An eagle-eyed flight engineer, standing on a rocky hilltop of Santa Barbara Island amid his stunned Sea Launch colleagues, was the first to detect it. A subtle, almost invisible waggle at the base of the rocket as it cleared the launch tower.
“She's oscillating,” he said aloud.
His surrounding crewmates, exhausted and stunned by the entire ordeal, ignored his words and watched in angry disbelief as somebody else launched their rocket from their platform. But as the rocket climbed higher and higher into the sky, more of the experienced launch veterans detected something amiss with the flight trajectory. At first, just a murmur rippled through the assembled crew; then, an excited buzz jolted the men like an electric shock. One man started to yell, cursing at the rocket to burst, and then another followed suit. Before long, the entire crew was jumping up and down while shouting at the soaring rocket, cajoling the mechanical beast like some last-dollar bettors urging a long-shot nag to the wire at Pimlico.
On board the Koguryo, the excitement of the launch had yet to wane when a seated flight engineer turned to Ling and said, “Sir, the Stage One engine indicates an active gimbaling beyond nominal flight plan parameters.”
The Zenit-3SL, like most modern rockets, was steered in flight by adjusting, or gimbaling, the launch vehicle's engine, redirecting its thrust to govern the rocket's heading. As Ling was aware, the initial launch sequence called for no gimbaling until the rocket was in a stabilized climb, then the navigation system would initiate slight steering adjustments to guide the rocket toward the target. Only an undetected imbalance would create an immediate steering correction from launch.
Ling walked over to the engineer's station and peered at the man's computer monitor. His mouth fell open as he saw that the rocket's engine was gimbaled to its maximum degree. He watched in silence as, a second later, the engine adjusted back to its neutral position, then gimbaled to the full extent in the opposite direction. Almost immediately, the whole cycle started over again. Ling immediately surmised the cause.
“Choi, what was the launchpad horizontal deviation at T-0?” he shouted to the platform engineer.
The engineer looked back sheepishly at Ling and uttered in a barely audible voice, “Sixteen degrees.”
“No!” Ling gasped in a raspy voice as his eyes scrunched closed in a panic of disbelief. The color rushed from Ling's face and he felt himself grasping the computer monitor to steady his suddenly weakening knees. With dire foresight, he slowly opened his eyes and stared at the video screen of the charging rocket, waiting for the inevitable.
Pitt had no way of knowing the impact from his frenetic hole drilling. But the dozens of gouges poked into the side of the support columns had opened up a flood of incoming seawater that quickly overpowered the Odyssey's ballast pumps. With the automated controls set to maintain the prescribed launch depth, the incoming water collected in the rear support columns and tugged the platform down by its aft side. Firing off the platform, the Zenit rocket was over fifteen degrees off vertical center as it left the launchpad and immediately tried to correct the deviation from its prescribed flight plan by shifting the engine thrust. But at the low speed of takeoff, the initial command was diluted so the engine position was tweaked again to its maximum adjustment. As the launch vehicle gained speed, the adjustment quickly became an over correction and the rocket's computers gimbaled the engine in the opposite direction to counterbalance the movement. Under normal conditions, the rocket might have been able to stabilize itself with a few minor adjustments. But on this flight, the Zenit's fuel tanks were only half full. The partially empty fuel tanks allowed the liquid propellant to slosh back and forth during the thrust inclinations, creating a whole new set of balancing dynamics. The overtaxed stabilization control system tried vainly to smooth the flight but, ultimately, exacerbated the situation and the rocket began to waffle.
On video screens and satellite feeds, out an airship cockpit window, and from a barren rocky island in the Pacific Ocean, a thousand eyes stared transfixed at the streaming white rocket as it began a slow and morbid gyration across the sky. What started as a slight wobble at liftoff grew into a continuous waggle during ascent until the entire rocket was shaking uncontrollably toward the clouds like an anorexic belly dancer. Had Sea Launch been managing the flight, an automated safety control would have detonated the rocket as it veered out of parameter. But the abort command had been deleted from the flight software by Kang's crew and the Zenit was left to struggle upward in a tortuous dance of death.
