Lash-Up

3 Networking

Chris Champagne had gone to only a few of Ray’s BOGSATs. His “discussion groups,” famous throughout SPAWAR, were always worthwhile. Although Champagne would have liked to go more often, two preschoolers and another on the way severely limited his free time.

Tonight, though, he’d made the time. In fact, his wife, Sandy, had almost ordered him to. After he’d described Ray’s sudden leave of absence and the rumors from the other coworkers, she’d urged him to go and get the straight story.

Champagne was an antenna design specialist on Ray’s GPS team. He liked his very outgoing boss and had no trouble working for the man, even though McConnell could be a little fierce in technical “discussions.” Champagne was worried about their project, which was suffering in Ray’s absence, and about Ray. With the brass so upset about the GPS losses, and Rudy White foaming at the mouth over the final project report, it was no time for Ray to play “missing person.”

The map on the car’s navigation console showed he was getting close. Ray’s street was just around the sharp bend ahead. Champagne signaled and started turning onto Panorama Drive. The last time he had visited Ray’s place was over a year ago, when he and Sandy had attended a reception for a visiting astronaut. That had been quite the occasion.

But nothing like this. As he made the turn, Champagne saw the street almost completely lined with cars. This was definitely not typical for the quiet residential community. Champagne ended up parking a block away.

As he hurried up the path, he heard the expected hubbub flowing out the open windows, but it didn’t seem as loud as usual. Stranger still, Ray didn’t answer the door, and everyone wasn’t reclining before the Wall. People seemed to be spread out all over the house. A group of four men huddled around a coffee table in the living room, and he could see another clustered in the kitchen. Ray appeared suddenly from one of the bedrooms, hurrying. He looked tired. As soon as Ray saw the stocky engineer in the doorway, he made a beeline over to him.

“Chris Champagne! It’s great to see you.” Genuine pleasure lit up Ray’s face as he shook Champagne’s hand in greeting, but there was a distracted air to it. And surprise.

Champagne saw no point in dissembling. “Ray, what’s going on over here? You haven’t been at work…”

“I’ve got bigger fish to fry, Chris. Promise you won’t tell anyone what’s going on here? Unless I okay it?”

“Well, of course.” Champagne wondered what he’d just agreed to. It couldn’t be anything illegal …

Ray looked at him intently. “No, Chris, I mean it. You can’t tell anyone. Treat this as if it were classified.”

The word “classified” triggered reflexes. It made Champagne both cautious and curious. He studied McConnell for a moment, then carefully said, “I promise not to tell anyone what I see here.” He fought the urge to raise his right hand.

Ray seemed to relax a little and smiled again. “You’ll understand in a minute, Chris.” Turning, he called over to the group at the coffee table. “I’ll be right there.”

One of the men, whom Champagne recognized as Avrim Takir, a mathematician from the GPS group, popped his head up and answered, “Fine, Ray. We need another ten minutes, anyway.” Takir spotted Champagne and waved but quickly returned his attention to the laptop in front of him.

Ray led his teammate down the hall into his home office. The desk was piled high with books, disk cases, and printouts. The center display, a big flat-screen monitor mounted above the desk, showed an isometric design for an aircraft — no, a spacecraft, Champagne realized.

Used to polished CAD graphics where they worked, he was surprised. This one was crude. Some of it was fully rendered in 3D space, but parts of it were just wire frames. At least one section was a two-dimensional image altered to appear three-dimensional.

“Defender isn’t pretty, but we’re a little pressed for time,” Ray declared. He had the air of a proud parent.

Champagne, surprised and puzzled, studied the diagram, which filled the four-by-eight display. Data tables hovered in parts of the screen not covered by the vehicle. He started tracing out systems: Propulsion. Communications. Weapons? He shot a questioning look at McConnell.

Ray met his look with one of his own. “Here’s a question for you, Chris. What’s the best way to protect a satellite? If someone’s shooting them down, how can you stop them?”

“They haven’t confirmed it’s the Chinese…”

“It doesn’t matter who’s doing it!” Ray countered fiercely. “Someone is.” He paused and rephrased the question. “Can you effectively protect a satellite from the ground?”

Champagne answered quickly. “Of course not. You’re on the wrong end of the gravity well, even if you’re near the launch site, and you could be on the other side of the planet.”

