by Dale Brown
Perplexed, Strelkov turned back to the com screens showing Gryzlov and Colonel General Leonov listening in from Moscow. “What kind of game are these people playing?” he wondered. “First, they creep up on us in the dark . . . and now they pretend we’re all friends together?”
Gryzlov scowled abruptly. “They’re distracting you, Colonel,” he snapped. “Like a sleight-of-hand conjurer gesturing broadly with one hand while he palms a card with the other!”
Dismayed, Strelkov stared at the president’s furious image. “Distracting us from what?” he asked. “We have not detected any overt hostile activity from the American spaceplane since we made visual contact.”
“Don’t be an idiot!” Gryzlov snarled. “Remember those open cargo doors? They could have launched their weapons much earlier, while you were both orbiting through darkness!”
Strelkov saw Leonov frown.
“Using some kind of new stealth missile?” the colonel general asked dubiously. “A missile we’ve never heard of before? That seems highly unlikely—”
With an imperious gesture, Gryzlov cut him off. “Strelkov!” he demanded. “Is your L-band radar active?”
Despite the hydrostatic effects of zero-G, Strelkov felt the blood drain from his face. Mars One’s long-wavelength L-band radar was the best choice to detect stealth targets. Without it, they were effectively blind to any attack by weapons purposely shaped to reduce their radar cross section.
But Moscow’s earlier orders had been clear. To preserve the fiction that Mars One was a civilian space platform, they had been directed to avoid using either of their military-grade radars if at all possible. Unfortunately, caught up in the press of events since that American spaceplane appeared seemingly out of nowhere, he had neglected to request a change in those instructions. And equally unfortunately, the station’s L-band radar, with its substantial electricity requirements, was one of the systems he’d deliberately ordered kept off-line to free up power in case it was needed to recharge their directed-energy weapons.
He stabbed down at the intercom button. “Major Romanenko! Restore power to our radar systems! Right away!” Then, without waiting for a reply, he swiveled toward Konnikov—holding tight to his console to avoid spinning off helplessly across the compartment. “Georgy! Bring your L-band and X-radars online! And for Christ’s sake, hurry! We may already be under missile attack!”
Twenty-Two
Aboard the S-19 Midnight Spaceplane, Now over Western Europe
Moments Later
Two bright red warning icons flared suddenly on Hunter Noble’s cockpit display. He tapped each of them. In response, text boxes opened, conveying information gathered by the S-19’s radar warning receivers: Unidentified L-band search radar detected at twelve o’clock, range one hundred miles. Unidentified X-band target search radar, same bearing, same range.
“Well, shit, that tears it,” Boomer muttered. The Russians aboard Mars One were lighting up powerful, military-grade radars—radars that no genuine civilian space station would need. Worse yet, the combination of radar types they’d activated indicated the Russians were definitely looking for stealth contacts like the Sky Masters recon nanosatellites. While that lower-frequency L-band system could detect stealth craft, it couldn’t provide the weapons-quality tracking data needed to engage them. But what it could do was tell the station’s X-band radar pretty much where it needed to look for potential targets to lock on to.
He glanced across the cockpit at Brad. The younger man was totally focused on his assigned task. The seven tiny satellites he’d launched were within seconds of their closest planned approach to Mars One. This was the point where any nanosat engine or computer malfunction could prove catastrophic, creating the very real risk of an accidental collision with the Russian station. “They’re onto us,” he said. “Better grab all the information you can while we’re still in data-link range of your birds . . . because I’m about to put some really serious distance between us and them.”
“Roger that,” Brad acknowledged.
Quickly, Boomer pulled up their orbital track. At this point, with the S-19 crossing fast over northern Italy, going for an immediate powered reentry would almost certainly take them down into firing range of Russia’s S-500 surface-to-air missile batteries. Waiting a few minutes longer only added China’s ground-based missiles to the mix of dangers they faced. In fact, along their current orbital path, it wouldn’t be safe to descend for more than fifteen minutes. Which was about fourteen minutes and fifty-nine seconds too damned long in the present situation, he decided.
