Drone Wars 1: The Beginning

by Mike Whitworth

  "I continued following the truck via old satellite images. It pulled into a ranch not too far from Ten Sleep, Wyoming. The truck left there soon after and headed toward Boise, Idaho; however, the driver was not our target. Therefore, since no other vehicles have left the ranch, our target must be still on the ranch. I have had constant satellite surveillance on the ranch. We are attempting to bounce signals off the windows and decipher what is being said inside the house."

  "Great work! Send me the location data and I will set up the strike."

  Washington, D.C.

  "Yes Mr. President," the secretary of the Department of Interior Security said. "We have ten mini-predator drones in the air and on the way for the strike. They will be there within the hour."

  "Good. Kill that son of a bitch and everybody in the house," the president said. "Let me know when they are dead. There better not be any mix-ups this time. Oh, and send me the film as usual."

  Wyoming, near Ten Sleep

  An alarm sounded from another room. Toni and Doc looked up quickly and immediately got to their feet. Toni looked at me and said, "It's time to go. Let's get moving."

  I got up and followed them to the garage. Doc picked up my bug out bag and my firearms on the way and handed them to me. There was a tricked-out GMC pickup in the garage. It had a full-length bed and a crew cab. The bed had a tonneau cover. The wheels were oversized, and I suspected the engine was as well. Doc got into the driver's seat. That surprised me. For some reason, I had figured Toni would do the driving.

  Doc fired up the truck as I got into the back seat and we roared out of the garage almost before the door was completely open. The rough ranch road that I had driven, at best, at 20 mph, Doc took at over 80 mph. I was afraid for my life.

  When Doc turned onto the paved road he floored it and I noticed that the speedometer rose to 140 mph. Doc drove at that speed nonchalantly. That scared me bad enough. Then I realized the speedometer went to 180 mph. I glanced at Toni. She did not seem the least bit worried.

  We had been driving for about 50 minutes when I saw the drone. I pointed it out to Toni, but she did not seem overly concerned. "That looks like a predator drone," I said. Toni turned leaned back into the back seat area and glanced out the window.

  "I don't think I can shoot these down with this rifle," I said.

  Toni laughed. "I agree with you. Don't worry, we have another way. It's a way that we have not had to use yet, but it was well worth the investment."

  "Only if it works," Doc said.

  "I assume you have tested it somehow?" I asked.

  "It's not as if we have had our hands on mini-predator drones to test it on," Toni said. "I am reasonably sure it will work. At least it should."

  "That is reassuring. Just who are you people?" I asked.

  Doc said, "Sometimes we are not too sure ourselves."

  "I have to admit, I have never met a doctor before who doubles as a race car driver."

  Doc laughed. "Just a hobby."

  DIS Drone Base No. 3, Oklahoma

  The supervisor stood behind the mini-predator drone operators. He watched each screen in turn. For 52 minutes, he anticipated the appearance of the pickup truck that satellite data had shown leaving the ranch. He was beginning to sweat. His superiors wanted this target gone so badly that another five predator drones were on the way to destroy the ranch house, just in case. However, those drones were another supervisor's responsibility. That relieved him, because he could now focus all his attention on removing the target and any other occupants in the truck.

  He had heard that this target destroyed one of the quad-copter assassin drones with nothing but a shotgun. He had not known that was possible. Neither had the design engineers, several of which had already been demoted or fired over that incident. The quad-copter assassin drones were now being redesigned to resist shotgun blasts but it would be quite some time before the new models could be put in the field.

  He didn't think it was possible that anyone could take a mini-predator drone out, despite the fact that Iran had managed to hack and capture a military predator drone a few years ago. However, there was the case just a few hours ago where a target had escaped a predator drone strike. That was a first as well. Things just seemed to be going wrong lately, and he didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

  Then, the pickup truck appeared in the screen. He watched carefully as five of the drones acquired the target and, on his command, all fired at once.

  Chapter 4: GROUND HOUND

  "Nothing is as easy as it seems.” John Debrouillard

  Colorado, The Front Range

  He hitched his small assault pack higher on his back and shifted his rifle to his left hand while he searched for tracks. When he found the partial imprint of a small running shoe, he knelt and sniffed making sure his shoulder cam had a clear view. The scent came clearly to his droid-enhanced nose. It reminded him of slightly sweet, stale sweat with a hint of petunias. The slightly sweet smell was fear. He knew that scent and its variations very well. So far, every one of his targets had given off some form of that scent. The smell of petunias was from the perfume she wore. That scent would stay on her and be detectable by his enhanced nose for weeks.

  He almost laughed out loud when he saw the tracks. There had been no attempt to cover them. He was dealing with an amateur—but then, they all were. Just once, he would like the challenge of targeting a well-trained adversary. So far, he had not encountered one. He stood, sniffed the breeze, and started off after his target with steps as light and easy as a professional dancer.

