20

It was perhaps after two hours that Aiden picked up his HUD, under thermal, three figures who approached the castle with care. Aiden saw that his team wasn’t even wearing helmets for their task, and was both relieved and disappointed at how his team was obviously underestimating the difficulties of the task. He zoomed in with his scopes and, by eyeing different parts of his HUD in combination with a correct sequence of gestures and commands, he managed to tag the three men: Nathan, Ryan, and Hunter. Following this action, three red dots above the targets appeared, meaning that the HUD computer seems to think the targets are an active threat. Aiden’s goal was to make those dots go yellow, which would be that the targets seem unconscious, instead of black, which means that no signs of life are detected.

With another wave of his hand, he sent the markings and data to Liam, who confirmed the information over the com channel. For a brief time, when the three men were near the castle, they went out of Aiden’s line of sight. He took the time to remind himself, and Liam, that in this operation they were shooting for the arm and legs instead of the chest and head. The reason was that they were using non-lethal toxic darts in their rifles and the respective configuration of firepower could not penetrate body armor. After his brief communication with Liam, he heard three clacks in quick succession as three grapple hooks connected with the rock on the roof. After a while, he saw Nathan emerge, not even looking a bit worried. A few seconds later, Ryan and Hunter appeared on Nathan’s left and right, they were around fifty meters from where Aiden was, and a bit further from Liam. As the three men walking inwards the roof, and Aiden was sure that a shot would not knock them over the roof, he opened coms and spoke to Liam.

“On my mark. You take the one on the right and I will take the one on the left. Three, two, one, mark.”

By the time that Aiden finished the last phoneme on his sentence, two darts were already speeding Ryan and Hunter’s way. Less than a tenth of a second later, both darts found their mark as both Ryan and Hunter felt the impact, and all three of Aiden’s old squadmates ran for cover immediately. Ryan, halfway through his running, stumbled and fell unconscious onto the floor. However, Hunter kept running and was fast behind a solar panel. Aiden concluded that Liam’s dart must have found a ceramic plate and failed to inject the toxin into Hunter. Aiden hoped that their element of surprise would better up their odds from two versus three to two versus one, but conceded to himself that two versus two wasn’t the end of the world. The problem was that they were now at a disadvantage since their non-lethal darts took around two seconds to take effect, which is time that Hunter or Nathan can use to return deadly fire.

Aiden dropped his rifle quietly and grabbed his dart pistol. From now on everyone was going to be behind cover, and the rifle was simply too clunky to carry around. A shot with the pistol was as good as one with the rifle anyways. Aiden took a side peak from his hiding position, not sure if he has been exposed. He saw nothing except the white reflection of the full moon on the ground. He shifted slightly and started crawling towards where Hunter was last seen, careful to always be behind or at least near cover. In coms he told Liam to search for and to take down Nathan. They were now playing a game of cat and mouse, although current the cat, it was a game where the hunter can become the hunted very fast.

Aiden was almost near the solar panels which hunter last hid when he heard a sound to his left. He snapped around and pointed his pistol but realized it was just some steam passing out one of the pipes. Aiden refocused his attention and listened for any signs of movement while keeping himself absolutely still. After a short while, he heard movements to his right, under another group of solar panels. Aiden shifted himself quickly to one side and broke into a run to a group of solar panels ten meters away. He did not hear a shot but was sure that Hunter now knew his location. Though his coms he heard the light breathing of his brother and was assured to be reminded that he wasn’t alone. He then quietly crouched over to a large obstacle opposite his current location, and behind where he thought Hunter might be. Then, he took a small tile on the roof and gently tossed it over to another side where he came from. It was a simple trick to fool your opponent sometimes, and often did not work against veterans, but Aiden didn’t want to feel sorry later because he didn’t try this misdirection.

He moved silently behind the array of solar panels, looking for Hunter. On the third row, he found the man around ten meters away from him. However, his boots shifted on some loose tiles just as he saw Hunter. Hunter flinched and instinctively shifted to his side behind the second array of solar panels for cover. Aiden took two desperate shots but they both bounced harmlessly off the solar panels. Now it was Hunter’s turn to return fire. Without warning, six silenced pistol shots flew through the vertical solar panels and Aiden was only free from death by predicting the move and dropping down on to the round as soon as Hunter disappeared behind the solar array. Aiden then jumped up to his feet, broke into a short run, then jumped and placed his hands on top the solar panels, flipping himself over the second array by transforming his forwards momentum into an arc. His predictions were on point and his body slammed with full force onto Hunter.

Hunter staggered and took a step back, but didn’t fall, and instead raised his pistol. Aiden recovered from the spin and immediately smashed his boots to Hunter’s right hand with a roundhouse kick. The gun soared away over the first panel array as Hunter’s shot flew wild, and Hunter’s grunted in pain as some of his fingers dislocated. Aiden now held up his pistol. Hunter, instead of running, leaped at Aiden. Aiden tried to fire a few shots but they all hit the center ceramic armoring and bounced harmlessly off. As Hunter impacted, Aiden could not hold his stance and both men fell to the floor. Hunter then rolled on top of Aiden and held him by the throat. Aiden knew he was going to lose the fight if he tried to block the choke as Hunter was much stronger and in a better position. Instead, Aiden held his breath and pulled Hunter’s own knife from his belt. Hunter seeing the action, released the choke and tried to grab the knife, losing his balance in the process as Aiden jerked up his right leg letting Hunger fall to the side.

The two men were now lying side by side and both had their hands on the hilt of the knife, which had its blade pointing upwards near both of their faces. Aiden slammed his knee into Hunter’s crutch and his opponent squeaked. Hunter then returned the favor and Aiden almost puked at the pain of the impact. Aiden then used his right leg to lift his body off, placed himself on top of Hunter, and applied all the pressure on his left knee onto Hunter’s unprotected left leg. His rival face became an image of contorted pain. Using his advantageous position, Aiden then shifted his elbow onto Hunter’s windpipe and pushed down. A few seconds later, Aiden felt Hunter’s grip on the knife weaken as oxygen was cut off from his brain. Aiden used the chance to twist his body to take full control of the knife, and released his elbow. Hunter, how laid defenseless and defeated. Aiden could see the fear in the eyes of the man, an emotion that he rarely saw in his team. Without a word, Aiden raised his arm, and slammed the hilt of the knife along with his fist onto Hunter’s temple, knocking the man out instantly.

Aiden rolled off Hunter and laid back. He was tired and exhausted. In his coms, he heard running and shots fired, as well as a few grunts. He knew that Liam was being chased and immediately jump back to his feet. He ran to the source of the gunshots and saw that Liam was near the edge of the castle with his hands up while Nathan pointed a pistol at him. Knowing that Nathan was the type to shoot and then ask question later, Aiden sprinted to Nathan and slammed his body onto the rifleman as Liam ducked, and Nathan’s shot barely missing. However, Aiden could not stop his momentum as he and Nathan went over the side of the building. Suddenly, Aiden felt a firm grip on his ankle as he was almost certain that he was falling to certain death. His heart pounded fast as did his breath, as Liam pulled him back up with all his strength.

Once safely on top of the roof. Aiden looked down and saw that Nathan was lying down, with a pool of blood slowly forming around him. Aiden was sure that the man was dead, but did not feel sorry, for it was either Nathan or Liam. Turning around, Aiden checked on Liam and saw that his brother has taken a bullet on his left arm, and a few other minor injuries. However, there was nothing lethal and nothing which could not be fixed. Aiden stood up and then helped his brother up with his right hand. The hardest and more dangerous part was over, but there was still considerably more to be done.