by Dale Brown
“Okay, y’all,” he said briskly. “Time’s short, so we need to move along fast.” He turned to Admiral Scott Firestone, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Let’s start with what your folks at the Pentagon and Space Command have come up with, Admiral.”
“Yes, sir,” Firestone agreed. “At its core, the plan we propose is simple: We put a large fragmentation warhead aboard the Delta IV rocket being prepped out at Vandenberg. And then we launch this warhead into a four-hundred-mile-high retrograde orbit with an inclination of 128.4 degrees.” He looked around the table. “If all goes well, that ought to place it on a collision course with Mars One, which is orbiting in the opposite direction.”
“And then you plan to detonate the warhead,” Farrell realized.
The admiral nodded. “Exactly, Mr. President. This explosion should create a large cloud of shrapnel, right in the path of Mars One. Any fragments that strike the Russian space station will do so with a combined velocity of close to thirty-four thousand miles per hour, inflicting lethal damage.”
That created a pleased stir throughout the Situation Room. It was easy to imagine the devastation that would be caused even by a single shard of metal hitting at such speed, let alone by many.
Farrell noticed one man shaking his head. “You see a problem, General?”
“Oh, it’s a great plan,” Patrick McLanahan said forcefully. “Except for just one little thing: it won’t work.” He leaned forward. “We’d have to detonate that warhead far around the curve of the earth from the oncoming Russian station—thousands of miles away. Because otherwise, Mars One will simply destroy our Delta IV in flight with its long-range plasma rail gun.”
Firestone shrugged. “So?”
“The Russians still have satellites up, Admiral,” Patrick reminded him. “Even if we don’t. So they’ll detect our rocket launch and the detonation in real time. Mars One will have plenty of warning, which would allow the station to maneuver safely out of reach of most of our expanding and thinning shrapnel cloud. Once that’s accomplished, their defensive lasers can easily deflect or vaporize any larger fragments that might pose a risk.” Seen through the clear visor of his life-support helmet, his expression was grim. “Given all of that, the odds of scoring a genuinely damaging hit are far too low. We might as well toss a lit firecracker at a charging grizzly bear in the hope that pieces of the scorched wrapper will smack into both eyes and blind it.”
“And earn a disemboweling swipe of its claws in return,” Farrell said directly.
Patrick nodded. “All pain for no gain whatsoever.”
Farrell looked closely at him. “I assume you’re not arguing that we sit back and do nothing, General?”
“I am not, Mr. President,” the older McLanahan answered. “Unless we take out that Russian space station, and damned soon, we might as well start negotiating the terms of our surrender.”
“Surrender to a murderous thug like Gennadiy Gryzlov? Hell no. Not on my watch,” Farrell growled.
“No, sir,” Patrick agreed. “Fortunately, my analysis of the available intelligence suggests that Mars One does have one weakness. A weakness we can turn to our own advantage.”
“What kind of weakness?” Farrell demanded.
“A severe shortage of electrical power,” Patrick told him. Speaking carefully, he talked them through the reasoning that led him to conclude that the Russians had lost their power generator—almost certainly a revolutionary compact fusion reactor—aboard the one Energia-5VR heavy-lift rocket they’d lost after launch.
Admiral Firestone looked thoughtful. “Assuming that’s true, what are the tactical implications?”
“Without a working reactor, Mars One’s ability to fire its energy weapons must be severely restricted,” Patrick explained. “Once fired, its plasma rail gun and lasers can only be recharged with power diverted from the station’s solar panels—and even then at a comparatively slow rate.”
“So launching an attack when Mars One crosses into the earth’s shadow—”
“Should significantly limit the amount of firepower the Russians can employ against our strike force,” Patrick agreed.
“To what extent, exactly?” Andrew Taliaferro, the secretary of state, asked carefully.
