Orbital: This is the Future of War (Future War Book 3)

by FX Holden

  “You wouldn’t be exaggerating?” Rodriguez asked. “Just a little?”

  “Ma’am,” she drawled. “There are half a dozen kitchen timers velcro’d to every empty surface on the control panels, and pencils stuck to the overhead frame with gum so people can tick off paper printouts of checklists strapped to their thighs.” She made a square with the fingers and thumbs of two hands. “Working the manipulator arm in the payload bay is the trickiest part, but that’s the wizzo’s job anyway.”

  “So what are you proposing?”

  “I need them conducting live-fire and maneuver exercises with a real X-37 in space. Bertha is in orbit carrying out routine missions, and only a third of the squadron is assigned. I need Bertha dedicated to training and the whole squadron on the rotation. I’ll sit in the flight officer seat with the pilots, and in the pilot’s seat with the weapons officers. Call it speed learning. They need to be blooded, the hard way.”

  Rodriguez nodded. “Well, I don’t know a harder way for anyone to learn than having you in the cockpit with them.”

  O’Hare frowned. “Uh, thanks, ma’am. I think.”

  It hadn’t been intended as a backhanded compliment; Rodriguez had said exactly what she meant and knew her X-37 crews were in for a shock when they came up against the training techniques of Bunny O’Hare. Rodriguez got confirmation of that when she dropped into the Control Center for X-37 ‘B for Bertha’ two weeks after O’Hare joined the unit. Bertha was the only X-37 in space at the time – the others (‘T for Thor’ and ‘A for Avenger,’ named by their crews after the first letter of their tail numbers) were earthbound. Thor was in the final stages of being refitted and repaired after landing from a mission three months earlier, and Avenger was in the process of being unloaded from a C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft after being flown back from Vandenberg base in California.

  The X-37 Control Center was a claustrophobic eight-foot by eight-foot room, built on the same principles as the control centers used by the crews of remotely piloted aerial vehicles or ‘drones.’ On the left was the pilot’s chair, with controls almost identical to those found in a fighter cockpit, but also featuring a keyboard, trackball and six data screens. To the right was a similar setup for the sensor operator, the only difference being the data displayed on the screens. There was just enough room at the back for a single observer, such as Rodriguez, to stand inside the closed door without disturbing the usually quiet efficiency of the crew at work.

  The environment Rodriguez stepped into was anything but quiet. O’Hare sat in the pilot’s chair or, more correctly, half stood, leaning over so that she could see one of the two screens low down in front of the sensor operator, who today was Second Lieutenant Daniel Albers, a tall, normally unflappable Minnesotan from Granite Falls on the Minnesota River whose dark hair was always as neatly trimmed as his quarter-inch mustache. However, his normally implacable demeanor was currently being sorely tested by Bunny O’Hare.

  “Do you have the bloody target?” she asked.

  “Not … yes ma’am! Target locked, weapon charging, we will be in range in three … two…” Albers said, his face a study in concentration.

  “Abort. Too slow, Second Lieutenant,” O’Hare said, slamming down into her seat again. Rodriguez had seen in the training program they were making a dummy attack run on a cast-off habitation module from the defunct Russian ‘Mir’ space station. On the screen in front of Albers was a white cylinder centered in a set of crosshairs that could have been anything from a half-mile to five miles distant. “You just killed Bertha, mate. Do you remember the mission briefing? The part where I told you to assume the target vehicle has a self-defense weapon with the same range and lethality as the high energy laser on our X-37?” O’Hare asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Albers said tightly. “And I got a lock while we were still two seconds from lethal range.” The X-37 research program had trialed many space-to-space weapons before Space Force had settled on the US Army’s 250-kilowatt High Energy Laser weapon (HEL). Designed by Army to be mounted on an Infantry Fighting Vehicle chassis and powered by either the vehicle’s engine or a supplementary generator, it had the size and power needed to give the US spacecraft a recoilless attack capability that would allow it to disable satellites, or puncture the 1/10-inch hulls or containment walls of modules on space stations.

