Brown, Dale - Independent 01

by Silver Tower (v1. 1)

  Like the Arkhangel’s carrier group, the Nimitz’s had to contend with airborne threats of its own. The Nimitz was only a thousand miles south of Tashkent, the Southern Military District headquarters, where ten Tu-95 Bear bombers were now based. The Bears carried the naval-attack version of the AS-6 cruise missile, which could be launched against the Nimitz well within the protection of Soviet land- based surface-to-air missile sites in occupied Iran. The Soviets also had a new weapon, the AS-15 cruise missile, a long-range, nuclear- tipped supersonic cruise missile. The AS-15 could be launched from well within the Soviet Union, or its shipbome version could be launched from one of the Arkhangel's escorts at extreme range. Supersonic land-based bombers from the Soviet Union were also a major threat against the American fleet.

  Another series of strategic maneuvers were being accomplished in an entirely different realm: under the sea. A small fleet of American attack submarines had moved into the Indian Ocean and were edging closer and closer to their adversaries. But unlike the sky-spanning maneuvers of a high-altitude B-52, this precombat dance was measured in single miles or even in yards. It might take days for a Los Angeles-class attack submarine to move two miles closer to the escort ships surrounding the Arkhangel; then, in a chance encounter, it would be discovered by a lucky helicopter sonar dip or a tiny telltale sound from within the submarine, and then the sub would be forced to run off and start all over again. Four subs were involved in this tension-filled chase, maneuvering bit by bit toward their huge target.

  The Nimitz was a bit more fortunate: the four Soviet attack submarines from Vladivostok remained with the Arkhangel battle group in a defensive posture, prowling the seas close to their battle group. Other subs were being reassigned from Havana and from the Mediterranean toward the Persian Gulf, but they could be tracked as they made their way through the Suez Canal or Strait of Gibraltar or around Cape Horn. If hostilities erupted they at least could be intercepted before they reached the Nimitz battle group. What the outcome would be was, of course, uncertain.

  The battle lines were already drawn. Even though the combatants were still several hundred miles apart, the chief players in the final battle of the Persian Gulf had already been chosen. The confrontation would soon be at hand.

  There was no jovial prelaunch breakfast with family members and politicians, no press conference, no words of congratulations or encouragement. The crew of America had the traditional steak-and-eggs breakfast, but it was served in strict privacy in the HTS Launch Control Facility mess hall. A few words passed between the crewmembers, but they were hushed and confined strictly to the flight or the launch.

  After breakfast the crew filed toward the life-support shop for their prelaunch suiting-up. The four crewmembers pulled anti-“g” suits over their coveralls, which would protect them against the sustained five to six “g”s they might experience in the first ten minutes of flight. Because breathing they might be difficult in the high “g” environment, each would also wear POS facemasks, with oxygen fed into the masks under pressure.

  After their last-minute physical and suiting-up the crew walked to the loading dock on top of the spaceplane. America was still in her loading hangar, sitting on top of the huge sled, with the sled’s hydrogen-oxygen rocket engines on either side. They took a long escalator ride to the top of the loading dock, walked across a catwalk to the top entry-docking entry hatch and then rode a moving ladder down to America's airlock on the flight deck.

  In spite of America's huge size, the flight deck was no larger than a shuttle upper deck. They moved through the large airlock chamber and into the flight deck area. The galley, waste-control-system facilities and storage lockers were on the left. The right side of the cabin held numerous storage lockers for space suits and EVA equipment.

  Forward of the airlock were two permanently mounted seats with space beside each seat for another temporary jump seat. The HTS seats were hydraulically dampened, heavily padded seats that would help the occupant to better withstand the high “g” forces.

  Forward of the passenger seats was a small area with auxiliary controls and circuit-breaker panels, and forward of that was the cockpit. The entire flight deck forward of the airlock was a huge life- support capsule. In an emergency the flight deck would explosively cut itself free of the spaceplane, rocket away from the stricken craft and parachute to earth under a two-hundred-foot-wingspan delta-wing parasail.

