Target of Opportunity

by Blaine Lee Pardoe

  “With all due respect, sir, we have no way of knowing what the results would have been. But the trend was toward unacceptable variance, and I chose to make the call to end the simulation on that variance. There is no new information to be gained by allowing the core to cascade again.”

  “But it didn’t cascade. This core is within specifications. It works fine. In my opinion, you shut down the simulation prematurely.” The administrator brushed imaginary lint from the lapels of his suit.

  Tucker understood where the conversation was going, and decided to distract Faulk from his train of thought. “Demi-Precentor, I’d like to massage the start-up sequence before we run the next simulation. It’s acting strange.”

  “Acting strange? Is that your technical explanation for what’s happening? It seems like the original virus that took down the network is just rearing its ugly head again.”

  “It could be that, or something else,” Tucker flushed at Faulk’s sarcasm, but persisted. “I think we could compensate for the variance as it occurs using a program I could write to help rebalance the harmonics of the signal on the fly.”

  “You want to change a centuries-old procedure because you think we need to fine-tune the hyperpulse generator on the fly during start-up and initialization? You think quite a bit of yourself, Adept Harwell.” Faulk’s voice rang with contempt.

  “This isn’t about me,” Tucker replied. “This is about the best way to get this core up and running.”

  Faulk chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound. “The start-up sequence was created centuries ago. Hundreds of technicians have used it successfully thousands of times, Adept. Yet you feel the need to fine-tune an operating harmonic that never changes. And you propose making this change based on what? A hunch?”

  “Sir—”

  Suddenly, Faulk focused intently on Tucker, pushing his face close to his subordinate. “Don’t push it, Adept,” he said, his voice pitched to carry to the rest of the room. “Your last two simulations have been within limits. Continue your simulations. But we don’t change the operating procedures. Period.” He stepped away, spun on his heel and walked out. Tucker swung his chair around to watch him leave the control room. He could feel the back of his neck burning in embarrassment. He adjusted his glasses.

  He turned back to the simulation results. “We aren’t going to solve this by doing it by the book. We start up this HPG his way and we’ll fry this core just like the last one,” he muttered. Glancing at the clock, he realized how late it was. “Okay, people. Good job,” he said. “Let’s go over the data tomorrow.”

  * * *

  They sat at what had become their usual table at The Crimson, Tucker’s mood solemn and bitter. Reo ate his flank steak and mashed potatoes and watched Tucker push his linguine around on his plate. The younger man stewed over the day’s setback.

  “So he said no,” Reo said, finally ending the silence that had descended after Tucker had replayed his day. Reo shrugged as if it meant nothing.

  “You sound like my sister,” Tucker scowled. “It’s because you don’t understand.”

  Reo flashed a quick smile as he finished chewing a small chunk of steak. “I like you, Tucker. But you’ve got a lot to learn about how people work and how to get around the rules.”

  Tucker slapped down his fork. “You’re not helping, Reo.”

  “Keep your temper, and I’ll explain,” he replied. “First off, you keep butting heads with the demi-precentor. That’s a mistake.”

  “The man hates me,” Tucker sulked, picking up his fork.

  “No, he doesn’t.” Reo spoke like a brother offering advice to a younger sibling. “You two have a lot in common. Just like you, his career, his entire life is ComStar. The difference is that, no matter what happens with this new core here on Wyatt, you’ll be packing up and going back to Terra. He has to live with the results. Therefore, he’s unwilling to gamble.”

  Tucker pulled a sour expression. “Like I said, you sound like my sister.”

  Reo grinned again. “Sounds like a smart lady.”

  “So I should just do what he wants?”

  Reo imitated Tucker’s sour expression. “No way. Look, they sent you here because you’re their best chance to fix this thing. So you need to put together your solution—just don’t tell Faulk what you’re doing. The way you describe it, it sounds like you can have everything ready to go ahead of time. Then if you need your solution, just do what they sent you here to do. Butting heads with your boss won’t get you anywhere.”

  “So I should lie?”

  “I prefer,” Reo said, “to think of it as contingency planning.”

