Ellie glanced, and was fairly sure it was some kind of drone-based anti-vehicle weapons platform. As it turned out, she was right. Sameh tapped her tablet, and four propeller pods folded out from the side of the tube. They began to spin, and Sameh tapped again, and the drone rose into the air, and began turning as it climbed.
“It’s not a grenade,” Sameh said.
“I see that.”
“It drops grenades,” Sameh said. “But it isn’t one.”
“I know.”
“So I did what you asked,” Sameh said, just as a small rocket dropped from the bottom of the drone and shot off towards the middle of the compound.
There was a soggy thud, a dull explosion. Whatever the drone had just shot at, it sounded like it had used a penetrating anti-armor charge, which would probably be extremely unpleasant for whatever it had hit.
“It’s self-targeting?” Ellie asked.
Sameh grinned.
“You’re completely sure it won’t target us?” Ellie said, a little nervously. She didn’t entirely trust smart weapons platforms.
“Yep.”
“Or that bunker building?”
Sameh nodded, and held up her tablet. The drone’s control app was still on the screen. “I just put that in too.”
“Completely sure?”
“Completely.”
Ellie nodded. She wanted to sigh, but she didn’t.
“I love you,” she said instead.
“I know,” Sameh said, still grinning, still overly excited, hyped by her battle meds, and hyped by combat too. “I’m useful.”
“Yep,” Ellie said. “That. Of course.”
Chapter 12
They had been standing still for too long, Ellie thought again. They had been in the same place for far too long. She was a little worried that the militia would organize themselves enough to counterattack cohesively, or that they would begin fighting back in other ways, perhaps launching countermeasures drones against Ellie and Sameh’s sensor net, causing false imaging or jamming it completely.
Ellie threw another smoke grenade behind them, and one randomly towards the middle of the compound, and then she moved forwards again.
There was more movement around them now. The militia might already have worked out approximately where they were. On the display in her glasses she could see one militia member ahead of them, about to come into view next to the building in front of her, and two more about to round a corner behind her.
Ellie’s target, the one up ahead of her, was slightly quicker than the other two, and came into view first. She shot him cleanly, with three rounds into his chest, and then turned, and aimed backwards, in case Sameh needed help with either of hers.
She didn’t.
As Ellie looked backwards, Sameh fired, a full-auto submachine gun burst across both her targets’ chests which probably killed them immediately, and then, a few seconds later, as they fell, two more shots from her sidearm, one into each of their heads.
They had probably both been dead before Sameh used her sidearm, though. Sameh’s quirky ammo loadouts did horrible things to people. As far as Ellie had seen, in the moment she had to glimpse it, those two people had been sliced apart by Sameh’s flechette rounds in much the same way as a detonating fragmentation grenade would have sliced them, and then they had been set on fire, too, almost at the same time. Both bodies were actually burning, as they lay there, with Sameh’s phosphorous rounds still inside them.
They were burning, but Sameh shot them both with her sidearm anyway, being careful, making sure.
Sameh was doing the same thing as Ellie, using the submachine gun as her main weapon, but keeping her sidearm stuck to a velcro patch on the armor in the middle of her chest so she could rip it off and fire quickly if she had to.
Sameh was taking her kill-shots with the sidearm, saving her quirky ammo. She was efficient, and ruthless, and Ellie looked away as she killed those two people, a little unsettled by just how gleeful Sameh’s face had been. Only for a moment, and then Ellie made herself not care. This was their job, what they did, and if Sameh needed to take a little too much pleasure in killing so as not to be upset by doing it, then it wasn’t Ellie’s place to judge her.
Ellie kept moving. She could see two more people one building over from her, slowly moving closer. She went forward, carefully, up to the next corner. She was about to lean out and shoot, when suddenly the two people ahead of her disappeared.
For a moment, she was confused.
She had thought she was creeping up on two unsuspecting militia members, but when she glanced around the corner, there was nothing there. Just a charred patch of earth, and dirt splattered onto the nearest wall, and a haze of dust and smoke hanging in the air. She stopped, confused, and then realized what had happened. She had been watching her targets in her glasses, watching sensor images, not the actual people. She had forgotten that a building was between her and them, and that her earpiece cut loud sounds. While she was watching, Sameh’s drone must have come along and shot those two people with some kind of explosive round, killing them, and so Ellie’s glasses, seeing their life-signs stop, had removed them from her display.
Now Ellie was thinking properly, looking properly, she could see two crumpled bodies on the ground. They were half-hidden by the smoke and torn-up earth, but they were there.
She watched them for a moment, making sure both were dead, in case all her technology had got something wrong. They seemed dead. They weren’t moving, and the sensors couldn’t see movement, which meant no breathing and no heartbeat.
She decided they were dead, and kept moving.
Behind her, Sameh shot them anyway.
*
Ellie took out her tablet, and glanced at the map, and decided they were close enough to being halfway around the fence-line from the gate. She put the tablet away, and moved forward again, then turned at a right angle at the next building, going inwards, towards the middle of the compound.
