by Dale Brown
“Hey, Boomer!” With a cheerful grin, Brad waved back at Hunter “Boomer” Noble, the chief of aerospace engineering for Sky Masters and its lead test pilot for the reactivated S-series spaceplanes. “Sorry I’m late, but we had a slight problem on the last simulator run that I had to sort out.”
“Shit,” Boomer growled. “Tell me a newbie didn’t just break one of the company’s incredibly expensive machines?” Sky Masters Aerospace ran some of the world’s most advanced flight simulators out of a converted hangar at the other end of the airport. Mounted on massive Hexapod-system hydraulic jacks, the full-motion simulators could be configured to mimic the flight characteristics and capabilities of virtually any aircraft—everything from single-engine turboprops to fifth-generation fighters like the F-35 Lightning II on up to the S-series spaceplanes. Between the company’s immersive, virtual-reality simulator programs and its expert instructor pilots, Sky Masters made a tidy profit training fliers for airlines and even the armed forces of several smaller U.S. allies.
“‘Break’ is a harsh word,” Brad said judiciously. “But I guess our trainee did bend it a little.”
Boomer winced, probably imagining the outraged memos from corporate accounting that were likely to land on his desk. “Bent it how, exactly?”
“Well, it looks like a couple of the Hexapod actuators froze up when the simulator pod tried to spin end over end.”
“No fucking way,” Boomer said in disbelief. He pinched the bridge of his nose hard and closed his eyes for just a second. “Which one of our merry band of aspiring astronauts managed to mess up a simulator like that?”
“Constable.”
“The Brit?”
Brad nodded. Peter Charles “Constable” Vasey had flown Harrier jump jets and other high-performance aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm. Several years before, bored out of his skull by peacetime service, the former Royal Navy flier had signed up with Scion. Since then, he’d flown a wide range of different aircraft for the private military company, taking part in a number of dangerous covert missions around the world. When offered a shot at flying spaceplanes for the new Sky Masters–Scion joint venture, the Englishman had naturally jumped at the chance.
From everything Brad could see so far, Vasey was a gifted pilot whose only weakness might be a tendency to push his luck and his aircraft to the limit. Kind of like me, he admitted to himself.
“What the hell did he do?” Boomer demanded.
“He tried to roll the S-29 in hypersonic flight,” Brad said, not bothering now to hide his amusement.
Boomer stared back at him. “You’re bullshitting me.”
“Nope,” Brad said virtuously. “Scout’s honor. That’s what he did.”
“And, pray tell, what was Comrade Vasey’s airspeed when he decided to commit virtual suicide?” Boomer asked, with yet another deep sigh.
“Mach eight.”
“Jesus Christ.” Boomer shook his head in sheer astonishment. At one hundred thousand feet above sea level, Mach 8 meant the spaceplane was traveling at nearly forty-eight hundred knots. “What made that lunatic Brit think it was a good idea to try rolling a freaking spaceplane at Mach-fricking-eight—right in the middle of God’s own little turbulent hell of skin friction and shock-wave heating?”
Brad laughed. “Constable told me he just wanted to find out what would happen in a maneuver at that speed. Plus, he was kind of curious to see how the simulation would handle something so crazy.”
“And?”
“Apparently, he and his copilot got one heck of a ride before the system went down and they lost power.” Brad’s grin grew even wider. “I believe it, too. When we overrode the locks and pried the simulator door open, they were hanging almost upside down in their harnesses.”
Boomer eyed him suspiciously. “Who was flying in the other seat during this little jaunt?”
“Nadia,” Brad said simply.
“Nadia? Nadia Rozek? Your Nadia?” Boomer whistled. “Oh, man. Please, please, tell me she killed that goofball Vasey with her bare hands when you got them unstrapped.”
“Nope, I’m afraid not.” Brad shook his head in mock sadness. “She was too busy whooping it up. She said it was more fun than all the thrill rides at Disneyland and Universal Studios combined.”
“Swell,” Boomer said wryly. “Look, Brad, I need you to ride herd on Vasey. Rein him in a little, okay? At least enough to satisfy the suits like Kaddiri and Martindale that we aren’t running a total lunatic asylum here.”
