Lash-Up

by Larry Bond

  “Yes, it did go well. But we can’t rest on our laurels, Ben,” stressed Rutledge. “I’ll want a concept-of-operations brief for this new Aerospace Defense Organization from the air force as soon as possible. They probably don’t have one fleshed out yet, so give them until Wednesday; then you can start nagging them.”

  Davis wrote down the date in his day timer, circling it with red marker. He’d give the Air Force Congressional Liaison Office a call once he and Rutledge were through.

  “In the meantime, we must continue to go about the people’s work. What’s on the docket for the rest of the day?” asked Rutledge, still quite pleased with himself.

  “Since I didn’t have a firm time for the news release, I kept the afternoon pretty light,” Davis said as he glanced at his copy of the daily schedule. “The only item left is the Regal Composites issue. And before we start, I received yet another e-mail from Tony Partlow, the company’s president. He’s demanding that you look into why his air force contract has been suspended. He claims the lead contractor, Lockheed Martin, is refusing to take delivery of the first shipment of components and, more importantly, won’t pay him for work completed. Partlow said he had to buy new equipment and hired on more people to fulfill the order, and he still has those bills to pay.”

  Rutledge frowned; he was easily aggravated when a large corporation like Lockheed Martin bullied a much smaller company in his district. This was especially true of DoD-related contracts, as there were only a few companies in the 3rd district that had successfully broken into that market.

  “Did Lock Mart provide any rationale for their actions?” demanded the congressman.

  “Not really. All Partlow was told was that the air force had suspended the contract, and everything was on hold until further notice.”

  “That’s damn odd. Are there any air force programs in that much trouble to warrant suspension?”

  Davis shook his head. “Not that I know of, Tom.”

  “How much is the contract with Regal Composites worth?”

  “According to air force records, Regal has a ten-million-dollar contract to supply small composite components to Lockheed Martin for a classified program.”

  “Ten million dollars!?” howled Rutledge. “That’s decimal dust!”

  “That may be true in the grand scheme of things,” remarked Davis sternly. “But in Kearney County, it is one of the largest DoD contracts, and to your constituents, it is certainly not a trivial matter.”

  Rutledge acknowledged his aide’s reproach with a simple nod. Davis was, of course, quite correct. The congressman had to look at this issue from the perspective of the people he represented, not from the overall national level. Sighing, Rutledge faced Davis and said, “All right, Ben, get with the Air Force Congressional Liaison Office and find out what program got suspended and why.”

  “Yes, sir. Immediately,” Davis replied and turned to leave.

  “Ah, Ben, one more thing. When did this suspension occur?”

  Davis paused to think. “Three or four days ago, I believe. I can verify the date after I look at Partlow’s e-mail trail.”

  “Please do so,” ordered Rutledge. “If it is only a few days ago, then also ask the air force if the suspension had anything to do with the stand up of this Aerospace Defense Organization. The money to fund this new entity has to come from somewhere, and I have a sneaking suspicion General Warner is scouring the programmatic countryside for low-hanging fruit to get his new command started.”

  Davis’s eyes widened as Rutledge laid out his argument. “Yes, of course! The two events are too close together for it to be just a coincidence!”

  “I don’t believe in coincidences when it comes to politics, Ben,” responded Rutledge coldly. “These events must be connected. I need you to find me some proof they are. Follow the money, Ben.”

  U.S. Space Force Headquarters

  Edwards Air Force Base

  Housing Trailer Park

  October 13, 2017

  Glenn Chung yawned and stretched his weary body. It had been a very long day, and he was dog-tired. He would have normally been asleep by now, but he still had some work to do. He waited patiently as his roommate finished his snack, gathered his tools, and left for his shift. It had been a simple task to adjust the master list to get the two of them on alternate work schedules. Chung now had eight hours of uninterrupted time to finish his report and send it off to his “other” boss.

