Virus

by Bill Buchanan

“Airman first-class Harold Harrison, sir.”

  “Harold, I need your help.” Judging from his expression, Mason concluded the young airman looked willing. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “The raw activity log output is difficult to—it’s overwhelming us here . . . there’s millions of lines of output. We can’t make heads or tails out of it.. . sir.”

  Hinson snatched the young airman away from the video camera’s field of view. “I ordered him to ignore the activity log, General.”

  “Now is not the time or place, Colonel, but we need to talk about this one.” Mason spoke to Hinson in a quiet voice for emphasis, then made a mental note to correct their management problem before their next test run. Turning away, Mason watched the missiles closing slowly on the Nevada Test Side.

  Hinson checked his mission clock. “Whiteout over Edwards,” he warned, shielding his eyes with his hand. Once the electronic jamming began, the airspace display turned a brilliant white.

  Tbe DEWSAT Pix, 12107/2014, 1200 Zulu, 4:00 a.m. Local

  Altitude: 80,000 Feet,

  Heading: Due West,

  Directly Over San Diego,

  Hell Fire

  Scott saw the lights of San Diego ahead on the horizon, but knew her back-seater and cameraman had their eyes fixed on their instruments. Scanning her instruments, she kept one hand on the stick, the other on the throttle, tracking every move the Headquarters computer made.

  “Mac—got any pix?” Just then, Scott noticed two camera indicator lights turn green in the reconnaissance bay. Pressing two switches, she routed both camera images to her split screen display.

  “IR camera’s locked on,” Mac replied with a great sense of satisfaction. “Pix coming up.”

  To lock on a low orbiting satellite moving over 17,000 miles an hour due north from a westbound plane was like shooting skeet off a flatbed truck racing over the winding potholed streets of Boston.

  For a few moments, the TV monitors displayed only empty black sky. The cameras were tracking two DEWSATs. One rising above Hell Fire's southern horizon racing north, the second was about to drop below the northern horizon. Once locked, a series of adjustable tracking mirrors pivoted, positioning each satellite image in the center of the viewing screen. Suddenly, two sunflower-shaped greenish images appeared out of the blackness.

  “Excellent,” exclaimed Gonzo. Immediately, his expression turned troubled. “Those DEWSATs look hot as hell.”

  “The pix don’t lie,” Scott said dispassionately. “Those hot spots are the laser’s diamond lens and reactor core.”

  “So those sunflowers’re going to put us out of a job,” Mac said in disbelief.

  “Don’t underestimate the opposition, Mac. That’s a twenty-megawatt laser, enough to knock anything out of the air.”

  “But if it can’t see us, it can’t shoot us,” Mac replied confidently.

  “Our stealth days are numbered, Mac. It’s inevitable. They’re not smart, they’re genius weapons. They can tell the difference between missiles, ASATs, decoys—you name the target, they can pick it out.”

  “I gotta see it to believe it.”

  “I’d hate to have that DEWSAT bear down on me,” Gonzo lamented quietly. “Glad that laser’s backed off.”

  “Roger that, Gonzo,” Mac replied somberly. ‘That suck-er’d punch a hole in your best intentions.”

  The Decoy, 1210712014, 1209 Zulu, 5:09 A.M. Local

  Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

  The projected picture of the California coast suddenly looked like a whiteout in a snowstorm, a radiant white blank screen.

  Mason squinted.

  “No problem with the picture, General,” Napper said calmly. “Jammers came on-line as scheduled. Centurion’ll clean it up.”

  Seconds later, Centurion did exactly that and the satellite picture of California emerged from the veil of televisionlike interference. The six red cruise missile blips had disappeared, replaced by hundreds of white blips, each heading a different direction, speed, and altitude.

  Mason studied the picture for a moment. “Phantom Hawks cut in.” The Phantom Hawk cruise missiles launched from the USS Stennis and Hell Fire carried an electronic countermeasures package that produced false radar return signals. To radar, these false signals looked like hundreds of cruise missiles.

  “Yessir—Centurion’s got his hands full, but this is our last major hurdle.” Napper watched the blips advance in seemingly every direction. “Centurion’s gotta sort the real targets from the decoys.”

