Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (43 page)

           
Stuart
immediately shook his head. “No way, Jason. You’re grounded.
Hampton
is still the pilot, no matter what the man decides.”

           
“Sir, you
don’t have any choice on this one. If the plan is authorized you’ll need a
station commander on Armstrong—someone who’s checked out on SBR and all of the
station’s subsystems.
Hampton
’s the
best HTS jockey we have, but he’s not a station commander.”

           
“Jason”
—Stuart’s patience was wearing
thin—“all we need is someone to keep things together until the station gets
reoriented—”

           
“That
someone
would have to take the first
officer’s place aboard
America
, leaving
Hampton
with the job of putting the HTS into orbit by himself. He’s good, but he’s not
that good.”

           
“If it came
to that, Jason, I’m sure we could rig up a makeshift seat for the extra
crewmember. I’m still not convinced you’re essential.”

           
“Sir,
nobody knows that station better than I do.”

           
“What about
your dysbarism, sir?” Horvath asked, fearing he might lose his chance at his
first real ride in the hypersonic spaceplane
America
.
“What if your episodes recur in
space?”

           
“
America
is a spacesuit-environment craft. As long as I prebreathe oxygen and stay in a
spacesuit I’ll be just fine.”

           
“Jason, you
don’t
know
that,” Dr. Matsui said
from behind him. Saint-Michael didn’t bother turning around. “The lower
pressure in the suit could trigger a seizure. The excitement, the
adrenaline—even the noise could set you off. And if there was an
emergency—rapid decompression, a suit puncture—”

           
“Then we’re
out both an HTS pilot and a station commander,” Stuart finished for him, “and
we bring you back in
America
's
cargo hold, along with all your crew.”

           
That last
hit Saint-Michael hard. His
crew.
Would he be endangering them by heading up the mission? It was one thing to
take chances with his own life, but with the lives of the crew.... He scanned the
faces of the others in the room. What he saw renewed his determination.

           
“Look,
General
,” Saint-Michael said, “there’s no denying I’ll be
risking my hide by going up there. We all will. It goes, as they say, with the
territory. But I think the chances are better than even we’ll put that station
back in business. Right now, all things considered, ‘better than even’ seems
like pretty good odds.”

           
Stuart said
nothing for a long moment. Then: “Like I said, Jas, I’ll take your proposal to
the Pentagon. I’ll tell them you want in—let them decide.”

           
Good old
Martin Stuart, Saint-Michael thought. Always an expert at passing the buck.
Well, nothing to do now but wait... and hope. His thoughts drifted... then
fixed on an image of Jim Walker stepping into the lifeboat. That look on his
face. What was it? A parting look... a final farewell... ?

           
Saint-Michael’s
own face hardened as he stood in the Space Command conference room. Somehow,
some way, he had to get back on board that station.

           
The Chevy
Blazer turned off the main highway, down a graded dirt road with a large sign
that read “Calhan Municipal Airport Welcomes You.”

           
Ann looked
at Saint-Michael. “An airport? You live on an airport?” “I get that reaction
all the time. I guess I’m one of the few people who’ve gotten the chance to
fulfill a childhood fantasy. When I was a kid, I used to wash airplanes, pump
gas and sweep out hangars to pay for flying lessons. I got my pilot’s license
before I got a driver’s license. I was always at the airport. Years later, when
I was reassigned to
Colorado Springs
,
I began hunting around for a place and ran across this abandoned county
airport.
Thirty acres, a hangar, fuel storage, a house, a
terminal building and a paved runway.
Plus I’ve got fresh air—sweetened
once in a while from the stockyards up the road—the open sky, and the
Rocky
Mountains
. And all it cost me was the back taxes.
Paradise
.”

           
They pulled
up in front of an old but imposing ranch-style house surrounded by trees
several hundred yards from the terminal building. Ann was surprised to see a
beacon light revolving on a tower near the terminal.

