Without Law 18

by Eric Vall

  “You’re going to use your Barrett?” Paige asked. “Isn’t that a bit close range?”

  “I don’t have to use my Barrett,” Bailey noted. “I can use my plasma gun. It’ll be quick, but I’m still the best shot, even with a pistol.”

  “Fair enough.” Anna set her lips and nodded.

  I looked at the girls. Bailey would need some cover, but I was the only one tall enough to get the petite blonde up to the window. The other girls would have to lay down some cover fire to surprise the soldiers and throw them off. If they thought we were going to shoot at them from the sides of the bus, then they wouldn’t even be looking up high enough to see our sniper come for them.

  “You three are going to need to lay some cover fire,” I told them.

  “Right,” Anna agreed. “Where do you want us?”

  “Paige and Tara go to the right,” I explained. “Anna, go to the left.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” Tara smiled, then her face got serious as she looked at the girls. “Let’s do this.”

  The bus continued to rock slightly, and it made a terrible creaking noise as it moved. We needed to work quickly.

  There may only be two soldiers on the other side of our cover, but they were hitting the bus hard, and those plasma weapons could cause serious damage. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d melted through one side of the bus already. If they shot in the same vicinity a few times, then the metal would crumble fairly quickly, and if that was the case, then only one layer of metal would stand between them and us.

  “Wait for my signal,” I told the girls, and they rushed to the sides of the bus to get into position.

  Once the girls were in place, I looked over to them, and each of them nodded in turn so I knew they were good to go.

  “Are you ready?” I asked Bailey.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she told me with a small smile, and she pulled her plasma gun off her hip. “Let’s go.”

  “Step into my hand,” I told her as I knelt down and linked my fingers together.

  Bailey placed her hiking boot on my interlaced fingers, then she grabbed my shoulder with one hand as I easily lifted her up until she could swing her leg around.

  Once Bailey was securely on my shoulders, I held onto her legs to steady her, then I nodded at Anna, Paige, and Tara before I stood up and slowly walked over to the bus window.

  The rest of the girls started to fire as best as they could, but they had to make sure to avoid putting themselves in danger. If they got hit with one of those plasma weapons, it could be deadly, so they held their guns out as far as they could and fired at the NK soldiers on the other side of the bus.

  Once the cover fire was going, I felt Bailey adjust herself on my shoulders. The bus continued to shake slightly as the NK soldiers retaliated, but after a moment, everything stopped.

  “Got ‘em!” Bailey shouted.

  “Are you sure?” Anna asked.

  “Yeah,” the blonde chuckled. “There were only two of them. It didn’t take long.”

  Anna carefully peered around the bus, then she shrugged and glanced back at us.

  “Well, alright, then,” the redhead said. “Good thing it was quick, because we need to get going.”

  “We do,” I agreed, and I helped Bailey down from my shoulders. “Good job.”

  “Thanks,” the blonde said, and her face was flushed, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the exhilaration of the fight or my compliment.

  “Should we search them?” Paige asked.

  I thought for a second. If we took the time to go over them, it meant using up precious seconds we needed to pull off our plan, but then again, if we didn’t search them, it was possible we could miss something important.

  “Go,” I told Paige. “Quickly. I want it done by the time I pull the jeep around.”

  “On it,” the brunette said, and she holstered her plasma gun and took off running around to the other side of the bus.

  The rest of the girls piled into the jeep without saying a word, and I fired it up and pulled it around the bus and over to the bodies of the men, hopping the short cement median in the process.

  “Did you find anything?” I asked as Paige opened the door and hopped in.

  “Not really.” Paige shook her head.

  “Alright,” I said, and as soon as she shut the door, I pressed on the gas and pulled past the screening area and onto the Air Force Base.

  “At least we didn’t waste any time looking, though,” Paige added.

  “That was the plan,” I agreed. “It was better to check in case there was something we could use, or some orders for Minji to decipher, but if there was nothing, then I didn’t want to spend the extra time looking.”

