The Drone Squadron
“To the support room! Quick—get to the support room! I’ll explain once we’re there!”
I shouted and broke into a run toward the support room. At the sight of my urgency, the other four followed right behind me, bewildered expressions on their faces, not knowing what was going on.
The moment we arrived, I switched the large screen’s channel to the newly created Drone-1 feed.
And in that instant, every one of us sucked in a breath.
The screen displayed a breathtaking vista from high above—our Shelter and every scrap of landscape around it, laid out beneath us in a single sweeping view. It felt as if we had become gods looking down on the world.
“Whoa…”
The soft gasp of wonder slipped from Nam Jin-ju’s lips.
“That’s… what the drone is seeing right now?”
Yeong-ju murmured the words as if she still couldn’t quite believe them.
Through the system window I began testing the drone’s various modes one by one.
“All right—this is Reconnaissance Mode.”
At my command the drone began circling the Shelter in a wide, graceful arc. The scenery on the screen glided past in a smooth, panoramic sweep.
“Next—Perimeter Mode.”
This time the drone traced the exact boundary line of the Defense System we had set, moving with precise, methodical regularity along the edge of our safe zone.
“And finally… Attack Mode.”
When I pressed the last button, a soft zzzt sounded from the drone’s underside and a small gun barrel slid into view. The drone locked onto a lone zombie far beyond the Defense System’s range, then fired with a quiet pong. An invisible packet of energy streaked out. It was weaker than the Shelter’s own turrets, yet more than enough to blow the zombie’s head clean off.
For a long moment none of us could speak, stunned by the sheer capability on display.
“…If we had just five more of these, we’d be… basically invincible, wouldn’t we?”
Yang Jin-ju said it in a trembling voice.
I shook my head.
“No. There’s one problem.”
I pointed to a section of the system window.
“The real-time video link from this drone’s camera only reaches a one-kilometer radius from the Shelter. Step outside that range and we lose the feed completely—we can’t see through its eyes anymore.”
“So… beyond one kilometer it’s just useless?”
Nam Jin-ju asked, clearly disappointed.
“Not quite.”
I continued.
“Outside one kilometer the drone keeps working. We just can’t pilot it live. It follows pre-set modes—‘patrol designated zone,’ ‘track specific target,’ that sort of thing. And if we want to give it new orders…”
I pointed to the two suits standing in the corner of the support room.
“…one of us has to put on a suit, walk out past the one-kilometer line, and assign the target or mode in person.”
“Then… if the energy runs out while it’s outside the range, does it just crash where it is?”
Yeong-ju zeroed in on the most critical issue.
“No.”
I shook my head.
“When the charge drops below twenty percent, it automatically aborts every mission, returns to the Shelter, and starts recharging itself. Once it’s full again, it flies straight back to the zone it was working and resumes the job.”
At my answer Yeong-ju folded her arms—the posture she always took when deep in thought—and fell silent once more.
“What is the maximum operating time of a single drone, if I may ask?”
Kang Po-gyeong fired the sharp question. Yang Jin-ju and Nam Jin-ju both turned toward me, equally curious.
I checked the status window and answered.
“Available flight time… right now, at 99.7 percent charge, it shows about eighteen hours.”
Kang Po-gyeong looked genuinely surprised by the length.
“With that kind of endurance… simply dividing the area among several drones would raise the safety of a vast region by an enormous margin!”
“And if we had multiple units, even if a special mutant appeared we could temporarily concentrate fire on one spot, eliminate it, then send them back to their original zones.”
Yang Jin-ju spoke with clear admiration for the drones’ performance and strategic value.
“No.”
Just then Yeong-ju opened her eyes, as if she had finished thinking.
“There’s somewhere more important than that first.”
Every gaze locked onto her.
“The road that runs from here all the way to Sim Geum-a’s territory—and the whole stretch around it. We set that entire corridor to Perimeter Mode.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Once we do that, we no longer have to risk our necks going out for resources ourselves. They can safely bring the resources to us.”
“That would be great, but… then Sim Geum-a would know exactly where our Shelter is. I don’t completely distrust her, but it’s still too dangerous.”
