Battle Born (7 page)

“Does this mean we do nothing, as the world thinks we did against China? That would be the safest move. But we look indecisive and weak, and I think that perception makes us appear ineffectual to our allies and ripe for more attacks by our enemies. South Korea and Japan think we abandoned them, and both are clamoring to renegotiate defense treaties to allow them to build up their military forces once again. As you know, Japan doesn’t allow any more U.S. warships to home-port or even dock there. And they’ve concluded a multibillion-dollar defense deal with Russia for MiG-29 fighters because they’re afraid of not being able to buy American jets.

“To the Air Force,” Hayes went on, “the answer is costly and politically hazardous, but absolutely clear. We must put a multilayered aircraft, satellite, and ballistic missile defense system in place immediately and rebuild our rapid-response intercontinental heavy-strike forces. The cornerstone of the five-year plan we are requesting is early deployment of the airborne laser and additional funding for the space-based laser defense system.”

“Well, let’s get into the specific programs and their status right now, gentlemen,” the subcommittee chairman said. The subcommittee members leaned forward in their seats; this was where the sparks would begin to fly. “I’d like to begin with the Navy. Admiral Connor, start us off, please.”

“Thank you, sir,” Connor said. “The Navy has vastly improved its air defense and ABM technology over the years and is now ready, with congressional support, to field the world’s most advanced, most mobile, and most flexible antiballistic missile defense systems. The Aegis Tier One system is in service now and has demonstrated a credible ABM capability, but Aegis Tier Two, using components available right now, will
increase its lethality tenfold. Aegis Tier Three will be the ultimate ship-launched air defense system, capable of defending the fleet and large sections of allied territory. We’re on track and on budget to deliver both systems.”

“General Hayes?”

“The Air Force is continuing development and acquisition research on the airborne laser, the nation’s only air defense system designed to kill ballistic missiles in the boost phase rather than in midcourse or reentry phases of flight,” Hayes said. “Mounted on a 747 air-frame, ABL can rapidly respond to a crisis, can set up anywhere on the globe in less than twenty-four hours, and can give theater commanders an effective multishot missile kill capability.”

“When can the ABL system be ready, General?” one senator asked.

“With continued funding support, ABL will reach initial operating capability with three planes by the year 2005 and full operating capability by 2007.”

Hayes could see many of the senators shaking their heads—that was far longer than they recalled when the program was first introduced. “But Patriot and Aegis Tier One are ready now, is that correct?” one senator asked. “When can Aegis Tier Two be ready?”

“In two years, sir,” Admiral Balboa replied proudly. “Modifications to the existing Standard missile, improvements on the Aegis radar system—all of which benefit fleet defense as well as improve ABM capability.”

“Very good,” the chairman said. “General Marshall?”

“The lead agency in antiballistic missile weapons technology has always been and will continue to be the U.S. Army,” General Marshall began. “Our PAC-3 version of the Patriot missile is the only battle-proven antimissile
system deployed right now. Our improved Patriot system, the Theater High Altitude Air Defense, or THAAD, system, is progressing and should be ready for initial operating capability in three years, providing we receive full requested-funding approval.”

“But as I understand it,” one senator said, “the performance of the weapon depends right now on the use of this so-called baby nuke. Is that a fair assessment, General Marshall?”

“No. That term is incorrect. The plasma-yield warhead is not a thermonuclear device, Senator,” Marshall said. “It is a new technology high-explosive device that will increase the capability and effectiveness of all classes of theater or strategic antimissile defense . . .”

“Excuse me, General, but that sounds like doublespeak for a nuclear bomb to me,” the senator interjected. “Would you mind explaining what these things do and omit the soft-soaping?”