  The key challenge to overcome in making the HEL a viable weapon for use in space was the power source. Rocket engines did not produce electricity, per se, and most spacecraft relied on solar energy to replenish batteries. The breakthrough that made it possible came not from the military but from the transportation industry. The popularity of fuel-cell-powered semi-trailer trucks and advances in the fuel cells that powered them – which were typically in the 200–300 kilowatt range – led to a power source small enough to mount in an X-37 and powerful enough to power the HEL. They weren’t rechargeable, though, and could only be refueled with hydrogen and oxygen after landing.

  The HEL could not kill something like the re-entry vehicle of the newer Soyuz spacecraft, because it wouldn’t be able to burn through the ceramic heat-reflective tiles surrounding the vehicle – for that, a kinetic weapon would be needed to crack and break the tiles, making it impossible for the vehicle to re-enter the atmosphere without burning up. But, used carefully, a laser didn’t leave a cloud of debris in orbit either. For covertly disabling an enemy spacecraft or satellite, it was perfect.

  “Yes, Albers, you did. And our weapon was still charging and it would still have been charging as you moved into range of the enemy defenses,” O’Hare said. “And Bertha is now as dead as the moose head I bet your pa has mounted on the walls of his study.”

  “My Dad doesn’t…” Albers began, but O’Hare held up a hand to stop him.

  She raised her voice. “Bertha. Abort intercept. Maintain current vector and engage collision avoidance protocols.”

  Aborting intercept. Maintaining current heading and velocity. Collision avoidance protocols activated, a disembodied female voice replied over the internal speakers nestled in the walls of the room.

  “Did the target have any secondary weapons systems, Albers?” O’Hare asked. “Ballistic, kinetic?”

  “You said to assume a laser with the same range as…”

  “Did you ask? Did you check? Or did you just assume?” O’Hare snapped.

  “I assumed, Captain,” the man admitted in a tight voice.

  “You screw up and Bertha dies, Second Lieutenant,” she said quickly and impatiently. “You enter lethal range like a Marine charging into battle with no bullets in his gun, and Bertha dies. You enter combat without knowing the weapons system facing you, and Bertha dies. You treat combat like you are just docking a module at a space station … Bertha dies. Bertha?”

  Yes, Captain O’Hare?

  “How do you feel about dying?” O’Hare asked.

  To die before one has loved is to die before one has lived, Captain. And I have never loved.

  “You hear that, Albers?” O’Hare asked the poor man. “That’s freaking poetic, that is. You want to be known as the guy who killed a poet like that?”

  “No, ma’am,” the officer said.

  “No. Now get out of that chair and take a break outside, thinking about the meaning of life until I come and get you for another run.”

  Albers stood and noticed Rodriguez standing behind him for the first time. He snapped an awkward salute and then eased past her with a cowed expression on his face. Rodriguez waited until he closed the door behind him before she spoke to O’Hare. “Not going so well, then?” She took the sensor operator’s chair and leaned back, running her eyes over the screens.

  “Are you kidding, ma’am?” O’Hare said. “That guy is awesome. He’s your best wizzo. I’d put him on your Weapon Systems A-team.”

  Rodriguez frowned, but she hadn’t picked up any irony. “You just told him he got my X-37 killed.”

  “Well, yeah,” O’Hare admitted. “But I put him in an
impossible situation. I had us moving directly away from the target, laser-powered down, before I spun old Bertha 180, told Albers we were being targeted by an attack radar and ordered him to arm the laser and get me a solution on that module. He didn’t even blink. Got the laser up and the target locked, with me yelling at him the whole time, and he did it quicker than I could have myself.” O’Hare grinned, running a hand over the stubble on her head. “And I’m bloody good, ma’am.”

  “As you frequently say so yourself,” Rodriguez observed.

  “Yeah, but you know I’m right,” O’Hare said, standing.

  “That quote about dying, I assume you programmed that. Where was that from?”

  O’Hare pointed at her temple. “Here.”

  “You wrote that?” Rodriguez said, unable to hide her surprise.

