Three hundred miles east of Tokyo the aircraft carrier CV-64 USS Constellation rode the gentle swells of the north Pacific Ocean. She was cruising at only six knots, barely enough to maintain steerage way. The thirty-year-old, eighty-thousandton Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carrier was surrounded by an armada of eleven smaller support ships and other surface combatants arranged in a wide hexagon pattern.
The Constellation itself was buzzing with activity. Poised for battle, two F/A-18E Hornet fighter-bombers were positioned in their catapults, engines running, ready for the steampowered push that would shoot them from zero to one hundred forty knots in three seconds. Two more F-18s on external power were parked just behind the catapult blast deflectors, ready to take their places once the first two alert birds launched. A CH-53F Super Sea Stallion III transport helicopter, its seventy-five-foot-diameter rotor slowly spinning, sat on tthe Constellation’s flight deck just beside the “island” superstructure. Another was hovering a few hundred feet from the Constellation’s fantail, ready in a few seconds to drop onto the carrier’s broad stem if ordered.
The seas behind the huge carrier were patrolled by predators of a different sort-three Los Angeles–class nuclear attack submarines that hung virtually motionless in the warm Pacific currents. Their sophisticated electronic sensors registered, catalogued, analyzed and assessed each and every sound in the ocean for miles around, from the loudest clamor of propellers to the softest hiss of the smallest marine creature. Each of the sub’s four torpedo tubes was loaded with longrange ASW/SOW antisubmarine missile-torpedoes, and each of the sub’s vertical launch tubes was loaded with SubHarpoon antiship missiles.
But the man in the skipper’s chair on the bridge atop the Constellation’s superstructure did not notice any of these special additions to the Constellation’s battle group. He was peering intently at a fifteen-inch-diameter radar scope, tracking three very large blips at its outer edge. The man looked up from the radar scope and squinted at the horizon, north between the American nuclear missile cruiser USS Long Beach and the tiny frigate USS Lockwood. “I can just barely make them out, I think,” the president of the United States said. Two of the senior officials on the bridge glanced doubtfully at each other-no one, not even the president of the United States, could see a ship two hundred miles away. “‘I think, sir,” Rear Admiral Bennett Walton said, “that you’re seeing the Jouett, one of our missile destroyer escorts. “
The president checked the radar again, pointing to a large blip. “That’s the Jouett? He looks so far away.” “It’s pretty hazy out, sir. The Jouett is eight miles out, but it seems farther. “
The president grunted at the scope, his expression turning pensive as the three blips moved closer to the center of the screen. “Who the hell are they, Admiral?”
Walton smiled. “It’s the Kirov, Mr. President. Largest guided missile cruiser in the world. She’s got the Krasina guided missile cruiser and the Kresta, an antisubmarine destroyer, with her.” “No aircraft carrier? I would have thought the Soviets would try to match the Constellation’s forces.” “Sir,” Secretary of Defense Linus Edwards put in, “they
don’t have enough forces to match even the Constellation’s small battle group. It would be a waste for them to try. “
The president tried his best to ignore Edwards’ bravado. The secretary of defense was an old navy sea captain who thought the U.S. Navy ruled the seven seas. His background, the president reminded himself, clouded many of his
opinions. He turned back to Walton. “Are you worried that the Kirov is trailing us, even though it’s over two hundred miles away?” “Sir, the Kirov is about five hundred miles closer than I’d like. She packs quite a wallop, especially at only two hundred miles distant. But we’re less than a thousand miles from Vladivostok, their largest Pacific naval base, so I guess we should be thankful there’s only one major battleship out there shadowing us.”
He paused, glancing at a large chart of the Sea of Japan and East Asia on the bulkhead above the radar gear. “I’m more concerned about their naval aviation forces at Vladivostokthey have the equivalent of four full naval air groups and nine heavy bomb wings out there, enough to invade Japan twice over. Plus there’s always the threat posed by their newest carrier group–led by the Arkhangel. ” “But the Constellation and her escorts have enough firepower to take on anything the Soviets might throw at us,” Edwards pointed out, “if they’re reckless enough to try.”
Walton moved to another radar scope beside the main sea-mapping scope. “Here’s a display of aircraft, Mr. President, within five hundred miles of us. All of them are ours or Japan’s, except for this guy. ” Walton pointed at a highlighted blip, again at the very edge of the scope. “An Ilyushin IL-76G turbojet spy plane,”‘ the admiral explained. “It can monitor our communications, study our radar emissions, map out the positions of all our ships. We also think it can monitor the progress of this morning’s test.” “How long until we start the test?” the president asked. “We can start at any time, sir,” Linus Edwards replied, checking his watch. “Everyone’s in position,” Walton said. “They should be running through their final prelaunch checks now. Tracking
and monitoring stations and the White Sands Missile Range target area have already reported readyThe president nodded, then wandered out to the catwalk just outside the bridge area. Secretary Edwards and Admiral Walton followed, along with Neil McDonough, an NSC adviser, and a small knot of Marine and Secret Service guards. The president let the wind toss his thin silver hair around and inhaled deeply, breathing in the crisp salt air. “We’re finally about to do it,” he said excitedly, raising his voice over the sounds of jet turbines on the Constellation’s seventy-four-thousand-square-foot flight deck. “I’ve been waiting for this demonstration for months. ” “I have to admit,” Edwards said, “that I feel a little uneasy about this whole thing.” He did not attempt to raise his voice over the clamor of helicopters and machinery on the flight deck seventy feet below. “The first intercontinental missiles fired over the pole at the United States from Asia-, and we launch them. Even with the Tridents’ warheads inert, it makes me nervous.” “Your less than enthusiastic opinion of the antiballistic missile defense system is well documented, Lee,” the president said. “But that’s one of the reasons I scheduled this test. Your opinions carry a lot of weight. If you’re unhappy with the space-based defense network, others will be. If I can convince you how valuable this system is, I think I can convince others-including the Russians.” “But a test of this magnitude?” Edwards asked. “Six D-5 phase-three sub-launched missiles flying right through Canada and across the United States? Is a test with this much potential for mishap really necessary? An ICBM has never been flown across the pole before— “You mean we’ve never flown across the pole before,” the president corrected. “We’ve caught the Russians firing missiles from Murmansk in Europe to their Asian ranges, and there’s evidence of them shooting ‘ferret’ missiles at Canada to test our early warning systems. We’re hardly setting a precedent here. “
Edwards was about to intetJect something but the president continued. “This test is vital, Lee. No matter how sophisticated a system is, people remain skeptical until they see it in
action. Space Command briefs Congress almost every month on the results of their simulations, but no one believes how good the Thor kinetic-kiII missile system really is. It’s time to show them. ” He pointed towards the horizon, where the three Russian ships were riding beyond visual range. “Those sonsofbitches want a show, we’ll give ’em a show.”
He stepped back into the bridge and nodded to Admiral Walton. “Let’s do it.”
Walton smiled and motioned to a control panel mounted on the forward sea data console. Without hesitation the president leaned forward to the control panel and twisted a large bronze key in a triangular keyswitch. Immediately, a red light labeled “LAUNCH” illuminated and an electric horn sounded throughout the Constellation.
With a thunderous roar a geyser of water erupted less than two miles away from the Constellation, and a huge white object rose from the sea like a bellowing whale. It blasted ftre of the waves, hovered about thirty feet above the water, and even seemed to slip backwards a few feet. Then, with a tremendous blast of fur, the Trident D-5/HI sea-launched ballistic missile’s solid-propellant motor ignited, and the missile and its ten inert warheads roared into space.
The first Trident had hardly reached full thrust when the second missile pierced the surface of the now boiling ocean. The USS Pennsylvania, the seventh and youngest of the new fleet of Ohio-class supersubmarines, began disgorging her deadly cargo at a rate of one missile every ten seconds. The stain of white hot foam stretched from the Pennsylvania’s launch point toward the Constellation, her escorts, and the thousands of men watching the awesome spectacle.
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION
“Skipper, missile launch detection.”
Brigadier General Jason Saint-Michael quickly set his coffee cup down on a Velcro mat on the bulkhead and maneu-
vered himself to the main sensor operator’s console. On a wide two-foot by three-foot multisensor display screen, a
flashing white circle was superimposed on a polar-projection map of the northern hemisphere near Japan. A few seconds later, a short column of position readouts printed on a second screen beside the main display. The general’s face seemed to take on an added intensity as he read the growing column of data. “Three hundred miles east of Tokyo, sir,” the sensor operator read aloud. “It’s the exercise launch area all right …… “All sections, stand by,” Saint-Michael said. “Alert the station, exercise under way, red alert.” He readjusted his tiny communications earset and returned to his commander’s seat-
the only seat in the command module of the world’s first strategic defense space station-and strapped himself in. The pedestal-mounted chair gave him a direct view of all the consoles in the space station’s nerve center. He pulled out his ever-present notebook and pencil and attached the “doodlebook” to a Velcro pad on his seat’s armrests to keep it from floating off in microgravity. His fingers were already making undecipherable scratches on the paper as he barked orders to his crewmen. “Okay, men,” he said in a deep, resonant voice, “let’s see if we can avoid letting these babies blow past us. Comm, transmit strategic warning message to Space Command, and ask them to verify that this is an exercise only.” “Already in contact with Space Command, sir,” the communications tech reported. “Exercise code received and authenticated. “
The general grunted in acknowledgment. “Let’s start lining lem up.” “SBR reports six missiles boosting,” the sensor tech reported. “SBR is tracking … now confirming solid radar lock on all six missiles.” SBR was the acronym for spacebased radar, two huge, football-field-sized, phased-array radar antennas installed on the station. Because of microgravity, the normal size limitations of a radar antenna did not apply in space; therefore, Armstrong Station’s SBR was dozens of times larger and hundreds of times more powerful than most
movable earth-based radars. The 9BR could scan over a thousand miles in all directions from the station, detecting any object more than two meters in,size in space, in earth’s atmosphere and on earth itself. Although SBR stood for space-based radar, the acronym also referred to a wide range of sensors aboard the space station used to detect and track objects in space-radar, infrared,
optical, Doppler, magnetic anomaly, radio, radiation, and laser.
Saint-Michael’s four technicians worked quickly, speaking rarely and only in clipped, unemotional, well-rehearsed phrases. They had practiced hard for this very important test, and they knew the eyes of the world were on them. “How does our orbit look?” Saint-Michael asked. “We should be in position to intercept throughout the boost and midcourse phases,” a tech replied. Armstrong Station was in a seven-hundred- by one-hundred-mile elliptical polar orbit, roughly centered near the north pole. Because the northernmost part of the orbit was farther from earth, the station spent two and a half of its three-hour orbit over the pole, allowing it to scan longer for attacking north-launched missiles. “Missiles are above the atmosphere,” the tech at the master multisensor console reported. “Approaching one hundred miles altitude.” “Thor missiles ready for launch,” another tech reported. The general nodded once again. The SBM-29A Thor missiles were Armstrong Station’s antiballistic weapons. Resembling long metal cigars, the cylindrical missiles were simple but effective. Ten of them were loaded into a circular free-flying carrier-ejector “garage” that was attached to Armstrong Station’s long main structural keel by a steel tether. The missile garage was equipped with thrusters that would allow it to point its business end toward the attacking ICBMs in response to remote slaving commands from the space station’s sensors. “All six ICBMs are approximately two minutes from burnout,” the main sensor tech reported. “Approaching max firing range-” “Prepare to launch missiles,” Saint-Michael ordered. “First three missiles on fidl automatic intercept during ICBM boost. Fourth missile on SBR intercept mode only in midcourse
intercept. Program fifth Thor for blind-launch intercept. Program sixth Thor missile for full manual track in midcourse phase–Chief Jefferson will perform the intercept. Program the remaining intercept missiles for full automatic in case any get away.” The missile tech’s fingers flew over his controls.
-SLBMs approaching optimum range.” Saint-Michael turned to the chief sensor technician, Space Command Chief Master Sergeant Jake Jefferson. “Ready, Jake?” Jefferson, a finger lightly resting on a large steering trackball on his console, nodded.
Ibe general flipped his communications earset to stationwide intercom. “Attention on the station. Stand by. for missile launch.” He sat back and laced his fingers. “Launch commit all Thor interceptors.”
A single switch was activated. “Launch commit.” The SBR tracking computer had been feeding tracking information to the Thor ejector, pointing the ten missiles towards the six sea-launched ballistic missiles flying at thousands of miles an hour through space. Three of the Thor interceptor missiles had also been receiving precise guidance information from the SBR sensors, so their on-board sensors already knew where to look for the SLBMs. These three missiles, with super-accurate data being constantly fed to them, waited in the ejector for their computer-directed launch command.
Of the other seven Thor missiles, two were launched immediately after Saint-Michael issued the launch commit signal. The first of these two missiles was directed entirely by Armstrong Station’s powerful SBR and other sensors, simulating a failure of the Thor’s on-board trackers. The second missile, simulating a failure of all tracking data uplink signals from Armstrong Station, relied solely on its on-board radar and infrared sensors for the intercept.
Despite the technician-induced failures, however, the two Thor missiles performed flawlessly. Each Thor missile had a
two-stage liquid-fueled engine capable of ten thousand pounds of thrust, which instantly accelerated the four-thousand-pound missiles to fifteen thousand miles per hour in a few seconds. Shortly after their motors fired, a one-hundred-foot-diameter
steel mesh web unfolded from the Thor missile’s body, effectively increasing the missile’s kill radiusThe first two interceptor missiles did not need the webbing to neutralize their targets. The space station’s SBR sensors detonated the one-thousand-pound high-explosive flak warhead on the first Thor missile a split second before the mesh hit the ballistic missile’s upper
stage, instantly shredding the SLBM’s protective warhead shroud, destroying the sensitive inertial guidance electronics, and sending the entire upper stage spinning off into space. The second Thor missile, directed by the radar seeker head on the missile itself, made a direct hit on the SLBM upper stage moments after third-stage burnout, completely destroying the ballistic missile. “Two hits confirmed,” a tech reported aboard the space station, and a cheer went up among the crew. Saint-Michael gripped the armrests on his commander’s chair and allowed himself a faint smile.
That was enough for Jefferson. He took a deep breath and hit the launch button on his manual control console, ejecting the Thor missile that was to be manually guided. “Thor six away,” he announced.
A split-second later, Armstrong Station’s intercept computers decided that the two lead ballistic missiles were in proper range, and the first two fully automatic Thor missiles were ejected from the launcher garage by blasts of supercompressed nitrogen gas. “Thors one and two away.”
Saint-Michael nodded at Jefferson. “You’re right on so far, Jake. Show those guys down there what a spacer can do. “
Taking his cues from the SBR-directed interceptors, Jefferson punched the command keys that ignited his missile’s liquid-fueled engines and unfurled the one-hundred-foot steel snare. His computer monitor showed the sensor image of the trailing sixth sea-launched ballistic missile, and a circle cursor represented the sensor image of the Thor missile as it sped away from Armstrong Station.
Gently, carefully, Jefferson pressed the enable switch on the side of the tracking console with his right middle finger and rested his right thumb on the trackball. As long as he
depressed the enable button, any movement of the trackball would trigger tiny vernier thrusters on his Thor missile’s body, which would slide the interceptor missile in any direction to align it with its target. Jefferson’s job was to keep the SLBM roughly in the center of the circle cursor all the way to impact. “Direct hit on Trident number one,” a tech reported. “Thor two is ten seconds to impact. Thor three is launched. . . . ” “Three out of six hits,” Saint-Michael said. “Good, but not good enough. . . . ” “Good proximity hit on Trident two,” came another report. “Four out of six destroyed. . . . ” “Excellent,” the general was saying, “excellent-” “Clean miss on Trident three!” the tech suddenly shouted. “No snare, no proximity detonation.”
Saint-Michael felt a nervous tingling in his fingers that caused him to concentrate even harder. “Auto launch commit on Thor number seven,” he snapped. But the technician had anticipated his command and the missile was already speeding out of its chute.
Jefferson was having problems of his own as Saint-Michael leaned over his shoulder. “It’s like tryin’ to thread a needle with two baseball gloves on,” Jefferson muttered. He risked glancing up from his tracking monitor at the missile-status indicators. “I’ve used up three-quarters of the vernier thruster fuel. This is turning into a tail chase. . . . ” “Easy, Chief,” the general said. “You got it wired. Relax.” He was also talking to himself. “Tridents three and six approaching MIRV separation….
Saint-Michael sat back and looked nervously at the back of Jefferson’s sweaty right hand. The two remaining SLBMs were almost ready to MIRV — each of the missile’s ten individual reentry warheads was soon going to separate from the earner bus. If they did, it would be almost impossible to knock down the small warheads.
Jefferson’s thumb barely touched the trackball’s surface as
he attempted to nudge the interceptor towards the ballistic missile bus. The sensor image of the SLBM was becoming
more and more erratic. Jefferson’s thumb quivered slightly as he fought for control. “You got it, Jake. Easy, easy. “It’s gonna miss,” Jefferson said through clenched teeth. “Launch another interceptor, Skipper. Fast. It’s gonna-“
Jefferson’s console instruments froze. The chief master sergeant didn’t notice the frozen readouts . . . he was totally absorbed in trying to merge the
two sensor images even though he no longer had control. “You got it,” Saint-Michael said as he read the frozen numbers. “Twenty-five-foot snare on the webbing and a snare detonation. Good shooting, Chief.” Jefferson nodded thanks and pulled his hand away from the sweat-moistened trackball. “MIRV separation on Trident three,” a tech reported. “Thor seven is . . .” He paused, studying the computer analysis of the sensor inputs. “It looks as if Thor seven snared all but one of the MIRVs just after MIRV separation,” he said. “I’m tracking one single warhead. Track appears a little wobbly, but I think it’ll reenter the atmosphere intact.” “Will it impact in the White Sands range?” the general asked.
After an excruciatingly long pause during which SaintMichael was about to send another Thor in a long tail-chase after the rogue warhead, the tech responded. “Affirmative, Skipper. Well within the range, but at least five miles outside the target cluster on the range. Clean miss.” “Okay. . . . Well, we didn’t kill it but we nicked it enough to send it off course. And we got fifty-nine of sixty warheads. “Ninety-eight point three-three percent effective,” Colonel Wayne Marks, deputy commander for engineering, added, slapping the technicians’ shoulders in congratulations. “Pretty good county fair shooting, I’d say. “
Saint-Michael retrieved his coffee cup. “Unless you’re under that one remaining warhead,” he said.
USS CONSTELLATION.
“Very well,” Rear Admiral Bennett Walton said. He returned the phone labeled “CIC,” combat information center, to its cradle and looked over at the president. “Sir, Cheyenne Mountain reports one Mark 21C dummy reentry vehicle impacting at the White Sands Missile Test Range.
The president felt his face flush with excitement. He turned and smiled at the secretary of defense. “One warhead? Just one?9′ “That’s it, sir,” Walton said. “And that one warhead was diverted off course and missed its intended impact point by eight nautical miles. If the warhead had been active, the fireball would not have extended to the target. Communications says Armstrong’s after-action report is being received in CIC. I I
The president shook hands all around, then sat back in the carrier commander’s seat and sipped coffee. “Damn, I think we’ve got something here . . . …
THE KREMLIN, USSR
Through swirling gusts of snow that fell outside the triplepaned windows, the Soviet Union’s Minister of Defense Sergei Leonidovich Czilikov had difficulty seeing even as far as the frozen Moscow River and the new Varsauskoje Highway that spanned its southern and northern banks. He watched policemen trying to direct traffic around a minor collision in the middle of Bakovka Avenue east of the new Kremlin Administrative Center. Another long, severe winter was coming.
Czilikov turned away from the icy scene outside, but things were equally as depressing and cold inside. Seated around a long oblong oak table in the cavernous office were the mem-
bers of the Kollegiya, the Soviet main military council. The Kollegiya included three deputy ministers of defense, a KGB general, the commanders of the five branches of the Soviet military, and five generals representing various support and reserve elements of the military. Fifteen men, six in business suits with medals and ribbons, the rest in military uniforms, and not one of them, least of all Czilikov, under the age of sixty. All but one, the relatively young KGB chief, Lichizev, were Heroes of the Soviet Union.
