by Dale Brown
“What do you mean, Mr. President?”
“The United States and China are deploying antisatellite weapons- Russia shall start deploying them as well, in great numbers,” Truznyev said. “ China is placing long-range hypersonic antiship missiles all over the world in strategic locations- Russia will do so, too. America depends on Russian cargo spacecraft to supply the International Space Station and to boost it in its proper orbit-perhaps Russia ’s resources can best be used to help another nation’s space program.”
“So you’re threatening to start a new arms race?”
“The race began when you began deploying these armed satellites in orbit two years ago,” the Russian president said, “as well as engaging in this rapid buildup of aircraft carriers. You seek to dominate space like you dominate the world’s oceans. This will not stand. You will agree to stand down your space weapons and leave our fleet in peace, or you will begin encountering more and more antiship and antisatellite weapons arrayed against you all across the planet.”
“ America is not Russia ’s enemy,” Gardner said, his undertone almost pleading. “What happened over the Gulf of Aden will not be repeated. We have no designs on your task force, and we agreed to let Russia secure Yemen against further terrorist acts.”
“Mr. Gardner, words mean very little right now as we pull bodies and wreckage out of the Gulf of Aden,” Truznyev said. “Actions show your true intent, not words. Prove to Russia that you want peace and freedom of the seas and skies: Remove your armed patrols so our ships can move without fear, and remove the satellites of war so we can look up into the night sky again without fear of an artificial meteor streaking down on our heads. Then we shall see who is the enemy and who is a friend. Until then, you will find no cooperation from Russia.” And the line went dead.
The president hung up the phone, as did the rest of his national security team, then sat back in his seat, staring at nothing on the conference-room table. He looked utterly deflated, like the home football team’s coach suffering a bad defeat in the Homecoming Day game.
“I wouldn’t agree to anything that bastard says, Mr. President,” Ken Phoenix said after a few strained moments of silence. “He attacked without warning. We should demand-”
The president held up a hand to silence the vice president. “I’m not demanding anything, Ken,” he said. “Right now, I’m ordering: All patrol planes stay at least a hundred miles away from the Russian and Chinese fleets. Our radar planes can still keep an eye on them from a hundred miles.” He took another deep breath, then went on: “I’ll have to have a talk with the congressional leadership, explain what happened.” He paused for a moment, then looked directly at Vice President Phoenix and said, “And I’m ordering the Kingfisher satellites deactivated.”
“What?” Phoenix exclaimed. “Sir, you can’t do that!”
“They’re not worth the aggravation, Ken,” the president said wearily. “Truznyev is right: They are fearful weapons. An aircraft-carrier battle group is intimidating when it’s parked off your shore, but when it sails away and disappears over the horizon, it’s not anymore. The satellites are overhead each and every day. If we completed the constellations, there’d be six overhead every minute of every day. How can we expect any sort of friendship or cooperation from any country who’s facing something like that?”
“Sir, Truznyev created this incident, provoking us to react, just so he could accuse you of belligerence and make unreasonable demands of you,” Phoenix said. “He’s hoping to get you to accept full responsibility for this to force you to pull our forces back from engaging or even monitoring them. Then they’ll be free to sail anywhere they please, conduct any operations they care to, completely without supervision.”
“There won’t be any more provocations, Ken,” the president said, “because we will pull back. We kept an eye on the Russians just fine without flying supersonic bombers around their carriers, and we sure as hell won’t shoot down any more Russian fighters with a space weapon. We’ve protected the nation and the world just fine before Kingfishers and hothead bomber pilots arrived on the scene. No more. I want them shut down immediately.” He turned to Secretary of Defense Turner and added, “I want all other military and intelligence operations in the area to stand down for a couple days. The tension level is getting ratcheted up too high. Keep our carrier away from the Chinese and Russians and let’s everybody just cool down.”
“The intel mission on Socotra Island…?” Director of National Security Vista asked.
“I said all missions,” the president snapped.