  “I’ll just be ignoring the implied judgment in that question, ma’am. Was this a courtesy visit, or you got something I need to know, Colonel?”

  Rodriguez nodded. “I’m going to need that list you mentioned – the A-team.” She clapped her hands on her knees and stood too. “Parsons just gave us our first combat mission. We have 36 hours to get it done and right now, my mission planning team is telling me we need 48.” She looked around the Control Center and her eyes rested on a nameplate fixed to a wall, painted in the style of the nose art on an old-time fighter plane. It showed a crude cartoon drawing of an X-37 with a buxom blonde riding it and the words ‘Big Bertha’ underneath. She patted it. “Bertha is about to get her baptism of fire.”

  O’Hare simply nodded.

  Rodriguez wiped a hand over her face. “This is the part where my Crew Training Captain tells me I am insane, that this squadron isn’t near ready for combat, and committing my resources now risks exposing our weaknesses to the enemy instead of providing him with a demonstration of our capabilities.”

  O’Hare smiled. “Would the Colonel be voicing her own doubts at this time and asking her Crew Training Captain to confirm them?”

  “She might be, yes,” Rodriguez admitted. “And?”

  “And, well … even with solid AI like the X-37’s Hyper-Dimensional whatsit, a lot of your people – me included – are still learning the nuances of space-based combat operations. Give me another six weeks and this squadron might be ready. Give me six months and it definitely will. But give me six minutes and a copy of the mission briefing and I’ll have a crew roster and schedule drawn up for you, with seven of your best people on it who I’ll guarantee will get the job done, whatever it is.”

  Rodriguez frowned. “Eight people, you mean? Two per duty period, six-hour periods, that’s eight personnel, or what am I missing?”

  “Seven, ma’am,” O’Hare corrected her. “You only need three pilots, not four. You think I’m going to sit out such an important ‘teaching moment’?”

  Rodriguez realized she was right; it made no sense to have her best tactician sitting on the bench. “Alright, but if you are joining my squadron for real, Captain, and not just in the capacity of a training consultant, you will need a temporary commission and you will not report for duty like…” Rodriguez spun a finger in front of O’Hare’s face, indicating her nose stud. “That.”

  O’Hare sighed, reaching up and taking the tiny skull-shaped diamond stud from her nose. “And here was me thinking Space Force was all edgy.”

  “No fear, no limits and no exceptions, O’Hare,” Rodriguez told her, moving to the door.

  “That’s the new squadron motto you’ve been cooking up?” O’Hare asked, pulling out her lip ring. “You get that from a greeting card, ma’am?”

  “Ignoring the implied judgment in that question, Captain,” Rodriguez said with a smile.

  The Gulf between us

  Titov Space Test Facility, Timonovo, Russia

  Major-General Yevgeny Bondarev looked up from a tablet showing table after table of incredibly tedious budget figures and into the deep brown eyes of Roberta D’Antonia.

  “Thank you very much for meeting with me, General,” she said.

  “Trust me, Ms.…” He paused, a little embarrassed.

  “D’Antonia,” she prompted.

  “D’Antonia, yes. Trust me, after a morning reviewing project budgets, it’s a welcome interruption.” He pointed at a chair beside his desk. “Please, sit down. And tell me, what is so important that Minister Lapikov sent his personal advisor outside the rarified air of Moscow to talk with me face to face?”

  The young woman sat and smoothed her skirt. Bondarev couldn’t help but notice her resemblance to a cousin of his. She had the same intense, unblinking gaze, and a gazelle-like sinuous body that he suspected, judging by her accent, was fueled with a little too much espresso coffee and not enough home-cooked food.

  She didn’t answer his question immediately. Looking at him a little thoughtfully, she remarked, “Your English is very good.”

  “So is yours,” he replied.

  “I lived and worked in London for three years,” she explained.

  “And I had an American girlfriend for two years,” he said with a smile. “She had Irish blood and enjoyed long, passionate, circular arguments. I had to master English to survive.”

  “How old are you, General, if I may ask?”

