I have a lot to discuss about this chapter, but I will leave those notes down at the bottom instead to prevent spoilers. Enjoy!
Chapter 5: The Pathfinder
'People like you will have a hard time, Riki. Not because you are smart or that you are honest, though that comes with a price of its own. You will have a hard time because in the moment when the smart and honest people willingly step away from the sun, you will be the one standing under its golden rays. You will have your time in it, but at the same time, you will also be burned by it. You need to be careful.'
That was what Riki's former high school physics teacher, Mr. Watanabe, once said to him. He never really understood what the old man actually meant, he never really clarified. Watanabe, as far as Ricky knew, was a solitary man, mostly kept things to himself like a model teacher. Students in his class respected him. His lectures were interesting, and his exams were fair. But he was stern, humorless and not easy to approach.
He sadly passed away the year before from a sudden stroke. Riki attended his wake that rainy afternoon.
Riki was not considered a genius. He was a model student, well-behaved and didn't require supervision, but to his peers, he never did anything extraordinary, or even anything interesting. Friends his age either loved cooking, dancing, hairstyling if they were girls, and gaming, robotics or chatting about games if they were boys, and everything in between like sports and martial arts. Martial arts were also popular among his class, tankery for girls and the newer and less popular dogfighting for boys and girls alike. But he wasn't into any of that. He did play chess, but no one plays that game outside of one or two teachers who happened to know the rules. He was a boring guy, and it was reflected in the only friend he had: a boy like him named Renta Tsuji.
Renta was also in the boring club at school. He was good at math, but that was about it. He failed the vision screening test to become a pilot, as his eyesights were too poor, so his interests in the sport died out right there, if not for the fact that he wasn't a very athletic man himself. But he was a nice friend, so both of them clicked. They went to the same university afterward, and even after Riki found other friends of kin there, they still remained close.
"Riki!"
And here they are, at a little hotpot shop a few subway stations away from Renta's apartment.
"Renta! Long time no see!" Riki greeted his long time friend. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting."
"Not for long, don't worry." Renta replied, gesturing him at the seat opposite of him.
Hotpot every now and then had been a tradition for the two men after they enrolled in the university. Post-secondary life and after hadn't been as simple and naive as they once lived through, but a hotpot and a friend to chatter their worries away kept them sane.
After they made their order – Renta got the mushroom soup with beef and lamb, while Riki ordered the Tom Yum soup with an array of seafood variety, the stories, the question they both wanted to ask one another quickly flowed.
"So, I heard you've secured yourself an internship at the Shimadas." Renta began. "Not bad, Riki. Not bad at all."
"Haha, thank you." Riki laughed
"So when are you done now?" Renta asked, referring to his university degree.
"I will be done next June. Although I might end up being extended, in which case it might be October or something like that."
"Oh, you're taking the accelerated courses?"
"Yeah, I only needed six more credits, and they're all electives at this point, so I wanted to finish earlier before the graduation season. Job searching them should be easier."
"That's not a bad strategy." Renta remarked. "But considering you're with the Shimadas, you're likely going to get a job either way. If you get along with them and get a recommendation, you'll be better than like eighty percent of new graduates nowadays."
"Is that true? I don't feel like I'm particularly more special than anyone." Riki replied.
"Oh it is, trust me." Renta rested his chin on his hands. "I've dealt with a handful of new hires at MEXT, and I'm telling you, almost none have work experience in finance. They're just desperate little guinea pigs who wanted attention and work so they can pad their resume."
"That's uhh…" Riki stopped himself from speaking further. But it was a little mean of his friend to call inexperienced new hires attention-seeking guinea pigs. It's already tough to survive in the corporate world without connections, Riki empathized with that.
"What do you do exactly for tank inspection?" Renta asked.
"I check tanks for defects after they are used and maintained. That's the main thing I do day to day. I also coordinate people in emergencies, investigate if there are accidents or incidents, help maintain the team's inventory, dispose old stuff, etcetera etcetera…"
"That's a lot of responsibilities." Renta said. "Mrs. Shimada went quite far with her protective measures."
With what happened, it was natural. What Riki was more interested in was the tone of what Renta said.
"What do you mean 'went quite far'?" Riki inquired.
"It's JSF politics, do you want to know?" Renta preambled, and Riki nodded. "Some of the members are complaining she's over budgeting. She submitted some requests for extended funds too. Her justification was 'staff welfare', but we all know it's for the unnecessary safety measures she put on her teams."
"You guys know?"
"Insider's knowledge, of course we know." Renta said. "The JSF is already running on a tight budget to get these tournaments running on an annual basis, especially with how much reparation we need to dish out for damaged properties, so we really don't want more unnecessary spending. Wouldn't you agree?"
