Operation Honey Trap vs The Emperor of the Apocalypse-Chapter 214: The Squeaking Point Assault

[Suggested song for this Chapter – Radioactive, Imagine Dragons]

Niko had one hundred new recruits under his command. He had appointed the mission team as sergeants. Each sergeant had a Section of sixteen men and women.

He wasn’t planning on losing any of these soldiers under his command if he could help it, so he had hatched a plan which he hoped would keep as many of them safe as possible, while still freeing the Clan members trapped at Squeaking Point.

Delphi should be free by now if the General’s plan had worked, and none of them knew what that meant would happen to these townsfolk.

"Sergeants," he called to them, and the newly minted sergeants left their Sections to join him.

He sketched out a rough map of Squeaking Point in the dirt, and they all squinted at it in the failing light.

"Each of you has a perimeter of about one hundred metres to cover," he told them. "I’ll write your initials next to your segment of the pie."

He scratched the town into a rough circle with seven pieces and added the initials AA, WW, IR, OG, BG, LE and BB to each segment.

"That’s your perimeter you need to guard," he tapped his stick showing each of them their area. "Don’t let anyone out. Array your soldiers evenly across the distance you’re defending. Including you as defenders, you can place a soldier about every five metres. Tell them to shoot anyone that moves. If anyone gets close enough, they’ll need to use their swords. There won’t be any townsfolk coming your way, Casey will be bringing them to me here," he tapped his stick on a point to the east of the perimeter that was between Baer and Wolf’s territory.

"Leave the people to me. I’ll be escorting them to the waiting boats. You and the soldiers focus on making sure no one gets out. Each of you has the materials sufficient to create a wall of fire for your section of the perimeter. Make sure they marry at the edges where your territory meets your neighbour’s, so there are no gaps. Start laying the fuel at balls o’clock."

Loveday looked at Indy. "Midnight," she mouthed.

"Sergeant Becker will come around with the explosives at oh one hundred. Be ready by then. Casey will blow up the armoury at oh two hundred. As soon as you hear the explosion, you’re on. Light up your section of the perimeter and have your soldiers ready to defend it. Stay and defend from incursions until you hear the bugle call, then retreat and head to the rendezvous point as fast as you can. Questions?"

Everyone shook their heads. They’d already been through this, this session was a final run-through.

"Good luck everyone," said Niko seriously. "See you on the boat."

They all reached in and gripped each other’s hands in their Rebel handshake.

The sergeants gathered up their soldiers and dispersed, walking quietly towards their piece of the town’s perimeter. Everyone carried a drum of fuel, and the soldiers bristled with arrows and gleaming swords that had barely been used.

Hiding in clumps of bushland or empty fields, each of the sergeants quietly briefed their soldiers.

Arrie was concerned her soldiers would be disappointed to have a tiny woman sergeant and would lack confidence in her to lead them and keep them safe. She tried to make up for it with a confident voice, but she felt like a fraud.

Almost all of her soldiers were men, there was just one woman.

"Have you been to the headquarters on the Mainland?" one man asked her.

She nodded, "yes. I helped set it up. I’m one of the escaped palace women."

"Woah. Respect," the fellow nodded.

"So you’ve seen action already?" asked another.

"I’ve been in more battles than I hoped for, yep," she agreed, thinking of the number of skirmishes she’d been part of now.

The clifftop battle, the fight in the Horsham Botanic Gardens, Bridgewater Bridge, Clyde River Bridge, the tubiàn snakes, tubiàn orca, tubiàn spiders, the dragons...

Actually, the more she thought about it, the more she realised she was actually a very seasoned soldier now. She might not be the obvious hero that Niko or Baer was, but she had still contributed important and sometimes critical actions in their struggle to get to this point.

Her pride swelled, and she suddenly didn’t feel like such a fraud anymore.

"With the Emperor’s soldiers and tubiàn," she added for good measure.

"Can you tell us about some of them, Sergeant Appleby?" asked the sole female soldier.

Arrie nodded. "Sure will. But right now, I want to go over these plans with you one more time to make sure everyone knows what they have to do. Then we need to wait in silence, so we don’t risk alerting the enemy and blowing the attack."

Everyone nodded and drew closer as she lowered her voice and started to take them through the timing of tonight’s assault on the enemy.

Soon enough, the team was briefed, and her soldiers were learning the real art of war; long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, thought Arrie.

She glanced at her watch for the hundredth time. Five minutes until midnight.

"Five minute countdown, soldiers," she whispered. "Everyone ready with their fuel?"

"Yes Ma’am," came the soft replies.

"Alright, let’s go!"

Around the town of Squeaking Point, the new recruits laid vast amounts of fuel, leaving just one gap in the ring of fire, over to the east and hidden behind a large warehouse so it wouldn’t be obvious to anyone looking for a way out.

Baer skirted around the town as fast as he could, laying explosives through the lines of fuel and showing the sergeants how to light them. He made each of them show him where they planned to retreat to and hide with their soldiers as the explosives went off, making sure they were far enough away or behind sufficient cover, to be safe.

When he reached Opal he whispered to her as he was leaving, "be calling in my debt soon, Sergeant Gray".

She looked witheringly at him. "On a boat with one hundred other soldiers, Sergeant Becker. Are you an exhibitionist?"

"King Island’s a big place," he looked at her meaningfully. "And don’t be trying to wriggle out of it."

"I’m a big girl, Sergeant. Given it’s gonna be on my terms, it might be you trying to wriggle out of it," she crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows at him.

He smirked at her, "you talk big for a little woman. Let’s see if you’re all hot air when you’re underneath me, shall we?" 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

"Who said I’ll be underneath you?" she drawled.