Steel Rain

A flicker of dismay and discomfort crossed the faces of Anderson's people, but they seemed to take the reality of it soon enough. They nodded in silence.

Then Anderson spoke.

"Understood. We'll follow your rules."

"Good."

I looked each of them in the eye in turn.

"From here on you'll follow behind our column, but you keep a set interval. And I'll lay out the rules of engagement for a fight on the road — just in case."

I took a breath, then pointed through the window at my truck.

"If we pick up pursuers on our six, I'll give you a hand signal from my cab. The moment you see it, all three of your vehicles punch it, overtake the entire column, and move to the front."

I toyed with the handheld radio clipped to the front of my plate carrier. Maybe I ought to give them one — the thought crossed my mind, but I wasn't ready to trust them with a shared comms channel. Not yet.

Anderson ventured a careful question.

"We're armed ourselves. Walker's Skoolie can return fire from the rear right away. Do we really need to move up front?"

A flash of irritation hit me. He hadn't grasped what I'd meant — if they got in the way, I'd have no choice but to shove them aside. I met Anderson's eyes and went on.

"Fine. Then let me ask you something, Mr. Anderson. If one of your vehicles falls behind in a firefight, do you have it in you to leave them and keep going?"

Neither Anderson, Smith, nor Walker could answer. They just looked at each other.

Walker broke the silence first.

"Understood. We'll do it that way."

Only then did Anderson seem to make up his mind.

"Hand signals alone probably won't cut it. Take this."

He glanced at Walker, who fetched what looked like a work radio and a vehicle charger and held them out to me.

"This is the channel we've been using among ourselves. It'll be a lot easier if you raise us on this."

I took it without a word. It was the beginning of a strange alliance, born of distrust and need in equal measure.

I climbed out of the Skoolie with the radio in my hand. Wolf wagged his tail at my feet. Dawn was still a dim, unfinished thing, but the camp was already stirring to life.

A few of the children were busy cleaning out the chicken-coop trailer or running errands for the adults, and off in the distance I could see Jake, Frank, and Mike heading toward the helicopter with lanterns.

"You had breakfast?" I asked as I came up.

Mike turned his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠head.

"We grabbed something. You ought to head over to the motorhome and get some food in you too."

"Coffee and a handful of almonds. What's going on this early?"

I fell in beside them. Frank answered, bright with excitement.

"We're gonna try mounting Steel Rain on the bird."

"Now? You think you can knock that out in a hurry?"

Mike took the question.

"We meant to do it back at the farm, but we ran out of time. Never even laid a hand on it. And we were missing a critical part besides."

He pointed at the battered agricultural spreader already mounted to the underside of the fuselage.

"That's a solid spreader — the kind they use to throw seed or fertilizer. Spinner on the bottom flings the load out in a wide pattern."

I said nothing, waiting.

"We were going to convert it so we could dump a load of steel in one shot, but we didn't have anything that could slam that hopper gate wide open from the cockpit."

Frank cut in as if he'd been waiting for his cue.

"And then yesterday, in that dry van, we found this."

What he held up, proud as a salesman with a closing pitch, was a stout steel rod and a bundle of cable.

"Cam lock off a trailer swing door. You turn the handle and a whole set of latches move at once."

I waited again.

"We hook this up to the hopper discharge under the bird, and one pull on a lever from the cockpit drops the whole floor open."

Mike picked the thread back up.

"If we build it right, that hopper will hold a good two hundred pounds, easy. Picture that much weight in bolts and nuts coming down out of the sky. Enough to blow out a windshield and turn a set of tires into rags — and then some."

By the time they'd finished explaining, Mike, Frank, and Jake already had tools in their hands and the conversion underway. Jake pulled the old spinner off. Frank took a grinder to the hopper floor. Mike set up to weld the cam lock in place. It was still a black dawn, and they had to work by flashlight, but their hands moved together with an ease that was almost uncanny.

I spoke to Mike while he was taking a breather.

"Filling that's a job of its own. So it's a one-shot deal."

"We've got an answer ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for that too."

"An answer?"

"Think of the hopper as a standing load."

He nodded at a cloth sack lying nearby and went on.

"Found a construction ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bulk bag in the dry van. Right size, too."

He pointed at the bottom of the bag in his hands.

"Untie that knot and everything dumps at once. Simple. Sure."

"So you pre-fill the bags."

"That's it. Same idea as a firefighting bird dumping on a wildfire."

Jake eyed the huge white sack Frank had turned up, a crease of worry in his voice.

"That'll hold a lot, no question. But if we're flying around with a bag sagging off the belly like that, isn't it going to be in the way when we land?"

