Stormhaven Rising (Atlas and the Winds Book 1) (73 page)

She opened the book, startled by the authors: Joshua Lange, Dr. Carter Anthony, General Victor Marquez, and Dr. Ward Danielson. Considering that the two scientists had been on opposite sides from the beginning, their sudden alliance was disconcerting.

She looked across the table to where the authors of the proposal sat, their expressions serious, almost grim.

“Ok, gentlemen, we’re all ears,” she said.

“This isn’t one of Stormhaven’s technologies is it?” William Worthington jumped in before Director Lange could even clear his throat. “It looks a lot like one of the weapons they used against our fighters.”

“No sir,” Joshua said. “The device pictured on the front of the proposal is the Sub-atomic Phase Disruptor that has been under development by the Defense Department’s Advanced Weapons Division.”

“It’s a beam weapon of some type?” the President asked.

“Yes Ma’am,” Dr. Danielson said. “It is an ultra high-energy particle beam that is capable of stimulating non-reactive matter at a quantum level so as to remotely induce nuclear fission.”

“In English, please?” Dick said.

“It’s a beam weapon that can cause the side of the asteroid to vaporize, and then explode with sufficient force to create a thrust to deflect the asteroid off its current trajectory,” Joshua said.

“Why wasn’t this idea put forth initially?” Worthington asked. “If it had been, we might still have an International Space Station.”

“Because the technology was, and technically still is, experimental,” he said. “Dr. Stanley believed that there was too much risk in using an unproven device.” The NASA Director stabbed fire straight from his eyes into the DHS Secretary’s heart.

If he has one,
Sylvia thought. She made a note to talk to him about his thoughtlessness.

“I agreed with his initial assessment as well,” General Marquez said. “And indeed, if I hadn’t witnessed several tests of this device over the last two days, I’d still be questioning whether we should deploy it. I’ve personally seen the prototype of the Phase Disrupter at the Camp Mars Testing Center, and it’s an impressive piece of hardware."

“What’s your take on this idea Dr. Anthony?” President Hutton asked. “Do you think it’s a feasible plan?” She knew there was no affection between the two scientists, and an endorsement of Danielson’s weapon would go a long way in her book.

“Actually, Madam President,” he said. “Of all the possible plans presented over the last several decades, a laser-induced steam jet is the only other one that I personally feel has a possibility of success.”

“I have to ask again why this idea wasn’t put forth initially,” she said, looking back and forth between the men while they decided who should answer.

Finally Carter took point. “Unfortunately, there are several technological and physical hurdles that needed to be addressed. Not the least of which is where to build it.”

“It’s already been built, according to what the General was saying,” Worthington said. “Just roll it out at Camp Mars, and point it at the asteroid. How much easier can it be?”

“The prototype is a proof-of-concept device,” Danielson said, rolling his eyes at the Secretary’s lack of understanding. “The full-scale Phase Disrupters would be several thousand times more powerful.”

“There’s one big problem with deploying them at Camp Mars, or anywhere else on Earth, for that matter,” Carter said. “The beam itself would react with the atmosphere.”

“Which means?” the President asked.

“It would cause a nuclear fission reaction.” Danielson said.

“The air itself would explode,” Carter said. “The damage to the planet would be as severe as that caused by the asteroid itself. We’d have something like ten-million tons of gas going nuclear. The blast would blow a hole from the surface of the Earth to the top of the atmosphere.”

John Herman, who had been silent so far spoke up, his voice sounding dry. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No sir,” Lange said. “They’re completely serious, and quite probably understating the truth. This weapon would absolutely make the planet uninhabitable.”

“Then why were we building it in the first place?” the Vice-President asked, looking at the Secretary of Defense like he was insane. The idea that they could build something that dangerous was terrifying even to contemplate.

“Just because we
can
build it, doesn’t mean we
will
,” Gene Reynolds said. “Sometimes it’s important to know how, before someone else does it, so that we can be prepared if they ever do.”

“And this is what you’re planning on deploying as Project Prometheus?” Sylvia said, looking squarely at Dr. Anthony.

“Yes Ma’am,” he said.

“Then where are you planning on building it?” Dick said.

“At the New Hope Colony site,” Joshua said.

“Where?” Gene Reynolds said, looking around in confusion.

“The Lunar Colony,” Secretary Herman said. “That makes sense.”

“Excuse me,” the Defense Secretary asked again. “What Lunar Colony?” He looked around the table for an answer, realizing that he was apparently the only one not aware of what they were talking about.

“Right after we started on Hammerthrow at the ISS,” the President explained, “we decided that it would be prudent to have a back-up plan. Since then, we’ve been ferreting away what we could pigeon-hole towards the idea that we might need a fall-back position. NASA has been doing survey work on the lunar surface for a small colony.”

“Really? Right under our noses?” Gene asked, shaking his head. “So this colony was the retreat position. I’m impressed.”

"I had no idea it existed until two days ago," Marquez said shrugging and looking at his boss in apology.

“So how do you envisage this proceeding?” Sylvia asked, surprised that he hadn’t felt snubbed by being left out.

“With the time constraints we’ve got,” Joshua said, nodding to the proposal in front of the President, “we’ll need to complete two additional TLS, and four or five lunar landers. Then we’ll deploy a Docking and Transfer Station in low Earth orbit to support the layover sequencing of shuttle launches with TLS flight schedules.”

“A transfer station?” she asked.

“A small inflatable temporary habitat,” he explained. “Really, it’s not got to be much more than two docking ports and a pair of solar wings to provide energy for life support.

