V-S Day: A Novel of Alternate History

by Steele, Allen

  Von Braun forced this thought from his mind as he lit another cigarette from the first one. He wasn’t the only person chain-smoking. The glass ashtrays on the desks were already beginning to fill up, and the ceiling fans labored to remove smoke from the room. He flipped another page of his notebook and tried to concentrate on the checklist.

  “Launch minus twenty-two minutes and counting.”

  “Fuel pressurization complete.”

  “Confirm completion of fuel-pressurization cycle.”

  “Pilot ready for takeoff. Seal cockpit.”

  “Confirm cockpit seal.”

  “Check landing-gear servomotors.”

  “Landing-gear servos operational, check . . .”

  Hearing this, von Braun shut his eyes for a moment. According to the flight plan, once its mission was complete, Silbervogel would begin a long supersonic glide from an altitude of seventy kilometers, crossing the Atlantic until it reached Germany, where it would land on the Mittelwerk landing strip just a few kilometers away. Yet everyone who’d closely studied this part of the plan knew that it was optimistic at best. The spacecraft would be out of fuel by then, its pilot capable of making only dead-stick maneuvers. The math might support the notion of a glide return all the way to base, but common sense did not. It was more likely that Reinhardt would be forced to ditch in the ocean, and although he’d been given a parachute and a life preserver, the chances of his surviving a supersonic bailout, then spending countless hours in the high seas before being located by the U-boat that had been dispatched to the North Atlantic as an emergency recovery vessel, were not good.

  This was to be a suicide mission. Everyone knew it, even if no one said so aloud. If Horst Reinhardt weren’t aware of this, then he was either a fool or a madman. But everything von Braun had observed about the young Luftwaffe lieutenant suggested that he was nothing more or less than what he appeared to be: a dedicated young pilot whose devotion to National Socialism and Adolf Hitler was so complete that martyrdom would be a death he’d welcome.

  “Launch minus ten minutes and counting.”

  “All personnel, clear launch area.”

  “Switch to internal electrical systems.”

  “Internal electric system on standby, check.”

  Suddenly restless, von Braun stood up from his seat. He felt Dornberger’s eyes upon him as he walked past the rows of controllers to the window. Silbervogel lay upon its sled, fully revealed now that its gantry scaffold had been pulled away. The cockpit was closed, its windows barely visible. The ground crew was hurrying away, and even the soldiers were deserting the launch site. Reinhardt was alone in his ship, waiting for the countdown to end and the order to launch.

  “Good luck,” von Braun whispered. Not for the mission, but for the man.

  =====

  “L minus sixty seconds and counting.”

  “All systems prepared for launch.” Horst Reinhardt turned the last page of the checklist, then curled his fingers within his thick gloves one last time before resting his hands on the control yoke. He took several slow, deep breaths to calm himself; nonetheless, he could feel his heart thudding deep within his chest. In all the thousands of hours he’d spent in cockpits, never before had he been so anxious about a takeoff.

  With the canopy shut, the cockpit was oppressively close, made worse by the fact that, aside from the retractable bombsight periscope in the belly, he had no direct forward view, only two narrow windows on either side of his seat. The engineers who’d designed Silver Bird had never been able to completely solve the problem of maintaining cabin integrity while also making the hull capable of withstanding the stress caused by repeated skips across the upper atmosphere. The weak point was always the forward cockpit window, which was located in the very place where atmospheric friction would cause a plasma cone to form. The periscope and the side windows were a necessary compromise; for most of the flight, Reinhardt would be relying on his instruments for navigation.

  It could be done, of course, and the pilot had spent countless hours in the Peenemünde simulator learning how. All the same, though, it was hardly comforting to know that he would be flying blind. So Reinhardt barely glanced at the windows before returning his gaze to his instruments.

  “L minus forty seconds and counting.” Suddenly, the voice he heard was familiar. Dr. von Braun had taken over the microphone. “Ready, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, Herr Doktor,” Reinhardt replied. “For the glory of the Fatherland and Adolf Hitler.”

