Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (28 page)

 
          
“They
are useless. Wasted. Dust.” Karmarov waved away the five volumes, pointed a
finger at the American delegation. “The militarization of space is not merely a
threat to the
Soviet
Union
, fellow
representatives. It is a threat to us all. The
United States
will now continue to build vast machines of
destruction orbiting over our heads, over our homes, over our seats of
government. This
Ice Fortress
of
theirs may now be orbiting over the North Pole, as the Americans claim, but it
has the capability to be instantly steered and repositioned anywhere over the
Earth. Anywhere. Don’t be fooled by comforting assurances.
No one is safe.

 
          
“They
say it has no nuclear weapons on board—they even offer to have observers come
aboard and examine it, as if it took only a short boatride to get to it. But
don’t be fooled. They also say their carriers and warships that dock in
Japanese ports carry no nuclear weapons, and they are technically correct—until
all the critical components are assembled and the weapon is prearmed, no
nuclear weapons exist. It is
a
sham.”

           
Karmarov turned toward the American
delegation. “I don’t care,” he said, “what possible reasons the
United States
could have for launching their
Ice Fortress
. Doubtless, they will blame
it on the
Soviet
Union
, as they
have blamed so many incidents on us in the past. Doubtless, they will invent
another tale of disaster. But there exists no possible reason on this earth for
the
United States
to violate five international agreements
and jeopardize the peace and well-being of not only the
Soviet Union
but of the rest of the world by launching
this doomsday device.

 
          
“I
call upon the
United States
to immediately deactivate their illegal
Ice Fortress.
Because it appears they
cannot be trusted to abide by any agreements between nations, I call upon an
independent United Nations team of observers to examine all future Space
Shuttle launches to guarantee that they are carrying no weapons of any kind to
be used aboard their space platform. I further demand that no corrections be
made to the existing platform’s orbit so that it may be allowed to reenter the
atmosphere and be destroyed.”

 
          
When
Gregory Adams straightened to address the Council, Marshall Brent held his arm.
Keeping his hands folded before him on the long, curved table, he glanced
around at the assembled delegates and began:

 
          
“There
comes a time,” Brent said, “when international agreements lose meaning. There
was a time when the government of the
United States
felt secure negotiating a lasting peace and
true disarmament. Our respective governments hoped against hope that our talks
would eventually lead to the elimination of all nuclear weapons from the face
of the earth by the year two thousand. I assure you, our government is still
willing to continue those negotiations .. . even though we have evidence that
the Soviet Union has wantonly attacked American space vehicles, including a
satellite, a missile test-firing, and a reconnaissance aircraft with the
resultant loss of twelve innocent lives and a billion dollars worth of valuable
equipment. We regretfully conclude that the
Soviet Union
will continue on its reckless course. The
evidence is overwhelming, incontrovertible. No treaty of agreement, past,
present or future, can oblige us to give up our ability to defend ourselves.

 
          
“Our
original charges and the evidence we presented to support those charges stand.
Absent the desired approval of this body, we must use our own resources to
protect ourselves.

 
          
“The
antiballistic missile space platform will remain until it is demonstrated to
our satisfaction that the
Soviet Union
will cease all attacks against our reconnaissance satellites and aircraft. We
ask again that the
Soviet
Union
show its
good will by deactivating the Salyut Nineteen orbiting mirror spacecraft
immediately. We can wait no longer.” He bowed his head, trying to summon
additional strength. “I am very sorry, we can wait no longer.”

 
          
He
then stood and quickly left the Security Council, with Gregory Adams following
close behind.

 
 
          
T
hey were in business again.

           
Navy Commander Richard Seedeck
prepared his spacesuit for his upcoming EVA, extravehicular activity—his
spacewalk. The forty-two- year-old veteran astronaut, now on his second Shuttle
mission, was having the time of his life.

 
          
Seedeck
had just returned from
Atlantis'
flight deck, where he had been pre-breathing pure oxygen for the past hour. He
was now in the airlock, smoothly but quickly putting on his equipment. Jerrod
Bates, a civilian defense contractor on board
Atlantis
as an expert advisor and engineer, watched Seedeck put on
his suit, marveling at the speed with which he dressed. It always took Bates
twice as long to accomplish the same task.

 
          
There
was nothing like being in space, Seedeck thought, and nothing like being on
board the Space Shuttle. No one on board was a passenger— everyone was a
crewman, a necessity. Each was busy seventeen hours a day.

 
          
And
there were fewer “mice and monkey” research flights, too. Like this one. This
one was top secret all the way, all heavy-duty military hardware. Even the
usual press speculation about the payload was nonexistent—or it had been
effectively quashed.

