Impatiently, Gryzlov waved his hand again. The disturbing images from Battle Mountain’s airport vanished from the screen. Then he shoved back his chair and stalked over to stare out across the Kremlin’s rooftops and onion-domed towers. Without looking away, he demanded, “What do we know of Farrell’s goals, Mikhail? What is this American really up to? Is he reactivating these spaceplanes to regain military superiority in orbit?”
“I do not believe so,” Leonov said cautiously. “So far, the evidence indicates the new U.S. space program will be primarily scientific and commercial in nature.”
Gryzlov turned his head. “In what way?”
“Besides a series of routine test flights to make sure the spaceplanes are safe for operational use, the Americans have only announced plans to practice orbital rendezvous with payloads lofted by heavy-lift cargo rockets like the SpaceX Falcon Heavy and its competitors,” Leonov explained. “This tells me they view these spaceplanes largely as crew transports — ferrying astronauts and scientists to a talked-about new civilian space station or to spacecraft assembled in orbit for possible exploratory missions to the moon or even Mars.”
“Only idiots would consider turning a revolutionary technology into a glorified bus service,” Gryzlov scoffed. Then his gaze sharpened. “Which is why you should remember that Sky Masters has a long history of providing deadly weapons to our enemies around the world. And now you want me to believe its intentions are purely peaceful?” He shook his head. “I do not believe the leopard has changed its spots so completely.”
“There is speculation that Sky Masters is seeking funding to develop an even more advanced follow-on spaceplane, tentatively dubbed the XS-39,” Leonov admitted. “Rumors suggest it might be designed to carry weapons for use against targets on the ground… and in space.”
“You see?” Gryzlov said cynically. His mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. “Which is all the more reason to press our advantage now — before the Americans realize what is happening. Correct?” Slowly, Leonov nodded. “Then you do your damnedest to make sure the Mars Project moves ahead as planned, Colonel General Leonov,” Gryzlov told him coldly. “I don’t want any excuses. I don’t want to hear any bullshit about unavoidable technical delays. You tell your scientists and engineers and production chiefs that their lives are on the line this time. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Leonov agreed. He rose to go.
“And one more thing, Mikhail,” Gryzlov continued, more quietly now.
“Gennadiy?”
“Friend and old comrade-in-arms or not, your own life is on the line, too,” Gryzlov said.
Leonov nodded somberly. “That is something I have never doubted for one moment, Mr. President.”
Six
At nearly sixty thousand feet above the surface of the ocean, the view through the S-29 Shadow’s forward cockpit canopy was spectacular. Seen from this altitude, the earth’s curvature was obvious. The horizon fell away visibly on either side of the spaceplane’s direction of flight. And while the sky was still a deep, rich blue along the edge of that distant horizon, higher up it thinned to paler and paler shades of the same color before fading away entirely into the infinite blackness of space.
“Coming up on Mach three,” Peter “Constable” Vasey said, speaking through the open visor of his pressure helmet. The Englishman’s gloved left hand held the sidestick controller, while his right rested on the bank of engine throttles set in the center console between the spaceplane’s two forward seats. “Stand by for transition to scramjet mode.”
“Affirmative. Standing by,” Major Nadia Rozek replied from the right-hand mission commander’s seat. “All engine readouts are nominal.” Like the pilot, she wore an orange Advanced Crew Escape Suit, or ACES — a full-pressure suit similar to those once used by space shuttle astronauts and SR-71 Blackbird crews. Even after all these weeks of training, she was still astonished at how casually she now accepted the ease with which this marvelous machine attained these kinds of speeds. Their S-29 was already racing east toward the distant Pacific coast at nearly two thousand miles per hour and still accelerating rapidly.
“Mach three.” Vasey had his light blue eyes fixed on his heads-up display. “Go for scramjet transition.” His gloved right hand slowly advanced the throttles.
The pitch of the roar from their five powerful engines — two under each wing and one atop the aft fuselage — audibly changed.
Nadia saw the curves on her engine displays changing. “Spiking initiated,” she reported. The large cone or “spike” in each engine’s inlet was moving forward — diverting the air entering at supersonic speeds away from their turbine fans and into ducts where it could be compressed, mixed with jet fuel, and then ignited. Freed from the need to rely on any moving parts, their transformed engines could now push them up to around Mach 15, nearly ten thousand miles per hour.
Gently, Vasey pulled back on the stick. The S-29’s nose pitched up at around twelve degrees and they soared skyward. Their angle of ascent grew steeper as their speed climbed. “Mach four. Approaching Mach five.”
Pressed back into her seat, Nadia saw the sky ahead of them grow blacker. They were heading toward space, she thought exultantly — on their way into low Earth orbit for the first time.
Suddenly the S-29 Shadow lurched sharply, falling off to the right. They were thrown hard against their seat harnesses.
In that same moment, one of the readouts on Nadia’s multifunction display flashed red. “Emergency shutdown on number four engine,” she said tersely. Without waiting, she tapped an icon. “Shutting down number one engine to compensate.” At these speeds, there was no way any control surface could possibly cope with the imbalanced thrust generated by having only one working engine under their starboard wing.
“Roger that.” Gritting his teeth, Vasey tweaked his stick just a hair back to the left, struggling to keep their nearly hypersonic spaceplane out of a catastrophic spin. When flying at nearly three thousand knots, overcorrecting was almost as dangerous as undercorrecting. Responding to his slight touch, the S-29 rolled a few degrees back to the left, straightening out.
He risked a sidelong glance at Nadia. “Wake the lazy buggers for me, will you, Major?”
“Going for simultaneous engine restart,” she acknowledged. Quick control inputs reconfigured the two idled engines so that neither could fire up without the other. Satisfied by what she saw, Nadia tapped another icon. Nothing. The system function lights for both engines remained obstinately red. “Gówno,” she muttered in frustration. “Crap. No joy on the restart, Constable.”
“Understood.” Vasey spoke more formally. “Sky Masters Control, this is Shadow Two. Declaring a mission abort. Returning to Battle Mountain.”
“Shadow Two, this is Control. Abort declaration acknowledged,” Nadia heard Brad’s voice say. For this flight, he was acting as CAPCOM, their intermediary with the Sky Masters engineers and other specialists monitoring this spaceplane flight from the ground. She sighed inside. With only three working engines, there was no way they could reach orbit — even after transitioning to full rocket power.
Gradually, Vasey lowered the S-29’s nose, leveling off at a hundred and twenty thousand feet while he eased back on the throttles. The big spaceplane slowly decelerated. After a couple of minutes, he announced, “Dropping below Mach three.”
The low, rumbling roar reaching them from outside the cockpit altered a bit, becoming slightly higher-pitched.