  Tucker laughed. “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

  “So how do you plan on tuning this core? From what you’ve told me, this kind of thing hasn’t been done for so long that there aren’t any rules to follow.”

  Reaching into his shirt pocket, Tucker pulled out his media stick. “Remember those chants I listen to? The ones created by the old ComStar religious order?” Reo nodded slowly. “Well, most of them are literally these guys performing musical intonations while quoting Jerome Blake or their technical manuals. But one chant I found is different. It references harmonics, and the singers cover a much broader musical range than in other chants.” He spoke quickly, excitedly. He stopped so that his friend could gauge the impact of what he was saying.

  “So?”

  Tucker smiled. “It’s just a hunch, but I think they are chanting the harmonics of the tuning process. If I’m right, this particular chant holds the key to fine-tuning the HPG core’s operating system.”

  Reo whistled. “That seems to be kind of a reach.”

  Tucker shook his head. “No, not really. I’ve found that most of the chants were based on something the adepts were exposed to as part of their work, so why not the harmonics program? The real trick is to write an algorithm that adjusts the harmonics fast enough to accomplish the job before the core fries itself. I analyzed the notes used in this chant, and they produce an algorithm very similar to what I would have written if I tried to write this kind of program from scratch. Look, there’s no documentation showing that adepts tuned the cores after they were up and running, but it makes sense to me that they would have needed to make tiny adjustments when they were being installed. There’s hardly any piece of machinery that doesn’t need fine-tuning at installation.”

  “You’re the expert,” Reo conceded.

  Tucker nodded in agreement. That’s right. I am the expert. And Reo is right. I can put up with Faulk’s attitude for as long as it takes to create my own solution.

  7

  Contaminated Territory, Section A, Grid Ten

  West of Kinross, Wyatt

  The Republic, Prefecture VIII

  2 May 3135

  The rolling hills were dotted with dense clumps of trees and lush undergrowth. Rocks occasionally jutted from the tall green grass on the hills, gray and pink granite stabbing at the sky. Swampy ponds pooled in some of the valleys, with tall reeds poking up everywhere. In the distance, the slope of the hills was steeper, more menacing, forming a bowl with her units on one side, the legate’s on the other. Knight Alexi Holt stared at the scene and shook her head. This battlefield had been laid waste with nuclear weapons during the Word of Blake Jihad. Faint hints of radiation still burned the soil, but it was hard to picture such a pastoral scene as a charred, blasted landscape decades before. The ground was safe, for short periods of time.

  She checked her Black Knight’s primary display and switched to long-range sensors. They were out there, the militia troops her lance was going against in this exercise. She picked up vehicle movement in the distance, but the hills and the bedrock underneath diminished her sensors’ effectiveness.

  Alexi allowed herself a smile. This was the one place in the whole universe she longed to be—the cockpit of her Black Knight. This was the one place where she could escape politics and the pressure of her position for awhile. Here, she was
in charge, her alone. She patted the command couch armrest. All right, old girl, let’s show them what we can do.

  Alexi often spoke to her ’Mech as if it were a living entity, and in some ways she thought it was. Her Black Knight was named “Miss Direction,” and though she had not given it that name, she appreciated the humor and had kept it. The internal chassis of the ’Mech was more than three centuries old. It had been salvaged and rebuilt under her supervision. If the records were accurate concerning the machine’s serial numbers, this ’Mech had served with the Com Guards on Tukayyid against the Clans and had fought a desperate last-stand engagement against the Word of Blake during the Jihad on New Earth. She had discovered the name during the rebuild, hand-etched by a previous owner into the cockpit framing. When she decided to resurrect the name, she asked an artist friend to design a logo she felt reflected the honor of the ’Mech. On the armor plating of the right torso, she had a woman painted in knight’s armor, wielding a sword over her head. Under that was painted the name of the ’Mech.

  “Red Team,” she signaled, “stand by to engage.”

  “Red One, this is Red Rain,” came the voice of Lieutenant Foster, his support lance bringing up the rear. “I’m not picking up anything from our pickets yet. Are you sure they’re out there?”

