Starfire

by Dale Brown

  “Ernesto is clearing off to use the ‘wicks,’ ” Boomer announced as Ernesto began unstrapping. “I want to supervise the refueling. I need someone in the seat to watch for faults.”

  “We’re running low on spaceplane crewmembers, Boomer,” Kai said. He turned to station manager Trevor Shale. “Trev, want to suit up and—”

  “Send Brad McLanahan,” Boomer said. “He’s not busy. Hell, he’s practically a spaceplane pilot already.”

  Brad had been silent ever since the S-19 Midnight had been hit by the Russian ASAT, watching out a window at the workers surrounding the Midnight and hoping to catch a glimpse of Sondra, but he brightened when he heard his name. “You bet I will!” he said excitedly on intercom.

  “Report to the airlock—someone will help you into an ACES,” Kai said. “You’ll have to be fully suited up and on oxygen. There’s no time to get you into an LCVG.” The LCVG, or Liquid Cooling and Ventilation Garment, was a formfitting suit with water tubes running through it that absorbed heat from the body. “Trev, help Brad get to the airlock.” Trevor led Brad to the hatch leading to the storage and processing module. Because he would not be wearing an LCVG, it was relatively quick and simple to don an ACES suit, gloves, and boots, and in just a few minutes Brad was on his way to the tunnel connecting the S-29 Shadow spaceplane to the station.

  On the way into the docked spaceplane, Brad passed Ernesto Hermosillo heading to the Galaxy module. “Hey, good news about Sondra, man,” Ernesto said, giving Brad a fist bump. “I hope she’ll be all right. We’ll know soon, amigo.”

  “Gracias, Ernesto,” Brad said.

  A technician helped Brad through the docking tunnel, and Brad made his way through the airlock and into the cockpit. Boomer handed him his umbilicals. “Hello, Brad,” Boomer said on intercom. “Everything that can be done for Sondra and the others is being done. My guess is that she and the Secret Service agent will have to spend the night in an airlock pressurized with pure oxygen. They might be out for a while, but if they made it through the attack with their suits intact, they should pull out of it.”

  “Thanks, Boomer,” Brad said.

  “Thanks for doing this, Brad,” Boomer said. “This is nothing but a simple babysitting job, but the regs—which I myself wrote—say that one person has to be behind the controls of an S-29 during space refueling, wearing a space suit and on oxygen. The Black Stallion and Midnight spaceplanes require both crewmembers because they’re not as automated as the Shadow. I want to supervise the refueling and maybe hit the head, and Ernesto is heading to the ‘wicks’ now, so that’s why you’re here.

  “The Shadow is highly automated, so it will tell you verbally and on this screen what’s going on,” Boomer continued, pointing at the large multifunction display in the middle of the instrument panel. Checklist items appeared in yellow, then several sublines of computer actions, with a yellow line turning green, and finally the end result, with a little yellow button on the touch-screen display asking if the computer could continue. “If something does happen, it’ll notify you and wait for an acknowledgment, which you do by pressing the soft key that appears. Most of the time it’ll just fix the problem itself, notify you that it’s fixed, and wait for an acknowledgment. If it can’t fix it itself, it’ll let you know. Just tell me if that happens and I’ll get the techs working on it. Like I said, you’re babysitting, except the ‘baby’ is smarter and bigger than you. Any questions?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. I’ll be able to hear the computer if it announces anything. I won’t be far away. Just call if—”

  And at that moment they heard, “Armstrong, this is Midnight One, how do you hear?”

  “Gonzo?” Kai shouted. “Is that you?”

  “Yes,” Gonzo said. Her voice was hoarse and labored, as if she were trying to talk with a large weight on her chest. “If you can hear me, report in. Miss Vice President?”

  “I . . . I can hear you . . . Gonzo.” The vice president responded with the same low, hoarse voice and slow cadence. “I . . . I can’t breathe very well.”

  “Help is coming, ma’am,” Gonzo said. “Agent Clarkson.” No response. “Agent Clarkson?” Still no word. “Sondra?”

