Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (53 page)

 
         
“It’s the SBR that’s the sticking
point, Jason. The error-trapping functions of the SBR weren’t made for the
Skybolt interface—I have to backtrack and find all those error points myself. I
think I can do it but—”

           
“Don’t
hedge on me, Ann. Can it work or not?”

           
She
hesitated, trying to separate reality from wishful thinking. “I don’t
know.
I think I can trap all the errors,
but it’ll take time—”

           
He’d
already pulled the microphone to his lips, and his words had the force of a
missile all on their own: “Roger,
Nimitz.
We will begin evacuation immediately. Advise us of any problems with the SBR
relay. Armstrong out.” And he clicked off the comm link.

           
“We’re
evacuating?”
Ann said.

           
“We’ve got
no other choice.”

           
“But all
our work.... We made this station
operational
again....”

           
“Ann, I
can’t forget those bodies back in the docking module. Those men died because I
made the decision to stay after the first laser attack—”

           
“But you
had a damned good reason—”

           
“Good, bad
:..
they’re dead. We’ve got the same situation happening all
over again, only worse. This station is hanging on by putty and prayers. I’m
risking lives every time we open the goddamned hatch....” He paused, touched
her lightly on the shoulder. “Listen to me. Skybolt was our last hope, our big
ace in the hole—and now... now you can’t assure me we have that. We’ve got no
choice.... We probably have a few hours until their spaceplanes make it back up
here. It’ll give us some time to prepare.... And we can still salvage Skybolt
if you and Ken can disconnect it from the station. We can put the laser module
in
Enterprise
's
cargo bay and the control module in
America
’s
and boost them both up into a storage
orbit.”

           
Ann, miserable, nodded.

           
“I’ll try
to set up the SBR computers for automatic or remote-controlled operation,”
Saint-Michael said. “At least we’ll be able to get a few more hours’ work out
of her before... before they completely destroy her.”

           
As they
turned to make final preparations none of them had any doubt that, this time,
the destruction of
Silver
Tower
was going to be final.

           
They did
not have long.

           
Timing, flawless; execution, perfect.
A nineteen-second,
full- power, sustained chemical laser-burst from Sary Shagan had, indeed,
obliterated the replacement launch-detection satellite over the Indian Ocean,
first electronically blinding the satellite and then piercing a thruster fuel
line, causing an explosion. The satellite’s new errant death-spin had been
easily detected by space-scanning radars at Tyuratam, and the message was
relayed to Glowing Star that the satellite had been rendered inoperative.

 
          
Govorov and his two wingmen, Colonel
Andrei Kozhedub in Elektron Two and Colonel Yuri Livyak in Elektron Three, were
all aboard their spaceplanes during the laser attack, at the last planned
countdown hold only ten minutes from launch. When they got word of the
satellite’s destruction the countdown was quickly resumed.

           
Once again
Govorov was the first to launch, riding a column of kerosene and nitro-acid
fire on top of his two-million-pound thrust SL-16 Krypkei booster. Separated by
only thirty seconds, just long enough for Govorov’s two-hundred
thirty-foot-tall, five-hundred- fifty-ton Krypkei rocket to clear the launch
tower, the other two SL-16s successfully lifted off, gaining on Govorov’s
rocket in a matter of seconds.

           
The triple
rocket launches were first detected by seismic sensors at NATO intelligence
sites in
Pirinclik
,
Turkey
,
but without satellite launch detection the seismic reading told the U.S. Space
Command nothing except that there had been a series of powerful explosions. The
west-to-east flight path of the Soviet boosters, however, allowed the air force
SPACETRACK long-range FPS-17 detection and FPS-79 tracking radars on the tiny
island of Diego Garcia, over three thousand miles south of the launch site, to
spot the boosters rising through the atmosphere. It was the SPACETRACK site
that detected the booster’s first-stage impact in
Mongolia
and the second-stage impact in the
Pacific Ocean
north
of
Japan
. The
booster’s launch progress and orbital positions were updated from the Pacific Radar
Barrier radars at San Miguel in the
Philippines
and then by the Air Force’s south-facing sea-launched ballistic-missile
tracking radars in
Texas
and
Georgia
.

           
Although it
did not take long for the three spaceplanes to reach Armstrong station’s orbit
altitude, the tail chase to intercept the station would take two complete
orbits, over three hours, to move within a few hundred miles of the station.

           
With the
third-stage booster still attached to each spaceplane, Govorov ordered the
thrust-power setting and carefully monitored the intercept using tracking
signals from ground- and satellite-based space tracking systems. He needed to
strike a balance between using up fuel in a fast tail chase and wasting
precious time and oxygen on a lengthy chase.

           
He made up
his mind to be patient this time. Everything—his life, his career, the success
of Operation Feather—depended on his not making another mistake. The time to
hurry would be when the intercept was made and the final attack on the
Americans’ space station began....

           
Govorov was
ending his first orbit of the Earth, closing the gap between himself and
Armstrong when another spectacular multiple
launch
took place in south-central
Russia
.

           
Once every
ten seconds a tongue of flame would erupt from a rugged mountain valley south
of
Tashkent
. Boosted by a solid
rocket motor, a GL-25 Distant Death ground-launched cruise missile would leap
off its railcar-mounted launcher into the dark skies. Resembling a small jet
fighter, with a long cylindrical fuselage, swept wings and cruciform tail
section, each GL-25 launched amid a peal of thunder that echoed off the steep
granite walls of the surrounding mountains.

