by FX Holden
“Let’s run through our response to a Shakti launch again,” O’Hare suggested.
“Yes, ma’am. We should pick up the prelaunch ignition sequence for a possible Shakti kill vehicle launch on infrared. As soon as we see it, Skylon bugs out, engaging boosters to accelerate away from the threat, making minor course corrections to deplete the Shakti’s vectoring thruster reserves. You’re riding shotgun, parallel trajectory. What range can you engage at, ma’am?”
“Five miles in atmo, so maybe double that in space?” O’Hare said. “We’re not set up to pull data from the Skylon as we did last time, but we should be able to lock it up ourselves from fifty miles out. Track and fire are automated. DARPA is confident in their interception algorithm – confident of a hit – but the question is whether it will translate to a kill. No one has intercepted a Shakti with a laser before.”
“If the G-BAD can knock down a cruise missile, it should be able to take down a Shakti,” Meany opined.
“Well, you might be betting your Skylon on it, so I hope you’re right, Flight Lieutenant.”
“What else can you tell me about your new ride, ma’am?”
“Not much you wouldn’t already have read elsewhere,” O’Hare observed. “It’s twenty-year-old tech by now. Like a baby version of the X-37C. Sixty percent smaller, no other weapons. But it’s a helluva good surveillance platform. It got a refit about five years ago to protect it against ground-based ASAT weapons and was given limited countermeasures – infrared and radar – but it’s not going to be able to outrun or outmaneuver that kill vehicle if it comes for us instead, so we’re also betting the farm on that G-BAD laser.” She winked at him. “Unless you want to sacrifice the Skylon to save me?”
“Never going to live that down, are we?” Meany sighed. “Comms protocols, ma’am? What is your call sign for this mission?”
O’Hare had not checked the spaceplane’s ID nor discussed with Vandenberg whether the small spaceplane already had a call sign she could use, so she went with the first word that popped into her head. “Uh. Bertha 2.”
Meany started writing it down, frowned and looked up. “I had not mistaken you for a sentimental woman, Captain O’Hare.”
“I am not just sentimental, Flight Lieutenant, I am also bad tempered, with homicidal tendencies,” O’Hare told him. “And don’t you forget that.”
“Very good, ma’am,” Meany said with a straight face. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll see you in space.”
Not many hours later, Yevgeny Bondarev was standing in the Groza command center, looking at the world map showing the position of his remaining Groza units as they circled the globe, which went from shoulder height up to the ceiling. All appeared reassuringly normal on that screen.
Underneath it were smaller data screens and tactical displays, and on these a situation was developing which was far from reassuring. His strategy of parking the Lider missile destroyer off the coast of Florida appeared to be working. SpaceX had announced that due to ‘minor technical issues’ its next Falcon Heavy launch out of Florida had been delayed. But Russian surveillance satellites had detected the launch of a US Atlas V from Vandenberg Space Force Base on the US West Coast the day before. The irony of that was not lost on Bondarev. The Atlas V first stage was powered by Russian RD-180 engines. GRU intelligence indicated it was carrying a US Space Force payload, but they had no intel on what the payload was.
That launch had bothered him. If his political masters were planning to escalate the conflict in the Gulf with another Groza strike, he would need every available unit for the storm that he was sure would break as soon as they did. Unfortunately, his misgivings about the Atlas launch had proven correct.
One of the screens he was looking at showed the bubble of space around Groza 4, which normally would be empty except for passing satellites. It was not. At the outer edge of the satellite’s sensor range were two familiar but unwelcome objects. The RAF Skylon and a US Air Force X-37B. Bondarev now knew what the payload of that Atlas V rocket had been.
“How far out is that Skylon?” Bondarev demanded.
Lieutenant Ilya Solenko flinched. He had not much enjoyed reporting to the snide, nit-picking Kozytsin, but he enjoyed even less having to report to a full two-star General like Bondarev. He had been discharged from the base hospital even though he still had lung problems and his blood was showing dangerous levels of chemicals commonly found in heptyl, one of the older rocket fuels still used in Russian rocket engines. He coughed. “Ninety miles astern, sir,” he said.
