by M. Lorrox
Charlie gives Gabriel a firm handshake. “Better get moving.” Gabriel nods, then shakes everyone else’s hand—or in Eddy’s case, pats him on the shoulder—before jogging into the forest.
Eddy takes a step forward. “Where should I be? On the turret we put together?”
Owen shakes his head. “No, I could use you in the cockpit. And if we have incoming—depending on how things are going—we’ll either take position at the guard stations or pull back to the patrol boat.”
Balena, finally able to walk, turns to Hecate. “You’re staying behind too, right?”
She nods. “I’d be too slow, and to use my urumi blades, I really need mobility.” She motions to Owen and Eddy. “Besides, somebody’s gotta look after these two.”
Charlie nods. “Balena, Ghost, you’re with me. Let’s do this.”
They all hug, then Hecate, Owen, and Eddy get in the inflatable boat with Ensign Jessie. The twenty-something shakes her head. “I don’t know what all you are doing or what this is all about, but shit. I’ll tell ya, I’ve got the tingles, bro.”
Eddy nods, realizing that he might be the most surprising element of the team—a fifteen-year-old in an army uniform without hands. “Tell your gunners to watch the skies; shit’s gonna get weird.”
When they board the Ghost attack boat, Eddy reads aloud the complicated set of systems bypass instructions for Owen. He follows them as he starts up some undamaged systems, and he reads back the various warning messages the boat spits out. While they’re working in the cockpit, further aft, Hecate unlatches the panel to climb into what used to be a fully automated Anti-Surface Warfare weapons pod.
On the tourist helicopter—that now lacks all doors and all windows except for those directly in front of the pilot—Balena climbs into the back over their stacked equipment. Charlie takes the pilot’s position in the front, and Ghost sits next to him. They put on the helicopter’s helmets and turn on the short-wave communication radios and speakers set into each one.
Ghost looks out and imagines being hundreds of feet in the air in an open cockpit. She gulps and straps herself in, then she starts bouncing her knee.
Charlie is running through the controls one more time in his head, and her knee catches his eye. “You alright, Ghost?”
She shakes her head.
Charlie sets a hand on her shoulder and leans to her. He whispers, “You can do this… Find your strength.”
She takes a deep breath and smells a hint of charcoal on the breeze. Naga and Ricochet’s pyre. You both are with me now, right? I’ll finish this for you, don’t you worry. She stops her knee and looks at Charlie. She squints and can’t help but snarl. “I think it’s time we finish this.”
Charlie lets his optimistic façade drop away. “Ghost, Balena, are we ready? We’ve only got one shot, and if we mess up, we’ll probably be eating exploding drone for breakfast.”
They both answer in unison. “Yes, sir.”
Charlie takes one last, calming breath. He glances out the open side of the helicopter to the far mountain lit by the morning sun. Another beautiful day that wants to kill me.
Inside The Plant, July wakes up facing the same mountain view. She stretches and notices that Mary is awake in her bed on the other side of the room.
“Good morning, July.”
Her eyes sting, and she rubs them. “Good morning... Today’s going to be an exciting day...”
Mary nods. “I believe you’re right… The guards dropped off some clothes for you—they’re just inside the door.”
July glances over. “Okay.”
“After you’re dressed, will you come sit with me?”
In SeCComm, Hector screams orders, “Where the fuck is Andre? Operators, launch half of our remaining drones! Patrol the valley but don’t cross into that boat’s range! Ready the other half to rotate in when batteries die! Where’s Andre?”
He sprints into the room and leaps to his desk. “Here, sir! Just got another two drones ready for you!”
Hector sighs. “Fine.” He points to a monitor with a green-laser pointer. “What the hell did they load on the helicopter? Can we enlarge the shot from the mountain camera?”
On one of the dozens of screens on the wall, the image of a long, black object is loaded across the tourist helicopter. “That’s the best we can do, sir.”
