Target of Opportunity Read online

  A Prize Worth The Risk . .

  Despite years of effort, ComStar has been unable to repair the HPG interstellar communications grid. Now The Republic is taking a hands-on approach to fixing the problem. An active hyperpulse generator can turn its planet into a tempting target. So when ComStar appears close to reactivating the HPG on Wyatt, The Republic takes steps to counter any threats to the world—at a time when ComStar is determined to prove that it's once more a force to be reckoned with....

  Knight-Errant Alexi Holt is assigned to defend Wyatt for The Republic. But her greatest challenge is to protect Tucker Harwell—a genius possessing unmatched HPG skills—from the invaders who will certainly try to capture him.

  Both the Oriente Protectorate and Clan Spirit Cat have an interest in Wyatt. The first seeks to control the man who can fix an HPG, the other a safe haven. Unsavory characters will also step forward. After all, though a reactivated HPG makes Wyatt a target, Tucker Harwell is the biggest prize of all.

  TARGET OF OPPORTUNITY

  The missiles came like a wall of spears aimed at his head, disgorging smoke as they streaked across the space toward him. He juked his Warhammer hard to the right at the last moment causing some of the shots to miss and fly past him. There was a roar in his ears as the rest of the warheads found their mark.

  His secondary display flickered as it tried to track the loss of armor. Flames from one or more warheads lapped up the torso of Harbinger and blackened the lower portion of his cockpit ferroglass. His 'Mech careened under the rumbling impact of the missiles, staggering drunkenly to one side. Smoke, black and gray, wrapped around the Spirit Cat 'Mech, hugging it like a deadly snake attempting to crush the life from him.

  Cox fired back with two of his large lasers, both shots hitting the Vulture in the legs. The emerald beams stabbed into the knee area, and he saw one plate of her ferro-fibrous armor actually pop off from the sudden heat searing a joint. His sensors painted the picture he expected to see; she was reloading her missile racks, planning to finish him off. Caitlin Bauer was probably still puzzled about why he was not rushing forward and taking away her advantage, but she also probably didn't care.

  So he turned and ran.

  TARGET OF OPPORTUNITY

  A BATTLETECH NOVEL

  Blaine Lee Pardoe

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, February 2005 10 987654321

  Copyright © 2005 WizKids, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Ray Lundgren

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  Printed in the United States of America

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  PUBLISHER'S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  To my alma mater, Central Michigan University,

  and to my family. Peace of Focht be with you all. . . .

  Prologue

  ComStar Research and Development Division

  Stuttgart, Terra

  Prefecture X, The Republic

  26 January 3135

  Tucker Harwell took a deep breath, tried to force a smile to his face, and stepped into the office. Be calm, he told himself. This is a great opportunity. Don’t talk too fast. Don’t act too eager. He was concentrating so hard on what to say and how to say it that he stood like a tall, gawking statue in the doorway. His skinny build belied his appetite, and his medium-length black hair appeared to have been styled with a blender, the combined result of a cowlick on the crown of his head and a lack of interest in the way his hair looked.

  The man behind the burnished cherrywood desk, Precentor Malcolm Buhl, looked up and waved him forward. “Mr. Harwell, come in.” Buhl was an older man, balding, slightly overweight. Tucker stammered a reply, saying no complete word, then closed the door behind him. The precentor rose and shook Harwell’s sweaty hand.

  “Have a seat,” Precentor Buhl invited, gesturing to one of the black leather chairs facing the desk. Tucker dropped into the deep seat, nervously squirming to find a comfortable spot. As he shifted, the leather groaned; now he was nervous and embarrassed. Tucker pushed up on the bridge of his eyeglasses several times, trying to get them positioned just right. A fingerprint smudged his right lens; he regretted not taking the time to clean them before coming to the meeting. He avoided wearing his glasses when he could, but the correction his eyes needed couldn’t be made with surgery, so he wore glasses sometimes. He wore them for this meeting because he wanted to see straight. For a moment he considered cleaning the lens right there, but restrained himself. He didn’t want to blow this interview.

  “Tucker,” Precentor Buhl said soothingly, “you seem nervous. Relax.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied, then wished he hadn’t said the words out loud. Too formal, Tuck. You don’t sound relaxed. He took another deep breath and looked around the office. It was much nicer than the other middle manager offices he had seen during his career at ComStar. This one had very expensive furniture—a big contrast to the sea of cubicles or the controlled-environment labs where he worked. Behind the precentor, a large window framed a spectacular view of the ages-old pines of Germany’s Black Forest, which grew right up to the edges of the ComStar research and development facility. The forest was slowly recovering after being devastated by fire during the Jihad.