I pushed back. Yeong-ju shook her head.
“You said yourself that after eighteen hours of work a drone has to come back here to recharge. If that woman really decides she wants our location… or if anyone else simply tails the drone in secret… our position is going to get found out eventually no matter what.”
She was right. I fell quiet, turning her bold yet perfectly rational plan over in my mind.
“Then… one drone alone won’t cut it.”
I looked at Yang Jin-ju.
“Jin-ju, you’ve been to that area yourself. Roughly how many drones would we need to make that ‘safe road’?”
Yang Jin-ju thought for a moment, then traced an imaginary route across the map with her finger.
“To keep unbroken twenty-four-hour coverage… four drones actively on patrol, plus two more rotating for recharge and maintenance… assuming three shifts, we’d need at least six.”
“Six, huh…”
I calculated the resources required for a single unit.
“Gold we already have plenty of from Sim Geum-a’s side… so the real bottlenecks are steel, plastic, copper, and rubber. Those we can scrape together somehow—even if we have to tear the whole neighborhood apart.”
I stood as I spoke, then lightly tapped the shoulder of Nam Jin-ju, who was still staring at the screen as if the god’s-eye view from the sky was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen.
“All right, Jin-ju. Enough sightseeing—time to work. Suit up. We’re going resource hunting.”
“Aww… just a little longer…”
I herded the reluctant Nam Jin-ju outside. The long, grinding hours of simple labor had begun again.
It took a full three days.
For those three days we scoured every corner around the Shelter. We dismantled rusted streetlights and abandoned cars for steel. We peeled rubber weather-stripping from car doors and stripped tires from discarded bicycles. We cut thick copper wiring wherever we found it.
And at last, today, the sixth drone appeared on the shelf of the resource processing room.
Defense Drone Squadron 1
(6 / 6)
A deeply satisfying entry now glowed in the system window.
“Perfect! Then let’s go!”
This time the person heading to Sim Geum-a’s territory was Yeong-ju—who had never set foot there before. She would ride with me to set the drones’ patrol zones all the way from the Shelter to Sim Geum-a’s walls, then finish the trade in person.
Watching her pull on the Walker Suit and call out “Let’s go!” in a voice far more excited than usual, an uneasy feeling stirred in my chest. I silently prayed that nothing would go wrong and that we would both return safely. This might well be our last visit to Sim Geum-a’s territory.
The next day, driving the truck toward Sim Geum-a’s territory with Yeong-ju felt almost peaceful compared to every previous trip.
Pong—
Before we even spotted it, the head of a zombie shambling far ahead simply exploded. One of our drones, already running Perimeter Mode, was scouting the road ahead and quietly eliminating every potential threat.
High above us the drone glided in near silence, slowly tracing the exact corridor we had programmed.
“…One left.”
Yeong-ju, still in her suit and sitting in the cargo bed, studied the operations map Yang Jin-ju had drawn.
Right then another soft pong rang out and a second zombie by the roadside collapsed bonelessly.
“…With the drones watching, we probably wouldn’t even need the suits.”
Yeong-ju’s admiring remark drew a silent nod of agreement from me as I kept driving.
When we reached Sim Geum-a’s territory, the same Korean-fluent white man, Dima, greeted us. He opened the gate while the other guards smoothly guided the truck inside. Just like last time, Choi Eun-ji came out to meet me.
“Welcome, Seo Yeong-chan. You’ve brought someone new this time.”
She gestured toward Yeong-ju still seated in the cargo bed in her suit.
“We’ll escort her in once the truck is parked. Please go ahead to the room first.”
A short while later I was alone in the conference room when Sim Geum-a walked in.
“Oh my, young husband! Hello? You’re back again?”
She drifted over as naturally as breathing and latched onto my arm. I hurriedly peeled her off.
“Be careful today, all right?”
At that exact moment the door opened and Yeong-ju—suit already removed—stepped inside. She walked straight to my side and dropped into the chair with a solid thump. Then she looked Sim Geum-a up and down, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and spoke.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Seo Yeong-ju.”
On her face bloomed a smile that was perfectly polite and utterly murderous—the kind that said, So you’re the bitch I’ve been hearing about.