Crow's Gambit, page 25
part #1 of Sylphan Revelations Series
A connection request popped into her vision from Dale, distracting her.
“I’m sending you the feed from my glasses and drones,” he informed her.
She slid the window to the back and side, out of the way.
“They’re here.”
Movement caught her attention on the drone feed, labelled as the east stairwell. For a second, she thought something popped over the edge of the steps. It looked like a small mechanical spider. Then the video feed went dead.
“Their drone took out my watchdog. Switching to my other one,” Dale commented.
The image shifted to higher up the stairwell. She watched the enemy drone crawl over to Dale’s, now quite dead, watchdog drone. As Dale zoomed in on the spider drone, she saw its sensors turn up and focus on his second drone. He must have taken control of the drone’s manipulators because she saw one raise in an obscene gesture before the drone scurried away.
The lights went out then. After a moment of darkness, emergency lights came to life with a soft glow.
“The building has an internal backup system. The telepresence units will still be powered for a while, but you have to hurry.”
Chapter 40
REACHING OUT, CASSIE grasped a virtual throttle and pressed it slightly forward. Releasing the brakes, she watched on the live feed as the drone started to move forward under its own thrust. A three-dimensional terrain map slid into her view and she studied it. Rolling out of its small hanger the plane’s solid icon moved onto a wide tarmac before stopping.
“So how do we do this?” Lizzy asked. “You do have a plan, right? Or are we expecting to get this thing blown up?”
“Actually, I kind of need this to not get blown up. At least for a while.” Cassie took a deep breath to try and relieve the nervous tightness in her chest. “Find me a clear exit path to the east. We’ll be going very fast and very low.”
“How fast? How low?”
“We need to look like the Puma.”
“Oh.”
A glowing green line appeared on Cassie’s display. It headed east with only slight deviations. There was less than twenty miles between the drone’s current location and the ocean. Zooming in, Cassie studied the path Lizzy had laid out and hesitated. The path followed a major highway. Even at this time in the early morning, it was inevitable they would be passing numerous vehicles. Given the XS-9’s size, it would be nearly impossible to stay low enough without hitting one of them.
“Lizzy hack the transportation network. I need you to get people off that road.”
“Leavenworth is starting to look like a real option, you know.” Lizzy sighed. “Working on it but it’s going to take a few minutes.”
“Dale, we need more time. Can you slow them down?” Cassie asked.
“Watch this.”
In the east stairwell, the small spider drone pushed a canister to the edge and over. Cassie watched as it bounced once, twice, and then exploded. Foam quickly expanded to fill the stairwell.
“What the hell was that?”
“An exothermic foam bomb,” Dale answered. “Someone at Crow Research designed it. That aerogel foam will seep into every crack, crevice, and open space before it solidifies.”
“And it will stop them?
“The soldiers below will be equipped to handle something like this, but it will slow them down.” Dale chuckled. “That foam is a dirty sticky mess to cut through. When they do get past it, I’m afraid they’re going to be pissed.”
“What about the roof?”
“I left another present from Darrow up there. Hopefully, his people are as good as he thinks.”
“No kidding,” Cassie muttered to herself.
She did a last check on the drone’s systems. Everything looked in the green, but this was a design that had never flown, so who knew what that meant. On the heads-up display, several flashing icons were rapidly approaching the tarmac. Lizzy had already tagged them as local law enforcement. Their time was running out. Shadowed icons slowly started to appear on the road leading to the east, their exit path. Many of them were moving swiftly off the road.
“I’ve done what I can,” Lizzy announced.” No guarantees they will all get out of the way though.”
“What did you do?”
“Hacked the Emergency Response Network and ordered all the cars to take cover.”
“What emergency did you say was about to happen?”
“Nuclear terrorist attack.”
Ah, well that would do it.
There were only a few things that would allow a vehicle’s AI to be completely overridden. An imminent nuclear attack would be one of them. Not exactly low key though.
The terrain map reduced itself to a two-dimensional plane at the bottom of her view. In its place Cassie saw the forward view from the drone. The tarmac was empty but not wide or particularly long. Low trees bounded it on all sides. She slumped her shoulders in resignation. Clenching her fist around the virtual throttle she pushed it fully forward. The thrust indicators for the twin turbine engines climbed quickly into the red. Inside the virtual display Cassie could see the drone start to move, then pick up speed.
Cassie kept one eye on the speed indicator and the other on the rapidly approaching tree line. Casually she swiped her left hand in a small circular motion. Inside the drone vanes shifted position directing part of the exhaust gases downward generating vertical thrust. Pulling back gently on the console’s joystick the drone lifted into the air.
“Too low,” Lizzy observed.
The drone’s landing gear ripped through the top tree limbs and leaves. The system’s feedback mechanism sent physical jolts back through Cassie’s hands. Warning lights flashed in the virtual heads-up display. Calmly she raised the landing gear. The warning indicators remained though.
With a swipe of her hand, she closed the display. As the drone’s speed increased, the shape of its body generated more lift. She rotated the full thrust to the rear and the drone accelerated across the land.
