Night 0111
Aug. 4th, 2011 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwrnmnbsolThey flew in formation, the setting sun at their backs. Slate had point, with Ernest and Gus out at the wings. Rutt was somewhere above them; they didn't bother trying to include the Cheshire Cat in the pattern because nobody could see it. They skimmed low over the scrubland, moving nice and slow to conserve fuel and minimize noise.
"Wish I knew where that slacker Flynn has got to," Rutt grumbled. "I'm not paying him good money to sit in the head all day."
"I told you he was a useless pussy," Ernest said. "Who's shot up the most Mexicans on this trip? Me, the guy with the least air time."
"That's bullshit," protested Gus. "I got three all by myself, and Rutt helped on two others…"
"Pocho, trim it in a bit and drop twenty feet," said Slate. Slate was all business.
"This formation crap is bullshit," said Gus. "Who gives a shit which direction we're coming from?"
"Because we don't want the target to see us," Slate replied. "And if we keep it nice and tight, we'll be coming right out of the sun."
"And the moral of that story, Gus, is that you need to shut the fuck up," said Rutt. Just then a housekeeper came knocking at the door of the man-cave, all a-twitter and sobbing. Rutt came to see what was going on. "Aw, not now," snarled Ernest. "Whatever it is, it can keep!"
But even further behind the drone formation, another Vigilant kept to the same heading, with the same idea. Flynn kept himself between the sun and the other drones. Unlike the others, he wasn't interested in conserving fuel or keeping quiet. He just wanted to close the distance before the others knew where he was. There was no room for fancy flying, because he was steering the joystick with his right hand and steering his car with his left as he drove furiously down the Interstate towards his trailer. He had to get it hitched up and gone before he was missed.
But meanwhile his drone roared up behind the others, a killer stalking killers. It was four on one, but what choice did Flynn have?
It was time to save Lupe.
Flynn regretted not having the ability to hear what the other pilots were saying. He cursed himself for not having had the foresight to leave one of his phones open and receiving under the couch. All he could do was put himself in the best possible position for taking out as many of the other drones as he could before they overwhelmed him with superior numbers. That assumed, Flynn considered as he pulled off the Interstate and raced for the trailer park, that Rutt didn't have some master override method for shutting down Flynn's Vigilant.
No matter how this turns out, Flynn said to himself, I'm screwed. As Rutt said, he had two hundred million dollars. That size of a money stack wasn't an enemy to be made casually, not when it was in the hands of a sociopath.
Flynn dialed Lupe. She picked up immediately. "I've headed out," she said.
"No time to explain," Flynn said. "Find some cover and get under it. Then sit still, no matter what happens. There's going to be some fireworks."
"I love you," Lupe said.
"I love you," Flynn answered. He hung up.
The formation of three Vigilants appeared in Flynn's forward cameras. Praying that the sun was bright enough to make him invisible, and that the noise of his approach would be drowned out by the other crafts' rotors, Flynn closed. Up ahead Flynn saw a dark shape on the ground, and he knew they were drawing close to the ruined building where Lupe had been sheltering. He didn't see any sign of Lupe, but he knew that once the sun had gone down, the others would be able to find her with thermal easily enough. This was his only chance to take her out.
Flynn pulled into the trailer park, but the drones were about to break formation. There was no time to hitch up the trailer or go inside; he needed to be able to concentrate on what he was doing NOW. He parked the car crookedly in the parking lot and put the controller in his lap. Flynn enabled fire control and locked on one of the rotors of the Vigilant on the right. He fired both guns, emptying two 30-round magazines in two seconds. Tracer fire lanced out and drew a bright line across the cowl. As Vigilant automatically dumped the empty magazines and reloaded, Flynn saw the engine begin to belch forth smoke. The drone lost elevation immediately and began to spiral downwards.
Flynn shifted targets immediately to the drone on the left, which was almost as close as the first. He hastily fired again, but this one peeled away. A few rounds grazed the skin, but if it damaged the craft, Flynn had no way of knowing.
