Chapter 9

It has taken him three hours of hiking and hiding from more trucks, but Ninian found out where they were going. It appeared to be a staging area for an assault. Numerous trucks and Gerulus Contuberium passed him on the road. Some of the trucks were covered cargo trucks, they stopped at the staging area, but the others went on ahead.

The road guards only did a cursory inspection of the cargo trucks when they got to the gate. This allowed them to get the trucks in fast, as there was a long line. Ninian saw this as his way in. Jumping into a truck at the back of the line, before more arrived, Ninian was able to get in.

The driver parked the truck with the others and Ninian slipped out without anyone knowing. He noticed other trucks here, but they carried fuel. The weird thing is they had a different symbol on them then regular fuel trucks. Ninian knew this was the symbol for Kerosene, he learned in in school. Looking around more he found the reason for the Kerosene, rockets, five of them on trucks.

Too much activity was going on around them, so Ninian decided to find a way out, and find a place to hunker down until the next night. He found an opening in the fence and took off towards some hills. If he could find a cave to sleep in, he could come up with the beginnings of a plan to take out the missiles.

He found a cave not too far away and thought about the missiles. He could destroy them if he could get close enough; the problem was he only had four blocks of AP-5. He could not leave even one missile, not knowing what kind of warhead it carried. Even though Rome had left chemical and biological weapons in their past, it did not mean others had.

If that warhead had a chemical or biological component, his fellow Legionaries were in trouble. On one patrol, Apollinarius had talked about explosives. He mentioned that one time in the SF, the Sapper had ran out of AP-5 and had to improvise an explosive. He took three fragmentation grenades and duct taped them together. He armed them, took his knife, and cut the tape halfway through. They all ran away, but it worked. With a semi plan in place, Ninian fell asleep.

Ninian slept in what he began to call his combat sleep. The type of sleep, while somewhat restful, allows someone to still listen and sense if something is wrong. The sun just started to turn the orange-red of a sunset when Ninian woke. He took out the rest of his opened FAM and got the entree meal out. Ninian was pleased to find out it was beef stew. He opened the carton and took the pouch of beef stew out. He then placed the beef stew in the flame-less heater bag and added water. Folding the heater bag to keep the water in he placed the entire thing back in the carton.

In twelve minutes, he had breakfast. He ate while waiting for the sun to set fully. After eating, he got his three fragmentation grenades out and formed them into a triangle. A strip of duct tape wrapped around the three grenades held the handles in place as long as the tape held. He also got the four blocks of AP-5 ready with a ten-minute timer. He would plant those first then the grenade bomb.

By now, it was fully dark. Ninian got his NV goggles out and attached them to his Galea. Gathering his trash, he left the cave and headed to the hole in the fence. The missiles, still in the lowered position, now had fuel pumped into them. Ninian knew where the fuel entered would be the best place to plant the bombs, but it was impossible, too many people would see it. He looked and found the second best place. Rockets relied on a controlled burning process to lift off and accelerate. Placing the bombs at the bottom where the exhaust came out would do one of three things. Either launch the rocket early while it is still in the down position, damage the rocket enough to delay launch long enough to get reinforcements, or it would cause a chain reaction reaching the fuel and exploding the rocket.

Ninian watched the missiles for a while, to see if anyone was around them. Not seeing any, he planted the four blocks of AP-5. The grenade bomb became a little trickier because he had to cut the tape before pulling the pins. If he made too small a cut, the handles would ripe the tape completely while he still stood there. The grenades only had a 4-5 1/2 second fuse.

He got to what seemed to be the motor pool and waited for the fireworks to start. His planned to take one of the many smaller trucks to escape, but he needed the missiles to go, in order to try to slip away in the confusion. He only had to wait a few minutes before the grenade bomb went off, followed by the AP-5 bombs. Ninian jumped into a truck and took off through the gate and into the night towards where he thought the Roman lined were. He could not use the headlights so the NV goggles came in handy.