Chapter 2

Dick put in some long hours over the next few days. He was able to meet the deadline for planning the POW rescue and was able to spend a couple of days getting to know his new command. The platoon had been together since the first day of operations on Ixler, so they were comfortable working with each other. A big advantage that the commanders had with Saunan troops was that they all were volunteers, and nobody who wanted out of the Army was kept against his will. Furthermore, everybody wanted to be a grunt! All of the officers were jealous of the lower ranks because they were the ones who got the daily adrenaline rush by being shot at. Officers were officers only because they were well qualified and could be convinced that they could do some good with their rank.

The POW camp they wanted to hit was as primitive as one could imagine. The camp didn't even have a fence around it. The camp was "built" on an island in the middle of a swamp, so no fence was needed. Unfortunately for the detainees, the camp had virtually nothing else. Oh, there were some buildings, but they were reserved for the guards. The guards had barracks, mess facilities, showers, and latrines, but there was absolutely nothing done to take care of the POWs. There was no shelter, whatsoever, for the prisoners. Their latrine was nothing but a pit which the POWs had dug for themselves using their bare hands. Their cooking facilities were some open fires, but that wouldn't last long, because the loose firewood would be used up pretty soon. After that, their meals would consist of cold mush. Sleeping conditions were ridiculous, all POWs slept on the ground, catch as catch can.

Loosely, Dick's plan was for the humans to approach in rubber boats after dark, capture the camp from the guards, and pull the POWs out with additional boats. They assumed that the POWs would be in bad shape, possibly not even able to move on their own, so extra personnel would come in on the pickup boats to help get the detainees out. There was no worry about air cover, since the enemy didn't have any sort of air strike capability. Also, there was no enemy heavy artillery around, the worst the enemy could bring to bear were some light mortars. Were it not for Murphy's Law, this should be an easy operation.

The recon drones flown by intel had shown no enemy reinforcements in the area, so Dick had made no provision for reinforcements of his own. Actually, Dick's main worry was that some of his people would find a way to provoke a fire fight. Strict orders were given that only the rifle's stun setting would be used by the humans so that they would not injure the POWs. This camp was holding some very highly placed political prisoners along with military prisoners, so the humans wanted to make a propaganda point with a successful rescue of every one of the prisoners.

Dick had managed to get one ground-effect APC assigned to his operation. The armor was thick enough to counter the heaviest machine gun at the prison camp, so Dick was sending that in first. Besides, there was no way to sneak in with such a noisy contraption. The largest stun weapon available was mounted in the APC's turret, and this was supposed to take out most of the enemy troops.

The operation started at 2:00 AM. This was to give plenty of time for the human troops to arrive while there was no moonlight. All of the humans had the latest in night-vision wear, so the world looked to them like broad daylight; whereas, the native troops had to make do with their normal unaided vision.

The APC hit the shore with a rush toward the main barracks buildings. As soon as the vehicle stabilized on land, the woman in the turret started firing her stun gun at the barracks and any place else it looked like an enemy might be found. The stun ray worked through wooden or masonry walls, but not through metal. Therefore, anybody sheltering behind a bullet or splinter shield was safe from the stun ray as long as he kept his head down. Of course, in any species, there was always some nut who had to stick his head up to see the sights.

The stun ray was columnated into a very narrow beam, so that the energy would be concentrated to work immediately. This meant that the weapon had to be traversed just like any conventional machine gun, and was just as likely to shoot over or under the target as a conventional machine gun. Therefore, there was some skill and luck associated with using the stun ray properly, and, unfortunately, this particular gunner was lacking in both on this night. She had received all of the usual regular and advanced training afforded a stun ray gunner, but this was her first real military operation, and she was so excited that she had already pissed in her pants! She had been distracted by being shot at from a watch tower and had directed her fire to it to silence the shooters firing from that location. She was effective at that, but forgot to go back and finish hosing down the full extent of the barracks. Thus, about 40 enemy guards had missed being stunned.

Meanwhile, Dick's platoon had landed and started gathering up the prisoners for transport to safety. A couple of natives had been included in the APC crew and had dropped out of the vehicle when it hit land. These two men had bull horns and were shouting "RESCUE! RESCUE! RESCUE!" through them to tell the prisoners what was going on.

The situation looked to be well in hand, so Dick called in the extra boats and personnel to assist the prisoners in getting away. Their arrival coincided with the charge from the barracks by the un-stunned enemy soldiers. It was so dark that they couldn't see worth a damn, they just knew that they were under attack. They began to fire wildly in all directions, actually shooting some of their own people, but mainly being a deadly menace to the escaping prisoners.

The humans returned fire and dropped most of the remaining guards in the first few seconds of the melee. A few of the guards dropped to the ground and began shooting at what targets they could find. This required that the humans advance into the incoming fire to eliminate the last few enemy effectives. All of the humans wanted to be chosen for this task, it was just too much fun to miss. However, Dick quickly restored order and sent one squad in to deal with the shooters. The rest of the platoon was somewhat pissed off at Dick for not letting them go, too.

Meanwhile, the APC was making the rounds of the little island to insure that all of the POWs were rescued and there were no enemy soldiers left to make trouble. All of the POWs who could be found were guided into boats. As soon as a boat had a full load, it left. Someone was counting the people as they got on the boats, so they had an idea of how many had escaped so far. Damn! Murphy raised his head again when they found out that they had about 20 more POWs than they had expected.

Dick led the final sweep himself to make sure that there were no forgotten or missed POWs left on the island. If there were, they were doing a damned effective job of hiding from their rescuers. Dick put the overflow of prisoners in the rubber boats and the humans climbed on top of the APC for the ride back to base. There was universal agreement among the humans that Dick really knew how to throw a party!

Back at base camp, everybody, humans and locals alike, were checked by medicos to be sure there were no hidden injuries. Other than some bumps, bruises, and minor cuts and scrapes, there were no complaints on the medical front, so the whole operation was deemed a major success.

Dick was called into the colonel's office and thanked for a superlative job. The colonel promised to keep Dick in mind the next time they needed to run a special ops job. Dick had to admit that he was very pleased with himself and looked forward to the next opportunity.

The humans were making slow, but steady, progress against the king's forces; however, they were having to kill more of the locals than seemed reasonable as the fighting drew closer to the king's castle. The king's people had done a very good job of selling the idea that the humans were alien monsters that ate children at every meal and were trying to take over the sacred soil of Marmur. As a result, even though they were slaves and conscripts, the locals were fighting a very good fight.