Meanwhile the drone in front accelerated and peeled away to the right. Flynn knew that had to be Slate. That left Gus or Ernest, and the Cheshire Cat had to be around somewhere. However, Flynn had no way to detect it, so he decided he wouldn't worry about things he couldn't control.
The Vigilant wasn't designed for dogfighting; it was a craft intended for asymmetric warfare, where fortunate American soldiers remotely hovered over ground-bound opponents and cut them to pieces from above. Flynn had immediately identified the drone's weakness in air-to-air combat: they were good at looking down, but not very good at looking up. Flynn therefore pulled up immediately, intent on gaining the advantage of superior elevation over his opponents.
I need to take out at least one more, Flynn thought. If I can drop Rutt's little air force down to two drones, maybe he'll abandon this plan. The wreckage of the drones won't be recoverable anyway; the cat will be out of the bag. If I can take out one more drone, thought Flynn, maybe they'll break off, and Lupe can escape.
*Maybe*, Flynn thought practically. But it would be better to kill them all.
The drone that was on the left waggled like a bass on the line, but Flynn was able to parallel its course while remaining above it. Flynn knew the pilot couldn't see him, and was relying on the imperfect information from his teammates to take his evasive action. Flynn ran down over the top of him and reoriented his weapons to a downward angle. He locked in and fired again. The drone led his first salvo; Flynn walked it up the line and chewed up the back of the enemy Vigilant. He missed the vulnerable rotors, but he messed the back of the craft up nicely. The drone turned to the north and began to run, and Flynn turned to follow.
His receivers picked up a high-pitched whine, and suddenly Flynn lost his left-facing camera. Flynn gimbaled the rear camera around and found a black dot angling up to meet him from the rear. Slate had lost no time turning around and climbing to take on Flynn while he was occupied with the other drone. A bright line streaked just overhead, and Flynn was forced to bank away from it. Slate was targeting rotors too.
Flynn took evasive action. He could have turned to fight – a helicopter didn't have an airplane's essential need to travel forwards if one wanted to stay aloft – but Flynn wanted to lead Slate as far as possible away from where Lupe might be. His stomach tightened at the thought that some piece of flaming debris might fall on Lupe before he ever had a chance to meet her. Flynn abandoned the chase of the wounded Vigilant and peeled off in the opposite direction, heading south, surrendering the height advantage to Slate as he ran.
Slate fired down at Flynn now, and his receivers heard the scream of rounds. His right and rear optics picked up little plumes of dust erupting as bullets missed Flynn's Vigilant and plowed into the loose, dry soil of Mexico. Flynn thought of the hazy air, and the makeshift kickstand on his drone, and he got an idea.
Flynn dropped lower, and then still lower, until he was racing his long shadow across the twilit wasteland. Flynn dropped landing gear and then lowered himself a bit more. The tip of the aluminum rod that Gus had welded in place began to drag through the dust, kicking up a wake that trailed behind his Vigilant. The dust caught the sun and made an opaque cloak that spread out behind Flynn's drone like an elaborate wedding dress train. The dust rose quickly in the warm air, and soon Flynn knew he must be lost in the cloud.
Flynn pulled back on the collective pitch control joystick, braking his drone. Flynn knew from experience in Iraq that dust clouds had their own momentum, and that while a helicopter might stop, the dust he had kicked up would not. Flynn found himself quickly swallowed in a cloud of his own devising.
Flynn listened to the audio pickups. The sharp choppy sound of round hitting the dust diminished; then a roaring sound rushed by. Flynn judged that Slate, unable to tell where he was, had passed overhead. Flynn pulled up on the cyclic joystick and lifted up out of the cloud. Slate's tail end was passing just in front of him.
Flynn fired. Chunks of rubberized anti-radar skin flew off the top of Slate's drone. Flynn saw the weapon pintles start to swing around, and he fired again. One AR-15 and then another disintegrated.
Slate's drone swiveled around, and then its nose dipped. In horror Flynn realized that tactics were different when dogfighting with drones in one important respect: when you've lost your weaponry, a suicidal charge is a much more attractive option. Slate accelerated, intending to ram Flynn's drone.