           
“The
airport’s active now,” he explained. “Another deal I made with the county.”

           
“Doesn’t
the noise ever bother you? It would drive me crazy.”

           
“It’s not
that
active. Besides, I’m hardly ever
here.”

           
“You have
your own plane?”

           
“Yes. A
beauty.” They got out of the car and made their way through the darkness to the
house. “Of course, if the docs at Space Command don’t give me a clean bill of
health I’ll have trouble flying even my Piper Malibu.”

           
He punched
a code into a keyless door lock and swung the door open. To her surprise,
lights immediately went on in the foyer and front two rooms.

           
“I’m also
into gadgets,” he said “If houses can be described as ‘high tech,’ then this
one is.” He helped her take off her coat and hung it in the front closet just
off the white tiled foyer.

           
“It’s warm
in here,” Ann said “You keep the heat on all the time when you’re gone?”

           
“Another gadget.
Before I leave headquarters I call home.
When the computer answers, I punch a code into the phone that tells the
computer to turn on the heat or air-conditioning, outside lights, everything—it
even makes a pot of coffee.

           
Ann smiled
back, pleased to be seeing a new side of him.

           
He led her
into the great room, an oak-paneled palace dominated by a cathedral ceiling and
a massive stone fireplace. She sat on a leather sofa in front of the fireplace,
and he poured a snifter of Grand Marnier for both of them. When he returned
with the liqueur he was pleased to see her curled up against one of the big arm
pillows.

           
“You look
right at home,” he said. She smiled, accepted the snifter.

           
He went to
the fireplace and within a few minutes had a roaring fire built, then returned
to the sofa and sat beside her, watching the logs being consumed by the blaze.
After a while she moved toward him— Ann Page was neither coy nor a tease—and
put her head on his shoulder. He reached over and brushed her hair from her
forehead.

           
“It’s
peaceful here,” she said. She looked up at him, watched the reflections of fire
in his eyes. “What do you think they’ll say? I mean, about reactivating the
station? About your going along?”

           
“I’m
counting on a yea to both points.”

           
“But what
if—”

           
“I can’t
think about that now,” he said. “I think my desire to get back to the station,
the feeling I’ve
got
to and will, is
what’s helped me fight off this damn sickness. And you’ve been an important
part of it. I hope you realize that.”

           
“Jason....”

           
He would
have been a fool or worse not to understand that the time was now. He kissed
her. She pressed against him, holding the kiss for as long as possible. When
they parted, they looked into each other’s eyes, reading thoughts and
desires—the same for them both.

           
“Make love
to me, Jason.
Now.”

           
And General
Saint-Michael, for once in his life, did precisely as he was told.

           
Afterward they
shared the unspoken feeling that their loving time together was unlikely to be
repeated soon. The dark void of space lay ahead, a place with no promises, and
a future unknown.

 
          
THE PENTAGON

 
          
The computer-synthesized voice that
came through the Pentagon’s “safe-line” sounded like Jason Saint-Michael, but
General Stuart could tell immediately that a machine had answered. No matter.
It was
five o’clock
in the morning in
Colorado
,
seven a.m.
in
Washington
.
Give the man a rest.

           
When the
voice was replaced by a beep, Stuart said, “Jason, Stuart here. I just left a
meeting with the Joint Chiefs. The president and his cabinet were listening in
on a video teleconference. Not the news you’d hoped for, I’m afraid. The
secretary of defense is dead set against the station and he convinced the
president to deny your request.

           
“I’m real
sorry, Jason, but the decision is to give you a medical retirement.
America
will be piloted by
Hampton
. The
crew will be responsible for salvaging bodies and boosting Skybolt into
storage. That’s it, Jason. Sorry
..
.”

