Executive Intent

by Dale Brown

  “But it can’t match an American carrier, right?” Barbeau asked. “It’s smaller, and they only have one? We have twelve, plus its escort ships, and are building four more.”

  “The 190 is China ’s second carrier-they have a smaller carrier, purchased from Iran, that’s been used to train crews on carrier ops,” Carlyle said. “But a Chinese carrier shadowing an American carrier battle group is emblematic of a growing trend: China is building its ability to project naval power far beyond its home waters in order to protect its business interests around the world, protect shipping lanes, and counter American hegemony.”

  “American hegemony?” Barbeau asked with playacted southern-belle innocence. She knew exactly what that term meant, but she wanted to hear the military’s spin on it. “What are the Chinese worried about? We’re not at war-we don’t even compete with them. We buy billions of dollars of their goods, and they buy trillions of dollars of our debt. China is under no threat of invasion from anyone I’m aware of, except perhaps internally, and they employ very effective anti-insurgency intelligence and interdiction forces to eliminate unrest.”

  “The situation is plain and simple, Madam Secretary: the U.S. Navy is the world’s best, and the second-and third-string players don’t like it and will do anything they can think of to bust us up,” Raydon said.

  “Thank you, General Raydon, but I can take it from here,” Carlyle said. He spread his hands and nodded. “But as the general said, Stacy, China depends on exports-selling their goods to every corner of the globe, sent mostly by oceangoing vessels. Everywhere they go, in every ocean and sea near any major port of call anywhere on the planet, they are confronted by the same thing: the U.S. Navy. They know the Navy patrols and controls the world’s sea-lanes, and has the power to deny access to anyone if they so choose.

  “Therefore, China wants a blue-water navy to challenge American dominance and protect its interests around the world,” Carlyle went on. “They bought themselves an aircraft carrier from Russia and are undergoing a massive crash training course to make it fully blue-water operational. Additionally, we know they’re placing ground-launched ballistic hypersonic antiship missiles in their sea-launched ballistic-missile submarines’ operating areas and sea-lanes near their shores as a warning to our survey ships and hunter-killer sub patrols to stay away-”

  “And now they’ve engineered this so-called accidental launch as another warning: Your carriers are at risk, so stay away,” Raydon said. “They say it was an accident, and we’re buying into it.”

  “Thank you, General Raydon,” Barbeau said irritably. “If there’s nothing more you have for us, you can resume your duties up there…wherever you are.”

  “Over the South Atlantic now, ma’am,” Raydon said. “I do have one more comment to make regarding China. Their new manned space station, the Golden Wing Ten, maneuvered itself into an almost mirror orbit recently. We’re still separated by altitude and distance, but it clearly is a hostile move on their part.”

  “I don’t understand, General,” Miller Turner said. “What’s hostile about this? The so-called Chinese space station is a couple of space capsules docked together with a central engineering and mating module. There are only four Chinese astronauts aboard.”

  “It demonstrates some important capabilities, sir: the ability to maneuver, to be refueled, and to track another spacecraft with accuracy,” Raydon said. “Moving a spacecraft into a different orbit requires a lot of fuel, and unless the fuel is replenished, the service life of a satellite is greatly shortened when it’s moved, especially to the degree this one has been. It’s a relatively simple task now to maneuver within striking distance of Armstrong Space Station.”

  “‘Striking distance’?” Carlyle remarked. “You mean, deliberately collide or attack the space station?”

