Brown, Dale - Independent 01

by Silver Tower (v1. 1)

  Baker had to move forward a few extra feet to clear the large SBR antennas on his side, but it took only a few extra seconds. Then he swung the front of the Thor missile upward, twisting the hand thruster controllers to counteract the huge inertia of the Thor missiles. It took a few moments longer for him than for Yemana, but Baker soon had his Thor missile pointing right where the Soviet spaceplane had been parked....

  Except it was no longer there....

  “General, missiles pointed right at us,” came the startled call from Colonel Voloshin. The Soviet pilot couldn’t believe what he saw: an American astronaut maneuvering a Thor missile around in open space. The sight would have been merely weird if it weren’t such a clear warning of imminent attack.

  Govorov reacted instantly, pulling his Elektron spaceplane straight up ninety degrees and applying full throttle. As an added measure he overpressurized one of the small tail-thrusters of his Elektron space- plane, then cut the thruster off, sending a cloud of monomethyl hydrazine rocket fuel out behind the spaceplane. In seconds he had darted several hundred meters away from the huge American space station.

  The Thor missile ran straight and true. Yemana fought the sudden back-blast of the Thor’s main thruster and quickly regained control of his MMU. He watched, fascinated, as the missile’s steel-mesh snare began to unfurl and quickly expand to nearly its full one-hundred-foot diameter. There was no way it was going to miss....

  Except at that moment the Soviet spaceplane heeled sharply upward, and literally in the blink of an eye it was gone. The Thor missile ran straight toward the spot where the spaceplane had been, but it made no attempt to turn upward to pursue the fleeing Soviet intruder. Although Yemana had no way of knowing, the missile’s radar-seeker head had locked onto the dense cloud of hydrazine fuel. When it reached the slowly dispersing cloud, the missile computed zero distance to its target and detonated its one-thousand-pound flak warhead.

  Yemana saw the flash of the exploding warhead but saw or felt nothing else. The missile had exploded less than three hundred feet away, sending five hundred pounds of metal chips flying in all directions. Unimpeded by any obstruction or even the resistance of gravity, the chips easily found the astronaut and tore through his body, detonating the MMU’s pressurized tanks and adding their explosive fury to the carnage. Yemana’s ragged corpse was propelled by the explosion’s shockwave out into space.

  “General, the missile has exploded behind you. I’m beginning my attack.”

  Govorov kept the throttle of his Elektron at full thrust until he heard Voloshin’s message, then selected the roll thrusters and did a fast four-“g” dive back down toward the station. He heard a few pings of metal against the silica tiles of his Elektron but ignored it. He saw nothing now but his quarry in the sights of his Scimitar missile- launcher. .. .

  Will and Sontag saw the flash of light and heard the rumbling explosion of the first Thor missile.

  “Yemana. Baker. Where are you?”

  Sontag unstrapped and quickly propelled himself between the two flight deck seats and across to the aft crew station. He pressed his face to the windows facing into the cargo hold and scanned the sky behind Enterprise toward the center keel and lower pressurized modules.

  “I see one of them,” Sontag called out cross-cockpit. “I don’t know if it’s Baker or Yemana....”

  Baker saw the Soviet spaceplane almost on top of him, but there was no time to reacquire his target. He tried to maneuver his MMU down and over to aim the Thor missile’s sensor at the spaceplane, but in his rush to steer the missile he activated the MMU thruster controls too rapidly and sent himself into a violent forward spin. When he tried to apply opposite thrust to correct his spin, the Thor missile broke free from the attach point on his MMU, and he had to watch Silver Tower’s last hope for defense spin away toward earth.

  Colonel Voloshin saw the flash from the first exploding missile, and the sudden glare made him furious. He immediately activated his laser target designator and centered the aiming reticle on the first target in view: the white-suited body of Dr. Kevin Baker just beginning to get his spinning MMU under control. He squeezed the trigger. A single Scimitar missile ejected itself from the rotary launcher in Elektron Two’s cargo bay. Its tiny rocket engine ignited. The missile’s seeker-head followed the reflected laser energy from Elektron Two straight to its target.