  He was a tall wiry fellow with closely cropped black hair. A large scar ran almost the entire length of his right forearm. He glanced at the scar and thought, as he often did, that the injury, which at the time he thought might get him booted out of military service, was in fact, his greatest blessing. He remembered.

  He had been on patrol along highway A1 out of Kandahar near the old British fort at Malwand when an IED flipped the Humvee. A big piece of shrapnel sliced his right forearm open to the bone. They medevac’d him and two others back to Kandahar. The other two died and he was sent stateside; he couldn't even remember their names. He knew that military teams were supposed to be tight and loyal to one another, but he didn't like any of the guys on his team. He was glad that two of them had died.

  He was lying in the hospital bed. His arm hurt. They had him doped to the gills with painkillers. Still, the pain was almost unbearable, yet he was alert. The man in the dark suit was surprised to see that.

  "How are you feeling, Corporal?" the man asked.

  "Passable," Greg replied. His military training and natural distrust kept him cautious and wary. In his experience, both in and out of the military, no one who wore a suit was to be trusted.

  The man opened a folder and glanced inside. "Corporal, how would you like the opportunity of a lifetime?"

  His curiosity aroused, he said, "Huh?"

  "You have no living relatives, and you scored exactly as we need on your personality test."

  Greg looked quizzically at the man in the suit. "But they nearly didn't let me in the service," he said. "They said that I was almost a psycho."

  "They were wrong. You are a total psychopath," the man in the suit smiled. "And that is exactly what we need."

  Once he was told about the opportunity and he had accepted their offer, they modified him. The process took over a year. They implanted sensors in his nose and wired them directly to his brain. The sensors increased his ability to detect scents almost on par with that of a bloodhound. He took to that so quickly and so well that they told him he must have been a dog in a previous life.

  In his left eye, the doctors implanted an infrared sensor that allowed him to detect body heat. That one was difficult to learn to use and it left him with an ever so slight blind spot on his left side. Of course, he didn't tell them about that because he feared they wouldn't let him stay in the program.

  In his right eye, the doctors implanted an
automatic device that gave him artificial night vision. As the light outside dimmed, the device kicked in and it was never dark for him. That did negatively impact his three-dimensional vision at night because he had to close his left eye when he used the night vision and his right eye when he used the thermal vision. The tiny batteries for those devices were implanted in his neck. Each was good for a year or more before he needed simple outpatient surgery to replace them.

  And then, when he recovered, there came one year of training in tracking. He liked that. But, what he really liked was the killing. They gave him six weeks of training in how to do the killing. Both he and they knew that the killing was the real reason he had agreed in the first place.

  Now, he was a Federal Ground Hound Striker. He was no longer in the Rangers. In fact, he was no longer in the military at all. The odd thing was that he didn't mind a bit.

  Peggy paused to catch her breath. She was about half a mile up slope from where her car went down the mountain. She was in real trouble, and she knew it. This was the worst scrape she had ever been in. She was pretty sure that if someone would spend tens of thousands of dollars, or more, to try to kill her with a drone, they would spend even more money to make sure the job got done, even though she was only a single insignificant witness to a domestic drone strike. She had no idea who had been in the red car. She told herself she was willing to keep quiet about it, but it didn't seem as if she would be given that opportunity.

  Logically, there must be someone or something else coming after her soon. She didn't think drones would be good at finding her on the wooded mountain slopes, but she wasn't sure. Her knowledge of drone and remote sensing technology was limited. She also thought it was possible, maybe even most likely, that they might send human trackers after her. As far as she knew there were no robots with an adequate operational range to follow her up the mountain.

  When it occurred to her that they might send humans, she at first thought she might be able to reason with them. After a bit of thought, she knew that was extremely unlikely. She wasn't sure how much time she had, but she knew she had to run. Not only run, but also disappear. She didn't think she knew how to do that, but she was determined to try.

  It seemed odd to her that a quote from Robert Heinlein, the science fiction writer, flashed into her mind so clearly that she could see the words on the page:

  "At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that 'news' is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and how he himself is no different—in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness."

  Having a vision that clear was unusual for her, but she was stressed, and she guessed it was not too surprising that stress brings out strange things in people sometimes. She thought about the words that flashed so clearly before her mind's eye. She was someone who had always bought milk and groceries from the store with little thought as to their origin. She had also believed that policemen were there to protect her and other citizens. And now the government—for who else could spend the kind of money that those predator drones cost—was trying to kill her. She didn't think the local police would lift a hand to protect her from that.

  At this point her life depended only on her own resourcefulness, alertness, and agility. She was truly on her own for the first time in her life. She wanted to panic, but she gritted her teeth and kept moving, trying to think about the tidbits she had heard, seen, or read about tracking and wilderness survival. Like most people, she found most of her information came from old TV shows she had watched. Now, she was thankful that her dad had liked the old western reruns so much. She just hoped the writers of those old shows knew what they wrote about.