Brad nodded his agreement. Dr. Helen Kaddiri was the president and chairman of Sky Masters. Her Scion counterpart was former U.S. president Kevin Martindale. Neither was especially noted for having much of a sense of humor—at least not when it came to paying unexpected repair bills for expensive equipment.
Since he was one of the few surviving people with real-world spaceplane experience, Brad had been named second in command of the reactivated S-series flight program, which meant maintaining day-to-day discipline among the eager, hard-charging men and women they were training as crews was mostly his job. He couldn’t pretend it was a task he enjoyed, but if that was the price of getting into space again, it was a price he was completely willing to pay. “Maybe I’ll have Constable write ‘I will not break my spaceplane without permission’ on a whiteboard a couple of thousand times,” he suggested.
Boomer snorted. “Think that’ll work?”
“Probably not,” Brad conceded. Mulling it over, he looked up at the sleek silhouette of the S-19 Midnight parked next to them. “Then I guess I read him the riot act. Warn him to cool his jets, or Mr. Vasey’s Wild Simulator Ride will be the closest he’ll ever get to actually flying one of these babies. That should settle him down a little.”
“Harsh, but seriously motivating,” Boomer agreed. “You do that.”
“Speaking of actually flying . . .” Brad continued, deliberately changing the subject to something a lot nearer and dearer to his heart. He waved a hand at the spaceplane towering over them. “What’s the latest word on when we can take this crate and the others out of mothballs and back into the sky?”
Boomer grinned at him. “Why? Getting itchy feet here on the ground, McLanahan?”
“Maybe a little.”
The other man nodded. “Yeah, me too.” He shrugged. “Not long now, I hope. Most of the birds look like they’re in pretty good condition, but my crew chiefs are still checking every component from nose to tail fins. Anything that looks dodgy gets pulled.”
“That can’t be cheap,” Brad said slowly.
“It sure isn’t,” Boomer agreed. “But the higher-ups saw the point when I told them it was a choice between spending a couple of million dollars on needed maintenance now . . . or maybe watching a spacecraft worth a couple of hundred million dollars burn up on reentry or auger into some Iowa farmer’s cornfield later.”
Brad flashed a smile of his own. “Nicely argued, Dr. Noble. I’m betting the other little fact, that you’d be one of the guys riding in the cockpit of that doomed spaceplane, wouldn’t have been nearly as persuasive.”
“Maybe not,” Boomer allowed. “The definition of ‘acceptable risk’ sure changes when you’re the one taking the risks.” He jerked a thumb toward the rolling ladder up to the S-19’s open cockpit. “Speaking of which, I’ve got something new to show you.”
Curious now, Brad followed him up the ladder to a platform overlooking the cockpit. From this vantage point, everything about the S-19 Midnight looked identical to the one he’d flown into orbit five years before. Or, for that matter, to the digitally simulated versions he’d trained on for the last several weeks. It had the same two side-by-side seats for the pilot and copilot, who was called the mission commander—with all the usual consoles and panels crowded with touch-screen multifunction displays and other controls.
Boomer tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to a patch of metal deck visible between the seats. “See there?”
Brad squinted, and this time he spotted a
small pull handle set almost flush with the deck itself. Thin, dark lines in the deck plating outlined what looked like a new hatch or compartment. That was weird. Unlike NASA’s larger space shuttle, the S-19 only had one deck. Everything below the spaceplane’s cockpit should be just sensor instrumentation, avionics, and heat shielding. He glanced back at the other man. “Okay, I’m officially baffled. What gives?”
For an answer, Boomer lowered himself into the open cockpit and settled into the right-hand mission commander’s seat. He patted the other. “Take a seat, kid, and I’ll show you.”
Still puzzled, Brad climbed down into the left-hand pilot’s seat. In his lightweight Nomex flight suit, it felt a lot wider and less cramped than it did when wearing a standard full-pressure space suit. “All right. Now what?”
