Illoia felt a hand shaking her, and rolled over, trying to get away from it. It was too early to get up. Then she heard a humming, and suddenly realised who and where she was. “Tom?” she asked.
“Up and dressed,” he said, “Our sim time is in ten minutes.”
“Oh….” she responded, groaning and stretching and watching him rise and don his suit. “Do we have to?”
“Yes,” he said, seriously. “It could mean the difference between life and death for you in a bad situation.”
“I was just complaining,” she said, sulkily.
“I’m sorry. I thought your query was serious. Hurry and dress, please.”
Illoia rose and pulled on her clothes. She was tired from yesterday… and the day before. All of this newness was tiring, her new life was tiring, sims were tiring, sharing a bed with a lad was exhausting.
“Illoia, are you going to freshen?” Eudoria asked her as they emerged from the cabin.
“No… we have sims,” she said, yawning again.
“Oh, well, I’ll see you later, then.”
Still yawning wildly Illoia allowed Tom to lead her to the sim room, and then slowly undressed down to her under-suit.
“Today you will be learning how to use the ‘rifle’, the long range laser weapon,” her instructor said, appearing as soon as she had her outer suit off.
Illoia took the ‘rifle’ and looked at it. It was similar to the pistol she had practiced with, except for a couple of controls. “Before you begin you need to learn the new controls,” the instructor said. “We will begin with the basic fire control switch. Basic rifles only include the basic settings for fire control. These are: full automatic, nearest target, and full manual.”
“The rifle will automatically present itself in full automatic when the safety is flicked off. In full automatic the rifle need only be sited into the approximate location of an enemy and the trigger engaged. The rifle will then select a target, shoot at that target for an appropriate amount of time, holding the beam to a select location, and then move to the next target. Targets will be re-engaged if they continue moving.”
“I don’t understand…” Illoia said.
“I will demonstrate,” the instructor said. “Please point the rifle at that set of targets and pull the trigger.”
Illoia looked and the sim was showing her, in the distance, a group of four enemy clustered around the tree. She pulled the rifle up to her shoulder and looked at the heads up display. Then she aimed at one of the aliens and pulled the trigger.
False-color fire lanced out of the front of the rifle and hit the alien in a shoulder- and held. She tried moving the rifle around a little but the beam stayed with the target until, suddenly, it shifted to a new target.
“Wow,” she said. “That is awesome.”
“It is the standard battle setting,” the instructor said. “Most soldiers use it almost exclusively. The next setting is ‘nearest target’ and it is useful in many tactical settings. With it the nearest target will be selected and held until presumed disabled, then the beam will cut off. This allows the user to prioritise targets and preserve battery use. Please attempt its use.”
Illoia looked for the setting, then started shooting. The beam held about three seconds on each target, then shut off.
“Why does it hold so long on each target?” she asked.
“The time is variable with distance and the presumed armour of the target,” the instructor said. “There is feedback.”
“So it takes three whole seconds to kill something?”
“At the distance used in this simulation, and with the armour that the aliens are presumed to have, the beam will stay focused in one place for approximately 1.2 seconds to produce penetration. However the target’s motion cannot be perfectly predicted so the average amount of time is, as you suggest, closer to three seconds.”
Illoia practiced a few more times with that setting, and then switched back to the first one, “I like this one.”
“Yes, most do. The third setting is rarely used, and usually only for non-living targets. It has been described as ‘point and shoot’.”
Illoia switched to the third setting. Sure enough, the beam just went where she pointed it it. “Whoa!” she said, as leaves flew and trees toppled. “That beam is strong.”
“Yes, as is the armour that we and the aliens wear. That is why the beam needs to stay on for such a length of time. Come now, and we will practice standard warfare with this weapon.”
“Standard warfare?”
“Yes. You are listed as a civilian wife of a soldier. So standard warfare will involve several different situations. The first situation…” the soldiers said, and the world flickered and changed around her, “… will involve defending buildings against attacking aliens. The situation assumes that the compound is being attacked by aliens and the defending soldiers are either off on the front in another location or have all been killed. It also assumes that the younger dependents are locked into a safe location. At least, a location that will be safe if the invading aliens are killed.”
Illoia looked down the hallway. “I would recommend you hide yourself around this corner,” the soldier said, pointing. “The way the building is designed the aliens will be coming down the stairs at the end of that hallway, and will need to get past you, here, in order to reach the place where the younger dependents are.”
Younger dependents. Children. She hefted her rifle and peered around the corner. She heard a loud sound from above and then she saw an antenna peeping around the corner, and she fired. Suddenly she was jerked back around the corner. “Your suit will automatically draw you back out of fire,” the teacher said. “You should use our heads up display to shoot the enemy without being exposed yourself.”
“How do I do that?”
“I have paused the simulation. Take the knob for the heads up display and turn it like this.”
“But now it is sideways!”
“Precisely. So when you poke the rifle out into the corridor…” the teacher drew the rifle out so the snout poked out into the and…
“Oh, I can see!”
