Without law 17, p.4
Without Law 17, page 4
I realized then why this man was in charge. He wasn’t a complete moron, he was just tired. He had in no way been prepared for an invasion like this, and he was at his wits end.
At least I knew we could be of some help to him and the soldiers under him. We wouldn’t let the NKs take Norfolk, or any other part of the U.S.. And we’d take back the places they’d already gotten to.
First, I needed to know exactly what was going on, though.
“Alright, Captain,” I said with a nod. “Tell me everything you know. Let me help.”
“I’m not sure how you can.” He shook his head. “Like I said, the enemy have a strong presence. They don’t know where we’re holed up, so they send out reconnaissance in force to sweep areas to find us. We’re pretty good at avoiding them, but they can come from all sides.”
“Isn’t one of those sides water?” Tara asked.
“It is.” Paige nodded.
“Do they have ships?” Anna asked, and she cocked her head to the side as she gauged the Captain’s reaction.
“I didn’t think the NKs had battleships,” I said.
“They don’t,” the Captain said with pursed lips.
“So, they just have regular ships out there?” Tara asked. “That doesn’t seem very scary.”
“Not regular ships.” He shook his head. “They’re destroyers.”
“Destroyers?” I clarified.
“Three of them,” he said with a slow nod.
Well, shit. Our mission had just got a lot more complicated.
Chapter 3
“What’s the big deal about destroyers?” Tara asked.
“The name kind of says it all, doesn’t it?” Anna asked dryly.
“I’m just saying, it’s not like we haven’t already taken out a bunch of their men,” the platinum-blonde said. “Who cares if they’re on a ship or not. They were in military vehicles, and we still took them out.”
“Actually not a bad point.” Anna shrugged.
“What kind of destroyers are they?” I asked the Captain and ignored the girls’ chatter.
“They’re South Korean,” he said. “Our best guess is that they overran the DMZ in Korea and seized their naval assets, since the North Koreans had no navy worth a damn.”
“If they have ships out there then that must be where the foot soldiers are coming from,” Paige said.
“Right,” Anna agreed. “And they haven’t attacked yet because they’re waiting for the troops in Boston.”
“They’re planning a pincer?” the Captain asked seriously, and he locked eyes with me.
“It says it all in the orders,” I assured him.
“I’m not fluent in Korean by any means,” Paige said. “But with a bit of research I was able to decipher it, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure what I have translated is correct.”
“I’ll have my translator look over it,” he repeated. “Maybe she can catch something you didn’t.”
“Whatever she does catch, I don’t think it will change the message about the pincer,” I said with a shake of my head. “There are more troops on their way down here, and you and I both know the only logical plan of action is for them to form a pincer and take us out before they head down to the Appalachians and try to do the same thing with whatever resistance is held up there.”
“You’re right.” He nodded. “But those vessels are huge. I can’t send my men in there to the slaughter. They probably have a couple hundred men aboard them.”
The Captain didn’t seem as though he’d even considered taking the ships out at this point.
Paige and Anna were right, the ships were where the foot soldiers were coming from. If we took out the ships there would be no troops for the NKs from Boston to meet up with. Their pincer attack would be ruined, and we’d see them coming. Their whole plan would be up in smoke.
“We’ll take out the ships,” I said decisively.
“What?” the captain asked, and his eyebrows pinched together as he looked at me. “What do you mean you’ll take them out? I know you said you brought about fifty men with you, but didn’t you hear me? There’s got to be at least five-hundred combined on those ships.”
“All we need is one ship.” I shrugged. “Then we don’t have to worry about the men on the other ones.”
“Are we gonna blow some shit up?” Tara asked with a grin.
“It looks like it,” I said with a smile.
“You’ve got to be crazy, Ranger,” the Captain said with a shake of his head. “I haven’t sent my men to those ships yet because it’s too dangerous. I have triple the amount of men you do, and I still haven’t done it. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
“I think you misunderstood,” Paige said. “We’re not going to take all of our people with us.”
“Yeah, we need to, like, be stealthy,” Tara said. “We can do it ourselves. Ninja style. We are good at that.”
“Okay, now you’ve really got to be fucking nuts,” the Captain said, and his jaw fell as he looked around at the room at the very serious faces of the girls.
“We’ve taken out plenty of enemies together,” I explained. “I personally trained these women, and I am confident in their skills. We’ll get the ships taken care of.”
“There’s no way to get out there without being seen,” he said.
“There’s always a way,” I told him, then I thought for a moment. “I know Hammer’s special ops, do you have any other special ops guys you could spare? My team can lead us, but you’re right, it’s not an easy task. If I have some trained guys there will be a lot less risk to all of us since the ship is so large.”
“I have a few,” the Captain said. “But they’re the only specially trained men I have. I can’t send them to their deaths. Why do you think I haven’t sent them out there already?”
“Fair point,” I said, and I held my hands up, but I didn’t exactly agree with the Captain. The SEALs were hardcore, and I knew they’d be up for the challenge. Still, I wouldn’t overstep him, not yet anyway. “Let’s focus on our plan for a minute.”
