The Zone: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Infection Chronicles Book 1) by Tripp Ellis
Authors: Tripp Ellis
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the strengths and weaknesses. Looking for their Achilles’ heel. But the compound was solid. The perimeter wall was three stories high, rimmed in razor wire. There was a lookout tower on each corner.
The main entrance had two massive steel double doors, large enough to drive a semi truck through. Two turret towers guarded it.
In the hour that he watched, it was mostly quiet. There was the occasional crack of a rifle blasting an approaching lurker—done more out of boredom than necessity. Nothing was getting over those walls. Nothing was getting through the front doors.
Steele noticed the lurkers were able to get relatively close to the wall without tripping any proximity mines or claymores. Even if Raddick had previously mined the fields, they sure weren’t mined now. They would have been detonated long ago. A constant influx of lurkers would have tripped proximity mines around the clock. From what Steele knew of Raddick, he seemed like a calculated guy. Not the type of guy to waste precious resources on what was essentially a non-threat. And lurkers mindlessly bouncing against the compound wall wasn’t a threat.
But Raddick was about to have bigger problems than lurkers. Taking down two CAVs in so many days was bound to incite retaliation. It would only be a matter of time before Z-SOC tracked these guys down.
Z-SOC had been focused on containment, for the most part. Command didn’t really care what was happening on the ground. But they kept a close watch on the skies. Lots of aircraft remained in the containment zone. And lots of refugees tried to pilot them out. There was a flurry of unauthorized flights in the no-fly zone during the first few weeks of containment. Now, it was a rarity. Everything that went up was shot down.
Steele reached into a pocket and pulled out a bumble drone. It was slang for the UAV 297 Mark II. It was a small drone the size of a bumblebee. Fitted with a 48K camera with a Zikor lens and optical zoom. The resolution was so high that you could read the numbers on someone’s wristwatch from 5 miles away. It could be remotely piloted from any mobile device. It could also fly a series of preprogrammed smart-patterns based on GPS location data. Just program in a target, and it would run a recon mission—virtually undetectable.
It had no radar cross-section, to speak of. The engine made no noise. And its preprogrammed flight missions were set to simulate the movement of a bumblebee, or wasp. It was an excellent assassination tool as well. A stinger could inject a lethal toxin, eliminating the target quickly and efficiently.
The incredible optics made the drone an exceptional geo-mapping tool. Hundreds of thousands were deployed to scour every nook and cranny of the globe. It’s why Z-SOC had access to such detailed maps of interior structures. But the drones didn’t collect information on below ground structures, due to an error in the code. It’s why Ferris’s bunker came as a surprise.
Steele didn’t like surprises. Especially on the battlefield. The battle is won before it is fought. A drone was going to come in handy. Map data on the servers could be six months to a year old. Steele wanted fresh intel. But drones didn’t like the rain—a heavy drop could significantly alter its trajectory. The rain wasn’t letting up, and Steele was growing impatient. He programmed in the location of the compound and launched the drone. He hoped it would come back in one piece, with usable data.
The drone zigged and zagged through the sky. Steele watched a stabilized aerial view on his mobile device. The compound was massive. More so than he initially thought. It was like a little village. It had an extensive garden, and the compound looked completely self sustaining. Rows and rows of vehicles and military equipment—APCs, and even a tank. The drone counted 37 individuals above ground. It was programmed to automatically cross reference facial features against the Shadow Net
The main entrance had two massive steel double doors, large enough to drive a semi truck through. Two turret towers guarded it.
In the hour that he watched, it was mostly quiet. There was the occasional crack of a rifle blasting an approaching lurker—done more out of boredom than necessity. Nothing was getting over those walls. Nothing was getting through the front doors.
Steele noticed the lurkers were able to get relatively close to the wall without tripping any proximity mines or claymores. Even if Raddick had previously mined the fields, they sure weren’t mined now. They would have been detonated long ago. A constant influx of lurkers would have tripped proximity mines around the clock. From what Steele knew of Raddick, he seemed like a calculated guy. Not the type of guy to waste precious resources on what was essentially a non-threat. And lurkers mindlessly bouncing against the compound wall wasn’t a threat.
But Raddick was about to have bigger problems than lurkers. Taking down two CAVs in so many days was bound to incite retaliation. It would only be a matter of time before Z-SOC tracked these guys down.
Z-SOC had been focused on containment, for the most part. Command didn’t really care what was happening on the ground. But they kept a close watch on the skies. Lots of aircraft remained in the containment zone. And lots of refugees tried to pilot them out. There was a flurry of unauthorized flights in the no-fly zone during the first few weeks of containment. Now, it was a rarity. Everything that went up was shot down.
Steele reached into a pocket and pulled out a bumble drone. It was slang for the UAV 297 Mark II. It was a small drone the size of a bumblebee. Fitted with a 48K camera with a Zikor lens and optical zoom. The resolution was so high that you could read the numbers on someone’s wristwatch from 5 miles away. It could be remotely piloted from any mobile device. It could also fly a series of preprogrammed smart-patterns based on GPS location data. Just program in a target, and it would run a recon mission—virtually undetectable.
It had no radar cross-section, to speak of. The engine made no noise. And its preprogrammed flight missions were set to simulate the movement of a bumblebee, or wasp. It was an excellent assassination tool as well. A stinger could inject a lethal toxin, eliminating the target quickly and efficiently.
The incredible optics made the drone an exceptional geo-mapping tool. Hundreds of thousands were deployed to scour every nook and cranny of the globe. It’s why Z-SOC had access to such detailed maps of interior structures. But the drones didn’t collect information on below ground structures, due to an error in the code. It’s why Ferris’s bunker came as a surprise.
Steele didn’t like surprises. Especially on the battlefield. The battle is won before it is fought. A drone was going to come in handy. Map data on the servers could be six months to a year old. Steele wanted fresh intel. But drones didn’t like the rain—a heavy drop could significantly alter its trajectory. The rain wasn’t letting up, and Steele was growing impatient. He programmed in the location of the compound and launched the drone. He hoped it would come back in one piece, with usable data.
The drone zigged and zagged through the sky. Steele watched a stabilized aerial view on his mobile device. The compound was massive. More so than he initially thought. It was like a little village. It had an extensive garden, and the compound looked completely self sustaining. Rows and rows of vehicles and military equipment—APCs, and even a tank. The drone counted 37 individuals above ground. It was programmed to automatically cross reference facial features against the Shadow Net
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