  “Yeah, better to be safe than sorry,” Anna said. “But in this case we didn’t have a lot of time to spare.”

  “Exactly.” I nodded.

  “Alright,” Paige said as she looked around at the Base. “We’ll have to look around, the Captain didn’t know exactly where they were located.”

  “He said they were by the commissary,” Bailey reminded us.

  “Right.” I agreed. “That’s usually somewhere toward the middle of the base. Paige, does your map show you the roads inside the base?”

  “Only the main ones,” the brunette said.

  “Shit,” Anna breathed, and she turned to me. “Should we split up?”

  I thought about her question. Splitting up wasn’t a bad idea when we needed to locate something quickly, however, one of the groups wouldn’t have a vehicle, and we only had one walkie on us as well. That meant that whenever someone did find the weapons, they’d have no way of reaching the other team.

  “No.” I shook my head. “It’s better to stay together. That way we don’t have to worry about finding each other.”

  “Right,” the redhead said, and she let out a low breath, rolled down the window, and looked around.

  “I’m going to head down this main road,” I said. “Everybody keep an eye out and let me know if you see anything you think might be what we’re looking for.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find these skyscrapers quickly,” Tara said as she peered out the window seriously.

  “Skysweeper,” Paige corrected.

  “Sky something,” Tara said with an eye roll. “Whatever. The big gun things, I’m sure we can find them. I mean, they’re huge, right?”

  “Yeah, but they’re not bigger than the buildings,” Anna chuckled. “We still have to find them, wherever they’re at.”

  “How much longer do we have now?” Bailey asked.

  “I’d say about four hours,” Paige said, and she bit her lip. “Maybe four hours and fifteen minutes?”

  “Shit,” Tara sighed.

  “That seems like barely anything.” Bailey frowned.

  “It is.” Anna nodded. “At least it’s barely anything when you consider we still need to blow the bridge by the attack point, make sure all the other roads are blocked off, and help set up some barricades for our group to hide behind during the attack.”

  “Yeah, when you put it like that, it sounds like we won’t even make it,” Bailey said.

  “We got this,” Paige said confidently. “We’ve managed to do a lot in just a few hours before. We can do this, too.”

  “What have we done in four hours that would’ve taken days?” Anna asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “I--” Paige held up a finger, then stopped, bit her lip, and thought for a second before lifting her finger again with a smile. “I don’t know.”

  “That’s your response?” the redhead laughed.

  “Right?” Tara chuckled. “I thought she had something at least.”

  “Nope, couldn’t think of anything,” Paige said. “But I still have confidence in us.”

  “Paige is right.” Bailey smiled. “We’re capable of whatever we put our minds to.”

  “Right now our minds need to be looking for gigantic 1800’s weapons,” Tara said dryly.


  “Right.” Bailey bit her lip and focused out the window.

  “1950’s,” Paige muttered under her breath.

  “Whatev,” Tara said with an eye roll.

  The girls were quiet as I drove as quickly around the base as I possibly could without going so fast that we wouldn’t be able to look around. I felt like we were crawling after how fast I’d gone the entire way there, but when I looked at the speedometer I saw we were still going almost thirty. Granted, that wasn’t fast, but we were on residential and arterial roads for the most part, and with all the random curves and roundabouts, I couldn’t go much faster.

  “Where the fuck is this commissary?” Anna asked.

  “What is a commissary?” Bailey asked. “It might help if I knew what I was looking for.”

  “It’s like a warehouse kind of thing,” Tara explained.

  “How do you know that?” Anna asked.

  “I told you, my dad had military friends.” The platinum-blonde shrugged. “I’ve been on base a couple of times.”

  “How is this the first time we’ve heard this?” Paige asked with a laugh.

  “I don’t know,” Tara said. “I guess it never came up.”

  “Hey!” Bailey called. “Is that it over there?”

