Anthrax

[Delfos]

"Sir, should we proceed?"
"Yes, is that missile ready?"
"Yes sir."
"Lets do this!"

Spare Scuds was fired in Kujsk, in the Zabid Missile Industry complex. A deeply classified exercise again, the target was a village secured remote village near the Tacolicious border. Habitants: 86, mostly old people, the village was an old military outpost that became a good market center in the pre-Boyen-Union-Split era. As Kujsk and other cities taken place of market centers, the population decreased to less than 100. Known that Tacolicians are xenophobic and created minefields in the border, this village became even more isolated. The area became under restricted in quarantine by the NDAF forces. After the missile hitting the village, several forces, with special suits approached the village. Medical teams ran to aid the villagers, campaign tents were mounted and all set was fine. At first they seemed fine, but they had trouble breathing and had flu-like symptoms. None of the forces knew what was going on, only high superiors knew and they wouldn't tell. Any of those forces couldn't eat anything produced by that land, and soon they found out why since the villagers started to vomiting blood and severe diarrhea among other digestive problems. All villagers were incapable of continuing working in the camps. Then skin lesions started to appear as black spots that spread trough the body. All died, the NDAF confirmed the experiment as another success.

The media was a pain in the ass, after a month of the incident, the media now said this plague was caused by a New Delfos Air Force Accident, probably a transport of hazardous chemicals, some day a plane with chemical weapons crashed in Tarah. The population of this remote village in the South was decimated by this plague and nothing we could know about it, the New Delfos Air Force finnaly let the Red Hearts to intervene, and now allowed humanitarian organizations to help tracing the land for contagious elements and to let this organizations to take care of the dead. The only few infected were being taken care of by the Red Hearts and they didn't let the humanitarian orgs to approach the big tent.

Another day of work in the land. We were stationed in Kujsk, quite far from Tarah after a long ride from Boyengrado.
IHAO and White Heart units arrived in the White Heart helicopters near Tarah, where they had to be double checked by the stationary New Delfos Air Force securities. They were offered equipment, a mask and rubber bags to put on your boots, allong with gloves among other equipment. They were all directed to the command center.
"Oh here you are, here's some vehicles for you, this Unimogs and this jeep, you can also access to our vehicles if you need. Split in two teams, one helps with the dead identifications and the other tests the air and ground for contagious elements. If you move to the next tent, there will be the equipment and kits for you to use. The big tent is over there on the hill, please mind from getting close to the farm fields and Tarah village..."

The village of Tarah could be seen beyond the farm fields, and it was on a hill that belongs to the several hills that mark the southern border.

(ooc:This is Aljezur in Real Life, great village near my beach house in South Portugal.)

[Pachamama]

ooc This happens a bit sooner before the start

Sector Chief Moctla had just arrived a month ago with a group of his people to train the Delfian volunteers for the IHAO office at New Delfos.
They had been posted in the same building as the White Hearts and their work had brought them close.
This morning he was called to the WH office on the upper floor.
He knocked at the door.
„Come on in“ a voice said and the Chief entered the room.
It looked like a war room with with people surrounding a table covered in maps and folders.
„Good morning. You wanted to speak with me? Anyway I can help?“
„Yes“ the man in charge said.
„You probably noticed the activity over the past few days“ he said leading Moctla to the table.
„How ready are your men?“ he asked looking at Moctla.
„Do you think they can handle this?“
He handed the Chief a map with the unpleasant title „Emergency Procedures: Plague situation“ on it.
Chief  Moctla read the folder. "Any idea what kind of plague it is?" he asked the man.
„At the moment we have no idea so we prepare for everything. However this is the situation as far as we currently know it“ he explained and showed the Chief a red area on the map.
He explained the details and after he finished asked „Any suggestions?“
„My men are ready for this but only if they have a good experienced leader. This is their first mission so I would like to go with them "

[Delfos]

ooc: no no, it's a plague :p not anthrax, no one knows about the anthrax, the title can be chemical disaster or something like that, not anthrax :p You are not supposed to know about the anthrax, not even the white or red hearts.

[Delfos]

"Chief Moctla, hi, I'm Jaime Santos, you can call me Jim, I'll be leading my White Hearts along with your group, i suggest we split 50/50 for the 2 tasks so our guys can know each other better. Please appoint someone to lead your other half of the group, you and me will analyze the environment for this damn plague, or do you prefer taking out the dead?"

He stopped near an Unimog and waited Chief Moctla to settle things.

[Pachamama]

“I am fine with the 50/50 split.  But if you don’t mind I would ask Mister Ghazi here to assist you in taking the samples. I will have to supervise my men. This is there first real job.”
Chief Moctla turned towards the group of IHAO workers.
“Mister Ghazi you take the second group and help Mr. Santos and his men. The others follow me. Now remember we don’t know what we are dealing with here. So I want full B and C protocol up at all times.
You will have to deal with handling corpses and if anybody thinks he can’t handle it he will immediately stop and pull out. Don’t play hero.
Also always work in groups of at least two people and watch your surroundings for sharp or pointy objects that may pierce your suits.”
"
He walked over to the truck "Well Jim I think we are ready to move"

[Delfos]

