by Dale Brown
“Excellent. That’s what we’re here to talk about. Take seats.” Patrick steered Boomer to the proffered chairs. The President was pointing to the others in the Oval Office as Patrick led him to his seat. “Boomer, I know you’ve met the Vice President; let me introduce Dr. Carson, secretary of state; Mr. Gardner, secretary of defense; General Glenbrook, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and General Sparks, my national security adviser.” Both remained standing as they were introduced to the others in the room and shook hands, then took seats after the President took his seat at the head of the meeting area. “First off, General McLanahan, I want to know about the flight.”
“I’ll let my mission commander describe it for you, sir, if I could.”
“‘Mission commander?’” General Sparks commented. “Isn’t that the new Air Force term for ‘copilot?’”
“Yes, sir,” Patrick said. “I flew the spacecraft this morning.”
“You?”
“I may not wear pilot’s wings, sir, but I fly every aircraft that goes through the ‘Lake,’” Patrick said.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it is,” Patrick said, meeting Sparks’s questioning glare with a confident one of his own, then turned to Boomer. “Captain? Tell us about the flight.” They could all see Boomer’s face turn several shades of red and his mouth open. Patrick decided he was going to give him just one more chance: “Boomer, fill us in.”
“Uh…it was…well, it was pretty routine, actually…”
“‘Routine?’” Vice President Hershel remarked, trying to help the young Air Force officer out of his funk. “Boomer, less than three hours ago you were standing on a dry lake bed in southern Nevada—now, you’re sitting in the Oval Office. In between you orbited the Earth! What’s routine about that?”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute—you say you went into orbit?” Sparks interjected, his eyes wide in surprise. “I didn’t know about this! Why wasn’t I briefed?”
“I knew the XR-A9 had the capability, sir,” Patrick said. “I decided to try it out.”
“You flew that experimental and still-classified spaceplane into orbit without permission, General?” Sparks thundered. “You ‘decided’ on your own to do it? You’re not even a pilot! Do you think that it is your own personal property, your own private conveyance? If so, you are sadly mistaken.”
“It’s okay, Jonas—this time,” the President said. “I didn’t authorize General McLanahan to go into orbit either, but I didn’t prohibit it either. What I asked for was a demonstration of the spaceplane’s capabilities, and I believe I got one.”
“I see,” Sparks said. “Thank you for the clarification, sir.” He turned to Patrick and added, “I’ve heard this about you for many years, General—now I see why.”
“What would that be, sir?” Patrick asked.
“Your proclivity to authorize yourself to take action; your willingness to take unnecessary and in many cases dangerous risks; your horse-blinder view of the world. Do you need me to go further, General?”
“I didn’t know you took such an interest in my career, sir,” Patrick said wryly. “I’m flattered.” Sparks gave him a look like a snake that was busy digesting a mouse, but said nothing.
“It’s still pretty incredible,” General Glenbrook commented, suppressing a grin at the quiet interchange taking place before them. “Climb into a jet, take off, and shoot yourself into orbit minutes later? Impressive.”
“I’ll say,” Maureen added. “And can it be done again?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Boomer said, finally relaxing a bit. “We’re parked over at Patuxent River now—we can gas up, do a flight plan, and be in space in about an hour.”
“No launch pad, no space suits, no massive boosters—none of that stuff?” the national security adviser asked, his voice skeptical.
That was just the right level of technical questioning and curious disbelief Boomer needed to ignite his brain. “That stuff is unnecessary and outdated technology,” he said. “We had to change our way of thinking about space flight first, and then we built the equipment to do the job.”
“What do you mean, Captain?”
“Government and military space was always predicated on lifting large payloads—big multi-function satellites mostly—into high orbits,” Boomer said. “Those payloads are very versatile and can stay in service for years, even decades, but are expensive, difficult, and take time to put into orbit. With the invention of small single-purpose satellites designed to be used for short periods of time—weeks or a month or two at the most—we don’t need a big expensive launch system to get them up. Black Stallion is designed to place small payloads into low Earth orbit quickly and efficiently.”
