“Thanks for breaking my fall. That could’ve hurt.”
“Don’t mention it. But what do we do now? Hopefully you’re not going to run off and leave me too.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He stood up and looked over the reception desk. It was what he expected, a horrific scene of dead Marines and utter devastation where the access tunnel met the R&D building. Tiffany now stood next to him.
“What’s going on, Mister Smith… I mean Xander? There’s some major shit happening here.”
He nodded. “No argument there.”
“So who’s doing all this?”
“It could be one of a dozen organizations with a grudge against the RDC, or even a coalition of them. This took a lot of coordination, money and manpower.”
“What do they hope to gain, except bragging rights?” Tiffany asked. “Taking out one facility doesn’t kill the program.”
Xander looked at her with a smirk.
She noticed his expression. “You told me there were backups to the backups. Was that not true?”
“Unfortunately, we’re victims of our own success. But I believe that’s a conversation for later. If you listen carefully, you’ll notice the buzzing is growing louder.”
“They’re coming back!” Tiffany yelled.
“Probably prowling for survivors. And one other thing: these units have microphone pickups, so they can hear when you yell like that.”
“Screw you!”
“Perhaps another time, Ms. Collins, but right now we have to get out of the facility. By my estimation, these drones still have over an hour of flight time left.”
Tiffany gritted her teeth. “Fine, smartass, this is your neighborhood. How do we make our exit?”
Xander looked behind him at the main entrance to the R&D underground facilities. There had been a number of powerful explosions from deep within the subterranean labyrinth, yet he held out a glimmer of hope for a plan that was percolating in his mind.
“Follow me… and remain quiet. There may be some sentry units sitting idle just waiting for someone to wander by.”
Taking point, Xander led the pair out of the reception area and into the main part of the R&D building — what was left of it. The corridors here were wide and the ceilings high, designed to accommodate the fleet of golf cart-like vehicles that frequented the building, transporting huge UAVs and ground units from one section to the other. At the end of this particular corridor was the entrance to the testing labs where the prototypes were put through their paces. A battle had taken place here, too, with the damage mirroring that found throughout the rest of the facility.
There were bodies, too, which didn’t seem to faze Tiffany Collins. For Xander, that was a plus in her column. Probably covered a number of wars and terrorist strikes during her tenure, he thought. That would condition a person to the horrors mankind inflicted upon itself, much better than Xander’s first experience with death in the flesh.
Unfortunately, the research labs were much like the rest of the base, and Xander’s spirits sank when he saw several of the larger prototypes twisted in shambles throughout the room. He moved to a large steel door set to one side of the testing area. There was evidence of an explosion near the door; the control panel now dangled from the wall, held only by a few orphan wires.
“Dammit!” he said. “This is just great.”
“What’s inside?” Tiffany asked.
“This is where they keep all the really neat gizmos. There used to be an advanced hoverbike inside, along with some of the deadlier drones. Even if my access card worked, the controls are shot to shit.” He turned to survey what was left in the large testing area. “There’s nothing out here I can use. We’re going to have to hoof it. It’s only a mile to the other side of the access tunnel.”
“Or you could help me open the door. This thing is made of six-inch thick steel, and it weighs a ton.”
Confused, Xander turned back to the reporter. She was standing at the left side of the heavy vault door, where he could clearly see now that it was open slightly.
“So much for high-tech locking mechanisms,” Tiffany remarked with a smile.
“Let’s hope the drones didn’t get inside first.”
The pair struggled against the heavy weight of the door until it began to open more freely. Then at one point it was wide enough for Xander to get behind it and put all his weight into the effort, using the doorjamb for added leverage. The door eventually swung all the way open.
It was dark inside the vast vault room, but after a moment his eyes adjusted enough that the filtered light from outside allowed him to see. The room was undamaged, and placed haphazardly on the floor were a number of strange looking objects. Most were drones, either quadcopters or octocopters, some oversized and measuring as much as twelve feet across. These were the next generation of attack drones being developed for the military. They were capable of carrying up to a ton of weapons, ammo and sensing equipment.
An MQ-3 Predator — the P3—was in the room as well. Unlike its now outdated namesake, this was a nearly-autonomous octocopter with an effective range of one hundred miles from its operator or relay station. This craft was of a true drone design, deviating from the aircraft configuration of its predecessor. The P3 would have the ability to operate in a target zone for several hours, defending itself against counterattack, while expanding its mission to eliminate multiple targets during its time on station.
Unfortunately, several of the earlier versions of the P3 had found their way to Iran and other terrorist host nations, where crude yet effective knock-offs were being manufactured. A hotel in London had been attacked by one of these units six months ago. The entire building was brought down before enough firepower could be brought in to take it out.
Open-source technology, financed by rogue nations, was proving to be a deadly combination. If an American location was targeted by one of these killer drones, even the assets of the RDC would be inadequate to bring it down, at least until the P3’s were deployed to the rapid-response bunkers — if any bunkers remained after today.
As impressive as the arsenal of next-generation drones might have been, that wasn’t what Xander was looking for. His gave out an audible sigh of relief when he found the prize.
He ran toward the back of the room.
“What the hell is that?” Tiffany asked.
“It’s our ticket out of here.”
The object sat on the floor of the vault, and wasn’t more than a foot thick in its forward and aft sections. It had four overlapping rings of metal, with propellers contained in each of them, two in front and two in back, plus a small dual arrangement of small ringed propellers in the rear. Between the large double rings was a narrow platform with two padded seats placed in a row, and under the platform was a long, narrow black box which the apparatus sat on.
“This is the Mallory Systems H-59 Hoverbike,” Xander explained.
“That thing can fly?” Tiffany voice conveyed her lack of confidence in the vehicle.
“Not really fly, per se. The max altitude is about forty-five feet, and only for brief periods. But it can scoot along the ground at close to a hundred miles per hour, and can even jump over small canyons and cross rivers.”
“Groovy,” Tiffany said as she jumped on the odd-looking vehicle and straddled the rear seat. Xander was taken aback, thinking it would take a lot more convincing to get her on board. “What are we waiting for?” she asked. Seeing his quizzical look, she continued: “Kentucky-bred farm girl, been riding horses since I was five. This is nothing I can’t handle. So hurry, your playmates may come back at any time.”