They were surrounded by aides and secretaries in hard metal folding chairs arranged along the century-old tapestries covering the walls of the room. Two elite Kremlin guards, each armed with AKSU submachine guns, flanked each
heavy oak door leading into the chamber.
Everyone in the large, cold room looked on edge. Czilikov knew what each of them was expecting. As he moved to the unoccupied head of the conference table, the hubbub of noise died abruptly away. “We must attack,” Czilikov said. The faces of the fifteen men remained stony, grim. Mindless cattle, Czilikov thought to himself. The new general secretary had such a firm stranglehold on these formerly powerful, soldiers, Heroes of the Soviet Union, that most were afraid even to look up from the table. The spirit of glasnost in general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s regime had been squashed. “Intelligence reports are conclusive, tovarishniyes, ” Czilikov declared. “Nearly all of the pro-Khomeini factions have been defeated by the moderates, and the pro-Western government is consolidating control of both the people and the military. The Alientar government in Iran has promised a return to pre-Khomeini wealth and prosperity for its people-funded by the Americans, of course. The KGB predicts that the Iranians will agree to the reopening of air and naval bases and listening posts in Iran in exchange for generous financial assistance. Which means that arms sales to Iran from the West, which were nothing more than secretive trickles, may soon flow like vodka.”
Czilikov fixed each of them with an imperious stare. Despite his age, his eyes danced with the same fire as when he was a young tank commander rolling triumphantly across
Poland in World War 11. “The old efforts to consolidate the Transcaucasus under our rule by kindling this wasting, bloody war between Iran and Iraq have faded. Our former leader, more concerned with his television image than the needs of the future world Communist state, failed to anticipate that religious fanaticism can be a powerful, sustaining force-particularly in Iran. Our lack of success in supporting the Hussein regime in Iraq has seriously hurt our prestige. The result is that we are in danger of losing all our influence in the whole Middle East.” “Could this really be so, Comrade Marshal?” Deputy Minister of Defense and Chief of Ground Forces General Yegenly Ilanovsky asked. “Surely the hatred that the Iranians have for the Americans cannot be erased overnight? Thousands were killed in the American bombing raids on Tehran and Kharg Island just a few years ago.” “Raids which the Iranians themselves foolishly invited by attacking American shipping in the Gulf and staging that Christmas terrorist attack on Washington,” Admiral Chercherovin, commander in chief of the navy, said. “They seem to have an instinct for self-destruction.” “Which may play into our hands nicely,” Lichizev, the KGB representative, put in., “As for how the Iranians feel about the Americans at the moment, my agents in Iran report a distinct softening in attitude. Public memory can sometimes be conveniently short, and official memory can be adjusted. The CIA has given vital military support to the puppet regime of the Ayatollah Falah Alientar. They have helped crush his enemies very effectively, much as they did when the Shah Pavelirili Rezneveh was in power, before they got an attack of democratic conscience. . . .” “It is obvious that past transgressions have been forgotten,”‘ Czilikov summed up. “And if the United States and Iran sip a friendship and cooperation agreement, the IranIraq war will be over within days. Iraq will not fire on an American vessel, and the skies over Iran will be nearly impenetrable if American planes are allowed to land there. We will be as powerless as we were in Egypt twenty years ago. I I
The Kollegiya became silent. The next question hung over
the group like a poised guillotine blade, but no one was going to ask. Czilikov’s gaze swept over the gray-haired men at the table, but he met few direct glances.
They were waiting for their orders, Czilikov decided. Well, give them the order…. “Operation Feather has been approved by the Politburo,” Czilikov finally said. “The plan for the occupation and control of Iran and the Persian
Gulf. Swift execution is essential. The United States must be prevented from entering the Persian Gulf with a major naval air force. We do not want a repeat of their flagging operation of five years ago. We must take tactical command of the Persian Gulf theater before Iran formally asks the United States for assistance. Ayatollah Larijani has established a government-in-exile in Syria and has been persuaded to help us. He will announce that it was the pro-West members of Alientar’s party who precipitated the war with Iraq. He will denounce the war as an American plot to divide die Islamic brotherhood. He will call for a holy war against Alientar’s puppet regime.”
Czilikov paused, letting his carefully chosen words sink in. “Then he will announce an alliance with President Hussein of Iraq to unite the two warring nations under a new flag, creating the Islamic Republic of Persia.”
Czilikov returned to his seat and motioned to First Deputy Minister of Defense Sergei Khromeyev, chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces. Khromeyev stepped before a wide flat-lens computer screen set up in a corner of the room. “The tentative scenario has been approved by the Politburo,” Khromeyev began. “The ultimate objective of Operation Feather is to consolidate the Persian Gulf region under complete political and military control of our Soviet Communist party. The party, through the defense council, has ordered the Stavka to accomplish the objectives set out in these orders. “
Khrorneyev referred to a folder on the long conference table as a detailed computer-generated map of the Persian Gulf appeared on the screen. “Forces employed will consist mainly of air, land, and sea forces under the command of the Southern Military Theater. Operation Feather will be conducted using forces generated during Operation Rocky Sweep,
our annual Southern TVD military district combat exercise. The forces mobilized during Rocky Sweep will be augmented by reserve forces for home defense as Operation Feather is implemented. A small but dramatic Iranian attack against one of our destroyers in the Persian Gulf will precipitate our defensive containment response. The attack will be preplanned by GRU and KGB agents in place in Iran, and will use Iranian Silkworm antiship missiles fired from Bandar-Abbas near the Strait of Hormuz. “We already have an entire carrier task force in place. The Mockba-class Leonid V. Brezhnev aircraft carrier is stationed in the Persian Gulf. The Brezhnev battle group is nearly unopposed—the Americans, I’m glad to say, still refuse to put one of their carriers in the gulf out of fear of reprisal. The Brezhnev has six cruisers, ten destroyers, and ten support vessels. When the destroyer Sovremennyy is attacked, the battle group will attack the Iranian military ports of Abadan, Bandar-Abbas, and Bushehr. The group will be reinforced by Tu-95 and Tu-121 B naval bombers from our ports in South Yemen. Control of Bandar-Abbas will give us control of the Straits of Hormuz, the major chokepoint, as you well know, of the entire Persian Gulf. The southern Teatr Voennykh Deistvii will occupy Tehran, with assistance from three divisions from Afghanistan, which will control the eastern border. Southern TVD, Caspian flotilla, and Iraqi forces will capture the western frontier.Czilikov noticed a few nervous faces in the Kollegiya. They were not, it seemed, itching for battle. They would follow orders, but this was a far more ambitious operation than they had expected.
Khromeyev pushed on. “Syrian and Iraqi forces will contain any American military reaction from Turkey, and the Brezhnev carrier battle group in the Persian Gulf will close off the air and sea approaches to the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.”
Czilikov stood and faced the Kollegiya. The computer map had frozen with the scene of red sickles and hammers spread from Syria to Pakistan. “In one week we will occupy Iran,” Czilikov said. “A coup will reinstate the Islamic regime of Larijani, which will,
as mentioned, unify Iran under the Islamic Republic of Persia. We will retain both political and military control of the region and prevent the United States from ever regaining a strong strategic foothold in the Persian Gulf.”
There was a low rumble of voices. Czilikov sat, folded his hands before him on the table, waiting for the rumble to subside. A few short years ago such
a bold plan would have provoked vigorous, angry protests. No longer. Already the men surrounding Czilikov began to quiet. The members of the Kollegiya were either too dumbfounded or afraid or both to speak out. Czilikov let his words linger for a few moments, then said, “Your comments, tovarischniyes. ” “It’s a brilliant plan,” Ilanovsky said enthusiastically. “A swift, crushing pincer that will grab the entire region away from the U.S.” “I assure you the navy stands ready, gentlemen,” Admiral Chercherovin added. “The Brezhnev battle group can easily control the region, and our naval aviation forces from South Yemen and Vietnam will intercept all American rapid deployment air forces. “
Each of the commanders of the armed forces, in turn, weighed in with their enthusiasm and support for Czilikov’s invasion plan. But such overwhelming support didn’t especially hearten the Minister of Defense. Intimidated military commanders tended to make unreliable decisions. He was about to make some comment about his staff’s excessive enthusiasm when -he noted a quiet but animated discussion between Deputy Minister Alexi Ivanovich Rhomerdunov, commander in chief of aerospace forces, and one of his staff members. The staffer was all but being pushed back into his seat by Rhomerdunov, who had to be at least thirty years older than his enthusiastic aide. “Is there a problem, Rhomerdunov?”
All heads swiveled in the direction of the seventy-year-old head of air defense forces. Rhomerdunov straightened in his seat, stabbing an angry glare in his aide’s direction. “No, Comrade Minister. “‘
Czilikov nodded and was about to issue his orders to the Kollegiya when Rhomerdunov cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Minister Czilikov–he again looked apprehensively in
the aide’s direction–perhaps there are some important points to be made about this Iranian offensive.”
The members of the Kollegiya froze and stared at Rhomerdunov, as if ad just a y ins . minister o –
fense. Czilikov said nothing. Then, without further prompting, Rhomerdunov’s aide stood and straightened to attention. The officer was tall, lean, powerfully built. Ukrainian, obviously, judging by his wide shoulders, flat nose, and square jaw, Czilikov decided. He hit on the man’s name as he began to speak. “Sir, I am– “I know who you are, General Lieutenant Govorov. As the Soviet Union’s first space shuttle cosmonaut and a Hero. of the Soviet Union you’re known to us all.” Czilikov ground a fist into his palm in barely restrained anger. “Your contributions to the scientific and military excellence of our country forgive many … transgressions. Since you have seen fit to grant yourself permission to speak before the Kollegiya, please proceed. I’m sure everyone wants to hear from the new commander of the space-defense command.” “My apologies, sir,” which was as far as Govorov’s apology went. Most officers below the rank of three-star general would be a mass of jelly speaking in front of the Kollegiya, even without committing a major breach of protocol. But it didn’t seem to affect young Govorov. “Well, proceed, General Lieutenant.”
Govorov stayed at attention. “It is my opinion that this mission to attack Iran will ultimately fail.”
Rhomerdunov straightened in his seat and, looked straight ahead, as if steeling himself.for the executioner. All eyes in the room moved from Rhomerdunov’s granite face to the surprised Mars al C I I V. “I’ve heard,” Czilikov said, “that subtlety is not exactly your style. I see it is true.” He looked to Rhomerdunov, who kept staring straight ahead. Well, Czilikov thought, it seemed the old war horse Rhomerdunov wasn’t afraid to challenge the party, even if it was indirectly through his deputy Govorov.
As for Govorov, he took Czilikov’s silence as a cue to continue. “The Americans have a device that is not only capable of warning of any impending invasion but also of
directing American and NATO counterforces. This device, sir, is the Armstrong Space Station– “The space station? Their military station? It’s only been in for a few months-” “Yes, and it is fully operational,” Govorov said. “As we all know, sir, the iAmericans have successfully completed their first
operational test of their illegal Thor space-based interceptor missile. Although the test was less than perfect-” “That is an overstatement, Govorov,” Khromeyev put in. “The Americans called it an operational test, but it was carefully staged to insure optimal results. In spite of their choreography, our intelligence reported several clear misses with the Thor missile. It is an obvious propaganda ploy-” “Our intelligence puts the effectiveness of the Thor missile at no better than eighty-three percent,” Govorov agreed, “which my staff feels is no better than fifty percent in an actual wartime scenario. But, sir, the Thor missile is not at issue. My staff is more concerned with the system of advanced sensors now in use, especially the phased-array, spacebased radar aboard the space station Armstrong. It has a far greater capability than we first estimated. We believe, sir, that the space-based radar can track and identify objects on land, sea, and in the air from ranges in excess of sixteen hundred kilometers.”
A clamor of voices erupted in the conference chamber. Czilikov’s voice boomed out above them all. “Sixteen hundred kilometers? That’s impossible. No radar can do that.” “No earth-bound radar, sir. But a radar mounted in space has no size or geographical limitations, It’s limited only by -the power available to it–and the space station has enough solar-energy capability to power the whole Kremlin.” “You are trying to tell us,” Deputy Minister Ilanovsky said, “that a single space station can monitor all movement of military equipment involved in Operation Feather? Thousands of vehicles spread out over millions of cubic kilometers of space in mountainous terrain and in bad weather? That is preposterous-” “It may sound so,” Govorov said to the commander of the army, “but our estimates confirm it.” “I say that whether this radar can do all of these things is
still immaterial,” Deputy Minister Marasimov, the commander of Strategic Rocket Forces, said. “The station is in polar earth orbit. It does not permanently position itself over the Middle East. It can only provide short-term glimpses of the region a few times each day. Which would make it impractical as a warning and control station. “
Govorov hesitated for a moment. “That’s true, but-” “This expensive toy has no more capability than an ordinary reconnaissance satellite,” Marasimov went on, smiling benignly at young Govorov. “What you have said about the Armstrong’s radar is true … if the radar is in operation when it passes over the area, if it works properly, if its operators and interpreters correctly analyze the images, and if they can get the information to regional commanders in time to be of some use. By my count that’s four pretty damn big ifs. “
Marasimov nodded to Czifikov. “I believe our young colleague has presented some very … interesting information, but I also believe that the radar on the American space station would be no obstacle to the success of Feather.”
Govorov looked amazed. “Excuse me, but-” “Thank you, General Lieutenant Govorov,” Czilikov said, dismissing him. “I will -expect detailed briefings, on each command order of battle for Operation Feather in two weeks. “
Govorov sank back into his metal folding chair as Czilikov continued issuing his orders. He struggled to remain pokerfaced, his eyes narrowed into angry slits as a few of the deputy ministers and marshals cast amused glances his way.
They can’t believe now, Govorov told himself. But they will. The American space station won’t just be talked, or wished, away.
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND
From the northernmost cannon mounts known as the Argyle Battery of Edinburgh Castle, the view of the New Town section of Edinburgh was breathtaking. Far below the craggy
heights of the ancient castle, which seemed to grow out of the rock like a gnarled oak, the snow-covered Princes Street Gardens stretched from St. Cuthbert’s Church to the west, to Waverley Station to the east and far, far down the Lothian Valley to the North Sea. Beyond Princes Street Garden, the modem shops, hotels and homes of New Edinburgh-“new” in this instance meaning the part of town that was only two hundred forty years old, as opposed to the rest, which was over twelve hundred—bustled with activity despite the
cold winds and occasional snowfalls.
There were a few die-hard tourists visiting this imposing stone castle overlooking Edinburgh, but for the most part the site was deserted except for the warders and members of the Castle Guard. Only a few hardy, well-dressed individuals stood by to watch as the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard made their way to the Mills’ Mount gun platform for the one
o’clock signal. “The townspeople, merchants and sailors of Edinburgh have set their timepieces to the one o’clock gun ever since the time of Napoleon Bonaparte,” a tour guide was saying. His thick Scottish brogue, dulled by the chill winds swirling around the top of the castle, made him difficult to understand, but the man who stood a few feet to his left, dressed in a gray trenchcoat, wool-brimmed hat, leather gloves and sunglasses was not really listening. “It is even said that Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, stops by Edinburgh every day to check the spin of the earth and moon with the gun so
sailors won’t get lost.” “Why do they fire the gun at one o’clock?” a man with a slight Middle Eastern accent asked. He had been waiting there for some time, and was now standing right up near the chain and stanchions that kept visitors away from the small fifty-five-nii1limeter howitzer. “It seems a strange hour. Why not signal at noon?”
Now the man in sunglasses was interested, but not in the tour guide’s reply—being a native of Scotland, he’d already guessed the answer. “Ye forget, sir,” the tour guide replied, his lips forming a sly smile, “you’re in Scotland. Having to fire only one shot
per day, rather than twelve, appeals to a Scotman’s sense of economy. “
The foreigner gave a short laugh and the tour guide went on with his well-rehearsed script. The Scots, the man with the sunglasses observed, seemed as fond of making fun at themselves as they were of the English and Irish.
Presently the guards entered the chained-off area, and at the direction of the officer in charge, fired one economical round to the north over the New Town. By force of habit the man in sunglasses checked his watch–the timing was perfect. The Scots were nothing if not both thrifty and punctual.
The tourists quickly retreated out of the numbing wind that blew in from the glacial bay called the Firth of Forth; even the Dragoon Guards’ pace seemed to quicken as they marched off the Argyle Battery back to the massive group of twohundred-year-old buildings called the New Barracks.
The man with the slight Middle Eastern accent turned away from the Mills’ Mount Battery as if reluctantly relinquishing the sting of the icy winds on his face and walked down the cobblestone concourse toward the Portcullis Gate. He almost walked right into the man in the sunglasses. “Excuse me.” His voice was even colder than the chill Scottish winds.
The man in the sunglasses began in French. “Pardonnezmoi, Monsieur le Pr6ident Alientar. “McDonough?” “Yes, Mr. President.” “I was afraid you were not going to come. I thought your government was going to change its mind again.” “We can talk over here, sir,” McDonough said, letting Alientar’s shot glance off him unanswered. He led him past the former cart sheds turned souvenir shops and down a narrow alley to the Back Parade between the Butts Battery and the building marked “Governor’s Residence.” They then turned left across to a cobblestone half-moon carriageway to an entrance in the rear of the governor’s residence. “We are going in here?” President Alientar asked. “The English and Scottish governments were kind enough to offer us a secure place to talk,” McDonough said. They walked up the stone-and-filed portico of the rear of the building and were immediately met by a member of the Royal
Scots Dragoon Guard in a black cold-weather uniform. No kilts, dirks or ceremonial basket-hilt broadswords here-the guard had a very mean, modem-looking Heckler and Koch MP5A3 assault submachine gun at portarms. He checked McDonough’s ID, compared it against a separate roster, motioned them inside.
A man dressed in household whites but clearly a member of the Dragoon Guard-the bulge of a Special Air Services Browning high-power automatic pistol was
Visible under his tunic-led the two foreigners through the outer galley and kitchen area, through the well-appointed dining room and large sitting room and into a smaller office area. He eyed them both suspiciously, then left without saying a word. “Not very friendly … 11
“He probably feels this meeting of foreigners demeans the surroundings,” McDonough said, and motioned Alientar to a leather-covered seat. A few moments later the guard returned with a tray of tea and scones.
-M’ omerica, ” McDonough said in Gaelic. “My thanks.” The guardsman gave McDonough a piercing look, obviously feeling that the foreigner was making fun of him by speaking the ancient Scottish tongue. He left with a loud thud of the heavy oak door. “No doubt my presence is a particular irritant,” Alientar said. He eyed McDonough as he removed his hat, coat, and gloves. “What is it you do, Mr. McDonough?” “I’m an assistant to the president of the United States. I’m assigned to the National Security Council but I report directly to the president.” “Are you a military man?” “Retired-United States Air Force. I was an air attachd to Tehran before the revolution.” “A spy, then.” “No, an air attachi. I was liasion between the Iranian and U.S. air forces.” “You would deny it in any case,” Alientar said blandly. McDonough took a deep breath, surprised at how steady his hands were as he poured the tea. “I am distressed that the president did not send one of his senior advisors to this meeting,” Alientar said. “I would
have expected at least a cabinet-level officer, or the vicepresident.” He looked casually around the office, as if trying to decide whether or not to continue. “This troubles metroubles me deeply. I question the sincerity of your government if they can’t at least send someone of ministerial or ambassadorial rank-“
McDonough thought how a few years back Bud McFarland said almost the same thing to second-rank Iranians when he had come to Tehran to sell arms for hostages. Full-circle. . . . “My apologies if we’ve offended you,” McDonough said. He had been expecting this. “But the president requested this meeting in anticipation of a more formal state visit by you to Washington at the earliest opportunity. He asked me to talk with you, hear you out, and transmit your messages to him.Alientar shrugged. “Very well, but I am disappointed. And to have this meeting in Scotland? In the dead of winter? A poor choice.” “Excuse me, sir, but this was by far the most secure place for this meeting. True, it’s not recommended that you stray too close to these Royal Scots Dragoons. Too many Scottish seamen in the Royal Navy have lost their lives in the Persian Gulf because of your predecessor’s attacks on British escort vessels in recent months. But almost any other site would be far more dangerous.” McDonough paused for a moment, then went on. “Internal disputes in your own Revolutionary Guard make it no longer safe for you to be in your own palace in Tehran. Half the Muslim nations have shunned you or are afraid to show you any friendship, and the other half want you dead. Even France, where you’ve stayed for the past month, is close to deporting you because of the terrorist attacks you provoke by being there. You were let into Great Britain only after personal assurances from my president that secrecy would be maintained. All in all, I’d say we am lucky that this meeting is being held in the office of the governor of Scotland rather than in some jungle hut in South America-” “I resent the implication that I am some sort of banana republic tyrant come begging before a third-rank American bureaucrat. I am the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I am the political and religious leader of fifteen million
Muslim soldiers of God who would gladly die for Allah, and myself. Please do not insult me.”
