Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse-Chapter 110: Heart of Darkness

"Note for the future Lieutenant, we need some proper defensive parapets up here," Han remarked.

"Noted private. Right now though, you need to make do with what we’ve got," said Niko shortly.

"Sir, can you drag the potting table over to the plantroom for me?"

Brenner, Han and Niko pushed the huge potting table out and heaved it across to the plantroom wall. Han jumped up on the table and used the extra height to peer across the plantroom roof and down onto the soldier’s hiding spot, without being seen.

He crept back to Niko. "Lieutenant, I can make the shot from the plant roof, plus, I’ll have the element of surprise when I jump up there."

Niko thought for a minute. It was a dangerous manoeuvre because Han would be fully exposed, but it could work. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

He nodded. "Alright. You’ll have about five seconds, so be ready to take the shot straight away. Brenner and I will cover you so the shooter can’t get an arrow away. If you miss, jump off pronto. You won’t get a second chance, and he’ll take you out."

Han nodded. He was confident he could do it.

Niko gestured to the two men, counting down with his fingers. ’Three, two, one! Go!’

Han jumped up onto the flat roof of the plantroom and took off at a run, stopping when he reached the edge of the roof that fronted the alley. The soldier looked up to see Han with an arrow trained on him. The man turned to run for cover, but Han’s arrow hit him square in the back before he could get there.

"Last man down," Han called.

Brenner switched on the intercom.

"Last soldier has been eliminated, I repeat, last soldier eliminated."

Han jumped down and Niko, Han and Brenner gave each other a relieved high five.

"Well done man, great shot," said Brenner admiringly.

"Yep. Good work private Li. No time to rest though. The Generals not being back here yet means something’s happening down at the gardens. Gather the others and let’s go. Han, leave Winter and Indy in the control room in case anyone else tries to get in."

Major Pittman had revised his opinion of his tracker, Bill Rutherglen. The man had more than proved his worth many times over now on this mission.

Starting by finding that boat, which was needle-in-a-haystack stuff despite him roasting him over the pace; then he had picked up the trail of the girls and the guards at Packenham.

There was indeed a nest of tubiàn snakes living in the church there, just as private Ren Bo had said, but it hadn’t been difficult to pick up their tracks because they were travelling on horseback. The tracks had lasted despite the time that had passed, and heavy rain.

Pittman was immediately suspicious of Bo. He either knew they had left the place alive and just gave up on following his unit, perhaps because he had lost his horse? Or he never even checked for tracks and just wanted to go home, thinking the others would never make it back. He would have expected better from the son of Ren Fabin; that man was a very decent soldier.

Rutherglen had tracked both groups to Horsham for them. It appeared that the men had still been chasing down the runaways and had somehow failed to capture them until they arrived in this town.

The number of horses had steadily reduced as they followed their tracks, and after Dadswell’s Bridge, it looked like they were being pursued by a pack of dragons, so it seemed highly unlikely they had all made it here alive.

The women were holed up in the silo and had strung the place with trip wires. He’d sent a few men to see what was happening in the silo, and now he and the rest of his patrol were wading through the muddy Wimmera River to take down a bunch of them who appeared to be training outside the protection of the silo.

Rutherglen had tracked them to this park. He suggested they stay downwind and get themselves covered in mud because it looked like the girls were keeping big dogs with them.

Pittman signalled to his men to creep forward until they reached the perimeter fence that ran around the old botanic gardens.

He used his binoculars to peer through a gap in the dense shrubbery of the old park.

His jaw dropped. The fuckers were riding dragons!

That was unheard of since the War. No wonder the tracks were confusing! They weren’t being pursued by dragons; they were bloody riding them! Holy shit!

His breathing got heavier as he contemplated the significant difficulty of fighting them on dragons.

There were men training with the women, and he’d recognised Prince Alton, so the guards must have gone native.

That’s probably what had led to Ren Bo leaving on his own, the puzzle clicked into place. The Prince had let him go, probably on the condition he didn’t rat them out...

It was like bloody Heart of Darkness... And the Prince was Kurtz! What the fuck did they think they were up to? This looked an awful lot like the makings of a rebellion right here. Jesus Christ! He hoped he had enough men to take them down...

He’d left three at the silo, so he had nine plus Rutherglen, who was next to useless because he couldn’t fight. He carefully surveyed the rebels again with his binoculars.

It looked like they had nine too, so that was about perfect. He had nine highly trained soldiers; they had four trained soldiers plus a bunch of women who would be a liability for them once the fighting started.

If they’d gone native, that probably meant some of the fellas thought they were in love with the Emperor’s women, and he could use that to his advantage.

A plan was forming in his head. It required them to be off those bloody tubiàn though... They would get themselves in position while they waited for their targets to finish these training runs and dismount.

"Rutherglen," he whispered, "you can’t do anything here man, just make yourself fully scarce until it’s all over. Try not to get in the way."

Bill nodded at the Major with big wide eyes. He definitely wasn’t a trained soldier. He wouldn’t have the first clue what to do in a fight, and he didn’t want to be anywhere where he might get caught in the crossfire, so he and Major Pittman were completely aligned on his instructions to make himself scarce.

Pittman pulled his men into a huddle and whispered fiercely to them, gesturing left and right.

The Emperor’s soldiers all started creeping into their positions to wait for the Major’s signal.