Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01

by Flight of the Old Dog (v1. 1)

  WE FURTHER REJECT THE ATTEMPTS BY THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO COERCE THE SOVIET UNION BY THREATENING UNILATERALLY TO DISOBEY THE 1972 ANTI-BALLISTIC MISSILE TREATY AND THE UNRATIFIED 1986 ARMS REDUCTION TREATY. A RESPONSIBLE NATION WOULD MAINTAIN THE PATH OF FAIR AND OPEN NEGOTIATIONS TO SOLVE A DISPUTE, AND NOT IMMEDIATELY JEOPARDIZE WORLD PEACE BY OPENLY THREATENING TO CANCEL AND VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL TREATIES.

  THE SOVIET UNION, AS ALWAYS, STANDS READY TO REOPEN THE INVESTIGATION OF THE LOSS OF AN AMERICAN AIRCRAFT OFF OUR SHORES, AND TO ENTER INTO TALKS ON ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OR POSSIBLE TREATY VIOLATIONS THAT MAY BE CONNECTED WITH RESEARCH BEING CONDUCTED IN EASTERN SIBERIA. WE PLEDGE OUR FULL AND UNCONDITIONAL COOPERATION IN THE SPIRIT OF PEACE.

  “So they’ve denied everything,” Brent summarized. “They’re willing to start talks on whether or not the radar violates the ABM treaty, but that’s all.”

  “We’re back to where we started,” Curtis said. He turned to the President. “Sir, with all due respect, I recommend immediate deployment of Ice Fortress. ”

  Brent shook his head. “And trigger World War Three? The solution would be worse than the problem.”

  “Mr. Brent, we’ve had this argument before,” Curtis said. “It’s time to act.” He turned to the President. “Mr. President, if you prefer, we can launch the station itself in two consecutive Shuttle launches, one from Canaveral, one from Vandenburg, in one month. We can delay arming the station until all possible diplomatic avenues are exhausted. If we have no other choice, two follow-on launches can make Ice Fortress fully armed and ready two weeks later.”

  There was a murmur of assent that filled the White House Situation Room. Brent looked around at the assembled advisors.

  “We’d be stooping to their level,’’ Brent said. “It would mean an escalation that we might not be able to control.’’

  “Why are they doing this?” the President asked rhetorically, massaging his temples. “Why? They can’t be trying to provoke us.”

  “They’ve achieved their goal of crippling our strategic warning and surveillance capabilities,” Curtis said. “That’s why.”

  Brent sighed. “Dammit, General, you see Russian invasions at every turn. We could launch another spy satellite—we could launch ten of them—and I believe they’d be safe because the Russian’s objective has already been met. They’ve disorganized, confused, and scared this government. Don’t you see, General? They want us to launch Ice Fortress. They want us to try to bomb Kavaznya or start a fight somewhere else in the world. No matter what they have already done, our response will be seen as much more aggressive in the eyes of the world.”

  “So what you’re saying,” Curtis shot back, “is that our best move is to do nothing at all. Make big threats and then wait and wait after they’ve thumbed their noses at us.” He ran fingers through his hair, then slammed down his fist. “No. It’s not a matter of being macho. I’m not convinced that the Russians will stop attacking our satellites. I’m not convinced the Russians don’t have an attack plan behind this.”

  Brent said nothing.

  “I’m sorry, Marshall,” the President said. “I know you tried. I’m thankful to you for your efforts. But it doesn’t seem to have worked.”

  “No, but—”

  “We gave them exactly what they needed—more time. They rejected it. Its implication is clear. They’ll feel emboldened to do more ...” The President turned to Curtis. “General, I want a detailed briefing on Ice Fortress this afternoon.”

  “Yes, sir. ”

  “It makes no sense to launch Ice Fortress, ” Brent continued to argue. The members of the President’s Cabinet shifted uncomfortably.

  “We’ve heard all your arguments, Marshall . .

  “The Ice Fortress would be just as vulnerable as the Alpha Omega satellite, wouldn’t it, General Curtis? Why launch a seven hundred million dollar target for the Soviets to beat on?”

  “Marshall,” Ken Mitchell said, “in the case of Omega and the Javelin, both vehicles were destroyed by us, not by the laser.”