No, their best option was to shear off as rapidly as possible. He could fire the spaceplane’s main engines to initiate a plane-change maneuver. Increasing their orbit’s inclination would separate them fast from Mars One. Unfortunately, it would also consume a hell of a lot of fuel. They might be forced to commit to a space-shuttle-like nose-first reentry after all. He shrugged. He’d rather risk some damage to their heat shielding than hang out here in range of whatever weapons that Russian space platform was carrying. Swiftly, he tapped the necessary icons on his display, instructing the S-19’s flight computer to calculate the parameters of the engine burn required for his desired maneuver.
While the navigation program did its stuff, Boomer put his hands back on the thruster controls. He adjusted them gently, making small inputs. Tiny rockets fired in succession, spinning the spaceplane through almost one hundred and eighty degrees so that they were now tail first to the Russian space station. More thrusters popped, stabilizing their attitude.
He brought the sidestick controller and throttles for the S-19’s four big engines back online. Readouts showed everything in the green. Numbers counted down across one corner of his HUD. They were ten seconds away from ignition. “Stand by for acceleration,” he said tightly.
“Standing by,” Brad replied. He leaned forward and sent an activation command to Sierra Six, their lone radar nanosat. Since active radar emissions were easily detected, the original mission plan had called for keeping this satellite’s capabilities in reserve. But no plan survives contact with the enemy. And now that the Russians had tumbled to what they were doing anyway, he figured they might as well see what its Ka-band radar could pick up at short range.
One second later, in obedience to his signal, Sierra Six—presently crossing the orbital track of Mars One only fifteen miles above the Russian station—deployed its half-meter-wide radar antenna and turned on.
Aboard Mars One
That Same Time
“Our radars are powered up,” Major Georgy Konnikov said. “Beginning search-mode sweeps now.”
Across the command compartment, Colonel Vadim Strelkov tensed. His rational mind told him that Leonov’s skepticism was warranted. Why would the Americans conduct a stealth weapons strike against Mars One now—without warning or justification? From a diplomatic standpoint, such an unprovoked attack on what seemed a peaceful orbital station would be madness. It would only shatter American alliances already damaged by the previous administration’s foreign policy blunders. His nerve endings and instincts, though, were sending very different signals.
Nothing about the behavior of that Sky Masters spaceplane made sense. Its limited active and passive sensors could not possibly penetrate his station’s camouflage, certainly not from so far away. If this unannounced space rendezvous was simply a reconnaissance mission, as Leonov asserted, why was the S-19 just sitting out there . . . apparently doing nothing?
And then, suddenly, the American spaceplane was in motion. The telescopes slaved to its distant image showed it yawing rapidly, spinning around on its axis.
In that same moment, across the compartment, Konnikov, who had been hunched over his radar displays, jerked upright in shock. “Colonel! L-band radar shows multiple small contacts on closing trajectories above and below our orbital track! Range close, less than fifty kilometers!” He grabbed the edges of the console to keep from drifting back against his tether and hammered at his keyboard, directing the
ir X-band radar to lock on to the contacts detected by its lower-frequency counterpart. “The bogeys are very small! Less than a meter in diameter. Relative velocity is plus one hundred and forty meters per second!”
“Confirm that velocity!” Strelkov demanded. Everything in this orbit was traveling at well over twenty-seven thousand KPH. What mattered was relative velocity—how much faster or slower than Mars One these contacts were moving. But one hundred and forty meters per second worked out to less than five hundred kilometers per hour. What sort of missile traveled so slowly?
“Relative velocity is confirmed,” Konnikov said tersely.
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.
Abruptly, a new threat warning shrilled throughout the station.
“Unidentified Ka-band radar detected! Range very close. Frequency is 35.75 gigahertz!” Konnikov snapped.
On-screen, the silhouette of the American S-19 spaceplane glowed brightly for a fractional second. Its four rocket engines had just relit. As the Sky Masters spacecraft curved away, accelerating into a different orbit, its image shrank visibly.
