Forum

11th of January 1999 Ekeberg forest, weather fair C3

Twenty kilometers separated task force Odin from their final objective Skara. With weather constantly improving and the temperature slightly on the raise, Lieutenant Holtz and his men prepared to leave the Ekeberg forest to roll on State Road 49 which led to the Eastern outskirts of the town. The troop collected all their equipment and prepared to move. The march order remained the same, with the VM on point, Ottonese on watch unbuttoned, the 202th battery behind the VM and the tank platoon (-) closing the column.

The road was almost free of the snow, and large pieces of the paved road underneath started to be visible, which was good for driving safety even though it was still necessary to be careful. The task force managed to cover the first half of the movement without any mishaps.

Two kilometers from Skara, Captain Castles’s remnants of the 2nd US Marine regiment laid in ambush position at the two sides of the road with a LAV-25 tucked away in a farmhouse area nearby where the Americans had established their base once it had been kicked out of Skara. The Marine Captain had been flat on the ground with his binoculars pointed at the road ahead since when he heard the loud noise of what could only be MBTs.

There was almost no chance that Ottonese could spot the Americans before Castle noticed their presence. The Americans were too well concealed on the two sides of the road to be seen at that distance. Castle had Corporal Ruger next to him. She was extremely curious to know who the newcomers were. In the last week the unit had seen all kind of shit. The entire area had fallen into complete chaos and at that point the Marines were just trying to stay alive. The men simply wanted to get out of dodge to find some more healthy place to be, but Captain Castle didn’t want to give up the protection of the town, and nobody dared to discuss the decision of Captain Castle, even though it was clear that the Marine force forces was at that point too small and the chaos too widespread.

“The leading vehicle is a French VAB” said corporal Ruger to Castle who was also scanning ahead with his binocs.
“There are no French troops in Sweden corporal” snarled back Castle at Denise’s attempt to be knowledgeable. “Plus that thing is considerably smaller than a VAB.” concluded the Marine officer.
“Hell yeah...it’s also considerable smaller than the two monsters behind her.”
“Leopards MBTs?” asked Castle rhetorically.
“Yup”.
“Well at least they are not soviet troops”
“At least they shouldn’t be” pointed out Denise.

Castle gestured at the Marine on the opposite side of the road to be alert and ready with the Dragon. Not that the M-47 would devastate a Leo II, but it wouldn’t just tickle it either, thought Castle. Then he checked his 3 frags and his 3 smokes, in case things turned so ugly that he had to resort to use those against that armored unit. When the unidentified convoy was at less than 100 yards form the Marines position, Castle left his spot and climbed up on the road. Corporal Ruger followed him right away without being ordered to. There was no way that she would leave her captain alone in a potentially hairy situation. Castle gave her a stern look, but said nothing.

There was no need for Ottonese to say anything or to alert the rest of the crew. Both he and Rossi immediately saw leg personnel moving in the middle of the road, and quickly ID them as US infantry. American soldiers had a way of walking, thought Ottonese. Rossi automatically stopped the vehicle and notified Holtz. The Lieutenant stuck his head out of the commander hatch, raised his binocs and recon rolled the dice, scoring two successes.

“Holy shit…” he said…“I’ll be damned if that is not Captain Castle” he added, looking at the figure of the huge Marine in the middle of the road with no helmet on and with his M-16 held against his chest, inside his elbows. He was genuinely happy to see the man who saved his life a couple of weeks before. He dropped back in the VM compartment, grabbed a big Italian flag. Then he reemerged out of the hatch and started waving it vigorously, hoping that the yanks knew the colors of the Italian flag. The convoy slowed down, and Castle waved his right arm, still holding his rifle inside the other.

When the column got closer, Ottonese recognized Corporal Ruger and yelled at her.

“I hope you not try kill me this time!”

After a moment of uncertainty, Denise realized who the man yelling at her was, even though there was not a chance in hell she could remember his name. She started fast walking towards the VM.
“What a beautiful taxi you got for yourself” she said in her thick Alabama drawl. “I still have my bayonet with me if you are interested.” Said Denise remembering her first encounter with Otto.

Ottonese got may be a fourth of what Denise said. He wouldn’t understand plain newsman standard American, let alone a farm girl from the deep south. Her accent was kind of sexy though.

“You are the more beautiful” yelled Ottonese from the top of the VM.

Ruger laughed with gusto. “You freaking Dagos.” she said.

Holtz dismounted and trotted towards Castle. He military saluted the Captain and then vigorously shook his hand. “I am so glad to meet you again Captain. We have been receiving terrible news about what it’s happening around here...how are you guys doing?”

Castle looked at the Swedish tanks, then back at Holtz with an interrogative expression.
“A company of the Skaraborg Armored Regiment happened to fall on Stopen a couple of days ago. They came from Götene, where we wrongly assumed there was a Russian division. The Swedish tank force is still led by its general. We got a platoon worth of their tanks with us; mission to investigate and stabilize Skara and surroundings. We lost a tank along the way due to mechanical problems and now we have only two left. I reckon you can update us about the situation here” Holtz concluded his agitated speech.

Castle looked at Holtz to make sure that he was done. Then for the first time he opened his mouth.
“Our stronghold is in that hotel compound half a mile from here on the left of the road” he indicated west with his arm. Take your troops and follow me there and I will tell you everything once we are in a safe positio.

Holtz walked all the way back along the vehicles column and informed all the element about what they were going to do. Then all the vehicles followed the Americans at a walking pace to the US regiment base. When they reached their destination, Holtz observed that it was a vacation farmhouse compound still occupied by its original owners, a middle aged couple, with a 20 something years old daughter; both their sons had been drafted in the militia and the family hadn’t received any news from them in the last five months. Holtz also learned the disconcerting news that the 2nd US Marine regiment was reduced to 3 man a woman and a single LAV-25. The heavy fights attempting to retain control of Skara had decimated the unit. The town and the road leading west were in the hand of a number of factions who were fighting for the local resources; namely the factories that manufactured medical supplies, observation gear, and most of all, the food and purified water factory, which also produced a variety of alcoholic beverages. Those industrial areas and the residential quartiers that surrounded them, where the main theaters of operation.

Castle said that his unit had been fighting against Swedish civilian marauders, Soviet stragglers and units of some kind of Swedish regular army, who didn’t obey to superior orders anymore or didn’t have anybody left to receive orders from. Lately a group of American renegade soldiers had added themselves to the fray. Castle was particularly pissed at those, cause they ruined the image of Castle’s troops in town. The fight in town had been heavy. The factions not only kicked the regiment out of town, but were also constantly fighting each other, with devastating effects especially on the population. Some units emplyed artillery and they did not spare the urban areas any heavy bombardment in order to get an advantage on the opponents. As a consequence part of the town was heavily damaged and the situation of the population was disastrous. The regiment didn’t have the strength or the resources to assist the civilians anymore, with great frustration of Castle.

“Only the Captain” intervened Corporal Ruger uninvited “dares to venture in town to reconnoiter every now and then or to organize sporadic raids on this or that enemy armed group. He always goes alone and one of these days he won’t be back” concluded the woman giving a stern look to his commander.

Castle was about to tell his subordinate to shut up, but he decided to let it go at the last second before scolding her.

“Jesus” commented Holtz

“What is the situation in town precisely?” Interjected Lieutenant Lindström for the first time.

“Like I said part of it is heavily damaged. The distribution of food has been halted by the Swedish gang members who took control the production factory. The other factions have been mounting offensive after offensive to retake it, but those countryman of yous” continued Castle “are well equipped and probably led by some competent officer, because so far Russian, American and other Swedish stragglers didn’t manage to dislodge them. Like Corporal Ruger said, I have been mounting several recon mission in town and sometimes I also had some short engagements with various elements. Of course my selective raids didn’t change anything in the dynamic of the situation...not enough intelligence, not enough firepower.”

“You shouldn’t engage during a recon mission...and I shouldn’t be the one telling you that” intervened Holtz.

Castle made a well calculated pause.

“Listen carefully son...I am doing my recon and I am walking all stealthy and shadowy. Suddenly I see some bastards who mistreats civilians, shoot at them, or do other unspeakable things. I drop the mission and I kill them...do you read me Lieutenant?...that’s why I don’t have the intelligence that I would like to have”

Holtz cowered under the captain’s barrage. “I read you Sir”

“Now” Castle resumed...with these tanks and the Italian infantry...things might be different.

While Castle was finishing his exposition, Michael Quincy came out of the VM together with the Swedish civilians. Castle saw him and couldn’t hide his surprise.

“Morton?!”
Quincy turned to Castle with a puzzled looking face.
“Do I know you Saar?” he asked with the most indifferent attitude
Castle was about to open his mouth again, but he stopped...and after a second he reset himself.
“No...I don’t think so...I must have mistaken you for someone else” concluded the Marine.

Holtz and Ottonese looked at Castle and then at Quincy. Ottonese in turn looked at Holtz, who decided not to investigate any further the mutual knowledge of the two characters. It wasn’t the moment and after all it wasn’t his business. Besides, it could have really been a mistake.

Castle cut the embarrassing moment short, by asking Holtz a very direct question.
“Are you here to retake the town?”
“I am here to reestablish safety for the inhabitants yes and to report back to the Italian-Swedish command” confirmed the Italian Lieutenant.

“Would you put your forces under my command?”
“I am not authorized Sir. But if we manage to extend radio commos to Stopen and my command authorizes it, I certainly would be honored to operate at your orders again Sir.”

“OK then for we need plan” answered Castle. “Then we’ll see this chain of command thing. First thing we need to take the DAVA food factory on the eastern outskirts of town. It is the most important thing if we want to start to regain a minimum of control around here. Then we need to find a way to have the supplies delivered to the population. On the opposide side of the town there is he hospital who manufactures the medical equipment, which is of course as vital as it is food. In order to get there, we need to control the ring road which goes around the town along the southern side; State Road 29. Then we attack that too”

“Now wait a second Captain” interrupted Holtz, who was loosing Castle along the way. “You said you know who controls the food factory?”
“Yeah...that’s a Swedish gang very well armed, and my be led by one or more Swedish officer. When I made contact with them, they moved tactically and they seemed to know what they were doing. But they were dressed like civilians and sported a mix of civilian and military weapons. They are also responsible of some of the most brutal crimes towards the civilian population as I could determine during my recon sorties”
“Have you seen any kind of heavy weapons with them?”
“Not in their patrols, but I bet that they have some in their static positions around the food faactory...mortars and light AT weapons at least”
“You bet?”
“Ok...we need a specific recon mission to be sure. I never managed to push my runs as far as the factory location”
“OK...may be we can start right there!? If we want to attack the factory we need to know exactly what we are facing.”
“Of course” answered Castle. Now that I know that you are here to help protecting the base, I can go on a prolonged recon mission at the factory and come back with all the details we need.”
“I will give you Ottonese, my best scout to support you.”
“No, I move better and more stealthily by myself”

There were still certain no from Captain Castle that sounded final. He looked at Holtz putting his ice eyes on him.

