Hamilton rolled away from the door as fast as he could, rolled and rolled and rolled until he smashed against the wall opposite the barracks. He arose to one knee, unslinging his weapon as he did. His aim lined up on the door opposite just as the first janissary emerged, barefoot, yelping, and automatically stepping high to try to avoid the burning acid below. The poor janissary had a chemical hotfoot.
Hamilton put a three-round burst into the janissary's chest, causing him to fly back into the barracks room. The door swung back and forth on its hinges, fanning the cyanide gas emanating from the crystals on the floor.
A knot of three janissaries entangled themselves and their arms at the door, each trying to force his way through and all making it impossible for any. Hamilton fired again, a long and normally tactically unsound burst. The mass of tangled men didn't fly back this time. Instead, held in place by the common mass, they oozed downward, creating a small obstacle at the base of the portal.
Long enough in this spot. Hamilton tucked in one shoulder, his left, and rolled in that direction. When he finished his roll he took the prone, weapon still aimed at the door. Hamilton guessed there were perhaps nine rounds left in the magazine.
The next janissary out vaulted the bodies at the foot of the door. Hamilton fired and missed, fired and missed, fired and hit, spinning the janissary down, broken and bleeding.
Six down, maybe forty to go. Change the fucking magazine. No time to fuck around. Gas, do your stuff, he prayed, glancing at the door to the first barracks he'd poisoned.
Originally, Hans had intended to take control of the ready room and give Hamilton time to thin the exterior guards, and possibly even to divert reinforcements from af-Fridhav. There wasn't going to be time for that, now. Better to take control and make sure all the exterior entrances are locked, the mines armed. To Hell with subtlety.
Hans knocked on the clear glass window beside the ready room door. The guards inside were already rising. "Open up!" Hans ordered. "Open up! The enemy is upon us."
The frightened bayraktar dutifully pressed the button to release the door bolt. Hans pushed the sprung door open with his posterior. With one hand he reached in to the delay detonator atop the explosive charge in his pack. He pulled the detonator, tossed the pack into the room, and then dove for safety, letting the door slam shut behind him.
The explosive was a two stage thermobaric device. When it went off it first spread a cloud of flammable dust throughout the room. This then detonated, creating an overpressure that burst the window even as it smashed the internal organs of every man inside.
The explosion didn't do any good things to Hans, either. Even with most of a wall between him and the blast, still the force of the thing stunned and deafened him. He thought one eardrum might be burst. He knew he'd been concussed from the way the world shuddered and shook around him.
Unsteadily, having to use one hand on the wall for balance, Hans entered the ready room and began to fire at any of the bodies that looked like they still had a spark of life to them. Compared to the overpressure of the blast, the overpressure from the muzzle was nothing.
Only one man emerged from the first barracks room. That one was blue in the face and clutching at his throat. He collapsed, gasped for a while, and then died.
From the other room they came out still, but more slowly and unsteadily as the gas filling the room took effect. Hamilton almost felt sorry for them as they staggered out, weapons sometimes in hand but fingers clawing at throats. He went through three more magazines that way, putting the suffocating janissaries out of their misery. He'd lost effective count of the number he'd killed, though more than fifteen bodies littered the corridor floor.
Hamilton felt the castle shudder. That would be Hans' bomb, I think. No chance to take the perimeter guards out quietly now. Fuck. Going to make it difficult when we bring the airship in to load.
Hamilton thought frantically about the implications of that. No time to leave it to the guys inside to die at their own pace. Attack!
Quickly he dropped the half empty magazine in his submachine gun and replaced it. He felt to check that his oxygen mask was still in place and feeding. Then he stood and charged for the door.
* * *
The men on the perimeter would have heard the blast; of that Hans had no doubt. Still stunned and staggering, he went to the control desk and pushed the bayraktar's body out of the way. With one finger he armed the mines in place around the perimeter, to include the newly emplaced directional ones the men had put in at his order. With another he fired the modular mine packs that sealed off all the roads and gates around the castle. These each sent out twenty-eight little bombs that dispensed seven metal threads upon landing and then armed themselves. Touch one of the threads, or disturb the mine, and it would leap a meter into the air and detonate, sending tiny bits of hot serrated wire in all directions. Then Hans killed all the interior lights.
Lastly, Hans cut off all communication between the castle and the outside world.
As soon as the sergeant of the guard felt the blast, he raced for the front door of the castle. Pressing the speaker button to demand a report, he heard only moaning and a muffled pffft . . . pffft . . . pffft.
"Crap!" he said aloud.
The sergeant then turned to the main gate where stood the same gate guard who had admitted Hans just a little earlier. Ignoring the guard, the sergeant picked up the phone and punched in the number for the corbasi's command post at af-Fridhav. Modular mine packs were going off around the perimeter. The sergeant had to assume all the mines were armed and live, now. Shit.
"Headquarters," came the answer.
The sergeant's voice was frantic. "This is Castle Honsvang, Sergeant of the Guard Bozkurt. We're under attack. The odabasi is in there. I don't know if he's alive or dead."
af-Fridhav, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,
1538 AH (4 November, 2113)
"Calm down, sergeant," said the colonel. "I'll be along immediately with reinforcements. The important thing is not to let the enemy escape. . . . Sergeant? Sergeant?" The line was dead.
"Bloodyfuckinghell!" the colonel exclaimed, before shouting out, "Alert company . . . boots and saddles . . . im-fucking-mediately!"
Thinking about what he'd told the sergeant, about how the critical thing was to keep the enemy from escaping, the colonel realized that the enemy was most likely going to try to escape by air. How, he didn't know, but Switzerland was close and those brazen bastards were likely to be in on this. The colonel then began to dial for air support. Though Allah knows how long it will take those idiots to get out of bed, let alone get a couple of planes in the air.
The Caliphate's Air Force was filled with the lazy sons of rich, connected, powerful men. All the janissaries had contempt for them.
Briefly, the colonel considered delaying long enough for the men to draw heavy weapons and the ammunition for them. Ultimately, he decided that there just wasn't time, that a faster response was better than a more powerful one.