To the unbelieving sight of those who watched, the huge rocket swung wildly in the sky before tearing itself apart from the inside out and literally snapping in two. The lower Stage immediately disintegrated in a massive fireball as the fuel tanks were simultaneously ignited, swallowing everything in its radius with a cauldron of flame. Chunks and pieces of rocket machinery not dissolved by the explosion rained down over a swath of empty sea, while the high-altitude mushroom cloud from the explosion hung in the blue sky as if painted there.
The nose cone and upper stage of the Zenit oddly sailed free of the carnage and continued speeding across the sky like a streaking bullet, fueled only by momentum. In a graceful parabolic arc, the smoke-trailed payload gradually lost energy and nosed down toward the Pacific, smacking the surface with a watery geyser of debris miles downrange from the initial explosion. As the sudden sound of silence drifted over the water, the stunned observers stared miraculously at the white rainbow of smoke that trailed the death flight and arched quietly from horizon to horizon.
ON A rocky beach of Santa Barbara Island, an elephant seal awoke from a leisurely nap and cocked an ear toward the inland. The odd sound of cheering wafted down the hillside from thirty or so men congregated on a small bluff. The seal looked quizzically up at the disheveled group of men, then stretched back out and resumed his nap.
For the first time in their lives, the Sea Launch platform crew of technicians and engineers were happy to witness a launch failure. Men cheered and whistled while others poked their fists in the air in celebratory victory. As the launch vehicle blew up above their heads, even Christiano grinned a sigh of relief as Platform Launch Manager Ohlrogge slapped him on the back.
“Somebody was smiling down on us for once,” Ohlrogge said.
“Thank God. Whatever those bastards were trying to launch could not have been good.”
“One of my flight engineers noted a roll oscillation right from launch. Must have been a nozzle adjustment malfunction, or a stabilization issue with the platform.”
Christiano thought of Pitt and his comment before departing the Odyssey. “Maybe that fellow from NUMA worked some magic.”
“If so, we owe him big.”
“Yes, and somebody owes me, too,” Christiano replied.
Ohlrogge looked at the captain quizzically.
“That was a ninety-million-dollar launch vehicle that just went up in flames. There will be hell to pay when we pass that bill to the insurer,” the captain said, finally letting loose a laugh.
Kang flinched as he watched the satellite feed of the Zenit disintegrate before his eyes. As the camera caught pieces of falling debris, he silently reached for the remote control and turned off the monitor.
“Though the strike has failed, the specter of the attack will still represent a serious provocation to the American public,” Kwan assured his boss. “Anger will be high and the fallout against Japan significant.”
“Yes, our staged media security leaks should ensure that,” Kang said, suppressing his anger at the failure. “But the disappearance of the Koguryo and launch team remains at hand. Their capture would corrupt much of our hard work to date.”
“Tongju will fulfill his duties. He always has,” Kwan replied.
Kang stared at the darkened television monitor for a moment, then slowly nodded.
The mood in the Koguryo launch control center quickly turned from joy to shock to sullen disappointment. In an instant, the mission requirements of the launc
h team fell away and the assembled technicians and engineers sat silently at their computer stations, staring at the displays that no longer provided any launch data. No one seemed to know what to do next and whispered quietly with one another.
Tongju threw a long, frigid glare toward Ling, then left the control center without saying a word. As he made his way toward the bridge, he called Kim on a portable radio and spoke briefly in a low voice. On the bridge, he found Captain Lee staring out the starboard bridge window at the smoke-trailed rain of debris that scarred the blue sky with white strips of vapor.
“She shook herself apart,” he said with wonder, then looked into the blank eyes of Tongju.
“A problem with the platform,” Tongju replied. “We must evacuate the area immediately. Can we get moving at once?”