  “Why else would you send a spacecraft on nearly the same orbit, sir?” Raydon asked. “We don’t know that much about the Golden Wing Ten. The Chinese tell us it’s to expand their knowledge and experience in orbital operations, but that’s about it. We speculate that it’s akin to our early Gemini-Agena spacecraft docking missions, where we learned docking, handling, and equipment-transfer procedures that we eventually used on Skylab, lunar, Shuttle, and International Space Station missions, but again, we’re making excuses for the Chinese that are not backed up by any evidence. We should-”

  “We’re completely off the topic here, gentlemen,” Stacy Anne Barbeau interrupted, “so let’s save this discussion for another time, shall we? We’re agreed that the Chinese missile launch was most likely accidental; we want to participate in a full-scale investigation; and we’d like the Chinese to stay away from our carriers and point their missiles in some other direction. In return, we’ll pledge to use less aggressive maneuvers to warn foreign pilots to turn away, in order to avoid possible damage that might result in accidental launches. Can I go to the president and recommend this course of action to him?” Kai Raydon looked as if he was going to raise his hand, but no one else said anything, so Barbeau said quickly, “Thank you for your inputs, gentlemen. My staff will follow up with each of you for details for the report to the president, and I’ll call if I have any more questions. Thank you.” And her videoconference window disappeared.

  “Thanks for the good work, General Raydon,” Secretary of Defense Turner said. “Please pass along your full report of the Bush incident to Air Force as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kai responded, and signed off.

  “Opinionated SOB, isn’t he?” National Security Adviser Carlyle remarked. “Seems that flying…or according to Raydon, falling…through orbit in a space station gives you the right to say whatever happens to be on your mind.”

  “They’re doing great work on a shoestring budget, Conrad,” Turner said. “Every time they go out and capture, repair, refuel, and reorbit a satellite, they save us about a hundred million dollars compared to the cost of launching a satellite from Earth.”

  “If he shoots his mouth off at Barbeau again like that, he’ll be beached faster than any rocket ship,” Carlyle said. “After putting up with McLanahan for so long, Barbeau’s not going to let another cocky space cowboy stay put.”

  “Speaking of the space station, I got the initial report from Air Force about a test of a new space weapon,” Turner said. “They call it Mjollnir, or Thor’s Hammer, a system that reenters titanium bars through the atmosphere at thousands of miles an hour. They hit a small ship-size target from a hundred miles in space with one big metal bar. They had a bunch of congressional staffers observe the hit-I guess it really watered their eyes.”

  “The ‘Rods from God’ actually worked, eh?” Carlyle remarked idly.

  “Blew the hell out of the target. Direct hit.”

  “Mil, I gotta admit: The space stuff is cool, and I’m sure the Air Force’s recruiting numbers are going through the roof, but there’s not any money in the budget for Rods from God or any more space stuff,” Carlyle said dismissively. “The president wanted aircraft carriers, Congress said yes, so there’s going to be aircraft carriers.”

  “I know, Conrad, I know,” Turner said. “Building four more carrier battle groups has sucked up every available dollar out of the next ten defense budgets. But I’m already getting queries from Congress about the space stuff. When the word gets out about this incident in the South China Sea and then the success of this space-weapon test, the obvious questions will arise: Why are we building carriers that are so vulnerable?”

  “We, especially the president, have the answer: The carriers are the ultimate in power projection,” Carlyle said. “You park an aircraft carrier battle group off someone’s coastline, and the negotiations start soon afterward. And they’re far more versatile than space-based assets. The space guys watched the incident in the South China Sea, but what could they do about it? Even if they had the Rods from God, or even that big laser they used to have up there, would they have sunk the Chinese carrier in response? The president is mak
ing the right decision, Mil.”

  “The Air Force undersecretary in charge of space, Ann Page, is really pushing this new Space Defense Force thing,” Turner said. “Now that the Thor’s Hammer project is unclassified and apparently successful, she’ll be pressing a military presence in space even harder.”

  “That’s her job,” Carlyle said. “But she was brought into the Pentagon so we could monitor and control her public comments. She can talk all she wants, but she still has to support the president and the administration as long as she’s in that post. If she doesn’t toe the line, we’ll make sure she’s disgraced as well as dismissed. It’s your job to make sure she stays on the right side.”

  “I know that, Conrad. I’m just giving you a heads-up. We may be building carriers like crazy, but space is not going away.”

  ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

  THE NEXT DAY

  “Attention on the station, hostile spacecraft detected, all personnel to emergency posts!” Senior Master Sergeant Valerie Lukas announced on the PA system. “Time to possible collision, seven minutes! All posts, report when configured for station defense and damage control!”

