Brown, Dale - Independent 01

by Silver Tower (v1. 1)

  “Okay. Moyer, get into a space suit. You’re our life insurance.” The young tech nodded and hurried off to where one of the space suits had temporarily been stowed in a comer of the command module. “I want rescue balls within immediate reach.”

  “Space command tracking vehicle within two miles vertical, sixty miles horizontal,” Walker reported. “Tracking reports vehicle is under power and maneuvering.”

  “Jerrod, get Enterprise the hell out of here.”

  “Tracking reports three more vehicles maneuvering within—”

  “Ann isn’t on board yet, Jason.”

  Saint-Michael got both transmissions at the same time, pressed his earset closer to hear better. “Say again, Jerrod.”

  Will repeated the message. Before Saint-Michael could explode he heard, “Fifty miles, now at our altitude. Collision course. Repeat, collision course ”

  “What the hell....” Saint-Michael turned quickly to the stationwide speaker intercom. “Ann Page, report to the command module immediately. Acknowledge.”

  No reply. The general knew he had to force himself to put her out of his mind and concentrate on the attack. He turned back around toward the master SBR display. “Jake....”

  “SBR lock-on, Skipper. Laser target discrimination in progress.” Tethered one hundred yards below Silver Tower, the Thor space- based interceptor-missile garage had obeyed the steering commands sent to it by the station’s powerful phased-array radar and had pointed the business end of the garage toward the oncoming antisatellite vehicle. When the SBR locked on, it also slaved a neutral particle-beam laser projector onto the Soviet space vehicle.

  At that point the laser illuminated the three-ton Gorgon missile, and special sensors analyzed the reflected laser energy. A solid object large enough to damage the station would reflect a different wavelength of energy than a less substantial, lightweight decoy. Once the decoys were discovered, Armstrong’s weapons could be employed against only those objects that were a real threat to the station. The whole process, from lock-on to lethal target verification, had taken only seconds.

  “Forty miles ... thirty miles ... target discrimination is lethal positive. Thor one auto launch....”

  After launch commit was given, the missile’s last check was target discrimination. Once targets were checked as lethal, the SBR then automatically issued attack commands to the Thor missiles. The first Thor interceptor missile shot free of its garage, accelerating rapidly to its top speed of over four miles per second. The one-hundred foot- diameter steel mesh net had hardly fully deployed when it hit the first Gorgon AS AT vehicle head-on.

  “Direct hit.” But there were no victory cheers. This wasn’t, after all, a planned exercise like their first operational test with friendly Trident D-5 missiles.

  “Transmit warning message to Space Command, Mission Control, and JCS,” Saint-Michael said. “Tell them we are engaging—”

  A loud bang and a warning buzzer sounded from the environmental control panel. “What the hell was that... ?”

  “Rupture in the Skylab module,” Marks reported. “Rapid pressure loss ... almost zero now....”

  “Jason, this is Will on Enterprise. We were hit by projectiles from that Gorgon just before it was destroyed. Minor damage to our right wing leading edge.”

  “SBR has multiple inbound targets locked on,” Jefferson reported. “Range eighty miles. Target discrimination in progress.”

  “Cabin pressurization in rec section of Skylab module down to zero,” Marks updated. “Skylab module sealed off. I think we took one of those Gorgon projectiles.”

  Saint-Michael looked grim. “Damn it, we’ve got to get Enterprise out of here.” He switched to stationwide intercom. “Ann, where are you? Report, damn it.”

  Silence.

  “Target discrimination lethal positive for three inbounds—” Jefferson had just finished his report when his computer monitors showed three automatic Thor missile launches.

  “Thors two, three, and four away... straight track....”

  “Space Command acknowledges our warning message.”

  “Direct hit on number two. . . miss on four. Miss on number four—”

  “Manual launch,” Saint-Michael called out. “Jake, you got it.”

  Jefferson’s fingers manipulated his control board. “Thor five away. Reacquire target four.... Switching to auto track—”

  “Target three direct hit.” Followed by dozens of bangs and scraping noises on the hull and throughout the station.

