by Eric Vall
“Hammer, Pike, Rivers, Tara, and Anna,” I said. “I need you all to go out on deck.”
“What?” Hammer asked, and his thick eyebrows pulled together. “What do you need us to do?”
“You’re going to shoot your weapons,” I explained. “Unload the whole fucking mag and make it sound good.”
“You want us to dump our mags?” Anna asked with a shake of her head. “Isn’t that a waste of bullets? What’s the idea here?”
“It’s not a waste if it gets us all of the Boston troops,” I said. “We just need it to sound like we’re under fire, then we’ll have Minji radio back in and request assistance again.”
“Oh, shit,” Tara said. “Good idea. Let’s go.”
“Yes, get out there,” I pushed. “I’ll give you the signal to fire.”
“Right.” Hammer nodded, and the group headed out of the command center and down to the deck just below.
They all lined up and faced out into the ocean. Anna was on the left, Tara next to her, Pike after that, then Rivers, and finally Hammer.
Hammer and Anna each looked back at me, and I held up my hand to motion for them to hold steady.
“Are you ready?” I asked Minji, and I locked eyes with her once again.
The beautiful Korean woman licked her lips, took a deep breath, and pushed her chest out slightly.
“I’m ready,” she said.
“You don’t have to oversell it,” I told her. “Remain calm like you would if the situation were real. Request assistance with urgency, not fear.”
“Right.” Minji nodded.
“You’ll do great,” I told her with a small, encouraging smile, then I pointed to her, and she lifted the radio up to her lips.
I glanced back at Anna and Hammer, and I gave them the signal to shoot.
The group began to fire all at once, and if I didn’t know it, I might think we were under attack. The constant firing was just enough to sound scary while also being realistic, especially since the NK weapons were silent, so even though they weren’t shooting back, the guys on the radio would never know.
I couldn’t understand what she said, but there was definitely an urgency to Minji’s voice as she held the radio right up to her lips. She repeated it twice before she lifted her finger off the button and slammed the radio onto the table.
I could tell she was nervous, which was understandable. Not only was she having to translate, but the entire operation hung on her at the moment. If the NK soldier on the other end of that radio, even for a second, suspected she wasn’t who she said she was, it would all be over.
The entire plan hinged on them believing her.
They’d gone along with it so far, and I had to hope they would continue to do so.
The group down on deck finished emptying their mags, and I gestured for them to stay where they were at and reload. We needed to make this sound good.
Once they were reloaded, I held up the signal for them to hold steady.
My eyes were on the radio in Minji’s hand. So far, the man hadn’t responded, and the room was eerily quiet with just Minji, Paige, Bailey, and myself inside.
I could hear the girls’ breathing, and I could see Minji’s hand shaking slightly as she gripped the radio even tighter.
Come on, answer you sonofabitch.
I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes against the wait, but then I heard the familiar crackle of the radio, and I let out a breath of relief.
“He says they’ll come help,” Minji whispered, and her voice was full of awe that the plan had worked.
“Respond and ask their ETA,” I told her.
Minji nodded and held the radio close to her mouth. As soon as she pushed down on the button, I gave the signal for the group on deck to fire.
She didn’t speak long, and I cut off the group as soon as she was finished, but the man on the other end replied almost immediately.
“He said they need to refuel the MiGs, then they’ll head to us,” Minji told me.
“Ask him if all the MiGs survived,” I instructed. This was our chance to find out exactly how much fire power we were up against.
Minji did as I instructed, and the man replied quickly.
“He says no,” the Korean woman said. “But they still have three.”
Another crackle came over the radio, and once again the man spoke in Korean.
“He says their ETA is approximately six hours,” Minji said, and all the color drained out of her face. “He wants to know if we can hold out until then.”
I heard Paige suck in a breath next to me.
Six hours?
Fuck. I should’ve known it would be quick when he said they were outside of Richmond. They must not be moving quite as slowly as I thought they would be with all the military vehicles and the planes.
That didn’t give us very much time at all to get a plan in motion, but it was all we had, and we’d have to make it work.
“Tell him we can hold out until then,” I said.
Minji nodded and pushed the button to speak while I gestured for our small firing squad to let loose once more.
It only took a few seconds for the man to respond, and Minji turned to me to translate.
“He said they’ll be here as soon as they can,” she said.
“Okay.” I nodded. “I want you to tell them some of the roads are blocked. Say the Americans have stolen some plasma weapons, and they’re blocking the roads so there’s no way out, they may have to find an indirect path.”
“Alright,” Minji agreed, and she spoke into the radio again, and the man responded immediately. “He said if the roads are blocked it may take them some extra time, but they’ll get to us.”
“Tell him you’ll see them soon,” I instructed.
Minji spoke into the radio again, and just a second after she’d responded, the voice came through the radio, but Minji didn’t translate right away, she just said something else, then she set the radio down and stared at the floor.
“Minji,” Paige said, and she took a hesitant step toward the woman. “What did he say?”
“He said to stay strong for the leader,” she whispered. “That they’d be here soon.”
“And what did you say?” I asked.