“Can’t we already do that, Captain?” Sparks asked, emphasizing the word “captain” to give Noble one more chance to remember who he was talking to.
“Yes, we can,” Boomer replied. “But Black Stallion can do it faster, better, and cheaper, and it’s more versatile.”
“How so?”
“The Stud—er, the Black Stallion—can not only insert payloads into orbit, but can also fly passengers anywhere on the planet in just a few hours,” Boomer said. “None of the other quick-launch systems, like Pegasus or Taurus, can fly passengers. Our other advantage is sustainability and quick-reaction capability: we can launch payloads into orbit once per day in normal use or twice per day in dedicated surge mode, where other so-called ‘quick launch vehicles’ could take weeks or months to prepare.”
“But how do you get that kind of power and thrust?” General Glenbrook asked. “The Space Shuttle orbiter needs two immense solid rocket boosters and a huge fuel tank to reach orbit, and then it has to glide back for a landing.”
“Because the empty weight of the orbiter is about three times heavier than the Black Stallion, sir,” Boomer replied. “It carries ten times the payload and four times as many crewmembers. The Stud is designed to get into orbit quickly from almost any military base in the world and carry small payloads. The Stud can’t replace expendable launch vehicles and the Shuttle, but it can do things that the others can’t.”
“The other difference is the ‘leopards’ engines Captain Noble developed, sir,” Patrick added. “The engines are very high-tech and at the same time remarkably simple, using upgraded designs first drawn up almost fifty years ago. The engines are hybrid jet-rocket engines that burn jet fuel and a hydrogen peroxide compound oxidizer…”
“Hydrogen peroxide? You mean, the stuff you use to clean wounds with?”
“The same, only highly purified and combined with compounds such as boron to increase the specific impulse,” Boomer explained. “But we can do it with regular hydrogen peroxide also. Outside of the atmosphere, the fuel and oxidizer are burned in a combustion chamber that uses laser pulses for ignition and to superheat the gases, which also increases thrust. In the atmosphere, the engines switch back to regular turbofan engines and it flies like a conventional jet fighter.”
“What’s wrong with what we have now, Captain?” Sparks asked. “We have the most reliable launch systems and satellites in the world. Our satellites are designed to stay in space three times longer than the Russians’, and they often stay up three times longer than planned.”
“All that’s okay—for the older generation,” Boomer said. Sparks ruffled again but tried not to let it show. “Today and for the near future, that system is slow, inefficient, costly, and not flexible enough for current-day missions.” Patrick tried not to grimace as he listened to the test pilot not only interrupt a superior officer and throw a challenging remark at the national security adviser, but forget to call him “sir” when addressing him. “We should scrap it and build a brand-new system.”
“Your system, I assume, eh, Captain?” Sparks asked. “We replace satellites that stay in orbit for ten years for satellites that stay in orbit for ten weeks, max? Scrap a shuttle program that can carry sixty thousand pounds into orbit and back again for a system that can carry
six thousand?”
“We build a system that can do the jobs the military needs done today, not forty years ago.” Still no “sir,” Patrick noticed, and Sparks was getting pissed.
“You’ve been in the Air Force for how long, Captain? Six years?”
“Five.”
“Five years. And you think you have all the answers, Captain?” Boomer finally, finally realized who he was talking to, and he wisely just shook his head. “Well, Captain?”
“N-no. Sir,” Boomer stammered.
“I don’t think so either, Captain Noble,” Sparks said, “but thank you for your input anyway. I’m sure we’ll give it all due regard.”
“You made your point, General Sparks,” Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman William Glenbrook said, not raising his eyes to directly challenge Sparks, but not backing down either. To Boomer, he asked, “What’s your max payload, Captain?”
“Depends on the orbit, sir,” Boomer replied. “I believe we can shoot five hundred pounds to the moon.” That got a lot of folks’ attention in the Oval Office. “We can put a four-thousand-pound bunker-buster bomb down on a bad guy’s head anywhere on the planet in about ninety minutes.”
