by Dale Brown
Brad used a parachute riser cord he had collected before he buried the parachute to rig up a sling for his right arm. Some other injury was causing some intense pain in his right knee, but at least he could walk. Resolutely, he slung the SERE pouch over his left shoulder and started hiking east—heading deeper into the cover offered by the forest. Behind him, the waters of a large lake glinted in the early-afternoon sun.
Half a mile from the clearing he’d crash-landed in, he struggled through a thicket of dwarf birch trees and unexpectedly emerged onto a narrow dirt road running north and south through the forest. The road’s surface was deeply rutted, indicating that it was at least occasionally used by heavy wheeled vehicles. It was probably a logging trail, he thought.
Still, any road was a sign there might be people living or working close by. And stumbling into them could mean big trouble for him.
Careful to avoid making any sudden moves that might draw even more attention, Brad slowly backed a few feet into the thicket. Once he was in some cover, he squatted down. From this position, he spent several minutes studying the road and the woods on the other side. Nothing moved. At least nothing he could see. Everything seemed quiet.
About twenty yards up the road, he spotted what looked like a rusting metal sign nailed to a tree. Cautiously, he moved forward to examine it.
It was written in the Cyrillic alphabet: oрджиканский государственный природный заповедник.
Dry-mouthed, Brad ran that through his satellite phone’s software. It seemed worth the risk to get a fix on his location. A translation blinked onto the tiny screen, along with a digital map that highlighted “the Oldjikan State Nature Reserve.”
“Yeah, that answers my question,” Brad growled under his breath as he stared at the map. “I am so well and truly fucked.”
The good news was that he’d survived the totally insane stunt of plunging four hundred miles down from orbit aboard a completely untested, foam-filled escape pod. The bad news was that he’d landed in Russia’s far east region . . . just three hundred and fifty miles from the Vostochny Cosmodrome.
Twenty-Six
The White House Situation Room, Washington, D.C.
A Couple of Hours Later
It took a huge effort of will, but somehow President John D. Farrell restrained himself from giving Gennadiy Gryzlov a full broadside of all the masterful profanity he’d learned over the years he spent working side by side with Texas oil roughnecks—tough-minded men whose language could sometimes blister paint. Besides, he thought grimly, swearing at the Russian son of a bitch would only be a distant second best to physically kicking the shit out of his smug face.
“I make no apology whatsoever for destroying your spaceplane,” Gryzlov said icily over the secure video link with Moscow. “The evidence is quite clear, despite your country’s pitiful efforts to deny it. Your Sky Masters S-19 Midnight attacked Mars One without provocation, and my cosmonauts acted in self-defense.”
Farrell snorted. “Using weapons your own foreign minister denied were even aboard that supposedly peaceful space station.”
Gryzlov shrugged. “Foreign Minister Titeneva was . . . ill informed.” His gaze sharpened. “Fortunately for Russia, others saw the probability of American aggression and took sensible precautions.”
Farrell decided to let that piece of total bullshit slide, for now. It was just barely possible that the crew aboard Mars One had panicked, mistaking the recon nanosats launched by Brad McLanahan and Hunter Noble for weapons aimed at them. But one unintended clash in orbit could not justify the ongoing destruction of America’s most vital reconnaissance satellites.
When he said as much, Gryzlov only sneered. “Why should I order my cosmonauts to stop now? For too long, your nation has arrogantly asserted its right to operate unchallenged in space with illegally armed spacecraft. You have spied on other countries, openly and without shame. You have destroyed Russian satellites and spacecraft. You have even conducted vicious attacks from space against civilian and military targets, both on the ground and at sea. Now I tell you plainly, those days are over.”
“You’d better get one thing straight,” Farrell warned flatly. There was a time for the polite circumlocutions of ordinary diplomacy and there was a time for plain talking. “There is no goddamned way my government will sit back and let y’all walk all over the United States. Stacy Anne Barbeau’s policies of appeasement and weakness are yesterday’s news. Keep pushing us and you’re liable to end up spitting teeth.”
