"That should confuse them," he gasped, breathless with excitement. "Smoke will make things a touch more difficult for them! So will the reflector. But we will need to disable them. We have guns — but can either of you shoot?"
Sam shook his head. The truth was that he had always had a horror of guns, even before his unfortunate experience with the arms ring. Several people had offered to teach him to shoot, but he had always refused, saying that it was a skill he hoped he would never need. Now, once again, he found himself wishing that he had accepted.
"I can," said Nina, loading her gun. "There aren't many advantages to growing up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, but that's one of them. I've never fired anything as fancy as this, but I'm sure the principle's the same." She took Sam's gun from his hands and quickly showed him how to load it. "It's buckshot, so this is going to be more about luck than skill. Just point, squeeze the trigger, and watch out for the kick. If we survive this, I'll give you the advanced tutorial another time."
I can do this, Sam told himself, clutching the shotgun as they heard the low growling of the line of drones. Having completed one pass, they were now returning for a second, seeking a clear view. Through the billowing smoke Sam counted five of them, but he was certain there had been more visible from the car.
He forced himself to calm his breathing, as he looked through the sight. A drone broke cover, bursting out of the cloud of smoke, and Sam's finger closed on the trigger.
Seconds later he shook his head and looked around to find himself in a different position, flat on his back and staring upward at a ceiling of twigs. The jagged branches dug into his back where he had landed on them, and as he pulled himself back into a crouch he heard the thin material of his shirt rip. The smell of spent gunpowder filled his nostrils. He could taste it, acrid and sulfurous in the back of his throat. The memories were trying to flood back, the vision of a half-destroyed face…
"I warned you to watch out for the kick," said Nina, with the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.
"You got one!" Purdue cried, pointing in the direction of Sam's shot. Sure enough, a tangle of metal and black plastic was burning brightly in the sand a short distance away. "Well done, Sam! I think it might have been the scout! Now, I need you two to keep shooting. I am going to attempt to jam their signal."
Gritting his teeth, Sam hoisted the gun to his shoulder again. He watched and waited until he heard the drones approach again, still seeking their target. He knew it was only his imagination, but he was sure that the snarl of the engines sounded different, as if the drones were becoming frustrated by their inability to find their objective.
He heard the noise of Nina's gun behind him, followed by her cursing under her breath as the shot failed to land. She fired again, and again, but before he could learn whether she had brought any of the drones down, he spotted one approaching and fired. His aim went wide, and only a small amount of shrapnel hit it, piercing its casing without incapacitating it.
The fire that Purdue had set was beginning to dwindle. Much of its fuel had burned away, reducing the bushes to glowing, smoldering ash that gave off a thin, tapering trail of smoke rather than the thick clouds it had offered before. The remaining drones were increasingly visible — and Sam knew that this could only mean that the drones could see them too.
Four — no, five, he counted. I must have miscounted before. That would be about right if Nina hasn't yet shot any down. But I thought she had, and I definitely did, and… oh, no.
Over the horizon, another half dozen drones rose into view, the outlines of the little places dark and menacing against the blue sky. We're never going to be able to shoot them all down, Sam thought. And even if we could, do they have more? Will they just keep them coming?
Crouched on the sandy ground at their feet, Purdue bent double over his tablet, whispering one instruction after another to it and jabbing at the screen. As the last of the thick smoke cleared, leaving them with only wisps for concealment, Purdue gave a muffled, hopeful exclamation. "Initiate program," he told the tablet, and Sam could hear in his voice the same persuasive tone he had once fallen for himself. He only hoped that the computer was as susceptible to Purdue's wheedling.
As one of the drones swooped toward their hiding place and began to fire, Sam took aim and went for the trigger again. It clicked, but did not fire. The trigger jammed. Sam swore under his breath and pulled again, but still it stuck. "Come on, come on, you little bastard!" Sam hissed at it as the drone's bullets hit the sand just a few feet from where they hid. The gun refused to fire. Sam yelled at the others to get down, throwing his arms over his head for protection. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the imminent hail of bullets.
Silence. Sam listened, but heard nothing. Is this it? he wondered. Am I dead? Is it over? He opened his eyes. There was still sand beneath his feet, and as he raised his head he saw that he was still in the bushes. Not dead, then, he surmised. "Nina?"
"I'm all right." Sam heard her voice from behind him. "Dave?"
"I am well, thank you," Purdue's tone was bright and chipper. "All the better for seeing how well that little experiment worked. Look!" Unfolding himself carefully, he pushed the branches aside and got to his feet. Sam and Nina did likewise and looked around.
The scene was chaos. The desert sand was punctuated with the burning wreckage of the drones that they had shot down — one for Sam, three for Nina. However, the war zone image was interspersed with the comical sight of intact drones upended in the dunes, their noses buried. Once again Sam recalled the remote control helicopter he had owned so proudly when he was small, and how it had occasionally ended up crash-landing in his sister's sandpit.
"That will take care of them for now," said Purdue. "The signal will remain jammed as long as they are within range of the tablet. But there were at least two that fell into the canyon. If they survived the fall, they might well become operational once again. We should get as far from here as possible before that happens."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sam rubbed his bleary eyes. "I'm sorry, folks," he yawned. "I'm going to have to stop the car and pull over."
"It's ok, Sam," Nina gave him an exhausted smile. "We're all exhausted. Purdue's been dead to the world for about twenty minutes now."
"Should we stop here?" he asked. "It's a bit open. Do you think I should find somewhere more sheltered?"
Nina looked out at the moonlit desert. There was nothing to see but an expanse of featureless, grayish sand. There were no trees, no high dunes to give them cover. "That could take a while. Besides, I have a feeling that if these people want to find you, you get found. Let's just stop here and get a couple of hours of sleep, ok?"
"Let's do that. Surely, we can't be too far from the road now."
Nina checked the tablet. "Not far. We'll reach it in the morning. Less than half an hour, I'd say, depending on what the terrain's like."
"If I never drive on sand again, it'll be too soon — bloody nightmare." Sam pulled the key out of the ignition and tucked it safely in his pocket. He pulled up his bony knees, curling himself as best he could in the driver's seat. Feeling something pushing his spine into an odd contortion and the seatbelt dock sticking into his knee, he wondered if he would be able to manage any sleep at all. Seconds later, he was oblivious to all sensation, fast asleep.