Zone War

by John Conroe

  It was early in the day, the sun still coming up, and there was no sign of any drones. “JJ, would you give AJ the sling pack that’s in my gear locker?” Astrid said from up front. “AJ, we’re getting close to your drop-off.”

  With a bemused smile, JJ opened a small locker door and pulled out a sports bag that seemed like it held a small, ball-shaped object.

  He handed it to me as his father and brother looked on, all three intensely curious. Up front, I could see Astrid glancing at me in the little mirror over her position.

  Why try to sneak forbidden stuff past the government when you can have a beautiful blonde girl do it for you? Nobody had searched her stuff in years.

  I opened the bag and Rikki spun up his hover fans, lifting smoothly out into the open.

  “Holy shit!” Martin yelled while Brad and JJ just froze at the sight of the Berkut.

  “Relax. This is Rikki Tikki Tavi. He’s my ace in the hole.”

  “Ace up your sleeve or in this case, in the bag,” Rikki said. Shit… that wasn’t… couldn’t be… a joke?

  “Did it just make a joke?” JJ asked.

  “Rikki’s quite a bit more advanced than your typical Berkut,” I said, like he did it all the time.

  I reached up and hit the back hatch button as Astrid pulled to a stop. It powered open and Rikki shot out as soon as there was space.

  “Immediate area clear,” my constantly surprising drone reported, hovering outside the LAV.

  “Let’s go with high altitude coverage today, don’t you think?” I asked him.

  “Concur,” Rikki said, segments sliding open into Delta mode. A second later, he shot up into the sky.

  “That’s how you’ve been doing it?” Brad asked. Then he turned to Astrid. “And you knew?”

  “She didn’t know till just recently. Long story. Gotta run now. We’ll have you under overwatch in like ten minutes,” I said, then I bolted out the back of the vehicle and ran across the street to the building on the heliport pier that shoved out into the East River.

  Maps of the city still called it the Downtown Heliport and in its day, it saw many of the world’s richest people ferry into and out of Wall Street. The burnt-out husk of a Bell helicopter was a bitter reminder of the end of New York City as the financial center of the country. Drone night killed hundreds of thousands, but the day after had killed billions of dollars of wealth and corporate capital. Beyond the Great Recession, worse than the Great Depression, the interconnected economies of the entire planet had fallen deeper and further than at any point in history. Only a few people had been lucky enough to have shorted the markets on that day. In twenty-four hours, they had jumped to the top of the list of richest people, the previous titans laid low by terrorists and drones.

  The reinforced steel mesh barrier that surrounded the Zone rose out around the pier, glittering steel mesh that could be electrified in a second. Lights, sensors, and a few widely dispersed laser units bristled across the top of the Zone barrier. Beyond the fence, automated aquatic and aerial units patrolled, ready to instantly destroy any breakouts.

  A squat two-story building anchored the land end of the short pier, a facility that had housed flight operations, VIP and pilots lounges, a passenger area, and administrative offices. It also, in the back of the lowest level, behind the terminal operations office, held a pretty heavy-duty set of lockers. I had replaced the lock in the heavy metal door with a push button combination model, and that let me into what might have been a secure room for special cargo or ultra valuable material. One whole wall was heavy gauge steel lockers, and I had taken occupancy of four. The handy thing about the Zone was that you could find the absolute best of the best of virtually anything and none of it cost a dime. Four ultra-heavy-duty Abus padlocks, all with the same combination, guarded my cache.

  I unlocked all four, first pulling a HK MP-5 submachine gun from its hooks, racking the bolt and slinging it over my shoulder. Next, a bag of thirty-round mags for the HK. Then in the next locker, a NYPD Barrett M-82A1 .50 caliber rifle, a so-called anti-material rifle. Anti-everything rifle, if you ask me. An ammo can of assorted .50 caliber flavors came out with it. The third locker held a shorty, NYPD Mossberg 590 shotgun with a fourteen-inch barrel, and a rather special AR-15. I loaded the shotgun with six rounds of buckshot and slung a bandoleer of shells over the barrel. The AR already had a mag in place so I just pulled the charging handle and chambered a round. Finally, in the fourth locker, laid a little surprise I had found while ransacking a US Army depot, something I had only read about until I found it. I had played with it a bit, but now was its time to shine. It too had an ammo box of goodies with it and I grabbed the two heavy weapons and hauled them up to the second story and out onto the roof. Then I raced back down and grabbed the ammo cans and mag bag. The shotgun and AR stayed at the bottom of the stairs.

  Outside, the roof rose up to a long, angled ridge, a fairly gentle incline that let me set up on the south side with my weapons pointed to the north, with a great view of the next pier up. My drone container was right at the beginning of Pier 11, as near to the street as possible. The Johnson LAV was already backed up to it as I set up shop.

  Bipod opened, ten-round mag of armor-piercing ammo in place, lens caps off the Leupold scope, and the Barrett was good to go. Then I set up my other surprise.