Gryzlov smiled thinly. “Do not make threats you cannot back up, Mr. President. It is unseemly, even embarrassing. Whether you understand it yet or not, the world has shifted beneath your feet. Now, thanks to the powerful weapons and revolutionary technologies aboard Mars One, Russia dominates space. And we will exercise this power as required to protect our people and our national interests from American aggression.”
Seeing the fury rising on Farrell’s broad, square-jawed face, Gryzlov held up a conciliatory hand. “Nevertheless, despite our overwhelming military superiority, I am willing to offer you certain guarantees. First, as an assurance Russia is not planning to conduct a nuclear first strike, we will refrain from destroying your early warning satellites in geosynchronous orbit. Nor will we eliminate your GPS navigation satellites, which are so crucial to both your military and civilian sectors. Nor, for the time being, will Mars One target your civilian space-based communications networks.”
“How truly kind,” Farrell said acidly.
“Yes, I think so,” Gryzlov agreed, not even trying to hide his amused contempt. His expression hardened. “But I caution you not to mistake my restraint for weakness. From this moment forward, all other American or mercenary Sky Masters military spacecraft detected in orbit will be engaged and destroyed without further warning. The same goes for all of your so-called civilian imaging satellites. Russia will no longer tolerate any further spying from space against its national territory, armed forces, or economic interests.”
Farrell stared at him in outraged disbelief. “That sounds a hell of a lot like you’re imposing a total blockade on low Earth orbit.”
Gryzlov shrugged. “Call it what you will.” He smiled. “In the future, certain peaceful civilian payloads may be allowed into space . . . but only after thorough inspection—either by my government or by trusted international authorities.” He reached out a hand to the controls on his desk. “There is no basis for further discussion of these points, President Farrell. I have won . . . and you have lost. Accept this reality while the cost to you and your fellow countrymen is still so low.”
The video link went dark.
For a moment, Farrell sat motionless, with his head bowed slightly. He felt like the whole weight of the world had just come crashing down on his shoulders. Intellectually, he’d known serving as America’s president and commander in chief would be the most difficult challenge he had ever faced. But until now, he hadn’t fully felt the burden of office—the realization that his decisions would directly affect the lives and freedoms of more than three hundred million of his fellow countrymen . . . and those of hundreds of millions more around the world. Especially when it was starting to look as though they might face a real no-win situation.
Not feeling so high-and-mighty now, eh, J.D., he thought, are you? Then he gave himself a good swift mental kick in the pants. He’d asked the voters to dump Stacy Anne Barbeau out of the Oval Office on her ass, and they’d obliged. So it was time for him to man up and do his damnedest to fulfill the oath he’d sworn at his inauguration.
With a deep frown, Farrell looked up at the expectant faces around the room. He’d summoned his national security team to sit in on Gryzlov’s call—figuring it made more sense for them to hear the volatile Russian leader in person than to rely on reading a sterile transcript later. “Well,” he said heavily. “There you have it. Setting aside that bullcrap about us firing first, the Russians aren’t bothering to hide their inte
ntions. We’re smack-dab in the middle of a shooting war in space.”
“Except right now the Russians are the only ones doing any shooting,” Andrew Taliaferro, the secretary of state, commented dryly.
Grimly, Farrell nodded. “That’s about the size of it.” He looked down the table at Admiral Scott Firestone, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What is the current military situation, Admiral?”
“It’s bleak, Mr. President.” The short, stocky man didn’t pull any punches. “In just the past several hours, we’ve already lost three key reconnaissance spacecraft—a Topaz radar imaging satellite, a KH-11 optical imaging satellite, and one of the navy’s Intruder SIGINT satellites. These satellites were destroyed by fire from that Russian orbital platform. All of them were at least a thousand miles from Mars One when they were hit, and in radically different orbits. This indicates we face a previously unknown Russian weapons system, one with enormous range and the ability to strike targets with astounding speed.”
