Delta Blue

by William H. Lovejoy

  “How long until the well-head assembly is emplaced?” Eisenach asked.

  “Oh, give us another six, seven days. I will have the well on-line within ten days, General. That will give us twenty-one wells in the network.”

  “Very good, Hans. How about Platform Eleven?”

  It had been decided by the High Command that centralizing the control and distribution on Bahnsteig Eine might be foolhardy. Bahnsteig Elf, therefore, was undergoing renovations that would allow it to perform as an alternate control station.

  “Right now, I estimate another five or six weeks, General,” Diederman said. He waved an expansive hand toward the control center outside his windows. “The electronics are in short supply, and we have had to wait upon the manufacturer for several weeks. The consoles, especially, are dedicated to our particular purpose.”

  “Would you like additional pressure brought to bear on the manufacturer?”

  Diederman shook his big head. “It would not do us much good. We are still fishing for cable and pipeline on the seabed, now. It is going to take us a while to bring it to the surface and complete the junctions.”

  “Very well,” the general said.

  The second television screen came to life with a picture of another drilling compartment.

  “Now, then. Platform Twenty-Three is down to three thousand meters. We broke a rotary bit and spent three days pulling pipe so we could fish for it. Right now, they’re going back down in the hole with a new bit. If the geology holds up, we ought to complete in another couple of weeks. Then we’ll move that rig to Twenty-Four. Hell, General, overall, we are ninety-one days ahead of schedule.”

  “And I, and the Fatherland, are extremely grateful for your expertise, Hans.”

  Diederman shrugged. “Now, perhaps you will tell me of the real purpose of your journey, General.”

  “Real purpose?”

  The engineer grinned hugely at Weismann. “Old Albert does not come out here very often. I think he is uncomfortable at sea.”

  Weismann nodded. The wing commander was fifty-two years old and had been flying for thirty-four of those years. His eyes were pale and clear, and his blond hair was cropped short. At one time, his skin had also been pale and clear, but he suffered now from some epidermal rash that reddened the backs of his hands and the skin of his forehead and cheeks. He was a tall man, very lean in his tailored uniform.

  “Go ahead, Colonel,” Eisenach said.

  “How many external cameras do you have on each well, Hans?” Weismann asked.

  “There are three. Two overlook the helicopter pad, and one is located at the top of the dome. All are remote-controlled.” Diederman played with his switchboard and yet another television screen revealed a view of the sea, slowly panning by. “We keep the upper camera on full rotation, watching for intruders.”

  “But watching the sea?”

  “Of course.”

  “It can be aimed upward?”

  “Certainly.”

  With several keystrokes, Diederman changed the angle of the camera. A blank, pale blue sky appeared.

  “It is a boring view,” Diederman said.

  “It may not be for long,” the commander of the 20.S.A.G. said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yesterday, one of my pilots chased off a Greenpeace ship. Near Platform Six?”

  “I recall the incident. It was reported to me.”

  “During the encounter, the pilot believes that he saw another aircraft in the area. A fleeting glimpse of an aircraft that revealed no radar or infrared signature.”

  Diederman looked to the general then back to Weismann. “There is such an aircraft, of course. Properly, an aerospace craft.”

  “Yes,” Weismann said. “The American MakoShark. We have never seen it before.”

  “Nor have many,” Eisenach said. “Hans, our concern is that the Americans may have taken an interest in your wells.”

  Diederman grinned. “They are mine, now? I will put them up for sale and retire a very rich man.”

  “It is possible,” Eisenach said, ignoring the levity, “that the craft, if it was actually seen by the pilot, and if it was a MakoShark, was interested solely in the encounter with the Greenpeace ship. On the other hand, however, we do not wish to take chances.”

  “So, now. You wish to utilize my dome cameras? Since the MakoShark is visible to the eye?”

  “Exactly,” Weismann said. “Each of the dome cameras is to begin scanning the skies. I will work with your technicians to formulate a computer program to guide them — changing the scanning angle and magnification ranges. I will also set up a communications link between the monitors you must … ”

  “That costs me man-hours, Albert.”

