Action Squad Alpha served dual duty as an elite BLUE clearance Troubleshooter team and the star of numerous popular documentaries produced by HPD&MC. Their missions were invariably well-supported and closely overseen by the Computer and numerous highly-placed operatives, giving them an unprecedented success record. The firefights or executions at the climax of each episode made them quite popular, and their fortunes were on the rise.
Their final mission was to locate a shipment of fissile nuclear material salvaged after the decommissioning of Nuclear_Facility_RON-372/B, which had gone astray en route to Costin-U-MOR-8's research laboratories. The mission proceeded as planned up until Action Squad Alpha entered the warehouse believed to be the headquarters of the Communists responsible. All transmission from their multicorders ceased, and a Vulture Squadron dispatched as backup found the warehouse empty save for squidgy organic residue later identified by DNA as the remains of Action Squad Alpha. The program has been put on hiatus pending activation and training of the Squad's clone replacements, and the execution of numerous HPD&MC executives deemed responsible for the communications breakdown and faulty intelligence.
While no direct link between this tragedy and the Toothpaste_Disaster has been discovered, the curious proximity of timing, and the obvious use of radioactive waste in the events leading up to the main crisis, suggest some of the same individuals may be behind both.
-- Ken-U-RON-6
Refs: Documentaries, Nuclear_Facility_RON-372/B
Commentary:
The disappearance of the nuclear material from Nuclear_Facility_RON-372/B must be related to the request for Uranium-Depleted_Shells by the Alpha_Complex_Rifle_Association_(ACRA). Obviously Action Squad Alpha encountered the heavily-armed welcoming party for ACRA.
-- Drake-U-LAH-1
Oh, come on, Drake. You know that Alpha Complex is positively ripe with fissile material. Why do you think that DayGlo Reactor Shielding was the #6 most commonly requisitioned item last yearcycle? I'm not saying you're wrong, but you're certainly jumping to conclusions.
-- Jan-U-ARY-1
Call me a suspicious old cynic if you will, but I've got that Fissile Material Acquisition Request form (376472/A #3) right here in front of me designating my research labs as the intended destination for the nuclear materials salvaged from Nuclear_Facility_RON-372/B - and it would not take an INFRARED_Citizens a Daycycle old to spot the fact that this is in fact the top half of a 376472/A #3 bonded to the bottom half of a 356-23/C2 Unidentifiable Charcoal Bits Acquisition Request form (with my identification stamp on) with some of Sell-O-TPE's miraculous, near-impossible-to-detect Molecular Fixative Strip. Such blatant forgery of official Acquisition documents is clearly a sign of Commie skullduggery that I certainly wouldn't put past the likes of the Alpha_Complex_Rifle_Association_(ACRA).
-- Costin-U-MOR-8
Very curious. When Costin-U's report came to my attention, I had my staff pull the relevant documents from the archives of the Service Firm that had run Nuclear_Facility_RON-372/B. (The firm was dissolved after the facility was decommissioned, but their records are still on-file, albeit sometimes hard to find.) And from all I can tell, the copy of the 376472/A #3 we recieved was fully intact and untampered with, signed, fingerprinted, and tongue-tattoo-printed by several members of your laboratory's upper clearance staff. Obviously, there was some manner of traitorous sabotage somewhere in the communications pipeline. But where? This bears further investigation.
-- Ken-U-RON-6
Validation of Programmer Ken-U's verification of the relevant forms has been concluded. His claims have been substantiated. However, in the process, some interesting facts came to light.
As Ken-U himself has mentioned, Active_Waste_Management was used as a stopgap measure in the decomissioning of Nuclear_Facility_RON-372/B. It seems that over 70% of the workers there were also involved in the Active_Waste_Management auxillary B4 disposal service, following that beverage's launch cancellation. Given personnel levels, the statistically expected overlap between the two work-groups would be a mere 11%. Quite an unlikely coincidence.
--Err-U-DYT