“We’ll also need to relocate some of our scientific team to the colony to directly supervise the set up of the Phase Disruptors,” he said. “The idea is that we’ll have Dr. Anthony oversee the lunar operations—“

“We will?” Carter asked, clearly shocked. “I don’t remember seeing that in there.”

“And Dr. Danielson will be in charge of the fabrication of the components here on Earth,” he finished like he’d not been interrupted. Dr. Anthony’s mouth hung open like he wanted to protest, but no sound came out.

“Why are you thinking of putting him over the lunar part of the project?” John Herman said.

“Because we’ll need someone intimately familiar with the asteroid itself, who will be able to make decisions on site should anything crop up. Carter’s the most qualified Mitigation Strategist we’ve got,” Joshua explained, pointedly not looking at the astronomer.

“But wouldn’t an engineer be more useful in that position?” Worthington said. He’d read Anthony’s reports, and he clearly didn’t approve of giving that much responsibility to someone who’s loyalty might be questionable. Carter’s expression showed that he apparently agreed, albeit for completely different reasons.

“We’ve got plenty of qualified engineers that we’ll be sending up with him,” Lange said. Carter finally closed his mouth and just looked concerned.

“How many people are we talking about?” Sylvia asked.

“If we focus on deployment of suitable habitats for about 300 workers—“

“On the moon?” Dick Rogers gasped.

“We actually can have them on-site within four months,” Joshua said.

“Why is it that we can build on the moon faster than we could get Alpha restored?” Secretary Worthington asked, in reference to the report that NASA had issued the day after the incident, stating the station would take more than eighteen months to repair.

“Gravity,” Joshua said. “Building in a more familiar environment makes it easier to accomplish. On the lunar surface you have the ability to use tools that don’t require special training to operate.”

“It’s so much farther than to get to orbit,” John said. “Doesn’t that account for a lot of lost time in transportation?”

“Once things are in the pipeline, the time to transport is not relevant to the logistics,” Secretary Reynolds said. “Once you account for the delay in initial deployment, the entire project is only offset by that delay once. If it is planned correctly, the three days to the moon per trip is only a total of three days added overall.”

“Exactly,” Lange said. “We can build up a continuous flight schedule to orbit, and a lot of that can be provided by military boosters. Then we’d only have to worry about using the shuttles for manned flights. The TLS could cycle personnel and cargo from here to there almost steadily and then the landers would bounce the orbited hardware down and occasionally provide a soft landing for personnel or fragile components.”

“How soon after we have the personnel up there could we actually be doing something about the asteroid itself?” the President asked.

“Without budgetary restriction, we could be operational in about a year,” Lange said. The other three nodded in agreement.

“Without budgetary restriction?” the Vice-President said. “What does that mean to you?”

“Exactly what it sounds like,” Sylvia said. “A blank check."

“We can’t do that,” Secretary Herman said.

“The Chinese have,” Worthington said. “They’re dedicating almost twenty-percent of their entire GNP to their effort."

“And our objective is still to deflect the asteroid?” Dick asked.

“Yes it is,” Carter said. “One of the principle considerations in Dr. Danielson’s design is that we’d be building an array of Phase Disruptors rather than a single unit. By using several, we can distribute the energy more evenly over a region of the asteroid’s surface, and assure that we don’t accidentally fragment it.”

“That also helps with the power-handling difficulties of the technology,” Danielson said. “Several smaller weapons are easier to build than a single huge one.”

“With this much firepower, why don’t we just vaporize it?” Worthington said.

“I know before, you’d indicated that’d be the wrong approach,” the President said. “But this does seem to be a substantially different level of destructive potential.”

“Although there’s probably enough energy to do that, we could still face the same fragmentation issue,” Dr Anthony said. “Let’s say we drive a deep reaction into the asteroid and it shatters. Then we’ve got two, or more, targets moving at slightly different trajectories to worry about. So we do it again, and again and again. Pretty soon we’ve got two or three
hundred
targets that are still coming at us. It’s the same thing we’d be facing if we turned it into rubble with a big nuke.”

“You mean like the Chinese are trying to do?” the DHS Secretary said.

“Apparently so,” Carter said. “Has anyone tried to explain that they’re making a mistake?”

“They’re not talking to us anymore,” Secretary Herman said. “Seems that they got a little pissed at our cyber-attack on their communications infrastructure."

Carter scrunched his face into a frown for a second, massaging his forehead but not looking up. “Do we have any idea how long it’s going to be before they make a run at it?"

“We can’t guess what their timeframe is at this point,” Secretary Worthington said. “They announced publicly that they’re building a 1,000 gigaton device, but so far all we can say is that we
think
they’ve tested one in the hundred-gig range. And we’re not sure about that.”

“I’m not comfortable with the idea that we might be halfway through getting its course corrected, and then have them blow it up and leave us with no way to finish our job,” Carter said.

“How long will it take to deflect it?” The President asked.

“About ninety days, give or take a few,” the Astronomer said. “Six and a half months.”

“Excuse me?” the Vice-President said.

“Lunar days are a shade over fourteen days of dark and fourteen days of light,” Lange said. “The asteroid will only be in the lunar sky for half its day, just like on Earth. We’re planning on using the two weeks of off-time every month to do maintenance.”

“That doesn’t leave us much time to deliberate,” the President said.

“Almost none,” General Marquez said. “A delay of a month means we add at least an extra two weeks to the time we have to put into deflecting it. As it gets closer to the Earth we have to achieve a larger angular deflection. If we were on it right now, we might only need to deflect it a thousandth of a degree to get it to miss us, but if we wait, we’d need to get it to turn by as much as a degree.”

Carter nodded. “The General’s numbers are way off, but the principle’s right. For every week we delay in getting started, we add at least a week to the actual firing-time needed to deflect.”