Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (45 page)

           
It was a
level of responsibility unprecedented in the
Soviet Union
—and, with very few exceptions, anywhere else. American nuclear submarine
commanders, under extreme circumstances, could launch an attack in time of war;
the commander of the American strategic bomber forces could launch his planes
at his own discretion to improve their survivability in case of attack or
natural disaster; the three Israeli fighter-bomber theater commanders could
assemble their stockpiled nuclear weapons and launch an attack if provoked or
in danger of being overrun. But not one of them had the power to take command
of outer space. Only Marshal Alesander Govorov of the
Soviet Union
had that.

           
Take command of outer space.
Govorov
reflected on the implications of that as he moved down the main concourse
toward the launch control center. He had been in the control center only a few
minutes later when Colonel Gulaev approached him.

           
“Sir,
launch-detection report has been relayed to us by our reconnaissance
satellites. The spaceplane
America
has launched from
southern
California
....”

           
Govorov
glanced at the chronometer over the command center consoles. “Ninety minutes
later than their announced schedule. Has the launch been confirmed by any other
means?”

           
Gulaev
checked his watch. “Yes, sir. Agents in place near Edwards Air Force Base
reported it to intelligence, and the news reports of several countries were
filled with detailed descriptions of the launch.” He paused. “Trouble, sir?”

           
Govorov’s
earlier mood quickly melted away. “Do you think the late takeoff is
significant?”

           
Gulaev
shrugged. “The most important, the most widely publicized space flight by the
outraged Americans, and it takes off ninety minutes late.... It could be, sir.”

           
Govorov
nodded, went quickly to a computer-monitor at the extreme right end of the
master command console, moving a technician aside as he scrolled through the
display.

           
“These
tracking data are hours old,” Govorov said. Gulaev moved to his side and
noticed that his superior was checking the orbital status readouts of the space
station Armstrong.

           
“We can
update the data in three hours,” Gulaev told him, checking the chronometer
again. “But the station’s orbit is erratic and its altitude is decreasing
rapidly. It’s becoming harder and harder to track.”

           
Govorov
studied the information. Armstrong was, miraculously, still in one piece,
judging by the signal strength of the radars tracking the station. It seemed
they would need to redefine what they considered the upper limits of the atmosphere.
One hundred thirty kilometers was the usual altitude where atmospheric heating
due to friction should cause damage to a spacecraft, but it was also generally
acknowledged that the upper atmosphere was not flat like a desert but as craggy
as the
Himalayas
: in some spots it only extended to
eighty kilometers, in others perhaps a hundred fifty. Earth’s atmosphere, as
Govorov had observed many times from space, was like a boiling cauldron. Clouds
revealed only a small fraction of the real turbulence in the sky. Surely the
American space station should have impacted with enough of the higher peaks of
the atmosphere to cause
some
damage.
Apparently, it had not
... ?

           
A vague
sense of unease began to grip Govorov as he recalled his words to Colonel
Voloshin—something about the space station Armstrong remaining a threat as long
as it was in orbit. For the past few weeks he had allowed himself the luxury of
thinking the station was doomed, that his two-ship attack force had inflicted a
mortal blow. But the station was still aloft. Was it also still a danger?

           
Logic said
no. The station was mere hours from reentering the atmosphere. The crew of the
spaceplane
America
had little time to retrieve the bodies of their dead crewmembers, let alone
boost the station into higher orbit. Their late takeoff was like a death
sentence for the station. No, he had accomplished his mission.... The station
was just taking a little longer to expire.

           
He took a
deep breath, nodded to Gulaev. “Be sure careful records are made of the
spaceplane’s progress. I will be in quarters.”

           
A few more
hours, Govorov thought as he left the command center for his waiting vehicle.
Just a few more hours....

 
 
         
HYPERSONIC
SPACEPLANE
AMERICA

 
          
It was long, long after
America
had reached orbit that Ann was able to recover fully from the sheer excitement
of the launch. Marty Schultz almost had to shake her to get her attention.

           
“We’re in
orbit,” Marty said. “Sorry to startle you but I haven’t seen you move in a few
minutes.”

           
“I feel drained,
like I just ran a marathon.”

           
“Well, it’s
not your usual shuttle launch, for sure.”

           
That, Ann
decided, was a rank understatement. Unlike the shuttle, which gradually climbed
into orbit, the spaceplane
America
sprinted into orbit.
From the moment the rocket engines were ignited on the sled that propelled the
spaceplane down the long launch track in the high southern
California
desert, she had felt the crushing “g”-forces pin her body to her seat.
America
had been boosted from zero to two hundred miles per hour in less than fifteen
seconds... It was nearly impossible to believe that seven hundred thousand
pounds of machine could be accelerated at such a rate.

           
She’d
thought the “g”s would diminish after they’d lifted off the rocket sled, but
they hadn’t even begun to slacken. The first indication of a force even greater
than the rockets on the sled came when the center scramjet engine ignited. The
three-hundred-fifty-ton space- plane bucked like a living thing, lurching so
hard that the hydraulic “g”-dampeners in Ann’s seat could hardly absorb the
shock. One hundred miles an hour of airspeed was added to the forward momentum
of the spaceplane in the blink of an eye. Her “g”-suit had immediately inflated
to keep her from blacking out, and if her face mask had not shot oxygen under
pressure into her lungs she would have suffocated. As it was, her rib cage felt
heavy as lead and breathing was suddenly impossible. When the other two
scramjet engines ignited shortly afterward, her “g”-dampening seat had hit its
limit and her body was forced to endure the ever-building, crushing pressure.
She had had to perform an “H-maneuver,” whereby blood was forced to the upper
body and head by partially closing off the trachea, and then grunting against
the pressure. She glanced sideways during the ascent and saw Horvath’s chest
heave and flutter as he performed the maneuver too.

