Amber huffed and rolled her eyes. “This is ridiculous dad,” she moaned, shifting her weight back and forth uncomfortably. She mumbled, “everyone is staring at me.”
Her father looked down at her and smiled proudly. “They’re staring because you’re the coolest kid any of them has ever seen.”
She scoffed and elbowed him in the ribs. “Shut up,” she grunted, looking down and letting her long hair shield the sides of her face from the onlookers. “Why do we need a permit anyway? Don’t they want all of them wiped out?”
Dad grinned. “Of course, but they have to divide up the land so people don’t step on each others’ toes.”
Amber grunted and folded her arms across her chest, staring down at her feet.
Her dad bumped her with his hips. “Come on, lighten up. Everyone here is impressed. You’re probably one of the youngest applying for a license this season.”
She glanced up with her eyes, keeping her chin low while she scanned the line ahead. Most of the crowd were men ranging from their early twenties to their late fifties. There were some wives and girlfriends, but no other teenage girls. She let a soft grin pull at the corners of her lips.
Seemingly reading her mind, he added proudly, “plus, how many of these people do you think built their own takedown equipment at just sixteen years old?”
Amber’s smile widened with self-confidence.
Her dad leaned over and peeked her grin. “Ah, there it is,” he said, pleased with himself. “That’s my girl.”
She thought back on the last year she’d spent building her takedown vehicle. “Dad,” she started. “Do you really think it’s going to hold up?”
“What, you mean the Turbocida?”
After agonizing over the name for months, she had finally decided on the latin suffix “-cida” for something that cuts down or destroys a thing, and “turbo” for tornado. “Turbocida” wasn’t perfect, but it had stuck, and she had painted it in large, crisp letters along the hull.
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “You think she’ll hold up?”
Dad’s eye twinkled as a broad, confident smile spread across his weathered face. “Girl that ship is going to completely slay this season. I think it’s going to make headlines. It’ll be a viral sensation!”
“Dad!” she whined. “Stop! You’re exaggerating. I’m really worried she might get torn to shreds!”
“Oh honey, don’t worry about it! You overengineered the crap out of that thing.”
“Yeah, but there’s a reason most takedown vehicles are ground-based. Taking to the skies in those winds… it’s risky.”
“We’ve been over this a million times,” he said patiently, still smiling. “Your aircraft is special. I think you’ve got something incredible on your hands.”
Amber fidgeted nervously, running over the numbers again in her head. All the power requirements added up beautifully. The banks of hypercapacitors had already proven themselves in tests, as did the electric pulse detonators. But the generator vanes and supporting framework had only barely survived their first test, and that had been on the ground just moments before the twister had been obliterated by her father’s bot swarm. There was a reason bot swarm deployments were responsible for over 60% of successful takedowns. They were proven, safe, and relatively cheap. The hardest part was payload delivery, but humanity had been driving armored vehicles into tornadoes for over half a century already. That tech was solid. But a manned aerial attack… that was borderline insane and…
“Hey,” her father said, clasping a strong, thick hand over her shoulder. “Stop it.”
“What?” she asked innocently.
“You’re overthinking it again. She’ll hold up. I promise.”
She glanced up and met his gaze briefly before locking her eyes back on the toes of her sneakers. Her cheeks were hot and her palms were sweaty.
“I’m proud of you, you know.” He smiled warmly, but she didn’t see. She just leaned against her dad as he put an arm around her and squeezed.
A stranger behind them in line cleared his throat. “Did I hear you mention an aircraft?” His thick Texan accent wasn’t out of place in the crowd.
Her dad looked over his shoulder, quickly sizing up the man. Amber knew her father well. She didn’t need to see his face to know that he was squinting patiently and quietly at the man.
“Surely you don’t mean to fly into a tornado to take it down!” he chuckled. “You mean it’s unmanned, right? Like one of them drones?”
Dad remained quiet and Amber turned to look over her shoulder as well. The man wore a big white cowboy hat and dirty jeans. A plain t-shirt, worn thin and torn in places seemed to be barely holding on to his broad chest. He had a 48-hour beard and now that she was facing him she wasn’t fond of the way he smelled. She guessed he hadn’t showered in a week at least.
He stared at them a moment, smiling, but soon his face relaxed back into its natural stupor. “Oh,” he said. “You’re serious. You know, I heard about a guy up in South Dakota who tried that.” He started smiling again, looking proud of himself for the story he was about to tell, but his pupils darted down to Amber and back to her father and the man’s face went blank again.
Her father smiled. “This one’s different,” he said with finality, and turned back to face toward the front of the line. Amber started to turn away as well.
“Well,” the man said softly. “Just be careful. Those winds are mean as hell and more unforgiving than a woman to her unfaithful husband.”
Amber glared at him a moment longer before turning to the front again. The man’s muddy boots shuffled uncomfortably on the hard floor of the licensing office while Amber tried to imagine what it would be like to finally fly the Turbocida into their first storm. Initial flight tests had gone well, and the takedown equipment had fired flawlessly… in a gentle rainstorm. She wasn’t allowed to fly into a tornado without the hunting license.
Her heart jumped. The couple in front of them stepped away swiftly, suddenly putting her and her father at the front of the line. She scanned the long counter where a dozen applicants were talking to agents, filling out forms, presenting ID… she knew her father had come to do this every year as far back as she could remember, but now her head was suddenly filled with panic. What if they denied her license? What if they assigned her a bad section of land? What if…
“Stop,” her dad urged. “I can see it in your face. Stop it.”
She could feel her pulse throbbing through her veins. She gave a weak smile and tried not to think about it too much, but she was too nervous, too excited.
Silently and without a word, a man wandered away from a window at the counter and the green “Available” sign lit up above the open spot.
“Ready?” her dad asked, smiling.
She wiped the sweat from her palms on her pants and took a deep breath. “Ready.”
Mermaid Pirate Dispatch 
Leave a comment