City of New Dawn, planet of Providence
Alpha Centauri B System, 4.36 light years from Earth
‘’WHAT DO YOU MEAN, A MATTER CONVERTER WARHEAD IS MISSING?
WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION! THEY ARE NOT
SUPPOSED TO SIMPLY GO ‘MISSING’.’
Admiral Jiro Yamashiro, the present head of the Spacers League Navy, felt acute embarrassment as he was facing a now very angry Chairwoman of the High Council.
Jeanne Mercier had in fact every right to be angry, as the news Yamashiro had just given to her was bound to have severe repercussions around the Navy’s hierarchy, on top of representing a grievous case of negligence.
‘’I fully realize how serious this is, Madam Chairwoman, and I assure you that every effort is presently being made to locate that missing warhead.’
Calming herself somewhat, Mercier, a 53-year-old thin woman with an iron will, lowered the volume of her voice but kept its tone glacial.
‘’First off: how powerful is that ‘missing’ warhead, Admiral?’
‘’It is a standard model used in our Space missiles, Madam Chairwoman. It can be tuned in power from five to ninety megatons equivalent and uses the principle of converting a mass of matter, in this case a bloc of steel, into antimatter, which then explodes at the contact of more matter surrounding the bloc.’
‘’Ninety megatons?’ exclaimed Jeanne Mercier, horrified. ‘’But that is powerful enough to completely destroy the largest of our cities. How big is it?’
Yamashiro squirmed a bit at that question, expecting his answer to further infuriate Mercier.
‘’It is actually quite small and light, Madam Chairwoman. The whole warhead, including its detonator and power source, is about the size of a 500 milliliter can of soup and weighs no more than two kilos.’
Anger flashed again in Jeanne Mercier’s eyes but she managed to control her voice for her next question.
‘’And may I ask how this warhead came to be missing and when?’
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‘’Uh, that is a bit complicated and is still under investigation, Madam Chairwoman. The fact that we were missing a matter converter warhead in our stocks of munitions kept at our Navy Central Arsenal was revealed when we conducted a detailed inventory of our stocks following a still unexplained power surge which wiped out the arsenal’s primary database three days ago. We then had to reload our computers with a backup copy of our inventory file, following which we conducted a manual and visual count. Unfortunately, that backup file was a bit dated and did not correspond exactly with what our manual check found, so we had to use a compilation of separate files and a second manual check before we could say for sure that one warhead was missing.’
‘’Three days?!’
‘’It could actually have been missing for longer, Madam Chairwoman, as inventory checks at our Central Arsenal are conducted once every week. That power surge happened the night before the next schedule inventory check.’
Jeanne Mercier’s blood froze in her veins on hearing those two last sentences: she didn’t like at all the implications of this.
‘’This sounds to me like someone did his or her best to hide the disappearance of that warhead from us, Admiral. It also may imply an inside job by an infiltrator or a traitor on the strength of the Navy’s Arsenal staff.’
‘’I regrettably have to agree with you on that, Madam Chairwoman. Our security services are now concentrating their efforts in that direction.’
Jeanne Mercier, fighting to retain her cool, pointed sharply an index at Yamashiro.
‘’Find that warhead, Admiral, and quickly! I also want whoever did take that warhead to be identified and then arrested.’
‘’Yes, Madam Chairwoman!’ said Yamashiro before saluting her and, pivoting on his heels, walking out of her office.
17:24 (Universal Time)