"I'll be leaving for the launch pad in fifteen minutes. See that I'm not disturbed until then. "
Gulaev nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. As he did Govorov got up from his desk and stood by a large window overlooking the launch site. From there he could see the maintenance crews completing the final checks on the SL-16s. It was a beautiful day, the general thought to himself, a perfect day to ride a fireball into the sky. He couldn't wait to get started.
CHAPTER 26
Jason Saint-Michael's warning to his crew not to get too cocky about the role the station had played in the invasion of Bandar-Abbas seemed prophetic now as he clicked his microphone to the off position and reflected on the message he had just received from Space Command. The Russians had apparently just used their laser to knock out an American geosynchronous TRW Block 750 infra-red launch detection satellite, leaving Space Command and NORAD with no missile launch detection for south-central Asia. It didn't take a genius to guess what would happen next. Odds were that at that very moment the Gorgon missiles at Tyuratam were being readied for launch.
Which dictated he do… what? He had been about to order Jerrod Will to discontinue Enterprise's orbit around the station and redock, so that Ann and Kevin Baker, who had also made the decision to leave, could be sent back to Earth. But he wasn't so sure now that he shouldn't evacuate most of the personnel…
He mentally kicked himself for not getting Ann off the station earlier. Even though it bothered him to think of her gone, it bothered him much more to think she might be in serious danger. He just hoped Will could get the Enterprise docked and personnel aboard before he had to contend with those missiles headed their way. At least Will and Sontag had flown their most recent resupply mission to the station without Marty Schultz, so there would be that much more room in the cramped Shuttle. The hard part was going to be deciding who should go and who should stay.
Saint-Michael keyed his microphone. "Enterprise, what's your status?"
"Still orbiting the station, per your orders, General," Will said. "What's up?"
"More trouble, I'm aftaid. I want you to redock immediately."
"Will Airlines copies," Jerrod said as he activated his forward thrusters. He turned to Sontag as if to say what now? but the copilot merely shook his head. They'd have their answers soon enough.
By the time Enterprise had docked with the station and Will had made his way to the command module, Saint-Michael had already received two more messages from Space Command. As Will stepped through the module hatch the general acknowledged him with a nod and continued talking to Ann, who had overheard the exchange between Saint-Michael and the controller at Falcon Air Force Station in Colorado Springs.
"General," she said, "it looks like the station's going to be attacked. Skybolt could help. I'm sure I've just about solved—"
"No arguments, please."
"But—"
"Damn it, Ann, report to Enterprise now."
This time there was no argument. As she left the command-module hatch, Will moved next to Saint-Michael. "General, we're ready to fly, if that's what you want. I've got Yemana rigging up for a token OMS and RCS refueling — just a safety margin for us. Won't take long. Kelly is helping him in the docking adapter. What have we got?"
"Eight Soviet orbiting vehicles just entered orbits similar to ours," Saint-Michael told him. "We lost track of them, but ground tracking stations are keeping an eye on them."
"Launched from Tyuratam?"
"Yes, two from the Glowing Star area, the rest from the antisatellite area at Baikenour."
"Gorgons?"
Saint-Michael nodded. "That's MY guess."
"Sounds like they popped the whole ASAT alert fleet. What about the two from Glowing Star? Do you think they're manned?"
"Don't know. They've had time to move two more Gorgons to Glowing Star, but I think our intelligence would've reported that."
"What are our people doing in the gulf? Any major movement?"
"None. Matter of fact, most units on land and in the gulf appear frozen. The Russians haven't retreated, but they're not advancing either. They may be reassessing."
"Or they may be waiting for Silver Tower to get blasted out of the sky before finishing the job of overrunning Iran," Will said. "We'd better get loaded up…"
"I can't just abandon the station completely, " Saint-Michael said, checking the system status readouts. "Not yet, not if the Russians are gearing up for a major offensive. We have to be there when they kick it off."
"General, it might only take one more shot of that laser or one direct hit from a Gorgon to put you out of commission. One shot on a fuel tank or in your engineering module and whoever's left on board will be in deep—"
"We've got the lifeboat…"
"The lifeboat? Excuse me, but the term 'lifeboat' applied to that hunk of tin out there was coined for the congressman and senators who yakked about having a rescue craft but who wouldn't put up the money for more shuttles or spaceplanes. You know that, sir. We both know it's not a lifeboat — it's more like a piece of waterlogged driftwood. It leaks like a bad condom and it probably wouldn't stand the stress of recovery in a shuttle. It's craziness to rely on it."
"Some speech — and maybe all true. But it doesn't matter… It's what we've got to do the job. This is an emergency—"
"Don't create another one, then."
"Jerrod, I hear you. That's it. Take care of your ship and your passengers. I'll cut the crew on the station down to two or three. You take the rest back to Vandenburg or Edwards. Now move it. We haven't got much time."
As Will exited the module, Colonels Marks and Walker approached Saint-Michael. Marks handed the general a computer printout. "Bad news, Skipper. My calculations show that we only have a day and a half s worth of fuel. Tops."
Saint-Michael scanned the fuel figures. "Even with a reduced crew. No experiments? Reduced power usage?"
"Those figures include all that, plus only a conservative estimate on the necessary fuel consumption with the lost thruster — it could be worse than those numbers. "
"We'll need almost four-a-week refuelings at this rate," Saint-Michael said, "unless we get that thruster working—"
Walker cut in. "General, there's another option…"
"I know, return to a standard polar circular orbit. Stop the retracking thruster course corrections. But then we'd have only a few minutes over the Persian Gulf every few hours. We'd be almost useless as a surveillance platform."
"But we'd be secure, General. This station is a strategic defense laboratory, not really a surveillance satellite. We've proved our value in the first defense of Iran and the Persian Gulf region, but now the game has changed. We're the target, a major target. If the Russians I shoot down this station, the United States has lost a lot more than just an SBR platform."
Saint-Michael stayed silent, seemingly lost in thought. Walker sensed the shift in the general's thinking and nodded to Marks, who said, "At Jim's request, sir, I've worked up the fuel considerations involved in putting us back in polar orbit." He handed Saint-Michael another printout. "We would have enough fuel to reestablish the new orbit, and we wouldn't be dependent on so many refuelings—"
"Skipper, warning message from Space Command tracking," Moyer broke in through the stationwide intercom. "Orbiting vehicle within five miles vertically and one hundred miles laterally from the station."
Saint-Michael quickly sat back in his commander's seat; Walker returned to his position beside Jefferson on the master SBR display.
Saint-Michael keyed the intercom. "Jerrod, status of your refueling."
"Few more minutes."
"You're out of time, Jerrod. Attention on the station. Emergency. Discontinue all refueling operations. AD crewmen except command module personnel report aboard Enterprise immediately. This station is on red alert. Jake, discontinue SBR earth surveillance. Launch commit all Thor interceptors for station defense." He turned to Walker. "Jim, can you handle the Space Command relays and back up Jake on the SBR board?"