  As soon as the trailer door to their room had closed, Chung jumped from his chair and carefully peered out the window. He waited till his roommate was out of sight, then locked the door and turned off most of the lights. Walking over to his dresser, he retrieved a small lockbox and opened it. Inside were half a dozen four-gigabyte secure flash drives. Grabbing one, Chung made a mental note to put in a request for more. He also picked up an envelope that contained a single piece of paper with Vietnamese characters on it. Returning to his desk, he plugged in the flash drive, entered the next password on the sheet, and began writing his report.

  Shortly after the Edward Snowden revelation in 2013 that the NSA had successfully managed to monitor massive amounts of e-mail traffic, the Chinese intelligence service forbade its deep moles from using electronic means to deliver the fruits of their collection activities. Even encrypted e-mails, over a period of time, would have drawn unwanted attention to their operatives. So, the Ministry of State Security’s Second Bureau fell back on the old Cold War tactic of using dead drops to transfer the data back to mainland China.

  While this method had its own risks, they were judged to be less risky than any form of digital transmission. The risks were also mitigated by the use of encrypted, secure flash drives and languages other than English or Mandarin, in this case Vietnamese. So even if the flash drive were intercepted, determining its contents would be extremely difficult.

  Chung brought up the Vietnamese character list and started typing, grimacing as he began his report. Even though he was fluent in the Vietnamese language, it was still slowgoing using a Western QWERTY-style keyboard with an on-screen overlay. But once he got started, it became easier, and his speed increased. He had to go through this mental recalibration every time he wrote in Vietnamese, which he usually did when writing letters to his father. Even though Chung’s family originally hailed from Vietnam, they were of Hoa descent, a Chinese ethnic minority despised by the indigenous population.

  His family had been driven out of Vietnam during the short and bloody border war with the People’s Republic of China in 1979. Like hundreds of thousands of others, the Chungs were “encouraged,” at gunpoint, to migrate back to China. Many of his father’s family didn’t survive the forced relocation, and the bitterness of the father had been handed down to the son. The younger Chung became fascinated with his ancestral past and developed a passion for all things Chinese. He dove into his studies of the history and culture of China with the same enthusiasm that he had for computers. When the Chinese intelligence service contacted him with a job offer, he was a willing recruit.

  Chung summarized the movement of the VentureStar from its storage hangar on the Edwards main base to Building 151. The security personnel had taken extreme measures to hide the transfer, and Chung was confident that it was done during a gap in Chinese overhead-imagery passes. The last line was a bit gratuitous, but Chung was well aware that marketing one’s abilities was a necessary evil, even in espionage.

  He then provided an overview of the personnel roster, stating that of the 148 people involved with the project, approximately 105 were engineers and technicians—mostly senior ones. Furthermore, it was expected this number would double within the week. The security forces were growing even more rapidly, with at least two company equivalents providing physical security. A USMC general, last name Norman, had recently visited the facility and held discussions with the U.S. Space Force commander to enlarge the security contingent even further.

  Chung then described the two main rumors as to VentureStar
’s mission. The first was that the vehicle was needed because of its lift capacity. Supposedly a new GPS satellite was being designed at Air Force Plant 42 to incorporate stealth features and possibly armor. Supposedly this made the satellite too heavy for current U.S. space-lift vehicles to put more than one in orbit at a time. VentureStar was to carry multiple satellites to rapidly reconstitute their constellation. Since this mission was openly and freely discussed, Chung didn’t think it was likely. Furthermore, as he had just left the Skunk Works, there had been no discussion at all of a heavily modified GPS satellite to make it more survivable.

  The other rumor, and in Chung’s opinion the more likely one, was that the VentureStar was being modified to become an armed space vehicle. The presence of a large number of laser engineers, and the fact that the VentureStar was placed in the hangar formerly used by the Airborne Laser Program, strongly suggested a laser-based armament. The new name of the vehicle, Defender, was also highly suggestive. He closed by adding that more definite information should be available in a few days.

