Chapter 2

There was an envelope taped to the steering wheel. Inside were a detailed service manual for the vehicle and a quick guide to tell a new driver how to operate the Humvee. Jane verified that the main battery had a charge because the vehicle was driven into the cargo hold, and the battery was left attached to the vehicle.

Karen and Jane looked at the service manual while I looked at the driver’s cheat-sheet. I sat in the driver’s seat and invited the women to join me. Karen came in right away, but Jane was sensible enough to close the ramp before leaving the plane.

I turned the key and the instrument panel lit up right away. That proved that the battery was full of juice. I touched the accelerator lightly, and nothing happened. A bit annoyed, I pressed harder, and there was still no movement. Oh, damn! That was when I remembered to flip the switch controlling direction from neutral to forward. Now the vehicle moved when I pressed the accelerator.

We moved off at a respectable speed but I kept pressing the accelerator toward the floor. The vehicle gained speed at every farther push of the pedal. The vehicle reached a speed of 65 MPH (Miles per Hour) as I hit the floorboard. Okay, now was the time to slow down. I drove off the paved surface onto the grassland. A speed of 30 MPH seemed to be reasonable for this terrain. I drove for about 15 minutes, and I could see Karen getting kind of antsy.

I slowed to a stop and shifted into reverse. I spent a couple of minutes playing with driving in forward and reverse. That was enough, so I stopped and shifted to neutral. I swapped seats with Karen and let her drive for a while. I was about to tell her to make room for Jane when Karen stopped and turned off the engine.

She swapped places with Jane, and Jane drove us back to the plane, some on the grass and some on the pavement. When we got to the plane, Jane stopped long enough to lower the ramp and drove up into the cargo hold. She handed me the key and closed the loading ramp. Okay, so much for fun and games.

Jane found where the L-guns were stored and opened a crate. She handed me a pistol and an instruction manual. I skimmed through the instruction manual and discovered that the gun required two special batteries in the hand grip. Jane found them and handed me two.

We all traipsed outside the plane, and I loaded the batteries into place in the gun.

There was a bush off to one side of the pavement, and I aimed at it, using both hands to steady my grip. I lined the sights up on the bush and started to pull the trigger. As soon as I did, a red dot appeared on the bush. Ah-ha, an aiming aid! I held the gun steady and pulled the trigger back farther. I could not tell that the gun did anything, but the bush exploded into flame. Fortunately, I released the trigger before turning to the women.

This time, I let Jane be the second person to try out a new toy. She held the gun the same way I did and shot at another bush a bit farther away. The result was the same. Now it was Karen’s turn. She followed the same routine and got the same result. She handed the pistol back to me and I quickly found the safety. Now I knew what L-gun meant: Laser-gun.

There was a warning not to run the batteries too low on charge because there was a danger of an explosion. The batteries were supposed to be recharged as soon as possible after use. A charger was supplied with every L-gun, and there was a plug that could be swapped to match virtually any electrical socket ranging from 250 volts down to 20 volts, either AC or DC. That meant that the batteries could be charged from the accessory socket in the Humvee.

The gun had a built-in limiter on the length of time the laser could be run from a single trigger pull. A fully charged battery pair was good for about 500 shots, but the batteries would be nearly flat at that point and must be recharged immediately because of the danger of explosion. Well, I figured that any enemy that you could not get rid of in 500 shots was probably going to kill you anyway.

The next item of interest was the rifle that used only the slug and not the whole bullet. Jane had no trouble in finding them, and she pulled one from the shipping crate. The hole in the muzzle suggested to me that this was for a .30 caliber bullet, so I didn’t really know more than I did before. There was another of the ubiquitous envelopes with operation and maintenance instructions enclosed. I read through the operating instructions and found that this gun worked on compressed air.

The rifle was the bullpup design with the air reservoir in the rifle stock. The reservoir was initially charged to 3,000 PSI (Pounds per square inch). There was a selector that allowed the shooter to select a low pressure of 800 PSI or the high pressure of 3,000 PSI. The rifle had another selector that allowed semi-automatic fire or fully automatic fire. The lower pressure setting was recommended.

The rifle had a 20-round box magazine that could be changed very quickly, usually around 3 seconds. This rifle had a laser designator and a telescopic sight so that the red dot could be seen at 500 yards. Beyond that, the shooter was on his own.

There was a pistol companion to this rifle that fired a .50 caliber hollowpoint slug and only at low pressure. The shooter was warned not to mess with the pressure settings because at high pressure, there was a danger of the shooter’s wrist being broken from the recoil.

There was no doubt that the rifle and pistol would be tried out tomorrow morning.

When we returned to the cockpit, I asked, “AI, how much of the local language have you learned?”

“I think that I have a solid grasp of the language now. I am not having any difficulty conversing with the AI at the other end of the radio link. Currently, we are sitting on a spot that is essentially deep in the boondocks. The AI I am talking to is located in a substantial town that I think you should visit.

“Considering how much fuel is required to get this airplane into the air, I suggest that you travel there in the Humvee and leave the plane where it is. We can maintain contact through the radio in the Humvee, so there is no need for you to remain here. I can fly this plane anywhere you would like completely on my own if I do not have to worry about other aircraft, and that will not be a problem.

“Therefore, I suggest that you three load up the Humvee with the necessary supplies and drive to the city where the other AI is located. You can look it over and see if it is a good idea for us to move the 797 to that place. If so, there will be no problem with me flying that far. In fact, if you want to, you can look over other possible sites for a permanent base of operations, and I can fly the plane to that point.

“In any case, you are going to be forced to move from here if you don’t intend to starve to death. I estimate that there are enough food rations in the cargo hold to give you about six weeks of sustenance before you are forced to eat local food. If you leave tomorrow morning, you can reach the city in question in one day, possibly before noon. It is my feeling that time is of the essence.”

“Okay, AI, you have convinced me. How about it, Karen, Jane, what do you two think?”

“I agree with AI. And I am sure that Jane does too. What do you think, Jane?”

“I can’t see any alternative to what AI suggests. We can decide tonight after supper what we want to take with us, and it should take less than 30 minutes to load the Humvee with what we need for this short trip. We will need more time to get ready if we will be traveling to other places. In any case, I vote for taking AI’s advice.”

That settled it, so we ate some supper and immediately started going over the manifest. The weapons were at the top of the list for consideration. We decided to take three L-guns and six batteries for each one. The air rifle was the only long range weapon available, so we decided to take three of them and 100 rounds of slugs for each rifle. Of course, we were going to take our 9 mm pistols with the 90 rounds that were all we had available. If we ran into trouble, we hoped to use the L-guns as our first choice for defense simply because it looked like we had the most “ammunition” for them.