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

by FX Holden

  Orbital

  Titov Space Test Facility, Timonovo, Russia

  Anastasia Grahkovsky took the earpiece out of her ear that had been carrying a recorded audio feed from the Baikonur control center and put it down beside the smashed porcelain that had until a few minutes ago been her favorite teacup.

  It hadn’t been an accident. She had been holding the cup in one hand as she spoke with Major-General Bondarev on her cell phone with the other. She had listened to him politely. She had hung up on him calmly. And then she had thrown her cup down onto the coffee table in front of her with such fury that she heard pieces of it strike the window six feet away.

  The Americans had attacked one of her Grozas! A clumsy, inelegant approach, but it could have worked. At her request, the designers had given the fuel compartments of the Groza heat shielding, but if the laser had managed to heat the outer casing sufficiently, enough energy could have been released to nudge the satellite out of orbit if the Americans had not been detected and counter-attacked. They had taken many precautions to ensure her babies were not sent into the cold dark of space without the ability to look after themselves, but would they be enough? Right there and then, she decided to assume not.

  It was 11.30 a.m. on a rainy, gray Sunday morning in Moscow, but she rarely bothered to check the weather report because it made no difference to her whether it was cloudy or sunny, and she was not given to long outdoor walks so cared even less if there was rain, sleet or snow in the air. But she had the window of her apartment open and had sat in a chair near the window so she could feel the chill breeze which suited perfectly her already dark mood.

  She took herself back to the audio she had been listening to and put her earpiece back in. What it was, was astrophysical pornography. She hadn’t been listening to the babbling replay of the commentary of the uniformed monkey men in the control center with their countdowns and their shouted confirmation of orders and mindless whoops of delight. She had downloaded an audio rendition of the trajectory data from the Groza guidance system as the huge tungsten warheads dropped off their hub, were boosted away by the Sarmat re-entry vehicle, and dropped through the atmosphere.

  She had a braille printout of the trajectory the Titov AIs had calculated her warheads should follow, and measured the deviations, small and large, running her finger down the page as radar tracked the warheads up until the moment they split into hundreds of smaller wedge-shaped missiles.

  You did it again, Corporal Khan, she thought to herself. She ran the tape through her fingers again. You shrunk the footprint this time. Perhaps you think your little tin medal will protect you?

  The man intrigued her. If he was a conscientious objector, why did he not refuse to serve? He’d taken a posting to the ballistic missile forces, for God’s sake! And suddenly, he was squeamish? “Oh, they will bury you if you compromised this attack,” she murmured out loud. It was strange, but she almost felt sorry for him.

  She reached over to her laptop and tapped a few keys to bring up a new audio feed – the satellite intel on the damage assessment.

  She whistled. You lucky, lucky man. Hit the bridge, shattered the dam, wiped out half of downtown Korla and turned the primary target into molten slag. Another glorious attack for the motherland, another successful strike by Corporal Khan. She could almost hear his response if she challenged him in front of his superiors. “Yes, Comrade Chief Scientist. I tightened the strike zone in order to achieve a greater concentration of firepower in a smaller area. I was worried that the reinforced concrete of the bridge and dam would prove too strong if we spread the strike over a greater area.” He would shuffle his feet in that annoying way he had. “I realize I did not have the authority to change the mission parameters. I am sorry.”

  And he would get away with it because, like Abqaiq, the strike was a complete success.

  She looked at the bomb damage report again, her eyes skipping over the casualty estimate without causing her pause. It was just another number. Those who had died were not in pain; they deserved no sympathy. Those who were injured could not have been injured any worse than her, and she had survived. She had survived without eyes, lived a lifetime with constant searing pain all over her body, without needing sympathy. The casualties in Korla would either deal with their injuries as she had done, or not, and if they did not, then they were weak, and she had only contempt for them.

  She lifted a cell phone from the coffee table by her sofa and toyed with it a while, then spoke a number into it.