“We are standing by for departure. We just need to hoist in the tender, then we can be under way.”
“There is no time,” he hissed suddenly. “The American Coast Guard and Navy may already be looking for us. Proceed under full power at once, and I will personally cut the tender loose.”
Lee looked at Tongju warily, then nodded.
“As you wish. Our course is already laid in. We shall make for Mexican waters, then divert under cover of darkness for the rendezvous position.”
Tongju took a step to exit the bridge, then stopped suddenly. Out of the forward window, he gazed at the smoke-enshrouded Sea Launch platform. Approaching the platform from the northwest was the silver blimp, now cruising several hundred feet above the water. Tongju waved an arm in the direction of the Icarus.
“Alert your surface-to-air missile team. Take out that airship immediately,” he spat, then vanished out the door.
As the Roguryo's twin four-bladed propellers began churning the water beneath the ship's hull, Tongju hustled his way back to the portable stairwell that ran down the vessel's port flank. At the base of the stairwell bobbed the white tender, a mooring line tied across to the railing. He noted bubbles of smoke rising from the boat's stern, alerting him that the engine was running at idle. Quickly untying the line, he coiled it in his hand and waited until the next passing wave pushed the tender up against the side of the ship. With barely a step, he hopped aboard the bow of the boat and shuffled toward the cabin, tossing the coiled line into an empty bucket on deck. Inside the cabin, he found Kim and two of his commandos standing beside the wheel. “Everything aboard?” Tongju asked.
Kim nodded. “During the excitement of the launch, we moved our arms and provisions on board, and even hoisted extra fuel aboard, without any interference.” Kim tilted his head toward the rear open deck where four fifty-five-gallon drums of gasoline were tied off against the gunwale.
“Let us drift off the stern for a moment, then we shall make our run to Ensenada. When will the charges detonate?” Kim glanced at his watch. “In twenty-five minutes.” “Plenty of time for the missile crew to destroy the airship.” The Koguryo quickly churned away from the small boat as the tender continued to idle in the low swells. When the former cable ship had cleared a quarter mile of open water, Kim moved the throttles to slow and crept forward with the bow pointed southeast. In no time, he figured, they would look like another ordinary fishing charter heading home to San Diego.
Long after the Zenit had climbed into the sky and detonated, a thick cloud of white smoke still hung over the Odyssey like a fog bank Ever so gently, the light sea breeze began poking holes through the exhaust, revealing sporadic patches of the launch platform through the haze.
“Looks like a bowl of clam chowder down there,” Giordino said as he banked the Icarus over the platform. While Giordino and Dahlgren visually surveyed the platform for any signs of Pitt, Dirk activated the LASH system and scanned for optical anomalies that might signify a human being.
“Don't quote me but I think that baby is sinking,” Dahlgren said as they glided around the aft end of the platform and could make out an exposed section down to the water. The men in the gondola could clearly see that the aft support columns appeared shorter than the bow columns.
a “She's definitely taking on water in the stern,” Dirk replied... “Wonder if that's the handiwork of your old man? He may have just cost somebody a new rocket,” Giordino said. “And maybe a new launchpad,” Dahlgren added.
“But where is he?” Dirk asked aloud. They could all detect that there was no apparent sign of life on the platform.
“The smoke is starting to clear. Once the helipad opens up, I'll take us in for a closer look,” Giordino replied.
As they drifted back toward the bow of the platform, Dahlgren looked down and grimaced.
“Damn. The Badger's gone, too. Must have sank during the launch.”
The threesome fell quiet, reflecting that the disappearance of the submersible was the least of their losses.
Three miles to the south, a gunnery crewman on the Koguryo was transferring the radar-derived coordinates of the blimp into a Chinese CSA-4 surface-to-air missile guidance system. The slow-moving airship was as easy an objective as the gunnery crew could ever hope to target. With such a large object at close range, the odds of failing to strike the blimp were nearly zero.
