Meanwhile, from the mid-1960s to this present day, thinkers such as Maxwell W. Hunter have been studying the problems and possibilities of an orbital defense system. While most academic critics (and consequently, most of the media) have simply declared such a defense system impossible, undesirable, and too expensive, Max Hunter spent his time examining how such a system might work, and what it might mean for the world political situation.
I am indebted to Max Hunter for sharing his ideas with me; particularly for the concept of “active armor.” I have done violence to his ideas, I know, shaping them to the needs of the story. Such is the way of fiction.
Another concept that is important to this story came from the often-stormy letters column of Analog magazine more than twenty years ago. Before the first astronauts and cosmonauts went into space, the readers of Analog debated, vigorously, who would make the best candidates for duty aboard orbiting space stations. One of the ideas they kicked around was that submariners—men accustomed to cramped quarters, high tensions, and long periods away from home base—would be ideal for crewing a military space station.
So I “built” a space battle station that controls laser-armed satellites, and placed at its helm Commander J. W. Hazard, U.S. Navy (ret.), a former submarine skipper.
I gave him an international crew, in keeping with the conclusions I arrived at in Star Peace: Assured Survival, that the new technology of strategic defense satellites will lead to an International Peacekeeping Force (IPF) — a global police power dedicated to preventing war.
Once these ideas were in place, the natural thing was to test them. Suppose someone tried to subvert the IPF and seize the satellite system for his own nefarious purposes? Okay, make that not merely a political problem, but a personal problem for the story’s protagonist: Hazard’s son is part of a cabal to overthrow the IPF and set up a world dictatorship.
Now I had a story. All I had to do was start writing and allow the characters to “do their thing.”
The ideas were the easiest part of the task. As you can see, the ideas were all around me, for more than twenty years. There are millions of good ideas floating through the air all the time. Every day of your life brings a fresh supply of ideas. Every person you know is a walking novel. Every news event contains a dozen ideas for stories.
The really difficult part is turning those ideas into good stories. To bring together the ideas and the characters and let them weave a story — that is the real work of the writer. Very few people ask about that, yet that is the actual process of creativity. It’s not tough to find straw. Spinning straw into gold — that’s the great magical trick!
BATTLE STATION
by Ben Bova
We should avoid a dependence on satellites for wartime purposes that is out of proportion to our ability to protect them. If we make ourselves dependent upon vulnerable spacecraft for military support, we will have built an Achilles heel into our forces.
–Dr. Ashton Carter, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, April 1984
The key issue then becomes, is our defense capable of defending itself.
–Maxwell W. Hunter II, Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. Inc., February 26, 1979
The first laser beam caught them unaware, slicing through the station’s thin aluminum skin exactly where the main power trunk and air lines fed into the bridge.
A sputtering fizz of sparks, a moment of heart-wrenching darkness, and then the emergency dims came on. The electronics consoles switched to their internal batteries with barely a microsecond’s hesitation, but the air fans sighed to a stop and fell silent.
The four men and two women on duty in the bridge had about one second to realize they were under attack. Just enough time for the breath to catch in your throat, for the sudden terror to hollow out your guts.
The second laser hit was a high-energy pulse deliberately aimed at the bridge’s observation port. It cracked the impact-resistant plastic as easily as a hammer smashes an egg; the air pressure inside the bridge blew the port open. The six men and women became six exploding bodies spewing blood. There was not even time enough to scream.
The station was named Hunter, although only a handful of its crew knew why. It was not one of the missile-killing satellites, nor one of the sensor-laden observation birds. It was a command-and-control station, manned by a crew of twenty, orbiting some one thousand kilometers high, below the densest radiation zone of the inner Van Allen belt. It circled the Earth in about 105 minutes. By design, the station was not hardened against laser attack. The attackers knew this perfectly well.
Commander Hazard was almost asleep when the bridge was destroyed. He had just finished his daily inspection of the battle station. Satisfied that the youngsters of his crew were reasonably sharp, he had returned to his coffin-sized personal cabin and wormed out of his sweaty fatigues. He was angry with himself.
Two months aboard the station and he still felt the nausea and unease of space adaptation syndrome. It was like the captain of an ocean vessel having seasickness all the time. Hazard fumed inwardly as he stuck another timed-release medication plaster on his neck, slightly behind his left ear. The old one had fallen off. Not that they did much good. His neck was faintly spotted with the rings left by the medication patches. Still his stomach felt fluttery, his palms slippery with perspiration.
Clinging grimly to a handgrip, he pushed his weightless body from the mirrored sink to the mesh sleep cocoon fastened against the opposite wall of his cubicle. He zipped himself into the bag and slipped the terry-cloth restraint across his forehead.
Hazard was a bulky, dour man with iron-gray hair still cropped Academy-close, a weather-beaten squarish face built around a thrusting spadelike nose, a thin slash of a mouth that seldom smiled, and eyes the color of a stormy sea. Those eyes seemed suspicious of everyone and everything, probing, inquisitory. A closer look showed that they were weary, disappointed with the world and the people in it. Disappointed most of all with himself.
