King of War Tech novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Rehearsal

Tuesday afternoon, the Merrick Dynamics test hall.

Stellan had the board in folding chairs.

Twelve directors in dark suits, a long steel table, and a gray targeting rig on a rolling cart with a monitor above it.

I stood in the back corner with my mop.

Nobody had told me to leave, which meant nobody thought I mattered.

Imogen sat in the front row beside her mother.

She wore gray, and she held a leather folder on her lap.

She had not looked at me once since the night with the dog tag.

I had thought about that all of Monday.

The lead engineer stood at the rig, a thin man with a wet forehead.

"Dry run on the Ridgeback recovery," Stellan said. "Show them."

The engineer pressed a key.

On the monitor, a green square tracked a small drone across a gray sky.

For three seconds, it followed perfectly.

Then the square jumped sideways and froze.

A red warning flashed.

"Again," Stellan said.

The engineer pressed another key.

The same jump, the same freeze.

"Again."

A third time.

Nobody on the board said anything.

One director put his hand over his mouth.

Stellan's smile was still in place, but his jaw had gone hard.

"Fix it," he said to nobody.

"It's a calibration problem, sir," the engineer said. "Somewhere in the sensor chain."

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