by T. R. Harris
Maintaining this new course, Xander gunned the hoverbike and sped away. He switched the toggle control to that of the second Talon missile which was now in a long looping circle high overhead. He placed the targeting circle on the remaining enemy drone and brought the missile screaming down from almost directly above the Maverick. Even without the explosive charge, the tremendous collision would have destroyed the drone, which didn’t even see the missile dropping on it from the heavens.
“Good job!” Tiffany yelled from the rear seat. “I hope there aren’t any more of those bastards out here.”
“Even if there aren’t, it’s a sure bet they reported our leaving.”
“So what? I’m sure they didn’t expect to kill everyone at the Center. They had to assume some people would survive.”
“You’re right.” Xander looked out at the sides of the narrow desert canyon they now traveled, heading east. The mountain would soon taper out and they would be in the vast, flat desert heading out towards Lake Meade. He looked at the power gauge.
“We’re going to have to find an alternative mode of transportation pretty soon,” he called back over his shoulder. “This thing is just about out of juice.”
“Any ideas?”
“Yeah, one. I hope we can make it.”
********
Six minutes later, the hoverbike hopped over a short, barbed-wire topped fence and closed on a cluster of small hangars isolated at the northeast edge of Nellis Air Force Base. Xander slowed the vehicle as it swept in over an expanse of white concrete leading up to the largest of the four buildings.
As he set the bike on the surface and shut down the motors, a young airman in blue and black camo fatigues and armed with an HK M27 infantry rifle appeared at a small door set to the left of the hangar door. He had the weapon leveled at them.
“Stop where you are!” he commanded. “I will shoot.”
Xander raised his arms. Tiffany followed with the same gesture a second later. “Relax, Airman, I’m with the RDC.”
“This isn’t RDC property. You shouldn’t be here.”
“We escaped from the Center, and I assume by now you know what’s going on.”
The young man motioned with the barrel of his rifle to his right, toward the main part of Nellis AFB located five miles away. “Oh yeah, I know what’s going on.”
Xander and Tiffany looked to their left as well, where they saw a wide curtain of black smoke rising up in a line.
“They took out the whole flight line in a matter of seconds. Came out of a couple of semi tractor-trailers out on North Las Vegas Boulevard, tiny things with bombs that hopped the fence and slammed into the helos and planes—mainly the helos. Some of the jets got away, but what can they do against little basketball-size things?”
“What are you doing here?” Xander asked.
“This is my emergency duty station. I’m supposed to have backup, but no one else came.”
“Lower your weapon, son,” Xander said. It was the first time he’d ever addressed someone as “son.” It just sounded right for the moment.
“You’re on a drone of some kind. How do I know you’re not one of them?”
“Think about it. All the attacking drones are unmanned, with their pilots hiding away somewhere else. We’re here, in the open. C’mon, we’re all on the same side here.”
Slowly the scared airman lowered his weapon. Xander and Tiffany slipped off the hoverbike and approached the hangar. “I’m Xander Moore, senior pilot for the Rapid Defense Center.”
“Sam Nash, Airman First Class.” He looked at the disheveled Tiffany Collins.
She reached out her hand to the airman. “Tiffany Collins, Fox News.”
“Oh my God, I recognize you!”
Even in her current physical state, Tiffany melted the young man with her smile.
Xander poked his head inside the hangar. “This is General McKinney’s private hangar, isn’t it?”
“I believe so.”
The three of them moved inside. The only thing in the hangar was a tall, oblong object covered by a large green tarp. Xander walked up to the tarp and pulled. With some effort, the heavy canvas began to slide off.
********
“What the hell is that?” Tiffany asked.
“That’s the latest in hovercopter technology—the Jarvis XV-9. I’ve been helping the general with some of the fine tuning. It’s a prototype.”
What they were looking at was an odd helicopter-like vehicle standing about twelve feet high. It sported six huge ringed propellers running along a line of three on each side, with a huge, clear plastic dome underneath. A sleek fiberglass fuselage ran back from the passenger dome and helped support the aft rotors. All the props were horizontally oriented and there was no tail rotor, as was typical of standard helicopters.
“That’s one big-ass drone!” Tiffany exclaimed. “It really flies?”
“That it does, and at nearly two-hundred fifty miles per hour.”
Xander noticed a long, orange power cable running from under the fiberglass body to a boxy power source against the wall. “Mr. Nash, could you open the hangar doors while I unhook the power cable?”
“I can’t let you take it. You said it belongs to the general.”
“I’m just going to borrow it. Besides, it will be safer with me. If it stays here it could be destroyed in the next wave of drone attacks.”
“I don’t know, man…”
Tiffany stepped up to the airman. “It will be all right. You can come with us. The general will be glad that you saved his prized toy from destruction.”
Sam gave a sheepish grin and then moved to the hangar doors. He pulled on the chains and the door began to rise. The hangar was facing due west and the setting desert sun flooded the chamber, temporarily blinding the three occupants. Xander unhooked the power cord and let it spin back into its holding compartment within the hovercopter.
