Alpha One - Chris Burton [71]
He shifted in his seat and then sat forward, placing both his arms on the table, as if to encourage his team to huddle forward to hear what he must say next.
“We have no choice but to react swiftly and decisively and we can only really respond with sub-space weaponry.
A hushed silence fell over the group as realization that they were about to use a weapon which filled even the most ardent supporter of Mass Destruction weaponry with dread. Their history was the raison d’être for Alpha to seek funding from outside of ECG for the first time.
Sub Space Weaponry had first been tested some fifty years previously by a joint Alpha/ECG initiative. The Sub Space charge was composed of a small alloy sealed tube which was filled with a composite mix of negative and positive ions in a specially pressurized environment with plasma and antimatter being introduced to the mix in minute quantities—the larger the balance of antimatter, the larger the ionic yield. The tubes were then sealed, graded and then encased in ballistic missile shells.
Twenty-five years ago, Alpha was testing low yield sub-space charges in the Kuiper Belt, by examining the impact made on the belt by the detonation of the charges. The tests were fully funded and supported by ECG and were in their final assessment stages, prior to being introduced as a new addition to Alpha’s arsenal.
On that day, The SS Mauritius, a vacation cruise liner, was returning from Alpha Centauri and took a detour to the Kuiper Belt. They were ahead of schedule and had granted their fifteen hundred holiday-makers the opportunity to see the often unseen spectacle of the Belt. Unscheduled detours by Cruise Liners frequently caused Alpha problems, but not like this day. The Mauritius was destroyed by the Sub Space Charge, which had remotely detonated. All fifteen hundred passengers and some two hundred fifty crew were killed instantly, with the entire vessel vaporized. In its place a small vortex was created. The vortex then amortized, and the fabric of space in this area of the Kuiper belt became permanently distorted.
Then all hell broke loose. ECG were horrified and instantly withdrew their support for the project. This was followed by months of bad publicity with the media constantly calling for the ‘Weapon from Satan’ to be banned. Eventually ECG yielded and told Alpha that they could not develop sub-space weaponry of any kind.
Alpha accepted this in public, but not privately. This new form of weaponry could give them a huge advantage in future conflicts. The development of the weapon must continue and now, for the first time and without ECG’s knowledge, Alpha sought additional funding and began to develop the sub-space weapons secretively.
Prior to this event, all funding was provided by ECG., Now the Alpha Senior Bench had got the bug. They determined that their Articles provided that they didn’t have to keep ECG abreast of all their current endeavors, and they began to source more and more funding for more and more projects from outside of ECG’s knowledge and control.
The Sub Space Weapons remained banned by ECG, and Alpha continued to develop them in secret. Ten years ago, Alpha had released a limited batch of Sub Space Warheads to be used under strict and controlled guidelines, only as authorized by senior Alpha Commanders. In practice, this meant a limited number of charges were stored on Class A star ships under the watchful control of the ship’s commander. There was no official log of their existence in the ships inventory and they didn’t exist.
Over the years, several high ranking commanders had come close to using the weapon, but had pulled back at the last minute. Today, there could be no pulling back.
Rose continued. “We need to work quickly to select the charges and make them ready. We will need to look at the logistics, how best they are deployed, and the media, in terms of