Chapter 36: Kelsey’s On the Job

“Go ahead,” I said. “It sounds like you have an idea on how to train them.”

“I’m hoping it will help them realize that it sounds complex, but isn’t. Robert, if your team can move away and... ,” she paused and looked at the still standing starboard railgun team.

“Casey,” the gun captain said. “My name is Casey Gibb and I’m the main for the starboard gun. The others are Raccoon Roger Reynolds, who is the loader, and Chris Vito who will be the tech.”

“I’m Kelsey White, your weapons officer,” Kelsey said confidently.

“A young girl?” Chris grumbled. It sounded more amused than angry and Kelsey smiled.

“Trust me, the weapons officers on all of these ships will either be kids or former sports stars. It’s a reflex game. I’m just glad I have a lot of practice shooting clay pigeons with a shotgun. The problem is that railgun bullets don’t spread out like a shotgun blast does,” Kelsey said.

“What?” Casey said.

Robert stood up. “Makes sense. We have to aim the whole ship. We are trying to hit a moving target, while we are moving ourselves, and the bullet is a one meter sphere. That’s got to be a pain.”

“People forget that in World War Two, tanks had to stop moving if they wanted to have any chance of hitting their targets,” Kelsey said. “The computer gives me a lot of support, but half the reason I was in the bridge simulator was that after I tried the first training I was panicked about hitting anything. It doesn’t look easy once you start trying it.”

Casey moved over and took over the chair that Robert had left. The older man moved to stand by me.

“Where did you find her?” he asked as Kelsey worked to get Leonard and Isaac out of their chairs.

“Ran into her running a marine obstacle course drill. She was hurt by one of the obstacles,” I said.

“Deliberate?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “From what she and her brother said, she’s got great reflexes and an amazing shooting eye, but she’s never going to be someone you want marching across a battlefield. She tripped over her own feet and one of her legs got hit by a laser that had been set up to force the marines to crawl through one of the corridors.”

“Ouch,” Robert said. Kelsey had gotten the starboard team sitting properly and was standing just to Raccoon’s right. The older man was rather blatantly staring at her chest as she examined his control panel.

“Mark?” Kelsey called out. “How do I switch the viewscreen back?”

“AI? Can we return to simulation mode?” I asked.

The viewscreen returned to showing the rails. I noticed that the base of the unit had switched to that the loading area was now on the right. Kelsey nodded as she looked up.

“Next, is there a weapon’s station I can use without running to the bridge?” she asked.

“It will be inefficient if you intend to include a helmsman in the training,” the AI warned.

“Not for right now. I need everyone to understand how to load the guns smoothly,” Kelsey said. “We can worry about adding in ship movement once we can load the bullets dead centered on the rails every time in under thirty seconds.”

Kelsey stood up and moved to stand behind Casey. “Lance Corporal,” she said.

“Who?” he asked as he looked up at her. I realized that she was tall enough to stand over a sitting man.

“If you are the gun captain, you have to be a higher rank. That would mean you are at least a Lance Corporal,” Kelsey said.

“Oh,” Casey said. “I never thought about ranks.”

“We’ll try to be more formal about them in the future,” I said. “Right now I don’t believe any of them are permanent since this is all training.”

Casey nodded. “You wanted me to do something?”

Kelsey smiled. “AI, I’m going to make this a simple simulation. The current gun crew will be loading and firing twice. I’ll just call fire, to launch the shots.”

“Affirmative,” the AI said. “Simulation is ready to start.”

“Lance Corporal, give me two shots. Speed is not required. I want to see how well you center the projectiles and work together as a team,” she said.

“She’s good,” Robert said. “You’d think she had done this before.”

Kelsey drifted over to join us. She nodded to Robert as she moved to stand to my left.

“Now we see,” she said as Casey looked at his team.

“Raccoon, let’s get the first shot ready. Start the load,” he said.

Chris immediately began looking at the sub-displays on his panel as Raccoon began moving sliders on his console.