Renta is a businessman and an administrator. When it came to money, he had a knack of searching through financial audits and reviews and squeeze bling water from stone. But he forgot that he was not talking to another businessman, despite the similar suit they wore. Riki is an engineer. What Renta might call unnecessary, Riki calls them redundancy.
"No actually." Riki replied, which surprised Renta. "I understand where she's coming from."
"Yeah, I understand too. Nobody wants another person to get hurt, but there is a certain point where you'd say it's too much."
"I wouldn't consider an extra pair of eyes looking for danger to be too much."
"Maybe not for you." Renta dismissed.
Riki rolled his eyes. It was bad habit, but Renta could be a bit condescending when someone challenged his specialty. He was called out already by Riki several times, but it never changed him, so Riki kept the peace and chose to not engage with it. He was going to ask about the JSF inner workings, but after this, he decided to leave it for another time.
"Insider's knowledge, huh?" He let out a murmur nevertheless and took a sip of cola. Then their food arrived, and the topic was upturned, like the flow of water in an ever-going stream.
A few days had passed since the secret investigation began, all of Ricky's hours were spent combing through the piles of documents in the hangar.
Things were much less eventful than it was working on inspections and papers, now that he was completely alone for four hours a day looking at papers. And the more he read into it, the more depressing it gets. Behind all the numbers, the graphs, the explanations lied a human life. Even though his curiosity were met, he found no sense of joy reading any of this. He needed a break every now and then. But this was the only way he could begin his own investigation. He needed a lead, and here there were some.
Compared to the final report that he read years ago, and had reread again just now, Chiyo's initial report had a lot more details to it. The concentration of gunpowder in the faulty shell were estimated at around sixty percent higher, but one point of note, backed by empirical evidence, is that passing a certain threshold, penetration power would suffer diminishing return. Meaning the shell would not actually penetrate sixty percent more armor because of the dense gunpowder. In fact, it was closer to around 37 percent. Still a lot, but this was different from the claim in the published report, that did not state the diminishment, thus implying that it had a sixty percent increase when it was not.
Funny when Ricky read the final report the first time around, he didn't think much about it, but now that he looked back, that section inconspicuously lacked the detailed experiments that Chiyo's report had, how they gathered the explosive residues to estimate the gunpowder concentration, and the field test they did to check the exact penetration power of similar shells. It really showed that he was not as good as identifying biases and misinformation as he may thought he was.
As for the tank, it was manufactured nine years ago by Tenzai Industry, a vehicle manufacturing company and a household name dating back to the 1970s, back when Senshado was still in its infancy. It went to St. Gloriana almost immediately, as they were the main operators. It served there up until its breach.
The details of the armor was equally interesting. Senshado armor, just like Fernanda had introduced to Ricky on his first day, were made of composite material, the majority consisting of layers of polymer combined with this weird substance called von-Braun molecules, with a thin layer of steel located at the bottom. And it is these molecules that the magic or science, depending on who you ask, happens.
When a shell hit the tank armor, the molecules would deform away from the impact point. Individual molecule had small gaps with another molecule, which allowed movement upon contact. This composite layer would be able to efficiently absorb and disperse the impact energy, causing the shell to deform and lose penetration power. This force dispersion physics is pivotal in making sure the tank operators are safe in their vehicle.
Meanwhile, to simulate a penetration scenario, there would be sensors at points inside the tank that would measure the impact forces, determine if it would have penetrated the tank if it were made of normal metal, and if it does, send a signal to the central control unit (CCU) to lock tank controls, pop the white flag, and automatically tune and lock radio frequency to the morbidly named 'Dead-man's Channel', now changed 'White Flag Channel' for obvious reasons. To a student, the tank, at least in the armor department, should act similarly to its WW2 counterpart. In reality, the tank would absorb a much much higher impact force without a hull breach. But here, something went wrong.
From this, the questions Ricky would seek answers for were:
1) How was the armor compromised beforehand?
The most important question, pivotal to the entire investigation. It was made clear even in Chiyo's report that a 37 percent increase was still well within the force threshold, so it's very likely that it was compromised, and it's just a matter of how and why. Could it be a crack that went undetected? Was there maintenance that was skipped or rushed?
2) How badly was it compromised?
Could it be enough for the strong shell to breach it? It had to be measurable and testable. He couldn't go off of feels or circumstantial evidence, given how flimsy the final report was. If he was going to dispute an official JSF report, it had to be accurate.
3) Were there any other safeguards that were bypassed, compromised or overlooked?
Safety is often multi-faceted. A good system that ensured safe operation should NEVER have a single point of failure. Every safety layer is like a slice of Swiss Cheese with holes on them representing safeguard failures. If aligned, disaster strikes. He wanted to know what the layers were to begin with, and how they failed.
