Another wave of gun drones—Rufus guessed three of them—dropped into place around him when he was still fifty yards shy of the depot. Half a football field. One was just dead in his sights. He blew it out of the air, pumped. Sounds behind him and on his left made him think that Skippy was tending to a drone on that side. He turned to his right, saw a drone gliding along behind, bringing its gun around to bear on him. It put him in mind of an eagle diving on prey: wings and such all over the place, but gaze steady on the target. The angle was awkward. He had to take his left hand off the gun’s forearm, aim behind him with his right, and fire one-handed. The recoil snapped the barrel up and almost whipped the gun out of his hand. A shell casing spun out of the drone’s belly as it fired back. He threw his left hand across his torso, pumped the shotgun, fired again, apparently missed, saw another shell casing eject from it. An eagle punched it out of the air just as his view of it was being blocked by the corner of a shipping container. Pegleg let out a sound that came unsettlingly close to a human scream and pulled up short beneath the shade of a camo net. His gait was all awry and he looked to be going down. Rufus pulled his right boot from the stirrup, swung his leg back over Pegleg’s croup, and spun away as the horse settled to his knees. Rufus’s left boot was still in the stirrup as he slammed full-length into the ground, but this was groomed earth, no rocks or cacti. Landing on it didn’t feel good but it didn’t cause any damage that couldn’t wait until later.