  “More flak from those Gorgons,” Marks reported. He checked the environmental control panel. “Leaks in the upper connecting tunnel. Cargo shovel defueling system has a short-circuit. Major damage throughout the Skylab module.”

  “SBR tracking four inbounds,” Walker said. “Range of closest target eighty miles—”

  “Snared target number four,” from Jefferson. His dark blue flight suit was already soaked with sweat.

  “Only five more Thors,” Saint-Michael said. “I don’t like the way the math is working out here.”

  “We’ve got ten more Thors stored on the keel,” Walker reminded him.

  “They might as well be on earth,” the general said. “We’ve got no one to load them onto the garage.”

  “Enterprise could do it....”

  “It would take too long to load those missiles with the manipulator arm. If we only had—”

  “I’ll go,” Moyer said suddenly. “Shouldn’t take me too long....”

  “It’ll take you all day to load ten missiles by yourself,” Walker told him.

  “At least I can load a few....”

  “We can’t spare you,” Saint-Michael said. “If we run out of missiles and we’re still under attack, we abandon the station. Period—”

  “Target discriminating on four inbounds... showing two decoys. Repeat, tracking two decoys.”

  “Decoys?” Marks said. “They put decoys on an AS AT launcher?”

  “A decoy can still do damage.”

  “But we don’t have the Thors to spare,” Saint-Michael told Walker. “Target the other two.”

  “Rog.... Selective targeting option running.... Thors six and seven away....”

  “Warning message, Skipper,” Walker broke in. “Recheck on that last target discrimination. Now showing all four as lethal positive.” Saint-Michael looked dead ahead. “Launch commit on all targets. Check the neutral-particle projector, find out what happened—”

  “Thors eight and nine away. Straight track....”

  “Direct hit on targets five and six.. ..”

  “Miss on target seven, clean miss on seven.”

  “Manual launch Thor ten,” Saint-Michael ordered Jefferson. “Make this one count, Jake.”

  No shit, Jefferson thought, but said nothing as he ejected the last Thor interceptor missile and sent it toward its target. “All Thors away.”

  “Miss on target eight!”

  All heads turned to Colonel Walker as he gave that last report. “Clean miss, General. Targets seven and eight appear to be... to be following an evasive course. Still at seventy miles range but closing slowly.”

  Jake Jefferson looked stunned as he watched his console. “Skipper, I don’t understand it. One second, Thor number ten was heading straight to target number seven, and the next, it was gone. I’ve lost contact with it.”

  The realization was not long in coming. The fact that the targets were evading confirmed it. They were dealing with Elektrons... The Russians had launched two armed Elektron spaceplanes at them....

  ELEKTRON ONE SPACEPLANE

  It was Colonel Ivan Voloshin who launched the first Bavinash Scimitar interceptor missile in space combat. Ironically, Silver Tower’s crew would never realize the honor they did the Soviet pilot by launching a Thor missile at him.

  Both Govorov and Voloshin had immediately detected all ten Thor missile launches. The Elektron’s simple but highly effective infrared tracker and laser range finder had picked up the fast-m
oving devices easily and computed Scimitar launches against each Thor missile. But Govorov’s orders had been to save as many of each Elektron’s ten missiles as possible and not use them against a Thor missile unless attacked directly. Voloshin’s single Scimitar missile followed the laser beam locked onto Thor number ten and destroyed it—Govorov guessed that the Scimitar hit the Thor missile directly, not just snagging on its large net.

  But what especially counted was that Space Station Armstrong had just launched its last missile. It was now totally defenseless....

  “Elektron One, this is Two,” Voloshin called over the discrete VHF frequency. “I count ten Thors expended, General.”

  “Affirmative, Two. Deploy as planned and be prepared to attack on my command.”

  With the laser range finder locked onto the space station itself, Govorov began to maneuver his Elektron spaceplane above the station’s keel, opposite from the free-flying Thor missile garage. Although he could not see him, he knew that Voloshin would be steering his spaceplane directly opposite, about a kilometer away from the station, keeping the Elektrons two kilometers apart.