  Alexi understood his apprehension, but she had chosen carefully the ground for their position. The slope of the hills, the surrounding high ground with tough terrain—everything would help channel the legate’s Blue Team toward them. And there were other ways to get their attention and ensure the enemy moved where they wanted. “They’ll be here shortly, Red Rain. I’ll make sure of that. Stand by with your thunderstorm. Red One out.”

  She broke into a run toward the center of the battlefield. Miss Direction came up the side of one hill and at its crest, her long-range sensors suddenly lit up with a dozen or so red dots. She slowed to a walk and checked their positions. Spread out in an open semi-circle, they were slowly moving forward toward her team. Good . . . let them come.

  The trike squad was on the right flank and accelerated the moment they picked her up on their sensors. They would drive to her rear to wreak havoc; she would have considered the same tactic. As they rose up over a hill, the trike riders lifted into the air. In her imagination, she could hear the riders howl with delight as they rushed forward.

  A swift little Tamerlane strike sled, riding on a cushion of air, dove off to her right side while a more ponderous DI Morgan assault tank pulled up the rear of the legate’s force. Small-arms fire from a half dozen infantry squads opened up. The snaking trails of hand-launched short-range missiles laced through the air, a pair of them slapping into Miss Direction’s right leg with the distinctive thump of simulated warheads. White marking powder from the rounds rose up to indicate the hit, and her battle computer recorded the damage as if the missiles had been live. In the distance, she saw the Panther, piloted by the legate, attempting to push past her left flank. The regular infantry rushed toward her.

  “Red Rain, drop targeting round at the following coordinates.” The location she indicated on her display would put the rounds directly between her and the approaching infantry.

  “Sir, there are no targets there,” came a protest.

  “You have your orders,” she said firmly.

  A round dropped out nearly fifty meters in front of the advancing infantry. A trail of bright purple smoke hung in the air. The marking round was right where she wanted it. “Red Sky, right flank punch through, just like we talked about.”

  “Roger that, Red One,” came another voice.

  “Red Wagon,” she called out, walking her Black Knight backward up the hillside as if retreating. “Your target is on the left. Let’s show the legate how this is done.”

  With smooth skill, she juked the joystick to bring the targeting reticle onto the DI Morgan assault tank as it attempted to go hull-down against the hillside, sod flying as it ground to a fast halt. She fired her PPCs the moment she had a target tone in her ear. They were powered to 5 percent, enough to mar the paint on the target but not do real damage. The right and left arms of Miss Direction whined as they discharged their blue burst of charged particles. Hits! The Morgan driver panicked, backing away down the hillside, out of line of sight.

  Over the heads of the Blue Team trike squad came a Donar assault helicopter, the roar of its blades penetrating into her cockpit. She glanced ahead at the purple smoke round and signaled again. “Red Rain, fire for effect.”

  From the far rear, the Sniper artillery let go a vicious barrage of simulated fire. The white powder rounds went over the smoke round and to the right, smacking and exploding into the hillside grass and one of the ponds. Alexi checked her sensors and smiled. It had worked as planned. She had not targeted the approaching infantry, but had instead planned to use the artillery to halt their forward movement. The sight of the explosions in front of them suddenly had them stopping and digging in behind every little rock that poked out of the ground.

  The Tamerlane hovercraft fired at her flank and its lasers showed up on her secondary display as good hits. Not enough to do any real damage against a seventy-five-ton BattleMech, but annoying. The Tamerlane was doing a good job of getting her attention, but she refused to bite. She craned her ’Mech over and fired the pair of Diverse Optics extended-range small lasers at the scout. Her engine simulated heat by raising the temperature in her cockpit slightly as the lasers bore in on the Tamerlane, striking it on its right side. An enemy ’Mech would have barely noticed the hit, but against the light hovercraft, it was enough to force it to turn away and look for softer targets.

  Unexpectedly, almost right in front of her, there came a burst of small-arms fire. Guila suits. The stealth suits that the infantry wore allowed them to infiltrate lines with a low degree of detection. Now that they had fired, she could paint them on her tactical display. Legate Singh is better than I gave him credit for. He got those troops up pretty close. Her damage display showed that the infantry support fire was chipping away mock damage to her lower torso and legs, enough that she opted to get out of their range. She jogged Miss Direction off to their flank. She smiled. I have to remember to compliment Lieutenant Tooley on the efficiency of his Ground Pounders.