Consciously Cassie tried to relax and let her body flow into the controls. The display took on the tunnel vision aspect of AI assisted control. Ghost images of what was far ahead of the drone overlaid on what was immediately around it. In the background the deep bass of a Ragnar’s Daughters song began, courtesy of Lizzy.
Somewhere in the back of her mind Cassie knew she controlled a several-ton flying brick that was only a few feet off the ground. She didn’t think too hard about it though, knowing she couldn’t force this. Her body swayed slightly to the beat of the music. Miles away the XS-9 dipped its wings and pitched its nose, subtly changing its orientation in an almost random pattern. Her pattern.
“Is the PDE ready?”
“Yes.” Lizzy’s tone was naturally hesitant. This was untested technology using an actual explosive as fuel.
Cassie’s hand paused over the PDE initiation control for an instant before she tapped it. Many miles away the untested engine came to life. Bursts of fuel began entering a series of small chambers and detonating. The speed of the cyclic detonations ramped up and the thrust multiplied. The forward view appeared to blur as the control system tried to catch up with the increasing speed.
Without warning, the forward display flashed white and went dead. Cassie’s hand tingled as the control system sent feedback jolts. A myriad of warning lights and alarm noises flooded her senses.
Crap. The engine must have blown up.
Chapter 41
“WE’RE STILL OKAY,” Lizzy pronounced. “I’m still getting some telemetry data. Hang on.”
Cassie’s body hummed with nervous agitation as she waited. Flipping her gaze back to the view from the stairwell drone, she watched as a bright circle cut across the hardened foam barrier. Its surface crumbled all at once as a black clothed figure pushed through it. Pieces of white foam were still stuck to the figure in uneven patches. The figure glanced up and pointed a dark barreled weapon at the drone.
Yep, they were ticked off.
The view jerked as the drone raced to evade the weapon. It was fast, Cassie reflected. The Crow Works definitely lived up to expectations in that area.
The virtual flight interface popped back into existence. Cassie breathed a sigh of relief as she realized the drone was still alive and they had a connection. The sensor data slowly stabilized as she struggled with the controls.
“What just happened?”
“I think it was a shockwave. Look at the speed indicator,” Lizzy replied.
Sure enough, the sensors showed the drone was traveling just above Mach One, eight hundred miles per hour. When they had crossed the speed barrier, the pressure discontinuity must have spiked all the sensors.
Cassie wasn’t sure what surprised her more. The fact they were going that fast or the fact they hadn’t been blown out of the sky yet by the Sylph.
“Okay, if you’re going to do something to get higher—now is the time,” Lizzy commented calmly. “At this rate, the turbines will be running low on fuel soon and we’re burning through that PX stuff fast.”
Cassie took a deep breath, forcing the muscles in her shoulders and back to relax as she released it. Stretching her fingers, she gripped the control stick with one hand and placed the other over the engine controls. Without the time to run her plan through the simulator, she was going to have to trust her instincts fully and hope for the best.
The senator’s advice came back to her.
Don’t fuck up.
Pulling back on the stick, she directed the XS-9 into a steep climb. At the same time, she feathered the top side air brakes to generate more torque for the climb. Alarms started to sound, and overstress warning lights flashed. The XS-9 was being pushed beyond its structural limits and the AI knew it. The altitude indicator reached an almost vertical climb as the system switched its message to imminent failure. Immediately Cassie killed the PDE and throttled back the turbines. The XS-9 rocketed into the sky on its momentum.
The large drone was now partially ballistic, trading kinetic energy for height. The thrust being generated by the turbines wasn’t large enough to fully overcome the pull of gravity. It was just enough to keep the engines running. And hopefully small enough that the Sylph might overlook it.
With any luck the momentum would last long enough to give them enough altitude. Cassie knew the trick was to somehow get high enough for the drone to slip into a Sylph safe layer. However, it didn’t take long for her to realize the speed was dropping too fast. They were never going to make the required altitude without some added push.
Quickly, Cassie pulled up the software patch she had uploaded to the engine control system. It was untested and unorthodox. Using it could very well result in the drone exploding, even without the Sylph’s help. But she had to try. They had nothing and everything to lose.
With a brief swipe of her finger, the patch activated. The PDE indicator shifted to yellow momentarily and then back to green. The engine had apparently decided it was willing to accept Cassie’s strategy. The turbines on the other hand were done. A red fuel warning message flashed to the side of her vision. The thrust rapidly went to zero.
“Well it was fun while it lasted,” Lizzy commented.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Cassie muttered. She tapped the PDE initiator and slid the throttle forward. The forward display started jerking and several warning indicators instantly appeared. The drone’s vertical speed started to increase again.
“Whoa. What the hell just happened?”
Cassie smiled at Lizzy’s confusion. It was nice to know it was still possible to surprise her.
“I slowed the pulse rate down for the detonations in the PDE.”
The PDE had been designed to cause repeated detonations that generated a standing pressure wave in the combustion chamber. Cassie had slowed the rate down to the point that each individual detonation caused only a momentary burst of thrust. By constantly varying the strength and timing of the bursts she hoped the Sylph would ignore them, or at least be confused for a while. The problem was the constant barrage of small explosions was vibrating the XS-9 apart.
