by Dale Brown
getting nailed by those spaceplanes--I couldn't tell if the sounds were from the MHD reactor or, from the Soviet missiles. "Well, damn it, I showed a solid lock-on to one of the sPacOPlanes attacking us, and a solid data link between Skybolt and SBR," Ann said. "The Soviets reported losing one of their spaceplanes during the attack--doesn't that prove it works?, I
"Not necessarily, " Stuart said. "The Soviets claim we shot one of the Thor missiles at the spaceplane.... That was the provocation for their attack. They said nothing about the laser. " "That definitely is not true," Saint-Michael said. "All of the garaged Thor missiles were expended during the Gorgon missile attacks. Baker and Yemana detached only two Thors from the ten spares; one missed, the other was never fired. There are eight Viors still on board." "And I tell you, sir, with respect, Skybolt works," Ann said. "It destroyed that spaceplane. I believe that the laser can protect Armstrong Station from spaceplane attack, and it can protect the Nimitz from any more of those AS-6 cruisemissile attacks too." "Impossible. Shoot hundreds of miles through the atmosphere and destroy a cruise missile? You've only had one operational test of Skybolt, and until shown otherwise, it failed. Now you're saying it can protect a fleet of ships hundreds pf miles away?" Stuart shook his head. "I know how committed you are to your project, Dr. Page, but a this sounds too far-fetched-" "If the SBR can track it, Skybolt can hit it," Ann pressed. "With the laser guided by the SBR and the MHD running at full power, it has the power to shoot through a thousand miles of atmosphere and destroy its target. I don't believe an AS-6 is armored well enough to take a laser burst, even attenuated by the atmosphere."
General Stuart stared at a coffee mug ring on his otherwise polished oak conference table without really noticing it. "Armstrong Station can survive," Saint-Michael said. "We don't have to bum thirty billion dollars worth of hardware up
in the atmosphere. If the Russians decide to go all out, Silver Tower's SBR could be critical."
Stuart finally looked up. "All right, Jason, I'll take your recommendation to the Joint Chiefs tonight and ask that it be presented to the president tomorrow. That'll leave him three days to make his decision." "Thank you, sir." Saint-Michael knew he couldn't count on Stuart to state his case as strongly as he would want. He just hoped the president would see the logic
of reactivating the station. Well, one thing was sure: If the plan was approved, he was going to be part of it. Better start pitching now ...... General, if we get the green light I want to pilot America, "
Stuart immediately shook his head. "No way, Jason. You're grounded. Hampton is still the pilot, no matter what the man decides. " "Sir, you don't have any choice on this one. If the plan is authorized you'll need a station commander on Armstrongsomeone who's checked out on SBR and all of the station's subsystems. Hampton's the best HTS jockey we have, but he's not a station commander."
I 74son'.--stuart's patience was wearing thin--"all we need is someone to keep things together until the station gets rwriented-" "That someone would have to take the first officer's place aboard America, leaving Hampton with the job of putting the HTS into orbit by himself. He's good, but he's not that good. "If it came to that, Jason, I'm sure we could rig up a makeshift seat for the extra crewmember. I'm still not convinced you're essential." "Sir, nobody knows that station better than I do," "What about your dysbarism, sir?" Horvath asked, fearing he might lose his chance at his first real ride in the hypersonic spaceplane America. "What if your episodes recur in space?" "America is a spacesuit-enviroament craft. As long as I prebreathe oxygen and stay in a spacesuit I'll be just fine. " I "Jason, you don't know that," Dr. Matsui said from behind him. Saint-Michael didn't bother turning around. "The lower pressure in the suit could trigger a seizure. The excite-
ment, the adrenaline--even the noise could set you off. And if there was an emergency-rapid decompression, a suit puncture-, I
"Then we're out both an HTS pilot and a station commander," Stuart finished for him, "and we bring you back in America's cargo hold, along with all your crew."