  Under strict Master Mission Computer (“Mimic”) control, preflight preparations in the cockpit were already well under way by the time the crew had boarded, so Ann and her fellow crewmembers had little else to do but strap in and monitor the computer’s progress. A wall of four large computer monitors on the front instrument panel explained each preflight step being performed. As a sort of token gesture to the humans, the computer would pause after each step and ask if the humans wanted to proceed. The reply was always “yes”; the computer would proceed anyway if no reply had been given within five seconds. After only thirty minutes of computer-actuated switching and lightning-fast electronic commands and replies, America was ready for launch.

  “Falcon Control, this is America,” Colonel Hampton radioed. “Mimic reports prelaunch checklist complete. Acknowledge.”

  “America, we confirm. Checklist complete. Be advised, launch sled fuel-pressurization complete.”

  “Roger. Awaiting final clearance.”

  “Stand by, America.”

  The last radio exchange puzzled Ann: it was an unusual amount of human intervention for a normal hypersonic spaceplane launch. Usually any clearances required for launch were obtained by Mimic enquiries to various other computers around the facility. Humans were not ordinarily consulted.

  Ann turned to Marty and keyed her interphone switch. “Is there something wrong? I don’t recall this step in the simulator rides.”

  Marty hesitated before replying: “I’m sure with all the brass observing this flight, someone just hit the pause button somewhere to give the brass time to get caught up. Mimic can move pretty fast.”

  The wait lasted for some five minutes, then a sudden voice on the radio announced: “America, this is Falcon Launch Control. Ignition sequence interrupt. Launch abort. Launch abort.”

  Ann had her harness buckles, oxygen hoses, “g”-suit hoses and communication cords off in five seconds. Marty followed suit and immediately got to his feet.

  “Remember, get a good tight grip on that safety belt on the rescue tower,” Marty was saying. “It’ll jerk you pretty hard when it pulls you away from the—”

  They heard the sound of the upper airlock hatch being wrenched open. “Someone’s out there,” Marty said, not quite believing. “How? They just called the abort....” They both hurried across to see who could possibly have made it on top of the spaceplane only five seconds after the abort was called.

  In reply the huge curved airlock door swung open and a tall figure stepped through. Ann’s eyes showed stunned recognition, but before either Ann or Marty could speak, the figure addressed them:

  “No time for explanations now,” Jason Saint-Michael said straightfaced and moved quickly past them toward the cockpit.

  Ann merely stared at the back of the cockpit seats for several moments, then turned around to see two launch technicians dropping through the open hatch. She moved to the cockpit as Horvath slid past her and Hampton began strapping into the right seat.

  “Jason ... you’re all right... ? You’re going to fly...?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “But you told me your plan was disapproved. ...”

  “It comes down to good old-fashioned arm-twisting. More later,” he said as he strapped into the left-side commander’s seat. “Get ready for launch; we can’t delay too long or we’ll lose the optimal launch window. We’ve only got ninety minutes to pull that damned casket thing out of the cargo bay and put a fuel tank on board—a full fuel tank this time.”

  She squelched her questions and went back to her seat. Schultz and Horvath
were helping the technicians assemble a spare crew seat beside the two permanent ones. Marty motioned Horvath into his permanent seat. Horvath accepted and began strapping himself into the seat beside Ann while Marty began securing himself onto the flimsylooking tubular seat they had just assembled.

  “You’re going to fly in that?” Ann asked.

  “You bet,” Marty said. He gave his best swashbuckling grin. “Only rookies need anti-‘g’ seats.”

  “But what about the mission to retrieve the bodies....”

  “Looks like it’s a different mission now,” Marty said. “They sure cut it close, though. It’s dangerous as hell to interrupt a launch countdown after the rocket fuel tanks have been pressurized. A few more minutes and it would’ve been too late without a week-long abort.”

  He jabbed a thumb aft. “If I know General Saint-Michael, he’s organized the world’s fastest cargo switch in history. One of those fuel tanks can hold five thousand pounds of liquid oxygen and ten thousand pounds of liquid hydrogen—more than enough to refuel Silver Tower’s depleted fuel cells. The PAM boosters? They’ll make great boosters for Armstrong Station.”

  “So we’re really going to do it.. .we're reactivating Armstrong Station. ...”