Airman Sam Nash stood to the side of the large opening, silhouetted by the brilliant sunset. “Can you tell me what’s going on, Mr. Moore? I thought you guys were supposed to prevent things like this from hap—”
In an instant, the young man was perforated at mid-torso by a powerful blast of gunfire. He fell to the concrete floor, the top half of his body barely attached to the rest.
“Get in!” Xander yelled to Tiffany as he pulled open the left side door to the passenger dome. The reporter was only a few feet away, and she was inside the compartment in two seconds flat.
Xander flicked the switches that activated the rotors. Being electric, they didn’t require any warm-up; they spun to power a second later. Without bothering to buckle in, he pressed the controls forward and the strange-looking craft began to move forward, scraping across the concrete floor on metal skids.
Squinting into the afternoon sun, Xander saw five small black dots in the glare. There were tiny sparks coming out of them, and an instant later bullets ricocheted off the thick plastic bubble. A small spider web series of cracks appeared just below Xander’s pilot seat.
Then he was clear of the doorway and gunning the throttle, while also pulling back on the control stick, sending the odd-looking craft climbing into the sky.
More bullets impacted the undercarriage of the hovercopter, yet a quick glance at the control panel showed that nothing was awry. They continued to climb.
Glancing over his left shoulder, Xander caught sight of the small flight of enemy drones below. They were rapidly falling behind, and for a moment Xander thought they were home free. Then he saw multiple puffs of white smoke, followed by lengthening contrails.
The hovercopter could easily outrun the drones—what it couldn’t do was outrun missiles.
They were at nearly three thousand feet and climbing, the six missile trails streaking closer. Xander banked the copter sharply to the left, a movement that sent the unrestrained Tiffany Collins spilling into his lap.
“Dammit, Tiffany!”
“It’s not my fault!”
R
estricted from fully actuating the controls, the hovercopter continued to turn to the left, forming a full circle before Tiffany could extricate herself from Xander. She fought to quickly fasten the waist strap before Xander sent the craft into another wide spin.
The first missile shot past, missing them by twenty feet. Now it was Xander’s turn to fasten his seatbelt. Afterwards, he banked the copter sharply to the right, just as another missile whizzed past.
He noticed high above that the first missile was now changing course and heading back toward them, while another array of white smoke trails approached from beneath.
“Is your life insurance paid up?” he managed to call out.
Tiffany looked over at him and opened her mouth to reply, when Xander suddenly tilted the hovercopter straight up while applying maximum power to the rotors. They both felt their stomachs rise up into their throats as the craft continued along its arc, until it was on the horizontal again, but now upside down.
The hovercopter was not designed for such a maneuver. It stalled at the zenith and began to fall straight down toward the desert floor, now a mile below. Tiffany’s yelp was ear-piercing as the craft began to tumble to the right. It nosed down and began to spin headfirst toward the ground. Xander barely noticed as the remaining missiles shot past, completely off target, the pilots taken off guard by Xander’s radical move—whether intended or not—unable to follow his descent.
Gripping the central control stick with both hands, Xander fought to find the right combination of twists and turns that would right the craft. Most of his efforts resulted in only heavier spinning. Then they came out, yet still aimed toward the surface at a nearly a ninety-degree angle. Xander pulled back on the stick, with little effect. He cut the four rear propellers. The tail end of the hovercopter began to drop as the two front rotors continued to fight against the step angle of descent. Slowly, the hovercopter began to pull out of the dive.
Straining even more, Xander felt as if the control stick was about to break off in his hands. He glanced at the altimeter: five hundred feet … four hundred … three hundred…
The rate of descent began to slow as the propellers began to bite the air. Xander activated the four rear rotors again, and at a mere sixty feet above the surface the craft was once again on the horizontal.
“I think I peed my pants,” Tiffany muttered from the passenger seat.
“A little too much information, madam reporter,” Xander said once he could breathe again. He glanced out through the dome of the hovercopter to see if he could spot the enemy drones. In that brief moment, he couldn’t, but he knew they were still out there, even though their propellant load would be exhausted within seconds. But others could be launched. Xander gunned the throttle and set off east away from the Center.
Chapter 8
The sun was just now hiding behind the mountains to the west and the landscape around them was growing darker. Xander Moore piloted the strange-looking hovercopter just above the ground, skimming a scant fifty feet above the desert floor. The damn craft had regulation running lights, which was something he couldn’t override, so there was a chance the trailing drones could spot the alternating green and red. He cranked the speed up to two hundred miles per hour.
Five minutes later, he made a wide turn to the right and entered a series of low canyons along the mountains between Las Vegas and Lake Meade, heading due south. A few minutes later—and with no sign of a tail—he came up on East Lake Meade Parkway, the main road between Henderson and the lake, and followed it west.