Mike gave a warm chuckle and walked under the fuselage. He put the lantern on a heavy hook-shaped fitting at the center of the airframe's underside.

"You think I'd leave it that sloppy? Take a look. That's where they hang a spray tank or a firefighting bladder. Cargo hook."

Jake pointed at an electrical connector beside the hook.

"And that hook isn't just a hook. There's an electromagnetic release on it — one button from the cockpit and the lock lets go."

"A release?"

"Same principle as a fighter's bomb rack, more or less."

Mike went on, sketching the sequence in the air with his hands.

"So. Bird lifts off with the bulk bag on the hook. You get over the delivery point—"

He tapped the dump knot at the bottom of the sack Frank was holding.

"—and you've got this knot tied off to a wire that runs up to the cockpit. You don't punch the hook. You just yank the knot and dump the load."

I let him finish.

"Gift delivered, you hit the release and drop the empty bag. Fast. Simple. Sure."

Frank pointed at the sky.

"Picture it, Chan. Thousands of pieces of steel coming down like rain. It'll be a hell of a show."

Mike put a hand on Frank's enthusiasm.

"It's still a prototype. Once we get it built, we test it first — sand or dirt, a drop trial. We need to know if the gear holds and how the load scatters at what altitude before we ever use it for real."

Jake, who had been looking over the airframe, nodded.

"That's the right call. I'll look for a spot on today's recon flight and we'll do a trial drop."

"Could turn into a pretty effective weapon, if it works."

Jake's voice had picked up a little heat as he watched the work go on.

"Even bolts and nuts — you add drop speed to the airspeed we're carrying, and even if it doesn't punch a windshield, it can blank their vision completely. With luck, you blow a tire too."

"Stay off their nose."

Jake looked at me, puzzled.

"But Boss, to maximize the hit, wouldn't we want to cross their line of travel the other way and dump as we pass?"

"That's the most effective run, sure. It's also the most dangerous."

I held his eyes.

"Charging the direction the enemy is already watching is flying yourself into their muzzles. A helicopter is a fat target. You don't need a head-on pass. A flank or a diagonal run will do the job."

"Understood."

Jake nodded, taking the point, and went on.

"Then what's the optimal altitude if we want to put some real force on the load?"

"That's a good question."

I thought for a moment, then called over to Frank, who was deep in the work of securing the bulk bag.

"Frank. What do you think?"

Frank set his wrench down, tipped his head back at the sky, and seemed to run the numbers behind his eyes. Then he started counting it off on his fingers.

"Pure physics, higher is always better. For the steel to reach terminal velocity and hit with everything it's got, you want at least five hundred feet. Lower than that, you might as well be throwing rocks off a roof."

"So the higher we go, the harder it hits?"

Jake asked. Frank shook his head.

"In theory, yes. But past that you're only picking up maybe another five percent of speed, and putting the load on a moving truck from that high is a whole different problem."

"That tracks."

Jake accepted it. I pulled their exchange together and closed it out.

"We factor in rifle effective range too. Any time you enter on an angle where the enemy can see the bird, you dump from a thousand feet or higher. No exceptions."

I let that sit, then finished it.

"If you have to close, you come in off their firing arc as much as you can, and you never drop below five hundred feet. That's the standing ROE for Steel Rain."

"Yes, sir. Understood."

Talking it through was the slow part. Putting it on the aircraft didn't take long at all. With Jake's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠help, Mike and Frank started rigging the bulk bag to the belly of the helicopter as if they'd been doing it all their lives.

"Lucky for us, the dry van had a few sacks of traction sand. Means we don't have to dig frozen ground."

Frank grumbled as he worked, but his hands never stopped. They loaded the bulk bag with a decent weight of sand and dry brush from around the camp and called the test load ready.

As the job wound down, Sarah's voice came over the radio.

"We'll wrap up here. You go eat something, at least."

I didn't argue with Mike. I headed for the motorhome, took a bowl of warm oatmeal, and sat down to tell them what had happened in the night.

"Starting today, Anderson's family will be traveling behind us for a while."

Eleanor and the other women took the news as a good thing, if anything. There would be children of similar age, they said — the kids wouldn't be so lonely. A careful smile passed among them.

The morning ran on that way, busy and strangely peaceful. When I was satisfied that everything was ready, I sent the departure signal to each vehicle, and a low rumble of engines settled over the camp.

This time we would put the helicopter up. We were nearly clear of Eldorado National Forest, and we would have to pass through South Lake Tahoe, the city sitting on the line between California and Nevada.

I confirmed we were set, and picked up the radio.

The orders were short. A thin whine cut through the rough diesel exhaust as the drone lifted off, and more than fifteen vehicles and trailers began to fill the road.