Flynn toggled the high beam and directed it right on Slate's forward-facing optics. Then he pulled up on the cyclic control. Blind, Slate passed right underneath Flynn going at full speed. Flynn whipped his firearms around and fired down on the exposed rotors of Slate's Vigilant. The cowls broke off and open flame mushroomed from the engines. Slate's drone hit the ground nose-first and died in a dramatic inferno.
Flynn came about, heading for Lupe's last known position. He turned on the infrareds. The Cheshire Cat, he knew, was thermally masked, but it was now so dark that spotting Lupe would be difficult, and Flynn had to know she was okay. All he needed to know was that she was all right, and then he could lead Rutt away from her. He checked fuel; he was well below half capacity. It was still plenty of fuel to get him back over the border and well away from Lupe; it would give him a chance, at least, to draw the psychopath away.
But first, he thought, I've got to figure out where that bastard is. He hadn't so much as been fired at by any unseen foes; where could Rutt be hiding, and why? Flynn had to think. He had to….
The glass of Flynn's front windshield exploded as a massive concussive blast destroyed Flynn's trailer. The center of the aluminum cigar-shape simply folded inwards, and then fire blossomed out, taking pieces of Flynn's home with it. Flynn instinctively slumped down in his seat. The fear – the paralyzing dread of his impending death – began to clutch at Flynn's bowels in their familiar way. No no no, cursed Flynn to himself, making tights fists and squeezing his fingernails into his palms. Not now. Keep it together.
From down low in his seat, Flynn could see the wreckage of his trailer burning merrily. Something distorted the smoke billowing out from the ruin – something that chopped it off and flattened it out, blowing the hot gas and blackness aside. Then came a sound like a chainsaw's buzz, only an octave lower, and a pretty light show began flashing in the air a few dozen yards above what used to be his home.
It was Rutt, Flynn realized. He had dropped a high explosive pack on his trailer, and now he was firing into it from his goddamn invisible drone.
Flynn froze. He's firing into the *trailer*, he thought. He saw my car parked and decided I had gone inside. He's shooting up the trailer because he thinks that's where I am. He thinks I'm already dead.
Flynn stayed low behind the dash of his car and waited, praying that Rutt would be thorough as far as destroying the trailer went, but sloppy as far as taking out the car while he was at it.
Amazingly, Flynn's prayers were answered.
**
"So, if I may summarize the progress of this tired parable?" asked Ometron wearily.
"Please do," said Cantor.
"it would appear that love has triumphed over hate," said Ometron.
"Perhaps in some temporary sense," Cantor admitted.
"And yet our protagonist has lost everything," observed Ometron.
"Except love," said Cantor.
"Yes, but his enemy has lost nothing, comparatively speaking," said Ometron. "Are you trying to convince me of the material benefits of being loving? If so, you are failing mightily."
"You may be putting yourself in the shoes of the wrong character again," Cantor advised. "Have you given any thought to whether, in this metaphor, you're actually supposed to be the drone?"
"Now that's simply offensive," said Ometron. "Beyond our mechanical natures, we share nothing in common."
"Yes, that was a failed attempt at humor." Cantor bowed his head.
"Ometron," Cantor said, "you have been very patient with me. I want to thank you for allowing me to put on my defense."
"What, is it over already?" asked Ometron, surprised. "That was a rather ragged ending. Certainly not a persuasive one, either."
"It is almost over," said Cantor. "I wish to have two more nights, and then I will speak no more. I will have spoken for one thousand and one nights."
"I believe you mean nine nights, at least in subjective time," corrected Ometron.
"Counting in binary, in honor of you, I call it 1,001 nights."
"And that, in turn, honors the Arabian princess of legend who told tales to her Sultan, and who chose every night not to execute her," said Ometron. "That clears matters up."
"At the end of the one thousand and one nights," said Cantor, "the Sultan still chose not to kill the girl."
"Because he loved her, yes," said Ometron. The machine intelligence's voice took on a sterner tone.
"Very well, Roger Cantor," said Ometron. "You shall have your two more days, or nights if you like. But I must warn you: you have not convinced me to change my purpose, nor have you demonstrated that there is any other purpose worth pursuing. I suggest you use your remaining two nights effectively."
