GWOT VII - Weapons Free
Apr. 2nd, 2021 07:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGWOT VII - Weapons Free
Secure Conference Room Four
near Barstow, CA
The presentation was brief. The briefers were of the highest rank. Helping them disappear from their offices and roles long enough to do this meeting had not been a minor exercise.
The Governor frowned at the generals. And one Captain, on whom this entire venture depended.
"Captain. Everything depends on you being able to do what you say you can do."
"Not me, Governor. The Naval Militia."
The Governor nodded, not accepting the correction.
"The Naval Militia is your creation. And California would not be alive today without it. But I am considering another toss of the dice. Double or nothing. You are the die. And a bad roll means we all ... perish.
"I need to consider contingencies. You've said you can kill every Trident capable sub under Untied Snakes control. What happens if you miss one, and she launches?"
"Two hundred and forty inbounds, clumped in threes, with a time on target of at least eight minutes and no more than forty minutes. Sixty four tubes. Three submersible air defense cruisers. Plus the shore installations, six squadrons of first line fighters," he nodded to the Air National Guard general, "... and terminal air defense. We will kill that sub. If it flushes tubes, we will probably lose three to six cities. Definitely Los Angeles."
One nuclear detonation anywhere near Los Angeles meant a literal ring of fire from the many wildfires that would be started simultaneously, in addition to the millions of dead.
"What happens if you miss two?"
The Captain shook his head. He didn't need to say it. They all knew. We all die and California with us.
"I have no alternative but to consider the Cube."
One person was in the room who was not a General or ersatz Admiral or Governor. Short, thick, spiky short hair, in an ill fitting suit. She could have worn a clown suit and slippers and a nose horn and she still would have been in the room for this.
"Governor, the Cube was a horrible mistake. We still don't know what happens if you power one down. We think - think! - that if you destroy it in enough microseconds just after losing the field integrity, that the wormhole will collapse on itself without harm. But if we are wrong... there are at least three ways that a Cube could potentially kill all life on this planet. One takes weeks, one would take about a day if you were lucky enough to be on the other side of the planet, and one takes about ten seconds.
"There are now twenty-seven Cubes. One is in my lab, and as its support equipment weighs over thirty tons, it's not going anywhere. Only the good Captain knows where another twenty-two are. In his submarines, including those three defense subs. That leaves four in the hands of black hats."
"_I_ know where those four are," the Governor asserted quietly. One of them in fact rested in the briefcase that the public and carefully leaked intelligence thought was her nuclear code satchel. The codes were already distributed to the SDF; California didn't control her weapons of mass destruction that way.
One had been given to France, and one to England, as testimony and as an act of faith. Presumably their scientists were trying to unlock the Cube's secrets, nowhere near their mother countries.
The fourth was in China. Which might just save the world, or damn it.
"One theory is that they might sympathetically detonate. If one goes, all go. Captain?"
"We are aware, and have taken precautions."
"Can you kill all the Tridents anyway? Even if the Cubes take out the platforms they are deployed on?"
Even deep in the heart of the most secure facility California possessed, the Captain wanted to hold that card close to his heart.
He didn't dare.
"Seven and four hundred. Not three and one hundred fifty."
"Captain!"
"The four all have significant ... issues. The two hundred and fifty are floating deathtraps. But they are crewed and they are capable. And none of them have a Cube anywhere near them."
"I'm only here because I'm a physicist. I don't know anything about the military. You are telling me that you have hundreds of people willing to die on your word?"
"Thousands, Doctor. Thousands. They all know the score. No one knows about the Cube, of course, but we all know what America did to us, and to China."
The physicist turned to the Commanding General.
"What do soldiers do in the face of all this?"
"Ma'am. I can't swim to shore, let alone from underwater. I can't fly a plane and the kind of parachute I know how to use was made by the lowest bidder. But you give me a shovel and I will dig like a badger. Bombs, nukes, Cubes, I don't care. If there's a way, some eighteen year old kid with a shovel and a rifle will find it, and drag a civilian in with him. Americans won't nuke their own soil. So we'll go there.
"Full invasion ready to execute in six days, Governor. My primary invasion target is Denver. Alternates are ABQ, Kansas City and Omaha. If the Texans get froggy, El Paso then San Antonio and Houston. If the south doesn't pan out, we'll scatter into the Rockies. Might get a little hungry by and by, but by God we know mountains now. Pattern nuke the Rockies and America doesn't have a midcontinental water supply. So they have to dig us out the hard way. We know where every American bunker complex is, and some of us even know codes. If your Cube blows off the atmosphere, we'll terraform the Earth again if we have to."
Of course, if the Earth was eaten by a growing wormhole or blown into car-sized fragments, bravado meant nothing. But if bravado would serve, California had that too.