           
As he
returned the receiver to its cradle, Martin Stuart admitted to himself that he
had been hoping to get Saint-Michael’s machine He and Jason had knocked heads a
fair amount over the years, but he'd always respected the young general,
considered him a brilliant field commander. It would have given him no pleasure
to tell Saint-Michael directly that Space Command no longer had use for his
services. So he was a coward. In this case, he had no apologies. He just hoped
Jason would come to accept it. But did he really believe there was a chance of
that?

 
          
October 1992

 
          
McAULIFFE HTS SPACEPORT, NEEDLES,
CALIFORNIA

 
          
This was no longer the world’s most
extraordinary flying vehicle, Ann thought, and they were no longer a crew of
highly skilled astronauts and engineers: this magnificent spacecraft called
America
was nothing more than a glorified
hearse,
and they
were the pallbearers. They were being sent to do a dirty job, with the whole
world looking on.

           
Ann and
Marty Schultz were observing the loading of
America
's
cargo bay two days prior to launch.
They stood on a steel arch over the massive spaceplane watching huge cranes and
scores of workers maneuver supplies into the cargo bay. Ann’s first glimpse of
America
had been so striking that, for a
moment, she’d forgotten the reason for their voyage, forgotten the pain of
knowing that Jason would not be joining her. “She’s beautiful. Really
beautiful,” she had said when they’d climbed on top of the observation arch for
the first time.

           
Schultz had
first taken her on a walk-around inspection of the huge space vehicle. Unlike
the husky, boxlike STS space shuttles,
America
was a sleek, rather ominous-looking
craft. It was twice as large as the shuttles, closely resembling an oversized
version of the Mach Three- plus U.S. Air Force SR-71 Blackbird military
reconnaissance plane (the fastest aircraft in the world until
America
had come along), with its pointed hawknose bow sweeping gracefully out toward
its broad, flat fuselage and impossibly thin edges.

           
The craft
was built primarily of an exotic metal called rhenium, which was stronger and
lighter than titanium and more heat resistant than reinforced carbon-carbon.
The cockpit, crew cabin and cargo bay rose out of the top of the smooth
black-and-gray rhenium body in a graceful hump, blending smoothly into the
broad, flat tail. The sides of the fuselage flared out into short, thin wings
that, a few minutes after launch, would swing into the body when their lift was
no longer needed. Two short, rounded vertical stabilizers jutted out of the top
of the fuselage near the tail, pointing in toward the spine. But most
impressive about
America
was
her three large engines: long, boxy devices slung under the fuselage with rows
of dividers and chambers throughout. Ann had walked around to the front part of
the engine and, out of habit and curiosity, looked into the engine inlet. To
her surprise she could see right
through
the engines. She asked the obvious question:

           
“Where the
hell are the engines?”

           
“Those
are the engines,” Marty
explained, welcoming the chance to lecture her on something
he
knew a good deal about. She understood
and kept quiet. “Those are the scramjet engines—supersonic ramjets. Instead of
using fan blades to compress air like ordinary aircraft jet engines, the
scramjet uses what’s called a Venturi—the internal shape of the engine
itself—to compress air for ignition. The underside of the fuselage is an
integral part of the engine, slowing and cooling the air before it enters the
Venturi.

           
“A
conventional turbofan or turboramjet engine is limited to around Mach
three-point-five; it just can’t suck more air. A simple ramjet engine is far
more fuel efficient and can go as fast as Mach five or six—a lot of early
military antiaircraft missiles were rocket-boosted ramjets. Ramjets are limited
by the metals used in their construction, which bum up or disintegrate at high
speeds. But a scramjet is designed to use its hydrogen fuel as well as its
composite construction to cool the inlets. That helps the internal parts
withstand the hypersonic speeds over Mach five.

           
“Once the
heat and disintegration problems were solved we were ready to race. There
theoretically is no upper limit to a scramjet’s speed, but Mach twenty-five is
enough for our purposes: that’s orbital speed.” Marty pointed to the rail rack
below the space planes. “Since a scramjet engine can’t suck in air by itself,
the spaceplane is shot down this track on a rocket sled to get enough air going
through the engine for ignition. At about two hundred miles an hour the Venturi
in the scramjets begin to work, and
America
lifts herself off the sled.”

