Starfire (50 page)

“I'll tell you right now, Boomer: I'm flying,” Ernesto Hermosillo, one of the senior student pilots, said. “Gryzlov can
besar mi culo peludo
.” The others in the briefing room all clapped and said they would go as well.

“Thank you, all of you,” Boomer said. “But I know you haven't spoken about this with your families, and it has to be a family decision. After you talk with your families, if you want to cancel, just tell me. Like I said, no one will think less of you.

“We have one S-29 and one S-19 on the line, and two more 19s ready to go in a few days, so here are the assignments,” Boomer went on. “Gonzo and Sondra in the S-19, and myself and
culo peludo
Ernesto in the S-29. Because I anticipate doing some spacewalks when we arrive, I'll be prebreathing.” He handed out the other assignments, always pairing up an experienced spaceplane commander with a student mission commander. “Get your physicals, we'll all be in EEAS or ACES suits, and will probably stay in them for several days. Ernesto, we'll brief right after we suit up during my prebreathe. Questions?” Boomer fielded several questions and shared a little nervous banter with his crews. “Okay, guys, the countdown has started for the first two birds. Let's pay attention, work smart, work as a team, and everyone comes home. Let's go.”

Sondra stayed behind after the others left, a little flash of anger in her eyes. “Why am I flying with Gonzo?” she asked. “Why can't I fly with you?”

“You're not checked out as MC in the S-29, Sondra,” Boomer said. “Ernesto is. Besides, I'm giving you and Gonzo the stop in Washington. You'll get to meet the vice president and take her up to Armstrong.”

Instead of being surprised or happy about flying the vice president, Sondra was still angry. “I'm just a couple months from finishing the S-29 mission commander course,” she said petulantly. “I'm a better MC now in any of the spaceplanes than Ernesto will
ever
be.”

Boomer's eyes rolled in surprise. “Whoa, whoa, Sondra. We don't talk smack about fellow pilots, even in private. We're a team.”

“You know it's true,” Sondra said. “Besides, the damn thing practically flies itself—it doesn't even need an MC. You did it because you're pissed because we're not sleeping together anymore.”

“I did it because you're not checked out as an MC in the S-29, Sondra, simple as that,” Boomer said. “Besides,
I
made the decision not to sleep with you. Brad and I were working closer and closer together on Starfire, and I didn't think it was right.”

“But it was okay when I started training here, wasn't it?” Sondra spat. “You knew I was seeing him back then.”

“Sondra, I'm not changing the schedule,” Boomer said. “Fly with Gonzo or don't fly.” He looked at his watch, then at her. “The countdown has started. Are you going or not?” In reply, she gave him an angry scowl, spun on a heel, and stormed out.

Boomer ran an exasperated hand across his face, confused and conflicted about what to do in this situation. But he resolved to put this personal matter out of his mind and concentrate on the task at hand.

Every crewmember was required to get a physical exam before flight, so that was Boomer's first stop. Afterward, he stopped at Mission Planning to check on the flight schedule, which was being set up and verified by computer and then loaded into the spaceplane's computers. His own S-29 Shadow spaceplane was being loaded with much-needed supplies for Armstrong and the ISS, so he would arrive first. Gonzo's S-19 Midnight spaceplane had the passenger module on board in the cargo bay. She would take off, arrive at Joint Base Andrews near Washington just a couple hours later, pick up the vice president and her Secret Service detail, and fly her to Armstrong about four hours after he arrived at Armstrong.

Next stop was life support. While Hermosillo needed help to get into his Advanced Crew Escape Suit, suiting up was relatively easy for Boomer. The EEAS, or Electronic Elastomeric Activity Suit, was like a heavy union suit, made of silvery radiation-proof carbon-fiber threads that covered every part of the body from the top of the neck to the bottoms of the feet. After putting on electronically controlled insulated underwear, which would control his body temperature during a spacewalk, Boomer slipped into the EEAS, then into boots and gloves, locking in the connectors for each, plugged his suit into a test console, then put on his prebreathing mask.