  Von Braun’s response was dry, unemotional: “Sled ignition in nineteen seconds.”

  “Understood.” Reinhardt gave his straps a final hitch, then fastened his hands around the yoke. “Main engines pressurized and ready for primary ignition sequence.”

  “Sled ignition in ten . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . .”

  Reinhardt instinctively braced himself, then remembered his trainer’s advice: stay loose, relax your body, let the seat absorb the shock. He had just done so when the countdown reached zero.

  “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  From outside, he heard the muffled roar of the sled’s giant solid-rocket engine firing. This was controlled by the launch bunker. Yet the sled didn’t move at once; for the next eleven seconds its brakes remained engaged, allowing the engine to build up thrust. The spacecraft shook like an overeager racehorse pushing against its stall.

  “Launch in five . . . four . . . three . . .”

  From the corner of his eye, Reinhardt saw oily black smoke billowing up around his canopy windows. Licking his lips, he raised his left hand to the instrument panel and gently placed his fingers on the main-engine ignition switch. In his headphones, he heard von Braun’s calm, detached voice:

  “Two . . . one . . . launch!”

  The sled brakes were released, and the massive machine bolted forward. Reinhardt was immediately thrown back against his seat. For an instant, he nearly lost contact with the all-important toggle switch for the main engine, yet he managed to shove his arm forward again and get his hand back where it belonged.

  The sled hurtled down the long concrete track, its speed doubling, then doubling again, with each passing second. On the viewing stand, the officers and party officials had seen the sled engine ignite but had heard nothing. It had taken nearly three seconds for the sound to reach them, and by then the sled was already in motion. They were still puzzled by this when thunder, louder and more prolonged than any created by a natural storm, hit them like a tangible object, a blast that shook the viewing stand and blew hats off their heads and caused them to step back in fear.

  “Stop it!” Himmler screamed, hands clamped over his ears, eyes wide with terror. “Stop it! It’s going to blow up!” Goering howled with laughter, while Goebbels cackled and clapped his hands like a child amused by a trick pony at a circus.

  In the control bunker, cement dust was falling from cracks that had suddenly appeared in the ceiling. The windows shook in their frames, distorting the view of the sled as it rocketed away from the bunker.

  Von Braun was on his feet, watching it go, microphone clutched in his right hand. “Steady . . . steady . . .” he said, fighting to remain calm. “Stand by to release . . .”

  Flattened against his seat, pushed back by mounting acceleration, Horst Reinhardt watched his instruments through eyes threatening to squeeze shut, his hands locked on the yoke. The sled was traveling at five hundred meters per second when he yelled “Main-engine ignition!” and snapped the toggle switch.

  The engine roared to life, and as an invisible hand shoved him even farther into his seat, he heard von Braun shout, “Release!”

  Knowing that this meant that the sled’s cradle was no longer holding him, Reinhardt pulled back on the yoke with all his might.

  Like a hawk taking flight, Silver Bird rose from the sled. It shot upward at a steep
angle, stub wings clawing at the sky, main engine pounding across the valley and echoing off the mountainside. Far below, the launch sled reached the end of the track. Traveling too fast for the hydraulic brakes to slow it down, it ripped through the track, smashed into the ground, and exploded, an inferno giving birth to a phoenix.

  In the control bunker, Eugen Sanger leaped to his feet. “My Silver Bird flies!” he shouted, fists raised above his head. “My dream is alive!”

  Letting go of his breath, von Braun slumped in his chair. Through the windows, he could see Silbervogel rising upon a fiery pillar, thundering like a hammer of the gods.

  “It’s done,” he muttered under his breath. And may God help us, he silently added.

  =====

  Standing on the cottage roof, hugging the brick chimney as if it were a lover, Frieda Koenig felt the house beneath her tremble as the shock wave rumbled across the valley. Treetops swayed in the supernatural wind, pine needles and leaves ripped from their branches, and somewhere below her a window shattered, but she barely noticed these things. All she saw was the silver dart streaking up from the other side of the valley, faster than any aircraft she’d ever seen, leaving behind it a thick vapor trail that formed an arch across the sky.

