Free Dragonflies: Shadow of Drones by Andy Straka Page B

good to go. Let’s saddle up the ship.”
    “Spoken like a true pilot.”
    He led the way back down a series of corridors, passing two different pairs of armed guards along the way, to the same cavernous, empty room she’d seen several hours before. It looked no different now than it did then. The outside world could have been eating lunch at noon or sleeping at midnight–to the room and the sphere it was all the same. Once inside, the only reality existed on the screens, in the virtual environment, a full immersive world. Raina suddenly realized why such a thing appealed to her, drew her even. It was a chance to really feel like she was climbing back into the cockpit again, even more than she did with the dragonflies. She knew she missed flying her helicopter in person. She just hadn’t processed how much.
    “She’s all yours,” Murnell told her as he helped guide her into the chair inside the sphere. She also couldn’t help noticing how his hand seemed to linger under her arm a fraction of a second longer than necessary.
    For the next couple of hours, under his guidance and patient instruction, she learned how to control and manipulate a series of apparently different MAVs via multiple MAV-generated images. She loved the freedom Murnell’s drones seemed to give her, the sensation of the craft in her hands, responding instantly to her control as if she were actually on board. But the amazing thing was the vision. The information these drones provided was astounding, as close to being there as she could imagine. She wasn’t even sure what the drones she was flying looked like, except for his occasional reminder that there was more than one, all working in concert, from the desert in Nevada to the desert over Baghdad, from a city in Northern Africa to the mountains of Pakistan, eventually even, a live feed of a downtown section of Beijing, in all its splendor and smog, not too far from the Forbidden City.
    It was exhilarating, empowering, even a little frightening. While she sat in the near midnight darkness of Northern Virginia, on the opposite side of the globe hazy lunchtime sunshine filtered through a busy urban neighborhood.
    “Don’t the Chinese know we have this technology?” Raina asked.
    “Oh, they know,” Murnell said, “At least in principle. But for now we’ve managed to keep the details away from their prying eyes–no easy task, I can tell you, given the persistence and prowess of their cyber-snooping. To the rest of the world, most of these toys are years from being operational.”
    Yet here he was handing the keys to the kingdom to a disabled, retired Chief Warrant Officer. Raina wasn’t stupid. Something didn’t add up.
    “Why me?” she asked him again. “Why recruit me to fly these things?”
    “Because you fit the profile.” He shrugged, offering an impish grin. “We don’t normally like to work with former pilots. We’ve found they too often come with detrimental ingrained habits from logging too many hours in the air. But you’re a quick study, and–if don’t mind my saying so, CWO Sanchez–you come with the whole package.”
    She felt his eyes on her again, as if they were undressing her. It made her feel vulnerable. Not that having some guy hit on her was any kind of new experience–she just hadn’t allowed it to go on like this since Afghanistan. Was it only the flying and the rush of incredible technology she was after?
    “In fact.” His voice jolted her back to reality. “I think you’re about ready to solo.”
    His shadow moved away from the chair.
    “What?” She’d trained on a simulator under Major Williamson’s guidance for days before starting to work with the MAVs.
    “It’s all right.” He was already moving toward the door. “I’m going to step out of the sphere and leave the room for a few minutes, but don’t worry, I’ll still have an eye on you and you’ll still be able to hear me talking. Go ahead and try some different venues on for