  After adding some scanned images of the U.S. Space Force’s organization charts and an annotated Google Earth image outlining the facilities, Chung closed the flash drive. Double-checking to see that the data had been properly encrypted, he placed the flash drive in a small plastic faux rock and e-mailed his handler that a pickup would be waiting at the new primary drop point on the fifteenth hole of the Muroc Lake Golf Course. Even though the golf course was on Edwards AFB, it had been opened to the public in 2011. All one needed to do to gain access to the base was to schedule a tee time; a pass would be waiting for you at the main base entrance. It was very convenient for Chung and his associates.

  13

  Working the Problem

  U.S. Space Force Headquarters

  Edwards Air Force Base

  Office Annex

  October 24, 2017

  “They’re gouging us,” complained Hank Nichols, the Defender project contracting officer. It was a critical position in a program that had to move fast with a minimum of paper shuffling. Ray had been lucky to find Nichols available, having just handed over an air force ordnance development program—on time and under budget.

  Ray had worked with contracting officers at SPAWAR, of course, but Nichols was the best he had ever worked with, and he trusted Nichols’s judgment without question. “I see your point, Hank, but is there anything we can do about it?”

  Nichols’s dark features were compressed in a scowl that had some anger in it as well as frustration. “It’s the classic problem. They know we have to come to them because of the time and classification constraints. The stuff we’re ordering now isn’t that special. It’s electronic components, aerospace materials, tools—things we might be able to get elsewhere once we’d read that company into the program and were prepared to pay the charges for rush delivery.”

  “Which would be almost as bad as the charges Lock Mart is slapping on us for rush delivery,” Ray added. “Along with the lost time, because with two suppliers, we’d have to go through a bidding process.”

  Nichols nodded sadly. “And while I can’t see anything illegal going on, they’re making sure to bill us for any and every conceivable expense, and then multiplying it all by that ‘rush’ factor.”

  “So the Grand Unified Theory isn’t about time and energy, it’s about time and money,” Ray joked.

  “I know that money isn’t supposed to be a constraint, not with us losing a half-billion-dollar satellite once a week, but Lockheed Martin is getting away with legalized bank robbery,” Nichols growled.

  Ray shook his head ruefully. “Nope. Banks have less money in them.” He paused and considered his options. There weren’t many. Time to kick this one upstairs. Rising, he said, “Let’s tell the admiral about it. He should know what’s going on, even if there’s nothing we can do.” McConnell didn’t believe in passing problems up the chain if he could fix them himself, but he also liked to keep his boss in the loop.

  With Nichols in tow, Ray walked the dozen steps to Admiral Schultz’s office and knocked on the door frame. It was open, and Schultz was alone. He smiled and waved them in. “You look serious, Ray. You never look that unhappy when it’s a technical problem.”

  “Sir, Hank came to see me about the charges Lock Mart’s putting on their invoices. I don’t think there’s much we can do about it.” He passed Schultz a single page. “That’s a summary of their billing to the program so far.”

  “And we’ve only been running a few weeks,” Schultz observed as he studied the figures. After a quick examination, he turned to the contracting officer. “Hank, this is good work. It shows we picked the right man for the job.”

  Schultz sat back for a moment and finally said, “You’re right. It’s beyond our power to solve—for those materials. But have you seen this?” He handed Nichols a thick document. While the contracting officer paged through it, Schultz explained to Ray that the conformal radar antennas Biff had discovered were being produced by a specialist contractor in Cincinnati as part of a compartmented air force program. After being contacted, the contractor had already begun the steps needed to fabricate the antennas for Defender, but they couldn’t simply be mounted on the spacecraft’s sides. They had to be “integrated,” or connected to the existing sensor suite, requiring modifications to the radar’s hardware and software. There were also changes that had to be made to the space frame and the cooling system to accommodate the antennas. Making sure the companies involved were working off the same plan was called “systems integration.” It was always expensive, and when the plans were incomplete and the work had to be done quickly, it was doubly so—literally, in this case.

