Boomer sighed. “I figured as much.” He shook his head. “Look, Brad, considering how close you came to getting killed on our last trip into orbit, don’t you think maybe you should just sit this one out?”
“I can’t do that,” Brad said flatly. His mouth tightened angrily. “Not after seeing the footage of that missile strike on the Amelia Earhart. Gennadiy Gryzlov just murdered hundreds of people because of me. Because you, Nadia, Peter Vasey, and the others helped me escape. So that makes this my fight, now more than ever.”
Forty-One
President Farrell entered the crowded Situation Room at a rapid clip. He waved the men and women who’d started to rise to greet him back down into their seats and took his own place at the head of the table. Besides his top national security advisers, Patrick McLanahan and Kevin Martindale were physically present. A video link to Battle Mountain showed other members of the Scion and Sky Masters team listening in — including Brad, looking much the worse for wear, Nadia, Hunter Noble, and Peter Vasey.
“Okay, y’all,” he said briskly. “Time’s short, so we need to move along fast.” He turned to Admiral Scott Firestone, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Let’s start with what your folks at the Pentagon and Space Command have come up with, Admiral.”
“Yes, sir,” Firestone agreed. “At its core, the plan we propose is simple: We put a large fragmentation warhead aboard the Delta IV rocket being prepped out at Vandenberg. And then we launch this warhead into a four-hundred-mile-high retrograde orbit with an inclination of 128.4 degrees.” He looked around the table. “If all goes well, that ought to place it on a collision course with Mars One, which is orbiting in the opposite direction.”
“And then you plan to detonate the warhead,” Farrell realized.
The admiral nodded. “Exactly, Mr. President. This explosion should create a large cloud of shrapnel, right in the path of Mars One. Any fragments that strike the Russian space station will do so with a combined velocity of close to thirty-four thousand miles per hour, inflicting lethal damage.”
That created a pleased stir throughout the Situation Room. It was easy to imagine the devastation that would be caused even by a single shard of metal hitting at such speed, let alone by many.
Farrell noticed one man shaking his head. “You see a problem, General?”
“Oh, it’s a great plan,” Patrick McLanahan said forcefully. “Except for just one little thing: it won’t work.” He leaned forward. “We’d have to detonate that warhead far around the curve of the earth from the oncoming Russian station — thousands of miles away. Because otherwise, Mars One will simply destroy our Delta IV in flight with its long-range plasma rail gun.”
Firestone shrugged. “So?”
“The Russians still have satellites up, Admiral,” Patrick reminded him. “Even if we don’t. So they’ll detect our rocket launch and the detonation in real time. Mars One will have plenty of warning, which would allow the station to maneuver safely out of reach of most of our expanding and thinning shrapnel cloud. Once that’s accomplished, their defensive lasers can easily deflect or vaporize any larger fragments that might pose a risk.” Seen through the clear visor of his life-support helmet, his expression was grim. “Given all of that, the odds of scoring a genuinely damaging hit are far too low. We might as well toss a lit firecracker at a charging grizzly bear in the hope that pieces of the scorched wrapper will smack into both eyes and blind it.”
“And earn a disemboweling swipe of its claws in return,” Farrell said directly.
Patrick nodded. “All pain for no gain whatsoever.”
Farrell looked closely at him. “I assume you’re not arguing that we sit back and do nothing, General?”
“I am not, Mr. President,” the older McLanahan answered. “Unless we take out that Russian space station, and damned soon, we might as well start negotiating the terms of our surrender.”
“Surrender to a murderous thug like Gennadiy Gryzlov? Hell no. Not on my watch,” Farrell growled.
“No, sir,” Patrick agreed. “Fortunately, my analysis of the available intelligence suggests that Mars One does have one weakness. A weakness we can turn to our own advantage.”
“What kind of weakness?” Farrell demanded.
“A severe shortage of electrical power,” Patrick told him. Speaking carefully, he talked them through the reasoning that led him to conclude that the Russians had lost their power generator — almost certainly a revolutionary compact fusion reactor — aboard the one Energia-5VR heavy-lift rocket they’d lost after launch.
Admiral Firestone looked thoughtful. “Assuming that’s true, what are the tactical implications?”
“Without a working reactor, Mars One’s ability to fire its energy weapons must be severely restricted,” Patrick explained. “Once fired, its plasma rail gun and lasers can only be recharged with power diverted from the station’s solar panels — and even then at a comparatively slow rate.”
“So launching an attack when Mars One crosses into the earth’s shadow—”
“Should significantly limit the amount of firepower the Russians can employ against our strike force,” Patrick agreed.
“To what extent, exactly?” Andrew Taliaferro, the secretary of state, asked carefully.
Patrick shrugged, a gesture amplified by his motor-driven exoskeleton. “I can’t give you exact figures. But my best guess is that Mars One can store enough energy in its supercapacitors and battery packs for roughly two or three shots from that plasma rail gun… and twelve to sixteen short bursts from each of the two Hobnail lasers.”
His words were met first with stunned silence and then with open consternation.
“Good God, man,” Taliaferro said in shock, speaking for the others. “Even if you’re right, that’s more than enough firepower to make any assault futile. Sending spacecraft, even Sky Masters spaceplanes, up against that station would still be a suicide run.”
“Not quite,” Patrick said, with quiet determination. “The trick will be to throw enough potential targets into orbit to drain those supercapacitors and batteries. If we can do that, some attackers should survive long enough to close with and board Mars One.”
Farrell saw his advisers exchange appalled glances.
This time it was the CIA’s director, Elizabeth Hildebrand, who spoke up. “With respect, General McLanahan,” she said quietly. “Where are you going to find trained personnel crazy enough to try that kind of space banzai charge?”
On the large wall screen, Brad, Nadia, Boomer, and Vasey sheepishly raised their hands. “That would be us,” Boomer said solemnly.
Farrell felt suddenly humbled. All four of those people were younger than anyone else involved in this debate. They came here today with most of their lives still ahead of them. Two of them weren’t even American citizens. And yet there they were, ready and willing to risk all they had in the service of the United States and the world’s other free nations. Nadia, especially, had already paid a high personal price for her dedication and courage. He felt a pressing urge to find some way for this deadly cup to pass them by.
He turned to Patrick. “I understand your plan, General. What I don’t understand is why we should risk so many precious lives in what’s bound to be a high-risk assault to capture this Russian space station. Wouldn’t it be wiser to use the same tactics — multiple launches to run those enemy energy weapons out of power — but with unmanned weapons instead? Why not just blow Mars One to hell from a safe distance?”
From the carefully controlled anguish he read on the other man’s face, he knew he’d struck a chord.