  The laser seeker-head broke apart on Kevin Baker’s MMU chest- mounted control pack, but the hypervelocity Scimitar missile kept on going. Right behind the seeker head was a nonexplosive arrow- pointed warhead made of an alloy of molybdenum and depleted uranium, designed to penetrate the thickest armor—Baker’s chest offered no resistance to the missile, which was now traveling at well over a mile a second. The missile pierced Baker’s body, his MMU, went completely through the storage module fifty yards behind Baker, and through the outer hull of Skybolt’s MHD reactor before deflecting off one of the four-foot-thick MHD reactor walls and off into space.

  “Oh... my ... God...”

  Will strained around and saw Sontag move back slowly from the cargo bay windows. “What is it, Rich ... ?”

  “One of them... oh, God... they shot him point-black with a missile.”

  “Can we retrieve him? Can you see where he is?”

  Sontag forced himself to look out the window once again. The space-suited figure was spread-eagle, in nearly the same position as before, but this time with a cloud of unrecognizable debris floating all around him. The body started to revolve, as though at the end of a invisible noose, and Sontag could see the softball-size hole in the corpse....

  “Enterprise, this is Saint-Michael. Jerrod, what’s happened?”

  Will clicked open the ship-to-station interphone. “General, Baker and Yemana... they’re dead.”

  A pause. “You sure?”

  Will didn’t answer, instead put his head down on his chest and hammered on the front glare shield, realizing now what he had done....

  Lieutenant General Govorov could identify only one possible source of the unexpected missile attack: the Thor missile garage tethered beneath the station. He quickly activated his laser designator and placed the aiming reticle on the neutral particle-beam projector mounted beneath the garage. He fired two missiles into the garage, creating a huge fireworks display of sparks and secondary explosions that finally caused the Thor garage to break free of its steel tether and spin away from the station.

  He reestablished his original observation position above the space station and keyed his microphone. “Elektron Two, report.”

  “Status green, Lead,” Voloshin replied. “Two American cosmonauts carrying what appeared to be Thor missiles....”

  “Cosmonauts?”

  “Affirmative. I can’t see first one, he was close to the explosion of the Thor missile he launched at you. Second one has been... dispatched. I’m maneuvering to begin attack.”

  “Acknowledged. Maneuver back to preplanned position and report when ready to attack. I am maneuvering back into position.”

  As Voloshin watched Govorov pull his fighter into a wide turn around the space station, the younger pilot thought about the wisdom of waiting to get back in position. No, the time to attack was now— before the Americans tried something else. He pulled his Elektron up twenty degrees, pointing it at the center of the station, and activated his laser designator.

  The aiming reticle rested on the first large object in view—the underside of the crew compartment of the space shuttle Enterprise. ...

  ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

  “They’re maneuvering back to their original positions, General.”

  Saint-Michael, already shocked by the report on Baker and Yemana, was motioning Jefferson, Marks and Walker toward the hatch to the main connecting tunnel. “Get on board Enterprise. They’re going to start tearing this station apart with those missiles. Moyer, report to—”

  A sudden explosion threw all in the command module to the wall. A large red light began blinking over
the hatch leading to the main connecting tunnel.

  “Fire in the connecting tunnel....”

  Saint-Michael helped Walker to his feet, then retrieved his earset. “Enterprise. Emergency. Fire in the connecting tunnel. Prepare for emergency disconnect.”

  “Jason.” The voice belonged to Jerrod Will aboard the shuttle Enterprise. “Under attack... rapid decompression.. ..” But Will, Son- tag and the other crewmen aboard Enterprise had no time left.

  The Scimitar missile plowed through the lower deck of the pressurized crew compartment of Enterprise, tearing apart a fuel cell and creating a massive hydrogen-oxygen explosion. Within a hundredth of a second, the lower and middeck sections of Enterprise were aflame. Davis, Wallis and Montgomery died instantly.

