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A “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons” story
By Captain Tourmaline
Part 1
Introduction
Time: 02:10 Captain Peter J Stanton was outside the enemy base, waiting for the right moment. A lot depended on him carrying out this mission. In about two hours, thirty troops from the World Army would clear this area. But they would be stopped – literally – dead if he didn’t destroy the five T-80 tanks on the far side of this base. Plus the troops wouldn’t even get here if the anti-aircraft installation was still operational.
He had just finished checking his weapons: a silenced rifle with grenade launcher, two grenades, a signal flare, two clips for the rifle with thirty bullets in each, a box of twenty incendiary bullets, a pair of night vision goggles and ten compact high explosive bombs. He noticed a sentry talking to the guard on the gate - who had stepped outside of his post to have a smoke - and decided that now was the time to act. Slipping under the gate, he saw his first objective. Looming over the buildings was the rocket launcher with a 30mm cannon on top, luckily it was unmanned at the moment, so he slipped over to it and climbed the ladder up to the missile tubes. Grinning slightly, he checked nobody was looking and pulled out one of the missiles, pushed in a bomb and slid the missile back in.
After getting down from the AA launcher, he planted another bomb at the base of it and hid behind a building. As an afterthought, he set the timer on his remote detonator, so what ever happened to him all ten bombs went off at 02:45. He would never get to the tanks without some kind of diversion. He had a flare, but if he used that, everyone would know there was an intruder. It was while he was thinking this that he noticed some men moving a few ammo crates. Some ammo crates blowing up would attract people’s attention, and it could happen accidentally. He loaded two incendiary bullets into his gun and fired one into a crate, which started to burn. Luckily for Peter, he crept round behind the building adjacent to him, just as the heat became too much for one of the hand grenades in the crate.
After creeping round a few buildings, Peter listened to somebody being reprimanded, something about handling ammo crates with care. He grinned again; he loved getting people into trouble. After they had gone, he slid towards the T-80s, his next objective. He stealthily climbed onto the turret of one, primed a bomb and pushed it into a small space inside the gunner’s compartment. He did this to all five tanks and was about to find some cover when he remembered the other three bombs he had on him. After a moment’s thought, he decided to put them at the power plant; that way he’d be able to sneak out in the confusion.
The power plant was guarded - but not heavily - and surrounded by a fence. He glanced at his watch. 02:37; he didn’t have much time, and so quick thinking was what he needed. Another thing he needed was to get past the guards, who were leaning against a pile of oil drums. Then an idea entered his head: if he shot at the oil drums, the guards would think they were being shot at, go and sound the alarm, and he would be able to walk in. The enemy would know there was an infiltrator, but they wouldn’t know where he was. He raised his gun, aimed and fired.
The two guards were talking, guns on their backs.
“What sort of idiot throws ammo around!” said one.
“Good thing they got that fire out! One of those crates usually have about twenty hand grenades in them!” put in the other.
Then they both heard a noise, a sort of ‘clunk’. They looked down. Then, the barrels they were leaning on exploded.
“Oops!” Peter whispered. He forgot about the incendiary bullet he left in his gun. He dashed in and planted the bombs in and around the plant. He breathed a sigh of relief and started climbing the fence. It was quite an awkward climb but he made it over. After looking for the best cover, he decided the best option would be a long building, which looked pretty solid. He rounded the corner watching the fire being put out… which is why he didn’t notice that ten soldiers were right behind him, until one of them said, “Could you put your gun on the floor, please.”
Peter obeyed, but didn’t turn round.
“Thank you,” said the voice from behind him. “Come on!”
He was led to the center of the base, not far from the AA platform; in fact, it was too close for Peter’s liking. The commanding officer stepped forward.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Carrying out my mission, ” answered Peter.
“What is your mission?” asked the officer.
“Why are we out here, and not in an interrogation room?”
“Because the interior walls have just been painted and we will shoot you if we want to!”
Peter checked his watch, 02:42 just three minutes to go.
“What is your mission?” asked the officer again.
“There’s an old saying where I come from. ‘At a time like this, why lie?’ My mission is to scare the living daylights out of you!”
The officer held up the remote detonator that the soldiers had taken from Peter. “What is this?”
“You know what it is!” Peter answered levelly.
“Deactivate it please!”
The officer waited a few seconds and- realising he would have to do it himself- and pulled the antenna off the top. Then a few things happened simultaneously.
The five bombs in the tanks detonated sending the turrets flying off. The power plant was destroyed by the three Peter had left there. And the AA rocket launcher got blown apart sending the cannon flying. Peter made a dash for it as the lights went down. The officer was about to say, “Kill him!” He would have too, if half a ton of scrap metal that used to be a 30mm cannon hadn’t landed on him.
The words ‘Mission Completed’ appeared in front of Peter’s field of view. And he took his headset off and let out a big breath. “That was so realistic,” he said to the technician who was helping him out of his harness “Virtual Reality is amazing!”
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