by James Evans
Beyond about thirty metres, the tiny drones were near invisible unless silhouetted against just the right material or given away by a glint of sunlight. In the evening, they would find somewhere to land each of the micro-drones, high up away from passers-by and sheltered from the wind and prying eyes. New Bristol was replete with cliffs, ravines and rocky escarpments filled with nooks and crannies that made ideal drone roosts. They parked the long-range drones too, resting the batteries and allowing them to recharge in the evening sun.
Some of the larger, long-range drones were used as motherships for the micro-drones. To scout a new area, they would launch a long-range drone carrying dozens of micro-drones. At top speed, the mothership could be two hundred kilometres away in an hour, at which point it would release its micro-drones and find somewhere safe to hide until it was needed again.
So that was the rhythm of the teams’ days. They would fly larger drones in the patterns laid out on the Grid, deposit micro-drones at safe locations, and then use the micro-drones to explore anything they thought was suspicious. They had started with all the buildings, of course, but now they were out there, exploring the far reaches of New Bristol.
The last duty in their portfolio, other than to raise the alarm if they encountered any of the Deathless that still roamed the planet, was to leave surveillance sensors at certain sites, starting with the buildings. These were tiny packages that were static and could be carried by certain models of the micro-drones. They were left atop buildings, in the mouths of caves, at either end of ravines large enough to conceal troop carriers and anywhere else that looked like it might be of interest to the enemy. How many you could deposit in an hour was a matter of pride amongst the pilots, as was demonstrating that they’d found the smartest hiding places.
Whenever a surveillance sensor was approached, the location would ping on the Grid’s vidscreens and a real-time video would be displayed. Often they saw grinning Marines or members of the militia waving at them, but mostly, if the pilot had done their job well, the system just logged someone moving past the unseen drone, unaware of its existence.
Early on, someone had rigged an extra vidscreen as a scoreboard, and now it showed the number of unobserved interactions logged against each pilot’s drones. Luke had taken an early lead with Priscilla getting no higher than sixth place, but Debbie had blown past them all and was now so far ahead that nobody was even trying to catch up.
The pilots had evolved a solid daily routine. If it hadn’t been for the clock on the wall counting down to the expected arrival of more Deathless invaders, the work of monitoring the area around Ashton would have become boring. Soon, Priscilla knew, the mission would change from observing the landscape to following the invasion forces and reporting on their movements. Keeping the HUD maps of the Marines and militia up to date would help keep everyone safe, including the relatives who were out there fighting to defend New Bristol. Priscilla pushed that thought from her mind, focussing on the job at hand whenever she found herself worrying about the future.
“We think we should train the pilots to run close reconnaissance operations,” Priscilla had announced one day after the morning briefing with Corporal Wilson. “We might want to stay close to the Deathless and watch what they’re doing. If we’ve practised before they arrive…?”
So Wilson and Ten had worked out a training regime that consisted of setting the pilots to follow the Marines and militia around. That was really fun, and every time a drone was spotted, the pilot lost points.
“If you’re spotted,” Corporal Wilson had said, “your drone is toast, so stay close but be careful not to get too close, or you’ll run out of drones.” And that had given Priscilla another problem to worry about, one whose solution had come from an unexpected direction.
They hit their production quota earlier than expected, and Luke had sought her out in the break room to ask meekly if they should have more drones, just in case any were destroyed. It was the end of a long day and everyone was tired, but Priscilla called the team together for a meeting and they discussed their options in a surprisingly calm manner.
At the end of the meeting, Priscilla had asked for a show of hands and the teams had unanimously voted to keep building drones in the evenings and while they weren’t actively monitoring the drones that were flying on autopilot. That way they’d never run out. If anything, they’d worked harder and faster. They now had plenty of raw material to supply the fabricators, and building the micro-drones only required them to clip together a few parts.
Then Jenny had suggested they could try building some of their own designs.
“Like the racing drones?” Priscilla had asked.
“I thought maybe something more useful?” said Jenny, grinning. “What about a large drone that could bring a wounded person back to the base for treatment? Or one that could deliver ammunition?”
That had got everyone excited, and Priscilla had agreed that the teams could work on their own drones during their downtime if they focussed on the Marines’ combat drones and the long-range drones during their shifts. Priscilla particularly liked the idea of the stretcher drone, which a whole team were now working on, and by now they could put together a micro-drone in between taking bites of a sandwich. With luck, they would finish some of their creations before the Deathless arrived.
Priscilla turned her attention away from the assembly benches and back to the Grid, where her list of repeating tasks was waiting to be checked off. Nothing out of the ordinary, as usual. Good, but boring. She leaned back in her chair and smiled, things were going really well.
Then an alarm sounded and she almost jumped out of her skin. But it wasn’t the alarm that summoned Corporal Wilson or the duty liaison officer. It was the team’s internal alarm, one that said someone had found something of interest.
“What have you got, Jenny?” she called as she hurried over to her desk.
“Nothing good, boss, nothing good.”
“What do you think?”
“Is this the best imagery we’ve got?” Priscilla asked again, knowing the answer.
