“You’re kidding me, right?” the President asked. “Foam?”
“No, sir, I’m not kidding,” Alan said. “That’s exactly what we do. We wrap the satellites in special foam, making them incredibly radar-resistant. It’s extremely hard to get a visual on them, as well. The foam will also protect the satellite from a strategic laser, at least for several seconds, meaning the enemy has to keep on target for more than a microsecond burst. The foam would, of course, protect the missiles from any nearby nuclear blast.”
“Has anyone used nuclear bombs in space that I don’t know about?” the President asked.
Alan looked uncomfortable. “We know the Germans have plans in that regard.”
The President shook his head. “How
long
can these foam-wrapped satellites stay out of enemy detection?”
“That’s one of the things we’re testing, sir.”
“And?”
“Apparently, no one has spotted any of the packages yet.”
“This is unbelievable,” the President said. “I can’t understand why you haven’t said anything about this before now.”
On her device, Anna searched for the THOR Project. This sounded interesting.
“The project is in its infancy, sir,” General Alan said. “There are bugs, plenty of things that can go wrong with the system. It might not work as expected is what I’m trying to say. We have too many other projects that will work for us to spend too much time with these, um, impractical ideas.”
The President appeared not to hear the last part. “Didn’t you tell me the missiles don’t have warheads?”
“That is correct, sir.”
“Okay,” the President said. “That means they’re not nuclear, correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Alan said. “Nuclear-tipped missiles orbiting Earth are against every space treaty we’ve ever signed.”
“What a minute. You’re telling me these orbital missiles aren’t against international law?”
“That is correct, sir.”
The President laughed, but sobered a moment later. “So what good are they if they lack warheads? You do mean they don’t even have any conventional payloads.”
“That is correct, Mr. President.”
David frowned. “So…do they operate off kinetic energy?”
“Yes, sir,” Alan said. “That’s exactly right. It’s a kinetic strike.”
The President grinned at Anna. “That’s one you don’t have to worry about where the world turns against us in outrage.”
It took Anna a moment to understand what he meant. “Because they’re non-nuclear missiles?” she asked the President.
He nodded.
“There’s nothing remotely nuclear about them,” Alan said. “I’ve already said that, but it is one of the project’s strongpoints, at least when considering international law and worldwide public opinion.”
The President chuckled, a throaty, almost sleepy sound. “No doubt, Max would urge me to use them immediately. He’s been pressing for nuclear strikes. He’d know I couldn’t drum up an objection against using these.”
Anna’s chest tightened. Did David already know about Max’s challenge to his authority?
“How do these things operate?” the President asked. “Keep explaining it to me.”
“First,” Alan said, “I should point out that one of our biggest drawbacks is the lack of communication and guidance satellites. Those have all been destroyed. We tried putting two up in secret, but the GD spotted one and beamed it to smithereens. The Brazilians destroyed the other one. So we know our enemies are still searching space for anything we put up.”
“Hmm,” the President said. “We can still use AWACS and high-flying drones for geo-data, right?”
“They’re not really the same thing, Mr. President. Geo satellites are much better for our purposes, and we need the comm satellites to message the THOR bundles if they happen to be on the other side of the planet.”
“We could use submarines to radio them,” the President said. “One or two of them would be in line of sight communications on the other side of the world.”
“Possibly,” Alan said. “It depends on their exact location at the time. Now it’s true we’re not utterly blind without geo satellites, but our THOR accuracy might be limited, and that’s crucial with these weapons. Accuracy is everything with a kinetic strike.”
“Spotters,” the President said. “Can you use ground spotters painting the target with infrared lasers to guide the missiles down?”
“That’s a good idea, sir. It’s also another one of the things Project THOR is testing.”
“You still haven’t told me how they work,” the President said.
The general stood. “Sir, this is a highly experimental project. You shouldn’t pin any hopes on it.”
“Get to the point,” the President said, testily.
A touch of color crept up Alan’s neck. He nodded, and like a schoolboy reciting his lesson, he began to speak. “We send a coded signal to a THOR satellite. The bundle uses attitude jets to orient itself. At the right time, rockets fire to deorbit the satellite. After they burn out, the bundle opens and individual missiles begin to target their victims. These missiles do not have blunt noses, but very sharp ones into order to slice through the atmosphere. In this way, they maintain most of their orbital velocity.”
The President laughed with glee.
They’re meteors
, Anna thought to herself.
The general is talking about manmade meteors. What an idea
.
“Seconds before impact,” Alan said, “terminal guidance systems take over. Each missile strikes at four miles per second. What that means in reality is that a twenty-pound object will hit with the power of a two hundred pound bomb. When working as planned, it would be spectacular, and the attack would be over in five seconds. The project manager believes that the enemy would have no idea what had just occurred.”
“Would there be any telltale signs of an attack?” the President asked.
“Well, yes,” Alan said. “The missiles would leave luminous tails from space that would slowly dissipate.”
“Incredible,” the President said.
“Compared to other weapon systems,” Alan said, “the actual THOR missile is cheap. Launching them into space is another matter.”
“Is it really a missile?” the President asked.
“It’s a slender, dense metal rod,” Alan said. “And that’s it except for guidance systems and some control nubs. That means the missiles contain no explosives to go bad while they’re in space. In addition, on the positive side, there aren’t any firing mechanisms that might fail at the wrong moment. You simply aim and drop.”
“You said kinetic energy,” Anna said. “What are you talking about specifically?”