McDonough shrugged, thought to himself that this Iranian was even touchier than he’d expected. “I apologize for my remarks-” “I would hear the apology
from the president himself.” “I’m afraid that’s impossible.” “Why impossible?”
McDonough sighed. “Sir, in this election year it would be ill-advised for any American politician to be seen with you. This meeting alone carries significant risk…. But the president does feel it’s urgent to open a dialogue with you. I happen to be the best-qualified person in the administration to talk to you about your present situation. ” “You are also … how do you say it … deniable? A secretary of state must answer to the people and to Congress. A junior aide in some back-room office in the White House can easily be hidden from public view.”
McDonough smiled in spite of himself. “You know your American politics, Monsieur le Pr,4sident.”
This small bit of flattery went a long way, helped Alientar to save some face. “Continue, Mr. McDonough. You are impertinent but I believe we can still talk business.”
McDonough nodded. “Well, in this case business simply involves an exchange of information. The president wants to know how you view the situation in your country.” “That is all?” Alientar let out a short laugh. “I dare say your point of view is more informed than mine at this point.” He turned away and stared out one of the tall columnar windows of the Governor’s House. “They thought the Ayatollah Khomeini was Jesus Christ resurrected,” Alientar said finally. “The damned outcast socialists, the bored students, the poor starving fundamentalist Muslims-it was as if they all wanted to re-create the New Testament, with Rubollah Khomeini as Jesus and the Shah as Pilate. There were secret police and atrocities on both sides, but Iran was a flower in the desert in the days of the Shah. Khomeini was supposed to make it better, and I believe that he could have made Iran prosperous under Islam. But he began to believe the things they were saying about him. He waged war on whoever the
priests and elders told him were threatening his ascent to glory. He slaughtered thousands of the Shah’s men, the only Iranians who knew how to run a government. He strangled the life out of the foreign oil companies. He made war on the Israelis, the French, the Americans, the British and then the Iraquis. He ordered the slaughter of ten thousand children in one month by sending them, unarmed, against Iraqi tanksand he rejoiced afterward. The power, it simply drove him mad. “
Alientar paused for a moment, then continued. “He spent millions on educating the young mullahs overseas. We were taught diplomacy, defense, finance, every facet of government; then when we returned, he tossed us aside in favor of the religious fanatics. Many of us were made military field commanders-many of us died in Iraqi bombing raids or at the hands of Khomeini’s Revolutionary Guard.” “But not you. Your military successes led you back to Tehran. “
Alientar looked surprised. “Yes. I led a successful guerrilla attack against some isolated Iraqi headquarters. My squad of old men and children had been abandoned by our Revolutionary Guard regulars; we were cornered like rats and we fought like rats and somehow were victorious. We captured some useless desert territory and a few Soviet tanks. They made me a hero and suddenly I found myself with access to the inner circle of power.” “Where you began to build the groundwork for a more moderate government,” McDonough added.
Alientar looked at him. “I cannot tell if you are baiting me or if that is what you really believe. Never mind … I was a lackey in the so-called Islamic Revolutionary Council. I kissed the feet of the psychotic fundamentalist warmongers like everyone else. But I discovered that I was not the only one who wanted a more moderate, more profitable Islamic government. A group of us arranged for arms to be secretly shipped from several countries, including the United States, and only a fraction of those weapons ever found their way into the hands of the Iranian army or the Revolutionary Guard The rest were stored in secret caches in Iran and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, waiting.
“It was a bad day, back in 1986, when our operation was revealed during your infamous Iran-Contra scandal. We went underground when our activities were made public, survived the internal investigations, and became stronger. The Revolutionary Guard may be the flower of the Ayatollah’s chivalry, but they are just as corrupt as anyone. They kept their tongues silent for a little gold-no, hear me out, McDonough,” he said as McDonough seemed about to interrupt.
“You asked for information; you need background to understand it…. When Khomeini finally became too ill to function, Larijani, Khomeini’s chosen successor, inherited a sinking ship. Even the support of the Soviet Union could not save him when we decided to take over-” “Yes, my government is impressed with your ability to consolidate the rival factions in your country,” McDonough said. “Your progress has been encouraging. We know, of course, that there are still fundamentalist religious leaders and Revolutionary Guard commanders who claim you don’t represent them, but their numbers seem to be dwindling. The president is optimistic. “
Alientar stood and began to pace the tiny office, absently studying the books on the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the walls. He stopped and opened a concealed panel above a small letter desk, revealing a very well-stocked liquor cabinet with rows of shining crystal snifters and gracefully fluted decanters. “I learned much in the West. I learned about single-malt Scotch whiskey–he poured himself a shot and returned to the high-backed leather seat–and I learned about the rivalry between the East and West. I think I learned what motivates the Russians-fear of powerful neighbors, losing control of territories, having insecure borders, not having access to warmwater ports. And I believe I learned what motivates the West-worrying where the next tank of gas will come from, fear of losing markets, losing investment opportunities, losing control of the Soviets. There is a saying in the Middle East : ,there is no difference between Russian money, and American money, but with the Russian money comes Russian troops, and with American money comes Exxon and Holiday Inn.
“Iran is tearing itself apart, Mr. McDonough,” Alientar said matter-of-factly, as if casually describing the weather outside. “I have two choices. I can allow my country to be dismembered like a wounded hare set on by a pack of wolves, or I can align with a keeper to save us from self-destruction. I prefer the latter. I would like our keeper to be the United States of America.”
McDonough nodded, his face showing no expression. Alientar went on, “If promised money, arms, and assistance from the West, I will pledge to withdraw from this Soviet-inspired war with Iraq, retreat back to our prewar boundaries and open negotiations with President Hussein of Iraq to normalize relations. If I manage to keep myself alive in the process, I will authorize an exchange of ambassadors between our countries, allow foreign oil companies access to petroleum deposits and eventually try to return Iran to its prerevolution status while retaining a moderate Muslim society and government. . . . It would also be in our interests to arrange that docking rights be granted to American naval vessels and aircraft, and to reestablish an American military presence in Iran. I believe the wolf with the sharpest teeth ready to swallow us is the Soviet Union, which would like nothing better than to have direct access to the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf and control of the Strait of Hormuz. It would be of incredible strategic value to them.” He looked squarely at McDonough. “Or to the United States.” “Our immediate priority,” McDonough said, “is a stable, neutral and genuinely moderate regime in Iran. Naval bases and listening posts may come later.”
Alientar nodded, but his expression showed skepticism. “Of course. So what will you tell the president?” “Tell him? Well, I believe I’ll tell him that President Alientar has promised the world. Again. I’ll offer the opinion that you-are in no position to deliver anything, that you can’t even guarantee your own safe return to Iran.”
The Iranian nearly threw the glass of whiskey to the floor. “You are an insulting-” “I’ll also tell him that the factions inside Iran that engineered the terrorist attacks in Washington, D.C., still exist and still influence your actions—the evidence is in your
self-imposed exile. I’ll also tell him that you don’t have the power to stop the on-going Revolutionary Guard speedboat attacks on neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf. And that any substantive deal with you would be a waste of time.”
Alientar appeared ready to go for McDonough’s throat. “However, sir, the president disagrees with my view in this matter. He will ask me what you have offered, and I will say that you have offered to form a stable, moderate Muslim government friendly to the West; that you have offered naval bases and air strips; that you generally feel that the United States is the lesser of two evils and you can better profit by us than by the Russians. I’ll tell him about your supposed concern for the strategic balance in the region but also make clear that above all you are looking out for number one. “
Alientar kept seated, trying to decipher McDonough’s words. “Will that supply the requisite amount of humility and defiance, Mr. President?”
Alientar managed a smile: a bright man, this McDonough…. “You are indeed insolent, McDonough, just like the rest of your kinsmen in Scotland. But you have another very annoying attribute-you seem to know what you are talking about. You are a man I can deal with–for now.” “That’s real good, Mr. President, because until there’s a noticeable and positive shift in the political climate in Iran, I will be your only contact with the American government. . . . For now, I’ve been authorized to deliver to you the following message: The United States views the evolving political scene in the Republic of Iran as a necessary and vital precursor to future stability in the region. Such stability is without question of major importance to the United States. Outside intervention of any kind would be seen as a destabilizing influence on this politically sensitive area, and we would view such outside actions as a potential threat to the security of the United States and her allies. ” McDonough took a deep breath, needing more breath for this diplomatic jargon with its weight of hot air, which was not especially his style. . . . “Therefore, the United States will take such actions as it deems necessary to protect our interests in Iran, the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea region to prevent such destabilizing influences. We ask for the full cooperation of
the government of President Falah Ah entar in any future conflicts where our two governments might be at risk.”
Alientar tossed down the rest of the Scotch. “Your president has just written himself a blank check, drawn on our account. ” “It’s a matter of public record that the president supports you and your government. I’d suggest that you nourish his support. There are others besides myself who’ll be pushing him to have nothing to do with your government until we have some assurances that you won’t become an embarrassment. ” “And what would you have me do, Mr. McDonough? You’ve already told me that my promises mean nothing to you. ” “Free elections, open negotiations, end actions against neutral or nonaligned shipping in the Persian Gulf. . . .” “You think it is so easy,” Alientar said. “Just stop the fighting. Lay down your weapons; come out and shake hands, eh?” “Could be.” “Perhaps you are more naive than I thought, McDonough. From the time when I took control of the government my weapons have been my survival. If I lay them down … I will be destroyed, from without as well as within.” “Your internal fight will be your own. Washington won’t hiterfere. This president feels differently than past presidents–to him political unrest, even civil war, is another turn of the wheel of social evolution. Only when outside governments try to influence or intervene is action dictated.”
Alientar stood and retrieved his coat. “What assurances do I have, McDonough, that your government will act to protect Iran from foreign interference?” “None. But you understand the workings of the American govermnent better than most in the Middle East. The president wants to strengthen ties with Iran and keep Soviet influence in the region to a minimum. In an election year like this, open commitments to you will be few if any. But if we’re pushed to protect our interests in the Persian Gulf, we will act. You can take that one to the bank, sir. And you know about banks, they’re the ones with stuff that makes the world
90 round.”
May 1992 OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
The crack of the bat reverberated through the stadium like a shot from a high-powered rifle. It was one of those unmistakable, instantly recognizable sounds-a good, solid, snapping thwack that even those who – didn’t follow baseball knew meant “home run.” The left fielder did not even bother looking
up for the ball, merely hung his head in disbelief, spit on the turf and punched a fist into his glove as he watched four men orbit the bases and stomp on home plate. Twenty thousand fans in the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum groaned as Reggie Jackson, manager of the Oakland A’s, headed for the moufid to give the pitcher the hook and put in the fourth A’s reliever of the game. “It’s about time Jackson took that guy out,” veteran battleship commander Captain Matthew’,Page, age fifty, said, his face a deep crimson. “Three innings, five earned runs. Great. Just great.” He took a gulp of beer.
His wife shook her head at him. “Matt, your blood pressure. . . . ” “My blood pressure would be a damn sight better if Jack-
son would learn how to tell when a reliever is starting to miss the strike zone. Kelly has a split-finger, a curve, and a slider. In the sixth inning he came out and pitched ninety percent split-fingers. His one slider went straight in the dirt. The man was in trouble. In the seventh he shook his right arm before he went into his motion and everyone was surprised when he walked two guys and allowed two base hits. Now Wade Boggs … God, isn’t that guy ever going to retire? … Nails a half-assed curve for a grand slam. I would’ve had a guy warming up in the bullpen the minute I saw-“
Captain Page’s daughter, Ann, reached over to her right and picked up the wall phone in the U.S. Navy’s officer’s Coliseum skybox and handed the receiver to her father. “What’s this?” “It’s for you.” The other navy commanders and their families in the skybox. strained to listen. “It’s Reggie Jackson. -He wants you to be quiet and stop annoying your family.”
Captain Page’s ears reddened beneath his sandy salt-andpepper hair. “You’re right about his blood pressure, Mother,” Ann said, tweaking one of the battleship commander’s ears. “He looks like he’s ready to pop any second.”
Amanda Page couldn’t suppress a smile. “Very damn funny, missy,” Page said, but he allowed a smile through the gruffness. He leaned over his daughter. “Big deal, Spaceman—oh, I’m sorry, Spaceperson. Well, you’re not so fancy your old man can’t still pop you one.”
Ann held up her fists in mock-defense as the other navy men cheered her on. As the action on the field resumed, however, her father ruled himself the winner and ordered Ann to get him another beerOn her way back from the skybox wet bar, sixteen-ounce beer in hand, Ann caught a glimpse of her mother gloomily leaning on the concourse railing. “Mom? Everything okay?” “Of course, sure, dear,” Amanda Page said, the tone of her voice denying the words.
Ann moved closer to her mother, who was staring out beyond the Coliseum Auditorium and across to San Francisco Bay and the hazy San Francisco skyline. Ann followed her
gaze. One of the hundreds of towers, cranes, buildings, and other structures along the waterfront, Ann knew, was the massive gray steel superstructure of the USS California, secured at the Oakland-Alameda Naval Station. The eleven thousand ton nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser was the main escort ship in the fifteen-ship carrier battle group of the USS Nimitz, which would pass under the Golden Gate Bridge in four days to begin an eight-month cruise
to the Indian Ocean.
Ann touched her mother’s arm. “You still have three days with him ……
Amanda shook her head. “He’s already gone, Ann. He’s been gone for a week now. “
She turned to her daughter. “Can’t you see it? You’ve been home for a week now. He may be on terra firma but his mind, his heart, has been on the bridge of the California for days. That skybox is the ship’s wardroom. Officer’s country. He’s listening to the game on Armed Forces Radio or on the TV rebroadcast from Manila, surrounded by his senior officers.” She managed a strained laugh. “I don’t know why it should bother me so. After all, I’ve been a navy wife for twenty-one years. This is your father’s twelfth cruise. It’s just … well, all that news about Iran, the counterrevolution business, the Persian Gulf– ‘Dad isn’t going to the Persian Gulf, he’s going to the Philippines. ” “I don’t think so,” Amanda said quietly. -Ioverheard a conversation last week. I think they might be sending the Nintitz to the Persian Gulf.” “If all these rumors were true, Mom, the Persian Gulf would be clogged with U.S. ships. You can’t make yourself crazy over Officer’s Wives Club gossip.” “That’s not it.” She paused, looking for the words. “It’s just that … it’s different this time. It’s not only your father leaving … it’s you, too. . . . ” “Me? Mom, I haven’t been home in eleven years. You’ve been by yourself-” “For too damn long, for too damn long. But that’s not the problem. You’ve been away but at least I’ve known where you were-Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Houston. I knew if some-
thing . . .’happened to your father that you’d be back and we’d be together no matter how far away you were.” She turned back to the railing. “I can look out there and see your father’s ship and I know that he’s surrounded and protected by the best men and the best equipment in the world. But when I think of where you’re going and the risks you’ll be taking, well, it’s hard for me even to comprehend it. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this scared before. I admit it. . . .”
Ann didn’t have an answer, and now it was Amanda trying to reassure her daughter, which she did by giving her a quick hug. “I’m sorry, Mom. I guess I’ve been so wrapped up in this thing, so preoccupied with my research that I never thought about how it would affect you.”
Amanda shook her head. “Nor should you. You’re like your father. He’s said how sorry he is to be leaving me alone hundreds of times but it would take the guns of all his battleships to keep him from going. I admire you both so much; I wish I had more of your drive…. I wish there was more time for the dime of us to be together. Years pass quicker than any of us realize, you know. It’s easy to take things for granted-not to mention feel sorry for myself. I’m sorry …. 11
Ann held her mother close, then lifted the cup of beer she was holding in her hands. “The captain will be getting powerfully parched,” she said.
Her mother gave her a knowing smile. “I heard some more Officer’s Wives Club gossip,” she said as they walked past two young boys selling Oakland A’s pennants. “About that space station, Silver Tower . . . and how the Russians hate it. And how vulnerable it is. But I suppose I’m being an alarmist about that, too?”
Ann was about to reply but stopped abruptly. What could she say that would really help? As a diversion, a welcome one, she pointed to a man with a portable video camera standing in front of the officers in the skybox. She guided her mother back to the box, where they took their seats at either side of Captain Page. “Smile,” the cameraman said. “You’re on Diamond Vision!”
The family surrounded by the other men and their families waved at the camera. As they did, Ann glanced at the huge scoreboard in center field: Her father’s image was flashed, displaying his gold-trimmed hat with the words “CGN-36 USS CALJFORNIA” on the peak and his Oakland A’s T-shirt. A caption under his picture on the full-color scoreboard screen read “Captain Matt Page,
Commander, USS California.” Ann’s picture was on the screen too: “Dr. Ann Page, Mission Specialist, Space Shuttle Enterprise,” the legend underneath it read. A ripple of applause came from the crowd. “We’re famous, babe!” Matt Page said to his wife, hugging her close. Amanda Page looked at her daughter, forced a smile, waving with restraint into the camera.
It turned out the only possible way to stay clear of the dozens of sailors tramping in and out of the bridge of the US$ California was to stand behind the captain’s high-backed seat, which was what Ann Page found herself doing one week after the baseball game. On the bridge was sheer bedlam: volleys of shouted orders, ringing phones, and a hodgepodge of engine and equipment sounds.
Through it all, Ann noticed, Captain Page was very much in control. No comparison to the overaged boy at the ballgame.
It was actually exhilarating to watch. He seemed to know just when a man would be in arm’s reach or earshot when he needed him. The phone mystically stopped ringing when he needed to use it. His coffee mug never grew cold or was less than half full-in spite of the activity, a steward would somehow make his way to the captain’s chair to refill the short, stubby mug labeled “The Boss of the Boat,” and of course it never dared slide down a table or spill one drop onto the boss’ plywood-starched khakis. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to be here?” Ann asked at a relatively quiet moment. Her father waved his coffee mug around the bridge. “Of course it is.” He turned to a young officer. “Dammit, Cogley, out of the way, if you please. I’m trying to talk to my daughter…. No, I’m glad you wanted to come aboard. Your mother, as you know, doesn’t feel right coming on board before a cruise. She never has, not in all our years of
marriage. Not once. She stays on the dock until the ship passes under the Golden Gate or wherever, but she never comes on board.” “Yes, I know.” Half her response was blocked out by a thick clipboard of papers that Cogley had thrust between her and the captain, every sheet of which Page impatiently initialed at the corner. “Okay, now weigh anchor, Cogley…. I’m sorry, Ann. No, your mother doesn’t seem to like it on board the California. “
Ann tried to tell him he must know why, but a horn blaring from just outside the bridge drowned out her words, followed by “All ashore, all guests ashore.” “I’ve got to go, Dad,” Ann said, but he didn’t hear, his attention elsewhere. She followed the outstretched arm of a gray-and-blue-uniformed Marine escort and headed for the exit.
She had just reached the top of the steel ladder that led down to the main deck when she felt a hand on her shoulder, turned and found her father standing in front of her. “You weren’t going to leave without saying good-bye, were you?” “I didn’t know if I’d get a chance, and I really think I’m in the way.”
