Hammerhead

Left to right: Brian Carter, Heidi Karlsen, Seo-Jun Kim, Shanice Campbell, Tara Wilson, Ajay Sackey

Hammerhead was the last of the “head” teams to be created. The team’s fast response is geared towards marine/amphibious roles but since marine craft would not suit this task the initial stage of a mission almost always features an aerial insertion of the team and their equipment/transport a duty often fulfilled by Arrowhead’s Ken Harada.

CLEA DATA FILE

Primary Role:

• Amphibious/Maritime Infiltration and Strike

Mission Types:

• Anti-piracy
• Maritime fast attack
• Beach assault
• Sea to Land infiltration and attack
• Rescue
• Extraction

Team Identities:

• Heidi Karlsen – team leader.
• Ajay Sackey
• Seo-Jun Kim
• Brian “Sneaker” Carter
• Tara Wilson – special marine skills/Member of the Aquatic Meramin Race
• Shanice Campbell – special marine skills/ Member of the Aquatic Meramin Race,

CLEA Classification:

• Combat Specialist (except Wilson and Campbell)
• Animal/Human hybrid (Wilson and Campbell)

Special Skills and/or Abilities:

• Sackey is a combat specialist trained in many different weapons ranging from hand guns to rocket launchers.
• Kim – is a combat engineer and trained to fix equipment and vehicles in the field. Using those skills he can also sabotage enemy installations.
• Carter is a combat recon specialist trained in various infiltration methods and unarmed combat.
• Animal/Human hybrids – Wilson and Campbell were once both members of the Meramin Aquatic race. (Previously they were thought to have been hybrids created by Chimera). This enables them to transform from human to a fish like creature (resembling a mermaid of mythology) at will. Using this ability they can sabotage boats and similar craft from below the water or perform sneak attacks by leaping out of the water.

Tactical Weakness(s):

• Wilson and Campbell “overheat” in their human forms so have to wear special suits. If these suits are compromised in a mission (such as a beach assault) they have to return to water or risk collapse.
• Mobility is an issue getting the team to the destination. Since a large craft is easily detected final travel to mission are requires use of smaller stealthy amphibious craft which are slower and have less range and no protection to the rider.

Notes/History

After the three other “head” teams had been formed which covered CLEA’s need for a fast response units, there seemed no direct need for a marine based unit. Several CLEA chiefs decided that since Arrowhead, was an aerial based team the unit could cover the need by transporting operatives into marine based locations. Since the budgets were not unlimited the consensus was that it was a suitable compromise rather than having the expense of a forth unit.

That thinking changed when the cruise ship “Majesty” was hijacked outside Australian waters. The group responsible was known to CLEA so they decided to take charge and since the incident was taking place in international waters the Australian authorities gave no objection despite the fact the hijackers were demanding a ransom from the Australian government.

It was only after taking responsibility did Australasian CLEA Chief Johnathon Hunter realise the organisation was totally unprepared to deal with the problem. The plan was originally to take down the hijackers at night by airdropping CLEA operatives close to the ship but the hijackers were wise to that scenario and so had placed short deadline for the ransom to be paid, at such time it would run out early afternoon. Any personnel being airdropped would be in grave danger of either getting themselves shot or the people they were trying to rescue.
That only left a surface strike but again that was not an option as a patrol boat would never get close to the Majesty without being spotted by the lookouts. Since the Australian Government were not going to pay a ransom Chief Hunter knew that once the deadline was reached and hostages were killed then the world would see CLEA as failure. With every option exhausted Hunter had no option but to call in a special asset. That particular group pulled off the task successfully and without a single civilian casualty. Using special assets though was always considered a last resort as relying on outside third parties was far from ideal and it had the added embarrassment as the special asset being seen as the real heroes and not CLEA.

Such an embarrassment quickly led to a rethink about creating a forth fast response team for marine based operations. Experience from the Majesty incident showed that the team could not use large fast surface transport to get in close so the proposal was to use small underwater craft during the day and quiet electric one man surface craft at night. Once in position at the destination enemy units could then be disabled by conventional methods.

With the go-ahead given for “Hammerhead”, Chief Johnathon Hunter wasted no time in hiring Heidi Karlsen to both build and lead the team. After studying various CLEA personnel files he found what Hunter found what he was looking for outside of the organisation. According to details released by European Special Forces unit Heidi was working for, it seemed she had dealt with a number of hostage situations, some of which were in very difficult locations and almost all missions had been dealt without incident. Though she had no “marine” experience Hunter just knew she was the right person for the job as no challenge stood in her way and she seemingly had been able to adapt to any random situation. As well as this her records indicated she was an excellent leader as well.

