Kill Decision

Odin examined the assembly and tugged forcefully at it, trying to shake the canister loose. He looked up at McKinney.

  She nodded. “Simple’s good. How do we detach it for the run to the ship’s bridge?”

  Foxy leaned in and threw the clamp lever, popping the canister bracket loose. “That easy. Then we depress the valve by hand.”

  “Let me see that. . . .” McKinney extended her hand and took the canister from him. “We need to dose ourselves too—for when we land.” She pressed her finger down on the nozzle and sprayed herself with the odorless, colorless perfluorocarbon. It nonetheless felt moist and cool as she could feel it evaporating slowly. She handed the canister to Odin.

  “How long does the coverage last?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. So watch how they behave toward you. If they start getting aggressive, you need another dose.”

  Foxy sprayed himself as well, and then reclamped the canister into place on the nose of the chopper.

  Just then they heard the deep growl of a powerful engine, and they turned to see a new silver Bentley sedan drive up a ramp from the lower deck, leap the apex, and screech to a sliding halt in front of them. Steel deck plating crudely welded across all its windows marred the beautiful car, with burn marks at the connection points lending the appearance of smeared mascara. There were small view ports in the steel plates. After a moment the passenger door opened with difficulty, and Evans got out. Beyond him Smokey was behind the wheel.

  “What do you think? The Mulsanne armored edition. Some billionaire in Hong Kong will be very disappointed with our mods.”

  “Can’t say much for the styling.”

  Evans thumbed in the direction of the ramp. “There’s six more wrapped in plastic down there. Buses, tractors, earth movers. And there’s gonna be a BMW shortage in Beijing if this ship goes down.”

  Odin placed Huginn and Muninn in the folding cage and handed them to Smokey. “Keep them safe.”

  “Will do, chief.”

  “Where’s Ripper?”

  Smokey gestured down the ramp. “Welding armor plate onto trucks. Figure if we stay mobile, they’ll have a hard time swarming us, and there’s running room on the ramps down there. We might be able to crush them against walls, and whatnot.”

  Odin nodded, examining the weapons arrayed across the car’s backseat. “Is that all we’ve got?”

  Smokey nodded. “Pistols too. But three .338 rifles. A couple MP5s, and an HK416. A few hundred rounds and some frag grenades, some thermite.” Smokey leaned forward. “You’re not taking any weapons?”

  Odin shook his head. “Where we’re going, if we need to start shooting, we’re dead already. Better that you have them to hold off an attack.”

  Smokey handed him an HK tactical pistol. “Take a pistol at least—you might need to shoot off a lock or something.”

  “Or something.” Odin grabbed it and slid it into a leg holster.

  The sound of a heavy diesel engine roared belowdecks, and in a moment a large front-end loader rolled onto the main deck with Ripper behind the wheel and Mooch sitting in the shovel. There were steel plates welded around the cab on this too. Mooch hopped out as it came to a halt. The engine cut off moments later.

  “Should be able to stomp a few of the fuckers with that.”

  Foxy shouted, looking at his watch, “Time to kill drones, people!”

  The team moved into a circle but did not touch or say good-bye. They simply stood looking from one to another. McKinney was slightly off-balance trying to understand this close-knit team’s unspoken ritual, but they seemed to just be regarding each other. Evans also watched from the car door.

  After a few moments Odin broke the silence. “You all know the stakes and what’s expected of us. We will meet on the other side.” With that he snapped a sharp salute, and the others returned it. They nodded to McKinney and immediately resumed their duties.

  Foxy started flicking switches in the Sikorsky, and the engines began to whine to life. Odin opened the copilot door. “Time to go!”

  Evans shrugged to McKinney and shouted over the noise, “Good luck, Professor.”

  She turned and entered the chopper as Evans watched. McKinney barely had her seat belt on by the time the Sikorksy lifted off and edged out over the ocean. She looked down to see the captain standing on the top of the control tower, simply watching them leave.

  Odin handed her a set of headphones, and the moment she put them on, she could hear Foxy speaking.

