USN Bureau of AI
USN AI Present:
EBCDIC Time
Part 1
Combat conditions Arabian Gulf, Time the present . . .
The Captain is on the bridge of the USS Arleigh Burke, he picks up the telephone to his XO in the CIC, "Where are they, Barry?"
"Bearing 350, range 80 klicks and closing."
The Captain calls into his intercom to Able-88, "Did you get that?"
"Yes Captain, I can detect them visually but can not make out enough detail, Sir."
"Very well call out immediately when you can."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
Back to the phone to the CIC, "Power the missiles and prepare to fire."
"Missiles ready. the bogeys are still closing . . ."
Able-88 cuts in on the hot mic, "Fishbed airframes with bombs and rockets, probably Iranian."
"Where are the Saudis?"
"Eight minutes out, Captain."
"Hell, tell the Gun Boss to fire."
Three VLS doors open loosing three missiles, in a minute and a half two of the three bandits are scrap metal and a third evades for a few seconds and wrecks
his plane in a turn that pulls one G too much
"Damn it, if this isn't a war I don't what is," comments the Captain. The officers and crew members in the bridge silently agree with him.
Eighty-eight climbs back down the foremast and makes his way back to the bridge. As soon as the general quarters is ended he gets a communication from the
junior AI on board:
[Delta-04] "Eighty-eight, I have an order to fix the cake dryer. It has been open for three days and I still can not find it or the online manual, or
even a printed manual."
[Able-88] "Keep looking its there."
[Delta-04] "But I . . ." [TRANSMISSION TERMINATED By Able-88]
[Able-88] "I do not have time for this."
Delta four continues the search for the cake dryer, Eighty-eight is amused that after three days Delta four has not figured it out yet. He sends an e-mail
about it to Dr. Slickman about this, the Deltas are not as able to pick up on pranks and jokes very quickly. His processes turn to the situation at hand. Iran
is getting more and more aggressive. this is the second time that they have attacked a western warship in three days, a Russian warship has also been attacked.
His threat evaluation software can't make sense of what's happening. Why attack Russia? It's a system crash.
