acquaintances, all the circumstances surrounding your presence at that bar in Nashville, and any other permutation of those words they can think of-and believe me, you'll be shocked at the shit they'll come up with.'
'Jon, don't you think you're exaggerating just a little?' Cheryl asked with an exasperated smile. 'I've been involved with some of the most sensitive and intensive security systems out there too, and I've never heard of any of that stuff. And why would they be scanning employees out here in the open for things they just got through checking us for at the entrance? And besides..' Just then, Jon put his head down and muttered something under his breath. 'What did you say, Jon?'
Moments later they heard, 'Hands in the air, all of you!' Cheryl turned and saw a soldier in strange pixilated black, silver, and gray fatigues and helmet aiming an M-16 assault rifle at them from the corner of a building. The strange outfit made him blend in extraordinarily well with the buildings and the shadows at the same time.
'What in the world are you doing? How dare you!'
'I said, hands in the air!' the soldier shouted again.
Jon and Helen raised their hands high. Cheryl grabbed Kelsey as another soldier appeared and aimed his weapon as well. Kelsey giggled and raised her arms too. 'Cheryl, I strongly advise you to do as they say, right now' Helen said. She turned to her husband, wilted inside when she saw his 'I-told-you-so' smile, and asked perturbedly, 'Jon, what did you say?'
'I said, 'Cheryl, are those bombs under your bra there?''
'Oh, my God,' Helen moaned. 'This is not going to be pretty.'
It wasn't. Three hours later, including over one hour being individually interrogated and debriefed by security personnel and another two hours going through the original searches, ID checks, and scans all over again-including more of the same astounded expressions and whispered comments about the nine-year-old, as if it was the first time they had ever seen her-the four were right back to where they were before, walking toward the large sand- colored Hangar 7A.
'I don't think that was very funny, Dr. Masters,' Cheryl finally said.
'It wasn't meant to be funny, Cheryl,' Jon said. 'But it's hard to impress upon anyone how strict security is around here unless they experience it for themselves. Besides, I'll bet you've never been strip-searched before-it'll make you really watch your p's and q's from now on, not just in here but everywhere.'
'Jon, this is not funny. Those security people stripsearched and X-rayed my daughter.'
'It's not over, Cheryl-in fact, it's only begun,' Jon said, his voice turning serious again. 'Your life will not be your own until what you're about to see, and every piece of technology associated with it in any way, has been declassified for at least five years. And we're only going into the Secret area-if you go into the Top Secret or higher areas, you, your entire family, and all your known associates will be under constant scrutiny until you all die-plus five years. It's the way it is from now on.'
They entered the big hangar, submitted-more humbly this time-to yet another battery of checks and searches, and then proceeded inside. Two dark gray military aircraft filled the hangar; several smaller aircraft and air-launched weapons were on the hangar floor, all closely guarded by Air Force and company security guards, watching not only the hardware and the visitors but one another as well.
'Here they are, ladies-Sky Masters Inc.'s latest air combat projects, in advanced R and D or initial deployment,' Jon said proudly. 'The little ones first.' He stepped over to the first weapon. 'This is the FlightHawk, our multi-purpose unmanned combat air vehicle. He can do anything a combat aircraft can do-dogfighting, bombing, reconnaissance, minelaying, anything-and do it completely autonomously.
'This is Wolverine, smaller, faster, and much more maneuverable than FlightHawk, primarily designed for standoff attack missions against multiple heavily defended targets-it can outmaneuver even a Patriot missile. It has three weapon sections where it can carry a variety of pay-
loads, including thermium nitrate explosive, developed by us, which have ten times the explosive power of TNT by weight. It also uses imaging infrared seeker and millimeterwave radar for terminal guidance and reattacks. This is Anaconda, our hypersonic long-range air-to-air missile.
