Question Teaser

Just because I can, here's a little taste of things to come to whet your appetite.

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"Code Mike Seven Seven Eight Four Tango." Nearly simultaneously, the three operators punched the combination into keykpads. "Confirmed." "Confirmed." "System unlocked." A series of red lights turned green, indicating that the main computers, programmed to use a different computer-generated sequence every twelve hours, had accepted and validated the code.

"Keys in." The director pushed his large red 'key' into a special receptacle on his console.

"Roger." "Key in."

"Turn in five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... TURN!" With that, he turned his key, like his other two staff members, their faces pale at the thought of what they were doing. "Release in five ... four ... three ... two ... " Before he could call out the next numbers, his and every other console lit up with a terse and ominous message. "Defense System Omega activated. Detonation in five seconds!"

The director let go of his key, and a spring mechanism turned it automatically back to the unenergized state. "Well, people," he said gravely, "it's been nice working with you."

* * *

On level 70, electronic relays closed under computer control, but the damage to the triply-redundant control systems caused by the monstrosity had been enormous. Still, one cable got a signal to the device.

Initiators in carefully packed shaped charges, each precisely placed around a sphere of plutonium like the panels of a soccer ball, received what were supposed to be simultaneous detonation signals. The shaped charges, acting like explosive lenses, would compress the sub-critical mass of plutonium so that it had local critical mass, and would initiate an atomic explosion. In the heart of that, a charge of tritium would be compressed and superheated to conditions like those in a star, and they would fuse into helium atoms, releasing inordinate amounts of energy.

At least that was the theory. In all his indiscriminate smashing of machinery, the outer shell of the device had been breached. When the detonation signals were sent to the myriad shaped charges through wires carefully arranged to be the same exact length so the detonation signals would all arrive within a few microseconds, two wires short circuited, damaged by the crushed outer shell. The charges didn't go off at precisely the same time. The pressure on the radioactive core was uneven.

The device fizzled.

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Ahhh Tennyo's at it again. =)

My wild stab in the dark is that big papa snake demon is either actually making a break for it, or just flailed about enough to make them think he is, so they tried to blow the facility... which has clearly not worked due to sheer bad/good luck depending on perspective.

Let's see. Kigatilik should be in the Whateley neighborhood looking for some shamanic tasty treats for its new moon celebration, Sept. 11th or so. ARC Black is just down the road in case he needs to sleep one off with Maelstrom and crew.

But HPARC is one of elrodw's projects, so yeah, there could be some Black Hills mayhem in the works.

^^
^
Thanks, guys for helping me figure out what was going on. ... So, other things are gonna escape then,,, And the escapies now have bodies to possess?

Typo:

keykpads

At a guess this ia HPARC's 'gravest extreme' containment measure. So this probably takes place during Unhcegila's breakout.

The weapon's design needs updating though. From what is in the public domain, full explosive spheres haven't been used to set off primaries in decades. Evidence points to an egg-shaped explosive assembly set off by detonators at both ends. Such an assembly is easier to fit in a warhead or aircraft bomb. A secondary (fusion) stage would be outside this primary.

It's also a bit doubtful that a damaged warhead would go off at all. Nuclear weapons are designed by professional paranoids and current warheads seen to be built in such a way that damage to the warhead would wreck parts of the detonation chain electronics before the physics package (primary and secondary) itself is damaged. It is probable that some arming codes do the same thing as an antitheft measure.

There is a 3 part documentary by Sandia Labs on youtube about nuclear weapons safety from a US perspective. Well worth watching.

The story with this little bit is now completed and at my editors for cleanup, then it's in the queue.
BTW, it's a Gen 2 story.

elrodw wrote: BTW, it's a Gen 2 story.

... Well, that changes things a bit... What do we know is being contained in HPARC... ... Wait, can we even be sure that it's HPARC?

Maybe it's ARC or something?

elrodw wrote: BTW, it's a Gen 2 story.

Well...there's no guarantee that these are good guys...
It's Laura's evil clone, isn't it. Isn't it?!