Hunter punched a button to fire, but nothing happened. She hit another, nothing.
Then she hit one of the number keys and the .22 fired as the green image vibrated slightly from the recoil.
Both men flinched and Hunter saw a small puff of dust blossom behind them as the bullet hit the ground.
She touched the keys to line up the crosshairs as they sprinted toward the brush where she hid.
Hunter worked her fingers on the laptop and fired again, too fast. The two killers were very close and she hurried to stop them before they killed her.
The two men split from each other, with one doubling back to run underneath the drone and out of her camera’s view as the other one stood and raised his pistol at it, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger.
It was eerie, watching the scene from a distance on the green screen while the man’s back was physically so close to her that the gunfire was a loud, fast series of explosions.
She clicked the keys and the drone flew towards him as he fired, and she fired back with a three-shot burst by holding down the shift key and hitting the firing key at the same time.
The bullets hit him in the chest and he staggered back, then stumbled to his knees. Hunter saw his empty pistol, evident by the open slide, drop from his hand.
She turned the drone in a quick spin to locate the other killer and saw him almost to the edge of the bluff. He turned when hearing the drone. He fired at it like his partner, but had more luck or skill because he hit the flying machine and made it pitch toward the ground.
Hunter worked the control keys on the laptop and flew the drone in a weaving, erratic pattern, firing the remaining bullets without hitting him.
Felix had backed up to within inches of the bluff’s edge, but when he realized the drone had no more bullets, the man smiled.
Hunter saw his reaction and realized the killer was coming for her. She accelerated the crippled drone, working to keep it lined up, but the aircraft was in a steep dive, so she used the momentum of the fall to b
ring it at him at eighty miles per hour.
Felix swatted at it with his empty pistol but missed and the drone hit him in the stomach. The protruding rifle barrel on the drone poked him like an iron rod, knocking the wind out of him as the rest of the drone hit him a collapsing tangle of rotors, struts, plastic, and metal.
The man and drone disappeared, falling off the bluff in a tangle into river cane and water forty feet below.
Hunter put down the laptop, noticing as she did that the screen was black. She limped to the bluff’s edge and looked down to see Felix impaled on the branches of the submerged tree, with bits of broken drone still caught in his shirt. His upturned face floated an inch below the surface and no bubbles came from his nose or mouth. A small, dark, liquid ribbon flowed from under his torso to mix with the lighter-colored current, and the way his limbs floated loosely in the current further verified that he was dead.
Hiyoki was still a danger so she limped back to the other dead man, finding his pistol, an empty Colt Commander. She searched his pockets for a spare magazine and found one in his back pocket. She had the full clip in the Colt in no time and made sure to jack a round into the chamber. She felt better, to where she would at least have a fighting chance.
The large moon glowed so bright in the night sky that Hunter could see Hiyoki’s tracks leading into the brush. She decided to follow rather than take a chance he would come up behind her.
His foot impressions showed panic, with several spots where he stumbled. The area had a good deal of dirt so the sign cutting was easier than it would be farther away in the desert.
A dark spot showed on some exposed rock where Hiyoki had stepped, so she stopped to check it. Blood, a single drop, but it meant her rock had caused some damage at least. She returned to the tracks, stopping every few minutes to look into the distance where the trail pointed.
When she saw the vehicle’s reflection in the moonlight, Hunter knew Hiyoki would be there. It was time to move slow and careful, she thought.
Hiyoki sweated as he worked under the steering column to get to the wires so he could start it. That idiot Felix had taken the keys with him and there wasn’t a spare. He muttered to himself, “How do you break into this thing?” He knew about computers and complex electronics, but vehicles of any kind were not in his realm of expertise. He banged against the column again, hoping something would come loose.
When he heard the metallic tap-tap on the driver’s window, he raised his head from under the steering column and looked straight into the muzzle of Hunter Kincaid’s pistol.
“Out.”
She backed up to let him open the door as he wiped sweat from his face and asked, “My men?”
Hunter didn’t answer, and he felt a trickle of fear when he saw her eyes in the moonlight. She wanted to shoot him, he felt sure.
Hiyoki said, “You have me, so now what?”
Hunter pointed with the Colt toward the river and swung the muzzle back on him. “Walk ahead of me. If you try to run, I’ll shoot you. I’m not kidding, either.”
Hiyoki tried twice during the way back to get her to talk, to distract her, but she simply said, “Walk.”