During most of the short trip, Tiffany rested her head against the side of the plastic dome, watching the scene fly past below. Xander had gained more altitude, zipping along at around eight hundred feet above the surface.
He took the craft’s radio and fingered the controls. Nothing, just dead air. He tried it again.
“It doesn’t work?”
“One of the bullets must have hit the antenna or the unit itself. Ain’t that some bad luck? That’s all right. We’re only about three minutes from my house, and I’ll call someone when we get there.”
It was an eerie sight from the air, looking out at the wide expanse of the suburban city below. Henderson was the fairly upscale southern enclave of Las Vegas, featuring the huge planned-community of Anthem, and even though it was growing dark, they could easily spot the numerous—and seemingly random—towers of black smoke rising into the air. North, towards Las Vegas, many of the plumes were located near downtown, where the rapid-response bunkers had been located. Yet there were also columns of smoke rising from up from the Summerlin area to the west, as well as several more to the south, including an inordinate number of columns in the area where his home was located.
“Why all the fires? Did you guys have bunkers located in this many places around the city?” Tiffany asked.
“No, we didn’t.” His tone was sour as he spoke the words. “The Las Vegas-Henderson area only had eleven bunkers, and mainly concentrated downtown.”
“So what’s causing all these fires?”
For an answer, Xander approached a large column of black smoke rising up from a home located on a shallow bluff and overlooking the southeastern side of a perfectly manicured desert golf course. He brought the copter into a hover about three hundred feet above the fully-engulfed structure, a fire which had now jumped to the neighboring house to the north. No fire trucks were on the street outside, just a gaggle of stunned spectators and the frantic occupants of the neighboring house trying to save their home.
What was shocking was that half the huge, single-story home below was completely gone, and not from the fire, but from what appeared to be a giant explosion. Debris trails fanned out from the point of the detonation; the raging fire was in the remaining part of the building, since there was very little left where the bomb or missile had struck.
Tiffany was engrossed in the fiery scene below, until she suddenly pulled her attention away from the side of the clear plastic dome and turned it to Xander. “Is that your home?” she asked breathlessly.
“It was,” Xander replied in a whisper.
“I am so sorry, Xander. But why would they attack your home?”
“Because they’re going after all the RDC pilots. Along with the attack, information on all the Center’s operations, security protocols and personnel was blasted all over the Internet today. Each of those smoke plumes is where a pilot and his family lived.”
“Oh my God. Are you married? Were there any children at home?”
“Bachelor,” Xander answered. “But most of the others are married and do have children. I don’t think the terrorists give a damn about that.”
“But why destroy your home? You weren’t even there.”
“I was supposed to be. Whoever did this—whoever leaked the information about the Center—knows our schedules. The homes of those on duty weren’t targeted, just those who weren’t.”
“That kind of information would have to come from someone inside the RDC, unless you were hacked.”
“We weren’t hacked, Tiffany. Whoever helped coordinate this attack is one of us.”
They began to hear small arms fire—and even rifle shot—from below. Looking down, they noticed that a number of the occupants of Cedar Lane had taken up arms against the odd, hovering craft. In light of all that had happened today, any strange craft in the air was considered a threat.
Xander gained more altitude, taking them out of range.
“What now?” Tiffany asked.
“I don’t know. Eventually the bad guys will learn that I wasn’t home. I’m sure that part of their overall strategy involved taking out every RDC pilot they can. It’s been the ongoing goal of a number of terrorist organizations since we began operating. Without the RDC to help combat further attacks, they’ll probably just keep coming until they get us all.”
“Is there anywhere you can hide until this blows over?”
“Blows over? You really think this will just blow over?”
“There will be interim steps taken, but we’re still looking at several weeks before even a modest defense can be mounted. In the meantime, the terrorists will have free rein throughout the country.”
“What about the other bunkers across the country. You have literally thousands of drones available, don’t you?”
Xander set the hovercopter off on a course south, towards the California/Nevada border. He was tired of watching his home burn to the ground.
“The drones in the bunkers are basically useless right now,” he said. “We have some very restrictive transponder signals that pass between the drones and the command center. Without those transponder signals being activated, the drones will not respond to commands, not without lengthy and exhaustive reprogramming. They were designed so they couldn’t be hacked or their controls overridden. With the mainframes destroyed and our communications capabilities gone, there’s no way to gain control over the drones in the bunkers.”
“So they cut off the head of the snake…” Tiffany said.
“They knew what to do and how to do it.”
“Coming back to my original question: Is there any place you can hide, at least until you can get in touch with the government for protection?”
“I know a few people in San Diego, but that would only expose them to danger, too.”
“I have a place up in Idyllwild that you could stay at.”
Xander looked over at the woman. “That would place you in danger.”
Tiffany grinned—a wide, clown-like grin. “As if I’m not already in enough trouble? Just look at me, I’m a mess. It’ll be fine. The cabin is secluded and no one even knows I have it. It’s been in my family for twenty years. I use it as a refuge when I need a break from real life—like now!”