  “Hello, Captain Kozytsin, this is Chief Scientist Grahkovsky,” she said when a voice came on the other end. “Yes, very satisfactory. You are to be congratulated. Yes, yes … look, I am hoping you can despatch one of your men to Titov to help the program here. His name is Khan, Corporal Khan. He is on the Groza targeting squad and…” She wiggled her toes, enjoying the feel of the cold air passing over them. “Yes, yes, he is. That is why we … well, thank you. No, one week should be more than sufficient. We just want his help to run some simulations. Tomorrow would be fine. Your staff can tell him to report to me at Titov when he arrives. Thank you, Captain.”

  Grahkovsky cut the call and as she put the cell phone back on the table she heard a small insect buzz into the air. It must have come through the window, landed on the coffee table, and been disturbed as she put her phone back down. Cocking her head, she listened to it as it rose into the air and started buzzing around her head. Fingers open, ready to snap shut, she brought her left hand up to her left ear and then, as it passed her head, she snatched it out of the air.

  It batted against the walls of her clenched palm and she reached in with her right forefinger and thumb and pulled it carefully out. She figured that if it was a bee or wasp, it would already have stung her. Hmmm. Bigger than a fly, smaller than a cockroach, though. She held it down on her palm with one fingernail and ran the tip of her forefinger over it. Two small antennae. Flat head, round body, hard carapace. Longer legs and too big to be a ladybug. She took a guess. Order‎: ‎Coleoptera. Family‎: ‎Scarabaeidae. Genus‎: ‎Melolontha. A khrushch or cockchafer bug.

  It squirmed as she kept it clenched in her palm and reached for her cell phone again, opened her hand to snap a photo of it and pulled the photo up. “Image search. Object, insect, identify,” she said to her phone.

  “Searching. The object in the image is a leather beetle, Osmoderma eremita,” her search assistant said.

  No, too small, unless it’s newly hatched, she thought. She crushed it under her nail and lifted it to her nose to smell it. Yes, okay. Smell of musty leather. Osmoderma eremita it was. Or had been.

  She wiped the bug from her palm and sat back in her chair, arms behind her head.

  You and I are going to talk, Corporal Khan, she promised him, wherever in Baikonur his pacifist ass was at that moment. She imagined meeting him again. Drink, and talk. Maybe screw. But mostly talk.

  Grahkovsky was a very protective mother. And she had ensured her babies were sent into space with a prodigious ability to defend themselves.

  Weighing nearly ninety tons, of which eighty were taken up by its tungsten projectiles, the rest of the satellite’s mass comprised complex electronics, solar panels, engines and propellant for the vectoring thrusters and, of course, the electro-optical targeting system for the twin 30mm autocannon close-in weapons. However, all that still left nearly two tons of mass to be explained, none of which was shown on the early prototype plans stolen and delivered to the US intelligence services by its now-deceased agent.

  Bunny O’Hare and Meany Papastopoulos were about to learn exactly how that mass had been allocated.

  Their superiors had sorted out mission protocols and the decision had fallen in O’Hare’s favor. Colonel Rodriguez had agreed with Squadron Leader Bear that she would have overall control of Space Force assets for the mission, with O’Hare subordinate to her. Bear had agreed with his own superiors to place his Skylon under her command and told Meany he and O’Hare would be taking their order
s from Rodriguez during the mission.

  “You will follow Captain O’Hare’s direction unless I tell you otherwise,” Bear had said privately. “But I am going to be sitting on your shoulder like a parrot on a pirate, Flight Lieutenant, and if you hear me whisper in your shell-like, you will not be in any doubt about who to obey.”

  “No, sir, none at all,” Meany had responded. He was simply happy that he hadn’t been made subordinate to that insufferable Australian.

  As he sat in his command trailer, it was still light outside. This time of year, the sun didn’t set until about 2230 hours. Were he a civilian, he’d probably be kicking back in a beer garden with his mates about now, perhaps having a wager on the ponies and being told yet again why supporting anyone in the Scottish football league except Rangers could get him knifed in a dark alley in Lossie. He’d mistakenly assumed that since Aberdeen was the closest city, he should support Aberdeen, but after a couple of good fights, he’d learned not to make assumptions about Scottish football (but he still cheered for Aberdeen because, hell, Meany loved a good scrap).

