Orbital: This is the Future of War (Future War Book 3)

by FX Holden

  “So he’s going to be ready for us next time,” Rodriguez nodded. “We’ve lost any element of surprise.”

  As O’Hare and Albers pulled X-37 B for Bertha back to a distance where they would be little more than a bright dot in the optics of the orbiting Groza, Maqsud Khan was standing uncomfortably beside Sergeant Karas in the office of their commanding officer, Captain Alexei Kozytsin. Watching the interrogation via a screen on the wall beside them, his fingers steepled under his chin as he listened to what Maqsud felt was some pointedly intimidating questioning, was none other than Major-General Yevgeny Bondarev.

  “You opened fire on an American spacecraft, on your own authority?” Kozytsin spluttered. “Where was Lieutenant Solenko?”

  “Lieutenant Solenko is in hospital, Comrade Captain,” Maqsud frowned, reminding him.

  “Yes. Of course. Where were you, Sergeant?” the Captain asked, turning his ire on Karas.

  Karas was a world champion at covering his own ass. He looked down at the small pad of paper he held in one hand. “Comrade Captain, I was alerted to the temperature anomaly on Groza 9 at 0425 hours while I was in conference with Sergeant Deripaska in the administration block…”

  In conference? Playing cards and drinking brandy-laced coffee, you mean, Maqsud thought to himself.

  “I ran to the control center immediately, arriving at 0432 hours.” Karas checked his notes again. “As I arrived, I was told by Corporal Prokhorov of Engineering that Corporal Khan had identified a US spacecraft laser weapons system as the cause of the temperature anomaly, had assumed weapons authority and engaged the US spacecraft with cannons. By the time I had taken his report, Corporal Khan had ceased firing and the US spacecraft, if that is what it was, had withdrawn.”

  “With respect, Comrade Captain,” Maqsud pleaded, “AI image analysis confirmed the target as a US X-37C spacecraft and imagery showed that what looked like a laser weapons system had been deployed. It must have been the source of the attack.”

  “You will answer questions, Corporal, not offer opinions,” Kozytsin barked. “Why did you feel it necessary to override the automated defense protocols? Those protocols exist to protect the satellite if it is threatened. They were not invoked, so clearly the satellite was not threatened.”

  “Captain, the internal temperature was rising to a dangerous … the American laser…”

  “The Americans could have been using the laser for imaging. But you decided it was an attack. You could have waited for Sergeant Karas to arrive and assess the situation, but you acted precipitously and without authority you fired a weapon at an American spacecraft.”

  Maqsud lowered his gaze; there was nothing in the accusation that he could refute.

  Off to the side, on the teleconference screen, Maqsud heard a cough, and they all turned to see Bondarev lowering his hands from under his chin and folding them in front of him. “And thank God the corporal did so,” he said. “Captain Kozytsin, what is the flashpoint of high-test hydrogen peroxide?”

  Kozytsin frowned and flushed slightly. “Comrade Major-General, I don’t…”

  Bondarev waved at him to be silent. “Corporal Khan?”

  “Five hundred degrees Fahrenheit, Comrade General,” Maqsud said.

  “Thank you. And tell me, Sergeant Karas, does your little notepad tell us what the temperature of the fuel cell inside Groza 9 was, at the time the American spacecraft was forced by Corporal Khan to break away under fire?” Karas started flipping through his notes, but Bondarev did not wait. “I can save you the trouble, Sergeant. My staff tells me the fuel reached four hundred and ninety-two degrees. They also tell me that if that fuel had vaporized, it would have interacted with the silver-coated arrays in the Groza’s engines and explosively decomposed, almost certainly resulting in the complete destruction of the satellite.” He paused and let his words sink in. “Corporal Khan, please step forward.”

  Maqsud took a single step toward the Captain’s desk and kept his face fixed on the screen, saluting as he did so.

  “Corporal Khan, I will be recommending to General Popovkin that you are recognized for your initiative and receive the Medal of Merit for Space Exploration. Step back.”

  Maqsud saluted and retreated to stand beside a glowering Sergeant Karas.

