Rubeo flicked his hand in front of the screen to change the slide. The fuselage that Danny had recovered a week earlier appeared.
“As you know, the electronics of the aircraft that Colonel Freah came back with had been destroyed. First fried — to use the vernacular of some of my assistants — and then blown up by a small explosive, which severed this portion of the aircraft from the rest. However, we were able to recover some small bits of one of the chips, which were embedded in this portion of the remains.”
He flipped to a new slide, which showed what looked like a slag of brown dirt laced with silver tints.
“To give you an idea of scale, here is the chip, or what remains of it, with a dime.”
The coin loomed over the tiny bit of silicone.
“The chip is a computing unit,” continued Rubeo. “It is quite sophisticated. It appears to make use of ten-nanometer chip technology. That is significant for a number of reasons, beginning with the fact — or I should say apparent fact — that it had to have been custom-fabricated. It is at the high end of the scale.”
Rubeo continued, talking about how the technology allowed for massive processing power in a relatively small space. To give the others an idea, he mentioned that Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors — commonly used in high-end desk and laptop computers — contained in the area of 1.4 billion transistors (or actually the chip equivalent). The processor could change state roughly 100 million times a second. That was beyond the processing power of a supercomputer in the Cold War.
Assuming it was anywhere close to a standard size, the chip they had examined would have been several orders of magnitude more powerful than the Ivy Bridge, both in terms of size and speed. Rubeo’s people weren’t entirely sure how much faster — there was just too little to go on — but the technology appeared comparable to that in the nano-UAVs so recently used to wipe out Iran’s nuclear weapons.
The biggest problem for the chips was the heat they generated; this seemed to have been solved with a rather ingenious and extremely elegant air piping system, where microtunnels were bored into the surface of the aircraft and used to bathe the processors with cooling air. The so-called pipes were thinner than human hair, and webbed in a way so that the structural integrity of the aircraft was not harmed. The discovery of those pipes — Rubeo didn’t mention that he had been the one to spot them — were significant in many ways.
“What we’re looking at here is enormous manufacturing ability,” concluded Rubeo. “Even assuming these aircraft are essentially one-offs, hand-built. The skill necessary to create the airframe — let alone the brain that fits into it — is very, very high.”
“So it’s definitely not Chinese,” concluded Reid.
“I didn’t say that.” Rubeo touched his ear. “It doesn’t fit with the Chinese capabilities that I’m aware of. But that doesn’t mean it’s not Chinese. I have no evidence. I know several companies that could have manufactured the processors. All are in the United States. Including mine,” he added, feeling he ought to make explicit what Reid was probably thinking. “We have a laboratory facility dedicated solely to government work, and it would be capable of producing these chips.”
“But it didn’t,” said Breanna quickly.
“Our ten-nanometer chips are all accounted for,” said Rubeo.
“The nano-UAVs?”
“They were destroyed in Iran,” said Rubeo. “But those use eight nanometer chips. Which you will recall is why they are so absurdly expensive. And my company didn’t create those processors. We believe the CMOS limits no longer justify the technology, and so we’re moving in a different direction. Perhaps incorrectly,” he added.
“We should check every fab site we can think of,” said Breanna.
“Yes.” Rubeo had already made his own discreet inquiries without finding the actual manufacturer. “I would guess, though, that it was somewhere in Asia, maybe even Malaysia. An underutilized facility that has been overhauled with new equipment at much expense.”
“That could be anywhere,” said Reid.
“Yes.”
“So what are we dealing with?” Reid asked.
“Impossible to tell until we capture one,” said Rubeo. “If they are this sophisticated in chip technology, I can only make guesses about the weapons.”
“Twenty-five-millimeter cannon?” asked Breanna.
“I believe something lighter.”
“There were no weapons used in this last encounter,” said Reid.
“True. Maybe some carry weapons and some don’t. Or they weren’t correctly positioned for attack. Or many other possibilities,” said Rubeo. “But planes were shot down previously, and we have to assume that if they have the base technology, they can weaponize it. The Gen 4 Flighthawks would have carried lasers. And the Gen 4 Flighthawk appears to be an excellent model.”
He waved his hand for the next slide, which showed an artist’s rendition of the unknown UAV next to a Gen 4 Flighthawk. The Gen 4’s wings were a little longer, its tail a bit stubbier, but the airfoils were very similar. The Gen 4 had not gone into production, superseded by the smaller and faster Sabres, which were capable of distributed autonomous control — they made real-time decisions on their own.
“Lasers small enough to be on that class of UAVs are too impractical for combat,” said Reid. “The Air Force studied the matter in great depth.”
“They’re impractical only in a high-threat environment,” answered Rubeo. He had strongly disagreed with the Air Force’s assessment of small weaponized lasers, though the decision to choose the Sabres instead of the Gen 4s made the point moot. “And the report didn’t consider the latest evolutions.”
“It was a cost problem as much as anything,” said Breanna. “Outfitting a fleet of UAVs with lasers was a budget buster. The Flighthawks and the Sabres have proven that lightweight cannons are enough in aerial combat, and have an advantage in ground attack. For the foreseeable future, at least, they make a lot of sense.”
“All right. We need to tell the President that we need more data,” agreed Reid. “And we need it quickly. Clearly, it’s a critical threat. And it’s not coming from China.”
“No,” said Rubeo. “Ultimately, I’m afraid, we are probably the source of the technology.”
“We?”
“Dreamland, Special Projects, or my companies,” said Rubeo. “The links may seem vague, but their sum total is unmistakable.”
5
The Malaysian unit had been hit hard, with four of their men wounded and four dead. So Turk was surprised when Captain Deris came and told him he wanted to get back into the field immediately.
“There are only two places they could be now,” the captain told Turk after asking for his help. “If we can get flyovers we can see where they came from and strike at dark.”
“There were a lot of rebels. Most of them got away. Are you going to have reinforcements?”
“If the planes back us, we have more than enough.”
Deris sketched out a plan on a map of the area, then asked Turk to take it to the Marine squadron for approval. Turk, unsure what sort of reaction he would get from Greenstreet, decided to discuss it with Danny before doing anything else.
“I was worried you’d be sleeping,” he told the colonel when he spotted him in the mess tent.
Freah held up his coffee cup. “Not with the coffee these guys brew. I won’t be sleeping for a month. What’s up?”
“The Malaysians want to attack. They think they have the rebel bases figured out.”