should be plenty.”
The quadracopter drones were even then starting to investigate their human breath again. McKinney depressed the nozzle to spray another dose on them.
But nothing came out.
She shook it and tried the nozzle several more times.
He noticed her efforts. “What’s wrong?”
“Propellant. There’s no more damned propellant.”
They exchanged deadly serious looks and looked out at the thousands and thousands of drones around them. McKinney could see a quadracopter edging up over the windowsill of the control room, headed straight toward them.
Odin aimed the pistol and shot once, knocking it out of the air where it disappeared below the window. “Dammit!”
They could both see jagged rocks foaming in waves several kilometers ahead. He picked up a pair of range- finding binoculars in a holder on the console. He focused them on the rocks. “Two and a half kilometers. We just need to stay alive for about four more minutes.”
McKinney pointed as a dozen quadracopter drones in two sizes started gathering around the bridge. She turned back the way they had come, to see that direction being closed off by twice as many more.
Odin grabbed the canister and threw it onto the console. “Stand back!” He aimed the pistol obliquely at the metal and fired several shots in succession, finally causing the canister to rattle across the floor.
McKinney grabbed it, only to find the dents hadn’t penetrated.
Odin leaned down next to her. “Lean it against the wall.”
McKinney carefully placed it and glanced around to see now six or seven dozen quadracopter drones gathering around the control tower. “Odin!”
He was busy aiming at the nozzle tip of the canister. He fired a shot that sent it rolling across the floor again. He scrambled after it, only to pick it up and find the nozzle pinched completely closed. He swung it around, trying to drain anything out of it. But nothing came.
He pointed at her backpack. “Anything at all?”
She unzipped it to show the detector-which showed fairly high levels of perfluorocarbon-and the metal canister of oleoresin capsicum. “This just induces the attack signal.” She glanced around them as the quadracopters closed in. “And there’s about to be plenty of that around here already.”
He took it from her, then keyed the radio. “Foxy. If you don’t hear from us in two minutes, launch the boat.”
There was a pause of static, then: “Fuck you. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Foxy, listen to me.”
“You’re breaking up.”
He sighed and looked to McKinney.
They couldn’t help but notice the solid wall of drones closing in around them. Their path to the stairwell was already blocked.
McKinney moved toward him, watching the drones move in.
Odin held her. They stood with their faces just an inch apart. The horrendous sound of the drone engines still hummed deafeningly all around them. A glance forward and she could see the rocks looming larger. “We did it. We stopped them-for now, at least.”
Odin nodded and kissed her.
McKinney felt tears welling up as he kissed them away. “I wanted a chance to know you, David.”
He nodded. “Then know this about me.” Odin hefted the canister of capsicum. “I don’t ever give up.”
He kissed her quickly, then turned and smashed the nozzle end of the capsicum canister against the console, breaking off the tip. With the full canister under pressure it started hissing madly.
“What the hell are you doing? That’ll enrage them!”
“I’m counting on it.” He turned and hurled the canister out the window on the opposite side of the ship from the rescue boat. The canister tumbled end over end, falling ten stories into the canyons of the shipping containers below-gathering a swarm of drones in its wake, even as it fell. The unprecedented concentration must have been like a beacon, because the power of the attack signal spread quickly and the entire host around the ship’s bridge plunged down after it, creating a dense, mad crowd that jostled each other in pursuit.
Odin grabbed her by the arm. “Run like hell!”
McKinney smiled in surprise even as he pulled her along. Odin shot two small lingering drones out of the air near the stairwell and motioned for her to take the lead as he covered their rear. As they descended the stairs, McKinney could see through the portholes as hundreds of drones streamed past outside the bridge tower in pursuit of the canister. McKinney couldn’t wipe the grin off her face as she circled down the stairwell. “Very clever, mammal!”
“Just keep moving.”
At deck level they pushed through the watertight door and sprinted across the crimson-painted deck. The roar of drone engines coming from the far side of the control tower had risen to a crescendo by now. The air there was black with drones. They dashed across the decking and up to the sealed door of the rescue boat. There was a round porthole above the door near the words 38 Persons. Odin undid the latch and opened the door to reveal Foxy staring at him from the pilot’s seat.
“You’re such a drama queen…”
Odin helped McKinney inside. “Careful, it’s steep.” He held her hand as she climbed in.
She had never seen such a boat. The seats were heavily padded and facing backward like a theme park ride. Only Foxy’s seat faced forward, looking through what appeared to be a reinforced pilot’s window. Otherwise there was only one other forward-facing window to let light in. The thing resembled a big orange torpedo angled downward at forty-five degrees.
Odin glanced toward the bow of the ship, and then ducked inside, slamming the hatch shut and throwing the bolts.
Foxy peered through the narrow side window. “If I’m not mistaken, those are rocks up ahead. Get seated, people!”
McKinney was already strapping herself in as Odin climbed into a seat across the aisle from her. He raced through the fasteners, and then shouted, “Hit it, Foxy!”
Foxy pounded a release button, and they dropped in free fall for a second or two before plunging into the sea, fully submerging. The impact knocked the wind out of her. The rescue boat rolled and bobbed like a cork and finally surfaced, as the roar of drones and something even deeper came to them.
Then she heard a water jet engine kick to life and saw Foxy push the throttle lever forward. “I don’t give us much chance of outrunning them.”
Odin unbuckled from his seat. “I do. They’re otherwise occupied.”
McKinney unbuckled as well and joined him to look out the narrow porthole above the rear entry door. She held her breath as the massive container ship, swarming with drones, thundered past behind them-a wall of blue steel the size of a shopping mall.
She craned her neck to look ahead, toward rocks rising ten meters out of the sea in a swirl of crashing waves.
And then the bow of the ship crumpled and ripped apart as it steamed full speed over itself along the line of jagged rocks. The water reverberated with the horrendous shrieking of metal, but the momentum of two hundred thousand tons of ship and cargo going twenty miles an hour just kept it plunging forward, rippling the bowline and spilling thousands and thousands of forty-foot shipping containers into the sea and over the shoals.
The cloud of drones dispersed, while many were caught in the collapsing towers of containers. The ship was already grounded up to its center tower when it started to break in half, flames erupting as the crash continued for nearly a minute more before the wreckage finally came to a stop.
The whole time Foxy roared away at full speed from the scene, increasing their view of the wreck.
The stern of the ship settled back against the shallows, and the bow remained buried under a ridgeline of multicolored shipping containers crawling with thousands of agitated and completely disorganized drones-some now flying around on fire. Billowing clouds of black smoke climbed into the sky, marking the spot.