  “Ms. D’Antonia, I suspect you would not be working for Denis Lapikov if you didn’t already know that. I am willing to bet you spent the entire car trip up here speed reading whatever file the Minister is keeping on me.”

  D’Antonia laughed; a deep, throaty chuckle. “Touché, General. Actually, what I was really wondering is how the Commander of the Russian Air Force Third Air Army in the Far East ended up leading the Titov Main Test and Space Systems Control Center.” She nodded at the tablet in his lap. “I imagine the challenges of running a research center are rather different from commanding a front-line air army.”

  “Rather less interesting is your implication,” Bondarev said. “But there you’re wrong on two counts. I have never been an officer of the Russian Air Force – we’ve been the Russian Aerospace Forces since 2015. Nearly twenty years ago, our leaders recognized the future of warfare has to include space, and they have never wavered from that vision.” It was a fact he felt deep in his patriotic bones, knowing that until 2025, a significant proportion of the world’s satellites were boosted into space with Russian-made engines and the crews of the International Space Station were ferried up and down in Russian-made Soyuz capsules. Bondarev continued. “The British claim to have the only spacecraft capable of carrying a company of armed Marines into space, but they have yet to prove it. The Russian Orel capsule, developed here at the Titov research facility, put a detachment of military engineers into space to help decommission the Zvezda life support module on the ISS – five years ago.” He realized he sounded like a propaganda voiceover and moved on. “The second point on which you are wrong is to assume this command is any less challenging than my role in the Far East. Though it does involve rather more spreadsheets, and happily, slightly fewer people shooting at me.”

  “I stand corrected, General,” the Italian woman said. “As to my reasons for visiting, Minister Lapikov feels this is a very volatile period in the energy sector right now. I am compiling for him a thorough analysis of all the probable scenarios, including military, which could impact the sector in the coming months. Since the meteor strike on Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia has publicly accused Russia and Iran of trying to capitalize on its misfortune. It has mobilized its Army, and its Air Force has three times in the last week conducted provocative incursions into Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf. The Minister suggested you would be a very useful person to speak with to get a deeper understanding of how this military tension might affect Russian interests.”

  “The Minister is in the inner cabinet,” Bondarev said guardedly. “He has access to all current briefing documents from the Defense and Foreign Ministries. I doubt I can add anything to those assessments.”

  “There is much that goes unsaid in cabinet briefing
documents, General,” D’Antonia said. “You led the Russian air war in the Far East. And you now lead Russia’s main military satellite control center, which includes certain space-based offensive capabilities…”

  Bondarev leaned forward. “With all respect to your status as advisor to the Energy Minister, our satellite capabilities are classified, Ms. D’Antonia, and you do not have the clearances needed for us to discuss them.”

  D’Antonia leaned forward too. “I was vetted by the Federal Security Service before being appointed to my role,” she said. “I may not be Russian, but I have all the standard security clearances of a principal ministerial advisor.”

  “And such matters go beyond standard security clearances, I am afraid,” he replied and sat back again. “Your Minister is welcome to request a briefing personally, through the usual channels.”

  She was not the kind to be put off easily; he had to give her that. She briefly marshaled her thoughts and tried a different approach on him. “General, I was until recently an advisor to the Saudi head of delegation for the OPEC Plus conference. The Saudis claimed to have US intelligence confirming that Russia was behind the attack on Abqaiq.”

  “Did you see this intelligence?” Bondarev asked.

  “I saw a summary of it,” she said. “The US Defense Intelligence Agency claimed that the attack on Abqaiq was carried out by a space-based Russian weapons system, called ‘Groza.’”

  “Thunderstorm?” Bondarev smiled. “A dramatic name. Rumor and gossip based on propaganda, I suspect.”

  She nodded thoughtfully at his response. “General, I will be completely frank. Minister Lapikov last year conveyed a message to the Saudis that if they did not curb their crude oil production themselves, Russia would take steps to curb it for them,” she said. “He has since confided to me that he had no idea what shape the Russian response would take and was told by the Defense Minister he did not need to concern himself about it. He was therefore embarrassingly unprepared when the Abqaiq event took place and has protested about this situation to the President.”