Choosers of the Slain

25

Powered back to dead slow, the Duke crept through a night that was nothing but varying textures of blackness. The low-lying overcast smothered even the faintest trace of star-shine, and the only illumination in the whole world seemed to issue from the small cluster of hooded work-lights on the destroyer's bow.

The Zenith was the largest single piece of ordnance carried aboard the Cunningham. Twenty-five feet in length and triple the diameter of a LORAIN, it took up four of the cells in the forwardmost Vertical Launch System. It also required the most preparation before it could fly.

The missile and its launch rail had to be lifted hydraulically to deck level. There, its four strap-on boosters, each nearly the same length as the main vehicle, had to be struck up from belowdecks, hogged into position with the missile-loading crane, and shackled onto their respective hard-points. Heavy steel flame deflectors were positioned under the exhaust ventures and thick, insulated Fiberglas matting had to be deployed and secured to protect the RAM-tiled decks. Then the real work of systems checkout could begin.

The katabatics still raked the destroyer's decks like an icy spray of machine-gun fire. Heavy Navy-issue parkas helped to blunt the edge of the cutting wind, but many of the more delicate connections and adjustments simply couldn't be made by workers wearing gloves. The men and women of Weapons Division did the best they could. They worked until numbed fingers simply refused to respond anymore, then they swore and backed off, tucking frozen hands into pockets and armpits. When feeling returned, heralded by an agonizing tingling and burning, they swore again and got back on the job.

"How's it going up there, Dix?" Amanda inquired sympathetically into her headset.

On the low-light deck monitor that was covering the work party, she could see the Lieutenant look aft.

"We're back on the timeline, Skipper. Everything looks good. All hands-on tests read green, and there don't seem to be any parts left over."

Amanda glanced across the CIC to the Zenith operations station and its master readouts. "We concur with that. How much more time do you need?"

"Maybe five more minutes for final-phase checks and to button things up out here."

"You've got ten. Well done to all hands involved."

"Better wait till we see if this thing works first, ma'am."

The Combat Information Center had taken on the aspects of a miniature NASA mission control. The main screen had been reconfigured as an orbital positioning display, and Christine Rendino was overseeing the systems operators as they prepared to switch over to space operations mode.

"How are we looking, Chris?"

"Last update from Aerospace Command says that the Aquila B is still right in the groove. She'll be above our horizon in about twelve minutes and thirty-four seconds."

"Close, but we're in under the wire. Anything new from the Argentines?"

"Intermittent low-grade radar emissions to the north and west. Air-to-surface search stuff, but way out of range. Some operational chatter on their standard air force and navy frequencies. Nothing critical."

"Nonetheless, when we light off at maximum power to track that satellite we're really going to be calling attention to ourselves. How long will we have to radiate?"

"Maybe sixty to ninety seconds to acquire and confirm the orbit and to allow the Zenith system to set up the intercept solution. Then we can shut down. I'd suggest, though, that we go active again briefly to monitor and confirm the kill."

"Sounds reasonable. Then we go back to full stealth and do a sprint away from here. Let's do it."

As the last seconds ticked away, every spare monitor in the CIC was dialed in to the topside cameras.

"… three… two… one… Target is above the horizon."

"Initiate orbital scan."

The starboard radar arrays energized and sprayed the skies to the south with a silent microwave thunderclap.

"Tallyho! Target acquisition! Right on the numbers!"

On the Large Screen Display, a target hack and designation appeared at the bottom of the screen. It began to crawl slowly upward toward the blue triangle that marked the Cunningham's position.

"Zenith operator, start your engagement sequence."

"Aye, aye, Captain. Going for firing locks now. System is tracking… System is tracking… Zenith system has integrated. Confirm good locks and firing solution."

"Enable system to fire."

"Final-phase safety interlocks are down. System is enabled."

There was no immediate reaction. The Zenith had been designed as a seaborne system. Within its guidance package, gyros gauged the pitch and roll of its launch platform, waiting for a moment when the vehicle was aimed at the near-true vertical before issuing the ignition command.

The air crackled. Suddenly, orange flame blanketed the Duke's foredeck. Then the ASAT had cleared its launching rail and was climbing away fast, holding the ship and the sea around it under a dome of pale golden light.

In seconds, it had reached and punched into the overcast and the sudden flood of illumination was extinguished. All except for a faint flicker like a lightning bolt buried in the belly of the clouds.