“What plan?” the Captain asked.
“If we take out the ships then there won’t be any troops for the Boston NK to meet up with,” Paige said.
“Right,” I agreed.
“And that means their pincer attack is completely fucked,” Anna added with a smile.
“Which also means we’ll be able to intercept the Boston NK,” Tara said. “They don’t know that we know they’re coming, and they’ll totally still think they have guys down here waiting for them.”
“They’ll probably travel in one or two groups,” Paige said. “If we play this right, we could take out all of them at once.”
“How can we do that?” Bailey asked. “We know they’ll have plasma weapons on them.”
“They probably brought those huge tanks, too,” Tara said.
“That blast will be monstrous.” Paige bit her lip.
“We need a vantage point,” Bailey said. “Something far enough away from the caravan that we won’t get caught in the blast. But that also means we’ll need a way to set off the blast from that far away.”
The Captain looked like a ping pong ball the way his head moved from side to side as each of the girls pitched in on the plan. He looked completely overtaken with our conversation, and it was obvious he hadn’t considered any of this. Even if he didn’t know the troops were headed down here from Boston, he should have known there were others around. It was poor planning on his part to assume the enemy right in front of him was the only one he’d have to deal with.
“Captain,” I said, and his eyes settled me. “Do you have any old planes around?”
“Plane?” he asked with furrowed gray brows. “We barely got vehicles running. Nothing fucking works after that damn EMP.”
“Actually, any vehicle that doesn’t rely too heavily on the electronic components can be made to run again, if it doesn’t already,” Paige said, and she pushed her glasses back up on her nose.
“We’re in an abandoned Coca Cola factory,” the Captain said. “There’s no planes just laying around.”
“Geez,” Tara muttered and rolled her eyes.
The Captain looked at her with shock, as if he were about to reprimand her for disrespecting his authority. Before I could say anything, though, Paige jumped in.
“Oh!” the brunette exclaimed. “There’s a museum in Norfolk, and they have planes. I remember seeing some old style ones when we went there.”
“Oh, yeah.” Bailey nodded vigorously. “I remember that, too!”
“We can go there and check on the planes,” the brunette suggested. “I bet we can find one that runs.”
“And Ben said he can pilot anything,” Anna said with a smile, and she put her hand on her hip.
“He did say that,” I chuckled.
“I’m sure we can rig up some sort of bombing system to attach to the plane,” Paige said. “If he can get above the NK troops on their way here, then we really can take them all out in one fell swoop.”
“Hold up,” the Captain said, and he held his hands up. “You’re telling me you plan to take out the ships in the bay, steal a plane, and take out the entire convoy of troops headed down here from Boston?”
“I think it’s pretty clear that’s what we just said,” Tara said, and her eyebrows pinched together as she looked around at the other girls. “Was that not clear?”
“And just how in the hell are you all planning on doing all this?” the Captain asked, obviously irritated with Tara’s attitude, but unwilling to do anything about it.
“Your men have the bridge blocked, right?” Anna asked. “If they’ll let us through into Norfolk we can handle ourselves from there.”
“There’s foot soldiers around every damn corner over there,” the Captain said.
“We’ll be alright,” I assured him. “And I understand if you don’t trust me with your SEALs. The girls and I can handle it, it will just take us a little bit longer to do a full reconnaissance.”
“Ranger, you’ve got to be out of your damn mind,” he chuckled and shook his head. “I’ll tell you what, if you and these girls here can get that plane, then I’ll let you have the SEALs for this suicide mission of yours. Deal?”
I smiled at the Captain.
The man obviously didn’t want to be in charge, but he wasn’t about to give up his command to some stranger, either. I could respect that, but he was about to regret those words he’d just said. I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t think the girls and I could get it done.
He might not be a misogynist, but it was clear he didn’t think the girls were capable. Tara had most obviously gotten on his nerves with her nonchalant attitude, but I couldn’t exactly blame her. The platinum-blonde had been around me for a long time, and I never made any sort of deal about my rank. We were all people, and that was how we spoke to each other. Yes, I was the leader of my group, but I’d been elected because I was respected, not because of my post before any of this happened.
I had to admit, even I might have had doubts about the girls if I hadn’t trained them myself. They were all feminine and beautiful, and at first glance there was no reason anybody would look at them and think they were dangerous. That was part of their arsenal, though. Being underestimated was always something to take advantage of, and that would make their victory when we took the ships feel that much sweeter knowing they’d proven this asshole wrong.
“You’ve got yourself a deal.” I grinned and held out my hand for the man.
“Good luck, Ranger,” the Captain said. “You’ll need it. But if you can pull this off, we may be able to win this war yet.”
“We’ll have that plane by tomorrow evening,” I told him.
“I look forward to that,” he said with a sarcastic smile.
Chapter 4
After the deal was made, I led the girls back out to where Jeff and Ben and the rest of our group sat with our supplies.
“How’d it go?” Ben asked as I walked up.
