Looking below, it seemed like the ship was the molting ground of some vast flock of birds. Tens of thousands of drones covered every available surface—others seemed to be crawling around. McKinney released more pheromone and looked on with amazement at the complex and terrifying manifestation of her work. In some sick way it almost gave her satisfaction to see her model working—but she quickly rebuked herself.
Another drone bumped into them, and there was a loud bang as pieces of something sheared away and fell out of sight along with the drone. McKinney hoped none of those pieces belonged to the Sikorsky, but moments later the chopper started vibrating. An empty water bottle rattled in a cup holder at her elbow. The vibration quickly increased. Several red lights and alarms went off on the console up front.
Odin looked up through the overhead view ports. “We’re leaking something up there, and it isn’t pheromone.”
Dark fluid sprayed across the glass.
Foxy was checking indicators and struggling with the yoke. “Gotta land . . . gotta land.”
Another bump, followed by yet another bang, as a drone edged into them.
“I don’t see a way to clear a path without running into them. We’ve got some damage to a rotor blade already—maybe more than one.”
McKinney scanned the vast expanse of containers below them but didn’t see any helipad or unoccupied spot. They were now flying into a cloud of smaller drones, and the impacts were coming fast as popcorn popping. The chopper lurched, and a lawn mower–sized quadracopter bristling with antennas bumped right into the window next to her before it disappeared below them.
Foxy was wrestling with the controls. Alarms were wailing and lights flashing on the console. “We’re going down. This might be unpleasant.”
McKinney tugged on the pheromone cord. “Don’t land nose-first, if you can help it. We need to preserve the canister.”
He laughed ruefully as they started to spin. “We might be landing in a way that solves all our problems.” He struggled to stop the spin, working the foot pedals, handle, and yoke frantically. “Tail rotor’s going.”
They continued to spin as they descended, and the collisions with drones only increased. There were several loud bangs.
“Prepare for impact! Prepare for impact!”
The chopper rotated, then slowed, then finally tilted rearward. McKinney could see them descending toward the top of a pile of drone-covered containers. Fifty feet. Thirty feet. Then ten feet.
They hit hard, tail first, but the landing surface gave way beneath them. The deafening whine of the drone engines all around them masked even the sound of the crash, and the crumpling of corrugated steel containers. The chopper collapsed partly into a container with its nose facing upward. The blades shattered with a loud snapping sound.
The impact knocked the wind out of her and caused her to lean on the pheromone cord. She struggled to release it, and then fought against gravity as the chopper rolled sideways. Then the copter mostly righted itself again before coming to a rest.
McKinney heard Odin’s voice in the headphones beyond all the howling drone engines.
“Everyone all right?”
McKinney patted her body and checked the area around her for punctures or crash damage, but eventually she nodded. “Bruised, but I’m good. Foxy, okay?”
Foxy nodded as he was switching off the engines and the fuel pumps. “Fine. Turns out we should be happy we only had fuel vapors left. Otherwise I think we’d be on fire.”
Odin spoke into his headset radio. “TOC, this is Safari-One-Six actual. We’ve landed on the mother ship. Chopper disabled, but crew okay. Moving on foot to objective. Maintain your present course until you get confirmation we’ve succeeded. Out.”
“Copy that, Safari-One-Six.”
Odin pointed at the intact canister bracket still affixed to the nose outside. “Grab the canisters and let’s move.” With one last glance at his companions he opened the copilot’s door and climbed up onto the storage container roof. Foxy did so on the other side, racing forward to unclamp the canister. Odin turned to grab McKinney’s hand and haul her up out of his door, since the rear doors seemed to be blocked by the walls of a shipping container.
In a moment they all stood atop a twenty-story-tall block of containers amid the deafening engine roar, with numberless drones flying, perching, and crawling about them. It was a vast field of seething machines. The bright Pacific sun was partly shrouded by a cloud of drones as well.
Foxy sprayed himself, McKinney, and Odin with pheromone, then looked out on the mass of drones in every direction. He shouted, “Well, that is something you don’t see every day.”