Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (55 page)

           
No sound,
but the wall of heat and energy that washed over Elektron Three pounded on the
small spacecraft. It went out of control, and Litvyak had no choice but to
release his thruster controls and ride out the turbulence, hoping it didn’t
tear his ship apart. It took a few minutes, but soon the awful vibration and
pounding on his spacecraft’s hull began to subside.

           
Kozhedub
was not so fortunate. With his laser designator locked onto the
Enterprise
and
watching as intently as he was for the perfect firing aspect, he never saw the
second Thor missile. Just as Litvyak shouted out his warning the missile hit
Elektron Two’s right wingtip and detonated right on top of the canopy. Kozhedub
died instantly, and a moment later his Elektron exploded, spinning off into
earth’s atmosphere.

           
Litvyak,
hearing his comrade’s dying noises echo in his helmet, knew he could plunge
into earth’s atmosphere as well if he failed to bring his spaceplane under
control. Using short thruster bursts and concentrating on the gyroscopic
inertial horizon, he finally managed to reduce the violent multiaxis spin down
to one recognizable spin axis, then gradually applied more powerful bursts
until his plane was under control.

           
He scanned
the dark gray skies around him until he spotted the shuttle beginning to
accelerate back in the direction of the space station. Stabbing the thruster
controls, he applied full power and took up the chase, this time drawn by a
need for revenge-----------

 
          
USS NIMITZ

 
          
“Jason, this is Clancy. Come in.
We’ve lost the SBR signals.”

           
No reply.

           
“Get them
back,
Sparks
,” Clancy said to the
communications officer.
“Whatever it takes.”

           
The CPO
tried hard but there was no change. “It’s dead silent, sir. No carrier, no
data, nothing. It’s as if they—”

           
Clancy
looked at the CPO. “Don’t say it,
Sparks
.
Don’t even think it.”

           
But the
unthinkable was unavoidable, for the admiral as well as the chief petty
officer: another disaster had just happened on
Silver
Tower
.

 
          
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

 
          
“Ann? How’s it—?”

           
“It’s
ready, Jason. Ready to switch SBR to Skybolt control....” Saint-Michael took a
deep breath, put a finger on the SBR switchover controls. He pressed the
button.

           
The SBR
immediately issued a solid TRACK indication on Ann’s console. “SBR is tracking
targets,” Ann announced. “Now showing two hostiles. Friendly identification
complete... .Target discrimination in progress.... Neutral particle-beam laser
projector showing faulted.” The neutral particle beam used to discriminate
between decoys and real targets had been shot off long ago. “Override.”

           
He searched
the SBR command menu, found the command and entered it. “Done.”

           
“Override
accepted.”

           
Now what?

 
          
SPACE SHUTTLE
ENTERPRISE

 
          
Marty Schultz could feel the presence
of an enemy behind him even before he visually confirmed it.

           
“One got
away,” he said out loud, to himself, to his shuttle. “We’re in deep shit now,
babe.” Think multidimensional, he told himself, then selected ROTATE and PULSE
on the digital autopilot and jammed the control stick forward. Without the
forward RCS pod the motion was a tail-over-heels flip, done by the aft RCS
thruster so that the cargo bay was now facing in the direction of flight. He
ignited the engines once again, which put
Enterprise
in a
dive straight for earth....

           
At that
instant a flash of glaring light washed out his vision. The control stick felt
warm, then hot, then rubbery in his hand, even through the thick nylon gloves.
Warning tones, like confused cries for help from
Enterprise
beeped over his headset.

 
          
ELEKTRON THREE SPACEPLANE

 
          
Colonel Litvyak aboard Elektron Three
felt the blast of heat as well, but for him it was not just a slight glare—it
was a throbbing, blinding sheet of light that seemed to illuminate each crevice
of his space- plane’s cockpit. His eyelids, then his solar visor when he could
finally command his muscles to lower it, had no effect.

           
When his
eyes cleared a few moments later he stopped all thrusters and did a quick
systems check. A few minor ones had faulted but they all reset. His lips were
dry as sand, as though he hadn’t taken a drink in days. The skin on his face
seemed dry and cracked as if from a bad windbum. No use flying around
half-blind.... He used a few short bursts of power to stop his forward momentum
and keyed his microphone.

           
“Elektron
One, this is Three. Do you copy?”

 
          
ELEKTRON ONE SPACEPLANE

 
          
Govorov was only a few hundred meters
away from the Skybolt module when his skin seemed to crawl and feel dusty. He
did not feel any of the searing heat felt by the other two spacecraft near the
path of the free-electron laser beam, but the side lobes of energy that coiled
out of the muzzle of the nuclear-powered laser stream did seem to turn his
Elektron One into a huge transistor. The pulse of energy coursing through his
body made stars appear before his eyes, and his fingertips tingled and burned
as if about to catch fire.

           
As the
unearthly sensation subsided and he began to think more clearly, he realized
what had happened. Someone aboard the station had just fired a powerful laser.
Armstrong hadn't been abandoned after all
....

 
         
“Elektron One. Come in.”

           
Govorov
keyed his microphone. “Litvyak? Where are you?”

           
“In pursuit
of the American shuttle
... .
There was some sort of
energy burst. I’m checking for damage.”

