His servos whining softly, Patrick stood up and stalked over to the screen. “You’re all forgetting just who you’re dealing with,” he said forcefully. “Gennadiy Gryzlov doesn’t give a damn about space commerce. He’s focused on one thing and one thing only: achieving global domination through overwhelming military superiority.”
“Relying so heavily on perceived motivations can be a risky exercise, General,” Elizabeth Hildebrand said carefully. “In the long run, it’s usually wiser to assess an opponent’s capabilities and go from there.”
“Sure. And that’s the other thing you’re missing,” Patrick said. He waved an exoskeleton-cradled hand at satellite photos on the screen. “Everyone’s fixated on the rockets waiting out on those launchpads. But those rockets don’t matter a damn. Not in the end. They’re just transportation. Their primary purpose is moving payload from the earth’s surface into orbit.” His expression was bleak. “Payload is what counts. And right now it sure as hell looks like Gryzlov is poised and ready to put four-hundred-plus tons of payload into low Earth orbit… all in only days or maybe even just hours.”
Farrell saw Lawrence Dawson’s eyes widen in amazement. “Four hundred tons of payload capacity,” the science adviser mused slowly. “That is extraordinary. It required roughly that much mass to build the old International Space Station.”
His observation drew low whistles of dismay from around the long table. It had taken dozens of separate rocket and space shuttle launches over more than a decade to assemble the ISS. Learning that the Russians might be able to replicate that grueling feat in a matter of days was sobering, to say the least.
Farrell felt cold suddenly. He turned to Patrick. “Isn’t that also about the same size as our old Armstrong military space station, the Silver Tower, General?”
Steadily, Patrick looked back at him. “Yes, sir. It is.” He shook his head. “And that’s what has me scared.”
For more than sixty years, the silence of the desert steppe around Baikonur had been broken periodically by the crackling roar of powerful rockets as they soared toward space — or by shattering explosions when launches failed. Built by the Soviet government at enormous expense and amid tight security, the huge Baikonur complex was a sprawling labyrinth of nine separate launch complexes, two airfields, and dozens of buildings dedicated to vehicle assembly and cryogenic fuels production. A network of five-foot-gauge industrial railroad tracks tied all these facilities together.
Seen from above, the soil around Baikonur was a colored patchwork of browns, off-whites, rusts, and pale ghostly blues. Toxic chemicals draining from thousands of spent rocket stages had stained them forever. Sunlight glittered off mounds of contaminated scrap metal.
Looking down from the twin-engine Mi-8 helicopter ferrying his six-man Mars One crew north from Krayniy Airport, Colonel Vadim Strelkov supposed he should see some bitter irony in the desolation wrought here by man’s efforts to escape the very planet that had given birth to humanity. As it was, he only felt impatient to arrive at their destination. They were heading for Baikonur pad LC-1, called “Gagarin’s Start” because Yuri Gagarin’s historic first manned space flight had lifted off from there sixty years before.
Leave irony to the poets, he thought. They had time to waste on nonessentials. He had none.
Strelkov and his five crewmen were traveling under false identities. Their papers and passports identified them as “technical observers” from Roscosmos, Russia’s civilian space agency. As far as the cosmodrome’s Kazakh landlords were concerned, they were here solely to monitor the first test flight of the new Federation orbiter. By the time they learned otherwise, it would be too late. Strelkov and his cosmonauts would be safely in space, far beyond the reach of any earthbound authority.
Or dead, he reminded himself coldly.
True, the Federation spacecraft was a beautifully designed machine. But like any highly complex device, the orbiter depended on the perfect functioning of tens of thousands of interconnected mechanical parts and electronic systems. If too many of them failed under the stress of launch or on exposure to the hostile environment of space, what had been a working spacecraft would instead become one of humanity’s most expensive coffins.
Following in Gagarin’s footsteps, Russian cosmonauts had developed a host of elaborate superstitious traditions to allay their fears — doing everything from planting trees and signing hotel doors to taking a piss against the back tires of the bus that brought them to the launch site. Unfortunately, Strelkov and his crew could not take solace in those customary protections against accident or bad luck before their own lift-off. The need to keep their mission secret was paramount, outweighing everything else. They would have to fly naked before the Fates.
With effort, the colonel pushed aside these sudden gloomy thoughts. One side of his taut face twitched in a crooked smile. What would be would be. Perhaps not quite as the Allah of the Arabs willed, but just as certainly as decreed by Gennadiy Gryzlov of the Russians.
Where it counted, he knew Colonel General Leonov shared his private concerns about this sudden rush to make the Mars Project operational ahead of schedule. Ultimately, though, none of that mattered. Both of them were patriots and dedicated soldiers. So both of them would obey their orders — no matter what the cost.
Through his headphones Strelkov heard the copilot conversing with Baikonur ground security, exchanging code letters gleaned from a codebook that was updated daily. When the interchange ended, the copilot reported on intercom, “Pad LC-1 in sight, Colonel. We have been cleared for approach.”
Intently, Strelkov peered forward through the cockpit windscreen. There, only a few kilometers off, he could see the Soyuz-5 rocket that would carry them into orbit — a slender, sixty-meter-high spire of gray, orange, and white gleaming brightly under the harsh desert sun. For now, it was restrained in a web of gantries, fueling towers, and other support structures.
Closing fast, the helicopter veered away from the launchpad itself. Instead, it headed toward a nearby collection of buildings and settled lower in a swirling cloud of rotor-blown dust and sand. Through the sudden haze, the colonel could make out several small trailers nestled in among a grove of scraggly trees. Those trailers would serve as their temporary quarters during the last remaining hours before launch, he realized. Their support team from Star City should already be inside, checking over both the Sokol pressure suits they would wear during the ride into orbit and the bulkier Orlan-MK suits they would use during EVAs outside Mars One.
Gratefully, Strelkov felt his nerves beginning to settle. Perhaps it was time to discard old superstitions and old ways of doing things, he realized. Like Yuri Gagarin, he and his men were pioneers. But unlike Gagarin, if they were successful, their mission would forever alter the balance of power between the United States and Russia.
Fourteen
“Poyekhali! Here goes!” Major Alexei Rykov downed his shot of vodka in one gulp and then rapped the empty glass on the scarred wooden surface of the bar. “Another, please.”
The bartender chuckled. “Please? You say please?” He shook his head and poured another shot into Rykov’s glass. “Man, you must not be drunk enough yet.”
“Not yet,” the Sukhoi-27 fighter pilot agreed with a short, sharp laugh of his own. “But I will get there.” He turned to the younger man next to him. “Won’t I, Sergei?”