“What the hell is it?” Hector scowls, and no one answers because no one knows. He enters some commands on his console, then he flips a switch on a microphone.
-Diiinggg- A tone sounds through every speaker in The Plant as red warning lights in every room spin. “Prepare for incoming attack. All security personnel report to your stations. All floor managers secure your areas. All other staff are to shelter in place.”
Hector flips the switch off, enters some new commands, then pages the intercom in the biotechnology lab.
After a few long seconds, Dr. Trinn Soun’s quaking voice comes through a small speaker on Hector’s desk. “Biotech.”
“This is SeCComm. Are you finished with production yet?”
“We’re on schedule. Just mixing the solution now.”
“Prep it to move. I’ll be there in a few minutes to grab it.”
“Uh, okay. Yes, sir.”
Trinn’s heart races. “Stay calm everybody. We all knew there’d be risks in making a new world, just complete the work, SeCComm will keep us safe.”
Anne rushes to her side. “How can I help?”
Trinn smiles at her. “We need some sort of container. Grab some... I…I dunno.”
Anne rushes away. “On it.”
Charlie spins up the rotors, and while holding his breath, he lifts off the ground. Without doors or windows, the sound from the engine and from the rotors beating the air is almost deafening to the vampires, even through their noise-blocking helmets. Their hearing, however, is low on the list of their current concerns. At first, the helicopter slowly drifts to the side—to trees twenty yards away. Then, the helicopter moves toward them faster. “I got it, hold on!” Charlie corrects, and they hover. “Okay, here goes nothing.”
He lifts higher, but only fifty feet off the ground. He rotates the helicopter, then he flies over the attack boat. Ahead of them, Bligh Sound angles southeast. They follow the valley, then a river. As soon as the massive facility high on the mountainside comes into view, Charlie twists the collective and lifts the helicopter straight up. He rotates the nose so it’s pointed back the way they came, so that Ghost and Balena both face the facility out the starboard side.
The helicopter is out-of-view from both boats, and so, unless bullets fired from the boats can tunnel straight through mountain, it’s no longer protected.
A dozen drones circle the facility, but they don’t engage with the helicopter. Charlie presses the cyclic toward Ghost—toward the facility—and the helicopter begins to fly sideways in that direction.
Hector shakes his head at a monitor that shows the helicopter’s approach. “What the fuck are they doing? They’re presenting a huge target... Operators, get ready to engage.”
Balena turns on the jammer device, which has been strapped to her M4 rifle. She checks that she’s in single shot mode, and that she has spare magazines prepped and propped up for her to grab. “Colonel. I’m ready.”
Ghost also readies a device in her hands, but it’s not much more than a circuit board, wires, a tube, and a small monitor. “Gotta get closer. A lot closer.”
Charlie nods. “I know, I know. But an old friend once told me, ‘Drastic in a helicopter equals fiery death.’ So I’m taking it easy.” He glances toward the facility and smiles that a third of the drones on patrol are now approaching. “Besides, better they come to us!”
Owen removed the jammer’s trigger, so now, it activates automatically with the power switch. Balena checks that it’s on. She puts her finger on the rifle’s
trigger, and she aims at the closest drone. “Damn. They’re still out of range! To jam the tower’s signal, we’re going to have to get right on top of them!” And I’ll have to be real fast to put them down.
Hector laughs. “Alright, these idiots aren’t calling off the attack. Blow ’em the fuck up.”
Ghost aims the tube in her hands and watches the monitor. “Still way too far.” She glances up. “Incoming!”
Balena still aims at the closest unit, but with every microsecond, the drones—and their bombs—get closer to the helicopter. She feels a drop of sweat rolling down her forehead, but she doesn’t break her concentration.
Buckets of sweat pour down Charlie’s face and from every other pore on his body. Still, he doesn’t dare make any movement that isn’t a very controlled lean on the cyclic or the slight adjustments on the pedals to keep the broadside of the helicopter facing the facility.