He was just dozing off when the emergency klaxon started hooting. For a disoriented moment he thought he was back in a submarine and something had gone wrong with a dive. He felt his arms pinned by the mesh sleeping bag, as if he had been bound by unknown enemies. He almost panicked as he heard hatches slamming automatically and the terrifying wailing of the alarms. The communications unit on the wall added its urgent shrill to the clamor.
The comm unit’s piercing whistle snapped him to full awareness. He stopped struggling against the mesh and unzippered it with a single swift motion, slipping out of the head restraint at the same time.
Hazard slapped at the wall comm’s switch. “Commander here,” he snapped. “Report.”
“Varshni, sir. CIC. The bridge is out. Apparently destroyed.”
“Destroyed?”
“All life-support functions down. Air pressure zero. No communications,” replied the Indian in a rush. His slightly singsong Oxford accent was trembling with fear. “It exploded, sir. They are all dead in there.”
Hazard felt the old terror clutching at his heart, the physical weakness, the giddiness of sudden fear. Forcing his voice to remain steady, he commanded, “Full alert status. Ask Mr. Feeney and Miss Yang to meet me at the CIC at once. I’ll be down there in sixty seconds or less.”
The Hunter was one of nine orbiting battle stations that made up the command-and-control function of the newly created International Peacekeeping Force’s strategic defense network. In lower orbits, 135 unmanned ABM satellites armed with multimegawatt lasers and hypervelocity missiles crisscrossed the Earth’s surface. In theory, these satellites could destroy thousands of ballistic missiles within five minutes of their launch, no matter where on Earth they rose from.
In theory, each battle station controlled fifteen of the ABM satellites, but never the same fifteen for very long. The battle stations’ higher orbits were deliberately picked so that the unmanned satellites passed through their field of view as they hurried by in their lower orbits. At the insistence
of the fearful politicians of a hundred nations, no ABM satellites were under the permanent control of any one particular battle station.
In theory, each battle station patrolled one ninth of the Earth’s surface as it circled the globe. The sworn duty of its carefully chosen international crew was to make certain that any missiles launched from that part of the Earth would be swiftly and efficiently destroyed.
In theory.
The IPF was new, untried except for computerized simulations and war games. It had been created in the wake of the Middle East Holocaust, when the superpowers finally realized that there were people willing to use nuclear weapons. It had taken the destruction of four ancient cities and more than 3 million lives before the superpowers stepped in and forced peace on the belligerents.
To make certain that nuclear devastation would never threaten humankind again, the International Peacekeeping Force was created. The Peacekeepers had the power and the authority to prevent a nuclear strike from reaching its targets. Their authority extended completely across the Earth, even to the superpowers themselves.
In theory.
Pulling aside the privacy curtain of his cubicle, Hazard launched himself down the narrow passageway with a push of his meaty hands against the cool metal of the bulkheads. His stomach lurched at the sudden motion and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
The Combat Information Center was buried deep in the middle of the station, protected by four levels of living and working areas plus the station’s storage magazines for water, food, air, fuel for the maneuvering thrusters, power generators, and other equipment.
Hazard fought down the queasy fluttering of his stomach as he glided along the passageway toward the CIC. At least he did not suffer the claustrophobia that affected some of the station’s younger crew members. To a man who had spent most of his career aboard nuclear submarines, the station was roomy, almost luxurious.
He had to yank open four airtight hatches along the short way. Each clanged shut automatically behind him.
At last Hazard floated into the dimly lit combat center. It was a tiny, womblike circular chamber, its walls studded with display screens that glowed a sickly green in the otherwise darkened compartment. No desks or chairs in zero gravity; the CIC’s work surfaces were chest-high consoles, most of them covered with keyboards.
Varshni and the Norwegian woman, Stromsen, were on duty. The little Indian, slim and dark, was wide-eyed with anxiety. His face shone with perspiration and his fatigues were dark at the armpits and between his shoulders. In the greenish glow from the display screens he looked positively ill. Stromsen looked tense, her strong jaw clenched, her ice-blue eyes fastened on Hazard, waiting for him to tell her what to do.
“What happened?” Hazard demanded.
“It simply blew out,” said Varshni. “I had just spoken with Michaels and D’Argencour when…when…”
His voice choked off.
“The screens went blank.” Stromsen pointed to the status displays. “Everything suddenly zeroed out.”
She was controlling herself carefully, Hazard saw, every nerve taut to the point of snapping.
“The rest of the station?” Hazard asked.
She gestured again toward the displays. “No other damage.”
“Everybody on full alert?”
“Yes, sir.”
Lieutenant Feeney ducked through the hatch, his eyes immediately drawn to the row of burning red malfunction lights where the bridge displays should have been.
“Mother of Mercy, what’s happened?”
Before anyone could reply, Susan Yang, the chief communications officer, pushed through the hatch and almost bumped into Feeney. She saw the displays and immediately concluded, “We’re under attack!”
“That is impossible!” Varshni blurted.
