It's not Rocket Surgery but it Might be Brain Science

The train passed more fields, and then suddenly the track was skirting some sort of military base. Right at the bottom of the high railway embankment was a high and rusty fence topped with barbed wire, then a few metres of daisy-speckled grass before the strange sight of what seemed a forest of white and black missiles all pointing nearly to the azimuth. This was the modern squadron, the future of warfare in unmanned craft, leaving all the risk, at least on our side, to the poor saps who fueled the things and remained out in the open. The real pilots were the radar boxes and rudimentary computers that keep them on track high into the blue above.

It was intriguing enough to be at once on the midst of this defensive display and he sat facing the window, taking in the changing perspective as missile passed in front of missile until he had lost count of how many there were. But without warning, out in the distance one of them fired, streaking out into the sky, leaving just a spiral track of white smoke dispersing over the remainder. It had been so fast and so out of his vision that at first he longed for another to launch, the desire to witness the power of the things far outweighing any worry he might have about why it had fired. He turned to where the missile had gone, straining against the brilliance of the sky to see any evidence of impact. He managed to locate the flash of sun on something high up and in the right place but there was no sudden silent puff of smoke signalling detonation. Eventually he was left straining to see where the speck had been. Back along the line, the smoke had cleared from the site and the rest of the missiles were as they were before. Leaning out of the window he could just see the gap where the errant projectile had been, its absence all that was left to signify its previous existence.

"Just a test?" he thought to himself, the question mark only half-hearted for he did not know of anything in the world that would raise our alert to the level where we might fire on something. And then he realised that he just could not know what went on at all times and everywhere. Of course we would hope that any attack out of the blue would be resisted quickly and the risks these days were more likely to be so rather than the ultimate result of sabre-rattling and raised tensions. The threat levels are just mere posturing, reassurance for the plebs and political brinkmanship for those inclined to the democratic process. "Why worry?" he mused further. The world was still the same.

High above him, close to the edge of space, the missile found its target, a speeding unknown, a slab of black and not black, glowing hot from the friction between it and the sparse atmosphere. Almost in silence, the detonation came, an instant vapourising flash of bright white, a moving off in the direction of the sum of two different momenta and the gradual fall to earth of myriad glowing fragments. Hours later they peppered the sea off the coast, unseen by anyone and the engagement was over.