Play Stupid Games; Win Stupid Prizes

[Ethan Neufeld 0]

"We need to be more careful if we are to get back to the shuttle."

 

Nickles's remark earned their team leader a stony look from Ethan. The muscles in his jaw noticeably tightened as he checked himself from saying the first thing that crossed his mind. He inhaled deeply and turned his attention to the distant cliff; then exhaled from his core and moved off a bit.

 

There was no mistaking his silence. He was tense and angry and felt he had every good reason to be. They weren't off to a great start. He would set personal conflicts aside for the team; he wasn't going to ignore that his teammates might get him killed.

 

It seemed like they'd had the advantage. They'd gone over a beach, scaled a cliff and began moving further inland without a sign of hostility. A little over an hour and they hadn't made contact. They might have made it to the nearest defense towers sans contact with tangos. But the party was kicked off early when the planetary defense system detected an active tricorder scan and sent armed drones to investigate – all predictably from Ethan's view point. In fact, Ethan had felt confident that was exactly what would happen if they didn't stick to their ROE and keep their presence minimized. They shouldn't have used active scans.

 

He didn't blame them for feeling blind without tricorders. Like a craze over cell phones so many years ago, not many in his generation could leave home without one. Everyone had their security blanket; Ethan's was his firearm.

 

It was the obsession with active scans he criticized. They'd become a harmful crutch since the first handheld. Passive scans only revealed whatever objects were putting out enough electromagnetic energy, strong magnetic fields and mechanical waves or reflecting enough of them to be detected or separated from all the EM noise. For a small tricorder that was usually the sun, the orbiting rock you were walking on and sometimes the wind, unless you literally kissed it to the object you wanted to scan. Not a lot of bulk information at once; never sufficient enough to build maps or locate lifesigns.

 

Passive scans on most tricorders had gone the way of the mythical paper and pencil, background props that were rarely used. And no one relied on their given senses to fill in the blanks anymore. Whenever there was a question, they instinctively turned to the active scan without considering the consequences. It'd become so common place that no one recalled it was necessary to emit a signal before the tricorder could tell you what reflected it back. And any signals that were emitted could likewise be received or detected by any device listening for them, including other passive sensors.

 

That was why Ethan had never privately purchased an ODRI or tricorder; why he didn't let technology replace the human element. Tricorders and civilian models in particular were intended for revealing what wasn't seen, not stealth. They had their applications. But reliance on that sort of technology spelled trouble in his line of work. They painted you like a red bull's-eye every time. It was easy to jam tricorders with noise or bounce false signals into one. If you trusted everything your tricorder told you and thought you saw the enemy, it was more than likely they could also see you. If you couldn't see the enemy, you risked falling into a false sense of security thinking they couldn't see you or surprise you while you were too busy trying to find them on your tricorder.

 

He'd pushed it aside when Zaphod mentioned having to resort to 'a good old visual scan', but that hadn't stopped him from feeling disbelief. He'd been trained to rely on his human senses first and no more than a few passive-only devices second. He'd started the mission out in that mindset and hadn't considered the notion of using an active tricorder to do what his eyes and ears could do better. Things that could seriously mess with your given senses weren't as common as things that could turn your tricorder into glorified pocket lint.

 

That a tricorder had given their advantage away, however, was only a cloud on the horizon. And if they had died, it wouldn't have been for any defect in Troy's bizarre space hats either – the ones home-rigged to absorb delta radiation. When the drones moved in and didn't directly shoot them, it quickly became clear that the hats worked. They were right. The snakes were masked by their delta-eating habits. Good, solid SWAG and no surprises there.

 

Sun Tzu said: know yourself and know the enemy. If you don't know the enemy, you will suffer defeat. What Sun Tzu hadn't said and what good tacticians knew: knowing your enemy didn't mean you always had to get up-close and personal on the battlefield. Surprisingly often, knowing yourself and remote observations were enough to approximate the character of the enemy. The planet's defensive systems had successfully held off trespassers for years; it was shortsighted to suddenly think they'd forget how to do that now. But not knowing the enemy was, ironically, the real scythe that barely missed the team's heads.

 

The tactical intuitiveness and ingenuity demonstrated by the drones hadn't surprised Ethan. Focusing on different senses when unable to use another like sight; using shadows and other substances to find or mark a target, or using tricks to bait a reaction; tracking where an enemy had been. The drones' techniques were familiar to Ethan. He'd expected similar methods and skills of himself. Where it seemed to Ethan that the others had assumed the drones would react robotically, Ethan had anticipated meeting an enemy that shared his senses and strengths, and was at least as well-trained and as smart as he was. Know yourself: know the enemy.

 

Trusting that he would meet an equal or better in the drones, Ethan's reactions had been instinctive. As the drones searched he was patient, remained prone and behind cover; controlled his breathing; carefully guarded his shadows, the dust and foliage he disturbed, and his profile and body presentation; and, more importantly, kept quiet. The results were clear: the drones never targeted or moved in on his position, never gave an indication that they suspected he was there and it was likely they didn't sense him at all. Only Pher had similar results. Though, given her proximity to Chris and whispering with him, it hadn't been obvious to Ethan at the time. In contrast, the others had repeatedly attracted the drones' attention with poor tactical discipline: breaking cover or concealment at the wrong times, talking aloud and growling or worse.

