Mooch radioed. “Target One down.”
“Copy that, Mooch.”
They quickly acquired the second target and repeated the process, requiring two rounds this time until they were satisfied it was knocked out. The entire team in the foyer breathed in relief as Foxy radioed in.
“Targets eliminated.”
Odin nodded. “All right, everyone. Let’s move everything to the SUVs.”
But suddenly a deep humming sound started to emanate from somewhere outside-somewhere away in the hills. They all looked at each other.
McKinney spoke first. “What is that?”
It sounded like a thousand weed whackers heard from a mile away.
Mooch examined the bank of camera monitors. “I don’t see anything. And we’re jamming common drone radio frequencies. And GPS signals.”
Foxy’s voice came in on the radio. “Odin, we’re hearing a strange sound out here. You got anything on the sensors?”
The sound was getting louder. Odin studied the rover screen. “Foxy, get your team back inside. Now!”
On the video monitor they grabbed their gear and dragged it back toward the front door of the house.
To McKinney the humming started to take on the sound of bees. Very large bees.
Ripper was aiming her rifle from doorway to doorway on the balconies above them. “What the hell is that?”
Odin was studying the Rover screen. “We’re gonna need a new plan.” He turned the screen to face them. It was a raven’s-eye view, flying over the forested hills-following what looked like a massive flock of black birds, thousands strong. Except that they didn’t move like birds; they swarmed low through and around the trees, hugging the land. Following something. The raven perspective showed that the cloud was moving, in surges and leaps, straight toward the house.
Foxy frowned. “What the hell…?”
McKinney studied the image. “Oh, my God…”
Foxy, Tin Man, and Smokey came back in through the double doors. Foxy lowered the mirror shield. “What is it?”
Odin stowed the Rover. “Batten down the hatches, people. We’re about to get hit, and if it’s what I think it is, it means we shoot everything that moves.”
The team started grabbing extra ammunition from the Pelican cases.
Ripper pulled her smaller, lighter ammo clip out and slapped a heavy, translucent, twin-drum magazine into her weapon. “Smokey, you got any spare drums for a HK416?”
“No, I wasn’t packing for an assault.”
“Mooch! Bag Hoov’s body. We’re taking him with us.”
“Right.” Mooch got busy, removing a body bag from his rucksack.
“Foxy!”
“Yeah?”
“What’s the most defensible room in this house from a swarm?”
“Probably the garage. Stone walls, covered by hillside on two sides. There’s a jeep there-no top, though. And I don’t have the keys.”
The humming sound was wrapping around the house now-forcing them to shout. The sound of shattering glass came from upstairs-front, back, sides. Everyone aimed weapons upward.
Smokey eyed the balconies warily. “Fuck me…”
“We move to the garage. Now!” Odin grabbed McKinney and started moving across the foyer. “Any expert advice, Professor?”
McKinney stared upward with dread like the others. “Yes. Don’t let them find us.”
Smokey brought up the rear. “Thanks for the tip.”
Just then a series of gunshots boomed outside the tall front doors, the wood splintering in around the door hardware and hinges. Bullets whined past in the foyer, shattering a vase and breaking the glass of a cabinet.
“Move! Move! Move!”
The doors started to disintegrate as dozens more bullets ripped through the wood.
As they reached the entrance to a hallway, Ripper pointed, aiming her weapon up. “There!”
They looked up to see dozens of black buzzing objects pouring over the upstairs balconies from several directions. They looked like toys, two-foot-diameter quadracopters with wiry frames and a central hub-not unlike a winged insect.
They seemed to respond to Ripper’s movement or her shout, because they immediately surged downward in a gathering cloud.
Ripper opened up with her HK, a blade of fire stabbing out as she panned the ceiling, shell cases clattering across the floor around her. McKinney was surprised that her earphones seemed to cancel the loudness of the weapon, while still allowing her to hear her teammates on the intrateam radio.
Odin was shouting, “Ripper, move!”
Pieces of shattered plastic and entire quadracopters were raining down now, smashing into the floor around her as she ran toward them-firing upward the entire way in an uninterrupted burst. Smokey and Tin Man were also ripping the ceiling with short bursts from their HKs.
Foxy rushed past them, dragging Hoov’s body bag by a strap, headed down the hall.
As Ripper reached the doorway, one of the wiry drones fell nearby and a shot rang out close in. Ripper grabbed her leg and fell into the doorway, bleeding. “Dammit!”
Mooch grabbed her by the collar, dragging her down the corridor, as Tin Man and Smokey raked the floorboards, shattering the wounded drones moving around there.
“These fucking things…”
The team was losing ground. Already hundreds more drones were swarming in from above. The hum was deafening and didn’t seem to get canceled by their headsets.
And then the front doors pushed open and scores more poured in from outside.
Odin’s voice. “Fall back! Fall back! Tin Man, Smokey, cover the rear. I’ll pop smoke.”
McKinney ran down a hallway lined with closed doors just ahead of Odin. She sniffed the air and caught a pervasive peppery scent enveloping them, but she ran on.
Behind him Mooch was dragging the wounded Ripper-who was cursing and flailing.
“Goddammit, Mooch, I can fucking walk! Let me go!”
Foxy stood in a left-side doorway at the end of the hall, motioning for her to enter, his weapon raised. “Go! Go! Go!”
Behind them Smokey and Tin Man were falling back in bounding overwatch, firing madly as they retreated, riddling the walls and doors with bullets, cycling through their big drum clips.
The drones poured through the doorway after them, but the narrow opening made their position more defensible. The devices blasted apart in midair and tumbled across the floor as they came in, their pieces piling up. But their frames seemed to be made of thick metal wire or tubing, because they largely kept their shape even after their core was shot out. They lay like dead insects on their backs, spiky legs pointing upward.
Smokey glanced back, “What the hell’s that smell? You smell that?”
Tin Man nodded. “Like weak pepper spray. It’s burning my eyes.”
Odin tossed a smoke canister into the foyer, and it issued billowing clouds. He called back, “Foxy! How’s our ride?”
A muted voice shouted, “Working on it!”
Smokey dropped his large drum clip and shouted, “Reloading!”
That’s when Odin noticed that the swarm was already surging through the smoke.
Tin Man fell back to another doorway. “Goddammit!”
Odin nodded. “That’s millimeter-wave particle smoke-and it doesn’t even slow them down.” He raised his auto-shotgun and began raking the doorway with buckshot that seemed particularly effective. He shouted at the others, “We won’t have enough ammo to knock down half this swarm.”
Tin Man got in a kneeling position. “Heads up! Forty Mike Mike. Fire in the hole!” He fired the grenade launcher bolted to the underside of his HK out the end of the hall into the smoke-filled foyer. There was a muffled flash and pieces of drones ricocheted everywhere-but the cloud soon swarmed in again through the smoke.
Tin Man pulled the receiver open and slid another forty-millimeter grenade into it while Odin sprayed the doorway with buckshot. FOOM! Another grenade went into the foyer with similar results.