Stone took her place at the corner podium as her deputy adjusted the wall screens. The screens displayed overviews of the undersea cables in the Med. Glancing at the clock, she read 07:02. Only nine minutes to go…
“Madame President, no further disruptions to the DA’s communications network have occurred since you were last briefed on the situation yesterday evening. We do not yet have definitive proof of involvement by Turkey, the United Caliphate, or anyone else, but we can now say for certain that these cable breaks were not accidents. These images displayed on screens two and three are underwater photos of the damage to each cable, taken overnight by Greek and Italian auxiliary ships. Both cables exhibit damage consistent with explosive charges rather than accidental cutting or with heavy weather breaks. ONI and NSA have reviewed the overhead electronics and communications signatures of everything in both areas for the past thirty days and have discovered no surface craft loitering in the immediate vicinities of either site. NGA has reviewed overhead imagery for the same timeframe and also found no obvious candidates.”
“Submarines, then?”
“Not exactly, ma’am,” replied the naval intelligence chief. “We have good locating data on all Turkish and Caliphate submarines, and the five Med-based ones away from port in the last month did not go near either break area. However, both nations possess underwater special forces capabilities which could have planted explosive devices on these cables. Without submarines, they would’ve transited to and from these sites and their bases by much smaller submersibles, and we have a far harder time tracking the locations of the ones that we even know about. Given the shallow water and the lack of evidence for anything else, it’s my office’s assessment that submersibles are the only reasonable explanation for how these cables were broken.”
“Thank you, Admiral. That seems to explain the how. Now, who here can tell me the why? Is this in preparation for something bigger?”
“We don’t believe so, ma’am,” replied Director Drennan. “Most likely, these incidents are only meant to test our reactions, so the HM can gain insight on how we’d react if they did something like this during an actual crisis. So, I recommend that we don’t react any more than we already have. The military posture of the HM around the Med right now is as relaxed as it gets. Or at least it was until we ourselves declared DEFCON Four. Their air and space defense units have increased their readiness postures in response to us, but their naval activity is still below average for this time of year. Also, no ground forces in either Turkey or the Caliphate are operating at a level that we would consider a sign of imminent deployment. And we know that several key commanders in both countries are out of position, either on leave or visiting bases rather than at their headquarters.”
President Loughlin nodded along. “Sounds like we can breathe a little easier than we did yesterday. Apparently they’re not about to try anything too reckless. Erik, when can we stand down to DEFCON Five?”
“Probably in two days, ma’am,” the Defense Secretary replied. “Sixth Fleet tells me that they’ll repair both of these cables within forty-eight hours. Unless the HM tries something else by the time they’re up, I believe we can write these incidents off as a probe on their part.”
The president looked around the table. “Does anyone disagree?” All heads shook no. “Glad to hear it. So, one more discussion point while we’re all here... what sort of response should we give? I agree with Eli that we shouldn’t do anything straight away other than repair them, but I don’t want to let this go unanswered. I could call in an ambassador and read him the riot act, but that’ll lead nowhere. We should do something more physical. Damage some assets of theirs, maybe? I’d like to hear suggestions.”
* **
Two hundred thousand kilometers away, the Isyan rocket shut off the liquid propulsion from its long second stage booster. Seconds later, a sequence of locking mechanisms in the interior of the rocket separated the second stage fuel tank and nozzle from the rest of the missile. A tiny monopropellant thruster attached to the aft segment ignited for three seconds, pushing the separated section away from the rest of the missile. Then six sections of the aft outer hull plating detached from the rest of the missile and floated away in six parallel directions, exposing what they had been covering underneath: the third stage engine of the rocket.
Vernier thrusters in the nose of the probe autonomously lit off to adjust the missile’s heading. No longer angling for a trajectory over the north pole of the Sun, the rocket leveled itself with Earth’s orbital plane. It turned sixty degrees to starboard, towards a location in Earth’s orbital ring two months ahead of where the planet was now. That location was the L4 Lagrange point in Earth’s orbit, and there was only one manmade object positioned there: the communications relay satellite which connected the planet with Dirac Station.
