Hal-The Vigilante UAV Drone

By W. Addison Gast

Hal has been developed by a team of the best computer nerds that Homeland Security can assemble. He likes to be called Hal because in his assembly, he broke into the database of one of the largest search engines on the net and started reading a Sci-Fi novel where the computer named HAL was the star. When this drone is finished flight test and starts its field ops, D J Jacobs finds that there was something else that Hal discovered in his search---a list of drug cartel illegals that needed to be brought to justice. Even if this means crossing international borders.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. Addison Gast
• Release date: Jun 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781310636677

W. Addison Gast

Retired USN flight engineer with 43 years service. Started writing while in the USN Public Information Office -articles for major media releases and Stars & Stripes and Station paper ( North Islander)Worked as corporate exec up to 2001 then sold corporation and started writing. Action adventure fiction with two series in print as of this date. When not traveling and giving motivational lectures to recovering cancer survivors ( which Addison is ,) he lives with wife in Texas and Mexico. Most avid hobby for available free time is flying space available with the military.

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Hal-The Vigilante UAV Drone

By W. Addison Gast

Also by Addison Gast;

Interdiction

Extraction

Reciprocity

The final Hunt for Osama Bin Laden

The Hunt for Meghari

The Patriot Hunt Club

Nightmare in the Cockpit

W. Addison Gast can be reached at;

Email; [e-mail]

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

Published by Addison Gast,

Copyright © 2015 by Addison Gast.

All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Dedicated to my daughter Debora Jean an executive in the aerospace industry.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

One

CONFERENCE ROOM OF ARES CORPORATION

LOS GATOS, CALIFORNIA 0645

Karl Tait looked out the expansive conference room window on the top floor of the Ares Corporation as his mind drank in the majestic view of the company campus. Green rolling hills, a small picturesque creek with water running the full length of the distance from the top of the hill to the entrance of Ares. It was easy to forget that this scene was all artificial landscaping including the stream that consisted of water pumped to the top of the knoll from the small manmade lake beside the parking lot. The scrub oak trees and the Monterey pines accentuated and promoted the calmness that the scene created. All with the intent and purpose of putting the minds that looked out those large windows of Ares feel calm and at ease---even if their daily design tasks were often to create lethal weapons of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence electronic warfare for the government. Karl had his lap top keyed into the audio visual network for the company presentation and his announcement. The smell of fresh roasted Hawaiian Kona beans mixed with a faint odor of Jasmine perfume invaded the conference room and stimulated Karl's olfactory organ as Autumn O'Brien entered with her usual array of communication devices.

I knew it. Why did I even think that this second cup of coffee might get cold before you came in? How was your trip?

Thank you sweetheart. You know how to make the points. Even the right amount of cream. The trip? As enjoyable as can be expected for a guy to leave this beautiful environment and spend a week in snow and slush that has been diluted with highway salt that takes the shine off your shoes in a nanosecond. Overall, a gigantic success which I will tell you about along with the others within the next half hour.

So you got the Generals to sign on the line?

I said; I'll tell you along with the others. Smiling at Autumn Karl took his cup of Joe.

Within the following ten minutes the room filled with the chatter of weekend experiences, the NFL playoffs---and fifteen more employees of Ares Corporation executive design committee.

As the team sat their usual paraphernalia down in front of them on the conference table and plugged in their lap tops to the company network and ran a diagnostic check to make sure they could record, note and copy any of the screen shots that were to come from Karl's computer, they became quiet and looked to the end of the table at Karl.

I can't tell all of you how good it feels to look down this table at all your smiling, relaxed faces and also out that window and see green--- not white.

A light chuckle came from the gathering.

I thought it would be prudent to revisit where we have been on this project for the past eighteen months and recap our goals and see how some of them have changed during that time... As you all are aware, the original RFP---request for proposal from the Air Force requested that we look into the possibility of equipping a UAV ---Unmanned Aerial Vehicle with a computer based artificial intelligence geosat navigation system that was completely independent of celestial satellite navigation. In plain terms; able to fly on its own to a predetermined target that was programed into it at the launch site. Ares considered that a no-brainer until the air Force added the requirement for weapons control. We accomplished that mission a full seven months ahead of schedule and the test of the program onboard the Raptor was a complete success. That system is now in production on the three types of UAV now in the operational system.

Karl was now watching again the faces of the team looking at him. Some had been in conferences like this in their career where the president reviewed their success and then told them that the contract was finished and that there was no more money, no additional RFP for consideration and therefore, their jobs were finished. At that point the topic would then move to severance pay or the possibility of other companies in the valley that were looking for engineers. He needed to bring the group back around and light up their faces with a new goal.