“If I know that my base camp is protected, I can take my time and be sure that I complete my mission no matter what happens during it.”
“Meaning that you can do all your diversion engaging before focusing on the main purpose of the mission?” asked Holts in a suspicious tone.

“Meaning that civilian protection always become my immediate mission in case of necessity”

Holtz didn’t have any further objections.

“I leave you wih the responsibility of deploying your forces to defend this compound.” resumed Castle. “My men are under your command until I come back. Gimme a freq where to contact you, let’s sinc our commo. Il’ll back when I will be back. After that we plan our attack.


Corporal Ruger patrolling the wooden hills around Skara. Kind of girl you don't want to have an argument with

Immediately after the beginning of the day shift, Captain Castle started to prepare for his patrol mission to the DAVA food factory on the eastern extreme outskirts of Skara. This time he would not have any worries about his base camp being exposed to an attack by enemy forces, and he would take his time and get all the possible intelligence on the factory defenses. Yes, he thought...this time he would.

He planned the mission alone, choosing an approach that exploited the position of three farmhouses which were very known to him. These farms were occupied by as many brave families who cooperated with Castle’s force in early warning and intelligence gathering. In return they received security serviced by the Marines who took care of them and trained them to defend themselves. Castle had also distributed some spare military grade weapons for free to them. The men of these family didn’t see any point in leaving their farms just to be killed somewhere else or to see their wives and daughters brutalized in the open by whatever degenerate gang member or straggling military scum crawling around the area. They would instead defend their loved ones and their houses right where they were.

Castle had even convinced them to organize a single force among them in order to maximize their chances of survival. They were organized in a small unit of four men who periodically patrolled the empty space among the farms. In time of crises the women could fight too once the Americans managed to complete the training program and found/built more weapons for them. Castle gave the force a captured Soviet radio and taught them how to use it. He also built a couple of improvised shotguns for the men that didn’t receive a military weapon. In case of trouble they would call him by radio and he would scramble the only remaining LAV as QRF.

Castle had taken to heart the defense of these people. Couple of weeks before he had told the Stopen Mayor that he couldn’t wait to lead his men out of that country that he defined a frozen shit hole, but now he would defend Skara with his life and with the life of his remaining Marines. Is some Italians and, God willing, some Swedish who still were part of an organized army would help him, there was still hope to accomplish that mission, which by the way was still the last order he ever received form Division HQ.

Castle took the beginning of the day shift to complete is preparation. He complemented his white camo thermal fatigues with several splashes of wet dirt in order to better adapt his combat suite to the coming dark conditions and to the scenery with partly melting snow. It did the same with his face, which he covered with the darkest dirt he could find around. The job wasn’t of course as good as it could be using genuine camo paint, but it was better than nothing. He checked up his M-16A2 and the 203 underneath it. He slid three 5,56 magazines in his webbing, together with 6 grenades for the blooper. He checked his M-9 and holstered it on the left side of his chest, made sure that his three 9mm magazines were set and ready on his lower back, and lastly he checked the button of his Gerber combat knife scabbard, handle down on thee right side of his chest. For an extra, Castle jammed in his webbing food for 2 days, avoiding to take a backpack with him, which would have degraded his mobility rolls. No water canteen either; it would have inevitably started bumping against something and made noise if he had to run. He would eat snow for liquids. Finally he set his Kevlar in the most comfortable position possible and set his radiotelephone on the frequency he had agreed with Holtz. He wore the headset and the mike around his head and was ready to go. For a moment Castle thought to take a captured RPG-7 that the unit had in store, but that would put his encumbrance over his personal limit, so he gave up the idea.

Before leaving the American officer made all the necessary recommendations to his men including to diligently follow Holtz orders. He left Sergeant McCafferty in command of the minuscule Marine unit and disappeared.

Corporal Ruger watched him go from inside the compound. Holtz kept her company for a while, seeing that she was clearly upset.

“A fucking captain going out on patrol, like if he was a goddamned private. It’s just doesn’t feelright.” she said looking over the sandbags emplacements.
“Hey…” answered Holtz. I already seen your captain in action last time we met. Do you remember when he took us all out of that hell of a minefield? It seems to me that a Captain like that is exactly the kind of officer that would go out on a patrol by himself.”
“If he gets killed, we will never get out of this hell” answered Ruger. Plus we would have lost one of the finest leaders in the entire goddamned corps, and for what? To hold together a small town in a country I didn’t even know where it was on a map before this fucking war!”
“If you were back home what do you think you would be doing” Holtz asked her. “Do you think that your country or my country for the matter, are in better shape than this one? The US might have been nuked as well as Italy for all we know. May be the situation is worse in our own countries than it is here.”
“Yeah, may be, but at least I would be helping my own folks”.
“You mean family?”
“Yeah”
“Mmmhh...May be you are right” said Holtz. “May be we should all be leaving the army, the marines or whatever, and go back to our families, except for the fact that if we acted on our own, none of our families would be really protected. Even if we leaved the armed forces, we would end up in some other kind of armed organization may be created for the protection of our neighborhood, town or whatever. This is what we do...I mean if I wasn’t in the army I would be a psychiatrist, but the army also taught me to fight, which in this days an age is THE JOB. What would you do if you left the Marines?” asked Holtz to Denise.
“I have no idea” answered Denise. I’ve been in the service since I was out of high school.
“Well Denise” concluded Holtz…“I really hope that one day we all manage to get back home. You see, days ago also my commander had decided to try the trip to Stenungsund on the North Sea to see if it is possible for us to get back to Italy. Then some civilians from Skara come all the way to Stopen asking for help, and he out that on hold; a little bit like it happened with Captain Castle.
“Yeah...I see the pattern” said Corporal Ruger.
“I still think that we all will get on the west coast sooner or later. Problem his...once we get there will we manage to evacuate by sea? We have no intelligence at all about the situation on the coasts or if ships are still around.”
“We don’t need any fucking ships” retorted Ruger. “In a sea place there are people who know how to sail anyway. We just have to find some boats, build some boats or whatever. We leave all the heavy equipment ashore and off we go.”

Holtz thought about that for some seconds: “Uh...may be you are right...it’d be certainly nice if it were that easy” he said before excusing himself to go check the deployment of the tank platoon.

The distance between the compound and the DAVA food plant was 2 klicks as the crow flies, but the route that Castle had planned through the farms and through the maximum possible of woods concealment added at least another kilometer to that distance.
The first leg was directed to the abandoned “Tornum” silos, which had already been raided multiple times by various groups of marauding scum even before Castle established the presence of the 2nd Marine in the compound next to the silos.

The Marine Captain slipped between the compound and the abandoned silos in a hurry. When dusk started to set in Castle camo job started to work aas it was supposed to in the landscape, giving him the +1 to the recon rolls to remain hidden. The silos area was absolutely deserted. When Castle reached the northern margin of the compound, the difficult part began: crossing state road 49. From the position he was in, he couldn’t really see a lot of the road, because 200 meters west there was a bend that blocked the line of sight. Castle had to cover the 150 meters of open terrain across the highway up to Sjöberg’s farm.

The American Marine Captain climbed over the outer fence and quickly crossed the road. He stopped on the opposite side ditch to listen and observe. He could only hear the wind as the road was totally deserted. From there he slowly marched to the farmhouse of Mr. Sjöberg. Castle opted to slow down there for a quick check on the family status. He cautiously approached one of the living room windows. He moved along a known line of trees and then along the wall of the farmhouse. While he was transitioning to the perimeter wall. Castle heard an automatic weapon feeder clicking into place.

“vem är där...sluta där du är!”

“Shit...fucked up by a civilian…” Castle froze in place...ashamed of himself and with himself. “You are becoming good at this Erik!”
“And you are risking to get a bullet in your head Captain America”. Mr. Sjöberg disarmed the AK-74 and put back the safety on.
“Is everything OK around here?”
“Yes, Captain. In two hours I and the boys begin the routine patrol tour around all stations. What are you doing here?”
“I am going out to DAVA...we might attack it soon. I am hoping to get back some food for you guys Erik. For you and for the town folk as well.”
“With your small force?”
“We got some reinforcement”
“Who?”
“I’m not sure giving you this information would be safe for you or for us. Let’s say we got enough reinforcements to take back that production plant, and may be the hospital compound as well on the other side of town.”
“Yeah right the hospital!” said Erik sighing…“If you find something still standing down there”
“Well at least I can try to put some eyes on it now, if I still remember how to move undetected” said Castle rethinking to how easily Mr. Sjöberg scooped him up.
“Are you going to go through Lindholm’s farm to reach the factory?”
“Eventually”
“Then don’t forget about the line of trees west of the farmhouse, it might help you to get to the outer walls undetected.”
“Will do Erik; you take care. Sergeant McCafferty is on the usual frequency until I come back. In an emergency call him, he will activate the QRF.”
“Thank you Captain...thank you for everything you have done and still doing”
“Take care now OK?! And say Hi to Karin and Elsa for me”
“Will do; be safe out there.”

Castle disappeared in direction of the wooden area north of Erik property, determined to be less sloppy this time. As soon as he reached the woods still covered in snow, he became virtually invisible again. He confidently covered the 600 meters that separated him from the westernmost margin of the woods and prepared to rush towards Lindholm’s farmhouse. He had to cover 200 meters of open terrain to get there, so he started to move as soon as he got his breath. With 3 successes on his recon roll, he moved like a ghost trough the area and stopped near the first row of planted trees at Mr. Lindholm’s farmhouse. As soon he got there, he registered movement north east, dropped to the deck and froze in place to avoid to be detected. In the field, fifty yards northeast of his position, a group of civilians were moving left to right parallel to the tree line Castle was hiding behind. They were kind of noisy. Castle let them pass; 5 adults, all males, and once they were gone he thought about his next move. He wandered who those civilians could be. Probably people who had decided to abandon the city because of the prolonged fights.

