Upon receipt of Pirdilenko's "activate" command, the ASAT missile deployed its two small Doppler-pulse radar dishes, and like a couple of electronic bird dogs, they began sniffing the ether for their quarry. When a signal bounced back, the microchip in the ASAT's brain rapidly computed distance, speed, time, and intercept vector to the Constellation. Then, at the precisely correct millisecond, the liquid-fuel engines ignited, and the missile roared off for its target in the lower orbital plane.
Lt. Keith Brunswick was bored. Bored to tears. The former collegiate football guard liked action, and there was certainly no action on this shift in SPADOC — where all he had to do was monitor the Hubble space telescope television transmission every forty-five minutes or so. The image of the torpedo-shaped "mystery satellite" on the TV monitor was the same time after time, and Brunswick didn't even know what he was supposed to look for. "Just keep an eye on it and holler if it does anything suspicious" was what he'd been told. Brother, how do you know if a satellite looks suspicious? What a bunch of crap, he thought.
Impatiently, Brunswick drummed his fingers on the console, then once again looked at the empty television monitor and the digital chronometer. It was about time for another pass but the mystery satellite hadn't appeared on the screen yet. Because he didn't have anything else to do, Brunswick started eavesdropping on the major in the monitor slot on his left. The major's call sign was Rabbit's Nest — and he was the officer who controlled the Spyglass observation aircraft cruising over the Arctic ice cap. Brunswick knew that Spyglass was supposed to photograph the Intrepid-Constellation rendezvous, but there had been a glitch on the Constellation's launch, so the rendezvous wouldn't take place for another couple of orbits. Nevertheless, Rabbit's Nest was lining Spyglass up to take a practice shot on the Constellation now, just to test out the systems.
A test pattern picture from the high-flying 767 Spyglass was relayed to SPADOC via the RealTime communications satellite, and it was being projected on the big center screen. The Constellation hadn't appeared yet, but it was due any second now. From Brunswick's vantage point, he couldn't see the big center projection screen in SPADOC very well. It was like sitting in the front row of a movie theater. But he was curious. So he started leaning over to look at the major's television screen to get a better view of the Spyglass picture — and in the process he began to ignore his own monitor. He watched the major's TV for some seconds, waiting for something to appear. Then all of a sudden, bingo! There it was, the Constellation, making a nice picture on the small monitor. Gee, that was neat, thought Brunswick. The major punched some buttons, and the test pattern on the large center projection screen was replaced with the image of the winged orbiter.
Brunswick felt a tap on his shoulder. "Say, Keith?"
He turned to face the lieutenant who sat at the neighboring monitor station on his right. "Yeah?"
"Did you see that?" asked the lieutenant.
"See what?" replied Brunswick.
"That flash," said the lieutenant, pointing at Brunswick's monitor.
Brunswick trembled. "What flash?" he asked nervously.
"That satellite you've been watching. I happened to see it just as it came up on your screen. There was a flash and it disappeared."
Brunswick's heart skipped a beat. His monitor screen was completely blank now. Oh Lord! he thought. I missed it! "You say there was a flash?" "Yeah. A bright flash and then it was gone. I think the engines must have fired."
Engines! Oh, dear God, no.
Up in the Crow's Nest the CinC's phone buzzed. He picked it up and said, "Whittenberg."
"General!" cried Brunswick. "Station Nine here! It looks like that satellite we've been tracking with the Hubble telescope just fired its engines!"
Whittenberg's entire body gave an involuntary jerk. "When?"
"Just now, sir. There was a flash and it disappeared."
Whittenberg looked at the ground tracks of the two American shuttles and the Russian mystery satellite that were projected on the left screen. They were all converging over the polar ice cap. He grabbed the phone that was a direct line to CSOC.
Chester McCormack was standing over the Cap Com when the console phone from SPADOC buzzed. He picked it up and said, "CSOC."
"Chet!" yelled Whittenberg. "We just had a visual on that unknown satellite! It just fired its engines… I think it's an ASAT!"
McCormack's spine vibrated. He shoved the Cap Com out of the way, grabbed the console microphone, and slammed down the transmit button. "Phil! Jack! Get outta there! An ASAT is coming at you!"
Heitmann and Townsend looked at each other. Each man's face betrayed his own stark terror. "Say again, CSOC!" demanded Heitmann. "I said an ASAT's coming at you! Boost your orbit, lower your orbit, I don't give a damn, but get the hell out of there! Now!"
Heitmann needed no more coaxing. He grabbed the hand controller and pivoted the Constellation into position for an orbit boost.
"Hit the OMS!" he ordered, and Townsend mashed the red firing button.
The engines responded, but it was already too late.
An impulse from the ASAT's microchip brain ran through the satellite's circuitry, triggering the explosive bolts that held the protective launch shroud in place. As the aerodynamic cover peeled off, the missile's ceramic warhead became exposed and glistened in the sunlight. A moment later another impulse was transmitted, and the warhead's plastique explosive base was detonated — blasting the ceramic container apart, and spitting out the pellets in a scatter pattern three kilometers wide.
The Constellation and the spaceborne buckshot approached each other at a mutual closing velocity of nine miles per second, so it didn't take long for their paths to cross — they met almost at the very moment Townsend engaged the OMS engines.
The first steel pellet slammed into the Constellation's nose with the kinetic energy of a three-inch artillery shell, cleaving the spacecraft's snout in two and venting the flight deck to the hostile vacuum of space. The destruction of their spaceborne chariot was so violent and quick that the three astronauts never truly comprehended what hit them. The initial shock wave mercifully whiplashed them into unconsciousness before their bodies were ripped apart by the pressure imbalance.
The second ASAT projectile passed cleanly through the left wing, doing litde more than punching a hole through its delicate skin. But the third steel ball smashed into the midsection of the shutde's soft underbelly, rupturing the liquid hydrogen and oxygen tanks that supplied the on-board fuel cells. The resulting secondary explosion immolated the Constellation, blasting the fragile spacecraft into a billion shards of aluminum, silica, and plastic — and scattering its remains across the black sky, like funereal ashes on the sea.
"Jesus!"