Patrick shrugged, a gesture amplified by his motor-driven exoskeleton. “I can’t give you exact figures. But my best guess is that Mars One can store enough energy in its supercapacitors and battery packs for roughly two or three shots from that plasma rail gun . . . and twelve to sixteen short bursts from each of the two Hobnail lasers.”
His words were met first with stunned silence and then with open consternation.
“Good God, man,” Taliaferro said in shock, speaking for the others. “Even if you’re right, that’s more than enough firepower to make any assault futile. Sending spacecraft, even Sky Masters spaceplanes, up against that station would still be a suicide run.”
“Not quite,” Patrick said, with quiet determination. “The trick will be to throw enough potential targets into orbit to drain those supercapacitors and batteries. If we can do that, some attackers should survive long enough to close with and board Mars One.”
Farrell saw his advisers exchange appalled glances.
This time it was the CIA’s director, Elizabeth Hildebrand, who spoke up. “With respect, General McLanahan,” she said quietly. “Where are you going to find trained personnel crazy enough to try that kind of space banzai charge?”
On the large wall screen, Brad, Nadia, Boomer, and Vasey sheepishly raised their hands. “That would be us,” Boomer said solemnly.
Farrell felt suddenly humbled. All four of those people were younger than anyone else involved in this debate. They came here today with most of their lives still ahead of them. Two of them weren’t even American citizens. And yet there they were, ready and willing to risk all they had in the service of the United States and the world’s other free nations. Nadia, especially, had already paid a high personal price for her dedication and courage. He felt a pressing urge to find some way for this deadly cup to pass them by.
He turned to Patrick. “I understand your plan, General. What I don’t understand is why we should risk so many precious lives in what’s bound to be a high-risk assault to capture this Russian space station. Wouldn’t it be wiser to use the same tactics—multiple launches to run those enemy energy weapons out of power—but with unmanned weapons instead? Why not just blow Mars One to hell from a safe distance?”
From the carefully controlled anguish he read on the other man’s face, he knew he’d struck a chord.
Martindale laid a hand on Patrick’s metal-reinforced shoulder. “I’ll take this one,” he murmured. “Put bluntly, Mr. President,” he said, “we need to seize and hold that Russian space platform because it’s painfully obvious that Moscow has leapfrogged us in certain key technological areas—including sophisticated energy weapons and, probably, fusion power generation. Unless our scientists and engineers get a good solid look at some of these devices, we’re likely to lag behind the enemy for years . . . with disastrous consequences.”
Coolly, he swept his gaze around the crowded table, watching as his arguments hit home. Then he turned back to Farrell. “Gryzlov isn’t likely to back off, no matter what happens to his first military station. Even if we destroy Mars One, we may face the beginning of a prolonged struggle in space, one that will be fought with ever-more-sophisticated weapons. To have any chance at all of winning this conflict, we simply must capture Mars One intact.”
Farrell considered his words and nodded slowly. “You’ve made your point, Mr. Martindale.” He frowned. “I don’t like it one goddamned little bit, but I’m not going to make the same mistake as some of my predecessors by assuming I can ignore reality in favor of my own hopes and dreams.”
He swung around to face Patrick squarely. “If I give the go-ahead, when can you set your operation in motion?”
“Speed is absolutely critical,” the older McLanahan said. “But to
have any chance at all, our assault has to be timed very precisely to meet certain key requirements.”
“Which are?” Farrell asked.
“First, we’ve got to launch our spaceplanes at a moment when the enemy station’s solar arrays aren’t generating power.”
Admiral Firestone shrugged. “Mars One passes through the earth’s shadow on every orbit, doesn’t it?”
Patrick nodded. “Yes, but we also need to select a period of darkness that won’t expose our spaceplanes to salvos by Russia’s S-500 SAMs and MiG-31-launched missiles during their boost phase. That narrows the range of suitable orbits considerably.” He looked at Farrell. “Plus, if it’s at all possible, I want to time our attack to minimize the number of important American and allied targets Mars One could strike with its ground-attack weapons before we capture or destroy it.”
