“At which point, it might be too late!”
“So long as Colonel Strelkov and his cosmonauts remain vigilant, no space weapon in the current American arsenal poses a serious threat to Mars One,” Leonov said. “This will be even more true once our new reactor is connected and running.”
“No weapon that we know of now,” Gryzlov said sourly. “We have been surprised before… and never pleasantly.” His expression turned murderous. “It may be time to end any possible threat from Sky Masters once and for all.”
Leonov looked surprised. “By what means?”
Gryzlov shrugged. “Two or three of our Rapira hypersonic missiles fired from orbit at Battle Mountain should do the job. Those spaceplanes won’t be any threat if they’re blown to smithereens.”
He hid a smile at the looks of horror triggered by this seemingly offhand suggestion. From their expressions, he might as well have suggested bombing the White House or Buckingham Palace.
“I would strongly recommend against such a move,” Daria Titeneva said carefully. “So far, our military operations have been confined to space, in a limited war that we are winning with ease. Suddenly attacking a crucial target inside the continental United States itself could easily provoke a massive escalation in this conflict — one that might lead to uncontrolled nuclear war.”
Leonov nodded. “The foreign minister is right, Mr. President,” he argued. “And with only one Mars-class station in orbit, we do not yet have the ability to intercept a significant retaliatory strike launched by their ballistic-missile submarines. Later, once we’ve put additional platforms into space, we will have more options. But for now, the game is not worth the candle.”
Caution, caution, always caution, Gryzlov thought caustically. Though in this case, he realized, Leonov and Titeneva’s advice was probably sensible. Tempting though it was, an orbital missile strike against Sky Masters now might frighten even Farrell into believing he faced the nightmare scenario of all nuclear war planners — the moment where you either had to launch your missiles or risk losing them to an unstoppable enemy attack.
No, he decided, it was better to stretch out the pretense that Russia had only limited aims in this conflict — control over low Earth orbit — for as long as possible. And if Sky Masters actually launched another attack on Mars One using its spaceplanes? Then all bets would be off… and destroying Battle Mountain from orbit would be a justifiable act of war.
“Very well,” Gryzlov said curtly. “We’ll hold off for the moment.” He motioned for Leonov to continue. “What else do you have to report, Mikhail?”
“Our satellites have spotted increased activity at the U.S. Air Force space launch complex at Vandenberg,” Leonov told him. “My analysts believe the Americans are preparing one of their Delta IV Heavy rockets for lift-off sometime soon. They might be planning to send up replacements for some of the satellites we’ve already destroyed.”
Gryzlov smiled thinly. “Which would be futile.”
Leonov nodded. “Sooner or later, the orbits of those new satellites would bring them within firing range of Mars One. The Americans might regain some limited reconnaissance capability for a few days, but only at great cost.”
That much was true, Gryzlov knew. By itself, launching a single Delta IV Heavy cost several hundred million dollars. Add in the cost of the satellites it carried, and the final price tag would soar into the billions. Not even the Americans could afford to be so profligate forever. Besides, even if they were prepared to throw away that much money for so little purpose, the simple reality was they would run out of replacement spy satellites very soon. Sophisticated spacecraft like the Topaz radar and KH-11 photoreconnaissance satellites could not be mass-produced. Building them required months and often years of painstaking precision work.
With Mars One already circling the world every ninety-seven minutes, poised to shoot down anything headed beyond the atmosphere, this was a space race the United States could not possibly win.
Already, the effects of Russia’s surprise offensive actions in orbit were spreading fast, far beyond the purely military sphere. Previously scheduled commercial rocket launches from Kennedy Space Center and the European Space Agency’s French Guiana launch site had been delayed indefinitely. There were signs of panic in Western stock exchanges as investors and economists tried frantically to calculate the possible repercussions of Russian control over outer space. The same thing was happening in the Asian markets — despite Gryzlov’s public promises to People’s Republic of China president Zhou Qiang that Mars One’s weapons were not a threat to the PRC’s own spacecraft and satellites.
Gryzlov smiled cynically. It seemed that Chinese investors were a better judge of his own trustworthiness than their leaders. Then again, what could Beijing’s rulers do, even if they suspected Moscow had no real intention of honoring its commitments in the long run? Once someone had a knife at your throat, it was already too late.
He looked across the table at Gregor Sokolov, the minister of defense. “Well, Gregor? Are the Americans making any threatening new military moves?”
“Their conventional and nuclear forces remain on a heightened state of alert, the one they call DEFCON Three,” Sokolov said. “But this level has not increased significantly in the past forty-eight hours.”
“Except that virtually all U.S. ballistic-missile submarines are now at sea,” Leonov said dryly.
Gryzlov shrugged his shoulders. “That’s merely a political move, a small gesture of defiance by Farrell. Ultimately, it changes nothing.” He turned back to Sokolov. “Is that it?”
“Most American air, ground, and naval forces remain at their normal peacetime stations,” Sokolov replied slowly. He hesitated for a moment — plainly reluctant to go on. “With one possible exception.”
Gryzlov frowned. “Which is?”
“Approximately twenty-four hours ago, the U.S. Navy’s Ronald Reagan carrier strike group, which had been conducting previously scheduled training exercises in the Western Pacific, off the Taiwanese coast, suddenly altered its course. It is now steaming north, toward Japan.”
“Japan? Why head there?” Gryzlov demanded.
Leonov leaned forward, suddenly looking pensive. “Washington may be positioning military assets for a possible strike against the Vostochny Cosmodrome,” he said. “If the Americans are planning a retaliatory attack against our space launch assets, it is the logical target.”
Gryzlov stared at him. “Vostochny must be well over a thousand kilometers from Japan. That’s beyond the range of a carrier strike force, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” Leonov agreed. “Even using long-range cruise missiles, carrier-based aircraft would be hard-pressed to attack the complex.”
“Then where is the threat?”
“The Reagan’s aircraft could be used to breach our outer defenses in the far east region,” Leonov speculated. “That would open a path for a deep penetration raid by America’s remaining heavy bombers.”
“Six B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and a handful of refurbished B-1 Lancers?” Gryzlov scoffed. “What could they accomplish against Vostochny’s defenses?”
“It would probably be a suicide mission,” Leonov agreed carefully. “We have a full regiment of S-500 SAMs guarding the space center itself.” His jaw tightened. “But I remind you that even a single bomb or missile hit scored against a spacecraft ready for launch would be catastrophic.”
Gryzlov saw what he was driving at. The Energia-5VR heavy-lift rocket being assembled at Vostochny was the one slated to ferry Mars One’s replacement reactor into orbit in just a few short days. If American bombers hit the launch complex and destroyed the Energia and its priceless payload on the pad, Russia’s space station would remain dangerously vulnerable for months.