  “I’ve been looking over your file. Very impressive, I must say. You just completed the new program at the DeBurke Institute, correct?” Precentor Buhl looked up from the file on his desk and deliberately closed the cover on the material so that Tucker couldn’t
see it.

  “Yes, sir. Just this afternoon—of course, you already know that. Graduated at the top of my class,” he replied. The room felt warm; Tucker knew it was his nerves making him hot, but knowing that didn’t help cool him down. And despite the pep talk he’d given himself, he knew he was still talking too fast.

  “In fact,” the precentor recited calmly, staring at the younger man, “you graduated high school three years early, got your bachelor’s degree in two years, your master’s in one, your doctorate in three more. If I go by your record, you’re something of a prodigy, aren’t you, my boy?”

  Tucker swallowed, but his throat remained bone dry. “I don’t think so, sir. I’m just focused on my work—that’s all.”

  Buhl cast him a wry sideways glance. “The DeBurke Institute is our newest training program, teaching our most advanced research in hyperpulse technology,” he replied. “Your instructors all concur. There’s nothing more that ComStar can teach you about interstellar communications systems.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Precentor Buhl paused for a moment, as if considering his next words. “Tucker, do you know what I do here at ComStar?”

  Tucker nodded quickly. “Yes, sir. You’re in charge of special projects for Primus Mori. Everyone in the class talks about trying to get in to meet you. Anything that is on the cutting edge for research and development, you’re in charge of.”

  Buhl gave him a thin smile. “An overstatement. In a corporate environment like ComStar, people’s importance is often exaggerated, my boy. I do, however, handle a number of unique projects. When someone like you comes along, I make a point of finding the right niche for them in the organization.” There was a smoothness to this explanation that Tucker guessed meant the precentor was concealing the true nature of his role in the organization. He had no problem with that.

  “They say that the best assignments are the ones you arrange,” he offered anxiously.

  “Another exaggeration, I assure you. Though I have had my share of work cut out for me the last few years. All of us have,” he said with a sigh. The reference was not lost on Tucker, or anyone else associated with ComStar. Three years ago the organization had suffered one of its worse setbacks. ComStar was the only Inner Sphere source for interstellar communication, and it had found its entire network under siege by unknown forces.

  Hyperpulse generators, or HPGs, formed a vast communications network that linked the worlds of The Republic and the rest of the Inner Sphere. At least that was how it was until 1 August 3132, when the network was taken out. An invasive virus had penetrated the programming of a significant number of HPGs, and when the generators were activated the virus had the effect of altering the frequency on which they broadcast—something that shouldn’t have been possible. The result was thousands of fried HPG cores. The more modern HPGs were not impacted by the virus, but they were physically attacked by terrorist actions. The assault was so subtle and so widespread that it took the Inner Sphere—and ComStar—by surprise. When the dust had settled on what became known within ComStar as Gray Monday, more than 80 percent of the interstellar communications network was down. The primary operations screens for ComStar turned gray with static on that day, and most stayed that way.

  What followed was chaos.

  Worlds were cut off from one another. Almost immediately, petty warlords and would-be rulers rose up all across the Inner Sphere and began trying to carve up Devlin Stone’s once-pastoral empire—and one another. Even the old Houses of the Inner Sphere once again took up arms and began to poke at the edges of The Republic. Raids and incursions suddenly were commonplace. The demilitarized Inner Sphere beat its plowshares back into swords.

  And everyone blamed ComStar.

  ComStar ran the HPG network. ComStar, independent of The Republic, was in charge of maintaining interstellar communications. Most thought that the network would be down for a few days, then a few weeks, but the problems were far deeper than anyone in ComStar suspected. In the early days, rumors had circulated about a few HPGs on far-flung worlds that had been reinitialized and activated, but those stories were mostly lies or wishful thinking. In those dark months that followed Gray Monday, the public stopped looking at ComStar with hope. Many blamed the technicians and leaders of the massive corporate entity for the disruption. Some even went so far as to declare that ComStar had sabotaged its network deliberately, though that made no sense.

  The public had a valid reason for doubting ComStar. That reason had a name. It was the Jihad.

  “Where were you on Gray Monday, Tucker?”

  For members of ComStar, the event was as significant as the fall of the Star League was to the ruling Houses of the Inner Sphere. Gray Monday had forged together the individuals of ComStar as only a crisis could. The question was a bond of honor between the members of the organization.