           
“But how do
the engines work in space?” Ann asked. “There’s no air up there.”

           
“These
engines are hybrids: they’re true scramjets in the atmosphere but they convert
to liquid-fueled rocket engines once there’s no more air passing through the
engine.
America
's
primary fuel is hydrogen, with oxygen
to bum it. As you know, oxygen is supplied in the atmosphere at lower
altitudes. As
America
climbs and the air thins
out, the front of the scramjet engine gradually louvers closed and oxygen is
fed gradually into the engine from the ship’s fuel tanks as needed. The
scramjet becomes a true rocket engine at about seventy miles altitude. The
spaceplane is really a big fuel tank: everything except the crew cabin, cargo
bay and avionics bay is fuel storage.

           
“On return
it’s just the opposite: hydrogen and oxygen fuel are mixed in the engines until
there’s enough oxygen flowing through the Venturi from the atmosphere to
sustain ignition. The scramjets can be used almost all the way to landing, so
America
can land at almost any long runway. Los Angeles International and San Francisco
International are our designated alternate landing sites, but if necessary we
can fly all the way across the country in one hour to find a more suitable
one.”

           
As Marty
talked Ann couldn’t help thinking about Saint-Michael. He had not been with her
these past two days while she trained for hypersonic spaceplane duty at the
Space Command HTS flight simulator at
Little Rock
,
then went to
Southern California
for the launch.
Although he didn’t say so, she guessed that after seeing her off in
Colorado
Springs
he’d flown to
Washington
to appeal the ruling that had grounded him. She doubted, though, that he’d be
able to convince the Joint Chiefs to reactivate the station, and as each new
hour passed and she failed to hear from him, the possibility of his getting his
way seemed less likely.

           
She looked
up to see
America's
cargo bay doors
fully open, the silver radiator lining reflecting the blaze of hundreds of
spotlights surrounding the craft. Even though the spaceplane was twice as large
as her older, less sophisticated cousins, her cargo bay was the same small
size. Indeed, dwarfed by the sheer size of the spaceplane, the cargo bay seemed
to have been installed as an afterthought. One glance at its payload, though,
brought the mission’s grim reality into sharp focus.

           
Most of the
cargo bay was occupied by the two PAMs, payload assist modules—large
liquid-fueled rocket engines with remote-controlled guidance units and a
mounting adapter. It would be Ann’s job, with help from Marty Schultz, to
attach the Skybolt laser module to the PAM, align it pointing away from earth
and activate it. Using steering signals from Falcon Mission Control on earth
relayed through the NASA TDRS satellite relay system, the PAM would boost the
laser module into a six-hundred-mile storage orbit, giving Space Command
another few months to assemble a shuttle sortie to retrieve the modules. Even
though
America
's
cargo bay was the same size as a
shuttle’s, the spaceplane was not designed to bring large objects like Skybolt
back from space. A second PAM was being carried as a spare or, if the first was
successful and if there was time, to boost Armstrong Space Station’s command
module itself into
a storage
orbit.

           
A huge
crane was lowering a large cylindrical object, eight feet in diameter and ten
feet long, into the forward part of the cargo bay. For some reason its stark
simplicity made it even more painful to look at. This was a spacebome crypt, a
huge coffin, the device that would be used to bring back the bodies of the crew
of Armstrong space station and the space shuttle
Enterprise
.

           
Ann looked
at it,
then
turned away. “It looks like an old fuel
tank,” she said to Marty.

           
“It is,” he
said. “The kind brought up on shuttle flights to refuel satellites. It’s been
heavily insulated to protect the...” he paused, swallowed hard, “the crew
during reentry. The cargo bay can get as high as a thousand degrees Fahrenheit
during reentry.”

