by Gary Chesla
“Call me when it reaches the coast,” Bennett said, then turned and left the situation room.
Baker continued to type instructions on the keyboard to maneuver the U.S. satellite interceptor into position.
It was one of twenty satellites of its kind that the U.S. had in orbit in the event that a situation like the one they faced today ever came up.
When the satellite was in position, Baker would activate the satellite’s radar targeting system. It was a low frequency radar system to detect range and direction so the satellite could direct the explosion in the general direction of the approaching target.
It was a low frequency radar that only required a few short undetectable bursts to determine distance and direction.
When the detonation occurred, it would be like a shotgun being fired.
As long as you aimed in the general direction, it would be hard not to hit your target.
Satellites in space were fragile. A grain of sand traveling in orbit could be enough to damage or disable a satellite.
One of the biggest worries when sending men into space was the ever-increasing amount of space junk in orbit around the planet.
All it would take would be one small piece of space junk to turn a trip to the space station into a national disaster.
The space debris problem was becoming more of a concern each year. Soon it could become a major obstacle to any space mission.
It wouldn’t be long before every day communication, cell phones, the internet and TV broadcasts could all face frequent disruptions due to satellite damage caused by collisions with random objects aimlessly orbiting the earth.
With any luck, the North Korean satellite would be damaged and go down before it reached the U.S. coastline, solving the problem without any interaction from the U.S. Airforce.
A few hundred golf ball sized lead pellets would be overkill, but that wasn’t Bakers problem, his job was to be sure all selected systems were functioning and in place to destroy the North Korean vehicle.
Baker worried about all the projectiles that didn’t make contact with the Korean satellite. They would become just more junk floating around in space.
Command had other options, but they selected this method to be sure there would not be any chance that the North Korean satellite would be able to survive and hit its intended target, or its alleged target.
This option was also an undetectable way to eliminate the problem.
No one was sure, the satellite could be harmless, but the Airforce couldn’t take that chance.
They had to assume it was hostile and that the North Korean’s were trying to do harm or cause some kind of havoc.
With North Korea’s history of antagonistic behavior, the odds were that they were up to something.
If it was up to Baker, he would have just put an old useless orbiting vehicle in the path of the North Korean satellite and let it destroy itself by crashing into the obstacle, causing both vehicles to change course and burn up in the atmosphere.
The Airforce wanted a solution with a higher probability of success than a single satellite roadblock.
The selected method was considered 99.9% effective.
But again, Baker’s job was to take orders and carry them out, not to think.
“Colonel,” Baker’s voice sounded over the intercom in Colonel Bennett’s office.
“Yes Baker,” Bennett hit the intercom switch and replied.
“Detonation in five minutes, Sir.” Baker replied.
“Very good, I’ll be right there,” Bennet said.
Baker was studying the monitor and looking at the readouts that rolled across the bottom of the screen when the Colonel walked into the situation room.
Baker looked up, “You’re just in time Sir.”
The Colonel looked at the monitor, “Bring me up to speed on what’s happening.”
“That’s our satellite on the left side of the screen, the green symbol,” Baker said. “The blinking orange object moving from right to left is our target.”
They both watched as the blinking object on the screen moved closer to the green object on the left side of the screen.
“Our satellite just went active,” Baker said. “It has acquired the target.”
“Confirmed, Target acquired,” Arnold added. “Target is being tracked by our asset.”
Baker pointed to the number that appeared in the top right corner of the screen.
“Here is the countdown to detonation, Sir,” Baker said as the number which was at 20, began changing, 19, 18, 17, 16…….
They watched as the blinking light approached the green object on the left side of the screen as the countdown reached zero.
The orange blinking light disappeared and was replaced by six smaller blinking red lights that moved erratically in different directions away from the original target before they too disappeared.
“Target has been engaged,” Arnold announced.
“It looks like the North Korean satellite broke up into six sections and burned up in the atmosphere over the Allegheny National Forest, Baker smiled.
“Any chance any of the sections survived and reached the surface?” Bennett asked.
“I don’t believe so, Sir,” Baker replied. “The satellite wasn’t very large. Even if it hadn’t broken up, the steep angle of entry into the atmosphere it took after being hit by the lead projectiles would have been enough to burn it up on re-entry. The six small sections wouldn’t have stood a chance to make it through the atmosphere.”
“Just to be sure, contact the reserve station in Pittsburgh and have them send out a chopper to survey the area around Allegheny National Forest and report back,” Bennett ordered. “Let me know as soon as they report back. I would like to report to Command that this situation was handled without any complications.”
“Yes Sir,” Baker replied.
Baker made the call, then began his paperwork on the operation.
He glanced at the monitor as he wrote up his report.