“Well within missile range. Once again, with a US X-37 in support. Why the B model? It’s a recon and transport ship, isn’t it?”
“Yes sir, recon, deployment of small payloads,” Solenko said. “Unarmed, though there have been reports it is used to trial various weapons. It has a smaller profile, perhaps they thought it would be harder to observe.”
Bondarev looked at the data running across the bottom of the tactical screen. “It launched from the US West Coast not long after we destroyed the one X-37C they had in orbit. I suspect it was just the first thing they had available,” Bondarev said. “Or, it’s a sacrificial pawn. What do you think, Captain?” he asked.
Solenko went blank. What did he think? He could barely bloody breathe. “Sir?” he asked.
Bondarev waved a hand impatiently at the wall. “The tactical situation, man. This is a virtual rerun of the engagement of a week ago, with the exception that the enemy is holding at extreme range. A difficult range from which to launch any kind of attack, but not impossible.”
Solenko was a thin man (even thinner now after a month in and out of hospital) of little imagination. And not given to reading the minds of his enemies or predicting the future. Instead, he decided to give a status report. “Sir, I have told the men to prepare for an attack from either space-to-space or ground-to-space weapons,” he said. “The 30mm close-in weapons system will be reserved for anti-missile defense. If the RAF Skylon launches a missile, or the X-37B makes an attack run, we will engage with the Shakti kill vehicle.”
“Fire too soon and either of them could outrun it at those ranges,” Bondarev warned. “It could be exactly what they are trying to do, neutralize our defenses. Or provoke us. We have only one shot, one missile, and they must know that by now.”
“But we could launch now,” Solenko said. “They may not be aware it has a launch and loiter capability.”
It was an important detail Bondarev had overlooked. He mentally slapped himself. “Good point. How long can the Shakti keep station with that Groza, in loiter mode?” Bondarev asked.
“Indefinitely, Major-General,” Solenko explained. “Or until the Groza is repositioned. It doesn’t have sufficient fuel to make major changes to its orbital track, but as long as the Groza continues on the same trajectory, the Shakti can remain in position alongside it.”
Bondarev tapped his hand on his thigh. “I don’t like passively waiting for the Americans to make their move, Solenko. We must take the initiative here.”
“Sir?”
“Launch the Shakti, put it in loiter mode,” Bondarev said. “Either they will retire or they will attack, but in both scenarios we are prepared, yes?”
“Yes, Comrade General.” Solenko turned to Karas. “Launch the kill vehicle!”
Ambre woke feeling groggy. Shook her head, but it wouldn’t clear. Her vision was blurred, her head thumping in pain. Soshane!
She looked around her, tried to call out, but her voice wouldn’t work.
She tried to sit up but then realized she already was. She was sitting on a concrete floor, legs out in front of her, hands tied behind her, back up against a pole. She looked up. Some kind of garage? Her vision was clearing, slowly. Soshane. It came out as a croak. She still couldn’t speak.
Russell’s patrol car was parked next to her, about five feet away. The space she was in was big, maybe about two cars deep and five wide. She saw a sign on the metal roller door that covered the entrance – Exit
LEFT to Scrub Jay Road, Exit RIGHT to Industrial Road. Work, brain, work! OK, she was still inside Cape Canaveral Station. But what building was on the corner of Scrub Jay Road and Industrial? She’d had to learn the locations of every building when she was setting up her system, programming links to every damn CCTV feed. She had it. The old Fire Station. Unused now, it hadn’t been in operation since the late 2020s when a new facility had been opened. It was on the historical buildings register.
“Soshane!” she croaked again, no louder now than when she’d first woken.
“Your girl is asleep,” said a voice behind her. Russian mafia accent. She looked around herself, but a utility box blocked her view behind. “Close your mouth. Breathe through your nose. The effect of the spray wears off quicker if your mouth and throat aren’t dry.” She heard a noise like the legs of a chair scraping on the floor. “You’ll be able to speak in a few minutes. I don’t know about children; your daughter will maybe sleep longer.”