           
She touched
him lightly on the shoulder, “I don’t like what we’re doing here,” she said.
“We’re being pushed around by the Russians, even told when and how to claim our
own dead. Damn, I really wish Jason. .. General Saint-Michael were going with
us. Somehow right up until now I thought he’d manage it....” (As, she thought,
he’d managed to make love to her after a sickness that would have kept most men
in a hospital for weeks....)

           
The
American and Soviet carrier battle groups were still separated by over two
thousand miles of ocean, but even one-eighth of a world apart they had already
started the first few tentative steps toward a conflict both knew was all but
inevitable.

           
The
Nimitz
carrier group had moved out into
the
Arabian Sea
to allow its escort ships room to spread
out more and maneuver at higher speeds. The group had been augmented by three
frigates, two cruisers and two armed reserve supply ships from Diego Garcia,
the tiny island naval base south of
India
.
It was still enforcing a strict blockade of Soviet-bloc ships trying to enter
the
Persian Gulf
, which prevented the weakened
Brezhnev
from refueling from
Iran
,
and airlifted fuel and supplies were not sufficient to allow the Soviet carrier
battle group to operate at peak efficiency.

           
The
Americans had sent several flights of B-52 bombers with F-15 fighter escorts
from Diego Garcia to shadow and test the response pattern of the huge
Arkhangel
carrier group, which had just
crossed the Eight Degree Channel west of
Sri
Lanka
and was now in the
Indian
Ocean
. The B-52s, the assault aircraft of choice because of their
fuel capacity, were armed with twenty-four Harpoon medium- range antiship
missiles apiece, making them formidable threats against the carrier fleet.

           
But the
Arkhangel
was not about to let the B-52s
anywhere near the fleet. The Soviets first engaged the B-52s as far as three
hundred miles away from the carrier, using their Sukhoi-27 Flanker
carrier-based fighters in seemingly never-ending streams. The Soviets knew that
at high altitude the B-52s’ improved Harpoon missiles had a range of one
hundred miles; they simply doubled that figure and set up a stiff air cordon.
The Su-27s were docile at three hundred miles, shadows at two hundred and fifty
miles and aggressive in warning off the B-52s and their escorts at two hundred
twenty miles. Warning shots were fired at two hundred miles, with more emphatic
verbal warnings given.

           
The F-15s
were at a huge disadvantage. They had to leave their vulnerable KC-135R and
KC-10C aerial refueling tankers far behind, out of range of the Su-27s, so
their combat range was severely limited. The B-52s could count on enough
fighter protection only to break through the first wave of Su-27s from the
Arkhangel;
then they were on their own
for the last dangerous one hundred miles to their launch points.

           
The B-52s
obeyed the very last verbal warnings received and turned around right at the
two-hundred-mile point. Even so, they were able to accomplish their primary
mission, which was to collect valuable data on the shipbome tracking and
acquisition radars that had been sweeping them, as well as radar data from the
Su-27s that had pursued them. But the scraps of information the B-52s collected
did not alter the basic fact: it was going to be a nightmare, if not an
impossibility, trying to get close to the Soviet fleet.

           
Like the
Arkhangel’s
carrier group, the
Nimitz
’s had to contend with airborne
threats of its own. The
Nimitz
was
only a thousand miles south of
Tashkent
,
the Southern Military District headquarters, where ten Tu-95 Bear bombers were
now based. The Bears carried the naval-attack version of the AS-6 cruise
missile, which could be launched against the
Nimitz
well within the protection of Soviet land- based
surface-to-air missile sites in occupied
Iran
.
The Soviets also had a new weapon, the AS-15 cruise missile, a long-range,
nuclear- tipped supersonic cruise missile. The AS-15 could be launched from
well within the
Soviet Union
, or its shipbome version
could be launched from one of the
Arkhangel
's
escorts at extreme range. Supersonic land-based bombers from the
Soviet
Union
were also a major threat against the American fleet.