Now Castle had 400 more meters to cover in order to reach Jonasson’s farm, the last of the three. Bur before that last leg, he had to reach the jump point. He still had to cover 100 meters through the main court of Mr. Lindholm’s property and get to a small tree area where he could hide before moving. There was light coming from the main building of the farmhouse left of the fruit trees, but this time Castle didn’t need to approach the house, so he simply stayed away and reached the trail that led to Mr. Jonasson’s farmhouse. The movement to the last of the three farms was completely uneventful and the route was deserted.

The last stage before reaching the large wooden area that looked directly at the food production plant was complete. Castle had only to cover the last 400 meters of open terrain between the farm and the woods. But even that last challenge he managed to complete two successes on the recon roll and no problems whatsoever, also because the route was once more completely devoid of any presence. It was a very quiet late dark afternoon, except for those civilians that Castle had spotted earlier. That certainly helped to keep him unnoticed.

At the beginning, the wooden area directly opposite to the DAVA food plant was not that thick, but the more Castle penetrated into it the ticker it became. Once again he found himself absolutely alone in the vegetation and when he reached the western margin of the woods, he finally had eyes on the factory. The complex spread for at least a couple of hundred meters across his field of view. The perimeter was illuminated by electric lighting, probably from some kind of industrial generator. Castle wandered if the thugs that occupied the facility had an alcohol still to produce that kind of energy, and he quickly concluded that the answer had to be affirmative.

Closer to the factory, it began to be more crowded. Castle quickly spotted two entrenched positions occupied by leg infantry; he counted at least six men. He also saw a wheeled APC similar to a BTR but not quite. In a separate emplacement there was an AT-5 position, also entrenched. That was extremely bad news for a possible participation of the tanks to the attack. The AT position would have to be neutralized by the infantry first.

In order to be able to turn around the big building, Castle decide that he had to wait the end of the shift, when darkness would protect his movements. He reckoned that those civilian troops were not particularly trained to spot targets at night, and intended to capitalize on that.

When the time came, and a nice moonless night started to descend on the scene, Castle decided that it was time to move. Before leaving his improvised OP, he tried to understand if there were any members of the enemy squad on watch, but in doing so, he quickly realized that his visibility didn’t go beyond the Road. That was good news because it meant he could technically move in relative safety as long as he kept a 100 meters radius distance from the enemy troops. His objective was to discover what those bastards had on the other side of the other side of the complex, not to steer any troubles. Castle needed to have a good look at the opposite side of the building, which could very well being the most heavily defended of all, since he faced the town proper.

The Marine carefully started to move out in the field on the left side of the wooden area. Every thirty seconds or so he stopped to listen, but all he could hear were the crickets and some voices coming from the enemy position. The voices confirmed that the opposition was not very well trained. It didn’t sound like there weren’t any mobile patrols around. With the utmost care, Castle crossed the state road and found himself between the factory and another big building on the left. There was a parking lot with some abandoned cars; a pretty sad view. Castle didn’t see any troops defending the southern side of the plant. Standing in a hidden position behind a secondary building, couldn’t see any defensive position either. He cautiously began to move along the main southern perimeter wall. The gangsters had to have some kind of defense on the western side. It was impossible that they didn’t. Despite the darkness, it would have been considerable risk for Castle to advance in the open along the western wall; but thanks God he saw another small long wood coasting an internal road which run along the that side of the plant. If he managed to reach it, he would have a comfortable field of view on the main entrance of the fact.

Wasting no time, Castle slid among the abandoned cars in the parking lot and then slowly crawled to the margin of the small wooden area. Once more his superb recon skills allowed him to go unnoticed. It was at that moment than he saw the second gang unit: another squad of about six men in a deep entrenched position, this time reinforced with sandbags. The hostiles had also a BRDM parked near the plant outer wall. Also these troops were in civilian clothes, even if they were armed with military rifles. The position sported a second Sprandel antitank pitch, with the launcher manned by two more men; more bad news.

Now if Castle wanted to rally complete the job, he had to proceed along the main side of the factory, up to the end of the building to observe the northern side as wall. Even though it was improbable that the occupants of the facility had another full unit on that side, it couldn’t be completely ruled out. That called for one last effort to sneak along the main wooden zone in front of the building and to cross a small open area of about 20 meters to enter a second smaller group of trees. At the end of these trees, Castle would have eyes on the northern side of the building.

A possible alternative to avoid the 20 meters of open terrain was a deviation well inside the residential area in proximity of the plant. That solution would have made the approaching a longer affair in the first place, and could have exposed Castle to be seen by somebody else other than the plant garrison in the second. The captain weighted his options for a minute, and then he chose the second option; longer, more laborious but safer.

After having given a second look to the disposition of the hostile forces deployed along the main side of the factory, Castle began moving west to put some distance between enemy positions and himself. He still had to be careful of course as there could be mobile patrols around, and even a single wandering civilian could give away his presence. He tactically walked around a group of houses completely in the dark. Castle planned to go around the first one and to pop out on the other side to finally eyeball the norther side of the DAVA plant. He completed the approach to the house and very easily moved stealthily along its wall. Then he peaked out on his right to see if there was any problems. Finally he advanced towards the wooden area. The operation was made easier by the presence of a small embankment that Castle used to keep his movement concealed. During this last leg he was particularly focused on avoiding any noise (had to push the recon roll).

Once Castle reached the margin of the woods, he noted a small secondary building with a vehicle parked outside and a couple of armed guards guarding it. The vehicle was a medium sized truck with a still in tow. Probably the bad guys used the mill to keep the generator going.

Castle had finally managed to complete a 360 recon sweep of the entire area around of the plant. There was no way to know if inside there were any further troops, unless he sneaked inside the plant. That was of course a very dangerous option to choose. Castle would have to go all the way back to the the southern one, which was the only unguarded side, see if there was any entrance and try to sneak inside. Alternatively Castle could try to approach directly the northern wall from the position he was in now. Much quicker option but under the observation of the two guards that he had just spotted. He evaluated the distance between the wall and guard post to be around 60 meters. At night the trick it could be tried; if you were very brave and inconsiderate. Castle reasoned that If things went south he would have killed the two guards and disappeared into town running west or back to the wooden area he originally came from, east. He would have completed a partial recon round anyway, and the mission could be considered a success.

So Castle prepared himself to sneak from the woods to the northern wall. Once there he would look for an access point. One thing at a time. Three successes against the one of the guards to begin with and Castle found himself glued against the northern wall of the plant. The only possible entrances where some narrow windows and three unloading shafts for the trucks. Castle decided that the shaft were possibly easier than the windows. He would try to force one of those open, at the same time being careful about the guards on the other side of the parking lot. In order to simulate the two tasks at the same time, Castle was allowed to throw only one dice per task using his best asset for each of them.

Opening the unload shaft was easier than anticipated. Castle found himself inside the building near a metallic distribution line used to roll out packages. Luckily for the Marine Captain that particular department was at the moment deserted. Inside the plant the lights were on, and there was noise going on as well, which meant that the plant was operating. Castle couldn’t hear the generator from that particular position, but since there was electric energy, it had to be operating somewhere, may be on the other side of the building.

Looking around Castle saw machinery, cranes and other equipment. The Marine moved along that first big room and at the end of it he found a big yellow fire door. The door had a small reinforced glass window in the upper part, so Castle could observe what there was beyond the door in the next compartment. He saw a second room with a central corridor with offices on the left and a sort of assembly line of the right. There were people at work on the assembly line. Not many people; Castle counted no more than seven men and women supervising some machinery. On the left the offices were empty; some of those were rooms and some cubicles.

As far as Castle was concerned, those workers could be Skara civilians who had nothing to do with the marauders who owned the plant. Castle tried to ascertain if there was anybody in the “assembly room” that looked like he or she was in charge. A person in such position had more probabilities to be connected to the marauders or at least complicit. He observed the scene for sometimes from behind the small glass and he didn’t seem to him that there was anybody in any particular position of authority; all the people were working on the line, monitoring the production process. Castle couldn’t be sure though.

It was the moment to decide if it was worth risking to reveal his presence and to weight that risk against the chance of gathering precious information about the situation inside the plant. Castle being Castle decided to give it a chance.

He carefully opened the fire door and walked in the second room. It was pretty noisy in there, and at the beginning nobody noticed him, but eventually one of the worker turned around towards one of the control panels and saw him.

The guy didn’t show any particular sign of surprise.

“How come you are so heavily armed” asked the man. “You certainly don’t look like a technician. Are you here for the generator? And why did you come from the auxiliary delivery department?”

Castle decided to go all in:

“I’m not the technician. I am here to get you out of the trouble that you are having with the thugs who seized the plant.”
He had said it. Now he waited for the answer.

The man wasn’t really impressed with Castle announcement.

“We are not in trouble” answered the worker, while the other people continued with their work, without even paying a lot of attention to what was going on. “The group who controls of the eastern part of town treats us well and pays us with food for our works and with free entries at the Röd Tupp two nights a week.”

Castle realized that he had made the wrong choice.

”Are you telling me that you are accomplices of the thugs who took control of this factory?”
”I don’t know. Those people came here and said to us that we were working for them from then on. We just continued to work as we always did.”

At that point Castle understood he was the one who was in trouble. His first thought was to raise the M-16 and kill them all. But those people were not criminal in the strict sense of the world. They worked for a bad faction no doubt, but he certainly couldn’t expect them to quit their jobs just because the owner of the factory had changed. Castle decided to try and ignore the whole issue.

”Are there armed men in the complex” he asked abruptly.
”I have never seen any soldier in the factory.” The worker answered with no particular preclusion to give intelligence away. ”Herr Svetlov keep his guards outside to defend the area...but why are you…” the man realized that may be Castle had bad intentions.

”Skara fell in the hand of all these violent faction at war among them to control the town” answered Castle. ”I am interested in bringing back peace in Skara”. Castle looked at the man very seriously.

”Man, I don’t know what to tell you. There are about 40 workers in here and half a dozen managers, all working here way before the factory changed hands. We just keep the production going, and we get compensated, that’s all.”

At this point Castle decided that the moment had come to get the hell out of there, hoping that the worlker would not alert the guards outside. He took his leave from the assembly room and walked back to the unload room from where he came. Castle decided to carefully exit from the rigthmost shaft, in order to be alrady close to the east side of the plant. That would lead him back to the safety of the wooden area he came from at the beginning of his tour around the building. After that the plan was to rach some safe location and may be camp for the night shift. If the location was safe enough, maybe take a rest.

