by T. R. Harris
“Weapons hot. I’m coming up on the D&B’s. I really hope it didn’t make it into the theaters.”
“Security cams show a solid lockdown of the Cineplex. Still, it’s kinda of ironic isn’t it that the drone would be hiding in a Dave & Busters?”
“Holy crap!” Lane cried out. “Do you have the video feed from inside the arcade?”
Xander toggled the control until he came upon the scene that had his scanner-operator so upset.
“That monster just executed a dozen civilians inside the restaurant,” Lane cried out. “He had them line up, telling them they could leave, and then cut them in half.” Lane’s voice was trembling. Even though he’d seen this level of barbarism many times before, it was something he could never get used to.
“I have the link, Dave,” Xander said. “Son-of-a-bitch—now he’s talking into the security camera.”
The small screen in the upper left corner of Xander’s display showed the image of the evil-looking drone hovering in the air and staring into the camera. The Ninja wasn’t painted like the other attack drones in the red, white, and blue of the RDC units. Rather, it was silver and black, with red swatches depicting dripping blood along the sides. There was a sinister-looking face painted on one of the facades, highlighting a hideous grin, and with the stereoscopic cameras serving as the eyes. A computer-disguised voice now spoke into the video display and was picked up by the security microphones.
“Merry Christmas to all you Western infidels. I see that your desire for new designer jeans and shiny baubles has brought you out in public today and placed you within my sights. This is only the beginning of what to me will be a very joyous holiday season. Please note, what is happening here in Miami can happen anywhere. No target is too big or too small. We will strike at individual homes, at your clogged highways, at your dams and your power stations. We will crack your nuclear reactors and expose your pitiful nation to the deadly radiation from within…”
The recorded message continued, yet trailed off as sensors on the huge drone picked up the approach of Xander’s Viper. He had entered past the shattered security grate the Ninja had demolished with a single compact missile fired from its arsenal. The entrance lobby, where customers had once been greeted by smiling hosts and hostesses, was now a smoldering mass of shattered metal and splintered wood. There were also two dismembered and barely-recognizable bodies on the floor, and as Xander passed into the main dining room, he found the victims that the video had shown being executed.
After cutting short the recorded message, the Ninja had sped off into the vast arcade arena beyond the dining section.
It’s not easy hiding a six-foot long combat drone within an enclosed space. The noise of the props and the wind they produced could be pinpointed by directional microphones aboard the Viper. Unfortunately, so could Xander’s.
A thin line of white smoke shot out from behind a tall boxing video game, streaking toward Xander’s drone. With skill acquired over a lifetime of drone operation, Xander manipulated four different controls simultaneously and twisted his Viper in such a way that the missile missed it by less than two inches. The pencil-sized mini-rocket impacted the wall above the bowling games, blowing a two-foot wide hole in the concrete block wall.
Xander now sent the Viper screaming through the center of the arcade area, before spinning to his right to come up behind the boxing game. “Charlie, cover on the right!”
“I’m on it!”
They had the Ninja boxed in, right up the point that Fox’s Panther came face-to-face with the evil-grinning black drone. Firing a split second before Fox, the Ninja operator unleashed a barrage of both missiles and lead at the RDC drone. At point blank range, even the tough composite material was no match for the intense fire from the Ninja. The Panther was thrown back by the impacts, four of its prop rings blown off and the flight control module shattered into plastic kindling. The drone fell to the floor and sputtered for a few seconds before the power finally gave out and the last of its spinning props wound down.
“I need a replacement—now!” Charlie Fox cried out.
A new voice spoke into the ears of the team. “Replacement on site—switching now.”
Suddenly Charlie Fox was back in the fight, yet his new drone was still in the area outside the restaurant. He took control of the backup UAV and began the circuitous flight back to the arcade room.
In the meantime, Xander had caught site of the Ninja just as it blasted the Panther to the recycle bin. Now it was his turn to send a burst of .5mm lead into the huge drone, striking against the rear buffer plate that protected the fight controller. The enemy UAV bounced forward from the impact and crashed into a bank of smaller video games. It recovered quickly, managing to do a complete three-sixty loop in the confined space of the arcade. The maneuver was incredible, since drones normally had trouble making vertical loops, even when outside and with plenty of space.
This pilot was good.
Xander was caught off guard by the flip and now found himself ahead of the Ninja with his ass exposed. In the blink of an eye, he took several heavy hits in that region, losing one of his eight props in the process. He could still operate, even though at a slightly reduced speed and having to compensate for the skewed balance of the wounded drone.
The Viper zipped off at near floor level, dodging around rows of video games that all seemed to explode the moment he passed by. The Ninja was bleeding pencil-missiles at an incredible rate, and so far the Viper had survived. Once the grinning UAV ran out of missiles, Xander would have the advantage.
But then the Ninja pilot led the speeding target just enough that the blast and debris from an exploding arcade machine rained down on Xander’s drone. For a moment the Viper was pinned under a large slab of metal, having to scoot along the floor to work its way out.
