Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer

Damon arrives in the control room in time to see the last sections of an entire screen consumed in expanding flashes of red. He stops dead and points at it.
“What did I just see?”
Teresh points to another solid red board at the other end of the display wall.
“Same as what happened to Box 14 thirty minutes ago. The swarm finished returning sixteen minutes before drones started blazing up. Three minutes after that, two of the recharge packs ignited. By the time the fire crew flew in, the whole container was ablaze.”
“So it’s an attack?”
Somnor raises both hands, gesturing to the sensor arrays on the opposite wall to the drone container status displays.
“We’ve got nothing in the air or on the ground showing as hostile, and it’s been that way since before Box 14 started burning.”
“You saying it’s sabotage?”
Somnor spins his chair about so he can stare at Damon.
“It’s minus eight with fifteen centimetres of fresh snow on top of forty centimetres packed over by Box 14. The only things leaving tracks are small wildlife, and even they’re going slow and careful.”
“What about,” Damon peers at the nearest red flashing screen, hunting for the ID, “Box 3?”
Teresh shakes her head.
“That’s in a car park on the edge of an industrial district one kilometre west of us. Inside a double ring of razor wire.”
Another screen has an outbreak of red. Damon’s watching the spread when it stops, then starts to shrink. He points.
“What’s happening there?”
Somnor checks the displays.
“Box 11 is on the flightpath back from Box 14. It went up just as the fire crew were passing, so they intervened. Doused it from above, pulled the battery bays, then hit the fires from underneath.”
“Any sign of hostiles?”
“No. Nobody shooting, nor anything flying except them.”
Damon drums his hand on the side of a console.
“Stealth…”
Another board starts to flash red. Damon points.
“Anywhere we can get to quick enough?”
Teresh checks, then slumps back in obvious frustration.
“Eight kilometres from Box 11 in the opposite direction from Box 14.”
Damon’s fingers keep drumming.
“Scattered attacks… No originators… Stealth…”
He claps his hands, then points at Somnor.
“We always take losses from non-kamikaze swarm operations, right?”
Somnor nods.
“Every time. Up to thirty percent, but we’ve kept it around twenty for the last six months.”
“What’s today’s losses?”
Somnor waves to Teresh, who sends him the RTBOK data.
“Twelve percent.”
Damon nods.
“Check the software. Look for hard losses of units followed by re-acquisition within verifier windows. Somebody’s gotten clever.”
Teresh puzzles for a moment, then catches Damon’s gaze.
“I give up. How do you reckon it?”
“These attackers flew in with the swarms. They mirrored a returning unit knowing it being under direct control after-action was unlikely, killed the original, then joined the swarm before the downed unit was flagged as a total loss. Using a similar-sized drone with a smaller battery as it only needed a short range. The rest given over to payload. I’d guess mainly ignites-in-air sticky stuff with an explosive core to spread it about.”
Teresh nods.
“Cunning. How do we answer that?”
Somnor looks up from checking data.
“Some sort of authentication on re-acquisition of any unit. It’ll take a little while to action. Until then, we’ll need to have fire crews ready or accept Boxes may be lost.”
Damon nods.
“Get on the comms. Let the other bases know.”