But unfortunately fo Castle when he popped out of the unloading shaft, as soon as he looked around to see how the situation was, he found that the two guards who had been watching the still near the parking lot, had been alerted and were waiting for him, rifles at the ready. Castle turned towards them following their order to freeze and frop his weapon. One of them switched on a searchlight, to better see who they were dealing with. Castle looked at the two guards with a wicked eye. The first thing that came to his mind was that they made a big mistake in talking before shooting. They should have shot him first when they still had the surprise effect going on for them. Typical amateur mistake.

Castle’s reaction to the threat was automatic and conditioned by years of training. There was a tree a few meters from the shaft. He took two steps towards it and at the same time...bam...bam.bam...let go a trio of single fired bullets from his M-16 at the leftmost of the two guards. Castle had aimed at the enemy’s head, but the left hand of the guy came in the line of fire when he tried to aim his AK at Castle who had refused to comply with the “freeze” order. The shock assailed the guard when he saw two of his fingers fly away together with his weapon. He dropped in the snow screaming and squirting red all over the white ground. The second guard, wide eyed, but still functional, automatically went prone and returned fire, like his Soviet advisors had taught him. He emptied his magazine on the perceived position of Castle, who was taking cover behind the tree. Bullets hissed on both sides of it, cracking against the outer wall of the factory. The one that struck the tree instead made a snarling noise when they shattered the wood. Unfazed Castle darted off the tree cover and methodically started to fast walk along the wall, at the same time shooting at the prone enemy. Singe shots, at regular intervals, capitalizing on the fact that the guard had to reload and hoping to hit him or at least suppress him enough to keep him pinned down. Bullets landed an inch or two from the enemy soldier’s head, but he kept his coolness under fire and managed to change his magazine despite Castle’s action.

As soon as the first bullets started to fly, Castle realized that if he didn’t want to face the entire factory defense force, he had to fight and withdraw north at the same time towards the safety of the huge wooden area northeast of the factory. If he managed to get there, he was pretty sure he would be able to slip away clean. Still moving and selectively firing at the second prone guard at the same time, he finally managed to clip him in the left arm. The enemy sent out a shriek but continued to fight. During his movement castle masterfully exploited any obstacles which could put between him and the enemy surviving guard, to break his LOS and preventing him to shoot back at him. The only problem was that he heard a vehicle engine starting. He pricked up his ears to try and discern from what exact came the noise. It sounded like it came from the eastern side of the building, the side towards which she was running to. They wanted try to cut his retreat.

That wasn’t the only problem: while he was still moving northeast, with the corner of his eyes Castle saw two gang members running along the road to cut him off. He simply swung his M-16 from left to right to deal with the new threat. Always while still in movement, with the stock glued to his cheek, and always with double or triple tap aimed shots, he let go three more rounds at 50 meters, and he scored as many hits hits right in his running target chest. The man crumbled down spraying snow all over. The third enemy soldier still covered by a terrain crevice, suddenly decided to become more cautious. He found himself wandering about what kind of devil they were fighting against. The north detachment had radioed that it was a single armed man, but he shot like an entire squad.

Castle, which was seeing his chances to make it improve my the minute, could still hear an engine at high revs coming up north but he couldn’t see the vehicle yet and so postponed his worries about it to when he would be able to. Behind him at 100 meters of distance he saw one of the two guards who he had confronted him first trying to run after him. HE raised, fall again and stubbornly tried to stand again. Probably not a threat anymore thought Castle. He had to concentrate on the motorized infantry coming from the eastern side of the factory, and he had to concentrate in disappearing before they could make contact with him. In foot in the woods he would be faster than the vehicle, but he needed to reach the difficult terrain before the mechanized unit made contact with him.

Before Castle could start his sprint to safety, the second member of the leg patrol coming from the south, the one that was being cautious, decided to abandon any caution and darted off his cover letting go a long burst of AK at the estimated position of his enemy, without even aiming. All Castle saw was the sudden prolonged flash in the dark coming from the rifle mouth. He felt the bullets whistling at a certain distance from him, braking branches and hitting trees, but didn’t pause to think about it. With a CUF of A+ (one of my house rules for larger than life characters) Castle needed more than a semi amateur non aimed fire to be shaken or suppressed. On his turn, the Marine Recon, aiming towards the muzzle flashes of the enemy responded with two single shots. The M-16 roared again in the dark, and the target stopped firing having caught both slugs in his low stomach and being busy trying to put back his intestines in their proper cavity.

Exploiting the moment of pause following the neutralization of all the closest pursuers, Castle decided to sprint towards the northern woods; no more time to waste the Marine judged. One more dash and he would have been safe. He rolled 4 successes on his mobility roll and moved six hexes, with a dash reminiscent of Carl Lewis performances. While he run towards the edge of the map, Castle heard the engine noise again. One of the APCs that he spotted during his recon tour was definitely on the move to get him, but without success. It did not sound like the vehicle had a precise idea of where he was. At the end of the evening shift and going into the night, Castle managed to enter the woods to the northeast of the factory and to slip out north in the bigger wooden area close to a residential area, a kind of terrain where he definitely managed to lose the enemy in pursuit once and for all. He waited for a good half hour to detect any signs that the enemy ha reacquired him but those never came. From the position he was now it was a longer trip back to base through the safe route of the three farms, but Castle would make it during the night shift.

The balance of the operation was three casualties for the enemy, one gravely wounded and the other two would probably become KIA in a stretch or two, and a good picture of the composition of the enemy force around the factory. Once more Frank Castle gave proof two things: first that there were few fighter of his caliber, and second that with the opportune house rules, the Twilight 2000 rule system can support even characters beyond the strict bounds of realism imposed by the game and still having this characters interface normally with the other NPCs

Captain Frank Castle provisional commander 2nd Marine Regiment
Marine Recon War Machine, direct approach (motivation cares about other people misfortunes)
STR B AGI A INT B EMP A
CUF:A+
Skills: Heavy Weaps A+ Close Combat A+++ Stamina A++ Driving A Mobility A Ranged combat A+ Recon A Survival A Tech A A Command A Persuasion A+ Medical Aid C
Specialties: Killer, Ranger, Sere Training, Pilot, Diver, Mountaineer, Paratrooper, Runner, Reloader, Combat Awarness+, Infiltrator, Scout, combat engineer
Personal Equipment: M-16A2(16) with 3 mags (rel 4), M-203 with 6 reloads(3 frag and 3 smokes) Binocs, M-9 with 3 mags Flack Jacket, Combat Knife, Personal Radiotelephone AN/PRC-148 2xDom rations 2xWater rations [9,25]

Starting with this post, I will STOP using Mythic Adventures II to power this campaign, in order to play test the solo system included with Twilight 2000 4th edition. Therefore you will notice some changes in the narrative style. So far I have let the engine powering the campaign be Mythic Variations II because I wanted to concentrate on the basic mechanics of Twilight 2000 4th edition. Now that I feel more comfortable with the game mechanics, I am going to try and include all the aspects of the referee book in this play test; that means all the campaign development subsystems, and when necessary the conversion rules from previous editions.

12th of January 1999. Night shift. On the way back to 2nd Marine regiment base. Weather Fair.

After having managed to lose the DAVA factory defense force, Captain Castle took a moderately long detour to go back home to the 2nd regiment base camp, which brought him north of the itinerary he had followed in his way in. He decided not to stop and make camp for that night as his intention was to return to base as soon as possible. Therefore he resigned to eat a cold ration of domestic food on the way, kind concession of the former vacation farmhouse where the regiment was camped. Proceeding inside the woods, Castle bumped into a small group of houses. Near a road sign which marked the access to the village there was a small guard pit with an armed man in it. With his binoculars, Castle could see him even at 90 meters distance. The man looked well equipped and wore arctic camo fatigues. He was armed with a Swedish assault rifle, but had no distinguishable military insignia that could be seen from that distance.


The decision of going around the obstacle, was not a difficult one for Castle. His mind was concentrated on the plan to retake the Skara food factory; Castle didn’t intend to chew on anything else at the moment, also because it wasn’t clear yet who the other factions in Skara were besides the gang who took control of the food plant. Everything suggested that for the moment it was better to ignore that small settlement and may be to come back to investigate further once the NATO/Swedish troops had retaken control of Skara. Avoiding the village meant of course that Castle had to deviate even further from his planned course, which in turn would delay his return to base by one extra shift.

Morning Shift Weather Fair.

“The enemy doesn’t have any anti infantry heavy weapons” said Castle. yawning at Holts in front of a sketch of the DAVA factory and its surroundings. “They have two ATGMs, one on each side of the building though. May be they have moved them now, concentrating the two of them on the same side, but in any case we need to send the infantry first to eliminate the ATGM positions, before we can commit the Viking Leopards. Once we eliminate the missiles, the tanks will be able to swiftly smash the enemy infantry rabble.”

“What if they barricade themselves in the plant?” Asked Holtz perplexed.
“Well then we flush them out in CQB. I don’t want to have the factory damaged by tank fire.”

Holtz bit into the ham sandwich that a ragged woman had brought to him from the farmhouse of the family that hosted the 2nd Marine. They made their on bread there and they still had their animal breedings going.

“Who exactly do you think we should take with us?” The Italian Lieutenant asked Castle, wasting no time.

“If you give me the tanks, I’ll do it with my squad” Castle answered categorically. “I already put a dent in their forces during the recon. I can finish the job with my men alone without putting your infantry at risk. What I need you to do is to continue to provide security to the farm complex here, with your men. Do you think you could fo that for us?”
“Of course I can, but are you sure that you don’t need any of us to participate to the attack on the factory?”
I wouldn’t know how to give them orders” answered Castle unequivocally, “besides if both our units participated in the action at the same time, we would have coordination problems. It is better if my regiment goes alone using some support from the tanks if necessary.”
“What about the mortar”? Said Holtz
“No!” insisted Castle. No collateral damage to the civilian infrastructure. The town is already suffering a lot as it is. 81mm shells could considerably damage the structure...you have an 81 with you don’t you?”
“Yes”
“In no case I want to damage the factory and the houses around it” concluded the American Captain flatly.

“I do not agree” said Hotz like he really meant it. “Let’s split the action in two parts. We can assault both sides at the same time that way; plus we keep the tanks in strategic reserve to intervene where we have more success. Four men per side. We would still be numerically inferior as long as infantry goes, but we would have better chances.”

Castle struggled not to show his mounting rage at that young mister lieutenant who clearly wasn’t taking in the opportune consideration his military expertise. But he failed.