4) Why did the Federation not publish the initial report?
Not as important, and he would likely find the answers to that as he goes through the previous two questions. But it was unsettling to learn the massive difference in tone between the two reports. To be frank, he didn't even want to consider this question, but he wrote it down regardless.
"This is going to be a lot of work."
Ricky wondered if he was going to be able to finish this. This will need a lot of testing and analysis, not to mention having to learn everything pretty much from scratch. He sincerely doubt he could finish this alone with the full 8 hours he had per day, not to mention half of that. But maybe it'll be more smooth-sailing once he got into the rhythm of it.
That being said, it was 11:56 AM. He ought to pack up and head for lunch. Four minutes more wasn't going to make any significant progress, if not at all.
In the cafeteria, an intense battle was taking place. Not the serious kind though.
"Something new today, huh?" Aurelie poked Fernanda, in front of them a wooden board engraved with mosaic alternating colored squares, the pieces stood sentinel.
"Look, I can't play the same opening all the time. It gets boring." Fernanda replied. "Besides, I gotta keep you on your toes. Can't let you play the London all the time as white and get away with it."
"With the Dutch?" Aurelie chuckled. "The only Dutch I am scared of is if they're German."
"Well, then prove me wrong, mademoiselle." Fernanda taunted back. "Let your chess speak for itself."
Not unlike her fearsome reputation in Maginot, Aurelie lashed out with a counter-gambit, sacrificing pawns for development. Passivity is not in her dictionary.
From afar, Ricky could see his two colleagues easily. He ordered his food and headed over.
"Good afternoon." He had grown comfortable with the two to proactively greet.
"Afternoon!" Fernanda responded.
"Good afternoon, Ricky." Aurelie followed, in perfect order. But Heidi wasn't here to complete the greeting ritual.
"Where's Heidi?" He asked.
"Remember the improper repair 2 weeks back?" Fernanda said. "She was chewing our team out about it. She'll have her lunch break later."
"I...wouldn't consider her chewing our team out." Aurelie said. "She was stern about its consequences, but she didn't really call out or make examples of anyone."
"Yeahhh, but it's Heidi. What's stern to us two is getting pounded to everyone else." Fernanda replied.
"I guess that makes me three then." Ricky chuckled. He was used to getting scolded. By his parents, by teachers and earlier by Heidi. Maybe taking a pounding was his thing.
"Anyway, sit down!" Aurelie gestured toward the seat on the side. "How are you doing today?"
"Okay, I suppose. Not great, not terrible." Ricky shrugged.
"Nothing...exciting?" Fernanda asked, her head tilted to one side.
"No?" Ricky raised an eyebrow. The way she asked the question was a little weird.
"Oh, I guess I was just hoping for a bit more intrigue, ya know?" Fernanda replied casually, her gaze lingering on Ricky a moment longer than usual.
"Fernanda." Aurelie's voice was gentle but serious. She knew what Ricky was currently confused over.
"Alright, I mean...okay is the new good." The Blue Division girl responded. Now Ricky began to catch on. Does she know?
"We're having an intense battle over here. Do you wanna join?" Aurelie read the atmosphere well, as she pivoted the topic to the chessboard they were playing.
"Sure." Ricky replied, before munching on his taco.
"You play chess, Ricky?" Fernanda asked.
"Mhm." He hummed, only speaking after he swallowed his food. "I haven't played in a while though. I'm pretty rusty."
"No problem! At least you know the pieces move." Fernanda beckoned. "Who do you think is winning? Don't tell the moves though."
Ricky stood up, scanned the board for no more than ten seconds and said, very confidently.
"Aurelie's winning. You're checkmated here by force."
The two ladies simultaneously turned their gazes at Ricky. Fernanda thought Aurelie was better too, but she was having solid defense, and Aurelie was still trying to find a way through without giving the tempo back to her opponent. But both were in silent agreement that they were relatively equal with no clear decisive advantage, and yet Ricky here declared the game is over, provided Aurelie sees the mate. She wouldn't, but was now really curious to know.
"I don't see it. How am I checkmating her?" She invited him to show it.
Ricky glanced over to Fernanda, and once he got the confirmation he was allowed, he reached over the table, grabbed the white queen and knocked a pawn with it off the board.
"Queen takes h7. Check."
They looked askance. It was a queen sacrifice and Fernanda could not avoid the check, as the only escape square was covered by a knight, so she had to take. The next move left their faces scrunching.
"Knight takes f6. Check."
This was both in their original calculation, but with the move order inverted. The only reason they didn't look further was because it was so ridiculous to consider.
