Project Aura

by Bob Mayer

  Eichen was at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center in El Segundo, California. He'd had his plane detour to California immediately upon receipt of Dalton's call.

  "MILSTAR is the future of communications," Colonel Braddock continued as he walked in front of a mock-up of one of the large satellites. "It is a joint service satellite communications system that provides secure, jam-resistant, worldwide communications to meet essential wartime requirements for high-priority military users. The multisatellite constellation will link command authorities with a wide variety of resources, including ships, submarines, aircraft, and ground stations."

  Eichen was seated in the front row of the otherwise empty conference room. His rank and his credentials from INSCOM had earned him this briefing, but he really wasn't sure what he was looking for, so for the moment he kept quiet and listened to Braddock's spiel.

  "MILSTAR is the most advanced military communications satellite system in the world. Once completely operational, the constellation will consist of MILSTAR satellites One through Four in geosynchronous orbit giving global coverage and a fifth, the system coordinator known as SC-MILSTAR. Each mid-latitude satellite weighs approximately ten thousand pounds and has a design life of ten years.

  "Each MILSTAR serves as a smart switchboard in space by directing traffic from terminal to terminal anywhere on the Earth. Each satellite processes communications signals and through the SC-MILSTAR can link with the other MILSTARs. The satellite establishes, maintains, reconfigures, and disassembles required communications transmissions as directed by users. MILSTAR terminals on the surface can provide encrypted voice, data, telemetry, and facsimile transmissions.

  "Geographically dispersed mobile and fixed control stations provide survivable and enduring operational command and control for the MILSTAR constellation. The AN-TRC-194 is the designation for the MILSTAR Ground Command Post, which can be at a fixed site or transported by aircraft, ship, or truck. These terminals use extreme-high-frequency, EHF, uplinks, and an SHF, super-high-frequency, downlink."

  The colonel was on a roll. Eichen had all this information in the top-secret packet he'd been handed by the installation commander upon his arrival. He'd known basically what MILSTAR was before landing, but he listened to Braddock, keeping his mind open, because he had no idea what HAARP was yet, so he had no idea which part of what he was being told was important and how it was linked to HAARP.

  "Each MILSTAR can handle low-data-rate, LDR, and medium-data-rate, MDR, communications. Each transmission, LDR and MDR, is frequency-hopped over a two-gigahertz bandwidth to provide high resistance to jamming. MILSTAR covers a greater width of the electromagnetic band than any transmitter ever made. In addition, the MDR provides thirty-two channels that each operate at data rates up to one-point-five million bits per second. Because transmission security is not one hundred percent at that rate, the satellite has two specially designed nulling spot antennas that can identify and pinpoint the location of a jammer and electronically isolate its signal within a small region of the satellite's two-gigahertz communications spectrum."

  "Which means?" Eichen asked.

  "That MILSTAR cannot be jammed by any technology currently available," Braddock said.

  "These nulling spot antennas are basically counter- jammers?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "So MILSTAR can transmit on its own?"

  Braddock frowned. "In response to an attempt from a hostile source trying to jam it, yes, sir."

  "How many ground stations can each satellite handle?"

  "The MDR can handle at least two thousand, four hundred user terminals simultaneously."

  The colonel waited for another question; when none was forthcoming, he continued with his briefing. "We put the satellites together here, led by the MILSATCOM Joint Program Office, of which I am the executive officer.

  “Lockheed Missiles and Space Company is the primary contractor. TRW Space and Electronic Systems provides the low-data-rate payload, while Hughes Aircraft provides the medium-data-rate payload. The actual satellite"- Braddock turned to the mock-up-"is made up of components, which allows on-site upgrade."

  "What does that mean?"

  "We can pull a piece, say the LDR main computer, and replace it when a better one is designed."

  "How do you do that when it's in orbit?"

  "A space shuttle mission. We've already upgraded the first two MILSTARs with the MDR, which they didn't have in their original configuration. There have been six MILSTAR maintenance missions by the shuttle."

  "Six? You said only two needed the upgrade."

  For the first time Braddock seemed at a loss. "Well, sir, there have been other upgrades to the system."

  "Such as?"

  "That's classified."

  "I have the highest security clearance possible," Eichen countered.

  "Uh, yes, sir, I know you do. But, to be honest, I don't know what the other four missions were. They were compartmentalized."

  "Then how do you know about them at all?"

  "We have to provide access to a full-scale mock-up for EVA training any time a mission is planned. We've done that six times. Thus I assume there were six missions."

  Eichen leaned back in the chair and considered that. "So someone is modifying the MILSTARs and you don't know who it is?"

  "No, sir. I mean, yes, sir. That's true. Of course, whatever agency it is, it has the proper clearances and authorizations."

  "How do you know that?" Eichen had run into this more times than he cared to remember.

  "We wouldn't have given access to the mock-up without proper clearance and authorization."

  The stock answer. Eichen was tempted to ask the colonel to reverse that logic, but he held back as he knew it would do no good. "How is the satellite launched?"

  "Two methods. So far all have been via Titan IV with a wide-body Centaur upper stage. For the SC-MILSTAR, it will be via space shuttle release."

