“I just want to see her in a bikini one of these days,” I said, peering through the lens. “Not much in the sexy-ware department in the stores around here.”
“You’re pathetic.”
I glanced at him with a mock frown on my face. “I’m so lonely.”
Santino chuckled.
“But seriously,” I said, returning my attention to my binoculars, “what have we got? Some kind of picket station?”
“That’s what I’d call it,” he replied, looking through his magnifiers as well. “I’ve seen about thirty guards manning the post, all acting unprofessional and lazy. Ten archers in the tower, ten guards on duty, with another ten milling about. Stables around back with horses for each of them.”
“Hmm,” I hummed. “Shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”
“We could just go around,” Santino pointed out.
“We could, but I’d rather not have anyone behind us. This post means we have to be pretty close to the AO. I don’t want anyone sneaking up on us while we’re reconnoitering Agrippina’s location.”
“You’re the boss.”
I nearly missed my next breath at the comment, but quickly recovered. “Any thoughts on a tactical approach?”
“I’d say the best way to take care of them is to have them come to us,” he suggested.
“Yep,” I agreed, squinting through my binoculars.
He glanced at me. “You don’t actually have a plan?”
“Well,” I said, meeting his look. “One could call it that.”
“Call it a plan?”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
He snickered. “This should be good.”
Twenty minutes later, Santino and I rode our black horses towards the guard post, our pace innocent and nonthreatening. Before setting out, we’d radioed for the rest of the group to move up to our recon position and wait to receive the bad guys. Once they’d set up the perimeter, the two of us had set out.
“You ready for this?” I asked him.
He turned towards me and smiled.
“Try not to laugh too hard,” I said.
“Man, this should be really good.”
Only a few yards out, I gave the post a quick perusal and noted the posture and positions of each guard. Santino had been right. Most looked like they didn’t want to be there, while the rest merely let on like they cared. They were so out of it upon our arrival that those out front were visibly surprised by our presence, even though we had been in view for the past ten minutes. A centurion came out to meet us, one of his buddies not far behind.
“Halt,” the centurion called. “State your business.”
I gave him a warm smile. It was easy to smile. I’ve always wanted to do this.
“My name is Ben Kenobi,” I told the centurion. “This is Luke Skywalker. Let us through. We’re on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan. ”
“You’re on a diplomatic mission to…” the centurion looked at his companion curiously, “…Al-der-an?”
“You don’t need to see any identification,” I continued, waving my hand at him. I looked at Santino. He was staring at me, his mouth hanging open, no grin in sight. Even he couldn’t believe I was doing this, and he didn’t even seem to care that he was possibly blowing the entire ruse.
“We… don’t need to see any identification?” The guard repeated slowly, again looking towards his partner.
Was this actually working?
“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for?” I asked with an inkling of hope.
“What?!” The guard yelled, indicating to his comrades. “Seize these fools!”
He reached out to grab the reigns of my horse, but before he could grasp them, I pulled out my Sig and shot him in the chest.
“Boring conversation, anyway,” I said, my smile evaporating. I pulled hard on the reigns, orienting Felix back towards our convoy, enticing him to put on some speed. I turned to Santino, conveniently galloping at my side and offered him a toothy grin. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Really?? That was your plan?”
“Don’t tell Helena.”
“Oh, you owe me big time, buddy,” he replied, his grin returning. “Big time.”
I didn’t think he’d say anything, but my impending romantic doom wasn’t nearly as important as the thing that had just struck my back. I craned my neck to see an arrow sticking out of my shoulder, luckily stopped from impaling me by my body armor. Santino looked over and noticed it as well.
“Move it,” he said, pushing his horse even faster for the last hundred yards to our waiting teammates.
Arrows started falling all around us and Roman soldiers mounted horses to give chase. We had a good lead on them, but sniper fire from our comrades was already picking the Roman archers off. By the time we reached the small recon dune, most of the Romans giving chase laid dead behind us. The half dozen remaining Romans noticed their predicament, and turned tail and fled. We couldn’t let them alert anyone of our presence, so we picked them off as well, one by one.
From the time I shot the first centurion to when the last Roman fell from his horse, only four minutes had passed. Quick, clean and proficient. Once we were sure no one was getting up, the team moved quickly through the bodies and policed them. Only Helena neglected her duties, rushing over to me instead to examined the arrow stuck in my back.
I didn’t feel any pain, and I knew there was no way the primitive arrow could have penetrated the Kevlar that lined the combat fatigues I wore under my robe. Even so, she examined it carefully before diagnosing that it was clear for extraction. With a quick yank, she pulled it free from my MOLLE vest. Stepping around to face me, she broke it in half and threw it at my chest angrily. I knew what she was thinking. Another stupid mistake that could have ended much worse than it had. She stood there for a few seconds, just staring at me silently, and then she threw her arms around my shoulders and pulled herself in tight. She hung there for a while before pulling back, holding me by my arms. Her face revealed her concern, but she shook her head at me before turning to help the others.
I watched her go.
Women.
“I’ve got two guards in the Northeast cupola,” Vincent reported over the radio. “Two more at the base of the tower.”
“Copy,” I replied, making a mark in my notebook.
“Five more at the gate.” That was Wang.
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, scribbling furiously.
“Three on the south wall.” Helena this time.
“All right, all right,” I commed. “Slow it down. So far we have forty Praetorians scattered throughout the perimeter. Keep going. Slowly.”
Their constant updates were disheartening. We’d arrived three hours ago around midnight, and had set up shop about an hour after that. All of us from Madrina to our former legion buddies were scattered around the decent sized seaside resort, counting and cataloging bad guys. We’d expected plenty of guards around the site, but things were quickly getting out of hand. No one had bought into Helena’s theory of their being thousands of guards, but we were at least expecting her Sacred Band of three hundred Praetorians. Granted, she’d co-opted many of those men into her new ninja battalions or whatever, and since we’d just got done killing fifty or so of them, I thought maybe we’d get lucky.
“Ten near the docks,” Santino radioed.
I marked it.
I personally didn’t care how many men were there. Only one person mattered and that was Agrippina. The caves five years ago had housed just as many terrorists, and those men had been equipped with AK47s, not swords and shields. If not for my piss poor driving skills, we would have been fine. Clearing out a village no bigger than a downtown city block, full of Romans who weren’t expecting us shouldn’t be a problem, especially if we were well prepared.
There seemed to be a lull in the team’s updates.
I glanced up from my notebook, the same one I’d been scribbling nonsense in for the past few months. “Any more tangos?” I asked