  I followed Bailey’s finger to the right and saw the sign for the commissary. I didn’t see the weapons, but I figured if we had found the commissary, we were getting closer.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the commissary and drove around slowly. There were a few vehicles parked out front, and like the rest of Norfolk, the parking lot was covered in garbage and debris, but after a moment I spotted something.

  There was a field to the right of the commissary, and as I drove toward it I saw the two Skysweepers inside of a large gazebo.

  “Fuck, yeah.” Anna turned and grinned at me.

  “Those are them?” Tara asked. “They’re not as big as I was expecting.”

  “That’s probably good for us,” Paige said. “It’ll make them easier to haul.”

  “Right,” I agreed.

  “Now we just need to see if they work,” Tara said.

  Tara was right, if the Skysweepers didn’t function properly, then we’d just wasted an hour of precious time we could have used for something else. They needed to work. They had to.

  I pulled the jeep up next to the field with the gazebo, parked it, and hopped out.

  “How are we going to get them hooked up?” Anna asked. “They look heavy as hell.”

  “We need to make sure they’re working first,” I said.

  “Good point,” the redhead replied.

  I led the girls across the grass, and I was surprised with how green it was considering all the garbage and debris around.

  The gazebo was concrete painted a beige color, and it was more functional than it was pretty. The piece looked like it was built just to keep the rain off of the old machinery.

  It looked like it had done a pretty good job, though. I didn’t see any major rust spots as we approached the Skysweepers.

  The guns were huge, at least ten feet long, not including the barrels, and the base part was five feet tall. They sat on top of a trailer with four large wheels, which was good for us considering we needed to move them. They were painted a deep green color symbolizing the time in our military’s history they came from, and as I inspected them, I realized how old they really were.

  I’d only seen one a few times, and it had been like the ones in front of me now, a display piece. I’d never seen one fired in real life, but I’d need to figure it out.

  The machine had an area for the gunner to stand, and there were lots of switches and buttons to operate the weapon. Surprisingly, most of them weren’t worn out like I would have expected them to be. I could clearly see the symbols on the majority of them.

  “So, how do we turn this thing on?” Anna asked as she walked around one of the Skysweepers.

  “It’s got to be over here,” Paige said, and she moved to stand next to me so she could look at the controls as well.

  “It seems pretty straightforward,” I said. “There’s the firing switch.”

  “Yeah, I see that,” Paige said, and she bit her lip. “But damn, there’s a lot of buttons and stuff here. Altitude adjustment? How the hell are we going to manage that?”

  “The machine will do that,” I explained. “The first anti aircraft gun was invented around 1910, so this is a few generations after that. It’s intended to make things incredibly easy for the operator.”

  “So, the gun does all the calculating for us?” Paige asked.

  “Right.” I nodded. “It locks onto the aircraft, calibrates, lifts itself to where it needs to be, then all you have to do is fire. At least, that’s how it should work. I’ve never actually fired one of these things before.”

  “You haven’t?” Tara asked, and her jaw fell slightly. “What do you mean you haven’t fired one before?”

  “They’re ancient,” I chuckled. “They weren’t exactly seeing any action by the time I was in the service.”

  “That makes sense,” Paige said.

  “Shouldn’t you have to, like, fire a bunch of different stuff like you made us do?” Tara asked.

  “Well, yes,” I answered. “But this wasn’t on that list.”

  “Well, shit,” the platinum-blonde laughed. “Guess we’re gonna have to figure it out.”

  “I think so.” I nodded.

  “Sooooo,” Anna said, and she raised an eyebrow at me. “How do we start this thing?”

  “I don’t know,” Paige said. “I can’t figure it out.”

  “Isn’t it this switch right here?” Tara asked, and she pointed to a switch on the top right of the board that said ‘ON’.

  “Well, damn.” The brunette pursed her lips.

  “What are you waiting for?” Bailey asked with a smile. “Turn it on.”