Farrell leaned forward. “How fast, exactly?”
“Based on the elapsed time between the instant we detect a light pulse, or flash, on the space station and the moment we lose contact with a satellite, we estimate something on the order of six thousand miles per second.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Farrell muttered. He turned to Lawrence Dawson, his science adviser. “What’s your assessment?” he asked the astrophysicist.
“I concur with former president Martindale and retired general McLanahan,” Dawson said. “This new weapon is most likely a plasma gun. In fact, based on the images collected by our spaceplane before it was destroyed, I believe its design is very similar to one we explored ourselves in the late 1980s and early 1990s—in the MARAUDER plasma-rail-gun program. If so, our satellites are being struck by toroids of superheated plasma moving at incredible speed. Such a strike would inflict lethal thermal, impact, and EMP damage.”
Farrell swung back to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Is there any way we can defend our spacecraft and satellites against this weapon?”
“No, sir,” Firestone replied somberly. “Not with our existing technology.”
“So the only way to stop the Russians is to blow that space station of theirs to kingdom come,” Farrell said bluntly.
Slowly, the admiral nodded. “That’s the way I see it, Mr. President.”
“Using our missile defense interceptors?”
“Correct, sir.” Firestone signaled an aide, who pulled up a map of the United States on one of the Situation Room’s wall screens. Two red icons depicted the antiballistic-missile silos on the California coast at Vandenberg Air Force Base and at upstate New York’s Fort Drum. A bright yellow line, showing the projected ground track of Mars One, arced across both places. “Approximately ten hours from now, the Russian space station’s orbit will take it almost directly over both of our missile defense sites. This presents us with an opening to attack. The next such opportunity will not occur for another seventy-two hours.”
Dawson cleared his throat. “Given Mars One’s orbital velocity, those launch windows must be very small, Admiral.”
Firestone nodded. “They are.”
“How small?” Farrell asked.
“We would have time to launch two interceptors from each site,” the admiral told him.
“But not simultaneously.”
“No, sir,” Firestone agreed. “The launch window at Fort Drum won’t open until roughly nine minutes after the one at Vandenberg has closed.”
Farrell studied the map in silence for a few moments. Then he looked carefully at the admiral. “Considering what we already know about that space station’s armament—which includes at least two high-powered lasers and this plasma gun—what are the odds of success?”
“Slim,” the other man said quietly.
Farrell nodded. “Let me think on this, Admiral,” he said. “Make the necessary preparations, but y’all will not launch any of our interceptors against Mars One without my direct authorization. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President. Very clear.”
“Now, do you have any other recommendations?” Farrell asked.
Firestone sat forward. “Yes, sir. I’ve spoken to the other members of the JCS. We unanimously recommend moving to DEFCON Two immediately.”
Farrell frowned. DEFCON, or Defense Readiness Condition, was a graduated system for increasing the readiness of U.S. military forces for nuclear war. He had already ordered an increase to DEFCON Three shortly after the Russians attacked the Sky Masters S-19 spaceplane. Moving to DEFCON Two would mean bringing America’s nuclear-armed and nuclear-capable air and naval forces to a much higher alert status—one that was just short of signaling an intention to wage all-out nuclear war.
“Are there any signs that the Russians have increased their own alert status?” he asked carefully.
“No, sir,” Firestone admitted. “Not yet.” He looked worried. “But that is precisely the problem, Mr. President. Right now Moscow seems determined to destroy our space-based reconnaissance capabilities. The Russians are systematically stripping away our ability to keep tabs on the deployment and readiness of their bombers, strategic rocket forces, naval units, and ground forces. Put simply, we are being blinded.”
“We still have the SBIRS satellites,” Dawson pointed out.
“Which can only alert us to a missile attack that is already under way,” Firestone said tightly. “At which point, it will be too late to increase the readiness levels of our armed forces.”
