Hail Warning

Gulf of Guinea — Aboard the Hail Proton

Foghat came in low and slow. Turtles was heavy and would make a big loud splash when it hit the water. Wilson had been told to make the drop at very specific coordinates. It would be dumped far enough away from the beach, so the drone could not be seen by the guards stationed on the beach. But not so far away that Turtles ran the risk of running out of battery power before climbing out the water to its designated spot. Wilson checked the drone’s flight altitude and slowed Foghat down enough without stalling the aircraft.

Captain Nichols was sitting behind Wilson in the captain’s chair, two tiers up.

“You got this,” Nichols encouraged his young pilot.

This drop was important for Wilson since it was his first real mission. But it was important for the entire Hail Proton crew since it was the first assigned to their mission center. No one wanted this first mission to be their last. It was critical for everything to work perfectly as a matter of pride for Hail Proton’s crew.

“Altitude is fifty feet. Airspeed is 75 miles per hour,” the pilot reported. Wilson knew that the stall speed of Foghat was 62 miles per hour, but there was no sense testing that parameter.

“One mile out,” Wilson announced. He made a small flight adjustment and slid his finger under a button protector on his flight yoke. This protected button could be coded to either fire missiles or guns. For this mission, the button had been programmed to release Turtles from Foghat’s belly.

Above Wilson’s control station were massive 80-inch screens attached to the wall which streamed the real-time video sent from the front-facing camera on Foghat. The drone was flying in an easterly direction down the coastline of Nigeria. Beneath and to the drone’s right, there was nothing to sea but endless ocean. To the drone’s left was a smattering of lights that appeared to be glowing from small homes, docks, or boats nestled in close to the shoreline.

Up ahead, and to the left, was a much brighter grouping of lights strung from a large building on the beach. The light cast a bright glow back into the jungle. The building on the hill, above the beach, was so large it appeared to be a hotel. A small strip of land separated the compound from the intracoastal waterway. Jason had been informed this waterway was known as Badagry Creek, and it fronted Afua Diambu’s home. Wilson made a flight adjustment and flew over the narrow sandy parcel, and he centered his aircraft over Badagry Creek.

“The compound is coming up on your left,” Nichols told Wilson.

“Roger that,” Wilson responded. The young pilot checked the coordinates on his lower right monitor, did some quick calculations in his head and then reported, “Releasing in five, four, three, two, one—”

Jason pressed the button on his yoke and prayed that Turtles had disengaged properly from the underside of Foghat. Since he was still flying Foghat, the task of getting Turtles into place now rested in the hands of Sarah Starling.

Starling’s story differed ONLY as it related to her skin color. Leave the backstory in place — and bingo — you had Sarah’s life story in a nutshell. She had lived in Arkansas with her mother who was addicted to crack, and her father was long gone. Starling was a girl in a no-win situation striving to escape the crappy trailer she lived in. She hung out at the Sip-and-Go. She was determined to make it out of the crappy neighborhood and the crappy town in which she lived. Very much in the same manner Hail had found Jason Wilson, he had found Sarah Starling. She was a year older than Jason and, during their time on the ship, Sarah and Jason had become very close friends. They liked the same types of clothes — dark, baggy and warm items with cool graphics and lots of shiny brass zippers. They liked gangster rap, tacos, and black-and-white movies.

Sarah waited for Turtles’ communication float to reach the surface of the water. Once she saw a signal stream appear on her monitor, she would take control of the drone and check its vitals. The drone was built like a tank — literally — so no one expected any damage when the drone hit the water at 75 miles per hour. The drone was weighted; therefore, it should have settled, on its tracks, at the bottom of Badagry Creek. If, for some reason, the drone had landed on its back, the crew would have to determine how best to turn Turtles back on its tracks. To say they were flying by the seat of their pants was an understatement, because they were literally in uncharted waters.

Two of Sarah’s 24-inch monitors showed the words: No Signal. Sarah and the crew waited patiently for the float to unreel and for COMMS to come online.

“Back at altitude and the radar is clear,” Wilson announced to everyone. “I’m headed home.”

“Good job. Keep it low and slow,” Captain Nichols instructed Wilson. He turned his attention to his monitor. It currently mirrored Sarah’s monitor. The captain had two monitors. One monitor was bolted to each of the armrests of his captain’s chair. Using the ship’s mission center application, he could monitor the parameters of any drone after he assigned it to one of his monitors.

The words No Signal were still present. He was preparing to say something when the monitors all flashed and came to life. They were replaced by a plethora of gauges, indicator lights and virtual controls.

Sarah smiled and said, “Turtles is online and five by five.”

She immediately focused her attention on a sensor which would indicate whether saltwater had breached the inside of the drone. She was happy to see that the light was not lit. Saltwater could take out circuitry faster than you could say the words dead drone.

The tank-like drone, Turtles, was manipulated using two joysticks. One stick controlled the right track on the drone, and the other controlled the left. If the left joystick was pushed forward, the drone pivoted right. Likewise, if the right joystick was pushed forward, the drone turned left. For the drone to move forward in a straight line, both sticks were pushed forward. The compass reading indicated she needed to turn 90 degrees to point the drone toward the beach. Sarah made the necessary corrections and then pushed both joysticks forward. To conserve battery life, she didn’t activate the camera located in Turtles’ head. It was night, and her drone was ten feet under water; therefore, there was nothing to see until she hit the beach.

“Wow, this thing moves like a tank,” she joked, trying to cut the tension in the room.

“At least it’s moving,” Captain Nichols replied.