“I should have paid closer attention,” Chris said mournfully.

“Problem?” Casey asked.

“Everything is within acceptable parameters,” Chris said. “But I understand enough to see that we have a minor fault in the secondary coils for segments five, nine and ten.”

“Why so many problems?” Casey asked as the viewscreen showed a shot emerging from the magazine and rising into place.

“Exposure to space has a detrimental effect on the rail guns,” the AI said. “Entropy sets in and it is rare that a Patrician doesn’t have issues when the rails are first powered up after a jump. The simulations show that although it will be minor and not affect the ability to fire at this time.”

“I other words, once Kelsey and I command it, the problems could shut the rail down right from the start,” I said grimly.

“Row well and live,” Robert said with a snort. “I see that we aren’t going to be allowed to keep our rose colored glasses on.”

“Fire,” Kelsey said.

“Damn,” Chris said. “Ring nine has a short. Launch was good, but I need fifteen seconds to clear the fault.”

“You have time,” Casey said. “Raccoon; that was a good load, no deflection. Load me a second shot in the same spot.”

“One moment, there was a stutter in the belt moving the shots forward. I can lift it, but I have to adjust to get it centered,” Raccoon said.

We heard the sound of a palm hitting flesh. I leaned forward to look around Robert. Isaac was standing by the door with his right hand covering his eyes. “I saw that and thought it meant nothing more than the shot would be off center.”

“That is all it means,” I pointed out. “But a shot off center proved to be a problem you weren’t aware of.”

“And I was in a hurry,” Isaac said.

“Let that be a lesson. Don’t rush,” Kelsey called out. “We have a process. Follow each step. I’d rather you take five extra seconds than we rush and end up wasting the shot completely.”

“Its in,” Raccoon said. “But I have a field issue. I’m going to lose it from the center in ten ... nine...”

“Fire,” Kelsey said.

The projectile zipped down the track and out of sight. Once again the lights went out.

“The simulation has ended.” The AI said. “Scores are being compiled.”

The lights came back on and Kelsey immediately stepped to the center of the room. She put two fingers between her lips and unleashed a shrill whistle that got everyone looking at her.

“Thanks,” she said in the silence that followed. “Sorry for that, but I’m used to trying to quiet a bunch of people at the range I instruct at.”

“You instruct people in shooting?” Chris asked.

“I did,” Kelsey said. “But I guess that’s not my job anymore. Now I have to make sure that every shot taken by Corsica counts.”

I felt Ashley put a hand on my arm and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “She washed out as a marine?”

I just put a hand over hers as Kelsey looked at the six men in the room. “First, I know you do not know me, and I’ve seen a couple of you asking about my age.”

“I said nothing,” Raccoon immediately protested.

“I never said you said it in words,” Kelsey said with a smile. “Look, I was barely eighteen and people were coming to me to instruct them in how to shoot. I’m used to older men pausing when they first meet me. That said, the fact that we have to work in teams makes this current problem more complex.”

“I thought we did well,” Casey said.

“You loaded two shots correctly and gave me the signals I needed in order to fire,” Kelsey said with a nod. “However, if I compare your performance with the first team, you were slower. You also definitely need to communicate better.”

“Better?” Chris asked.

“This goes for both teams,” Kelsey said. “We are going to have to come up with a common shorthand language we can use to communicate most information. A good one is having a shot ready. Casey ... and...”

Kelsey turned to look at Robert. “Robert, ma’am.”

“Robert,” Kelsey accepted. “Its your job to tell me. And while there is a nice pretty button on your console, I’d love to hear, Ready from you just as a backup.”

“Probably should include port and starboard,” Isaac said. “Just so you know which gun is ready.”

“Thank you,” Kelsey said. “We probably will need to add that eventually. For now I’ll accept a ready call.”

“One thing we can’t do is hold a shot long,” Raccoon grumbled. “At least not if the field is acting up. That last shot wanted to dance.”