“Listen carefully Lieutenant. If I storm that place with my men I will succeed. We don’t need a two way assault on the goddamned place.” Castle let go one of his rare curses. “Like I said I have already put a dent into the enemy force...by myself” He emphasized those last two words. “If I had two more men to crew the Lav while I conduct the assault, I wouldn’t even ask for the tank support”. Then Castle tried to soften his attitude a little bit. “May be you can assist me with the MG of your wheeled APC? Do you have a good gunner?”

Holtz thought about Rossi. “Of course I have a good gunner” answered the Italian. Then he finally decided to give up on the issue, reasonably satisfied about the compromise proposed by Castle. “I will leave Quincy and Ottonese here for local security as you ask” said Holtz, “but I will drive my vehicle in support of your assault, with my other man Rossi at the machinegun. I assume we attack from east?!”

“Yes...from east” confirmed Castle. I the enemy decides to fight outside of the complex, then the better for us. If they decide to fight inside, my men and I will simply CQB the plant. Sounds fair?”
“You CQB the plant 4 against 12!” pointed out Holtz with extreme skepticism.

Castle gave him the most incinerating Castle look possible. “YES Lieutenant 4 US marines against 12 rabble civilians...I think we can make it work.”

Holtz did what it could to show the crazy US Captain that he loved him and just care about his safety. “What if the enemy has more forces inside the plant?”
“My intel says there aren’t. answered Castle confidently”

Holtz understood at that point that nothing could sway Castle form his plan, and after all that plan didn’t contemplate to put his forces at risk. So he just had Castle promise him that he would exercise the maximum caution possible in there, and cut the conversation short, as the time to moce was rapidly approaching.

Evening/night shift weather Fair

The NATO/Swedish force took one shift to travel from the base to the DAVA factory and organize their starting attack positions. Castle, very prudently had used the previous shift to recover the sleep time he had lost during the previous night.

At the beginning of the night shift the 2nd Marines was ready to begin the attack. The starting positions had been picked with care, in order to maximize the capabilities of the different weapons and unit types involved in the action. Lieutenant Holtz smuggled Michael Quincy out of the base camp in the VM, announcing to Captain Castle only at the last minute that his marines had an extra English speaking assaulter they could count on.

The snow was definitely starting to disappear from larger and larger patches of the landscape, so much so that both the Marines and the Alpini had gotten rid of their white camo cover on their thermal fatigues, and had gone back to their respective standard Northern European camo patterns. The woods and the couple of small reliefs east of the factory were absolutely quiet. It looked and felt like there was no war going on. If there was one positive thing about the whole mess Sweden was going through, it was that the level of pollution and noise in the environment had gone back to pre WWII levels. Especially in the rural areas like the one they were operating now, the air was exceptionally clean. Not being in close proximity of a nuclear crater helped as well.

Looking at Skara though the environmental angle rapidly changed for the worse: burned down buildings, some of them completely destroyed, were visible from the attack force positions. Artillery craters here and there, together with animal carcasses spread around the place were also in plain view. The occasional human body left to rot in the open, reminded everybody that there was a was going on and that they were not on a tour of the Swedish beautiful countryside.


“ODIN this is HAMMER 1 radio check over”.

Behind the woods east of the plant, Castle made sure that Holtz could hear him well.
“HAMMER 1 radio check LIMA CHARLIE”
“THOR this is HAMMER 1 radio check over”
“Solid copy HAMMER 1” Lieutenant Lindström confirmed his tank platoon was in contact and ready to receive orders.

“HAMMER 1 to all stations, I begin my approach to reconnoiter the target, over.”

All units confirmed that they heard Castle communication, while he was already smoothly trotting towards the margin of the wood, in proximity of which he slowed down. His mission: try and observe the disposition of enemy forces. He reached a position among the trees not too far from the margin of the wooden area and dropped prone, taking out his binoculars. The “gang bad people” had made the big mistakes of leaving the lights on along the perimeter wall. In all probability they felt confident of being able to repulse any attacks. May be they were not expecting a full fledged attack either, having mistaken Castle’s incursion of the day before for the simple attempt of a thug to steal inside the plant, like had happened many times before. Yet the workers had told the gang leaders that the man who penetrated into the plant had been asking for information about the defenders, and that he was armed to the teeth with military grade weaponry.

“HAMMER 1 to ODIN” whispered Castle in his mike “the enemy is inside the factory. The trenches are empty. I repeat, the enemy is in the building and not outside. I have just spotted the position of a SPANDREL launcher right in the middle of the building...central location. I continue the observation...you might engage the ATGM at will...over”

“Clear Copy HAMMER, we are going to engage as soon as we get eyes on the enemy out”. Holtz looked up at Rossi who was manning the MG on the roof. “Here we go Gregorio. We begin the dances. I’ll bring the vehicle on top of that relief in front of us. There is a SPANDREL position right in the center of the building. When we get there, you locate it and engage it immediately, clear?.”
“Let’s go Lieutenant” was Rossi’s quick answer.

The NATO attack officially started off when Holtz reached the position from which he could clearly see all the eastern side the building. Rossi quickly scanned the entire length of the wall and opened up on the estimated position of the SPANDREL. The long muzzle flash of the MG-42 pierced the darkness, illuminating the immediate surroundings of the VM-90 with a spectral light and breaking the silence of the night for the first time. A hail of yellow and green tracers hit the wall around the window where the ATGM was supposed to be located, Rossi could swear that he had seen human figures dropping down behind he window as the tracers hit the wall and their light disappeared.

Castle turned his head right towards the loud burp noise of the Italian MG. He saw the long flashes in the dark about 40 meters away, and prayed that the WOPS were smart enough to change position asap after having revealed their current one so clearly. Meanwhile, twenty yards behind him, his troops assembled among the trees and prepared to jump for the attack. At the same time all the lights along the perimeter wall of the plant went dead. Despite that, Castle could observe further movement inside the building through the various windows. He immediately informed the other units each time he spotted anything new.

“Reloading!!” screamed Rossi as he put his hand on a new 7,62 belt for the MG-42. For the moment he had managed to keep the SPANDREL team silent down there, but he was also consuming ammo at an alarming rate.

After another round of observation, Castle made his decision on the axis of the attack; he activated his radio:
“THOR this in HAMMER 1. I visualize enemy infantry and an ATMG team in the center of the position. The Italians are keeping the ATGM suppressed, and we are going to assault the position as soon as you comtribute your base of fire as well. Swing on your right flank and lay out covering fire with your MGs on all the building windows. Do not, I repeat do not employ your main armament against the building. I say again, the enemy is in the center of the building. Give me covering MG fire on my order over.”
“Solid copy HAMMER, we start the movement to get in position...now!”

Rossi heard the bullets zipping nearby, cutting branches and smacking into trees, even before noticing the muzzle flashes that all of a sudden lightened up the entire length of the building.
“Lieutenant they have spotted us!! We need to change position” he screamed at Holtz showing a certain sense of urgency.

On the left of the Italian position, Castle also saw all the windows of the east side of the plant “going daylight”, and the deadly red tracers digging around the position of the Italian vehicle. He turned left to see or hear something from the Viking platoon. Castle was still waiting that the Swedish tanks occupied their covering position. He was very tempted to relieve Lieutenant Holtz with some covering fire of his own, but decided to hold it in order not to reveal the position of his squad, which after all was the main assault force and needed to remain concealed for as long as possible.

Holtz perfectly understood Rossi’s sense of urgency. He slammed the reverse gear in and moved the VM out of the dangerous position.
“To the right!” screamed Rossi, “Bring it to the right inside that foliage over there!”.

As soon as Holtz executed and the vehicle emerged from the other side of the wood patch, Rossi engaged again; the same window as before, assuming the ATGM was still there. It was quite difficult for him to direct his tracers at that window with the vehicle in motion. It seemed to him that the tube was still there, but it couldn’t be sure. He probably didn’t hit, but he hoped that the sheer volume of fire was enough at least to keep the enemy suppressed long enough for Castle to initiate the assault and for keeping the SPANDREL attention away from the tanks on the left.

“Vehicle!! Vehicle dead ahead” screamed Gaigher as soon as a Swedish wheeled APC popped out from an alley between two sections of the food factory. Castle pointed the binoculars in the indicated direction, identified the vehicle as not belonging to friendly forces, and relayed the news to everybody on the overall frequency. The information was particular interesting for Lindström’s tanks which were just taking position on the extreme left of the attack front. Unfortunately the Swedish platoon commander had to communicate that he didn’t have immediate eyes on the enemy APC, due to a small relief which blocked his LOS. He would maneuver to go around. In fact pretty soon BALDER’s tank was the first one of the platoon to move left enough to have the enemy in his scope. The gunner immediately got excited:

“Target APC, distance 90, one o’clock; permission to engage”.
“Engage at will” granted the tank commander.”
“Load HEAT” the gunner ordered.
“Reaaady” yelled back the loader less than 2 seconds after.
“Identified” confirmed the gunner out loud
“Fire!!”

With a roaring thunder that overcame the small arms noise, and a titanic flash, the heat projectile left the Rheinmentall smoothbore gun muzzle, at the considerable speed of 1km per second and sped towards his target, precisely framed by the targeting computer, in turn assisted by auto stabilization and thermal target profiling. It was the last shell of that type in Sergeant Elof Adell’s tank, but when it impacted the side of the PATGB-180, the effects were devastating nevertheless. The projectile penetrated like if the APC armor didn’t existed, completely dismantling the chassis of the vehicle and opening the ammunition compartment of the HMG like a can of beans. The heat warhead exploding inside the vehicle incapacitated the entire crew severing limbs, burning flesh to the core and slamming what it was left of their bodies against the incandescent internal walls of the crew compartment. The vehicle came to a sudden stop in a cascade of sparks, black smoke escaping from the numerous cracks provoked by explosion and from the entry and exit holes of the 120mm projectile. Nobody bailed out. The Skaraborg regiment had just entered the battle.

Castle looked on his left, his mouth wide open. He didn’t remember when it was the last time he had seen an MBT opening fire, but he did not remember the effects being that apocalyptic. May be last time wasn’t at night Castle tried to reason with himself. One thing was certain: they knew the position of that tank even on Mars now.

On the opposite side of the battlefield, Rossi had a cardiac arrest when he saw heavy tracers coming from his right. The tracers were over his head but not for that less scary, especially because somebody was clearly trying to envelope the entire NATO battle line on the right flank. It was a high caliber MG no doubt, for sure mounted on some kind of vehicle, because it would be difficult to explain otherwise its position in the middle of State Road 20. Rossi immediately informed his boss down in the driver seat, who in turn got on the radio at double time.