  “I apologize, Hans, but it must be done. We will need three shifts of men to monitor the screens. And I will arrange a communications network between them and my wing.”

  “Now, General, do you really believe these aerospace craft are spying on us?” Diederman asked.

  “With what we have to protect, Hans, we cannot afford to believe otherwise.”

  *

  It was the first time in a long time that the entire complement of the 1st Aerospace Squadron had flown together.

  The three MakoSharks backed away from their bays at six o’clock in Themis’s evening, midnight in Bonn’s. They took some time doing it, losing speed relative to the satellite, and spreading themselves sixty miles apart. McKenna wanted lots of room for error. Flying formation through blackout was not done.

  It was not evening for Themis in real time. Her nights were erratic and short-lived, dependent upon when the orbit happened to place the earth between the station and the sun. An eclipse of the space station which might last for up to twenty minutes.

  The direct sun glinted off the white plastic-clad skin of the station, making it appear much larger than it was. Up close, when approaching Themis, she was magnificently gigantic, seeming to loom over a minute MakoShark. In the early days, when she was just a hub and a couple of spokes, McKenna used to practice space-batics around her, zipping in close, backing off, rolling across the top of the hub to the solar array on the back side. Ease up to the Command Center’s porthole and stare directly into Overton’s eyes from fifteen feet away.

  Overton had finally ordered a cease-and-desist on those activities, which was within his rights. He was in charge of the space station, while McKenna was responsible only for the squadron. Overton’s concern had not been with McKenna’s ability. Rather, he was afraid the newer pilots in the squadron, just joining it at that time, would slip and run a MakoShark right through his viewing window.

  When all of the hangar doors were closed, twenty-foot high black letters were joined into the logo:

  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  SPACE STATION THEMIS

  USSC-1

  Every time he saw it, McKenna felt a twinge of pride. There was nothing like it anywhere, nothing to match the capability and ingenuity of Americans with a purpose.

  Soyuz Fifty, the Soviet space station initiated two years before, orbited some ninety miles higher than Themis, but it was a limited undertaking. To date, it was comprised of five modules strung together in a straight line, and it was manned by no more than three people at the same time. The radar antenna for the most powerful radar ever developed, and housed in Themis’s Spoke Fifteen, was larger than the entire Soviet space station.

  The Soviet Rocket Forces were having funding problems.

  As Delta Blue drifted away from her mother ship, McKenna studied the new spoke. It would be Nine-B, next to the nuclear reactor, and its segments were arriving steadily by HoneyBee. So far, it was about twenty feet long, appearing spindly in comparison with the completed spokes. Four unassembled sections floated close by, secured by single ropes. The crewmen assigned to fitting the prefab pieces together had been called back inside the station for a rest break. Coincidentally timed so that they would miss seeing the departures of the MakoSharks.

 
; The perspective changed as Delta Blue increased the gap. Themis became smaller against the unending backdrop of space, and with her knob-ended spokes, looked like, first, a child’s Tinkertoy, than a star that had wandered in too close.

  “Let’s upend her,” Munoz said. He had been programming the reentry data.

  “Roger, Tiger.” McKenna keyed the radio pad for the squadron’s frequency. “Delta Blue to Delta Flight.”

  “Yellow, here, Snake Eyes.”

  “Green.”

  “Reverse position.”

  With the thrusters, he turned Delta Blue over and waited until the confirmations came from Dimatta and Conover. He could not see either of the MakoSharks, each thirty miles off his wing tips.

  “Green ready.”

  “Yellow’s set.”

  “Delta Flight, program check.”

  Abrams, Williams, and Munoz confirmed accepted reentry programs.

  “Initiate sequence, Delta Flight.”

  McKenna watched the CRT and saw the numbers appear.

  “Sixteen minutes, Snake Eyes,” Munoz said. “I’m going to take a nap.”

  “Delta Blue, Yellow. Seventeen minutes, twelve seconds.”

  “Blue, Green. Fifteen minutes, twenty-two seconds.”

  “Not too bad, guys,” McKenna told them. “See you on the other side.”