Once she accepted the position, her first choice was Ajay Sackey whom had served alongside her for several years and one of the few people she openly admitted she would trust with her life.  An expert in hand to hand and weapons skills, Heidi likened herself to the brains of the team and him the brawn. Though she would have liked to have employed the rest of her unit, Heidi knew that Hammerhead could not succeed without specialist help.
She therefore decided to select Korean technical specialist, Seo-Jun Kim. He had worked for CLEA as a high level agent for many years before taking a position at the Knights Forge to develop weapons for CLEA based on his experience. As well as having combat training and engineering skills which could be used to sabotage an “enemy’s” means to operate, significantly he also had vital experience in the small underwater submersibles the team would be using.

The third operative Heidi chose was the Australian Brian “The Snake” Carter. He was the only one currently serving with CLEA as a high level undercover operative. And had gained the nickname due to his means to get into locations undetected and attack with complete surprise. Though he had no naval experience since she felt those skills alone would more than make up for that.

Like the other “head” team leaders Heidi has been given full autonomy on who she hired but before she had finalised the last two names on her team she ended up receiving a rookie pair of “recruits” from an unexpected source.

Russian intelligence serviced had discovered a Chimera lab operation on their territory and raided it. In their haste to get away the Chimera scientists had left behind what the strike team had thought to be two of their “experiments”.  The theory was based on the logic for like all other Chimera human victims the pair of individuals seemed to have been “modified” so they could take on part animal form. In the case of the two women they could transform themselves into half human half fish entities. That much was obvious since the pair were swimming around in a large water tank when they were discovered.

Having been subjected to mind altering drugs neither victim could remember who she was so the Russian authorities turned to CLEA for assistance. Using databases and facial recognition CLEA found a close match to  Shanice Campbell from Jamaica and Tara Wilson from Australia. Both had been on a passenger aircraft that had vanished without a trace and believed to have crashed. Since neither was a Russian citizen, the Russian Authorities decided to hand the pair over to CLEA’s custody.

Now with two survivors of the missing plane in their possession CLEA agents reached the conclusion that there had been no accident and it all probability that Chimera had been responsible perhaps as a means to obtain a large group of test subjects for their work.

CLEA agents wanted very much to learn the fate of the others on the plane but since neither woman could recognise her own name it led to a long road in undoing some of the mental damage and recovering the memories. By the time they did get their memories back they lonely had limited information in regards to Chimera and what had happened to the plane. The women were quite angry at what had been done and the gaps in the memories created a lot of frustration leading the therapists to believe the two would forever have mental scars that could never heal.

During their stay with CLEA, scientists were able to fully examine them and the pair were quite open to allow themselves to be studied. Since Chimera had never bothered to create a marine-human form before they were quite unusual even by Chimera’s standards. Scientific study though did reveal that as with every other Chimera human, there was a downside to the genesplicing. In their case when they were away from water in their human form they would rapidly heat up and dehydrate.  Unable to return to a “normal” human life added to their already troubled minds.

The Knight’s Forge learned about the two women and tried its best to help by creating a pair of bodysuits that could keep them cool and prevent their skin drying out. Though a great help it was far from and ideal solution of returning to normal so rather than putting their families through the added burden they decided they could not return to their respective families.

That left CLEA with a problem because the only thing the organisation could do was hold them at a research facility. CLEA chief were all privy to the fate of the pair and when Chief Hunter heard about the pair he thought of an alternative life for them, serving on Hammerhead.
Already he had seen the data of their abilities in their animal form and seen videos how they could propel themselves out of water at high speed after a high speed underwater swim and he saw potential. He imagined a replay of the Majesty incident but this time with the two girls leaping out of the water and dragging away passing gunmen patrolling the deck, quickly cleanly and more importantly stealthily. Hunter could also see other situations where their unique shape changing abilities might be useful.

This idea he presented to Karlsen. Though neither woman had any combat training whatsoever she could see the idea bore merit, so Hunter arranged for Karlsen to meet the pair. Up until that moment Shanice and Tara were oblivious to what was happening in the background and only became aware when they had a visit from Heidi who proposed to use them on her team after training.

Whilst the prospect of going into conflict situations was daunting to trained personnel it was even more so to the pair. However after a great deal of thought they decided that perhaps it was an ideal way to use a gift they both considered a curse, especially if it meant putting a stop to criminals making victims of others.

Training was hard on them both especially as they had more than average problem in their human forms, but in working with the others the entire unit was able to bond together so by the time Shanice and Tara had gained the requisite skills, Heidi had a proper team she knew could work well together.

Lir’s Revelation

When the “Menagerie” team formed and “Lir” became a member, he informed them that Shanice and Tara where not what CLEA had assumed them to be but a member of the Meramin aquatic race. When the pair had first been “found” the agency was unaware of aquatic races, but had since learned of the Meramin and others. However it was still assumed that Shanice and Tara were victims of Chimera since their memories had been wiped. Now it became apparent the Chimera might have experimented on the pair but they were not of human origin. That meant that the two women whom they had inherited their names from must have gone down with the plane and their similarity was pure coincidence.

Lir said his people knew the Meramin very well. In the past they had fought them before assuming peaceful relations. He offered to take them “home” but having never recovered their memories and created new lives for themselves they chose not to take him up on the offer.

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