  “Loud . . . and . . . and clear,” Sondra replied weakly. Brad took a deep breath, the first in many tense moments. “I’ll . . . I’ll try to check on Clarkson.”

  “We have power to the Midnight,” Trevor reported. “We’ll check the spacecraft’s hull status, then figure out if we can do a pressurized tunnel transfer or we’ll have to spacewalk them. Their breathing suggests their space suits might not be receiving oxygen from the spaceplane, so we’ll have to hurry to see if we can—”

  “Command, Surveillance, I detect multiple rocket launches!” Christine Rayhill shouted on all-stations intercom. “One launch from Plesetsk, one from Baikonur! Computing launch track now . . . stand by . . . now detecting a second launch from Baikonur, repeat, two launches from . . . now detecting a rocket launch from Xichang, Command, that’s four rockets lifting . . . now detecting a fifth rocket, this one from Wenchang spaceport on Hainan Island. That’s five rockets launching! No prenotifications of any launches.”

  “Combat stations, crew,” Kai ordered on intercom. “All hands, man your combat stations.”

  Aboard the Shadow spaceplane, Boomer zoomed through the airlock faster than Brad had ever seen anyone move in space, maneuvered himself into the pilot’s seat with incredible dexterity for someone who was in free fall, fastened his umbilicals, and started to strap in. “What do I do, Boomer?” Brad asked. “Do I get out and let Ernesto—”

  “It’s too late,” Boomer said. “The outer airlock hatches are automatically sealed when we go into combat stations, in preparation for us detaching from station. They’ll terminate fueling and unloading cargo, and as soon as they do, we’ll be under way.”

  “You mean, back into orbit?”

  “Yep,” Boomer said, hurriedly getting strapped in and responding to notices by the computer. “We’re going flying, as fast as we can. There’s a paper checklist Velcro’d to the bulkhead by your right knee. Strap it on to your thigh. Follow along with the computer as it goes through each item. When it tells you to acknowledge, and you agree that it followed the steps correctly, go ahead and touch the button on the screen. If it goes out of order or you get an error message, tell me. It’ll adjust how fast it goes through each section depending on how fast you acknowledge each action, but it also knows we’re at combat stations, so it’ll try to go quickly. Check you umbilicals and oxygen and strap yourself down as tightly as you can—this may be a hairy ride.”

  “It does not appear to be a ballistic-missile flight path,” surveillance officer Christine Rayhill reported, studying her two computer monitors. “First two missiles staging now . . . they look like they’re going orbital, Command, repeat, orbital flight paths.”

  “Russian spaceplanes,” Valerie guessed. “A salvo of five nearly simultaneous launches.”

  “What’s the status of Starfire?” Kai asked.

  “Still working on it,” Henry Lathrop reported. “I don’t know how long it will be yet.”

  “As quick as you can, Henry,” Kai said. “Valerie, status of the Kingfishers and Hydra?”

  “Kingfisher-9 is minus two Mjollnir projectiles, and three Trinity modules on station have expended a total of six antisatellite projectiles,” Valerie reported. “All other modules on station are ready. Six of the ten Trinity modules in orbit are ready. Hydra is ready, approximately thirty bursts remaining.”

  A few minutes later: “Command, the first two rockets appear to have released an orbital payload, believed to be spaceplanes,” Christine reported. “Their orbits are not coincident with ours.”

  “They might have payload-assist modules that will boost them into a transfer orbit,” Trevor Shale said. A payload-assist module was an extra booster stage fastened to the topmost payload section that could boost that payload into a different orbit at the righ
t time without having to expend its own fuel. “We should expect those spaceplanes to move to intercept orbits within one to ten hours.”

  Kai Raydon looked around the command module and noticed that Brad wasn’t in his usual position, attached to a bulkhead in the command module. “McLanahan, what’s your location?” he asked on intercom.

  “Mission commander’s seat on Shadow,” Boomer replied.

  “Say again?”

  “He was warming the MC’s seat while Ernesto had to take a ‘wicks’ break, and now that we’re at combat stations, he’s pinned to it,” Boomer said. “So far he seems to have a pretty good handle on things.”

