Gnash

Gnash by Brian Parker Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: Gnash by Brian Parker Read Free Book Online
Authors: Brian Parker
Tags: Speculative Fiction
sub-basement.  Once there, he would systematically release the virus into the air circulation ducts for each of the floors.  By using an entire vial for each floor, the entire building would be flooded with the deadly toxin in a matter of minutes. 
    The other radical had the nerve gas in his pocket and headed towards the main entrance to the Pentagon where there was a chemical monitor linked to the security system.  Just as the retirement ceremony was set to begin at 4 p.m., the chemical would be released.  Bob smiled to himself; the retirement of the highest ranking man in the U.S. Navy was a very big occasion.  There was no telling who would be in attendance.   
    ***
    15 April, 1556 hrs local
    FADT-Development Conference Room
    Fort Sill, Oklahoma 
     
    Colonel Ulrich had been right, this was extremely boring , Grayson thought as he tried to find an area on his notebook that wasn’t covered in doodles and little drawings.  The meeting was well into its second hour and showed no signs of ending anytime soon.  Currently the artillery system development engineer was going over mathematical equations and where the new howitzer was in relation to the established thresholds for the project.  He’d taken the required algebra and statistics in college, but that was where he’d stopped.  At this point, the engineers were talking over his head in calculus and operational research modeling terms.
    Several of the artillerymen in the room had calculators and were running their fingers over the keypad double-checking the math that was being briefed.  That’s why Grayson had chosen the Infantry versus Artillery as a job, way too much math involved in making a 95-pound projectile land on target several miles away.  Since he’d been hired on as a civilian, he’d been the Field Artillery point of contact for all the new systems and the establishment of new artillery organizations within the Army.  He’d come to learn just how right he’d been to stay away from the artillery when he asked one of them to explain the process to him so he could do a better job as an HQDA organizational integrator.
    Every artillery officer had to learn how to do all sorts of manual calculations to get that round to where it needed to go.  They had to take into account the different weight of the projectiles, how much gun powder was used to propel the round downrange, the wind speed, temperature, humidity and direction at the different levels of the atmosphere that the round would travel through along its trajectory, the weather conditions both at the gun and at the target, they had to account for every individual howitzer because each gun had a different shooting strength based on the condition and age of the gun tube, and even the temperature of the gun powder itself had to be taken into account because it made a difference in how explosive and powerful the powder was.  Hell, they even had to correct for the rotation of the earth because the round was in the air so long that the target had literally spun away from the point in space that it was when the shot was fired!  It got even more complicated when the target was moving.  One of the guys had tried to teach him one time, but his head hurt as soon as more than four equations were written down to start the process of adjusting fire onto a moving target.  The guys controlling the firing of the cannons were smart, make no mistake.
    Of course now they had automated systems to account for all of that, but each one of the officers had to learn it manually first in case of computer outage and then pass some serious testing on the manual calculations.  They also had to understand how to go into the lines of computer calculations and check the code as it was computing to ensure the data was correct.  No, Thank You! he thought as he made a solid black blob on his paper by scribbling in a circle over and over.  I’ll take hiking over the mountains with 140 pounds of gear in the cold rain

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