Doctor Aaron Gulotta had stopped in for a cup of coffee. “Cautery loop,” he said.
The three men stopped and looked at him. “What did you say?”
“Cautery loop. It's an instrument that we use to cut off small growths—skin tags and such—while sealing off the blood vessels with heat. I was thinking, why not get some nice aluminum pipe, pump pressurized hot water through it, and use that as a cautery loop to cut off the end?”
Jeff stared at the other men. “Uh.”
Aaron was laughing at the dumbstruck looks on the others' faces. He pumped his squeeze bulb full of hot coffee. “Take care gentlemen.” He floated out of the galley, leaving the three men scribbling furiously on their tablets.
“How about this?” said Jeff. “Put the pipe right in the middle of the reactor heat exchangers, the water gets superheated, pump the water down the pipe, through the cut on the comet, then over to the next ship's heat exchanger, gets hot all over again, pump it back through the other side of the cut, and back to the first ship. Crank up the pressure for more heat.”
Duane reached his hand out, waving for attention. “Or, and this might be fun, run a single dead-end line, but with holes in it, and have the escaping steam directly drill into the ice. Might go even faster.”
The men batted the idea around for about fifteen minutes, then called Mike Standish over to approve the SuperLoop.
***
The SuperLoop cut the tail off quickly. A remotely controlled RTG thruster moved the chunk off to the side. The core of the comet turned out to be solid water ice, much to the relief of everyone. The crew reused a portion of the SuperLoop to steam out a central cavern where Ivan and Niall installed the large nuclear engine.
“I always wondered why they sent us pipes,” said Benjamin. “McCrary thought of everything.” Enormous aluminum pipes, ten meters long with meter-thick walls, made up several loads. Men sweated in their spacesuits, maneuvering the massive items up the bored hole between the nuclear engine and the rear of Eighty-two. A set of large gimbals and a conical bell completed the main thruster for the comet.
“Now, we slag it into position,” said Jeff. Lasers drilled through the pipe walls and into the ice beyond, and crew welded aluminum bracing in place. Layer after layer of lunar fiberglass, liberally laced with carbon nanotube stiffening, filled the voids between the pipes and the ice. The cutoff end of the comet was melted into a single large ball of water, then pumped into the area around the wrapped pipe, fixing it solidly in place.
The fitting out of Eighty-two into a giant spaceship took five months, start to finish.
***
“Spin is zero, sir,” said Benjamin. “Ready to launch.”
Captain Smithson held onto a strut as he looked over his astrogator's shoulder. “Align with our target.”
Thrusters at the head of the comet shoved pearly white gas at the cosmos. Eighty-two swung slowly to one side as it lined up with the path of the iron-nickel asteroid that was their final target. “Thirteen minutes, fifteen seconds until alignment complete, sir.”
“Thank you. I'll watch from here.” Roger Smithson watched all the indicators as the comet ponderously tilted to the correct heading.
The steam stopped blasting out of the attitude thruster around the seven-minute mark. The engine bell swung ponderously around as the thruster reversed alignment. At eight minutes, the thruster fired again, canceling the swinging movement to bring it dead in space.
“Alignment complete,” said Benjamin. “We are within two arc-seconds of the correct alignment. This is within the gimbaling correction available on the main engine. Permission to begin the main burn.”
“Hold,” said Commander Smithson. “Let me check in with all departments on the results of that last maneuver.
Smithson plugged into the intercom. “Engineering. Results from the last burn. Other departments, prepare similar reports.”
“Engineering, Gatson here. No damage to the ships. Strain exceeded recommended level at the start of the countering thrust, but it was a momentary peak. We should go check out the attitude thruster during the free flight portion of the trip.”
“Thank you, Engineering. Radio Systems.”
Mickey Donovan answered. “Photophone alignment maintained throughout. No loss on incoming Collins data. No contact with Earth. Intercoms and all data channels patent.”
“Life Support.”
Department after department reported, with universally positive results. A couple of things had broken, some items had gotten loose during thrusting and drifted through the air before a crewman chased them down and put them away.
Commander Smithson conferred with Commander Standish for a few moments before turning to Benjamin.
“Mr. Zabor, resume the launch.”
It took fifteen minutes before there was sufficient meltwater to fire the main engine, but the actual start of thrust was anticlimactic. No roar, no sudden press of acceleration. Just a whooshing sound that grew in intensity, and a gentle push in one direction, and the knowledge that the vaporized ice of C/2082 D4 (PanSTARRS) was blasting out in one direction as they slowly moved the other way.
Earth Defense Operations
EDO Headquarters, Kitzingen, Germany, August 7 2083, 1832 CET
Subby was nothing if not grateful for the Russian's nuclear missile glitch. It took the heat off the search for him. He was wandering the streets in Hyderabad, still in a surgical mask but not for camouflage. Most of the people were walking around with surgical masks on to filter out the omnipresent dust, mixed with offal and fecal material, animal and human alike. If you didn't have a mask on, you risked inhaling the dust. Unless one lived in the city, or had a massive number of inoculations, then months of illness to the pathogens in the dust were guaranteed. Thus, the masks.