 

It was the dreaded learning curve or naïveté that nearly emblazoned Tango Uniform, DRT on their hides the first time. That Pher had to direct them to spread out when contact was made because they weren't maintaining their five to ten meter spacing hadn't been much of a surprise. Even the drones had kept intervals between themselves; just more evidence that Qob was flying on Lady Luck's skirts more than skill. It wasn't by fluke that certain critics referred to the rim mercenaries as cowboys or SMACKs – Soldiers Minus Ability, Coordination and Knowledge.

 

In the first few minutes of their encounter, things for Ethan had quickly gone from spooky to singularly tense. His teammates attracted the drones' attention to themselves in record speed and that had put Ethan in a bad spot. He was no longer just another team member. He had to give extra attention to the safety of his inexperienced teammates, running his sense of hyper vigilance into overdrive without actually being able to intervene in a way that was tactically sound.

 

It would have been fine if it had ended there and only left Ethan feeling tenser than he remembered feeling before. But once hadn't been enough for Sal Rosetto. The drones were vacating the area when Rosetto, without giving his team a heads up, intentionally provoked one on purpose and with it Ethan's anger. Ethan wasn't sure if Sal had done it to try to disable, trap and study one or maybe both; he didn't care. If he'd wanted to do a science project, he would have joined the local Science Fair.

 

More than once Ethan had considered ways to knock Rosetto out – none that wouldn't have attracted attention, regrettably. A few times he'd found himself painfully clenching his jaw when the others didn't get a clue the first time and shut up. He'd felt incredulous that Zaphod had thought throwing a rock was a good distraction to save Sal from himself; and relieved when the Caitian heeded his signal not to do it. Were they honestly trying that hard to make the drones stick around? Ethan's adrenaline was rushing to fill the gaping holes in his team's security. But the irony was the others were really acting, however impulsively, to protect each other and Ethan hadn't lifted a finger when Rosetto started taking recon by fire.

 

Despite his anger, it wasn't a decision he'd made lightly or out of spitefulness. Ethan had guessed and Sal had incidentally proven the drones couldn't be easily taken by hand and the only other option he had was phasers. But, generally, the idea was not to react hastily to recon by fire. All hell would have broken loose the moment they started returning fire. At least Nickles had recognized that and told Zaphod to stand down. By the end, though his principles espoused protecting his teammates, Ethan knew he wouldn't do anything to intervene if one of them had actually taken a hit. He would have remained hidden, let them play bullet stopper while he walked away to tell the story. He wasn't about to make a rash move out of sentiment.

 

What good would it have done to shoot the drones? Start a prolonged engagement they didn't have the resources to fight? Save his teammates long enough to face the entire defense net as it came down on their position? Leave a gruesome stain in the grass so another team could risk their lives searching for it when they went missing? Notify every ship in orbit: hey, look, we're right here? Leave his mission unfinished and his objective out there for the next chump to find? Some things you just didn't do. There was more at stake here than satisfying scientific fantasies and thirst for escapades, far more.

 

Some were patting themselves on the back for 'a job well done' once their hostile brush with the drones was over. 'There's no reward without risk', was the general impression he was getting from their exchange. They counted it as an unavoidable necessity because they'd learned new things about the drones. But to Ethan it was like trying to rationalize that you ignored your instincts and put your hand in the fire so you knew burning hurt. He obviously didn't agree with their assessment; he thought intentionally provoking the drones in this case was idiotic and deserved his anger. Testing the enemy had its time and place, but not in haphazard, impulsive experiments like this. Discretion was the better part of valor. Ethan hadn't needed to provoke the drones. By knowing himself, he had already hypothesized and expected most of what the others apparently only learned by mistake. It was luck that had saved them in Ethan's opinion. And this mission was taking a fast spiral from suicide to Hades without passing go and collecting two hundred credits.

 

What had once looked like a workable gap in the their levels of training, experience and methods on the Verbistul, now felt to Ethan like a hellish, stretching abyss that common sense couldn't bridge between them. His anger seethed quietly as he looked at the cliff. He couldn't think of any realistic way to bring the team up to speed; to radically correct their skill sets in the field without causing more harm than good. They were on hemmed-in ground now; the only way was to keep moving forward and hope their uncanny luck filled in the critical gaps or that some of Ethan's example might wear off on them. There was no question he possessed the advanced skills here.

