"I'll tell you what I told General Saint-Michael, sir. I feel like I have a duty to Colonel Will and Colonel Sontag to fly this mission: I demand the opportunity to do it."
Stuart nodded, looked again to Saint-Michael. "Of course, General, Dr. Ann Page here is the best qualified for the… other task on this sortie."
Stuart folded his hands on Ann's personnel file and shook his head. "I disagree, Jason. Dr. Page has gone through enough already. I don't see any need to put her through—"
"Excuse me, sir," Ann said, "you're talking about me as if I weren't here. The fact is, you have no alternative. I happen to be best qualified to handle Skybolt, and I'm the only person familiar with the laser who is qualified for space flight. I'm also a volunteer—"
"I question that more than anything else," Stuart broke in. "Do you think it's wise to cause your family more worry after what they went through two months ago? The Armstrong attack, your father's death…"
"General, I don't want to be a bore, and I think you know I'm no radical feminist or whatever, but such considerations really are no more relevant for me than for any of the men. But I should tell you, my only family is MY mother, and she's in full agreement with me." Feeling wanned up, Ann kept going. "The thing both of us have a hard time accepting is the way this country is being affected by threats from the Soviets. How can they tell us when to retrieve our own dead? How can they tell us we can only use an HTS spaceplane instead of a shuttle to approach Armstrong Station?"
"They have the capability to intercept any spacecraft they feel is hostile," Stuart said. "That's a fact: A shuttle sortie to Armstrong could be seen as an attempt by us to rearm the station, for all they know with offensive nuclear weapons. A spaceplane doesn't have the cargo capacity to—"
"So why don't we tell them that if they shoot down any more unarmed American spacecraft we'll… retaliate?… Why are we being pushed around by—"
"Ann," Saint-Michael said, giving her a look. She turned to him, asking with her eyes why he was silencing her. He tried to signal back that the argument was going to be made, and soon.
"The decision has already been made," Stuart said, stifling his irritation and surprise. Dr. Page was obviously more than a lady scientist. "Our government has decided it is not going to risk a nuclear confrontation over Armstrong Space Station. I'm sorry. There are three other private commercial and government research space stations in orbit that need servicing. If we challenge the Soviets on Armstrong, which as you know is badly damaged, and only a few days from reentering the atmosphere, they could shut off all sorties to the other stations."
Ann was about to respond by pointing out that it never paid to give in to blackmailers but thought better of it. The real issue here was her involvement in the flight. "All right, General. So we use the HTS. We play the game by the Russians' rules. But please… no one touches Skybolt but me. It may sound arrogant to say so, but there's no other mission payload specialist qualified to detach Skybolt from the station and attach the payload assist module to it. Remember, Skybolt is a free-electron laser. It uses a controlled nuclear reaction to create the electron-particle stream necessary for lasing. There's just too much to know about fissionable materials aid triggering devices to make it safe for anyone but me to do it."
Stuart looked steadily at her, finally nodded, more in grudging acceptance than approval. "All right, the crew list is approved as presented. The sortie is scheduled to depart in four days. That will give you three days to recover the crewmen, detach the Skybolt module, attach the PAM, and boost it into its storage orbit. Any difficulties with that rough itinerary?"
"I have a problem with the setup, sir," Saint-Michael said.
Gene Stuart had been steeling himself for this. "I told you that I'd listen to your arguments during this meeting, Jason. I don't know what good it will do, but I'll take your recommendations to the Pentagon and even see to it that they get to the president. But I don't think—"
"Ann was right, sit," Saint-Michael began in a rush, trying to provoke Stuart into listening. "We are giving in to blackmail — or, more accurately, to terrorism. We can't let Silver Tower be destroyed. We have got to reactivate the station, put it back into its earth suiveillance orbit and repair its systems as soon as possible—"
"You're suggesting putting it back into the orbit over the Persian Gulf?" Stuart asked. He shook his head as if he hadn't heard Saint-Michael correctly. "You want to put Armstrong over that laser again? Put it in an orbit where the Soviets can accurately track it and send killer satellites to engage it? That's crazy, Jason. Why?" Privately Stuart thought he knew why: Jason was still far from a well man. His doctor was with him and obviously didn't approve his getting involved…
"Because the station's SBR and sensors will be needed in a few days. It will take the Arkhangel carrier battle group ten days to reach the Arabian Sea within striking distance of the Nimitz. The SBR has to be up and running before that."
"But the Soviet's laser—"
"The laser at Sary Shagan was hardly effective against the station," Saint-Michael interrupted. "True, we suffered some damage, but the station was still operational. If the laser had been any more powerful we would have been out of business long before the spaceplane attack… Sir, the SEIR has proved its value. It will be needed more than ever if the Nimitz carrier group is cornered in the Gulf of Oman. They'll have their hands full watching the Arkhangel and her escorts, and if they get driven closer and closer to land the Soviets can engage with land-based missiles. They'll need our SBR to protect them." He paused for a moment. "And Skybolt as well."
"Skybolt?" Stuart asked. "What has Skybolt got to do with it?"
"Skybolt is operational, General," Ann put in quickly. As Stuart's face went from surprised to skeptical, she hurried on: "It's working again, sir. I managed to repair it just as the Gorgon missile attack was beginning." She paused for a moment, then added, "And I shot down the second Soviet spaceplane with the laser."
"What?" Stuart turned on Saint-Michael, who was studying Ann before meeting his commander's surprised expression.
"I can't verify that, sir. I was in the command module during the attack, and all power had been lost. We were getting nailed by those spaceplanes — I couldn't tell if the sounds were from the MHD reactor or, from the Soviet missiles.
"Well, damn it, I showed a solid lock-on to one of the spaceplanes attacking us, and a solid data link between Skybolt and SBR," Ann said. "The Soviets reported losing one of their spaceplanes during the attack — doesn't that prove it works?"
"Not necessarily, " Stuart said. "The Soviets claim we shot one of the Thor missiles at the spaceplane… That was the provocation for their attack. They said nothing about the laser."
"That definitely is not true," Saint-Michael said. "All of the garaged Thor missiles were expended during the Gorgon missile attacks. Baker and Yemana detached only two Thors from the ten spares; one missed, the other was never fired. There are eight Thors still on board."
"And I tell you, sir, with respect, Skybolt works," Ann said. "It destroyed that spaceplane. I believe that the laser can protect Armstrong Station from spaceplane attack, and it can protect the Nimitz from any more of those AS-6 cruise-missile attacks too."
"Impossible. Shoot hundreds of miles through the atmosphere and destroy a cruise missile? You've only had one operational test of Skybolt, and until shown otherwise, it failed. Now you're saying it can protect a fleet of ships hundreds of miles away?" Stuart shook his head. "I know how committed you are to your project, Dr. Page, but a this sounds too far-fetched—"
"If the SBR can track it, Skybolt can hit it," Ann pressed. "With the laser guided by the SBR and the MHD running at full power, it has the power to shoot through a thousand miles of atmosphere and destroy its target. I don't believe an AS-6 is armored well enough to take a laser burst, even attenuated by the atmosphere."