by F X Holden
Until today.
A Russian threat to attack Saudi interests. Lapikov had been deliberately obscure, Roberta had needed more information dammit, so she had rushed out after him and pushed him with a calculated insult.
Lapikov’s response had been illuminating.
He had not balked at the idea of war, and he had scoffed at the implication Russia did not have the stomach for it. Madre di Dio! If they followed through on their threat, refined crude oil prices were about to skyrocket.
As she pulled the door to the terrace open, she was already mentally framing her next report to AISE.
Russian energy minister just openly threatened the Saudi faction in OPEC. Reduce production ten percent and commit to $60 net per barrel target price, or else Russia ‘will curb your production for you.’ Military options are implied.
As Roberta walked back to the table on the terrace and the worriedly impatient Al-Malki, she caught herself humming and stopped.
Roberta, the man just threatened Saudi Arabia with war. You are not allowed to feel happy at that fact, no matter how important the intelligence is. Bad girl.
But as she sat, another thought crossed her mind. She needed to contact her broker and buy Russian oil futures.
Presidential decree
45th Space Wing, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, July 2033
Captain Alicia Rodriguez had been to war at sea, and in the air. But when she had been called to US Space Force 45th Space Wing’s headquarters at Cape Canaveral in Florida to discuss her reassignment to Space Force, she had one concern to flag to the commander of the 45th, Brigadier General Alan Parsons. She stood in front of his desk.
“With respect, sir, I’m Navy,” she told him. She made a wave motion with her hands. “You know, ships and the aircraft that fly off them? I know half of nothing about … rockets and satellites.”
Parsons had laughed. “I have 15,000 personnel who only know rockets and satellites, Captain Rodriguez,” he said. “I don’t need 15,001. I’m establishing a new Combat Operations Squadron based around our X-37C fleet, and it needs a commander with a different skill set.”
“Why me, sir?” she’d asked. It was a hell of a time to take command of the X-37C program, if that was the role she had been tapped for. It had just transitioned from research project status to first operational deployment. The program was still ramping up to full-rate production, with three of the unmanned spacecraft delivered, and five on the production line. The decision by the USA to proceed with the X-37 program was provoked by a new arms race with China, India and Russia as each ramped up its ability to deploy, target and destroy space-based weapons platforms.
“You’ve had three years as commander of USS Bougainville. Two years before that as CO of an amphibious drone wing, including during the Bering Strait conflict. Mini-boss aboard the USS GW Bush, including two deployments to the Med during the Turkey-Syria war. Captain, I need a combat drone commander who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, knows what it takes to get a new combat unit up and running fast, and has a cool head under pressure. I was told by Vice-Admiral Solanta that you fit that description.” Parsons raised his eyebrows. “And that your call sign was ‘Hammer.’ Did the Vice-Admiral lie to me?”
“If that’s what the Admiral said, sir…” Rodriguez replied carefully, “… I won’t contradict him.”
“You’d preserve your current O-6 pay grade, come in as a Colonel in Space Force and CO of the 615th COS. I’ve already agreed with the Admiral that pending your presenting me with an insurmountable obstacle today, you can be reassigned immediately.”
Rodriguez swallowed. It didn’t sound like an offer she had the luxury to refuse. “If I may, sir, why the urgency?”
“This is why, Commander,” he said, holding out a sheet of paper to her. “Please, sit and read it.”
She sat. The first thing she saw was the White House Seal. The next was the innocuous title, “Amending Executive Order 29137.” She looked up at Parsons and frowned.
“Read on,” he directed. “In fact, read it aloud. It’s not very long.”
She glanced at the first few lines, drew a breath, and started. “Uh, by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby direct as follows: that Executive Order 29137 prohibiting the use by the United States of space-based weapons systems for offensive operations, and all related international treaties, be henceforth annulled.” Rodriguez shot a sharp glance at Parsons. “It’s dated four months ago. I haven’t heard about this.”