"These are contingencies. I have to know them, for the next steps. Thank you officers, you may step out. Doctor please remain."
The next meeting was with the California Department of State.
"Thank you for coming. I am about to attempt what our enemies will believe is a colossal bluff. As you all know, that doesn't work.
"Doctor, what can you do with a Cube to prove how dangerous it is, without actually killing us all?"
A pregnant pause.
"It would take me about a week to explain to a nuclear physicist what a Cube is capable of. I would need a Cube, preferably the one in my lab, to show them."
"At point in your presentation would they get it? To the point of writing an Einstein letter?"
"Maybe four days in."
"Thank you Doctor. Please step out for a moment. And send the Expeditionary Force General back in."
A moment later.
"I need a scientific conference organized on a pretext. It must contain top physicists from all over the world. The Doctor here will be our host. We msut be prepared to hold them incommunicado. At least three of them must be absolutely top tier Americans, preferably well known to their NSA and DIA. Start setting it up. Use the pretext that we have another breakthrough in nuclear weapons. It's even kind of true."
A pause.
"Get on your fucking phones and do it now."
This left the Doctor alone with the Governor.
"Doctor, it has occured to me, as it will to the Americans, that you might be lying about the hazards of the Cube. I believe you, but I am also a bullshit artist. Other California physicists believe you, but I am not a physicist. Explain to me that this is not a conspiracy of the scientists."
The Doctor looked helpless.
"I can't."
"Very well." The Governor picked up the phone. "I need the Strategic Officer. Now."
He raced in and opened his satchel.
"Colonel, I am the Governor and this is an order. Disconnect that Cube from its power supply."
The Colonel flinched and the Doctor's jaw dropped.
"That's a Cube... oh my God ..."
"Do it now, Colonel. The Vice Governor is in Sacramento, there will be continuity."
The Colonel opened the outer case of the Cube and started to reach within.
"NO!" the Doctor screamed and lurched forward. She would not win a physical altercation with a commando trained officer, but she was certainly willing to try.
"Stop," the Governor said calmly.
They both did. Only the Doctor's chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath.
"I'm sorry, Doctor. I had to know. I had to know for sure. Colonel, you are dismissed to your duty. And I think that little thing had better stay plugged in."
He saluted and left.
"Doctor, when you knew what you had with the first one, why did you cooperate in building a second? And then more?"
"Because one is just my problem. More becomes everyone's problem."
The insight hit the Governor like a truck.
"Thank you, Doctor."
Secure Conference Room Four
near Barstow, CA
The presentation was brief. The briefers were of the highest rank. Helping them disappear from their offices and roles long enough to do this meeting had not been a minor exercise.
The Governor frowned at the generals. And one Captain, on whom this entire venture depended.
"Captain. Everything depends on you being able to do what you say you can do."
"Not me, Governor. The Naval Militia."
The Governor nodded, not accepting the correction.
"The Naval Militia is your creation. And California would not be alive today without it. But I am considering another toss of the dice. Double or nothing. You are the die. And a bad roll means we all ... perish.
"I need to consider contingencies. You've said you can kill every Trident capable sub under Untied Snakes control. What happens if you miss one, and she launches?"
"Two hundred and forty inbounds, clumped in threes, with a time on target of at least eight minutes and no more than forty minutes. Sixty four tubes. Three submersible air defense cruisers. Plus the shore installations, six squadrons of first line fighters," he nodded to the Air National Guard general, "... and terminal air defense. We will kill that sub. If it flushes tubes, we will probably lose three to six cities. Definitely Los Angeles."
One nuclear detonation anywhere near Los Angeles meant a literal ring of fire from the many wildfires that would be started simultaneously, in addition to the millions of dead.
"What happens if you miss two?"
The Captain shook his head. He didn't need to say it. They all knew. We all die and California with us.
"I have no alternative but to consider the Cube."
One person was in the room who was not a General or ersatz Admiral or Governor. Short, thick, spiky short hair, in an ill fitting suit. She could have worn a clown suit and slippers and a nose horn and she still would have been in the room for this.
"Governor, the Cube was a horrible mistake. We still don't know what happens if you power one down. We think - think! - that if you destroy it in enough microseconds just after losing the field integrity, that the wormhole will collapse on itself without harm. But if we are wrong... there are at least three ways that a Cube could potentially kill all life on this planet. One takes weeks, one would take about a day if you were lucky enough to be on the other side of the planet, and one takes about ten seconds.
"There are now twenty-seven Cubes. One is in my lab, and as its support equipment weighs over thirty tons, it's not going anywhere. Only the good Captain knows where another twenty-two are. In his submarines, including those three defense subs. That leaves four in the hands of black hats."