“So, not when that space station is passing right over Washington, D.C., for example?” Farrell suggested with a quick, wry smile.
“Or Warsaw. Or London. Or any number of other places,” Patrick agreed. Then he motioned toward the screen showing Brad and the others watching intently. “And, maybe most important of all, it will take time to train our assault force in simulators . . . and to jury-rig the weapons and other equipment they’ll use in this mission.”
He brought his attention back to the president. “With all that in mind, our first window to go opens in less than two hundred hours.” Impatiently, he overrode the sudden babble of protest from around the room. “I know that isn’t much time,” he said flatly. “But that’s also likely to be our only window. The clock is ticking. Right now new intelligence from Scion strongly indicates the Russians are already prepping a replacement fusion reactor for launch from the Vostochny complex.”
Patrick leaned forward, fixing his eyes on Farrell. “Either we go before that reactor is operational,” he said grimly, “or we don’t go at all.”
Vostochny Cosmodrome
Several Hours Later
Live feeds from around the complex were displayed on the control center’s wall-sized screens. One showed the inside of the huge Energia assembly building. Technicians wearing red hard hats and blue-and-black uniforms clustered around the massive rocket’s still-separate engine and payload stages. They were inspecting each with care—checking for even the slightest signs of any mechanical or electronic glitches. Only when those checks were complete would they begin the intricate task of mating each stage to its companions to form a finished space vehicle. No one at Vostochny wanted to see a repeat of the disastrous launch from Plesetsk.
Launch director Yuri Klementiyev checked the digital timer displayed above that screen. It was counting down the time toward the new Energia-5VR’s planned lift-off. He glanced at his deputy, who was standing beside him. “Well, Sergei?”
“We’ll make it,” the other man said confidently. “Our assembly team is on schedule, maybe even a little ahead. Even if the preflight inspection turns up problems, we have a built-in margin.”
“Not much of one.” Klementiyev felt like his nerves were frayed. Moscow seemed to think he could run this launch complex as though it were a commuter railroad—firing off rockets into space on order, to a timetable dictated by the Kremlin.
To hide his worries, he turned his attention to the other two wall screens. They were focused on Pads 5 and 7, seven and nine kilometers respectively from the control center. Floodlights illuminated the Soyuz-5 rocket on each pad. They were already surrounded by gantries and fueling towers. The top stage of each Soyuz contained a single-seater Elektron spaceplane, with its wings and tail folded inside a protective shroud.
Gennadiy Gryzlov and Colonel General Leonov were not taking any chances this time. When the new fusion reactor reached orbit, it would be escorted by armed Russian spacecraft all the way to Mars One.
Forty-Two
McLanahan Industrial Airport, Sky Masters Aerospace, Inc., Battle Mountain, Nevada
Forty-Eight Hours Later
Brad McLanahan showed his ID to the group of armed security officers on duty. They checked it carefully against the list of approved personnel and then waved him on toward Hangar Three. Before going in, he turned back briefly to look across the empty airport runway. Anyone surveying the Sky Masters complex around the airport, whether through binoculars from the nearby mountains or from a satellite in space, would see no unusual activity. There were no aircraft lined up on the tarmac or parked outside any of the hangars. Everything seemed quiet.
This early in the morning, the sun rising over the mountains of the Shoshone Range sent long shadows stretching westward. He shivered slightly. Nights on the high deserts of Nevada were chilly, even in the summer, and it would be another couple of hours before temperatures would climb back to their usual searing midnineties.
Which meant that faint shimmer he saw drifting across the tarmac was not a heat mirage. It was one of the three Cybernetic Infantry Devices assigned to protect the Sky Masters facility against possible Russian attack. The patrolling war machine was using both of its advanced camouflage systems to full effect. Hundreds of hexagonal thermal adaptive tiles covered the robot’s armor, made of a special material that could change temperature with astonishing speed. Computers could adjust them to mimic the heat signatures of the CID’s surroundings, rendering it effectively invisible to enemy IR sensors. The machines also had thousands of paper-thin electrochromatic plates layered over those thermal tiles. Tiny voltage changes could alter the mix of colors displayed by each plate, giving the CIDs a chameleonlike ability to blend in with their environment. By using both systems in tandem, the robots could essentially hide in plain sight when they were stationary or moving slowly.