“What plasma-yield weapons are, Senator,” Marshall answered, “are the next generation of high-explosive weapons, designed to be small, lightweight, but very destructive warheads for antiballistic missiles, antiaircraft missiles, and cruise missiles. They are not ‘baby nukes,’ and I’m concerned that this characterization will deprive our arsenal of a very promising futuristic weapon. Although I’m not a physicist or engineer, I know enough about the process and the application of the device to explain it for the committee:

“Simply put, plasma is ionized gas—a cloud of charged particles, usually consisting of atoms that have had electrons stripped from them so their charge is unbalanced or dynamic. It is the most abundant form of matter in the universe—the physicists tell me that ninety-nine percent of all known matter is plasma. Because the gas is composed of charged particles called ions and not atoms or molecules as air and water are,
plasma has unique properties. We don’t really know how to contain it, but we do know a lot about shaping it—in essence, plasma can be programmed. We can control its size, shape, mass, and what materials it interacts with.

“Plasma-yield weapons give us added flexibility by giving smaller weapons and delivery systems more punch, until we can improve our missiles’ accuracy enough to allow smaller conventional warheads,” Marshall explained. “The weapons use a small fission reaction, not to generate a thermonuclear yield, but to generate radiation . . .”

“A fission reaction—as in a
nuclear explosion
?” one senator asked, his tone incredulous.

“A rapid but controlled fission reaction more like a nuclear power plant, generating heat rather than an explosion,” Marshall responded. “We bring nuclear material together to start a fission reaction, but our goal is not to create the chain reaction that leads to an explosion. We’re only looking for the intense radioactivity to develop for a very short moment—milliseconds in fact—and then the reaction stops. The radioactivity is concentrated along a magnetic field and hits a pea-sized pellet of nuclear fuel. This forces ions—positively and negatively charged particles—to be stripped from atoms, producing a bubble of energy called plasma. Because there is no explosion per se, we can precisely control the diameter of the bubble, making it as small as a few hundred feet or as large as a city block.

“There are two noteworthy properties of a plasma-yield effect,” Marshall went on. “First, there is no large-scale release of radiation because the fission reaction is terminated gigaseconds after it starts. There is no nuclear chain reaction that produces the large explosion and release of nuclear particles and creates tremendous heat. The yield of this weapon is many times smaller
than a thermonuclear detonation, and the levels of released radiation are far smaller than even the proportional size of the yield.

“The second property of this effect is that the plasma reaction cannot take place outside the field, or bubble, created by the explosion,” General Marshall went on. “This is called the Debye effect. The plasma field basically consumes itself as it is created; it dies at the same time as it is born. The size of the field can be precisely determined, which is why plasma is used in such commercial operations as making microchips and drawing images in a plasma TV set. Outside the plasma field, there is no overpressure and very little heat or radiation. There is no shock wave as the plasma field is formed. The field grows to whatever size it’s programmed to grow to, then stops. The weapon doesn’t even make that much noise when it goes off.”

“It doesn’t make noise?” one senator asked, sounding startled.

“Some, but not as much as you’d expect for a small nuclear device,” Marshall responded. “You see, the weapon doesn’t explode as we all commonly think of explosions. It doesn’t transform matter into energy and expanding gases, and it doesn’t compress the air around itself. It simply changes matter—solid, liquid, or gas—to plasma, which is just another form of matter. As you know, there’s no sound when ice turns to liquid or when liquid turns to gas.”

“But there’s got to be heat, light, flame, radiation, all that stuff,” one senator pointed out. “Isn’t that a pretty violent reaction? We’re concerned about what the international community and the American people will think about our military forces using these weapons on missiles and bombs. How do we explain it, General?”

“We do tend to think of something changing properties as a violent process, Senator,” Marshall explained,
recognizing he was having difficulty getting his point across, “but in reality it’s not. When a pond freezes over, it’s not a violent thing. In physics, it’s merely a transfer of energy—the molecules of water release energy in lower temperatures and don’t bump around as much, forming a solid. Liquids boil when they turn to gas, but that’s not a violent thing either—it’s an atmospheric thing, the gases in the liquid flowing to a region of lower pressure when the absorption of energy separates water molecules. It’s the same with a plasma field. Matter is transformed to another form of matter by absorbing energy.”

“You make it sound so damned peaceful, so
natural
, like a flower blooming or a sunrise,” a senator said acidly. “We’re talking about a killer weapon here, General. Let’s not forget that.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “So what happens to the matter, the solids . . . oh, hell, you know, the buildings, the
people
, who get hit by this thing? What happens? Where do they . . . well,
go
?”

