Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (17 page)

           
“No,
General Lieutenant, you—”

           
Govorov
raised a hand “You were right, as usually is the case. We have to operate under
the assumption that the Americans have discovered or at least suspect our plans
in the
Persian Gulf
and
Iran
and have repositioned the space station to maintain an early warning and
surveillance watch on the area. If our intelligence is correct, the station’s
space-based radar will be able to direct forces to engage our invasion forces
on several fronts at once. Comments, Lieutenant Colonel?”

           
The reply
came surprisingly quick. “It’s imperative that we destroy the space station
Armstrong, sir.”

           
“Except the
Kollegiya has not authorized such an attack,” Govorov said. “We’re not at war
with
America
.
Feather is an operation to occupy
Iran
,
take control of the
Persian Gulf
and prevent the
reintroduction of superior American forces in the region. We are
not
trying to start a new Patriotic
War—”

           
“Then I
believe,
sir, that
Feather will fail. Can we, can
you
, sir, allow that to happen?”

           
Govorov
winced inwardly, nodded toward his office. Gulaev set his headset down on the
master console and followed him. Govorov motioned for Gulaev to close the door
as he sat behind his desk in the tiny office.

           
“You’ve
evidently interpreted my invitation to speak your mind a bit more broadly than
I intended,” Govorov said. “Space Defense Command personnel are interviewed
frequently by the KGB, and remarks like ‘Feather will fail’ are bound to be
remembered by some eavesdroppers, ready and willing to exploit them to
advantage. Please, exercise more caution in the future. You’re a damn fine
officer; I wouldn’t want to lose you to some three-man radio outpost in
Siberia
—or
worse.”

           
As he
spoke, Govorov was reminded of his own highly impolitic remarks before the
Kollegiya. Maybe he wasn’t the one to be giving this lecture. But then again,
who better to preach than a sinner who had suffered for the same sins in the
past?

           
Gulaev
appeared chastened.

           
“You are
right, of course,” Govorov said. “Feather will hardly be a surprise to anyone
if the space-based radar is as effective as I believe it is.” He paused long
enough for Gulaev to think he had been dismissed. Then: “Lieutenant Colonel
Gulaev, I’d like your estimate of the effectiveness of the SAS-10 Gorgon missile
system against the space station Armstrong.”

           
Gulaev
paused a moment then answered firmly. “Ineffective, sir. At most we can attack
the station with six Gorgon missiles. Armstrong has ten Thor missiles it can
use against them.”

           
“But the
effectiveness of the Thor missile system was reported at only fifty percent,”
Govorov said, testing his subordinate.

           
“Sir, as
you know the GRU and KGB adjusted the results of the American’s live-fire test
to approximate effectiveness under less than ideal conditions. The facts are
that the Americans used seven Thor missiles and destroyed fifty-nine ICBM
warheads. That’s an eighty- five percent effectiveness rate. No matter how
extensively the test was staged, sir, the fact remains that the American space
station successfully intercepted six missiles—Trident missiles, which are more
elusive targets than Gorgons. The Thor missile tracked and killed an individual
warhead
—a much smaller target than a
Gorgon. And, sir, although the present groundspeed of the station is slower, the
station at apogee is at the extreme altitude length of the Gorgon. Which means
that the Gorgon couldn’t tail-chase the station in its orbit but would have to
fly directly at it and attack before its fuel supply was exhausted. That would
make it a virtual stationary target for the Thor missile.”

           
Govorov
hated to consider the obvious implications of that.... All the plans, all the
misgivings, all the perceived deficiencies of the Space Defense Command’s major
weapon system that Govorov had been aware of all these years—young Gulaev had
just articulated them in one breath.

           
“And your
alternative?” Govorov asked in a monotone that denied what he was feeling
inside. “Come on, Nikolai Gulaev. I know you are going to say it....”

           
“Elektron?”
Gulaev said matter-of-factly.

           
Without a
word or expression Govorov picked up the telephone on his desk and punched an
office extension. “Operations? General Govorov here. Find an immediate
replacement for Lieutenant Colonel Gulaev on the console duty desk, effective
immediately and until further notice. No reason... by my authority-----------
Yes, I also need a clerk to get some orders cut for me---------- Yes, he’s fine
... get him in here immediately.” And he hung up.

           
“Lieutenant
Colonel, you have just said the magic word.” Under the bewildered gaze of the
young officer he stood, walked over to a steel locker in a far comer of the
office and pushed it aside, revealing a wall safe. In a few moments he was
holding a red-covered notebook, which he promptly dropped into Gulaev’s hands.

           
“Elektron
is right. And it is now your project. Yours alone. That document outlines all
the procedures necessary to implement the deployment of two Elektron spacecraft
with specialized weapons. I—” Gulaev could not help but interrupt. “What sort of
weapons?” “Patience. I will draft special orders authorizing you to implement
those instructions. You are released from all duties except those outlined in
that folder. The folder is classified top secret. Absolutely no one is
authorized access to the information in it below the office of first deputy
minister. Understood?”

           
Govorov
didn’t wait for a reply. “Collect your special orders from my office in one
hour. I will expect daily reports from you on your progress. Report to your
station on the main console until your replacement arrives.”

           
Gulaev
snapped to attention and hurried out.