  “Angus, coming up on rendezvous, let me know when you get a solid handshake from Bertha,” he said.

  Approaching operational telemetry range, Flight Lieutenant. Handshake in three minutes ten seconds.

  With a sense of apprehension, Meany opened a secure comms channel to the X-37 that was still just a dot on his radar screen. “US Space Force B for Bertha, this is RAF Skylon, how do you hear me?”

  There was some static as Angus locked onto the signal and then the Australian brogue filled his cockpit. “B for Bertha, RAF Skylon, welcome to the party. I’m showing telemetry at 98 percent nominal and we’re ready to synch data on your mark.”

  A second voice joined the first inside his helmet. A much nicer, smooth midwestern US accent. “Flight Lieutenant Papastopoulos, this is Colonel Rodriguez. What is your status?”

  The Skylon launch and transit to the combat area had been unproblematic. All systems were nominal. His bird was as ready for the coming fight as it would ever be.

  “Skylon is five by five, ma’am,” he reported.

  “Glad to hear it, Lieutenant. There are no changes to your mission orders. You will synch data and proceed to your jump-off point. Once engaged, you will take your lead from Captain O’Hare. Do you have any questions?”

  “No, ma’am,” Meany said.

  “Good luck and Godspeed, Lieutenant,” she said.

  He had completely forgotten Paddington was standing right behind him, and nearly jumped when the man patted his shoulder.

  “Break a leg, pilot,” Bear said. Meany could hear but not see him, as his head was immersed in his virtual reality rig.

  Meany called up his tactical screen, which at the moment was only showing the US spacecraft. The mission called for the X-37 to maintain a passive targeting lock on the Russian satellite using its optical and infrared targeting system. It would pass that data to the Skylon now, and Meany would maneuver into position for a missile launch.

  Then the mission would enter its most dangerous phase. The smaller X-37 would actively begin radiating energy from its phased array radar system to solidify its lock on the Groza. If the satellite had a radar warning receiver, then alarm bells would start ringing somewhere in Russia. If they could, they might try to jam Bertha, or even engage the X-37 with a ground-launched anti-satellite missile. Their strategy was intended to focus any defensive countermeasures on the nimbler X-37, leaving the bigger Skylon alone to send its missiles at the Groza.

  His advanced short-range multispectral seeker space-to-space missiles should be impossible for a monster like the Groza to evade. If it tried to jam or fired radar decoys, the missile would switch to its infrared seeker. If it fired heat flares, the missiles were smart enough to realize what they were looking at, and would switch to optical targeting. There was no air resistance or gravity to help the Groza dodge the Skylon’s missiles. If Bertha could get a lock and send them on their way, the Groza was toast. The box launcher in his payload bay carried six missiles, which could be fired individually or salvoed in any combination. His operations order called for firing the missiles in staggered-pair volleys, one second apart.

  We have telemetry lock, Lieutenant. I am ready to accept targeting data, Angus told him.

  “Skylon, Bertha. I confirm telemetry nominal. You are go for handshake.”

  In a second, the icon for the Groza on the tactical screen on the heads up display in his virtual reality helmet went from red to flashing yellow. The stage was set.

  He was still eighty miles from the Russian satellite, but he couldn’t help feel a shiver. It had already tried to kill him once.

  Data from the X-37 is streaming, real-time decryption and validation within operational limits. We have data synch, Lieutenant.

  “That’s great, Angus. You can move us to the launch point. Maintain posture D4, please.”

  Posture D4 confirmed, Lieutenant. Moving to launch point alpha.

  He had just ordered Angus to begin vectoring to the attack point, 120 degrees behind the Groza relative to the US X-37 and on the blind side of its ventral 30mm cannon. The Groza could easily maneuver to bring its weapons to bear, but that would take it precious seconds.

  Lieutenant, for future reference, it would be a relatively simple matter for me to communicate directly with the AI on the US spacecraft. This would cut communications time and eliminate all risk of human error.

