Missing Pieces Mission

**Missing Pieces** is the second mission in the Ghost Stories series, and follows the Sub-Continuum Force as they warp to their first assignment. The operators travelled to a southern region of Vietnam where Soviet scientists had previously been experimenting on humans local to the area. The team tried to gather clues as to why the anomalies were occuring in their home country, Muri, and to possibly pinpoint the whereabouts of the missing Space Time Continuum Task Force members.

## Synopsis

### Background

During the Vietnam War, Soviet researchers were attempting to find a way to enable the teleportation of humans in order to give their troops an advantage on the battlefield. Tests were being carried out on poor locals in the region who could receive small compensation in exchange for their cooperation. The tests cited were inhumane and exposed the subjects to extreme bodily harm and even death.

Although trials of warping small matter such as objects and rodent test subjects were successful, the complexity of human anatomy was deemed too difficult of a challenge, which caused many people to suffer effects similar to those of temporal paralysis. The experiments conducted by the Soviets created large continuity zones around their research facilities which led to the formation of Epochium shards, and eventually the presence of Minutemen. Right before the end of the Vietnam war, the Soviets moved their facilities back to Moscow out of fear of imminent attack by the Americans.

A few years later when most of the U.S. military forces that occupied the Dominion of Muri left, the Soviet researchers used the island to continue their tests. Another reason for choosing Muri as the home for their research facility was due to the appearance of ancient structures that resembled gates which radiated large amounts of stable energy on the island. The scientist Kharov was assigned to the Muri facility to begin research on harnessing the power of these structures for the warping tests.

### Testing Facility

Upon warping into Vietnam, 1977, the SCF operators began traversing towards the known location of the Soviet testing facility. Intelligence on the whereabouts of this site were gathered by the team with the help of their connections to their former employers, the Central Intelligence Agency. Once the Soviet threat on site was neutralized, the team gathered intelligence and logs found in the structures to paint a clearer picture. The primary testing building contained old blood stains and hanged scientists, suggesting some sort of violence had taken place not too long before the team's arrival.

The first piece of intelligence was a scientist log which outlined that the tests being conducted on the locals was paramount to the success of a grand attack planned on the U.S. capital. The intention of the Soviet military was to harness the power of warping to "put Soviet troops on the doorstep of the White House in the blink of an eye." The scientist continued to explain that although the patients were successfully warping between locations, they were arriving dead or barely living on the other side. Apart from the regular side effects of temporal paralysis, the bodies were also heavily burned with glowing red bloodshot eyes. An officer log explained that the 'people' who came out the other side no longer had a soul, and became barbaric and murderous.

### Radio Station

One of the SCF operators who was carrying a Soviet Radio Spectrum Analysis Device found in episode one dialed into a high frequency signal that is abnormal in the sprawling jungles of Vietnam. Upon following its signal, the team discovered an old—but still functioning—radio transmission station setup by the Soviets to send reports back to Moscow. Upon examining the primary communication building and discovering the decaying corpse of a Soviet radio officer, a log was found detailing the last reports to have been received by the station.

The first report confirmed that the scientists who had returned to Moscow were expected to be deployed in Muri to continue their research. The second report was far more cryptic and appeared to have been a radio frequency from an unknown source that was only intercepted at this station. Once parsed through the Space Warp Suit's integrated decoder, the message appeared to have been an emergency ping from an STCTF operator indicating an SOS status had been signalled. The message, however, did not contain a readable location but rather basic details on the operator's vitals. Though not a huge clue, knowing that the STCTF operators were still alive when they sent the ping is a first step in the direction of finding their location.

### Return

The Time Gate experienced a large amount of energy loss during the allotted 2 hour timeframe, thus closing 40 minutes earlier than anticipated. The team rushed back to the gate while being pursued by both Minutemen and Soviet troops, all while dodging anomalies that were appearing more frequently. Once back at the gate, the team held off Soviet forces as the gate prepared for warping. Almost overrun by enemy forces, something strange occurred with one of the Minutemen. He turned his back on the SCF operators and muttered "Li-little ah-an-angels" before proceeding to engage the Soviet troops and other Minutemen. With the time saved by this incredibly out of place encounter, the team warped away successfully.

## Trivia

* Three Epochium shards were discovered in and around the testing facility, which is an early sign that the surrounding area was turning into a space time continuity zone.
* Test subjects who passed through the man-made warp appeared to arrive out the other end as demi-Minutemen who were much more aggressive and far less coordinated than the regular Minutemen experienced before.
* Kharov appeared to have worked at the testing facility before returning to Moscow and subsequently the island of Muri.
* **META:** The Vietnam War campaign was the predecessor to this operation. Players who liberated most of the jungle in this region were the ones responsible for the relocation of the testing facility to Muri.