He looked at his charts to determine how much time he had before the normal array of satellite traffic began to pass over the east coast.
The computer did most of the work monitoring the satellites, but he tried to be alert during the period of heaviest activity.
The next wave of satellite activity expected by Baker was a string of Russian and Chinese spy satellites that passed over the U.S. every ninety minutes.
Of course, the Russians and Chinese claimed they were communication satellites, but real communication satellites normally obtained a stable orbit that matched the earth’s rotation and seemed to hover above a specific geographical location to perform its job of relaying communication signals to specific areas and cities.
It was amazing how many failed launches of communication satellites that Russia and China have had over the last few years.
Satellites that were uncontrollable and just took up rogue orbits around the earth and managed to pass over the U.S. so many times each day.
Baker laughed to himself.
No one was fooled by these rogue satellites, but everyone had their share of these so called uncontrollable satellites and everyone turned a blind eye and just played the game.
The Airforce kept track of them and watched for unusual activity, as Baker was sure the other countries also did and then notified the ground facilities when they were under potential observation so they would not do anything they didn’t want to be seen.
After the Navy station in Fallon picked up the unusual activity by the North Korean satellite this morning, Baker wanted to pay close attention to the next few waves of activity, just in case there was a coordinated effort at play.
With the U.S. attention on the North Korean satellite, Russia and China might try to take advantage of the situation and do something different.
The action taken by the North Korean satellite could have been orchestrated by a Chinese hacker in order to be a diversion for an intended maneuver by a Chinese satellite.
The Airforce didn’t want to be caught off guard by what could be a simple misdirection ploy.
Everyone played this game, occasionally finding the need to destroy a satellite from another country that strayed too far out of line.
Most of these destroyed satellites had been involved in a mysterious collision with an unknown object or with so called random space junk.
Everyone was careful not to interfere with legitimate communication satellites.
There were unwritten rules to this game that everyone seemed to abide by as long conditions on earth were peaceful.
Baker was sure in the event of a major conflict a regular satellite war would take place in space around the planet.
The amount of space junk that would result from something like that could give the appearance of a Saturn like ring around the earth.
It made Baker wonder if something like that might have happened on Saturn many thousands of years ago.
It was a far-fetched idea, but who knew what kind of weapons an advanced civilization might have had way back then.
It could have been possible, Baker thought since he really didn’t know what kind of exotic weapons were orbiting the earth now.
There could be all kind of lethal shit up there that no one was talking about.
He only hoped if there were, that he would never have to find out in his life time.
Baker was busy finishing up his reports when Johnson interrupted his thoughts.
“Hey Baker,” Johnson said sounding uncertain, “Look at your screen. Zoom out so you have a view of sector thirty over the Atlantic.”
Baker switched the view on his monitor.
“I have it, what do you see?” he asked.
“Look at the anomaly stats at the bottom of the screen,” Johnson said. “Six satellites are out of position.”
As Baker looked at the bottom of his screen, the six satellites began to blink on the screen and the printer began to buzz as it went active and began to generate a report.
“The satellites are just now entering our watch zone,” Arnold said. “Their change of position is just now being brought to our attention by the system.”
“What the hell is going on?” Baker said as he stood and walked over to the printer and picked up the report and began to read.
After looking at the reports, he grabbed his phone and began to punch in the Colonel’s number.
“Colonel, please come to the situation room right away, Sir!” Baker said urgently.
“What is it?” Arnold asked.
“I think we have a major cluster-fuck on our hands,” Baker replied and then thought to himself. “The Colonel is going to shit!”
Chapter 5
Thursday, May 6th, Fallon Naval Air Station, Fallon Nevada
Chevernak hung up the phone and sat back at his desk and sighed.
Rogers and Davis came back into the post as Chervy hung up the phone and spun around in his chair, looking frustrated as he just sat there shaking his head.
“Looks like you just had a conversation with the Chief,” Davis laughed.
“Yeah, that’s what Davis looks like when the Chief gets done chewing his ass,” Rogers grinned. “But I never heard of a man in your position getting latrine duty. Do you have to just clean the latrine in the officer’s club or do you have to do the entire base?”
Davis just laughed, “Hey Chervy, The Airforce crew knew what was in that crate they picked up.”
“Yeah, we were expecting something exotic like high-tech laser holograms,” Rogers added, “but they said it was just a crate of green bean seeds.”
“It puts my mind be at ease to know in the event of an apocalypse that mankind won’t have to go without beans,” Davis grinned.
“Chervy, are you OK?” Rogers asked. “Your mind seems to be a million miles away.”
“You’re close,” Chervanak smiled. “Did you ever hear of Newtons first law of motion?”