After making sure there were no deep folds or crinkles and that his testicles and penis were arranged properly, he plugged the suit into a test console and hit a button. The suit instantly constricted tightly around every square inch of his body that came into contact with it, making him involuntarily grunt aloud—the source of the suit's nickname and pseudonym for EEAS, “EAHGHSS!” But moving about and especially spacewalking would be much easier for him than it would be for someone in an oxygen-inflated ACES, because the suit would automatically readjust around his body to maintain pressure on the skin without creating any binding or causing changes in pressure. The human body's vascular system was already pressure-sealed, but in a vacuum or at a lower-atmospheric pressure, the skin would bulge outward if it were not constrained; the ACES did it with oxygen pressure, while the EEAS did it with mechanical pressure.

“I always think I'd like to try one of those things,” Ernesto said on intercom, smiling and shaking his head while he watched Boomer preflight his suit, “and then I watch you hit the test switch, and it looks like you get kicked in the nuts every time, so I change my mind.”

Boomer shut off the test switch to relax the suit. “Takes a little getting used to,” he admitted.

They finished getting suited up, then sat in comfortable chairs while they received a crew briefing by the chief mission planning officer, Alice Wainwright, via video teleconference. The route of flight got Boomer's attention right away. “Uh, Alice? Given the reason we're doing all this, is this really the route of flight we should be taking?” he asked over the intercom.

“The computers don't know about politics or Gryzlov, Boomer—all they know is desired final position, bearing, velocity, gravity, orbital mechanics, thrust, position of station, and all that good stuff,” Alice said. “Station needs the equipment as soon as possible.”

There was a process called the “accident chain,” Boomer knew: a series of minor and seemingly unrelated incidents that combine to cause an accident—or in this case, an encounter with a Russian antisatellite weapon. One of the more common incidents was “get the mission done—it's important; disregard safety and common sense and just get it done.” That's what was happening right now—link number one in the accident chain had just appeared. “It can't wait one more day or even a few hours?” Boomer asked.

“I mapped out all of the launch windows and flight paths, Boomer,” Alice said. “All of the others fly over populated areas, and people have complained about the sonic booms.” Link number two. “Since the Russians disconnected the ROS from the International Space Station, both Canada and Mexico and a bunch of other countries are expressing deep reservations about allowing spaceplanes to fly over their territory until above the Kármán level. It's this flight or nothing for two days.”

That alarm bell was going off in his head as link number three joined the others, but he knew Armstrong and the ISS needed the supplies, and those left on the ISS needed them badly—or was he now forging his own links in the accident chain? “Are we going to notify the Russians of our missions?” he asked.

“That's standard procedure,” Alice said. “Apparently Space Command thinks Gryzlov is bluffing. We're going to keep on normal protocols.”

The fourth link in the accident chain had just been forged, Boomer thought—this was not looking good. He turned to Ernesto.
“¿Qué te parece, amigo?
What do you think, buddy?”

“Vamos, comandante,”
Ernesto said. “Let's go, Commander. Gryzlov doesn't have the cojones.” Was that yet another link? Boomer wondered.

“Any other questions, Boomer?” Alice asked a little impatiently. “You step in ten minutes, and I still have to brief Gonzo and Sondra.”

The fifth link in the accident chain had just been connected, but Boomer didn't recognize it. He was the spacecraft commander—it was his final decision . . . but he didn't. He thought about it for a moment, then nodded to Ernesto. “No questions, Alice,” he said on intercom. “We press.” Ten minutes later Boomer picked up his portable air-conditioning and oxygen pack, and he and Ernesto headed out to the crew van that would take them to the flight line.

The S-29 Shadow was the third and largest model of the spaceplanes, with five “leopards” engines instead of four, and a fifteen-thousand-pound payload. With the preflight already accomplished by the techs, Boomer and Ernesto entered the spaceplane through the open cockpit canopies, connected their umbilicals to the ship, and strapped in. The Shadow was even more automated than its sisters, and it was just a matter of checking the computer's progress as it handled the preflight checklists, acknowledging each checklist complete, then awaiting their start-engines, taxi, and takeoff times.