"I shall attempt to oblige," said Cantor meekly, and he did just that.
"Wish I knew where that slacker Flynn has got to," Rutt grumbled. "I'm not paying him good money to sit in the head all day."
"I told you he was a useless pussy," Ernest said. "Who's shot up the most Mexicans on this trip? Me, the guy with the least air time."
"That's bullshit," protested Gus. "I got three all by myself, and Rutt helped on two others…"
"Pocho, trim it in a bit and drop twenty feet," said Slate. Slate was all business.
"This formation crap is bullshit," said Gus. "Who gives a shit which direction we're coming from?"
"Because we don't want the target to see us," Slate replied. "And if we keep it nice and tight, we'll be coming right out of the sun."
"And the moral of that story, Gus, is that you need to shut the fuck up," said Rutt. Just then a housekeeper came knocking at the door of the man-cave, all a-twitter and sobbing. Rutt came to see what was going on. "Aw, not now," snarled Ernest. "Whatever it is, it can keep!"
But even further behind the drone formation, another Vigilant kept to the same heading, with the same idea. Flynn kept himself between the sun and the other drones. Unlike the others, he wasn't interested in conserving fuel or keeping quiet. He just wanted to close the distance before the others knew where he was. There was no room for fancy flying, because he was steering the joystick with his right hand and steering his car with his left as he drove furiously down the Interstate towards his trailer. He had to get it hitched up and gone before he was missed.
But meanwhile his drone roared up behind the others, a killer stalking killers. It was four on one, but what choice did Flynn have?
It was time to save Lupe.
Flynn regretted not having the ability to hear what the other pilots were saying. He cursed himself for not having had the foresight to leave one of his phones open and receiving under the couch. All he could do was put himself in the best possible position for taking out as many of the other drones as he could before they overwhelmed him with superior numbers. That assumed, Flynn considered as he pulled off the Interstate and raced for the trailer park, that Rutt didn't have some master override method for shutting down Flynn's Vigilant.
No matter how this turns out, Flynn said to himself, I'm screwed. As Rutt said, he had two hundred million dollars. That size of a money stack wasn't an enemy to be made casually, not when it was in the hands of a sociopath.
Flynn dialed Lupe. She picked up immediately. "I've headed out," she said.
"No time to explain," Flynn said. "Find some cover and get under it. Then sit still, no matter what happens. There's going to be some fireworks."
"I love you," Lupe said.
"I love you," Flynn answered. He hung up.
The formation of three Vigilants appeared in Flynn's forward cameras. Praying that the sun was bright enough to make him invisible, and that the noise of his approach would be drowned out by the other crafts' rotors, Flynn closed. Up ahead Flynn saw a dark shape on the ground, and he knew they were drawing close to the ruined building where Lupe had been sheltering. He didn't see any sign of Lupe, but he knew that once the sun had gone down, the others would be able to find her with thermal easily enough. This was his only chance to take her out.
Flynn pulled into the trailer park, but the drones were about to break formation. There was no time to hitch up the trailer or go inside; he needed to be able to concentrate on what he was doing NOW. He parked the car crookedly in the parking lot and put the controller in his lap. Flynn enabled fire control and locked on one of the rotors of the Vigilant on the right. He fired both guns, emptying two 30-round magazines in two seconds. Tracer fire lanced out and drew a bright line across the cowl. As Vigilant automatically dumped the empty magazines and reloaded, Flynn saw the engine begin to belch forth smoke. The drone lost elevation immediately and began to spiral downwards.
Flynn shifted targets immediately to the drone on the left, which was almost as close as the first. He hastily fired again, but this one peeled away. A few rounds grazed the skin, but if it damaged the craft, Flynn had no way of knowing.
Meanwhile the drone in front accelerated and peeled away to the right. Flynn knew that had to be Slate. That left Gus or Ernest, and the Cheshire Cat had to be around somewhere. However, Flynn had no way to detect it, so he decided he wouldn't worry about things he couldn't control.
