Top Secret: Malta

Top Secret: Malta

Federal Bureau of Super-powered Affairs
***CLASSIFIED ***
FOR AGENT INDIGO 
*** EYES ONLY ***

I’m not thrilled with writing this down. It makes it all official-like. Really, I’d prefer if you burned this and only passed the info on verbally to a select few you really trust, but I’ll defer to your judgment.

Malta. I know you know some of this, but maybe not as much as you think. I’ll try to be as clear as I can, but in our world, you know that ain’t always possible.

The history of the Malta Group goes back to the Cold War, and the era of dirty, secret little hotspots around the globe. Out of this period came the old school Cold Warriors, men like Roger Vrabel (from the CIA’s Titan Project) and Neal Macintosh (of MI6) who didn’t want to put down their guns even though the rest of the world was trying to rebuild and maybe open borders and try some touchy-feely solutions. Vrabel was always bitter about the Supreme Court’s overturning of the Might for Right Act. Losing funding and power frightens men like these who can’t adapt – so they took matters into their own hands.

Many of the top intelligence gurus in the West felt they were being outmaneuvered by their Eastern counterparts. They felt their governments were blind to the rising threats, and maybe they were right, but then again maybe they just fell into believing their own collective paranoia.  Seventeen men traveled to Malta to come up with a plan. Nothing was written down, nothing was recorded. Whatever was said, only those present know exactly what was discussed or who was there. We know there were representatives from the US, the UK, Germany, Norway, Israel, and Canada, but there are a lot of unconfirmed rumors. When the meeting was done, each departed back to his home country, but a wide web suddenly ensnared the globe – a plan known as Malta.

The Malta Group is a global conspiracy, whose directors believe in shaping the world towards a better tomorrow – a tomorrow for capitalists and corporations and Western armies. They claim they fight for freedom and democracy, but even a blind man can see they manipulate governments and individuals for the sake of a future that is neither democratic nor free.

For years they hid under rocks, coordinating between each other to divert monies into untraceable slush funds and to stock pile top-grade weapons and armaments. And slowly they started cherry picking agents from their various agencies and retraining them – their reeducation system is very Manchurian Candidate – and funneling them into obscure outposts and off-the-grid bases.

For years, the Malta Group operated like an invisible, silent bullet. Targets in the Soviet Bloc would mysteriously die (or more often be covered in red herrings). No one really knew they were out there, although of course some people suspected. Malta stayed off the radar, nudging things forward, bit by bit. The early 80s was a bad time for them, however. When Roger Vrabel died, followed by Neal Macintosh barely six months later, it threw the group into turmoil. They had been the driving force behind the Malta Group, and left no clear successor. The group buckled internally, as numerous directors tried to establish control and a top-dog position. It was like that movie where everyone wants to be Mr. Black, and no one backs down ‘cause they don’t know who to be afraid of.

The internal squabbles and turf wars were pretty ugly, lasting for months if not years. Finally, a core cabal formed around the philosophy of “promote capitalism at all costs.” A veritable “night of the long knives” silenced all opposition. The reformed group watched the death throes of the Soviet Union, and started watching the Middle East and Asia as the new flashpoints. They established secret bases and self-sufficient paramilitary cells across the globe. This new Malta was more active, and more reports surfaced about a “liberated” diamond mine here, an overthrown dictatorship there, an extensive smear campaign that broke up a Super Group in Quebec, a murdered bishop who was soft on super-powered heroes in Central America, and so on. It wasn’t clear who or what Malta was, but we knew they were out there.

One of their greatest coups came via a recruit fresh out of Mother Russia. The Soviet super-soldier program was as dead as the Red Scare, and the scientists who ran it were broke and starving. No surprise that one was cheaply bought for a few hundred thousand dollars, and in turn she handed over the keys to a deep-cover Soviet research facility. We thought they were building tanks – they were, in a manner of speaking. But the military installation code-named Research Station Svyatogor was really some kind of cyborg factory. Malta took the plans for Titan Class warmachines and cleared the lab out, taking everything back to their own hidden facility in Germany.

In Germany, they expanded upon the work of the Russian cyborg blueprints. They developed a working model of a mobile artillery unit – a humanoid armored walker – driven by a human brain. These Titan units were refined and perfected until they became the walking tanks we’ve seen in the field today. They were first deployed in small skirmishes against the Rikti during the war. Malta always fought alone, and we believe they suffered heavy losses in that period. Still, once the war was over and rebuilding commenced, they had deep pockets to draw upon in order to refit themselves.

The Malta Group sees itself as the secret police force of the new order of globalism – and they’ll browbeat, torture, kill, and destroy anyone who steps out of line. They are primarily concerned with political leverage and pinpointed force. They don’t want to fight an open war, and certainly don’t want to engage multiple fronts directly. But they’ll use every dirty trick in the secret agent handbook – blackmail, coercion, kidnapping, pain techniques, mindcontrol, whatever it takes – to manipulate those who can help them, and crush any threat. We’ve seen more and more reports of Malta Group agents acting openly. It’s hard to say whether they are getting overconfident or desperate. It’s obvious that their hardcore assassin wing, your former ninja-sisters, the Knives of Artemis, are certainly getting more active.  I’ve also seen field-ready prototypes of a new Titan, code-named Kronos Class. These are some bad mothers, with more firepower than a battleship. We’re going to have to pull the plug on Malta one day … if we can ever worm our way to the inner core.

— Crimson