Boomer reached down to the pull handle set between them. In one easy motion, he tugged it up and to the right. A section of the deck plating rose smoothly and pivoted away behind his seat, revealing a deep compartment extending below the cockpit. “We had to reroute some cabling and sacrifice a small amount of fuel tankage to make room for this,” he explained.
Brad shot him a crooked grin. “So what’s inside? A built-in bar?”
“In your dreams,” Boomer said dryly. Still bent over, he caught hold of a piece of gear stored inside the compartment. Grunting with effort, he yanked a bulky, white backpack up into view. “This would be a heck of a lot easier in zero-G,” he said through gritted teeth as he set it down carefully on the deck. “Here on Earth, this damned thing still weighs about fifty pounds.”
Brad leaned over himself, taking a closer look at the backpack. It was about twenty inches high, eighteen inches wide, and eight inches deep. A number of ports, connectors, and valves dotted its outer surface. “That’s a PLSS,” he realized. “But it looks significantly smaller than the other models I’ve seen.” A PLSS, or Primary Life Support System, contained oxygen, power, carbon-dioxide scrubbers, environmental controls, communications gear, and a small emergency maneuvering system. Astronauts wore them during EVAs.
Boomer nodded. “Yep. Our Sky Masters engineers took the advanced version of the PLSS that NASA’s been working on at the Johnson Space Center and slimmed it down quite a bit. They had to, since everything has to fit into this one tight compartment.” Straining, he pulled out a second life-support pack and rested it on top of the first.
“What’s the trade-off involved in the reduced size?”
“These life-support packs only provide three hours of air and power, not the eight-plus hours of the bigger models,” Boomer replied.
Brad frowned. “That’s one hell of a negative trade-off.”
“This new equipment isn’t intended for routine use,” Boomer said patiently. “It’s all strictly for emergencies.”
“Emergencies as in ‘oh, shit, this spacecraft is kaput and we’ve gotta get out’?” Brad guessed.
“Yeah. Those kinds of emergencies.”
“Three hours of life support doesn’t seem like nearly enough time for anyone to mount a rescue operation,” Brad said dubiously.
“It’s not,” Boomer agreed. He reached down inside the compartment and retrieved another piece of gear. “Which is why we developed this little Rube Goldberg–looking device.”
Brad felt his eyebrows rise. The other man was holding up a clear case packed full of smaller pieces of equipment, including what looked oddly like a large, deflated white balloon, a parachute pack, and what appeared to be a small, twin-nozzle, handheld rocket motor. “What is that?”
“The high-tech version of a ‘Hail Mary’ pass,” Boomer said matter-of-factly. “More officially known as an ERO kit.”
“ERO?”
“Emergency Return from Orbit.” Boomer tapped the side of the clear case. “If everything works as intended, all this hardware assembles into a disposable one-man reentry vehicle.” His expression was completely serious. “Way back in the 1960s, General Electric engineers designed a system they hoped would allow Gemini astronauts stranded in orbit to return safely to Earth . . . without using another spacecraft to retrieve them. They called the concept MOOSE, for Manned Orbital Operations Safety Equipment.”
“But the system was never actually deployed?” Brad guessed.
“Canceled after early ground testing,” Boomer acknowledged. “The ERO kit is our own updated version, using more advanced materials.” He tapped the case. “For example, that weird balloon-like thing is actually a disk-shaped, six-foot-diameter aerogel bag with a thin Nomex cloth heat shield attached to one side and a parachute pack and retrorocket combo on the other.”
“Aerogel? That’s the super-lightweight stuff they call ‘solid smoke,’ isn’t it?” Brad said slowly. At Boomer’s nod, he frowned again. “But aerogel is made out of silica, basically beach sand. It’s incredibly brittle.”
“This is a new form of aerogel developed by NASA’s Glenn Research Center out in Ohio,” Boomer reassured him. “They make it out of polyimide, a really strong, amazingly heat-resistant polymer. It’s hundreds of times sturdier than the traditional aerogels—so much so that you can actually support the weight of a car on a thick enough piece.”
“Sounds pretty cool,” Brad conceded. Then he shrugged. “But I still don’t see how you turn this stuff into an honest-to-God reentry vehicle.”
