"Brown, Dale - Patrick 7 - Battle Born" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Dale)

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 gasto 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 groundand 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 southcentral 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," Samsoл said. "With all due respect, General Marshall, we saw how poorly the THAAD and Tier Two programs were pro-



gressing 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?"
"That's it in a nutshell, sir," Samson responded.
"Interesting," the senator remarked. He looked at General Hayes, noted his barely disguised discomfort, and asked, "General Hayes, do you know anything about this Lancelot program?"
Hayes took a deep breath, let it out, then said in an even voice, "General Samson was handpicked by the President and the secretary of defense to run the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, our nation's primary air weapons research center. In all honesty, sir, I did not know about Lancelot . . ."
"Neither did I," Admiral Balboa interjected hotly. "I know Dreamland is supposed to be a top-secret installation, General, but not from me"
"Quite frankly, sir," Hayes went on, "if General Samson waited to give me a detailed briefing and get my approval for every one of the hundreds of programs he manages every month out at HAWC, he'd never get any work done. We pay him to get results, not waste time in Washington giving briefings." He noted the irritated frowns on the subcommittee members' faces, grinned inwardly, and quickly went on: "If General Samson says it's good and it's ready to fly, then I support him. I'm sure General Samson enjoys the enthusiastic support of the White House."
Balboa had no response to that because he knew it to be true. After the successful counterstrikes against
China staged by weapon systems developed at Dreamland, Samson was the new golden boy at the White House. He and his senior staff members were far more popular than Dreamland's bombastic first director, Bradley James Elliott-who was missing and presumed killed in the attacks against China's intercontinental ballistic missile sites-had ever been.
"Good," the senator said, as if he expected no other response than that. "I'm sure GAO will have to look into the legality of General Samson raiding his budget for unapproved weapons research, but that's a question for some


other committee. If it fails, you'll be the goat. If it works, you might be a hero."
"It'll work, sir," Samson said enthusiastically. "My troops and I believe in Lancelot so much that we've put our careers on the line to prove it'll work. If it doesn't, I'm sure General Hayes will be looking for a new director at HAWC. But we believe that won't happen, Senator. Lancelot will work. We can go into initial operational capability with one squadron, eight aircraft, within six months. Lancelot will give us a worldwide antiballistic missile, cruise missile, antiaircraft, and even antisatellite defense capability second to none until the airborne laser is deployed. We're betting our careers on it,"