“It’s working.” Lizzy giggled. “The Sylph haven’t destroyed it ... yet.”
“Maybe that’s because they know it’s shaking itself to pieces anyway.”
The interface was transmitting the vibrations into a physical sensation that made her hands almost numb. The flight controls were increasingly sluggish. Despite the advanced fly by wire avionics, the multitude of control surfaces on the drone couldn’t keep up with the constantly changing flight characteristics. The drone was jerking in the sky like a scared bronco.
“As surprised as I am to say this our altitude is climbing,” Lizzy commented. “Should we be worried about that?”
Damn. She’d almost forgotten.
Soon they would be moving into range of the Sylph spheres in low earth orbit. Regardless of how she flew or what she did with the acceleration, if they got too close to any of the spheres, the drone was toast.
“Can you use the Crow Works database to show the position of the LEO spheres?”
To the side of her vision, a three-dimensional projection of the Earth appeared. The view zoomed in to one portion. Dots representing the Sylph slowly appeared randomly spaced through a thin layer above the surface. Below them a flashing icon indicated the position of the drone. Its projected pace directly intersected with one of the dots.
Of course.
Cassie surveyed her options. Between the vibrations and the rapidly thinning atmosphere the control surfaces were useless for direction control. The attitude thrusters were also offline, likely damaged by the intense vibration.
The PDE wasn’t designed for vectored thrust so it would keep moving the drone in one direction. Swiping through system summaries Cassie looked for anything that might help them. She stopped on the screen labeled Engine Auxiliary Systems. An entry at the bottom caught her attention.
“Lizzy, does the engine purge system on the turbines do what I think it does?”
“Flushes liquid fuel from the combustion chamber when you switch to gaseous fuel. No one designs drones to use both anymore, so they’re left out of modern designs to save space.”
“Will it work if the turbines are out of fuel?”
“If it has a pressurized reservoir tank, sure.”
Cassie selected the purge system and zoomed in on the readings. Sure enough, there was a reading for the reservoir tank pressure, and it was fully charged. Glancing at the map of approaching spheres she picked a direction. Instructing the system to only vent the port engine she pressed and held the manual purge override. The pressure reading dropped rapidly as the pressurized gas vented through the engine and out the rear nozzle. It reached zero sooner than she would have liked, and she hoped the small amount of thrust it had generated was enough to redirect their path.
The vibrations Cassie had been feeling died down and the drone’s flight smoothed out. A red “No Fuel” light began flashing in the middle of her vision. She had forgotten to keep an eye on their PDE fuel levels. Now that was gone too. From this point on, the drone was at the complete mercy of its momentum and gravity. There was nothing they could do but watch what happened.
On the navigation plot, the course had changed slightly, veering away from the approaching sphere. As the drone got closer the display zoomed in and a shaded zone appeared around the sphere indicating the Sylph exclusion region. The margin for error was non-existent.
Cassie held her breath as the plotted line brushed the very edge of the zone region before passing and pulling away from the sphere. With a sigh, she let out her breath.
“I’m not sure if you’re paying attention but ... the drone seems to be in space.” Blatant amazement colored Lizzy’s voice now. “I don’t know for how long though. Even if we manage to dodge all the Sylph, the orbit is...”
Lizzy cut off in mid-sentence. Her connection had been severed. Cassie tried to bring up the orbital track data, but the interface wouldn’t respond. She brushed the control several times, but nothing happened. A yellow warning message appeared in front of her. Unlike the other messages this one was directly from the physical system in the room.
A pit formed in Cassie’s stomach as she read it.
System Override Engaged.
Chapter 42
CASSIE BLINKED AT THE message in confusion. What did that even mean?
“How are we doing in there?” Dale asked. The image had changed from the stairwell to a composite of the drone and Dale’s view of the hallway.
“Um, I’m not sure.”
“Well, stay in there and keep your head down. They’re going to be coming through any moment.”
Turning his back to the hallway, he covered his head with his arms and waited.
Moments later, at the other end of the hallway, the door to the stairs exploded inward. Cassie watched as two small objects were tossed into the hall. The image flashed white and Cassie heard the high-volume shriek even through the walls.
Even though Dale was prepared for it, the grenades momentarily dazed him. Several dark figures emerged from the stairwell and started advancing down the hallway on both sides. Dale remained crouched and unmoving.
“C’mon Dale. Get up.”
“Watch this,” he whispered without moving.
Down the hallway energy arced out from the walls. Bolts of lightning danced along the surfaces of the hall. Some played along the ceiling causing the lights to explode in showers of sparks. Others connected with doorknobs and other hardware before jumping to the next surface. Several of the approaching soldiers were clipped by the bolts or hit directly. At least two jerked and collapsed to the ground.
“That’s what happens when you discharge supercapacitor pads too fast.”
Dale was done playing dead. He spun, aimed his weapon, and began firing in short controlled bursts. His shots connected with several of the closest attackers. They were knocked on their asses without fanfare.
The attackers weren’t being as restrained with their weapons fire. Their shots were intended to kill. Cassie watched pieces of furniture and drywall spray through the air as bullets impacted around Dale.