Subraman was shoved aside. “Make way!” called out a guard, as a motorcade ground slowly towards him. He bridled automatically, and the guard's eyes widened in pleasure at the prospect of dealing out pain to the insufficiently servile.
Subby pressed his hate down and gave ground. This constant reminder of his lost caste position was almost as painful to him as the constant news bulletins reminding people to be on the lookout for him.
He turned to look at the storefront behind him. Electronics retailer. Televisions of every make and model were on sale. Some kind of news conference was on. He was in the process of turning his head when he saw that face. Lisa Daniels! Damn that woman! He crowded closer to the storefront, reading the scrolling chyrons at the bottom of the screen, waiting for a translation into one of the languages he understood. There!
“Commander Daniels has accepted the nomination of the Russian Ambassador for the office of Chairwoman of Earth Defense. If she is ratified at the upcoming Security Council meeting, which everyone agrees is a mere formality, Commander Daniels will be in charge of more nuclear ICBMs than any government on the face of the planet.”
Subraman was stunned. How did this happen? What was her game? How did she engineer this?
One thing was certain—he could not let this occur. Lisa Daniels was the one who had defied his orders to remain aboard the Chaffee, somehow piloted those rattletrap ERVs down to the Earth, and didn't lose a single crewman except for that arrogant Spaniard, Zacarías. She was the reason he had to skulk down the streets of India instead of riding proudly like panjandrum in the motorcade.
It was an insult not to be borne. He had to figure out a way to stop it. He realized with a smile that he finally had a purpose in life.
***
Panjar was crawling under the console of the assistant fire controller, troubleshooting a sporadic outage in the illumination circuit.
“There, now, Lumie. Where are you having a problem?” he murmured to the inanimate metal box. “Tell Panjar, and I'll fix you up, right as rain.”
The tech sitting in the chair in front of the console twirled a finger around his temple.
“I wouldn't do that, you know,” said Franz Stei
nman. “Panjar can fix anything. I just don't know how he does it.”
“You have to know these machines feel,” said the voice of Panjar from deep inside the console. “They want to work and help us, but sometimes they have problems that they can't fix themselves. Now, Lumie, is this wire okay? Ow!”
“I take it as a yes?” said the tech with a grin.
“Hand me about twenty centimeters of sixteen gauge, please,” said Panjar, sticking his hand out from under the console. “Now, Lumie, I'm going to have to turn you off for a little bit. Don't worry, I have to replace a wire, then you'll be good to go.”
“Nuts,” said the tech, measuring the wire, then stripping off the insulation. “Need a soldering iron?”
“Yes, but first, please go through the formal shutdown procedure.”
“Why, when I can just do this?” said the tech, hitting the power switch. “Shut down, and we don't have to spend a minute closing off all the running processes.”
“Oh, Lumie, Lumie! He didn't know. I'm sorry.” The tech handed Panjar the wire, and a moment later, the soldering iron, and Panjar made the connection, muttering apologies to the console the entire time.
“We're dealing with nuclear weapons here, and this goofball is on the team?” the tech asked Steinman. “Next thing you know, he'll be crooning to the neutrons.”
“You really don't understand,” said Panjar from inside. “Hang on, Lumie, you'll be back on soon.”
The tech smirked as the monologue continued from inside the console.
“There. Now, please, back away from the console. I want to turn Lumie on for myself.”
The tech stood up and let the slight Indian man sit in the chair. “I hope you didn't cause any damage,” said Panjar, and he patted the keyboard and rubbed the sides of the console. He slowly and carefully flipped the power switch on.
The bootup process proceeded, then stopped at a particular point, noting that the last shutdown was unexpected and requested a disk cleanup process be run.
“Bad, bad, bad,” said Panjar. “I understand, Lumie. Go ahead and fix yourself.”
Steinman had seen enough. He left the room and sought out John Hodges.
***
“Boss, we have an issue.”
John Hodges pushed away his keyboard. “Join the club, Head. We have lots of issues.”
“Um, sir, I'd prefer not to be called 'Head'.”
John looked closely at Franz. “I thought it was a compliment, like Brains or Chief.”
“No, sir. Some wag thought I had a large head. The other spacehands heard it and it's been 'Head' ever since. I look on it as an insult.”
John stood up somewhat formally. “I apologize, Mr. Steinman, for my inappropriate use of the name. I will endeavor never to call you by it in the future.” He stopped when Franz put up a hand.
“Sir, stop. I know you don't mean anything by it. I just wanted to tell you about it, that's all. I'm not offended. Now, I need to tell you about the issue, and get back to work.”
John smiled, shook his hand, and sat down. “Let's get to it, then. What's on your mind?”
Steinman told John the story of the tech, including the lack of respect the tech showed to the senior engineer. “I thought you ought to know about it, sir.”
“Not a good thing. Well, thanks for telling me. I can't say what will happen, and, really, I shouldn't. Personnel, you know. Privacy. Still, thank you for telling me. Panjar is worth five times his weight in techs. I'll figure out some way of demonstrating that to our unbeliever. Anything else?”
