“Prime the turret!” Gabriel ordered.
“Primed!” Viker said as he highlighted the red icons, “hostile targets designated!”
The drones were flying at too high an angle for the turret to hit…yet.
“Keep the turret locked forward!” Gabriel added, “I have an idea!”
The canyon wasn’t just getting narrower and straighter, it was also sloping downwards. The drones were about to lose their quarry, so one of them swooped down into the narrow gorge, where there was just enough space for it to fly through with room to manoeuvre. As the drone closed in from behind, it readied its missiles.
“It’s got line-of-sight!” Viker said, panicking, “the ECM won’t save us this time!”
“Brake, now!” Gabriel barked.
Viker slammed the brakes, causing the Wolverine to decelerate violently. The drone overshot its target before it could open fire, bringing it into the turret’s crosshairs.
The turret released a deadly spray of armour-piercing rounds into the drone’s vulnerable rear, puncturing its armour and mangling its engines and internal systems. The damage inflicted caused it to falter like a wounded bird before careening to the ground, the impact igniting its weapons and releasing a dramatic flurry of flames and debris.
“Three down!” Viker yelled triumphantly as the squad celebrated.
“There’s still one more drone out there.” Gabriel reminded everyone soberly.
“Right.” Viker stopped his premature celebrations and hit the accelerator again.
Sure enough, just as the Wolverine was picking up speed, the fourth patrol drone swooped down in front of them, unleashing a barrage of missiles.
“Woah!” Viker yelled in a panic and slammed the switch for the anti-gravity plating.
The anti-gravity plating was meant for safe landing on a planet’s surface, not aerial acrobatics, but the trick worked. Aided by forward momentum, the Wolverine was lifted clear off the ground, causing the incoming barrage of missiles to undershoot the Wolverine and saving it from certain destruction.
The Wolverine’s wheels hit the ground rolling as it shot forwards to escape.
“Nice one, Viker!” Ogilvy shouted.
“Thank me when we’re in the clear!” Viker shouted back as he swerved to avoid the wreckage of the third downed drone.
“These AI drones keep learning from every tactic we use!” Gabriel shouted, “We’ll need to get into cover of some kind!”
“The objective isn’t far from here!” Viker replied, noting the path on the map.
“Then that’s where we’re going!”
There was precious little room to zig and zag in the tiny gorge, but the upside was that the remaining patrol drone had to pull up to avoid getting squeezed between the rock walls. It would have to catch its target out in the open again.
Eventually, the narrow pathway took a leftward turn and widened out. The Wolverine emerged into a vast impact crater, resembling an amphitheatre-like basin whose surface sloped down into what looked like a sinkhole at the centre. Viker steered clear of the sinkhole and circled around the outer edge of the basin as fast as he could.
“The facility’s entrance is on the other side of this basin.” Viker said as he navigated around the edge of the basin, “but it’ll be a dead-end once we get there.”
The patrol drone reappeared above and swooped down low towards the Wolverine, firing its laser turret and leaving a blackened trail as the beam chased its target. Viker brought the Wolverine back around and drove through a gap in the rocks towards the research base, exiting the basin with the drone in hot pursuit. Up ahead at the base of a sheer cliff-face was a man-made structure: a vehicle ramp leading up to a set of loading bay doors. It was the entrance to the facility. Like Viker had said, it was also a dead-end.
“Last stand!” Viker shouted, switching the turret’s fire control system to AI control.
Just shy of the doors, Viker brought the Wolverine swerving around just as the patrol drone opened fire with its laser turret. The laser beam boiled away part of the Wolverine’s ablative armour coating as its turret swivelled round and returned fire.
The drone’s armour couldn’t withstand the blizzard of bullets, and it burst into flames as it came tumbling from the sky, bouncing along the ground like a burning bowling ball before smashing straight through the loading bay doors. A huge tongue of flame spewed out from the entrance as the flaming wreckage of the downed drone ignited whatever was being stored inside the loading bay, reducing it to smoke and burning debris.
The squad watched the images in silence. They were all glad to be alive, but they hadn’t intended to actually demolish the front door.
“At least we don’t have to knock.” Gabriel quipped wryly.
* * *
Viker drove the Wolverine up the vehicle ramp, through the flames and smoke, and into the loading bay itself, then he brought the vehicle around before bringing it to a complete halt and killed the engine. The squad secured their helmets, checked their weapons, and made sure their armour was sealed; then Gabriel moved to the vehicle’s rear and hit the release button. The rear-door unfolded into a boarding ramp and the squad poured out of the vehicle with their weapons raised, fanning out to secure the area.
In fact, there wasn’t much of an area left to secure. After smashing through the doors, the drone had kept on going until it hit the back wall, flinging flaming fragments at high speed in all directions; shredding most of the cargo modules stored there. Dozens of small fires blazed around the area, diminished slightly by the thin air and automated sprinklers, and an emergency klaxon could be heard blaring in the background. Any threat that might have been waiting for them hadn’t survived the drone’s spectacular entrance.
Doran walked over to the burnt-out frame of the patrol drone to examine it. Its outer skin was riddled with pockmarks from the Wolverine’s turret, but the frame itself had been blown open by the crash, exposing the damaged electronics inside which flickered and sparked from the residual power.
Doran gave the downed drone a vindictive kick.
“Pretty crappy armour.” He sneered over the comm.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Ogilvy remarked.
“Hey, I’m not complaining,” Doran replied indifferently, “I’m just saying you’d think these rich corporates could afford to equip their drones with proper shielding.”
“Evidently, they didn’t expect their targets to shoot back.” Gabriel said.
“Um, speaking of shielding,” Viker interjected with a note of concern, “the Wolverine’s defences took some damage back in the canyons.”
“How much damage?” Captain Bale asked.
“To the vehicle itself, none.” Viker clarified as he scanned the Wolverine’s exterior, “but about 40% of the thermal ablative paint is gone. If we have to run that hawk-and-rat race again, it’ll be a lot harder getting back in one piece.”
“But the shields are ok, right?” Asked Cato, concerned.
“They are, but they’re only good against bullets and shrapnel,” Viker responded, “Against lasers, particles beams or plasma, not so much.”
“One problem at a time,” Gabriel said, “Someone find us a way down.”
“Found it!” Doran said, accessing the door panel for a personnel elevator. “This elevator leads straight down to the main lobby.”
“Pretty obvious place for an ambush.” Ogilvy pointed out.