บท 163: Major Murphy's Operation Disaster
Major Murphy was completely shocked at what he had just seen.
This was supposed to be a simply capture mission. He had gathered all of the intel he needed to get it done cleanly. He knew who every single person in the building was, except for the target. He knew their habits, their hobbies, even the their childhood nicknames. Nothing had escaped his eye during his search.
After all, he was commanded by the Emperor himself that if they suspected that the girl who escaped, dubbed Allie as she claimed to be, had wound up there. Since they did see a thermal signature belonging to a child, they wasted no time in preparing to capture her.
Even though the land and building belonged to the first princess, since they technically had her permission and the Emperor's orders, she wouldn't have any right to complain or counter attack later.
To make sure that they would have everything they needed, the Emperor had given them access to two assault Juggernauts, three new type Search'N'Destroy(SND) Neutralizers, a new tactical stealth doll, and a team of Royal Blackagents led by a mid-stage Dominus. He was also gifted a command post housing five hundred people to help him supervise the mission. Among the five hundred were a hundred specialist scientists that were famous in their fields, twenty special tech engineers to make sure the SND Neutralizers operated properly, forty energy experts, and the rest were standard personnel for covert missions. The shear amount of people that were given to aide in the mission was to make sure that if something unexpected happened, they would have a solution as soon as possible on site. They couldn't allow her to escape again. Therefore they had everything they needed to complete the mission.
Murphy had sent in the SND Neutralizers to test them out. After all, they were designed for covert op capture missions. He wanted to see what they were capable of, since it was a rare occasion where he would even be able to see them in practice.
The rest of the team he was given were also looking forward to it as well, especially the special tech engineers. Most of them would have been satisfied to see the Juggernauts in action as well, but those beasts don't take people alive. It just wasn't in their code. So, it was too risky to send them forward unless an emergency happened.
If they killed the only lead they had on the energy burst the Emperor would not be pleased.
The SND Neutralizers worked like a charm. Their capture target was designated before they were sent out and the rest of the mission was handed to their AI to handle as they wished. They cut the power to the building and quickly infiltrated without making a sound. Before two minutes passed, all of the people in the building had already been vaporized. The only person remaining was with the target.
A1 and A3 were set up to guard downstairs in case of a surprise attack while A2 went up to secure the target.
Everything was going perfectly.
And then they lost contact and connection with A2 upstairs when the target was the last person left. They couldn't see into the room with any of their sensors. It was like the place didn't exist.
Murphy had nearly frozen when he got that information. However, he was a trained officer and could adapt to surprises. Thus, he quickly took command over from the SND Neutralizers and sent A1 and A3 to the top floor to investigate what happened to A2.
When they got there, the door was still open. The only thing they could see inside was a black wall, however. This stunned Murphy completely.
The rest of the team quickly went about analyzing the wall in every way they could. They wanted to find out the makeup, how it suddenly appeared, if it was dangerous, was it generating any energy, anything really.
But they couldn't figure out anything about it. It was, as their sensors earlier had told them, like it wasn't even there despite the fact that they were seeing it with their own eyes. They were completely unable to contact A2 who was inside. They even had A1 and A3 attempt to cut through it with their energy swords, but it didn't do anything. They weren't even able to scratch it.
Just when Major Murphy was considering using heavy weaponry to try and get inside, the black wall before them appeared to flake apart. That had surprised everyone watching again. Shortly after it started to fall apart, the target had run out of the room and was quickly snatched up by A1 and A3 on her way out. It was their primary objective, so they acted on it above all else.
As A1 and A3 had started to escort the target off the grounds, they regained contact with A2 and immediately pulled up the records for what had happened over the last several minutes. To the special tech engineers shock and dismay, all footage had been completely scrambled. They weren't able to use any of it to find out what happened. However, the code remained. They were at least able to tell that A2 had been in combat with an army of enemies, which made no sense to them considering the size of the room.
And then A1 and A3 sent a damage report detailing the fact that they lost use of one of their hands each. The target had also attempted to escape, landing on the first floor of the building. A1 and A3 immediately began chasing after her.
That had pissed Major Murphy off. A2 was set to tranq the target upon finding her, so why weren't A1 and A3 the same way? Why had they just grabbed her and figured she wouldn't resist? He was going to make the special tech engineers give a proper answer to the Emperor when all of this was done! The fools might have bungled the mission right there if she managed to get away!
Not that Major Murphy actually expected her to be able to escape the two SND Neutralizers.
A1 and A3 went after the target. Just as they were readying their tranqs, however, the unexpected and should-have-been-impossible sight happened that shocked the entire room.
The target was pulled out of the building. Every single member of the operation team was stunned by this. The only ones who kept moving were A1 and A3 who went after her after she went through the window.
Several members of the team began loudly shouting about proof of paranormal existences. The energy experts were quickly analyzing the footage that had been recorded. The special tech engineers were jotting down notes for investigation later. Most of the team ignored all of those ramblings as A1 and A3 were still moving. They couldn't linger on their shock as the mission wasn't done yet. They could always return to the footage later to scratch their head in confusion.
A2 started making its way downstairs to join A1 and A3 at this point. Since they all had the same orders and A2 had been cleared of whatever was stalling it in the first place, it resumed its mission without delay.
A1 and A3 quickly arrived outside to see the target laying flat in the center of the pond, completely unmoving. They approached quickly as they had yet to recover the target.
There was no threat that they could see. Major Murphy didn't think to have the SND Neutralizers approach with caution, despite seeing something that should have been completely impossible. Without a visual reference to be aware of, the possible threat whatever-that-thing-was-that-they-saw was far from his mind.
As a result, when A1 got pierced through the body by something multiple times, had its right leg chopped as if someone was coming at him with an axe, and its head smashed in from some hammer-like object, Murphy quickly gave the command for A3 and A2 to go to guarding positions at a safe-ish distance from the pond.
Murphy then gave the command to use every scan they had, no matter how old or how new, he wanted to know everything possible about the pond and everything around it. A SND Neutralizer was the newest tactical doll's that had been developed. The Emperor had told him that there were "under twenty" in service when he gave him three to use for this mission.
And he had walked one of them into some enemy they couldn't identify! He felt a deep shame at his inexperience that led to that result.
The special tech engineers quickly let him know that they were unable to discover anything with every scan that they ran. They couldn't see, detect, or hear whatever it was that attacked A1. This caused Murphy's expression to darken.
How were they supposed to fight something like that? It was obvious that whatever it was could see them perfectly fine. He was at a loss.
And then things got worse for them. Much worse.
Four of the veteran operation experts, medical experts on their own time, had let him know that the target was showing signs of suffocation. He quickly went over to them and looked over the data that they had pulled up and they pointed out the signs: submerged face, unmoving chest, reddening complexion, strained expression with panic in the eyes, no air bubbles for the last two minutes over their head, twitching hands but unmoving arms and legs.
Murphy had slammed his hand down on the table when he saw that. Whatever they were dealing with was obviously attempting to drown the target. They didn't know what their reason was but he couldn't let that happen.
He swiftly went back to the main command station that was in the room and activated the two assault Juggernauts while telling the black agent team to begin moving into position. He also gave commands to some of the operation veterans to give the black agent team a sitrep so they wouldn't walk into anything stupid and could have some idea on what to expect.
The team was shocked that he would send in the assault Juggernauts for this. They didn't know how to capture.
But Murphy's only reply was a simple one: if she drowned then what was the point of holding back in the first place?
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