“Mr. President, that mission to Socotra Island is meant to provide positive proof that Russia is actively attacking our satellites with damaging streams of data,” Phoenix said. “If we call off the mission, we won’t have proof. I recommend we-”
“We don’t need any proof if the Kingfishers are all shut down.”
“So what will prevent Russia from doing the same attacks to other satellites?” Phoenix asked. “Will we shut down our intelligence satellites next because the Russians don’t like them, or just wait for the Russians to attack them, too?”
“Ken, I said I want to ratchet down the tension level, and any ops against a Russian base will just create more headaches and force everyone’s finger closer to the red button,” the president said.
“Everyone just back off, and let’s hope things quiet down.” He lowered his head for a moment, then said, “Keep me up-to-date on the search for the bomber crewmembers, Mil. Thank God we didn’t lose the tanker, too.”
DIEGO GARCIA, INDIAN OCEAN
A SHORT TIME LATER, EARLY EVENING
“ Mission ’s been scrubbed, guys,” U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Jason Richter said. “No plans to go in the foreseeable future.” Richter was young, tall, and dark, but the stress of this hastily prepared mission had spread concern across his handsome features. He was sitting in the air-conditioned briefing room of the expeditionary bomb wing stationed at the military airfield on Diego Garcia, a former British navy base located 450 miles south of the southernmost tip of India.
Jason Richter was the commander of the Army Infantry Transformational Battlelab at Fort Polk, Louisiana, designing, building, and testing new devices for future Army infantry forces. He was in charge of developing and fielding a specialized weapon system he had designed years earlier called the Cybernetic Infantry Device, a creation that would eventually change the entire face of land warfare-if anyone could ever find money to fund it.
“I had a feeling it would be,” former U.S. Army Reserve captain Charlie Turlock said. Charlie-her real name, not a call sign or nickname-was slim and athletic, but the heat and humidity of the central Indian Ocean had drained a lot of her natural energy, as well as taken a lot of the bounce out of her short strawberry-blond hair.
“I hate getting dressed up for a party and having it canceled,” former U.S. Air Force major Wayne Macomber said. The former Air Force Academy football star and special operations commando always looked angry and on edge, as if he was expecting trouble to start any second. Patrick McLanahan’s private military contracting company, Scion Aviation International, had hired Macomber and Turlock to manage some very special assets for the company-several Cybernetic Infantry Devices and Tin Man commando units Patrick had absconded with from his former command, the Air Battle Force. Most of the CID units had been destroyed in the brief skirmish between Turkey, Iraq, and the United States two years earlier, and the rest had been returned to the U.S. Army and Jason Richter.
“Let’s get our stuff out of the Condor,” Charlie said.
“I’m not going out there until I get this poopie-suit off,” Whack said. He was referring to the full-body gray suit he wore. Nicknamed “Tin Man,” the suit was composed of a material called Ballistic Electro Reactive Process that kept it flexible until it was struck by any projectile or object, when it would instantly harden into composite armor that was impervious to even medium-caliber cannon fire. The Tin Man commando
system also used an exoskeleton of microhydraulic actuators and limb braces that gave its wearer almost superhuman strength and abilities, and a helmet with several advanced sensors and communications equipment that made him a one-man infantry squad.
It took Whack several minutes to wriggle out of the Tin Man armor and put on athletic shorts, shirt, and shoes, and loop his ID card on a chain around his neck, and then he, Charlie, and Jason walked out to a nearby aircraft hangar. He was bathed in sweat during the short walk across the tarmac, even though it was almost dark, and then instantly chilled again in the air-conditioned and humidity-controlled hangar. “She’s a beauty,” Whack said after their IDs were checked by an Air Force Security Forces officer.
“Are you canceled, sir?” the officer asked.
“Yeah, Casone-my first flight on a B-2, and it’s nixed,” Whack said. “We’ll get to fly in it someday.” He was referring to the B-2A Spirit stealth bomber inside. The bat-winged composite long-range strategic bomber and its five sisters composed virtually all of America’s long-range air-breathing strike forces after the B-2’s lone base, Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, had been destroyed in a Russian nuclear sneak attack eight years earlier-four of the six survivors had been forward-deployed to Diego Garcia as part of an Asian bomber task force, and two had been airborne.