           
“Disregard the shuttle.
The space
station is still manned and they’ve got some sort of laser. I want you
maneuvering as backup while I plant the space-reactive bomb.”

           
“But Andrei
was killed by a missile from that shuttle—”

           
“Do as I
say. There’ll be plenty of time to chase down the shuttle later.”

           
Govorov
stopped suddenly and stared at the command module, the center-pressurized
module facing him. He was now less than fifty meters from the station, close
enough to see the patches over the holes his missiles had made, close enough to
see the data-transmission cables....

           
And, as he
moved closer he could see a figure peering out through the observation port in
the command module. He applied gentle reverse thrust and maneuvered a few
meters away.

           
Yes, it
was
the General Saint-Michael he’d heard
and read so much about, whose picture he’d seen. A shock to see him now, like
this. He had always wondered what it would be like to face his enemy. He had
thought he would prefer it... fight man to man without the influence of a
technology that made killing impersonal. Now he was not so sure—

           
“Moving out to a five kilometer orbit, Elektron One.”

           
Litvyak’s
words brought him back. “Cruise further out, Three. I’m going in to plant the
bomb now.”

           
Govorov selected
minus-Y translation and moved away from the station. “Good-bye, General,” he
said, nodding toward the command module’s observation port. Strangely he felt
no elation. Indeed, more a sadness....

 
          
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

 
          
The laser burst had not dimmed the
lights in the command module, as it had the other times it had fired. Even so,
Saint-Michael could not see if it had hit anything.

           
“Ann, what
happened?”

           
“I can’t
tell anything. I’m resetting the SBR relay circuit—it overloaded. The laser fired
but I can’t tell if it—”

           
“Armstrong,
this is
Enterprise
.
Come in.”

 
         
Saint-Michael almost jumped at the
communications controls.
“Marty,
we
thought—”

           
“General,
there’s a plane right by the command module.
Look out.”

           
And then
Saint-Michael saw it. The Elektron spaceplane, an engineering thing of beauty
with its flowing lines, compact and trim, was also a deadly creature. The
general took it in, but his eyes were drawn to the sleek cockpit windows. He
couldn’t clearly see the face behind the space helmet, but he had a very strong
feeling—a premonition almost—that he was looking at Alesander Govorov.

           
The sight
momentarily rooted Saint-Michael to the spot, but then just as quickly as the
spaceplane appeared, it dropped out of sight. He couldn’t help but be impressed
by the audacity of the pilot, maneuvering so close to the module. It had to be
Govorov....

           
“He’s
moving away,” Marty reported excitedly. “He didn’t shoot anything; he’s moving
down to the keel—hey, his cargo bay is open...

           
“
Ann .
.. any other planes nearby?”

           
“Yes.
There’s a fast-moving one three miles out and pulling away.... Yes, he’s
definitely moving away. I’m picking up
Enterprise
..
.
too
. He’s less than a mile.
Two spaceplanes—must mean Skybolt missed....”

           
“General”
Marty’s voice boomed over the
air-to-air channel. “That Russian spaceplane by the keel... he’s attaching
something to it, right beside Skybolt.... Oh, God... looks like a bomb, a big
one.... He’s attached a bomb to the space station....”

           
Saint-Michael
watched, frozen, as the spaceplane accelerated back and away from the station.
That
was why the second spaceplane was
retreating so fast....

           
“Marty, stay clear.
Get away from the station—”

           
“I can
reach it, General; I can reach it. Stand by______ ”

           
“Negative.
There may not be time. Get
away
from
here.”

           
Marty,
ignoring him, selected autopilot controls and jetted toward the station. He
unstrapped from the commander’s seat and moved back to the payload specialist’s
console. Schultz, he told himself, you’d better pray this doesn’t take too
long. Pray anyway     

           
Saint-Michael
watched as Govorov’s spaceplane became small, then smaller,
then
a tiny speck—and then he unfroze.... “Ann, target the closer plane, the one
that just moved away from the station.” Govorov’s....

           
“But
Skybolt’s not locking on—”

 
         
“Fire anyway. Widest possible pattern.
Maybe we can get him before he sets off the bomb by remote control.”

           
The wait
was excruciatingly long. Govorov had all but disappeared, intermingling with the
stars and the bluish haze surrounding earth. By now he had to be far enough
away to detonate his bomb....

 
          
ELEKTRON ONE SPACEPLANE

 
          
Govorov, his laser range finder
locked onto Armstrong, decided to wait until ten kilometers before detonating
the bomb. If the laser was operating, the resulting secondary explosion of the
laser module might be far more violent than a mere hydrogen-oxygen explosion.

           
He let the
laser range finder click up to ten kilometers, then moved his finger across the
special-weapon control panel near his right knee, and pressed....

           
The first
free-electron laser pulse had missed Govorov by over a hundred feet, but even
at that distance the two-megawatt burst of nuclear-fired energy was still hot
enough to melt steel. In a fraction of a second Govorov’s heat-resistant quartz
glass windscreen, which could easily withstand reentry temperatures of three
thousand degrees Fahrenheit, softened, melted, vaporized. The pressure of the
atmosphere in the cockpit blew the liquid glass out into space, creating a huge
glass bubble just moments before bursting and flying off in all directions.
Alesander Govorov was cremated in the atomic heat of the beam.