“Thermonuclear warheads, Secretary Sykes.”
A few representatives and senators popped to their feet, with genuine outrage in some cases and carefully crafted platform stances in others. The incensed legislators frothed so automatically that they all started speaking over one another. “Nuclear warheads!” “This was never authorized—” “What about our treaties—” “—the damn Non-Proliferation Treaty—” “I bet it was that idiot in the White House—” “Where were those missiles built? My constituents—” “Whose securing these—”
“Quiet!” commanded Sykes, briefly returning to his former role as a senior general in the Air Force. And though the assembled indignant congresspersons were not the types to defer authority easily, his tone and their genuine level of discomfort with the situation allowed him to assert his control. “Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that the office of the President and the agreement under which this ship was constructed did not include the outfitting or development of controlled weapons. In fact, they specifically barred the acquisition of weapons-grade nuclear materials.”
The SECDEF glared each of the reps back to their seats and then turned back to Nathan and Lydia. “Since that was indeed our agreement, would you mind telling us how you got highly-enriched fissile material through our screening process? All you were approved for was reactor-grade fuels, and I personally vetted the nuclear-security procedures set up.”
Nathan smiled tightly. “Yes, your procedures were very effective—effective at slowing down every aspect of reactor construction, but don’t worry. No one violated your materials control process.”
“So how the hell did you build nuclear warheads?”
“We did it by not using any nuclear materials at all—yours or anyone else’s. Our fusion warheads are triggered through a completely different process, developed in-house as an offshoot of our drive technology. There are no plutonium or uranium primaries. Instead we use a pure fusion process more closely related to laser ignition—the photonic compression sphere.” Nathan turned away from Sykes and addressed the audience as a whole. “I know this may be a special shock, in a day filled with shocks, but believe me when I say that this was a necessary step. Without a weapon of this energy level, we’d have no hope of competing with a tech-base capable of interstellar travel.”
One of the senators who had stood before, the man who had cried foul about the Non-Proliferation Treaty, stood up in the second tier again to address Sykes and Nathan. “Mr. Kelley, Ms. Russ, I’m Paul Yardley, senator from Nevada. I’m sure you felt this was a necessary weapon. It’s obvious that you’ve had to make tough decisions about issues that most of us have never even imagined before, but this decision, this choice, has repercussions beyond merely your project.
“You’ve looked at this like an engineer, finding a solution that neatly avoids the obstacles placed before you, but you’ve also just invalidated decades of armed diplomacy and enforced compromise. All our arms control safeguards are built around monitoring and controlling the use of processed radioactives. If you can get the same effect through what are essentially ballotechnics rather than controlled materials, then you’ve just made it possible for small groups or even individuals to make their own WMD’s. You built over 500 of them in Santa Clara, and no one even noticed.”
Nathan nodded grimly. “I realize that, Senator, which was why we took so much care with security—security so effective that the fact that our warheads were actually thermonuclear devices went completely unnoticed by our DOD overseers. They thought the missiles were armed with kinetic-kill submunitions only. The warhead components were all built by different sub-contractors under oppressive non-disclosure agreements. Not one of them knew what the components were meant to do, or what they connected to, or how they connected together. They were each assembled, mounted, and installed in the ship at our Santa Clara facility. Aside from the intended crew and the people in this room, there are only ten other people who know what the devices actually do, and I trust them all implicitly.”
Sykes grunted. “I’m sure your personal assurances are more than enough to soothe our nerves, you know, with uncontrolled nuclear arms proliferation on the table, and all that. By the way, wasn’t there a break-in at your facility?”
“Which we stopped—”
“And you still have no idea as to the identity of this thief, no knowledge of who he was working for, or how many other secrets might have leaked out before this?”
“He’s in your custody, Mr. Secretary! You should be able to answer that better than anyone! But you’re correct—our mystery man is still a mystery. However, no related tech has been seen in the outside world and we are sure that no other break-ins have occurred before or since.”
Lydia stood, placing a hand on Nathan’s rigid shoulder. He resisted for a moment, but soon responded to her gentle insistence and sat. She looked over the room, catching Senator Yardley and Sykes with her final gaze. “You’re right to be worried, Senator. This tech changes everything, and it makes your jobs both harder and more dangerous. But this device is, if anything, more complicated and difficult to build than even a ‘normal’ hydrogen bomb. It is not something your average Timothy McVeigh or Abdul Massharaf will be able to develop on their own. Rest assured, it was a necessary and vital development for the project. Don’t forget the stakes we’re dealing with here. Our failure to go through with this possibly ill-advised step could lead to our extinction or enslavement by an alien race. Remember that.
“Besides, when you think about it, this warhead tech is only the tip of the iceberg. Everything about this ship and its mission is going to change the planet.”
Senator Yardley cocked his head to one side, a signature gesture he used when he thought someone was lying or exaggerating. “I would be hard pressed to believe that anything could be more potentially upsetting than an uncontrolled, off-the-shelf nuclear weapons technology.”
Lydia smiled. “Then you obviously don’t understand what we’ve been sitting on for the past twenty years. While I myself wouldn’t characterize the weapons tech as ‘off-the-shelf’, it’s not my chief worry. At this point it’s covered in a blanket of secrecy. As long as we don’t blab about it, there’s no reason for anyone to suspect it differs from other nukes. It’s relatively ‘safe.’ But when we launch for trials and the mission itself, other aspects of this tech won’t be nearly as safe.
“If you launch something this big, with this much energy, people will notice. The probe was tiny, yet it still caused significant interest, which we were able to successfully deflect. When the Sword of Liberty goes up, it’s going to be the story of the millennium and there’s no way we’ll be able to hide it or its destination. All of a sudden, the US government will have to come clean about its cover-up, and about the truth behind the Deltans. Suddenly, we won’t be alone in the universe. I expect that the societal and religious disruptions that’ll cause will more than dwarf the unreleased fact that we have a fancy new warhead.
“The international community will be angry we didn’t involve them or the UN. Every preacher of every faith on the planet will wonder what this means in terms of our place with the Almighty, what it means about our souls, or about the aliens’ souls. The stock markets will experience an upheaval that no one can predict. Other emerging superpowers will try to beat us to the punch with their own first contact efforts, which means they’ll either go up with existing tech, try to develop their own, or try to steal ours—and there’s a lot to be stolen besides just the warheads. The structural materials like chromatic plate and allocarbium will spawn new industries and wreck the existing steel and composites economies. The laser and railgun tech will revolutionize the defense and power industries. Our computing tech is a good five to ten years ahead of what’s commercially available.