“Yes,” Jenny replied, “it was only because I was pushing out Debbie’s new airship drone that I saw it. It’s twice the size of the others, a fair bit faster and it’s got extra cameras. You still get the big overview, but you also get a view of space at night, an infrared view and a camera with a halfway decent zoom.”
“Okay, okay, I get it, it’s a fancy new drone. But what is it you’ve found, Jenny?” She pointed at what could only be described as a large, slightly shiny hill.
“I’m getting to that. I was looking for somewhere we hadn’t got an airship so we could test it out, and that’s when I saw this,” said Jenny, flicking a moving image to her screen as the drone moved into its stationary position.
“No, I missed it. Play it again.”
Jenny replayed the footage and waved a cursor over it. “Look here, three, two, one and flash!” She was quite animated, gesturing at the screen with excitement. “It’s a glint of something shiny. So that’s when I tried the new camera with the zoom. I had the drone do a few passes so we could shoot it from different angles, and look!”
She smiled up at Priscilla and rolled her eyes in exasperation when she realised her captain still didn’t get it. Jenny sighed. “Okay, try this, it’s easier to see it when it’s sped up.”
Priscilla watched the indicated spot as the camera moved back and forth. It wasn’t detailed, but it was easier to see the shadows and the line of what looked like a large, circular wall. It was pretty big, and if it was a hill, then it had a very regular shape. If she squinted and applied some imagination, Priscilla could almost persuade herself that there were buildings within a perimeter wall and objects that could be made of metal glinted in the sunlight.
“So what do you think, boss?”
“I think you’re on to something, and if that’s not something to do with the Deathless, I think you’re going to have some excited geologists in here asking for
your footage,” said Priscilla. Then she went into action.
“Jenny, get that airship in the best position you can. Then we have to get some long-range drones out there to take a closer look. We need the hi-res imagery to work out exactly what we’re looking at.”
She went along the desks, retasking anyone she could spare to gathering micro-drones on to the nearest of the long-range motherships. Then she went to Luke and updated his team with their new mission while they bolted down their lunch.
“Forget S13 for now. I want the same drone package, but get it over to F15 instead. Jenny’s found something, and it might be important. It’s a new area so even if it’s a false alarm, we can run the same flight paths, right?” Luke nodded and hustled his team out of the break room, lunch unfinished.
This could be it, their first real taste of success. Everything up to now had been a rush of building drones, working out how to update the Grid and getting organised. Now they had something real to investigate, and the whole team was laser-focused on the task at hand. If Jenny had found something built by the Deathless, their contribution was going to get real, really quickly.
“What’s the ETA, Debbie?” Priscilla called out, her concentration firmly on piloting her drone. They were making their final approaches, hugging the earth as close as possible to avoid detection. Nap-of-the-earth was the official terminology, apparently. For Priscilla, it was just fun, or it would have been with her racing drone. Given the importance of what they were doing, this was just nerve-wracking.
“You’re about six minutes out, boss. Jenny is just under nineteen and Luke’s team is at thirty-five, they’ll be dropping to low-altitude in just over fifteen minutes,” said Debbie, taking the role of flight controller.
“Roger that,” Priscilla mumbled through gritted teeth as she flicked her drone around a rock formation. She had to fight the urge to lean with it, so engrossed was she in the screen before her.
It was tricky work. The drones’ top speed meant there wasn’t much room for error but, unlike the airship drones, the long-range models weren’t capable of extreme altitude. If they wanted to be discreet, and Priscilla assumed that Corporal Wilson would want them to be, then they couldn’t come within the sightline of the target.
The other pilots were doing their best to be unobtrusive. Thankfully, the extremely low-level contouring races the league sometimes held had taught them all the correct etiquette. Nobody wanted to win because their coughing had distracted an opponent and they’d crashed their drone. The drones were a labour of love and watching a crash would make even the meanest of competitors wince in sympathy.
So the cave was quiet, with everyone on tenterhooks as they waited for the transport drones to arrive and the next phase of the operation to begin. Once parked, they would release a swarm of micro-drones and then they’d begin the slow, careful work of scanning the structure without being detected.
It seemed like no time at all before Priscilla was parking her drone on a ledge high up on a rocky outcrop. The first micro-drones fanned out, their pilots taking over, and Priscilla felt the tension wash out of her arms as she relaxed. That was a race-winning performance but over a much longer distance than any of the league events. Debbie leaned in and whispered, “Well done, boss, that was some amazing flying. You were six per cent under the initial estimate.”
As predicted, Jenny and Luke’s drones were down in under half an hour. The first tentative micro-drones had reached a point where they could finally get a picture of the target. Priscilla had ordered everyone to take it slow and make sure no drone advanced without good cover and a cleared approach. The pilots worked as a team, meticulously checking for Deathless sentries and watching for spy posts or enemy drones. Nobody wanted one of their drones to be spotted by some patrol who might report back to the Deathless.
At night, Priscilla had been reading ancient books on warfare, and if there was one thing she clearly understood, it was the value of surprising the enemy. As far as the Deathless knew, New Bristol had no satellite surveillance, no ships in orbit, and therefore no way to find them or monitor their every move. Priscilla didn’t want to shatter that belief by exposing a drone.