He reached out a hand and took the page back. “You won’t. It isn’t going to be made public. It will leak eventually, as we start ‘renegotiating’ those treaties, but I doubt it will create much interest by then. Events will have overtaken it.”
She wiped her hands on her uniform trousers, realizing she was sweating, even though the temperature in the Brigadier General’s air-conditioned office at Cape Canaveral was cool. “Events, sir?”
“What you probably have read about, Commander, is that Russia has recently been deploying a string of satellites in low earth orbit, ostensibly to allow it to detect near-earth space objects, like comets and asteroids,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “The Russian media calls the system ‘Opekun.’”
“Guardian,” he smiled coldly. “Yes. Shielding the world from planet-killing asteroids. Sounds like a noble, altruistic venture, correct?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I suspect you are about to suggest otherwise.”
“I am,” Parsons said. “Three years ago a source inside the Russian state security agency reported that Russia has been working on a new space-based weapons system called ‘Groza’ or Thunderstorm. It sounded more like propaganda than hard intel and neither CIA nor NSA had been able to turn up anything solid on Groza. Every lead they got led back to the Opekun program, and so we concluded the Russian security agency source had confused his information.” He took the Executive Order, looked it over briefly, and then turned it over and laid it in front of himself with a casual finality. “Two weeks ago, we confirmed that Groza and Opekun are one and the same.”
Rodriguez felt her blood chill. “Russia has put nukes in orbit?” She sat up straight. “That must break every single treaty on the militarization of space?”
“It would,” Parsons said. He glanced at the page again and turned it face down, picking up some photographs she hadn’t noticed were sitting in front of him. He continued. “If they had put nukes on those satellites. They didn’t.”
Rodriguez frowned. “If Groza isn’t a nuclear weapons platform, what is it?”
Parsons tapped the photographs on his desk, then leaned across and handed them to her. “I’m told a man died getting these to us. Look carefully.”
She looked. They appeared to be aerial surveillance photos, from either an aircraft or satellite. They showed what looked like a flat, lightly forested plain. Northern Europe, she’d guess, or maybe Canada. Way up north anyway, judging by what looked like snow and ice on the ground and a frozen river across the top left of the first couple of photographs. The snow and ice covered the ground in every photograph, except for a rough circle of what looked like churned-up mud. She had no way of judging how big the circle of mud was until she got to the fourth photograph, which showed some vehicles parked at the edge of the mud circle, and some people standing beside them. From the scale of the vehicles, she guessed the mud circle was huge – a mile or two across at least. The final photo was a closeup of the mud, which showed it wasn’t just churned-up dirt, snow and ice. There were smashed bricks, splintered timber, and what looked like a vehicle that had been stomped by an enormous foot, squashed flat and half-buried in the ground.
She looked up at Parsons. “What is this?”
“That used to be Kadykchan,” he said. “A Siberian coal-mining town abandoned in 1998. More importantly, we believe that to be evidence of a Groza test strike.”
She peer
ed closely at the last photograph again. The ground was chewed and cratered. Blackened with what looked like soot, but…
“Thermobaric blast?” she guessed. But as soon as she did, she realized it couldn’t be. Unless Russia had found a way to build a thermobaric bomb ten times the size of the largest bomb ever deployed. Nothing less could have caused the kind of devastation she was looking at. But she also knew there were technical limits to the maximum size of thermobarics because of the need to disperse the fuel mist sufficiently before it was detonated. “Or … several? Russia put thermobaric bombs on satellites?” No, that didn’t make sense. A thermobaric bomb was basically a huge fuel cylinder with explosives attached. You’d have to give it a crazy amount of shielding for it to survive the heat of re-entry, and how would you guide it? It would be simpler just to put a half dozen thermobaric bombs on conventional fighter planes if you wanted to flatten a target. But what if the target was well protected, or far behind enemy lines… her mind was whirling and she heard Parsons cough, looking up.