  “Captain Kozytsin, I have called a staff meeting in Titov in fifteen minutes to discuss the attack by US Space Force on our Groza. You will be dialed in from Baikonur. Before then, I expect you to have gathered all the available data and intelligence regarding this attack and be prepared to answer any and all questions from my staff officers.” Bondarev leaned toward the camera. “Your ability or inability to do so will be regarded as a test of your suitability to continue as commander of Groza operations, Baikonur, is that clear?”

  “Yes, Comrade General!” the Captain said, snapping to attention.

  The teleconference screen went dark as Bondarev killed the feed.

  Maqsud couldn’t help feeling glad to see Kozytsin and Karas looking as pale as he had felt just five minutes earlier.

  Kozytsin glowered at Maqsud, then held out a hand to Karas. “Give me those damn notes, man. And get me the Chief Systems Engineer on the telephone.”

  Meany Papastopoulos had just had a glorious three days leave and wasted it wonderfully on food and wine and a magnificently bloody bar room fight with a smart arse in a pub in Inverness who’d made the mistake of joking to a girl he was talking to that he probably also needed mechanical assistance in the bedroom. With Meany’s fifty-pound boot on his throat, the guy had both apologized and bought Meany, his friends and the girl a round of drinks.

  It had been a well-earned furlough, a fitting conclusion to a week in which he’d delivered an intel coup that had brought kudos to the RAF, and brought his Skylon home to a picture-perfect landing in Lossiemouth. Ahead of him was a rather less exciting week of writing up reports on the mission, followed by some mandatory diversity training before he and Angus could get back to the business of getting the Skylon ready for its next trip into space in about a month.

  Or so he thought.

  Until he had been woken by a message from Squadron Leader Bear, calling him to an urgent briefing. As he thumped down the corridor into the briefing room at Lossiemouth, he saw Bear, plus the short, chubby, tobacco-chewing intel officer Aston, and the three other Skylon flight commanders, two men and a woman. He nodded to them all as he ‘sat.’ Meany didn’t need a chair, he just locked his exoskeleton into a balanced semi-squat and it held itself upright.

  Bear looked at his watch. “Nice of you to join us, Flight Lieutenant Papastopoulos. All present, then,” Bear commented, though it was still one minute to the hour. “Lady and Gentlemen, we have been tasked with a covert operation of significant import. As we speak, the Skylon is being prepped for launch at 1300 hours tomorrow…”

  The pilots all exchanged looks, and there was more than one set of raised eyebrows.

  “Yes, this is the quickest turnaround we have ever attempted. We are not cutting corners, but we are testing the limits.”

  Meany raised a hand.

  “No, Flight Lieutenant, this is not an exercise; this is a combat mission.” He paused to let that sink in. “A joint services operation in collaboration with US Space Force. Mister Aston, if you please?”

  “Thank you, sir,” the warrant officer said, clicking a button to bring up an image Meany recognized immediately. “You will all be familiar with this beasty by now. The Russian Groza kinetic space-to-ground projectile weapon. If you have not done so, I urge you to acquaint yourselves with Meany’s contact report, and the recently forwarded US Space Force contact report, especially their descriptions of its twin 30mm autocannon defensive armaments.” There was a glint in the portly man’s eye and a small, ever-present plug of chewing tobacco under his lip, which caused him always to speak in a rather wet voice. He moved to the next screen in his presentation. “This is the orbit of a Groza satellite we shall designate X-two. X-two is currently orbiting on
a track that takes it along the East Coast of the USA, over Canada and Greenland, and then across Europe, the Middle East and Asia…” The screen showed a glowing green track on a rotating globe. “I will now show on the globe in red the potential attack footprint for this satellite, with major civilian population areas and military bases highlighted. Any one of these could be hit by Groza X-two within ten minutes of launch, with the force of a Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapon.”

