Chapter 3

They had chosen a night without moonlight; their night-vision glasses provided all of the visual acuity they needed, even depth perception. The two transport helicopters had them in position before 1:00 AM, and they began their launch. Dick sent their best two jumpers out first to hit the landing zone and protect it for the rest of the troop as they landed. Of course, if they had to do any protecting at all, the whole operation was shot out the window. Secrecy was the number one priority until they had the king under wraps and were ready to evacuate.

The first two jumpers were out on schedule and dropped like cannon balls at first. As soon as they were low enough, they deployed their paragliders and wafted in for perfect landings. They folded up and stowed their paragliders, then signaled to Dick via a single beep on the radio that everything was clear and the rest of the force could jump. What followed looked like chaos, but it was actually carefully controlled by the jumpmasters. Everybody was out and the helicopters were on their way home before the first of this group of jumpers reached the ground.

The paragliders were folded and stowed for transport by each jumper as he hit the ground. It only took about 10 minutes for everybody to be ready to sneak into the castle. Even the scuffed dirt of the landing zone was smoothed back out before Dick's people left. The troop was lined up one behind the other, each one within arm's reach of the one in front. They hugged the wall as they followed the point man into the castle.

They knew exactly where they were going, in contrast to Dick's first attempt to raid a castle. Every member of the troop had a map of their route available if he needed it. The map was superimposed on the night-vision glasses whenever it was called up. An inertial navigation system kept each person's location current on the map.

Each trooper had his stun pistol out and ready to shoot if the necessity arose, but they all hoped to avoid that. They weren't worried about capture, since they were certain that they could defeat any enemy who dared to attack them, but such an attack would warn the king, and he would flee the castle. Therefore, they were as quiet and unobtrusive as they could manage as they sneaked down the corridor.

They finally ran into a problem as they were preparing to descend their first staircase. There was a guard, lounging against the protective railing. Now, how the hell were they going to get around him? He could be stunned, but that would eventually reveal their presence in the castle. One of the troopers volunteered to sneak down a side corridor and make a noise to draw the guard away from his current post. When he left, the rest of the troop could make a dash down the stairs. The lone trooper who had made the distracting noise would rejoin them when she could. She reasoned that it would be much easier for a single person to sneak past the guard than for 10 to do so. Dick considered her plan for a moment and agreed to it. They prepared to dash down the stairs as soon as the guard was out of the way.

The distraction trooper holstered her stun pistol and dropped to the floor. She began to crawl down the intersecting hall. It was amazing how she seemed to disappear, even though her mates knew exactly where she was. She had perfected this technique on Sauna through years of practice, first in paint-ball games, then in live ammunition games. She was rightfully acclaimed as one of the best on the planet at the craft. A few minutes later, they heard a rattle of metal down the hall. The guard looked around, but didn't move. The troopers cursed him for being a lazy bastard, but the noise was heard again. This time the guard groaned in disgust before making his way slowly down the hall.

The troop started down the stairs, and the last one was still on the stairs when the distracting trooper showed up to join her friends. There were a lot of grins and low-voiced congratulations when she resumed her place in line.

They had gone about 200 feet when they encountered another obstacle, but this was in the form of a locked door. Damn! This door wasn't on their plans of the castle. Why was it here? Was it a defensive structure or was it to deter casual theft? Most likely, something of moderate value was stored beyond the door; it just was not in any sort of reasonable attack route. They had to get through this door or else make a circuitous detour none of them wanted to try. Dick didn't hesitate. He ordered a defensive perimeter set in place while the lock expert picked the lock. Dick could have had it blown open, but he didn't want to advertise their presence.

Fortunately, Ixlerns hadn't graduated to electronic locks, but were still mired in the age of mechanical locks. Dick's lock picking expert had the door unlocked in only a few minutes; it took him so long because the lock was a bit rusty inside and could have used some oil. They eased the door open and found nothing unusual on the other side. Now, why had this boor been locked? They never found out!Once everybody was through the door, Dick ordered it closed and locked. Hopefully, nobody would ever notice that it had been recently opened.

They finally came to the storeroom they planned to hide in. This door was locked, but they had expected that. This lock was picked, and they were in the room with little delay. The first thing they did was hide the paragliders, as they never expected to use them again. Dick knew that nobody would find the paragliders soon enough to make any difference to the operation, but it still seemed like a good idea.

This storeroom was used to store barrels of beer! Dick agreed that they could tap one barrel for use now, but no more after dawn. They had to be alert for the main part of their mission. This gave everybody time to consume 1 quart, which should be passed through the system before the next phase of the mission started. There was a drain in the floor that they could use for a latrine.

This wasn't enough beer to do more than relax everybody, and they had a pleasant rest while they waited for midnight. Some time was spent in checking over their equipment. This wasn't really necessary, but it did delay the onset of boredom. Dick reviewed the plan with everybody, reminding them that they were not to kill anybody, unless it was absolutely necessary to preserve the life of a comrade or to further the mission. However, they were now free to use their stun pistols as they found appropriate.

They checked their equipment one more time and filed out the door, right into the arms of a serving wench. She was carrying 4 buckets, one in each hand. She screamed and dropped all 4 buckets, one onto the toe of the point man, who also screamed, but this was in pain. His toe wasn't broken, but it hurt like hell. Meanwhile, the serving wench got herself shot by 9 stun rays; it was a good thing that the effect wasn't cumulative!

The first wench was followed by a second, who also held 4 buckets. This one also screamed, but she had the presence of mind to throw the buckets at the humans before turning to run away. Since some people were busy ducking flying buckets, she was shot by only 7 stun rays. Dick feared that all this noise was sure to attract somebody's attention, so they pulled the two wenches and the 8 beer buckets back into the storeroom and waited to repel an assault.

Nothing more happened. When nobody showed up to investigate within 15 minutes, Dick figured that they were going to get away with all the clamor they had caused. He made sure that the leading wench still had her key so that the two women could escape from the storeroom when they regained consciousness. The lock picker locked the two women inside the storeroom, and the humans headed for the door they had come through the previous night.

Once they were through that door, it was also locked to slow down anybody who was sent to investigate why the serving wenches were gone so long. The humans made their way back to the stairs and started up. These stairs had a guard last night, so they were on the lookout for him this night. He wasn't there. He must have been walking some rounds, so they stayed on the alert as they went up the stairs and made a sharp left turn to go down the cross corridor. The last man of the team had turned into the cross corridor when they heard a shout behind them. The entire team turned as one man and fired at the guard who had shouted at them.