Military Technology and Intrigue: A New Past Excerpt
One of the problems with writing Erotic Science Fiction is the fact that many potential readers assume the focus is on the erotic elements rather than the underlying science fiction and general plot. To try and overcome this perception, I’m sharing some excerpts from my series, A New Past to share some of the “non-erotic” elements. This excerpt is the opening scene from Book Two and sets the stage for several conflicts that span the middle book in the series and set up plot points for the final book.
“Victor, I just told you that I don’t want to scale up manufacturing to that sort of volume. To do it, I’d have to move production to a bigger site, and that would increase our security risk.”
Victor Martin was still my primary contact at Lockheed. We had been discussing production forecasts all morning long. He did not seem to want to listen to my arguments and would not tell me why he suddenly needed five times the volume of my carbon nano-tube stealth coating.
He looked as frustrated as I felt. He loosened his tie, and then pulled out a sheet of paper.
“Sign this, and I can explain,” he said.
I read over the paper. It was a typical in-brief document stating that I was a party to a Top Secret project titled “Long Dart,” and that I understood the restrictions regarding this project. I hesitated, then signed and dated the page.
“Okay, now tell me what this is about.”
Victor gave me a tight smile.
“How familiar are you with the B-1 bomber?” he asked.
I shrugged and said, “I’ve seen pictures of it. It’s an impressive looking plane. Why?”
“It was a political hot potato in the 1980 election. We knew it was vulnerable to Soviet technology based on the Belenko defection in 1976. That’s when we first learned about the MIG-31, and its projected capabilities. Carter canceled the program. Reagan brought it back in ’83, even though he knew we had a stealth bomber on the drawing board. That design is based on a totally different airframe type.”
I nodded. From my own past, I knew the flying-wing concept the B-2 would use to minimize its radar cross section. I assumed they wanted to use my coating to improve the stealth characteristics even more.
“It must be a big mother, if you need me to scale up production to the levels we’re talking about,” I said.
Victor grimaced and said, “That’s just it. We’re thinking that we can apply your coating to the B-1 and have an aircraft that runs at about a quarter of the cost of the new bomber, with just as much stealth. Because of our work on the F-117, we got the contract to do this study. We need to be able to cover about a thousand square meters of surface. We also want to coat the first stages of the engine’s compressor blades. You’ve been producing about a hundred kilos a month for us, since you came to California two years ago. If our tests work as we expect them to, we’re going to want to apply the coating to all 100 of the B-1s that have been ordered, starting as soon as possible. At your current production rates, you would need fifty months to produce enough coating. If we add in the coating for the new bomber, the Air Force is going to need even more from you. You have to increase production!”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “Damn it. Does this mean Lockheed is going to release me from our contract?”
“What?” he asked, surprised.
“You have rights to purchase 100% of our production. Are you building the new bomber? If not, how would they get my coating?”
Victor paled as he said, “We’re going to have to talk about that. We’re not one of the contractors on that project, though we’ve been brought in to review some of the work during the latest design reviews.”
“So, you want to modify a B-1, and have it show up the new bomber?” I asked with a smile. “It makes sense if the B-1’s are cheaper to build as well. We’re still talking about three-and-a-half million per plane just for the coating. How are you planning to apply it?”
“We’re thinking of a whole surface replacement. We’ll pull the airframe panels, coat them –along with the screw heads– and then put them back on the aircraft. It will be a pain to do the refit, but we don’t see any other way. The engines we’ll just change out. We’re working with GE to apply the coating to the rest of them during production.”
I shook my head. “Crap.” I thought about the production set up in Austin. “Okay, I can set up parallel production lines, but am going to have to buy or build a bigger space. How much lead time do I have?”
“Current production, and the stockpile of the coating we’ve built up, should let us handle the test contract, which is just two coated aircraft. However, we’re pretty sure the Air Force is going to want to move forward quickly, once they see the data. Maybe ten months. We have a demonstration milestone in six and have already started applying the coating on one aircraft.”
“You know, using the coating is going to come out if you guys do this, don’t you?”
“Why do you say that? We’ve got good operational security.”
“B-1s are already on folks’ radar. They know the airplanes are not fully stealthy. Once you start coating them, someone will notice they are much stealthier. If you do this, it’s just a matter of time ’till they figure it out.”
Book Two has more action/adventure content than book one. I hope this excerpt whets your appetite. A New Past is available on Amazon, as well as Smashwords and other ebook channels.
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