Von Neumann’s War

“When the Sparrow hit, it usually took out about three or four,” Rene said. “But all the Sparrows didn’t survive.”

“So far, they’ve apparently been ignoring carbon,” Tom said. “We can probably tweak the Sparrows so they’re less tasty. But it will be a major redesign.”

“Why not combine the mine concept with the Sparrows instead?” Traci said, frowning. “When they detect probes in the vicinity, they blow out mines.”

“Works,” Roger said, picking up a Hooters napkin.

“You’ve had a few, Mr. Deputy,” Casey, who was still listening to their conversation said, grinning, and pulling the napkin over. “Let me. Sparrow, mine. That work?”

“Works,” Roger said, nodding. “But you’ve got other tables.”

“Not tonight,” Casey replied.

“You’re packed,” Alan said, gesturing around.

“Not… tonight,” Casey repeated. “What’s next?”

“The guns definitely didn’t work,” Rene said.

“They’re depleted uranium,” Roger sighed. “Those things really like heavy metals.”

“Ceramic?” Cady asked. He’d been quietly sitting sipping his beer, waiting for the big brains to stumble.

“Way to go, Sergeant Major,” Roger said, nodding. “Casey.”

“Ceramic bullets, Falcons.”

“Another major redesign at the plant,” Alan pointed out.

“Can’t be helped,” Roger said. “But I think we’re staying way inside the box. What about directed energy weapons?”

“They’ve experimented with mounting chemical lasers on Falcons,” Bull said dubiously. “But you only get about twenty shots if I recall correctly.”

“Hell with that,” Alan said loudly, then belched. “Use a shit load of dah-odes!”

“Pardon me,” Rene said. “A what?”

“A diode array laser,” Tom replied, taking a sip of beer as Roger pulled out another napkin and started sketching. “Instead of using chemicals to produce the laser, you use electrical energy and a diode. You can fire for as long as you have power and keep the diode system cooled.”

“Won’t work,” Roger said, shaking his head and looking up from the napkin. “You need at least a hundred kilowatts. The F-16 hasn’t got the juice with all its other systems. And I can’t see a way to shoe-horn in another generation system.”

“It would work for ground defense, though,” Traci pointed out excitedly. “Really really well.”

“Put the diode in a high place,” Alan said, his accent thickening. “Get a bitty nuke generator, one of them pebble-bed thingies from General Atomics. That’d give you all the power you need fer sure. Hell, we could even hook ’em right into the hydroelectric turbines on all the dams up and down the Tennessee!”

“We could cobble together a multi-diode hundred kilowatt system pretty easy,” Roger said, nodding. “Hell, multi megawatt for that matter. Targeting would be a bitch.”

“You’re talking about if they attack, like, here, right?” Casey said.

“Yeah,” Roger admitted. “But, hell, if we could just fix the targeting it would be another good city defense system.”

“This is a laser, like in a laser light show?” Casey asked.

“Well, lots more powerful,” Roger pointed out. He knew that Casey wasn’t up to the smarts level of Traci, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

“And there’s lots of them?” Casey asked, waving her hands as if to get people to see where she was going. “The probes I mean.”

“Yeah,” Bull said, sighing. “They damned well fill the… Oh.”

“So you get one of those things that, like, moves the laser around…” Casey said, as if speaking to a moron.

“And just paint the whole fucking sky,” Roger said, slapping his forehead. “Jesus, you could just use any optical targeting system with cooled optics! Alan, see about getting the design specs for the SEALITE Beam Director off the MIRACL laser. We’re gonna want something like that.”

“They’re going to close fast,” Bull pointed out. He gestured out the window to the general east. “If they’re closing here, from the east, they’re going to be coming over that big ridge. You won’t have more than a minute from when they come in view and when you’re under attack.”

“Well, we could mount it on top of Monte Sano Mountain; that’s the highest point around here. And we could put one on Madkin Mountain and shit what’s the name of the mountain out in Harvest with those towers on it…” Roger said.

“Rainbow Mountain?” Traci asked.

“We’d have to cut a bunch of trees.” Tom tried another wing — no luck.

“Balloon,” Cady said.

“Airborne, Sergeant Major,” Shane added, grinning.

“Sure,” Alan said, looking up from his chicken wing. “Mount it on one of them barrage balloon sort of things. You’d have to stabil… stab-l… you know…”

“Stabilization’s easy,” Roger said, frowning. “But that won’t be all-weather. Why not just mount it in a plane? One big enough to carry the diode and the generator?”

“C-130 would do,” Bull said, nodding. Then he blanched. “Shit, I’m going to end up fighting from a trash-hauler!”

“You missed something,” Shane said.

“What?” Roger asked. “I think it will work.”

“Back a ways,” Shane replied. “The sparrow-thingy.”

“Sparrow-mines?” Casey asked.

“What you got?” Roger said.