She moved forwards cautiously, carefully, making sure to check doorways and windows by eye, and not just rely on the sensor net.
She didn’t see any militia.
She was starting to wonder where they were.
She heard a dull explosion in the distance, the noise muted by her comm earpiece. She was noticing the explosions now that she’d begun listening for them. She heard one, and then another quite soon afterwards. She glanced around, watching the display inside her glasses, trying to work out what the drone had just shot at.
She couldn’t tell. She couldn’t remember clearly enough to know which data-markers had just disappeared from her display, and she wasn’t confident enough with the glasses’ controls to try replaying a map view over time to see it properly.
She looked around, unsure what the drone was shooting at, and suddenly noticed there were a lot less militia than there had been.
As she watched, another disappeared. It had been a faint marker, one far across the compound, a long way away from Ellie, but it had definitely disappeared as she watched.
Ellie began thinking.
She was beginning to wonder just how effective Sameh’s drone was. It might be useful. It might change her plans completely, and save a lot of risk and shooting.
“I’m running out of targets,” she said to Sameh.
“Yeah,” Sameh said, sounding slightly confused. “Me too.”
“I’ll cover us,” Ellie said. “Can you check on the militia? On how many of them are still moving around outside?”
Sameh nodded, and looked at her tablet. Ellie kept watch.
“Nine,” Sameh said. “And the four outside the bunker.”
Ellie was surprised. The drone was doing a lot better than she had expected. She had been thinking of it as a distraction rather than a weapon, but it had actually been killing militia, a lot of militia.
There was another thud, just as Ellie thought that, and Sameh said, “Eight now. And a couple just ran out the front gate.”
&nb
sp; “Fuck,” Ellie said, still a little surprised. “That’s good.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Really good.”
“I know.”
Ellie knew Sameh. She knew Sameh so well she didn’t need to look. “What?” she said, without turning around.
“You can say sorry whenever you want,” Sameh said.
“Sorry for what?”
“Telling me we didn’t need grenades.”
Sameh was teasing. Ellie was almost sure she was teasing, but she said, “Sorry,” all the same.
“No problem,” Sameh said.
Ellie grinned. She glanced back at Sameh, tenderly, then made herself pay proper attention to the firefight. She thought for a moment, then said, “We should probably go and ask the four by the bunker if they’d like us to stop now.”
“We probably should,” Sameh said.
Ellie looked in that direction. She thought about those four people, and how they had the tactical sense to stay put where they were, and that they were probably in command for a reason. She thought about Joe, too, and his combat experience, and how there were people wandering around Měi-guó who had fought in actual wars.
“Can you get the drone to go and hover above those four?” Ellie said.
“Of course.”
“Not to shoot them or anything, just to hover, and make them calm down.”
Sameh nodded.
“Really not to shoot,” Ellie said, wanting to be clear.
“Yep,” Sameh said. “It won’t.”
“You’re sure you can do that?”
Sameh nodded. She was tapping her tablet. “I am right now,” she said.
Ellie waited for a moment. Sameh kept tapping. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“Almost,” Sameh said, and then nodded. “Yep.”
“I can go?” Ellie said.
“Yep,” Sameh said, sounding slightly impatient. “I told you. Go.”
Ellie grinned, and did.
She went forward, watching carefully.
Sameh’s drone had changed things. There was less movement and noise in the compound now, less shooting and shouting. The surviving militia were probably trying not to draw attention to themselves, Ellie thought. They were probably worried the drone was tracking them by sound, or running some kind of counter-fire protocol, shooting back at anyone who shot at it.
In fact, Ellie thought, the drone probably was doing exactly that. It was tied into the sensor net, and so could easily scan for the heat trace of fired weapons, or use a counter-sniper algorithm to triangulate the source of incoming gunshots by sound, and then return fire to those points with rockets. The more Ellie thought, the more that seemed likely. Sameh had given the drone its tactical parameters, so it was hunting the militia as aggressively as it was able. It was probably running a counter-fire protocol, and also simply shooting at anything metallic or with the chemical trace of ammunition.
Ellie didn’t bother asking. She just kept moving.
She moved forward two buildings, to the last corner before the open space at the middle of the compound. Across that open space was the bunker building, and the four people outside it.
Ellie wanted to look at them.
She didn’t throw smoke grenades, or do anything to draw their attention. She just wanted to see, with her eyes, how they looked. Whether they seemed scared, or nervous, or grim. Whether they looked like they would give up if she asked them to, or whether they would fight.
The sensor net would have tried to tell her, if she had asked it. It would tell her about their heartbeats and the rapidity of their movements, about their levels of agitation and facial skin temperatures. It would try, but that wasn’t the same thing as looking for herself. It didn’t feel the same, anyway, not to Ellie.
She waited for a moment. She could watch the sensor-net overlay of the four people while still being hidden behind her wall. She could see clearly enough to know which direction they were facing, and how alert each was. All four were crouching or lying down, in cover, armed, and facing different directions. They were ready to fight, expecting to be attacked, and they probably knew by what had happened already that they didn’t have much chance when they were.
