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Aerial Assault Planning
Reconnaissance confirms it: an alien base, tucked into the planet's least convenient canyon, the kind of location chosen specifically to ruin the day of anyone planning an assault, which as of this afternoon is you. The tactical computer has divided the airspace into colour-coded zones and wants exactly one combat drone in each zone, each row, and each column, with no two drones sitting beside each other, corners included, as adjacent drones jam one another's targeting and then log it as teamwork.
The officers who come back from these operations start with the smallest, most cramped zones, where the choices are fewest and the deductions firmest, and they keep in mind that every drone placed quietly claims a whole row, a whole column, and the ring of cells around itself. Place the certain ones first and the airspace empties of wrong options in the most helpful possible way. Friendly fire, the tactical computer observes in its flat little voice, is decidedly unfriendly.
The strange part is the base. It is armed to the rafters, and nothing has fired. Its defence grid tracks each drone into position the way a doorman watches guests arrive: interested, unhurried, checking something off a list. The ordnance you sorted at dawn sits ready and, so far, entirely unasked for.
A message arrives from the quartermaster, wanting to know whether the munitions racks were signed for, as he is at lunch. It is mid-afternoon on an unmapped world. Somewhere below, behind three metres of coloured alloy, something is waiting to find out whether you know how to knock.
How to play
- The grid is divided into coloured regions.
- Place exactly one drone in each region, each row, and each column.
- Drones cannot be placed in cells adjacent to another drone, including diagonals.
- Fewer mistakes and faster times earn a higher score.