She realized she was panting, closed her mouth, pulled air through her nose. She wasn’t scared. She was terrified. And angry as hell. She concentrated on her breathing for a few minutes. Tried to speak. Coughed. Tried again. “I want … I want my daughter,” she finally managed.
The sound of a chair scraping again, and then the man appeared in her side vision, moved around in front of her, carrying the chair, and calmly placed it down in front of her. He was holding a packet of gum and slipped a piece into his mouth. “Your daughter is sleeping,” he repeated.
Ambre looked around herself again, but apart from the patrol car, the parking bay of the Old Fire Station was empty. “Soshane?” she croaked.
“She’s not in the car,” the man said. “There is an office out back. I put her there, on my jacket. She’s tied up like you, but it is comfortable enough if she wakes.”
Russell. The last Ambre remembered, he was holding the rear door open for the Russian. But if his car was here … where …
As though reading her mind, the man spoke. “The policeman is dead.” He folded the paper from his chewing gum and dropped it into a pocket of his suit jacket. “I am sorry for this news. I hope you were not good friends.”
She glared at him, then strained at the ties around her wrists, which bit into her skin cruelly.
“Not deliberate,” the man said, watching her struggle without trying to stop her. “I hit him in the face with the spray and he went down, but he was still moving so I sprayed him again. I think I overdid it.”
Ambre stopped struggling. “We’re still inside … Cape Canaveral,” Ambre said, still struggling to speak. “You took the … patrol car … drove here? You passed about a hundred … CCTV cameras. They’ll have posted him missing … they’ll be searching for him. And you. You’ll be on … security feed.”
He kept chewing his gum.
“If my sister was right about the computer virus she had me plant, then your CCTV feed is down,” he said. “In case you are wondering what I was doing inside your computer center.” He looked over at the patrol car. “This is really very annoying. I had done what she asked me to do, I was on my way to the cafeteria to meet the nice tour guide and get out of here. But you showed up.”
She tried to yell for help, but her voice wasn’t recovered sufficiently yet, and all that emerged was a strangled groan.
“If you make noise, I will have to gag you,” he said. “That would be a shame. I would like to have someone to talk with, here at the end of the world.”
An alert sounded inside the Skylon’s command center and Meany pulled his VR helmet face visor down. “Target heat spike on infrared. Talk to me, Angus.”
Heat signature indicates the Shakti kill vehicle is powering up, Flight Lieutenant. Skylon is already positioned for evasion. I recommend engaging one third power and preparing for full boost.
“Do it,” Meany said.
Ahead one third on booster, the AI confirmed. Separation between the two spacecraft began immediately to increase.
“Skylon, Bertha 2. We’re showing a heat-flare on infrared,” O’Hare called. “Get ready to run. Where is that bloody Chinese attack?”
“Skylon acknowledging. We’re already moving,” Meany said. “Relying on you for that intercept if China doesn’t join the party, Bertha 2.”
“Got your back, Flight Lieutenant,” O’Hare told him. The X-37B was orbiting parallel to the Skylon and five miles distant. But without the benefit of Skylon’s targeting data, they wouldn’t be able to get a laser lock on the Russian kill vehicle until it was close. Damn close.
Missile incoming, Angus said. Going to full boost.
Meany watched the icons on his screen as both allied spacecraft accelerated away from the Groza. “Talk to me, Flight Lieutenant,” O’Hare called. “We still don’t have a lock.”
“Angus, relative velocity?” Meany asked, wanting to know how fast the Russian missile was hauling them in. The Shakti is closing at a relative rate of 209 miles per hour, Angus said. In thirteen seconds it will be within range of the X-37B’s laser targeting system. The X-37 will have a 33-second window in which to intercept.
“Bertha 2, Skylon. You copy that?” Meany said. “I hope you have that laser warming up.”
“Skylon, Bertha 2. Lieutenant Albers tells me thirty-three seconds is twenty-three seconds more than he needs,” O’Hare said.
Separation to enemy missile increasing, Angus intoned. The enemy missile has reversed course and appears to be matching orbit with its host satellite again.