The Ninja zoomed up to his left, turning its guns on the helpless Viper. There was just a moment’s hesitation before it fired … just long enough for Charlie Fox to lay a barrage of machine gun fire into the Ninja’s right side. When the enemy drone did fire on the Viper, its aim was off slightly as a result of Fox’s gunfire, sparing the RDC defender for the moment. But then the huge enemy drone spun away, and in a flash was back on Charlie’s tail, lighting off the last of its pencil-missiles in his direction.
As before, the lighter-armored Panther broke up and crashed into the ticket redemption case, sending a geyser of glass shards and cheap plastic souvenirs erupting into the air.
What followed was a wild chase between the two major RPAs that began in the arcade arena before ripping through the restaurant and out into the main pedestrian corridors of the Dolphin Mall, the Ninja leading the way and Xander’s Viper right behind. Through swinging movements, the enemy drone managed to avoid the six missiles Xander unleashed in its direction. The missiles exploded into storefronts and freestanding kiosks, sending smoke and debris into the paths of the speeding drones.
Both pilots were top-notch and avoided the obstacles with precision and finesse, and when the Ninja reached the corridor that cut across the mall to the left and back towards the main entrance, it made a steep banking turn and disappeared around a corner. Xander had the mall schematics up on his display, and made a sharp left turn of his own down a narrow side corridor, before steering to the right at another. A split second later, he shot out into the main center concourse just as the Ninja passed by.
With no time to react, the two combat drones collided, tumbling to the right and falling to the polished marble floor, before slamming into a mall directory display. The thin metal-framed sign shattered, barely impeding the path of the careening UAVs.
Both drones came to a rest, at least until their pilots fingered throttles and attempted to take flight once again. But there was problem. The complicated maze of extended prop arms and weapons arrays had become entangled; the two drones were locked together.
Xander gunned his Viper and managed to turn the Ninja on its back. In his teens, he had been one of the top
pilots in the Drone Wars circuit, so he had plenty of experience with what was basically hand-to-hand combat between drones, and turning your enemy on its back was usually a death sentence for your opponent. Yet the Ninja was not your ordinary drone, and the skill of its pilot was exceptional. The grinning black UAV reversed prop rotation—which normal drones weren’t capable of doing—and with the incredible power of the Ninja, Xander’s Viper was lifted into the air before being flipped on its side.
Both drones once again crashed to floor.
“This is some bullshit!” Xander declared. “I’m taking this bastard down!”
Xander gunned the remaining seven operating props of the Viper, sending the death-locked pair of drones scraping along the floor of the mall, and just before slamming into the closed screen of a Sunglass Factory, he angled the Viper up slightly. With the combined thrust from both drones, the pair lifted into the air. Xander continued to press upwards, even as the Ninja attempted to pull to the right. Soon they were nearing the soaring, arched roof of the Dolphin Mall above the wide central concourse.
That was when he detonated his own onboard supply of explosives.
Xander jerked his head back from the sudden shock of perspective change, once again in the confines of the team room at the RDC; however, it only took a second for him to focus on the large screen on his console and the view being transmitted from David Lane’s eye in the sky.
A fiery ball of yellow and black now filled the curved ceiling of the mall. The white structure above broke apart and rained down on the central passageway. Barely visible within the fire, smoke and falling debris, were the remains of the two huge combat drones. Both were in pieces.
“Dang, man,” Charlie Fox commented. “There goes a half million dollars in drones.”
“So bill me,” Xander said softly, as he removed his VR googles and fell back into the pilot’s seat.
“I’ll do the honors, if you don’t mind, boss?” said David Lane, as he maneuvered his small observation drone closer to floor level. He fingered the switch on his controller, giving him access to the mall’s P.A. system. “This is the Rapid Defense Center. The mall is now clear of enemy drones and the threat is over.”
Lane’s drone was now in the central concourse, hovering about fifty feet from the pile of smoking debris that was Xander’s final solution to the Ninja II problem. Xander watched as several dazed civilians crawled out from behind the seating barricades; some recovered quickly and began to cry and hug one another—even complete strangers in most cases. Another group of angry-looking customers approached the Eye. David spun the drone around until he was facing them.
“Local authorities will take over from here, so please don’t leave the mall grounds until statements have been collected. Please obey all further instructions.” Then, as an afterthought, the twenty-two-year old drone pilot added: “And by the way, have a very Merry Christmas.”
The jaws of several of the survivors fell open. “Fat chance, buddy!” one of the male customers called out. “You guys need to do more to stop this kind of thing from happening.”
Several of the others around him began to protest against his statement, while others joined his side of the argument. Within seconds, the entire group was engaged in a heated debate.
“The cops better get here in a hurry,” David said to the team. He then toggled the speaker switch again and addressed the crowd. “Please calm down. The RDC is doing all it can at this time. Rest assured we are constantly upgrading our equipment and capabilities. This could have been much worse had we not responded as we did. Now please calm down. Local police are entering the mall at this time.”