“We’d be expecting them,” she said with a small shake of her head, then she looked up at me, and I could see the panic in her eyes. “Six hours? What the hell are we going to do?”
“We’re going to figure it out,” I said, and I set my jaw.
I waved for the firing squad to come back into the command center, then I headed over to the desk Hammer had been standing by earlier.
“What’s going on?” Anna asked as she and the rest of the group came back inside.
“Yeah, what did they say?” Tara asked.
“They’re coming,” I said as I pushed the papers on the desk out of the way so Paige could lay out her maps.
“That’s good, yeah?” Anna asked.
“In six hours,” I added.
“I’m sorry, I must have misheard you,” Tara said, and she cocked her head to the side. “You mean six days, yeah?”
“No, six hours,” Bailey clarified softly.
“What the actual fuck,” Anna scoffed.
“We knew they’d have to be within a certain distance to be able to contact us,” I reminded them.
“Well, yeah,” the redhead said. “But I was thinking days, not hours.”
“So was I.” I nodded. “But this is what we have to work with, and we have to make it work. This is our one shot to take out the Boston troops. We won’t get another.”
It sounded extreme, but even as I said it, I knew I was right. We wouldn’t get another chance at this, not with them already knowing there was only one ship left. There were far more of them than there were of us, and they had air superiority with those MiGs. If we didn’t take out all of them the second they came into our view, it could get really bloody.
Everyone here had volunteered to risk their liv
es for their country, not just the service men and women, either, but the civilians who were here, too. All of them knew the risks when they came here, and they were big. But, I’d do whatever I could to make sure we didn’t lose a single life today, or any other day.
Planning out attacks was my specialty, but usually I did plenty of reconnaissance before the planning started. Today, I wouldn’t get to do any of that. This was the ultimate test of all of our skills.
“Okay,” Anna said, and she stepped toward me and raised her chin slightly. “What do we need to do?”
“First off, we need to come up with a foolproof plan.” I grabbed Paige’s maps from her bag and laid them on the desk.
“It was good you told them the roads were blocked,” Paige said. “Now they’ll be expecting that, so we can funnel them into our trap.”
“Right,” I agreed. “But that also means we’ve got to block the roads off. I didn’t tell them exactly what roads were blocked, so they could try and take any path down here.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Anna nodded as she looked over my shoulder at the maps. “It might seem suspicious to tell them exactly where to go.”
“Especially when we’re supposed to be under fire,” Tara added.
“Exactly.” I nodded.
“We only have a few hours,” Hammer said, and he stepped up to the desk to join the conversation. “That means we’re going to have to split up.”
“Right,” I agreed, and I gestured to the roads on the map that led to Yorktown. “We’ll need to take all of these out.”
“My men and I can handle the roads,” he offered.
“How are we planning on blocking them?” Paige asked.
“We need to make them impassible,” I said. “We need to blow the bridges when they pass over water.”
“I know you’re right,” Hammer said with a nod. “We can’t give them any leverage here to try and make another path. But we also don’t have any explosives. We’ll have to rig something up.”
“No C4?” Paige asked.
“No.” Hammer shook his head.
“Fuck, do we have anything explosive enough for that?” Anna asked.
“We should ask Jeff,” Paige said. “He’s the explosives expert.”
“Jeff?” Hammer asked.
“One of the civilians,” I explained. “Used to be in construction. He helped us take out a bridge last winter.”
“Where’s he at?” Hammer asked. “I’ll send someone to get him.”
“What about the plasma?” Bailey asked quietly amongst the fray of voices.
We all turned to look at the small blonde hippie girl, but she just bit her lip and shrugged slightly.
“Won’t the plasma work?” she asked.
“Ohhhh, shiiiiit,” Paige said, and she grabbed Bailey by the shoulders and shook her. “You’re a damn genius.”
“Won’t that be super dangerous?” Tara asked. “That stuff is super explosive.”
“Dangerous, yes.” Paige nodded. “Pretty much our only option? Also yes.”
“Paige is right,” I said. “It’s not ideal, but it will work. Good call, Bailey.”
“Thanks,” Bailey said with a small nod.
“Are we sure we want to use the plasma for that?” Rivers asked. “Isn’t it our best bet to combat the NK weapons? Fight fire with fire, you know?”
“It is.” I nodded. “But first and foremost we have to get the jump on these guys, and we have to gain air superiority.”
“Yeah,” Hammer agreed with a hard look. “Those MiGs are a problem.”
“Yes, they are,” I said, and I looked at Rivers. “If we can sacrifice some of the plasma liquid to funnel the Boston troops to where we need them and then take them all out, then it’ll be well worth it.”
“Right,” Rivers said with a nod. “So, how are we going to do it?”
“Well, you shouldn’t need a lot,” Paige said, and she bit her lip. “But since we don’t know exactly how much, it’s a bit of a guessing game.”
“Definitely guess lower before you guess higher,” I said. “That stuff is more powerful than you think.”
“You probably need, what, a drop for every five to ten feet?” Paige asked.
“I’d say about that.” I nodded. “Go ten feet at first, and five feet if that’s not enough.”
