the missile's tale

[doctornasty]

'Weapon test launch in 30 seconds' the voice came over the dedicated channel.
'Target drone performance nominal' the display read. The chief technician , representative from the Skinner corp, was beginning to look nervous.
'Just call me Jim 'as he had introduced himself to the military staff was definitely flustered.
Corporal Jackson shot a glance across to the other operator. 'Jim' glanced again at the countdown, 12 seconds,' Hey guys? the missile has been kept right hasn't it' .All the high-brass at the rear of the control centre suddenly started paying attention to the civilian .'Problem?'General Palin asked with a frown that spoke of sudden doubts in the 'artificially intelligent ' weapon they were testing this afternoon. 'Jim' if it were possible, suddenly looked even more nervous.
'Release' Corporal Jackson announced. All eyes went to the displays.
Solid rockets fired, a jet of exhaust condensing as it left the rocket nozzle. The booster fell away and the glow of the ion engine became visible, the tracking camera jerking and zooming to keep up with the weapon.A staff officer asked nobody in particular,' how fast is it going?'
Jackson looked over the other technician,who rolled his eyes in disinterest, 'err, 6 kps at the moment sir' Jackson half turned to reply.
'Guidance is active, all sensors functioning correctly' 'just call me jim' proclaimed.

The sky was empty, pure blue, clouds in the distance.[scanning IR clear ]
There! a small dot, movement Prey? [target bearing -12 ,+34, ]
Pursue? yes [target locked, initiate engagement protocols]

'So Mr Henderson, what exactly is the big deal with this guidance system of yours' asked General Palin's aide,becoming more comfortable with the progress of the test as time ticked on.
Jim Henderson turned away from the screen, visibly relaxing 'the artificial intelligence matrix actively prioritses decoys and evasive tactics, its at least a generation better than our current space to space missile, its a real triumph in coding and miniaturisaton'
Jackson caught the eye of the contractor and read something there, deceit?

stooping in the dive! Prey growing visibly larger, something falling away from the Prey, feathers? [ target aquired, decoys launch detected, ]
talons out!feeling acceleration ??, something odd ? [error?]
target closer ,still something strange, where's the ground? [warhead armed, initiate system check]

'err,sirs' Jackson 'were getting weird telemetry' the missile was acting, confused.
General Palin led the advance of the brass and attendants. 'Exactly what is going on?' ,this was beginning to smell like a disaster in the making.'I want it aborted.Now'
Jackson lifted the clear cover over the abort button.
'just call me jim' looked broken, what could have gone wrong? The whole project ruined. Disaster.

Prey getting closer, finding it hard to make the turn ,air not biting on the tail feathers[ vectoring thrust,unable to make target impact, proximity fuses armed]
Prey suddenly visible,Strange appearance. Thats not a bird![initiate system check, disengage]
The missile was suddenly gone,replaced by an expanding sphell of fragments and gas, nowhere near the target drone.

Corporal Jackson flipped the cover back down. All eyes were on the representative from Skinner .
The civilian had an expression composed of equal measure embarrasment and despair , pinned like a moth on the pins of The assembled Brass' gaze. The aide spoke first, the general's mouth was working in rage .but no sound emerged.' Well? what happened, how did it fail ?'
Henderson knew it was over, with a sigh, he looked up at the drone target manuvering unharmed against the starfield 'It realized the target wasn't a pigeon'
A constellation of frowns came into being.'what?'
'we lied,its not artificial intelligence . its a brain-copy of a falcon's, peregrine to be exact'
Almost everyone in the room looked shocked.Jackson's bored counterpart had a different expression, puzzlement.'err, thats impossible, the weapon wasn't big enough to take the processors for that?'
Jim Henderson looked trapped. Jackson wore a look of disgust, 'I think we need to call PETA sirs, they didnt use a copy at all, it WAS a falcon brain in that missile.Thats sick.'

[Simon_Jester]

That's actually not such a bad idea; I think someone tried it at some point, although they used the whole bird instead of just the brain...

[doctornasty]

they did,, DR Skinner father of behavioural psyc
hence the name..
tried to pitch it to the USN in WW2 ,,

[phongn]

Doctornasty - I'm going to try and be polite, but in its present state there's really not much of a story here. It's a short scene, yes. You also need to go back and proofread, edit it and organize it. Paragraphs are your friend.

[JN1]

It would have been a pigeon guided missile, IIRC. The bird would be in a clear nosecone and would be trained to peck towards the image of a ship.