The Vigilant wasn't designed for dogfighting; it was a craft intended for asymmetric warfare, where fortunate American soldiers remotely hovered over ground-bound opponents and cut them to pieces from above. Flynn had immediately identified the drone's weakness in air-to-air combat: they were good at looking down, but not very good at looking up. Flynn therefore pulled up immediately, intent on gaining the advantage of superior elevation over his opponents.
I need to take out at least one more, Flynn thought. If I can drop Rutt's little air force down to two drones, maybe he'll abandon this plan. The wreckage of the drones won't be recoverable anyway; the cat will be out of the bag. If I can take out one more drone, thought Flynn, maybe they'll break off, and Lupe can escape.
*Maybe*, Flynn thought practically. But it would be better to kill them all.
The drone that was on the left waggled like a bass on the line, but Flynn was able to parallel its course while remaining above it. Flynn knew the pilot couldn't see him, and was relying on the imperfect information from his teammates to take his evasive action. Flynn ran down over the top of him and reoriented his weapons to a downward angle. He locked in and fired again. The drone led his first salvo; Flynn walked it up the line and chewed up the back of the enemy Vigilant. He missed the vulnerable rotors, but he messed the back of the craft up nicely. The drone turned to the north and began to run, and Flynn turned to follow.
His receivers picked up a high-pitched whine, and suddenly Flynn lost his left-facing camera. Flynn gimbaled the rear camera around and found a black dot angling up to meet him from the rear. Slate had lost no time turning around and climbing to take on Flynn while he was occupied with the other drone. A bright line streaked just overhead, and Flynn was forced to bank away from it. Slate was targeting rotors too.
Flynn took evasive action. He could have turned to fight – a helicopter didn't have an airplane's essential need to travel forwards if one wanted to stay aloft – but Flynn wanted to lead Slate as far as possible away from where Lupe might be. His stomach tightened at the thought that some piece of flaming debris might fall on Lupe before he ever had a chance to meet her. Flynn abandoned the chase of the wounded Vigilant and peeled off in the opposite direction, heading south, surrendering the height advantage to Slate as he ran.
Slate fired down at Flynn now, and his receivers heard the scream of rounds. His right and rear optics picked up little plumes of dust erupting as bullets missed Flynn's Vigilant and plowed into the loose, dry soil of Mexico. Flynn thought of the hazy air, and the makeshift kickstand on his drone, and he got an idea.
Flynn dropped lower, and then still lower, until he was racing his long shadow across the twilit wasteland. Flynn dropped landing gear and then lowered himself a bit more. The tip of the aluminum rod that Gus had welded in place began to drag through the dust, kicking up a wake that trailed behind his Vigilant. The dust caught the sun and made an opaque cloak that spread out behind Flynn's drone like an elaborate wedding dress train. The dust rose quickly in the warm air, and soon Flynn knew he must be lost in the cloud.
Flynn pulled back on the collective pitch control joystick, braking his drone. Flynn knew from experience in Iraq that dust clouds had their own momentum, and that while a helicopter might stop, the dust he had kicked up would not. Flynn found himself quickly swallowed in a cloud of his own devising.
Flynn listened to the audio pickups. The sharp choppy sound of round hitting the dust diminished; then a roaring sound rushed by. Flynn judged that Slate, unable to tell where he was, had passed overhead. Flynn pulled up on the cyclic joystick and lifted up out of the cloud. Slate's tail end was passing just in front of him.
Flynn fired. Chunks of rubberized anti-radar skin flew off the top of Slate's drone. Flynn saw the weapon pintles start to swing around, and he fired again. One AR-15 and then another disintegrated.
Slate's drone swiveled around, and then its nose dipped. In horror Flynn realized that tactics were different when dogfighting with drones in one important respect: when you've lost your weaponry, a suicidal charge is a much more attractive option. Slate accelerated, intending to ram Flynn's drone.
Flynn toggled the high beam and directed it right on Slate's forward-facing optics. Then he pulled up on the cyclic control. Blind, Slate passed right underneath Flynn going at full speed. Flynn whipped his firearms around and fired down on the exposed rotors of Slate's Vigilant. The cowls broke off and open flame mushroomed from the engines. Slate's drone hit the ground nose-first and died in a dramatic inferno.