“She’s pretty, that’s for sure,” Charlie said. She touched the almost completely smooth dark gray skin. “Smooth, like a baby’s bottom.”
“Yeah, but flying in the Condor is just plain loco,” Jason said. They walked over to the open bomb bays. The left bomb bay had a rotary launcher with two RAQ-15 StealthHawk reconnaissance and strike cruise missiles, designed to loiter for several hours, transmit images and data back to the Spirit bomber, detect and analyze possible targets, then attack with small guided missiles if directed. The missiles were meant to neutralize any area defenses or patrol ships and make it easier to extract commandos on the ground.
The right bomb bay held something entirely different: an MQ-35 Condor air-launched commando insertion and extraction air vehicle. The Condor could carry up to four commandos and their gear. The commandos entered through the Spirit’s bomb bay, and the Condor was dropped like a bomb. The Condor could glide for up to two hundred miles and had a retractable landing gear for landing on a hard surface. If undamaged, the Condor had a small turbofan engine that allowed it to take off again and fly up to two hundred miles to safety.
“Almost as loco as flying in space stuffed in the back of those little spaceplanes,” Whack said, “but we’ve had the opportunity to do that, too.”
The three waited as a weapon-loading crew arrived and downloaded the Condor from the bomb bay. After it was placed on its storage cradle, Charlie opened a hatch on the left side, and the three dragged a large dark gray rectangular box resembling two refrigerators bolted together-but considerably lighter in weight-out and set it on the glossy polished hangar floor. “Hey, Carlo,” Charlie called out to the security officer. “You haven’t seen this thing in action yet, have you? C’mon over here.”
“I’m on duty, ma’am,” Sergeant Casone said. “I’ll watch from here.”
“Rog.” Charlie turned to the box and spoke, “CID One, deploy.”
At that, the box began to move. Sections of it shifted and popped out, quickly replaced by other moving pieces, until the box became a ten-foot-tall two-legged robot.
“Awesome,” Casone exclaimed.
“This is the best part,” Charlie said. “CID One, pilot up.”
The robot squatted down, its left leg and both arms extended backward, and a hatch popped open on its back. Charlie used the outstretched leg as a ramp and the arms as handrails to climb up and wriggle inside the robot. The interior surface was composed of a soft electroconducting material that completely surrounded her entire body, cushioning her from shock and picking up neural impulses in her body for transmission to the robot’s haptic control computers. Her head fit into a helmetlike device with a breathing mask, communications gear, and an electronic wide-angle multi-function visor.
Moments after the hatch closed, the robot stood up-and it moved as lithely and naturally as a human. “All systems in the green,” Charlie spoke, although her voice was heard as a male electronically synthesized growl. She ran around the B-2 bomber to Casone, curtsied before him, and extended a massive armored hand, its fingers moving as realistically as her own. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Sergeant Casone.”
“All right, Charlie, stop screwing around,” Whack said. “Put the CID away and-”
Jason’s secure cellular phone rang, and he answered it immediately. “Richter here…who?…General McLanahan…you mean, General Patrick McLanahan? Excuse me, sir, but how did you get this number?” The name got everyone’s attention instantly. Jason looked at Whack, then said, “Stand by, sir.” He held out the phone to him. “It’s Patrick McLanahan. He wants to talk with you.”
Whack smiled ruefully and shook his head. “I should have known he’d be involved with this,” he said, reaching for the phone. “If it has to do with the Tin Men, the CIDs, or big bombers, McLanahan’s got to be behind it, civilian or no.” He took the phone. “Hello, General. Fancy talking to you.”
“Hello, Whack,” Patrick said. “Listen up. We lost a B-1 bomber over the Gulf of Aden. Gia’s plane.”
The smile was instantly replaced with a scowl. “Where and when?” he asked.
