In the Skybolt control module Ann shooed away sweat blobs, pulled her POS mask to her face and took several deep breaths of oxygen. She was lying on her back placing the securing camlocks back into a relay circuit. The top of the module had been caved in by the force of one missile during the first Soviet spaceplane attack, so the monitors and console that used to be overhead were now squashed almost to the deck. The module was frigid, the air so thin on account of leaks that she got dizzy if she forgot to take a few deep breaths of oxygen every few minutes.
She had an unsecured ten-thousand-volt wire hanging a few inches from her head, pieces of computer components taped and Velcroed everywhere. Relays, memory chips and power supplies designed for one circuit now had to handle three or four. But it was worth it… maybe. At least Skybolt was put back together. But would it work?
"Just finished. I'm ready for a test."
"Sorry, we're about to cross the horizon again. " A few moments later the fault indication cleared and reported itself normal. Ann, who had spent most of her time in the Skybolt control module since the station had been repaired, could only work on the relay circuitry between Skybolt and the SBR when the SBR was not being used to scan the Arabian Sea.
A few minutes later she entered the command module bringing three cups of coffee and a few pieces of hard cafirly, the only uncontaminated food still on the station. Saint-Michael and Horvath reached for the coffee. "How's it going back there?"
"Bad to maybe better. The Russians put a missile right through one of the SBR relays that controls the slaving system to the laser mirror. I'm patching the circuits through to another relay, but it's sort of like reinventing the wheel. I'm beginning to discover how much I don't know about all that electronic stuff back there. I'll need a system test when we go below the target horizon. "
"You got it." Saint-Michael rechecked the system readouts. "System self-test completed," he announced, clicking the ACKNOWLEDGE key on his computer terminal. He switched his comm link to TDRS. "Nimitz, this is Armstrong. Data transmission link-check good. How copy?"
"Ticonderoga acknowledges data self-test good," said the chief sensor technician aboard the Aegis command-and-control cruiser Ticonderoga. "Trying to get acknowledgment from Nimitz. Stand by."
A few moments passed. By matching longitudinal coordinates Saint-Michael was able to announce when they'd crossed the target horizon, and they watched with quiet satisfaction as Ticonderoga and Nimitz began hungrily feeding on SBR transmissions relayed to them from Silver Tower.
"Armstrong, this is Nimitz. Come in." Admiral Clancy's serious voice erased the smiles on the faces of Silver Tower's crews. "
Saint-Michael here, sir. Go ahead."
"Jason, Aerospace Defense Command has just relayed a message to us from defense intelligence. While you were on the back side of that last orbit the laser at Sary Shagan attacked our replacement satellite over the Indian Ocean. It's been destroyed. Kaput. No missile-launch-detection capability exists in this region."
Horvath looked to Saint-Michael. "What's it mean, Skipper?"
"It means it's their opening volley, just like last time," Saint-Michael said. "Their spaceplanes can now launch without being detected. We can expect them to show any time." Over the TDRS comm. link he said, "I copy, Admiral. Can you provide even limited launch warning over Asia?"
"Negative. We're stuck with either tactical reconnaissance or SBR. No deep-space capability. SPACETRACK or Pacific Radar Barrier in Diego Garcia may be able to pick them up, but the only reliable detection and tracking station close enough to help is either Pulmosan in South Korea or San Miguel in the Philippines." An ominous pause, then: "We can try to get you a link with San Miguel or Diego Garcia, but that won't do you any good. Face it, Jas. Time's run out. You're going to have to get your butts off that station."
Saint-Michael turned to Ann. "What do you say? Can Skybolt work? Is there a chance?"
"It's the SBR that's the sticking point, Jason. The error-trapping functions of the SBR weren't made for the Skybolt interface — I have to backtrack and find all those error points myself. I think I can do it but—"
"Don't hedge on me, Ann. Can it work or not?"
She hesitated, trying to separate reality from wishful thinking. "I don't know. I think I can trap all the errors, but it'll take time—"
He'd already pulled the microphone to his lips, and his words had the force of a missile all on their own: "Roger, Nimitz. We will begin evacuation immediately. Advise us of any problems with the SBR relay. Armstrong out." And he clicked off the comm link.
"We're evacuating?" Ann said.
"We've got no other choice."
"But all our work… We made this station operational again… "
"Ann, I can't forget those bodies back in the docking module. Those men died because I made the decision to stay after the first laser attack—"
"But you had a damned good reason—"
"Good, bad… they're dead. We've got the same situation happening all over again, only worse. This station is hanging on by putty and prayers. I'm risking lives every time we open the goddamned hatch… " He paused, touched her lightly on the shoulder. "Listen to me. Skybolt was our last hope, our big ace in the hole — and now… now you can't assure me we have that. We've got no choice… We probably have a few hours until their spaceplanes make it back up here. It'll give us some time to prepare… And we can still salvage Skybolt if you and Ken can disconnect it from the station. We can put the laser module in Enterprise's cargo bay and the control module in America's and boost them both up into a storage orbit."
Ann, miserable, nodded.
"I'll try to set up the SBR computers for automatic or remote-controlled operation," Saint-Michael said. "At least we'll be able to get a few more hours' work out of her before…before they completely destroy her."
As they turned to make final preparations none of them had any doubt that, this time, the destruction of Silver Tower was going to be final.
They did not have long.
Timing, flawless; execution, perfect. A nineteen-second, full-power, sustained chemical laser-burst from Sary Shagan had, indeed, obliterated the replacement launch-detection satellite over the Indian Ocean, first electronically blinding the satellite and then piercing a thruster fuel line, causing an explosion. The satellite's new errant death-spin had been easily detected by space-scanning radars at Tyuratam, and the message was relayed to Glowing Star that the satellite had been rendered inoperative.
Govorov and his two wingmen, Colonel Andrei Kozhedub in Elektron Two and Colonel Yuri Livyak in Elektron Three, were all aboard their spaceplanes during the laser attack, at the last planned countdown hold only ten minutes from launch. When they got word of the satellite's destruction the countdown was quickly resumed.
Once again Govorov was the first to launch, riding a column of kerosene and nitro-acid fire on top of his two-million-pound thrust SL-16 Krypkei booster. Separated by only thirty seconds, just long enough for Govorov's two-hundred thirty-foot-tall, five-hundred-fifty-ton Krypkei rocket to clear the launch tower, the other two SL-16s successfully lifted off, gaining on Govorov's rocket in a matter of seconds.
The triple rocket launches were first detected by seismic sensors at NATO intelligence sites in Pirinclik, Turkey, but without satellite launch detection the seismic reading told the U.S. Space Command nothing except that there had been a series of powerful explosions. The west-to-east flight path of the Soviet boosters, however, allowed the air force SPACETRACK long-range FPS-17 detection and FPS-79 tracking radars on the tiny island of Diego Garcia, over three thousand miles south of the launch site, to spot the boosters rising through the atmosphere. It was the SPACETRACK site that detected the booster's first-stage impact in Mongolia and the second-stage impact in the Pacific Ocean north of Japan. The booster's launch progress and orbital positions were updated from the Pacific Radar Barrier radars at San Miguel in the Philippines and then by the Air Force's south-facing sea-launched ballistic-missile tracking radars in Texas and Georgia.