“A more typical attack payload, sir,” Patrick interjected, “would be a spread of three precision-guided supersonic attack missiles, or sixteen two-hundred-and-fifty-pound small-diameter precision-guided bombs. Launched from over the U.S., the bombs could hit sixteen individual targets anywhere on the planet within hours. But Captain Noble is correct: with a small payload and a booster section similar to the Air Force’s Payload Assist Module, we can push a small satellite out beyond Earth orbit into space. A moon shot is certainly not out of the question.”
“The stealth bomber can attack over sixty targets with the SDB, General,” Sparks pointed out.
“Yes, sir, but the stealth bomber needs time and tanker support to fly to the target area,” Patrick said. “If both planes were loaded and sitting alert and were ordered to launch and attack a target three thousand miles away—say, Diego Garcia to Tehran, Iran—a stealth bomber would take six hours and a minimum of two refuelings to do the job; a B-1 bomber could do it in five hours. The Black Stallion can do it in less than two hours, and do it with approximately the same cost. By the time the bombers arrive over the target area, the Black Stallion can land, reload, refuel, and fire another salvo.”
“That’s still a lot fewer targets attacked in the same amount of time.”
“Yes, sir, but the Black Stallion did the job without putting any personnel or hardware over enemy territory, and without the need for any overseas bases,” Patrick pointed out. “Plus the Black Stallion has the advantage of speed and reaction time: if satellite imagery, human intelligence, or unmanned reconnaissance picks up an enemy presence, we can respond quickly.”
“And the bad guys won’t see us coming,” Boomer added.
“The whole world saw you coming today, Captain,” Secretary of State Mary Carson said perturbedly. Carson was in her early fifties, tall, slender, and very serious-looking, with a clipped pattern of speech that made it sound as if she was snapping at anyone she spoke to. “The Russians inquired about our unannounced launch activities minutes after you fired the rockets to boost yourself into space, suggesting that some believed it was an intercontinental missile attack; and they inquired about the payload shortly after you released it. Several of our European allies also queried us about the flight. It was no secret to anyone.”
“Then another part of our mission was a success,” Patrick said.
“What part is that, General—spooking half the world?” Carson asked. “Demonstrating our intent to conduct our own ‘bolt-from-the-blue’ aerial bombardment attacks, like Russia did? Is that the message you’re trying to send here?”
“Madame Secretary, we have no conventional strategic long-range strike forces except for a handful of bombers,” Patrick explained. “Our ability to project power abroad is limited to the ten existing carrier battle groups and deployed tactical air power. Even if every group is put to sea and every Air Force and Marine fighter wing is deployed to forward operating bases, it still leaves most of the planet unreachable by American military air power simply because smaller aircraft have less range and need more support to operate far from home or friendly bases. If we show the world that we can successfully launch a viable quick-reaction single-stage-to-orbit aircraft, the world will be caught off-guard, and our enemies will be scrambling to catch up. That gives us much-needed breathing space to decide which direction we want to proceed.”
“I don’t like playing those kinds of games, General,” Carson said. “This gives the State Department nothing to work with. It’s brinksmanship.” She turned to the Secretary of Defense, Joseph Gardner. “Do we even need long-range bombers any more, Joe? Everyone keeps on saying that the bombers are outdated—why spend billions on outdated technology?”
“General McLanahan has stated the situation accurately, Mary,” Gardner replied. “We need a long-range quick-reaction nonnuclear strike force to fill the gap between tactical ship- and land-based air forces and nuclear missiles, able to respond to a severe crisis anywhere in the world in a very short period of time with sustained and devastating firepower. With the Russians still a threat and China growing stronger every year, that mission hasn’t changed.” He turned to Patrick and added, “But frankly we’re very disappointed in General McLanahan’s recommendations. With the kind of money we’re talking about, we can triple the size of the previous B-2 stealth bomber fleet, procure all of the latest state-of-the-art precision-guided weapons we’d need for the next ten years, and still have money left over for other needs.”
