[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.“It isn’t there,” I said, and keyed my console.“Engineering, this is Lieutenant Walker.Disengage the bridge controls.We’re going to be running simulations for the next hour.”“Certainly,” the Engineer said.I guessed that he was just as happy that the Ensigns would be out of his hair.They couldn’t be trusted in Engineering until much later, and even then, they would be carefully supervised.“Authorisation code?”“Alpha-Three-Walker,” I said, clearly.“Disengage the systems now.”“Bridge controls disengaged,” the Engineer said.“Have fun.”I smiled.It was true that we’d used the system for games – games with a very practical purpose – and gambling on Devastator, but we couldn’t do that here until the Ensigns could be trusted to wipe their own bottoms without supervision.I reached over Evgenia’s shoulder, noting the SIMULATION ACTIVE icon that had appeared in the display, and brought up the first simulation, a missile attack on the Jacques Delors from another starship.“All right,” I said.I pushed as much drama into my voice as I could.“The defence of this vessel is in your hands.Your actions will determine if we survive to tell the tale or die in a ball of exploding plasma.And, if you last more than ten minutes, I’ll cancel half of your demerits.”“Yes, sir,” Evgenia said.I was pleased to see that she had no illusions about my offer.I wouldn’t have given her something easy to do to work off even one demerit.“When do I begin?”I touched the console.“Now.”The tactical simulation, I was surprised to note, had been improved in the wake of the UN’s war with the Heinlein Resistance Fleet.Originally, it had consisted of a makeshift pirate vessel – a converted freighter – that somehow held and fired more missiles than was physically possible.Now, it featured a Heinlein starship flying the Skull and Crossbones and performing rapid and unpredictable manoeuvres to prevent its firing patterns becoming predicable.If it were real, we would have shot back with our own missiles, but now…all Evgenia had to do was keep us unhurt.By program fiat, the starship could survive no less than three hits, even with nukes.A fourth hit would be devastating.I smiled.At first, the missiles had come in one by one and had been easy to knock down.As the simulation progressed, they had started to come in pairs, and then in entire salvos, each one packing enough power to take out the entire starship.Evgenia coped well at first – I’d have been surprised if she didn’t – but as the missile barrage grew stronger, I could see the tension as she bent over the console.It took upwards of five to ten seconds of continuous burn from the lasers to take out a missile and while a point defence laser was dealing with one missile, another could become a problem.Some of the missiles failed to find a targeting vector and slipped by into space harmlessly – the tactical program counted hitting one of them as a loss – but most of them angled in on the ship, looking for weaknesses.“Shit,” Evgenia said, suddenly.I let it pass, even though that should have earned her a reprimand; the missiles had suddenly split apart into smaller missiles, each one racing towards her position.We’d seen that trick before on Heinlein, even though the smaller missiles couldn’t carry large warheads, and it never failed to irritate the point defence controllers.The UN kept promising that they’d find a way to identify such missiles before they separated, but I wasn't holding my breath.If tactical experts like Captain Harriman and Captain Shalenko hadn’t been able to separate them I doubted that anyone else could, at least in a way we could use.“Sir, I…”“Focus,” I snapped.The screen flickered red suddenly; a missile had slipped through her point defence web and struck the ship.In real life, the entire ship would have heaved, power fluctuations would have torn through the ship and vital components would have burned out, causing havoc.In a simulator, we could fix all the damage with the touch of a button and study our mistakes endlessly.Evgenia swore again and redoubled her efforts, but now the swarms of missiles were coming in faster and faster.The simulators didn’t care about the drive field limitations that we – and Heinlein, among the other colonies – had to respect.We could test our Ensigns against missiles that didn’t – yet – exist in real life.The screen flickered red again…and this time the computer ruled that half of the point defence weapons had been knocked out of commission.I looked at the timer – seven minutes – and smiled.A moment later, the ship was destroyed…“Pause simulation,” I ordered.“Not too badly done, Ensign.”“I lost,” Evgenia said.She hesitated.“Why don’t we let the computer do it?”“We use the computer to support your efforts,” I pointed out.It was true.Once Evgenia had marked a missile down for destruction, the computers had taken over and burned the missiles out of space.“We don’t let the computers do everything because they can be tricked, or spoofed, in ways that a human would see through.The best tactical officers learn an intuition about such matters that computers never develop.” I paused.“Any other questions?”“Yes,” Evgenia said, slowly.“Why do we have imaginary missiles in the simulation?”“You handled yourself well against missiles that moved faster than anything known in space,” I explained.“If you can cope with them, you can cope with the slower missiles we have to deal with in real life – without thinking that you know everything you could possibly face.Our enemies develop new weapons and tricks, Ensign, and they’ve used them to surprise us before.We put you through hell in hopes that it will keep you alive.”I looked over at Ensign Geoffrey Murchison, he who had stood up for Yianni.“Well, Ensign?” I asked.“Would you like to try?”Geoffrey gulped.“Do I get the demerit reduction as well?”“Ten minutes,” I said, motioning Evgenia away from the tactical console.She looked vaguely surprised that the seat wasn’t covered in sweat.“Good luck.”Geoffrey lasted eight minutes before he lost his ship as well.He hadn’t done badly at first – and he’d clearly been watching what had happened to Evgenia, learning from her experience – but he missed a scatter-missile before it scattered, right into his face.The point defence computers overrode at once, but it was too late to prevent the three fatal hits.He didn’t swear and listened carefully when I outlined what had gone wrong.“There are no clues in the display as to what missile is what,” I said, “but if you watch carefully, you may notice slight hints [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl trzylatki.xlx.pl