  “You seem optimistic,” Paige said, and she looked at me and let out a long breath. “Let’s hope that optimism pays off.”

  “Let’s hope so,” I said, and I reached out and flipped the switch.

  We were all quiet as we waited for something, anything to happen, but after a few seconds I hadn’t heard anything.

  “Is it on?” Anna asked.

  “I can’t tell,” I said, and my eyebrows furrowed as I looked at the machine. It wasn’t making any noise, and I didn’t see any lights or anything.

  “Try another button,” Bailey suggested.

  “That’s the on button,” Paige said.

  “Yeah, but if you hit something else maybe it will make a noise or move or something,” the blonde said. “You said it’s supposed to adjust itself, right?”

  “It is.” I nodded. “I suppose that’s worth a try.”

  “What button should we push?” Paige asked.

  “Does it matter?” Tara asked, and she reached over and pushed a random button.

  “What are you doing!” Paige hissed, and she grabbed Tara’s hand and pulled it away from the machine.

  “What?” Tara asked with a shrug. “It’s not loaded.”

  “Oh, right,” Paige said. “Well, what did you push?”

  “I don’t know,” Tara said, “I just pushed a random button.”

  “Just push another one,” Bailey said, and she reached around and mashed down on a couple of buttons. “Did that do anything?”

  “I don’t see anything different.” Anna frowned.

  “Do you think it’s not working?” Bailey asked, and she bit her lip.

  “I don’t think it is,” I sighed. “It definitely needs a power source, and there is a good chance it’s totally out of commission.”

  We needed at least one of these damn things to work for us, otherwise we wouldn’t have any way to gain air superiority over the MiGs. We could try and shoot at them with the howitzer, but it wasn’t meant to take down aircraft, and the precision we’d need in order to be able to fire it at a moving fighter jet was beyond human capabiliti
es.

  “Fuck,” Tara cursed. “What do we do now?”

  “There’s still one more to try,” Paige said.

  “Yeah.” Tara nodded and shrugged. “It can’t hurt, I guess.”

  The platinum-blonde didn’t seem very optimistic about our chances of the second skysweeper working, and I had to admit that right then I wasn’t feeling great about our odds, either. We had a fifty-fifty shot, though, and those odds weren’t absolutely terrible.

  I stood up and walked over to the second machine. This one had a large cable running to what I assumed was a power generator. We added some diesel from a can in the jeep to the generator, and I turned on the old generator, and it loudly began chugging along. I didn’t think the generator would work, either, but the fact that it did gave me some hope that the Skysweeper did, too. I reckoned that they might have kept it in working condition for demonstrations or shows, and that might just pay off big time for us.

  Paige crouched down next to me again. Some flyaways framed her face as she pushed her glasses further up on the bridge of her nose and turned to look at me.

  “Here goes nothing,” she said, and she reached out and flipped the on switch.

  The machine didn’t whirr to life with any spectacle, but I did hear a small hum, and a smile cracked my mouth in response.

  “Is that a noise?” Anna asked, and she leaned down to get a better look. “Is that a fucking noise?”

  “Fuck, yeah, it is,” Paige chuckled, and she stood up and high fived the redhead. “That’s a fucking noise!”

  “It’s working?” Bailey asked, and she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.

  “I think so,” I laughed.

  “We should test it,” Tara said.

  “Test it?” Paige asked, and her brown eyebrows pulled together with confusion. “What do you mean? That’s what we’re doing right now.”

  “Yeah, but just because it turns on doesn’t mean it actually works,” the platinum-blonde pointed out, and my heart sank.

  She was absolutely right.

  Just because the machine turned on didn’t mean it would fire properly. Aside from that, we needed to find some ammunition for it in order for it to be of any use to us.

  I glanced around to see that Tara’s comment hadn’t only affected me. Everyone was quiet as they looked at the machine in front of them with near horror on their faces.