  Every fifteen seconds or so, the missile tracks methodically disappeared. The northbound missile tracks all disappeared at once, then the westbound tracks disappeared, then the southbound, and finally, all but three eastbound tracks vanished.

  Three missile traces heading east toward the Nevada Test Site remained, but three were missing.

  8

  Target Discrimination, 12/0712014, 1210 Zulu

  Altitude: 115 Miles In Polar Orbit,

  Onboard A DEWSAT

  First and foremost, the DEWSAT was designed to automatically protect itself against anything and any condition that could cause failure.

  And it would do so—in the blink of an eye.

  When the two Phantom Hawk cruise missiles simultaneously powered on, they began transmitting hundreds of false targets. The sudden increase in targets immediately overloaded the DEWSAT’s tracking system and its programmed response was automatic. Detecting the sudden increase in targets, the DEWSAT’s computer brain woke up, increased its laser power output to a dangerous three percent, and automatically began separating false targets from the real ones.

  The DEWSAT was designed to discriminate targets (separate false targets from real ones) using a technique involving burn-through. A small fraction of the power needed to destroy a booster rocket would melt a hole through a lightweight decoy, and this hole could be detected by the DEWSAT’s infrared heat sensors.

  Heating up suspected targets, the DEWSAT began separating false targets from real ones, aka searching for melted holes.

  A short message was transmitted to Centurion:

  DEWSAT status change:

  Target Discrimination Mode Enabled

  Centurion placed this message, along with tens of millions of other messages, in his activity log.

  Trouble, 12/0712014, 1210 Zulu, 5:10 A.M. Local

  Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado

  Staring at the map, Mason’s eyes opened wider. Unbelievably, three missiles had disappeared. He glanced at Hinson on screen and found him oblivious to what had happened. Mason glanced around the room and realized that no one fully understood what had just happened. Most of the War Room staff stared at the screen uncomprehending. Raising his eyebrows, he spoke to Craven. “Trouble.”

  “Yeah—I can count.” Craven grimaced. “Hinson—talk to me—now damn it. What the hell happened?”

  Hinson had been confident that Centurion’d have no problem thinning out the decoy missiles. He casually glanced at the map, then pulled a double take. “Uh— we’re working the issue, General.”

  “Exactly what are you doing about it, Hinson?” “Collecting my best people, sir.”

  “How long’s that gonna take?”

  “They’ll be working it within the hour.”

  “An hour’s not going to do us much good. I need to know what happened to those missiles now.”

  “General,” Mason interrupted softly after talking with his Russian comrade, General Yuri Krol. “Let Yuri’s folks at Kaliningrad comb through Centurion’s activity log ASAP. That log contains raw test data. They’ll find the problem.”

  Mason looked at Krol. “Maybe ten to twenty minutes?” “With luck . . . five minutes.” Krol nodded calmly.

  “Do it,” Craven ordered.

  Krol punched up Kaliningrad on the videophone and got his people moving.

  Mason took his fist and rapped on Colonel Napper’s monitor to get his attention. “Sam—listen up. Confirmation—we need confi
rmation. Any chance those missiles might be airborne but Centurion can’t see ’em?”

  “I’m checking. Give me a minute.” Napper displayed a target tracking window. “No, sir, those birds are down. Last positive track occurred just before the Phantom Hawks went active. Plenty of margin—signal to noise looked darn good. If those missiles were flying, we could see ’em.”

  Mason gazed at the ceiling for a few moments, struggling to find an approach to the problem. “Do we have any cruise missile experts local?”

  “I’m with you, General,” replied Napper, listening over the conference line. “Name’s Schindler, Joe Schindler . . . guy’s brilliant . . . give ’im the situation—he’ll size it up—make the call.”

  Napper bridged Joe on the conference call then summarized the situation.

  “How’re these missiles configured?” asked Joe.

  “I can answer that, General,” Hinson interrupted like a child seeking attention. “Master/slave ... the Phantom and Hammer Hawks’re slaved to the Jammer Hawk.” Schindler concentrated, sipping on a large mug of hot coffee. “And the Dorito's jammer turned on immediately before the missiles disappeared?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” Napper replied without emotion.

  “I’ll give you my best guess,” Schindler responded. “We’re asking for your opinion,” Napper said anxiously. “What’s your analysis?”