  TYURATAM, USSR

  Marshal Alesander Govorov was on a late afternoon tour of Glowing Star, the Soviet spaceflight center in south-central Russia. He had shunned his military escort, although his staff car with armed driver was following along a few dozen meters behind. In the growing dusk, wandering around his Elektron launch facility—now, by Stavka decree, unquestionably his—he preferred solitude as he observed his workers scurrying around the launch pads.

  He looked ahead and saw his dream standing before him, illuminated by banks of spotlights on tall towers: three SL-16 Krypkei rockets, service gantrys and umbilicals in place, ready for launch. On top of each booster was an Elektron spaceplane, gleaming in the Space Defense Command colors of silver and red.

  Each spaceplane, he knew, was armed with ten Scimitar hypervelocity missiles, now for the first time being mass-produced in the Leningrad Malitanskaya-Krovya exotic weapons factories. They had proved their worth in combat with stunning results. He also had three top Soviet cosmonauts, hand-picked and personally trained, on twenty-four-hour alert at the Space Defense launch center.

  His newly formed combat unit, the first of its kind, was the talk of the Soviet military, but despite—or perhaps because of—the unit’s success much effort was being expended in instituting refinements and improvements. Changes had already been proposed, for example, in Govorov’s simple but effective hypervelocity missile-weapon design. Undoubtedly the changes would end up complicating things, requiring more cosmonaut intervention before launch, but that, Govorov thought, would be considered a reasonable price to pay.

  One change already made was an added explosive warhead to the Scimitar missile, needed because some midlevel engineer had noted that fifteen Scimitar missile hits on the space station Armstrong did not produce the devastation everyone had expected. With new explosive Scimitars in the Elektron’s cargo bay, it was that much more dangerous to fly, but that was always the way. The better, the more dangerous.

  Govorov also knew that careers were made by those eager to make such refinements, and sometimes those men would steamroll over those in their way. He was on the lookout for such men, but at the same time he was careful not to hold on too tightly to his precious Bavinash missiles. Progress, for better or worse, was inevitable.

  More important, his big gamble had paid off. Even in the Soviet military hierarchy those with the guts to stand for what they believed in could have some success. High rank usually meant heavy inertia, and the members of the Kollegiya had more in common than they would ever want to admit.

  But leaders could reward as well as strike down—when they perceived their own self-interest. Govorov, once commander of a small tenant unit at Tyuratam, now was commander of half of the entire base—over two thousand square kilometers, a dozen launch pads with support equipment and two thousand men and women— and he could summon as much hardware as he required from any comer of the Soviet Union to fill those launch pads. On his own authority, he could launch a half-billion kilograms of men and machines into earth orbit. He could do everything and anything except attack a foreign spacecraft, and then he needed only the word of one man, the general secretary of the Soviet Union himself, to attack any spacebome target he felt was a threat to the nation.

  It was a level of responsibility unprecedented in the Soviet Union —and, with very few exceptions, anywhere else. American nuclear submarine commanders, under extreme circumstances, could launch an attack in time of war; the commander of the American strategic bomber forces could launch his planes at his own discretion to improve their survivability in case of attack or natural disaster; the three Israeli fighter-bomber theater commanders could assemble their stockpiled nuclear weapons and launch an attack if provoked or in danger of being overrun. But not one of them had the power to take command of outer space. Only Marshal Alesander Govorov of the Soviet Union had that.

  Take command of outer space. Govorov reflected on the implications of that as he moved down the main concourse toward the launch control center. He had been in the control center only a few minutes later when Colonel Gulaev approached him.

  “Sir, launch-detection report has been relayed to us by our reconnaissance satellites. The spaceplane America has launched from southern California....”

  Govorov glanced at the chronometer over the command center consoles. “Ninety minutes later than their announced schedule. Has the launch been confirmed by any other means?”

  Gulaev checked his watch. “Yes, sir. Agents in place near Edwards Air Force Base reported it to intelligence, and the news reports of several countries were filled with detailed descriptions of the launch.” He paused. “Trouble, sir?”

  Govorov’s earlier mood quickly melted away. “Do you think the late takeoff is significant?”