The harried petty officer, Cogley, came up to the captain with still another clipboard. “Excuse me, sir-” “Cogley, dammit, shove off with that stuff. Tell the officer of the dock to stand by until I’m ready.” Cogley hurried off. “You’re convincing me,” Ann said, “that that guy’s name is ‘Cogley Dammit’ or ‘Dammit Cogley. ‘ ” “I know, I know. . . .” Matthew Page steered his daughter away from the head of the stairway. “Listen, honey, I wanted you to come with me on board so we could have a little chat-” “About what?” “About you. Your shuttle flight.” He paused. “I still can’t believe it. My daughter, a shuttle astronaut-” “C’nton, Dad. . . . “
“No, now wait a minute. I’m not going to get all gushy over you. I just want to-” “Yes?” “Ann, I’ve heard things. There’s real concern about your mission, about this Skybolt laser you’re working on.” “I really can’t talk too much about Skybolt, Dad. Not even to you. You can understand-” “I know, I know, but dammit, you know I’ve never been too happy about your decision to fly to this Space Command station. The dangers are– “Keep ’em barefoot and pregnant?” “Ann, honey, you’re not listening.” “I’m sorry, that was a cheap shot, I know you don’t go for that male chauvinist stuff. But, face it, if you were talking to a son…. “I’d still be damned worried. This space station project of yours is dangerous. Things are happening, weird things. I just wish you’d– “Stay on the ground? Safe from the action. Away from my work.” Ann shook
her head. “Whatever you say, you still think it’s okay for men to go off and face whatever’s out there, but not women-“
He looked at her. “Could be, honey. I guess I am a bit old-fashioned. ” “You’re a damn sight better than most, but you have tended to put Mom and me on a pedestal. We’re not china dolls. We won’t break. I’m a scientist. Mom is your wife. We’re both pretty tough. No kidding.”
Her father shrugged, knew she was right even if he couldn’t buy all of it. “And Dad, I know about the dangers. We get briefings, too.11
The loudspeaker gave another warning for visitors to clear the ship. Ann took her father’s hands. “I’ll. be thinking of you up there,” he said. “And I still wish you weren’t going.” “And I wish you weren’t going on this cruise … to the Persian Gulf.” The mention of the California’s classified destination startled him. “How … T’
“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. “But you have about as much chance of keeping me from going on the Enterprise as I have of dragging you off your ship…. Now”-she stood on tiptoes and kissed her father on the cheek–have a safe cruise and hurry home.”
He straightened, hugged her. “And success and a safe trip to you, Ann.”
The Marine escort guided her to the wide covered main gangplank on the California’s starboard gunwale. A small knot of reporters were waiting for her when she stepped off the platform onto the dock but she ignored them and quickly found her mother standing near the raised officer’s wives’ railed greeting area. “He’ll be all right,” Ann said quietly. Her mother’s eyes never left the bridge as the USS California began slowly to slide away from its mooring toward the Golden Gate.
June 1992 VANDENBURG AIR FORCE BASE, CALIFORNIA
“Lift off. We have lift-off of the Space Shuttle Challenger, STS Mission 51 -L. It has cleared the tower. The Challenger’s pilot ran his fingers down the Space Shuttle Main Engine, the SSME status readouts on his computer monitor. “All main engines look good. . . . “
The young woman beside him acknowledged with a nod. No NASA simulator could ever fully prepare a person for the feeling of a space shuttle at lift-off. Noise. Incredible, earsplitting, thundering noise. Vibration enough tofiel intestines shake….
As the stowed service arm and gantry slid from view out the forward windscreens, Ann Page could even see a few seagulls scurry from the fiery behemoth as it lifted upward. The sight of the petrified sea gulls made her smile despite the adrenaline coursing through her, tightening her muscles, constricting her throat.
“Instituting roll maneuver … roll maneuver complete, Challenger, you look beautiful. . . .”
On hearing the last report from Ground Control, Ann reached up through the gradually building “g- forces to the upper left of her left forward instrument panel andflicked the ADI attitude switch to LVLH. “ADI attitude switch to local vertical, local horizontal, ” she announced over inte?phone. Her pilot in the right seat nodded and did the same on his panel. “Thank you, Dr. Page,” the pilot said over interphone, and suddenly the pilot looked young-very young. Like a guy she had known in high school.
Ann watched the mach meter on her main instrument panel while at the same time checking her number-one cathode ray tube computer monitor and panel C2, the computer control panel and manual main engine controls. The engine control sequence for launch and ascent was controlled by computer, but she was obliged to be ready for any maoknction right up to complete engine failure. If that happened, it would be up to her and her pilot to control the engines manually and set up her shuttle for an RTLS-Return to Launch Site abort. As she watched her instruments she kept in mind her training-4hink “abort, abort” until five minutes into the flight, after that think “orbit, orbit. “
Forty seconds,after takeoff the shuttle exceeded the speed of sound, and Ann saw the main engines throttle back automatically to sixty-five percent. “Control, this is Challenger. Main engines at sixty-five percent. Confirm. ” “Challenger, we confirm SSMEs at six-five percent, right on the mark. “
They were approaching a critical phase offlight when all aerodynamic forces affecting the shuttle–thrust, drag, gravity, and lift-were exerting equal pressure on the ship all at once. It was “max Q. ” The main engines were throttled back to avoid tearing the shuttle apart as it reached, then exceeded max Q. The shuttle’s computers would control the delicate transition as the huge craft sliced its way skyward.
A few moments later Ann could see the pilot give a sigh of
relief as the main engines began to throttle up under strict computer control. “Control, this is Challenger. Max Q. Main engines moving to one hundred percent. ” “Copy that, Challenger. Max Q. Max Q. Max Q ……
A blinding flash of light, a sensation of warmth, a feeling of weightlessness. “Max Q., max Q.
Ann was suddenly awake, waves of pain lancing through her abdomen. The rumpled sheets felt like damp mummy’s shrouds, strangling her. She fought back the pain and kicked the sheets free. “A damned nightmare,” she said half-aloud, her breath coming in gasps. After months of briefings, simulators, studying, she had finally had a Challenger nightmare.
Exhausted, drained, she rolled across the bed and glanced at her watch on the nightstand. TWO A.m. That made the eighth time in five hours she had been forced awake by butterflies invading her stomach and her dreams. Butterflies? Those things were dive-bombers, nuclear explosions, earthquakes. Forget it, sleep was impossible.
They had warned her about Challenger nightmares, everyone from mission commanders to local food-service people-nearly everyone even remotely involved with the rejuvenated space shuttle program seemed to get one. But she figured it was even worse for her … a civilian mission specialist with very little flight-deck training. Well, even though she had two hours until her alarm would go off, she crawled out of bed and into the bathroom. Trying to sleep would only prolong the punishment.
Feeling as drained as if she had run a marathon, Ann stripped off her nightshirt and panties and stood in front of the mirror in the glare of the bathroom’s single light bulb. Her doomed attempts to wrestle a few hours sleep had left her, she noted, with light brown circles under her dark green eyes. . . . “Too bad they don’t wear helmets in space any more, at least the visor would hide this,” she told the unappetizing mirror image. In fact, little she saw in a mirror ever pleased her. People said she was always her worst critic, but still…. She frowned at the too-round green eyes, the straight
auburn hair, the unremarkable breasts, the too-skinny legs … although the ankles were good. (But great ankles never got a girl a date.) All right, she wasn’t bad, but nothing to write home about either. A seven. Maybe a seven and a half … ?
Besides, a body was not something to show off-it had always been something
to work on, to operate. She had exercised hard all through high school and college, not because it was the thing to do but because she wanted to excel at one thing-running. She had trained her body to perform well in track and field events, not to win beauty contests. She even had a few trophies on display at her parents’ house. The results of her efforts were a healthy if less than spectacular body, a daily running habit-and dates too few and far between. Who was it who said you couldn’t be too thin or too rich? Half-right, whoever it was….
She unwrapped clear plastic from a drinking glass, filled it with lukewarm tap water and took a sip. She could feel the liquid go down, then seem to solidify in an acid lump in her throat. Wouldn’t go down and it wouldn’t come up. Great way to start the day. Strange, she hadn’t thought about high school or college or her social life in months. Even the shuttle pilot who’d popped into her dream had been a long-forgotten high school boyfriend. On a day like today she’d better be thinking of something else.
She took her time after her shower, drying herself and combing her long red hair, and still found herself with an hour to go before her planned wake-up time–two whole hours before her taxi was dueShe dressed in thin cotton long underwear, cotton gym socks, and her powder blue NASA flight suit. She put up her hair in her trademark ponytail, redid it twice to kill time. It didn’t help. Still an hour and forty minutes until the taxi was to arrive. Nothing on TV at three in the morning.
Once again her stomach started to gnaw at her…. To hell with waiting for the taxi. She slipped on her black flying boots, left the room key on the bed, turned out the lights and closed the door behind her.
In the lobby of the Vandenburg Air Force Base Visiting Officers Quarters, she had to cough twice to get the clerk’s
attention. “Can you call the base taxi and get me a ride to the Shuttle Flight Center?”
The clerk stared at her shuttle crewmember flight suit and did a double take–even with one-a-month shuttle launches from Vandenburg, a shuttle crewperson was an unusual sight. “Transportation is swamped on a launch day,” the clerk said. “The Shuttle Flight Center will pick you up-” “At four A.M. I want . . . I have to go out there now.”
The clerk caught the hesitation in Ann’s voice, and her expression changed from bored to irritated. “I’ll check.”
As the clerk dialed a desk phone Ann wandered through the lobby and over to a wide, floor-to-ceiling window facing the Pacific Ocean. Washed clean by the night air and lingering Santa Ana winds, the predawn sky glistened with hundreds of stars. A tiny sliver of moon was about to dip a horn into the cold water, and the big bright planet Jupiter sparkled brilliantly. “Miss?” The clerk had to raise her voice to get Ann’s attention. “Transportation says they can’t get out earlier than four-thirty. ” “Never mind,” Ann said, heading for the door. “I’ll walk. ” “Walk? To the Shuttle Center? That, s ten miles. But Ann was already out the door. . . .
Ten blocks later she had left the main base behind. Ahead was miles and miles of emptiness-abandoned thirty-year-old wooden barracks, parking lots, crumbling buildings and athletic fields giving way to occasional sand dunes and grassy meadows.
As the bright glow of civilization behind her melted away, the feeling was electric, and she found her pace quickening. The ocean breeze was like an amphetamine. To the west the stars appeared so bright and near they seemed to cast a
reflection off the gentle ocean waves, To the east the first faint outlines of the San Rafael Mountains could just barely be made out.
She found herself now in a gentle, easy jog…. the butterflies, the nightmare, even the grouchy desk clerk, all seemed part of some happy conspiracy to make her experience this rush, this mysterious communion with earth and sky. Her boots crunched on hard sand, and her cheeks stung from the
cold breeze as she stepped up her pace, the chill air seeming to flow into her veins and through her whole body.
This was her place, all right. Free. Open. The thought of being cooped up,
strapped in, locked in place seemed scary, repugnant.
She had reached the top of the small rise, and abruptly found herself a few hundred yards from a tall fence illuminated every fifty yards by powerful searchlights. A concrete guard shack blocked the road in front of her. Air force security guards with rifles and dogs patrolled the fence; the dogs were barking, straining against their leashes, their supersensitive noses picking up the intruder.
Three miles beyond the twelve-foot-high fence stood a massive structure, brilliantly illuminated and clearly visible in spite of its distance. It looked like a skyscraper sitting in the middle of nowhere. A few hundred yards from the building was a squat, ungainly shape dwarfed by the skyscraper, surrounded by open-skeleton towers on two sides and also illuminated by large banks of super-powered spotlights. She was looking at the ultimate, the rebuilt space shuttle Enterprise. And the skyscraper-like building to the tight of it-the one she had first seen when she had come over the rise-was the new Vandenburg Vehicle Assembly Building. There was movement of the men near the front gate and the concrete guard shack but it didn’t register in her mind. Her attention was all on the ungainly, squat machine sitting on top of a tall concrete pedestal in the distance.
From a distance it looked so small. She had seen many shuttles, of course. She had been in Enterprise numerous times on dry-run rehearsals, emergency egress training, orientation walkarounds. From up close at the shuttle’s base or on the access tower the thing looked huge. She had never felt confined or claustrophobic around the shuttle-until now. From this vantage point it looked like a toy model.
And she was going to strap herself in that toy and let someone ignite four million pounds of propellants and rocket fuel under her, blasting her at twenty-five times the speed of sound hundreds of miles into the sky. Was she crazy?
Even crazier was that she had had to work to get aboard that thing. She had to apply, be interviewed, beg, plead,
cajole just to be considered. After that there had been months of waiting, then six months of training, study, simulators, tests, exercises, presentations-all so she could live hundreds of miles above the earth’s surface, breathing recirculated air, eating irradiated food, drinking chemically produced water and coping with microgravity.
She was so caught up in conflicting emotions that she didn’t notice the air force security police jeep drive up alongside her. It was the heavy breathing of a huge Doberman pinscher that pulled her back. “This is a restricted area,” one patrolman said as he approached, shining a flashlight into Ann’s face, his M-16 automatic rifle at port arms. “Identification. Now.”
She absently reached into a right thigh flight-suit pocket to retrieve her ID card. It wasn’t until she had unzipped that the guard recognized her. “Dr. Page?” He took the ID card from her, scanned it, handed it back. “Saw your picture in the paper, You’re going on this morning’s flight. . . . ” “Yes, right,” she said, hoping she sounded more officialthan she felt.
The guard handed the dog to an airman beside him, looped the rifle back onto his right shoulder. “You shouldn’t be out here alone. He stopped and looked at her. “Everything okay?” “Yes. I was just a little impatient to get to the pad so I decided to walk. . . . ” “From the main base?” “I . . . I ended up jogging. It felt good, peaceful. “Yeah, I guess it would,” he said. “I’d probably do something like that if I was going to ride that candle. . . . I’d want to take one last look at ol’ Mother Earth before leavin’. . . . Well, I’ll have to take you to the Shuttle Flight Center, Dr. Page. You can’t be walking around out here by yourself. I’m surprised someone didn’t pick you up when you left the main base.”
She scarcely heard him, had withdrawn into her thoughts again. What was it that.was bothering her? Was it fear of death? She had never confronted death before. Even in shuttle training, even through all the briefings and classes, she had
never thought about dying. Besides, that was a no-no, everybody knew that.
She let herself be led to the jeep, rode with the security guard commander, nodding absently at his comments.
No, damn it, she wasn’t afraid to die. She knew it was possible, knew it could happen any moment without any warning. But, to coin a clich6, it went with the territory, and it was a territory she badly wanted.
As her attention drifted back to the security guard, she heard him saying he’d always wanted to go up on the shuttle but didn’t have any specialized degree beyond a B.S. Besides he was only an enlisted man . . . “All you need is.a technical degree and you can be any rank. Doesn’t matter. Hey, I don’t have any rank. I’m a civilian. They need technical degrees and volunteers willing to dedicate themselves to the program. Back in the seventies and eighties they wanted experienced flyers and senior officers. Now, they need crewmembers for a whole range of jobs. . . . “
Ann realized she sounded like a NASA recruiter. Was she really as enthusiastic as she sounded? Was it really so simple? Right now she needed to believe that this flight into space was at once routine and a chance of a lifetime. That’s the only way she’d get through this thing.
As the jeep pulled up in front of a low steel-and-concrete building, the Vandenburg Shuttle Flight Center, she took a final look overhead. The ebony sky was brightening to azure blue, closing off the vastness that would soon enclose her.
SPACE SHUTTLE ENTERPRISE
Three hours later the crew of the Space Shuttle Enterprise stepped into the elevator in the service tower and rode it to the orbiter entry level. They walked across the service arm and into the “white room,” where white-suited, surgical-
masked technicians used vacuum cleaners to remove any bits of dirt and gravel off their boots and uniforms that could accumulate in the crew compartment during microgravity flight. Then, one at a time, they walked toward the circular side
hatch into the shuttle.
When it was her turn, Ann stopped and shook hands with one of the techs. “Thanks,” she said quietly. They barely knew each other, but the emotions were the same. No more words were necessary.
originally, Enterprise had been built for landing tests. In
1977 it had been released off the back of a modified Boeing
747 carrier plane to test its ability to glide to a landing with no power. it was never intended that Enterprise ever be launched into space.
The Challenger accident in 1986 had changed that. It had been far less expensive to refit Enterprise for space flight than to build a new orbiter, so the refitting process began late in
1987. Enterprise inherited much of the new 1980s technology in space shuttle design. The first difference was obvious as Ann stepped towards the entrance hatc”e absence of the thermal protection system’s insulation tiles. Instead, the shutde used a smooth fabric blanket made of carbon-carbonlighter, stronger and less expensive than the silica tiles on Columbia and Atlantis. Earlier, only the shuttle’s nosecap and wing leading edges had the extreme high-heat protection of carbon-carbon alloys–now the entire surface had it. Whereas the old exterior had looked rough and scaly, like a lizard’s skin, the new exterior was pure white, smooth and glassy.
Ann was helpedthrough the entry hatch and into the middeck area of Enterprise’s crew compartment, where she looked down at the storage compartments, personal hygiene station, and airlock hatch. “Weird,” she said, “I’m standing on the wall, like Spider Woman. “
Captain Marty Schultz, the Enterprise’s payload specialist, was just stepping up the ladder to the upper flight deck. “Wait till you get into orbit on Silver Tower,” he said. “Walls, ceiling, up, down-all gone. Silver Tower is another world. “
She crawled up the ladder behind Schultz, who was now
standing beside three seats on the flight deck, and looking high “above” herself, saw Air Force Colonel Jerrod Will, the mission commander, and Marine
Colonel Richard Sontag, the Enterprise’s pilot, in their seats. They looked “down” as she crawled into the flight deck and pulled herself up. “Crawl across the seats and take the right side,” Schultz said. She maneuvered herself across the flight deck and onto the right-hand mission-specialist seat. A technician walking on marked areas on the payload control panel in the back of the flight deck helped her strap in and handed her a “Snoopy’s hat” communications headset, which looked like an old college football helmet with wide ear cups. “Your portable oxygen system is on your right here,” the tech told her as Ann strapped herself in. He talked her through a preflight of the portable oxygen system, POS, and her comm panel while Schultz and Kevin Baker, the grayhaired designer of the Silver Tower Thor interceptor missile system, crawled into’their seats. Ann felt more normal after she was strapped in, but the sight of technicians standing sideways on the walls while she was seated facing up was still disorienting. “I can see why some people get airsick on the ground,” Baker said.
Marty Schultz gave the older man a reassuring look. “As I just told Ann, once they close the hatch we’re in a new world. The first time I rode the shuttle the transition from earth-normal to space-normal was really bizarre. I felt like I was sitting on my back two hundred feet above ground.”
Ann could feel her toes grip the front of her seat as Schultz went on. “But you get over it. Now I look forward to the switch. Everything’s a lot freer in microgravity, including your imagination. “
Colonel Sontag glanced over his shoulder at the three mission specialists. “All strapped in back here?” he asked over interphone. All three said they were.
Sontag gave them a thumbs-up. A moment latw. “Enterprise, this is Vandenburg Launch Control, radio check on a/g channel two. Over.”
Colonel Will: “Good morning, Control. Loud and clear,
channel two.” The radio check was repeated several times on
a variety of frequencies. “Enterprise, we are T-minus eight-zero minutes, mark. Launch advisory check.”
Over Will’s right shoulder Ann could see a large red light marked “ABORT” snap on, grow dim, blink, off. “Abort check OK, out.”
Minutes later a white-clad technician flashed one last thumps-up through the entryway access, then ducked below, and the heavy main entrance hatch closed with a thump. “Enterprise, side hatch secure.” “Roger, copy,” Sontag said. “Crew, cabin pressurization coming up. Pressure on your ears.” Commander Will flipped switches, and Ann could feel her ears pop as the cabin pressure was increased to check for leaks or an unsecured hatch. “Control, this is Enterprise. Cabin pressure normal, one-
six point seven p.s.i. Over.” “Roger, Enterprise. Out.” “Ann, you’re cleared for power on your payload monitoring panel,” the pilot, Sontag, said. “Check out your baby back there and report any problems when your check is completed. ” “Roger.” Ann flipped a guarded switch marked “PL MON ONE” and watched as the instrument panel to her right came to life. Except for a few miscellaneous supplies, the Skybolt laser she had developed was Enterprise’s only cargo on this trip, and it was her job to check the systems on the fortythousand-pound laser module to be sure there was no damage that might cause contamination or a hazard during launch.
The exhaustive check of the laser module’s five separate sections took longer than she had expected. Finally she reported back. “Payload monitor power off, Colonel. Check complete. Everything’s in the green. Ready for launch.” “Control, this is Enterprise. Ready to resume countdown. Over,” Sontag reported.
