by T. R. Harris
It would take thirty second to reach the shore, and by that time the Panthers would be radar visible, even as the Goliaths remained hidden.
Xander was counting on confusion to give them time to enter the city and get lost in the megalopolis. The confusion would be on the part of radar operators and air traffic control personnel at the local international airport. The signal on their screens would be like nothing they’d seen before: a thin cloud of contacts with no strong, individual central point. It would be like a large flock of birds, yet all with light metallic coatings. Hopefully, this strange mix of data would be enough to create a hesitation before reports were sent. By then, Xander and his force would be beyond the defensive perimeter and inside the city itself.
********
Tiffany Collins had stepped outside the hangar for some fresh air, as the hundred or so pilots and techs that occupied the huge single room were engrossed in their individual tasks. She wasn’t one of them, and she felt conspicuously like the proverbial fifth-wheel.
It was a few minutes past nine at night when the operation got underway, and she was briefly shocked and revived by the thirty-degree temperature of mid-December. She had spent considerable time in the area reporting on various stories, yet her tenure in L.A. had spoiled her to near-perfect year-round weather. Even then, this was just what she needed to get things back into perspective.
The two hangars which Nathan Hall had commandeered as his temporary operations center were located at the south end of the western runway at the Andrews Joint Military Base, about five miles southeast from the horrific scene of destruction along the Washington Mall. Tiffany walked to the edge of the building and looked in that direction. There was an abnormal glow over the area, as repair and rescue crews worked long into the night under brilliant floodlights. The damage caused to the buildings would take years to repair—the damage to the American psyche … much longer.
The night was not quiet, even with the curfew, as a chorus of sirens warbled in the distance. On the western side of the pilots’ hangar, along Arnold Avenue, the parking lot was full of vehicles, but beyond that, over the rest of base, only the headlights of the occasional security vehicle could be seen. As for the rest of the city, its occupants were now hunkering down for another night, unsure what the new day would bring.
Tiffany Collins knew more than most, yet even she was as uncertain. Even if Xander’s mission succeeded, what did the future hold in store for America? Irreparable harm had been caused to the country, physically, economically, and emotionally. Mentally, she began to work out the lead to her first broadcast once she was allowed to resume her duties. It wasn’t coming easy, the subject too vast to be condensed into a single sentence.
She struggled with the problem for a few minutes before she was distracted by a new sound rising up against the backdrop of the night. She focused on it, noticing the increasing volume. This new sound evoked a primal fear in her, as it did in most people. This was a potential threat, something that could cause pain.
It was the sound of bees in the air.
Chapter 26
Almasi’s compound was located in the Bizerta town district of Karachi, which, fortunate for his team, was only about ten miles inland, near a large soccer and badminton stadium. All the drones in his attack formation were locked into GPS, yet the pilots had discretion to use whatever circuitous path they wanted to reach the compound if being pursued. So far no credible defense had shown itself.
Xander was rushing in low through the sandy streets at nearly twenty miles per hour, fully engrossed in his flight, when someone grabbed him by the shoulder. The sensation was so incongruous that he jumped and nearly fell out of his seat. Upset, he slipped the right lens from his eye, while doing his best not to slam into the side of a building somewhere on the other side of the planet.
“What the hell?”
“Xander, there’s something weird happening outside,” Tiffany Collins whispered into his ear.
“I’m a little preoccupied at the moment. Go tell Nathan.”
“He’s in the other building somewhere. Do you have any drones operating in the area?”
“What area? Here or in Pakistan?”
“Here, smartass. Outside here?”
“Not that I know of. Now let me get back to work—”
“Then there’s a whole boatload of enemy drones heading this way!”
With his one clear eye, Xander noticed several of the other nearby pilots look in his direction. “What are you talking about?”
“I can hear them outside. It’s getting louder.”
Xander looked hard at Tiffany and could see the panic in her eyes. “Franklin, take over my unit I get back.”
“Yes, sir,” said a voice from behind them. Nearly all the thirty active pilots had backups assigned to them. Lieutenant John Franklin was his backup.
Xander now pulled off the goggles and climbed out of the pod. “Are you sure about this?”
“I know the sound of drones by now. Can’t they be picked up radar?”
“Depends on how low they are. Duty officer!”
“Over here, Mr. Moore.”
Xander and Tiffany ran up to an Air Force lieutenant-colonel. “There’s a good chance the base is about to come under attack. Are there any defensive units available?”
“Against drones? Not many, just the Goliaths in the other building.”
He looked at the crowd of trained pilots filling the room. There were plenty of extras, just not a lot of drones for them to man. “Charlie, give up your seat to your backup and get over here.”
Five seconds later, Charlie Fox was at Xander’s side. “What the hell, boss? We’re about to engage.”
“The base is coming under attack. I need you to take command of the Goliaths they have here and coordinate a defense.”
Charlie looked at the stunned Air Force officer and then back to Xander.
“Colonel, give Mr. Fox all the pilots with the most experience flying the Goliaths. Get them into control pods, even if you have to boot out some of the Panther pilots. We need to get the G’s into the air … and I mean now!”