'Over there, with all the extra guards around it, is Lancelot, our air-launched near-space weapon,' Jon went on. 'It has a three-stage throttleable solid-rocket motor that gives it a range of over three hundred miles in a ballistic flight path or over one hundred miles in altitude in an antisatellite attack profile. They have extra guards because of Lancelot's warhead: It carries the plasma-yield warhead. It's most effective above thirty thousand feet, which makes it a perfect antiballistic missile and antisatellite weapon, but we can get a one-quarter- to one-half- kiloton-equivalent yield even at sea level. At higher altitudes, the plasma field created by the explosion is electronically selectable in both yield and size-at maximum yield it can destroy a target twice the size of the International Space Station, and at maximum size it can disrupt the flight path of incoming nuclear warheads spread out over four hundred thousand cubic miles of space. The plasma field does not just destroy a target: It converts it into a state of matter that exists in nature for only billionths of a second-or in the center of a sun.
'All of these weapons are designed to be carried by our combat aircraft, but they can be fitted to be carried by just about any combat-coded aircraft-even transport planes. You probably saw our DC-10 test aircraft outside- we can carry up to three FlightHawks or six Wolverines on board, and we can refit just about any cargo-category aircraft to launch them. The Lancelot, of course, has been deployed in the Air Reserve Forces and is fielded by the OneEleventh Bombardment Wing, which is based here for now but will soon be based up in Battle Mountain Air Force Base here in Nevada.'
He then moved over to the first warplane. 'This is one of our EB-1C Vampire battleships. As you know, it's a highly modified B-1B Lancer strategic bomber. It can still carry all of the Air Force's strategic and tactical air weapons, along with all of our new weapons. It's faster, stealthier, and has longer range and greater warload than the activeduty or Reserve Forces models. It uses laser radar arrays for targeting and terrain-following-it is fully air- to-air capable and can even attack satellites in low-Earth orbit with Anacondas or Lancelots. We have six modified right now out of a planned twelve-plane force, all coming from the B-1B fleet once assigned to the Air Reserve forces.'
Kelsey Duffield had already stepped over to the second plane-she was gently touching it, running the very tips of her fingers across its smooth ebony surface as if it were a skittish young colt. Watching her carefully, she noticed, was the security guard Sandy, with Sasha the red Doberman right beside her. 'This must be Dragon,' she said. 'It's very pretty.'
'Right, Kelsey,' Jon said proudly. 'Our newest and best project-the AL-52 Dragon airborne laser anti-ballistic missile weapon system. We modified a B-52 H-model Stratofortress bomber to carry a zero-point-seven- fivemegawatt diode-pumped solid-state laser, along with laser radar arrays for detection and tracking. I call it our newest system, but it's actually been in the works for eight years. We were part of the original competition for the Air Force's Airborne Laser.'
'You just lost out to Boeing, TRW, and their 747 variant,' Cheryl reminded him.
'We didn't 'lose out'-Boeing just had a more aggressive marketing strategy,' Jon said defensively. 'We spent a tenth of what they did on marketing and almost won it.'
The new bomb doors of the AL-52 Dragon extended halfway up the side of the fuselage, exposing the entire bomb bay and midfuselage space, and Kelsey looked up inside the open doors. There were four large curved devices, the laser generator's, on each side of the fuselage. Forward of the generators was a large stainless-steel container, the laser oscillator, with a large steel tube coming from the chamber forward along the inside center of the fuselage. Behind the laser generators were the capacitors that stored enough power to 'flash' the diodes to produce a pulse of laser light. 'Beautiful,' she said in a tiny voice. 'Just beautiful. You did such a good job with those laser generators, Jon. They're so small, but you can get about fifty thousand kilowatts out of each one, right?'
'That's right. We can push it probably to two hundred each, but we don't have enough generating power on board.'
'It looks like we can fit a few more laser modules in there if we make smaller capacitors.'
Jon liked it when Kelsey said 'we'-it was that exciting to work with her. He almost hated to say anything negative around her for fear of discouraging or distracting her-it sometimes seemed as if she was talented enough to cure a rainy day. 'Doesn't really matter-we just don't have enough power on board to make a bigger laser.'
'Can't we put more generators on board?'
'We've got as many as we can hold,' Jon said. 'We're maxed out on capacitor size too-it just generates too much heat to increase the size any more.'
She continued to examine the intricate SSL components, carefully but with sheer, unabashed awe in her eyes.
