Inside Operation BLUE FLY (Patreon)

My upcoming Delta Green scenario Jack Frost has players taking the roles of MAJESTIC researchers investigating a terrifying incursion in late 1998. With enough players, one or two could play pararescue operatives from Operation BLUE FLY, the rescue-and-recovery unit that secretly secures extraterrestrial artifacts. Here's what that looks like for the players. The first passage is reprinted from an earlier Patreon post about Jack Frost.

ABOUT OPERATION BLUE FLY

Operation BLUE FLY is part of the ultra-secret Project MOON DUST. MOON DUST has moved from unit to unit in the Air Force since the 1940s. Every couple of years it is deactivated and redesignated and given a new cover. From the Cuban Missile Crisis until the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was supposedly dedicated to studying captured Soviet technology. In fact, it uses missions to recover nuclear and foreign technology as a cover to investigate extraterrestrial incursions.

Project MOON DUST is headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, under the cover of the Air Intelligence Agency’s National Air Intelligence Center (NAIC). NAIC was for decades the Foreign Technology Division and insiders still call it “FTD.” Operation BLUE FLY is activated when it’s time for the most highly trained soldiers in the world hit the ground, investigate, and secure whatever’s there: pararescue (“PJ”) veterans trusted with the nation’s most staggering secrets. 

BLUE FLY’s PJs are officially assigned to the Joint Services Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) Agency (JSSA) at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on a black budget allocation. JSSA provides pararescue training and develops pararescue doctrine. BLUE FLY’s teams are assigned to pararescue units like the 41st Rescue Squadron as needed to explain their deployment in a given region. In squadrons like the 41st, they fly combat rescue missions, support NASA launches and recovery, and find and contain crash debris, biological hazards, and technology such as satellites and spy planes that are critical to national security.

BLUE FLY is commanded by Col. Robert Coffey. Coffey came up through Air Force intelligence, not pararescue, but is the closest any officer has gotten to keeping up with what PJs have to do. When a mission is confirmed extraterrestrial, Coffey is likely to lead from the front. That way he can see what the teams are dealing with, and can put bullets into it himself if necessary.

It is necessary more often than not. A meteor recovery a few years back went especially bad. The story is that something came out of it and killed three BLUE FLY PJs, along with a bunch of medics and civilians. Coffey put the thing down himself. Ever since then, BLUE FLY’s unofficial policy is to shoot E.T. first and recover it alive if possible.

Incursions are not frequent. The “Greys” are real, all right, but they haven’t been seen in years. Any given BLUE FLY team gets called out two or three times a year. It turns out to be a genuinely extraterrestrial event maybe a quarter of the time. When it does, it’s weird, confusing, and deadly.

BLUE FLY TEAMS

The BLUE FLY detachment in Willis is commanded by Maj. James Farrell. Each 11-man pararescue team includes staff sergeants and technical sergeants, with a master sergeant in command. The prominent role of master sergeants is distinctive to PJ teams.

The Willis unit has six Black Hawk helicopters. Two carry pararescue teams of 11 men each. One is equipped for medical rescue and emergency treatment. One is equipped to take up to four tons of cargo. 

The other two helicopters are kept under armed guard at all times. No member of the team is allowed to look inside those helicopters except Maj. Farrell and the BLUE FLY pilots and crew assigned to them.

Each helicopter has two pilots, a door gunner, and a crew chief. Each has unusually sophisticated radio and radiation sensors to measure various energy levels in the ground and foliage. All helicopters except the two under guard are equipped with starboard-side M240 machine guns, which the gunners can deploy and operate.

In addition to the helicopters, the pararescuemen have two boats equipped with heavy-hauling equipment and powerful sonar, and several Humvees.

MASTER SGT. JACOB HARDY, USAF

A tall, athletic white man in his early thirties with short-cropped hair, wearing a green-and-brown camouflage uniform and body armor.

You joined the Air Force right out of high school. You enlisted because your family was too poor to send you to college, despite a few basketball scholarship offers. You picked the Air Force because you were 18 and you liked fighter jets. You trained to be a medic because you liked helping people. 

Then you heard about pararescue. They said it was the hardest job to get in the entire military. Only 20% of the men who even got accepted made it all the way through training. That sounded like a challenge worth trying. Two grueling years of training later, you were a PJ, expert in combat diving, survival, every kind of parachuting, emergency medicine, and combat. (People call PJs “para jumpers,” but that’s backward. “PJ” came from pararescue duty codes: “P” for parachutist and “J” for diver.)

After ten years in the PJs, you had made team leader and were on top of things. Then you got an even more restricted assignment. You joined Operation BLUE FLY. You have spent the last few years doing combat rescue and satellite recovery, as usual. But every so often, a BLUE FLY mission comes along. And that means—no lie—aliens. Or anyway the weird technology and bodies they leave behind. You’re still waiting to see one in the flesh.

Since BLUE FLY is pararescue, teams in the field are led by sergeants like you. Officers give the orders, but enlisted PJs carry them out without interference from inexperienced lieutenants. That’s a privilege that stirs jealousy in every soldier you’ve ever met.

You and Jonathan Lukman were already friends when BLUE FLY recruited you both. In the five years since, you’ve become like brothers. He’s an officer and you’re enlisted, of course, but BLUE FLY is such a strange, tight-knit environment that your friendship doesn’t draw attention. He’s a pilot. Your jobs are so different that rank is never an issue.

In another five years, you’ll have 20 in and be eligible for retirement. The pension won’t be too bad. Enough that you’ll do all right in a second career. And Col. Coffey’s unofficial “shoot first” policy makes it a little more likely that you’ll make it that far. 