Once they were close enough, she ordered a halt and a quick huddle with the team leaders. Then they picked a single drone and eased it forwards into a position where it could get the first clear footage of the strange, shiny hill. Minimal footprint before they did anything further was the order of the day.
Then the footage hit the main display and there was an audible reaction from the watching pilots.
“A Deathless base,” muttered Priscilla, hardly able to believe what she was seeing. Huge and horrifying, the base was a hive of activity.
“You were right, Jenny, you’ve found the enemy. Everyone else, excellent piloting, hold your positions until further orders. Jenny, would you do the honours please?” said Priscilla, her voice firm and clear above the rising hubbub. They all hushed as Jenny flipped open the plastic cover on her desk and turned to look at Priscilla, who gave her a nod. Jenny hit the button with the palm of her hand and the klaxon went off.
Moments later the pounding of booted feet announced the arrival of Marine X and Corporal Wilson, who rushed into the room almost at the same time.
“What’s up?” asked Wilson.
But Marine X was just staring at the screen.
“They’ve found me something to kill, Corporal, that’s what’s up,” said Ten with a broad grin. “It must be my birthday.”
15
The bombardment had been swift, heavy and brutal. In the aftermath, drone surveys and the feeds from the remaining ground monitors showed a wrecked city of craters and shattered structures. Almost all the government and important infrastructure buildings had been destroyed or severely damaged, but the strikes had been carefully targeted to leave civilian buildings untouched.
“Lucky we didn’t land in a target building,” muttered Atticus, as he and Denmead reviewed the damage. The blast wave had carried them into the foyer of Ashton High School and they had gathered in the main hall with the other survivors of the crash.
Atticus put down his tablet and looked at their kit. They had gathered everything from the lifter and their salvage now sat on a pair of folding tables.
“This lot won’t keep us alive very long,” said Atticus looking at their meagre collection, “we need to find B Troop and get these people to the caves.”
Denmead nodded. The crash had aggravated her shoulder wound but she wasn’t going to let it slow her down. She hefted her rifle, one of only two they had.
“It’s a pity there aren’t any flying mammals on this planet,” she said to Atticus as she collected her gear. He frowned, unable to see the relevance. “I’ve always wanted to issue a ‘To the bat cave’ order, but without bats...” She shrugged then grimaced a little at the pain.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a fan of the winged vigilante,” said Atticus, grinning.
“Only the classics,” said Denmead, “and I prefer the darker material.” A rumble shook the walls and dropped dust from the ceiling. Atticus reviewed his HUD.
“That’ll be B Troop getting started,” he said with no small degree of satisfaction, “so let’s make like the three shepherds...”
“...and get the flock out of here? I see you’re one for the classics as well.”
Outside, the city had become a dark, dust-strewn hell-scape. The sun had gone, hidden from view by the vast quantities of muck thrown into the atmosphere by the bombardment. Beneath the darkened skies, the city had taken on a menacing orange hue and visibility was no more than twenty metres.
“Stay close,” said Atticus as he led the governor and four colonists into the open. “We’ll head for B Troop’s position and try to link up with them.”
They walked through the dark and eerily quiet city, weaving around buildings damaged by the fighting, making their way towards the positions that B Troop had taken up. Occasional bursts of gunfire could be heard
in the distance as they walked but they saw nothing until they rounded a corner and Atticus halted the party, waving at them to take cover.
“A four-man drop pod, by the size of it, but no sign of the enemy,” he said to Denmead. “They may have moved away, or they could be in the building. No way to know.”
“So what do we do?”
Atticus was silent for a moment, checking his HUD again for any information that might help. “Nothing on the monitors but that doesn’t mean much, given the dust. We’ll circle around, try to avoid exposing ourselves.” He paused as Denmead touched his arm and nodded at the street.
Four Deathless troopers in thin, mobile clone bodies and armed with light armour and weapons were walking down the street. They were in pairs, moving slowly and cautiously, checking doorways and alleys, but they hadn’t spotted the humans yet.
“Back,” hissed Atticus, “get inside.” He ushered the group back into the building they were crouching behind. “Stay down, make no noise.” He squatted down with them, well below the windows, and called up the monitor and drone coverage in his HUD. “Nothing,” he muttered, “this bloody dust is covering everything.”
They could hear the Deathless in the street chattering quietly and walking with care. As the second pair passed by and disappeared into the dust cloud, Atticus risked a look out of the window. It was clear, as far as he could tell, but the air was so clogged with muck that nothing was certain.
“Out the back,” he muttered, leading the party through the building to the back door. It lay ajar, unmoving in the dead air but somehow foreboding and ominous. Atticus crouched down, raised his rifle and gently pushed the door.
It swung open to show a narrow, deserted alley whose every surface was covered in fine orange muck.
“Let’s go,” said Atticus, motioning for the party to head out into the alley. There was a bang at the other end of the building, and Atticus’s head whipped round. “Shit. It looks like they spotted our footprints. Go, quickly, turn right at the end and head that way for a couple of kilometres. I’ll catch you up.”