  Kai Raydon was on his way from the latrine cubicle when the alert came, and he propelled himself across the large command module faster than he had ever done before. “Why do these things always happen when I’m in the latrine?” he muttered. “Report.”

  “Pirinclik has detected liftoff of a large rocket from an unknown launch site in southern Russia, designated E-1,” Lukas said, referring to the U.S. Air Force’s AN/FPS/79 space tracking radar facility in Turkey. “Confirmed by DSP and SBIRS-High. E-1 does not appear to be going into orbit, but is on a very high-altitude, very high-speed ballistic path.”

  “Aimed at us?”

  “Yes, sir,” Lukas said. “Time to impact, six minutes.”

  “No announced launches of any kind?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then it’s a bad guy,” Kai said. “Designate E-1 as hostile. Are we tracking it yet?”

  “Negative, sir. Our tracking radar and Doppler are off-line.”

  “Perfect. Pirinclik still have it?”

  “They’ll lose it in ninety seconds,” Lukas responded. “Globus-2 and Diego Garcia aren’t tracking. Shemya might pick it up about sixty seconds before impact.”

  “They attacked at the perfect moment-right where our space surveillance coverage is the worst,” Kai said. “Okay, we’re down to our own infrared and optical sensors. Let’s have a look. We’ll have Pirinclik aim the sensors for acquisition.”

  The large multifunction display between Raydon and Lukas changed from a radar graphic of the launch to a split-screen view of Earth. The left split showed Earth as a cool gray mass in the background, with flashes of light here and there from lightning and reflected sunlight, which computers were attempting to tune out as much as possible. The right split showed Earth through a telescope, set for wide field of view as it searched for the incoming missile.

  “Four minutes to impact,” Lukas reported.

  “C’mon, guys, find the sucker,” Raydon said.

  “Too much background clutter…”

  “Try manually tuning,” Raydon said. “The computers are tuning out the background clutter-tune for the target.”

  Lukas switched the infrared sensor’s tuning to manual, and the left side of the monitor flared almost to complete white as the energy being radiated by the Earth washed out the heat-sensitive sensor. Seeker carefully adjusted several controls until the background faded, then began tuning even more carefully. “The sensor slaved to Pirinclik’s radar-it’s gotta be right in front of us, and hotter than hell,” she murmured. “Anything on the camera?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “You’ll find it, Seeker,” Raydon said. “Countermeasures?”

  “Standing by, sir,” the officer in charge of the station’s active defenses replied. “All systems active.”

  “Three minutes. Pirinclik radar lost contact.”

  “Seeker?”

  “It’s gotta be cooler than I’m expecting,” the Air Force senior master sergeant said. “Unslave the camera and search separately in case I’m way off.”

  “You’re not,” Raydon said. “Relax and find it.”

  “Damage control parties in position, sir.”

  “Copy.” On the stationwide intercom he said, “All personnel, two minutes to-”

  “Got it!” Lukas crowed. “It’s cold, not hot-they must’ve figured out a way to cool it off to make it harder to pick up on infrared.” She immediately slaved the camera to the infrared seeker and zoomed in. The visual image showed a simple black bullet-shaped object. “It looks like a payload, not the entire rocket-it must’ve already staged.”

  “Countermeasures ready?”

  “Defensive systems ready, sir.”

  Raydon punched in instructions in his computer keyboard, then opened a red-covered switch and activated it, giving commander’s authority to fire weapons. “Attention on the station, countermeasures under way. Permission to engage, Seeker. Shoot when ready.”

  “Radiating now.” Lukas entered commands into her computer, activated her own authorization switch, and hit a keyboard button. Moments later, an alert flashed on the monitors. “Automatic tracking failed,” she announced. She grasped a joystick handle on the right side of her console and squeezed the slewing lever, which brought up a set of crosshairs on her camera monitor. Adjusting the field of view with her left hand while watching the monitor, she carefully placed the crosshairs on the target and squeezed a trigger. “Targeting lasers firing…COIL activating.”