Colonel Will, with six years flying space shuttles, turned to the computer keyboard, punched in “SPEC 99 PRO” and the computer monitor on Sontag’s side changed from a blank screen to a pictorial representation of the Enterprise’s launch
trajectory. Will checked the display. In case of a malfunction of all three of the general navigation computers, the GNCs, he would fly the Enterprise manually into orbit using the computer display as a road map. He keyed his microphone ‘ “Control, this is Enterprise. Flight plan loaded and checked. Over. “
The checklists ran faster and faster. From T-minus twenty minutes to T-minus
five minutes, Will and Sontag worked furiously. Their main job was to start the three auxiliary power units, the APUs, which supplied hydraulic power to Enterprise. During launch the APUs would make sure the Enterprise”s aerodynamic surfaces were in their streamlined launch position; during landing or during an emergency the APUs would supply hydraulic power to the surfaces to allow the shuttle to be flown like a conventional airplane.
After T-minus five minutes Will and Sontag could do little but watch the computers on Enterprise and acknowledge status checks from Vandenburg Launch Control. “T-minus two minutes,” Launch Control reported. “H-two and 0-two tanks pressurized, Enterprise. You are go for launch. Over. ” “Copy, Control. We’re go for launch. ” Sontag looked over his shoulder once more at Page, Schultz and Baker. “Here we go. . . . ” “Put the pedal to the metal, Colonel,” Schultz said and immediately regretted it. Pretty callow staff, he told himself. The others indulged him by ignoring it. Ann settled herself as far as possible in her seat and pulled her seat straps tight as she could stand it. The air felt electric-not stuffy or humid but super-charged with power. Far below she could feel the rumble of another piece of equipment–4he solid rocket booster’s ignition APUs. The thought of six million pounds of thrust about to be let loose made her eyes shut tight. “T-minus ten seconds . . . nine … eight. . . . “
She nearly jumped out of her seat as she felt a gentle touch on her left hand. “Relax. ‘ I
It’was Marty Schultz, nodding. “It’ll be fine, relax.” She took a deep breath, feeling as if it was the first she’d taken in hours.
… Six … five … four …. ignition sequence start … main engine one ignition … two ignition . . . three ignition. . . .” Sontag wasn’t talking over the interphone–he was screaming out loud cross cockpit: “. . . Manifold pressure good all three engines . . . three in the green . . . …
One hundred feet behind Ann, the three main engines were cranking out one-and-a-quarter million pounds of thrust, but almost no noise or vibration could be felt. Ann did feel a twang, the sway of the orbiter towards the external tank as the main engines moved toward full thrust, but even that wasn’t too noticeable.
She knew from endless simulation what came next. She could just make out the ABORT light on the front instrument panel. It hadn’t come on, thank God. When the orbiter realigns itself after the twang it meant-
It felt as if a freight train had just rumbled out of nowhere right beside her-from near-quiet to ear-splitting sound–as the solid rocket boosters ignited. She couldn’t help letting out a gasp as the solid rocket boosters, the SRBs, exploded into action. In three seconds the thrust beneath her had been multiplied by a factor of five; now the fury of over six million pounds of thrust was alive, and Enterprise had not yet even left earth.
Suddenly a huge hand pressed against her chest, causing her to involuntarily expel air in a grunt. Stars clouded her vision, but she could see the launch service tower drop from view.
Airborne. “Enterprise, you have cleared the tower. Engines look good.” Ann was surprised to see Will and Sontag reaching up to their forward instrument panels; she tried to raise her hand against the “g- forces, found they were light but building. Soon even lifting one hand took effort. “Control, this is Enterprise. Main engines at sixty-five percent. Over. ” “Roger, Enterprise. Standing by for max Q.
Ann clutched the armrests of her seat. Here came one of the most critical moments of the launch moment when all of the dynamic pressures affecting the shuttle were– “Max Q, Control. Main engines one hundred percent.”
“Roger, people. Very pretty launch. Spectacular. Out. 11
That was it? No earth-shaking rumble, no squashed face, no blasts of Vulcan heat? The “g” forces were noticeable, but Ann had felt worse lots of times.. “Coming up on SRB burnout, Control.”
The solid rocket boosters burned out and were jettisoned precisely on schedule,
under computer control. Enterprise was now several hundred miles west of Mexico on its southern pole-to-pole trajectory. The SRB motor casings, each floating to earth under dime one-hundred-fifteen-foot-diameter parachutes, would be retrieved over the Pacific Ocean.
Enterprise’s ride was somewhat different from other shuttle flights. First, Enterprise was following an eccentric elliptical polar orbit instead of a circular equatorial orbit. And second, Enterprise was climbing to an altitude of one thousand miles so that it could rendezvous with Silver Tower as it traveled in high orbit. Because of fuel limitations, previous shuttle flights had been limited to a maximum altitude of about seven hundred miles above earth.
It was several hours before Will finally announced: “Welcome to space, crew. OMS burn is complete. We are in orbit.” Relief washed across everyone’s face. “We’re within a few miles of Silver Tower’s orbit,” Sontag reported over interphone. “We saved ourselves a few hundred pounds of fuel on that bum, so we have a small safety margin. I’m estimating linkup with Silver Tower in two hour-it’s about fifteen thousand miles ahead of us, but we’re gaining…. Marty, you’re clear to open the cargo bay doors, After that you’ll all be cleared to unstrap to begin system checkouts. Kevin, check the middeck for any damage or anything out of place.”
Schultz and Baker acknowledged Sontag’s call and began to unstrap. Ann looked on as Schultz’s straps began to float around his vacated seat before he resecured them. “Remember,” Schultz said, “even though you’re weightless up here in orbit, your body still has mass that you need to overcome, which means stopping yourself after you get moving. ” “So I noticed,” Baker mumbled after he’d unstrapped and promptly collided head-first with the ceiling.
Schultz watched as Baker maneuvered himself around and floated out of sight down the ladder to the middeck level of the crew compartment. “Now to get those cargo bay doors,” Schultz said. With Ann floating beside him, he made his way to the aft flight deck instrument panel. Ann looked out the windows facing into the cargo bay but it was too dark to make out any detail. “Panel R13 has the door controls,” Schultz was saying. Over interphone he said, “Check power levels for cargo bay doors, Colonel Sontag.”
Sontag checked the power distribution panel near his right elbow. “Switches set. ” Next he checked a bank of three ammeters, switching the monitor controls through each of the fuel cells to check their output. “Power’s on-line, Marty.” “Rog.” To Ann, Schultz said, “Okay. Electrical power nins the hydraulic motors that operate the doors. There are also electrical backups, plus the doors can be opened and closed by the remote manipulator arms and even with an emergency space walk if necessary. The radiators deploy after the doors are fully open.” Then over interphone Schultz reported: “Doors coming open.” “Clear to open,” Colonel Will said.
Schultz activated the controls. Instantly the payload bay was bathed in a brilliant blue-white light that reflected off the aluminum insulation covering the Skybolt laser module. The space shuttle Enterprise was flying upside down in relation to the earth’s surface, so Enterprise’s sky was the earth–and Ann was seeing this “sky” for the first time. “My God . . . …
The Enterprise was just crossing the dawn-line between Hawaii and Australia. It looked like a relief map being lighted from the side–each island in Micronesia, it seemed, was visible in stark detail. They could recognize the Solonions, the Samoas, even the New Hebrides Islands. There were a few puffs of clouds but otherwise it was like looking at a meticulously rendered painting of the whole South Pacific. “Ann?” “It’s … beautiful … so immaculate. she said quietly. Schultz nodded. “I never stop being awed by it myself. If that sight doesn’t move you, you belong in a rubber room.” He turned to the interphone. “Bay doors
open. Radiators deployed. No damage so far as I can see on the radiators.” “Copy,” Sontag said. Will double-checked his readouts with Mission Control through a direct UHF radio and datalink originating in a station antenna farm at Yarra Yarra in western Australia. “Mission Control confirms clear for orbit and rendezvous with Armstrong. “
It was some two hours later when Ann peered out the forward windscreens into the gray-black void, but all she could see were a few stars too bright to be obscured by the brilliance of earth. “Colonel Sontag, you must have X-ray vision if you can see that station out there.” “It’s still very faint,” he said, “but it’s there. Mostly it looks like another star.”
She shook her head. “I’m going back to the aft console.” The pilots nodded and continued scanning their instruments.
Marty Schultz had deployed the shuttle’s remote manipulator arm and had scanned space for a few minutes with the ann’s closed-circuit camera at high magnification, but it wasn’t until Enterprise was ten miles away from the station that he spotted it. “It looks like a toy, like a Tinker Toy, from here,” Ann said. “When they first launched it they treated it like one,” Schultz told her. “People, some people, called it a boondoggle, big waste of money that could better be spent carpeting the Pentagon hallways. A lot of us were afraid it would end up like Skylab-a blaze in the sky and a crash to earth.”
Kevin Baker, still trying to get his balance in this world of microgravity, maneuvered beside Page and Schultz at the aft crew station, saying, “I remember that too well, and the argument over who owned the space station. The U.S. taxpayer spent billions launching it and a conglomerate of scientists, some of them not even from the U.S., managed to put a clamp on any military research aboard it. You would have thought the station was a broken-down tenement building the way they talked about it. The Silver Sausage … the space suppository … remember?”
Ann nodded, straining for a better view of the station.
“But this Brigadier General Saint-Michael apparently did a
good job changing people’s minds. ” “That he did,” Schultz said, “and everyone’s taken the station very seriously since. That toy, Ann, weighs in at about five hundred tons. What you see is the product of twenty shuttle sorties over four years, plus another dozen unmanned supply rockets. Thirty billion dollars worth. The world’s most expensive condo, you might say. . . .”
As Enterprise drew closer to The station more details could be seen, and on the screen Ann pointed to a tiny dot just below the station. “Is that your Thor system?” Ann asked Baker. “Sure is, ten normuclear interceptor rockets, a laser decoy discriminator and a radar detector and tracker. The Thor is our first antiballistic missile defense system in thirty years. Simple, lost cost, and effective–if I do say so myself. . . . “
Attention was soon diverted to the TV screen, filling with the image of the station, and the crew was ordered back to their seats for docking. Schultz stowed the camera and remote manipulator arm back into its cradle in the cargo bay and shut down the aft console. “Crew ready for docking,” he reported.
Within a mile of the station the digital autopilot had reduced Enterprise’s forward speed to one thousand feet per minute. A thin laser beam from the space station lanced out toward Enterprise, toward the two sensors on the forward and rear ends of the cargo bay. The forward sensor was a large lens that focused the laser alignment beam onto the aft sensor. The digital autopilot would make tiny corrections to the shuttle’s course whenever the laser beam drifted off the aft sensor, in this way aligning Enterprise with the docking tunnel on Silver Tower.
With near-magical precision the computers controlling the Enterprise’s reaction-control system thrusters positioned the docking adapter in the cargo bay within a few feet of Silver Tower’s docking tunnel, which was then maneuvered over the adapter, and the two docking rings locked and sealed into, place. Next an open-latticework support beam was extended and locked into cleats in Enterprise’s cargo bay. The support beam strengthened the union between the two spacecraft, effectively making them one unit. Finally the connecting
tunnel between the docking module and Enterprise’s docking adapter was pressurized to two atmospheres and checked. “Adapter leak check is good, Armstrong,” Colonel Sontag reported to the docking officers on Silver Tower. “Docking complete. Over. ” “Checked over here, Enterprise,” from the docking officer
aboard Silver Tower. “Welcome aboard. You’re clear for crew transfer. ” “Roger. Thanks. ” On interphone Sontag announced, ‘ ‘Docking complete, crew. End of the line. ” Ann, Baker and Schultz sent up congratulations to Enterprise’s commander and pilot, but Colonel Will waved them off. “The autopilot did most of it, and frankly it was a lousy job. I could’ve gotten us right on the mark.” Will then directed shutdown of most of Enterprise’s systems and began preparation for transfer to the station, with Sontag and the rest of the crew moving downstairs to the transfer area on the middeck.
Colonel Will pressurized the airlock and air space, and he and Sontag checked the pressure readouts. “Sixteen p.s.i. in both areas,” Will said, undogged the first hatch leading to the airlock, then rechecked a second pressure gauge for the airlock itself Satisfied, he opened the heavy steel door to the airlock. “See you,” he said, checked a POS mask and rebreather in the airlock and strapped on the face mask. Sontag closed the airlock chamber door and sealed it tight, and Will checked the pressurization gauge leading from the airlock to the transfer tunnel, then undogged the upper airlock hatch. There was a slight hiss of equalizing air but no sip of leaks or damage. “Welcome aboard, Colonel Will,” a voice said above him. Will looked up through the transfer tunnel to see a youngish Space Command aizinan smiling down at him.
Will unstrapped his face mask and glared at the technician. “You’re supposed to wait until I open my airlock hatch, John. I I
“I was right behind you, sir,” Airman John Montgomery told him. “Believe me, Colonel, I’m not going to let myself get sucked into your cargo bay.” “One day that’s going to happen.” Will turned and un-
locked the airlock hatch leading to Enterprise’s crew compartment. He wasn’t smiling. “Clear for.transfer, crew.”
One by one the crew of Enterprise floated up and out of the airlock and into Silver Tower’s spacious docking-control module. Sontag, the last one leaving Enterprise, latched and double-checked each hatch behind himself; Enterprise would now be sealed up and apart from the station.
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION
It was a long thirty-foot journey along the four-foot diameter transfer tunnel. The crew members were met at the other end by technicians who helped them through and gave them sneakers with stiff Velcro “hooks” on the soles.
A man, with gold braid on his lapel stepped forward. “Welcome to Silver Tower. I’m Colonel Jim Walker, vicecommander and deputy commander for operations around here.” He shook hands with the newcomers, Ann and Baker. “I hope these pirates gave you a good ride.”
Walker was another one of the so-called typical spacesoldiers Ann had met in the Space Command, which was responsible for all space-based defense. He looked young for his rank, thin but not too tall, with a nearly bald head. His manner and appearance suggested quiet intelligence, not the old-fashioned domineering military presence,-a scientist or engineer instead of a soldier. Most of the members of Space Command, drawn from the ranks of the military’s scientific elite, were like that. In college they might have been labeled “computer weenies–on Silver Tower they were commanders, leaders, innovators. To Ann he said, “I’m looking forward to working with you on your project. ” “Thanks to you I have a project to work on. I’ve heard it was you who applied the pressure to finally get the Skybolt project approved.”
“Thanks, but General Saint-Michael is the mover and shaker
around here, He was the one who set things going.” “Is General Saint-Michael-?” “You’ll be meeting him soon. He’s been occupied most of the day with repairs on our main data-link transmitter.” “I hope it’s not serious,” Baker said. “No, but it needed the general’s direct attention. He’s like that. Nothing’s too big or too small. ” The deputy commander led Ann and Baker through the small docking module and then through an overhead hatch. At first it seemed all the eight main pressurized modules on Silver Tower were the same small size as the docking-tunnel connector or at most a larger version of the spartan working interior of the space shuttle. When Ann entered the first module,
she found out she was wrong.
It was spacious and well lit. Two senior officers and four technicians hovered in front of control panels, sipping coffee and exchanging reports. Green plants and flowers-natural carbon-dioxide scrubbers-sat Velcroed to pedestals around the module. “This is the command module,” Colonel Walker said as the group floated up through the small connector into the module. “All communications, earth surveillance and station operations are conducted here. The general’s work area is over there.” General Saint-Michael’s work area, Ann noticed, was different from everyone else’s in at least one respect-it had a chair. The men who served under the general were expected to stand, anchored to the deck by their Velcro sneakers or attached to variable-height work platforms. Fuzzy Velcro loops were everywhere–on the ceilings, walls, floors, even on instrument panels.
Baker pointed to the module’s “ceiling … .. Instrument panels on the ceiling, Colonel? Why?”
Walker turned to Baker. “Tell me, Mr. Baker-which is the ceiling? Is that the ceiling … ?”
Walker detached himself from the Velcro “floor” and floated up to the ceiling, hovering a foot above Ann’s head. He anchored his feet to Velcro footholds molded into the
I I side” instrument panels. “Or is this the wall? In space, and especially on Silver Tower, conventional up and down don’t
exist-4hey mean something else. If we create a module with five hundred square feet of earth-conventional floor space, we can in effect triple that amount by mounting some instrument panels on the ceiling. The cost of building materials is cut by more than half. A few years ago we had a new technician on board who got so confused about which way was upliterally-he got real sick. This was back when Silver Tower wasn’t any more than two tin cans. He’d gotten up a few
earlier than anyone else and was walking on the walls for two hours before realizing that the floor was down there. We’ve now made a yellow-colored Velcro loop carpet for the ‘floor’ to end the confusion. Anyway, we keep monitoring and auxiliary controls up here. Someone using them keeps out of the way of people using the conventional control panels and we double or triple our work space. It all takes some getting used to but after a few days you’ll be swinging around the cabin like you were born here.”
Walker detached himself from the ceiling, floated back to the deck and motioned to a group of two technicians and an
officer manning a large, multiscreened unit that looked like an
air traffic controller’s console. “The SBR, space-based radar, operators are there. They scan preprogramined areas of the Soviet Union and other countries for any missile-launch activity as we fly over them. The radars on Silver Tower can detect and track Any object larger than three thousand pounds at almost any altitude–even on the ground or below the surface of the water. We also can tie in with geosynchronous infrared satellites for missile-launch detection. Right now the SBR is tied into Dr. Baker’s Thor missile garage tethered beneath the station. Eventually we’ll be in direct control with and have control of hundreds of Thor missile garages in earth orbit, directing the strategic missile defense of the whole damn northern hemisphere.”
He turned to Ann. “Your laser system is what’s got us
really excited. If you’re correct in your prediction that a
one-minute laser barrage will have the power to destroy hundreds of missiles, we may have the ability to neutralize the whole Soviet nuclear arsenal.” “If it works, Colonel,” Ann said. “The problems we need
to overcome are still pretty huge. . . . For now, I’d put my money on the Thor missiles.”
Walker accepted that with a shrug, then led the way to the next module, which
was like the command module except a bit less organized. Again, four technicians manned the module, two of them positioned in front of large banks of equipment. “This is the experimentation module,” Walker said. “Personnel and equipment are moved in and out of this area on a weekly basis. Some weeks it’s bacteria–others it’s transformers or superconductive circuits. All of the equipment bays are temporary-we can remodel this entire module in half a day. Dr. Baker, this will be your office.” “Great, it’s bigger than my lab at Los Alamos.”
Walker led them through the side hatch into a long glasslined connecting tunnel. “This leads to the second parallel column of modules. We’ve built each of these connecting tunnels with thick Plexiglas so that it can double as a sort of observation deck. The view is . . . well, see for yourself.”
The view was breathtaking. The entire space station was spread out before them, a science fiction movie come to life.
Far below them the center open-framed keel stretched far out into space, almost out of sight. Nearly a thousand feet long and fifty feet square, the keel held large silverized fuel tanks, mounting and equipment housings for a variety of antennas, and miles of pipes and tubes snaking throughout. Beneath the keel were mounted the huge curved space-based, phased-array radars, their football-field-sized electromagnetic eyes continuously scanning planet earth beneath them. At the very ends of the keel were four solar energy collectors, each twice as large as the radars-massive, delicate, incredibly thin-looking sheets of glass aimed at the sun. “On earth those collectors would weigh eighty tons apiece,” Walker said. “Up here, of course, nothing. We use a tiny, fifty-horsepower electric motor to keep them pointed at the sun. They supply enough power for two stations. While the station is in sunlight they provide direct energy. We also use them to recharge a bank of cobalt-hydroxide batteries for emergency use and to break down waste water to produce hydrogen and oxygen for our fuel cells and station thrusters. “
“Is that what you’ll use to power Ann’s laser?” Baker asked him. “Unfortunately, no,” Ann answered for him. “We need ten times more collectors for just one burst. We’ll use a small nuclear MHD reactor to power the laser.”