  The XM-25 was an experimental weapon for shoulder firing 25mm airbursting ammunition. Equipped with a sophisticated fire control laser range finding computerized sight, it held five rounds of 25x40mm grenade ammo. After racking a round into the chamber, you simply put the laser dot on the structure nearest the target—in this case, the corner of the building just across the road from Pier 11—pressed the ranging button, and a firing solution was fed into the chambered round’s warhead. Then you just waited for the right moment. A swept-winged shadow fell over me as Rikki took up a security position overhead.

  JJ had the metal container doors open and he, Brad, and Martin were hauling dead drones into the back of the LAV as fast as they could drag them. They rushed around like they were late to a party.

  “Incoming UAVs, four, right up Gouverneur Lane,” Rikki said softly over my shoulder. That was right near the building I had laser ranged. “Fire in 3, 2, 1, Mark.”

  The XM-25 fired right on his mark and the heavy gun kicked my shoulder as the round shot across the open area. Four hovering combat drones appeared around the corner of the building just as my grenade went off. Three of them instantly fell, rotors torn to shreds by the shrapnel spraying in every direction.

  On the pier, all three Johnson men instinctively ducked at the sound of my gun firing, then jumped again when the 25mm warhead detonated. From the corner of my eye, I could see them looking around widely, even as I fired a second round at the remaining drone. Round two exploded behind the survivor, but the beauty of air bursting munitions is just like the old line about horseshoes and hand grenades… you only have to be close enough.

  The blast itself knocked the Kite sideways before gravity pulled it down to the hard streets. I dropped the gun sight down to road level just as its Tiger came bounding out from between the buildings. Lase, fire, lase, fire. Both rounds exploded just behind the lethal ground robot, but Tigers have thick armor and the blasts only rocked it around a bit.

  I dropped the XM-25 and rolled sideways, pulling the Barrett’s stock into the pocket of my shoulder. My eye found the scope just as the deadly bot landed on top of the LAV. I fired as it gathered itself, the huge round striking low, bouncing off the armored vehicle and just clipping one of the Tiger’s hind feet.

  Just a glancing blow, but the beauty of John Browning’s heavy machine-gun round is its breathtaking power. Multiple tons of kinetic energy, even at three hundred meters, so it was like a car had clipped the robot’s foot.

  The metal monster spun sideways, only the claws of one front foot keeping it on the LAV at all, leaving it to scramble it’s other three feet back under it. Plenty of time to send another super heavy roun
d downrange, this one blasting the close combat bot right off the top of the personnel carrier, flipping it up into the air to land on its back, legs and head twitching.

  JJ shot the Tiger twice with his shotgun, reloaded, and then gave me a wave. The Tiger was winding down its repetitive twitches as JJ picked up the two Wolves he’d dropped when the Tiger appeared, marching them into the back of the LAV.

  “HK unit converging on this position. Additional UAVs approaching from multiple angles. Attention has been diverted from Johnson vehicle.”

  “You saying I’m the new target?” I asked, putting a new magazine into the XM-25. I lasered a spot on FDR Drive to at least put an intermediate range on the chambered grenade’s fuse. Then I laid out a second magazine and reloaded the Barrett.

  “CThree unit approaching from the west has designated you as highest priority. Drone network is calling all units within a one-mile radius.”

  I had known that unsuppressed gunfire, particularly the heavy blasts from a Barrett light fifty, would bring everything running. Hadn’t counted on a Spider coming too.

  The sound of Rikki’s gun startled me and I looked up from my flinch to see him blast a second shot into a Raptor drone swooping in from behind us.

  “Roll left now,” his voice said, and I instantly did as he said, rolling over twice. A massive thunk sounded where I had been. A black delta shape was stuck nose down, titanium and carbide beak speared right into the metal roof of the terminal. At first, I somehow thought it was Rikki, but then my drone hovered down and shot the other Berkut twice, killing it stone dead.

  “Aerial units at our eight and ten o’clock positions.”

  I turned and fired the XM-25 twice without lasing the shot. The mini-grenades exploded over the street, just in front of the cloud of UAVs that were accelerating our way. A couple fell but the bulk of them kept coming. Time to go old-school.

  The XM-25 clattered to the rooftop as I pulled the MP-5 from its slung point around my back. A very familiar gun for me, as I had a ton of trigger time behind the sights of Heckler and Koch’s famous contribution to the submachine guns of the world. Perhaps the most widely used sub gun on the planet, the compact weapon was still in use pretty much everywhere. Dad and I had found them in police stations, federal offices, and even in some likely criminal establishments.

  The gun I held had a four-position selector switch. Safe, semi-auto, three-round burst, and full auto. I had it on the three-round burst mode and started to feather the trigger as my sight picture filled with hovering drones. Five UAVs had survived the 25mm grenades and my first three bursts killed two of them. Rikki shot the third and then we both shot the last two.

  Reaching into my daypack, I tossed him a new ammo block. He cleverly ejected the partial one in such a way that it slid down from the peak of the roof to stop at my feet, twisting himself to catch the full one.

  “HK unit arriving in ten seconds.”

  My over watch was working better than expected… too well. We’d planned for me to get a lot of attention, but this sounded like I was gonna get all of the Zone’s love and affection.

