“A day and a half,” the general secretary said. “And that, I assume, is a very optimistic figure. And that only places us at the same force level that we were at when the first twenty aircraft were destroyed. When the space station is finally knocked out, what do we have to take advantage of that?” He stood and walked around the triangular table. “Hear me now, I will not be forced to use thermonuclear weapons to secure the Persian Gulf. I will not go down in history as the first Soviet leader to use nuclear weapons, especially on an inferior enemy force. Well, let me hear some alternatives.”
“A suggestion, Comrade General Secretary,” Ilanovsky, the commander in chief of the army, said. “Sir, the objective is to destroy or cripple the Nimitz and her escorts. I still believe a massive cruise missile attack is the best way to attack the American fleet, but not with air-launched missiles. The flight profiles of the AS-6 and AS-4 missiles are too vulnerable to engagement by the Nimitz’s guided missile cruiser escorts, and the other air-to-ground cruise missiles currently deployed, such as the AS-15, are nuclear.”
“Then what else is available?”
“We have in early deployment a ground-launched cruise missile, a variant of the SS-N-24 naval cruise missile currently deployed on some of our older attack submarines. It’s called the GL-25 Distant Death. It has transsonic speed, inertial and terrain-comparison guidance with active terminal-radar homing, and it can carry an eleven hundred kilogram conventional high-explosive warhead or a five hundred kiloton thermonuclear warhead over three thousand kilometers to its target with high accuracy. Only a hundred or so have been deployed, but most were sent to the Southern Military Headquarters region during the readiness exercise Rocky Sweep. From Tashkent and the mountains north of Afghanistan it would be possible to strike at the American fleet in the Arabian Sea.”
“But the Nimitz’s escorts have already proved that they can protect themselves from cruise-missile attack,” Chercherovin put in.
“Not from the GL-25,” Ilanovsky told him quickly. “This cruise missile does not stay at high altitude as it gets closer to its target like the AS-4 or AS-6, but is preprogrammed to travel at low altitude when in areas of high-threat concentration, and it can make a supersonic dash for the last hundred kilometers to the target. By the time the Nimitz or her escorts spot it, it will be too late to intercept.”
“But the time required to plan a strike sortie—”
“The missiles can be reprogrammed in a few hours,” Ilanovsky said, “The missiles have been stored in surveyed launch positions since Operation Feather began, targeted on suspected areas of resistance in Iran and Afghanistan. They can be ready to launch well before Marshal Govorov’s strike against the space station Armstrong is finished.”
The Stavka was silent. “Any other objections?” the general secretary asked. There were none. “Then I’m in favor of the operation.” He turned to Ilanovsky. “How many missiles can be fielded against the American fleet?”
Ilanovsky paused, then: “Sir, I believe seventy-five missiles were delivered to the southern TVD in support of Rocky Sweep. I must allow for a certain number to be out of commission due to normal maintenance difficulties, but I believe I can field at least fifty GL-25 cruise missiles for launch against the fleet.”
“Fifty missiles against twenty American ships. Can a definite number be targeted for the Nimitz?”
“The GL-25s can’t be targeted that accurately, sir. Once within a certain distance from their preplanned target points, their homing radar is activated and the missile flies directly to the largest radar reflector in the area. But the American carrier fleet is spread out enough in the Arabian Sea to make it very likely that each missile will seek out its own target rather than join with others to attack one vessel. I think the GL-25s will have a devastating effect on the American fleet.”
The general secretary actually looked pleased. “The GL-25 attack, using conventional high-explosive warheads, will immediately be implemented. I want a briefing on the missiles’ exact flight path before launch.”
Ilanovsky, relieved and excited, nodded and issued orders to his aide, charging him with alerting the missile brigades in the south-central Soviet Union.
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION
Saint-Michael switched his comm panel to the TDRS channel and adjusted his earset. “Nimitz, this is Armstrong. Horizon crossing in one minute. Over.”
“Copy, Jason,” from Admiral Clancy. “Standing by for data transmission test.”