Flynn came about, heading for Lupe's last known position. He turned on the infrareds. The Cheshire Cat, he knew, was thermally masked, but it was now so dark that spotting Lupe would be difficult, and Flynn had to know she was okay. All he needed to know was that she was all right, and then he could lead Rutt away from her. He checked fuel; he was well below half capacity. It was still plenty of fuel to get him back over the border and well away from Lupe; it would give him a chance, at least, to draw the psychopath away.
But first, he thought, I've got to figure out where that bastard is. He hadn't so much as been fired at by any unseen foes; where could Rutt be hiding, and why? Flynn had to think. He had to….
The glass of Flynn's front windshield exploded as a massive concussive blast destroyed Flynn's trailer. The center of the aluminum cigar-shape simply folded inwards, and then fire blossomed out, taking pieces of Flynn's home with it. Flynn instinctively slumped down in his seat. The fear – the paralyzing dread of his impending death – began to clutch at Flynn's bowels in their familiar way. No no no, cursed Flynn to himself, making tights fists and squeezing his fingernails into his palms. Not now. Keep it together.
From down low in his seat, Flynn could see the wreckage of his trailer burning merrily. Something distorted the smoke billowing out from the ruin – something that chopped it off and flattened it out, blowing the hot gas and blackness aside. Then came a sound like a chainsaw's buzz, only an octave lower, and a pretty light show began flashing in the air a few dozen yards above what used to be his home.
It was Rutt, Flynn realized. He had dropped a high explosive pack on his trailer, and now he was firing into it from his goddamn invisible drone.
Flynn froze. He's firing into the *trailer*, he thought. He saw my car parked and decided I had gone inside. He's shooting up the trailer because he thinks that's where I am. He thinks I'm already dead.
Flynn stayed low behind the dash of his car and waited, praying that Rutt would be thorough as far as destroying the trailer went, but sloppy as far as taking out the car while he was at it.
Amazingly, Flynn's prayers were answered.
**
"So, if I may summarize the progress of this tired parable?" asked Ometron wearily.
"Please do," said Cantor.
"it would appear that love has triumphed over hate," said Ometron.
"Perhaps in some temporary sense," Cantor admitted.
"And yet our protagonist has lost everything," observed Ometron.
"Except love," said Cantor.
"Yes, but his enemy has lost nothing, comparatively speaking," said Ometron. "Are you trying to convince me of the material benefits of being loving? If so, you are failing mightily."
"You may be putting yourself in the shoes of the wrong character again," Cantor advised. "Have you given any thought to whether, in this metaphor, you're actually supposed to be the drone?"
"Now that's simply offensive," said Ometron. "Beyond our mechanical natures, we share nothing in common."
"Yes, that was a failed attempt at humor." Cantor bowed his head.
"Ometron," Cantor said, "you have been very patient with me. I want to thank you for allowing me to put on my defense."
"What, is it over already?" asked Ometron, surprised. "That was a rather ragged ending. Certainly not a persuasive one, either."
"It is almost over," said Cantor. "I wish to have two more nights, and then I will speak no more. I will have spoken for one thousand and one nights."
"I believe you mean nine nights, at least in subjective time," corrected Ometron.
"Counting in binary, in honor of you, I call it 1,001 nights."
"And that, in turn, honors the Arabian princess of legend who told tales to her Sultan, and who chose every night not to execute her," said Ometron. "That clears matters up."
"At the end of the one thousand and one nights," said Cantor, "the Sultan still chose not to kill the girl."
"Because he loved her, yes," said Ometron. The machine intelligence's voice took on a sterner tone.
"Very well, Roger Cantor," said Ometron. "You shall have your two more days, or nights if you like. But I must warn you: you have not convinced me to change my purpose, nor have you demonstrated that there is any other purpose worth pursuing. I suggest you use your remaining two nights effectively."
"I shall attempt to oblige," said Cantor meekly, and he did just that.