  “Override the airlock lockouts,” Kai said. “Get your MC back in there.”

  “There’s no time, General,” Boomer said. “By the time Ernesto gets his ACES back on, we’ll be bye-bye. No worries. Brad’s doing good. Looks to me like he has already started mission-commander training.”

  Kai shook his head—too many things that were out of his control were happening, he thought ruefully. “How long before you detach, Boomer?”

  “Cargo-bay doors coming closed now, General,” Boomer said. “Maybe two minutes. Will advise.”

  “Command, rockets three and four going orbital as well,” Christine reported about a minute later. “Russian payloads one and two established in orbit. No further activity from any ground sites.” That changed just moments later: “Command, detecting numerous high-performance aircraft departing Chkalovsky Air Base near Moscow. Two, maybe three aircraft airborne.”

  “Antisatellite launch aircraft,” Trevor said. “They’re putting on the full-court press.”

  “Radio all to Space Command, Trev,” Kai said. “I don’t know for sure who the target is, but I’ll damned well bet it’s us. Christine, I’m assuming their objective is to reach our altitude and a matching orbit to intercept us. I want orbital predictions on all those Russian spaceplanes—I need to know exactly when they will launch themselves into transfer orbits.”

  “Yes, sir,” Christine replied. “Computing now.” A few minutes later: “Command, Surveillance, assuming they want to jump to our orbital angle and altitude, I expect spacecraft Sierra-Three will reach a Hohmann-transfer-orbit jump-off point in twenty-three minutes, reaching our altitude and orbital plane seven minutes later. Sierra-One will do the same in forty-eight minutes. Still working on the other three spacecraft, but they could all be in our orbit in less than four hours. I’ll compute where they’ll be relative to us when they enter our orbit.”

  “Four hours: that’s about the time we pass over Delta-Bravo One,” Valerie pointed out, referring to the orbital display on the main monitor. “They timed this to perfection: they’ll have five spacecraft, presumably armed, in our orbit when we pass over the antisatellite missile sites in Moscow and St. Petersburg.”

  “Trevor, I want to move station as high as we can, as fast as we can,” Kai said. “Change our trajectory as much as possible, but I want to increase altitude as much as possible—maybe we can get out of the S-500S’s envelope. Use every drop of fuel we have left, but get us up and out of the danger zone.”

  “Got it,” Trevor responded, then bent to work on his workstation.

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  A SHORT TIME LATER

  President Kenneth Phoenix entered the White House Situation Room at a fast walk, waving the others in the room to their seats. His face was gray and haggard, and he had a day’s growth of beard, the result of staying awake and at his desk awaiting news of his vice president, chief adviser, and friend. “Someone talk to me,” he ordered.

  “The Russians have launched what are believed to be five Elektron spaceplanes into orbit,” National Security Adviser William Glenbrook said. In the Situation Room with him was Secretary of State James Morrison, Secretary of Defense Frederick Hayes, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Timothy Spelling, and director of the Central Intelligence Agency Thomas Torrey, plus some assistants standing by near telephones. The large monitor at the front of the room was split into several screens, with one showing the image of the commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral Joseph Eberhart, and commander of the U.S. Space Command, Air Force General George Sandstein, joining the meeting via video teleconference. “They have also launched fighter jets believed to be carrying antisatellite missiles, similar to the one that hit the vice president’s spaceplane.”

  “Get Gryzlov on the phone right now,” Phoenix ordered. “What else?”

  “We should know within minutes if the spaceplanes are going to be a threat to Armstrong Space Station,” Glenbrook went on. “The personnel aboard Armstrong can predict when the spaceplanes need to adjust their orbital track to match the station’s, or if they will go into an orbit that will intercept the station.”

  “Gryzlov on the line, sir,” the communications officer announced a few minutes later.

  Phoenix snapped up the receiver. “What in hell do you think you’re doing, Gryzlov?” he snapped.