They had performed this routine several times in the past two days, and each time the difference between having the station’s eyes and not having them was startling. While Armstrong was on the other side of the globe the Nimitz had to rely on RF-18 Hornet maritime reconnaissance jets, E-27 Hawkeye turboprop early-waming-and-control planes, and Himlord drones to know what the Russians were up to. The Nimitz would launch two Hawkeyes and one Hornet, and the USS Kidd would launch four Himlords all at once. Eventually they all became targets for the escorts and fighters of the Soviet battle group to practice on. So far, two Hornets, one Hawkeye and an entire squadron of Himlords had been lost to Soviet attack.
By contrast, Silver Tower’s SBR provided a much wider scale and more detailed look at the region; in fact, Admiral Clancy had begun to talk about the navy acquiring its own space-based radar platforms to be deployed with all its front-line carrier battle groups. It was no wonder he warmly greeted Silver Tower’s reappearance every ninety minutes.
Saint-Michael monitored the system self-tests and status reports as they scrolled across the monitors. Ken Horvath pointed to a blinking line on the status monitor. “There’s that relay-circuit fault again.”
In the Skybolt control module Ann shooed away sweat blobs, pulled her POS mask to her face and took several deep breaths of oxygen. She was lying on her back placing the securing camlocks back into a relay circuit. The top of the module had been caved in by the force of one missile during the first Soviet spaceplane attack, so the monitors and console that used to be overhead were now squashed almost to the deck. The module was frigid, the air so thin on account of leaks that she got dizzy if she forgot to take a few deep breaths of oxygen every few minutes.
She had an unsecured ten-thousand-volt wire hanging a few inches from her head, pieces of computer components taped and Velcroed everywhere. Relays, memory chips and power supplies designed for one circuit now had to handle three or four. But it was worth it... maybe. At least Skybolt was put back together. But would it work?
“Just finished. I’m ready for a test.”
“Sorry, we’re about to cross the horizon again.” A few moments later the fault indication cleared and reported itself normal. Ann, who had spent most of her time in the Skybolt control module since the station had been repaired could only work on the relay circuitry between Skybolt and the SBR when the SBR was not being used to scan the Arabian Sea.
A few minutes later she entered the command module bringing three cups of coffee and a few pieces of hard candy, the only uncontaminated food still on the station. Saint-Michael and Horvath reached for the coffee.
“How’s it going back there?”
“Bad to maybe better. The Russians put a missile right through one of the SBR relays that controls the slaving system to the laser mirror. I’m patching the circuits through to another relay, but it’s sort of like reinventing the wheel. I’m beginning to discover how much I don’t know about all that electronic stuff back there. I’ll need a system test when we go below the target horizon.”
“You got it.” Saint-Michael rechecked the system readouts. “System self-test completed,” he announced, clicking the ACKNOWLEDGE key on his computer terminal. He switched his comm link to TDRS. “Nimitz, this is Armstrong. Data transmission link-check good. How copy?”
“Ticonderoga acknowledges data self-test good,” said the chief sensor technician aboard the Aegis command-and-control cruiser Ticonderoga. “Trying to get acknowledgment from Nimitz, Standby.”
A few m
oments passed. By matching longitudinal coordinates Saint-Michael was able to announce when they’d crossed the target horizon, and they watched with quiet satisfaction as Ticonderoga and Nimitz began hungrily feeding on SBR transmissions relayed to them from Silver Tower.
“Armstrong, this is Nimitz. Come in.” Admiral Clancy’s serious voice erased the smiles on the faces of Silver Tower’s crews. “Saint-Michael here, sir. Go ahead.”
“Jason, Aerospace Defense Command has just relayed a message to us from defense intelligence. While you were on the back side of that last orbit the laser at Sary Shagan attacked our replacement satellite over the Indian Ocean. It’s been destroyed. Kaput. No missile- launch-detection capability exists in this region.”
Horvath looked to Saint-Michael. “What’s it mean, Skipper?”