At the preprogrammed time the engines automatically came alive, the after-engine-start checklists were run, the taxi lane was cleared, and precisely at the taxi time, the throttles automatically came up and the Shadow began to taxi itself to the main runway at Battle Mountain for takeoff. “I'll never get used to the plane just taxiing by itself,” Ernesto said. “Kinda creepy.”

“I know what you mean,” Boomer said. “I've asked several times to be allowed to fly it myself, without the automation, but Richter always turns me down, with a stern warning not to try it. After there's more than one of these, I'll ask again. Kaddiri and Richter don't want their newest and brightest daughter defiled by someone like me. They do enough defiling to each other,
corregir
?” Ernesto gave Boomer a fist bump and nodded agreement.

The two astronauts literally just sat there for the rest of the voyage, chitchatting, monitoring checklists and acknowledging completions and starts, and watching the Shadow do its thing: it flew itself to the refueling anchor, this time over northern Minnesota; refueled itself with another computer-controlled tanker aircraft; turned to the orbital insertion point over Colorado, turned northeast, and hit the throttles at the appropriate time. They watched all the readouts and acknowledged the checklist executions and completions, but in the end they were just babysitters.

But now, as they headed into orbit, they stopped chatting and were on guard, because their track would take them across northwestern Russia . . .

. . . just three hundred miles northwest of Plesetsk Cosmodrome, and practically right over the Russian Red Banner Northern Fleet naval headquarters at Severomorsk.

“Talk about twisting the tiger's tail, comandante,” Ernesto commented. “Or, in this case, the bear's tail.”

“You got that right, amigo,” Boomer said. “You got that right.”

T
HE
K
REMLIN

M
OSCOW
, R
USSIAN
F
EDERATION

T
HAT
SAME
TIME

“Sir, an American spaceplane has just been detected overflying Plesetsk Cosmodrome!”
Minister of Defense Gregor Sokolov shouted into the phone when Gryzlov picked it up.

“What in hell did you say?” Gryzlov grunted into the bedroom phone. Foreign Minister Daria Titeneva, lying naked beside Gryzlov, was instantly awake, and she rose out of bed and hurried to get dressed—she didn't know what the call was about, but anyone daring to call President Gennadiy Gryzlov in the middle of the night had to have a damned serious reason for doing so, and she knew she would be called into his office immediately afterward.

“I said, the Americans have launched a spaceplane into orbit—and it came within a few hundred kilometers from Plesetsk Cosmodrome!” Sokolov repeated. “It directly overflew the Red Banner Northern Fleet headquarters in Severomorsk. It is definitely going into orbit, and is on course to intercept Armstrong Space Station within the hour.”

“Vyyebat'!”
Gryzlov swore. “How dare those sons of bitches do that after I just issued my orders? Are they fucking ignoring me? Were we notified of any spaceplane flights?”

“We are checking with the air attaché's office in Washington, sir,” Sokolov said. “No response from them yet.”

“Those bastards!”
Gryzlov shouted. “Phoenix is going to pay for this! Summon the entire security council to my office
immediately
!”

Twenty minutes later Gryzlov strode into his office, his longish dark hair streaming behind his neck in his hurry. Only Tarzarov and Sokolov had arrived. “Well, Sokolov?” he shouted.

“The American Space Command reported to the air attaché in Washington that one S-29 Shadow and one S-19 Midnight spaceplane will be sent into orbit within the next six hours,” the defense minister reported, handing the president some charts and radar plots. “The S-29 will go to Armstrong, drop off supplies and pick up passengers, go into a transfer orbit, transition to the International Space Station to drop off supplies and pick up personnel, then return the next day. The S-19 will fly to Joint Base Andrews near Washington, pick up passengers, then fly to Armstrong. They also announced that they will send several manned and unmanned commercial cargo modules to both stations over the next seventy-two hours.”

“
Two
spaceplanes?” Gryzlov thundered. “They are launching
two spaceplanes
? And one is already in orbit, not within six hours? That is unacceptable! And their flight paths?”