| Simulation Complete |
| Summary: | Marko and Mark complete their simulated flight tests of the Hammerfall missiles. Video is taken. |
| Date: | 13 Feb 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | All other Hammerfall logs. |
| Players: |
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| Flight Simulation |
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| A training room specifically dedicated to honing aerial skills, this area is equipped with several flight simulator pods that allow the pilots to practice maneuvers and tactics without being in a real live plane. The Viper-pods are installed on one side of the room with a little space between them, an attempt to provide a realistic feel for close-range wing training, while a smaller number of Raptor sim-pods are installed on the opposite side of the room from the Vipers. A central computer terminal and overhead display screen sits at the head of the room, where one can input exercises and data to be run in the sims, scroll through score records, and control the training modules. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #352 |
The simulation started hours ago. Captain Makinen had informed Marko to meet him in the sims about thirty minutes to scenario completion. It would be their fifth and final full-run on the simulated missile tests. Two weeks and thirty tests later, the only error that could be found was the simple code mix that only produced minor inaccuracies. With all of it fixed, the missiles seem to fly almost flawlessly. The last four had engagements that went to plan, three in space and one was an old Colonial Bunker Complex on Scorpia. Mark as pulled out all the stops tonight and producing, what he thinks, is a pretty slick scenario. The Chief Engineer is already here in the flight sims with his black and red party shirt on. The coveralls are tied around his waist, one hand on his hip while the other scrolls through read-outs of the missile's flight history.
Marko enters the Flight Sim room, his trusty portable snugly resting in its case over his shoulder. "Heya, Captain. So, how's it looking?" the young ECO asks with an anticipatory smile. On paper, these things have been like liquid sex, coding them, however, was another story. Marko could swear he's got the gray hairs to prove it.
Mark looks up with a grin. "Its flyin like a bat out of hell. I worked up the calculations and have this thing flying straight and true." He motions Marko over. On the display the missile seems to be tracking towards Caprica - the velocity higher than expected. "Those code fixes were perfect, man. Took those few tweeks and bam. Everything fell together." He settles down in the chair. "I had this thing launch out of our current location, right? I swung it low altitude past Aerilon and it picked up twenty thousand meters a second thanks to good-ole gravity. Its supposed to swing into Caprica's atmosphere innn.." He checks the Time on Target. "Seven minutes. The target is that Cylon Basestar sitting over downtown Caprica City."
Marko leans over Mark's shoulder to peer curiously at the screen. "Damn…" he breathes, eyes going wide as he checks the simulated telemetry. "How long has the travel time been?" he asks, finger tracing along a few datasets as he orients himself on the missile's performance. "So much for the Aerion's magic gun.."
"Yeah," Mark confirms. He settles into the seat and points to the other one. "Travel time has been, thus far.. looks like five hours, twenty-nine minutes. It wasn't a straight route, obviously. I was trying to fly it past areas that might mask it like moons and sat arrays we know are fritzy and putting out EM noise." The mention of the gun gets a snort and he glances over to him. "Hey man. Here's a question. We've got this sim running. The only target I have in the system is that basestar. Could you park a Raptor at Caprica City in seven minutes and have this show up on the sim screens in there?" He dares ask to see this thing explode?
"Sure could, sir." Marko replies with a grin, moving quickly to the main console to activate the Raptor pod and start setting it up to receive the relevant datasets from Mark's console. "In fact, I think I'll park two, one atmospheric high over Caprica City, another one in geosynch orbit with the Basestar." he calls before diving into the sim pod itself to start the recorders.
"Work whatever you want to, man! I just want to see this baby hit one of these targets. Chances are I'll never get to see it in real life. It'd be killer to have it, though." The Captain grins. He continues checking the read-outs. "Four minutes, thirty seconds! Make sure you get all of this shit on the simulated video feeds. I wanna watch the replays for porn, motherfrakker. Helll yeah!" When dorks play with fire, this is what happens.