  "Why the difference?"

  "SC-MILSTAR is going in a geosynchronous orbit over the north pole, while the others are basically above the equator. The next shuttle launch is going up from Vandenburg and is set for a polar orbit. It just makes sense to use the available platform rather than having a Titan moved from the Cape to Vandenburg.

  "Once the system is fully operational, command and control of it will be given over to the U.S. Space Command at Falcon Air Force Base outside of Colorado Springs."

  "Cheyenne Mountain," Eichen said. He didn't like the new name given to the massive underground complex. He remembered when it had simply been called NORAD, before that agency was a victim of the end of the Cold War.

  "Yes, sir."

  Eichen stood. "Thank you very much, Colonel." He headed for the door, then paused. "One last question."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "When does the SC-MILSTAR go up?"

  "In three days. MILSTAR will be operational worldwide in seventy-two hours."

  Chapter Six

  The ambush was laid out perfectly. L-shaped, with the heavy M-60 machine gun along the short leg, aimed down the dirt road where it curved to the right. The long leg was comprised of eight men with automatic weapons, each with aiming stakes carefully stuck in the jungle floor to delineate their fields of fire in the darkness. Across from them, on the far side of the road, antipersonnel mines lined the ditch where any survivors of the initial firing would most likely seek cover. Four large antitank mines had been carefully buried in the road, their remote detonator in the hands of the captain in charge of the team

  They'd flown in by chopper from the aircraft carrier Roosevelt the previous evening and set the kill zone up that night. According to the intelligence the CIA representative had given them, their target was due through just before dawn, which was less than an hour away.

  They were members of the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) on loan to a shadowy organization under the umbrella of the CIA with the unassuming code name of Task Force Six. TF-6 had been formed in the mid-nineties
to take the drug war from the streets of America to the sources, whether in South America or in the Far East. Twelve missions had been conducted over the intervening years, ranging from raids on labs to assassinations of key cartel or Triad members. All had been complete successes without the loss of a single man or the source of the action being compromised.

  "Lucky thirteen," Master Sergeant Garrison muttered.

  "’Tomorrow let us do and die’," Captain Scott replied in the same low voice, eyes peering through night vision goggles, noting the distant glow that indicated headlights coming their way.

  Garrison nodded, seeing the same thing and recognizing the quote. It was their routine just before action. "'Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war’." He keyed the FM radio. "Target ETA four minutes. Give me a check by the numbers."

  Each man reported in, their voices subdued and tinny in the small earpiece.

  Garrison checked the action on his M-4 one more time. "'You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees, but you don't get away from the guns'."

  Scott took his attention away from the coming lights. "That's a good one. Twain?"

  "Kipling. Read it last week It was in..." He paused.

  "What?" Scott was alert also, both men sensing something, even though the car was still two miles away.

  Garrison rolled onto his back and looked up at the branches above, the night vision goggles revealing the scene in shades of green, even the night sky where it peaked through. There was a very dim red sphere high up, above the trees, about eighty meters to the south. Garrison had never seen the like. He knew the goggles would show a cigarette burning as a bright red glow, almost a searchlight, so whatever was there was extremely low level. Then it was gone, blinking out.

  There it was! Fifty meters from where it had been. "What the hell?" Garrison muttered. The level in the goggles was so low, he wondered if it was a malfunction.

  "The car's stopped," Scott reported.

  Garrison twisted his head awkwardly. The glow from the headligh was stationary, a half mile short of the kill zone. "Something's wrong. We need to pull back. Now." He looked up. The unidentified glow was gone.

  "Maybe someone had to take a leak," Scott reasoned. "Let's give it another minute."

  The glow hadn't reappeared but Garrison's apprehension was increasing with every passing second. Their orders were to take no chances, which was rather ludicrous given they were preparing for a combat operation, always a chancy thing in Garrison's military experience. They wore sterile fatigues, no identification or dog tags, but it wouldn't take a genius to figure out where they were from.

  "I strongly recommend we pull back now, sir."

  The use of the official military courtesy startled Scott and gave him an idea how serious the team sergeant was. He keyed the radio. "All elements, pull back to the extraction rally point."

  The team was well trained; not a single word of protest or question was heard over the net as each man began to slide back from his carefully prepared position.

  "Multiple intruders coming in from the north," a voice reported. That was Boyd, their demo man, who had rear security.

  "Got some from the east side of road, about a platoon," Pinello, the furthest deployed man informed them.

  With a sinking feeling, Garrison looked west, behind their position. He could see a dozen figures moving through the jungle, approaching cautiously. "At least a squad-sized element to the west," he reported.

  They were surrounded on three sides. The only way out was through the kill zone they had so carefully prepared, across the open road, through the mined ditch and into the jungle beyond.

  "By teams, withdraw to the south," Captain Scott ordered. "On my command, team one move with demo in the lead. Boyd, deactivate the road mines and point us through the ditch setup."

  Garrison grabbed the captain's arm. "It's too obvious."

  "Any other way we're sure to be running and gunning," Scott responded. "They can't know for sure we're here."

  "Then why do they have us surrounded?" Garrison asked, but there was no more time for discussion.

