Chapter 60

Atlantis

Seated in the conference room sat Mr. Woolsey and the ship captains of the Pegasus Group's vessels. Having already reviewed the data being shown on the plasma display Colonel Sheppard contented himself by thinking back to all of the memories he had surrounding this very room. Life was so much simpler back then when all he had to worry about was not getting culled and just maybe managing to locate a zpm or two.

"As you can see from the photos it is clear that the Wraith have undertaken an all hands on deck fleet expansion" said Colonel Ellis.

"And now Todd is going to want to take care of this little problem for him. As much as I hate to admit it I think we have no choice in doing just that" responded Sheppard.

"I've been doing some calculations and have a suggestion as to how we should proceed. The only unknown variable in my idea is how the polymers Wraith sh.i.p.s are composed of react to radiation while still growing" interjected Colonel Carter.

"I would suspect the reaction would be the same as exposure during hyperspace travel. It's a widely known fact that hyperspace radiation exposure damaged Wraith hulls" replied Colonel Caldwell.

"On this one I say we stick with the basics. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We've already got a system we've used in the past for this exact problem" stated Sheppard.

"Horizon. That's what I was thinking also" added Colonel Ellis.

"While the Horizon did work in the case of the Asurans this situation is slightly more complex. The Asurans vessels once damaged had to be repaired. Wraith vessels will repair themselves if not totally destroyed" replied Carter.

"Do you have any ideas Colonel Carter" asked Woolsey.

"Actually I do. The warheads on the Horizon are Mark IX gate busters. When it was learned of Wraith sh.i.p.s vulnerability to hard radiation we took a play out of the cold war how to end the world with a bang manual. All we have to do is add cobalt jacketss to each warhead" stated a smiling Carter.

"And just what are cobalt jackets going to do that a regular Mark IX can't" asked Caldwell.

"About five percent of the energy released in a nuclear detonation is in the form of ionizing radiation; neutrons, gamma rays, alpha particles, and electrons moving at speeds near that of light. Gamma rays are high energy electromagnetic radiation and the others are particles moving slower than light. The neutrons result almost exclusively from fission and fusion reactions, while the initial gamma radiation includes that arising from these reactions as well as that resulting from the decay of short lived fission products. The intensity of initial nuclear radiation decreases rapidly with distance from the point of detonation because the radiation spreads over a larger area as it travels away from the explosion. It is also reduced by atmospheric absorption and scattering. The character of radiation received at a given location also varies with distance from the explosion. Near the point of detonation the neutron intensity is greater than the gamma intensity, but with increasing distance the neutron gamma ratio decreases. Ultimately, the neutron component of the initial radiation becomes negligible in comparison with the gamma component. The range for significant levels of radiation does not increase markedly with weapon yield and, as a result, the initial radiation becomes less of a hazard with increasing yield. That is unless we add cobalt jackets. Simply put if you want to flatten a target you can use a nuclear weapon, but if you want to flatten a target and poison the surrounding landscape for several thousand years you add cobalt" intoned Carter.

"Can you be a bit more specific Colonel Carter" asked Woolsey.

"In a typical Mark IX detonation radiation pulse energy is approximately five percent of the entire energy released. With the addition of cobalt jackets it would be closer to fifty percent. Furthermore the neutrons released would be of a much higher energy than those released during a thermonuclear detonation. We would simply be radically increasing the most harmful component of a nuclear detonation to Wraith vessels by an order of magnitude" stated Carter.

"Well that works for me" smirked Sheppard.