Executive Intent (7 page)

The large multifunction display between Raydon and Lukas changed from a radar graphic of the launch to a split-screen view of Earth. The left split showed Earth as a cool gray mass in the background, with flashes of light here and there from lightning and reflected sunlight, which computers were attempting to tune out as much as possible. The right split showed Earth through a telescope, set for wide field of view as it searched for the incoming missile.

“Four minutes to impact,” Lukas reported.

“C'mon, guys, find the sucker,” Raydon said.

“Too much background clutter…”

“Try manually tuning,” Raydon said. “The computers are tuning out the background clutter—tune for the target.”

Lukas switched the infrared sensor's tuning to manual, and the left side of the monitor flared almost to complete white as the energy being radiated by the Earth washed out the heat-sensitive sensor. Seeker carefully adjusted several controls until the background faded, then began tuning even more carefully. “The sensor slaved to Pirinclik's radar—it's gotta be right in front of us, and hotter than hell,” she murmured. “Anything on the camera?”

“Nothing yet.”

“You'll find it, Seeker,” Raydon said. “Countermeasures?”

“Standing by, sir,” the officer in charge of the station's active defenses replied. “All systems active.”

“Three minutes. Pirinclik radar lost contact.”

“Seeker?”

“It's gotta be cooler than I'm expecting,” the Air Force senior master sergeant said. “Unslave the camera and search separately in case I'm way off.”

“You're not,” Raydon said. “Relax and find it.”

“Damage control parties in position, sir.”

“Copy.” On the stationwide intercom he said, “All personnel, two minutes to—”

“Got it!”
Lukas crowed. “It's cold, not hot—they must've figured out a way to cool it off to make it harder to pick up on infrared.” She immediately slaved the camera to the infrared seeker and zoomed in. The visual image showed a simple black bullet-shaped object. “It looks like a payload, not the entire rocket—it must've already staged.”

“Countermeasures ready?”

“Defensive systems ready, sir.”

Raydon punched in instructions in his computer keyboard, then opened a red-covered switch and activated it, giving commander's authority to fire weapons. “Attention on the station, countermeasures under way. Permission to engage, Seeker. Shoot when ready.”

“Radiating now.” Lukas entered commands into her computer, activated her own authorization switch, and hit a keyboard button. Moments later, an alert flashed on the monitors. “Automatic tracking failed,” she announced. She grasped a joystick handle on the right side of her console and squeezed the slewing lever, which brought up a set of crosshairs on her camera monitor. Adjusting the field of view with her left hand while watching the monitor, she carefully placed the crosshairs on the target and squeezed a trigger. “Targeting lasers firing…COIL activating.”

Mounted below the pressurized modules of Armstrong Space Station, in the place where the controversial Skybolt magnetohy-drodynamic antiballistic-missile laser had been mounted, was a simple boxlike structure with several articulating turrets around it. Small targeting lasers shot from the turrets began tracking the incoming target, precisely measuring distance and bearing.

When the object was in range—about two hundred miles, or just forty seconds to impact—the main weapon activated. The structure contained the Hydra, a five-hundred-kilowatt Chemical-Oxygen-Iodine Laser, or COIL, a smaller version of the two mega
watt COIL aboard the YAL-1 Airborne Laser and the AL-52 Dragon antiballistic-missile laser aircraft. Chlorine and hydrogen peroxide were mixed under high pressure, instantly producing highly energetic oxygen, which was compressed by nitrogen and mixed with iodine, creating laser light. The light was amplified by mirrors and optics into a beam and sent to a beam director and through an adaptive-optics focusing mirror, which sent a nickelsize spot of intense laser light on the target.

As soon as Lukas pulled the trigger to activate the COIL, they could see tiny sparkles of light around the target—but it wasn't from the laser. “Maneuvering thrusters—the sucker's maneuvering,” Lukas said.

“Stay with it, Seeker,” Raydon urged her. “Nail that sucker.”

“I'm not sure if I have a coherent beam without auto tracking—”

“The targeting lasers didn't malfunction, only the main turret,” Raydon said. “You're the tracker now. Get it!”