  The missile pierced the middeck, deflected off an aluminum spar, blew through the forward cabin bulkhead and went through the RCS engine pod on the nose of the shuttle. The exploding hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide fuel tanks in the RCS pod dissipated the Scimitar missile’s remaining energy, but the damage had already been done.

  Without a space suit or pressurized cabin providing a protective layer of air pressure around their bodies, the temperature of the four remaining living crewmen’s bodies bubbled the dissolved gases in their blood out of solution, exploding the blood vessels in their bodies. Within a few long, agonizing minutes, in the freezing-cold depths of space, Will, Sontag, Bayles, and Kelly boiled to death.

  '‘Will.” Saint-Michael detached himself from the Velcro near the master SBR display and propelled himself over to the hatch leading to the main connecting tunnel. He hit the button to open the hatch: nothing. The special fire- and smoke-detection interlocks built into the hatch automatically closed and locked the hatch if fire or smoke was present.

  Saint-Michael turned to Marks. “Wayne, decompress the connecting tunnel down to the docking module. Moyer, can you hear me? What’s your position?”

  “I’m in engineering,” Moyer said, his labored breathing obvious in the intercom transmission. “I’m moving toward the connecting tunnel.”

  “Copy.” Saint-Michael checked the status displays above the hatch. The FIRE warning light had gone out, and now a PRESS warning light had illuminated. “I show the fire out and the connecting tunnel depressurized to one-half atmosphere, Moyer. You’re clear to activate the interlock bypass. Be sure to take a couple of POS packs with you in case they need them.”

  “Roger. Opening the hatch now.” Moyer depressurized the engineering module, opened the hatch leading into the connecting tunnel, then closed and sealed the hatch behind him and moved toward the large airlock module.

  It didn’t take long for Moyer’s report. “Skipper?”

  “Can you make it into Enterprise? How does it look?”

  “I’m at the hatch to the airlock module. I’ve got a FIRE light on over the hatch—” The transmission stopped.

  “Moyer?” No reply. “Moyer, report.”

  “Skipper... my God... the whole airlock module is burned out. I can see two bodies in the airlock. They’re both burned. I think it’s Kelly and Bayles.... I think they tried to get back to the station....”

  “Moyer....” Saint-Michael paused, tried to calm himself, to think it through.... A fire in the airlock, at least two dead. .. two dead outside.... “Moyer.. . Ted, we need you to inspect the Enterprise. It’s our only chance to get out and be rescued. You’ve got to check out the shuttle.”

  Moyer’s voice was remarkably steady. “Yes, sir. I understand. I’m ready.”

  “Stand by. Depressurizing the airlock.” Saint-Michael turned to Marks, who activated the station’s environmental control panel. Marks nodded back to the commander.

  “Docking airlock module at five p.s.i.”

  “Roger,” Moyer replied, his voice hoarse but steady. He waited until the FIRE light over the entry hatch went out as the thinned atmosphere in the module extinguished any last remaining fires. “Entering airlock.” In spite of all his efforts, Moyer could not avoid looking at the charred remnants of the men who had been his best friends for so many months. His stomach took over then. .. .

  ELEKTRON ONE SPACEPLANE

  From his vantage point high over Armstrong Space Station Alesander Govorov saw the bright flash and the explosion as the crew compartment of Enterprise was rent apart by Voloshin’s missile. He saw the reflections of light in the cockpit windows and the rapidly spreading cloud of gases and debris around the shuttle.

  “Elektron Two. Report.”

  “Moving into position, Lead....”

  “That explosion. What happened?”

  A slight pause, then: “Teaching the Americans a lesson, Lead. Before they can attempt another attack—”

  Govorov pounded on an armrest in frustration, trying to vent his anger. Voloshin was a top-notch cosmonaut and atmospheric fighter pilot. He was also five years younger than Govorov, and like most young pilots displayed more than a little impetuousness. Govorov would have strong words with him later. For now. .. . “Follow your orders, Colonel. We have a job to do. I want it done as surgically as possible. We are not teachers or butchers.”