  The reentry passage was almost flawless. Themis had been over the continent of Antarctica when they started, and the three MakoSharks emerged from blackout almost directly over Turkey, the spread between them expanded to 150 miles.

  By the time they had joined up on turbojets at 40,000 feet and Mach 1.8, Warsaw, Poland, was the primary landmark.

  “Systems check, Tiger?”

  “All internal systems are showin’ number one, Snake Eyes. We lost the damned Phoenix.”

  “Delta Flight, systems check.”

  “Green reports a full complement, Snake Eyes.”

  “Yellow’s all green.”

  “We burned out a Phoenix,” McKenna told them, “but then it’s a moot point, anyway. We’ll go as planned.”

  “Roger, roger,” Dimatta said, “Green’s northbound.”

  Delta Green would make her run over the wells, looking especially for naval units. On the return, she would scatter sonobuoys along the estimated route of the undersea pipelines.

  Conover’s voice came on the air. “Delta Yellow. We’re going to cruise the river.”

  Conover and Williams would make a wide circle to the left as far as the North Sea, then take a meandering course south down the length of the old Federal Republic of Germany, shooting low-light and infrared film of the major military concentrations. Their primary concern was New Amsterdam Air Force Base and the naval port of Bremerhaven since Pearson had identified both as home bases for the 20th Special Air Group and the 3rd Naval Force.

  McKenna was taking on the old German Democratic Republic. On the first run, they would come west down the Baltic into Mecklenburg Bay, then turn south and fly all the way to the Czechoslovakian border before turning north once again. Pearson was as interested in the new or expanded industrial sites as she was in military bases. Rostock, Magdeburg, Halle, Leipzig, Zwickau, Dresden, and Berlin were the chief photographic targets.

  At 500 knots, to avoid trailing a sonic boom, the round trip over land took an hour and twenty minutes. Munoz used the radar randomly, and they made momentary contact with sixteen aircraft. Two were commercial flights into Berlin and Dresden, and the rest were patrolling Luftwaffe pairs. None of the aircraft, nor any of the coastal radars, spotted them. The radar threat receiver went off regularly as they passed active radar installations, and Munoz squelched out the noise in the lower bands.

  After passing over Berlin at 10,000 feet, Munoz said, “You know, jefe, I count four new radars along the Polish border.”

  “We know we’re dealing with paranoid personalities, Tiger. They’d like to move the USSR to Antarctica.”

  “That’s for damned sure. Hey, babe, we’re out of targets. You want to punch it for home?”

  “Let’s finish it out to the Baltic. Maybe well spot a couple more radar installations.”

  “Roger. Let’s … uh, take it to heading four-five for two minutes, then back to oh-one-oh.”

  McKenna turned to the new heading and watched the chronometer readout on the HUD. He also lost altitude to 7,000 feet. This stretch of Germany wasn’t heavily inhabited.

  A few minutes later, back on his original heading, he saw the darkness of the Baltic coming up. The scattered lights of cities along the coast identified it.

  Munoz had the screens showing night-vision interpretations of the landscape. There wasn’t much to be seen. A few villages along the Ucker River on their left.

  Thirty miles to the Pomeranian Bay on the Baltic.

  Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!

  “Son of a bitch, Snake Eyes! That’s a big damned J-Band transmittin’.”

  “Where?”

  Munoz went to active radar for two sweeps.

  “Headin’ two-eight-one,” Munoz said. “I put it on the coast five miles west of Peenemünde”

  “Let’s take a look.”

  “Let’s.”

  McKenna eased the hand controller over and banked into the new heading.

  “What’s the film load, Tiger?”

  “Checkin’ now. I’ve got fifty frames of low-light, and twenty frames of infrared left. Ho-kay. The J-Band’s gone off the air.”

  “Use up all you have,” McKenna said.

  He saw the installation ten miles before he reached it because it was well lit. He altered course a couple degrees to pass right over it.

  At the speed they were making, McKenna only got a quick look.

  “I count four large buildings and a chopper pad,” he told Munoz.

  “Ditto. Plus the radar antenna a quarter-mile to the east. One of the buildings, the largest, has been there for fifty years or more, Snake Eyes. We saw it, what, a year ago?”