  “Thanks, Angus, I’ll bear that in mind. You focus on piloting the ship, please.”

  Acknowledged.

  Did Angus sound a little hurt? He was pretty sure he hadn’t coded that.

  “Bertha, Skylon. Were you planning on letting me know you were already moving to attack point alpha at some point, Lieutenant?” the Australian asked, a little edge in her voice.

  “Sorry about that, Captain. I was in dialogue with my AI. Confirm, moving to attack point alpha.” He hit some keys. “Opening payload bay doors, powering up and deploying missile launch module. Weapons hot in … Angus?”

  Launcher will be fully deployed and missiles armed in twenty-three seconds, Lieutenant.

  “… weapons hot in twenty-two seconds. On station in, uh, seventeen minutes twenty seconds, Bertha.”

  “Feel free to let me know when you are, Skylon. Bertha out.” O’Hare said.

  He muted the interservice channel.

  “On second thoughts, Angus, maybe next time you can talk to her,” Meany said.

  In her own ‘cockpit’ 1,114 miles away, O’Hare also muted her interservice comms. “Bloody prat,” she said, not even trying to keep it under her breath. Albers shot her a glance but kept his eyes on his instruments.

  “O’Hare,” Rodriguez sighed. She had joined her crew in the X-37 command center at Morrell Operations Center at the Cape, but had told Severin and Zeezee they would need to follow the mission from up in the MOC situation room. She knew how thick the atmosphere could get in a drone’s virtual cockpit under combat conditions, especially with O’Hare in the chair.

  “Well, seriously, ma’am. Skylon is five by five? He saw that in a movie or something. Who actually says that?”

  “You did, once, Captain,” Albers said, without looking at her.

  Both Rodriguez and O’Hare turned to look at him, but he had his head in his screens, and his face was blank.

  “Yeah, maybe, but I would have been joking. Jeez, don’t they have irony in Minnesota?” O’Hare asked.

  “It’s all in the delivery, ma’am,” Albers said.

  “Fair enough. Status on the target?”

  “Tracking true to projected orbit, ma’am,” the Minnesotan said. “I have a good lock on infrared with the sun on its upper front quarter. We are five by five.”

  “Attempt at humor noted, Lieutenant Albers. Our position?” O’Hare asked.

  Albers checked a readout. “One nine five point zero seven miles off the southern tip of Greenland, inbound Nova Scotia, ma’am. You can see it ou
t your port view.”

  O’Hare turned her head. Both she and Albers were wearing a light VR rig that projected a single screen onto a see-through glass in front of her left eye, while her right was free to focus on the 2D multifunction screens in front of her. She flicked through the views so that the VR was showing the view from Bertha’s port earthside camera and she saw the huge landmass of Greenland sliding along below her, half in cloud, the rest glacier blue or glittering white speckled with rock, snow and ice.

  “Almost makes you wish you were down there,” Rodriguez said, looking at the same view on a 2D monitor.

  “Not me, ma’am,” Albers told her. “Terrible surf, Greenland.”

  “You surf?” O’Hare asked. “I would not have guessed that, Lieutenant Albers.”

  “I like to retain the capacity to surprise, ma’am,” Albers said, deadpan.

  “I don’t like surprises,” O’Hare said. “Let’s run through the attack sequence again, Albers, while our Pommy friend up there meanders into position.”

  Captain Alexei Kozytsin of the 15th Aerospace Forces Army, 153rd Titov Main Trial Center for Testing and Control of Space (Groza Program), chafed at his unit’s lack of a proper military designation. It was operational now, dammit, but it still carried the title of a test program. It should have been moved under the wing of the 821st Space Surveillance Division by now, but it was still commanded by that hard-ass Bondarev, which meant it was stuck with the Trial Program tag.

  He also chafed at the fact he didn’t have a proper line of command, with at least a Major, if not a Colonel, to run interference between himself and Bondarev, like an ordinary Aerospace command would normally have. But Groza was Bondarev’s pet project, and he’d made it clear he didn’t want any command layers between himself and the Groza Operations unit at Baikonur, so Kozytsin was stuck with him.