  Meany leaned forward. The green line expanded to become a wide, transparent red belt covering the surface of the earth that RAF and US Space Force analysts had estimated fell inside the Groza’s possible range. As the globe turned, Meany saw cities up and down the East Coast of the USA, Ottawa in Canada, Edinburgh and Glasgow in Scotland, Belfast, Leeds and Manchester in the UK, Amsterdam, Leipzig and Dresden in the European Union, and further east, Istanbul, Ankara, Baghdad, Basra and Riyadh. But the number and type of the military sites that fell under the Groza’s footprint were what really shook him. Nearly every US Army, Navy and Air Force Base on the US East Coast, including Kennedy and Cape Canaveral space centers, fell conveniently under the red band. In the UK, the British naval base at Clyde and Royal Air Force Base Fylingdales. In Europe, NATO bases such as Leeuwarden and Alanbrooke lay in the footprint, while in the Middle East, that single Groza could hit targets in Turkey, or NATO and US bases on the Arabian Peninsula. He couldn’t help being a bit relieved to see Lossiemouth lay outside the projected range of the satellite, but he also knew it was capable of being repositioned, so that was an illusory comfort.

  “Good God,” the woman beside him said quietly.

  “Yeah, but … I mean, they can already hit any of those targets with air or sub-launched hypersonic missiles,” Meany told her quietly, trying to cheer himself up. “So, what’s the big deal?”

  “A hypersonic missile can be detected and, theoretically, intercepted,” the woman said. “These kinetic weapons can launch undetected, and hit at Mach 10. They’re invisible until they hit atmo and unstoppable once they do.”

  “Yeah, ok, that’s…”

  Aston plowed on. “I mentioned this is a joint services operation. Our governments have agreed that Russia needs to be shown that we will not tolerate the weaponization of space in this way. Our objective is the total destruction of Groza X-two.”

  Oh, this is going to be ugly, Meany thought to himself. Tactically, and politically. On the other hand, like the pilots around him, he was leaning forward in anticipation.

  “US Space Force has an X-37C spacecraft in orbit which is shadowing this monster. They have it locked up, but their craft lacks the weapons system needed to destroy it. Their high energy laser system does not have the range needed to safely engage without being counter-attacked by the Groza’s close-in weapons system. As we speak, the Skylon is being fitted with an advanced short-range multispectral seeker space-to-space missile pod.” Aston coughed and brought up a final graphic showing icons for the Skylon, X-37 and Groza, and what looked like missile attack vectors. “The mission is simple. You will rendezvous with the US X-37 and synch targeting data. Combining the X-37 and Skylon targeting data, we will then move to a firing position and engage this Groza satellite with missiles at long range, negating its onboard ballistic defenses. Questions regarding mission objectives?”

  Several hands shot up. “These things can be repositioned,” Meany noted. “We knock this one down, what is to stop Russia moving another into its place?”

  “I suspect we will address that dilemma with appropriate resolve if it arises, Flight Lieutenant,” Bear said. He nodded to the woman beside Meany.

  “Missiles will need to track in infrared or active radar seeking mode to attack from extreme range,” the woman said. “Is there any intel on whether these monsters have jamming capabilities?”

  “None,” Aston said. “But between the US X-37 and our Skylon, we are confident we can lock it up and keep it locked.” The woman pursed her lips. They all knew he was speaking with untested confidence. The RAF had extensively tested its space to space missile against orbiting space junk. It had never gone up against an enemy that could both maneuver and shoot back. But the confidence wasn’t completely misplaced. If they could lock up the Groza, a homing missile was almost impossible to evade in space, and very difficult to destroy with close-in weapons. Few of the usual strategies for evading air-air missiles in air combat down near the surface would work in space.

  “It doesn’t need sophisticated jamming capabilities,” a man in front of Meany grunted. “It can just spit out a few big clouds of chaff and flares between our missiles and itself and move out the way.”

  Aston was getting annoyed. “The specs provided by US Space Force, which you’ve all reviewed, I trust, show no electronic countermeasures system, no ‘chaff’ or flare dispenser. So can we please drop the hypotheticals and…”

  “They didn’t show a bloody 30mm cannon on the thing, either, but the US contact report shows this one had two, just like the swine we came up against,” Meany said.

  “Hence we will engage at extreme range, and with a salvo of missiles that should overwhelm any close-in weapons system,” Bear said.

  “Sir?” the woman beside Meany spoke up. “A successful missile hit will create ninety-something tons of debris that will slowly spread and probably keep orbiting for years. Have we considered other options?”

