Chapter 4

Dick's special ops people were all awarded citations, and Dick was put on the very short list of problem solvers for dirty jobs, which suited him perfectly. The only thing Dick feared was that he would be stuck in an office somewhere planning operations for other people to carry out. He was promised that this wouldn't happen, but he was still concerned.

Meanwhile, the capture of the king put an end to the war in Marmur, and Umlaut was elected the new king. His first act as king was freeing all the serfs and slaves; the humans felt that this made the trip from Sauna worth while, even without the fun of fighting. With the support of the humans, King Umlaut started forming a confederation of the free kingdoms and pushing the others kingdoms that still had serfdom and slavery to reform and free everybody. He was able to convince many of the smaller kingdoms that they would be better off with the protection of the confederation and no bondage, but there were still several large kingdoms that didn't want to give up the tried and true habits of their forefathers.

King Umlaut asked for active military support from the humans in forcing those recalcitrant kingdoms to join the majority. The humans had not spent all of the money they had budgeted for the fight on Ixler, so the government held a referendum among the troops, and the troops overwhelmingly voted to stay on Ixler and continue the fight. The very few that wanted to go home to Sauna were shipped out as soon as transportation was available.

The grunts were happy with assignment to units which were conquering the smaller kingdoms, but it was decided that the larger kingdoms would be attacked with the method that was so successful in Marmur. People would be sent in to kidnap the higher officials in the government, until the remaining officials came to their senses and sued for peace. This was a whole lot cheaper than paying for a full military offensive!

Naturally, Dick was assigned the job of planning and carrying out such a raid. He drew the kingdom of Bolar, which was situated in a very warm, climatically speaking, segment of Ixler. Bolar was about as tropical as it could get on Ixler. Practically the whole kingdom was covered with thick jungle and was "as hot as the hinges of hell." It sounded just like the backwoods on Sauna. None of the humans really liked to work in that much heat, but they knew that they could stand it.

Even the natives were uncomfortable in that much heat, which is why the rulers wanted to keep the serfs. Who else but the serfs would work the plantations, which were the major source of income for the kingdom? They couldn't leave and were forced to suffer in dreadful conditions.

The wealthy landlords had mansions which were dug into the ground to escape the heat. The temperature was actually comfortable down about 20 feet under ground, so that's where people lived who could afford it. Mostly, poor people lived on the surface.

The obscenely wealthy and the king lived on the surface in blissful air conditioned comfort. This was a deliberate act of conspicuous consumption designed to impress the lower classes. It's hard to say how much it impressed the lower classes, but it certainly engendered hatred among them. The king had a villa on an island in the middle of a large lake. This produced oppressive humidity, but the air conditioning compensated for it. However, the lake acted as a monster moat and insured privacy; it served to bar the riff-raff from spoiling the scenery.

Dick's strategy for his attack was somewhat similar to what he had used the last time. His force would be the same size as before and would include the same people. The trooper with the ulcer problem had been cured by an autodoc, and he promised not to vomit any more blood, at least, not while on a mission. They needed him because he was a demolitions expert. They would use the helicopter/paraglider technique to approach the king's villa.

The difference was that the villa had only one storey, so they planned to enter the king's bedroom from the roof by cutting a hole. A spy had told them the exact location of the king's bedroom, so they would have no trouble pinpointing it from the air. The plan was to land on the roof at various points and blow several holes in the roof with shaped explosive charges. Not only would they kidnap the king, but they would also kidnap several of his higher ministers. The idea was to decapitate the government, completely.

Once the proper people were snatched, helicopters would swoop down to the roof and pick up the humans and their captives. The helicopters would be gone, hopefully, before many of the defenders even knew that they were around. However, the operation would be covered by several gunships, just in case the locals raised some unreasonable objection to the exercise.

Out of concern for the "comfort" of his troops, Dick requisitioned full sets of backcountry wear from Sauna for his people to wear over their body armor. This outfit would keep the body temperature at a comfortable level and provide cooled air at a proper humidity for breathing. One of the things he planned to do to harass the defenders was to blow up the central air conditioner for the complex. This should distract many people and interfere with defensive efforts during the raid.

Dick planned to kidnap the king and 4 of his ministers, so he would need 5 pickup helicopters, plus he wanted 2 gunships for cover. The Ixlerns did not have an air force, so that was no problem, but the king's villa was known to be surrounded by machine guns, and that fire might need to be suppressed.

A week was spent constructing the special "door opener" explosive devices for cutting through the roof and training everybody on how to use them. They were quite simple to use, and every adult on Sauna had worked with explosives at one time or another, so little special training was needed. The device was intended to blow a 5-foot diameter circular hole all the way through the roof and ceiling so that all the humans could simply drop through at the same time. The surprise and shock of the explosion was expected to cause enough consternation that the humans could stun everybody inside the room before they had time to defend themselves.

As planned, it was a very dark night when they climbed into their transport helicopters and set out for Bolar. The choppers climbed to 15,000 feet before crossing the border into Bolar and everybody got their paragliders ready. The big lake made an easy target to find, even with no moon, and the only island in the lake was obvious even before they put on their night-vision glasses. On command, all of the team jumped virtually simultaneously and they arrived on the roof of the villa the same way. The members of the team were very good at night work as the result of a lot of practice in the live-fire games back on Sauna, so there was no fumbling around when they landed. Each person went directly to his assigned post; the night-vision glasses made it easy to find their way.

The "door openers" were positioned and set off on signal and each pair of humans dropped in on its very surprised target. Dick jumped through the hole with the two people charged with picking up the king. There was a bit of hasty shooting as the team stunned the body guards before the guards could get their guns into play. Dick stunned the two figures in the bed and compared the male with the photo he had of the king. Dick was able to make positive identification, so the team quickly wrapped the king in a sheet and climbed back up on the roof with him. Dick had signaled for the pickup helicopters as soon as the "door openers" had been set off, so they showed up in less than 5 minutes after the team returned to the roof. As Dick's team began climbing into their pickup helicopter, machine gun fire began to spatter on the roof in their vicinity.

This was the signal for the gunships to open up. Between rockets and their own machine gun fire, the gunships quickly eliminated a machine gun pill box as soon as it made itself known by shooting. As the saying goes, "Tracer fire points in two directions!" There was one radar site on the island, but it, too, was eliminated as soon as it became active. The gunships probably shot off more ammunition than they really needed to, but the crews were bored, since they rarely had been called into action. Whatever their motivation, they were certainly active and effective.

Three of the other team pairs had found their target and were back on the roof, but one pair was not back yet, and their helicopter was ready to leave as soon as they showed up. Dick ordered the helicopters to hold position while he checked on the problem. Dick jumped from his helicopter and ran across the roof to the hole of the missing pair. He looked in and saw several bodyguards lying on the floor. One of the members of the pair was also lying on the floor, obviously bleeding, from a badly injured leg, while the other member of the pair was helplessly standing under the hole, holding a body wrapped in a sheet. She couldn't get out of the hole by herself while carrying the unconscious prisoner; furthermore, she didn't want to leave her wounded buddy.