Farrell considered that. There was no doubt that the recommendation by the Joint Chiefs made a lot of military sense. On the other hand, openly ratcheting up to DEFCON Two would also spook many of America’s European and Asian allies, especially if the Russians were holding tight everywhere but in space. According to Andrew Taliaferro, some of them weren’t even sure whether they should believe Washington’s story about the clash between the S-19 and Mars One . . . or Moscow’s. He looked at Firestone. “We’ll split the baby on this one, Admiral,” he said firmly.
“Mr. President?”
“Officially, we’re going to hold at DEFCON Three,” Farrell told him. “But I want all of our ballistic-missile submarines to put out to sea as quickly as possible.” Those submarines represented the bulk of the U.S. nuclear deterrent force anyway. He smiled wryly. “You can announce the move as a short-notice fleet-readiness exercise.”
“That won’t fool Gryzlov,” Taliaferro warned.
Farrell shrugged. “No, I don’t expect it will.” His mouth was a hard, thin line. “Right now, though, that asshole thinks he can stomp all over us without any pushback. Well, I want him—and the generals and government officials around him—to know he’s playing with fire.”
As soon as the conference in the Situation Room broke up, Farrell headed back upstairs to the Oval Office. For what it was worth, he’d set the official forces of the U.S. military and government in motion. Now it was time to do the same with Scion and Sky Masters.
Kevin Martindale and Patrick McLanahan stood up when he entered. Impatiently, he waved them back down and sat at his desk. “Let’s get to it. We’re burning daylight while that bastard Gennadiy Gryzlov is burning satellites.”
Martindale frowned. “I assume that is not simply a colorful Texanism.”
“Hell no,” Farrell said, with a sigh. They listened intently while he brought them up to speed on recent events in orbit. “We’ve lost two more satellites during just the last sixty minutes,” he concluded. “A second Topaz radar sat and one of our Trumpet electronic intelligence satellites.”
Patrick stared at him. “A Trumpet ELINT satellite? Those birds are in highly elliptical Molniya orbits to get maximum coverage over Russia and the northern hemisphere. Most of the time they’re way up high, close to twenty-five thousand miles at apogee.”
“The key phrase there being ‘most of the time,’” Farrell said gloomily. “Mars One nailed this one on its way back down toward perigee. That plasma rail
gun of theirs blew our Trumpeter satellite to pieces from three thousand miles away.” Unable to sit still any longer, he kicked back his desk chair and got up to prowl around the room. “At this rate, we won’t have a single working spy satellite in orbit by the end of the week.”
Martindale pursed his lips. “There are a few hidden backup satellites, disguised as civilian platforms or even space junk.”
“Sure,” Patrick said with a shrug. “And as soon as we start maneuvering them into useful orbits, the Russians will knock them out.”
“We could launch replacements while the space station is on the other side of its orbit,” Martindale said slowly. “Its crew can’t shoot what they can’t see.” Then his face darkened. “But by the same token, any new satellite would have to precisely mirror Mars One’s orbit to stay safe—”
Patrick nodded. “And that particular orbit sucks for spying on Russia. Satellites inclined at fifty-one point six degrees can check out targets in the southern part of the country . . . but we’d have zero coverage over most of their ICBM fields, strategic bomber bases, and the Northern Fleet’s ballistic-missile submarine pens.” He shrugged. “And after Gryzlov launches his second armed space station, all bets are off.”
Farrell swung around at that. “You really think he’s planning to launch another Mars-class platform?”
“No question about it,” Patrick said firmly. “I’m only surprised he sent the first one up on its own. There’s no doubt Gryzlov is now determined to seize and hold the high ground. He’s obviously figured out that dominating outer space will yield enormous military, commercial, and political advantages to Russia. And putting one or two more space stations armed with those plasma cannon into orbit would make it practically impossible for us to shake loose of Moscow’s grip.”