“Are you familiar with the shaped-charge grenade of an old TOW missile?” the general asked.
“I have an idea, yes,” she said.
“Okay,” Alan said. “When a TOW warhead detonates it produces a jet of metal particles that travel at the same velocity as a THOR missile. The TOW metal particles weigh a fraction of an ounce. Yet it can punch through the armor of most heavy tanks.”
“Not a Behemoth’s armor,” the President said.
“No, not a Behemoth,” Alan agreed. “In any case,” he told Anna, “the smallest THOR missile weighs twenty pounds, not a few ounces, but it travels as fast as the TOW particle jet. That twenty-pound projectile could punch a hole through a battleship and smash another hole at the bottom of the vessel. It could also destroy a Behemoth.”
“Or a Kaiser HK,” the President said thoughtfully.
“I should point out that there are various types of missiles,” Alan said. “They aren’t only meant to use against armored vehicles. One missile is made from depleted uranium. After punching through an ICBM cover, for instance, the metal produces an incendiary blast as the cloud of uranium vapor detonates. There are ways to use other compositions that would produce a shockwave that would flatten soldiers, ships and other targets. It would act as a fuel-air bomb.”
“This is a science-fiction marvel,” Anna said.
The general shook his head. “No. I assure you this is modern technology used in innovative ways. The trick is making a system the enemy can’t take over. That’s one of the biggest sticking points, and I find it utterly frightening.”
“Meaning what?” the President asked.
“If any of our enemies had our codes and radio frequencies,” Alan said, “they could order our own missiles to fall and strike us.”
“That must never happen,” the President said.
“It’s one of the things we’re testing and believe me trying to prefect,” Alan said.
“How many of the experimental satellites do we have in space at the moment?”
“I believe four bundles are presently in orbit, sir.”
“We need more,” the President said, “many more.”
“If they worked as predicted, I totally agree, sir. At the moment, however, we lack the launch facilities to send many more aloft.”
The President began rocking in his chair. He had a far-off look on his face.
After a time, the general glanced questioningly at Anna.
She shrugged. She’d seen the look before. It was a good sign. David was processing.
The general finally sat back down and began leafing through his papers. He licked the tip of his index finger every few seconds to help him. Anna went back to reading her device.
Maybe twenty minutes later, the rocking chair stopped squeaking. Both Anna and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs looked up.
David eyed them. “I’m giving this priority one.”
“Sir?” Alan asked.
“The THOR Project,” the President said. “From now on it gets full priority ahead of everything else.”
General Alan balked. “But sir, we don’t even know if the missiles work yet. What I’ve just been telling you, it’s all theory. We can’t just dump what works for some pie in the sky project.”
“Hmm,” the President said. “There’s far too much that doesn’t work these days. We need a war-winner and we need it now.”
“I understand that, sir, but—”
“The Behemoth tank gave us part of the answer,” the President said in a rush. “The Jefferson tank is important, too. This might be another answer, maybe the ticket we need to finally beat these aggressors for good.”
“Or it might be a rabbit trail that wastes precious time and resources,” Alan said.
Anna watched David. She hadn’t seen him like this for some time. Normally, the flesh hung on his face and he gave monosyllable replies. Now, the skin seemed to have tightened, especially on his cheeks. There was something more about him than that hangdog look she’d been seeing…well, all of the time, lately. Hope shone in his eyes.
But is he clinging to a false answer like Alan suggests?
“Maybe it is a waste,” the President said. “You might be right, General. But I’ll tell you something. We need a break and we need it now. If this thing doesn’t work…” He shrugged. “I don’t know that it will have put us that much more in the hole than we’re already in to have given the THOR Project priority and it fizzles.”
I know what this is
, Anna thought.
He can’t let go of how the GD neutrality turned against us. He made the Faustian bargain, and it has bitten us hard. He’s looking for something to negate what he did
.
“I’m not sure I can agree with you, Mr. President,” Alan said.
“Would you like my input on this, sir?” Anna asked.
The President tore his gaze from Alan and studied her. He must have seen something positive on her face. “Yes, I would like to hear your opinion.”
“You should do this,” she said. “You should give top priority to the THOR Project.”
“Can you give me a good reason why you believe this?” Alan asked her.
Because it gives David hope
. She didn’t know if she could tell the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs that. Instead, she said, “We’re going to have to take a risk somewhere in order to win. Why not take the risk here?”
“Calculated risks,” Alan said. “We need to finish the tests before we waste precious rocket resources on these bundles. If the THOR missiles don’t work for whatever reason, those rockets will have been wasted. We need the rockets in order to replenish the number of our medium-range missiles. They were vital in stopping the Chinese this winter. They will likely be vital again to stopping the Germans.”
“I don’t disagree with that,” the President said. “But we do need the THOR missiles. We need something that works spectacularly like the Behemoths tanks did.”
It hurt Anna to hear the note of pleading in the President’s voice. Couldn’t Alan understand that they needed to keep David hopeful? Wouldn’t wasting a few rockets be worth that?
“We badly need allies,” Alan said. “That doesn’t mean we get them. We have to face the facts, sir. The truth of the matter is that a new weapons system always has teething problems. The THOR Project won’t be any different, no matter how much we want it or need it.”
“I realize that,” the President said. He looked away, and something hardened on his face. He turned back to Alan, and any hint of pleading had left his voice. “The THOR Project
will
get crash priority.”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs licked his lips. It was clear he planned to fight or at least to resist the idea further.