That last hit Saint-Michael hard. His crew. Would he be endangering them by heading up the mission? It was one thing to take chances with his own life, but with the lives of the crew.... He scanned the faces of the others in the room. What he saw renewed his determination.
1,,;'Look, General," Saint-Michael said, "there's no denying
be risking my hide by going up there. We all will. It goes, as they say, with the territory. But I think the chances are better than even we'll put that station back in business. Right now, all things considered, 'better than even' seems like pretty good odds."
Stuart said nothing for a long moment. Then: "Like I said, Jas, I'll take your proposal to the Pentagon. I'll tell them you want in-let them decide."
Good old Martin Stuart, Saint-Michael thought. Always an expert at passing the buck. Well, nothing to do now but wait ... and hope. His thoughts drifted ... then fixed on an image of Jim Walker stepping into the lifeboat. That look on his face. What was it? A parting look ... a final farewell ... ?
Saint-Michael's own face hardened as he stood in the Space Command conference room. Somehow, some way, he had to get back on board that station.
The Chevy Blazer turned off the main highway, down a graded dirt road with a large sign that read "Calhan Municipal Airport Welcomes You."
Ann looked at Saint-Michael. "An airport? You live on an airport?" "I get that reaction all the time. I guess I'm one of the few people who've gotten the chance to fulfill a childhood fantasy. When I was a kid, I used to wash airplanes, pump gas and sweep out hangars to pay for flying lessons. I got my pilot's license before I got a driver's license. I was always at the airport. Years later, when I was reassigned to Colorado
Springs, I began hunting around for a place and ran across
this abandoned county airport. Thirty acres, a hangar, fuel storage, a house, a terminal building and a paved runway. Plus I've got freshair--sweetened once in a while from the stockyards up the road--Ahe open sky, and the Rocky Mountains. And all it cost me was the back taxes. Paradise."
They pulled up in front of an old but imposing ranch-style house surrounded by trees several hundred yards from the terminal building. Ann was surprised to see a beacon light revolving on a tower near the terminal. "The airport's active now," he explained. "Another deal I made with the county." "Doesn't the noise ever bother you? It would drive me crazy. I I
"It's not that active. Besides, I'm hardly ever here." "You have your own plane?"
I'Yes, A beauty." They got out of the car and made their way through the darkness to the house. "Of course, if the docs at Space Command don't give me a clean bill of health I'll have trouble flying even my Piper Malibu."
He Ounched a code into a keyless door lock and swung the door open. To her surprise, lights immediately went on in the foyer and front two rooms. "I'm also into gadgets," he said. "If houses can be described as 'high tech,' then this one is." He helped her take off her coat and hung it in the front closet just off the white tiled foyer. "It's warm in here," Ann said. "You keep the heat on all the time when you're gone?" "Another gadget. Before I leave headquarters I call home. When the computer answers, I punch a code into the phone that tells the computer to turn on the heat or air-conditioning, outside lights, everything-it even makes a pot of coffee.
Ann smiled back, pleased to be seeing a new side of him. He led -her into the great room, an oak-paneled palace dominated by a cathedral ceiling and a massive stone fireplace. She sat on a leather sofa in front of the fireplace, and he poured a snifter of Grand Marnier for both of them. When he returned with the liqueur he was pleased to see her curled UP against one of the big arm pillows.
"You look right at home," he said She smiled, accepted the snifter.
He went to the fireplace and within a few minutes had a roaring fire built, then returned to the sof and sat beside her, watching the logs being consumed by the blaze. After a while she moved toward him-Ann Page was neither coy nor a tease-a
nd put her head on his shoulder. He reached over and brushed her hair from her forehead. "It's peaceful here," she said. She looked up at him, watched the reflections of fire in his eyes. "What do you think they'll say? I mean, about reactivating the station? About your going along?" "I'm counting on a yea to both points." "But what if-- "I can't think about that now," he said. "I think my desire to get back to the station, the feeling I've got to and will, is what's helped me fight off this damn sickness. And you've been an important part of it. I hope you realize that. ' I "Jason.