“Yessir. Captain Reynolds, you and Blue Squad into seats now! I’ll get the transponder codes to the Goliaths. We have incoming. Scramble on the orders of Mr. Fox!”
Charlie Fox looked askew at Xander. “Thanks a lot, boss. Nothing like a little pressure to make a guy’s day.”
“You’ll be fine. Just do what comes naturally.”
“What, surfing?”
There was a loud, concerned murmur filtering through the huge hangar by now, just as Nathan Hall and a cadre of officers representing various branches of the military rushed into the building.
“Yeah, we know,” Xander said to him before he could speak.
Nathan’s jaw fell open. “How?”
“Never mind. Fox and Colonel Rogers are in charge of our defense. They need the transponder codes for the Goliaths.”
Nathan nodded to an officer and a small flash drive was passed to Charlie Fox. Without another word, he and Colonel Rogers ran off into the mix of control pods.
“Almasi must have learned our location,” Xander said to Nathan.
“But where did he get the drones for the attack?”
“He must have released more yesterday than we thought, but they can’t be fully charged, so we just need to keep them away for a few minutes. Can you take over here? I have to get back to Karachi.”
“Of course. Now take that bastard out. That’s another way of stopping this attack.”
“Roger that. Good luck.” Xander pulled Tiffany Collins to him and kissed her hard on the lips. Then he was gone, leaving Tiffany wide-eyed and weak-kneed, while Nathan Hall wore a shocked look on this face.
“Some guys have all the luck,” was all he said.
********
“Approaching target,” Muhammad Bin-Osei reported over his shoulder. “No resistance yet. We are coming in along the streets from the south.”
“Good. Stay low to avoid radar.”
If there was one advantage of having the Russians on your side, it was that they had an ample supply of satellites orbiting over America at any given time. Almasi had a real-time aerial view of the two target hangars displayed on the main screen across the room. They were the last two along the wide western runway of the airbase, with a wide tarmac surface leading up to the north side of the buildings and then continuing out the south side, before curving back toward the main runway. Aircraft could taxi directly into the maintenance hangars and then pull straight out once released for duty. There was a long, two-lane parking lot on the road running along the western side of the first building, and it was jammed with cars, even at this late hour.
Almasi frowned at the image. General Nikolay Burkov was standing next to him. “Is it unusual to have so many vehicles in the car park at this time of night?” he asked the experienced military officer.
“Not really. This is where the stealth drones are stored. They may require an inordinate amount of maintenance and upkeep.”
Just then, in the live image on the screen, the large doors to the eastern-most building began to open, sending brilliant yellow light flooding over the white concrete outside. Almasi and Burkov tensed. Something unexpected was happening.
Several objects streaked out of the building. They sparkled in the illumination, before disappearing into the darkness beyond the reach of the lights.
“They’ve launched their stealth drones!” Almasi cried out. “All pilots, be on alert!”
“Did you notice?” the Russian general remarked. “The stealth feature is designed primarily for daylight deception. At night they are still dark, yet appear to flicker in the sky. Shoot at anything that sparkles!”
The mood in the room suddenly grew tense, as Almasi’s pilots guided their RPAs out from the confines of the streets leading to the airbase and began to scatter. Some jumped the fence bordering the base, while others took to the sky and began a systematic search for the elusive enemy drones. The objective of this operation was to destroy these relatively few stealth units, and it was supposed to have been easy with them sitting unprepared in lightly shielded hangars. Now they were mobile, and nearly all the pilots in the room had experienced their deadly efficiency the day before.
However, now they knew what to look for and what to expect. This time the outcome would be different.
And that was when the first of Almasi’s attack drones blew up.
********
“I got one of the bastards!” Charlie Fox announced over his comm.
“There’s about a hundred more to go, Charlie,” Xander reported. “So be careful.”
Xander was back in Karachi now, having resumed control of the Goliath once again. The five G’s were about ninety seconds out from the compound, a minute ahead of the slower Panthers. Xander and his team would initiate the assault, and hopefully draw the defenders from their hiding places just as the Panthers arrived after them.
With units attacking the hangars from outside, Xander wondered how many pilots Almasi would have available for defensive duties back in Karachi. Every pilot pulled from the attack on the hangars to man a defensive drone would increase their chances of living throughout the night.
The fastest trigger, with the most accuracy, would win the day.
********
Through his headset, Xander heard the ping of an incoming video call. Comm channels to the headsets were highly classified, especially the video links. He was upset. Already his mission had been interrupted too many times. And now someone was calling in. He checked the time to target: a little over a minute. He reached forward and pressed F3 on his keyboard.
“Make it quick! We’re about to—”
“Engage? Yeah, I know.”
The image in the tiny box at the top left corner of his heads-up display made him gasp.
“Surprised to see me?” said Jonas Lemon. “I can tell from the look in your eyes that you are.”
Xander gathered himself. “It’s just that I told my secretary not to give out this number.”
“Flippant as always, I see.”