  Off on the left flank she watched as Red Wagon, the new J-37 ordnance transport she had brought with her from Terra, rushed toward the legate’s Panther. The J-37 was not much to look at, but it could carry a lot—which she was hoping would be a surprise to the legate’s forces. On its approach to the ’Mech, it made a sharp turn, facing its lightly armored rear towards the Panther. To the uninitiated, this appeared to be a foolish move that could only end in the destruction of the transport. The Panther hit it with what would have been lethal laser fire, damaging the transport, but not crippling it . . . not yet.

  The ramp on the back of the J-37 slammed down so hard it tore up turf on the hillside. Out charged Red Wagon’s surprise, a JES III missile carrier. The legate’s Panther seemed to stop in its tracks at the sudden new threat at dangerously close range. The top-mounted missile racks roared a barrage at the towering Panther. She didn’t bother to scan the legate’s ’Mech; it was out of the fight.

  The DI Morgan tank emerged from the flank of the hillside and fired at her with its own PPCs, returning some of the damage she had inflicted, this time with simulated hits on her legs and torso. Red Rain’s artillery dropped another spotting round, this time off to the left of the original position. Alexi locked onto the DI Morgan and fired. This time, she hit it with only one of her PPCs, but it was enough to show some significant damage. But this time, the Morgan was not retreating.

  A modified ForestryMech emerged from a cluster of trees near the right flank and charged forward. The IndustrialMech had been converted into a deadly in-fighter, but only at point-blank range. It seemed to be trying to use support from the Tamerlane to reach Red Rain’s position.

  From behind it came a thunderous roar as Red Sky approached from Blue
Team’s rear, rushing to optimum firing range behind the ForestryMech. The MechWarrior knew he was in trouble and stopped, twisting the torso of the massive lumberjack ’Mech to face the new threat. It was too late. He had no way to engage the Donar helicopter. A blast of simulated laser fire taught that militia member an important lesson.

  A signal came over the comm line on an open channel. “Blue One to Red One. Blue team capitulates. Request an end to this simulation.” Legate Singh was not happy, but he was doing his best to keep his disappointment out of his voice.

  Alexi grinned again. “Red One to Blue One, we accept your offer. All units, stand down. Red Team salutes Blue. Good job.” She meant what she said, but her mind was already on the debriefing. Both sides had made mistakes. She needed to explain those errors, then work with the troops to incorporate the needed changes to their tactics. They did all right, but I know the legate will try to position their performance as much stronger than it was.

  Rather than dwell on the spin the legate would give to the results of the exercise, she started walking Miss Direction to the staging area. She still had a long few weeks of training ahead of her if she was going to get the militia up to the level she knew they could reach. She hoped they had that much time. The good news was that the commanders now knew her, knew what her training made possible. The legate was not the only one who could command their respect at this point.

  * * *

  Reo Jones stepped into the offices of Universal Exporters Ltd. The receptionist, ages old with wrinkles as deep as canyons, waved him past. He gave her a broad, fake, flirtatious smile. Her response was to take a long drag from her cigarette and roll her eyes as if he didn’t deserve the time of day. It was the same every time he visited the dingy little office tucked away in one of the more seedy business districts of Kinross.

  Universal Exporters Limited consisted of three offices, none of them too flashy. His footsteps seemed to echo as he walked down the hall on the worn, unpadded carpet. The door to the last office was open, so he stepped in. Reo always had a private chuckle at the name of the company. Universal Exporters Limited was a wholly owned subsidiary of Artemis Transport Shipping. Seventy-five percent of Artemis Transport Shipping was owned by Universal Import and Export Corporation. The majority of the stock of Universal Import and Export Corp. was held by Fidelity Financials of New Earth, which in turn had its outstanding notes owned by Brightside Shipping of Terra. Brightside was financed by Tybalt Investing, which was owned by Bannson Universal Unlimited.