Von Neumann’s War

by John Ringo

  “I knew it was simple. Why don’t we just do it,” Roger said rather than asking.

  “I’m telling you, Rog, without you telling them that they would be free of reprisal if the thing fails, Boeing isn’t going to even consider it. It took us most of the first week to convince them to add the extra strap-on hardpoints. It wasn’t like we really were using duct tape and Bondo!” John shook his head in disgust and threw up his hands.

  “John, get started. I’m going back to the office to take care of this. You catch a cab back to the hotel.” Roger knew John could see that he was angry and that somebody was about to get a good old-fashioned southern ass chewin’.

  * * *

  “I don’t give a good Goddamn, Charlie. If John says he wants it done, then by God do it. We ain’t worried about political fallout here, we’re worried about the future of the freakin’ human race for crying out loud… un huh… no… no… uh… no… GODDAMNITALLTOHELL Charlie I said NO! If I have to fly to D.C. and get more horsepower behind my decision I’ll leave today and you’ll be looking for a new fucking job tomorrow. You hear what I’m telling you?” Roger had had enough of the corporate risk-averse culture that was holding back the program. The bean counters at the top of the culture were a larger impediment to the development of the program than the immense technical requirements and compressed schedule. Roger was irate and working on about a day and a half of sleep in the last month. It felt good to vent on these bean counting assholes a little, he thought to himself.

  “All right then… yes, okay. Well, Charlie I appreciate you getting this done. And I don’t want to have this conversation again. I want John Fisher to have a blank check and a rubber stamp approval with y’all from now on. We do not have the time to have this conversation over and over every time somebody points out that we’re jumping all over the process. Yep, Ronny’ll back me up on this.” Back me up on this, Ronny. “…I’ll pick up the other line and call him right this minute if it’ll help you… No. Okay then.” Roger sat down in his chair and exhaled loudly.

  “Okay, Charlie, thanks for your help. Hey listen, we’re doing great stuff here and don’t forget that part of it. Okay then.” Roger hung up the phone and screamed at the top of his lungs for about three minutes. Then he opened up his telescope modeling program on his laptop and went back to work.

  * * *

  Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Powell, Davis, Dr. Ronny Guerrero, General Riggs, NASA MSFC Director Dr. Byron and the President’s science advisor sat in the VIP bunker at the east coast launch facility at CCAFS with several Boeing and Lockheed Martin higher-ups, USAF 45th Space Wing Program support manager, and other upper echelon contractors and members of the Neighborhood Watch program.

  Dr. John Fisher burst into the bunker VIP support room with two hours to spare before launch. He was obviously flustered; multiple beads of sweat had formed on his forehead, and his usually well-combed hair was in disarray. The sweat could have been from stress but maybe not — after all, it was a beautiful August day in sunny Florida, which meant hotter than hell.

  John pulled a laptop out of locked double bags, and set it down on the conference table and plugged it into the portable projector he also pulled out of the bags. “This Machine is Approved Top Secret/Neighborhood Watch” was stamped on the front and back of the laptop and the projector.

  “Sorry I’m late. There were some last minute hold procedures that I was tending to,” he said.

  “That’s quite all right, John,” Roger told him.

  “Yes, Dr. Fisher, just as long as we don’t miss the big show,” the science advisor to the President responded. George Fines pointed out the window at the rocket on the pad. “I can’t wait to hear you explain that behemoth to us.”

  Roger looked out the window across the lake to the launchpad. The fact that they could discuss Special Access Top Secret in a room with a window and people milling around outside in the hallway was a sign of the times. Things were changing in the old ways of doing things. Time and urgency didn’t allow for all of the slow security protocols to be followed, so new ones were used in the interim and they were all approved by the Office of the President of the United States of America. Otherwise, some of them would never get past standard security personnel.

  John clicked open the slideshow on his laptop and hit the magical keystroke combination that made the projector understand the computer and start displaying the laptop’s screen on the big screen at the end of the conference table on the south wall of the VIP bunker support room.