 
          
“What
are you smiling about, Commander?” Bates finally asked.

 
          
“I’m
smiling at how good this feels, Bates,” Seedeck said, talking through the clear
plastic facemask he was wearing. He finished donning the lower torso part of
his spacesuit and unbuckled the upper part from a holder in the airlock. Bates
reached out to hold the bulky suit for Seedeck to climb into, but that was
unnecessary—Seedeck merely let go and weightlessness held the suit exactly
where Seedeck had left it.

           
“I’ve been doing that for four days
now,” Bates said through his faceplate. “I forget—nothing falls up here.”

 
          
“I
still do it sometimes,” Seedeck admitted. “But I’ve learned to use it.” And he
did—Seedeck had his helmet, gloves, his “Snoopy’s hat” communication headset
and his POS, his portable oxygen system, all floating around the airlock within
easy reach.

 
          
In
one fluid motion, Seedeck held his breath, removed his POS face mask, and
slipped into the upper torso part of his suit. If Seedeck started breathing
cabin air, he would reintroduce deadly nitrogen into his bloodstream and risk
dysbarism, nitrogen narcosis, the “bends”—Bates had also been pre-breathing
oxygen for the same reason. Still holding his breath, he attached several
umbilicals from the huge life support backpack to his suit and connected the
two halves of his suit together, nodding as both he and Bates heard a distinct
series of clicks as the unions and interlinks joined.

 
          
Bates
couldn’t believe the brush-cut veteran he was watching. It had been well over
two minutes, and Seedeck was still holding his breath and still acting like a
kid in a candy store. Seedeck locked on both gloves, put on his “Snoopy’s hat”
communications headset, locked his helmet in place, and watched the pressure
gauge on his chest indicators as the suit pressure gradually increased to 28
kilopascals. When the suit was pressurized and Seedeck had double-checked that
there were no leaks, he finally released his breath with a
whoosh
.

 
          
“I
don’t believe it,” Bates said as he put on a mid-deck cabin headset to talk to
Seedeck. “You went nearly six minutes without breathing.”

 
          
“You’d
be surprised how easy it is after pre-breathing oxygen for an hour,” Seedeck
said. “Besides, I’ve done this once or twice before. Check my backpack,
please?”

 
          
“Sure,”
Bates said, and double-checked the connections and gauges on Seedeck’s suit and
gave him a thumbs-up. “It’s good.”

 
          
“Thanks.
Clear the airlock. Admiral, this is Seedeck. Preparing to depressurize
airlock.”

 
          
“Copy,
Dick,” th
z Atlantis'
mission
commander, Admiral Ben Woods, replied. “Clear any time.” Woods repeated the
message to Mission Control in
Houston
five hundred nautical miles below them.

 
          
Seedeck
turned to the airlock control panel and moved the “AIRLOCK DEPRESS SWITCH” to
5, then to 0, and waited for air to be released outside. Three minutes later,
Seedeck was exiting the airlock.

 
          
It
was a sight he would never get used to—the mind-boggling sight of the Earth
spinning above him, the colors, the detail, the sheer size and spectacular
beauty of Planet Earth five hundred miles away.
Atlantis
was “parked” right over the North Pole, and Seedeck could
see the entire Northern Hemisphere—the continents of
North America
,
Europe
, and
Asia
, as well as the
North Arctic
region and the
Atlantic
and Pacific oceans. Clouds swirled around
the globe like gentle strokes of a painter’s brush, occasionally knotting and
pulsing as a storm brewed below. Because of the Shuttle’s normal upside-down
orientation, Earth would actually be his “sky” during the entire EVA.

 
          
Seedeck
closed and locked the airlock hatch, clipped a safety line onto a bracket near
the hatch and began working his way hand-over-hand along steel handholds to
where
Atlantis'
three MMUs, manned
maneuvering units, were attached inside the forward bulkhead of the cargo bay.
He inspected one of the bulky, contoured devices, then unclipped it from its
mounting harness.

 
          
Turning
around so his backpack was against the MMU, Seedeck guided himself back against
it. He felt his way back with his knees and sides until he heard four distant
clicks as the MMU locked itself in place on his backpack.

 
          
“MMU
in place,
Atlantis. "

 
          
“Copy.”

 
          
With
his safety line still attached, Seedeck made a few test shots from the MMU’s
thrusters, then unclipped his safety line and moved himself out of the MMU’s
holder. Pushing gently, he propelled himself away from
Atlantis'
cargo bay and out into space.

 
          
“Clear
cargo bay,
Atlantis.
Beginning MMU
tests.”

 
          
Seedeck
knew that Admiral Woods, who would be watching him from one of the eight
cameras installed in the cargo bay and remote manipulator arm, was choking down
a protest, but Seedeck had an urge he couldn’t ignore and this was his time.

