“TMI. That’s all I need for now. How about a demonstration? Has Rick crashed it yet?”
Rick chuffed, “Even you couldn’t crash this thing unless you tried to intentionally crash. It has GPS, radar, self-homing, and self-landing. It knows where it is at all times, and when the battery gets low, it will automatically return to the launch point and land safely. It can also be pre-programmed to fly a predetermined flight path automatically and take video. It saves the video on a tiny memory card but will also send the video through the air back to the remote control.”
“How far can this thing travel one way?”
Jackie said, “Kate said it can only travel 18,000 yards from the remote control before it stops and makes sure it stays in range. It can travel inside an 18,000-yard radius of the remote control. At forty miles per hour for two miles, it could cover eighty miles with just two batteries and maybe another sixty with the additional two batteries.”
“Okay, I didn’t do well at math …,” Rick said before Jackie interrupted.
Jackie snapped. “The range is ten miles.”
Tom thought for a few seconds. “Darn, that means all of Ashland to the west and the ranch to the east. Have you flown it yet?”
Rick said, “Has a cat got an ass?”
They heard someone approaching from the cave. Kate chimed in. “Can a fat dog fart?”
Tom looked at his wife and broke out laughing. “Well, I guess I need to keep you away from my dear grandmother. You’re starting to talk like her. Hey! How’s your chest?”
Kate chuckled. “Don’t make me laugh. I’ll take that as a compliment. My chest still hurts, but I couldn’t miss watching the drones fly. We’ve flown it over the area and once over to the Community. I had to cover Rick’s eyes when he flew it over a couple of our new women while they were bathing. He’s bribing me to not tell Jackie.”
Tom snickered. “Can I see the film later, just for technical reasons?”
Kate pinched him on his chest and twisted. “This is the only necked body you’ll get to see while you’re alive.”
“Ouch! I give! Just kidding!”
Rick ran a few steps from Jackie. Jackie said, “I’m the only necked woman you need to see and live to tell about it!”
*
Chapter 24
Granny B’s cave.
A few minutes later, Tom said, “Enough with future possibilities. Let’s see what it can do.”
Rick flipped a couple of switches, and the propellers began turning. He increased the propeller speed, and the craft floated about ten feet above them. Rick said, “When I stop making changes, it stops and hovers in place. If I fail to do anything, it will return and land on the rock it took off from originally. Watch the screen.”
Tom could clearly see all three of them and the ground around them. Rick took the drone up to five hundred feet, and Tom could still see three people but wouldn’t have recognized them. Rick pushed the zoom lever for the camera, and it homed in on the three below. He could see his face as though it was only ten feet away.
“This is amazing. I’d heard about drones for years but didn’t have a clue how versatile they were.”
The drone lifted smoothly out of sight and took off heading west. The drone hovered over the old quarry, and Tom saw no movement on the monitor. “Now head down Dead Indian Road. Let’s see if there’s any traffic.”
There wasn’t any traffic on the road. They did see a couple of smoke columns coming from homes along the road and several more hidden in the woods on either side. A thought jumped into Tom’s head. “Does this thing have night vision? Can it fly at night?”
Kate replied, “It has night vision cameras, IR cameras, and remember, it has radar. We can fly it by night vision, IR, or radar.”
“So it can spot a fire or warm column of smoke rising at night?”
Kate nodded. “Yes! Rick and I have already discussed using it to seek out anyone camping or hiding within a ten-mile radius. Then we planned to take the control on the road to expand our search.”
Tom rubbed his jaw. “How do the other drones compare to this one?”
Rick spoke first and said, “This is the easiest to fly, but is a basic commercial drone. The most complicated but best drone we have is the RMUS Police LEO 2200. It has six batteries, a ten-mile flight radius, and four hours of flight. It can lift forty pounds.”
Tom had a wild idea. “Could either of these drones be armed with a gun or other weapon? I guess rockets are out of the question.”
Rick thought for a minute. “There are several servos that aren’t in use on the base model of the Police drone that could be made to pull a trigger or maybe drop a small bomb. I think we could adapt all of them to become fighter bombers.”
Tom’s imagination went wild. “How about one of the extra cameras mounted on a cut down Ruger 10/22 with a twenty-five-round magazine. We could do some damage. Or … maybe we make some pipe bombs and drop them from the sky on some of these gang asshats.”
Rick scratched his neck and ran his hands over his face. “I could make a contact bomb, but a bomb with a fuse would be better. You never know when the bomb might hit a soft spot on the ground and not detonate. Maybe Kate and I should concentrate