  The President looked surprised. “What?”

  “Remember, sir, I briefed you on this shortly after the attack on the Midgetman.” Mitchell had the look of an impatient schoolmaster. “The

  Omega was blinded and damaged, but not destroyed—we lost it when we tried to steer it through the atmosphere in an attempt to recover it intact. The Javelin apparently had sustained enough damage to prematurely ignite the third stage booster, but we don’t know exactly how much damage was done—it was automatically destroyed when it flew off course.”

  Brent slapped the table with his hand. “That doesn’t answer my—”

  “In no case,” Curtis cut him off, “was either vehicle shielded against a laser attack. A space station the size of Ice Fortress, assembled in space, can be armored to withstand as much direct energy as that nuclear power plant can put out. A beam of laser light, no matter how powerful, is still a beam of light—it can be reflected. I can have the researchers at Wright- Patterson present a more detailed analysis, sir, but Ice Fortress can be protected.”

  “We’re betting a lot of money on your analysis, General,” Brent said, shaking his head.

  “You’re worried about the money, Mr. Brent—?”

  “No, dammit,” Brent said, exploding. “Mr. President, it’s not only the risk of losing the hardware, sir—Ice Fortress represents the worst fears about the militarization of space. Can we stand the pressure of world opinion if we launch that thing?”

  “I’m more concerned about losing the ability to maintain deterence,” Curtis said. “Perhaps you don’t understand—we have lost a good percentage of our strategic nuclear deterrent power. Right now, right this minute, Mr. Brent, we can’t detect a missile launch from eastern Asia. There are twelve submarines docked at Petropavlovsk, each with an average of fifteen sea-launched ballistic missiles. Each of those carry three warheads, maybe more. Mr. Brent, we can’t tell if the Russians launch those missiles until they are ten minutes from impact. That’s not speculative—that’s fact. And the Soviets have demonstrated a capability of destroying our missiles in the boost phase. So, if they did launch those missiles, and we retaliated, a good percentage of our missiles wouldn’t reach their targets.”

  Curtis had everyone’s attention.

  “It may be everyone’s image of Armageddon,” Curtis concluded, “but we need Ice Fortress. The risk of losing it is far outweighed by our need for a bargaining chip.”

  Brent offered no further argument.

  “Marshall, draft a statement of protest to the Kremlin for my signature,” the President said. “Get with Karmarov at the U.N. and ask him what the hell is going on. I want the Soviets to know they’ve committed an act of war and that we intend to respond.”

  “I’d advise against using such language, sir,” Brent said.

  The President glanced around the Situation Room chamber at the shaking heads. He too shook his head.

  “An act of war, Marshall. That’s what it is. That’s what I said.”

  * * *

  “It is an act of war!”

  Marshall Brent sat back in his seat, turning down the volume of Dmitri Karmarov’s tirade on the floor of the United Nations Security Council. Beside him, Gregory Adams took careful notes, penciling in occasional comments.

  Karmarov held aloft five books in his hands and waved them in the air for the rest of the Security Council to see. “Five treaties, fellow delegates. The United States has wantonly violated five important treaties with the Soviet Union and with this body. They have wrecked years of vital negotiations that have sought to bring a lasting peace to the world.” He threw the books into the aisle in front of him, and the delegate from Rumania quickly reached back to pick them up.

  “They are useless. Wasted. Dust.” Karmarov waved away the five volumes, pointed a finger at the American delegation. “The militarization of space is not merely a threat to the Soviet Union, fellow representatives. It is a thre
at to us all. The United States will now continue to build vast machines of destruction orbiting over our heads, over our homes, over our seats of government. This Ice Fortress of theirs may now be orbiting over the North Pole, as the Americans claim, but it has the capability to be instantly steered and repositioned anywhere over the Earth. Anywhere. Don’t be fooled by comforting assurances. No one is safe.

  “They say it has no nuclear weapons on board—they even offer to have observers come aboard and examine it, as if it took only a short boatride to get to it. But don’t be fooled. They also say their carriers and warships that dock in Japanese ports carry no nuclear weapons, and they are technically correct—until all the critical components are assembled and the weapon is prearmed, no nuclear weapons exist. It is a sham.”