  Mounted below the pressurized modules of Armstrong Space Station, in the place where the controversial Skybolt magnetohy-drodynamic antiballistic-missile laser had been mounted, was a simple boxlike structure with several articulating turrets around it. Small targeting lasers shot from the turrets began tracking the incoming target, precisely measuring distance and bearing.

  When the object was in range-about two hundred miles, or just forty seconds to impact-the main weapon activated. The structure contained the Hydra, a five-hundred-kilowatt Chemical-Oxygen-Iodine Laser, or COIL, a smaller version of the two megawatt COIL aboard the YAL-1 Airborne Laser and the AL-52 Dragon antiballistic-missile laser aircraft. Chlorine and hydrogen peroxide were mixed under high pressure, instantly producing highly energetic oxygen, which was compressed by nitrogen and mixed with iodine, creating laser light. The light was amplified by mirrors and optics into a beam and sent to a beam director and through an adaptive-optics focusing mirror, which sent a nickelsize spot of intense laser light on the target.

  As soon as Lukas pulled the trigger to activate the COIL, they could see tiny sparkles of light around the target-but it wasn’t from the laser. “Maneuvering thrusters-the sucker’s maneuvering,” Lukas said.

  “Stay with it, Seeker,” Raydon urged her. “Nail that sucker.”

  “I’m not sure if I have a coherent beam without auto tracking-”

  “The targeting lasers didn’t malfunction, only the main turret,” Raydon said. “You’re the tracker now. Get it!”

  Lukas released the trigger when the computer told her the laser volley had ended; she had to wait ten precious seconds until she could fire the next volley. “Sure would like to have another COIL up here,” she said.

  “We’re lucky to have the one,” Raydon said. “Get ready for a second shot. All personnel, brace for impact and report any damage to me immediately.”

  As soon as the computer said she could fire again, she pulled the trigger and sent another burst at the target. “It has a pattern,” she said. “I’ve got you now, sucker.” Carefully matching the target’s gyrations, she was able to keep the COIL beam on target long enough for the laser to burn a hole in the target’s thin skin with just seconds to spare…

  …and as the beam drove itself through the target, it broke apart and showered Armstrong Space Station…with a cloud of paper confetti, traveling a
t eighteen thousand miles per hour but causing no damage.

  “Good job, Seeker,” Raydon said. Lukas safed the COIL and secured her station, then let herself go limp in zero-g, being careful to use a towel to wipe away the sweat before it floated off her skin and became both a nuisance and a hazard. “Telemetry says you had the beam on target for three-point-eight seconds. I’d say that would be enough to take down a real antisatellite weapon.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Lukas said. “But I wish we could do an auto engagement one of these days so I could sit back and watch the Hydra work.”

  “What fun is that?” Raydon asked with a smile. On the stationwide intercom he spoke, “All personnel, exercise target successfully destroyed in a visually acquired, manual-track engagement with the COIL. Inspect your stations for any signs of damage, secure from emergency stations, and submit postexercise reports to me as soon as possible. Thank you, everyone. Good job.”

  “Midnight One to Armstrong,” Hunter Noble radioed from the XS-19 Midnight spaceplane, which had launched the target at the space station for the test. “Just want to be sure you guys were still breathing air and not space dust.”

  “Successful visual-manual engagement, Boomer,” Raydon replied. “The confetti was a cute touch.”

  “Thought you’d like it, General.”

  Raydon switched the monitor at his station to the constant feed of telemetry he received from all of the spacecraft under his control, including the Midnight spaceplane. “Come on in to refuel and we’ll load you up for a return to Roswell.” Spaceport America, located at the former Roswell Industrial Air Center in southern New Mexico, was America ’s first private-commercial facility dedicated to supporting manned spaceflight-many of the supply rockets sent to the space station were launched by commercial companies from there. Because of its rather isolated location and twelve-thousand-foot runway, it made a good place to land from space without disturbing too many residents with sonic booms. “Hope you don’t mind doing another trash run.”