“Which we probably are,” Ray agreed. “Here on the surface, even with perfect information, we can’t defend a satellite until something is launched to attack it, so we’re always in a tail chase. If we’re above the launch site, with the satellite we’re trying to defend, Isaac Newton joins our team.”

“And this is going to do the job?” Champagne asked, motioning toward the diagram. He tried to sound objective, but skepticism crept into his voice despite his efforts.

Ray didn’t bat an eyelash; he seemed used to the disbelief. “It can, Chris. There’s nothing startling in here. The technology is all there: an orbital vehicle, sensors, and weapons.”

“And you’ve been tasked by…”

“It’s on my own hook, Chris. This is on my own initiative,” Ray admitted. Then he saw his friend’s question and answered it without waiting.

“Because I can’t wait for the government to think of it, that’s why. The answer is obvious, but by the time they hold all the meetings, write the requirement, and submit a budget proposal, we won’t have any satellites left!”

Ray sat down heavily, fatigue and strain showing on his face. “This isn’t about just the GPS constellation or the Chinese, Chris. Someone’s developed the capability to attack satellites in space. That means they could attack manned spacecraft as well. They can hurt us, or anyone else they don’t like. And we know they sure as hell don’t like us.”

Champagne leaned back against the edge of a table and looked carefully at Ray. “So you’re going to design the answer to our problems.” He phrased it as a statement, but it was still a question.

“Me and all the other people here,” Ray corrected. “Why not, Chris? I’ve got a good idea and I’m running with it. I might not be in the right bureau, or in the right branch, but I believe in this. Ideas are too precious to waste.”

Inside, Champagne agreed with his friend, but practicality pushed that aside. “But you can’t build it,” he stated quietly.

“Well, that’s the rub,” Ray said, actually rubbing the back of his neck in emphasis. “I’ve made a lot of friends over the years. I’m going to shotgun it out over SIPRNET — only within the system,” he hurriedly added, referring to the secret-level Internet system capable of handling classified material. “I won’t go public with this. It’s a serious design proposal.”

“Which needs a formal requirement, funding, and research and development…”

“And congressional hearings and hundreds of man hours arguing what color to paint it,” continued Ray sarcastically. “Look, a small group can always move faster and think faster than a large one. I want to present the defense community with a finished initial design, something so complete they’ll be able to leapfrog the first dozen steps of the acquisition process.” He grinned. “We can skip one step already. The bad guys are writing the requirement for us.”

Ray stood and turned to face Champagne directly. “I know I’m bending rules, but they’re not rules of physics, just the way DoD does business. I’m willing to push this because it needs to be done, and nobody else is doing it.”

Champagne sighed. “Ray, I gotta tell you: Rudy is breathing fire and brimstone. Jake is handling it okay, for now, but he’s not as adept at dealing with our div chief as you are.”

“What does Rudy want now? I gave him everything he asked for, and more, and ahead of his revised due date.” Ray’s voice was strained with impatience.

“He blew up when you didn’t come in today, claimed you were AWOL, and ranted about the corrections he needed you to make to the final report. Rudy said he sent you e-mails and tried to call your cell phone.”

“I ignored them. I don’t have time to argue with him. But I did send the answers to the questions directly to Jake and asked him to put them in the report for me. And none of them were even remotely critical — just more of Rudy’s typical bureaucratic editing bullshit! Besides, I’m not AWOL! I filled out a leave slip before I left.”

“But didn’t bother to wait and see if your request was approved,” challenged Champagne.

“I assumed it would be a formality,” Ray replied with a sheepish look. “I’ve got more ‘use or lose’ leave time than I can shake a stick at, and the fiscal year ends in two days. I’m entitled to a few days off.”

“Still, technically you’re on unauthorized leave,” Champagne concluded.

Ray scowled, sighing heavily. “Technically, yes.”

Champagne looked down and shook his head. His boss could be just as pigheaded as White, but the similarities ended there. He also knew that Ray McConnell had a knack for getting things done, even if it looked nigh on impossible on paper. Chuckling, he looked back at Ray and made a wide sweep with his hand. “So who’s working on your comm system?”

Ray grinned. “They’re in the second bedroom. They’ve got almost all the electronics nailed down, but there’s still lots to do.” Ray led him down the hall. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.” Chris recognized one coworker from a different division in SPAWAR, another was introduced as an engineer from Northrup-Grumman, and the team leader was …

“It’s good to see you again, Chris,” called out a woman’s voice. Champagne would need to be blind not to remember Jennifer Oh. She looked over at Ray, and he explained, “Chris is a comms specialist in my division, and SPAWAR is not using all his talents to the fullest.”