           
The rocket
motors accelerated the missile to five hundred kilometers per hour, then
detached from the fuselage and fell away into the desolate
Zeravsanskij
Mountains
north of
Afghanistan
.
Air inlets along the sides of the fuselage popped open and the missile’s ramjet
engine automatically started. With the ramjets at full power the GL-25 missiles
quickly accelerated, and using their inertial navigation system and taking
position update terrain-comparison snapshots of the terrain below, they sped
southward, hugging the earth less than three hundred meters above ground.
Traveling eight hundred kilometers per hour, the missiles crossed into
Afghanistan
and streaked toward their preprogrammed target-acquisition initial points over
twenty-eight hundred kilometers away. After reaching their initial points
three-and- a-half hours later they would activate their terminal radar-homing
sensors, then for the last two hundred kilometers of their flight seek their
individual targets, the nineteen auxiliary vessels and escorts surrounding the
Nimitz.

           
In the
rugged mountains there were no radars powerful enough to spot the fast-moving,
ground-hugging missiles. The shepherds and farmers and the scattering of people
living in the wild middle-eastern coastal mountains were accustomed to the
ear-shattering sounds of Soviet military aircraft passing overhead and ignored
the almost continual rocket booms. Now, unheeded, the roar of the GL-25s’
ramjet engines echoed up and down the lonely mountain walls as the deadly
missiles sped toward their targets.

 
         
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

 
          
Two hours later Ann’s breathing had
become shallow and slow as her prebreathing stint was nearing completion. She
was in the command module helping to monitor the progress of the SBR computer
reprogramming. The few remaining computers had to be taught to steer the space
station to achieve the best SBR presentation, so that in turn the comm link
between
Silver
Tower
and various military and civilian experts on the ground could provide help for
the crewmen.

           
But her
duty would be much more difficult. While prebreathing in preparation for
putting on her spacesuit she had studied diagrams of the attachment points of
her Skybolt module, tracing the mechanical, electrical and pyrotechnic
separation mechanisms. She’d also studied the status readouts in the Skybolt
control modules to be sure she had the right indications. The last thing she
wanted was to damage the laser or its control module, trying to detach it. What
she’d told General Stuart about the dangers of handling the nuclear
particle-generating components of Skybolt was a bit overstated, but not by very
much. Her job was to preserve Skybolt by parking it in orbit without damaging
it so badly it had no potential at sometime in the future.

           
Saint-Michael
had been expecting a briefing from her before she began her EVA, so she waited now
until he turned from the computer terminal.

           
“Ready to
detach?” he asked. She nodded glumly. “Okay, one thing. We save Skybolt only if
there’s time. If Govorov’s spaceplanes launched within minutes of that laser
firing we may not have time to load the module into
Enterprise
.
You’ll have to move fast....”

           
She got the
message—no time for any last nostalgic tours of the module. She detached
herself from the strip of Velcro she’d anchored herself to, moved up to the
control board mounted on the ceiling and—

           
Suddenly
she found herself propelled to the far end of the command module as a terrific
explosion rocked the station.

           
“What the
hell was
that?”
She pushed herself
away from the bulkhead, reattached her sneakers to the Velcro deck, wiped a
trickle of blood from her nose.

           
Saint-Michael
had no time to answer as another explosion tore through
Silver
Tower
, and a warning light
illuminated over the hatch leading to the connecting tunnel.

           
“Low
pressure in the connecting tunnel,” Saint-Michael read out.

 
         
The station now seemed to be sliding
sideways, skidding like a truck out of control on an icy highway. Fighting
acute vertigo, he made his way to his communications console, attached his
microphone to the clip inside his POS mask, pulled the facemask over his head
and keyed the intercom button:

           
“All personnel.
Evacuate the station. Now.” He unplugged his
POS walk-around pack from the station’s oxygen supply. “Ann, let’s go...

           
Another
explosion—it felt as though it was right over their heads —sent both of them to
the deck.

           
She
maneuvered her way back toward the main hatch, passed the ceiling-mounted
module jettison control, reached up and closed and locked its safety cover,
then hurried through the hatch and into the connecting tunnel.

           
Saint
Michael saw her go through the hatch and keyed his microphone. “
America
.
Jon. Ann’s coming through. Help
her  ”

           
A fourth
sharp explosion sounded through the station, followed by the screech of tearing
and twisting metal. Now both pressurization and fire-warning lights were
blinking in the connecting tunnel. Saint- Michael was thrown head-over-heels
half the length of the command module, finally entangled on some jury-rigged
consoles and bundles of wiring that had broken free of their temporary mountings.
He managed to pull himself upright and start for the hatch when he glanced out
through the observation port midway along the outward-facing side of the
command module.

           
What he saw
made his heart sink.

           
America
was drifting aimlessly hundreds of yards from the station, its fuselage ripped
open as if a huge scaling knife had sliced into it. Waves of fire gushed out of
the gaping wound as the spaceplane’s hydrogen and oxygen fuels ignited and
hungrily fed on each other.

           
“Oh,
God....” Saint-Michael was less awed by the fire and demise of the spaceplane
then the thought that there were
people
inside, including Ann, if she’d made it to the plane before it separated from
the docking adapter. ...