344 Infiltrating the Buckingham Palace Part 1
Five hours later, a Ruthenian aircraft, the Globemaster, cruised above the capital city of London at 30,000 feet. Inside the cargo bay of the Globemaster is Rolan, memorizing the blueprints of Buckingham Palace obtained from a classified source.
He kept in mind the hidden pathways the Queen could possibly take if he were to make an appearance later. So that if she went into hiding, he’d know where to find her.
pA(nD)A no ve1 Aside from the blueprints, Rolan also studied the shifts of the Royal Guards stationed in Buckingham Palace. Finding out the best possible route without an unnecessary encounter with the guards would be preferable. However, looking at the numbers of the Royal Guards and their current shifts, there was no blindspot whatsoever he can use to sneak his way in.
In this case, Rolan would have to break his way in, kill anyone who gets in his way, make way to the throne room, and retrieve the Queen.
Rolan sighed after knowing that this mission wouldn’t be a walk in the park. But, a mission is a mission, not only an ordinary mission but a mission entrusted to him by the emperor of the Ruthenia Empire. He assured the emperor of the success of the operation and that he shall make it a reality.
“Five minutes to decompression,” the pilot of the Globemaster rang from the intercom, informing Rolan of the time when he was going to jump out.
Having left with no choice but to force entry, he contacted the Command Ops for help to make a distraction once he began his descent to Buckingham Palace. The Royal Guards guarding Buckingham Palace would surely notice the canopy of his parachute above and shoot at it. That would be bad and so once he reached ten thousand feet, a Ruthenian battleship that is slowly sinking in the Port of London will fire her first and last salvo to help Rolan.
“One minute to decompression,” the pilot informed again.
Rolan prepared himself for the job by wearing parachutes and goggles. After that, he walked over to the rear of the aircraft.
Moments later, the rear cargo bay door slowly opened. The air behind him pushed him a bit as it escaped into the atmosphere. He held on perfectly and the moment the door was fully open, he walked over to the edge and peered below.
Layers of clouds covered the entirety of the Britannian Empire capital. He gulped a mouthful of saliva. This is his first time performing a high-altitude jump. Although there is a manual to help him, it still didn’t sway his slight fear of jumping into London from thirty thousand feet.
“Okay…it’s all or nothing,” Rolan jumped off the ramp head-first and dived into the thick layer of clouds that barred his vision for about five seconds, and the moment it passed, he saw the sprawling city of London that looked like a minuscule scale model of the city itself.
It didn’t take long until he reached the terminal velocity, and the city below is starting to reveal its true size at his approach.
Rolan flinched at the loud boom that echoed throughout the city. He glanced at the source of the sound and saw a streaking yellow glow that flew across the city. It was from the Ruthenian battleship. The shells landed 500 meters away from Buckingham Palace, resulting in a great explosion that caused the very air itself to shake.
The Royal Guards that looked like ants from a high altitude scattered about the palace’s grounds as soon as the shell struck a nearby avenue.
He looked at his portable altimeter wrapped around his wrist and saw the needle spinning as fast as his descension. Once it reached three thousand feet, Rolan pulled the ripcord that released the chute, slowing his descent greatly.
***
Five minutes later. In the Palace Grounds of Buckingham Palace. Two royal guards were standing guard at the main entrance. Their rifles holstered as they watched their fellow guards do a security sweep around the palace.
“Hey, that huge explosion earlier, it was said that it came from the Ruthenian Battleship. Are they trying to shoot down the Palace?”
“It could be. We are at war with the Ruthenia Empire so it’s only natural for them to try and fire at us.”
“Won’t that be dangerous to the Queen though? Should we evacuate her out of this palace and take her to a safer place?”
“The Queen insisted on staying in the Palace, weren’t you briefed about this by your senior officer? Where were you when they were disseminating that information?”
“I was here all the time, no one approached me—”
The guard trailed off as he noticed someone approaching from a distance. “Hey…who is that?”
The guard pointed in the direction where he saw the peculiar person. The other guard looked at where he was pointing and saw a man clad in a black mantle, face covered with a skull-shaped mask. He cocked an odd-looking weapon and pointed it at them.
“Shit—”
Before the guard could even put his rifle into a firing position, a bullet went through his skull, putting him out of commission.
His blood scattered onto the other guard’s face, and he blinked, processing what just happened. It took him a second to snap out of his trance after realizing that there was an enemy. However, he suffered from the same fate as his fellow guard due to his hesitation.
It didn’t take long for the gunshot to be heard around Buckingham Palace. It prompted the guards on the grounds to run toward the source of the gunfire. The moment they arrived there, the guards protecting the main gate were seen lying on the ground, lifeless.
“We got a security breach! Inform and alert everyone!”
A burst of gunfire sounded and the body of the man speaking turned into a honeycomb as ten bullets pierced out from it. Those who were in front of him were also put out of commission and those who were fortunate figured out the culprit.
A man in a blank mantle, firing at them.
The royal guards dispersed from every direction and returned to a fire of their own. Not a single shot hit the mark as the men in black were too agile. And they were using bolt-action rifles, which mean, for every round fired, they’ll have to cock the gun for it to fire again.
The man in black didn’t need to do that. He just pressed his finger on the rifle and the rifle spewed ten to twenty or thirty bullets out of the muzzle.
In just a matter of seconds, their numbers were reduced from ten to five.
The man in black replaced the exhausted magazine and replaced it with another and continued the onslaught. One of the guards was lucky enough to hit the man in the chest but the man only groaned and shifted the direction of his muzzle at him and fired.
Four were down, one to go. The remaining guard has fired all of its ammunition in his bolt-action rifle. The man in black trained the rifle at him, he defeatedly dropped his weapon and cursed.
“Shit…”
A bullet struck him in the forehead