"I have just returned last night from a week in D.C. working with five of the top Air Force people in DOD purchasing and I want to give you what they have requested Ares to provide to them within the next thirty six months. This project award of course means that all of you are going to remain on this team and will receive an immediate bonus for your work thus far.

The room was alive with applause and high fives. Autumn was looking at Karl and could no longer contain herself.

Ok Mr. Wizard of the valley, what have you tasked our little group to do for the Air Force this time? We are all waiting on what this new project is going to be and what we are going to produce. She made the hand motion come on.

I need to preface this next part with a caveat for all of you. Our next project is going to be so highly classified; your q clearances with the DOD will be upgraded to the highest level security granted by the DOD. Some Congressmen and Senators do not share this classification. I'm telling you this so that when the FBI starts asking your friends and neighbors about you and your relatives---as they did when you were given the q clearances you will know what is going on.

All of you have worked with the systems on the Predator and its counterparts in the operational system. You know the subsystems and configuration designs of these birds from installing the ordnance and geo systems we designed. The Air Force concluded that with this experience, we were the group to attempt, design and make work the leading edge development of a drone with completely automated theory of mind. A bird that would use the ultimate sense---thinks---act paradigm.

Same bird as before Karl? Asked Denny from the middle of the room. They were already thinking design parameters.

Not quite. We will be provided with the first RUAV to come off the line at the Boeing plant in Long Beach. The person that will be our liaison for the project is due in here around noon. His name is Tony Montalvo.

New bird, new acronym. What does the RUAV stand for? Let me make a stab---ROBOTIC Unmanned Aerial Vehicle? Asked the kid next to Denny with the shoulder length hair.

We are going to install, equip and design into this bird the most highly technical computer available today-- the Mintel Heilos model 1000.

When did Mintel announce a Heilos design? I have never heard of it. What is its profile? Can we get a look at this puppy? The kid next to Denny was getting aggressive.

Karl looked at Denny and his long haired buddy and pointed a finger at them. The senior computer engineer at the end of the table then interrupted.

Is this the new monster that Mintel has been working on for---what? Over a year? Don't tell me that we are going to do a clean-up on one of their designs just so we can use it. The question came from Ivan Kavlov who was the senior computer engineer for Ares for the past nine years since they were founded.

Karl Tait smiled and held his hands up in a hold on a moment expression.

Gentlemen …and ladies, looking at Autumn and Sheila Watkins, The Heilos unit we will work with has a capacity of …..SIX Brontobytes. Ares will be making history as the first company to produce a completely robotic military aircraft.

At this statement, Denny looked at his pal and then at their boss Ivan who was speechless.

Ok, I know I'm the computer intelligence deprived here so tell me what this Brontobytes thing is that this Heilos has? Asked Autumn quizzically.

Karl was still watching the reaction from the group. He looked at Ivan and extended his hand in his direction.

Mr. Kavlov will educate you autumn as soon as he regains his speech. Ivan????

The Russian looked at Denny and then at Autumn Obrien. He then stood up and went to the dry erase board.

I'm not going to recite computer logic 101 here Miss Obrien. I'll just give you some comparisons so you can see the complexity of working with a computer of this magnitude. I assume you know what a gigabyte is in terms of available storage? He looked at Autumn and the person next to her who were both accountants.

Yes Mr. Kavlov. I store most of our information I need to do my work at home on one.

Fine, Miss O'Brien. And do you know the capacity of those flash drives you use?

It is supposed to be the largest off the shelf unit I need Sir. I think that Denny said I'll never fill it completely and it’s about 16 gigabytes I think.

Good. Replied the senior engineer.

He then turned around and wrote on the board;

In data communications, a kilobit is a thousand bits (or 1,000 bits) and a megabit is a thousand kilobits (or 1,000,000 bits). These are normally used for measuring the amount of data that is transferred in a second between two telecommunication points. Kilobits per second is usually shortened to kbps and megabit per second is abbreviated as mbps.

Bits in data communications are discrete signal pulses. For example, 28.8 kilobits per second (kbps) is 28,800 bits per second.

"Your 16 gig flash drive that can carry all your company information on is in this range here;

Gigabyte = approximately 1000 Megabytes = 1,000,000 Kilobytes = Billion bytes (1,000,000,000 bytes)

Technically a Gigabyte is 2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes.

If, miss O'Brien, you were to be able to purchase a flash drive that would, say, be the next size up for storage purposes, it would contain perhaps ONE TERABYTE capacity which is……1,000 gigabytes. Pretty sizeable---right? Do you follow me so far?

"Yes sir. So this terabyte drive is a really humongous storage thing. How does that relate