  “Okay. I think that’s it.” He clicked a few more buttons, scrolled to the slideshow and began.

  “Well, in order to get Percival to the planet Mars in as short a period of time possible, Dr. Tom Powell developed a strawman design for a launch vehicle. The Modified Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle out there on the SLC-37 CCAFS launch pad is the resultant product of his original design. It’s mostly the same as he originally suggested.” John paused and cleared his throat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “It’s hot today,” he muttered.

  “That’s right, John,” Tom interrupted. “You fellas did a good job and built the rocket I had in mind almost to a T or at least as near as makes no difference.”

  “Uh, okay.” John nodded to Tom and continued. “Dr. Fines, as you may or may not be aware of the typical Delta IV Heavy configuration, this is a modified version of that. This rocket has even heavier capability than the Heavy. The rocket consists of the main common booster core (CBC) tube with a Rocketdyne RS-68 liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen (LO2/LH2) rocket motor base with a thrust vector control nozzle in the middle that can supply up to 650,000 pounds of thrust and 410 seconds of specific impulse. These CBCs were built in Decatur, Alabama, at the Boeing Delta IV rocket plant and they had to be modified slightly, but I’ll get to that in a minute.” John moved through the slides quickly.

  “On either side of the central CBC tube is another CBC tube assembly strapped on. Each of these CBCs has a modified upper stage fairing atop and their engines should produce the same thrust characteristics as the central CBC. This portion of the rocket is the standard Delta IV Heavy that you may have seen before.” He paused and noticed that Ronny was nodding in acknowledgement.

  “Now, in order to increase the throw weight of the launch vehicle and therefore the mission spacecraft velocity, eight Alliant Techsystems graphite-epoxy GEM-60 solid rocket strap-on boosters are also attached at the base of each of the three larger CBC tubes of the Boeing-built rocket. As you can see from the slide — or better yet from out the window — there are three of these boosters attached to each of the side CBCs: one at zero, ninety degrees and minus ninety degrees. Two solid boosters are placed on either side of the central CBC at ninety and minus ninety degree locations. The GEM-60 strap-ons enable the launch vehicle to accommodate a much larger spacecraft payload than the standard Delta IV Heavy, much larger.” Roger cleared his throat and nodded that he was going to interrupt.

  “You see, Dr. Fines, this was required because Percival’s throw weight to Mars was on the upper limit for a long mission timeline. The half-meter diameter primary mirror for the telescope alone ended up being about eighty kilograms. And with the other instruments and spacecraft structure, there was just no way the Delta IV Heavy and three upper stages would get the satellite to Mars in the hoped for four-to-five-month mission time. Tom here came up with the idea of adding the solid strap-on boosters to the rocket for the added boost. This did it on paper.” Roger smirked, then added, “It took some doing and some expensive modifications contracts for Boeing to do it in reality, but they finally got the ball rolling and did it and on schedule.” Fines sat quietly and nodded in response without making any facial expressions whatsoever. Roger nodded back to John to take over.

  “Above the CBCs we connected three modified and connected Pratt Whitney RL10B-2 cryogenic rocket motors to make up the second stage. Each of the modified engines will, hopefully, supply as much as 60,000 pounds of thrust over a burn time of 2250 second
s. Then above that is a single modified RL10B-2 making up the third stage. And finally, a standard RL10B-2 with half the burn time makes up the fourth stage.”

  “Above that,” Roger stood and moved to the front of the room, “is the payload.” He pointed to the payload shroud section. “The reason we’re here is the payload, of course. It’s attached atop the fourth stage and housed via the aluminum isogrid payload fairing and shroud. Here is where Percival sits.” Roger nodded to John to click the slides.

  “This project is a culmination of what mankind can do in a hurry if we really have to,” Ronny Guerrero added. He understood that it was a culmination of brilliant design, development, and manufacturing. It was also the culmination of less than five months worth of work that was completed by a small army of a few thousand men and women. Ronny wanted to make sure that the President’s advisor understood this.