“It means it’s their opening volley, just like last time,” Saint-Michael said. “Their spaceplanes can now launch without being detected. We can expect them to show any time.” Over the TDRS comm link he said, “I copy, Admiral. Can you provide even limited launch warning over Asia?”
“Negative. We’re stuck with either tactical reconnaissance or SBR. No deep-space capability. SPACETRACK or Pacific Radar Barrier in Diego Garcia may be able to pick them up, but the only reliable detection and tracking station close enough to help is either Pulmosan in South Korea or San Miguel in the Philippines.” An ominous pause, then: “We can try to get you a link with San Miguel or Diego Garcia, but that won’t do you any good. Face it, Jas. Time’s run out. You’re going to have to get your butts off that station.”
Saint-Michael turned to Ann. “What do you say? Can Skybolt work? Is there a chance?”
“It’s the SBR that’s the sticking point, Jason. The error-trapping functions of the SBR weren’t made for the Skybolt interface—I have to backtrack and find all those error points myself. I think I can do it but—”
“Don’t hedge on me, Ann. Can it work or not?”
She hesitated, trying to separate reality from wishful thinking. “I don’t know. I think I can trap all the errors, but it’ll take time—”
He’d already pulled the microphone to his lips, and his words had the force of a missile all on their own: “Roger, Nimitz. We will begin evacuation immediately. Advise us of any problems with the SBR relay. Armstrong out.” And he clicked off the comm link.
“We’re evacuating?” Ann said.
“We’ve got no other choice.”
“But all our work.... We made this station operational again....”
“Ann, I can’t forget those bodies back in the docking module. Those men died because I made the decision to stay after the first laser attack—”
“But you had a damned good reason—”
“Good, bad:.. they’re dead. We’ve got the same situation happening all over again, only worse. This station is hanging on by putty and prayers. I’m risking lives every time we open the goddamned hatch....” He paused, touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Listen to me. Skybolt was our last hope, our big ace in the hole—and now... now you can’t assure me we have that. We’ve got no choice.... We probably have a few hours until their spaceplanes make it back up here. It’ll give us some time to prepare.... And we can still salvage Skybolt if you and Ken can disconnect it from the station. We can put the laser module in Enterprise's cargo bay and the control module in America’s and boost them both up into a storage orbit.”
Ann, miserable, nodded.
“I’ll try to set up the SBR computers for automatic or remote-controlled operation,” Saint-Michael said. “At least we’ll be able to get a few more hours’ work out of her before... before they completely destroy her.”
As they turned to make final preparations none of them had any doubt that, this time, the destruction of Silver Tower was going to be final.
They did not have long.
Timing, flawless; execution, perfect. A nineteen-second, full- power, sustained chemical laser-burst from Sary Shagan had, indeed, obliterated the replacement launch-detection satellite over the Indian Ocean, first electronically blinding the satellite and then piercing a thruster fuel line, causing an explosion. The satellite’s new errant death-spin had been easily detected by space-scanning radars at Tyuratam, and the message was relayed to Glowing Star that the satellite had been rendered inoperative.
Govorov and his two wingmen, Colonel Andrei Kozhedub in Elektron Two and Colonel Yuri Livyak in Elektron Three, were all aboard their spaceplanes during the laser attack, at the last planned countdown hold only ten minutes from launch. When they got word of the satellite’s destruction the countdown was quickly resumed.
Once again Govorov was the first to launch, riding a column of kerosene and nitro-acid fire on top of his two-million-pound thrust SL-16 Krypkei booster. Separated by only thirty seconds, just long enough for Govorov’s two-hundred thirty-foot-tall, five-hundred- fifty-ton Krypkei rocket to clear the launch tower, the other two SL-16s successfully lifted off, gaining on Govorov’s rocket in a matter of seconds.