  "Team one, move," Scott ordered.

  Five shadowy figures slipped across the road, Boyd leading the way, the only one who knew the escape route through the minefield he’d sown; a mistake, Garrison was realizing much too late. That information should have been disseminated; it was a basic rule he'd had beaten into him in Ranger School over ten years ago.

  A line of tracers seared down the road, intersecting with Boyd and sending his body tumbling, confirming the mistake. The sound of the machine gun ripped through the jungle stillness a millisecond later. The other four men dropped to the dirt and returned fire.

  "Boyd," Garrison hissed. "Boyd!"

  There was no answer. Machine-gun fire lit up the darkness with a line of green tracers that passed over the road and barely a foot above Garrison's head. Sergeant Buhler, manning the M-60, sent a long burst of red tracers in the opposite direction.

  An amplified woman's voice echoed out of the night. "American soldiers. You are surrounded. Surrender and we will let you live."

  The first tinge of dawn was lighting up the sky to the east. Garrison knew there was no way they could break out and make it to the extraction pickup zone without more losses.

  "’War to the knife’," he whispered to Captain Scott, quoting Palafox's response to a French general's request to surrender at Saragossa in 1808. This was a situation they had discussed, and the team consensus had been to never surrender. To go down fighting.

  "I'm calling this in," Scott had the handset for the SATCOM radio in his hand.

  Garrison couldn't tell which direction the voice was coming from as it spoke once more. He could pick up a slight accent, although he couldn't place it in the distortion.

  "American soldiers. There are nine of you still alive. Your dead bodies have the same leverage as your live ones. The only ones who will care about the difference are yourselves and your families. It is your choice how this ends for you."

  "How do they know our strength?" Garrison wondered aloud.

  "I'm not getting anything on the SAT link," Scott said, dropping the handset in disgust. "Just static."

  "We've been set up." Garrison pulled extra magazines out of his web vest and stacked them ready for use.

  "Why? Who?" Scott was bewildered as another burst from the machine gun caused them to duck their heads. The angle of fire had changed, meaning the gun had moved. The four men in the road were no longer in defilade, as rounds struck one of them, ripping into his leg.

  "Granger's hit!" the senior medic, Lambier, yelled from the road.

  Before the machine gun could fire again, Lambier grabbed Granger and rolled toward the far ditch, preferring the chance of the mines against the certainty of the gun. They landed with a splash in two inches of water, and both men tensed, waiting for the explosion, but nothing happened. The last man trapped on the road, Staff Sergeant Baldwin, low-crawled after them. He dove headfirst into the ditch, landing on top of one of the claymore trip wires.

  The semicircular mine exploded, ripping Baldwin's body in half, throwing the torso back onto the road. Amazingly he was still alive, his hands scratching into the dirt, trying to pull himself to safety. He made it about five feet, leaving a trail of blood and intestines behind, before he died.

  Garrison hit Scott on the arm, shaking his team leader out of the shock of seeing Baldwin's dying efforts.

  "Captain!"

  "No more," Scott said. "This isn't worth it" He began to stand, hands upraised.

  Garrison jumped up and grabbed his team leader around the shoulders. "Get down!"

  They were Garrison's last words, as a fifty-caliber round entered just below his left eye, under the night vision goggles. The massive bullet over half an inch in diameter and designed in the early 1900s to be used against tanks, carried such weight and velocity that Garrison's head exploded, spraying Scott with his team sergeant's blood, bone, and brain matter.
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br />   *****

  On top of the ridge, over three quarters of a mile away, Natasha Valika lay perfectly still, the recoil of the fifty-caliber Barrett M-82A1 rifle going from the shoulder pad through her body. The warm blast reflected back from the muzzle break passed over her cheeks like a lover's caress.

  "They're surrendering," she said into the boom mike in front of her lips as she saw the man next to the soldier she had just shot waving his arms wildly. The words were relayed to her mercenaries surrounding the Special Forces team and to a retransmitter in a Land Rover nearby that uplinked to a satellite and forwarded the transmission to a dish on an island in the middle of the Caribbean.

  The SATCOM retransmitter took up only a small part of the cargo bay of the Rover. The rest was filled with two rows of high-power lithium batteries on the floor, on top of which sat a series of power converters which were linked by cable to the mast on the roof much like that on news vans, but in addition to the normal satellite dish, there was a dipole antenna and dish at the very top, extended sixty feet into the sky but angled toward the ground in the direction of the Special Forces team.

  A second Land Rover was right behind the first, connected to it with several power cables. The shocks were strained to the utmost, as the truck's entire cargo bay was dedicated to batteries. Stenciled on the side of the vehicles in small letters was Aura III.

  The passenger seat in the front Rover faced backwards. In it was a woman, Dr. Souris, surrounded by numerous consoles and gauges governing the equipment, the human link between Valika and her employer, eight hundred miles away. Souris was reclined back in the seat, her eyes open but unfocused, seeing nothing of her immediate surroundings. Her head was shaved and various leads, each ending in a pad a quarter inch in diameter, were stuck to her scalp at locations marked by red tattoos.