  “Let’s hope it’s a successful culmination,” the science advisor said, smiling faintly.

  The Neighborhood Watch team sat quietly for the next hour and a half. John and Alan were in and out of the room checking with Launch Control to gather any good or bad news. The countdown was going as according to schedule. The men sat listening to the launch countdown protocols, anxiously awaiting the final countdown.

  Finally, after four and half months of around-the-clock effort from thousands of the space community’s best and brightest, the culmination of that effort was about to go. The Neighborhood Watch was about to happen. Of course, it would not arrive at Mars for nearly another five months.

  * * *

  Tina and Charlotte sat at the Florida hotel’s beachfront with the water splashing at their feet as each breaker rolled in. Although school had started that week, they both were excited to miss a day or two of school, to sit on the beach and do nothing. Charlotte’s dad and Tina’s mother had insisted that the two of them make this trip. The parent’s of both of the teens seemed unusually touchy-feely to the girls and were acting as though they hadn’t seen their girls in years and might not get to see them again for years. Charlotte just chalked it up to the divorce and the amount of overtime her dad had been working. Tina didn’t say much about it other than that they were stressing her out.

  “You know,” Tina dug her toes into the sand as the surf covered her feet. “I like this trip a lot better than the one to Hicksville.”

  “Aww come on, Tina. The Mars ride was fun. And you nearly wet your panties on that Moonshot thing,” Charlotte added with a laugh. “And you gotta admit, flying the Space Shuttle simulator and driving those little Lego Mars rovers was kinda cool.”

  “Yeah, but this is the beach,” Tina said, holding both arms out wide, cocking her hips to the left, and nodding to the ocean.

  Charlotte smiled and nodded toward the two young men with about three percent body fat surfing just north of them. Just then one of the surfers wiped out and stood up, shaking the water from his long hair.

  “I guess I’d have to agree with you on that one, Dingbat.”

  “You said it, Astrogirl.” Tina acknowledged the two hunky surfers with a whistle.

  “Uh huh.”

  “So when is it going to be?” Tina asked, shielding her eyes and looking to the north as her mother had told them to do, but at the same time not taking her eyes off the two hunky surfers.

  “It should be any second unless they had some kind of hold. You know what they’re launching?” Charlotte said as she searched the skyline for any sign of a rocket launch.

  “Well, Mom just said it was classified. But I don’t get why she could bring us to see a launch if it’s classified.”

  “Dingbat!” Charlotte said with a chuckle. “How they gonna hide from all the local people that a big, bright, and noisy rocket just fired off? My dad said it was classified and that I couldn’t ask him any questions about what is on it. But the fact that there’s going to be a launch isn’t classified.”

  “You think it’ll be that bright in the day — look!” Tina stopped midsentence and pointed north-northeast.

  “Oh wow! It’s really bright! And check out that smoke trail!” Charlotte was giddy and pointing at the modified Boeing rocket as it pulled upward from Earth’s gravity well. Both girls had seen smaller launches their parents had attended, but this one was different. The rocket’s rumble was a solid body blow, as heavy even as the shuttle launches. Others along the beach turned toward the sky to watch the massive rocket — one of the largest to launch from the Cape since the legendary Saturns. One of the surfers wiped out, but the girls failed to notice. None of them had any idea what was onboard, where it was going, or why. But, they were fascinated by the rocket, its bright glare and rumble going on and on…

  * * *

  “Congratulations, John.” Roger shook Dr. Fisher’s hand and patted him on the back. “Doin’ good, right?”

  “That’s right.” John slumped in his chair in the VIP support room. “The launch vehicle functioned flawlessly and the telemetry reports so far tell us that the modified rocket system has pushed Percival into an Earth escape trajectory. Control tells me that the first stage combination of three kick motors fired and completed its burn, then separated. The second kick motor repeated the process from ignition to burnout with no problems. The third kick motor functioned likewise. The telemetry data downloaded from the star trackers to the main bus guidance and navigation computer tells that the software activated the algorithm to optimize the final thrust vectoring for the optimal burn vector to enter into the Mars incident trajectory. So, boss, my job is done. The spacecraft is on its way to Mars.” John grinned and loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. “I’m gonna go find me an umbrella out there on the beach somewhere and sleep under it for about two days.”