           
By the time
all three scramjet engines were running,
America
was traveling at well over three hundred miles per hour and had already
streaked down three of the five miles of launch track. The restraining clamps
were then released, and the spaceplane lifted off the sled and shot skyward. If
the three engines hadn’t ignited, high-pressure steam jets on the last mile of
the track would have automatically activated and begun slowing the spaceplane
down below two hundred miles an hour, where arresting cables and hydraulic
brakes could be applied.

           
As it was,
America
broke the sound barrier twenty seconds after lifting off from the takeoff sled.
She was then pulled up into a forty- five degree climb at six “g”s, racing
skyward at over fifty thousand feet per minute. The craft went hypersonic—past
the Mach five
mark—
fifty seconds later as it passed
forty thousand feet altitude, the ear-shattering sonic boom rattling across the
Sierra Nevada
mountains far below. By the time
America
reached the Canadian border five minutes later it was at Mach fifteen, still
climbing on top of a column of hydrogen fire nearly a mile long. Her wings were
retracted at that point because at two hundred thousand feet altitude there was
not enough air to generate lift.

           
The louvers
at the front of the scramjets engines automatically closed as the spaceplane
climbed, so five minutes into the flight the aircraft had transformed itself
into a liquid-fueled rocket. As the engine began to bum more pure internal
liquid oxygen, the speed increased. Finally, ten minutes into the flight the
crushing “g” forces began to subside as
America
completed its acceleration to orbital velocity.

           
Now several
banks of orbital maneuvering jets were activated to begin matching
America
's
orbit with that of the stricken space
station. The climb to
Silver
Tower
’s
altitude didn’t take long: on the lowest part of its orbit the station was now
down to only five hundred thousand feet—eighty-three miles—altitude, low enough
to be clearly visible to observers on earth. Following tracking and steering
signals provided by groundbased tracking stations—Armstrong had stopped
transmitting a position and docking beacon weeks earlier—Saint-Michael and
Hampton began to chase down the stricken space station.

           
“Digital
autopilot slaved to Ku-band tracking signals,”
Hampton
reported. “Mimic is estimating thirty minutes to rendezvous.”

           
Saint-Michael
was studying
America
's
flight-profile readouts and
environmental displays. “Eighty miles,” he muttered. “We’re barely above entry
interface altitude”—where the spacecraft began to enter earth’s atmosphere and
decelerate on account of friction. “Check the radiator and coolant cross-flow.
It’s already midway in the caution range.”

           
“Coolant
flow is
maximum
,”
Hampton
said, checking another screen. “We can try partially closing the radiators to
cut down on the friction. Or we can go to EMER on the cross-flow system to
bring the temperature down to the normal range.”

           
“How about that fuel back there?”
Saint-Michael said. “We
can’t play around so close to the atmosphere like this. We may have to jettison
the fuel in the tank when coolant temperature reaches the danger level. There’s
no sense holding onto it longer and endangering the ship.”

           
“Can you
power up the station or reposition it without a refueling?”

           
“I don’t
know. I don’t remember how bad the solar panels on the station were hit.”

           
Like Ann,
Horvath and Schultz, Saint-Michael had kept his POS facemask on to continue
prebreathing pure oxygen in preparation for their spacewalk into the station.
As he spoke, he began massaging his temples.

           
“You all
right, General?”
Hampton
asked.

           
Saint-Michael
quickly lowered his hands from his head. “Sorry, bad habit. Just thinking,
believe it or not.... That Russian spaceplane attack knocked out power in the
command module, but I think the SBR and Skybolt were still running when I found
Ann unconscious in the Skybolt control module. That may mean that the station
is still functioning, at least partially.”

           
“But Falcon
Control lost the station’s ID and TDRS tracking signal weeks ago. They’ve
assumed all power is out.”

           
“We’ll assume
the same.” Saint-Michael pressed the button on his comm link. “Listen up, crew.
We won’t have much time, and we’ve got to assume that the station is completely
dead. Our priority will be to boost the station to a safe altitude. After that
we’ll try to power her up, reposition her, set up SBR surveillance of the
Indian
Ocean
and the
Nimitz
carrier group in the
Arabian Sea
and begin to make some
structural repairs. In between we’ll probably have to fight off another
attack.... Ann, you’ll be in charge of setting up the PAM boosters on the keel.
I know Marty’s explained how and where they go.
Any
questions?”

           
“No,” Ann
said, still finding it hard to believe they were going to reactivate the
station after all. “It’s a lot simpler than disconnecting Skybolt would have
been.”

           
“Good.
Marty, you’ll be in charge of refueling the cells on the keel so we can get
electric power back on. The cargo shovel appeared damaged so you’ll have to do
it the hard way: drag the fuel tank around to the cells with the MMU maneuvering
unit and use the remote fuel-transfer system. Any problems with that?”

           
“I used to
pump gas in
Ohio
when I was nine
years old.”