  “No,” she whispered. “No, no, no . . .”

  Suddenly, she remembered where she was, what she was supposed to do. Letting go of the chimney, she squatted on her hips and skidded down the roof, heedless of the shingles tearing at the back of her skirt and legs. Somehow, the ladder had stayed where it was. Turning herself around and planting her feet against the rungs, she climbed down as fast as she could, dropping the last few feet to the ground.

  From somewhere far above, a loud boom. She turned and looked up, half-expecting to see that the craft had blown up. Yet it was nowhere in sight; she saw only the vapor trail, its base already beginning to dissipate.

  No time to wonder about that now. London had to be alerted.

  Frieda was in the house in seconds, grateful that she’d had the foresight to plug in the radio and let it warm up. She’d already opened her codebook and turned it to the correct page for the day; she checked to make sure she was using the correct encryption key, then lay a finger against the telegraph key. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she began to send her message:

  Mistletoe to Big Ben. Black Umbrella is open. Repeat, Black Umbrella is open. Mistletoe out.

  There. It was done. And so was she. Her mission was complete, and there was no point in remaining here any longer. In fact, it was dangerous to stay in Nordhausen. If her signal had been intercepted, then the Nazis might trace it back to her.

  Frieda took a few moments to discard her frayed dress and put on a fresh one, then she gathered the documents she’d need, made sure she had enough money in her purse, and left the cottage. Within minutes, she was in her car and driving away, her life as a war widow already a thing of the past.

  =====

  Horst Reinhardt didn’t hear the sonic boom caused by his craft breaking the sound barrier, nor was he aware of the chaos he’d left in his wake. He heard only the roar of Silver Bird’s main engine, felt only the pressure against his body.

  As the spacecraft continued its climb, his vision began to blur, forming a tunnel through which he fought to see clearly. Fortunately, the instruments were directly in front of him, and he’d memorized his flight plan so well that it was thoroughly ingrained in his memory.

  He continued to climb, watching his altimeter carefully the entire time. When he saw that Silver Bird was 5.4 kilometers above the ground, he reached down and pushed forward the throttles for the two auxiliary engines. Silver Bird surged upward even more; he concentrated on breathing, making sure that the acceleration didn’t force the air from his lungs and cause him to black out. He couldn’t see his instruments well, but he knew that he must be pulling nearly ten g’s. But only for a few seconds, just a few more seconds . . .

  Gradually, the roaring of the engines diminished, slowly becoming a muted grumble. Reinhardt’s gaze swept across the instrument panel, then he throttled down the main and auxiliary engines and pulled back the yoke. An eerie silence descended upon the cabin; the pressure completely left him, and it suddenly seemed as if his body was lighter, without any weight at all.

  Something drifted past his goggles, a tiny metal ring. A washer dropped by a careless workman. Fascinated, Reinhardt raised a hand and gently tapped it with a fingertip. At his touch, the washer tumbled away, turning end over end, until it reached the starboard side window and bounced off.

  That was when Reinhardt saw where he was. Earth stretched out below him as a vast green shield, flecked with filmy white clouds, veined by blue rivers and lakes. He was somewhere over Poland, or perhaps even the Soviet Union; there was no easy way to tell, without any obvious borders to distinguish political boundaries. And above it all, a sky so black, it seemed like an abyss he could fall into forever.

  Lieutenant Horst Reinhardt was the first man to see Earth from space.

  He didn’t give himself an opportunity to reflect on this. No time to admire the view; he had a mission to accomplish. His altimeter was useless, now that it no longer had atmospheric pressure to register, but his gyroscope told him that he was climbing toward his maximum altitude of 130 kilometers. That was when he’d fire the auxiliary engines again, vector them so that his nose was pitched downward, and commence the series of atmospheric skips that would carry him around the world.