Oh my God, Strelkov thought in horror. President Gryzlov had been right. Mars One was under assault by a salvo of stealthy, miniaturized weapons, devices that were probably more like mines than missiles, given their small size and comparatively slow speed. And now the Americans were fleeing the scene, leaving that newly active Ka-band radar to provide final guidance for their sneak attack.
Furiously, he stabbed the intercom control on his console. “All personnel! We are under attack! Close and seal your pressure suits at once!” Then, complying with his own order, Strelkov slammed down the visor of his helmet and plugged the suit’s umbilical hose into a receptacle on his console. Instantly, he heard and felt the welcome hiss of oxygen as it flowed through the connection. He punched the intercom button again. “Captain Revin, this is Command. Deploy your Hobnail lasers and destroy those incoming enemy weapons before they reach us!”
“Affirmative, Colonel!” he heard Revin reply from the forward weapons module. “Tracking data handoff from our radar is complete. All targets are laid into my computer.”
The station vibrated slightly as camouflaged hatches opened in both the forward and aft weapons modules. Smoothly, the mounts for Mars One’s two one-hundred-kilowatt, carbon-dioxide, electric-discharge lasers elevated through the open hatches and locked in firing position.
Strelkov looked back at the screen on his console. Even in those few seconds, the American spaceplane had opened the range considerably. It was already well over two hundred kilometers away—outside the effective range of all but one of his space station’s weapons. “Major Filatyev,” he growled on the command circuit to the aft weapons module. “Activate Thunderbolt and engage that S-19 Midnight.”
Aboard the S-19 Midnight Spaceplane
That Same Time
“Jesus, Boomer! Are you . . . seeing . . . what I’m . . . seeing?” Brad grunted. It took an effort of will to push each separate word out under the high-Gs they were pulling. This engine burn wouldn’t last much longer, just long enough to kick them into a higher-inclination orbit—but it was intense.
“Yeah,” the pilot said. “We figured Mars One . . . was . . . a military station . . . kinda sucks to be right, though.”
No kidding, Brad thought. Straining against the enormous forces pinning him to his seat, he tapped his display repeatedly, rapidly cycling through the video feeds coming from his flock of nanosatellites as they slid past the Russian space station. Three high-tech weapons of some kind had just popped up through previously concealed ports—one on each of the three connected modules.
Two of the Russian weapons looked oddly like long clear-glass tubes. They swiveled smoothly through different arcs. At short intervals, the tubes glowed brightly. Not for very long, no more than one or two seconds. But each time they did, one of his recon satellites died—going dark without so much as an electronic whimper, let alone a bang.
Those tubelike devices were combat lasers, Brad decided. Powerful ones, too, judging by how quickly they were knocking out his nanosats. He hoped the Sky Masters and Scion experts at Battle Mountain were picking up enough data to make some educated guesses about the Russian lasers’ effective range and lethality.
What he couldn’t make out was the nature of the space station’s third weapons system. Much larger than the two lasers, this one had emerged through a camouflaged hatch in the central module. From what he could see, it consisted of a stubby cylinder surrounded by an array of other components mounted around it in a weird starfish pattern.
And then, as he stared at the image relayed by his last surviving nanosatellite, Brad saw the center of this strange weapon disappear in a dazzling pulse of light.
WHAAMMM.
Before he could even blink, he was hurled forward against his seat straps by a massive impact on the S-19’s aft fuselage. A searing wave of heat rippled through the cockpit—painfully scorching even through his protective clothing, a skintight silvery carbon-fiber pressure suit layered with a lighter, unpressurized coverall containing additional radiation protection and a coolant system. Every display, control board, and instrument panel instantly short-circuited in a blinding cascade of sparks.
Utterly out of control, the crippled spaceplane tumbled away end over end through space—pitching, yawing, and rolling erratically as its thrusters and main engines fired at random.
Twenty-Three
Aboard Mars One
Moments Later
Colonel Vadim Strelkov stared at his displays in astonishment. Scarcely a minute after the battle began, it was over.