He would have been a fool or worse not to understahd that the time was now. He kissed her. She pressed against him, holding the kiss for as long as possible. When they parted, they looked into each other's eyes, reading thoughts and .desire"e same for them both. "Make love to me, Jason. Now."
And General Saint-Michael, for once in his life, did pre- cisely as he was told,
Afterward they shared the unspoken feeling that their loving time together was unlikely to be repeated soon. The dark void of space lay ahead, a place with no promises, and a future unknown.
THE PENTAGON
The computer-synthesized voice that came through the Pentagon's "safe-line" sounded like Jason Saint-Michael, but General Stuart could tell immediately that a machine had answered. No matter. It was five o'clock in the morning in Colorado, seven A.M. in Washington. Give the man a rest.
When the voice was replaced by a beep, Stuart said, "Jason, Stuart here. I just left a meeting with the Joint Chiefs. The president and his cabinet were listening in on a video teleconference. Not the news you'd hoped for, I'm afraid. The secretary of defense is dead set against the station and he convinced the president to deny your request. "I'm real sorry, Jason, but die decision is to give you a medical retirement. America will be piloted by Hampton. The crew will be responsible for salvaging bodies and boosting Skybolt into storage. That's it, Jason. Sorry . . ."
As he returned the receiver to its cradle, Martin Stuart admitted to himself
that he had been hoping to get SaintMichael's machine. He and Jason had knocked heads a fair amount over the years, but he'd always respected the young general, considered him a brilliant field commander. It would have given him no pleasure to tell Saint-Michael directly that Space Command no longer had use for his services. So he was a coward. In this case, he had no apologies. He just hoped Jason would come to accept it. But did he really believe there was a chance of that?
October 1992 McAULIFFE HTS SPACEPORT, NEEDLES, CALIFORNIA
Ibis was no longer the world's most extraordinary flying vehicle, Ann thought, and they were no longer a crew of highly skilled astronauts and engineers: this magnificent spacecraft called America was nothing more than a glorified hearse, and they were the pallbearers, They were being sent to do a dirty job, with the whole world looking on.
Ann and Marty Schultz were observing the loading of America's cargo bay two days prior to launch. They stood on a steel arch over the massive spaceplane watching huge cranes and scores of workers maneuver supplies into the cargo bay. Ann's first glimpse of America had been so striking that, for a moment, she'd forgotten the reason for their voyage, forgotten the pain of knowing that Jason would not be joining her. "She's beautiful. Really beautiful," she had said when they'd climbed on top of the observation arch for the first time.
Schultz had first taken her on a walk-around inspection of the huge space vehicle. Unlike the husky, boxlike STS space shuttles, America was a sleek, rather orninous-looking craft. It was twice as large as the shuttles, closely resembling an
orce oversized version of the Mach Three-plus U.S. Air F SR-71 Blackbird military reconnaissance plane (die fastest aircraft in the world until America had come along), with its pointed hawknose bow sweeping gracefully out toward its broad, flat fuselage and impossibly thin edges.