“Doesn’t that have something to do with if you are sitting under an apple tree that you should wear a hard hat?” Rogers replied.
“That was when he was explaining gravity,” Chervy smiled, “His first law of motion stated that an object in motion tended to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.”
“I think I remember that one too,” Rogers replied, “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, it appears the Airforce seemed to have forgotten about that law,” Chervy said. “They decided to shoot down that North Korean satellite when it began to pass over the east coast.”
“That’s good,” Davis replied. “But how does Newton fit in here with that satellite?”
“I’m getting to that, Chery said, “However, it appears in their effort to make sure that it didn’t get by them, they used a little too much force.”
“According to the Navy, it’s impossible to use too much force?” Rogers laughed.
“Maybe using too much force wasn’t the right description,” Chervy said. “Let me put it another way, they used a weapon that worked in principal like a shot gun. They set off a charge that sent hundreds of lead pellets hurling at the North Korean satellite. Of course it hit its target, but unlike a shotgun blast on earth, the pellets that missed the satellite didn’t fall harmlessly to earth. In space, once an object is put in motion, it stays in motion until something stops it.
This is Newton’s first law of motion I was talking about. In space, there is nothing to stop an object once it is put in motion, so in theory it should continue forever or until it runs into something.
In this case, the lead pellets continued for about half an hour until they were stopped by six Russian and Chinese satellites.”
“Are you saying the Airforce also shot down six other satellites,” Rogers laughed. “Someone is going to get their ass chewed over that one.”
“It didn’t destroy them immediately,” Chervy answered. “It damaged them and knocked them out of their orbits. Two have already burnt up in the atmosphere. One over Cleveland and one over Chicago. They apparently burned up harmlessly in the atmosphere. The other four are projected to come down over Kansas, St Louis, Salt Lake City and Phoenix.”
“What are they going to tell the Russians and Chinese?” Davis asked.
“The Airforce isn’t worried about the Russians or Chinese,” Chervy said. “In fact, they have already called them and complained about their satellites coming down on the U.S. after some kind of collision with meteorites or space junk out over the Atlantic.
What they are concerned about is what might be on those other satellites that will be coming down on us. They are also worried about the possibility of parts of the satellites making it through the atmosphere and coming down on a populated area.”
“Do you think that anything could actually make it through the atmosphere?” Rogers asked.
“It’s possible, but the biggest worry is what might be on those satellites,” Chervy replied. “You know it is suspected that the Russians have nukes on some of their satellites and who know what the hell the Chinese have on theirs.
It could release radioactive shit into the atmosphere or strains of poisonous gas. But whatever is on them, I guess we will know within the next thirty minutes.”
“Couldn’t we shoot them down like we did with the North Korean satellite?” Davis asked.
“Technically, we already did,” Chervy replied. “Shooting them down again at this point wouldn’t really change anything. Hopefully whatever is on them will be destroyed as they burn up in the atmosphere.”
“What did the Chief say when you told him about the Airforce’s screw up?” Rogers asked.
“I just got off the phone with the Airforce and haven’t had a chance to tell him,” Chervy replied. “I was about to do that when you came in.”
“Shit,” Rogers said, “we better get back to watching the monitors and making our selves look real busy and interested in what’s on those screens. Something tells me it is going to be
a long night.”
“Yeah, the Chief will probably be looking over your shoulder all night until the last of those satellites are destroyed,” Chervy replied. “We are going to have a front row seat for the reentry of those last four.”
Chervanak punched in the Chief’s number on his phone.
Thirty minutes later
“The two satellites over Kansas and St Louis have just disappeared from the screen,” Chervy announced. “All indications are they have burnt up in the atmosphere. No signs of any kind of nuclear explosions. The satellite heading for Salt Lake City should be passing through the sky in the eastern horizon any minute. In fact, it should be visible to the naked eye in the next few minutes.”
“So, no indications of radiation?” the Chief asked.
“No indication of any type of explosions,” Chervy replied. “Command will have to send a plane up to test the air for radiation. At this point, as far as our systems are concerned there isn’t any evidence of anything unusual.”
“What would we see if we went outside and looked up into the eastern horizon?” Rogers asked.
“As long as there isn’t any kind of detonation, it should look like a meteor shower,” Chervy replied. “A bunch of lights streaking through the sky briefly until they burn up.”
“That would be something to see,” Davis commented.
“Keep your eyes on the monitor,” Chief Johnson growled.
“Yes, Sir,” Davis replied. “I wasn’t going to go outside, I was just curious.”
Rogers shot Davis a look, telling him to be quiet and not to piss off the Chief.”
“The satellite just disappeared over Salt Lake City,” Rogers said as he studied the screen.
