the workplace, the people he would meet, how to avoid problems with the authorities, and all of the backup options if things didn’t proceed as planned. If time permitted, he’d even learn a few more practical things that everyone on Earth took for granted, such as how to buy something at a store, how to hail a taxi, or make a call on the telephone. Less common skills, too: like how to use naphtha or fertilizer or gasoline to make an explosive, or how to hotwire a car.
The rifle practice sessions and all of the study sessions were exactly fifty minutes long. With the notable exception of Mator, fifty minutes was the effective attention span of Orians, including Hoken. It’s not like they all had ADD, but the mind can only take and understand so much at one time. The five to ten minute breaks would be to eat, perform personal hygiene, or to do anything that didn’t require concentration—such as catching up on the scores of the Wreckers, (his favorite sports team), or even to just daydream—anything to give the mind a rest, to get it ready for the next study or practice session.
Sleep was restricted to four hours every twenty-four hour period. Toward the end of the trip, the sleep schedule would be adjusted to coincide with night and day in the locale he would land on Earth. Considering the relatively short duration of the flight, and the sleep enhancers and improved sleep efficiency, this would be quite enough. Although the schedule might seem a little intense, it really wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t out of the ordinary for a soldier during a time of crisis. A week without sleep was part of the final test to make the Star Rangers.
Everyone agreed that one intense, twenty minute exercise period every twenty-four hours was enough. Hoken was already in marvelous condition. The goal was to maintain strength and agility, cardiovascular tone, and autonomic reflexes. But even that wouldn’t be dead time; Hoken would count the one-handed push-ups in English and maybe even Russian.
The illumination inside the cabin automatically increased as Hoken awakened on schedule. He took off the nasal cannula, blinked a few times, and looked around. He admitted to himself that General Ribbert and Colonel Hasemereme were right. He could tell the difference; he felt much better. Sometimes, especially when it comes on slowly, you can only appreciate how bad you felt after you feel better.
“Computer, replay any messages stored while I was asleep,” said Hoken as he took a sip of water and unwrapped a food bar.
“My database was up updated, but no messages for you, Sir.”
Hoken’s schedule was always on display just below the ship’s clock. But he didn’t need to look; he knew it was time to practice with the rifle. The inside of the fighter had undergone extensive modifications. The controls for all the standard weapons save the one lepton cannon had been removed, with the space now available to store the extra food and water, and the clothes and other things Hoken would need on Earth.
The virtual target-practice range took up what was previously the area of the co-pilot’s seat and controls. But the roof of the craft couldn’t be modified; it was barely a half-meter above his head. If Hoken sat straight up, arched his back, extended his neck and then bounced in his seat, his head just scraped the cockpit canopy. It was impossible to stand up. There was barely even room to put his arms over his head. It was a tight fit all around.
Hoken moved the seat back, tucked his knees up to his chest, spun around to face backwards, and locked the seat into place with a click that would become so familiar. As he reached for the practice rifle, he said, “Computer, initiate practice sequence.”
Rennedee would occupy the body of an Earthling who was important and prominent enough that the Orian military already knew his schedule. After examining almost five hundred options, they had decided on how and where Hoken would wait in ambush. It had to be within a reasonable distance for at least three good, clean accurate shots, yet it must be isolated enough, and provide good cover, to give Hoken enough time, (at least fifteen to thirty minutes), to prepare and lay in wait without being discovered or hopefully even disturbed.
Rennedee wouldn’t just appear. Instead, there would multiple signs that his approach was imminent. The lead time from when Rennedee came into view on Hoken’s left until the first shot would be about fifteen seconds. Hoken would be in a building looking out a window, sitting on a box or stool. While he waited, he would be holding the rifle straight up with his right hand, resting the butt on his upper thigh, so that it was hidden behind his body, minimizing the exposure of the weapon from any prying eyes. He would then drape his upper body, arms, and the rifle over some boxes or crates for support, to aim down over the ledge at Rennedee as he drove by on the street.
The target would initially come into view some distance off, about 150 meters, on Hoken’s left, take an immediate right turn, and then come straight toward him. This would provide only enough time for one shot, clearly not adequate to ensure success. Furthermore, it is extremely awkward to shoot at something coming at your feet.
Rennedee would then pass about twenty meters almost directly below and in front of Hoken, and then move slowly off to his right. This was clearly the best time for the ambush. Rennedee would be in a vehicle, but because of all the turns and his desire to be well seen and relate to the crowd, he would be moving slowly, only about eighteen to twenty kph. With Hoken above Rennedee, and the 3 percent or so decline in the street, there would be several seconds when Rennedee would appear almost motionless in the 4x scope of Hoken’s rifle.
The conditions for the first shot would be so favorable that you didn’t have to be a William Tell or Annie Oakley to score a bull’s eye. It would be a pretty easy target for any Earthman who was even a reasonably good shot using standard Earth weapons, such as an experienced hunter, or policeman, or soldier. For a superbly-trained soldier such as Hoken—who had sharpened his aim and technique with thousands of practice shots, using a high-powered rifle that had been engineered to deliver no kickback (so the target never left the scope while he was ejecting the spent casing and chambering the next round), and utilizing smart bullets that self-directed to the target—there was an almost 100 percent chance that the first shot would score and a 98-99 percent chance that the second shot would score. Kind of like “shooting tatlons on a gazone” as they would say on Auric.
The chances of a hit on the third shot were a little more problematic, a little harder to handicap, a real-life example of Bott’s Theorem: the pre-event parameters had changed. Rennedee would be farther away, he might be traveling faster, and he would be angling off to the right. By the time he was squeezing off the third shot, about six to eight seconds after the first, Hoken would have lost the element of surprise. He might even be facing counter-measures, such as return fire from Rennedee’s bodyguards or law enforcement officials, or even a bystander who had seen action in a recent war, or even someone like a real-life Clark Kent or Walter Mitty, (who just had dreams of being a hero), might jump in.
Hoken had to get into the right frame of mind for the practice sessions—concentrate—no stray thoughts. He couldn’t be thinking about girls, or whether his favorite sports team, the Wreckers, had won or lost last night. This was serious stuff; you have to get psyched up, you have to practice just as hard as for the real thing.
Hoken was on the most important mission of his life, but whenever he had to practice anything he thought of taking piano lessons from his grandmother. “This is how the professional musicians practice, honey,” she would say. “When you perform, the final result has to be perfect. Anything less is a failure. There won’t be a second chance.
“Discipline is the key,” she would say with one of those grandmother looks that means you need to remember this forever. “Slow at first until correct,” as she played the solfège scale. “If it isn’t right, then you go even slower until it is right. Then slightly faster, but never increasing speed until you can play it perfectly many times over. A mistake is a mistake.”
Hoken smiled and nodded his head. He almost said it out loud in the cabin: “A mistake is a mistake.”
Then she’d say, “Metronome, one hundred beats per minute.”
Hoken thought he could still actually hear the “tic-tic-tic-tic-tic.” “You can’t cheat the metronome, dear. It’s just doing its job. You know you’re ready when you absolutely can’t stand