"Wanna get as many angles on it as we can, sir." Marko replies, flipping the necessary switches before emerging to rejoin Mark at the console. "What's the hardware and explosives expenditures for actually building one of these?" he asks, frowning thoughtfully as he waits for impact. "Cause if this works even half as well as it looks like it will…..Building a couple two or three of these frakkers should be put on the top of the 'to do' list." he grins wolfishly. Dorks playing with fire, indeed! "Not gonna say it'll defeat the Cylons, but it'll give us one hell of a nuclear option if we need one."
"Ha! As many angles as possible. Brilliant." Mark is still leaned forward on the console. Caprica is just coming into view on the tracking screen. The missile plods across it with red dots marking its prior trajectory. "Expeditures? Psh. What we don't have. We get twenty shots of these and that's it. I ran the Crewman's numbers. The explosive in there is something I've never heard of. Even if we had the facilities to produce it?" He shakes his head. "We'd have to look long and hard for the ingredients. This stuff was high-level experimental. Though check it out, she was also right about the nukes. It is just big enough to fit a fifty kiloton tactical nuclear warhead into. For when you absolutely, positively need to kill every motherfrakkin Cylon in the room. Booyah." Two minutes.
Marko laughs and shrugs a little. "Well, I was thinking more along the lines of snagging a few of the Praetorian's missiles and adapting the warheads." Marko says. "But nukes would work _so_ much better." he grins nastily. "Two minutes….Gods, at that speed, I gotta wonder if the Cylons could even spot the thing visually?"
Mark shakes his head. "Nah. The Pretty-P's missiles are Essex-Class ship-to-ship. Gyroscopic detonators. They hit something, they explode. Made to work with naval gunfire that will soften armor. The Navy has never been able to build an effective penetrator on ship armor..until now." He taps the keyboard a few times and zooms in towards Caprica. One minute. "There's no way. This thing would fly past Tauron in three minutes. Its just simply too fast. If they could even pick it up on DRADIS, which is highly doubtful, it would only be on their screens for a minute. …Thirty seconds."
"And…..up goes the curtain…" Marko breathes, eyes glued to the screen. "_Ladies_ and _Gentlemen_…Are you _ready_?" he drawls to himself in his best Feyodor Baske impersonation. "The time for the _main event_ has _come_…"
Mark taps the keyboard and it zooms right in to the main continent. "Missile entering atmosphere.." Ten. Nine. "Enter boost phaaase now." Five. Four. The missile's markers appear at the edge of the screen and they -scream- across the continent. The altitude indicator drops like a rock as the speed rockets higher with the booster. Two. One. An alarm sounds, a harsh buzzer as a red 'X' appears over Caprica City. 'SIMULATION COMPLETE' flashes across the screen. Mark leans back into the chair and looks towards the Raptor's open cockpit door. The interior is bathed in blinding white light followed by flashes of blue, yellow, orange, then red. "Marko." He reaches out and clasps the man on the shoulder. "We need to see that video footage."
Yeah, tell Marko something he didn't know! It takes the ECO precisely six seconds to dive between the sim pods and the master control panel to set things up. "It's cued! It's cued!" he calls frantically, every bit as eager to see what the cameras picked up as Mark is. Just what tiny bit he saw from glancing inside the Raptor sim is enough to get him hot and bothered.
Mark scrambles up from the chair right behind Marko and moves to the screens. "Helllllls yes." The cue rewinds to ten seconds. There's no voice-over. No commentary. No sound at all. But the simulation quality is astounding for the rendering. The basestar sits hovered over downtown, turning slowly in the atmosphere. Its not until half a second from impact that a white contrail appears at the edge of the screen. It stabs in like a bullet, the mere friction of the air alone making it look like a meteor. It strikes dead center on the target and for two seconds nothing happens. Did it- The screen bathes into white light, then a hint of blue and the Captain's jaw drops. "Sweet mother of frak," he whispers. The basestar explodes, the tylium tanks throwing burning liquid high into the atmosphere while the spires on each end of the ship begin collapsing with gravity. What once would have been pure horror for the citizens of C-City, is now something far different. The wreckage crashes down into an already Hammerfall-blasted cityscape. The fuel finally reaches back down to the ground and coats most of downtown. The exploding pieces of ship and landscape form bright orange and red fireballs that roll across the terrain with massive force. "Dude."