.“It isn’t there,” I said, and keyed my console.“Engineering, this is Lieutenant Walker.Disengage the bridge controls.We’re going to be running simulations for the next hour.”“Certainly,” the Engineer said.I guessed that he was just as happy that the Ensigns would be out of his hair.They couldn’t be trusted in Engineering until much later, and even then, they would be carefully supervised.“Authorisation code?”“Alpha-Three-Walker,” I said, clearly.“Disengage the systems now.”“Bridge controls disengaged,” the Engineer said.“Have fun.”I smiled.It was true that we’d used the system for games – games with a very practical purpose – and gambling on Devastator, but we couldn’t do that here until the Ensigns could be trusted to wipe their own bottoms without supervision.I reached over Evgenia’s shoulder, noting the SIMULATION ACTIVE icon that had appeared in the display, and brought up the first simulation, a missile attack on the Jacques Delors from another starship.“All right,” I said.I pushed as much drama into my voice as I could.“The defence of this vessel is in your hands.Your actions will determine if we survive to tell the tale or die in a ball of exploding plasma.And, if you last more than ten minutes, I’ll cancel half of your demerits.”“Yes, sir,” Evgenia said.I was pleased to see that she had no illusions about my offer.I wouldn’t have given her something easy to do to work off even one demerit.“When do I begin?”I touched the console.“Now.”The tactical simulation, I was surprised to note, had been improved in the wake of the UN’s war with the Heinlein Resistance Fleet.Originally, it had consisted of a makeshift pirate vessel – a converted freighter – that somehow held and fired more missiles than was physically possible.Now, it featured a Heinlein starship flying the Skull and Crossbones and performing rapid and unpredictable manoeuvres to prevent its firing patterns becoming predicable.If it were real, we would have shot back with our own missiles, but now…all Evgenia had to do was keep us unhurt.By program fiat, the starship could survive no less than three hits, even with nukes.A fourth hit would be devastating.I smiled.At first, the missiles had come in one by one and had been easy to knock down.As the simulation progressed, they had started to come in pairs, and then in entire salvos, each one packing enough power to take out the entire starship.Evgenia coped well at first – I’d have been surprised if she didn’t – but as the missile barrage grew stronger, I could see the tension as she bent over the console.It took upwards of five to ten seconds of continuous burn from the lasers to take out a missile and while a point defence laser was dealing with one missile, another could become a problem.Some of the missiles failed to find a targeting vector and slipped by into space harmlessly – the tactical program counted hitting one of them as a loss – but most of them angled in on the ship, looking for weaknesses.“Shit,” Evgenia said, suddenly.I let it pass, even though that should have earned her a reprimand; the missiles had suddenly split apart into smaller missiles, each one racing towards her position.We’d seen that trick before on Heinlein, even though the smaller missiles couldn’t carry large warheads, and it never failed to irritate the point defence controllers.The UN kept promising that they’d find a way to identify such missiles before they separated, but I wasn't holding my breath.If tactical experts like Captain Harriman and Captain Shalenko hadn’t been able to separate them I doubted that anyone else could, at least in a way we could use.“Sir, I…”“Focus,” I snapped.The screen flickered red suddenly; a missile had slipped through her point defence web and struck the ship.In real life, the entire ship would have heaved, power fluctuations would have torn through the ship and vital components would have burned out, causing havoc.In a simulator, we could fix all the damage with the touch of a button and study our mistakes endlessly.Evgenia swore again and redoubled her efforts, but now the swarms of missiles were coming in faster and faster.The simulators didn’t care about the drive field limitations that we – and Heinlein, among the other colonies – had to respect.We could test our Ensigns against missiles that didn’t – yet – exist in real life.The screen flickered red again…and this time the computer ruled that half of the point defence weapons had been knocked out of commission.I looked at the timer – seven minutes – and smiled.A moment later, the ship was destroyed…“Pause simulation,” I ordered.“Not too badly done, Ensign.”“I lost,” Evgenia said.She hesitated.“Why don’t we let the computer do it?”“We use the computer to support your efforts,” I pointed out.It was true.Once Evgenia had marked a missile down for destruction, the computers had taken over and burned the missiles out of space.“We don’t let the computers do everything because they can be tricked, or spoofed, in ways that a human would see through.The best tactical officers learn an intuition about such matters that computers never develop.” I paused.“Any other questions?”“Yes,” Evgenia said, slowly.“Why do we have imaginary missiles in the simulation?”“You handled yourself well against missiles that moved faster than anything known in space,” I explained.“If you can cope with them, you can cope with the slower missiles we have to deal with in real life – without thinking that you know everything you could possibly face.Our enemies develop new weapons and tricks, Ensign, and they’ve used them to surprise us before.We put you through hell in hopes that it will keep you alive.”I looked over at Ensign Geoffrey Murchison, he who had stood up for Yianni.“Well, Ensign?” I asked.“Would you like to try?”Geoffrey gulped.“Do I get the demerit reduction as well?”“Ten minutes,” I said, motioning Evgenia away from the tactical console.She looked vaguely surprised that the seat wasn’t covered in sweat.“Good luck.”Geoffrey lasted eight minutes before he lost his ship as well.He hadn’t done badly at first – and he’d clearly been watching what had happened to Evgenia, learning from her experience – but he missed a scatter-missile before it scattered, right into his face.The point defence computers overrode at once, but it was too late to prevent the three fatal hits.He didn’t swear and listened carefully when I outlined what had gone wrong.“There are no clues in the display as to what missile is what,” I said, “but if you watch carefully, you may notice slight hints [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]