 

Still, he wasn't without his mistakes on this mission: he was only human. He'd rationalized that it'd cut down on time, but he shouldn't have left the rope; he knew better. Effective minimization of presence was his usual style; leaving behind valuable equipment wasn't something he normally did except in rare circumstances. And it was always better not to extract from an AO in the same place you entered when possible. There was a good chance he'd be out a rope once the drones finished with it. Not that the drones needed it to follow their path from the beach, he mused. He worked his gloved fist a few times and ruefully looked at his forearm, exposed from the elbow down by his rolled up sleeves. He'd scraped his hand and arm free soloing the rock face when a weak edge had broken away. It wouldn't be hard for the drones to track down the small amount of blood and skin he'd left behind. If their sensors were sensitive enough, they'd find epithelial cells and maybe even residual IR signatures wherever any of them had touched. And if they couldn't, the drones would probably still be smart enough to put two and two together when they spotted their footprints in the sand below. But Ethan wasn't concerned for the safety of their shuttle. Given the healthy stock of fish in the sea, it was unlikely that the drones would be taking a swim after it. The only complication that concerned him was that they'd find their retreat into the sea blocked.

 

Besides the evidence that the drones could 'hear', there were a few more things Ethan knew or could reasonably speculate that the others had or hadn't caught on to yet. Whatever means gave the drones the ability to fly didn't restrict them from making extreme altitude changes on land – that meant no 'safe zones' in tall mountains and buildings or low ravines. It didn't feel too farfetched to suggest the drones were capable of learning or adapting to just about any new situation. And not only were they armed but they engaged weapons free. On the other hand, they didn't seem to have a great deal of patience; once they lost their target they hunted for five minutes before moving on to another objective.

 

The drones' sensor assemblies weren't strong enough to pick up the power signature of his Luminox watch. Or maybe the signature was so weak didn't interest them. That was a bit of luck as the only way to stop the quartz was to remove the battery and that wasn't a simple task. They also couldn't detect his radio or were ignoring it, so long as it wasn't transmitting at any rate. Beside the tricorders and ODRIs the others were carrying, it was the only other device that had been on since launch. Given the amount of time they were on land before being detected, they could reasonably narrow the cause to Zaphod's active scan. Ethan had intended to shut off his radio per Zaphod's suggestion when the drones had appeared. Then he'd quickly realized as the drones zeroed in on everyone but him that they weren't showing signs of interest. He knew the moment he pressed the radio's talk button that would change. Though the ships in orbit wouldn't be able to pick it out from surrounding noise, two kilometers line-of-sight was a good signal on land. But as long as he didn't transmit and the radio wasn't trying to self-identify with a receiver, its power signature was dark to the drones.

 

He imagined the same thing would hold true for their weapons. In an age when most firearms were energy-based and could easily be disabled by electromagnetic pulses (EMP) or interference, designs generally included some level of shielding. He'd noted that when Rosetto provoked the drones the second time, Zaphod had briefly powered up his assault phaser and it'd gone unnoticed. If Ethan was right, they could power up their weapons in standby without capturing attention until fired. The three to five second delay during power up was a long time to go without a firearm. Still, EM shielding had limitations and Ethan had left his weapons powered down for that reason. He wasn't eager to fully test the theory on shielding or interest yet. The drones had moved on and they didn't need their weapons for now. But it was a theory that might come in handy later if they met with a certain stand-off at the O.K. Corral or had some equipment they needed to hide.

 

Privately cataloging what he knew and what he suspected; reviewing their encounter while it was still fresh in his mind, he glanced at their surroundings. There was one answer Ethan couldn't figure. In the city always a reflection; in the forest always a sound. And you don't wanna go in the desert.

 

The drones had shown resourcefulness when it came to acquiring their targets. They'd demonstrated that they possessed the same senses – touch or proximity, hearing and sight – in one form or another. But there was a missing piece. Their team was first group of humanoids on Zoalus after an extended period that were drying and sweating in the sun after their swim in the ocean: they had to smell peculiar. There was no doubt in Ethan's mind that Pher could probably tip some meters with her Orion physiology if she'd tried. Yet the drones hadn't given any indication that they could sense odors. Was their smell not strong enough or did the drones simply not have the ability to sample and trace particulates from the air?

 

More time and observations were needed to narrow down the drones' prioritization and sensor thresholds; the full range of their senses; how quickly they learned and adapted; and if their IFF list could be changed.

Edited July 14, 2011 by Ethan Neufeld

[Ethan Neufeld 0]

Less than a minute had passed while Ethan privately assessed the incident and weighed what he could contribute to the team from that point. The drones hadn't surprised and hadn't disappointed. His team had disappointed when he would have liked to be mercifully surprised. But he preferred being disappointed when it came to the drones; that philosophy was guiding his initial and continuing estimations of the drones' capabilities. He didn't want to waste what small advantage that might give the team - despite the differences in their individual skills - and didn't want to be caught surprised if he could help it. The Qob's uncanny luck seemed to be holding out so far; their close encounter hadn't scrapped the mission and Ethan wanted it to succeed. There was still a chance it could succeed. He wasn't ready to call it a failure and crawl back to the Qob yet. Ethan giving up? That would be the day.

 

"We have an alternate extraction point: a trail about 500 meters east of the cliff. Let's get moving and finish this," he calmly said to Chris, not wanting to loiter. They should have already been on the move; at least distanced themselves from the spot where they'd been detected. "The longer we're in country, the higher our risk."

 

He glanced at Sal, noting a look on his face that Ethan could only interpret as scientific ambition. He added, "And a little more stealth can't hurt."

Edited July 10, 2011 by Ethan Neufeld