“You’re giving off enough brainwaves to cook an egg, Commander, but let me put you out of your misery,” he said. “The agent who died also brought out some technical documentation. Groza is a kinetic bombardment weapon.”
“So…”
“Yes. It doesn’t violate any treaties, and Russia didn’t cross any existing red lines. We have treaties forbidding any nation from putting nukes in orbit, and they didn’t.” He held out his hand and she handed back the photographs. “We’ve mapped all known Opekun-slash-Groza satellite orbits. This system gives Russia the ability to flatten any damn target on the planet from orbit, with just fifteen minutes from launch to target impact. Worse, those satellites have their own propulsion systems and can be repositioned, so they can put two or three of them together if they really want to bring the stomp.”
Alicia straightened her back. “Sir, as I said, I’m no expert on anti-satellite warfare, but if we’re already tracking them, couldn’t we just shoot these satellites out of orbit if we needed to?” She knew a little more about US anti-satellite capabilities than she was letting on. The latest generation of sea-launched SM-6 Aegis anti-satellite missiles had a solid kill rate in testing, especially against satellites with nicely predictable orbits, which the Groza satellites had to be.
“Launch an ASAT missile from the sea or air, and the whole world would see it,” Parsons said. “The X-37 is…”
“Stealth,” Rodriguez guessed. “You want to start taking those Russian satellites down in a way Russia can’t blame us for. That’s the mission?”
“Not yet. We can’t just go up there and blast Ivan’s shiny new toys out of orbit. But I have a feeling in my bones that the day will come and we need to be ready,” Parsons said. “We believe there are sixteen Groza platforms in orbit. As soon as it is constituted the 615th will start shadowing the six that directly threaten the US mainland and then the four we believe are threatening our overseas bases. Learn everything we can about them. Test their defenses, Russia’s reactions. And if needs be, prosecute a campaign intended to degrade or destroy the Groza network completely. So, you up for this … Colonel Rodriguez?”
Rodriguez took a deep breath. “Aye, sir. Hell yes I am.”
She had a million other questions, but Parsons wasn’t the one who would answer them. She knew there were three operational X-37Cs, but were any of the five currently on the production line near completion? The US Air Force had never admitted that its X-37C spacecraft were armed, but she’d heard rumors they had been fitted with both ballistic and liquid laser weapons. What was their crew status – did she have a full roster of personnel? Where were the holes? She’d been mini-Boss on a supercarrier, had led a wing of combat drones in battle and then been given command of an America-class amphibious assault ship. What would prove different about commanding a fleet of unmanned spacecraft?
Probably everything. Questions, yeah, she had dozens. But one above all.
How long did she have to get her new unit ready for this mission?
The answer to Alicia Rodriguez’s question was being decided right at that moment in suite 903 of the Hotel Baur au Lac in Zurich. Russian Energy Minister Denis Lapikov was standing by the sitting room window of his suite, looking out at the mountains in the distance and reflecting on the fact that but for the world’s still insatiable desire for oil, twenty years ago they would have been dusted with snow at this time of year. Instead, they were brown and bare. Barren, like his mood.
He looked at his watch. His lead negotiator was late returning from the final meeting with the Saudis. It was 1715. He was to call Moscow with the Saudis’ answer by 1730. He was on his third whiskey and held up the glass, looking at his reflection in the flat-faced tumbler. He had never imagined the ship of his State would run aground as completely and utterly as it had. Russia had seen the writing on the wall as far back as 2015 when the IMF had pointed out that it wasn’t sustainable for the Russian economy to derive more than seventy percent of its income from oil and gas exports. Industry forecast after industry forecast came in predicting a year on year decline in oil demand, at the same time as new sources of oil such as shale were coming online. Gas demand, especially from Europe, remained strong, though, and kept the treasury coffers from emptying completely. But foreign debt climbed. In December 2019, the mighty Kuznetsov, Russia’s last great aircraft carrier, caught fire while in dry dock for a refit and was written off. The hulk was bought by China, which was just as well because it meant resources that would have been drained away to keep Russia’s struggling blue water navy afloat were able to be redirected to strengthen its air, aerospace and ground forces.