  Reinhardt clasped his throat mike. “Control, Control, this is Silver Bird. Launch successful, orbital altitude achieved. Preparing to commence antipodal trajectory.”

  He listened carefully, and for a moment he thought he heard voices through the static. Hopefully his message had been received, but it was possible that he was already out of radio range. This had already been taken into consideration, though. He would remain incommunicado for the duration of his mission; it was not until after he’d completed his objectives that he’d try to contact the U-boat that would act as his recovery vessel should he need it. Otherwise, the next time he spoke to anyone in the Fatherland, it would be when he stepped down from his cockpit and offered a salute to his beloved Führer.

  That was a pleasant thought. Reinhardt kept it in mind as Silver Bird soared above Earth, on its way to New York and victory.

  THE FLIGHT OF THE LUCKY LINDA

  JUNE 1, 1943 (CONTINUED)

  Within minutes, Frieda Koenig’s radio message made its way around the world.

  First it reached MI-6 headquarters in London, where a duty officer decoded the signal and, realizing its importance, alerted his superior. The Naval Intelligence officer instructed the duty officer to relay the signal to Washington, D.C., as a priority flash message.

  In a Pentagon basement, a radio operator alerted a U.S. Army intelligence officer. This captain had been briefed on Silver Bird; he ordered alert messages sent to both McChord Field in Washington State and Alamogordo Army Air Field in New Mexico.

  Silver Bird had just completed its first atmospheric skip when the Hollywood Babe took off from McChord. From his seat in the back of the B-29’s cockpit, Lloyd Kapman spotted the German spacecraft as it approached the American coast. The bomber’s radio operator sent a confirmation message to Alamogordo, which was already scrambling to prepare Lucky Linda for immediate launch.

  And then . . .

  =====

  “Six . . . five . . .”

  Henry Morse’s voice reverberated through loudspeakers as Robert Goddard, standing at the periscope, watched the distant launchpad with the growing realization that he was too far away. He shouldn’t be in this concrete igloo, protected from the noise and the blast, but outside, where he could see the rocket lift off with his naked eyes.

  “Four . . . three . . .”

  “Primary ignition!” Goddard shouted. He didn’t stick around to see Harry Chung push a large r
ed button on his console. Instead, he bolted away from the periscope and rushed toward the door. Startled, Omar Bliss tried to stop him, but Goddard impatiently shoved him out of the way.

  “Two . . . one . . .”

  “Coming through!” he snapped at the MP guarding the door. The sergeant shoved it open, and Goddard charged outside just in time to see a distant flash across the desert sands.

  “Zero . . . launch!”

  Brighter than the rising sun, white-hot flame poured from Lucky Linda’s main engine, followed an instant later by the simultaneous ignition of its six solid-fuel boosters. Dense grey smoke billowed out of the blast pit beneath the launch ring, a massive rooster tail of spent rocket fuel. For a moment, it seemed as if the spacecraft weren’t going anywhere, and Goddard felt his heart stop.

  Please, no, he thought, unable to breathe. Please, God, no, not after all this . . .

  Then, slowly at first, the spaceship rose from its pad, perched atop a blazing shaft that looked like nothing less than a column of hellfire.

  “Go!” someone in the nearby trench shouted, and his cry was picked up by others around him. “Go! Go! Go . . . !” Goddard found himself joining the chant. “Go! Go! Go . . . !”

  As Lucky Linda cleared the tower, a thunderball rolled across the desert, shaking the TV platform and causing the onlookers to clamp their hands over their ears, followed a moment later by a hot wind against their faces.

  Goddard watched the craft as it hurtled upward. The thunder became a steady, crackling roar, louder than anything he’d ever heard before; it sounded as if the sky itself were being torn open. Shielding his eyes with an upraised hand, he suddenly found himself speechless. Here was his life’s ambition, born in a childhood moment of epiphany, made real; he was no longer looking at a weapon of war but the opening of the road to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. He was seeing the future.