  Karmarov turned toward the American delegation. “I don’t care,” he said, “what possible reasons the United States could have for launching their Ice Fortress. Doubtless, they will blame it on the Soviet Union, as they have blamed so many incidents on us in the past. Doubtless, they will invent another tale of disaster. But there exists no possible reason on this earth for the United States to violate five international agreements and jeopardize the peace and well-being of not only the Soviet Union but of the rest of the world by launching this doomsday device.

  “I call upon the United States to immediately deactivate their illegal Ice Fortress. Because it appears they cannot be trusted to abide by any agreements between nations, I call upon an independent United Nations team of observers to examine all future Space Shuttle launches to guarantee that they are carrying no weapons of any kind to be used aboard their space platform. I further demand that no corrections be made to the existing platform’s orbit so that it may be allowed to reenter the atmosphere and be destroyed.”

  When Gregory Adams straightened to address the Council, Marshall Brent held his arm. Keeping his hands folded before him on the long, curved table, he glanced around at the assembled delegates and began:

  “There comes a time,” Brent said, “when international agreements lose meaning. There was a time when the government of the United States felt secure negotiating a lasting peace and true disarmament. Our respective governments hoped against hope that our talks would eventually lead to the elimination of all nuclear weapons from the face of the earth by the year two thousand. I assure you, our government is still willing to continue those negotiations .. . even though we have evidence that the Soviet Union has wantonly attacked American space vehicles, including a satellite, a missile test-firing, and a reconnaissance aircraft with the resultant loss of twelve innocent lives and a billion dollars worth of valuable equipment. We regretfully conclude that the Soviet Union will continue on its reckless course. The evidence is overwhelming, incontrovertible. No treaty of agreement, past, present or future, can oblige us to give up our ability to defend ourselves.

  “Our original charges and the evidence we presented to support those charges stand. Absent the desired approval of this body, we must use our own resources to protect ourselves.

  “The antiballistic missile space platform will remain until it is demonstrated to our satisfaction that the Soviet Union will cease all attacks against our reconnaissance satellites and aircraft. We ask again that the Soviet Union show its good will by deactivating the Salyut Nineteen orbiting mirror spacecraft immediately. We can wait no longer.” He bowed his head, trying to summon additional strength. “I am very sorry, we can wait no longer.”

  He then stood and quickly left the Security Council, with Gregory Adams following close behind.

  14 The Space Shuttle Atlantis

  They were in business again.

  Navy Commander Richard Seedeck prepared his spacesuit for his upcoming EVA, extravehicular activity—his spacewalk. The forty-two- year-old veteran astronaut, now on his second Shuttle mission, was having the time of his life.

  Seedeck had just returned from Atlantis' flight deck, where he had been pre-breathing pure oxygen for the past hour. He was now in the airlock, smoothly but quickly putting on his equipment. Jerrod Bates, a civilian defense contractor on board Atlantis as an expert advisor and engineer, watched Seedeck put on his suit, marveling at the speed with which he dressed. It always took Bates twice as long to accomplish the same task.

  There was nothing like being in space, Seedeck thought, and nothing like being on board the Space Shuttle. No one on board was a passenger— everyone was a crewman, a necessity. Each was busy seventeen hours a day.

  And there were fewer “mice and monkey” research flights, too. Like this one. This one was top secret all the way, all heavy-duty military hardware. Even the usual press speculation about the payload was nonexistent—or it had been effectively quashed.

  “What are you smiling about, Commander?” Bates finally asked.

  “I’m smiling at how good this feels, Bates,” Seedeck said, talking through the clear plastic facemask he was wearing. He finished donning the lower torso part of his spacesuit and unbuckled the upper part from a holder in the airlock. Bates reached out to hold the bulky suit for Seedeck to climb into, but that was unnecessary—Seedeck merely let go and weightlessness held the suit exactly where Seedeck had left it.

  “I’ve been doing that for four days now,” Bates said through his faceplate. “I forget—nothing falls up here.”

  “I still do it sometimes,” Seedeck admitted. “But I’ve learned to use it.” And he did—Seedeck had his helmet, gloves, his “Snoopy’s hat” communication headset and his POS, his portable oxygen system, all floating around the airlock within easy reach.

