Scout's Honour

  ***

  The seven remaining drones, returning from the mission in high orbit, became alert with their new orders in an instant, and converged on the enemy contact. Their target was an unknown aircraft that was gaining altitude fast, but not fast enough to outrun the drones. The ship bucked and weaved in an attempt to escape, but the drones swarmed over it. Rather than open fire, they surrounded the small aircraft and clamped down like leeches on its hull. The drones assumed positions at evenly spaced intervals, six for each axis of rotation and one at the rear providing forward momentum. They forced the ship in the direction of their choosing, the landing bay of the Ravinicus where Lucia waited.

  The only aircraft in the skies for thirty years were run by the Confederacy. Any unknowns were assumed hostile. The ship the drones now guided inside the landing bay was a far smaller and older piece of hardware. It was boxy and angular. Accessories were crudely bolted or welded into place. It used a conventional combustion engine that worked in tandem with a super-battery. The new Confederacy ships outclassed it in every way with their cold-fusion engines; the Ravinicus was a smooth, sleek hypersonic aircraft designed for flight in the upper atmosphere.

  The drones pinned the captive ship to the landing bay deck. It lay there, silent and wary with its engines shut down. Lucia could see the creative touches the enemy technicians had added. It had only one hull and couldn’t fly in the upper atmosphere, but it was covered in a cloth she recognised: the jumpsuit material. In contrast, the Ravinicus had an inner and outer layer, which was broken up into panels that could be switched mid-flight, acting like a hundred tiny airlocks. One hull was a thick hardened shell used for combat. The other was used for flight in the upper atmosphere, skimming across the stratosphere with minimal friction and maximum aerodynamic lift.

  Lucia examined the hull and whipped out the hunting knife she’d recovered just hours ago, from the wreckage of the ruined Wake Island base. It was as sharp as the day she’d fixed it for her brother Joshua, back when they’d scrounged for a living on the streets of Chicago. She could barely remember.

  She made a cut in the jumpsuit material on the hull. Underneath was a soft white nano-weave, which sent electrical signals to the thick malleable outer layer that reacted and adjusted its attributes accordingly. The Confederate scientist who had invented the material had defected, and repurposed it into a wearable jumpsuit for the enemy insurgents. Lucia had had a chance to see the suits in action during the battle at Wake Island. They had been impressive. Active and static camouflage, enhanced strength and weightlessness, surface adhesion for climbing, among many other neat tricks. Yet for all it could accomplish, the material could still be broken.

  Lucia had legions more scientists at her disposal. Her new suit was much more powerful. She almost never took it off, even between missions, since it quickly became as natural as a second skin.

  She ordered the ever-present guards dotted around the landing bay to tear open the small ship’s hatch. They swarmed over the entrance with blowtorches and crowbars. Lucia stepped forward and the guards parted before her. She activated her suit’s strength mode, and felt her muscles stimulated from the nano-weave layer forcing the protein molecule synthesis around her body. It was as if she had just come from a six-month non-stop gym session. The outer layer of the suit hardened into a flexible shell, providing total body armour as well as protection from her new strength. It kept her from wrenching her own arms out of their sockets. She was amped.

  The gaping maw to the captive ship’s belly dared her to enter.

  With a flick of her wrist, Lucia summoned her two Fletcher bodyguards. They sprang out of the shadows of the landing bay and were at her side in an instant. Their own suits mirrored Lucia’s with their striking dark grey-blue outer skin.

  Lucia didn’t need to be cautious, there was nowhere for any prisoners to run. A bodyguard handed over his weapon. It was a heavy automatic rifle, loaded with thousands of the miniaturised high explosive rounds the drones carried. Lucia lifted it with ease. She aimed from the hip in the general direction of the ship, and laughed as she unloaded into it. By the time she ran empty, the ship was a smoking hulk of twisted metal. A single hand rose up out of the wreckage.