and most effective way to get the job done.
"Ok, you are most likely wondering why in the flying fuck so many of you are here today, hell half of you probably forgot that other teams even exist by now," Cornel Carter said getting a few half-hearted chuckles from the gathered operators.
"Well the answer to that is simple, our glorious leaders in their infinite wisdom have deemed it necessary to go after multiple targets all at once due to a recent incident and a couple of current ongoing situations, so please reach under your chairs and retrieve your briefing packs but do not open them yet, these packs are classified top priority and absolute secret anyone found divulging the contents to anyone outside of their assigned teams.....well I'm sure I don't need to explain to you the penalty for treason given one of your jobs is to hunt down traitors," Carter said giving everyone a cheery smile that combined well with the hard glare he swept over the room to convey his point.
The Stoney faces in the gathered crowd told him that his point was loud and clear so he continued, "There are going to be four operations going live and there for the room has been divided into four, one-quarter of you will be assigned to Operation Gladius, another to Operation Beachhead, the third to Operation Glass Eye and the final quarter to Operation Scorpius," he continued clicking a metal control button on the podium which fired up a projector that lit the wall behind him up to show the names and colour assignment of each of the operations, Gladius was red, Beachhead blue, Glass Eye green and Scorpius yellow.
"Each of these operations is of dire importance to command so it is imperative they are met with success hence why all of you are here, you will be given access to all the resources you will need to complete these tasks and I cannot impress upon you all enough the importance of haste in these matters command wanted this done yesterday and right now they are so far up my arse about getting them done that I have a new appreciation of what a sock puppet feels like," Carter said getting a few more chuckles this time.
"You are the best of the best of what this country and indeed this organisation has to offer, I have personally assured command and indeed the paranoid walking talking lab coats over at the Bio-Weapons division that you guys are not only the best at what you do but will get these objectives completed so quickly they'll barely have time to sign your requisition forms before you're handing the gear back in and grabbing some well earned R&R," Carter said getting some cheers at that one.
"Alright here's the line-up, Captin Brown you're in charge of Gladius, Captin Summers you've got Beachhead, Captin Penfold you have Glass Eye and Captin Lanner you have Scorpius, each of you has been assigned a briefing room for your team to go over the details, a card to which was strapped to the back of your briefing pack, don't fucking lose it and the packs stay here they do not leave those rooms and you are NOT to discuss the details with any other person outside of your assigned teams, alright people lets get this shit done, dismissed," Carter said snapping into a crisp salute which every person in the room returned before they all spilt up and began filing out of the rooms to their briefing rooms.
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Captin Lanner looked down at the small plastic card now held in his hand, it was gold with a large black 4 printed on one side, "Guess that means we have room four," he said to the soldiers and Spectres now gathered around him as they walked out into the corridor of the oil rig that served as one of the Enclave's secure command posts.
They used to only have one of these facilities but recent pushes from the Brotherhood of Steel on the mainland had caused the command to reevaluate the position of having a few of these places dotted around the coastline of the US because they were remarkably easy to defend from incoming threats as they could only come from air or sea and visibility was good in every direction around the platform allowing for a full round defence to be easily set up.
Lanner pressed the card to the reader next to the door with a large white 4 printed on it and the little LED on the reader changed from red to green with an audible click to show the locks were now disengaged.