‘You hear that? We’ve got to go and take over from Twelve,’ spat Sniper, who always started to get a little tetchy when he didn’t have anything convenient to blow up.
‘Wonderful,’ said Two, who was developing a definite sarcastic mien.
‘Right on,’ said One, who was still a bit wobbly since receiving the Prador rail-gun hits.
Six never even got a chance to reply, as an explosion knocked it tumbling off course, then a second missile blew it into red-hot scrap.
‘Scatter!’
One enforcer drone shot into the sky and two planed out to the left. Sniper went right, heading for the atolls. On his cleaned-up radar return, he got nothing for a moment, then the two Prador war drones shot up out of the sea and, ignoring the two enforcers, both came after him.
‘Great,’ Sniper muttered, then sent to them, ‘Why don’t you go play hopscotch on a black hole?’
The Prador replied with two missiles each.
‘Touchy,’ Sniper sent - abruptly changing direction and leaving a cloud of chaff behind him. The missiles went through the chaff, swung round, and zeroed in on him again. Sniper shot up higher and released a cluster of little parachute mines. These mines perfectly intersected the course of the missiles as they changed direction. Two of the missiles blew and one went tumbling off course, corrected, then shot back towards the explosion of the others. It, too, detonated shortly after.
‘Mmm, heat-seeking.’
Sniper arced over and accelerated towards the atolls, with the remaining missile closing in. He went low to the surface and headed straight in for one of the atolls. The missile meanwhile drew closer and closer. At the last moment, Sniper shut off his fusion engine and dropped straight down into the sea. The missile went over him and, with its sensors confused by the sudden disappearance of the heat source it was pursuing, did not correct in time and slammed straight into the atoll.
Submerged in the shallow water, close to the atoll’s narrow beach, Sniper raised his antennae and scanned. The two Prador drones were still heading right for where he had gone in.