“Odin to all stations...Odin to all stations...the enemy has mechanized elements on our extreme right, enveloping my position on the main road...be advised that I am suspending support fire on the main target to identify and engage the new threat over”. Unfortunately, Holtz had just finished the sentence when he heard the popping sound of bullets hitting the vehicle all over. The VM was penetrated by several small arms shots, judging by the acute noise they made when they came through. Holtz lost his coolness and together with Rossi precipitously bailed out of the VM, which by the way had been reduced reliability 3, by the shots eaten by the front suspension. The two Alpini found themselves disoriented trying to take cover in the foliage near the vehicle. Holtz managed to activate his radiotelephone.

“THOR this is ODIN” Holtz voice was at least a couple of octaves higher than average. “We are taking heavy fire, I repeat we are taking heavy fire form multiple sides. We can’t guarantee the safety of the flank any longer. There is a heavy vehicle on our right for sure. Detach a Tank on the right side of the front, we are at serious risk to be overwhelmed.

“Solid Copy ODIN. Overwhelming enemy force on the right flank. I am coming to assist. ETA two rounds. I leave BALDER to support HAMMER, over.”
“Roger that THOR. Hurry up.” Holtz closed the communication and started to look around to see if the VM was still taking fire; most probably it would if nobody moved it out of there. He felt sorry for the Vehicle which had been the cornerstone of the scout platoon for months. There was an house rule in place: one CUF roll to find the courage to mount it again. Holtz cursed the Gods ow war and hoped to come out alive from there.

Castle was extremely undecided now. He heard that he was losing a support tank, cause the Spaghetti couldn’t fight a fucking war for a change. He opened the mike:

BALDER, I am starting to advance towards the objective. Converge on the east wall and gimme all the support you can. Be advise we will advance with an east-west axis, and we are the only dismounts moving in that direction. Watch where you shoot, we will orient out movement on your tracers, over”

“Full Copy HAMMER, CHARLIE MIKE...we are almost in position. THOR is leaving us to assist the Italians up north; over and out”.

Castle shook his head for the disappointment, before turning it back to his troops, included the “Quincy attached element.”

“Let’s move ladies and gentlemen” and he proffered a smile to Denise. His blackened face looked particularly threatening, especially when he showed his crystal white smile. You follow me puppies, and do what I do. We follow the tracers of the Norsemen tanks. One of them has to run north to help the Italians and we have only one left for us.”

That side Castle took off like a jet in the open terrain between the wooden area and the building, without even looking if his men were following him. He didn’t need to.

The Tank platoon split: THOR turned north and started racing at full speed on route 20 to go intercept whatever threat the Italians had to face, while Balder unbuttoned his loader for the observation and to maneuver the AAMG, while the gunner would concentrate on the COAX, with the idea of suppressing the hell out of the enemy fortified in the building. It wouldn’t be easy without the main armament, but the Yankee captain had been clear, and the Italian Lieutenant didn’t oppose him.

As the Leo II code named BALDER advanced towards the wall, the loader opened an infernal fire with the AAMG, aiming in the proximity of mid building. The hail of tracers fell all around the windows where the SPANDREL crew was following the trajectory of the rocket that they had just fired against Holtz’s vehicle. The Swedish taker didn’t know, but he had just saved the Italians from almost certain death. The missile still in flight, in fact lost guidance when the SPANDREL crew crossed stress 4 and fled in the inner rooms of the plant. The gunner didn’t have the same degree of success against other elements of the enemy defense of the eastern side, but the major danger for the “coalition” was gone.

Castle had hoped to remain undetected for longer than he actually managed to. Almost immediately after he came in the open the bullets started to hiss all around him. The enemy was aware of his general position, but probably didn’t have a good fix on him, as the fire was sustained but quite disorganized. He fixed his eyes on the line of trenches at about ten yards form the wall. With an explosive sprint out of three successes on the mobility roll, the Marine Recon Captain managed to reach that line unscathed and to drop down in one of those trenches, once again surviving to a crazy charge, helped according to his later AAR report, by the unprofessional performance of the OPFOR. The fact that he had to force the roll and sustain one damage was a minor detail in Castle’s 6 hit threshold.

Suddenly Holtz realized that the enemy fire had switched from his positions to somewhere else down south, far from the little relief his vehicle was on. Even the fire from the right had ceased. “Probably Castle had begun his assault” thought Holtz correctly. He found some renewed spirit and patted Rossi’s shoulder.
“Let’s get back in the VM Gregorio. I believe the Captain Castle has started his assault to the building.”
The two Alpini left the cover of the trees behind which they hid when the shit hit the fan in their sector. A soon as Rossi took his place back on the pintle mount, he hard the characteristic loud engine of a Leo II down the road behind their position. It had to be Lieutenant Lindström who was coming to investigate the situation of the supposed enemy vehicle which threatened to envelope the whole allied force. Holtz drove the VM south, down the hill to join Castle’s force assault. Knowing that by then they had the cover of one of the tanks, made the Lieutenant more inclined to dare. As soon as the VM left the relief Holtz believed that he saw American dismounts running west, and that couldn’t be nobody else than the Marines. Therefore Holtz decided to deploy on their right flank and join in the assault. He ordered Rossi to be ready with the machinegun.

Gaigher looked ahead in the spectral scenery if front of the building while he was running towards it. Even though the intensity of the fire coming from the building had diminished consistently, a good number of tracers still illuminated the night; fortunately none close to him . In the uncertain landscape in front of him, Gaigher saw Castle running in front of the squad and leaving it in the dust as almost always happened. Suddenly he saw him disappear. He prayed that he had not been hit, and picked up speed after having looked right and left checling that Ruger and McCafferty were still with him. They were, as was the English civilian who had been attached to the Marines, whom Gaigher had to give him credit to, could keep up pretty well.

On the left Gaigher saw the imposing mass of the one of the Leos advancing and spitting fire from the coaxial machinegun on what they assumed to be the last handful of enemy positions in the eastern side of the factory. The tank was concentrating his fire against a particular window on the second floor. Probably the crew had spotted enemy infantry up there.

On the other side of the battlefield another tank crew had his hands full. Suddenly THOR came in contact with the vehicle that had engaged Holtz the turn earlier. The enemy had just turned the corner on the State Road 20 and had not seen the Leopard in the darkness. Of course the Leo II didn’t have any darkness issues.
“BRDM-2” 12 o’clock” yelled Lindström “Distance too damned close. Gunner engage immediately with HEAT."
“Identified” said the Gunner “Load HEAT”
“Reeaady!!” was the customary loader battle cry.
“Fire!!”
The 120mm vomited a bullet at the same moment the gunned yelled. The soviet recon vehicle was struck right on the nose. The penetrator went through the entire vehicle front to back, exploding on his way inside and scoring criticals on the crew and passengers. Suspension, engine and 14.5mm ammunition were all devastated. With their second Vehicle, the bullies gang of Skara lost their soviet advisor and boss, the second AT-5, the two extra scumbags who crewed the BRDM, and possibly the entire engagement. But for the moment the building was still in their hands.

View from BALDER's Leo II gunner visor. Coaxial suppression fire on the factory 2nd floor

Castle didn’t really want to wait that all his troops congregated in the trenches before proceeding to the second part of the assault. The enemy had temporarily ceased fire, probably in order to reload and Castle could not and would not give him a chance to reorganize. He jumped out of the trench he had occupied and run towards the closest door. Fortunately for him the door was half broken already and he could enter the building without further delays. Castle found himself in a big dark deposit room. The stink of rotten stuff was pretty strong. He probably had ended up in a waste warehouse of some kind. There was no sign of enemy activity. So far the fire had been coming from the window on the second floor, so Castle assumed he had to find some kind of staircase.

Holtz on his part had good reasons to believe that the Marines had opened a hole in the defense of the gang people defending the warehouse, even though they had to use the support of one of the two MBTs. To divide the tank platoon had been the right choice thought the Italian Lieutenant. Lindström had informed him on the radio that he had destroyed a BRDM north on State Road 20. That had to be the enemy vehicle that had engaged him earlier trying to go over the coalition right flank. Holtz and Rossi reached the trenche line and dismounted directly into one of these trenches to find some cover. The Italian Lieutenant quickly evaluated the situation. Half of the Marines were inside the building already, the other half was about to enter. Holtz activated his radio:

“This is ODIN...THOR and BALDER, maintain your position. Be advised friendly troops penetrated into the east block of factory. Hold your fire. From now on it is an infantry CQB...over.”

“Solid Copy ODIN...do you want us to maneuver on the opposite side to pick up any leakers?”
“Affirmative THOR...it’s a good idea” Holtz cursed himself for not having thought about that on his own. Definitely a bad night for him he thought.
“WILCO ODIN, I’ll move my tanks now”
“Be careful of possible AT weapons THOR”
“Roger”

Castle, Quincy and McCafferty quickly organized themselves in a CQB stick and run up the stair to the 2nd floor. Castle was on point and rapidly climbed the staircase on the left of the warehouse. Quincy behind him kept physical contact holding a hand on Castle’s shoulder, and the same did McCafferty with him. Both Castle and the Englishmen let go their long weapons down their chest and pulled out their handguns. At that distance and in the dark, a good semiautomatic pistol was way better than an assault rifle. Going up the stairs Castle heard step noises. There were at least two men moving up there. When he popped up from the lower floor, Castle got a glimpse of a man fleeing from one room to another. He already had the gun trained in front of him, holding it with both hands. He adjusted his aim and double tapped. He needed to shoot three more rounds to hit, but two reached the target chest, opening a hole right in his heart. The enemy dropped without making a sound. Castle paused and looked around. The second floor of the building was constituted by a series of room, which the Marines patiently cleared one by one. There was no further enemy presence on the floor, but in one of the rooms Quincy and Castle found some home made IEDs like the one that blew up the Marines HUMVEE the previous week.

By the speed at which the Marines were taking possession of the warehouse Holtz concluded that at least on that side, the enemy resistance wasn’t very stiff. Then he heard some Beretta 92 shots from upstairs and concluded that Castle was doing well, unless suddenly the Swedish bad guys had a supply of Italian automatic handguns.

