I am recording this because everyone must know. This has gotten bigger than any faction or ideology. There are old and dark forces at work, and we are all at risk. Before you accuse me of conspiracies, I guess you need some context. I can’t reveal everything. There is a reason we have kept this information hidden, and I still believe in the cause I signed up for. I am sending this manuscript out to you instead of to the media in hopes that you will pay attention and start asking the right questions.
My name is Lieutenant Charles Scott of the United Nations Special Tactics and Reconnaissance (UNSTR). Never heard of it right? Well that’s on purpose. You can think of us as another international counter terrorist unit. The only difference is, our terrorists tend to be a little less…..human in nature. Think monsters. That’s a little simplistic, but basically the threats are monstrous or otherwise supernatural in nature. My job, and that of my team, is direct intervention. To keep it stupid simple, a reconnaissance team locates and categorizes threats; special tactics eliminates those threats. Not always by deadly force mind you. Just an application of whatever force is required. But yes, sometimes we kill the boogeymen.
I know what you are thinking, why haven’t I ever heard of these threats? Well I wish I could claim it was because we were damn good at our jobs. The truth is more in line with plain old boring geopolitics mixed with natural skepticism. The reality is that a “live and let live” policy maintains the power balance and avoids global panic. The UNSTR steps in to tackle rogue elements and monitor potential threats. Understand where things stand now? Secrecy and the status quo keep people from panicking which would be bad for pretty much everyone. Well things have changed. I am sorry to say my last mission made sure of that. Like I said earlier, I cannot give exact details. Suffice to say that our mission was direct intervention on a vampire coven in a South American country. Sounds like a regular weekday right? Well, in keeping with the routine nature, everything started out so smoothly. We dropped into the jungle with our standard anti-vamp gear. Silver tipped ammunition, neck guards, and ultraviolet flashbang grenades as a start. I may have been joking earlier about “fighting vampires” somehow being mundane, but it almost is. When you are chosen, trained, and equipped to do a job, you get used to doing it well. Not to be too cocky… but where vamps may think themselves hunters, but we are apex predators.
We proved this immediately. Nice and easy breach and clear. The coven never knew what hit them. They were holed up in a cave with barely any lookouts. A few headshots from the darkness followed by a few stakes to make sure they stayed down and we were in. From there, it was a simple matter of maintaining aggression and momentum. Clearing the cave one section at a time felt good. There is just something that feels right taking out creatures from legends. Unfortunately, we found a complication. Hostages.
In the final … room? Do caves have rooms? In the final room of the cave we found the hostages.. Hostages are pretty common when it comes to vamps; feeding stock, thralls, potential recruits. What made this time unusual was that we didn’t have intel about them. That, and we were miles away from civilization. Usually vampires nest near population centers to stay close to a source of victims, and they’re still basically human. Humans and human like monsters prefer to be social.
Well we don’t leave victims behind. Ever. Our team medic checked on the “vics” while everyone else either swept for intel or maintained security. This was my cue to radio an update in to command. Trying to reach anything via radio while in the jungle is sketchy at the best of times. It is almost like the ecosystem is defined by endless trees and hills. While I was unsuccessfully trying to get through, the trooper checking for intel called me over. It took me a while to find her in the back of the cave. Sounds travel in strange ways underground.
When I finally found her in the last room, she held up a logbook to the light of her headlamp. I took a quick glance at the open page before reminding her that I don’t read Spanish. With a smirk on her face for that bit of superiority, she explained what she found. Apparently, another vamp group was on their way. The two groups had set up a meeting to avoid a turf war that would attract too much attention. To further cement Murphy’s Law, the meeting was supposed to happen tonight. That meant we needed to go and soon. With a note of urgency in my voice, I informed the team on the radio and told them to pack up immediately.
The good news, we had taken out a feral nest and found actionable intelligence. The bad news, we were on a time crunch. We needed to evacuate a group of civilians to a landing site in the closest town a few miles away. Our only way out through dark jungle where no light penetrated the canopy. I am not sure you could pick a better hunting ground for vamps. We might be damn good, but that was a lot stacked against us. We had to get to the city before the new group realized we were there, or we might not make it out at all.