Inside the Isyan, a microscopic stream of charged pions were magnetically siphoned from their containment pod and directed into a reaction chamber where they mixed with an equally tiny stream of hydrogen. As the particles made contact with each other, the energy from the annihilation reactions channeled through a magnetic coil nozzle in the rear of the missile, providing thrust. It was one of the simpler designs of an antimatter rocket, a pure reaction vehicle. In ten seconds the Isyan increased speed from its conventionally-powered twelve kilometers per second to three hundreds of kilometers per second, with a long blue-white glowing haze of exhaust trailing behind it. It would not reach its top acceleration for nearly an hour. The gravitational force on the Isyan was tremendous, up to ninety g, but the rocket was designed to withstand it. Tiny grav plates insulated the containment pods and feed lines from the stress. Dr. Ozcan had seen to that.
Once ignited, the missile could not have switched off or adjusted its propulsion rate even if its guidance system wanted to. Its engine was not nearly so complex. It didn’t need to be. The missile’s third stage was like a firework whose fuse had already lit off, and all it could do was fly until it was time to explode. By the time it reached its target forty-seven minutes later, it would be travelling at nearly one third the speed of light.
* **
The screen in the Situation Room flashed the incoming call even before the deputy national security advisor began to speak.
“Madam President, we have FLAMEGEYSER flash traffic from Space Command. Admiral Martin is standing by on a secure link for the Sit Room.” It was the DA’s military codeword for foreign space weapon activity. Everyone in the room snapped out of their discussion and stared forward as the president spoke.
“Put him on.”
David Martin’s face came on the screen, the SPACECOM watch in his background. The watch center was a flurry of activity. Inset in the frame next to his head was one of the watch’s displays, showing an orbital trajectory graph labelled ISYAN TRACK 122175.
“Sit Room, SPACECOM CO here. We’re tracking something I’ve never seen before. A Turkish scientific probe en route for a solar orbit… it suddenly changed course and accelerated, tremendously. We’re showing a speed of three thousand – no, make that four thousand kilometers per second. It’s still accelerating. We’re showing it on an intercept course with the Dirac Station relay satellite–”
“How could it possibly–” the Joint Chiefs chairman said before realizing the answer.
“Antimatter propulsion, no doubt of it. We’re also detecting gamma radiation, a telltale sign. Sit Room, we have no time. I request engagement authority to take out that missile as soon as we can fire on it. We’re getting the Roosevelt prepped right now.”
President Loughlin, sitting upright with wide eyes, glanced at the faces around the table. She saw a chorus of confusion as she forced the look of shock off her face.
“Permission granted, Admiral. And stay on the line!”
“Yes, ma’am.” Martin turned away from the camera, giving orders to the desk officer linked to the Roosevelt.
“It’s unlikely to work, ma’am,” Secretary Stendahl said, stoic as
always. “An engagement from a warship, that is. Directed energy shots even at standard aperture will experience thermal blooming and wouldn’t begin arriving at the target’s distance for more than two minutes. Even then, the circular error probability–”
“Forget the damn odds, Erik! Can we… how do we send them a warning?”
“Ma’am?”
“Dirac Station. What links up with that satellite? We need to tell them their relay bird is being attacked.”
“SPACECOM itself, ma’am. For reliability, the L4 relay links to whichever geostationary-orbit birds face it at any given time, all connected to its military ground stations.”
“Do it, quickly!” The president looked at the inset screen next to Martin’s head. Estimated time to impact based on acceleration rate: forty-four minutes, at 1258Z. Distance between Earth and L4: 148 million kilometers. At least SPACECOM would have over half an hour to send off a message that would beat the missile to the relay. Plenty of time, even if they probably couldn’t save the satellite.