  “Short and sweet: Hell Fire's Jammer Hawk flew into the ground and the two slave Hawks blindly followed.” Craven clearly disagreed. “So why would the Jammer Hawk fly into the ground in the first place?”

  “Interference from the Dorito's jammer confused the Hawk’s navigation system and caused the crash. The Jammer Hawk’s not sensitive to its own interference but could be confused by a powerful separate jammer source.”

  “Well,” said Craven, somewhat satisfied, “that’s one problem that didn’t show up in Hinson’s simulations. Sounds like we can rest easy.”

  “I respectfully disagree, General,” said Mason. “It’s his best guess—shouldn’t be overrated. We haven’t heard from Yuri’s folks.”

  There were a lot of experts answering questions around the War Room, and often even the questions weren’t clear. When Mason had something to say, he’d say it. If he didn’t know the answer to a question, he wouldn’t lie. Craven admired Mason’s honesty and intellect. Above all else, Craven believed Mason would do what was right, regardless of the consequences.

  Mason argued for caution and rightly so. Schindler’s analysis was accurate, but based on insufficient data, his conclusion was wrong.

  The Signal, 12/0712014, 1211 Zulu

  Over The Pacific Ocean,

  430 Miles West Of San Diego,

  Hell Fire

  Flying above a turbulent electrical storm with a canopy of stars overhead, Scott watched lightning flashes illuminate the boiling thunderheads below. Suddenly, she felt her stick and rubber pedals moving, placing Hell Fire in a gradual banking turn, positioning her for launch into low earth orbit. “Launch sequence commences in two minutes. Sit tight once we come out of this bank.”

  “Uh-oh,” Mac exclaimed, measuring a sudden increase in laser power on Hell Fire's back. Translated, uh-oh could only mean trouble.

  Attached to Hell Fire's upper wing surfaces, like an array of Post-it notes, Hell Fire carried laser sensor panels for this war game of laser tag. Operating like a Nintendo game, panels illuminated by the DEWS AT’s laser scored a hit.

  Mac checked the cooling pumps. “Slush pumps’re wide The Bad Seed open—skin temp’s soaring—we’re running out of margin fast.”

  Watching a screen full of error messages scroll by, Gonzo grimaced. “Radio performance is degrading across all bands, Scotty. We’re losing signal—error rates climbing on every channel.”

  “Something’s changing somewhere!” Mac exclaimed. “Eight panels are going dark on me—output power’s dropping to zip.”

  After acquiring Hell Fire with radar, the DEWSAT painted her with its lethal laser powered to three percent. Once the DEWSAT locked on Hell Fire, there was nothing Scott could do to shake it—there was no place to hide.

  Mac read the temperature of each panel in disbelief, pounded his measurement equipment, then read the temperatures again. “Something’s flaky. These temps don’t make sense.”

  “Talk to me, Mac. What’s happening?” Scott’s tone was tense as she watched Hell Fire's skin temperature rising.

  Simultaneously, Scott and Mac noticed an alarming pattern. Most of the panels were white-hot, a condition which should not exist, assuming the DEWSAT laser’s power was safely throttled back. A few panels showed rapidly changing temperature—white-hot one second, ice-cold the next. Fast temperature changes couldn’t be easily explained, they were too incredible to believe—didn’t make any sense—at first.

  “What if those panels are damaged? Maybe burned off?” Scott asked.

  “Damaged panels might explain those hot ’n’ cold readings.” Mac had not fully worked through the consequences of her question—his tone was tentative. Mac read the panel temperatures for the third time and the reality of their situation chilled him like a cold wind.

  “Comm failure,” interrupted Gonzo, staring at an array of red alarm indicators. In the blink of an eye, every VHF/UHF radio failed. Their unthinkable fear played out in real time—the DEWSAT was hot.

  Hell Fire was exposed to laser illumination from overhead. Buried slightly below the surface of the XR-30’s skin lay her radio antennas—large conformal arrays of microstrip antennas. Seconds after the panels began to fail, the intricate thin metal strip antennas vaporized.

  “Snap one-eighty,” Scott warned, exposing Hell Fire's underbelly to the laser illumination from overhead. She flew inverted because the slush cooling system more effectively cooled reentry hot spots on the XR-30’s underbelly. “Mac—panel temp?”