  “. . . fuel to get there. We’re gonna keep this straight and simple.” He pointed. “Look, you can see the Ebba Maersk already.”

  McKinney craned her head and could indeed see a smudge on the horizon if she didn’t look directly at it. “Foxy, fly low to the water. That’s what they seem to be doing, and it might help contain pheromone dispersal.”

  Foxy nodded and brought them down alarmingly low—within twenty or thirty feet of the water’s surface.

  “Jesus! Not that low.”

  “I got it, Professor.”

  Odin turned back to her. “ETA about ten minutes.” He extended the copper nozzle wire to her. “You’re the best person to control this.”

  McKinney nodded and took the line.

  Odin then spoke into the radio. “Safari-One-Six actual, crossing Lima Delta, out.”

  “TOC copies. Happy hunting.”

  He then pointed to a firefighter’s oxygen mask and supply tank sitting on one of the captain seats. “Put it on, and we’ll do an equipment check.”

  McKinney started prepping the gear, and the process considerably calmed her nerves. She knew enough about herself that when frightening events were afoot, she preferred to be actively doing something. Listening to Odin’s instructions on the oxygen rig served that purpose. She tried to lock eyes with him, but he was all business—focused on the mission. She decided that came from experience and tried to put everything else out of her mind too.

  They were coming up on the huge container ship all too fast for her liking. And soon they could see drones flying about in ones and twos, running forage patterns—with denser clouds closer in.

  Odin raised binoculars, then shouted, “Incoming! Professor. Dose us. Oxygen masks on.”

  She tugged on the wire to release pheromone, then lowered her oxygen mask and turned on air.

  Odin looked side to side as they skimmed over the ocean surface. “We’ve got six . . . hell, we’ve got several dozen headed this way with a lot more behind that.” He lowered the binoculars. “How are we doing on pheromone?”

  “We’ll find out in a moment. Let me know if they get aggressive, and I’ll increase the spray.” McKinney tried not to get crazy with the application of pheromone. She imagined the size of an ant if its mandibular gland were the size of the canister outside. Then tried to remind herself how small an amount they could detect. Nonetheless, her first blasts from the nozzle felt excessive.

  As she looked up from the canister, her heart raced. Flying in alongside them now were a dozen flat black flying wings only about five feet wide, with loud but small turbofan engines. These were clearly not ship-cutters because they didn’t have legs or a welding torch nose—instead they seemed to have automatic rifles or similar weapons bolted under their wings. They looked cheap. Poorly made. Some were damaged, but they still functioned enough to fly.

  Judging from the motion of their engine nozzles, they seemed to be able to rotate them to increase their maneuverability. They were flying in close to the chopper—mere feet from the window—almost bumping into the Sikorsky, skirting under it.

  Foxy swerved and cursed. “Goddammit! They’re going to take out our rotors if they crowd us too close.”

  A drone bumped into their fuselage.

  But just as soon as they appeared, they dispersed. The chopper was suddenly flying in open air again, just off the water. Drones now occasionally crossed their path, but it was the more random activity of a hive running foraging patterns. McKinney let out a relieved breath
and pulled the cord to apply pheromone again.

  Odin and Foxy glanced back at her. “Looks like you were right, Professor.”

  “It was more than a hunch. These things operate on algorithmic principles.” She nodded. “Now let’s hope we don’t run out of pheromone or oxygen before we get this done.”

  Odin keyed the radio. “TOC, this is Safari-One-Six actual.”

  “Go ahead, Safari-One-Six.”

  “Looks like the pheromone ruse works. We are flying into the swarm and toward the ship right now. Will keep you apprised. Out.”

  “Goddamn, that’s good news, chief. Out.”

  Just a few miles ahead they could see the broad stern of the Ebba Maersk. McKinney swallowed hard at the swirling crowd of aircraft and the now discernible vuvuzela-like whine that came to them even through their own engine noise.

  “My God, look at it . . . there are thousands of them.”