At 45,000 feet and Mach 2, explosive bolts sheared the booster packs away and the main stage ignited. At Mach 7 and 165,000 feet, its job was done. The upper quarter of the vehicle, containing the payload and a low-thrust sustainer engine, separated and went on its way. Also discarded was the plastic nose shroud, no longer needed with the bulk of the atmosphere penetrated. Exposed now, the onboard sensors took up the search for the target.

Once upon a time, there had been a brave hope that space need not be militarized. Attempts had been made to ban antisatellite weapons such as the Zenith by international agreement. However, as more and more nations developed orbital launch capacity and began to put near-Earth space to a growing number of uses, not all of them benign, the brave dream was replaced by a grim reality, one that was first stated by a revered Chinese warrior long ago: "You must hold the high ground or you most certainly will perish in the valley."

The major powers began to treat ASATs much as they did combat shotguns. Everyone signed impressive documentation banning them. Everyone had them. Everyone politely ignored the fact that everyone else was lying about it.

Arcing two hundred miles above the Earth's surface, Argentina's Aquila B reconnaissance satellite trimmed its billboard-size solar panels to catch the light of the low-riding sun. Circling the world from pole to pole in a "ball of yarn" reconnaissance orbit, it had conducted a lateral transition burn some fifty minutes previously over the northern ice pack, allowing it to repeat the same trajectory it had flown earlier that day.

As per the programming it had received on its previous pass, it again brought its sensors to bear on the Antarctic Peninsula, Drake Passage, and the surrounding environs.

Now, suddenly, those sensors reacted to the appearance of a powerful radar-emissions source near the center of its search zone, followed by the heat plume of a rocket climbing toward its flight path.

Had it been one of the big American Key Hole 13 reconsats or a Russian Sentinel Cosmos, it would have had artificial-intelligence circuits capable of recognizing the potential threat, and it would have taken evasive action or activated countermeasures. As it was, the Aquila B was a simplemhided device. It merely continued to record the details of its own death for a download it would never make.

The heart of the Zenith system was a kinetic kill weapon developed from the U.S. Air Force's "Intelligent Tomato Can" ASAT of the 1980s. It consisted of little more than a wide-angle infrared sensor, a ring of maneuvering thrusters, and a small, very high speed computer, all fit into a cylindrical package roughly the size of a gallon of paint.

After staging from its sustainer motor, the ASAT had searched for, and located, the sun-warmed metal of the Aquila B against the frigid emptiness of space. Now it delicately began to steer itself directly into the path of the Argentine satellite. There was no warhead per se. Given the kinetic energy involved in a five-miles-per-second collision, explosives were redundant.

"Aaaand… nailed it!" Christine exclaimed. "Argentina is out of the satellite business."

"Are you certain, Chris?" Amanda asked.

Rendino swiftly conferred with the Zenith operator.

"Yeah, Captain," she replied after a moment. "We have a solid kill. The target has displayed an abrupt orbital deviation, and the reflectivity variance indicates that it's tumbling. We're also tracking a dispersing debris cloud, and we lost the Zenith's transponder at the moment of intercept. There may still be a hulk up there, but it's not going to be doing anybody any good."

"Is there any chance they can put up a replacement?"

"Doubtful. None of the South American states have a domestically produced launch vehicle with enough steam to hit a polar orbit with that size of payload. The Argys contracted with Arianspace to put this one up.

"Even if they had a spare sat in storage, and if they could find a civil hauler somewhere willing to buck the sanctions on against Argentina, it would be months before they could get a slot on a launch schedule. Fa' sure, these guys are blind for the duration."

"Good enough. Helm, get us out of here. All engines ahead flank. Steer zero nine seven degrees."

"Aye, aye, ma'am. All engines ahead flank. Steering zero nine seven."

"All stations, secure radiating and set full EMCON. Establish full stealth protocols."

"Aye, aye, setting full emission control and full stealth."

"Communications, before you secure your transmitters, please dispatch the following, Milstar Flash priority: 'DDG 79 to CINCLANT. Zenith launch successfully executed as per previously transmitted plan of operation. Target destroyed. Now going full stealth. This will be our last transmission. Signature, Garrett, commanding.'"

The radio watch did a read-back and Amanda cleared it for sending. That dealt with, she slipped off her headset and settled back more deeply into the padding of the command chair. Closing her eyes, she let the ordered murmur of the CIC crew and the soft creaking of the hull flow around her.

That was a major piece of the load removed. Her enemies were still out there, hunting her, but now her options had widened. Now she could hide as well as run and fight.