Another man with a wet mop of long hair down past his shoulders stepped up to David’s bot and stared into the camera. “Sounds good, man, but can you do me favor? Can you get them to turn off the damn sprinklers?”
Chapter 2
Xander rubbed temples before letting loose with a hearty stretch. “That has to be one of the biggest this month,” he said to the other two operators at his side. “I count over fifty dead.”
David Lane listened in on his ear comm as someone spoke to him. “Sixty-four so far—only London beats it.”
Xander shook his head. “World-wide, that’s over a hundred drone attacks just this month.”
Charlie Fox placed a hand on Xander’s shoulder. “That’s called job security, man. What else can I say?”
“That’s a sick way to look at it, even if it is true.”
“Chill out, dude. This came right at the end of our shift. Now five days off,” Fox said with a smile. “I’m heading over to San Diego for some surfing. There’s a wicked winter swell coming in. That’s your old hometown, Xander. You want to come along? Let’s go shred some waves together.”
“I’d love to, but they’re calling me back on Monday to meet with a reporter.”
“Damn, how many times can you tell the same story?” David asked.
“I know, but it’s part of the job,” Xander replied. “One of those PR pieces about how we’re protecting the innocent from the terror impacting society these days. After what just happened in Miami, people are going to be even more paranoid than normal. They actually need to hear this stuff.”
“I suppose so, and better you than me, buddy!” Fox said.
At only twenty-one, Fox had grown up with the ever-present threat of remote-control terrorism. Even still, Xander, at thirty-two, wondered how the young man could so easily accept—and reject—the threat facing every human being on the planet. At any given moment, it could be Charlie Fox lying dead at the entrance to a shopping mall somewhere, blindsided by an event that no one could predict or prevent. Yet he seemed to go about life without a care, even though he—better than most—knew the true nature of the danger. The most law enforcement could do was react to the events and limit the damage, while doing very little to prevent them.
Xander checked the clock. From first call to termination of op, the entire Miami event lasted eight minutes and sixteen seconds. That was about average for a non-explosive event. Fortunately, Miami had an ample supply of rapid-response drone bunkers available to answer the call when the time came. If not, the death toll could have been in the hundreds.
As the senior operator on duty—hell, he was the most senior pilot in the entire Center—he would be credited with a successful operation, even though over sixty people died during the attack. The brass in D.C. had a strange set of algorithms that weighed the number of potential victims against the actual casualties, along with the property damage suffered, to determine whether an operation could be deemed a success or not. In Xander’s mind, this one wasn’t, but he knew his supervisors would see it differently.
Xander cringed at the thought, yet when considering the five-thousand, eight hundred and forty-two people killed so far this year by remote assaults, it was a rather low body count, especially when a Ninja was involved. And compared to the days before the RDC was created, it was a marked decrease in casualties, even as the number of attacks grew exponentially each year.
These thoughts didn’t help how Xander Moore felt. He knew another psych eval would be called for soon; it was common in pilots his age. He shook his head. As far as he could recall, neither Fox nor Lane had ever been called in for a follow-up eval, at least not beyond their initial employment screening.
Is the younger generation that jaded, that acclimated to the horror we face every day that it doesn’t bother them anymore? Xander asked himself. Do they really treat their jobs like a video game?
He’d had frank conversations with his appointed shrink about this very topic. Dr. Tricia Ainsworth explained how younger people had the ability to block out the danger they faced by experiencing life in smaller segments, content to act in episodes rather than over the long term. It was a contributing factor why most of them rented rather than owned such things as homes, music, videos and books. They lived for the moment, since without warning it could all come to a sudden and tragic end.
Maybe he felt this paranoia more acutely than the general public because of his job. After all, he faced the reality of this new and growing brand of terrorism every day. It was his responsibility to fight evil acts with equal deadly force, so he ate, slept, and breathed the nightmare. For the vast majority of the world, the reality of this new phase of human debauchery was simply more headlines and news flashes, something others experienced but not them. Even though the danger was real—and they knew it—there was nothing they could do about it personally, so why worry? All they could do was continue living as best they could, content in the knowledge that there were people like Xander Moore out there protecting them. That was all they needed to know, that was all they wanted to know.
Yet the public also had to be constantly reminded of this fact, otherwise they would become restless and demand more security from their leaders. And the politicians knew that if voters felt that their current crop of leaders couldn’t provide that feeling of security, then maybe the next batch could.
Hence another interview to keep the masses placated.
As the Rapid Defense Center’s senior operator—indeed a pioneering member of the drone corps itself—Xander endured these kinds of interviews nearly every month. His identity was protected—that was the paramount condition before an interview would be granted—even though he was becoming somewhat of a shadow celebrity to the media personalities who had access to the Center. His bosses preferred for Xander to present the government’s side of the story rather than some pimple-faced kid barely out of high school. His advanced age—for the profession, anyway—added a layer of credibility to the narrative, and his superiors knew it.