"Come, come, General," coaxed Kostiashak. "You must learn to relax. Have you any idea what this can mean for us?… Cigarette?"
Popov eyed the KGB chieftain. The diminutive man's black hair was always combed straight back and never out of place, and his Indian-like features seemed to be perpetually hidden behind a veil of cigarette smoke. Cautiously, Popov extended a hand and took a Pall Mall from the solid gold cigarette case while the little man's other hand proffered a flame from a Dun-hill lighter. Popov accepted the light and inhaled deeply. The last month of his life had been sheer terror. In the dead of night, the fifty-nine-year-old Director of Spaceflite Operations had been roused from a peaceful sleep by a pair of goons in the green uniforms and flown by helicopter to the KGB Chairman's dacha on the Moskva River. Ever since then he'd been in the company of Kostiashak himself or one of his henchmen, making preparations for something he still could not believe. An engineer by nature and training, Popov feared the political side of Soviet life; and he was acutely aware of the fate of his predecessor. The late General Shenko had been a capable man.
To embark upon an exercise such as this was inconceivable to Popov. And to do it with such oppressive secrecy — even for a Russian — made it almost impossible. He had not seen his wife and son since he left them in the middle of the night a month ago. No doubt they thought he'd been arrested.
"When can we expect communication?" asked Vorontsky.
"That," replied Popov while scratching the ragged fringe of gray hair around his bald head, "is totally out of our hands, General Secretary."
The phone buzzed. Popov ripped the receiver off the cradle and yelled, "What?"
"Solid boosters have separated."
The flash from the explosive bolts caused Mulcahey to blink, then breathe a sigh of relief. On this, his fifth shuttle mission, it was still hard to foiget the Challenger. The image of its solid rocket booster corkscrewing into the external tank was an indelible memory for him, and he was grateful the Intrepid's spent projectiles were now tumbling toward the Pacific Ocean.
"Intrepid, this is Mission Control at CSOC." (The acronym, which stood for Consolidated Space Operations Center, was pronounced "See-Sock.") "We copy SRB separation."
"Roger, CSOC," replied Iceberg. "We have clean separation onSRBs."
After the Intrepid had cleared the gantry tower at Vandenberg Air Force Base, control of the mission immediately passed to the CSOC at Falcon Air Force Station outside Colorado Springs. The CSOC facility was almost identical to NASA's Mission Control room in Houston.
"Intrepid, this is CSOC, please advise on your status, over."
Iceberg ran his eyes over the gauges. "Going through Mach five, altitude twenty-eight miles. Main engines at ninety-eight percent of rated power."
The combination of orbiter and external tank hurtling through space made for an odd picture now — something akin to an airliner copulating with a barn silo. But even without its outrigger boosters, the Intrepid continued to accelerate, pushing Mulcahey back into his seat with a force of three g's — or three times his own weight. This would be the maximum g-force he would experience during the mission, and ordinarily three g's would be a piece of cake for the former test pilot. But on a shuttle launch the g-force was constant, unlike the short duration experienced in fighter-plane turns. The copilot's stubborn nature didn't want to admit it, but he was uncomfortable, and he'd be glad when they reached orbit. His brown eyes kept darting over the instruments. He felt that his fifth shuttle mission must be charmed, because everything was operating beautifully. The Iceberg said nothing. He never did unless speech was required.
At an altitude of eighty miles the orbiter's engines "gim-balled" again slightly, putting the spacecraft into an ever-so-shallow dive. The liquid fuel was almost expended now, and the big orange external tank had to be aimed on a trajectory back to the open sea; otherwise, pieces of it could fall back to earth, Lord only knew where. The tank was almost half the length of a football field, was twenty-seven feet wide, and weighed thirty-nine tons empty. It was simply too big to burn up completely on reentry, and so it had to be aimed at a remote comer of the Pacific where its charred remains would splash down harmlessly.
The computers gave the command for the main engines to shut down, and the orbiter and tank "coasted" together for another twenty seconds. Explosive bolts fired again, and the maneuvering thrusters were automatically triggered to steer the orbiter away from the separated spent tank. Once it was clear, Mulcahey watched Iceberg take manual control of the shuttle and put them into position for the orbital maneuvering system (OMS) rocket engines to fire. These were the smaller engines which allowed the spacecraft to change orbits and also provided the critical retrofire for their return to earth. The three astronauts experienced a slight jolt as the OMS rockets burned for forty seconds.
"Okay, Jerry. You can relax now. We coast for another forty-five minutes," Mulcahey said.
Rodriquez was well aware of the flight plan and knew the orbiter's systems better than Mulcahey. He even had one more shuttle flight under his belt than the copilot. His Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Cal Tech and seven years in training as a mission specialist made him eminently qualified for this particular mission.
The Intrepid was en route to the prototype platform of the Strategic Defense Initiative, which was circling the earth in a polar orbit of 430 miles at 83 degrees inclination. In forty-five minutes the Intrepid would fire its OMS rockets again to execute an orbit "insertion burn," which would place it in a roughly circular orbit 126 miles high. After all the flight systems were checked, another series of lift, insertion, and correction burns would be executed to place the Intrepid in rendezvous position with the platform, where its payload would be transferred — a very sensitive payload. So sensitive that nothing could go wrong with this particular mission. That was why Rodriquez, Mulcahey, and Iceberg had been selected. They were that good.
Actually, Iceberg hadn't been on the original manifest as flight commander. He was the backup. The primary slot had belonged to Jarrod McKenna, who was everybody's first choice. The squire of the astronaut corps, McKenna looked like a test pilot sent over from Central Casting. An all-American quarterback from Yale (of all places) and a Rhodes scholar, he passed up the chance to play pro football and instead joined the Air Force, where his career took off like an F-16. Promoted early to full colonel, he was truly the chosen of the chosen — an extraordinarily gifted pilot, a brilliant leader, physically attractive, and politically acceptable to everyone. He was a natural choice for this crucial journey. But four days prior to launch he had come down with a severe case of intestinal flu. He'd been in the cafeteria and doubled over right after breakfast. Rodriquez remembered it. Scared hell out of everyone. Paramedics called and everything. The doctors said he'd pull out of it in a week or so, but he was scrubbed for the mission. Rodriquez was disappointed. He'd rather have McKenna as the jockey instead of the Iceberg, but what did it matter — it would only be for a short time.
As soon as they reached the platform, Rodriquez would deploy the payload from the cargo bay with the remote manipulator arm and then transfer to the platform himself to oversee installation of the two Star Wars components. Two members of the platform crew would ride back down with the Intrepid, and that would be that.