It was in fact a double check. And there was a saying, even the bravest king flees in the face of a double check. The king had to move, and Fernanda saw quickly that moving to h8 would be an instant checkmate in one with the other knight, so she had to move to h6 instead, coming forward.
Ricky continued the sequence.
"Knight e g4."
Only one safe square for the king, g5.
"h4."
Also only one safe square, f4.
"g3."
Like a riptide pulling the king out to sea, it had to come even more forward to f3.
"Bishop e2."
The king is on g2, well within white's territory now, and it slowly dawned on both of them the end was closing.
"Rook h2."
The black king finally landed on the chopping block, on g1, the back rank of the white side, only two squares away from the white king. And here, Ricky had two choices to checkmate Fernanda, and he picked the most efficient and cold move King to d2, delivering a back-rank checkmate on his side of the board with the rook that never moved, with the other option being the equally rare and stylish long castle checkmate.
Both Aurelie and Fernanda were left aghast at what just transpired on the board. Violent? Absurd? Brilliant? They couldn't decide.
"Did I miss something?" He asked, an oblivious kid to the soul-sucking ritual committed.
"Yeah, you miss how you saw this 8-move checkmate attack within seconds." Fernanda commented very sarcastically.
"I-I just looked for the most forcing move first, and it turned out to lead to checkmate." Ricky stuttered. "Every move except for one was forced, so it's not that hard to calculate."
"NOT that hard?! You hear this guy?" Fernanda balked. "Brother, I would not have seen this in a million years!"
Aurelie was still a hand on her face looking at the board. "I don't think I could have seen it so fast. Maybe after a few minutes, but..."
"An 8-move sequence in under 10 seconds is not normal, Ricky." Fernanda said. "Be honest, are you actually a grandmaster? Or have you actually seen a similar position in some obscure chess book somewhere?"
"No…" He replied.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
Fernanda leaned back on her chair.
"You are absurd, I'll let you know that."
Finally recovered, Aurelie looked at Ricky with coy.
"From unexpected tax form savant, to unknown chess master." She laughed. "I bet he's secretly a Senshado genius too."
"God, please no..." Fernanda bent her head upward. It's like every year or so there will be an alleged genius in Senshado emerging from the woodwork with their personalized tank seeking to dominate the sport!
"I promise you guys, I'm none of that category." Ricky replied. "Maybe the first, but not the second and definitely not the third."
"Sure buddy, whatever you say..." Fernanda shrugged dismissively, looked at the clock then gestured toward Aurelie's seat. "You know what, I'm going to incontrovertibly prove that you're wrong! I cannot calculate that hard in chess, but I can read people easily, and I can tell that you sir are definitely humble bragging."
"Right now?" Ricky asked, as Aurelie willingly vacated her seat for Ricky's, eager to see this showdown.
"Right now. We have well enough time for a game." Now, Fernanda's even more excited, even if she knew she was going to lose. "Play truthfully. Do not throw just to prove a point."
"Alright, alright…" Obediently, Ricky sat down and they both reassembled the pieces back to their starting positions.
They still had more than half an hour until they had to go to their afternoon shift, but it didn't need to take that long. He whooped her in 7 moves. It took the entire afternoon to wipe that 'I knew it' smugness off Fernanda's face.
This guy really is something.
Alrighty, discussion time! A bit shorter chapter this time around.
Firstly the chess game. It's from an actual game back in 1912, played between Edward Lasker and Sir George Alan Thomas, called 'Fatal Attraction'. The last move by white was indeed played by Edward Lasker, and apparently he explained that he didn't play long castle because he's an engineer and likes efficiency, since Kd2 only required moving one piece, which was pretty funny and fitting. Any of you play chess, you can look it up. It's fascinating. If not, look it up anyway, you might start playing chess instead ;)
For the fic, yes, the investigation I feel like is the direction I needed this time around. I focused a bit too much on the science in the last iteration, and quickly set myself on fire trying to think up more of the sci-fi element AND also present it in a layman sort of way, and also the disconnect between that, the knowledge gap between the MC and the girls, made interactions really hard to write. This way, hopefully, the science is toned down to a manageable level, while the corporate politics drive the characters.
Speaking of characters, I intend to dedicate around 2, maybe 3, chapters for each of the girls in the safety team, similar to this chapter, starting with Fernanda, then either Aurelie or Heidi gets one, then the other. My man Ricky though gets only 1 for now, because he is too shy to ask for more will get more opportunities to shine later. Since we're stepping into the less dramatic part of the investigation, I want to explore their characters, personality, motivations more intimately than just through banters with Ricky, while the plot moves along. They should be very important for this story so I should make them so.
Anyway, that's a lot of notes, so I'll leave it here. See you all next chapter!