“Yeah, that’s a good thing,” Sarah agreed.

The turtle had a depth gauge and a sensor on its back to indicate when it emerged from the water. Ten feet down, the drone dug into the sand using its tracks, impregnated with the turtle claws, scratching and clawing at the sand, leaving clouds of floating debris in its wake.

“I’m at five feet,” Sarah reported.

“What’s the power consumption?” Nichols asked.

“We’re looking good. Still above 90 % of its battery reserves.”

Batteries, ball bearing and the dense explosives were heavy. All that load had been calculated to within fifty yards of the target. If they were not within a fifty-yard threshold of their target, Turtles would run out of power before they got it in place. And there it would sit in the middle of the beach until it was eventually discovered by one of Diambu’s guards. That was a failure that none of the crew were willing to accept.

“Almost out,” Sarah said. She pressed an icon on the screen. Underwater, the head of Turtles began peeking out from under its shell. Its eyes were small cameras sending them a streamed video signal via leased time on the Russian Express AM4 satellite floating in space above the island.

There was still nothing but murky blackness on the video. A moment later, as Turtles emerged from the gentle surf, a blurry light source came into view.

“Looks like we are out of the water,” Sarah told everyone. “I’m reeling in the communications tether.” She pressed a virtual button on her screen labeled, COMMS RETRACT.

As the last few drops of water dripped from the head of Turtles, and the camera lens cleared, they would be able to autofocus at the looming and well-lit white compound ahead. Turtles had landed right on its mark and was clawing its way out of the wet sand. Directly ahead was its designated nesting zone.

“Dang, James. You nailed that drop,” Sarah commented.

“Still flying Foghat back to the Hail Proton,” Wilson responded with a cocky tone, “It’s just what I do.”

“I think you’ve only done it once,” Sarah responded, trying to take her fellow pilot down a notch.

“I’ve only done one drop, so that would make me one for one, or a 100 percent total career accuracy.”

Sarah laughed. Captain Nichols reminded his young crew, “Let’s concentrate on the mission, folks. We’ll have time for all this jibing later.”

Sarah composed herself and reported, “Twenty feet from the water, and we are starting to hit some deep sand.” She rolled a wheel under her thumb to elevate Turtles’ head to compensate for the deep sand.

“It’s a little sluggish in this deep stuff, but not bad,” Sarah said. She kept both of her joysticks pressed forward and watched as the building in front of them grew larger in the video frame. From this vantage point, the white compound appeared to be three to four stories high — if the sundeck atop the structure was considered a story. Many of the rooms appeared to have a light on, and dozens of exterior flood lights illuminated the property surrounding the building.

Using a toggle atop her right joystick, Sarah pressed it to the left using her thumb. Turtles’ head craned to the left. From the available ambient light, she could see quite a distance down the beach. There didn’t appear to be any guards patrolling the beach in that direction. She did see a few other dark bumps on the beach that looked as if they were either large wads of seaweed or possibly other turtles. She pressed the toggle to the right and Turtles’ head shifted likewise. There were two significant objects that immediately came into view.

A guard was about fifteen yards away and walking directly towards Turtles. The other object, less than two yards away from her drone, was another turtle clawing its way through the deep sand.

Sarah immediately released the joysticks which brought her drone to a complete stop. If the approaching guard did nothing more than glance at the two turtles making their way toward their nests, he probably wouldn’t give them a second look. Very little could be done by Hail Proton’s drone engineers to mask the mechanical sounds Turtles made as its tracks ratcheted on hard gears being driven by loud electric motors. There was not enough room within the drone to include foam or other noise-dampening material. It wasn’t as if it made a huge racket when its tracks were moving, but it sure the hell didn’t sound like any other turtle in the world.

Hail Proton’s crew watched as the turtle next to them continued its way down the beach. The Nigerian guard was dressed in dark fatigues and had an assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

Everyone held their breath as the solider walked directly toward their immobile turtle. And, just as it appeared he was going to step over the shell, the man purposely stepped directly on Turtles’ back. It was a quick decisive action. It was clearly not an accident. Diambu’s guard purposely stepped on it, as if it were a rock in the middle of a stream. Then he continued down the beach.

“I guess that guy most be pretty bored?” Captain Nichols suggested.

“I know I would be bored if my job was to walk up and down a beach all night,” Sarah agreed.

Once the guard was safely twenty yards down the beach, Sarah pushed both control sticks forward until Turtles came to life, and she moved it toward the compound.

It wasn’t difficult to find the path leading up to the main building. The compound’s exterior flood lights illuminated enough for Sarah to easily locate the mouth of the little path. It took less than three minutes for Turtles to move ten yards towards the main house. Sarah Starling released the left joystick, and Turtles turned left. It turned off the path and drove into extremely deep sand and tangles of low brush. Her instructions were to move three yards off the path, and turn the drone 180 degrees, so the cameras within Turtles’ head would face the trail. A minute later, Sarah had performed the maneuver after which she released both joysticks.

“How much power do we have left?” Nichols asked.

Sarah looked at the monitor that showed Turtles’ vitals and reported, “About 50 % battery reserve power.”

“That should be enough if Diambu goes for a swim every morning,” Mitch commented. He checked some information on one of his monitors and then told

Sarah, “Put Turtles to sleep to conserve power. I will notify Hail everything is in place.”

Sarah pressed a button labeled SLEEP MODE and Turtles’ head retracted and its systems powered down, except for one chip that monitored the signal. This chip was responsible for either making the drone WAKE UP and for ordering it to explode with the order BOOM.