“You really think that’s gonna do it?” Rivers asked, and his fluffy eyebrows pinched together with confusion.
“The first time we tried to ignite the stuff we had three drops,” Paige said. “And the blast was huge. I’d definitely say that’s enough.”
“Alright,” Hammer agreed. “My boys and I can handle closing off the roads, what else do we need to do?”
I looked down at the map. There were plenty of roads the NK troops could take to get to Yorktown, and if any of them were open, aside from the one we needed them to go down, there was a chance they’d take it, and then our entire plan would be ruined.
We only had approximately six hours to make this happen, and I wasn’t sure one group would be able to handle it.
“Your group should handle side roads and I64 heading north,” I instructed. “The girls and I will handle the interstate going south, as well as the bridge on Colonial Parkway.”
“Alright.” Hammer nodded. “And the side roads?”
“We’ll leave those to your team as well,” I said. “I just don’t want you to get overwhelmed. There’s a lot of roads to be taken care of.”
“Understood,” the SEAL said.
“What else do we need to do?” Rivers asked.
“We need to move the howitzer to a good vantage point,” I said. “It’s our best bet of getting all the NK troops at once.”
“What about the plasma weapons?” Rivers asked.
“If one of the tanks explodes and gets that liquid everywhere, it’ll be too dangerous to shoot at them with plasma weapons,” Paige explained.
“As much as I’d like to fight fire with fire,” I said with a shake of my head. “Paige is right. The liquid is just too volatile. It could fuck up a mile radius and everyone in it.”
“Okay,” Rivers said, and he licked his lips, looked down, and let out a long breath. “This isn’t gonna be easy.”
“No, it’s not,” I agreed.
We were up against an enemy with more troops, more firepower, and air superiority, which was exactly why the element of surprise was so crucial to this plan working. If we didn’t have that, the MiGs would take us all down in a matter of seconds.
The thing that really was going to make this difficult, though, was the time crunch. We had six hours to accomplish what would usually have taken us days.
Orchestrating a large scale attack this quickly was going to require everyone to do their jobs flawlessly. One single thing going wrong could blow the entire operation and put everybody’s lives in danger.
Still, I trusted my team, and I knew we’d be able to pull this off as long as we got every detail just right.
“What else do we need to do?” Anna asked, and she leaned over and placed both hands on the edge of the desk.
“If we’re blowing the bridge, then who’s getting the howitzer set up?” Paige asked.
“And where?” Tara added.
“Hm.” I looked over the map.
Tara made a good point. We needed to set up the howitzer somewhere inconspicuous. We couldn’t have the NK troops seeing it on their way up there, but I needed it to be lined up so it could take out the first bridge once the NK army passed over it.
“What about this Navy supply depot place?” Paige asked, and she pointed at where it was on the map. “That should be far enough away to not be seen, right?”
“But still close enough to be able to make the shot,” Anna said with a nod.
The Navy supply store was just northeast of the attack point, and looking over the map, it seemed like the best place for it.
“I think that’s a good spot.” I nodded. “If we need to adj
ust, then we can, but I think for now that’s where we’ll plan to put it.”
“Okay, who should we have get it over there?” Anna asked.
“Send Jeff and Ben,” Paige suggested. “They should be able to get it set up right.”
“Someone experienced with explosives and a military man,” I chuckled. “Sounds like a good bet to me.”
“Alright, so Jeff and Ben are on howitzer duty,” Anna said. “We’ll take out south I64 and the bridge by the attack point while Hammer and the SEALs take out north I64 and the side roads around it.”
“Right,” I agreed.
“So as long as we get the howitzer set up and the bridge blown and the interstates and roads blocked off, we should be good, right?” Paige asked.
“You say that as if it’s so little to do,” Tara laughed.
“I mean it’s really not that much.” Paige shrugged. “If we had maybe two days, that would be nothing.”
“Right, but we don’t,” Anna said. “Soooo, it’s actually kind of a lot.”
“I’m just trying to look on the bright side here, okay,” Paige said with a playful glare.
“I’ll look on the bright side when the entirety of the Boston troops are nothing but ash and dust,” the redhead retorted.
“Dark,” Tara breathed, and she looked down and to the side.
“Oh, shut up, you love it,” Anna said.
“I totally do,” Tara laughed.
“Girls,” I said. “Focus.”
“Right,” Paige said while Anna and Tara looked at each other then down at the floor.
“We should get going,” Bailey said. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“There’s still the issue of the MiGs,” Hammer said.
“I know.” I nodded and shook my head. “We need air superiority.”
“The ship should have anti aircraft missiles, right?” Rivers asked.
“We haven’t counted them yet, but yeah,” Minji agreed.
“Those will be our best bet of taking out the MiGs,” I said.
“Do we have to take them out?” Anna asked. “Is there a way we can deflect or something? I mean, it’d be a shame to lose the plane.”
“I’m with Anna,” Tara said. “If we can get one of these planes for ourselves, we should try.”
“I appreciate the idea, girls,” I said. “But we can’t afford to let those planes get any sort of action in this fight.”