  Gulaev shrugged. “The most important, the most widely publicized space flight by the outraged Americans, and it takes off ninety minutes late.... It could be, sir.”

  Govorov nodded, went quickly to a computer-monitor at the extreme right end of the master command console, moving a technician aside as he scrolled through the display.

  “These tracking data are hours old,” Govorov said. Gulaev moved to his side and noticed that his superior was checking the orbital status readouts of the space station Armstrong.

  “We can update the data in three hours,” Gulaev told him, checking the chronometer again. “But the station’s orbit is erratic and its altitude is decreasing rapidly. It’s becoming harder and harder to track.”

  Govorov studied the information. Armstrong was, miraculously, still in one piece, judging by the signal strength of the radars tracking the station. It seemed they would need to redefine what they considered the upper limits of the atmosphere. One hundred thirty kilometers was the usual altitude where atmospheric heating due to friction should cause damage to a spacecraft, but it was also generally acknowledged that the upper atmosphere was not flat like a desert but as craggy as the Himalayas: in some spots it only extended to eighty kilometers, in others perhaps a hundred fifty. Earth’s atmosphere, as Govorov had observed many times from space, was like a boiling cauldron. Clouds revealed only a small fraction of the real turbulence in the sky. Surely the American space station should have impacted with enough of the higher peaks of the atmosphere to cause some damage. Apparently, it had not... ?

  A vague sense of unease began to grip Govorov as he recalled his words to Colonel Voloshin—something about the space station Armstrong remaining a threat as long as it was in orbit. For the past few weeks he had allowed himself the luxury of thinking the station was doomed, that his two-ship attack force had inflicted a mortal blow. But the station was still aloft. Was it also still a danger?

  Logic said no. The station was mere hours from reentering the atmospher
e. The crew of the spaceplane America had little time to retrieve the bodies of their dead crewmembers, let alone boost the station into higher orbit. Their late takeoff was like a death sentence for the station. No, he had accomplished his mission.... The station was just taking a little longer to expire.

  He took a deep breath, nodded to Gulaev. “Be sure careful records are made of the spaceplane’s progress. I will be in quarters.”

  A few more hours, Govorov thought as he left the command center for his waiting vehicle. Just a few more hours....

  HYPERSONIC SPACEPLANE AMERICA

  It was long, long after America had reached orbit that Ann was able to recover fully from the sheer excitement of the launch. Marty Schultz almost had to shake her to get her attention.

  “We’re in orbit,” Marty said. “Sorry to startle you but I haven’t seen you move in a few minutes.”

  “I feel drained, like I just ran a marathon.”

  “Well, it’s not your usual shuttle launch, for sure.”

  That, Ann decided, was a rank understatement. Unlike the shuttle, which gradually climbed into orbit, the spaceplane America sprinted into orbit. From the moment the rocket engines were ignited on the sled that propelled the spaceplane down the long launch track in the high southern California desert, she had felt the crushing “g”-forces pin her body to her seat. America had been boosted from zero to two hundred miles per hour in less than fifteen seconds... It was nearly impossible to believe that seven hundred thousand pounds of machine could be accelerated at such a rate.

  She’d thought the “g”s would diminish after they’d lifted off the rocket sled, but they hadn’t even begun to slacken. The first indication of a force even greater than the rockets on the sled came when the center scramjet engine ignited. The three-hundred-fifty-ton space- plane bucked like a living thing, lurching so hard that the hydraulic “g”-dampeners in Ann’s seat could hardly absorb the shock. One hundred miles an hour of airspeed was added to the forward momentum of the spaceplane in the blink of an eye. Her “g”-suit had immediately inflated to keep her from blacking out, and if her face mask had not shot oxygen under pressure into her lungs she would have suffocated. As it was, her rib cage felt heavy as lead and breathing was suddenly impossible. When the other two scramjet engines ignited shortly afterward, her “g”-dampening seat had hit its limit and her body was forced to endure the ever-building, crushing pressure. She had had to perform an “H-maneuver,” whereby blood was forced to the upper body and head by partially closing off the trachea, and then grunting against the pressure. She glanced sideways during the ascent and saw Horvath’s chest heave and flutter as he performed the maneuver too.