"My Gods….." Marko breathes at the sight of so much devastation. The burning fuel and debris rain down on Caprica City like the wrath of a particularly touchy God…Secondaries rock the area, sending more burning debris outwards, fueling what is rapidly building into a city-killing firestorm. "Holy….._shit_." he says simply. "Holy _SHIT_!"
Mark just -stares-. "That was coooooooool. ..Godsdamn I need a bong hit." He pushes back from the console and stands, still watching the devastation roll. "Frak man. We gotta playtest these things. They'll have the Cylons scared shitless. All of a sudden their precious ships start exploding in mid-sail? Epic. FRAK I wish I smoked. I would totally want and need one." He takes a breath. "Okay, save that shit. You know who needs to see it?"
"Heh, I know where we could find some Kahmala if you're serious, sir." Marko chuckles, nodding. "Everybody in the higher command needs to see it!" he adds firmly. "And, no worries, I checked when I queued up the feed, it's all in the data banks." he grins. "The Cylons would be a month de-fragging their drives if we flipped a few of these beauties at 'em."
"Son, you get me some Kahlama and we'll hotbox my office. Maybe swips some video games from the library." Mark is still staring at the screen until it just stops when the simulation did. "Higher command doesn't care as long as it works. The might be impressed with actual results, but a computer simulation doesn't mean much to people like them." He shakes his finger slowly at the screen and looks back to Marko. "Constin said his wife was the skinjob- err, accused skinjob that worked on these? Talk about vindication. We gotta get him a copy of this."
"Heh, I'll ask around." Marko chuckles. "But, fair warning, I haven't smoked up in _ages_, sir." he adds with a grin. "So Gods only know how goofy I'm gonna get." he laughs. "Oh, shit, yeah, you're absolutely right…" he nods his agreement. "Coll got the shit end of the stick, and never a whiff of proof that I knew about." he grumps. "Not like Abbot….we had his ass…..Poor bastard didn't even know what he was…"
Mark nods, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Make five copies of this footage. One for each of us, one for the CAG, one for Pewter, and one for Constin. He deserves to see this shit in hi-def." Mark steps back around to the telemetry data. "Coll might have gotten that, might not. Fact remains that she put down a lot of creative work on this stuff. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised either way. But this is some pretty compelling evidence on either side of the fence. On one hand, she built a Cylon-stomping guidance system and put it into missiles we badly need. On the other.. she did just that. If these things fly exactly like they sim in here - which they should - then I think its safe to say that no matter what she was on our side of this fight." Abbot is a non-point.
"Aye-aye, Captain." Marko replies with a jaunty salute, unshouldering his laptop and ambling over to the central console to start making the ordered copies. "There's something to think about, sir." he adds at length. "If Coll's a suspect because she's good with computers……" he begins, unzipping the portable's bag and fishing out the required discs. "Where do I fall?"
Mark just shrugs. "Where do you fall? Hell if I know. You patterened a lot of guidance systems? Installed Raptor avionics packages into missile systems? But I take your point." He still runs through telemetry, looking at the end during boost phase and the numbers put out in atmo. Especially exterior temps. "You're good with computers. I'm good with lots of shit, too. I guess that's why they say that anyone could be one and that its best we not try to nail people down. Hell if I was actively looking for them I'd go batshit nuts. A skinner in Engineering could completely destroy the ship inside five minutes."
Marko nods slowly, sighing to himself. "I should've made more of an effort to talk to Abbot before he was executed." he says, almost to himself. "He might could've helped us." he breathes, fishing out discs and starting to feed them into the console. "And _there's_ a happy thought to keep me warm in my rack." he chuckles darkly. "Captain Makinen….a _Cylon_…." he sighs. "Who needs R.K. Fischer novels to scare the hell out of one's self?"
"Eh. Some of them are helpful in limited doses???" He doesn't sound to sure about that. "I was on the Praetorian when that whole fiasco went down so I can't comment. I know he was accused and found guilty, though. Eh. I tell you what though, some asshole accuses me? I'll beat his ass with a wrench just for wasting my time. That shit is rediculous. We kill each other over this kinda crap." He shakes his head and stands from the console.