“ERO is really a fairly simple concept,” Boomer said. “Once you’re outside the spacecraft, you inflate the aerogel disk around you, filling it with a special, highly expandable polyurethane foam. That creates a conical dish shape that should remain stable at high speed when it hits the atmosphere. Then, when you’re ready, you fire off those handheld retrorockets . . . and away you go—falling toward the ground at seventeen thousand miles per hour.”
Brad felt his mouth fall open slightly in stunned disbelief. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious,” Boomer told him quietly. “We lost a lot of good people in orbit five years ago. I’m not willing to pass up anything that could save lives in the future.”
“But has anyone actually tested this thing yet?”
“Oh, hell no, Brad,” Boomer admitted with a laugh. “No one’s that crazy!”
Five
Outside McLanahan Industrial Airport
Several Days Later
Cued by the roar of four powerful turbofan engines, the crowd of reporters and aviation enthusiasts clustered outside the fence swung round in unison, like marionettes pulled by the same string. There, silhouetted against the rugged brown slopes of the Shoshone Range, a large blended-wing aircraft finished its turn toward the airport—clearly lining up for a final approach to Runway Three-Zero.
Cell-phone cameras clicked away at high speed, snapping pictures as the S-19 Midnight came in low and touched down just past the threshold. Clouds of white-gray smoke billowed away from the spaceplane’s landing gear. Shimmering in the roiling heat haze, the S-19 rolled past the crowd with its massive underwing engines shrilly spooling down. Late-afternoon sunlight glinted off its twin-canopied cockpit.
Slowly, the big craft swung off the long runway onto a taxiway and headed toward a distant apron, already occupied by several other parked spaceplanes—ranging in size from the relatively tiny S-9 Black Stallion to the even larger S-29 Shadow. Gradually, once it was clear that nothing more exciting would be happening today, the crowd of onlookers started to dissipate.
Slipping easily through the chattering throng, Lieutenant Colonel Vasily Dragomirov headed toward the dark blue Buick SUV he had rented in Reno a few days ago. This was familiar ground to the veteran operative for Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. Last year, posing as an FBI agent, he had deceived one of Sky Master’s chief cybernetics engineers into handing over priceless secrets about the control interfaces used by the combat robots it built for the Iron Wolf Squadron—secrets that gave Russia the last pieces of the puzzle it needed to field its own Kibernetischeskiye Voyennyye Mashiny, cybernetic war machines.
For this esp
ionage mission, he was posing as a journalist, with legitimate press credentials issued by Zukünftige Flugzeugberichte, a German digital magazine that specialized in aviation and space technology news. Most of its tiny staff and much larger group of freelance contributors remained blissfully unaware that the publication’s funding ultimately came from Moscow.
Major Eduard Naumov looked up from his laptop when Dragomirov climbed behind the wheel of the SUV. The heavyset, gray-haired man was a technical officer with the GRU’s Ninth Directorate—a specialist group tasked with analyzing advanced foreign military technology. “That was only an in-atmosphere supersonic test flight,” he declared. “My working hypothesis is that this was a shakedown flight designed to identify any unexpected problems with the spaceplane’s hybrid engines. That would be a sensible precaution for any complex machine after so long in cold storage.”
“The S-19 did not go into space?” Dragomirov asked, surprised.
Naumov shook his head. “Not this time, Vasily.” He turned his laptop so that the other man could see the map it displayed. Red dots blossomed like measles across a swath of the western and central United States. “I have gathered social media reports of sudden sonic booms—all of them occurring in the past hour. Plotting them out shows the S-19 flying a wide loop out as far as Kansas and then back here. To reach the speeds I estimate, between Mach six and Mach seven, it was undoubtedly flying at very high altitude, but definitely not above the atmosphere itself.”
“Which means the Americans have not yet succeeded in restoring any of their spaceplanes to full operational status,” Dragomirov realized.
Naumov nodded. “But I do not believe it will take them much longer. This successful test flight proves that.”
“Then we have information worth relaying to Moscow,” Dragomirov decided. He peered through the tinted windshield at the distant row of parked spaceplanes. His mouth tightened. “Somehow I doubt the news will be welcome.”