Baker pointed toward the very ends of the keel. “The station thrusters are also out there on the keel?” “Right,” Walker said. “Five small hydrogen rocket engines on each end of the keel. They fire automatically about two dozen times a day to correct the station’s altitude, attitude, alignment and orbit. They’re also used to move the station if necessary.” “And you get the fuel for that from water?” “Right again. We use electrolysis chambers powered by the sun to crack waste water into hydrogen and oxygen gas that’s collected and stored in those tanks out there. We bring up a shuttle full of water about once every two months, and we also get water from the fuel cells, where we recombine hydrogen, and oxygen to produce electrical power and water. In an emergency a full complement of twenty crewmen can survive up here for six months without resupply. “
They continued through the thick Plexiglas tunnel to the next module. Ann and Baker found themselves in an immense structure many times larger than the command module and laboratory modules they’d just left. “This is a complete Skylab module, the first component of the original NASA space station launched two years ago,” Walker explained. “This segment of the station was first lofted before full-scale shuttle flights resumed. As you can see, it’s as large as the third stage of a Saturn booster, sizable enough for the experimentation we were doing originally, but certainly not now. “When full-capacity shuttle flights resumed, we built the rest of Silver Tower using cargo bay-sized modules. We now use the Skylab section for living and recreation quarters. For those purposes, there’s more than enough room.” “That must be your gymnasium over there,” Baker said, pointing to one area of the module. “Uh huh, everything today’s astronaut needs to keep his body fit,” Walker said, accenting his voice like a camy
pitch-man. “Treadmills and Soloflex weight-you shall forgive the expression-machines here, exercise bicycles over there. At the other end a videotape and audio tape library, computers, television. . . . We get two hundred channels from all over the world.”
Baker examined one of the “weight” machines. “Clever,” he said. “Using thick rubber bands to create resistance. Obviously a typical weight machine won’t
work up here. ” He studied the treadmill. “How does this work?” “Same as a regular one except you strap on this bungee cord belt first. You can adjust the tension of the bungee cords to increase the resistance. -The skipper–General SaintMichael-practically lives on the treadmill. No one can keep up with him and he’s forty-three years old.”
They made their way to the sleep module, a series of small chambers that looked like curtain-covered horizontal telephone booths arranged like two-tiered bunkbeds. Each end of the module had two very large rooms, bathrooms.
Walker peeled back the sides of a sleeping bag in the chamber. “You can adjust the elasticity of the sleeping bag covers. We’ve learned by now that crew, sleep better if they feel at least a little of the sensation of gravity. Sleeping while hoating around Weightless isn’t all that comfortable. We’ve begun using those zero ‘g’ vacuum showers like the Russians have, but they can be a real pain. By the way, the sleep module–actually the whole station-is coed. No separate facilities. We haven’t had too many women on Silver Tower….
Ann wondered what it would be like bunking with a dozen men. They’d probably feel more uncomfortable than she would. A battleship commander’s daughter, she’d grown up seeing men being men. She also liked men, too often more than they returned the favor….
The group moved down to the next hatch; this one doublesealed and leading up to another docking module like the one connected to the command module. According to Walker this docking area was better suited for transferring supplies and fuel from a shuttle or an unmanned cargo vehicle. He motioned to the lower hatch. “That leads to the storage and supply module, and below that is the MHD reactor. MHD, as Ann
can tell you, Dr. Baker, stands for magnetohydrodynamics-a way of producing massive amounts of electromotive force in a very compact unit. We’ll cut across here to engineering.”
Engineering was much like the command center. “It’s really the computer center,” Walker told them. “The kitchen-uh, galley-is located here as well.” He continued on, pointing to a ha..,;h at one end of the computer module. “There is your office, Amv-4he control module for your laser, Skybolt. Nobody’s been in it except when it was connected and tied into the rest of the station last month.”
They opened the hatches and entered the module-or tried to. Unlike all the other pressurized modules, the Skybolt control-and-experimentation center was choked with equipment, wiring, pipes, conduit and control consoles, with a lone work space tacked in a far corner. “Wh-where do I work?” Ann said. “I mean, where’s my lab, my instruments, test gear? It’s-” “It’s all there,” Walker said, trying to sound upbeat. “But it’s been cqmpated to fit into this one module. Your control console is over there, plus a few other panels on the ceiling.” He understated, Ann thought. The main control consoles were on the module’s ceiling, surrounded by built-in handholds and footrests. She forced a smile in Colonel Walker’s direction, but she was getting dizzy just looking at the overhead console. “Welcome to Silver Tower.”
June 1992 DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, VIRGINIA
“All right, Mr. Collins,” George Sahl, deputy director of operations of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said. “‘You’ve got my attention-and apparetly the attention of your section chief.” He looked warily at Preston Barnes, in charge of the KH- 14 Block Three digital photo imagery satellite. “Spill it. I I
Jackson Collins, associate photo analyst under Barnes, cleared his throat and stepped up to Sahl. “Yes, sir. The Russians are going to invade Iran. “
Barnes closed his eyes and muttered a “Collins-you-idiot” to himself and not audible to the others, he hoped. Collins noticed the deputy director’s shoulders slumping. Before Sahl could say anything Barnes turned angrily toward his young photo interpreter. “Collins, didn’t you ever learn how to give a proper report-?” “Easy, Preston,” Sahl said, raising a hand to silence his division chief. “I’ve scanned your report and your analysis, Mr. Collins.
Now I want you to tell me. Briefly, please.” “Yes, sir…. The military buildup around the southern TVD Headquarters at Tashkent is inconsistent with either a fall offensive in Afghanistan or the army’s seasonal maneuvers scheduled for this month. The offensive-“
“What offensive?” Barnes said. “A CIA report circulated ffirough the division last month about a suspected, unusually large-scale Russian push into Afghanistan sometime this fall.”
Barnes shook his head. “The CIA calls every resupply mission to Afghanistan an offensive. Overland routes into the central highland have been cut off recently by bad weather and the Afghan government has all but folded its tents. Naturally the Russians have had to step up supply flights.” “But, sir, not with as many as six Condors…. Those photos showed hangars large enough for An-124s-” “Condors?” Sahl didn’t like to hear that. “‘Where did you see Condors in the southern military district?” “It’s … an educated guess, sir. Those large temporary hangars I mentioned in the report are large enough to accommodate Condors- “Or any other Soviet aircraft flying,” Barnes said. Collins looked away-he’d never expected to have to fight off his section chief. “What else?” Sahl prompted him. “Your report mentioned the rail units. You counted forty percent more activity in the Tashkent yards. What about -that?” “Yes, sir, the actual count is up thirty-seven percent from activity this same time last year, also several weeks prior to maneuvers, and up twenty-four percent from the Soviets’ last real large-scale offensive into Afghanistan two years ago, when they put down the Qandahar uprising. And that had been the largest Soviet offensive since their invasion of Czechoslovakia. Whatever they’re planning now, it’ll be larger than either of those.-” “Collins,” Barnes said quickly, “you can’t make conclusions like that based simply on the number of rail cars in a switching yard. There could be dozens of reasons why there were more cars there…. Look– and he softened his voice–these reports can set a lot of things in motion. Things that cost a lot of money and a lot of effort by a lot of people. Dangerous things. They get a lot of attention. If we’re wrong and we send all these men and machines off on a wild goose chase. . . .”
Collins’ face hardened. He dropped two eleven-by-fourteen
black-and-white photographs on Sahl’s desk. “You can’t ignore this, Mr. Sahl,” he said, pointing a finger at the first photo. Sahl studied it. “What . . . ?” “It’s a computer-enhanced KH-14 image of one side of one of the large two-acre hangars at Nikolai Zhukovsky Military Airfield at Tashkent.” Sahl peered at the highly magnified photo. Trailing behind the hangar was, he saw, a fuzzy, rectangular object. Almost no firm detail, though. He studied
the photo for a moment longer, looked up at’Collins. “It’s a scrub photo.” “Sir, it is a photo of a GL-25 missile launcher. There are- 11
“Collins, it’s a scrub photo,” Sahl repeated. “Magnification, contrast, grain, background-it’s not worth piss for analysis. It’s a scrub photo.” “Sir, I counted seventy of this same weird-looking rail car in Tashkent. All of them surrounded by guards, all of them bracketed by ‘security rail cars. I understand no certain judgment can be made on the basis of this photo, but an educated guess can easily be made–it’s a GL-25 long-range cruise missile launcher, mounted on an all-terrain carrier. Here, looktwo missile canisters, the control center-” “It looks like a concrete container to me,” Barnes said. “Or a gravel container. There’s nothing unusual about it.” “The KH-14 wasnt properly stabilized,” Collins said, “but you can still make out the-” “Collins, you can’t make out that kind of detail on a scrub photo,” Barnes snapped. “I can. I did, sir. ” “If you look at a photo-any photo-long enough,” Sahl said quietly, “you’ll likely see what you want to see. That’s why we have parameters for how much a photo can be enlarged or cropped. ” “Then I’d like to request another overflight by the KH-14,” Collins said. “We need more photos of those rail cars.” “All right, all right,” Sahl said. “I agree. I can start the request for some air time on KH- 14 for Tashkent, but I’m not sure if they’ll approve it.” “Sir, I realize you suspect this is just another junior photo
interpreter trying to score points, but it’s not. I really believe there’s something going on. Something big.”
Sahl tried to hide a wry smile, took one more look at the photos, then tossed them on the desk. “You mentioned Iran. Tell me, Collins, how could six invisible Condor transports and seventy alleged GL-25 mobile missile launchers in Tashkent lead you to the assumption that this is all part of an Iranian invasion group?”
Collins hesita ted. Too late to retreat now, buddy, he told himself. “It wasn’t just the missiles or the transports, sir. It’s the buildup of Russian ships in the Persian Gulf and the Brezhnev carrier battle group that sneaked into the Gulf last month. It was that unsuccessful counterrevolution in Iran that CIA said was sponsored and financed by the Russians. It’s-” “It’s also bull, Collins,” Barnes cut in. “Your job isn’t to come up with a wild hypothesis basedon second- and thirdhand information. Your job is to take KH-14 imagery and describe it. Period.” “I thought my job was analysis. This is important, I know it. And I know it’s urgent enough to require special attention-” “Are you sure it’s not you who wants the special attention?” Barnes said, fixing him with a drop-dead stare.
Sahl raised a hand. “That’s enough for now, Preston. I believe Collins is one hundred percent sincere. Give him that.” He turned to the photo interpreter. “Hot dogs come by the gross around here, Mr. Collins. Plenty of people want to make the splash, but they do it knowing that they don’t have to take the heat—the real heat-if they’re wrong. Are you willing to take the heat?”
His question hung in the air for a moment, a long moment; then Sahl said, “Why don’t we try a little experiment? I’m going to. put your name on this report. I’ll clear it for the director’s review and put it on his desk with a recommendation based on your findings that we follow up on this with another series of KH-14 overflights. If there’s any heat from the director’s staff, you take it. Sound good?”
Collins looked frozen in place…. It’s not a KH-14 Block Three analysis, he thought, or a Satellite Photo Recce section report-it’s my report. A Jackson Collins report. Okay, damn
it, I asked for it . . . “Yes, sir-with one request. That I be given another week to make the presentation my way.”
Sahl glanced at Barnes. “What’s wrong with this?” and glanced at the thick report on his desk. “It’s a standard section report, sir. As it stands it
doesn’t convince anyone of the seriousness developing at Tashkent. I mean, it didn’t convince you!” “And whose fault is that?” Barnes said. “It’s mine, sir. I’d like a chance to fix it.”
Sahl was impressed. This wasn’t what you’d expect from a youngster. “I’m putting it on the director’s staff-meeting agenda for Friday,” he said. “Ibis is Tuesday. You have until Friday morning to redo the report and refine your presentation. If you can’t do it by then, forget it. This division doesn’t operate on your personal timetable or mine or anybody’s. I I
No hesitation this time from Collins. “Thank you, sir. I’ll be ready.”
He hoped.
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION
“Your turn. “
Ann selected two fifty-pound tension bands, slipped them onto the bars on the Soloflex machine, and floated over to the bench and sat down. “One hundred pounds. Very impressive,” Ted Moyer, an electronics tech, said approvingly. No reply from Ann. “You’re very quiet today.” “Living in space,” Ann said, -definitely isn’t as glamorous or as ‘cosmically uplifting’ as I thought it’d be. ” She rubbed an ache out of her left tricep. “At first, it was all very exciting–orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth. But the novelty has definitely worn off.” “Well,” Moyer said, trying to boost her morale, “we’re
doing something that only a few hundred people have ever done. “
She acted as if she hadn’t heard him. “Take weight training. I love to run, but pumping iron—or, in space, pumping rubber-was never my idea of fun.” “You’re good at it.” “I do it because it helps keep me fit and because we’re required to do it. I could spend hours on the bicycle or treadmill, but after a half hour on the Soloflex machine I’m ready to volunteer to change C02 scrubbers, vacuum the walls, anything. “
Moyer gave a sympathetic nod. Ann laid down on the machine’s bench, centered the bar above her chest-and found herself immediately focusing on a hand hold on the ceiling and consciously controlling her breathing. “Still getting the spins, Ann?” “Damn,” she said as she fought for control. “They told me it would only take a matter of days and I’d get over it. But it’s just not going away.”
Moyer let her lie quietly on the workout bench for a few moments. Then: “Better?” “Yeah,” she said, blinking and taking a few deep breaths. She tried performing a few more repetitions but the nausea returned. “Why don’t you call it a workout,” Moyer said, realizing she had a ways to go before she was fully acclimated. “It’s okay … ?” she said. “Sure. You’ve been at this for an hour. That’s enough for today.
She flashed a grateful smile, then made her way “down” the exercise module, through a vertical hatch, and into the sleep area.
If you were in a bad mood, she decided, the sleep module could be a depressing place. Because of Silver Tower’s lower than Earth-normal atmospheric density, and because the real noisemakers on the station-the four attitude-adjustment thr-usters-were almost two hundred yards away on the ends of the station’s center beam, the station was already a very quiet place to be. But the sleep module, which was well
insulated and isolated from most of the station’s activity, was even quieter; and, despite its light, cheery atmosphere, its plants and its decorations, it resembled a mausoleum. With three groups of two horizontal telephone-booth-sized curtained sleep chambers on each side of the module, she could not suppress the thought of rows of caskets stacked all around her.
Putting the sleep chambers out of her mind, Ann retrieved a bathrobe and headed for her PHS, personal hygiene station.
Showers in space were little more than complicated sponge baths. She first
donned a pair of plastic eye protectors, like sunbathers or swimmers wear, then wet a washcloth with a stream of water. As she directed a short stream of warm water along her body, the blobs of water that didn’t shoot out in all directions like soft BBs made eerie amoeba-like puddles. The puddles moved everywhere-up her back, up her legs, under her anns–as if they truly did have tiny little legs.
Next she sprayed a little liquid soap on the’washclodi, scrubbed herself with the cloth and a handy water blob, then rinsed. Even a relaxed vacuum shower used about five galIons of water; the occupant might actually drown in floating water blobs if there was more than five gallons of water loose in the shower.
Before opening the shower door and reaching for a towel, she activated a rubber-covered button. A powerful fan built into the shower floor sucked the water blobs from their orbits all around her down to collectors in the floor. She swept a few persistent blobs from the shower walls, took off the plastic eye protectors, opened the stall and reached for a towel. A wide min-or mounted on the wall caught her reflection, and as she had done three weeks before in the visiting officer’s quarters back in Vandenburg she stopped to take stock. Space was murder on a woman. Even though daily exercise had kept her face naturally lean, fluids and fat cells had redistributed themselves, giving her a slightly Oriental look, which contrasted with a noticeable increase in heightmicrogravity had awarded her three extra inches-and a loss in body weight of about six pounds.
Well, maybe as usual she was too hard on herself, but she certainly didn’t feel too desirable at the moment, although
normal female desires were intact. Part of it, she Imew, was that her work on Skybolt had gone forward in fits and starts, with more problems to overcome than she’d anticipated. Any time her work was not going well her self-image took a hit. She knew it was irrational to link her desirability as a woman with her progress in the laboratory, but she couldn’t separate the two…. She had been using her intelligence and professional acumen to win acceptance for so long.
Telling herself to cut it out, she promptly ignored her own injunction, wondering what the station’s commander, Brigadier General Jason Saint-Michael, thought of her work so far. A strange man, Saint-Michael. Difficult to get a fix on. Considering what Colonel Walker had told her about the general’s sponsorship of her project, she had expected a warm welcome from him. But their first meeting the day after she arrived had been a very perfunctory affair indeed. When the conversation turned briefly to the laser, he had shown little enthusiasm’. It seemed he was preoccupied with something else and not really listening to what she had said.
As she pulled on a fresh, powder-blue flight suit and set off for the station’s galley, she mentally reviewed what else she’d learned about Saint-Michael in the short time she’d been here. Most of her information had come from the talkative engineering chief, Wayne Marks. The way Marks told it, SaintMichael was a legend in Space Command-what some called a “fast burner. ” After graduating at the top of his pilot class he’d made captain easily and become an Air Training Command instructor pilot. From ATC it was on to Air Command and Staff college at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, where he wrote a paper laying out fundamentals of what would later be called the United States Space Command, an organization that would control America’s space-based defensive armaments.
Saint-Michael’s paper somehow found its way to the desk of the president, who liked what he read, and Saint-Michael, at age forty, found himself with a general’s star and stewardship of the nascent Space Command-an organization that at the time existed only on paper. How Saint-Michael was able to build up Space Command to its present level was never precisely clear to anyone outside the inner circle of powerbut it was said that the general, by sheer charismatic force, had eventually been able to make converts out of his strongest adversaries. It seemed he had that sort of effect on people.
At least that was Marks’s version. For her part Ann, feeling a bit let down, she admitted, by her nonreception, had failed to discern any special magnetism, animal or otherwise, in the man. He was efficient, no question, in complete command of the myriad operations aboard Silver Tower. But there was also a remoteness about him, a detached air edging on imperiousness that tended to leave her cold. If indeed he was a fast burner, he hadn’t turned any of his heat her way….
She moved through the cargo docking area and across to the connecting tunnel leading to the primary docking module. As usual she stopped and admired the spectacular view of Silver Tower orbiting above planet earth. The most eerie sight was space itself-a deep, pure, haunting blackness that was remarkable for its uniformity, its lack of gradation. As a child growing up in Massachusetts she had always felt insignificant somehow, watching an approaching thunderstorm darken the landscape. During the summers she had often camped in the Maine woods, where it had been so dark she literally hadn’t been able to see her hand in front of her face. But space was a million times more so. The darkness was total, absolute, shrinking, swallowing everything in it. Space somehow seemed like a living thing, like two giant hands cupped together around the tiny station, cutting out all air and light. . . .
It took less than a minute for Ann to reach the galley and begin the delicate task of making coffee: put “coffee bag” into an insulated drinking cup, snap lid on, watch as hot water is injected in cup. By the numbers, like so much else around here. “One for me, too, please,” a deep voice called out behind her. She turned and saw Jason Saint-Michael floating through the hatch. “Good morning, General,” Ann said. As she placed a coffee bag into another cup, she watched the powerfidly built officer plant his feet on a Velcro pad six feet away and stand with arms crossed. “I take mine black,” he said.
She nodded and reached for the first cup of coffee, which
had just finished. She tossed the cup over to Saint-Michael, noticing with satisfaction that it sailed directly into his hand. “You’re really becoming a pro at this.” “Fixing coffee isn’t exactly high-tech, General.” “How’s the space-sickness?”
She looked at him. Why the sudden interest in her? “All right. I still feel the ‘leans’ when I move upside-down but the nausea is going away.”
“It takes some people longer to adapt.” He seemed to study her for a long moment, then asked: “And how’s life on the station going?” “Life? As opposed to work?” “I guess that’s what I mean. I know there have been some problems getting the laser ready for the first beam test, but maybe you’re worrying too much. You stay off by yourself when you’re not working on Skybolt…. “Does that worry you?” “It does, frankly. You don’t have to be a shrink to realize that someone who stays by herself so much may be having trouble coping. Problems like that get exaggerated in space. Up here we’re all our brother’s keeper ……
Ann took a sip of coffee (actually “sipping” with a strawlike drink tube on the cup was very difficult) and squinted as the liquid stung her throat. “I’m sure you’re right but I don’t think I’m a candidate for special treatment-” “Anyone hassling you, bothering you in any way?” he persisted. “I know being the only female on the station can be a little awkward– “You know what it’s like?” She smiled when she said it. “Well, I’m guessing it’s a little like being the only general officer on this station.” He didn’t return the smile. The lady seemed pretty damn defensive …… I can’t exactly be ‘one of the boys’ around here, but I can’t afford to alienate anyone, either. I walk a tightrope, which I imagine you have to do, too…. Look, I’m just trying to help. Sorry if I’m out of line.” He watched her for a moment. “You don’t much like it up here, do you?” “What I like doesn’t matter. I also don’t want any special treatment, okay, General? I have a job to do-and that’s what matters. . . . “
An awkward silence, then: “You’re really very attractive, you know..”