  “About that.”

  “I’m backin’ up tape.”

  As they left the coast behind and McKenna started a slow, turning climb, Munoz reversed the videotape until the installation appeared on the panel screen. He froze the frame.

  The old and large building had once produced heavy machinery, McKenna thought. Tractors, maybe. It was now in full operation, light spilling from hundreds of small windows. Two of the new buildings were tall and wide, kind of like hangars, but short of windows. The last building was a narrow structure, but he guessed it at over fifteen stories in height. It had an aircraft warning strobe on top. In the green-hued picture, it was difficult to tell, but McKenna thought he saw a maze of railroad tracks running into the buildings.

  “Strange layout, amigo?”

  “Could be a launch complex, Tiger.”

  “That’s what I’m thinkin’, but it’s damned small.”

  “It only takes one launch tower for one big rocket,” McKenna said.

  “I think we oughta put a Wasp into it.”

  “Good idea, but we’re not going to do it.”

  “I also think,” Munoz said, “that we’d better tell Embry to convert our Wasps to air-to-ground.”

  “You’re full of good ideas.”

  “Got lots of sleep today.”

  Seven

  Col. Pyotr Volontov chose the early morning, three-thirty in Leningrad, for his first flight over the oil fields. It was also three-thirty in Murmansk, where General Sheremetevo had temporarily deployed the 5th Interceptor Wing. Even based at the relatively primitive facilities at Murmansk, 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, the western side of the target area was over 1,800 kilometers away, requiring refueling from an airborne tanker en route.

  On the first flight, Volontov flew cover for the unarmed MiG-25 reconnaissance aircraft, staying at 10,000 meters, 3,000 meters above the MiG-25.

  Volontov’s MiG-29, which NATO had codenamed Fulcrum, was a full Mach number slower than the MiG-25, which c
ould accelerate to Mach 3.2. He considered the MiG-29 the superior attack aircraft, however. The older plane was 20,000 kilograms heavier, constructed of steel, and many models still carried vacuum tube-based electronics. In comparison, the MiG-29 was ultramodern, with Pulse-Doppler multimode radar capable of lookdown/shootdown and an infrared search and tracking sensor. His craft was armed with a 30-millimeter cannon and six AA-11 air-to-air missiles. In a head-to-head confrontation with a MiG-25, Volontov thought he would emerge the survivor as a result of his airplane’s greater agility.

  Maj. Anatoly Rostoken, who commanded Volontov’s 2032nd Squadron, was flying the reconnaissance plane, somewhat gingerly since he had not flown the MiG-25 for a couple years.

  Six hundred kilometers northwest of Murmansk, in the wavery light of a summer night, the Ilyushin tanker replenished the thirsty fighters, then climbed away to orbit and await their return. While Rostoken could now complete the homeward leg to Murmansk, the MiG-29 had only a 1,200-kilometer combat radius. If Volontov were required to use afterburners or expend fuel at a high rate in low level, high speed flight, he would need to meet the tanker once again.

  After the hectic transfer of his wing to the northern base — requiring the use of six transports to transfer his ground support personnel and the wing’s equipment, Volontov was happy to be almost by himself. Doing something worthwhile for a change.

  The members of his two squadrons, the 2032nd and the 2033rd, were also elated at the change in routine, though somewhat mystified by the lack of detail he had provided them in briefings. General Sheremetevo, however, had ordered him to provide them with minimal information. Operation Artie Waste was simply an exercise in combined operations over the icy waters and glacial ice, with innocuous oil wells utilized as the simulated targets.

  “Condor One, this is Vulture One,” Rostoken radioed.

  “Proceed, Vulture One.”

  “I have Svalbard Island on radar. Bearing three-five-four, nine-two kilometers.”

  “Very well, Vulture One. Go to five thousand meters and initiate mission.”

  Volontov reached out to switch his radar to the active mode for three full sweeps. He found the outline of the island immediately and the blip of Vulture One a half second later. Returning the radar to inactive, he nudged the stick forward and went into a shallow dive, intending to lose 3,000 meters of altitude, staying close to the MiG-25.