But here’s the thing. Project MOON DUST works with a couple of other secret projects that conduct research and development. One is Project DANCER. You’re not supposed to know DANCER even exists. DANCER studies alien biology, but it hasn’t had a living sample in years. You have a handshake deal with someone working there. You make sure your team supplies a living alien. They deposit half a million dollars in a bank account in Panama. A friendly and slightly shady accountant can run that money through a few loans and real estate sales until it looks like you earned it being a genius at buying houses. That’ll more than double your pension without even touching the principal. 

All you have to do is keep an alien alive, take credit for it, and collect the pay.

Master Sgt. Jacob Hardy

BLUE FLY pararescue team leader, age 33

STR 14 CON 15 DEX 11 INT 10 POW 12 CHA 10

HP 15 WP 12 SAN 60 BREAKING POINT 48

ARMOR: Tactical body armor and helmet, Armor 6.

BONDS: Capt. Jonathan Lukman (BLUE FLY pilot and best friend), 10.

MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS: Saving lives.

Overcoming challenges.

Fucking up aliens if you ever see one.

The perfect basketball game.

Never being poor again.

SKILLS: Alertness 60%, Athletics 60%, Dodge 50%, Drive 40%, Firearms 60%, First Aid 70%, Heavy Weapons 50%, Medicine 30%, Melee Weapons 50%, Military Science (Land) 55%, Navigate 60%, Pharmacy 30%, Science (Biology) 25%, Search 60%, Stealth 50%, Survival 60%, Swim 60%, Unarmed Combat 60%.

SPECIAL TRAINING: Parachuting (DEX), SCUBA (Swim).

ATTACKS: M16A2 rifle 60%, Lethality 10% with three-round burst, Armor Piercing 3.

M9 pistol 60%, damage 1D10.

Survival knife 50%, damage 1D6+1, Armor Piercing 3.

Unarmed 60%, damage 1D4.

AN/PVS-7 NIGHT VISION DEVICE: The AN/PVS-7 (from Army/Navy Portable Visual Search) is a set of night-vision goggles with a light-enhancement tube. It provides infrared light enhancement and has auto-gating to block sudden light intensification. It allows operating in reduced light, but sight-intensive skill tests such as Drive, Pilot, and ranged attacks are at a −20% penalty.

CAPT. JONATHAN LUKMAN, USAF

A lean Arab-American man with regulation Air Force haircut and mustache, wearing a green pilot’s jumpsuit.

Your grandfather came to the U.S. as a refugee during World War I, fleeing with his family to escape the Assyrian genocide. He worked for decades as a Chicago bellhop, saving every penny and making friends everywhere. Your father was born in Chicago and worked as a bank clerk, saving enough for you to go to college. You disappointed both of them by becoming a pilot instead of a lawyer.

Flying is everything. There’s no greater joy. And when it gets challenging and dangerous, there’s no greater rush. As a combat rescue pilot, you save lives for the country that saved your family. You’re one of the best in the world. How your family ever thought you’d settle for being a lawyer is beyond you.

You got tapped for Operation BLUE FLY after ten years as a combat rescue pilot, recovering personnel behind enemy lines in Panama, the Gulf War, Somalia, and Bosnia, not to mention satellite recovery missions and standing ready for rescue with every Space Shuttle launch. Joining BLUE FLY has added about a dozen missions to investigate possible extraterrestrial incursions. Five of those turned out to be genuine. That meant dead PJs despite your best efforts, every time.

You and Jake Hardy were already friends when BLUE FLY recruited you both. In the five years since, you’ve become like brothers. He’s enlisted and you’re an officer, of course, but BLUE FLY is such a strange, tight-knit environment that your friendship doesn’t draw attention. He’s a PJ. Your jobs are so different that rank is never an issue. 

Capt. Jonathan “Lucky” Lukman

BLUE FLY combat rescue pilot, age 36

STR 11 CON 12 DEX 14 INT 12 POW 12 CHA 11

HP 12 WP 12 SAN 60 BREAKING POINT 48

ARMOR: Flight helmet, Armor 1 (when flying).

BONDS: Master Sgt. Jacob Hardy (BLUE FLY team leader and best friend), 11.

MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS: Flying.

Getting your people in and out safely.

This month’s girlfriend.

Being the best of the best.

The perfect basketball game.

SKILLS: Alertness 70%, Athletics 50%, Bureaucracy 30%, Craft (Electrician) 40%, Craft (Mechanic) 50%, Firearms 40%, First Aid 40%, Foreign Language (Arabic) 20%, Heavy Weapons 60%, Melee Weapons 40%, Military Science (Air) 50%, Navigate 70%, Pilot (Airplane) 40%, Pilot (Helicopter) 90%, Science (Meteorology) 40%, Survival 40%, Swim 40%, Unarmed Combat 50%.

SPECIAL TRAINING: Parachuting (DEX), SCUBA (Swim).

ATTACKS: M9 pistol 40%, damage 1D10.

Survival knife 40%, damage 1D6, Armor Piercing 3.

Unarmed 50%, damage 1D4−1.

ANVIS HUD NIGHT VISION DEVICE: In a BLUE FLY helicopter, pilot and copilot are equipped with the ANVIS HUD (from Aviator’s Night Vision Imaging System with Heads Up Display). Attached to the helmet, it allows operating in reduced light, but sight-intensive skill tests such as Pilot and ranged attacks are at a −20% penalty.

Written by Shane Ivey, © Delta Green Partnership.