She just looked at him, started to say something, then set down her coffee cup on the Velcro counter. “General, if you really knew what it’s like to be the only female on this station, you wouldn’t have just said that. ” She pushed off the floor, floated past him out through the galley hatch.
He watched her receding form, shook his head. Way to go, Jason. You really
can be an ass.
“Attention on the station, two minutes . . . mark. Report by station when secure for test. “
Ann took one last sip of water from the squeeze bottle, then stuck it on a Velcro strip on the ceiling. On earth she might have squirted the rest of the water down her shirt to help battle the heat and perspiration, but in space such a luxury was impossible. The Skybolt control module was oppressively warm, stifling; the equipment air conditioning and cooling fans may have been keeping her instruments comfortable, but the module’s lone occupant felt as though she was in
a sauna.
She sat at her tiny control station completely surrounded by equipment. The only illumination came from the twelve-inch computer monitor in front of her. A narrow corridor, too narrow for two people to pass by each other, led from her station to the sealed module hatch and connecting tunnel. The air had the faint smell of ozone, electrified air and sweat.
But soon after beginning work on Silver Tower, Ann had learned to ignore such things. She had no room to work in because she had four times more equipment than any other scientist or any other project ever had before. Today all the hard work and sacrifice . . . if that’s what it had been . . . was about to pay off. Or so she hoped. . . . “Skybolt is ready, Control,” she reported. “System is on full automatic.” “Copy, Skybolt,” Saint-Michael said over interphone. “Good luck.” “Thank you, sir. Thirty seconds.”
She made one last systems check. Her master computer would make a three-second self-test of the superconducting
circuits, microprocessers and relays under its control. The results of the self-test flashed on her screen: all systems go.
it was working, Ann thought. It was working perfectly.
“It’s not working.” Chief Master Sergeant Jake Jefferson pointed to his large two-foot by three-foot rectangular display screen, representing the one-thousand-mile scan range of Silver Tower’s huge space-based, phased-array radar. He had electronically squelched out all objects detected by the SBR that were less than five hundred pounds, all ground returns and all previously identified objects; even so, the screen was filled with blips. Each blip had a code assigned to it by Silver Tower’s surveillance computer. On the margins of the rectangular screen, data on
the object’s flight path and orbit were displayed. Any object within fifty miles of Silver Tower’s orbit was highlighted. The tech pointed to the nearest such object on the screen. “There it is, Skipper.” Saint-Michael maneuvered himself around to the screen and anchored himself on the Velcro carpeting.
It was an Agena-Three cargo spacecraft, one of the small fleet of unmanned modules used to resupply the American and European space platforms. This one had been fitted with detection-and-analysis equipment as well as sensors to record laser hits made against it. The Skybolt computer had already been programmed to consider this Agena “hostile.” For the next three hours the Agena would follow a track similar to the track a Soviet ICBM. would follow from launch to impact in the United States. “Altitude?” “Five hundred on the nose.” Jefferson pointed to the object’s flight data readout, which had just appeared. “We should be picking up its identification beacon any sec-” An extra three lines of data printed themselves just under the flight data block, identifying the newcomer as an AgenaThree unmanned spacecraft launched from Vandenburg and belonging to the United- States Space Command. The information remained on the screen for three seconds, then disappeared as the computer squelched off the identified. “Bring it back,” Saint-Michael said. Jefferson punched
two buttons on his keyboard, rolled a cursor over to the spot where the blip had been and pushed a button. The Agena’s blip and data block returned. “Skybolt hasn’t keyed on it yet?” Saint-Michael asked. “Negative. ” :’Maybe it squelched it out.” ‘Skybolt doesn’t squelch out any targets,” Colonel Walker reminded Saint-Michael. “It’s supposed to track and evaluate everything detected by
the SBR. If it’s considered hostile, it’s supposed to act.” “Maybe Skybolt wasn’t reprogrammed to consider it a hostile,” a technician, Sean Kelly, said. “Or maybe Skybolt is screwing up,” Saint-Michael said. Jefferson nodded in agreement, then keyed his interphone mike. “Skybolt, this is Control.
Saint-Michael grasped his shoulder. “Don’t, Jake. Let’s see what Skybolt does.” “Go ahead, Control,” Ann replied.
Jefferson looked at Saint-Michael, then at Walker. Walker shrugged, silently deferring to his commanding officer. “Disregard,” Jefferson said, and clicked off his mike.
The group watched as the Agena spacecraft marched across the screen. The SBR tracked it easily. “Still nothing?” Saint-Michael asked. “Not yet,” Jefferson said. “Target on course. Thirty seconds to midcourse transition. . . .”
Suddenly the station’s warning horn blared, crowed three times; then a high-pitched computer-synthesized voice announced: “Attention on the station. Tracking hostile contact. Tracking hostile contact.” “About thirty seconds late, but it finally found it,” Walker said. “Skybolt transmitting warning message to Falcon Space Command headquarters, sir,” the communications officer reported. A pause, then: “Falcon acknowledges.” “So we have a machine fighting our battles for us,” Saint-Michael muttered. “Damn thing even makes radio calls. ” “Attention on the station”–4he computerized voice. “Im-
pact prediction on hostile contact. Impact prediction on hostile contact.” “It’s finally figured out what’s going on,” Saint-Michael said. “Well, let’s see how well it reacts.” “Coming up on midcourse transition,” Jefferson reported. “Thirty seconds to simulated warhead-bus separation.”
The Agena would not actually release any warheads, but the spacecraft’s orbit had been sequenced like a real ICBM to monitor Skybolt’s performance. The goal was to destroy the ICBM as early as possible, either in its very vulnerable boost phase or at the latest at the apogee-the ICBM bus’s highest altitude in its ballistic flight path. Once past apogee the target would become increasingly difficult to hit. “Skybolt had better damn hurry,” Walker said. “The thing will MIRV any second. . . . “
Abruptly every light aboard Silver Tower dimmed. The station’s backup power systems snapped on. Warning horns blared.
-MHD reactor activated,” someone in the command module called out. “Skybolt’s not tracking the Agena,” Jefferson reported. He checked his instruments, squinting in the sudden gloom of the command module. “Still not tracking . . . …
The rest of his sentence was lost in a deafening blast. It was as if a huge bolt of lightning had just burst directly beneath them. The entire command module felt warm, and flesh crawled. “Laser firing,” Jefferson shouted. “Firing . . . again . . . again . . . still firing . . . !”
Walker grasped a handhold-although the station did not move, the sudden burst of energy surging through the station made it feel as if the whole five-hundred-ton facility was cartwheeling. “Skybolt’s still not tracking the target,” he shouted. “It’s firing, but not at the Agena.”
Saint-Michael swung around to another technician near the connecting hatch to the research module. “Any hits, Bayles?”
The tech shook his head. “Clean misses. Sensors not recording any energy levels at all.” “Damn. Discharge inhibit,” Saint-Michael ordered. Imme-
diately, the crappe of electricity and the sound of lightning ceased. Slowly the cabin lights returned to normal.
Saint-Michael put a finger on his mike button, expecting the next call. . . . “Control, this is Skybolt,” Ann said over the interphone. “The laser’s being inhibited in your section. Check your controls. ” “I ordered the stop,” Saint-Michael said. “Why?” “Because it wasn’t hitting anything.”
Silence. Saint-Michael watched his crewmen slowly relaxing from the tumult of Skybolt’s first bursts and the multiple alarms it had set off. “Station check,” he said, forcibly trying to control his own accelerated breathing. “Skybolt is ready for another series,” Ann reportedi “Agena target is well past MIRV transition,” technician Kelly said. “It’ll go out of range in sixty seconds.” “Let’swait until the second orbit, Ann,” Saint-Michael said. The techs in the command module showed they agreed with the decision by wiping sweat from foreheads and reaching for water bottles. “But, sir-” “The target is almost out of SBR range. You’ll get another chance soon.”
A long pause, then: “I’m clearing off, Control.” Walker looked over at his commander and smiled. “She didn’t sound happy,” Walker said. “I’m not celebrating, either. God, I didn’t know that thing made so much racket. Did we sustain any damage from the power drop?”.
Walker checked with the four techs in the command module. “No damage, sir. I didn’t expect that drop either, but it makes sense. The MHD reactor needs a big jolt to get started.” “But not from the main station batteries,” Wayne Marks put in. “Skybolt’s battery is charged from the solar arrays, but it’s supposed to cut off before MHD ignition.” “Can the voltage spike suppressors handle it?” “I don’t see why not. I’ll check everything out before the next test series.” “,:
Saint-Michael nodded and maneuvered over to the Agena-
monitoring panel. “I really would’ve been happier if the laser had hit its target. . . . ” I
At which point Ann entered the command center and without a word to either Sai nt-Michael or Walker, reached across Jefferson’s shoulder and punched up the target-sensor ,sum-
mary on his console. “Where’s the hit summary?” She scrolled through the timed readouts, then turned on Jefferson. “I said, where are the hit records?” “That’s it, Ann,” Saint-Michael said. “Skybolt didn’t hit the target.” I
“What the hell do you mean?” “I mean, it didn’t hit. Skybolt never even tracked the target. It spotted it thirty seconds after it appeared on the SBR, but it never locked on.”
– “But itfired. Thirty pulses, seventy-five millisecond bursts, one hundred kilowatts on the dot. ‘Ann. . . . “Skybolt can’t fire unless it’s tracking a target. It announced detection. It projected the flight path. It computed the track and fired. . . . ” “But it never locked on,” Walker insisted. “The skipper inhibited discharge when he was told Skybolt wasn’t tracking and that no hits were detected. That’s a proper precaution, you’ve got to admit.”
Ann punched a’few more pages on the computer screen, finally convinced herself they were right. “I don’t understand. Everything checked out. The laser worked perfecdy. . . .” She turned to Saint-Michael. “Well, we’ll try it again in forty minutes. We’ll nail it for sure this time.”
Saint-Michael nodded. “But I’ll keep the beam inhibit on
until we see that Skybolt has locked onto the target.” “That’s really not necessary, sir.” “Ann, I can’t allow that laser to fire into space indiscriminately. I don’t know where it went. It could be a hazard– “A seventy-five-millisecond burst of only one hundred kilowatts is no hazard.”
-I’M close range it could be. There’s obviously a glitch somewhere. Skybolt is getting an erroneous tracking signal
and firing when it shouldn’t. For all we know we may have hit someone’s satellite.”
Ann looked deflated, said nothing. “And that power surge was completely unexpected,” SaintMichael added. “Power surge?” “You didn’t notice it?” Walker said. Ann shook her head. “It dimmed all the lights and almost took out all station power. The backups kept the main power from dumping.” “But Skybolt has its own batteries. It doesn’t draw on station power at all. . . . ” “Well, in
this case it did.” “That’s impossible …… “Ann,” Saint-Michael said. “What we’ve been saying is the truth. Skybolt didn’t track the target until nearly thirty seconds after it appeared on radar. It never locked onto the target. It drew off station power to activate the MHD reactor, it fired without locking onto anything and it failed to hit the target. Period.” He ignored her high dudgeon. “I’ll allow a second test firing, but only after engineering confirms that our suppressors and power backups can handle another surge. If they can’t assure me that this station’s equipment won’t suffer any damage, the tests are over until the problem is corrected. If we go ahead with the test, I’li maintain a command-beam discharge-inhibit until I see a positive target lock-on. If I don’t see a lock-on to the designated target, the test is over.,, “General!” “All clear, Dr. Page?” Saint-Michael accented each. word.
Drop dead. “Clear, sir.” She slid past Saint-Michael and Walker and headed back to the Skybolt control module, the two officers watching her half-glide, half-jump through the connecting hatch. “She’s been working sixteen, twenty hours a day on that thing,” Walker said. “I’d be pissed, too, if my pride and joy had just flunked out. “
Saint-Michael was noncommittal. “Get me a report on the power situation and the crew’s technical opinion on a second test firing. Also check out the Agena and the SBR. Maybe … maybe the problem’s not with Skybolt.
Walker nodded.
“And you handle the command inhibit.” “Where will you be?” Saint-Michael watched the hatch leading to the connecting tunnel close. “In the Skybolt module. Pipe all communications down there.” Without waiting for Walker’s response Saint-Michael headed toward the connecting hatch.
It was a tight squeeze but a few moments later SaintMichael had wedged himself into the narrow walkway down the middle of the Skybolt control module.
He clicked his wireless microphone on. “Control, this is Alpha. Status of the backup power systems.,, “Sir, this is Marks. Backups are fully functional. No apparent damage. They’re doing what they’re supposed to do.” “How much time until the Agena comes back around?” “Estimating fifty minutes, sir. “
Saint-Mi’chael looked at Ann, who was busy pulling a relay box from an electronics cabinet and inspecting the settings on a long row of circuit boards. “You’re a go for another shot, , . I I
She pretended not to hear and slapped the box back into its slot, snapped the latches shut, maneuvered toward SaintMichael to another relay box and nearly jammed Saint-Michael in the ribs as she removed it. “Excuse me, sir.” “Usten, Page, you had better get that damned chip off your shoulder. It’s too much baggage for this station-“
Ann ripped a twelve-inch-square circuit board out of the relay box with an angry yank. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Sir.” She avoided.his stare and went back to her work space to find a
replacement circuit board. “You know this test will fail, too, don’t you?” SaintMichael said.
Ann turned on him. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, General. But that’s all right. I knew that’s how you felt right from the beginning. You never wanted this project-” “You have got things screwed up. . . . ” He shook his head. “How did you ever get picked for this project? Sure as hell not for your glorious personality. “
She plugged the new circuit board into its slot. “I’m here, sir, because this is my project. If you don’t think it’ll work, if you think it’s all a waste of time, that’s your prerogative—
“I didn’t feel that way at first. I guess it’s your wonderful attitude that jams my gears-” “My attitude has nothing to do with this project or your gears. . . . “Has everything to do with it.”
She ignored that and moved back to her work station, punching buttons on the keyboard hard enough to rattle the desk. ” ‘My’ laser, ‘my’ module, ‘my’ project. This isn’t your anything,” he said. “I designed it. . . . ” “Did you build it? Did you fly it up here? Did you hook it up by yourself? Are you going to test it yourself? Now that there’s a glitch in it, I suppose you think you’re going to fix it yourself. It won’t tie into the SRR, it won’t isolate from the stations’ batteries, it won’t lock on, it won’t hit what it’s supposed to hit. But Ms. Super Scientist is going to fix it in fifty minutes by hersey’, and by God she’s going to have a successful second firing or else.”
Ann stared at the computer screen, her lips tight. Saint-Michael was on a roll. “Far be it from you to ask for help from any of us lowly military people. Your laser won’t tie in with the SBR? Well, we happen to have three SBR experts on board this station but you haven’t -consulted any of them. You have a tracking problem? We have Kevin Baker, a thirty-year veteran in space-tracking hardware and software on board, but you haven’t talked to him. . : . Let me make some wild guesses here. You also haven’t asked one single person, on this station or on the ground, for help. You’re not in contact with anyone at your lab in Boston or your corporation in California. No one on this station knows anything about your systems. As a matter of fact, I’ll bet I’m the only person on this station who’s ever been inside this module since it’s been activated. How am I doing?”
Ann’s fingers stopped tapping on the keyboard. She looked up from her work-desk at Saint-Michael, shrugged, kept quiet. “Ann, this is a tremendous project. The first space-based antiballistic missile laser. Two hundred megawatts of energy. Capable of destroying a hundred missiles a minute, maybe
more. It’s a fantastic device. And it works-the laser works exactly as advertised. You’ve done a tremendous job.” “I hear a ‘but’ coming.” “You’re right,” the general said, smiling in spite of himself. “But . . . no one person can be an expert on everything. You designed the Skybolt module to ‘snap together’ with Silver Tower. It’s a technological marvel that the thing works at all. But there’s a problem, and you’re stuck-” “I am not ‘stuck.”
“Then why did you replace that relay circuit board?”
She narrowed her eyes, then picked up the circuit board she had removed from the electronics rack. “This? It’s a tracking interface channel multiplexer board. It controls the logic channels between the SBR and the laser-mirror aiming unit. . . . ” “But you said in Control that everything checked out OK. And your last-second self-test, which repeated out in the command module, said everything was ready. Now, how did you know which board to replace?”
Her eyes lost some of their anger, refused to meet his. “I’m … I’m trying certain critical circuits. One might be … be fused or shorted– “Or maybe you happen to have a spare of that particular board. Maybe you felt the wed to try something, anything, before the next Agena pass. After that, you have at least twenty-four hours to hunt for the real problem before the next pass.
She stared at her workbench. “Let me make a suggestion. If you agree, I’ll pass along a request from you to meet with Colonel Marks, Kevin Baker, Chief Jefferson and Technician Moyer just before the shift change. I’ll tell them you’d like to talk with them about the bearn test and Skybolt’s interfacing problem.”
He glanced over his shoulder toward the command module. “I can almost guarantee that those guys will be tickled to get their hands on Skybolt. You’ll get help out your ears. It couldn’t hurt.”
She looked up from her workbench. “You really do want to help?”
He touched her lightly on the shoulder. “We all want to help. And it’s nothing personal, so don’t get all crazy on me.
We’re involved in the success of this wonder device of yours, too. Hell, I might even get another star if it works … promotion by association, you might say.”
She allowed a smile, then typed in a command on her keyboard and went to her microphone. “Control, this is Skybolt. I I
“Go ahead.” “Second Skybolt beam test is postponed for a systems check. Skybolt
is in stand-by. MHD is deactivated.” “Copy and confirmed.”
She looked at Saint-Michael. “I’ll ask the others to meet with me, General. I guess it’s about time we got acquainted.
Three days later the space station’s crew gathered in the command module to hear an announcement from Saint-Michael. As was his habit, the general got straight to the point. “We’re moving Silver Tower,” he said. “Moving?” Colonel Marks said, clearly upset. “Where? I haven’t heard anything about this. . . . ” “You have some special feeling for this particular orbit, Wayne?” “It’s just … unexpected, Skipper. “Space Command and the Pentagon have brought a few items. of interest to my attention that I think we can help out with. For the first time since Thor was first deployed on this station, Armstrong Station has a chance to act less like an orbiting laboratory and more like a tactical fighting unit. The primary objective of the move is reconnaissance. We have the most sophisticated space-based radars in the world on this station, but right now they’re only used to scan empty sky above Russian missile silos and scan for aircraft flying over the pole. We’ve become little else but a redundancy, and I think we should be doing more.”
Heads nodded. Ann knew that what Saint-Michael was saying was right. Silver Tower tended to be thought of solely as the perfect place to conduct weapons experiments for the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization. The Skybolt project was only one of several being conducted on board the stationothers included Kevin Baker’s Thor experiment, and expenments on superconductor technology and space-based radar
miniaturization. Silver Tower usually had as many civilians on board as military men, and the station’s docking ports were always occupied. “So what’s the job?” Colonel Walker asked. “Who are we going to spy on?”
Saint-Michael brought out a chart that he had been keeping beside his work station and Velcroed it to an instrument panel. It was a Mercator projection map of the globe with a wavy line drawn through it. The uppermost crest of the line passed over Iran; the lower part of the line passed between Chile and New Zealand over the south Pacific Ocean. “I propose moving Armstrong Station to a seven-hundredby one-hundred-mile elliptical orbit. Three-hour orbit; two hours and ten minutes over Africa and lower Asia. One-and-ahalf hours within direct scanning range of Iran. And I want it in the very same track on each orbit. “
There was a low rumble of voices as the crew of Silver Tower studied the chart. It was Colonel Marks who spoke up again. “On the same track? You mean-pass over the exact same points on the earth on each orbit?”