  “Dropping fast. No doubt about it—that laser’s hot!” Scott spoke to Gonzo in a low controlled voice. “Spin up an ASAT—lock it on that hot laser.”

  “Roger, Scotty.” Gonzo toggled switches, rotating a missile bay within Hell Fire's short stubby wings. An ASAT launched from Hell Fire at hypersonic speed must be thrust downward well clear of the XR-30, then ignited. “Weapon’s locked on target but we’ll never catch it.” “ASAT’s an abort signal. Headquarters won’t be expecting it. Sit tight. I’m gonna light the wick.” Igniting the booster rocket, Scott stood Hell Fire on her tail and flew directly toward the DEWSAT.

  Belching flames in her wake, Hell Fire accelerated through Mach 2 with a thunderous roar. When Scott increased throttle on the six ramjets, the Rocketdyne engine automatically shut down as they passed Mach 3. Although the six jet engines in Hell Fire's belly were screaming, the cockpit seemed much quieter once the rocket shut down. Concentrating on her instruments, Scott didn’t even notice.

  “Glad that noisy sucker’s off,” Mac quipped. “Good news.”

  “Must be the laser.”

  “Right—laser’s backed off—looks normal.”

  “That DEWSAT must have seen what it was looking for.” Scott thought for a moment. She knew DEWSATs sensed heat, reflected laser light, and radar energy. The only possible connection she could make, and it was a stretch, was Hell Fire's rocket engine. When she ignited it, the laser backed off. “Maybe it backed off once it detected our heat plume.”

  “Sounds logical, but we only have one data point. Suggest we stick to our original plan.” Gonzo thought sending a signal to Headquarters made sense. “We’re not safe till we’re above that DEWSAT layer.”

  “Roger that, SAESO,” Scott said in a pragmatic tone. “Make the ASAT ready to fire.”

  During the transition from rocket to ramjet power, Hell Fire developed a fiery cometlike tail extending over ten miles long—spectacular to see, but costly in fuel. Once convinced the ramjets were performing to spec, Scott “trimmed Hell Fire's tail” by eliminating the fiery hydrogen plume trailing behind each engine. Rotating a
thumbwheel, she watched the engine’s exhaust gas analyzer change from saturated to optimal. After repeating this procedure for each engine, she locked fuel flow control to the flight computer.

  Hell Fire's air-breathing engines performed to Scott’s expectations. The thrust from Hell Fire's belly accelerated the craft predictably along their flight trajectory toward low earth orbit.

  “Eighty thousand feet—Mach five—tail’s trimmed.” Scott paused, reading her analyzer. “I show six optimal burns.”

  “Bobtail confirmed, Scotty,” Gonzo observed, looking over his shoulder. “Scramjet transition coming up.” Hell Fire's flight computer controlled scramjet transition by reconfiguring fuel and air flow through the six ramjets.

  Ramjets propelled Hell Fire to speeds of Mach 6, scramjets thrust her to Mach 22 past 180,000 feet. At speeds above Mach 22, the Rocketdyne engine kicked in with the final punch required for orbital insertion. Getting into orbit required speeds between Mach 22 and Mach 25—over 17,000 miles an hour.

  “Scramjet transition complete—tail’s trim,” Scott said one minute later. The adjustable teeth in Hell Fire's air-breathing mouth (hinged rectangular flaps) retracted, allowing air from her compression ramp to enter her engines at supersonic speeds. This supersonic air was ducted around each compressor, injected with fuel, and ignited toward the rear of the engines.

  “Roger—bobtail’s confirmed,” replied Gonzo. “On course—Mach six at eighty-seven thousand feet.”

  After all six engines transitioned from ramjet to scramjet operation, Scott and Gonzo caught their last look at the stars just before the heat shield automatically “rolled up,” completely sealing off the cockpit. Flying with the heat shield extended was much like flying with a blackout bag over the cockpit. Once the cockpit heat shield was extended, Scott and Gonzo depended one hundred percent on instruments.

  “Keep those deflector shields up,” Mac quipped, teasing his pilot with a Star Trek one-liner.

  “Pray for a smooth ride till OIB (Orbital Insertion Burn). We’ll need all the help we can get.”