“Well, seeing how long it’s been, you’ve caught me at an inconvenient time. Do you mind if I call you back?”
“I’m hurt, Xander—and we used to be such good friends. I suppose you’re too busy to chat with me because of your impending attack on Almasi’s command center?”
Xander guided his Goliath drone around a particularly sharp curve in the road and then over a single-story house, before dropping down to near street level again and stirring up prodigious amounts of red sand.
“Sorry, but I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Jonas.”
“Who are you talking to?” Hugh Barden asked, leaning over from the pod next to him.
“No one important, just Jonas Lemon.”
“No shit? Well tell the son-of-a-bitch to stop hiding and face us like man.”
“I heard that, and you can tell Baby Huey that if he’d just let me know which one of the Goliath drones is his, I’ll certainly oblige. I don’t think any of you have gone up against a Ninja V before, have you? It’s so much better than the Ninja II I used at the mall in Miami.”
“So that was you.”
“Yeah, that was fun, like the old days. It would have resulted in a no-score back on the circuit.”
“Listen, Jonas, obviously you’re pretty well wired into things, so if you don’t mind, I really have to get back to work before the boss dings me for taking personal calls on company time.”
“Oh, but this isn’t a social call, dude. I just thought you’d like to know who you’re going up against at the compound. Almasi has seen fit to allow me to play along—he knows talent when he sees it. But unfortunately, I can’t be in two places at the same time or else I’d be with the group attacking your hangars right now. Still, we have a lot of game ahead of us, so bye for now, but I’ll be dropping in from time to time throughout the battle.”
The image of Jonas Lemon disappeared from the screen.
“Heads up, everyone. Jonas Lemon is on sight in Karachi, and manning something called a Ninja V. Anyone ever hear of one?”
“Nathan Hall here, Xander. I have. They’re not stealth, but all down the checklist they’re superior to the Goliaths.”
“Now you tell me. I thought we had the baddest bots on the block.”
“Stealth makes you the best, with the exception of the Ninja. Hopefully there’s only one on station.”
“Count on it, Nathan. Jonas is the type to insist on having only the best, and only for him. That could be our saving grace.”
“Compound dead ahead,” Karen Prado reported. “Here we go. Game on.”
The five Goliaths soared over the twenty-foot high wall and dropped down to near ground level. Huge swirling torrents of red sand curled up into mini-tornados, filling the entire grounds in a blinding dust storm.
“All this dust is making us stand out like neon signs,” Jeremy Fenton announced over the comm. “I’m taking some heavy gunfire from the tall building on the west side.”
“Well, we didn’t come here for an exhibition match. Weapons hot, let’s level the place!”
The concrete block building Fenton had mention suddenly lit up with hundreds of pinpoint explosions as 7.56mm rounds perforated the structure. Even before Xander and his team could take aim at the shooters on the roof, a good half of the building fell inwards, collapsing the snipers’ firing platform.
As was expected, Xander now saw bearded men shoving women and children out the doorways and into the center of the compound, while they retreated for cover. With bullets and pencil-missiles filling the air, several of the woman and children fell to the ground, covered in blood. Xander was sure he’d seen some of the men inside the doorways aiming their AK-100’s at the backs of the victims.
In response, he spun the Goliath around and sent four accurately-aimed missiles screaming through the doorway. An instant la
ter, a billowing cloud of white smoke blew out the bottom of the building. Small balconies on the three stories above gave way and crumbled to the ground.
“Be careful, Xander,” Karen called out. “We don’t want to block any entrances to the underground complex.”
“I hear ya, it’s just that I couldn’t let those bastards get away with shooting women and children in the back.”
“Here come the defenders,” another voice announced over the comm, a radar tech who was not part of the Goliath team. “Forty-two at first count. Could be more deploying.”
“Forty-two? Damn, that’s a lot,” Curt Tharp said. “Where are the Panthers?”
“We’re staying back a little,” declared Billy Jenkins. “Let the bad guys commit, then we’ll sneak up on their six.”
Just then a rocket-propelled grenade streaked from a corner of the long garage-like structure and struck one of the Goliaths. The craft was thrown backwards and tumbled, a trail of broken armament littering the ground.
“Who’s hit?” Xander asked.
“That would be me,” Curt Tharp said, sounding dejected.
“Status?”
“Looks like I lost my upper weapons package. I can still fly, but I only have the five-mils on the sides and a single block of twenty missiles.”
“Circle around the building and find that asshole with the RPG.”
“With pleasure. Just watch out, it’s obvious these superdrones can be hurt.”
The air above the compound was suddenly thick with smaller UAVs. With his trained eye, Xander could tell that a good two-thirds of them were auto drones, tasked with defending the compound using attached bombs and bullets, striking anything that didn’t fit their pre-programmed profiles. Whether the sensors could pick up the Goliaths with enough confidence to make a determination remained to be seen. But the Panthers would be targets. This also told Xander that Almasi didn’t have a lot of extra pilots to assign to the RPAs. He was keeping them manning the drones whizzing around outside the hangars.
