MI6s team of enhanced individuals have undergone further testing with the enhanced chemical and are now training with their new and improved abilities before going on their most dangerous mission to date. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Franklin Fort, hard bitten soldier and teleporter; and Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter.

Hanslope Park, Buckinghamshire, England, December 1942

Late December 1942 we are summoned to the briefing room of Hanslope Park to discuss the final details of our mission to southern Germany. Major Hoffman once again reiterates the mission priorities and Captain Ledman discusses our equipment requirements and false identifications. For the latter we finally decide upon four German civilian identification papers and just in case, four Gestapo identification papers. As part of their specialised equipment Sven requests a Bren light machine gun and Frank asks for a matched pair of sawn off double barrelled shotguns. I guess that they are taking the defensive ability of the German enhanced very seriously.

The conversation turns towards the senior members of the German political class and in particular the possibility that Hitler himself may well be enhanced. It is an interesting discussion but we have no evidence to go on and so it is ultimately moot. Madeline then pitches the Major a curve ball of a question;

What is going to happen to us after the war?

Both Hoffman and Ledman look taken aback, but they recover very quickly and say that they are just currently focusing on winning the war and that they do not know what will happen after that. Madeline does not look convinced.

We go on to look at potential escape routes and Captain Ledman informs us that he believes that our best exit route is through Switzerland given its relative close proximity to the target site. We agree and plot two routes, one out through Lindau and across Lake Constance to Rorschach in Switzerland, and a second route through the mountains into Austria and across into Switzerland. If either of those routes are not an option then we agree that we improvise.

Hanslope Park, Buckinghamshire, England, January 1943

We set out from Hanslope Park in a military truck loaded with our kit heading for RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire. When we arrive we are driven straight up to a stripped down Lancaster bomber and introduced to Captain Lannon and his crew of six. Captain Lannon informs us that all going well we should be over the target at zero one hundred hours. While Lannon and his copilot finish their preflight checks, the rest of the aircraft crew assist us in rigging up our gear with a parachute.

Just before twenty one hundred hours we take off, as soon as we are up in the air and levelled off we are joined by an escort of four RAF Hawker Hurricanes. After an hour and a half our escort peels away and we are on our own, but only for a short while as we are joined by two De Havilland Mosquitos who shadow us for another forty five minutes until our aircraft turns south and heads over Germany. Our pilot jinks us left and right avoiding major towns and cities heading for our target.

At zero twenty eight hours the copilot heads back to us and shouts into Madeline’s ear;

Thirty minutes!

Madeline signals this to the rest of us and we start our pre-jump checks, making sure that we check each other’s parachutes and harnesses and Frank double checks the parachutes attached to our kit drop. Ten minutes before we are over the target the copilot once again joins us and checks to make sure that we are ready. Sven and Frank man-handle the kit drop into position beside the side crew door and then the copilot shouts;

One minute!

And open the door. The fuselage of the plane is filled with a rushing wind and hear anything becomes an impossibility. The copilot holds up three fingers and then counts down, three, two, one! Frank and Sven shove out the kit drop. Again the copilot holds up three fingers and counts down. Frank leaps out. He is followed out by Madeline, myself, and finally Sven.

I avoid colliding with the tail of the Lancaster and free fall a short distance following Madeline. By the light of the half moon I can spot Madeline’s parachute opening below me and so I pull my own cord and breathe a sigh of relief as my own parachute deploys. But my luck takes a turn for the worst when I am caught by a strong crosswind and I am blown out of our formation. I land hard beyond a ridge line and wind myself, but unlike the last time that I parachuted I do not injure myself. I have just started to gather up my parachute when a large raven lands near me and says;

Caw!

I smile and reply;

I’m fine thank you Sven, and will be with you all soon.

The raven flaps off northwest and I follow on foot. When I crest the ridge line it is obvious that the others landed perfectly in the drop zone and we are approximately three miles away from the target in a sparse section of the wooded hillside. As we came into land Frank confirms that he could see the lights of a large town to the northwest, which we agree must be Füssen, he also saw light from the direction of the village of Hohenschwangau below Schloss Neuschwanstein. All seems quiet and after a quick aerial reconnaissance Sven confirms that he believes that we have not been spotted coming down. We quickly unload our kit and stash the parachutes in the bole of a large tree, which I then camouflage.

We yomp as a group for an hour to get into the foothills of the ridge line that leads towards the Schloss. When we arrive we set up a small camp in the middle of a depression and Sven heads up into the night sky as a falcon to see if he can find any caves within the hillside for us to set up a base camp. After about fifteen minutes he returns and tells us that he has found one that fits the bill approximately a mile closer towards the Schloss. By zero two thirty hours we are all tucked away inside a large, but low, cave with a narrow entrance. Perfect for our purposes. We settle in and Madeline takes first watch while Sven heads back out to scout the Schloss in the form of an owl.

Sven flies in low, hugging the terrain, and drops over the lip of a steep cliff. Before him he can see the Schloss lit up by searchlights. He can also see a large construction site on the edge of the lake with what seems to be a large piece of armour parked up outside the main gates. Sven circles back around and can see that there is an anti-aircraft battery set up within the walls of the Schloss and that the towers of the Schloss are manned and each has an independent searchlight scanning the area around the Schloss. Sven heads back towards the cave and spots that the lip he originally flew in over provides an excellent watch point over Schloss Neuschwanstein.

Sven returns to the cave that we have designated rendezvous one, RV1, and tells us about the observation post that he has spotted. We all head out so that we know exactly where it is, it is a difficult climb and so I borrow Madeline’s shadow form ability as well as her ability to see in the dark and slide up the mountainside. Frank teleports up and Madeline arrives the same way as me. Once we have reached the observation post I set up a camouflaged hide that we can observe the Schloss from during daylight hours and we designate it as OP1.

While I am engaged building the hide, Frank and Madeline watch the Schloss through binoculars and manage to spot that the closest tower seems to have a owl cage hung from the rafters of the tower roof. That is going to make approaching from our usual direction, above, difficult. We return back to RV1 and continue watches.