Does anyone else like the Aliens universe? I do. Just read this little jewel about a ship called the USS Shirow; think: Sulacos big brother: The Shirow is more than a ship, its a force unto itself. At the outset of the Linna campaign, we hauled into low orbit while the interdiction ships were still deploying the surface-detection sats. We kept the Shirow on an active defense state; its sensors are wide enough to protect itself and any other vessels in a compatible orbit for 5000 clicks. That means the ship will react to deflect or destroy projectiles as soon as the enemy aerospace launches are detected, regardless of the trajectory. The thing is, its not supposed to retaliate against the installations themselves without confirmation or intervention from us, otherwise it could saturate our own groundware when the enemy fires on a shallow track. We picked up the launch of an eightfold MAGNAlance pattern far south of the principal population centre, their active homing screaming as they reached the stratosphere and all of them heading for the Shirow due to its larger EM profile from the ventral antenna. The Shirow took this rather personally. It instantly powered the particle beam cannons and directed fire at the warheads, frying all eight in rapid succession and turning two into deadheads before they made atmospheric break. But that wasnt enough for the Shirow - according to StratCom our own divisions were deployed half a continent away, and werent expected to engage the rebels until aerospace superiority had been achieved. The Shirow considered that safe enough: it armed two strike nukes and dropped them on the position of the launch, much closer together than is usual. Even from orbit, the detonation looked like the fires of hell. Several days later, we got the word from surface command that theyd reached ground zero, and tried to confirm the remains of an ASAT installation; there was nothing left - nothing. They had to redraw the territory maps for that one. Seems the Shirow was dead on. Sometimes, I think its AI enjoys playing god. - Admiral D. Yates, USASF 62 - 78
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 11:00:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015