Hazard studied their faces for a swift moment. They all knew what had happened; only Yang had the guts to say it aloud. She seemed cool and in control of herself. Oriental inscrutability? Hazard wondered. He knew she was third-generation Californian. Feeney’s pinched, narrow-eyed face failed to hide the fear that they all felt, but the Irishman held himself well and returned Hazard’s gaze without a tremor.
The only sound in the CIC was the hum of the electrical equipment and the soft sighing of the air fans. Hazard felt uncomfortably warm with the five of them crowding the cramped little chamber. Perspiration trickled down his ribs. They were all staring at him, waiting for him to tell them what must be done, to bring order out of the numbing fear and uncertainty that swirled around them. Four youngsters from four different nations, wearing the blue-gray fatigues of the IPF, with colored patches denoting their technical specialties on their left shoulders and the flag of their national origin on their right shoulders.
Hazard said, “We’ll have to control the station from here. Mr. Feeney, you are now my Number One; Michaels was on duty in the bridge. Mr. Varshni, get a damage-control party to the bridge. Full suits.”
“No one’s left alive in there,” Varshni whispered.
“Yes, but their bodies must be recovered. We owe them that. And their families.” He glanced toward Yang. “And we’ve got to determine what caused the blowout.”
Varshni’s face twisted unhappily at the thought of the mangled bodies.
“I want a status report from each section of the station,” Hazard went on, knowing that activity was the key to maintaining discipline. “Start with…”
A beeping sound made all five of them turn toward the communications console. Its orange demand light blinked for attention in time with the angry beeps. Hazard reached for a handgrip to steady himself as he swung toward the comm console. He noted how easily the youngsters handled themselves in zero gee. For him it still took a conscious, gut-wrenching effort.
Stromsen touched the keyboard with a slender finger. A man’s unsmiling face appeared on the screen: light brown hair clipped as close as Hazard’s gray, lips pressed together in an uncompromising line. He wore the blue-gray of the IPF with a commander’s silver star on his collar.
“This is Buckbee, commander of station Graham. I want to speak to Commander Hazard.”
Sliding in front of the screen, Hazard grasped the console’s edge with both white-knuckled hands. He knew Buckbee only by reputation, a former U.S. Air Force colonel, from the Space Command until it had been disbanded, but before that he had put in a dozen years with SAC.
“This is Hazard.”
Buckbee’s lips moved slightly in what might have been a smile, but his eyes remained cold. “Hazard, you’ve just lost your bridge.”
“And six lives.”
Unmoved, Buckbee continued as if reading from a prepared script, “We offer you a chance to save the lives of the rest of your crew. Surrender the Hunter to us.”
“Us?”
Buckbee nodded, a small economical movement. “We will bring order and greatness out of this farce called the IPF.”
A wave of loathing so intense that it almost made him vomit swept through Hazard. He realized that he had known all along, with a certainty that had not needed conscious verification, that his bridge had been destroyed by deliberate attack, not by accident.
“You killed six kids,” he said, his voice so low that he barely heard it himself. It was not a whisper but a growl.
“We had to prove that we mean business, Hazard. Now surrender your station or we’ll blow you all to hell. Any further deaths will be on your head, not ours.”
Jonathan Wilson Hazard, captain, U.S. Navy (ret.). Marital status: divorced. Two children: Jonathan, Jr., twenty-six; Virginia Elizabeth, twenty. Served twenty-eight years in U.S. Navy, mostly in submarines. Commanded fleet ballistic-missile submarines Ohio, Corpus Christi, and Utah. later served as technical advisor to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as naval liaison to NATO headquarters in Brussels. Retired from the Navy after hostage crisis in Brussels. Joined the International Peacekeeping Force and appointed commander of orbital battle station Hunter.
“I
can’t just hand this station over to a face on a screen,” Hazard replied, stalling, desperately trying to think his way through the situation. “I don’t know what you’re up to, what your intentions are, who you really are.”
“You’re in no position to bargain, Hazard,” said Buckbee, his voice flat and hard. “We want control of your station. Either you give it to us or we’ll eliminate you completely.”
“Who the Hell is ‘we’?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“The Hell it doesn’t! I want to know who you are and what you’re up to.”
Buckbee frowned. His eyes shifted away slightly, as if looking to someone standing out of range of the video camera.
“We don’t have time to go into that now,” he said at last.
Hazard recognized the crack in Buckbee’s armor. It was not much, but he pressed it. “Well, you goddamned well better make time, mister. I’m not handing this station over to you or anybody else until I know what in hell is going on.”
Turning to Feeney, he ordered, “Sound general quarters. ABM satellites on full automatic. Miss Yang, contact IPF headquarters and give them a full report of our situation.”
“We’ll destroy your station before those idiots in Geneva can decide what to do!” Buckbee snapped.
“Maybe,” said Hazard. “But that’ll take time, won’t it? And we won’t go down easy, I guarantee you. Maybe we’ll take you down with us.” Buckbee’s face went white with fury. His eyes glared angrily.
“Listen,” Hazard said more reasonably, “you can’t expect me to just turn this station over to a face on a screen. Six of my people have been killed. I want to know why, and who’s behind all this. I won’t deal until I know who I’m dealing with and what your intentions are.”
There Will Be War Volume X Page 5