“No, sir. Thanks.” Steinman exited.
***
The troubles with the equipment were resolved quickly once Panjar was on the case. The irreverent tech was assigned to remain with Panjar, but required to keep his comments to himself. Over time, and despite himself, he converted over to Panjar's point of view. He couldn't explain exactly how the little man could get machinery he had never seen before to work beyond specifications, but he soon adopted Panjar's methods, albeit silently.
Other issues were a lot thornier, particularly the relations between nations. Lisa bumped those up to Mrs. vanDeHoog to solve—she was more worried about getting operational as soon she could than stroking some aggrieved government or military official.
The Bavarian operation soon settled down as the electronic links between deep space radars and the kaserne solidified. The links to national launch facilities were a bit trickier, but over time, the diplomats and technicians established one-way protocols that allowed for the pumping of guidance data to the missiles in their silos without compromising the national security of any nation, all the while allowing national vetoes of individual launches.
***
“Target,” called Olaf Skjornsen. The UN had retrained all of the former spacehands of the Chaffee to become console watchers in the previous three months. “Impact point uncertain, location Ural Mountains of the Ukraine.”
Celine keyed her microphone. “Acknowledged. Give me minimum time to reentry and maximum.”
“Min of two hours fifteen, three orbits, and max of five hours, fifteen, seven orbits.”
“Thank you, Olaf. Working the solution.” Celine copied the orbital parameters from Olaf's screen into her 'Find-a-silo' program. She chuckled at the name, because she was the one to suggest it. The program fumphered around, seeking the optimal solution between the desired corrective impulse, the missile that could deliver it, and the location of such a missile, all the while taking into account the delicate calculus that demanded that the weapons in the inventory be expended equally so as to leave no nation at a disadvantage to any other nation.
It sounded far more difficult than it was. Most nations, like the United States, Russia, and China, had so much inventory that a shortage of ten missiles meant little to them in terms of national security, but for India or Israel, the loss of so many missiles could well be catastrophic. Mostly, then, when these small fish came up, they usually vetoed the launch of a missile until they had a replacement missile ready to load into the vacant silo.
“Target and Solution,” Celine announced on her circuit. She read out a series of missile identifiers. Lisa listened carefully. Good. One silo farm each from the Big Three, with single missiles from second tier countries like Britain and France.
Lisa keyed up the solution from Celine's screen. If they did nothing, the chunk of lunar rock would definitely impact. After the nuclear weapon detonated, the blast would boost the rock into a much higher orbit, with impact delayed for at least another fifty years. Best we could ask for with such crude hammers like nukes.
“Solution approved,” Lisa replied. “Give me a three-minute warning.” She looked at the first firing time. Fifteen minutes. She went into her tiny washroom and ensured her appearance was the best possible under the circumstances. Each of these intercepts took place under the eyes of the internet. A number of fanboys and fangirls watched every one of her appearances.
“Three minutes, Commander Daniels!”
Showtime.
***
“Commander on deck,” said Celine.
“As you were,” Lisa said automatically. Nobody moved. Standing orders were to remain at your console unless the building was actually on fire.
“Status,” Lisa asked.
“We're at T-ninety seconds, ma'am. FAS has picked a Chinese missile as primary. The target has a rapidly-precessing orbit, with a perigee that translates some thirty degrees around the planet with each orbit. Perigee occurs over China on this pass, and we'd rather hit the rock now.”
“Continue the countdown.”
Celine took up the chant. “We are at T-20 and counting as the silo hatch cover has been moved aside. The sirens are on. T-10. Solid rocket heaters are on, the umbilical is primed for detachment. Five, four, three, we have ignition, and liftoff.”
The on-ground camera, part of the feed from the missile silo field, showed a sudden blast of exhaust gasses from the flame trench, then a flash of
fire as the missile ejected from the silo, then nothing.
All eyes switched to the radar imagery. A fast-moving blob appeared on monitors, moving along a dotted line that showed the preferred trajectory. The blob accelerated, moving faster and faster up the calculated line to the predetermined point where detonation was to occur.
“D-30 seconds,” announced Celine.
“D-25. Weapons package has unlocked on cue. The weapon is receiving enhancement at this time.” Enhancement, usually in the form of helium-3 or other fusion augmenter, was injected into the reaction area to conserve fissile materials while still achieving a strong detonation.
“D-15. Permissive action links are armed, the package is ready for final detonation commands.
“Ten. Package confirms readiness to fire. Trajectory nominal. Target has entered range.
“Five, four, three, two, one, detonation.” On the screens, the radar fuzzed out into an incoherent blob of green.
“Observers report detonation,” called Skjornsen. “Awaiting EMP dissipation before we can conduct measurements.”
The slow minutes ticked by while the free electrons swirled in the vacuum of space. All eyes swiveled to Skjornsen as he keyed different filters into place, attempting some combination that would show the big chunk of rock along with data on its orbit.
Finally, some reliable data came through. “Initial solution,” called Skjornsen. “Apogee raised forty-five kilometers. Impact has been delayed for at least twenty years. Good shoot.”
Dead Men Flying Page 14
