Then he was clear of the doorway and gunning the throttle, while also pulling back on the control stick, sending the odd-looking craft climbing into the sky.
More bullets impacted the undercarriage of the hovercopter, yet a quick glance at the control panel showed that nothing was awry. They continued to climb.
Glancing over his left shoulder, Xander caught sight of the small flight of enemy drones below. They were rapidly falling behind, and for a moment Xander thought they were home free. Then he saw multiple puffs of white smoke, followed by lengthening contrails.
The hovercopter could easily outrun the drones — what it couldn’t do was outrun missiles.
They were at nearly three thousand feet and climbing, the six missile trails streaking closer. Xander banked the copter sharply to the left, a movement that sent the unrestrained Tiffany Collins spilling into his lap.
“Dammit, Tiffany!”
“It’s not my fault!”
Restricted from fully actuating the controls, the hovercopter continued to turn to the left, forming a full circle before Tiffany could extricate herself from Xander. She fought to quickly fasten the waist strap before Xander sent the craft into another wide spin.
The first missile shot past, missing them by twenty feet. Now it was Xander’s turn to fasten his seatbelt. Afterwards, he banked the copter sharply to the right, just as another missile whizzed past.
He noticed high above that the first missile was now changing course and heading back toward them, while another array of white smoke trails approached from beneath.
“Is your life insurance paid up?” he managed to call out.
Tiffany looked over at him and opened her mouth to reply, when Xander suddenly tilted the hovercopter straight up while applying maximum power to the rotors. They both felt their stomachs rise up into their throats as the craft continued along its arc, until it was on the horizontal again, but now upside down.
The hovercopter was not designed for such a maneuver. It stalled at the zenith and began to fall straight down toward the desert floor, now a mile below. Tiffany’s yelp was ear-piercing as the craft began to tumble to the right. It nosed down and began to spin headfirst toward the ground. Xander barely noticed as the remaining missiles shot past, completely off target, the pilots taken off guard by Xander’s radical move — whether intended or not — unable to follow his descent.
Gripping the central control stick with both hands, Xander fought to find the right combination of twists and turns that would right the craft. Most of his efforts resulted in only heavier spinning. Then they came out, yet still aimed toward the surface at a nearly a ninety-degree angle. Xander pulled back on the stick, with little effect. He cut the four rear propellers. The tail end of the hovercopter began to drop as the two front rotors continued to fight against the step angle of descent. Slowly, the hovercopter began to pull out of the dive.
Straining even more, Xander felt as if the control stick was about to break off in his hands. He glanced at the altimeter: five hundred feet… four hundred… three hundred…
The rate of descent began to slow as the propellers began to bite the air. Xander activated the four rear rotors again, and at a mere sixty feet above the surface the craft was once again on the horizontal.
“I think I peed my pants,” Tiffany muttered from the passenger seat.
“A little too much information, madam reporter,” Xander said once he could breathe again. He glanced out through the dome of the hovercopter to see if he could spot the enemy drones. In that brief moment, he couldn’t, but he knew they were still out there, even though their propellant load would be exhausted within seconds. But others could be launched. Xander gunned the throttle and set off east away from the Center.
Chapter 8
The sun was just now hiding behind the mountains to the west and the landscape around them was growing darker. Xander Moore piloted the strange-looking hovercopter just above the ground, skimming a scant fifty feet above the desert floor. The damn craft had regulation running lights, which was something he couldn’t override, so there was a chance the trailing drones could spot the alternating green and red. He cranked the speed up to two hundred miles per hour.
Five minutes later, he made a wide turn to the right and entered a series of low canyons along the mountains between Las Vegas and Lake Meade, heading due south. A few minutes later — and with no sign of a tail — he came up on East Lake Meade Parkway, the main road between Henderson and the lake, and followed it west.
During most of the short trip, Tiffany rested her head against the side of the plastic dome, watching the scene fly past below. Xander had gained more altitude, zipping along at around eight hundred feet above the surface.
He took the craft’s radio and fingered the controls. Nothing, just dead air. He tried it again.
“It doesn’t work?”
“One of the bullets must have hit the antenna or the unit itself. Ain’t that some bad luck? That’s all right. We’re only about three minutes from my house, and I’ll call someone when we get there.”
It was an eerie sight from the air, looking out at the wide expanse of the suburban city below. Henderson was the fairly upscale southern enclave of Las Vegas, featuring the huge planned-community of Anthem, and even though it was growing dark, they could easily spot the numerous — and seemingly random — towers of black smoke rising into the air. North, towards Las Vegas, many of the plumes were located near downtown, where the rapid-response bunkers had been located. Yet there were also columns of smoke rising from up from the Summerlin area to the west, as well as several more to the south, including an inordinate number of columns in the area where his home was located.
“Why all the fires? Did you guys have bunkers located in this many places around the city?” Tiffany asked.
“No, we didn’t.” His tone was sour as he spoke the words. “The Las Vegas-Henderson area only had eleven bunkers, and mainly concentrated downtown.”
“So what’s causing all these fires?”
For an answer, Xander approached a large column of black smoke rising up from a home located on a shallow bluff and overlooking the southeastern side of a perfectly manicured desert golf course. He brought the copter into a hover about three hundred feet above the fully-engulfed structure, a fire which had now jumped to the neighboring house to the north. No fire trucks were on the street outside, just a gaggle of stunned spectators and the frantic occupants of the neighboring house trying to save their home.
What was shocking was that half the huge, single-story home below was completely gone, and not from the fire, but from what appeared to be a giant explosion. Debris trails fanned out from the point of the detonation; the raging fire was in the remaining part of the building, since there was very little left where the bomb or missile had struck.
Tiffany was engrossed in the fiery scene below, until she suddenly pulled her attention away from the side of the clear plastic dome and turned it to Xander. “Is that your home?” she asked breathlessly.
“It was,” Xander replied in a whisper.
“I am so sorry, Xander. But why would they attack your home?”
“Because they’re going after all the RDC pilots. Along with the attack, information on all the Center’s operations, security protocols and personnel was blasted all over the Internet today. Each of those smoke plumes is where a pilot and his family lived.”
“Oh my God. Are you married? Were there any children at home?”
“Bachelor,” Xander answered. “But most of the others are married and do have children. I don’t think the terrorists give a damn about that.”