The front drone still flies toward them, and Balena decides she’s had enough waiting. “Out of range but firing anyway!” -Kitchew!-
Her bullet lands, and the drone explodes in the distance. She aims at the next closest drone, then groans. They’re all now flying evasively. “Goddamn it! If they get around to the other side—”
Charlie grimaces. “You’ll just have to be fast!”
She unbuckles herself, then aims and tracks the next closest drone with her gun and the jammer. When it stops moving, Balena immediately fires and blows it up. “Game on!” She aims again at a swooping drone, it freezes, and she takes it out too.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!” Hector pounds his desk. “I said EVASIVE, they’re taking you out with one shot!”
Paul Baudin shakes his head. “Sorry, sir, we’ll swing wide.”
Hector checks the Unit Overlay monitor. “Send the rest on patrol in and overwhelm them. Prepare to send the second batch in after them.”
Andre Cojocaru can’t believe his ears. “That’ll be all we have prepped up!”
“Do it and prep some more, goddamn it!”
Balena tracks a drone as it drops low to fly beneath the helicopter, and she leans out the open door to fire at it. When its erratic flying pauses, she takes it out. “Five down!”
Ghost watches the monitor set on her lap. “Closer!” She looks toward the facility and blinks to make sure her eyes aren’t playing a trick on her. “The other drones are breaking patrol and are flying wild!” She turns to Charlie. “You gotta get us closer! NOW!”
He pushes the cyclic, and the helicopter leans almost thirty degrees to the side, the rotors pulling them hard toward the facility. Balena almost falls out of the helicopter, but she catches herself and wedges a foot beside the door to help her maintain control. She aims at a fast approaching drone, but the helicopter’s tilted rotors are in her way. “We need altitude! NOW!”
Charlie twists the collective like it was a motorcycle’s throttle, only to realize that they are VERY DIFFERENT. The helicopter’s engine screeches as the machine lurches upward, giving every passenger a gut-sucking surprise.
“In range! Hold position!” Ghost pulls a flare gun from a pouch, and in a flash, she extends her arm with the gun out the window and in line with the nose of the helicopter. She aims up and out, just past the helicopter’s rotors, and fires a bright, red flare. She starts counting. “Ten!”
Out their window, Mary and July watch the spectacle of the helicopter and the attacking—and exploding—drones. “July, do you know what they’re doing?”
“No.” She motions out the window. “I mean, the team I came with didn’t have a helicopter.”
Mary sighs. “I have to admit, July, I’m feeling very nervous.”
July turns to her and studies her. That’s odd. “You are? I can’t really tell... Why?”
“Why am I nervous? Well, to me, it feels like a showdown of sorts is on its way.” She shakes her head. “People are going to die.”
Oh, there it is, she’s pulsing yellow... She’s probably right, but people always die.
“I’m afraid that I’ll not be able to protect you... Well, if the time comes for that, and I’m afraid it will.”
July smiles while shaking her head. “I don’t need protecting, but I’ll protect you.”
“You will?” She leans over the girl and looks into her odd green-and-silver eyes. She whispers, “You promise?”
“Yes. Of course.” She turns back out the window, to the helicopter approaching sideways.
Mary has a blanket over her right shoulder that trails low, past her waist, and she steps behind July. She drapes her left arm across her and pulls her close. “You know, you remind me of my daughter. She was so brave.”
With two scarred arms and hands, July hugs Mary’s arm to her chest. “I don’t remember much of my mom, but she was warm and caring, just like you. I’m so glad I found you.”
Mary nods. “So am I.” She starts to hum the old song again, and she can feel July’s breathing slow and her body relax. So am I.
On top of the attack boat, Hecate searches the sky for the signal flare. The instant she sees it, she slams a piece of metal against the boat. Using her kung fu voice, she yells as loud as she can, “FLARE!” Then she limp-hops on her blown apart leg to the raised weapons pod.