  “I was at the university, delivering a lecture. I remember one of the graduate assistants bursting into the room and telling the class that the entire system was down. I thought it was a joke, kept my class until the end of the session. I remember giving the grad assistant hell for interrupting my lecture. I was reassigned in five hours. They had me helping smooth out message-flow rates down at headquarters in Sydney. I was there for three months, and don’t think I saw the light of day all that time.”

  “Tucker, I will be frank with you. ComStar has been hemorrhaging profits and talented people for some time. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Sir, I am loyal to ComStar.”

  “I know that. But I want to make sure we keep you happy, keep you challenged. I don’t want you to end up like some of those fanatics I hear about—praying to their hardware to ensure that it works. ComStar needs to move to the future, not get caught in its past.”

  Praying to the hardware? That was a relic from ComStar’s days as a technoreligious order. He hadn’t heard any rumors of that behavior reemerging, but apparently it was. “Sir, I’m not like that, not at all.”

  Buhl straightened in his chair. “Of course you’re not, Tucker. So let me see what I can do to keep you challenged. I have an opening that I’m considering you for. Your record shows that your knowledge and understanding of the system makes you more than qualified for this position, but I have one reservation, and I want to be honest with you about it. This is fieldwork. Not some university lab or R & D project. This is serious hands-on work on an HPG on another planet. You’d have a chance to put some of that theory you’ve learned to the test.”

  Tucker adjusted his glasses again. His hands broke out in a new sheen of sweat.

  “Is this operational work, sir?” He didn’t want a job sitting at a workstation watching communications traffic.

  Precentor Buhl allowed himself a low chuckle. “No, Tucker. This assignment is not piloting a cubicle. Have you heard of the planet Wyatt?”

  Tucker shook his head.

  “I’m not surprised. Strangely enough, the virus that took down the network had a subroutine that deleted Wyatt from most online atlases and star charts. Wyatt is in Prefecture VIII. Like most of the Inner Sphere, its HPG was rendered inoperative on Gray Monday. The core of their transmitter was burned out, so we sent a replacement. When it was installed, the HPG could transmit again, but it began to send the same message over and over, millions of times, overloading the receiving network for a few seconds—then the core fried.”

  Tucker’s eyes widened. “Just like what happened on Gray Monday.”

  “We tried to shut it down, but we were too late. We could find no reason that the core should have failed—no reason at all.”

  Tucker’s face tightened as he thought. Assuming that the HPG crash was intentional, then the new core should have solved Wyatt’s problem. The message cascade was an anomaly. Immediately, curiosity overwhelmed his intention to maintain a reserved attitude in the interview.

  “I’d start by going over the transmission log, including all subbinary feeds.”

  Precentor Buhl leaned back in his
seat and steepled his hands in front of him. “I can have that arranged. May I assume that you are interested in the position, even though I haven’t told you about the job?”

  Tucker nodded once and let a small, excited grin light his face. His mind was saying, “Are you kidding?” but out loud he said only, “Sounds like a real interesting opportunity.”

  “It is,” Buhl replied. “It surely is. Welcome to the project.”

  Tucker rose, shaking his new boss’s hand. “Then the position’s mine?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t wait to tell my father,” Tucker replied.

  “The replacement HPG core for Wyatt has already been loaded aboard the DropShip Divine Breeze. It departs in two days. I’ve taken the liberty of sending the background data covering the HPG issues on Wyatt to a secured directory in the ship’s computer, encoded to your access. In the meantime, I suggest you pack and get your personal affairs in order—see your family and friends.” He slid a small noteputer across the desktop. The younger man glanced at it. The tiny screen displayed his transfer orders and the itinerary for the Divine Breeze—all filled out and processed.

  Tucker was stunned for a full thirty seconds. He knew his mouth was hanging open, but he struggled to find words. “How did you know I’d want the position, sir?”

  The precentor smiled. “You don’t reach my level in a complex organization like ComStar without knowing something about people, Mr. Harwell.” He gestured to the door. “Good luck.”

  * * *

  The precentor sat quietly at his desk for a full two minutes, waiting for the knock at the door. When it came, Malcolm Buhl said only, “Enter,” and a lithe, stunning woman in her early forties, dressed in a tight-fitting black suit and tie, walked into the office and took a seat across from her manager. She held a noteputer. Am I her manager or her keeper? Buhl wondered.

  “I assume,” she began, leaning back in the chair and brushing lint off of her lapel, “that you were able to secure Harwell for the task?”