Pavel Anikeyev, his second in command, cleared his throat apologetically. “I’m afraid we do have one more problem, sir.”
Briefly, Strelkov closed his eyes in frustration. Then he reopened them with a crooked smile. “Only one, Pavel? I should kiss you,” he said sardonically. The other cosmonauts laughed.
“Without power from the lost fusion reactor, the station’s advanced ion thrusters are useless,” Anikeyev pointed out.
“Shit,” Strelkov muttered. Somehow he’d missed that fact in the frantic rush to figure out work-arounds for their energy weapons and bring Mars One’s systems online after they boarded. But his deputy was right. And without those ion thrusters, their four-hundred-ton station’s ability to maneuver in orbit would be severely limited. Whether compensating for the recoil generated by the plasma rail gun or fighting atmospheric drag, they would be forced to rely solely on the conventional rocket engines and thrusters of the two docked cargo modules and their own Federation orbiter. Until the replacement fusion reactor promised by Colonel General Leonov was docked with Mars One and functioning, they were far more vulnerable to an American attack than originally anticipated.
Nineteen
Through the spaceplane’s forward cockpit windows, Brad McLanahan could see a black sky stretching above them toward infinity. Stars, visible as hard bright pinpoints of light, were strewn across the blackness in all directions. The sheer beauty of it would have robbed him of breath if the G-forces they were pulling hadn’t already accomplished that.
“Passing through… sixty-four miles,” Boomer grunted from the left-hand pilot’s seat. “Good ignition on the Leopards in rocket mode… speed fourteen thousand miles per hour and increasing.” As he followed the steering cues on his heads-up display, his gloved hand nudged the sidestick controller forward a tiny bit. The nozzles of the four LPDRS engines gimbaled slightly, adjusting the direction of thrust. The S-19’s nose dipped in response, until the spaceplane had almost completely leveled off.
Now the rounded curve of the world was distinctly visible — with a sharp blue band along the horizon marking the division between sky and space. They were just above the Kármán line, past the point where the increasingly tenuous upper atmosphere could provide any aerodynamic lift. Staying aloft now required attaining orbital velocity, the speed at which their forward motion would equal the acceleration of gravity pulling them downward.
“Altitude seventy-two miles. Speed now… seventeen thousand miles per hour and still climbing,” Boomer said, pushing the words out against the four Gs pressing them back into their seats. “Engine cutoff coming up in five seconds… four… two… one. Shutdown.”
Brad felt the sensation of enormous, overwhelming pressure gripping his body suddenly disappear. Even with the straps holding him tight in the seat, he experienced an eerie floating sensation. With a mental effort, he focused on not feeling queasy. It always took him a little time to acclimate to zero-G.
“Good burn,” Boomer reported.
Brad checked the navigation and velocity data shown on his own multifunction display and nodded. “I confirm that. We’re in the planned parking orbit.”
Their S-19 Midnight was far out over the South Pacific, flying northeast along the same relative orbital track as the slower-moving Russian space station still several hundred miles ahead of and above them. Since the velocities necessary to stay in orbit decreased with altitude, if nothing else changed they would catch up with and pass far below Mars One in approximately one hour.
With a grin, Brad turned his helmeted head toward Boomer. “Hey, are we there yet? Huh? Huh? Are we?”
Boomer chuckled. “Ask me that one more time, kid, and I swear to God, I’ll stop this thing and dump you out into the cold hard vacuum of space.”
This had already been a long mission. Since taking off from Battle Mountain more than five hours ago, they’d flown a little over five thousand miles south-southeast out over the Pacific at Mach 2—slowing down a couple of times along the way to top up with JP-8 from Sky Masters — owned 767 aerial tankers. When they arrived at a precisely calculated mid-ocean point between New Zealand to the west and central Chile to the east, Boomer had executed a sharp turn back to the northeast. Then the instant they were on a course mirroring the Russian orbital track, he’d punched it — sending the spaceplane streaking spaceward at full power.
“Radar contact at twelve o’clock high. Range is three miles and closing,” the S-19’s computer reported. “Contact is an S-29 Shadow.”
“Right on schedule,” Brad said with satisfaction. “Man, I love it when a crazy-ass plan actually comes together.” Reaching out, he punched in commands on his display and locked the contact into their navigation program. Instantly, the necessary steering cues appeared on Boomer’s HUD.
“We’re a little off to port and a scooch low,” Boomer remarked with a slight smile of his own. “Not too shabby after traveling practically a bazillion miles like a bat out of hell.” He locked out the sidestick controller and throttles for their main engines, and then pulled down what looked like a video game controller with two small knobs. “Thruster controls online.” Gingerly, he tweaked the knobs. In response, hydrazine maneuvering thrusters fired in sequence, pushing them to the right and higher.
As they closed in from below, they could see the other spaceplane grow from just a small black dot lit up by the sun to a blended-wing craft identical to their own, except larger and with a fifth engine mounted atop the fuselage. Relative to them, the S-29 was upside down and backward, flying tail first at more than seventeen thousand five hundred miles per hour. Its cargo bay doors were open, revealing two large silver-colored fuel tanks tightly slotted inside.
Brad keyed his mike. “Shadow Two-One, this is Midnight Zero-One. We have good visual contact. Welcome to space!”
Through his headset, he heard Nadia’s amused-sounding voice. “That was supposed to be my line, Midnight Zero-One. After all, we were here first!”
Well, Brad thought, that was true, though only by a few minutes. The S-29 piloted by Peter Vasey, with Nadia as mission commander, had kept them company for most of the long trip to the South Pacific before flying on ahead to make its own climb to this extremely low orbit.
“Fair enough, Shadow Two-One,” he allowed. “Stand by. We’re moving into precontact position now.”
Carefully, using tiny bursts from the S-19’s maneuvering thrusters, Boomer brought their spaceplane into position slightly below and behind its larger companion. The indicators on his HUD flashed green. “In precontact position, Two-One,” he radioed. He flipped a switch to open the slipway doors above and behind the cockpit. “Ready to proceed. ‘Bomb’ first, please.”
“Roger, Zero-One,” Nadia replied. “We show you stabilized precontact. We are ready with ‘bomb.’ You are cleared into contact position.”
Boomer glanced at Brad with a quick smile. “Now we find out if this cockamamie idea of yours will work.”
“Hey, you’re the one who did the math,” Brad retorted virtuously. “I’m just the big-picture guy here.” Ostentatiously, he folded his arms. “If we blow up, it’s not my fault.”
“Well, that’ll be a comfort, no doubt,” Boomer said dryly. “Shadow Two-One, Midnight is moving into contact position now,” he said into his mike. His hands made small, precise movements on the thruster controls. Slowly, with infinite care, the S-19 slid closer to the larger spaceplane… drifting higher to within a few yards of its open cargo bay doors.