  Govorov activated his laser designator and swept it across the center beam of Armstrong Space Station. He had had only a few minutes to study the sketches of Armstrong Station before this flight, and those sketches had obviously been outdated. But some of the targets were obvious.

  Such as space-based radar. One of the huge phased-array antennas had been sheared off, but its mate on the underside of the center keel was still intact. Using the green-screen TV camera integral to the laser designator, he zoomed the picture in until the aiming reticle was centered on the huge control junction linking the radar antenna to the keel. Destroy this one junction box and the radar’s steering, power and electronics went with it. He activated the arming panel, placed one gloved finger around the stick-mounted trigger and gently squeezed.

  ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

  “Cabin pressurization zero. Fire in middeck spread to upper deck. Big hole in forward bulkhead. Three... bodies in middeck... Davis, Wallis and Montgomery. Montgomery is still strapped into his chair. They... they didn’t have a chance.”

  Saint-Michael was leaning on an overhead handhold receiving Moyer’s damage report of Enterprise. Seven dead on Enterprise. Seven dead. . . .

  “Can you find the damage, Ted?”

  “Yes, sir. Huge explosion somewhere in the lower deck. Might be a fuel-cell rupture. There’s a big hole in the forward bulkhead. Looks like it goes clear through.”

  “Is it repairable?”

  “I don’t think so, not without a welder. Looks major.”

  Enterprise was gone. “Whatever the Russians shot at her, it was effective,” Saint-Michael said to no one in particular. “Ted, report back here on the double.”

  “What should I do with the Enterprise crew? Just leave them here—?”

  An ear-splitting sound like the crack of a whip echoed through the command module. The entire station began to vibrate. A warning message appeared on a screen surrounding the master SBR display.

  “We’ve lost the entire number-two SBR array,” Jefferson said, scanning his instruments. “No signal from that side at all.”

  “They’ve started,” Walker said. “They’re not going to stop until they’ve sawed this station to pieces.”

  “Moyer, get back here. All of you, report to the lifeboat,” Saint-Michael ordered. “I’ll set the thrusters to deorbit the station; we’ll time it so that—”

  A voice broke in over stationwide intercom on the CALL position: “Control, this is Skybolt. I think I have the laser operational again. I told you I was close to it....”

  Saint-Michael was startled by Ann’s voice. He paused half a second, then flipped a button on the communications panel. “You what? Skybolt’s working?”

  “I need you to switch control of the SBR back to Skybolt from the Thor system. I can’t do it back here. Switch the SBR over to—”

  Ann w
as cut off by a loud bang and a warning horn blaring from the environmental control panel. “Control junction on the starboard radiator system,” Jefferson said after checking the warning display. “That’s half our environmental system out.”

  “We can’t risk it,” Walker said. “A few more shots like that and we’ve had it.” But Saint-Michael motioned him to be quiet.

  “Ann, can Skybolt really be effective?”

  “Baker error-trapped the system for me,” she said. “I think the system will track targets now. I’m not sure if we trapped out the MHD ignition power problem, but—”

  “We don’t have the time, Jason,” Walker broke in, his voice tight. “We’ve got to get to that lifeboat—”

  Another loud bang; the station shuddered. The lights in the module dimmed for a moment and another environmental warning horn blared. The situation seemed too far gone to bother checking on the damage.

  “Jason,” Ann said. “You’ve got to do it now. It might already be too late....”

  “All right, damn it. We’ll try.” Walker was about to continue to protest but Saint-Michael rode over him: “But not you five. I want all of you in the lifeboat. Immediately. I want you clear of the station when I fire the laser.”

  “You can’t do it alone,” Ann said. “The laser has to be fired from the Skybolt module and I need someone to monitor the SBR from up there. We may also need to move the station. I’ve got to stay here in the Skybolt module....”

  Saint-Michael hesitated again, but he knew there was no other option. This was her play. “All right, Ann, stay in Skybolt. Walker, Marks, Jefferson, Moyer, report to the lifeboat.”

  Several more loud bangs and a major fuel-cell explosion had occurred by the time Walker reported that all remaining crewmembers of the crippled space station were sealed aboard the lifeboat.