Jennifer Oh beamed. “That’s great! With one more person, we can have two teams and assign each one…”

“Wait a minute, please.” Champagne held up his hand. “Let me make a call first.” He stepped out of the room, looking unsuccessfully for a quiet spot to call from. McConnell saw his problem and motioned for them go outside. With Champagne ready to make his call, Ray started to step back inside, but Champagne stopped him and asked, “Where’s Jim Naguchi? If Jennifer Oh is here…”

McConnell shook his head. “It’s just Jenny. She’s shown up every night, and she even brings food. I tried to warn her off, because I don’t want to get any active service members in trouble. She didn’t take that very well. She insisted on helping and handed me my ‘chivalric ass’ on a platter. The woman is nothing if not determined, and I’m glad she is. Jenny’s a great engineer.”

Champagne stopped dialing and closed his cell phone. “Wait a minute. She’s been here all the time, without Jim, and she even brings you food?”

“Yeah, you saw. She’s leading the command and control group, and…”

“Ray, did it occur to you that there might be another reason for her being here?”

“Like what?” Ray asked, genuinely confused. He then saw Champagne’s incredulous expression and said, “No, Chris. Not possible.”

Champagne ignored his protests and nodded approvingly. “She’s a real find, Ray. Brains and looks. Thinks for herself. Of course, we’ll have to overlook her poor taste in men.” Champagne’s brown eyes were twinkling with amusement; a grin ran from one ear to the other.

“I don’t have time for that!” protested Ray.

Champagne’s grin disappeared, and his expression became deadly serious. “She’s making time. Now it’s your turn, and if you blow this chance, you’ll never find another one like her. Now, beat it. I still have to make that phone call.”

Ray said, “Tell Sandy thank you.”

“It’s not Sandy. I’m calling Sue Langston in the graphics shop. Your illustrations suck!”

Congressman Tom Rutledge watched images slide across the flat screen as his aide briefed him. “There are — or were — twenty-six satellites, with twenty-four active and two in reserve. The new Block III birds cost 543 million dollars each. The older ones in orbit were less capable and less expensive, but to replace the ones that have been lost, that’s the price tag. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the satellites. The air force runs the GPS system out of Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado.”

Anticipating the congressman’s question, the aide added, “Lock Mart has an office in Papillon with about eleven thousand jobs. It’s not involved in the GPS program. Offutt Air Force Base is not involved in the program.”

“And neither of those are even in my district,” Rutledge remarked, half-complaining.

“Space-related industry in Nebraska accounts for less than two percent of the state’s economy, sir.”

“Which is why I spend so much time looking at hogs and harvesters,” Rutledge groused. “Put the brief on my tablet, Tim. I’ll go over it later.”

“I’ll give it to everybody,” Tim Stevens replied, broadly hinting.

Heads nodded around the room. All Rutledge’s senior staff had assembled in his congressional office “to sound out this GPS business.”

“Doesn’t sound like we should be all that concerned,” Ben Davis observed. Davis was Rutledge’s chief of staff and had been with the congressman since his days in Kearney. Stevens, the senior legislative assistant, had joined the congressman’s staff when Rutledge was first elected to the 3rd district seat, six years ago, and the two didn’t always get along.

“Tim, what’s going to be the effect on the streets of Kearney?” That was Rutledge’s favorite phrase, and everyone had learned to be ready for it, as well as not to wince.

“Economically, very little. Civilian GPS won’t be affected that much because they don’t need the same precision as the military does. Planes need a fix in three dimensions, but plain folks usually only care about two, and they aren’t using smart bombs that have to hit within a meter of the aim point. And a lot of civilian GPS sets can now use the Galileo system as well, the constellation the Europeans put up. It’s more accurate than ours, actually.”

“There’s a European GPS?” Rutledge was surprised. “Well, can’t the military just switch to the Galileo satellites?”

Stevens shook his head. “They’d need to modify the receivers in each weapon, and it uses a different antenna.”

“Can we buy some smart bombs from the Europeans, then?”

“Sorry, Congressman, you have to modify the aircraft’s GPS receiver as well. It’s not a quick fix, and it wouldn’t be cheap.