“Yes. The rifle affords a bit of shielding around your hands so that it hard for the enemy to shoot you while you are doing this.”
“It doesn’t seem very, I dunno, very ‘fair’. It seems like I am hiding.”
“That is a frequent complaint. Are you ready to restart?”
Illoia nodded and, again, heard the noises and again, this time via only the heads up display, saw an antenna poking around the corner. She squeezed the trigger and saw her beam try to concentrate on the antenna, which was quickly whipped back. “Even their antennae have armour,” the teacher explained, as Illoia waited for something else to happen. “Not as solid as the body armour…”
Suddenly three rifles were poked around the corner and she fired again. “… but still adequate for a second or so’s protection against laser fire.”
Her beam was focused on the grip of one of the rifles being fired against her but suddenly her right hand spasmed then froze. “Ow! What was that?”
“That was a simulation of an injury to your right hand,” the teacher said. ““I would advise picking up the rifle with your left hand.”
Illoia frantically gripped the rifle left handed and resumed firing. “This is awkward,” she said.
“Yes. I would advise changing sides of the corridor.”
“Can I do that? Ow!!”
“That ends this simulation,” the teacher said. “But to answer your question, yes. Your body armor is fully sufficient for a move of that distance, if you proceed quickly.”
“How am I supposed to live longer than that?” Illoia asked. They killed one of my hands and then the other. I suppose they would then run down the cooridor after me!”
“Yes, and when they had disabled you, they would proceed to the younger dependents, who you are assigned to protect. Some steps you can take to protect them longer would include moving your rifle in a random pattern.”
“Won’t their beams just follow me?”
“Yes. But there is an appreciable delay, so the armour will not overload as quickly.”
“Do they do the same thing?”
“Yes, but, ironically, in an environment such as this the fact that there are more of them means that it will be harder for them to move around, without getting in each other’s way.y
“Another trick you should use is withdrawing every two seconds, and then poking your rifle out in a different location. Standing, kneeling, laying down, that kind of thing.”
“Why don’t they just rush me?”
“Running toward you would greatly lessen their weapon accuracy, and give your weapon access to an excellent firing solution. And as the approached your beam would intensify to where you would probably be able to kill three of them in the time allotted.”
“Oh.”
“The same problem applies in reverse, as well. Are you ready to resume?”
That next time she lasted a good five minutes before she lost her right hand. Then she decided to try something and pulled back around the corner and listened. Suddenly she heard a noise and poked it out again and fired. Sure enough, just as she thought, she saw an enemy rushing down the hall at her. He suddenly lost his left front leg, and crashed against the wall. Once he was down, still struggling, She saw the other aliens poking out their rifles again and ducked back.
She kept that going for five minutes more, until, finally, one alien made it around the corner and got her point blank. “Excellent,” the teacher said. “You killed or incapacitated three aliens and lasted almost ten minutes before being killed. That is a good start.”
“A good start? What would be a good score for an experienced soldier?”
“The high score for this exact scenario is one hundred aliens killed.”
“One hundred??!! Seriously?”
“Indeed. The next score down, however, is fifty.”
“I suppose my husband got the hundred?”
“No, ma’am, his top score at this scenario was forty two. He has not played it in three years, however. I calculate he would do slightly better, today.”
“Forty-two! What did he do different?”
“I can send you his last attempt via vid, if you’d like, and you can review it in your quarters. All results of all soldiers are always available. Certain restrictions apply to wives and children. But we need to continue our training. The next scenario will be in an open field, and will be using kinetic-explosive weapons.”
“What are they?” My training so far, here and growing up, had consisted purely of energy weapons. She heard heard of KE weapons, but if she was going to use them she needed more than that.
“Kinetic-Explosive weapons were invented shortly after… well, that’s not strictly speaking accurate. Mankind has always had kinetic energy weapons and since earliest known history some of them have been combined with explosive power. I am speaking of modern kinetic energy weapons, which were invented in the year after this war began. The version that they had at the time is very similar to the modern weapon, only less powerful.
“They consist of small slivers of carefully shaped metal, fired rapidly from the end of the pistol or rifle. This metal, as it leaves the barrel and encounters oxygen in the atmosphere, undergoes rapid chemical changes to the extent that, when it strikes a target, it ‘explodes’… or undergoes a rapid chemical reaction producing heat, light, and turning into a rapidly expanding ball of gas.
“This has the effect of damaging the target, assuming that the target’s armor does not dissipate the heat and absorb the energy from the ball of gas. A KE flechette that strikes unprotected flesh almost always either amputates the affected limb or, if it strikes the head or torso, is immediately fatal.
“Ouch.”
“Historically soldiers have carried KE weapons in a form called ‘grenades’, which were hand launched… thrown… at an opponent. Some of these are still kept for use in close in fighting, such as might occur at a base. However for the most part KE weapons are now weapon launched. Most soldiers carry several rounds of ammunition for these with them, and one in ten soldiers, typically, carry weapons capable of firing them. Scouts are a notable exception. Every scout, typically, carries a KE pistol, and one in four carry a KE rifle.”
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Von