“About ten minutes ago, approximately four hundred miles southwest of Salalah, Oman. The Reagan carrier group is en route; fixed-wing searchers should be on scene within the hour.”
“Any 406 signals?”
“No.” A 406-megahertz locator beacon with a GPS receiver built into each crewman’s survival harness automatically sent a survivor’s identification code and position digitally via satellite to rescue coordinators. “She missed the first manual-activation window.” To reduce the chance of location signals being picked up by enemy forces, survivors who could manually activate their beacons were instructed to do it for short periods of time at specific times every hour, based on Greenwich Mean Time. “I heard your mission was scrubbed.”
“You heard? How could you hear that? We just found out a couple minutes ago ourselves!”
“I had a little to do with planning your mission onto Socotra Island.”
That explained a lot, Whack thought-and it was probably a lot more than just “a little.” “We’ve got a badass bomber with four cruise missiles, plus a CID and Tin Man, all dressed up with nowhere to go,” he said. “What do you need?”
“I’m trying to get clearance to press forward with your mission,” Patrick said, “but the White House shut down all air intel and surveillance ops in the region. We have a backup plan to get two of you onto Socotra. A plane’s on the way to take you and your gear to Dubai. You’ll meet up with a CIA guy who’ll get you the rest of the info.”
“You know, General, I’m just a shooter here-you’d better speak to the boss,” Whack said. He handed the phone back to Richter. “McLanahan’s got a backup plan.”
Jason took the phone. “Richter again, sir.”
“Backup plan in progress, Colonel,” Patrick said. “A plane will be taking Macomber, Turlock, and the CID unit to Dubai.”
“How did you know who and what we have here, sir?”
“The same way I got your secure cellular number and codes, Colonel,” Patrick said. “That’s not important right now. The plane will be there in about eight hours.”
“I can’t tell Macomber what to do, sir,” Jason said, “but Turlock is an Army officer under my direct supervision, and she’s not going anywhere without proper orders.”
“It’s just a plane ride to Dubai, Colonel,” Patrick said. “Her orders will be waiting for her there.”
“Sorry, sir,” Jason said. “I don’t know how you’re involved with this-and I’m sure I don’t have a need to know-but until I get orders in my hands, Turlock stays put. You can come get Macomber anytime-the soo
ner the better.”
“And the equipment?”
Jason thought for a moment: “The Tin Man stuff isn’t the Army’s, so Macomber can take it and wear it for Halloween if he wants to,” he said finally. “The CID unit belongs to the U.S. Army, and I need a valid transfer order before it leaves my hands.”
“Understood,” Patrick said. There was a slight pause; then: “I studied your work with Task Force TALON, Colonel-tough, fast, gutsy, a lot like the Air Battle Force ground teams,” he went on. “And of course I’ve had a chance to work with the CID units on a number of occasions. Fantastic technology. Good work.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jason said, “although it’s never been fully explained to me how you as a civilian managed to get them.”
“I’d like the opportunity to explain it to you, Colonel,” Patrick said. “Perhaps we’ll have a chance to work together in the very near future.”
“Apparently we already have been, except I didn’t know it,” Jason said. “Exactly what is it you do, sir?”
“Oh…a little bit of this, a little bit of that,” Patrick said. “I help out when and where I’m needed.” And Patrick hung up.
SOCOTRA AIRPORT, SOCOTRA ISLAND, REPUBLIC OF YEMEN
DAYS LATER
The Yemeni customs inspection official looked surprised and more than a little indignant as the tall, beefy, white-skinned man carried an enormous blue-and-white nylon bag, a briefcase, and a backpack over to his inspection station. Although this Felix Air flight had originated in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, visitors to Socotra Island, an oval-shaped, rocky island two hundred miles east of Somalia in the Indian Ocean, were required to have their bags and travel documents reinspected. “Salam alaykum,” he said in his rough, low voice reserved for European visitors, holding out his hand. “Jawaz as-safar, min fadlak.”
