“This is Wolverine, smaller, faster, and much more maneuverable than FlightHawk, primarily designed for standoff attack missions against multiple heavily defended targets—it can outmaneuver even a Patriot missile. It has three weapon sections where it can carry a variety of pay-loads, including thermium nitrate explosive, developed by us, which have ten times the explosive power of TOT by weight. It also uses imaging infrared seeker and millimeter- wave radar for terminal guidance and reattacks. This is Anaconda, our hypersonic long-range air-to-air missile.

“Over there, with all the extra guards around it, is Lancelot, our air-launched near-space weapon,” Jon went on. “It has a three-stage throttleable solid-rocket motor that gives it a range of over three hundred miles in a ballistic flight path or over one hundred miles in altitude in an antisatellite attack profile. They have extra guards because of Lancelot’s warhead: It carries the plasma-yield warhead. It’s most effective above thirty thousand feet, which makes it a perfect antiballistic missile and antisatellite weapon, but we can get a one-quarter- to one-half-kiloton-equivalent yield even at sea level. At higher altitudes, the plasma field created by the explosion is electronically selectable in both yield and size—at maximum yield it can destroy a target twice the size of the International Space Station, and at maximum size it can disrupt the flight path of incoming nuclear warheads spread out over four hundred thousand cubic miles of space. The plasma field does not just destroy a target: It converts it into a state of matter that exists in nature for only billionths of a second—or in the center of a sun.

“All of these weapons are designed to be carried by our combat aircraft, but they can be fitted to be carried by just about any combat-coded aircraft—even transport planes. You probably saw our DC-10 test aircraft outside—we can carry up to three FlightHawks or six Wolverines on board, and we can refit just about any cargo-category aircraft to launch them. The Lancelot, of course, has been deployed in the Air Reserve Forces and is fielded by the One- Eleventh Bombardment Wing, which is based here for now but will soon be based up in Battle Mountain Air Force Base here in Nevada.”

He then moved over to the first warplane. “This is one of our EB-1C Vampire battleships. As you know, it’s a highly modified B-1B Lancer strategic bomber. It can still carry all of the Air Force’s strategic and tactical air weapons, along with all of our new weapons. It’s faster, stealthier, and has longer range and greater warload than the active- duty or Reserve Forces models. It uses laser radar arrays for targeting and terrain-following—it is fully air-to-air capable and can even attack satellites in low-Earth orbit with Anacondas or Lancelots. We have six modified right now out of a planned twelve-plane force, all coming from the B-1B fleet once assigned to the Air Reserve forces.”