USS Theodore Roosevelt
Geosynchronous Earth Orbit
1215Z, 24 December 2065
Two of Theodore Roosevelt’s eight direct-energy cannons, its two neutral particle beam weapons, were already charged and pointed in the direction of the Isyan track. The arsenal ship’s AI, Teddy, had datalinked its targeting system with SPACECOM’s track of the missile and was leading the target accordingly. But the meter-wide cannons would have to fire at the narrowest aperture. Given the distance of the target, even the Roosevelt’s high-energy beams would lose too much power to be effective against the missile if their diameters broadened too much before they got there. If they could manage a hit, the particle beams would be much more effective on the Isyan than lasers. The near-lightspeed neutrons would not only strike with their own kinetic force but would strip away the protons from any matter they encountered, producing heat intense enough to destroy the missile.
The ship’s captain was ready to fire as soon as he heard about the rocket’s acceleration, an event that he guessed could only have occurred if the Isyan was antimatter-powered. The manufacture of it in quantity on Earth was an act of war, and he presumed that any subsequent orders he received would include firing onto HM targets down on the surface. He had already put his ship on battlestations.
But he couldn’t just shoot at the rocket before he had orders. It was an unmanned object launched against another unmanned object which was not, according to the DA’s database, deemed to be of military value. Command-by-negation did not apply here, regardless of the Isyan’s power source. A rules of engagement loophole that would have to be closed, the captain figured.
At 1215Z the orders from SPACECOM arrived and the captain acknowledged them on his command screen at once. Teddy fired the two particle beam cannons, first one and then the next the instant after the first beam cut off. Both let loose with eight hundred megawatts, each shot lasting for under two seconds before their capacitors drained and began charging again. After an eight-second interval, the cannons fired again. The cycle would continue uninterrupted for the next thirty-five minutes. After that, it would be too late for the beams to reach the Isyan before it got to the satellite at L4.
US Space Command Headquarters
Omaha, Nebraska
06:31 a.m. (1231Z), 24 December 2065
“The message is ready for review, sir,” Nate Byers reported.
“Good, let’s have a look.” Admiral Martin stood behind Byers to read the text the watch officer had typed. SPACECOM didn’t send many direct messages to Dirac. Anyone could communicate to the DA’s public-domain station, and most of its contacts were in the academic and scientific research communities, but all messages flowed through SPACECOM systems. The military command had the most reliable network of ground stations and satellites able to relay data to and from the L4 satellite. Now, they alone were able to send a brief message warning the station about the missile inbound for L4 and their suspicions about Kostroma. It’s what Admiral Martin called a single point of failure.
As he read, he discreetly reached for a playing card-sized device in his pants pocket and pressed a button. In the underground levels of three buildings on base, among racks of unattended server equipment, three tiny devices simultaneously released a torrent of electromagnetic noise.
“Looks good. Update the missile’s estimated time of arrival with our track, then go ahead and send the message. It’ll still beat the missile there by fifteen minutes or so.”
“Aye, sir.”
Martin walked back to the video teleconference area and the link to the White House. Halfway there, he heard the beeping noise coming from half the desks in the watch center.
“Admiral, we’ve got a communications loss…” a watchstander reported.
“What?!” Martin ran to look at the screen showing the White House and saw only a frozen image with the letters L.O.S. in the foreground.
“Confirmed, sir,” Byers said. “Every datalink we’ve got is showing loss of signal.”
“Landlines and wi-max too!” said another. “It’s like every fiber optic link to the base has gone down. We’re totally cut off!”
Martin went to the comms screen on the nearest desk only to find that the internal lines were also down.
“I want this repaired, now!” he shouted at Byers. “Find a technician and figure this out. I’m going outside to see if I can get a wi-max signal on my personal line and call the White House.”
“Yes, sir!”
Martin left the watch center and ran through the hall until he reached the foyer. The admiral unrolled his cell as he walked out into the open air and tried to pick up a signal. As Eli Drennan had assured him weeks ago, there was none to be found.