  “It’s their estimate for the materials and services to integrate those conformal radar arrays into Defender.” He turned to Nichols. “The figure you’re interested in is on page ten.”

  Nichols nodded. “It was easy to find, since you circled it in red. I’ve just been trying to see if there’s any justification for a figure that high—or a math error.”

  “We should be so lucky,” Schultz grumbled. “But since you’re here, and this is on my to-do list, you’ll want to be here while I discuss this estimate with Mr. Weber.”

  Ray and Nichols shifted their chairs over to the side, while Schultz’s assistant placed the call.

  Henry Weber’s face appeared almost immediately, smiling broadly. “Admiral Schultz! It’s a pleasure.”

  “Henry, likewise,” Schultz answered briskly. “I want to discuss the radar array-integration proposal.”

  “Understood, sir. We’re ready to send engineers out to Ohio within hours of you giving us the go-ahead. We can get the paperwork sorted out once things are moving forward.”

  “Henry, I like your attitude, which is why I wanted to give you the news as soon as we decided ourselves. It turns out that we can do the integration in-house. There are some engineers at the Air Force Research Lab that have done a lot of work with the conformal array on the B-2. We’re bringing them on board, so we’ll be scaling our requirement to you way back—just some materials, most likely.”

  Weber frowned. “Are you sure that’s the best course? I can’t speak to the people you’re bringing in, but I can guarantee top-notch work, and we’ll be there round the clock to make it come together.”

  “And bill us time and a half for all the overtime,” Ray whispered to Nichols.

  “Nope, Henry, this time we decided to do it ourselves. Why should we pay for your expertise when we have equally qualified people already drawing a government paycheck? We will be working closely with Lockheed Martin throughout this program, and I’ll probably be calling you tomorrow about some new issue.”

  Weber could recognize a send-off and reluctantly said good-bye. The instant the screen went dark, Schultz smiled broadly, then turned to face Ray and Nichols. “Ray, I was going to find you and tell you about this, but I didn’t think you’d have any objections. I had Captain Barnes do the legwork. I hope
you’re not upset.”

  “Not at all,” Ray answered, surprised.

  “It’s my fault we even asked Lock Mart to do the work. Old habits die hard, and I was in a hurry. Too much stuff gets contracted out, and the contractors are more than happy to oblige our requests. I’m not out to punish Lock Mart for overcharging us, but from now on they’ll have to think about what they’re charging us for.”

  “Not that I’m against it, but this means more people for us to manage,” Ray cautioned.

  “It’s more government people or more Lock Mart people. They’d still be part of the program. We can do just as good a job, and I believe in the end it will mean less administrative overhead by us, and less work for you, Hank.”

  “I can accept that,” Nichols said, smiling.

  U.S. Space Force Headquarters

  Edwards Air Force Base

  Office Annex

  October 27, 2017

  They all looked at the wall display in Schultz’s office. It showed a spiderweb of lines linking boxes. One box at the left was labeled BEGIN CONSTRUCTION, and a dozen lines angled out of it. All the lines eventually led to a single box at the end labeled LAUNCH. A dotted line with today’s date ran vertically across the diagram. Colors indicated the status of a task, ranging from deep red to grass green. Over half the chart was red, and a lot of the red was on the wrong side of the line.

  Ray McConnell had asked for the meeting, officially to “brief” Schultz, unofficially to ask him to make a decision Ray couldn’t.

  “We’ve made tremendous progress.” Ray hated those words as soon as he’d said them. Trite, Ray. Be specific. Using his tablet, he started to highlight boxes on the chart.

  “The kinetic weapon rack will be installed this week, and the mounts for the laser are being installed right now. Sensor integration is time-consuming, but we’ve got good people on it.”

  He came to one box labeled FABRICATE LASER PROPELLANT TANKS. “It’s the one thing we couldn’t plan for. Palmdale only had two fabrication units, and one has gone down. The parts to fix it will take two weeks to obtain and install.”