“ODIN this is BALDER...how copy?
Holtz was ready too enter the warehouse building when the Swedish #2 tank commander called him.
“Solid Copy BALDER...go ahead”
“I visualize one or two leg infantry leaking out of a small building northwest of your position attempting to withdraw in the main plant...they saw us and sneaked back in the building they came from, over”

Holtz informed Castle of the news just before Lieutenant Lindström entered the radio frequency as well from the norther side.
“I Confirm the northeastern building is crawling with enemies. They are probably planning to ambush you guys when you transition from the warehouses. Be advised over”

Castle holstered his M-9 and knelt down in the main room at the second floor of the warehouse; if nothing else to give some time to his troop to catch a breath and to regroup all in one place. Quincy was right with him. Castle quickly formulated a plan figuring out in his head the disposition of the buildings. A thing that in Marine officers tactical parlance was known as “battle visualization skill”. Castle wiped out the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his fatigue and looked at Quincy, a smirk of approval on his face.
“You are an old man but you didn’t lose your edge Morton did you?”
“The man known to the Italians as Michael Quincy, smiled revealing a row of white teeth below his blackened face”
“Except we are not in sweet Colombia any more, Captain America. Here is total catastrophe and we don’t have any directives.”
“What’s your cover?”
“Contractor for a former Swedish business”
“Good”

Quincy changed subject whole waiting that the rest of the Marine squad assembled.
“How do you want to proceed”

“Captain...the building is clear” interrupted Corporal Ruger.

Castle gave her the standard Castle’s approval nod
“Good job kids. Now listen up: I and Quincy will assault the northeastern building enveloping the administrative offices on the right. You guys deploy on the west side and cover our asses. I believe we have an MBT outside that can cover us as well. Do as little damage as you can. We need this factory intact for the Skara population...questions?”

Castle paused for a second to be sure that his men had well understood his intent. Nobody asked anything.

“Take off” Castle cut short.

A quick look with Quincy, then the two men moved down the stairs as well to transition out of the building, after Castle gave a last look at the tattooed punk he had killed in the warehouse room. While walking out at the double, the American Recon Marine checked his weapons and came on the radio one more time to inform Holtz about what he was about to do.

“Castle is going to assault on the other side” Holtz said to Rossi. “Let’s get back to the VM. We need to move north and give him cover.”
“There is Lindström already on that side Lieutenant.” Rossi looked at him with a certain apprehension.
“I am going to warn him that we are coming, don’t worry. I don’t plan on being vaporized by friendly MBT fire.”

The Italians run back to their battered vehicle and started moving north.

There were only two entrances in the administrative buildings: one on the northern side and the other one on the southern side. Castle was the fasted to approach for a change. Getting 2 or 3 successes per turn on his mobility rolls, took him there very quickly. He went around the building and stormed in a small hall dominated by two different rooms on both sides. Nobody shot at him. With his M-16 stock glued to his cheek he took cover behind an indent wall, and prepared to dispatch to hell any counter assaulter.

The Marine squad under the direction of Corporal Ruger, modified its plan for lack of visible targets. Ruger ordered them to leave the warehouse to assault the administrative building as well. Only Gaigher remained in place to cover the movement of his mates. Quincy attempting to move as fast as Castle tripped on the leg of a table and banged his arm against another; hard.

The punks in the administrative building were trapped like rats in a sewer thought Castle. They couldn’t leave the building because of the MBTs in overwatch, which were about to be reinforced by Holtz and the VM-90 MG-42/59. On the other hand they were about to be assaulted by Castle and his Marine squad. So...a bleak situation for them thought the Captain. They were spread in four different rooms, in an attempt to still control all sides of the building.

Castle was still deciding how to proceed when out of the blue a grenade rolled in the hall from the room on the right, whose door was open. He kicked it out of the hall and at the same time, instead of dropping prone to protect himself, he stood there to guess the probable position of the enemy who had thrown the grenade. He double tapped at the estimated position behind the wall, trusting that he could penetrate it with his bullets. Actually the 5.56mm went through the wall and Castle heard a thump on the other side. While he was smiling, the grenade went off outside the hall throwing some shrapnel inside. Some small fragments reached Castle’s head, making him fall down and curse heavily. He was still conscious, which was a good sign. He touched his forehead and he looked at some bloody fingers, then paused to improvise a head band to wrap around the wound. A bigger and bigger stain of blood was spreading on the floor behind the doorway of the room on the right of the hall. He probably had killed his second man that night.

Once again, and in contrast with any elementary principle of prudence, Castle decided to move before waiting for support, with his two fast action remaining (house rule: he has 2 fast and a slow or 2 slow and a fast action). He knew that there was another thug in the left room, so he proceeded to clear it so that his men wouldn’t have to face the threat in his stead. This time the goon behind the wall was waiting for him and in overwatch. As soon as Castle moved in, the enemy didn’t have to do anything else than squeeze the trigger. Darkness or not, a hail of 5,45mm bullets hit Castle in the chest and in the abdomen. The Kevlar absorbed part of the impact, but too many bullets were on target; he was slammed against the opposite room wall.

“Fuck” said Castle still able to think, “Don’t pass out Frank...don’t pass out”. With 5 hits out of max capacity of 6 and a critical down to his abdomen, that was a hazardous proposition. But he was still able to move, and being the badass that he was, he wasn’t suppressed. He would accumulate one further damage for every mobility roll though. So these had to be avoided at all costs, because one extra damage would incapacitate him. Most probably he also would need medical attention in a reasonable time to stay alive. He tried to drag himself behind a smashed shelf, but he almost passed out. So he resigned himself to stay were it was, activate his radio and call for help on the main frequency.

Holtz heard the call from the man that had saved his life no more than a week before and almost panicked. He immediately changed his action plan from assuming a cover position outside the administrative building, to storming the place with everything he had. The Italian Lieutenant looked at the warehouse door on the northern side of the building and no Marine was still coming out, so he decide to push his driving roll to reach the Admin building as fast as he could, despite counting only on his C agility to race the VM without getting it stuck. He didn’t need to push the roll, as he got an 8 with the first attempt. Holtz jumped down of the vehicle even before it came to a complete stop and stormed into the admin building hall, Beretta 92 in both hands well in front of him. The hall was empty, apart from the torn up furniture and a ton of blood on the floor, which made him think the worse.
“Captain were are you?”

Castle answered with what was left of his voice.
“Left room, be careful I’m not alone”.
“Shit!” exclaimed Holtz and looked at Rossi, who had his SCP carbine at the ready. Rossi looked back at him scared but determined.

Holtz never had the time to face the enemy soldier in the other room before he could act. He heard an AK going off and saw the reflection of the muzzle flash in the other room just a fraction of a second before he could enter it.

Castle desperately tried to pull out his pistol, as raising the M-16 was too much of an effort. He got a glimpse of his adversary moving among the debris and the shattered furniture and then he saw the barrel of his AK lighting up. The bastard had seen him. The muzzle flash was the last thing Castle saw.

Another couple of bullets smashed in his Kevlar, many other hit around him. One slug was deflected, but the other smashed the already weakened flak jacket and sunk in Castle’s spine, shattering a vertebra. Castle passed out immediately and skipped his turn.

Half a second later, Holtz and Rossi stormed the room not realizing that another gang thug armed with a Kalashnikov had come earlier in the turn using one of his fast action. The newcomer was in overwatch and blindly opened up on the figures entering in his field of view. The hail of tracers emptied the overwatch guy’s magazine, missed the Italians by a thread who got away with just pissing their pants, and hit the goon who had floored Castle instead, killing him on the spot. Definitely a confused messy CQB conducted by amateurs.

Both Rossi and Holtz opened up approximately aiming at the moving figure, who fell down. One of Holtz 9mm bullets had gone through his head almost by pure chance. Rossi looked around and felt he really had to throw up. The hall and the two annexed rooms were a butchery. Blood everywhere and three corpses spread around included Castle’s, unconscious and covered in dust and debris. Three seconds later, Ruger and McCafferty stormed into the room as well. Holtz yelled at them to finish to clear the building begging them to be careful. Ruger was shocked to see her beloved Captain immobile on the floor. Holtz screamed at her ordering her to move and secure the building, Then he turned his attention on Castle. Rossi remained with him providing security.

first of all Holtz checked if Castle was still breathing, and thanks to the Madonna Incoronata di Puglia he was. He quickly examined the Marine's body and soon noticed the shattered lower end of the flack jacket and the two wounds on Castle’s lower torso. Holtz understood immediately that he needed to medevac the Captain back to base and operate on him. There was no way to treat such injuries there. He needed to revive him and move him away from that shit hole, so he grabbed out one of his medical kits he kept in his combat gear and put it aside. At first he tried to revive Castle without using it. He didn’t manage to, so he decided to unpack a kit for his roll push. He administered emergency morphine and a blood drip and thanks God Castle slowly responded. Holtz wiped off the sweat off his face and then looked at the number of stress tokens he had accumulated. He had one out of a max of five. A 1 on the pushed medical roll did not help, but an 11 on the other dice did the trick even though he added one stress token to his collection. Castle recovered two damages and woke up. He slowly turned his head towards Holtz, a drip of blood from the grenade hit leaking on his face.

“Lieuteant?”
“I’m here Frank. I am taking you home”
“The Factory!...Did we take the factory?!”
“Yeah your men took it. Now relax Ok?. I need to take you home and patch you up, you crazy fuck.” Holtz emotions made him forget how to address a superior officer.”
Castle smiled: “Someone had to teach you DAGOS how to fight” he babbled before turning his head again on the other side won by the fatigue.

Holtz smiled at him.
“Yeah...going around eating Russian lead; a beautiful teaching method. Now relax; Rossi and I will have to move you on the VM and bring you back to base. Do you still have those wonderful surgical instruments you used to fix me the at the beginning of the month?”

“Yeah...they are in the LAV”
“Ok brother...take it easy now. We go home”.

Castle desperately wanted to help, but he could only close his eyes and let it go.

Rossi rushed back to the VM and maneuvered it with the back turned towards the entrance of the building where Holtz was tending still taking care of Castle. Now the problem was to move him into the vehicle without killing him.

Ruger and McCafferty decided to wait for Quincy and Gaigher in order to complete the sweeping of the building, so they limited themselves to guard the northern exit of the administrative building. They knew that there was an exit on the south side. That exit looked in the internal courtyard, but the enemy would have to transit in front of one of the MBTs field of fire to leave the factory, no matter what direction they decided to take. So Corporal Ruger and his buddy decided to go on overwatch and to wait for reinforcements while guarding the northern exit.