The craft was built primarily of an exotic metal called rhenium, which was stronger and lighter than titanium and more heat resistant than reinforced carbon-carbon. The cockpit, crew cabin and cargo bay rose out of the top of the smooth black-and-gray rhenium body in a graceful hump, blending smoothly into the broad, flat tail. The sides of the fuselage flared out into short, thin wings that, a few minutes after launch, would swing into the body when their lift was no longer needed. Two short, rounded vertical stabilizers jutted out of the top of the fuselage near the tail, pointing in toward the spine. But most impressive about America was her three large engines: long, boxy devices slung under the fuselage with rows of dividers and chambers throughout. Ann had walked around to the front part of the engine and, out of habit and curiosity, looked into the engine inlet, To her surprise she could see right through the engines. She asked the obvious question: "Where
the hell are the engines. "Those are the engines," Marty explained, welcoming the chance to lecture her on something he knew a good deal about. She understood and kept quiet. "Those are the scramjet engines--supersonic ranijets. Instead of using fan blades to compress air like ordinary aircraft jet engines, the scram-
jet uses what's called a Venturi-.the internal shape of the engine itself--4o compress air for ignition. The underside of the fuselage is an integral part of the engine, slowing and cooling the air before it enters the Venturi. "A conventional turbofan or turboranijet engine is limited to around Mach three-point-five; it just can't suck more air. A simple ramjet engine is far more fuel efficient and can go as fast as Mach five or six-a lot of early military antiaircraft iriissiles were rocket-boosted rainjets. Rarrijets, are limited by the metals used in their construction, which bum up or disintegrate at high speeds, But a scrarrijet is designed to use its
hydrogen fuel as well as its composite construction to cool the
inlets. That helps the internal parts withstand the hypersonic speeds over Mach five. "Once the heat and disintegration problems were solved we were ready to race. There theoretically is no upper limit to a scranijet's speed, but Mach twenty-five is enough for our purposes: that's orbital speed. " Marty pointed to the rail rack below the space planes. "Since a scrarrjet engine can't suck in air by itself, the spaceplane is shot down this track on a rocket sled to get enough air going through the engine for ignition. At about two hundred miles an hour the Venturi in the scrainjets begin to work, and America lifts herself off the sled. " "But how do the engines work in space?" Ann asked. "There's no air up there." "These engines are hybrids: they're true scrarrijets in the atmosphere but they convert to liquid-fueled rocket engines once there's no more air passing through the engine. America's primary fuel is hydrogen, with oxygen to bum it. As you know, oxygen is supplied in the atmosphere at lower altitudes. As America climbs and the air thins out, the front of the scrainjet engine gradually louvers closed and oxygen is fed gradually into the engine from the ship's fuel tanks as needed. The scrainjet becomes a true rocket engine at about seventy miles altitude. The spaceplane is really a big fuel tank: everything except the crew cabin, cargo bay and avionics bay is fuel storage. "On return it's just the opposite: hydrogen and oxygen fuel are mixed in the engines until there's enough oxygen flowing through the Venturi from the atmosphere to sustain ignition. The scramjets can be used almost all the way to landing, so America can land at almost any long runway. Los Angeles International and San Francisco International are our desipated alternate landing sites, but if necessary we can fly all the way across the country in one hour to find a more suitable one.$,
As Marty talked Ann couldn't help thinking about SaintMichael. He had not been with her these past two days while she trained for hypersonic spaceplane duty at the Space Command HTS flight simulator at Little Rock, then went to Southern California for the launch. Although he didn't say so,
she guessed that after seeing her off in Colorado Springs he'd flown to Washington to appeal the ruling that had grounded him. She doubted, though, that he'd be able to convince the Joint Chiefs to reactivate the station, and as each new hour passed and she failed to hear from him, the possibility of his getting his way seemed less likely.
&nb
sp; She looked up to see America's cargo bay doors fully open, the silver radiator
lining reflecting the blaze of hundreds of spotlights surrounding the craft. Even though the spaceplane was twice as large as her older, less sophisticated cousins, her cargo bay was the same small size. Indeed, dwarfed by the sheer size of the spaceplane, the cargo bay seemed to have been installed as an afterthought. One glance at its payload, though, brought the mission's grim reality into sharp focus.
Most of the cargo bay was occupied by the two PAMs, payload assist modules-large liquid-fueled rocket engines with remote-controlled guidance units and a mounting-adapter. It would be Ann's job, with help from Marty Schultz, to attach the Skybolt laser module to the PAM, align it pointing away from earth and activate it. Using steering signals from Falcon Mission Control on earth relayed through the NASA TDRS satellite relay system, the PAM would boost the laser module into a six-hundred-mile storage orbit, giving Space Command another few months to assemble a shuttle sortie to retrieve the modules. Even though America's cargo bay was