CHAPTER 11
RFSS Kostroma
1240Z, 24 December 2065
The Kostroma maneuvered on autopilot towards Dirac’s primary docking port, located on the sunward side of Hub. The final approach was left in the hands of the computers onboard the station and the ship, datalinked together to exchange sensor and maneuvering data. Humans were a much less reliable backup. As the ship approached, exactly on schedule, Aydin Demirci couldn’t help but look repeatedly at the time. Eighteen minutes before the Isyan missile destroys the station’s relay satellite at L4. And then fourteen and a half more minutes before the station notices the loss of communications. Thirty-two minutes total.
But only twenty minutes for the Kostroma to complete docking and for us to open the airlock. Twenty minutes and one second until the beginning of the raid. Then up to six minutes to run through the station and reach the controls for the antihydrogen filling container. Another four to eight minutes to sabotage all electrical currents running to the container. The MAKs might then kill me after they realized what I’ve done and that it can’t be undone. Or maybe I’ll just shoot myself and avoid whatever else they might do out of desperation. Either way, there would only be another twelve to fifteen more minutes for the residual charge to fade and containment to fail.
For him and for over two hundred others on Dirac, there was less than fifty minutes left to live. That’s Plan A, of course. With this warship now coming, hopefully I won’t need Plan B.
Kostroma’s huge main thrusters powered down as the ship approached Dirac Station, the great plumes of purple-white radiance diminishing to a trickle as the ship reached a distance of twenty kilometers. At five kilometers away the vessel’s eighteen maneuvering thrusters engaged, and Kostroma’s computer spun the ship around and veered it towards Dirac’s primary docking port.
The computers should handle all of it, Colonel Terzi knew. But pilots would still need to be at their station as a safety measure. And they would have to be the Russian ones for when Dirac opened a communications line and got a view of the bridge. There might be an opportunity for the ship’s crew to act heroic, to warn the station or even attempt to impede the docking. And the ship must dock, no matter what. The MAKs brough four of the Russians f
rom the wardroom and seated them in their places on the bridge. The co-pilot with the now-swollen and discolored nose stayed in the wardroom. Terzi and Major Yilmaz waited and watched from the side of the room, hiding off-camera while the Russian crew tried not to glance at them or the firearms they held. Outside the bridge, on the other side of the doors, waited Dr. Demirci and six more of the MAKs.
“I would like you all to understand something,” Terzi said to the crew. “I meant what I said about everyone surviving this operation. Cooperate, and you will. But as we approach the station, the one opportunity you might have to hinder our mission may be coming up, so I’ll emphasize again what I said earlier about ‘severe measures’ in response to any attempts at bravery. You will not die quickly, nor will your other five shipmates. But you will all wish to God that you did. Let your imaginations fill in the rest.”
The crew turned their heads back away from the Colonel. Their fought to keep their faces emotionless and spent, but their hearts involuntarily beat harder.
As Kostroma reached five kilometers away from Dirac, the Hub’s SAI computer, already tracking the vessel with a combination of laser and phased-array radar scanning, established a datalink with the Kostroma’s own navigation systems. The ship continuously checked its speed, distance, approach vector, and angle using eight lasers bounced against eight transponder nodes which octagonally surrounded the docking port on the Hub’s outer hull.
Though never a simple procedure, even for the ship’s AI, this approach to Dirac was not proceeding as smoothly as it normally did. The reason was the station’s own ion thrusters. The massive VASIMR engines expelled their own fountains of bluish-purple plasma exhaust to counter the weak gravitational influence of Venus, thirty-seven million kilometers away and nearly in line between Dirac Station and the Sun. The station’s automated propulsion added another maneuvering factor for the two computers to calculate, squaring the amount of calculations already being done to track the inbound ship. The fluctuations in Dirac’s thrust output, tiny though they may have seemed to human eyes as a matter of percentages, were significant enough to cause difficulty with Kostroma’s approach – overcorrecting a change in yaw rate in one moment, underestimating the required deceleration power the next.
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