           
As he did,
Govorov glanced at the old-fashioned analogue clock on the wall. How fitting
that the most technologically advanced organization in the
Soviet
Union
used a round sweep-hand clock to tell time. Govorov hated
the clock. It reminded him of what the Aerospace Forces of the
Soviet
Union
—all of the armed forces of the
Soviet Union
,
for that matter—were like. Some were still no further advanced than that
fifty-year-old clock. And some dinosaurs would prefer they were back in the
days when that clock was made, when the
Soviet Union
was
one of the most devastated, mistrusted, divided, oligarchical and bankrupt
countries on earth. Then a weak and demoralized Russian military followed
Joseph Stalin, the ruthless, power-obsessed dictator, into virtual ruin. Now
another weak and demoralized military was about to follow another power-hungry
head of state into a certain clash with the most powerful nation on earth. This
time, though, Govorov was determined to turn aside certain failure. . . .

           
Gulaev was
right. It was Govorov’s responsibility, his duty to do everything he could to
forestall a Soviet defeat in
Iran
and the
Persian Gulf
and anywhere else. Gulaev now had
the responsibility for activating the secret plan for the destruction of
Armstrong Station—Govorov’s job would be to convince the minister of defense to
hold off Feather until the secret operation could be set in motion.

           
Govorov
ordered his plane immediately fueled and ready for departure in an hour. By
then Gulaev would have his orders and Govorov would be off to
Moscow
to try to convince the Kollegiya to avoid suicide and face facts. He would much
rather be going up against the enemy. Dinosaurs were hard to kill....

 
          
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

 
          
As Ann Page had predicted, her report
on the potential Skybolt project delays caused by moving the space station into
a geosyn- cronous orbit over the
Middle East
had
negligible effect on Space Command. Saint-Michael had gotten the green light,
and for the past several days the space station’s crewmembers had worked
overtime gathering information and staying on alert for a Soviet response.
A Soviet response.
Put that way, it sounded so neat and tidy, so impersonal and even reasonable,
Ann thought.
Like playing a game of chess.
She
imagined just how devastating a Soviet “response” might be and felt a chill.
She was actually glad she had her work to concentrate on. She’d have been a
nervous wreck, standing in the command module and watching the display screen
read out possible threats.

           
Kevin Baker
put aside another relay circuit board and sat down beside her on a small
workbench in the cluttered Skybolt module.

           
Ann looked
at him. “I was thinking about how unreal a lot of this is. What might be
happening down below. The fact that we’re even up here in space at all....”

           
Baker
nodded. “I know what you mean. I think of all the years I spent in labs... not
quite like this but you know, filled with the same clutter. And no one giving
much of a damn. And now suddenly I seem to be at the center of everything
that’s important, but the feeling is pretty much the same. Solve the problem,
devise solutions, check out hypotheses—”

           
“And what’s
your favorite? Hypothesis, that is. .. . How can we get this laser of ours to
do what it’s supposed to do?”

           
Kevin noted
the word “ours” and was pleased. “Well,” he said, looking at the maze of wires
and circuit relays in front of him, “why don’t we start with this left GCS-B
data relay? What do you have connected to it? Looks like platinum.”

           
“It is
platinum. That’s the MHD master superconductor relay. I call it the toaster.”

           
“Not a bad
name for it. This is the first superconducting relay I’ve seen that’s smaller
than the size of a cement truck. So where’s the automatic test center?”

           
Ann
motioned to the ceiling and Baker let out a low groan. Working on the ceiling
might have been old hat for her, but his station laboratory had been a virtual
recreation of his earth-bound laboratory, where computers never floated to the
ceiling. Shaking his head, he lifted toward the ceiling, anchored himself on
Velcro-covered footpads and punched instructions into the test computer. The
renewed frustration in his voice echoed throughout the Skybolt module.

           
“What is
this?”
gesturing to sixteen long rows of
numbers.

           
“It’s a
linkage of all the relative program sequence codes of the relay circuitry.
There are sixty-four displays of each two hundred fifty-six bit word. You need
to cross-check each display with—”

           
“Wait a
minute. That’s over sixteen thousand data bits....”

           
“For the
left
MHD relay circuitry data bus,” Ann
continued. “There’s another check of the right data bus and the main driver.”

           
“God, how
can we check all this? It’ll take days. Maybe weeks.”

           
“I haven’t
run through the whole check,” she told him. “The toaster has run perfectly for
two years. I’ve got three hundred other components that I’d suspect before the
toaster, so it gets a lower priority. I’ll check it later.”

           
Baker seemed
not to hear her as he twisted off four Camlock fasteners on the tiny self-test
console, lifted the front panel clear and peered inside. “Good, at least you
have standard connectors in this thing. I’ll rig up a fiber-optic network line
from Skybolt to my lab. I can plug my computer right into this console and have
it check all the data registers for us. It’ll do the check in a few minutes and
give us the answer in English, not in this hexadecimal gobbledegook. You’ll be
able to monitor your toaster continually after this.”

           
“That’s
great, Kevin. How soon can you get it set up?”

           
“A few
hours for the network line and connections, and a few more to write the program
to compute and cross-check the checksums.”

           
Ann nodded,
looked at the self-test console. “Do you really think the problem is in there?”

           
“Don’t know
a lot about superconducting relays. In fact, I know damn little about most of
the other toys you have in here. But your self-tests aren’t telling you what
the problem is. We’ve gone over most everything else except this thing. I’d say
the problem has to be here.” He detached himself from the ceiling and glided
back to the deck.

           
For the
first time in days, Ann allowed herself to hope that the problem would actually
be resolved—providing, of course, that no new and unanticipated glitches loused
it up....