The 2020s brought relative prosperity. Under President Putin, who had secured himself another eight years as President, Russia turned its attention east. On the back of the insatiable demand of China for rare metals and more traditional resources, the Russian Far East boomed, and Russia started eyeing the untapped potential of the Arctic. It started an oil price war with OPEC that nearly brought both the Russian and Saudi economies to their knees, but Russia secured a stronger say in OPEC’s price-setting mechanisms. Then the apparently immortal Putin had died of a heart attack while bareback horse riding. He had not prepared a competent successor to take his place, so instead the country got a succession of weak leaders and a cabal of Machiavellian ministers more concerned at furthering their own interests than those of Russia.
An ill-advised military incursion into the Bering Strait triggered a failed coup that had set Russian Far East and Arctic ambitions back five years and that, coupled with an accelerating collapse in oil and gas prices as CO2 targets were legislated in Europe and more and more wind farms and solar fields came online, had sent the Russian economy into a death spiral. All the empty words about restructuring the Russian economy, in party manifesto after party manifesto, had in the end come to nothing.
Only one thing could save the Russian economy now: a steep and sustained rise in the price of crude oil. And only one nation could guarantee it. Saudi Arabia. Lapikov knew the new Russian President Alexei Avramenko well. They had studied law together and joined the Russian Future Party on the same day. He had won the Presidency after the Bering Strait misadventure, on a platform of ‘Russia First.’ Lapikov knew Avramenko was too proud to go crawling on threadbare knees to China, Saudi Arabia or any other lender. Not while Russia was still a nuclear superpower. Not while it still had the biggest army in Europe. Accept a ruinous loan from a Saudi nation that hadn’t even existed back when Peter the Great was sailing his 30-ship fleet to seize the city of Azov from the Ottomans? Never.
But perhaps the Saudis could be made to see reason. They were behaving like the lunatic survivor of the Titanic who had made it to a lifeboat and was kicking at the scrabbling arms and faces of anyone else who tried to get in. The Kingdom knew it had perhaps 50 years of global oil dependency left with which to fill its sovereign treasury fund and it was driving prices down to capture as much of the market as it could
before time ran out. It had persuaded Iraq, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia to follow it down by promising them a small percentage of its own sales. The only thing that could change the dynamic was to reintroduce strict production controls, which Russia and the other OPEC Plus nations had tried to persuade it to do. Russia needed a price per barrel at least twice what it was today, and it needed a sign from Saudi Arabia that it was willing to cooperate. Or it needed to curb Saudi production through … other means. Lapikov was not Defense Minister. He did not know what ‘other means’ were under consideration and a part of him did not want to know.
His thoughts were interrupted by sounds at the door of his suite and his chief negotiator walked in. The man said something to the bodyguards on the door outside, closed the door gently and then turned and leaned his back against it. He said nothing, simply shook his head slowly.
Lapikov didn’t need more detail than that. With a sigh, he reached for his phone, turned back to the window and dialed. “Alexei?” he said when the call picked up. “As we thought, they will not compromise.” He looked at the man still leaning up against the wall and repeated the question the Russian President had just asked him. “Was there any movement on the quotas at all?”
The man shook his head again, looking defeated.
“None, Alexei. As I told you, the tone of my conversation with Al-Malki’s people this morning implied they do not believe we will carry through on our threat… yes … yes they will.” Lapikov looked up at the clear blue Swiss sky and shuddered at the thought going through his mind. “Yes, I will be on the next flight out. I’ll call you when we land.”
“OK, honey, I’ll call you when I’ve asked,” Ambre Duchamp said into her cell phone. “No, Soshane, I can’t promise. He might say no. Now I have to go. The bus is coming.”