Revamped: Fall of Italica & The Riskiest Rescue That Was Expensive

The Palace

Pratt McConnell | US SEALS

We laid down on top of the rock wall surrounding the palace. When we first landed here, no one could have expected us to be fighting an enemy like this in our service career. We checked our watches and saw it was 1700 hours and the sun has started to set over the hills.

"We got movement at the palace entrance," Carson stated.

I ambled over to Carson and took out a pair of binoculars. Scanning the palace ground, I saw three new people at the entrance. One demi-human and two normal people. I took a glance at their weapons. They had a large build so they're either high-cal weapons or machine guns.

"Confirmed, three foot-mobiles at the entrance. All of them seem to be carrying large weapons. Whatever they are, we don't want to get pinned down by them," I confirmed.

"We got movement in the streets," Max stated.

I moved back over to Max and stared down the streets. The cobblestone was upturned and small piles of it made the only cover inside the street. At the base of the climb, I saw a JLTV with a turret on top. At the first pile of rocks, I saw the digital camo of USMC.

"That Blacksmith?" I asked.

Max said, "Just call them up."

"Yeah, that makes more sense."

I reached over to my back and changed the radio frequency. Once I had the desired frequency, I pressed down on the button on my shoulder and static came through. I questioned over the radio:

"Blacksmith One-One, this is Burner. What's your whiskey?"

"We're making our way up the hill and towards the palace."

"We're assaulting the palace at 1715, you gotta make it up here before then."

"Roger. C'mon, double-time it, boys."

I walked away from that side of the wall and went back to watching the entrance. Carson was watching the entrance through the scope of his Mk 13 sniper. Reagan and the radioman, Howie, stood at the edge of the wall with the antenna pointed towards Alnus.

"Any updates from HQ?" I asked Howie.

Reagan replied. "None as of yet. Why don't we just take the palace already?"

"We need a plan. I don't want to run in there blind."

"I have something, sir," Howie piped up.

He reached into his backpack and pulled out a datapad. A pile of pictures was on the screen.

He explained, "Once we got here, I sent up a drone to provide overwatch of the place. Through the windows, I counted at least fifteen people through the windows."

"Do we know the inside layout of the palace?"

"It does seem like most of the rooms are connected to the outside wall. There are two floors and around 10 rooms per. We can assume at least two people per room so give or take at least 40 hostiles."

"That's almost an entire platoon against us five."

"You improvise and overcome," Reagan said, "Can I give an idea?"

Reagan took out a folded piece of paper that had the layout of the palace and the surrounding walls. She took a pencil and circled the area we were at.

"Three of us can rappel down from here while the other two just follow the walls on top. Three of us take it down from the inside."

"That's good," I agreed. "We leave Howie and Carson out here. Max, Reagan, you're with me and we'll go into the building. "