In the cockpit, Eddy’s heart rate jumps a dozen beats per minute. “Ten.”
Owen picks up the radio and holds down the button. “Commencing Operation Rimshot.”
“Nine.”
Owen flips up a switch cover, and on the Griffin missile system’s interface, a red border begins to flash. “Armed.”
“Eight.”
Owen glances at Eddy. “Sure hope this works.”
He nods. “Seven.”
Owen checks one last time that the system is in the right targeting mode.
“Six.”
He checks that the initial-firing vector will put the missile over the mountain and point it at the facility.
“Five.”
Ghost counts while aiming the tube-shaped device and watching the monitor. “Four! Hold it still! Three!”
Charlie grimaces while he tries to offset the inconsistent wind with slight adjustments on the cyclic. Balena takes out another drone. “The next batch is circling around!”
“Two!”
“I can’t take them all!” Balena twists around and aims at a drone approaching from the other side.
Hecate crouches down on the roof of the boat, facing away from the weapons pod, covering her ears.
“One!” Eddy subdues his urge to inhale at the bottom of his breath.
“Fire!” Owen pushes the button.
Up on the roof of the attack boat, Hecate waits as nothing happens.
Owen stares at the monitor.
Eddy glances to him, then the monitor, then back to Owen. “What happened?”
“I dunno...” He pushes the button to fire again, and he holds it down.
A small electrical charge is sent to the Griffin missile system’s launching mechanism. It reaches a relay. There, the small input current travels through a coil of wire—an electromagnet—and produces a magnetic field. This field then acts over a small distance and pulls an electrode toward a terminal. The electrode is held away from the terminal by a small spring, and the magnetic force is meant to overpower the spring to complete the circuit—the circuit of higher voltage that triggers the missile’s starter motor.
But that didn’t happen the first time Owen pressed the button to fire, and it doesn’t happen now. The input voltage reaching the relay is too low because there’s a short in the torn-apart and rebuilt system.
This wouldn’t happen in a normal combat situation, because no soldier in their right mind would hack a precision guided missile system in the field. If for whatever reason a missile didn’t fire in combat, the soldier operating the system would just fire
off the next missile in the pod, or switch to another pod entirely. Unfortunately, the next missile in the weapons pod the Ghost attack boat has won’t do any good—the team only had enough of the powerful HMX explosives to fill one missile’s warhead. That missile, armed and ready, is sitting in its tube, waiting for a fifteen-cent relay to complete a circuit.
“Hold it still!” Ghost puts all her effort into painting the tower with the disassembled then reassembled Griffin missile infrared-laser targeting system, and she expects to see a missile fly past them at any moment.
Balena takes out another drone. “I can’t hold them for much longer!”
Ghost swallows. “Colonel?”
Charlie doesn’t flinch. “Keep it painted! As long as it takes!”
Hecate pops up and spins to look at the tubes that hold the Griffin missiles. Something’s wrong... No time to fuck around! She takes the piece of metal that she used to signal Owen and Eddy in the cockpit, and she swings it like a baseball bat into the base of the missile pod. -CLANG-
The impact is enough to jostle the electrode. Owen is still holding down the button that sends voltage to the relay, and when the electrode is closer to the magnetic field, the spring is overpowered, and the firing circuit is completed.
-WHHOOOOSSSHHH!- The missile blasts away and shoots sparks and flame out the back of the missile tube—right onto Hecate’s shoulder, chest, neck, and one side of her face.
She crumples to the boat as the missile flies into the sky.
Charlie sees the missile blasting into the air to his side. “HOLD!”
Ghost tenses every muscle and paints the tower with the infrared laser.
Balena takes out another drone and swallows. She knows that three others are approaching from different directions, and that there’s no way in hell she could ever hope to take them all.
The missile sees the bounced infrared laser light, and it angles its trajectory to strike the two-meter-wide target.