Marko nods, still making his copies until he's used up all his free discs. "Got copies for the CAG, Pewter, and Constin, sir. But that's all the discs I've got to spare." he announces. "I know you Engineering guys go through these things like toothpicks, any chance I could barter my services for a dozen or so?" he inquires. "I know what end of a wrench to turn on a good day, but I'm pretty frakkin' good with the software side of just about anything." he smiles.
"Lemme grab Constin's copy. I'll deliver it to him." The Captain then pops a brow at the offer. "We've got plenty, yeah. We've got our own personal ones for most of our use. Drop data off, take the thing back. Tell you what, I'll get a couple dozen delivered to you for free but you owe me a big-ass favor. One I don't know the substance of yet. Got a deal? If I don't have anything in a month or two, I'll have you come work a shift or two."
"Sounds like a deal, sir." Marko nods, then smiles. "Tell ya what, sir, just to sweeten the pot, you throw in a dozen, I'll owe you a favor _and_ a shift." he says, nodding a little. "Need to practice what I got taught in training, or I'll forget it all together."
"Hey, sounds like a deal. But one day my ass is going to need a favor and I don't take them lightly. I'll need you to, like, pick me up from downtown C-City or something equally insane. I once had to call in a favor like that from my boss. I got pinched on a grass bust and he paid off the DA's office to drop the charges." Mark grins. "But sure, no problem. Just remember that when you cross into our turn, your rank means nothing. Grab yourself a set of Specialist pins from supply while you're back there and tell people you're on assignment from me so people don't try and grab you for help with shit."
"Heh, if it comes to that, sir, I'll just hack the bastard's computers and make sure the police reports never hit the DA's desk." Marko laughs. "And, I may be insane, but that actually sounds like fun. Be good to get my hands dirty again." he nods. "Just so long as I get the disks I need. Maybe we can work out a long-term arrangement?"
Mark snorts. "Gods. My mother could hack that system. It was some rink-ass town on Leonis. I don't even remember the name. The DA was supposed to handle my big important two ounch grass bust but had to hand it off because he had to get his fields plowed before spring." he rolls his eyes. Yes, it was that kind of town. "Maybe, though. I can't work out anything termed for serious work down there without the approval of your DH. Though I could probably ignore it and say your squad leader. Get him to sign off, we'll see what we can do. As long as you aren't using the disks for porn or nothin."
"Ha!" Marko snerks. "If that's the case, I'd not only make sure the report never made his desk, I'd empty his bank accounts and spend a week at The Arches on his dime." he chuckles. Po-dunk towns and professional hackers….guess who wins? "Boots'd sign off on it, so long as it was only one shift so many days." he adds, frowning thoughtfully. "He knows I need the disks for all the projects I've got going."
"We'll have to go over procedures, man. Really. Like my guys and gals? We drill for damage control all the time. Fires are a constant hazard. If something goes down, I've gotta make sure we can get your ass out of there. It couldn't be too often." Mark glances to the Raptor. "But yeah, if this guy Boots will sign, I might be okay with it. Providing you can still pass firefighting procedures."
"My firefighter's ticket should still be good, Captain." Marko replies, nodding and giving another one of his famous half shrugs. Every member of the deck gang, pilots included, have to qualify before they're approved for deck status. Fires on board ship are _bad_, fires on board _space_ ships are _VERY_ bad! "But it's been a while since I was checked on 'em, could probably stand a refresher course."
Mark chuckles. "Everyone's rated, Scaurus. But all of my snipes are DC level or better. You want to play in our sandbox, you need the right tools. But its not too bad. You shouldn't have any problem with it and really, at the end of the day, its sure not going to hurt you to know more about damage control." He punches the man gently in the shoulder. "Anyhow, let's wrap this shit up."
"Sounds like a plan to me, sir." Marko replies, nodding and instinctively starting to return the punch before he realizes he's dealing with a much higher grade than he. "The more we know, the more useful we are." he says simply. "Stop by Raptor country one day, I can teach you a few of my own tricks." he grins.