  In this position both he and Voloshin could target exactly one-half of the station with their laser target designators. They could pick and choose their targets with high precision, with special emphasis on the space-based radar, solar-array control boxes, sensors and communications antennas. They would be sure to destroy the station’s fighting capabilities before administering the final blow: an attack on the pressurized modules themselves. Killing the crewmen of Space Station Armstrong was not Govorov’s plan, but he was determined to eliminate the orbiting platform as a threat. If American lives were lost in the process, he couldn’t be blamed. The stations’ crewmembers had forfeited any ordinary consideration when they had chosen to intervene in Operation Feather. Nobody had invited them. Now they would learn the price for their actions, and pay it....

  ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

  “Anything we can do?” Moyer asked from behind his spacesuit helmet. The strain in his voice was evident.

  “Whatever they’re going to hit us with,” Saint-Michael said, “we don’t have to sit here and let ourselves get shot up.” He unstrapped himself and moved over to the station’s attitude-control panel. “Everyone, evacuate the station. Get aboard Enterprise. Now.”

  “What’s the plan, Skipper?” Marks asked him.

  “I’m going to deorbit the station, use every last bit of fuel to slow us down so the station will reenter the atmosphere. They may try to destroy this station, or they might try to occupy it. Either way, they’re not going to get it. I’ll jettison the lifeboat just before the deorbit burn. Let’s just hope they won’t fire on a lifeboat....”

  “There’s got to be another way—”

  “They’re calling the tune now, Chief,” Saint-Michael said bitterly. “We dance to it or pay the consequences.” He looked around the module, at Moyer, Walker, Marks and Jefferson. “There’ll be other times.... Our job right now is to survive. And that means getting your butts on the shuttle in the next three minutes.”

  A few minutes earlier Ann’s chief worry had been what Saint-

  Michael would do when he found out she’d countermanded his orders and not gone over to the Enterprise. There just wasn’t the time to explain why she thought she could get Skybolt running again, and she suspected that even if she’d had the time, even if the rush of events hadn’t forced him into making a quick decision, she’d still have big trouble convincing him the laser was worth another try. She’d cried wolf too often, failing when it counted to get him to listen because too many of her earlier assessments of Skybolt’s capabilities had proved overly optimistic.

  Well, let the general get steamed. There were bigger problems to worry about now. As she worked to reprogram the proper relays to the MHD reactor, her tracking indicator told what was happening out in space.... Two of the Gorgons—no, not really Gorgons but some sort of Russian spacecraft—had passed through Armstrong’s Thor missile barrage untouched and were moving closer to the station. It became harder and harder to work the keyboard and test the last of the circuits as fear caught hold of her.

  She knew that the Skybolt laser was now the station’s only defense against the two blips she saw moving ever closer on her tracking indicator. She knew it and yet she also knew that she was minutes away from having the laser ready. She started a prayer, stopped. No fair, any last-minute invocation of the deity; it was up to her now. You asked for it, so get it done, she taunted herself, and once more she was able to focus all her concentration on the job at hand.,..

  ELEKTRON ONE SPACEPLANE

  “Request permission to open fire, sir,” Voloshin radioed.

  “Stand by, Elektron Two,” Govorov said. “We’ll begin in one minute. Do not attack the shuttle. Repeat, do not attack. They’ll use the shuttle to evacuate.”

  “An American space shuttle would be a nice prize, General.”

  “There is only one prize here, Voloshin. Armstrong. Remember that.”

  There was silence on the frequency for a few moments, then: “General, do you think they’ll try to scuttle the station?”

  “It’s what I would do. A remote-controlled or timed-thruster bum could be set up to do the job after they’ve evacuated.” Govorov checked the digital chronometer on his instrument panel. “Status check, Elektron Two.”

  The reply came a few moments later, “Status positive, Elektron Lead. Oxygen, twenty liters. Fuel, sixty percent.”

