Then, having achieved the ability to listen to activity in both major oceans, the Navy went a step further, tying the various systems together. Prior to that, SOSUS could only give a rough idea of a sub’s location. By linking the various systems, the Navy could now pinpoint the exact location of any sound emitter in the ocean using triangulation from various SOSUS systems. The Navy hooked all the SOSUS systems together using FLTSATCOM-the Fleet Satellite Communication System and downlinked it all to a computer at Fleet Headquarters.
All in all, a most efficient system, Conners knew, except for one major problem the Navy had had from the very beginning: they could tell where submarines were, but the system couldn't tell if the submarine contact was friendly or enemy. When Conners had first heard of that problem she had wondered why it was a problem at all, since she had assumed, as most people did, that the Navy knew where all its submarines were and if it wasn't ours, then it must be their's.
She was surprised to learn that the Navy didn't know the specific locations of its own submarines for a deliberate reason: to insure their security.
The boomers, as the Navy called them, patrolled at the discretion of their own skippers within a large designated area. That way no one could find them. But the Navy realized after hooking the SOSUS system together that they had to be able to tell friendly subs from unfriendly or else they could end up sinking their own submarines in time of war.
The solution to that problem became the seed idea for Bright Eye. Some whiz kid at a Navy lab happened on the answer, which at first was greeted with disbelief. Every US and NATO sub was given an ID code which was painted in large letters and numbers with a special laser reflective paint on the upper deck. The Navy could read the codes by pinpointing a sub's location using the SOSUS, then using one of the FLTSATCOM satellites firing a laser downlink. Using a high intensity blue-green light, the laser could penetrate the ocean to submarine depth. The paint reflected the laser beam and the satellite picked up the reflection, forwarding the code to fleet headquarters. No code was a bad guy.
The Odysseus scientists studied the results of this laser program. The key to Star Wars had always been finding and tracking enemy planes and missiles in the first place. You couldn’t hit it if you couldn’t find it. Surveillance was the critical link and they were looking for the next step beyond the infrared and thermal imaging used aboard the KH-12. Lasers, operating at the speed of light and capable of great power, seemed the next logical progression and thus Bright Eye was born.
Bright Eye consisted of a large circle of laser emitters. By varying the focal length of the emitters, the operators could vary the color of the beam emitted. Using a special computer, the lasers could cycle through a spectrum of colors in rapid succession. Depending on what colors were reflected and how quickly, an accurate view of Bright Eye’s focus could be developed. The advantage of the lasers over other emitters was their more powerful beam could cut through severe weather conditions. They were also effective at night. Having a power source in orbit strong enough to fire the lasers from orbit down to Earth was solved by lifting a small nuclear reactor into space, a move made in the utmost secrecy. There was of course the possibility of nuclear disaster if the launch vehicle had exploded going into orbit. Fortunately, no mishaps had occurred.
The second problem was a substantial one. The lasers were so powerful that they would blind any humans in the area who happened to look up into the beams at the moment they came down; therefore Bright Star’s use was limited.
And this was why Conners had gone to Konrad. She didn't want to be responsible for hundreds, if not thousands of blinded Cambodians.
The computer beeped, letting Conners know that Bright Eye was rapidly approaching the target area. She ran through the final checks one more time. She sensed Konrad had joined her. He was looking over her shoulder waiting to see what happened.
One hundred and twenty miles up, the dual satellite combination sped through space, north to south over the globe, China passing beneath rapidly. The reactor was working perfectly, a large cylinder, lacking the shielding of its cousins on the planet's surface below. Next to it, the circular satellite containing Bright Eye was also functioning properly. The twenty foot round door that covered the laser array smoothly slid open, revealing the tips of the emitters. A large flat panel, the laser receiver, was extended on a mechanical arm to the right of the array, unfolding until it was over a hundred yards long by fifty wide, its cells ready to receive the bounceback.
Power flowed from the reactor to the lasers, accumulating in capacitors as the countdown dropped below twenty seconds. As Bright Eye passed over north-central Cambodia, the on-board computer went into hyper-drive. Bolts of laser light flashed out, each individual laser immediately firing again and again as the computer rotated both the frequency of the laser itself and the direction the tip was pointed in, making minute adjustments at the base of each. Those tiny adjustments, when multiplied over the one hundred and twenty-five mile down trip each laser beam traveled, allowed Bright Eye to take an accurate picture of a large area.
Traveling at the speed of light, the first beams reached down and hit the target area.
“We're getting something,” Conners announced as she read the data on her computer screen, a real-time downlink from Bright Eye, showing what the receiving panel was getting. “I think we've got a-”
She paused as a large glow showed in the middle of the screen. “What the heck?”
A bolt of energy, in the shape of large glowing golden ball, over fifty meters in diameter, punched out of the mist covering the triangle and raced up through the down-firing lasers, scattering them in all directions.
As it gained altitude, the ball's diameter slowly grew smaller, but it was covering the distance between it and Bright Eye at a rapid pace.
“Shut it down!” Konrad yelled.
They could both see the large golden ball on the sighting scope downlink that was part of Bright Eye. The laser image had gone completely haywire.
Conners fingers flew over the keyboard, turning off the lasers, but the ball continued to gain altitude toward Bright Eye, until it filled the entire screen. Then suddenly there was a gold flash of light and nothing. The data that had been on the computer screen suddenly went dead.
“Do you have contact?” Konrad demanded.
Conners felt the bottom of her stomach fall out as she realized what she had seen. “Nothing. I've got nothing. Bright Eye is gone!”
“Oh, man! I've got to call the Director,” Konrad was running from her office.
“Dear Lord,” Conners whispered.
CHAPTER SIX
“Monsters? What exactly did you mean by that?”
Dane had been waiting for that question and as he'd expected, Freed was the one to pose it. There'd been no time for it to be asked earlier. Since Dane had accepted the mission they had been busy, getting ready to depart and heading to the airfield.
They were in Michelet's private jet, the same converted 707 that had flown Dane and Chelsea from the disaster site to LA. Now they were over the eastern Pacific, heading west at maximum speed. Paul Michelet and Roland Beasley were seated in deep leather chairs on the other side of a small table. Freed was next to the window on Dane's right and Chelsea lay in the aisle at Dane's other side, sleeping.
“If the CIA told you about me,” Dane said, “then you probably saw the after-action report for that mission. I told them the truth.”
Michelet shook his head. “We never saw a copy of the after-action report. But if you told the CIA that monsters were responsible for the mission's failure, that would explain a lot.”