  “The Americans tried a laser, for exactly that reason, yes. And so we are back to missiles, I’m afraid,” Aston replied.

  “Ground-based systems interference?” Meany asked. “We know Ivan tracks every Skylon launch. If he sees us shaking hands with a US X-37 in the neighborhood of its Groza, he could choose to intervene with ground-based defensive systems … anti-sat missiles, ground-based lasers…”

  “Yes, he could, Flight Lieutenant,” Aston replied. “And we can expect Russia is on alert after the first US attack. But we are confident US Space Force can give us plenty of warning of an anti-sat missile launch, and ground-based lasers shouldn’t be able to interfere with a space-space missile engagement.”

  “This isn’t the bloody Death Star, ladies and gentlemen,” Bear said. “It is a soon to be defunct pile of Russian space junk and the people in this room are the leading experts at making it so.” He waited briefly to see if there were more questions before continuing. “Right, then. Crew roster…”

  There had been a number of envious looks and even an unsubtle groan when it had been announced the pilot in charge of the engagement phase of the mission would be Meany. None of the other pilots were surprised – he had after all acquitted himself handily during the RAF’s first contact with a Groza – but there wasn’t a pilot in the room who didn’t want to be the one behind the stick when they took down that satellite. Takeoff, transition, contact or deployment and landing were all challenging phases of a Skylon mission, but everyone in the squadron wanted to get a kill on their record.

  He hoped none of them knew voodoo, or there would be a jealous pilot in their quarters somewhere on Lossie pushing pins into a Meany doll pretty soon.

  Meany waited until they had all left and approached Squadron Leader Bear. “Sir, a word?”

  “Yes, Meany?”

  “Any chance you can set up a call between myself and my US counterpart before we hit orbit?” he asked. “It would be nice to know who I’m working with up there.”

  It wasn’t the first time the RAF, or Meany himself, had worked in concert with US Space Force. As the only two alliance powers fielding remotely piloted spacecraft, they’d exercised together to establish communications protocols and identify areas for potential collaboration. The smaller US spacecraft was designed to stay in orbit for longer periods, was more agile and better suited to long-term multifaceted missions, at which it excelled. The larger RAF machine could lift bigger payloads into space, and had a faster turnaround time from landing to relaunch, but it was not designed for missions of extended duration. Most recently, the Skylon had been used to lift a ni
ne-ton US Space Force prototype refueling module into orbit to allow the X-37 to test the potential for mid-mission refueling.

  Bear pulled at an earlobe as he weighed the request. “That should be possible, Flight Lieutenant,” he replied. “I’ll find out who your opposite number will be and put you in touch.” He put a hand on Meany’s shoulder. “But you will promise me to use this opportunity to enhance relations between our services, not destroy them, yes?”

  “Yes, sir,” Meany replied, saluting. “I shall do my best to avoid antagonizing our allies.” Assuming the other party does theirs, he added to himself. He turned to go.

  “Sit a minute would you Meany,” Paddington said suddenly. “I’d like to get your thoughts on something.”

  Squadron Leader Bear hadn’t chosen the ‘Paddington’ moniker for himself. He’d have preferred something like ‘Grizzly’ and tried a couple of times in his early career to insinuate it into conversations with his fellow pilots, but it hadn’t stuck. ‘Paddington’ had. Newer pilots often had their names stenciled under the cockpit of an aircraft for the sake of esprit de corps, and it had struck Bear as slightly absurd to see Flight Lt. Greg ‘Paddington’ Bear stenciled on the fuselage of an RAF Tornado. Hardly something that would strike fear into the hearts of the enemy is a spy camera got a photo of it.

  ‘Meany’ – now that was a good moniker. He hadn’t met Meany before he joined RAF Space Command, and knew it was just short form for Anaximenes, but a better name for a man bolted into a military exoskeleton would have been hard to find. He watched fascinated as Meany levered himself into a sitting position using just the frame of his exoskeleton. The man had his own built in chair. Bear sat in one of the chairs recently vacated by the Skylon squadron members.

  “If this is about that brawl at the pub sir, there was just cause,” Meany said. “The damn ignorant Scotsman was besmirching the proud history of the RAF and I…”