  She also realized for the first time in her life that knowledge was really hers only when it was available in her own brain. At the moment, she had no books, no internet, and no one to call. She wished she had paid more attention in school and memorized more useful knowledge instead of just letting it wash out of her head while thinking that if she ever needed the information, she could just look it up in a book or on the internet. She also realized for the first time that knowledge alone wasn't enough. Skills had to be practiced to be there quickly when badly needed.

  Peggy pushed ahead, moving more carefully now while she formulated a series of possible plans. Her dad had been a soldier in Vietnam, a Marine she thought, although he very seldom talked about it. She did remember him once saying that no battle plan ever went off exactly as planned. That spurred her to think through as many options as she could come up with. Her mind was now working faster and more clearly than she ever remembered being capable of. She hoped she would be resourceful enough—and lucky enough to survive. Another thing her dad once said was that luck plays a role in any endeavor, although the goal is always to minimize the need for it.

  The Hound strode along at a slow but steady pace. He knew this target would not likely be a challenge, but he enjoyed being outdoors and, most of all, prolonging the anticipation of a kill. He smiled to himself. This one he might even do things to. That was allowed only when there was no chance of discovery. He thought this time would qualify since the location was so remote. It had been quite a while since he last had that opportunity. Such a sweet young girl she had been, and so scared. He could still remember the strong sweet smell of fear that was so uniquely hers. The experience was still fresh in his mind, and he enjoyed reliving it as he stalked yet another target.

  This target was obviously inexperienced. She had made no effort to hide her tracks, and the waffle-sole of her fashionable running shoes made clear prints in the dirt of the trail where it wasn't covered with the forest litter of pine needles and leaves. Where the trail was covered, the scuffmarks allowed him to read her movements like he was reading a book, and one with large print, no less.

  He strode onward but still more slowly than usual. He calculated his target was about two hours ahead of him. He could close that gap in about an hour and a half if he picked up the pace just moderately, but he savored the game and the anticipation.

  He was in the best condition of his life and could run for hours at a time, even in rough terrain, without becoming winded. He often wondered if the regimen of pills and injections that they had him on had anything to do with that? Of course, he didn't care. He loved what he was doing so much that they could do anything they wanted to him as long as he could kill, and sometimes rape, and torture his targets. He smiled. There was nothing he would rather be doing.

  Peggy considered her situation as she walked deeper into the woods. If they sent a tracker, they might use dogs. Somehow then, she must mask her scent and leave no tracks. The problem was that she had no idea how to do either. She did, however, remember one thing that her father had told her. He said that when she didn't know how to do something to just use her brain to figure it out. She thought her only chance of survival now was to be smarter than her pursuers. She knew she was fairly smart from her time in school, but she had never been tested like this. She wasn't sure she would, or even could, succeed, but she was determined to try.

  Now, she was getting mad. She was rapidly getting over the shock and the un-realness of it all, and she was getting madder by the moment. For the first time in her life, she was mad at the people who made up the government. For the first time in her life, she also feared her government. Another quote popped into her mind, and she wondered where she had seen this one before.

  "People who relieve others of their money with guns are called robbers. It does not alter the immorality of the act when the income transfer is carried out by the government.” Cal Thomas

  Now, she understood that every monetary payment by citizens to the government was backed up by the threat of a government gun, and so, increasingly, was infraction of even minor laws punished the same way. She was not sure that was what the Founding Fathers had in mind. In fact
, she was pretty sure it was exactly this they were fighting against during the revolution against English rule.

  Well, if the Founding Fathers could fight, then she could too. The government had already destroyed her life just because they were crooked, but she could not let them win easily. She knew her father would understand, but she wasn't sure about the rest of her family.

  Now to the practical, she thought. How to hide her tracks? She knew that walking in a stream was often used to hide tracks in the western movies she had watched, so it followed that she needed to find a stream. She turned and walked diagonally downslope from the ridge she had been climbing toward the small valley to her right because she knew that streams were almost always in valleys. She was thinking about how to hide her smell as she walked.

  Logically, smell was just the detection of molecules emanating from her skin, from her perfume, etc. which were left behind her in the air. She decided she must stop as many of these molecules as possible from leaving her person. That would be difficult because the shirt and jeans she wore were porous enough for molecules to easily escape. She needed to cover herself in something that had a very low permeability. She remembered from a geology course she was required to take in college that wet clay was smear-able and had a very low permeability. If she could smear clay on thickly enough, it might just work. She started looking for clay as she walked toward the small stream in the incipient mountain valley below.

  She reached the stream and noticed that dusk would be on her in an hour or so. The water was moving quickly, but was not very deep, nor was the stream very wide, only six feet across at its widest point.

  She strode into the stream without hesitation and began walking downstream because the wind was blowing more in that direction and she figured it would be harder for any bloodhounds to follow her. After a while, she found some grayish clay in the stream bank. She didn't know what type of clay it was, but she knew it was clay. It would have to do.