"Alright, jump in. We're going to the small river over there to test the water 1st and move up stream, it's important to determine whether this water is ok or not." They had to ride around the farm fields in a small goat road, stopped near the river and everyone got out. "You two, help me get this equipment out." It was a big machine to suck water from wells, mounted with a small tank and they had 4 computers given by the New Delfos Air Force to test samples and a sample machine. They took allot of time to set the machine to drain the water, it didn't come with instruction book. They started to test the air too, but was already clear that the air was fine. Air results were the 1st to get clear, clean air. Everyone got more relaxed, and then the water testing was finished and it shown that the water wasn't clean, but was drinkable and there was no harm in it.
"This is great, we can move up stream now, you guys stay here for soil testing."
"Ok, check that farm there, the plantations are all dry, doesn't seem to had got any virus or something, but you better check the soil."
While they were pushing the pump machine with the Unimog, a guy from IHAO noticed something on a sand bank. "Hey it's a hand...it's a body!", they all rushed out of the truck to check the body but Jim stopped with a command: "STOP! This is supposed to be a quarantine zone, don't touch the body! Get out of there..."
"I guess you are right, you should report it..."
"Yes..." He gone back to the truck and turned on the communicator: "Command center? This is Jaime Santos of the White Heart, we are in the river stream west of Tarah, we found a body in a sand bank, how should we proceed? over."
"Santos? Don't approach the body, do you all have the protection equipment on?"
"yes sir"
"Good, stay away of there, if you have any signaling instrument use it in 1 minute."
"We have our special smoking signal, is that fine?"
"Sure is, stay away from the body."

After a minute Jim used their smoking grenade with white and red smoke. It was a fine spectacle, the other White Heart and IHAO units called in to ask was that was about, "We found a body, stay away from here the NDAF will come soon...i guess."

And it came by helicopter, a large one, around 10 guys with extreme quarantine equipment got out of the helicopter and walked to the truck. Jim was worried, if they came all suited up like that, should they have the same protection? Were they in risk?

They worked on a small camp near the stream, isolated the body and swept the area with scans.
"That was fast..."
"Jaime Santos? The area is secured, you may continue."
"Hey thanks..."
They carried the isolated box and equipment to the helicopter and flew away...
"Very fast and professional, don't you think? We should carry on... no need to test this area..."

[Pachamama]

Chief Moctla walked over to Santos. He had removed his breathing mask after the analysis showed all clear . Inside his bright yellow  NBC suit he looked more alien in this landscape than the soldiers did.
„What was that all about?“ he asked.
„Didn't know the military took care of the corpses. Shouldn't that be our job?“
He moved closer to Santos to take a lock at the results of the analysis.
„Have you found anything yet? If the water from the well is good I would like to put our decon station here.“
Two of the men that were send to the farm returned.
They still wore there gas masks and Moctla put on his own,
He walked over to them before they could reach the group.
„Don`t get close to people without protection. We haven't checked that building yet“
His voice was barley audible from the distance coming from under the mask.
„We found no one in there. The house is empty we checked even the cellar but not a living or dead thing“ one of the men reported.
Chief Moctla called out for Santos „The building is empty. Should we take some samples there?“ he asked.

[Delfos]

"sure, and why not taking the house? seems fit for our operations and close to the well."
"Jim Santos? Results from the water..."
"Clean, everything seems clean, we can shorten the quarantine area here in the west." he turned to Chief Moctla "The Air Force runs the operations here, i do not know why but the media says they screwed up in here, they probably like to clean their own mess, and maybe that's why we're finding everything clean...I'll have to ask them to move our stuff to this building."
he walked to the truck and turned the radio on: "This western area where we are is clean, we would like to move into a building we found empty, it's closer to the scene."
NDAF Commander: "Senhor Santos, if the air is clean to the bridge i will let you move there, we don't our White Heart or IHAO sick with plague. Understood?"
"Well, yes ok, will the NDAF bring our stuff?"
"Sure will, You want all the stuff from Kujsk too?"
"Yes we left our personal belongings there in boxes."
"Ok, we will take care of it, even if it's not suitable, there's room in the Air Force tent over here."
"Sim ok, We're going to check the scene near the bridge, out."

"What did they say?"
"They will let us move here if the scene near the bridge is clean. After this tests we will call it for the day, they are moving our stuff here."
"Help me moving the equipment to the truck then."

[Pachamama]

Chief Moctla turned to his men.
"Okay bring some samples from the building. Wall surface, carpet whatever you can find. If everything comes clear move out the furniture.
We will make this our base of operations. And you three set up the decon area here."
The men erected 3 basins and lowered a pump into the well.
The basins were equipped with small pumps that led to a filter unit and into a large metal drum to gather the decontamination fluids and water.

[Delfos]

Santos: "We are moving to the bridge, we will come back in 2 hours, we gonna leave this last truck behind so when you are done please inform us in the radio."
The other truck moved slowly around the building area and entered the road near the river, the bridge wasn't far, but it would take long to analyse everything.

[Pachamama]

Moctla walked over to the truck and grabbed the microphone.
He checked for the right frequency.
„This is Moctla. Bridge unit please come in“
He repeated the sentence then waited.
After a short while a voice came over the radio.
„This is bridge unit. What can I do for you?“
„Tell Mister Santos that we are finished with the decon complex. We also ran a couple of quick tests for bio- and chem- hazards but so far nothing came up.
We are still checking the samples from the building but so far it looks clear. The detailed test will take another hour.
Does he need help on the bridge? I can spare two men. "

[Delfos]

"No we are clean int he bridge, no need for detailed we already took tests around there, but we can't be too careful. Let me get Santos on the truck..."
"Hello Moctla, it's Jim, how things around there?"
"We want to test the house"
"Well ok, we're going back now we will give you a hand. The NDAF officer in the village came in an bio-hazard suit telling me we could get on the village tomorrow, their job there is almost done. Good news, hm? See you soon."