  Foxy shook his head. “I don’t know how I’m going to be able to get close enough to land without hitting a dozen of those things. Look how packed in they are.”

  Odin motioned with his hand. “Get up higher. Try to come in from overhead.” He glanced to the side. “Hey! Getting some aggressive approaches at three o’clock. Professor, give us another dose.”

  McKinney pulled on the nozzle.

  Nonetheless a drone slammed into the side of the helicopter, cracking the side window and knocking their trim off before Foxy could recover.

  “Jesus!”

  McKinney watched the damaged drone spin apart and crash into the sea. No other drones seemed to be following its lead. She pulled several more times on the nozzle to coat their fuselage, just to be sure. Clear droplets traced along the glass.

  Looking ahead, she could see they were now rising above the stern of the massive container ship. The water churned from the huge propellers as the ship steamed southward. The control tower in the distance rose like a massive T square near the center of the ship, probably twenty stories above the water—in the center of thousands of blue, gray, orange, and silver shipping containers that rose almost to the level of the control tower itself.

  Unlike other shipping containers McKinney had seen, many of these had open panels in their sides and tops from which drones were entering and leaving the nests. She could see the turbofan drones tilting their engines down and hovering in for a landing, the air wavering with hot exhaust. But there were thousands of drones of still smaller size. She thought she could make out clouds of black quadracopter drones as well, not unlike the ones they’d faced in Colorado—but bigger, lawn mower–sized, with smoke coming off them as their two-stroke gasoline engines added to a deafening droning sound. It seemed to set the fillings in her teeth vibrating.

  “God, would you listen to that?”

  Foxy was bringing them into the cloud, angling for a landing. “Will these things make room for me, Professor?”

  McKinney leaned forward to look. “If we collide they’ll back away . . . after trying to exchange data via their sensilla.”

  There was a loud thump as a drone bumped into them from behind.

  “Goddammit! We’re running on vapors. There’s no time for finesse. We gotta land.”

  Looking below, it seemed like the ship was the molting ground of some vast flock of birds. Tens of thousands of drones covered every available surface—others seemed to be crawling around. McKinney released more pheromone and looked on with amazement at the complex and terrifying manifestation of her work. In some sick way it almost gave her satisfaction to see her model working—but she quickly rebuked herself.

  Another drone bumped into them, and there was a loud bang as pieces of something sheared away and fell out of sight along with the drone. McKinney hoped none of those pieces belonged to the Sikorsky, but moments later the chopper started vibrating. An empty water bottle rattled in a cup holder at her elbow. The vibration quickly increased. Several red lights and alarms went off on the console up front.

  Odin looked up through the overhead view ports. “We’re leaking something up there, and it isn’t pheromone.”

  Dark fluid sprayed across the glass.

  Foxy was checking indicators and struggling with the yoke. “Gotta land . . . gotta land.”

  Another bump, followed by yet another bang, as a drone edged into them.

  “I don’t see a way to clear a path without running into them. We’ve got some damage to a rotor blade already—maybe more than one.”

  McKinney scanned the vast expanse of containers below them but didn’t see any helipad or unoccupied spot. They were now flying into a cloud of smaller drones, and the impacts were coming fast as popcorn popping. The chopper lurched, and a lawn mower–sized quadracopter bristling with antennas bumped right into the window next to her before it disappeared below them.

  Foxy was wrestling with the controls. Alarms were wailing and lights flashing on the console. “We’re going down. This might be unpleasant.”

  McKinney tugged on the pheromone cord. “Don’t land nose-first, if you can help it. We need to preserve the canister.”

  He laughed ruefully as they started to spin. “We might be landing in a way that solves all our problems.” He struggled to stop the spin, working the foot pedals, handle, and yoke frantically. “Tail rotor’s going.”

  They continued to spin as they descended, and the collisions with drones only increased. There were several loud bangs.

  “Prepare for impact! Prepare for impact!”

  The chopper rotated, then slowed, then finally tilted rearward. McKinney could see them descending toward the top of a pile of drone-covered containers. Fifty feet. Thirty feet. Then ten feet.