  “Lead has twenty-two liters oxygen and sixty-two percent fuel. One hour until we need to begin deorbit or rendezvous with Mir” Mir was the Soviet’s orbiting module, a far cruder version of Silver Tower that had limited surveillance capabilities and no offensive or defensive weaponry. In recent years it had been used principally as a site for astronomical experiments and as a refueling depot. “We’ll commence our attack in two minutes, whether or not the station has been evacuated.”

  ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

  “Enterprise shows ready for crew transfer, General,” Jefferson reported.

  “Very well. Signal JCS and Control that we’ll transfer to Enterprise immediately.” Jefferson nodded and began switching his comm panel to the proper air-to-ground frequency when a new voice came over the intercom: “General, this is Ann.”

  Saint-Michael shifted toward his comm panel. “Ann? Where the hell have you been?”

  “In the Skybolt module. I—”

  “Get out of there, now. We’re evacuating the station.”

  “I only need ten more minutes—”

  “For what?”

  Just then the loud hum of the interphone’s CALL override blocked out Ann’s reply. “General, this is Will. Come up on interphone four.” “What the hell—? Ann, I want you in the command module on the double. Move out.” He switched his comm panel to the discrete closed-circuit interphone channel. “All right, Jerrod, what is it?”

  “A way out. Maybe....”

  “Don’t keep us in suspense—”

  “Baker and Yemana are outside the shuttle, General. They’re working their way down to the spare Thor missiles.”

  “They’re what?”

  “Baker came up with a way to manually activate the missiles. He and Yemana are going to unstow two of the missiles, point them at those Russians, and cook ’em off.”

  “Goddamn, Jerrod, I didn’t authorize that. It’s too risky. Once the Russians see—”

  “General,” Will interrupted. “It’ll work. Those spaceplanes are right on top of you, but they’re on the opposite side from the spare Thors on the underside of the keel. By the time they find out what’s happening it’ll be too late.”

  Saint-Michael shook his head. Suddenly everyone in his command had turned into a damn space cowboy. He was losing control. He turned toward Moyer standing in his spacesuit near the hatch to the research module. “Move down to the connecting tunnel between engineering and the storage module, on the double. See if you can signal B
aker and Yemana. Try to tell them to get their butts back on board Enterprise .” On the discrete interphone channel he said, “It’s a damned stupid idea, Jerrod. Once those Russians see us fooling with the Thor missiles they’ll blow us all away. Order Baker and Yemana back.”

  “Sir, I think we should at least go out fighting—”

  “You think? I’m still the commander of this station and I want those men ordered back. Do it.”

  There was a short pause, then the reluctant reply: “Yes, sir.”

  But it was already too late. Moyer called over stationwide interphone. “General, I can see one of them. He’s made it to the spare Thor racks ”

  Wearing large MMUs, the manned maneuvering units, on their backs, Baker and Yemana unstowed two Thor missiles, refrigeratorsized cylinders with dozens of arms sticking out of each side. After the missiles were hauled out of their containers Baker opened an access panel on one side of each missile and activated a series of switches that bypassed the SBR controls and made the missiles autonomous. Next he removed a maintenance access-cover on each missile and manually activated the Thor’s radar-seeker head. Finally he and Yemana helped each other to attach the missiles to brackets on their MMU cylinders, and together both men slowly, carefully edged their way underneath opposite sides of the central station keel and maneuvered the seeker-heads of their missiles around the edge of the keel and up toward where they had last seen the Soviet spaceplanes.

  Their only shared radio transmission came after they had maneuvered their bulky missiles around the keel and aimed them at the point in the sky where the Soviet spaceplanes had been parked. Yemana put a finger on his MMU thruster, took a deep breath, and called, “Now."

  Yemana jetted forward six feet, stopped and swung his missile up. Ironically, since the SBR antenna on his side had been blasted away he had a perfectly unobstructed shot at one of the Soviet spaceplanes, which he could see as a dim oblong shape against the backdrop of stars. He waited a few moments until a tiny flashing green light on the removed maintenance access panel illuminated, then hit a button on the engine control panel, unclipped the missile and pulled back his right-hand MMU thruster controller. He had jetted only ten feet away from the Thor missile when it was engine ignited....