Several objects streaked out of the building. They sparkled in the illumination, before disappearing into the darkness beyond the reach of the lights.
“They’ve launched their stealth drones!” Almasi cried out. “All pilots, be on alert!”
“Did you notice?” the Russian general remarked. “The stealth feature is designed primarily for daylight deception. At night they are still dark, yet appear to flicker in the sky. Shoot at anything that sparkles!”
The mood in the room suddenly grew tense, as Almasi’s pilots guided their RPAs out from the confines of the streets leading to the airbase and began to scatter. Some jumped the fence bordering the base, while others took to the sky and began a systematic search for the elusive enemy drones. The objective of this operation was to destroy these relatively few stealth units, and it was supposed to have been easy with them sitting unprepared in lightly shielded hangars. Now they were mobile, and nearly all the pilots in the room had experienced their deadly efficiency the day before.
However, now they knew what to look for and what to expect. This time the outcome would be different.
And that was when the first of Almasi’s attack drones blew up.
“I got one of the bastards!” Charlie Fox announced over his comm.
“There’s about a hundred more to go, Charlie,” Xander reported. “So be careful.”
Xander was back in Karachi now, having resumed control of the Goliath once again. The five G’s were about ninety seconds out from the compound, a minute ahead of the slower Panthers. Xander and his team would initiate the assault, and hopefully draw the defenders from their hiding places just as the Panthers arrived after them.
With units attacking the hangars from outside, Xander wondered how many pilots Almasi would have available for defensive duties back in Karachi. Every pilot pulled from the attack on the hangars to man a defensive drone would increase their chances of living throughout the night.
The fastest trigger, with the most accuracy, would win the day.
Through his headset, Xander heard the ping of an incoming video call. Comm channels to the headsets were highly classified, especially the video links. He was upset. Already his mission had been interrupted too many times. And now someone was calling in. He checked the time to target: a little over a minute. He reached forward and pressed F3 on his keyboard.
“Make it quick! We’re about to—”
“Engage? Yeah, I know.”
The image in the tiny box at the top left corner of his heads-up display made him gasp.
“Surprised to see me?” said Jonas Lemon. “I can tell from the look in your eyes that you are.”
Xander gathered himself. “It’s just that I told my secretary not to give out this number.”
“Flippant as always, I see.”
“Well, seeing how long it’s been, you’ve caught me at an inconvenient time. Do you mind if I call you back?”
“I’m hurt, Xander — and we used to be such good friends. I suppose you’re too busy to chat with me because of your impending attack on Almasi’s command center?”
Xander guided his Goliath drone around a particularly sharp curve in the road and then over a single-story house, before dropping down to near street level again and stirring up prodigious amounts of red sand.
“Sorry, but I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Jonas.”
“Who are you talking to?” Hugh Barden asked, leaning over from the pod next to him.
“No one important, just Jonas Lemon.”
“No shit? Well tell the son-of-a-bitch to stop hiding and face us like man.”
“I heard that, and you can tell Baby Huey that if he’d just let me know which one of the Goliath drones is his, I’ll certainly oblige. I don’t think any of you have gone up against a Ninja V before, have you? It’s so much better than the Ninja II I used at the mall in Miami.”
“So that was you.”
“Yeah, that was fun, like the old days. It would have resulted in a no-score back on the circuit.”
“Listen, Jonas, obviously you’re pretty well wired into things, so if you don’t mind, I really have to get back to work before the boss dings me for taking personal calls on company time.”
“Oh, but this isn’t a social call, dude. I just thought you’d like to know who you’re going up against at the compound. Almasi has seen fit to allow me to play along — he knows talent when he sees it. But unfortunately, I can’t be in two places at the same time or else I’d be with the group attacking your hangars right now. Still, we have a lot of game ahead of us, so bye for now, but I’ll be dropping in from time to time throughout the battle.”
The image of Jonas Lemon disappeared from the screen.
“Heads up, everyone. Jonas Lemon is on sight in Karachi, and manning something called a Ninja V. Anyone ever hear of one?”
“Nathan Hall here, Xander. I have. They’re not stealth, but all down the checklist they’re superior to the Goliaths.”
“Now you tell me. I thought we had the baddest bots on the block.”
“Stealth makes you the best, with the exception of the Ninja. Hopefully there’s only one on station.”
“Count on it, Nathan. Jonas is the type to insist on having only the best, and only for him. That could be our saving grace.”
“Compound dead ahead,” Karen Prado reported. “Here we go. Game on.”
The five Goliaths soared over the twenty-foot high wall and dropped down to near ground level. Huge swirling torrents of red sand curled up into mini-tornados, filling the entire grounds in a blinding dust storm.
“All this dust is making us stand out like neon signs,” Jeremy Fenton announced over the comm. “I’m taking some heavy gunfire from the tall building on the west side.”
“Well, we didn’t come here for an exhibition match. Weapons hot, let’s level the place!”
The concrete block building Fenton had mention suddenly lit up with hundreds of pinpoint explosions as 7.56mm rounds perforated the structure. Even before Xander and his team could take aim at the shooters on the roof, a good half of the building fell inwards, collapsing the snipers’ firing platform.
As was expected, Xander now saw bearded men shoving women and children out the doorways and into the center of the compound, while they retreated for cover. With bullets and pencil-missiles filling the air, several of the woman and children fell to the ground, covered in blood. Xander was sure he’d seen some of the men inside the doorways aiming their AK-100’s at the backs of the victims.
In response, he spun the Goliath around and sent four accurately-aimed missiles screaming through the doorway. An instant later, a billowing cloud of white smoke blew out the bottom of the building. Small balconies on the three stories above gave way and crumbled to the ground.
“Be careful, Xander,” Karen called out. “We don’t want to block any entrances to the underground complex.”
“I hear ya, it’s just that I couldn’t let those bastards get away with shooting women and children in the back.”
“Here come the defenders,” another voice announced over the comm, a radar tech who was not part of the Goliath team. “Forty-two at first count. Could be more deploying.”
“Forty-two? Damn, that’s a lot,” Curt Tharp said. “Where are the Panthers?”
“We’re staying back a little,” declared Billy Jenkins. “Let the bad guys commit, then we’ll sneak up on their six.”
Just then a rocket-propelled grenade streaked from a corner of the long garage-like structure and struck one of the Goliaths. The craft was thrown backwards and tumbled, a trail of broken armament littering the ground.
“Who’s hit?” Xander asked.
“That would be me,” Curt Tharp said, sounding dejected.