“Besides the U.S. system, which is actually called NAVSTAR, and Galileo in Europe, there’s the Russian GLONASS and Chinese Beidou constellations” —

Davis cut in. “Tom, the biggest effect will be perception. The folks back home won’t like China shooting down U.S. satellites, but they already have China pegged as a bad actor. They’ll throw it in the same hopper as the hacking attacks and currency manipulation. With no bodies, and no personal impact, Joe Citizen will expect the government to do something, but he doesn’t want to go to war over it.”

“The last polls in your district showed that public support for the U.S. defending Vietnam was lukewarm, no more than forty-eight percent. In some spots it was as low as thirty-seven percent. If China invades Vietnam, that man on the street in Kearney is going to say, ‘That’s too bad,’ and then see if his latest Idol contestant was voted off the show.”

Rutledge said, “This all makes sense, but set up a new poll on attitudes about space and China. Make it statewide.”

While Davis took notes, Stevens, twenty years Davis’s junior, pressed his point. “Congressman, if GPS goes away, the U.S. military becomes less powerful, maybe a lot less. A lot of our influence overseas is based on that power. We could find ourselves dealing with crises around the world.”

Rutledge straightened up in his chair and said, “You’re absolutely right, Tim, which is why I want Bill to write a series of speeches condemning administration inaction on this latest Chinese outrage.” Bill Hamilton, Rutledge’s “communications director,” nodded and made his own notes.

“Hit on the administration’s lack of foresight,” Rutledge directed. “And also how they’re soft on China. Rather have China’s trade dollars than stand firm against their human rights abuses, that type of thing. Be sure to get some solid numbers in there.”

Rutledge had a reputation for lacing his speeches with figures, and he’d rarely been challenged. If you picked the right topic, you could find the numbers that made you sound like an authority. You didn’t have to stretch the truth.

“There’s no sense wasting a perfectly good crisis,” Rutledge continued. “This is a national issue, which is just what I want to be dealing with, and since it doesn’t affect Nebraska, I’ve got some flexibility in my message.” He smiled in anticipation.

Davis matched his smile. Rutledge had been aiming for a VP seat, or at least a cabinet post, after the 2016 elections, but he didn’t have the name recognition. The congressman had dedicated himself to making sure that would not be a problem in three years.

Tom Wilcox worked in the test and evaluation shop at China Lake. The entire base’s mission was to evaluate new weapons systems for the navy, but his shop was the one that did the dirty work. He spent a lot of time in the desert and would be out there at dawn, half an hour from now.

Wilcox looked like someone who’d spent a lot of time in the desert. Lean, tanned, his face showed a lot of wear, although he joked that was just from dealing with the paperwork. He’d been in his current job for twenty-five years and insisted he was good for that many more.

This morning, he had to inspect the foundations for a new test stand. Before too long, they’d be mounting rocket motors on it, and he didn’t want a motor with the stand still attached careening across the landscape.

First, though, he always checked his e-mail. Working on his danish and placing his coffee carefully out of the way, he said, “New messages.”

The computer displayed them on his wall screen, a mix of personal and professional subjects listed according to his personal priority system. The higher the rank of the sender, the less urgent the message had to be. Anything from an admiral went straight to the bottom of the pile.

He noted one unusual item. Ray McConnell had sent a message with a medium-sized attachment. He’d known Ray for quite a while as a colleague, but he hadn’t seen him since Wilcox had been to SPAWAR for a conference last spring, about six months ago. They’d exchanged some notes since then.

Wilcox noted that it had a long list of other addressees, and it had been sent out at four this morning. He recognized a few of the addressees. They were all at official DoD installations.

The cover letter was brief: “I think you’ll know what to do with this. It’s completely unclassified, but please only show it to people inside the security system. Thanks.”

Well, that was mysterious enough to be worth a few minutes. He downloaded the attached file, waited for the virus and security checks to finish, then had a look.

It was a hundred-page document. The cover page had a gorgeous image of a wedge-shaped airfoil rendered in 3D. It had to be a spacecraft, and the title above it read, “Defender.”

Wilcox’s first reaction was one of surprise and disappointment. He almost groaned. Engineers in the defense community receive a constant stream of crackpot designs from wannabe inventors. The unofficial ones were ignored or returned with a polite letter. The official ones that came though a congressman or some other patron could be a real pain in the ass. Why was Ray passing this on to him?

