Launch Director: Russ, on the weather, we have an update.
Spacecraft: Shoot.
LD: SMG confirm exceedence on the landing crosswinds at Edwards.
Spacecraft: Badly?
LD: Gusting up to forty knots, six over limit. You could always put down in Morocco. The main problem is Ailsa. She’s moving our way faster than predicted. Giving us a high gust situation now and 45WS tell us we’re close to violation of the weather LCCs. And it’s going to get worse. We either break out of hold now or abort.
Spacecraft: Roger. We can feel the shaking in here. What gives with the MEC?
LD: Our programmers are still on it.
Spacecraft: What’s the time factor on the crosswind?
LD: We have a Jimsphere up and your old pal Tony is now overhead in the T-38. SWO has issued a down-range weather advisory.
Spacecraft: I copy. Look, Zeek, why don’t we just break out of hold and launch? Give us a mark at T minus five minutes and one minute prior to exit. JSC can play with the Mach attack angles and get a fresh load profile while we’re counting down.
LD: Patience. JSC are polling now. Let’s wait for verification. Spacecraft: The guys in the spacesuits say yes.
LD: Russ, you don’t even have a vote.
Spacecraft: We can manual override on the tank separation.
Houston Flight: NTD, this is Flight on channel 212.
LD: Go ahead.
Houston Flight: The KSC Management poll is in. Prime Launch Team report no violation of the LCC.
That was a lie.
Engineering verifies no impediments to continuation of the count. MMT Chair verifies that continuation is approved by the senior managers. What is the KSC poll?
LD: We agree with continuation and are loading up a new I-profile.
Spacecraft: What’s happening on the tail computer?
LD: Still trying, and we’ll initialize the IUS before we pick up the count.
Houston: Launch Director, Operations Manager here on 212 circuit. LSEAT have made a final recommendation. We’re permitting some flexibility in the LCC wind criteria.
But they had just said the criteria were met. Someone was attempting the old CYA: Cover Your Ass.
We confirm you are GO to continue the count.
The voices were as calm and controlled as ever. But to Merryweather, sitting aghast in the discretionary chair next to the Flight Director, the firing room had been hi-jacked by maniacs.
LD: Ah, copy. Thank you.
NTD: The countdown clock will resume in two minutes on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.
NTD: The countdown clock will resume in one minute on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.
NTD: Stand by. Four, three, two, one, mark. Ground Launch Sequencer has been initiated.
Orbiter Test Conductor: Commence purge sequence four.
OTC: You have go for LOX ET pressurization.
OTC: Flight crew, close and lock your visors. Initiate O2 flow.
OTC: T minus one minute thirty seconds.
OTC: Minus one minute.
OTC: Go for auto sequence start.
OTC: Fifteen seconds. Ten. Main engine start, three, two, one. Ignition.
The light, when it reached the dark-adapted eyes of the spectators, was painful in intensity. A blowtorch flame thrust down from the rockets in a kaleidoscope of shock waves and swept out from underground tunnels in a carnival of steam.
The thunder, when it reached them, bellowed out over the swamps, tore at sinews, shook ground and bones and flesh. Then the retaining clamps swung back and Frontiersman surged upwards.
It almost made it. A sudden squall of wind and rain, a freak thing, tilted the ship and swung it away from the tower. Rapidly, the onboard computers tried to compensate; the sudden angry roar would reach the onlookers twenty seconds later. But then the freak gust dropped at the very second the computers were compensating and the huge fuel valves were trying to respond. Frontiersman flung itself against the tower like a man pushing against a door which suddenly opens. It just touched. A collective Aah! went up from thousands of people braving the wind on the hoods and roofs of their cars. A loud Bang!, like a metal hatch being slammed shut, would reach them, but disaster was already plain to see.
The Shuttle began to spin. The flaming tail disappeared into the clouds half a mile above, but the direction was wrong. Seconds later the clouds lit up as if a giant flashbulb had popped, and shock waves ripped overhead, with a deep Thud! which was more felt than heard. And then there was a luminous, spreading yellow ocean, and the heat on the face even at five miles, and the fragments of tank and booster raining out of the illuminated clouds, and crashing to the ground along with the debris was the hope, the only hope, of averting Nemesis.
Not that Merryweather, staring horrified at the sight on the giant screen in the Houston firing room, knew it. But the Chief Engineer knew it; and the Flight Director knew it; and a small group of powerful men, clustered grimly around a television in the Oval Office, knew it too.
His Majesty’s Treasury
It was a brief paragraph, tucked away in page two of The Times:
Cresak flies in and out
Mr. Arnold Cresak, President Grant’s National Security Adviser, flew into London this morning and had lunch with the Prime Minister. He flew back on a regular commercial flight in the afternoon. The meeting was concerned with mutual security matters of a routine nature.
Routine like a nuclear strike, Webb thought, sipping his second tea of the morning.
Graham bustled importantly into the Hall carrying a pile of papers which Webb recognized as the new publicity drive forms from Central Office. He spotted Webb and adopted an “I want words with you” expression before joining the self-service breakfast queue.
Screw that, Webb thought. He quickly folded away The Times, slipped out and made his way to the Common Room. A smokeless coal fire was glowing bright red and his favourite leather armchair was empty. He picked up Icarus from the coffee table, sat down with a sigh of pleasure and swore quietly when Arnold tapped him on the shoulder. Webb followed the janitor across the drizzling quadrangle to the Lodge.
“Sorry about the mess, Doctor,” Arnold said, clearing the Sun, the Sporting Life and a half-eaten slice of toast from a spindly wooden chair. Webb sat down and found himself facing a pouting nymph with enormous breasts. She was wearing only torn, thigh-length jeans and was straddling a giant spark plug. The calendar was two years old and it was too early in the morning for busty nymphs.