  They hit hard, tail first, but the landing surface gave way beneath them. The deafening whine of the drone engines all around them masked even the sound of the crash, and the crumpling of corrugated steel containers. The chopper collapsed partly into a container with its nose facing upward. The blades shattered with a loud snapping sound.

  The impact knocked the wind out of her and caused her to lean on the pheromone cord. She struggled to release it, and then fought against gravity as the chopper rolled sideways. Then the copter mostly righted itself again before coming to a rest.

  McKinney heard Odin’s voice in the headphones beyond all the howling drone engines.

  “Everyone all right?”

  McKinney patted her body and checked the area around her for punctures or crash damage, but eventually she nodded. “Bruised, but I’m good. Foxy, okay?”

  Foxy nodded as he was switching off the engines and the fuel pumps. “Fine. Turns out we should be happy we only had fuel vapors left. Otherwise I think we’d be on fire.”

  Odin spoke into his headset radio. “TOC, this is Safari-One-Six actual. We’ve landed on the mother ship. Chopper disabled, but crew okay. Moving on foot to objective. Maintain your present course until you get confirmation we’ve succeeded. Out.”

  “Copy that, Safari-One-Six.”

  Odin pointed at the intact canister bracket still affixed to the nose outside. “Grab the canisters and let’s move.” With one last glance at his companions he opened the copilot’s door and climbed up onto the storage container roof. Foxy did so on the other side, racing forward to unclamp the canister. Odin turned to grab McKinney’s hand and haul her up out of his door, since the rear doors seemed to be blocked by the walls of a shipping container.

  In a moment they all stood atop a twenty-story-tall block of containers amid the deafening engine roar, with numberless drones flying, perching, and crawling about them. It was a vast field of seething machines. The bright Pacific sun was partly shrouded by a cloud of drones as well.

  Foxy sprayed himself, McKinney, and Odin with pheromone, then looked out on the mass of drones in every direction. He shouted, “Well, that is something you don’t see every day.”

  Four hundred feet ahead, across a series of container blocks separated by narrow chasms, loomed the white conning tower and the wide wind
ows of the ship’s bridge. The radar masts there were still rotating, but no human was in sight. There were scorch marks here and there on the metal and all the windows in the control tower were either shattered or missing, twisted windshield wipers dangling.

  “We’ll need to jump the gaps. It’s a long way down, so be careful. C’mon.” Odin nodded for them to follow, gingerly stepping over the wing of a dormant ship-cutting drone. McKinney could see its antennas and optic sensors moving to and fro. It was fascinating in a macabre way. Someone had actually breathed life into her work. Another foot-long antlike crawling drone walked across the back of the much larger ship-cutter—on its way somewhere else. It looked like a small crawling wire-cutter. Then she realized there were dozens of the little things wandering around between the bigger drones.

  “Professor! This isn’t a goddamned field trip!” Odin tugged her away, and they moved across the seething field of machines to the tower.

  Foxy pointed. “Heads up . . .”

  McKinney and Odin looked up to see several drones racing back to the colony, microjet engines roaring. They created a visible commotion as they flew through the cloud. Soon a trail of other drones started following them.

  And then McKinney saw the collective intelligence of the swarm, as the information, transmitted via pheromone and simple algorithms, manifested itself like a wave. Thousands of drones started taking to the air, leaking upward like liquid into the sky, following their agitated brethren—billowing outward in the direction from which the scouts had come—to the north. Back toward the Tonsberg, which was only just now visible on the horizon. The added roar of thousands of drones taking flight caused them all to crouch down and wince.

  Odin leaned in and shouted into the headset radio. “TOC, this is Safari-One-Six actual. Heads up! You have incoming. Repeat: incoming. ETA ten minutes. Do you copy?”

  There was a pause, and then Smokey’s voice came over the radio. “Copy that. How many we looking at?”

  McKinney watched the numberless horde rising into the sky.

  “The skies will be dark with them. Just hang on as long as you can, and we’ll get the colony ship diverted soon.”