The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

to make the weapon portable. That is pure engineering,' Fromm said again.
'Soda straws?' Bock asked, knowing that his countryman wanted to be asked about
that. He was a smug bastard.
'I cannot know for sure, but I believe this to be my personal innovation. The
material is perfect. It is light, it is hollow, and it is easily twisted into
the proper configuration.' Fromm walked over to the assembly table and returned
with one. 'The base material is polyethylene, and as you see, we have coated the
outside with copper and the inside with rhodium. The length of the "straw" is
sixty centimeters, and the inside diameter is just under three millimeters. Many
thousands of them surround the Secondary, in bundles twisted one hundred eighty
degrees into a geometric shape called a helix. A helix is a useful shape. It can
direct energy while retaining its ability to radiate heat in all directions.'
Inside every engineer, Qati thought, was a frustrated teacher. 'But what do they
do?'
'Also, the first emission off the Primary is massive gamma radiation. Just
behind that are the X-rays. In both cases, we are talking about high-energy
photons, quantum particles which carry energy but which have no mass – '
'Light waves,' Bock said, remembering his Gymnasium physics. Fromm nodded.
'Correct. Extremely energetic light waves of a different -higher – frequency.
Now, we have this vast amount of energy radiating from the Primary. Some we can
reflect or warp towards the Secondary by use of the channels we have built. Most
is lost, of course, but the fact is that we will have so much energy at our
fingertips that we need only a small fraction of it. The X-rays sweep down the
straws. Much of their energy is absorbed by the metallic coatings, while the
oblique surfaces reflect some further down, allowing further energy absorption.
The polyethylene also absorbs a good deal of energy. And what do you suppose
happens?'
'Absorb that much energy, and it must explode, of course,' Bock said, before
Qati could.
'Very good, Herr Bock. When the straws explode – actually they convert into
plasma, but having split straws, we will not split hairs, eh? – the plasma
expands radially to their axes, thus converting the axial energy from the
Primary into radial energy imploding on the Secondary.'
The lightbulb went on in Qati's head. 'Brilliant, but you lose half of the
energy, that part expanding outward.'
'Yes and no. It still makes an energy barrier, and that is what we need. Next,
the uranium fins around the body of the Secondary are also converted to plasma –
from the same energy flux, but more slowly than the straws due to their mass.
This plasma has far greater density, and is pressed inward. Within the actual
Secondary casing, there is two centimeters of vacuum, since that space will be
evacuated. So, we have a "running start" for the plasma that is racing inward.'
'So, you use the energy from the Primary, redirected into a right-angle turn to
perform the same function on the Secondary that is first done by chemical
explosives?' Qati saw.
'Excellent, Commander!' Fromm replied, just patronizingly enough to be noticed.
'We now have a relatively heavy mass of plasma pressing inward. The vacuum gap
gives it room to accelerate before slamming into the Secondary. This compresses