“Casco Station, Six-Two,” Nadia radioed. “Passing final approach fix. Descending through three hundred feet, airspeed two-zero-zero knots.”
“Six-Two, roger. Winds two-five-zero at twenty-two gusting to thirty, RVR eight hundred.”
Vasey entered a short command on one of his multifunction displays. “Configuring for landing.” Control surfaces on the stealth aircraft’s wing whirred open, providing more lift as their airspeed diminished. Their landing gear came down and locked in position.
They crossed over the threshold and slid lower. The Ranger was designed for short, rough-field landings, sometimes as short as a thousand feet. By comparison, landing on an asphalt runway that was over a mile long was child’s play… even in dense fog that cut visibility to just a few yards.
Smoothly, Vasey came in to land, making small adjustments with his throttles and flight controls. They touched down with scarcely a bump. He braked gently, timing it so that the Ranger came to a complete stop not far from a small apron built adjacent to the runway.
Four other planes were visible as blurred shapes in the fog. One was the C-130 Hercules four-engine turboprop that had ferried in the Scion ground crew. The other three were stealthy flying-wing aircraft, each about the size of a small business jet with twin wing-buried turbofan engines. No windows or cockpit canopies broke their smooth lines. Designed for remote-control and autonomous, computer-directed flight, they did not require human pilots or crews.
Two of them were MQ-55 Coyotes, intended as pure weapons carriers. Their internal bays could hold up to ten AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles. Built without radars of their own, they were low-cost platforms with one primary combat mission — dumping missiles out into the sky in a hurry for other friendly fighter pilots to control when engaged by superior numbers of enemy aircraft. The third stealth drone, built on the same airframe, was considerably more expensive and more capable. Designated as the EQ-55 Howler, it carried electronic jamming gear and was equipped with the same AN/APG-81 radar used by F-35 Lightning II stealth multi-role fighters.
Built by Sky Masters, the two Coyotes and the Howler had been in service with Poland’s Iron Wolf Squadron. At Nadia’s urgent request, they had been flown here, almost halfway around the world from their old operating base. The journey had taken close to forty hours. But because they were remotely piloted, the human controllers based in Poland had been able to swap in and out as needed during the marathon flight. All the Coyotes and the Howler had required were short periodic stops to refuel and undergo quick maintenance checks.
Nadia looked them over with a proprietary and predatory eye. Flown under her control using their built-in communications links, those three Iron Wolf aircraft would give her mission force substantial air-to-air combat power. Reassured, she sat back in her seat. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the rest of the naval and air units committed to her plan to reach their jump-off positions.
Thirty-Two
Using his neural link, Patrick McLanahan opened a secure channel to Martindale. The head of Scion was flying back to Washington aboard one of his private executive jets. He answered immediately. Thanks to a solid satellite connection, his image was only slightly distorted. “Yes, General?”
“Remember that Russian heavy-lift rocket that exploded in flight?” Patrick asked.
Martindale nodded. “Quite clearly.” He frowned. “We’ve never been able to pin down what its payload could have been. Analysts for the Defense Intelligence have speculated it might have been another weapons module, or perhaps a refueling station and docking structure for Elektron spaceplanes.”
Patrick shook his head. “They’re wrong. Dead wrong.” He looked intently at the older man. “Because I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out what that Energia was really carrying. And if I’m right, Moscow must be sweating bullets to get a replacement into orbit ASAP.”
“You have my attention, General,” Martindale said dryly. “What was aboard that Russian spacecraft?”
“The station’s main power generator.”
Martindale stared at him. “How is that possible? The energy requirements for that Russian plasma rail gun alone must be—”
“I’ve run the numbers.” Patrick pulled up his calculations and displayed them in an inset box. “Assuming they have reasonable battery and supercapacitor storage aboard Mars One, the Russians could divert electricity from those solar arrays to recharge their weapons. That would be incredibly inefficient… but it fits the tactical pattern I’ve observed.”
Martindale listened closely while he explained his reasoning. When Patrick was finished, he asked, “Could there be some other reason the Russians don’t fire the rail gun when their station is in Earth’s shadow?”
“None,” Patrick said decisively. “When the solar panels aren’t producing electricity, Mars One has to rely on its backup batteries. And that’s the only time when there isn’t any surplus power available to recharge the rail gun or the lasers. So the station’s crew tops them up in sunlight and then rides out the darkness without engaging any targets.”
Slowly, Martindale nodded his understanding. Then he frowned. “If that’s true, I don’t understand Gryzlov’s decision to start this war now. Why not wait until Mars One had a replacement generator online?”
Patrick shrugged. “Something about Brad and Boomer’s reconnaissance flight spooked the cosmonauts aboard Mars One into opening fire. And after the balloon went up, Gryzlov must have figured it was better to hit us hard and fast.”
“That he’s certainly done,” Martindale agreed grimly. There were no longer any functioning U.S. military reconnaissance satellites in low Earth orbit. Nor were there any non-Russian civilian imaging satellites left alive: Mars One had systematically destroyed them all. “How long do you think it would take the Russians to construct another generator from scratch?”
“Without knowing more about its type — whether it’s truly a working fusion power plant or simply a more conventional fission reactor — I can’t even make an educated guess,” Patrick admitted. “But I doubt that’s what Gryzlov has in mind.” He looked Martindale straight in the eyes. “No, sir. My bet is that he’ll cannibalize whatever components he can from those already built for a second Mars-class station. If so, a replacement reactor could already be on its way to the launchpad.”
“Now there’s a piece of intelligence we need rather badly, General,” the older man told him.
Patrick nodded bleakly. “Unfortunately, without our satellites, we’re operating in the dark. We’ve got no way to see if Gryzlov’s getting ready to launch more spacecraft from Plesetsk or Vostochny.”
“Not entirely,” Martindale mused. “While technological eyes in orbit are useful, so are human eyes on the ground. Remember, we still have a Scion team inside Russia.”
Patrick frowned. “It would take a miracle for any of our people to penetrate the security barriers Gryzlov has wrapped around those launch sites,” he argued.
“Indeed it would,” Martindale agreed. “Fortunately, I don’t believe miracles will be necessary. Our agents shouldn’t need to go anywhere near Plesetsk or Vostochny.” He smiled. “Even the tightest security net has a weak spot somewhere, General. And in this case, I think we’ll find it’s around five feet wide… and several thousand miles long.”