  “Good job, John. That sounds like a really good idea.” Roger wished he could join him but there were payload checks that had to be run. But, all things considered, there was not really a lot to do over the next four and half months while Percival coasted toward Mars. Maybe the beach was a good idea.

  It would be a little less than five months before Percival would fly-by less than a hundred kilometers from the strangely changing planet, but in the meantime the instruments and science suite began to come online for checkouts and operational status. What should we do now? Waiting sucks. Roger thought.

  Chapter 7

  “Waiting sucks,” Major Gries muttered under his breath while he flipped through an unclassified white paper about synthetic gecko skin. This small five-employee company in New Mexico had decided that they had a new invention that would allow infantrymen to walk up walls, trees, windows, you name it. But Gries was having a hard time getting in to see the scientist who was supposed to be there to meet him. Apparently, as Carolyn Breese, the secretary of Gecko-Man, Inc. explained to him, Dr. Forrester had forgotten that today was Wednesday and that he was supposed to be there for a meeting.

  “Major Gries,” the secretary told him. “I just contacted Carl, uh, Dr. Forrester, again and he was in his car on the way here. He apologizes for his confusion and says you should make yourself at home. Would you like some coffee?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that would be nice,” Shane said.

  “Normally, one of the other engineers could show you around, but everybody is at a preliminary design review in Clarendon this week. Sorry.” Carolyn Breese finished filling a Styrofoam cup with hot black coffee. “Sugar or cream?”

  “Black is fine, ma’am. Thanks.” Gries sat back down into the folding chair against the wall across from the secretary a bit annoyed now that he realized there was going to be a considerable amount of time killed in small talk with Mrs. Breese. That was not a real bad thing and Shane was not the type who was too stuck up or important to spend time talking to a little old lady. In fact, she kind of reminded him of his mother. But he had a lot of work to get done and he had a three PM flight from Albuquerque to LAX that he had to make. He had hoped he would have time to get lunch from some place other than the airport; that didn’t look p
romising now. Airport food was killing him and making him soft. Shane hoped that he could get in a ten kilometer run sometime tonight but most likely he would end up on a hotel treadmill, which got old fast.

  After about forty-five minutes, Forrester finally arrived. Shane guessed he was about five foot nine and weighed in at about two hundred and thirty pounds, not much of it muscle. His hair, although short in length, was extremely unruly and did not appear to have been touched by a comb in years. The most stereotypical part about the scientist’s appearance was that he was wearing slacks, a shirt and tie, but at the same time was wearing running shoes. Running shoes, Gries laughed to himself. This guy hasn’t run anywhere but to the fridge and back in his life. Shane smiled and offered his hand.

  “Hello, Major. Sorry I’m late. It simply slipped my mind about our meeting today. I’m Carl Forrester.” He shook Shane’s hand, smiling happily in return.

  “Hi, nice to meet you, Dr. Forrester.” The humor in the man’s appearance was enough for Shane to forget about being angry that he had been kept waiting.

  “Come, come with me,” Dr. Forrester told him, leading him down the hallway. The little laboratory was located in an old strip mall that had gone belly-up. The walls had holes and raw unsanded white spackle and sheetrock mud splattered at random, as if someone had made a piss poor attempt at fixing them. There were filing cabinets, one Moesler safe with little green magnets on each drawer saying closed, books, and spiral-bound reports stacked all along the floor and on top of the cabinets.

  “Here we are.” Dr. Forrester pecked in some keys on a cipher-locked door, then swung the door open to a makeshift laboratory that was filled with workbenches, a Snap-on toolbox, a few computers with wires running from them into aluminum boxes, and rolls and rolls of what looked like orange sandwich wrap — Shane had already been to several composite armor companies and recognized it as Kapton, the polyimide material that was used in most of the next generation armor labs.