Bekka came downstairs to the workshop to find Garen taping up a scope. There was a stack of spray cans of paint on the table. She looked over the target guns and back to what he was doing. Finally, after a few minutes, she had to ask.
“Ok, I give up. What’s the plan?”
Garen went through his thought processes. At the end of his spiel he looked expectantly at her.
“So, what do you think?”
“I think you need to get some sleep, your loopy.” She said with a grin. “Oh, wait, you were serious? You want to go up against guys with at least one belt fed machinegun with 22 target rifles? You are concussed, or just mad!”
“No, hear me out….”
“No Really! 22 bolt actions against AKs and belt fed. It’s ****ing nuts!”
“Ok, are you done?” Garen said, exasperated and a little hurt she didn’t see the core of his idea.
“Yeah, I’m done, but it better be brilliant, otherwise you’re back into TBI protocol and your thinking privileges revoked for a while.” Bekka stood with a stern look and crossed arms.
“Ok, if we go full bore assault, we don’t have enough bodies to do that, Agreed?”
“Ok, Agreed.”
“We go full-fledged big bore sniper, they just turtle up, pull back under cover and work it as a serious threat, all the assets try to hunt us, and so forth, Ok?”
“Ok.”
“If, instead, we use non-military, harassment level stuff, they don’t take us serious right away. We are more of a nuisance. They assume we are just some want-a-bee’s trying to do something, but nothing effective. They will run around trying to stop these amateurs. If they think pros are working against them, they will act differently. The silencers are even more effective on the 22s with the 45 grain slugs and the range we can hit them from will be far enough to confuse them. They may never hear the shot, they just know they are hit and hurt. Any they sent into areas to find the shooters, we either vanish before they get us, or they vanish, culling the herd some more. Sooner or later they will have to consolidate their resources. Whichever one becomes the best target, we can then hit with real sniper-grade fire. Most people might know from a book that snipers can hit 600+ meters, but many have no idea how far out that looks like. With some of the stuff we have, we can stretch that string even farther. If we can pull it off, our rifles are able to go out to a thousand meters. I don’t think they have enough resources to hold a perimeter for that far out, nor enough resources to keep watch on all possible shoot sites for a radius of 10 football fields. I just was thinking of getting as many pieces off the board as possible before we dial both sides up to pro. We can also target the leadership on site, anyone give orders, directing activities, anyone showing brainpower or skill. Hell, I don’t know what all John left in his connex. We may be able to go out even farther, although it would be 70% luck. I’ve only shot farther than a grand once when we went out on that firepower demo.” The 22s are to help us to be silent and keep us confusing them as long as possible. Hell, make ‘em really confused. Make up a fake high school shooting team or paintball team or airsoft league logo, print it off on some sticker paper and we can leave the stickers at the shoot sites. They will think its high school kids making fools of them. If we can mess with their heads and keep them off balance, and especially if the little Kara sent is right, we want them to work the city and pull their assets there. That gets them away from the woods and keeps them in the dark about us as long as possible.”
“You’ve hung out with Jered too long.” She stood and thought a few, bouncing the idea around and looking for holes, finally she looked back at him. “This could work. But we need to plan it super tight and have a ton of backup plans and escape points, but it could work. You better get into those other connexes and see if we have any beautiful surprises, like maybe a tank or a bazooka.”
Garen relaxed at her provisional acceptance of his idea. He was beginning to worry if he was so far sideways he didn’t know what he was doing.
“The other connexes are on the list for today. With it being urban ops, we need to get some other stuff ready for the crew as well, drywall saws, axes, ropes, and a bunch of other sneaky stuff. Somewhere I have a bag of those tiny 9-volt strobe we can use for a bunch of stuff. We can use the 22WMR carbines as well, I can cut, recrown and thread them to make them a bit shorter and maneuverable even with the suppressors.”
“Garen, grab some paper and make a list. You need to take a nap for a bit, you’ve been up all night. We can work on a lot of this. I can cut thread and crown the carbines, and shoot them all with the paint. You need to focus on digging out some more toys from John’s secret stash.”
Garen felt a relaxation and the fatigue overcame him. The mission he had been up to do had evidently been accomplished, the thing driving his sleeplessness was done. Now he needed a little rest so he was sharp for the next tasks.