The triple rocket launches were first detected by seismic sensors at NATO intelligence sites in Pirinclik, Turkey, but without satellite launch detection the seismic reading told the U.S. Space Command nothing except that there had been a series of powerful explosions. The west-to-east flight path of the Soviet boosters, however, allowed the air force SPACETRACK long-range FPS-17 detection and FPS-79 tracking radars on the tiny island of Diego Garcia, over three thousand miles south of the launch site, to spot the boosters rising through the atmosphere. It was the SPACETRACK site that detected the booster’s first-stage impact in Mongolia and the second-stage impact in the Pacific Ocean north of Japan. The booster’s launch progress and orbital positions were updated from the Pacific Radar Barrier radars at San Miguel in the Philippines and then by the Air Force’s south-facing sea-launched ballistic-missile tracking radars in Texas and Georgia.
Although it did not take long for the three spaceplanes to reach Armstrong station’s orbit altitude, the tail chase to intercept the station would take two complete orbits, over three hours, to move within a few hundred miles of the station.
With the third-stage booster still attached to each spaceplane, Govorov ordered the thrust-power setting and carefully monitored the intercept using tracking signals from ground- and satellite-based space tracking systems. He needed to strike a balance between using up fuel in a fast tail chase and wasting precious time and oxygen on a lengthy chase.
He made up his mind to be patient this time. Everything—his life, his career, the success of Operation Feather—depended on his not making another mistake. The time to hurry would be when the intercept was made and the final attack on the Americans’ space station began....
Govorov was ending his first orbit of the Earth, closing the gap between himself and Armstrong when another spectacular multiple launch took place in south-central Russia.
Once every ten seconds a tongue of flame would erupt from a rugged mountain valley south of Tashkent. Boosted by a solid rocket motor, a GL-25 Distant Death ground-launched cruise missile would leap off its railcar-mounted launcher into the dark skies. Resembling a small jet fighter, with a long cylindrical fuselage, swept wings and cruciform tail section, each GL-25 launched amid a peal of thunder that echoed off the steep granite walls of the surrounding mountains.
The rocket motors accelerated the missile to five hundred kilometers per hour, then detached from the fuselage and fell away into the desolate Zeravsanskij Mountains north of Afghanistan. Air inlets along the sides of the fuselage popped open and the missile’s ramjet engine automatically started. With the ramjets at full power the GL-25 missiles quickly accelerated, and using their inertial navigation system and taking position update terrain-comparison snapshots of the terrain below, they sped southward, hugging the earth less than three hundred meters above ground. Traveling eight hundred kilometers per hour, the missiles crossed into Afghanistan and streaked toward their preprogrammed target-acquisition initial points o
ver twenty-eight hundred kilometers away. After reaching their initial points three-and- a-half hours later they would activate their terminal radar-homing sensors, then for the last two hundred kilometers of their flight seek their individual targets, the nineteen auxiliary vessels and escorts surrounding the Nimitz.
In the rugged mountains there were no radars powerful enough to spot the fast-moving, ground-hugging missiles. The shepherds and farmers and the scattering of people living in the wild middle-eastern coastal mountains were accustomed to the ear-shattering sounds of Soviet military aircraft passing overhead and ignored the almost continual rocket booms. Now, unheeded, the roar of the GL-25s’ ramjet engines echoed up and down the lonely mountain walls as the deadly missiles sped toward their targets.
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION
Two hours later Ann’s breathing had become shallow and slow as her prebreathing stint was nearing completion. She was in the command module helping to monitor the progress of the SBR computer reprogramming. The few remaining computers had to be taught to steer the space station to achieve the best SBR presentation, so that in turn the comm link between Silver Tower and various military and civilian experts on the ground could provide help for the crewmen.
But her duty would be much more difficult. While prebreathing in preparation for putting on her spacesuit she had studied diagrams of the attachment points of her Skybolt module, tracing the mechanical, electrical and pyrotechnic separation mechanisms. She’d also studied the status readouts in the Skybolt control modules to be sure she had the right indications. The last thing she wanted was to damage the laser or its control module, trying to detach it. What she’d told General Stuart about the dangers of handling the nuclear particle-generating components of Skybolt was a bit overstated, but not by very much. Her job was to preserve Skybolt by parking it in orbit without damaging it so badly it had no potential at sometime in the future.
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