They also obviously didn’t know where Ellie and Sameh were, or which direction to expect an attack from.
That was good, Ellie thought.
She waited until all four were looking away from her, and then slowly leaned out past her corner, and looked with her eyes. None of the militia members noticed her. There was smoke blowing across the open area, and she was a hundred meters or so away.
She decided they looked fairly resigned. She wasn’t sure quite why she thought that, but they had the look of people expecting not to survive whatever happened next.
Ellie shifted back behind her corner, out of sight.
“Send the drone over,” she said to Sameh, after a moment. “Send it over really obviously. Park it right above them so it’s all threatening.”
“Yep,” Sameh said, and started tapping her tablet.
Ellie looked around, covering them both. She had a sudden thought. “Can you make it so I can talk to them through the drone?” she asked.
“Sorry,” Sameh said. “It doesn’t have speakers.”
“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I can just shout.”
“They won’t hear you.”
“I’ll shout loud.”
“Over this?” Sameh said. There was still some panicked shooting, obviously the last of the militia shooting at nothing since Ellie and Sameh weren’t there, and infrequent explosions too, perhaps the drone off in the distance somewhere targeting those shooters, or perhaps just burning ammunition or the militia throwing around grenades of their own. There were also alarms going off inside buildings, and what might be some kind of siren in the distance.
“Everyone’ll stop shooting in a minute,” Ellie said.
“Will they?”
“Yep. Once they get scared by the drone. Hovering over them. Remember?”
Sameh looked doubtful.
“It’ll work,” Ellie said.
Sameh shrugged. “Now?” she said. “I should go and bother them with it now?”
Ellie grinned. “Yep, now.”
Sameh tapped her tablet, and said, “It’s on the way.”
“How long?” Ellie said.
Sameh pointed.
“I can’t…” Ellie said, trying to see.
“Wait a sec.”
Sameh kept pointing. A moment later the drone appeared through smoke, moving along the length of the bunker building.
“Creeping up behind them,” Sameh said, sounding quite pleased with herself. “Watch.”
Ellie watched. And in a way, she supposed, the drone did actually creep up. It approached along the bunker building’s roof, just above it, and out of sight of the four militia beneath. It flew along the roof, then suddenly darted out past the end of the building, into the clear sky, so the four militia underneath saw it then, without warning, and panicked, and began shooting up at it a little desperately.
Their shooting wasn’t going to do very much, Ellie thought. The drone was a ceramic tube made of the same material as the high-impact plates and gels in tactical armor. People had been designing combat drones for a long time now, and had got fairly good at keeping them from harm. The drone’s casing was too strong to be damaged by small arms fire, and it didn’t have any exterior parts to shoot off, or which could break. There weren’t cameras or other external sensors because it relied on an uplink to a friendly sensor net to navigate and see. It had internal aerials, too, and the firing ports from which it launched rockets snapped closed after each was fired. Even the propellers were made of strengthened and hardened ceramics.
The militia shot upwards, but the drone just hung there, floating above them, menacing and impervious.
*
Shooting at an attack drone with small arms wasn’t going to do very much to damage it, Ellie knew. The actu
al danger was that the militia’s rounds might ricochet, and the militia members might end up somehow hitting each other if they did it too long.
Which would be annoying, since Ellie was particularly trying to keep these four alive.
“Hey,” she shouted. “Stop that. We need to talk.”
She wasn’t sure whether they would even hear her voice, but they did. They heard, and turned towards her. She saw their heads turn, on the sensor-net imaging in her e-glasses.
They turned towards her, and then they all shot at her.
Of course.
They shot, even though it did no good, and they should probably have assumed it would do no good. Ellie had stayed behind the wall while she shouted, and so she was fairly safe.
She sighed. It was a little irritating that they were wasting time like this, and that they didn’t just realize when they were beaten and do as they were told. The plan with the drone and talking had seemed like such a good one. She was becoming annoyed it wasn’t working as intended.
“Fuck,” she shouted. “Stop that. I just want to talk.”
They didn’t stop. They might not even be able to hear her voice over the gunfire, and through the earplugs they were probably wearing or past the ringing in their ears if they weren’t.
The four militia members kept shooting, and Ellie stayed behind her building, frustrated, and waited. She waited until the firing abated, hoping she would have a few seconds of quiet while they reloaded.
The shooting stopped, and she shouted, “Please let me talk.”
She shouted, but not quickly enough. They began shooting at her again.
This wasn’t working, she thought. She glanced over at Sameh.
“Told you so,” Sameh said.
“Don’t,” Ellie said. “Please?”
Sameh just grinned.
“I know,” Ellie said. “But fuck. Really?”
Sameh made what might have been a sympathetic face.
Ellie thought. “Can you make the drone shoot a rocket into the ground or something?” she asked.
The Debt Collectors War Page 19
