Chapter 17

“Let’s go shoot up a dead mining drone,” said Alex. Mining drones are a nasty robot that the Eastern Bloc drops on remote regions of Mars to dig up rare metals and elements. When the drone’s hopper is full, another drone swaps out that hopper for an empty one and takes the full hopper to the Eastern Bloc. The whole thing violates multiple interplanetary mining rights agreements and every pound of Martian resources lifted to the Eastern Bloc is lost revenue for the Martian people. There are just a few Martian Marines, and they use drones for target practice until recently, when fully armed mining drones were dropped on Mars.

The F-733 was built for ship to ship fighting, so the target acquisition computers wouldn’t work when trying to shoot a dead mining drone. Alex would have to use a heads up gun sight and “Kentucky windage.” They buzzed along at 200 meters above the surface of Mars when Alex saw a drone to their left. The Eastern Bloc does not paint or camouflage their mining drones, the bare metal glints in the dim Martian sunlight giving away their position.

Eris made a wide sweeping 270° turn to the right, and the drone came up on their nose. Eris armed up the .50 caliber guns and Alex squeezed the Navigator’s trigger. He had the guns set to AUTO, and both guns ripped off fifteen rounds before he could release the trigger. The GunSlinger jumped and shook, compensating for the guns’ recoil, and when it was over, they realized they had blown the drone to pieces.

“Mars Central Security, this is Michael Michael two zero two zero seven.”

“Go ahead Sergeant Rodriguez,” said the dispatcher.

“We’ve spotted a mining drone approximately 25 Kilometers northeast of the Scarlet Water Systems plant on Jezero Crater.”

“Roger Sergeant Rodruguez. Stay away and keep your men away from that drone, it’s very dangerous and we are enforcing a five kilometer zone around it. Do not approach.”

“Oh, uh ... do you want us to put it back together?” When Alex said that, Eris started giggling.

“Do you have any data to confirm what you are saying Sergeant Rodriguez.”

“Stand by to upload,” said Eris, and she sent a copy of their gun camera video. They had been flying in a large circle around the wreckage as they waited for security dispatch to say something.

After a long pause, Security Control said, “Stand by for a security patrol.”

“Might as well put it down,” said Alex and Eris agreed, however she’s never actually landed a 733, she’s just rendezvoused, then Alan did the final landing.

“It can’t be that hard, what goes up must come down,” said Eris.

“You said you only rendezvoused,” said Alex. “Rendezvous with that piece of ground over there,” and he pointed out a flat patch of ground near the broken drone.

“That’s not how it works!” cried Eris, but in the end, after she set the F-733 on the ground, that’s exactly how it worked.

An armed transport with an escorting scooter carrying two cops in robin’s egg blue environment suits set down and a fellow stepped up to Eris and Alex. Alex had reassembled the rifle and he was teaching Eris how to shoot.