In an enclosed room adjacent to the dual missile canister, a weapons control expert stood at a console transferring the firing guidance through a missile command link. A row of green lights flashed at him as the engagement radar embedded in the missile acknowledged a tar-get lock. The man immediately picked up a telephone receiver that ran directly to the bridge.
“Target acquired and missile armed,” he said in monotone to Captain Lee. “Awaiting orders to fire.”
Lee looked out a bridge side window toward the blimp hovering over the platform in the distance. The high-powered missile exploding into the airship would make for a spectacular display, he thought childishly. Perhaps they should also destroy the distant turquoise vessel that lingered on the edge of their radar screen and then make a clean escape. But, first things first. He moved the receiver to his mouth to issue the command to fire when suddenly his lips froze. His eyes had detected a small pair of dark objects emerging from behind the airship. He stood frozen and watched as the objects quickly materialized into a pair of low-flying aircraft.
The F-16D Falcon fighter jets had been scrambled from an Air National Guard base in Fresno minutes after a NORAD satellite had detected the launch of the Zenit rocket. While flying toward the launch site, the pilots were directed to the Koguryo with the help of the Coast Guard distress call that had originated from the Deep Endeavor. The sleek gray jets flew low above the water and burst over the Koguryo just a few hundred feet above her fore bridge The crackling roar of the jets' engines struck a second after their shadows had whisked by overhead, rattling the windows of the bridge where Lee stood with a sickened look on his face.
“Stand down! Stand down and secure the battery!” he barked over the phone. As the SAM was stowed away, Lee watched as the two fighter jets gained altitude and began crisply circling the fast-moving ship.
“You!” he cursed at a crewman standing nearby. “Find Tongju and bring him to the bridge ... at once.”
The men in the blimp beamed in relief at the sight of the Air National Guard jets circling above the Koguryo, having no idea how close they were to being blasted out of the sky by the ship's SAM battery. They knew that a horde of Navy ships was on the way and that there was little chance the ship would escape apprehension now. They again turned their attention to the smoke-covered platform below.
“The haze is lifting off the helipad,” Giordino observed. “I'll set her down if you boys want to jump off and take a look around.”
“Absolutely,” Dirk replied. “Jack, we can start with the bridge, then move down to the hangar if the air is breathable.”
“I'd start with the ship's lounge,” Giordino said, trying to cut the somber mood. “If he's okay, my money says he's mixing a martini and eating up the ship's store of pretzels.”
Giordino swung the blimp wid
e of the platform, bringing the airship around with its nose into the wind. As he lined upon the helipad and began dropping altitude, Dahlgren stuck his head back into the cockpit and pointed out the side window.
“Take a look over there,” he said.
Several hundred feet off the side of the platform, a sudden surge of bubbles erupted from beneath the surface. A few seconds later, a mottled gray metallic object broke the surface.
“Launch debris?” Dahlgren asked.
“No, it's the Badger^” Giordino exclaimed.
Guiding the airship toward the object, the three men could see that it was in fact the NUMA submersible bobbing low in the water. The underwater vehicle's bright metallic paintwork had been cooked off in the launch blast, leaving its skin a dappled mix of primer and bare metal. The bow section was bent and mangled, as if it had been involved in a head-on traffic accident. How the thing still managed to float was anybody's guess, but there was no denying it was the experimental submersible Dirk and Dahlgren had sailed to the platform.
As Giordino brought the blimp down for a closer look, the three men were stunned to see the top hatch suddenly twist and pop open. A cloud of steaming vapor streamed from the open hatch as they looked on incredulously. For several agonizing seconds, their eyes hung glued to the hatch, hoping against hope. Finally, they saw the odd apparition of a pair of stockinged feet rise up and out of the hatch. A patch of dark hair then appeared and they realized that the feet they observed were actually hands covered in a pair of socks. The stocking-wrapped hands, protected from the hot metal, quickly hoisted up the lean, racked body of their owner from the enclosed oven.
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