Every damn time, Meany cursed to himself. Every damn time we think we have the thing figured out, it plays a new damn trick on us!
“Cut propulsion, plot a trajectory back to our missile launch point, Angus,” Meany ordered.
Yes, Flight Lieutenant. Alert. The target Groza is maneuvering, Angus reported. Its main booster has engaged.
“It’s what?” O’Hare asked. “What about that Shakti?”
The kill vehicle is maintaining station ten miles from the Groza. But the Groza has now engaged its main booster, Angus repeated. It appears to be moving to a new orbit. It is too early to predict.
Meany’s mind raced. Had they spooked the Russians that badly? He flipped the Cape Canaveral comms channel on. “What do you think, ma’am? They’ve got the wind up them and are moving that bird to a new orbit that doesn’t threaten the USA?”
He heard O’Hare give a dry laugh. “I have never seen Ivan back down from a fight, Flight Lieutenant. Never. Either this is part of some pre-planned exercise, or they are testing us out. But I can guarantee you they are not pulling back.”
“What the…” Sergeant Karas muttered in Baikonur, watching a series of alerts flash on a warning screen at his master control console. “Lieutenant Solenko!”
Solenko ran to his position and took a moment to read the data before turning to Bondarev. “Comrade General,” Solenko called out, “Groza 4. It is…”
“Under attack?” Bondarev guessed. Of course it was. Faced with a Shakti launch, the enemy commander would have little choice but to engage. It was a chess game he was prepared to play. He might sacrifice another Groza, but if he could take the X-37B or Skylon with him, the cost to the allied forces would start to tell. They would have to see that they would run out of spacecraft before he ran out of satellites.
“No sir,” Solenko said, rechecking Karas’s screen. “Groza 4 is … carrying out an unauthorized maneuver.”
“Controlled or uncontrolled?” Bondarev asked.
“Controlled,” the man said. “I don’t understand … it has engaged main propulsion. It is repositioning!”
Karas was hammering keys, but looked up in distress, shaking his head. “Lieutenant, General. We are locked out … we have lost command authority of Groza 4.”
On the fifth floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Pudong, Anastasia Grahkovsky put down her tea, felt the watch on her wrist and decided it was time.
She had used quite a lot of her savings on the flight to Shanghai, and q
uite a lot again on this hotel room. Which had struck the clerk on reception as rather strange, considering the poor woman couldn’t even enjoy the view – but then, she’d seen stranger things in a career in the hospitality industry than a blind woman booking a room with a view.
Grahkovsky walked to the TV screen and turned it on. She would have wished she could be there in person somehow, but in a way she was – in blood, at least. She found an English-language cable news channel and left it burbling in the background.
The news was only of vague interest to her. Saudi Arabia and Iran were still engaged in missile diplomacy. After its failed strike on Riyadh, Iran had launched a cruise missile strike on the Saudis’ showcase industrial and technology hub, Jubail City, which a breathless cable TV host was explaining generated no less than seven percent of Saudi Arabia’s GDP and which was now all but shut down. The Saudis had responded with a stealth attack on Iran’s largest nuclear fuel enrichment plant at Natanz.
It struck Grahkovsky as entirely infantile that the two Middle East countries were firing missiles at each other, when both of them knew that it was Russia who had attacked Abqaiq. Yet there had been no attempt by the Saudis to exact revenge on Russia – that had been left to the Americans. But then she only had a PhD in astrophysics, not politics.
She’d called Maqsud Khan about an hour earlier to talk him through the requirements for the next phase of the project. He had no idea where she’d called him from, of course. Part of her yearned to tell him the truth, but he would find out soon enough, and she couldn’t risk that he might find a way to abort the mission. She could have left the entire mission to her faithful AI in Titov, but she had been serious about her request to Maqsud – the strike algorithms were not optimized to cause maximum possible damage to the American launch facilities. She had made it very clear to him that he could adjust the attack parameters any way he wanted, but he must ensure the maximum possible long-term damage to US heavy-lift launch capabilities. From what she had seen of his work targeting Abqaiq and Korla, he would almost certainly be better at this than her still primitive AI.