“Enemy at six o’clock” yelled Sergeant Adell, commander of the BALDER tank, while grabbing the AAMG. There was no time to turn the huge Leopard turret. One of the Swedish thugs had inexplicably managed to teleport himself from one building to another or may be had always been in the southern building. Now he was trying to cut and run west towards the town. Sergeant Adell turned the MG-42 towards the enemy and opened up as fast as he could, without even taking the time to order the enemy to stop. The 7,62 bullets dig a groove in the ground, and hit the target, spinning him 360° before dropping him for good. The Swedish gang member tried to crawl some more, then stopped.

“Gustaf watch out at 12 o’clock” yelled Adell…“we might have more leakers.”
“Yes sir” was the quick answer of the gunner.

He didn’t manage to complete the sentence that another goon rushed out of the admin building looking for an escape route south. Gustav engaged immediately, but he failed to hit the runner going winchester with the coax at the same time. He cursed the entire Nordic Pantheon and yelled to the commander to engage with the AAMG. Adell wasn’t quick enough though, and the target slipped south towards another building. Balder notified Holtz what was going on.

Lieutenant Lindström listened to the radio chatter and decided on his own initiative to go assist his subordinate tank. He ordered the pilot to drive towards the narrow lane between the two main sections of the factory where BALDER was standing.

The Italian Lieutenant on his part was too busy thinking how to move Castle in the safest way possible at the moment. Rossi had come back in the hall and it was time to lift Castle without provoking any further damages; a feat that the two Italians managed to accomplish. In the next round they would load him in the VM and speed off map.

McCafferty and Corporal Ruger placed themselves in overwatch at the southern wall windows after having made sure that the enemy had left. They managed to get a glimpse of what remained of the OPFOR running through the courtyard to find some safety in next building. McCafferty also noticed that there was a Leopard lurking in the alley, but the tank didn’t open fire for some strange reason. So before the goon dismounts reached the door of what he looked like another offices compound, McCaffery opened fire, soon joined by Corporal Ruger. Lots of dust around the targets but nobody dropped. Even at 30 yards darkness was still a decisive factor. McCaffery exhausted his ammunition in the process. The ammunition problem was starting to be felt, after months without regular resupply.

“This is ODIN to all stations:” intervened Holtz on the radio. “I am medevacing Captain Castle to base camp. Your orders are to complete the securing of the factory. Lieutenant Lindström you are in command. Once you complete the operation report on enemy casualties and on the number prisoners if any. Leave a fire team to hold the objective, in the in preparation of possibly making the structure our new base. THOR is it everything understood?” asked Holtz to his immediate subordinate.

“It’s a good copy ODIN...we’ll take care the situation here...my best wishes to Captain Castle...over and out”.

The tank platoon reunited south of the office building where the remaining enemies had sought refuge. Gaigher and Quincy were running toward the same building to finish the Swedish off. The thugs, some of them banged and some out of ammo, had to consider their options: kill some more Americans and die at the end of the process or give up. There was no way out. They saw two enemy tanks going around the building to cut their retreat, while the other entrance was about to be occupied by the American infantry. The leader of the gang, looked at the other two. As far as they knew, their Soviet advisor burned alive in one of the vehicles.

Quincy was the first one to see the three dirty and ragged surviving gang members coming out of the northern door of the office building with the hands on their heads. He ordered them to stop and to keep their hands in plain view, which they executed without a peep.

The battle for the factory was over.

13th of January 1999 day shift weather fair

It was almost daylight when the Italians reached the Marines base camp. Ottonese had already been alerted on the arrival of a serious casualty and told where to find the surgical instruments and the other necessary medical equipment in the American vehicle. Finally he had been nstructed on how to prepare an improvised surgical room. All of that by radio.

When Holtz and Rossi moved Castle on the surgery table, which was just a normal table with a sterilized sheet on it, Ottonese had already diligently prepared 3 doctor’s medical kit, and aligned the surgical instruments on a tray ready to be used. He had also already sterilized everything with boiling water, which was the best he could do.

First thing Holtz prepared himself for major surgery using everything he could find in the med kit, from the surgical mask to gloves and even an aseptic apron. Holtz was very nervous. He was not a surgeon and his general medicine knowledge, which in truth was A level, would have to do for that day.

He started by administering anesthetics to the patient, which were good enough to have Castle recover one extra damage point and to put him to sleep for the upcoming operation. Holtz nominated Ottonese his assistant and dispatched Rossi to be on watch outside the farmhouse; the fact that Holtz was forced to play surgeon, didn’t mean that the shit out there would stop. Then the Italian Lieutenant got to work.

Castle’s fatigues had to be cut off because it was impossible to undress him in the conditions he was. In the event that he survived the surgery, he would have to re equipped with civilian clothes. Pulling off the shattered flak jacket had already been an ordeal that almost risked to kill him. Patiently Holtz had to remove all the tissue fragments which had sunk in Castle’s body pushed down by the bullets. Then he administered a dose of antibiotics to avoid any infections of the wounds.

As a second step Holtz proceeded to an exploratory incision to see what kind of mess the bullets had provoked in Castles’ body. There were mixed news in that department: one of the bullet had gone through the left kidney but also found a way out of Frank’s body. This was a serious but potentially fixable situation. The other wound was what worried Holtz the most: the other bullet had also had exited from Castle’s back, but not before having chipped the lowest dorsal vertebra. Even worse there were many fragments belonging both to the bone and to the bullet in the area, and Holtz would have to remove as many of them as he could. He would probably miss the small ones, but hell...he was operating on a kitchen table!

All that meant that even though the vertebra in question didn’t have a huge quantity of marrow in it, it would still be a lottery if Castle would ever walk again, provided Holtz could save his life to begin with; a lottery based also on Holt’s ability on that operation.

Ottonese was given a stethoscope and charged with counting Castle’s “Rpms” on a regular basis. The most pressing task was to keep the patient alive. For that Holtz had to make two different medical rolls, one for each wound. He breathed deeply and started with the operation. He would use two doctor’s medical kits, one for each wound.

Holtz began with the most life threatening of the two wounds, which was the one to the kidney and the tissues around it. Luckily it looked like the bullet had come form above and the intestines had not been touched. Kurt had Ottonese wipe the sweat off his face and grabbed the dice. The empathy component of the roll wasn’t great: a 1; the goddamned kidney had been torn worse than he thought at first. Holtz concentrated as soon as much as he could on repairing and suture the connecting tubules to the main dorsal artery, which thanks to the protector saints for who believed in them, had not been touched. He grabbed the second die, the d12, sterilized it and rolled it on the table between Castle’s legs. When Holtz saw the 5 looking at him from the improvised surgery table, a curse escaped him from below the mask. He looked at Ottonese, who in turn become worried as soon as he noted that the patient’s blood pressure and heart rate were both decreasing.

Now the decision accompanied by more and more sweat: let Castle’s legendary comic books stamina take over, or pushing the roll and risking to accumulate a sure third and a possible fourth point of stress.

“Give me a count by the minute” urged Holtz to his improvised assistant and then he resolutely pushed the issue by re rolling the five. The 2 that appeared made Holtz sick in his stomach and now everything was on Castle. The Marine didn’t know but the Gods of war had him perform a stamina roll while he was unconscious. That meant he wouldn’t be able to push it. Ottonese continued to diligently monitor Castle’s pressure, while Holtz prepared for an emergency cardiac massage.

Slowly but surely Ottonese started to relax a little when the numbers started dwelling on slow but stable values. Holtz closed his eyes, punched another point on the stress counter, and prepared himself to resume his attempts to repair that kidney. He imposed himself to calm down and started again by his C empathy. This time he saw a comforting 7. Reinvigorated, he rolled the d12 as well: a six for a total of two successes, which by my house rule cut recovering time by one day (one day for every extra success).

Holtz would have liked to take a break in order to have his own heart rate decrease, and may be finding something to drink. But there was no time to waste. The patient was for some miracle of God still alive and Holtz was determined to keep him that way. The second critical wound needed urgent treatment. This second part of the operation would not only determine if Castle would live or die, but also if he would ever walk again. Here was where Holtz had to show all his balls.

Ottonese looked at him before the Lieutenant started operating on Castle’s spine:
“Shouldn’t you have applied a +3 modifier for the usage of the doctor’s medical kit and the surgical instruments?” asked Ottonese?

“I should have according to the standard rules” answered Holtz disconsolate. But the Gods of war have set a house rule which states that the medical equipment only works in canceling negative modifiers for its lack instead of giving positive modifiers for its availability. The Gods said that it’s more realistic that way...that applying the standard Fria Ligan rules, every crappy doctor becomes a wizard just because has equipment which in real life should just be the basic stuff to even attempt surgery.

“OK” answered Ottonese resigned. “Then good luck with the next procedure Lieutenant”
“Yeah...thanks” said Holts. And refocused his attention on his patient lower back.

The second procedure was the most delicate: he had to remove all the bullet and bone fragments, find and sterilize some Teflon screws and plates out of the Doc Med Kit. If necessary he had to profile them to adapt to Castle’s anatomy. A difficult and long task. Moreover he needed minimum two successes to give Castle a chance to move his legs again. Holtz confidently started the procedure. He could not afford not to believe in his abilities.

Again he started with the empathy roll. He had to be prepared to push this all the way to gain the two damned successes. He couldn’t ask Castle, but he was sure that if he could, the American would have said “better dead that paralyzed”. So Holtz prepared to go as deep as necessary with the dice.

A goddamned 4 on the empathy roll wasn’t a good start. Holtz knew he would re roll that and he prepared to move to the Medical aid roll: a 10….Holtz didn’t know yet, but the Gods of War had been looking down at him. He started to suspect something though when he saw that there were less fragments in the wounded region than he thought at the beginning, and that the external vertebra wall was still holding for the most part, so that apparently no bone marrow had escaped yet. At the same time Ottonese informed him that the pressure was stabilizing at more normal values; a further element of optimism.

Holtz looked up, thanked all the divinities he knew, included the Gods of war, and asked Otto to wipe his sweat from his forehead again. He carefully and painstakingly pinched together all the vertebra walls which had been weakened by the impact of the bullet, which again thank God had been had only grazed the bone. This was the longest job that Holtz had to do. After many hours of patient work he could finally start to suture the incision, and he was pleased on his job on that. Castle wouldn’t show an excessively ugly scar to his future lovers. Not that he didn’t have some more already. When Holtz was finally done with everything, for the first time he had a look at the clock and drank a glass of water. He saw that it was night shift of the day after.

He had been operating for almost 18 hours. Only then Holtz realized how wasted he was. He left Castle to the care of Ottonese, and of the family who owned the farmhouse, tried to go in the kitchen to eat something but collapsed on the table while he was chewing some bread and fried peppers.