Without Law 18 by Eric Vall (most difficult books to read .txt) 📗

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 lives 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