Lukas released the trigger when the computer told her the laser volley had ended; she had to wait ten precious seconds until she could fire the next volley. “Sure would like to have another COIL up here,” she said.

“We're lucky to have the one,” Raydon said. “Get ready for a second shot. All personnel, brace for impact and report any damage to me immediately.”

As soon as the computer said she could fire again, she pulled the trigger and sent another burst at the target. “It has a pattern,” she said. “I've got you now, sucker.” Carefully matching the target's gyrations, she was able to keep the COIL beam on target long enough for the laser to burn a hole in the target's thin skin with just seconds to spare…

…and as the beam drove itself through the target, it broke apart and showered Armstrong Space Station…with a cloud of paper confetti, traveling at eighteen thousand miles per hour but causing no damage.

“Good job, Seeker,” Raydon said. Lukas safed the COIL and secured her station, then let herself go limp in zero-g, being careful to use a towel to wipe away the sweat before it floated off her skin and became both a nuisance and a hazard. “Telemetry says you had the beam on target for three-point-eight seconds. I'd say that would be enough to take down a real antisatellite weapon.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lukas said. “But I wish we could do an auto engagement one of these days so I could sit back and watch the Hydra work.”

“What fun is that?” Raydon asked with a smile. On the stationwide intercom he spoke, “All personnel, exercise target successfully destroyed in a visually acquired, manual-track engagement with the COIL. Inspect your stations for any signs of damage, secure from emergency stations, and submit postexercise reports to me as soon as possible. Thank you, everyone. Good job.”

“Midnight One to Armstrong,” Hunter Noble radioed from the XS-19 Midnight spaceplane, which had launched the target at the space station for the test. “Just want to be sure you guys were still breathing air and not space dust.”

“Successful visual-manual engagement, Boomer,” Raydon replied. “The confetti was a cute touch.”

“Thought you'd like it, General.”

Raydon switched the monitor at his station to the constant feed of telemetry he received from all of the spacecraft under his control, including the Midnight spaceplane. “Come on in to refuel and we'll load you up for a return to Roswell.” Spaceport America, located at the former Roswell Industrial Air Center in southern New Mexico, was America's first private-commercial facility dedicated to supporting manned spaceflight—many of the supply rockets sent to the space station were launched by commercial companies from there. Because of its rather isolated location and twelve-thousand-foot runway, it made a good place to land from space without disturbing too many residents with sonic booms. “Hope you don't mind doing another trash run.”

“Anytime, General,” Boomer said. “Any chance I get to fly the spaceplanes, even if it's just haulin' trash, I'll take it. FYI, the major will be doing this approach and docking, so don't be surprised if you feel or hear something hit the station in a couple hours.”

“Thanks, Boomer,” the copilot, Air Force Major Dana Colwin, interjected. Colwin was a thirty-year-old former Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber pilot and aeronautical engineer, and had completed military astronaut training only a few months ago. She still wore her jet-black hair long, and preferred Dallas Cowboys baseball caps under her headset to keep her hair under control in zero-g.

It would take almost two hours for Boomer and his copilot to catch up with the space station. “I've got a project I need you to do while we're waiting to rendezvous, Colwin,” Boomer said.

“Sure,” she replied. “What is it?” Boomer called up several pages of computer routines that he had downloaded from Armstrong Space Station and sent the list to Colwin's multifunction display. “All this? This'll take me hours.”

“Nah. They're diagnostic programs. When the first program finishes, it'll direct you which ones to do next. The results all get beamed to the station, but unfortunately the computer won't automatically select the next program to run, so you have to babysit it. Wake me when we're five minutes out.”

“Wake you?”

“I'm going to inspect the cargo bay, and then I'm going to take a nap in the air lock.”

“A
nap
? Are you kidding?” But Boomer unstrapped, gave her a wink, then floated though the cockpit and entered the air lock.

