Timothy Imholt, Michael Travis Garst
Trial by Fission
Chapter One
Captain Frank Banner looked around the airplane as they prepared to parachute into a hot landing zone. This was his Special Operations Team, his first command, and as such, it was a team he was very proud of.
He couldn’t believe just how calm the men remained. He was their leader, yet he drew strength from them. Here they were, about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, parachute in to a foreign country, probably get shot at, and all of that at any moment. It amazed him more and more with every mission just how calm these guys could remain in the pre-insertion moments.
He couldn’t help but notice that this plane was a little older than their usual transportation. It didn’t matter. While sitting in the back, waiting to jump, all they needed was for there to be a large empty place to wait. This one came with fold down seats along the sides of the aircraft, which was a real plus, so it served their purposes just fine. This was not a plane designed for comfort, it was designed for utility.
They were given this assignment because they were the most geographically logical choice to a totally unexpected hot spot with the necessary skills, and ability to rapidly respond. That alert had come in from Africa Command, or AFRICOM, a mere ninety minutes ago. The only thing the team had been told at the time was to get on board the plane, with full combat gear, and be ready to jump. Once in flight they would receive an additional briefing. Being good soldiers, they followed those orders to the letter.
That briefing had been very brief. The voice on the radio had said that there were at least ten armed men inside the Pelindaba nuclear research facility in South Africa.
The reactor facility, or so the person conducting the briefing had said, was like almost every other nuclear power facility on the planet. Why that was important right now Frank didn’t know, but the briefer felt compelled to throw that fact into the discussion.
Essentially, the facility had a nested series of defenses that were supposed to prevent this sort of thing from happening. It also had a number of different shielding structures that would prevent radiation leaks in case of an accident. Those radiation shields would also stop non-armor piercing rounds. That was a double edge sword for this mission. The team could protect themselves behind those structures, but currently there was an enemy already using them as a protective barrier.
Captain Banner couldn’t help but ask the briefer if they could just surround the facility and wait them out, assuming they could use some of the local friendlies. Apparently, doing so would give the bad guys time to induce a radiation leak that would kill everyone for miles. The only advantage they had was that there was obviously something inside that facility that they wanted to get away from there with still intact. Otherwise they would have already blown the place up. The latest intelligence claimed they had already gotten into the facility far enough to gain access to radiological materials, it was assumed that was their reasoning behind the hostile activity.
In other words, in order to accomplish their mission, they had to come out at some point. That was one bit of good news. That assumed they could get on the ground and in position before the invaders could make their way out with a treasure trove of nuclear or radiological bomb making materials. It would be spectacularly bad news if they couldn’t get down there soon.
Frank couldn’t get the question Sergeant Fisher had asked during the briefing out of his head, “Why did any of this matter to the United States, or are we on this as a ‘help a friend’ mission?” This was not normally the type of question a soldier would ask, but it was not without purpose. It was intended to see if this was a serious response or just a perfunctory “go try but don’t get hurt, or blow too much stuff up.”
This one turned out to be far more important than just a political response.
Way back in 2007 four armed men had entered that same facility and made, what was thought to be at the time, a poor attempt at making off with some nuclear material which they wanted to use to build a nuclear bomb. This research facility had some experimental refining capability to make the high purity materials needed to make some very dangerous devices. It was now the consensus of the intelligence agencies in the loop of the current situation that the incident had been a test run in preparation for a real operation. It may have taken almost a decade to finish planning, but tonight could be that operation. If those materials, or worse, the plans for the refining capabilities ended up on the loose and in the hands of the wrong people, it was very much something that needed to be stopped for the sake of every nation on the planet.
The briefing had referred to the group of approximately ten armed men as “alleged terrorists.” Frank always had to chuckle at that phrase. He never cared about guilt or innocence in the court of law sense. His job was easier than that. Once bullets started to fly it was much easier to see who was a bad guy and who was an “alleged” bad guy. These particular “alleged” terrorist were already firing at the local security team, and therefore had graduated to actual terrorists in the mind of everyone on the airplane.
These allegedly bad guys were especially bad, as well as dangerous ones. They wanted to build a nuclear weapon in the worst way, and they seemed to be happy with just one. A nation that wanted hundreds of these weapons, in Frank’s opinion, wanted them as a deterrent to prevent an attack against their populace. A group that wants just one, that group has a target in mind.
They had to be dealt with before they could escape the facility, and disappear from sight.
Frank suddenly noticed just how rough the plane ride was becoming. No one on his team would ever complain. Special Operations Units dealt with all manner of harsh conditions while doing their jobs. Frank knew, as did everyone on the team, that this could be the most important mission of their careers. In one way, a real global balance of power could shift based on the results of what was happening on the ground at that very moment. If they were only allowed to get on the damn ground and get to work. So far they just kept circling. It was like a giant aerial circle jerk.
If a terrorist group, or terrorist state, it was growing more and more difficult to tell those two apart these days, obtained those types of weapons, or even the material to make them, the result would be that a large number of civilians would die. If they did not die as a direct result of the bombing, then it would be as a result of the ensuing panic. Captain Banner could not figure out a way to understand why there was any sort of hesitation in letting them go in and try to prevent that from happening. Yet the pilot just continued to circle, with no signal for them to prepare to jump.
Somewhere up the chain of command someone was vacillating.
Frank’s headset crackled to life, “Captain Banner, Warrant Officer Choi. We have been on station for thirty minutes, have you received any word on when we will go?”
“Chief, you know as much as I do,” Frank replied. The Warrant Officer was getting anxious.
“Roger that, Sir,” came the terse, yet professional reply.
Frank knew these men were all as professional as they came. For any of them to even ask the question spoke volumes of the pressure being felt by all.
He pushed the button on the intercom, “Major Wilkins, this is Captain Banner, any word from AFRICOM regarding insertion?”
“We have been told to circle and wait for orders from higher authority. We do have a SITREP. What little radio chatter we can manage to pick up from the ground is that there is an unknown sized force putting up some kind of fight larger than what we had originally been told to expect. Apparently, it is hard to tell who is who down there. Also, whoever is in there on the friendly team seems to know what we have in the area because they are asking for air support and troops. We have passed that word up the chain of command, and been told that it is all under consideration,” was the reply from the pilot.