Their presence was a sign of just how seriously Martindale and Brad’s father took the Russian threat and the need for tighter security around Battle Mountain—especially now that their handful of Sky Masters spaceplanes represented America’s only real hope to conduct a counterattack against Mars One. If Gryzlov decided to carry out a preemptive strike against them, using one of his space-based hypersonic warheads, the three CIDs permanently on guard might be able to block the attack with a well-aimed rail-gun shot.
On a good day. With a lot of luck.
But then again, Brad realized, any chance was better than none at all.
He turned away and limped on toward the nearest hangar door. Even with a regular dose of painkillers, his shoulder and knee still hurt like hell . . . but at least he’d been able to ditch the sling. Walking with a cane took some getting used to, though. Sky Masters had offered him a golf cart and assigned driver to get around the facility, but he’d turned them down. He figured it was better to sweat a little than to risk his knee stiffening up on him again.
After the deceptive early-morning tranquility outside, entering the vast building was a shock to his system. The hangar was a sea of bright lights, rapid, purposeful activity, and ear-shattering noise. Sky Masters and Scion ground crews surrounded three spaceplanes, readying them for flight. One was a comparatively small twin-engine S-9 Black Stallion. The others were the two Sky Masters S-29 Shadows—one still rigged up as an in-space refueling tanker. Scion’s armed S-29B spaceplane was back in its own secret Scion hangar in southwestern Utah, undergoing the same preparations, under Boomer’s watchful eye.
Nadia Rozek stood near one of the S-29s, following along while a crew chief ran a maintenance check on one of the big LPDRS engines. Brad crossed the huge hangar floor to join her. When she turned her head to greet him, a smile crossed her tired face. “You look better.” Then she reconsidered. “Or at least not quite so much like an old man tottering about in a daze.”
“Gee, thanks,” Brad said. “I think.”
“Nie ma za co,” she said with a slightly wider smile. “You’re welcome.”
Brad nodded up at the large spaceplane, which was the Shadow configured to carry cargo and passengers. Its bay doors were open and he could hear the shrill whine of drills and other power tools coming f
rom inside. “How’s it going?”
“Very well,” Nadia told him. “The special payload modifications we require should be finished within the next few hours.”
That was good news. When the S-29s were designed, no one had ever imagined anything quite like what they were about to attempt. Modifying a standard spaceplane cargo bay to hold the complicated array of supports, webbing, and auxiliary power and communication leads necessary for this mission—especially in such a short amount of time—had been a difficult job.
“So our spaceplanes will be ready. But will they have anything to carry into orbit?” Nadia asked.
“Definitely,” Brad assured her. “I just checked in with Richter. His engineering and production crews are working around the clock. Whatever they can’t pull off the shelves, they’re fabricating on the fly. He’s mastered the art and science of large-scale, super-precise 3-D printing and has his machines spitting out parts at the speed of light. I think they’re actually enjoying the challenge.” He grinned, remembering the oddball collection of pieces and parts he’d seen strewn across lab benches and worktables. Crossing a high school robotics competition with a late-night party of drunken mad scientists might produce a similar jumble. “None of our new little birds are going to win awards for clean lines or elegant design . . . but they’ll fly all right.”
“On a one-way trip,” Nadia pointed out quietly.
“There is that,” Brad agreed. He shrugged. “It does simplify the design process.”
“And the rest of our equipment? What is its status?”
“Loading on an air force C-17 in Houston now,” he said. “Everything should be here by early afternoon.”
“So until then, we wait and worry . . . and train,” she said.