“Command, this is Revin. All targets engaged by our lasers have been destroyed. Hobnail battery power storage is at sixty percent.”
“Excellent work, Leonid,” Strelkov said gratefully. Not a single one of the stealth weapons launched by the Americans had gotten close enough to detonate. The only downside was that it would take hours to fully recharge the two lasers. He turned his attention to the S-19 Midnight. Their telescopes were having a hard time tracking it as it spun and jolted away from them. He opened a circuit to Filatyev. “Do you need to fire a second Thunderbolt shot at the enemy spaceplane, Viktor?”
“Negative, Colonel,” Filatyev reported proudly. “We scored a direct hit. I evaluate the result as a mission kill. Their engines and electronics are crippled beyond any hope of repair.”
Watching from the Kremlin, Gennadiy Gryzlov intervened. He rapped his desk sharply. “You should make sure of them, Strelkov. Launch one of your Scimitar missiles and blow that S-19 to hell!”
Strelkov hesitated. What the president demanded was impossible. With all the will in the world, he could not bend the laws of physics.
From his command post below the National Defense Control Center, Colonel General Leonov saw his dilemma. “What is the range to the enemy spaceplane, Colonel?” he asked.
“More than two hundred and fifty kilometers, sir . . . and opening very rapidly.”
Leonov nodded. “That is well beyond the effective range of Mars One’s missiles, Gennadiy,” he told Gryzlov calmly. “Any Scimitar fired now would only end up going ballistic. The odds of scoring a hit are infinitesimal, especially against a target that is tumbling so wildly.” He shrugged. “Besides, there’s no need to waste any more weapons on them. The Americans inside that S-19 are already as good as dead.”
The president scowled. “Are you sure of that?”
Strelkov saw one of his displays change. The station’s computer had just updated the projected track of the enemy spacecraft. “Yes, Mr. President,” he said with complete confidence. “The enemy spaceplane is falling out of orbit. It will reenter the earth’s atmosphere and burn up.”
“When?”
“Within the next sixty minutes at most,” Strelkov said. “And quite probably, much sooner.”
Aboard the Wrecked S-19 Midnight Spaceplane
That Same Time
As the crippled spaceplane spun end over
end through space, the world’s cloud-streaked blue, brown, and green surface unrolled across its cockpit windows, sank out of sight in a blaze of stars or the blinding glare of the sun, and then reappeared—never in quite the same place or for the same number of seconds . . . but always looming ever closer, ever larger.
Pinned in his seat by sharp jolts as different engines or thrusters fired, Brad McLanahan fought to stay conscious. His vision was blurred by the dying spacecraft’s wild, erratic motion. Awkwardly, he reached for the display in front of him. It was dark. Their computers, both the primary and its backup, were down, knocked off-line or fried by whatever the hell it was that had just hit them. C’mon, baby, wake up, he thought as he punched buttons on the side of the display to try a hard reset. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hunter “Boomer” Noble doing the same thing from the pilot’s seat.
Seconds passed. But nothing happened. The S-19’s cockpit screens and instrument panels stayed obstinately black.
Brad scowled. Swell. Just fucking swell. Without those computers, they had absolutely no way to regain control over the spaceplane. Then he noticed the little row of red lights glowing on the right-sleeve control panel of his space suit . . . and realized he could not feel the comforting sensation of air flowing through the umbilical hose connected to his seat. Their life-support system was dead, too. So was the intercom that allowed them to talk to each other when suited up.
On the plus side, he guessed, was the fact that they hadn’t blown up.
Yet.
Without waiting any longer, he reached out and grabbed Boomer’s shoulder. With an effort, the other man turned his helmeted head to look back at him. One eyebrow strained upward in a silent question.
Brad jerked a thumb “up” toward the canopy over their heads. Every system in the cockpit was shot and they were pretty clearly dropping out of orbit. It was time to get out. Through the clear visor of his helmet, he saw Boomer nod and mouth back, “Gear up and grab your ERO kit.”
