Tanya looked out over a sprawl of ruins. A vast expanse of shattered structures filled the landscape, barely discernible against a darkened sky. Crumbling shards of concrete and twisted metal rose from the gutted remains of buildings to tower against the sky, hard edges of darkness against a lighter shade of black.

Her jumper sat on a wide ledge jutting from drifts of rubble and debris that ended in a sheer drop a short distance in front of her, where the hard edge of the ledge seemed to melt into the surrounding gloom. Behind her, a black cleft between two massive slabs of concrete concealed the entrance to the hidden hangar.

She scanned the horizon, looking for signs of motion. First there was nothing, but as they came into range, her sensors indicated three objects moving in from the south. A moment later, a list of specifications and blueprints were superimposed on her view. V2-type drones, three of them. Single rotor grid-bombers, slow and mechanical, no brain to speak of. No problem. But they were coming in the wake of a 2.4 megaton explosion that had sent Defence scrambling on near red alert.

The drones were fourteen kilometres away, flying in low over the rubble. At a speed of 220k it would take them another 57 seconds before they registered her presence. They won’t even know what hit them, she thought as she brought her jumper to life, activating the thrusters and engaging armament. She programmed coordinates into her weapons system and set her cannon to maximum intensity as her jumper rolled forward on its single, oversized tyre.

The drones let off their first salvo, as yet unaware of her presence. Thin slivers of light shot down from the drones, like bursts of static, and a series of perfectly synchronised explosions lit the horizon, spread in a sheet of flame, dissipated. Three tiny black spots were silhouetted against the fire, growing, moving closer.

Tanya felt the tremors a second later, but she was already picking up speed and rushing down the ledge toward the yawning black edge of the precipice. Then the booster-thrusters kicked in and, with a sudden jolt, the jumper was flung up high into the sky. She locked fire as she flew toward the drones and a thin red line extended from her jumper into the distance and panned out into a narrow arc, sweeping the area. She hit one of the drones, her display told her, and she could see a minute flash in the distance. The other two drones reacted instantly, though, and simultaneously opened fire. She had already killed her thrust in anticipation, and while short bursts of red laser flashed about her, the jumper plunged down and out of sight behind a massive upright shard of concrete where she had spotted a small flat area at the base of the crumbling tower. She tensed. When she came back up those drones would be right in front of her.

And down.

A clever array of electromagnetic suspension cushioned the impact and sent her shooting up again instantly, jets flaring. She hit fire the instant she came out from behind the tower, but the drones evaded and returned fire again. She spent the next ten seconds executing a short series of jumps in and out of cover, until a second salvo of blanket explosion forced her into the air again. This time she came up full throttle, guns blazing, riding the blast.

When she came down again there were no drones left, but her jumper was flashing a large warning on the display. She jammed the brakes on impact, coming to a full stop in a cloud of phosphorescent dust. She was hit. The jumper was damaged and now the view from the cockpit flickered steadily, so that the glinting motes of dust seemed to strobe as they swirled around her. Then she realized that she was still shooting, and eased her grip on the fire button.

A voice came to life in her ear: Retrieval on its way. ETA 145 seconds. Over.