  “It does not feel so good to have so many unidentified armed enemy spacecraft overhead, does it, Phoenix?” the interpreter said. “I am sure your orbital mechanics technicians will inform you very soon, but I will tell you now myself to save you the trouble: your military space station will intersect with all of our spaceplanes and antisatellite weapons in approximately three hours, at which time I will order my space forces to shoot down your military space station.”

  “What?”

  “You have three hours to evacuate the station and save your men’s lives,” Gryzlov said. “I simply will not allow that monstrosity to fly over Russia again while its weapons are active—as we have just seen in China, the space station and the weapons it controls are a great threat to Russia.”

  “Evacuate the space station?” Phoenix retorted. “There are fourteen men and women aboard! How am I supposed to do that in three hours?”

  “That is not my concern, Phoenix,” Gryzlov said. “You have your spaceplanes and commercial-passenger-rated unmanned spacecraft, and I am told that the station has emergency lifeboats that can keep personnel alive long enough so they can be retrieved and brought back to Earth or transferred to the International Space Station. But it is not my concern, Phoenix. I want assurances that the space weapons have been deactivated, and the best way I can think of to do that is to destroy the space station.”

  “Armstrong Space Station is a U.S. possession and military installation,” Phoenix said. “Attacking it will be like attacking any other American military base or aircraft carrier. That is an act of war.”

  “Then so be it—go ahead and declare it, Phoenix,” Gryzlov said. “I assure you, Russia and its allies are ready for war with America. I consider the fact that America has been flying weapons over Russian territory now for years to be an act of war—now finally something will be done about it. I am doing nothing more than protecting Russia from a rampaging American military machine that tried to disguise itself as a college-student experiment. Well, I was fooled. I will be fooled no longer.”

  “Have you thought about what will happen if the station doesn’t completely disintegrate on reentry, Gryzlov? How many people on the ground will be killed by falling debris and the core of the MHD generator?”

  “Of course I have considered that, Phoenix,” Gryzlov said. “The station will be struck over western Russia. We predict it will crash harmlessly in western China, Siberia, or the North Atlantic. And if it does not crash until it reaches North America, it would probably crash in western Canada or the western United States, all sparsely populated. This is fitting, no? Since all nations are responsible for their own spacecraft no matter how they reenter, your monstrosity might be returned right to your doorstep.

  “Three hours, Phoenix,” Gryzlov went on. “I suggest you tell your astronauts to hurry. And one more thing, Phoenix: If we detect any space-based weapons launched at any targets in Russia, we will consider that a commencement of a state of war between our
two nations. You started this fight when you fired that directed-energy weapon—the price you will pay is the loss of that space station. Do not compound the misery you and your people will suffer by touching off a thermonuclear war.” And the connection was terminated.

  “Damn that bastard!” Phoenix shouted, throwing the phone back on its cradle. “Fred, put us at DEFCON Three. I want to know all possible spots in the U.S. where that station could come down.”

  “Yes, sir,” the defense secretary responded, and his aide picked up his phone. DEFCON, or Defense Readiness Condition, was a graduated system for increasing the readiness of the U.S. military forces for nuclear war. Since the American Holocaust and the release of a nuclear depth charge in the South China Sea by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, the U.S. had been at DEFCON Four, one step up from peacetime; DEFCON One was the most dangerous level, meaning nuclear war was imminent. “Do you want to order evacuations over the possible impact areas, sir?”

  The president hesitated, but only for a moment: “I’m going to go on national TV and radio and explain the situation,” he said. “I’m going to lay it out for the American people, tell them the odds of station hitting North America, tell them we’re doing all we can to stop it from happening, and let them decide if they want to evacuate or not. How long would it take for it to reenter, Fred?”

  “About fifteen minutes, sir,” Hayes said. “Normal ICBM flight time from launch to impact is around thirty minutes, so half of that would be about right.”

  “With less than four hours to evacuate, I think most Americans would stay put,” National Security Adviser Glenbrook said.

  “I just hope we don’t create a panic,” the president said, “but a few incidents or injuries in a panic would be better than having Americans killed by falling debris and we didn’t tell them it was coming.” He turned to Admiral Eberhart. “Admiral, what does Gryzlov have in western Russia that could bring the space station down?”