Romero Mission, August 2008

Some of you noticed I was gone in the end of July, beginning of August. That was a ‘vacation.’ Yeah. It was a Romero mission.

I didn’t think I’d be able to post blog entries during the op, but the Sat uplink was stable and I actually had some time to do it.

I’ll tell you what they’ll let me divulge.

Where was the Op? Asia. That narrows it down, doesn’t it?

There were no friendlies or neutrals in the area, according to the FLIR look, from that morning, so no all-black uniforms were needed, and we could go in in full light. No time to change those black uniforms out, but the Kinetics guy did forgo use of the NVG and donned fluorescent orange reflective vests. They looked like they are going to direct traffic like that.

As I mentioned, it was a contained, fully-converted area with a few dozen shamblors. Easy peasy. The worry was the outbreak had gotten out of the geographical area. And ever since the 1975 fiasco the powers that be tend to send in ALL the cavalry at the git go, damn the expense, rather than sending smaller groups in piecemeal.

Normally in this situation, firebombing is recommended, IF you can make it look normal. Forest fires are perfect. We couldn’t in this case. Too close to witness populations down valley. You can’t always have zero witnesses, but you try to minimize it. With a mixed population of Zeds and Normals or Neutrals you definitely get witnesses. And you can’t just eliminate the witnesses. Just not cricket.

But, like I said, no close-by witnesses, so the kinetic guys were sent in, piling out of OV-10 Broncos, 5 at a time. They do their ‘thing,’ using suppressed M4s and any decoys or bait; and after, they setup a perimeter. They were really lucky to have an easy access to the town water-tower. Made for easy pickings. Second wave is almost simultaneously airdropped LAST teams rolling in from a nearby flat area. I was with this group, and by the time we rolled up to the scene there wasn’t even any Twitchers. We got to work with loading the bulk of remains back into a few of the more isolated and flammable houses. These we set alight on our way out.

The fly-in had attracted too much attention the next population center over, so extraction in the C-130s was out. We had 10 Sky Cranes on stand-by, and local, to go with the Bronco and Sea Stallions. They can pick our Strykers up even with extra load of infantry and zombie body parts we had to scrape up. (Luckily, I wasn’t needed for that duty and kept my nose in my computer screen the whole time. It’s my turn next time. What can I say? I have janitorial experience. It helped me get this job. Long story.) And they did. Off we went to a Q-Ship we use that looks like a loaded container ship/freighter. It's hollow in the center. From this we can break the team up and send them back to base piecemeal. Commercial flights, oftentimes. I hate the damn airlines. But I had to get back to my cover-job in a timely fashion.

Tally this trip, 111 zombies retired. Truth effectively suppressed. Injury to Kinetic team from village boar (minor to Kinetic man, or woman in this case, fatal to the pig), and twisted ankle and strained back on LAST clean-up team. Cover story back home: I went on ‘vacation’. You’re welcome.