“The ‘Barbeau Formula,’” Vice President Hershel interjected.
“It’s a good plan, Miss Vice President,” Gardner said. “Two wings with twenty B-2 stealth bombers each, fitted with the latest technology and armed with the latest standoff precision-guided munitions. They are still unmatched for performance and striking capability over any heavily defended target complex on Earth. The Navy takes care of maritime, littoral, medium-range strike missions, nuclear strike, and space; the Air Force takes care of tankers, transports, long-range conventional strike, and air superiority.” Again, he turned sullenly to Patrick and added, “With General McLanahan’s background, the Pentagon assumed he’d agree with this strategy. I’m somewhat perplexed by his current stance.”
“Sir, I don’t have a ‘stance’ here,” Patrick said. “My directive was to evaluate several different proposals to replace the strategic conventional strike forces destroyed by the Russians. That’s what I’m doing.”
“But you came to this meeting riding in one of those ‘proposals,’ General,” Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Glenbrook pointed out with a wry smile. “You didn’t come here on a B-2 stealth bomber. That sounds like an endorsement to me.”
“It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, sir, that’s all,” Patrick said. “Besides, I’ve already got plenty of hours in the B-2.”
Glenbrook’s conciliatory nod was almost a bow—he was very familiar with Patrick McLanahan’s record, including his combat record. McLanahan had not just helped design and test aerospace weapon systems, but he was often chosen—or volunteered—to take his ultra high-tech war machines into battle. Many conflicts around the world over the past eighteen years had been prevented from escalating into a major war because of McLanahan’s skill, bravery, and outright audacity. He had a very long list of awards and decorations, most of which he was not allowed to wear on his uniform or ever have revealed to anyone until after his death: some would never be revealed for a generation.
“I think it was a dangerous and foolish stunt, General,” National Security Adviser Sparks said hotly. “You exposed yourself to unnecessary danger just for a thrill ride.”
“Sir, men and women from the ‘Lake’ expose themselves to the same dangers every day,” Patrick said. “I wouldn’t characterize it as ‘unnecessary.’”
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�It is if a middle-aged White House staffer does it,” Sparks said.
“May I suggest we get back to the subject at hand, gents?” Maureen Hershel interjected. She had to stifle a smile at Patrick’s expense at the “middle-aged White House staffer” comment. “Congress is bugging the White House for a recommendation the President will support for the new long-range strike force. If we don’t recommend something soon, we’ll risk losing part of the appropriation.”
“I take it,” the President said, “that we have no consensus here on which direction we should proceed?” His comment was met by uncomfortable silence, so he rose, poured himself another cup of coffee, and sat down. “All right, let’s talk about the Black Stallion track once again.” After he had settled into his chair at the head of the informal meeting area, he asked, “So, Patrick, tell me what it was like to go into space.”
“In a word, sir—incredible,” Patrick replied with a smile. “I still can’t believe what we did this morning: one orbit around the Earth and landing at an air base all the way across the country in about two hours.”
“And we can fuel up the Stud and do it again, right now,” Boomer added excitedly. “Patuxent River or Andrews Air Force Base both has everything we need to blast off again.”
“Could I fly in it?” the President asked. Boomer chuckled. “What’s so funny, Captain? Don’t think I can handle it?”
“No…no, sir, it’s not that,” Boomer said, the smile disappearing from his face as he realized he might have unwittingly offended the President of the United States of America. “General McLanahan said you’d want to fly in it.”
“He’s right—he knows me too well,” the President said. “The general and I go way back—I knew him when he was a young, cocky, know-it-all captain like yourself. So what sort of training would I need to fly your spaceplane, Captain?”
“Training? No training, sir,” Boomer responded. “You look like you’re in good shape—I think you’d do fine. Let’s go. We’ll gas up the Stud, hop in, and in three hours we’ll be on the beach in Australia.”