I $Exactly. ” “That sounds serious, General,” Walker said. Saint-Michael nodded. “It is. I’ve received an … observation, I suppose is the best word … about a surprisingly large military buildup in the Soviet’s southern military district. The observation hasn’t alarmed many in the Pentagon because the buildup coincides in some degree with an announced Soviet military exercise and a suspected fall resupply push into Afghanistan. Even so, there are a few who believe something far more extreme may be happening … something like an invasion of Iran.”
Again there was a low rumble among the crew. SaintMichael quieted them down, then went on. “The idea of an invasion of Iran may sound farfetched, but to me, at least, it makes sense. Iran is in a state of transition. Its people are deeply divided between the old Khomeini Islamic fundamentalists and those who genuinely want to reestablish ties with the West. The prolonged war with Iraq has weakened the country’s defenses. The point is, Iran is ripe for the picking.”
“So what are we supposed to do, General?” Kevin Baker asked. Baker looked ten years younger than his actual age of sixty-five as he stood in a nylon -athletic warm-up suit, ftesh out of the vacuum-shower after sixteen hours in space working on the station’s Thor garage. “What are the orders from Washington?” “I’m not talking about orders from Washington. This idea is
mine. As I think you know, I have a good deal of discretionary authority when it comes to the operation of this station. I use it to avoid waste, accelerate research and development and make this station the most effective military unit of its kind. At least that’s what I try to do. But it’s been my feeling that Armstrong’s great potential has been going to waste. We spend more energy on systems to defend ourselves than we, do on providing a necessary strategic warning or tracking capability for Space Command. Now we have an opportunity to provide that capability, so I need input from you. Let’s hear it.” “It’ll eat up tons of fuel,” Marks put in. He made a fast mental calculation. “It’ll mean sideslipping the station … at about nine hundred miles every hour.” “So?” “So!” Saint-Michael had to work to hide a wry smil”e had just activated Marks’s mental microprocessors…. “Sir, it takes three hundred pounds of liquid hydrogen and oxygen a week for station attitude adjustments–which equates to approximately three hundred miles worth of movement. You’re proposing to move the station nine hundred miles laterally an hour. That’s an extra nine hundred pounds of propellant an hour. That’s”–a slight pause-“twenty-one thousand, six hundred pounds of fuel per day. One-third of a shuttle cargo flight full of fuel–one-fourth of an AgenaThree vessel. . . .” “If the proposal is approved,” Saint-Michael said, “there’ll be a two-per-week resupply sortie. An Agena-Three unmanned cargo module can supply us with four days’ worth of fuel.” “Why an elliptical orbit, General?” Walker asked. “An elliptical orbit only gives you a look once a day at most. An equatorial orbit will give you a look several times a day.” “I did some wagging on the computer,” Saint-Michael
said. “A one-hundred-and-fifty-nautical-mile equatorial orbit will place us over two thousand miles from the recon target area. That’s the space-based radar’s extreme range limit. I believe it’ll be worth the extra fuel to set up an elliptical orbit, especially if it’s adjusted for earth rotation-en equatorial orbit can’t be adjusted.”
Saint-Michael stepped back to his chart, pointing toward the rectangle marking the recon target area. “It’ll be dicey,” he said quietly. “Even without the threat of a Soviet invasion of Iran or a U.S.-USSR confrontation, we’ll be orbiting over the worst possible place on earth. We’ll be flying almost directly over the Soviet Union’s primary antisatellite unit at Tyuratam, and the Sary Shagan Missile Test Center on Lake Baikash, where the Soviets supposedly have an active antisatellite and antiballistic missile laser-” “Not supposedly,’ General,” Ann put in. “A laser powerful enough to blind satellites definitely has been in operation there for twenty years. The intelligence reports are underestimates. The Russians have a functional antisatellite laser system at Sary Shagan, maybe powerful enough to damage this station.” “There’s little chance of that, Dr. Page,” Jefferson said. “This station is heavily armored, After all, that’s why it’s called Silver Tower. The titanium-silver armor is stronger than-” “Jake, the nickname is sort of outdated,” Walker interrupted. “Only the original pressurized modules have the armoring, not the add-on center beam, radar arrays, fuel tanks or solar arrays.” “Right,” Ann said, “that laser at Sary Shagan could slice through every unprotected device like butter.”
There was a moment of silence, then Saint-Michael turned to Colonel Marks. “Wayne, could the electrolysis unit handle seven extra thousand gallons of water per day?” “Easy,” Marks said. “The unit was designed for a station twice the size of Silver Tower.” The electrolysis unit, powered by the huge solar arrays, converted Silver Tower’s fuelplain seawater-into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Radiators, perpetually facing away from the sun toward the minus-threehundred-degree coldness of space, then condensed the gases
into liquids for storage, or pumps simply sent the gases into the station’s four positioning engines to adjust the station’s orbit and attitude. One unmanned Agena-Three supply tanker carrying sixty thousand pounds of water from earth would be enough for satellite, shuttle, and hypersonic plane refuelings and full station operation for a month. “General, will moving the station
interfere with any further Skybolt tests?” Ann asked. “I’ll be ready for another free beam-test in three days. If things go well I’ll be ready for another Agena-Tbree live-fire target test in a week.”
Saint-Michael paused. “Sorry, Ann, but I have to recommend to Space Command that the Skybolt test be postponed for now. We’d be sure to catch hell for firing the laser so close to the Soviet Union’s ICBM fields.” “General,” she said quietly, too quietly, “we all worked very hard to advance this project ahead of schedule after the first partial-power test failed. In my opinion, sir, a successful Skybolt test should claim higher priority than an unsolicited recon mission.” “Your comment is noted, and now-” “Then I have your assurance, General, that my objection will be given equal weight with your own arguments when you make your proposal to Space Command.” “As commander of this station I’m obliged to include recommendations and advice from all members of my crew. I am not, however, required to give assurances to anyone.” He turned to Colonel Marks. “Wayne, I’d like you to doublecheck my figures on the proposed orbit and fuel calculations. Colonel Walker, get together with Wayne and set up a rough resupply schedule system using both shuttle and Agenas. ” He took a deep breath. “Dr. Page, please outline the delays in your program and any potential problems caused by the delays. I I
He scanned the faces around him. “I want the data ready for encryption and transmission by tomorrow morning. I’ll propose the station repositioning for three days from now. He looked directly at Ann, who didn’t blink. “That’s all. ” The group filed out, a few talking briefly with Saint-Michael before leaving. Ann made sure she was the last to talk with him.
“This plan comes as quite a surprise, General. I thought we had made a commitment to the Skybolt project.” “That hasn’t changed, Ann. I’m not canceling Skybolt. But Armstrong Station is an operational military base, a tactical unit first and foremost. I’ve been supplied with information about a situation that could develop into a direct threat against the U.S. I’ve studied the available information and I’ve formulated a response for consideration and approval by headquarters-” :’But what about-T’ ‘Ann, you can believe me or not, but I’m telling you I will not cancel Skybolt. ” :
Okay, okay, she thought. Better not press him any further. In fact, better try to cool it. She had to live with these guys. And, when you thought about it, her future was in SaintMichael’s hands. . . .
USS CALIFORNIA
“Dammit, Cogley,” Captain Matthew Page said, “I don’t want copies of Nimitz’s transcript of the satellite messages. takes an extra half-hour for them to relay the messages to u and for Comm to type them out nice and pretty. Half of Asia could get blown up in a half-hour. We’ve got our own FLEETSAT terminal; I want copies of the transmissions from that.” Cogley nodded and turned but Page grabbed his arm. “Cogley, give me those messages you have. It’s better than nothing. Tell Comm I want updates every half-hour.”
Cogley scurried away and returned a few moments later to fill Page’s coffee cup. “Thanks. Now tell Comm to start earning their salaries or I’ll keel-haul them.” Cogley disappeared.
Page took a sip of coffee, looked skyward. “See that, Ann?” he said, half-aloud. “I call him other things besides ‘Dammit Cogley.
It was the first time he had thought of his daughter since leaving Oakland, and the realization hurt him. My daughter, the astronaut. She had been on the evening news half a dozen times and in the newspapers constantly. A laser expert. Smarter,
more famous, better paid and certainly better looking than her old man.
He felt a lurch from an errant wave and his eyes quickly scanned the digital inertial sea-motion gauges and the computerized compensating equipment on the master bridgt-console. All functioning normally. The Arabian Sea could be a wild place sometimes–even without the interference of other people’s navies.
At least Ann didn’t have to deal with twelve-foot waves, he thought. They didn’t have waves in space. He remembered reading about a “solar wind” powerful enough to move huge space stations, and micrometeorites that could slice through steel. It sounded much more dangerous than the sea.
He had always wanted to ask his daughter about things like the solar wind and micrometeorites but just never did. Funnywhenever he saw his daughter, he never thought of asking her about lasers, or space, or physics. She was a world-class scientist, one of the nation’s best. She could probably write a book about the solar wind. But whenever he saw her, she was his daughter-nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.
You’re an old idiot, Page told himself. You’ve never let her know how proud you are of her, how happy you are about her success. You see her maybe twice a year and then it’s always “get me a beer” or “help your mother” or “when are you going to come down to earth-joke—and crank out some grandkids?”
He went out onto the catwalk and took in the clean, crisp salt breeze and the sounds of waves crashing against the bow of his eleven-thousand-ton guided-missile cruiser. Off in the distance he could just make out the massive outline of the Nimitz as it launched another pair of F/A-18D fighters on a night patrol. The California was positioned as the “goalkeeper,” the largest and most powerful ship cruising except for the main carrier in the battle group. The California’s eight antiaircraft guided-missile launchers, two 127-millimeter guns, eight Harpoon antiship missile launchers, four 324-millimeter nuclear torpedo tubes and eight ASROC antisubmarine missile launchers were the last layer of protection for the ninety-onethousand-ton carrier and her thirty-six-hundred crewmembers.
Dammit, he thought, why feel guilty about speaking your
mind? Deep down he couldn’t help feeling that Ann had no business being on a space station or flying in a contraption like the Space Shuttle. Both were dangerous enough without the Russians screaming about them being a threat, And what was wrong with asking for a few grandchildren? Ann was an only child.
It would be nice to have a few rug rats around after the navy dry-docked him in a few years.
Chief Petty Officer Cogley ran up to him now and held out a computer printout. “Message traffic from the Persian Gulf, sir. ” “I’m not asking too much, right, Cogley? But no. She’s gotta go off and play spaceman. Big deal.” “Your daughter, sir?” “What? What about my daughter?” Page snapped himself back to the deck of the California and Cogley wisely decided not to pursue whatever the captain had been muttering about. “Three point ships from the Brezhnev battle group heading south for the Strait of Hormuz,” Cogley read. “Space Command thinks they’re exiting the Gulf for an early force rotation. The carrier Brezhnev herself is hanging back for now. We’ll be able to wave bye-bye to them as they exit the Gulf of Oman. “
For a brief instant Captain Page’s mind registered the words “Space Command,” but he didn’t make the connection and assumed Cogley was referring to the air force. . They’re all the same, aren’t they? he liked to say. “Thanks, Cogley. Keep the reports coming,”
Dark clouds raced across the skies, but Captain Page looked up and stared at the sky as if his daughter Ann could look back down at him. “Well, daughter, for once I’m damn glad you’re tucked away up there …. 11
TYURATAM, OZEZKAZGAN PROVINCE, USSR
For the third time that hour General-Lieutenant Alesander Govorov rested a hand near a clear plastic-covered control panel on the master control board. He was careful to double
check that the plastic cover was still in place, but he could not prevent his hand from moving toward the three switches recessed beneath the cover. Slowly, almost reverently, he tapped the plastic above the switches and imagined the results.
Switch one: Activation of an electromechanical interlock that absolutely committed a launch and attack on the target selecte4 by the tracking computer. Even if an explosion or massive power failure cut power to the entire launch complex, the Gorgon missile’s internal circuitry could still successfully process an attack on the target. Activation of the switch also set off several warning alarms through the antisatellite missile-launch complex and would automatically transmit warning messages to the Space Center headquarters at Baikenour, to the Kremlin, and to several alternate command and control centers throughout the Soviet Union.
Switch two: Fully automatic launch preparation. Final inertial guidance corrections, final target processing, opening of the missile silo’s twin steel muzzle shutters, retraction of all service ports, arms, and umbilicals, and preparation of the twin one thousand decaliter chemical reagent vessels for the turbo-powered cold-launch mixing process.
Switch three: Launch commit. The four underground turbopumps would force-mix a sodium carbonate slurry with nitric acid in a large steel vessel under the silo, yielding huge volumes of nitrogen gas in seconds. The reaction vessel would store and compress the gas until the pressure reached one million kilopascals, then force the neutral gas into the silo. The gas would spit the twenty-thousand-kilogram Gorgon missile nearly twenty meters above the silo, where the missile’s exhaust gases would not scorch or damage the silo on first-stage motor ignition. In less than fifteen minutes another missile would be hauled in place and made ready for launch.
Govorov could almost see the numbers on the computer monitor displaying the results. A long first-stage burn as the SAS-10 missile plowed through the thick atmosphere. A highimpulse second stage to accelerate the missile to orbital speed. A third-stage orbit-correcting bum, followed by steering burns and thruster course correctioTis.
Then, close in. Acceleration to nearly three times the speed of sound-but there would be no sonic booms: the missile
would be hundreds of miles above the atmosphere in space by then. Random
maneuvers, some as much as forty degrees off, all with the Gorgon tracking system locked in. Then impact, explosion, destruction. The SAS-10 carried a one-thousandkilogram high explosive flak warhead. Small by any ballisticweapon standard but devastating to an orbiting target. Without the firmness of the earth to cushion or protect it, destruction would be total.
Good-bye, American Space Command Brigadier General Jason Saint-Michael. Good-bye, Space Station Armstrong. The pieces of your station will create hundreds of new shooting stars every night for weeks.
But the plastic cover remained over the three master-launch control keys, and the numbers on the computer monitors showed exactly as they had been showing for a month-Space Station Armstrong safely in its orbit, set up to watch Minister of Defense Czilikov’s folly in Iran a total of sixteen hours a day, telling the world about the big mistake the new leadership of the Soviet Union was about to make.
Govorov turned to the chief duty officer in the Gorgon launch control and monitoring center. “Status of the target, Lieutenant Colonel Gulaev?” “Unchanged, sir. Station Armstrong is thirty-one minutes ten seconds from apogee. Speed and track unchanged. We can set our chronometers by it.” He turned to face his superior officer. “They are not merely goading us, are they, Comrade General? They know about Feather?”
Govorov was slightly taken aback by the question involving the Iran operation. Not by the fact that Qulaev, Govorov’s youngest but by far most intelligent duty commander, had discovered Feather-he was exposed to as much message traffic and strategic operational briefings as Govorov himself, and he was a bright kid. But Gulaev, the grandson of one of the Soviet Union’s most highly decorated World War Il flying aces, had done what few in the Kollegiya had done: he’d pieced together: the inner workings of Feather and then tied the movements and capabilities of the Americans’ most sophisticated and secret military device into the classified Soviet military operation. Gulaev, was thinking several steps ahead
of most of the military high command.
“You seem to know a good deal about Armstrong,” Govorov said, “and you are talking too much about Feather. I would strongly advise you to keep your thoughts to yourself—or better yet, do not have such thoughts.”
Gulaev looked grave, but Govorov managed an encouraging smile. “No, the Americans can’t know about Feather. The operation is too ambitious even for the Americans to imagine. “
Gulaev nodded, but his inquisitive face was stony as he turned back to his duties. His question bothered Govorov. The Americans, he was certain, were using the powerful space-based radar on Armstrong Space Station to maintain the longest possible surveillance on the region. Why? Certainly not to watch a few ships in the Persian Gulf.
Alwaysbelieve the worst and hope for the best-at least that was what he had preached to Gulaev and the other young officers in his command. Time to get off your mindless high horse, Hero of the Soviet Union Govorov. Think like your young officers: The Americans knew or have guessed the invasion plans. Armstrong Station has detected vast numbers of weapons, numbers inconsistent with a simple exercise or with any resupply efforts into Afghanistan. In response they have moved the station into an orbit with the apogee, the highest point of the orbit, directed over the Soviet-Iran border. Moreover they have placed the station in a higher elliptical orbit, which allows them to scan the Iran-Persian Guy’ area longer and places them a bitfurther away ftom any Soviet antisatellite weapons. They are expending tremendous amounts offuel and energy to insure that the station passes over the same exact points bn the globe on every orbit…. “Lieutenant Colonel Gulaev.-
Gulaev got up from his chair and was quickly beside Govorov. “Sir?”
Govorov put a hand on his shoulder. “Never be afraid to question everything and everyone, Lieutenant Colonel. I know it’s not wise to question those in authority, but in my command I demand it. It’s old fools like me that will drag our country down.” “No, General Lieutenant, you—L,,
Govorov raised a hand. “You were right, as usually is the
case. We have to operate under the assumption that the Americans have discovered or at least suspect our plans in the Persian Gulf and h-an and have repositioned the space station to maintain an early warning and surveillance watth on the area. If our intelligence is correct, the station’s space-based radar will be able to direct forces to engage our; invasion forces on several fronts
at once. Comments, Lieutenant Colonel?”
The reply came surprisingly quick. “It’s imperative that we destroy the space station Armstrong, sir. ” , “Except the Kollegiya has not authorized such an attack,” Govorov said. “We’re not at war with America. Feather is an operation to occupy Iran, take control of the Persian Gulf and prevent the reintroduction of superior American forces in the region. We are not trying to start a new Patriotic War– “Then I believe, sir, that Feather will fail. Can we, can you, sir, allow that to happen?”
Govorov winced inwardly, nodded toward his office. Gulaev set his headset down on the master console and followed him. Govorov motioned for Gulaev to close the door as he sat behind his desk in the tiny office. “You’ve evidently interpreted my invitation to speak your mind a bit more broadly than I intended,” Govorov said. “Space Defense Command personnel are interviewed frequently by the KGB, and remarks like ‘Feather will fail’ are bound to be remembered by some eavesdroppers, ready and willing to exploit them to advantage. Please, exercise more caution in the future. You’re a damn fine officer; I wouldn’t want to lose you to some three-man radio outpost in Siberia — or worse. I I
As he spoke, Govorov was reminded of his own highly impolitic remarks before the Kollegiya. Maybe he wasn’t the one to be giving this lecture. But then again, who better to preach than a sinner who had suffered for the same sins in the past?
Gulaev appeared chastened. “You are right, of course,” Govorov said. “Feather will hardly be a surprise to anyone if the space-based radar is as effective as I believe it is. ” He paused long enough for Gulaev to think he had been dismissed. Then: “Lieutenant
Colonel Gulaev, I’d like your estimate of the effectiveness of the SAS-10 Gorgon missile system against the space station Armstrong. “
Gulaev paused a moment then answered firitily. “Ineffective, sir. At most we can attack the station with six Gorgon missiles. Armstrong has ten Thor missiles it can use against them. ” “But the effectiveness of the Thor missile system was reported at only fifty percent,” Govorov said, testing his subordinate. “Sir, as you know the GRU and KGB adjusted the results of the American’s live-fire test to approximate effectiveness under less than ideal conditions. The facts are that the Americans used seven Thor missiles and destroyed fifty-nine ICBM warheads. That’s an eighty-five percent effectiveness rate. No matter how extensively the test was staged, sir, the fact remains that the American space station successfully intercepted six missiles-Trident missiles, which are more elusive targets than Gorgons. The Thor missile tracked and killed -an individual warhead-a much smaller target than a Gorgon. And, sir, although the present groundspeed of the station is slower, the station at apogee is at the extreme altitude length of the Gorgon. Which means that the Gorgon couldn’t tailchase the station in its orbit but would have to fly directly at it and attack before its fuel supply was exhausted. That would make it a virtual stationary target for the Thor missile.”
Govorov hated to consider the obvious implications of that…. All the plans, all the misgivings, all the perceived deficiencies of the Space Defense Command’s major weapon system that Govorov had been aware of all these yearsyoung Gulaev had just articulated them in one breath. “And your alternative?” Govorov asked in a monotone that denied what he was feeling inside. “Come on, Nikolai Gulaev. I know you are going to say it. . . . ” “Elektron?” Gulaev said matter-of-factly.
