Although it did not take long for the three spaceplanes to reach Armstrong station's orbit altitude, the tail chase to intercept the station would take two complete orbits, over three hours, to move within a few hundred miles of the station.
With the third-stage booster still attached to each spaceplane, Govorov ordered the thrust-power setting and carefully monitored the intercept using tracking signals from ground- and satellite-based space tracking systems. He needed to strike a balance between using up fuel in a fast tail chase and wasting precious time and oxygen on a lengthy chase.
He made up his mind to be patient this time. Everything — his life, his career, the success of Operation Feather — depended on his not making another mistake. The time to hurry would be when the intercept was made and the final attack on the Americans' space station began…
Govorov was ending his first orbit of the Earth, closing the gap between himself and Armstrong when another spectacular multiple launch took place in south-central Russia.
Once every ten seconds a tongue of flame would erupt from a rugged mountain valley south of Tashkent. Boosted by a solid rocket motor, a GL-25 Distant Death ground-launched cruise missile would leap off its railcar-mounted launcher into the dark skies. Resembling a small jet fighter, with a long cylindrical fuselage, swept wings and cruciform tail section, each GL-25 launched amid a peal of thunder that echoed off the steep granite walls of the surrounding mountains.
The rocket motors accelerated the missile to five hundred kilometers per hour, then detached from the fuselage and fell away into the desolate Zeravsanskij Mountains north of Afghanistan. Air inlets along the sides of the fuselage popped open and the missile's ramjet engine automatically started. With the ramjets at full power the GL-25 missiles quickly accelerated, and using their inertial navigation system and taking position update terrain-comparison snapshots of the terrain below, they sped southward, hugging the earth less than three hundred meters above ground. Traveling eight hundred kilometers per hour, the missiles crossed into Afghanistan and steered toward their preprogrammed target-acquisition initial points over twenty-eight hundred kilometers away. After reaching their initial points three-and-a-half hours later they would activate their terminal radar-homing sensors, then for the last two hundred kilometers of their flight seek their individual targets, the nineteen auxiliary vessels and escorts surrounding the Nimitz.
In the rugged mountains there were no radars powerful enough to spot the fast-moving, ground-hugging missiles. The shepherds and farmers and the scattering of people living in the wild middle-eastern coastal mountains were accustomed to the ear-shattering sounds of Soviet military aircraft passing overhead and ignored the almost continual rocket booms. Now, unheeded, the roar of the GL-25s' ramjet engines echoed up and down the lonely mountain walls as the deadly missiles sped toward their targets.
Two hours later Ann's breathing had become shallow and slow as her prebreathing stint was nearing completion. She was in the command module helping to monitor the progress of the SBR computer reprogramming. The few remaining computers had to be taught to steer the space station to achieve the best SBR presentation, so that in turn the comm link between Silver Tower and various military and civilian experts on the ground could provide help for the crewmen.
But her duty would be much more difficult. While prebreathing in preparation for putting on her spacesuit she had studied diagrams of the attachment points of her Skybolt module, tracing the mechanical, electrical and pyrotechnic separation mechanisms. She'd also studied the status readouts in the Skybolt control modules to be sure she had the right indications. The last thing she wanted was to damage the laser or its control module, trying to detach it. What she'd told General Stuart about the dangers of handling the nuclear particle-generating components of Skybolt was a bit overstated, but not by very much. Her job was to preserve Skybolt by parking it in orbit without damaging it so badly it had no potential at sometime in the future.
Saint-Michael had been expecting a briefing from her before she began her EVA, so she waited now until he turned from the computer terminal. "Ready to detach?" he asked. She nodded glumly. "Okay, one thing. We save Skybolt only if there's time. If Govorov's spaceplanes launched within minutes of that laser firing we may not have time to load the module into Enterprise. You'll have to move fast…"
She got the message — no time for any last nostalgic tours of the module. She detached herself from the strip of Velcro she'd anchored herself to, moved up to the control board mounted on the ceiling and—
Suddenly she found herself propelled to the far end of the command module as a terrific explosion rocked the station. "What the hell was that?" She pushed herself away from the bulkhead, reattached her sneakers to the Velcro deck, wiped a trickle of blood from her nose.
Saint-Michael had no time to answer as another explosion tore through Silver Tower, and a warning light illuminated over the hatch leading to the connecting tunnel. "Low pressure in the connecting tunnel," Saint-Michael read out. The station now seemed to be sliding sideways, skidding like a truck out of control on an icy highway. Fighting acute vertigo, he made his way to his communications console, attached his microphone to the clip inside his POS mask, pulled the facemask over his head and keyed the intercom button: "All personnel. Evacuate the station. Now." He unplugged his POS walk-around pack from the station's oxygen supply. "Ann, let's go…"
Another explosion — it felt as though it was right over their heads — sent both of them to the deck.
She maneuvered her way back toward the main hatch, passed the ceiling-mounted module jettison control, reached up and closed and locked its safety cover, then hurried through the hatch and into the connecting tunnel.
Saint-Michael saw her go through the hatch and keyed his microphone. "America. Jon. Ann's coming through. Help her…"
A fourth sharp explosion sounded through the station, followed by the screech of tearing and twisting metal. Now both pressurization and fire-warning lights were blinking in the connecting tunnel. Saint-Michael was thrown head-over-heels half the length of the command module, finally entangled on some jury-rigged consoles and bundles of wiring that had broken free of their temporary mountings. He managed to pull himself upright and start for the hatch when he glanced out through the observation port — midway along the outward-facing side of the command module.
What he saw made his heart sink. America was drifting aimlessly hundreds of yards from the station, its fuselage ripped open as if a huge scaling knife had sliced into it. Waves of fire gushed out of the gaping wound as the spaceplane's hydrogen and oxygen fuels ignited and hungrily fed on each other. "Oh, God…" Saint-Michael was less awed by the fire and demise of the spaceplane than the thought that there were people inside, including Ann, if she'd made it to the plane before it separated from the docking adapter…
Then he heard it, the sound of her voice coming over the microphone: "Jason… you okay?"
"Where are you?" he managed to get out.
"In Skybolt. You seen Marty?"