 
          
A
normal MMU maneuverability test consisted of short distances, short-duration
movements, all with a safety tether connected. He was supposed to go up a few
feet, stop, do a few side-to-side turns and try some mild pitch-ups, all within
a few feet of the airlock hatch and manipulator arm in case of trouble.

 
          
Not
Seedeck. With his safety line disconnected, Seedeck nudged his thruster
controls and performed several loops, barrel rolls, full twists, and lazy-eight
maneuvers several meters above the open cargo bay doors.

 
          
“MMU
maneuvering tests complete,” he finally reported as he expertly righted himself
above
Atlantis'
cargo bay.

 
          
“Very
pretty,” Woods said. “Too bad NASA isn’t broadcasting your performance in prime
time.”

 
          
Seedeck
didn’t care. There was only one word to describe this feeling— ecstasy. Without
a tether line, he was another planetary body in the solar system, orbiting the
Sun just like the planets, asteroids, comets, and other satellites around him.
He was subject to the same laws, the same divine guiding force as they were.

           
Seedeck floated for a few moments
before bringing his thoughts back to the business at hand. He spotted his
objective immediately.

 
          
“Inventory
in sight,
Atlantis.
Beginning
translation.”

 
          
They
weren’t allowed to call it anything but “the inventory” on an open radio
channel. The
Atlantis
had been parked
about six hundred meters away from the huge object, the closest they were
allowed to approach it—it would be a short translation, jargon for space-walk,
over to it. Seedeck opened a bin in the center of the right side of the cargo
bay and extracted the end of a steel cable from its reel mounted on the cargo
bay walls, attached the cable to a ring on the left side of his MMU, then
maneuvered back into open space and headed for the object floating in the
distance.

 
          
It
was the first time Seedeck had seen it, except of course for photographs and
mock-ups. It was a huge steel square, resembling some sort of massive pop-art
decoration suspended in space. Each side of the square was a hundred-foot-long,
fifteen-foot-square tube. One large rectangular radar antenna, two thousand
square feet in area, was mounted on each of two opposite sides of the square,
pointing earthward. Mounted on one of the other two sides of the square were
two smaller data-transmission dish antennas, one pointing earthward, the other
pointing spaceward. On the remaining side was an eighteen-inch diameter
cylinder twelve feet long with a large glass eye at one end, also pointing to
Earth. Enclosed within heavily armored containers on the four sides of the
square were fuel cells, rocket fuel tanks, fuel lines, and other connectors and
control units running throughout the steel frame.

 
          
Mounted
in the center of the square was a huge cylinder, seventy feet in diameter and
thirty feet long, armored and covered in shiny aluminum
—Atlantis
had to move its position now and then to keep the
brilliant reflection of the sun from ruining its cameras. The spaceward end was
closed, but the earthward side had a removable armor cover that revealed
five fifteen
-foot-diameter tubes, earthlight reflecting
around the shining, polished walls inside, all empty.

 
          
This was Ice Fortress.

           
In all the articles, presentations,
and drawings, it looked like a Rube Goldberg tinker-toy contraption, but out
here in position it looked awesome and as mean as hell. The two large radar
antennas, Seedeck knew, were target-tracking radars searching for sea- or
land-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles. The smaller dish antennas
were data-link antennas, one for transmitting steering signals from the
platform, the other for receiving target tracking data from surveillance
satellites at higher orbits around earth. The large cylinder with the glass eye
was an infrared detector and tracker designed to search and follow the exhaust
of an ICBM in the boost phase. The radars could track warhead carriers,
“busses,” in the midphase or even individual reentering warheads as they
plunged through the atmosphere, and it could even differentiate between decoy
warheads and the real thing.

 
          
The
large center cylinder was the “projectile” container, which housed the launch
tubes for
Ice Fortress'
weapons. The
entire station was armored in heat-resistant carbon-carbon steel, and smooth
surfaces and critical components like the missile cylinder covers and fuel
tanks were also covered in reflective aluminum film. Seedeck had heard rumors
about all these strange additions to
Ice
Fortress
, but that wasn’t his concern.

 
          
Seedeck’s
job today was to make
Ice Fortress
operational for the first time.

 
          
The
station was almost a military unit unto itself, Seedeck thought as he completed
his inspection of
Ice Fortress.
The
station received missile- launch detection information from orbiting
surveillance satellites that would tell
Ice
Fortress
where to look for the missiles. The station could' use either its
radars or its heat-sensing infrared detectors to locate and track the rockets
as they rose through the atmosphere.
Ice
Fortress
would then launch its “projectiles” against ICBMs heading toward
North America
.