“We have a day to get a plane,” I said.
“What?” Jeff asked.
“I made a deal with the Captain,” I said. “He’ll lend us the Navy SEALs to take out the boats in the bay if we can get a plane without being killed.”
“He didn’t take you very seriously, did he?” Jeff chuckled.
“I don’t think he takes himself very seriously,” Tara scoffed.
“Tara,” Bailey tsked.
“What?” the platinum-blonde said. “The guy totally doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“I can’t imagine this was part of his training.” Paige shrugged.
“Tav should be in charge,” Tara said. “I’m sure everyone would rather listen to you than to that guy. He didn’t even have a plan besides being a sad little Eyore.”
“It’s okay,” I told my fierce cheerleader. “We came here to get a job done, it doesn’t matter who’s in charge as long as we can work.”
“Right.” Paige nodded. “I’ll check my map and find the museum.”
“I can help,” Bailey offered.
“Hey, Ranger,” a voice called out, and I turned to see Hammer walking toward us.
“Lieutenant,” I said. “How can I help you?”
“You all sticking around?” he asked.
“We can find our own place to stay if we need to,” I said.
“You can set up around back,” he told me. “That’s where we have the fire pits. A lot of the guys sleep back there, you’re welcome to find a place.”
“Alright,” I agreed. “But do me a favor, call me Tav.”
“You got it, Tav,” Hammer said with a nod.
Even if the Captain didn’t like us, his SEAL lieutenant seemed to, and I’d keep that in mind if he decided to go back on his word. I didn’t want to go over the guy’s head, but the SEALs were specially trained for water situations just like the mission to take over the ships, and right now the Captain had them patrolling bridges like common grunts. They definitely weren’t being used to their full potential, and I didn’t doubt they’d jump at the chance to get wet and help me take out some NK assholes.
The girls and I loaded into the jeep, and I led our small caravan around to the back of the building. There was an old dirt area that had no doubt once been a parking lot. The place was surrounded by trees and with sunset it was hard to see how far the trees went, so I stopped the jeep in one of the less occupied areas of the courtyard like area and hopped out.
As we offloaded some supplies to set up camp, I couldn’t help but notice the men watch us. There were soldiers all over the yard, some playing cards or whittling, others sitting by the fire or cooking, but they all looked at us the same way.
Disdain was written across their faces, and it was obvious they thought we were just some civilians here to try and help but only wind up dead in the process. They didn’t realize we were their saving grace, but it was alright, they would soon find out what my team was made of.
I couldn't exactly blame them for being distrustful, the Captain had said there were less than two-hundred men here, and I knew there were easily ten times that stationed at Norfolk. Some of the soldiers had probably left to go south, but I knew a lot of good men had already been taken. These men were grieving and still trying to fight through it. Every day was hell for them being in enemy territory, and while they were well-stocked on food and water, they were clearly sleep deprived and probably riddled with anxiety about when the NK foot soldiers would decide to attack.
Regardless of what they thought of us now, I wasn’t going to come into their base and treat them with anything but decency.
I left the girls and the rest of my group to continue offloading supplies, and I walked over to a group of guys around a fire. It was nearly fully dark out, but the orange light from the flames lit up their faces. Even in the firelight I could see the bags under their eyes.
“Hey,” I said as I approached. “I’m Tav. My team and I came down here to volunteer to help. I just wanted to introduce myself to you all and thank you for what you’ve done so far.”
“Right,” one of the guys said, but it was accompanied by an eye roll. The man wore black jeans, military issue boots, a gray T-shirt, and his dog tags. He had short blond hair, and in his hand was a large pocket knife he used to carve into a stick. It looked like he was trying to make some sort of figurine, but I couldn’t exactly tell what.
“You know I have a sharpener if you need one,” I said.
“Excuse me?” the man asked, and he looked up and narrowed his eyes on me.
“Always wanna keep your blade sharp,” I said with a friendly smile. “It’s there if you need it.”
“We don’t need your shit here,” the man said, and the others around the fire nodded. “Why don’t you go back to wherever the hell you came from? You civilians are in way over your heads.”
I smiled at the man. He had no idea who he was talking to, but he’d know soon enough. From his general appearance, attitude, and the classic Ontario MK 3 knife he was using, it was safe for me to assume he was a SEAL.
Soon enough I’d be in charge of this guy, but I wouldn’t hold his disdain against him, though, he’d probably been trapped here since the EMP hit. I doubted he’d had much interaction with civilians.
I’d trained them and lived with them, so I knew exactly what most normal, non-military trained people were capable of. While most of them didn’t excel in all aspects us military men were trained in, they were capable of handling their own in most situations. It was amazing what the drive for survival could unlock in a person.
“It was good meeting you,” I said sincerely, then I walked back over to where my group was.
Anna and Bailey were working on starting a fire while Tara pulled out some boxes and things to make dinner. Paige was gathering some wood with a few of the civilians, and everyone else was setting up tents or sleeping bags. We may not be totally welcome here, but that wouldn’t stop us from making ourselves at home.