  In one fluid motion, Seedeck held his breath, removed his POS face mask, and slipped into the upper torso part of his suit. If Seedeck started breathing cabin air, he would reintroduce deadly nitrogen into his bloodstream and risk dysbarism, nitrogen narcosis, the “bends”—Bates had also been pre-breathing oxygen for the same reason. Still holding his breath, he attached several umbilicals from the huge life support backpack to his suit and connected the two halves of his suit together, nodding as both he and Bates heard a distinct series of clicks as the unions and interlinks joined.

  Bates couldn’t believe the brush-cut veteran he was watching. It had been well over two minutes, and Seedeck was still holding his breath and still acting like a kid in a candy store. Seedeck locked on both gloves, put on his “Snoopy’s hat” communications headset, locked his helmet in place, and watched the pressure gauge on his chest indicators as the suit pressure gradually increased to 28 kilopascals. When the suit was pressurized and Seedeck had double-checked that there were no leaks, he finally released his breath with a whoosh.

  “I don’t believe it,” Bates said as he put on a mid-deck cabin headset to talk to Seedeck. “You went nearly six minutes without breathing.”

  “You’d be surprised how easy it is after pre-breathing oxygen for an hour,” Seedeck said. “Besides, I’ve done this once or twice before. Check my backpack, please?”

  “Sure,” Bates said, and double-checked the connections and gauges on Seedeck’s suit and gave him a thumbs-up. “It’s good.”

  “Thanks. Clear the airlock. Admiral, this is Seedeck. Preparing to depressurize airlock.”

  “Copy, Dick,” thz Atlantis' mission commander, Admiral Ben Woods, replied. “Clear any time.” Woods repeated the message to Mission Control in Houston five hundred nautical miles below them.

  Seedeck turned to the airlock control panel and moved the “AIRLOCK DEPRESS SWITCH” to 5, then to 0, and waited for air to be released outside. Three minutes later, Seedeck was exiting the airlock.

  It was a sight he would never get used to—the mind-boggling sight of the Earth spinning above him, the colors, the detail, the sheer size and spectacular beauty of Planet Earth five hundred miles away. Atlantis was “parked” right over the North Pole, and Seedeck could see the entire Northern Hemisphere—the continents of North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as the North Arctic region and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Clouds sw
irled around the globe like gentle strokes of a painter’s brush, occasionally knotting and pulsing as a storm brewed below. Because of the Shuttle’s normal upside-down orientation, Earth would actually be his “sky” during the entire EVA.

  Seedeck closed and locked the airlock hatch, clipped a safety line onto a bracket near the hatch and began working his way hand-over-hand along steel handholds to where Atlantis' three MMUs, manned maneuvering units, were attached inside the forward bulkhead of the cargo bay. He inspected one of the bulky, contoured devices, then unclipped it from its mounting harness.

  Turning around so his backpack was against the MMU, Seedeck guided himself back against it. He felt his way back with his knees and sides until he heard four distant clicks as the MMU locked itself in place on his backpack.

  “MMU in place, Atlantis. "

  “Copy.”

  With his safety line still attached, Seedeck made a few test shots from the MMU’s thrusters, then unclipped his safety line and moved himself out of the MMU’s holder. Pushing gently, he propelled himself away from Atlantis' cargo bay and out into space.

  “Clear cargo bay, Atlantis. Beginning MMU tests.”

  Seedeck knew that Admiral Woods, who would be watching him from one of the eight cameras installed in the cargo bay and remote manipulator arm, was choking down a protest, but Seedeck had an urge he couldn’t ignore and this was his time.

  A normal MMU maneuverability test consisted of short distances, short-duration movements, all with a safety tether connected. He was supposed to go up a few feet, stop, do a few side-to-side turns and try some mild pitch-ups, all within a few feet of the airlock hatch and manipulator arm in case of trouble.

  Not Seedeck. With his safety line disconnected, Seedeck nudged his thruster controls and performed several loops, barrel rolls, full twists, and lazy-eight maneuvers several meters above the open cargo bay doors.

  “MMU maneuvering tests complete,” he finally reported as he expertly righted himself above Atlantis' cargo bay.