"_I_ know where those four are," the Governor asserted quietly. One of them in fact rested in the briefcase that the public and carefully leaked intelligence thought was her nuclear code satchel. The codes were already distributed to the SDF; California didn't control her weapons of mass destruction that way.
One had been given to France, and one to England, as testimony and as an act of faith. Presumably their scientists were trying to unlock the Cube's secrets, nowhere near their mother countries.
The fourth was in China. Which might just save the world, or damn it.
"One theory is that they might sympathetically detonate. If one goes, all go. Captain?"
"We are aware, and have taken precautions."
"Can you kill all the Tridents anyway? Even if the Cubes take out the platforms they are deployed on?"
Even deep in the heart of the most secure facility California possessed, the Captain wanted to hold that card close to his heart.
He didn't dare.
"Seven and four hundred. Not three and one hundred fifty."
"Captain!"
"The four all have significant ... issues. The two hundred and fifty are floating deathtraps. But they are crewed and they are capable. And none of them have a Cube anywhere near them."
"I'm only here because I'm a physicist. I don't know anything about the military. You are telling me that you have hundreds of people willing to die on your word?"
"Thousands, Doctor. Thousands. They all know the score. No one knows about the Cube, of course, but we all know what America did to us, and to China."
The physicist turned to the Commanding General.
"What do soldiers do in the face of all this?"
"Ma'am. I can't swim to shore, let alone from underwater. I can't fly a plane and the kind of parachute I know how to use was made by the lowest bidder. But you give me a shovel and I will dig like a badger. Bombs, nukes, Cubes, I don't care. If there's a way, some eighteen year old kid with a shovel and a rifle will find it, and drag a civilian in with him. Americans won't nuke their own soil. So we'll go there.
"Full invasion ready to execute in six days, Governor. My primary invasion target is Denver. Alternates are ABQ, Kansas City and Omaha. If the Texans get froggy, El Paso then San Antonio and Houston. If the south doesn't pan out, we'll scatter into the Rockies. Might get a little hungry by and by, but by God we know mountains now. Pattern nuke the Rockies and America doesn't have a midcontinental water supply. So they have to dig us out the hard way. We know where every American bunker complex is, and some of us even know codes. If your Cube blows off the atmosphere, we'll terraform the Earth again if we have to."
Of course, if the Earth was eaten by a growing wormhole or blown into car-sized fragments, bravado meant nothing. But if bravado would serve, California had that too.
"These are contingencies. I have to know them, for the next steps. Thank you officers, you may step out. Doctor please remain."
The next meeting was with the California Department of State.
"Thank you for coming. I am about to attempt what our enemies will believe is a colossal bluff. As you all know, that doesn't work.
"Doctor, what can you do with a Cube to prove how dangerous it is, without actually killing us all?"
A pregnant pause.
"It would take me about a week to explain to a nuclear physicist what a Cube is capable of. I would need a Cube, preferably the one in my lab, to show them."
"At point in your presentation would they get it? To the point of writing an Einstein letter?"
"Maybe four days in."
"Thank you Doctor. Please step out for a moment. And send the Expeditionary Force General back in."
A moment later.
"I need a scientific conference organized on a pretext. It must contain top physicists from all over the world. The Doctor here will be our host. We msut be prepared to hold them incommunicado. At least three of them must be absolutely top tier Americans, preferably well known to their NSA and DIA. Start setting it up. Use the pretext that we have another breakthrough in nuclear weapons. It's even kind of true."
A pause.
"Get on your fucking phones and do it now."
This left the Doctor alone with the Governor.
"Doctor, it has occured to me, as it will to the Americans, that you might be lying about the hazards of the Cube. I believe you, but I am also a bullshit artist. Other California physicists believe you, but I am not a physicist. Explain to me that this is not a conspiracy of the scientists."
The Doctor looked helpless.
"I can't."
"Very well." The Governor picked up the phone. "I need the Strategic Officer. Now."
He raced in and opened his satchel.
"Colonel, I am the Governor and this is an order. Disconnect that Cube from its power supply."
The Colonel flinched and the Doctor's jaw dropped.
"That's a Cube... oh my God ..."
"Do it now, Colonel. The Vice Governor is in Sacramento, there will be continuity."
The Colonel opened the outer case of the Cube and started to reach within.
"NO!" the Doctor screamed and lurched forward. She would not win a physical altercation with a commando trained officer, but she was certainly willing to try.
"Stop," the Governor said calmly.
They both did. Only the Doctor's chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath.
"I'm sorry, Doctor. I had to know. I had to know for sure. Colonel, you are dismissed to your duty. And I think that little thing had better stay plugged in."
He saluted and left.
"Doctor, when you knew what you had with the first one, why did you cooperate in building a second? And then more?"
"Because one is just my problem. More becomes everyone's problem."
The insight hit the Governor like a truck.
"Thank you, Doctor."