“They become plasma—that’s the simple answer,” Marshall responded. “The plasma field takes matter, absorbs energy, and converts it to ionized gas. The target is . . . well, the target’s just not
there
anymore, at least not in a form that our senses can detect.”

“You mean . . . vaporized,” said one of the senators.

For a moment, Marshall’s face was impassive. Then he nodded, looked the senator straight in the eye, and said, “Yes, sir. Vaporized. The target becomes a cloud of ionized gas, equal in mass to its original mass, but simply a collection of charged particles.”

The committee sat in stunned, horrified silence. The members did not even look at each other—they simply stared at Marshall and the other service chiefs in utter disbelief. Finally, the committee chairman said, “This is
incredible, General, absolutely incredible. And you are proposing that we actually deploy this weapon? You are asking this committee to write an amendment to the new budget to allow the military services to put this . . . this plasma-yield weapon on a missile? It sounds incredibly dangerous.”

“One property that I didn’t mention, sir,” Marshall explained, “is that the plasma-yield weapon is more effective at high altitudes, because atmospheric pressure dilutes the plasma field. This makes it a good warhead to use in applications such as air defense, antiballistic missiles, and antisatellite weapons, and not as good with land-or sea-attack weapons. That’s another reason the Army and Navy are using it in their ground-and sea-based antiballistic missile systems. Because we get a bigger bang, they can afford to use tracking and intercept systems that aren’t quite as precise—or expensive.”

“This is simply unbelievable,” the chairman said, clearly shaken by what he had heard. “A weapon that can kill thousands silently, yet small enough to be put in a suitcase.” As he looked at the others on the subcommittee, he shook his head. “I for one don’t want to start traveling down this road without more facts. I think we should table this discussion until we review more scientific facts about this technology.”

It was, General Hayes thought grimly, an urbane way of saying they didn’t want to think about it any more. Apparently, everyone on the subcommittee shared the sentiment, because there was no dissent, no further discussion. Hayes was shaken. It seemed as though the vote had been suddenly, silently taken, and it was unanimous. No funding for the plasma-yield technology weapon—which probably spelled the end of the Army’s THAAD program, and maybe the Navy’s
Tier Two and Tier Three antiballistic missile programs as well.

Then, just as it appeared that the chairman was going to adjourn the hearing, a new voice spoke up. “Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Permission to address the subcommittee?”

The Joint Chiefs turned toward Air Force Lieutenant General Terrill Samson, one of the aides supporting the Air Force chief of staff. The subcommittee chairman said, “The chair recognizes General Samson. Please be brief, sir.”

“Thank you,” Samson said. Terrill Samson, a large black man known as Earthmover to his friends, had risen through the ranks from high school dropout Air Force enlistee to three-star general and was the commanding general of the Air Force High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, or HAWC, a secret research and test facility hidden in the deserts of south-central Nevada in an area known as Dreamland. “My group has been working with the Army in testing plasma-yield technology used in THAAD. Senator, the Air Force has an interim concept for a ballistic missile defense system that improves on THAAD and provides a near-term technology solution until ABL comes online in the next five to ten years. We call it Lancelot. Part of our budget request was for an operational Lancelot flight test in the next several weeks.”

“Lancelot?” The subcommittee chairman flipped through an index, then turned to an aide, who scanned another set of files. “I don’t see anything in here about a Lancelot program, General Samson.”

“Lancelot was designed and built by one of our defense contractors, Sky Masters Inc., with help from my engineers at Elliott Air Force Base,” Samson said. “With all due respect, General Marshall, we saw how poorly the THAAD and Tier Two programs were progressing
and worked to address the difficulties. We used off-the-shelf components and shaved funds from some of our other programs, including our fixed operating budget.”

“You mean, you just made up this weapon without any specific funding?” one senator asked. Samson nodded. “And now you’re ready to test it, but you’ve run out of money; and besides, you can’t fly it without approval from the Pentagon, right?”