The dark-haired, brown-eyed astronaut shook her head in amusement. “Okay, Noble,” she muttered, and got to work running the diagnostic programs. Hunter Noble always seemed so hyper during every flight she had been on with him, hardly ever appearing to need a nap—but she thought nothing about it and got to work. He still checked in every fifteen minutes as required,
but she couldn't see that guy actually napping back there. Oh well—spaceflight sometimes really takes it out of you, she thought, and Noble was by far the busiest pilot in the unit.

About ninety minutes later the intercom clicked on: “How's it going, Colwin?”

“If you don't mind me saying, Boomer, this is mind-numbing busywork,” she replied. “Tire-pressure histories? Hydrazine-container electrostatic checks? A monkey can do this.”

“If it seems like it's just busywork, Colwin, you're right…because it
was
just busywork.”

“Say again?”

“I needed you distracted so I could finish prebreathing and suiting up.”

“Suiting up?”

“You're fairly new with the spaceplanes, Colwin, but you've done several automatic dockings, observed a few manual dockings, practiced many times in the simulator, and we have plenty of fuel, so I think it's time you did a manual rendezvous with the station.”

“
A manual rendezvous?
Are you
nuts
?”

“You
have
been practicing in the simulator, haven't you? I guess we'll find out shortly. I'll be watching from outside.”

“From outside…?”

“Just don't jostle me around too much, Colwin. Relax and do it nice and easy. Don't cheat and turn on the computer—I'll be checking the flight-data logs. Outer hatch coming open. Break a leg, not the spaceplane.” The large red “MASTER CAUTION” warning light flicked on, and the message O
UTER
H
ATCH
U
NSEALED
appeared on the computer monitor.

“Where are you, Noble?”

“I'm just halfway out the hatch, enjoying the view.” Armstrong Space Station was about two miles away, sunlight reflecting off its silver antilaser covering, which gave the station its nickname “Silver Tower.” “Once you're down to less than three-meters-per-
second closure rate, I'll hop outside on the tether and use the suit's thrusters to watch away from the ship.”

“I feel like going to less than three mps right now, Noble.”

“We've got plenty of fuel, Colwin, but not all day,” Boomer said. “You can do this. You need to do this for spacecraft-commander certification, and you
know
you want this. Let's do it.”

“This your idea of fun, Noble?” General Kai Raydon radioed from Armstrong Space Station.

“I think Colwin's ready, General.”

“You're in charge of pilot training, Noble,” Raydon said, “so you're responsible for these little unplanned unannounced evolutions of yours. If the major dings up my station or the spaceplane, you might as well stay out there.”

“Copy loud and clear, sir. She'll do fine.”

As Boomer watched from the upper hatch, one by one he saw the thrusters on the nose release tiny jets of hydrazine exhaust. Colwin used the spaceplane's control stick and trim switches for directional control to make it easier and more intuitive, but steering a spacecraft wasn't like flying an airplane because orbital forces dictated the path, not flight control surfaces or aerodynamics. Although the thrusters could make minor altitude corrections, “up” and “down” were controlled by forward velocity—slowing down always meant losing altitude, speeding up always meant increasing altitude, and you had to be ready to correct anytime you made a velocity change. There were other nuances as well. In space, there was in reality no such thing as a “turn”—you could either move laterally into an entirely different orbit, roll along the longitudinal axis, or you could yaw the nose in a different direction, with the actual orbital flight path unchanged.

Normally the flight control computer controlled all of these subtleties, but computers failed quite often, so spaceplane pilots were expected to manually fly and dock the spacecraft with control, confidence, and precision before being fully certified as space
craft commanders. Apart from a fully manual reentry and power-off landing, manual dockings were the most difficult and nerve-racking for pilots, and they practiced doing them quite often in the simulator.

Maybe it wasn't quite fair to unexpectedly lay this on her, Boomer thought, but it was time to see if she had what it took to qualify as a spacecraft commander. A lot of pilots stayed as mission commanders, perfectly happy to be second in command and let the computers and someone else accept all the responsibilities. Boomer was determined to separate the real spacecraft commanders from the mere pilots as soon and as safely as possible.