  I put the partial ammo block in my pack and pulled out a flash bang grenade. Love these things. The SWAT team favorite for entries and hostage rescues, they didn’t fling any shrapnel but the sheer blast effect was really hard on UAVs.

  “Rikki, prepare to execute Red Baron.”

  “Jawohl,” he said.

  Wait… was that German? What the F had happened when he rewrote his own code?

  He floated down and the underside of his fuselage opened in two places, short perching talons extending from his body. Ignoring his odd comment, I placed the flashbang in his feet, careful to get the trigger spoon inside his grip, then pulled the pin. Immediately he shot upward, all fans on maximum thrust. Within seconds, he was gone from view, his light underside fading into the sky.

  Alone, I had time to replace the partial mag in my MP-5 with a full one, then got my body prone and the Barrett snugged to my shoulder as the clank of treads announced the arrival of the Tank Killer. It came out Old Slip Street and I fired two rounds at the first sight of its armored front end. Both rounds impacted the front right drive sprocket and the tread running around it. The little tank lurched, the drive mechanism fouling up, but it still had enough power to spin itself toward me and bring the laser to bear. I ducked as soon as I saw it and still almost lost my face as a superheated wave of air announced the passage of the otherwise invisible infrared laser beam. I rolled sideways four times, leaving myself dizzy but eight or nine feet from where I had been, the big Barrett rifle banging against me as I held it tight.

  Over the lip of the roof, I could hear the metal buckle as it was heated instantly to the point where the colored coating melted and the aluminum started to actually burn. Then came the fantastic sound of the LAV’s M-134 minigun ripping off the better part of five hundred rounds of 7.62mm armor-piercing ammo.

  The burning sound cut off and I instantly pulled my hand into my sleeve, then pushed the polished mirror metal part of my stealth suit over the roofline to check the tank. I caught a tiny image of the tank with its gun still pointed my way and yanked my arm down as the cuff melted right off my suit. Tricky bastard with machine reflexes.

  The Johnsons’ mini gun sounded again, a deadly burring thrum of power, and the laser cut off in a crunch of sound. This time, I came up over the roof peak with the Barrett’s barrel leading the way. The TK’s gun was smoking and sparking in ways the manufacturer never intended. I sent four more armor-crunching rounds at the robot, concentrating on the laser gun and the juncture where the turret met the body of the beast. The minigun’s burr came again and again, tracers making a solid beam of light like a sci-fi ray gun blast, followed by the dull whump of an explosion as the front of the robot tank burst open with a billow of black smoke

  The air behind me filled with whirring sounds and I dropped the big rifle, rolling to my back, scrambling to get the MP-5 out and up. A dozen various flying drones announced my demise, the flock coming toward me from the southern Battery Park side. My gun snagged on all the buckles and crap adorning my body and a sudden dump of imminent-death adrenaline made my hands jerky and clumsy.

  A black speck fell into the midst of the drone flock, exploding in the densest part of the bunch. Rikki dove down behind his bomb, gun firing at stunned survivors. My sub gun came free, death took a step back, and I was quickly adding my own fire to my Berkut’s.

  The twang and crunch of metal brought me around to see a Wolf standing on the roof, the claws of a second one embedded in the edge as it struggled to join its partner. My thumb pushed the selector to full auto and I fired off the rest of the mag, then dove for the Barrett.

  The 9mm rounds from the MP-5 knocked the standing Wolf backward, but its frontal armor was too thick for the bullets to penetrate and the rearward momentum stopped suddenly as powerful motors kicked in. Rocked back onto its hind legs, the Wolf tried to bring its head-mounted flechette gun down far enough to shoot me. Servos whined and its body began to drop toward me while its partner started to pull itself up.

  I shoved the big Barrett forward on the metal roof, hand on the pistol grip but shoulder nowhere near the stock. No time. Twisting my arm to swing it around, I pulled the trigger as soon as the muzzle seemed on target.

  The standing Wolf disappeared and something punched my right bicep hard enough to knock me sideways on the roof. Stunned by the recoil of the loosely held fifty caliber, all I could do was stare. My right arm was completely numb.

  The climbing Wolf had just two claws still in the metal sheathing, almost knocked completely off by the violent demise of its partner. It twisted and scrabbled in an odd, bizarre, non-living way. Then it stopped and, after a pause, started to swing its hindquarters.

  The onboard computer had analyzed the problem and applied physics. Soon it would pendulum high enough to get its other paw in the roof.

  With my left hand, I dragged the Barrett down the roof tow
ard the access. The robot Wolf swung farther. My right arm gave up being numb and started to throb. I stood up and stumbled closer to the exit. The XM-25 lay in front of me. I kicked it through the access port, dumped the Barrett down the hatch and then, one-handed, twisted the MP-5 off its sling and threw it through. The Wolf got its second paw on the roof, metal crunching under its claws. My feet went on the ladder and I hooked my flopping right arm through a rung, grabbed the metal hatch with my left, and swung it shut just as the Wolf thrust its body up and onto the top of the building. Metal tinged as flechettes whined off the steel hatch.