Then he saw the name on the front. Ray was listed as the lead designer! What is this? It’s not an official navy project. McConnell must have put some real time into this, and he’s no flake, thought Wilcox. Or at least, not until now.

He opened the cover and glanced at the introduction. “We are completely unprepared for the Chinese attack on our satellites. Even if the source of the attacks is found and destroyed, the technology now has been demonstrated. Others, hostile to U.S. interests, will follow the Chinese example.

“Defender is a vehicle designed to protect spacecraft in orbit from attack. It uses proven technology. Please consider this concept as an option to protect our vital space assets.”

Below that was a long list of names, presumably people who either endorsed the idea or who had helped him with the design, probably the latter. Wilcox scanned the list. He didn’t recognize any of the names, and there were none with a rank attached.

He skimmed the document, watching the clock but increasingly absorbed in the design. Ray had done his homework, although his haste was obvious. At least the art was good. Diagrams were important for the higher-ups. They had problems with numbers and large words.

The phone rang, and Wilcox picked it up. “We need you in five,” his assistant reminded him.

“I’ll be there,” Wilcox replied, and hung up.

He sat for another ten seconds, thinking and staring at the screen. All right, Ray’s got a hot idea and he wants to share it. In fact, Wilcox realized, he wants me to share it, to send it up the line. He’s trying to jumpstart the design process.

Wilcox knew, as did anyone else who worked for the DoD, that it took years of effort just to produce an approved requirement for such a design, and only then did the acquisition process get started. It was supposed to be a carefully crafted document that took into account the needs of the military services as described by law, future enemy capabilities, U.S. manufacturing capabilities (current and future), etc., etc. But sometimes the U.S. didn’t have time for such a deliberate and agonizingly slow process.

Wilcox quickly skimmed the file. It was all there. Wilcox saw several pages he’d want to study later in depth, but it looked reasonable. The United States had no way of protecting its satellites. This could do the job.

Taking the few minutes needed, he found ten names in his address book. Most were senior engineers, like him, but a few were military officers of senior rank. Let’s see if they’re still capable of recognizing an original idea when they see it, thought Wilcox.

That morning, Ray had sent his document out to thirty friends and colleagues. All had clearances, and all worked in some area of defense. By lunchtime, eight hours after its transmission, over a hundred and fifty copies existed. By the close of business, it was over five hundred and growing.

Captain “Biff” Barnes was more than ready to leave for the day. His skills as a pilot were supposed to be essential for this project, but he spent most of each day wrestling with the Pentagon bureaucracy.

Biff’s given name was Clarence, after his grandfather, but he’d acquired the nickname, any nickname, as quickly as he could. He hated Clarence. Barnes was only five foot eight, but average for a pilot. He kept in very good shape, counting the months and weeks until his desk tour was finished. His thin, almost angular face showed how little fat he carried. His hair was cut as short as regulations would allow. The air force didn’t like bald pilots, but he’d have shaved his head if he could.

He understood the work he’d been assigned to do was important but, for him, doing anything other than flying was a comedown. Biff loved being active, always moving, but nothing provided a more satisfying rush than fighting, or at least matching his skills against an opponent in the air. Sports had been an outlet when he was younger, soccer and karate when he was small, then baseball and football in high school. He’d never been a star, but he’d lived to get out on the field, whatever the game was. A wise uncle had taught him chess, another type of conflict, but it lacked the kinetic element Biff needed.

And if you wanted to move, nothing beat a jet aircraft on afterburner. Biff had worked like a madman at the academy, and he’d made the cut. He’d flown F-22s before being assigned to the Pentagon, and he’d been promised an ops-officer billet in an F-22 squadron once this tour was complete.

His Pentagon job was interesting, when he got to actually do it. Assigned to the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, he helped design the payloads that were carried into space by the X-37B space plane. The “X” was supposed to mean it was an experimental vehicle, designed to test new aviation or space technology. And the X-37 had started out that way, with NASA, back in 1999, as a reusable unmanned spacecraft. Two would fit in the payload bay of the space shuttle. After riding the shuttle into orbit, the X-37s would be deployed and would maneuver with their own engines, deploy or recover cargo with their own robotic arm, and return to earth, landing automatically.

With the shuttle program gone, the X-37 had been adapted to ride a Delta booster into orbit, which worked well, as did the entire concept. After several successful test flights in the early 2000s, the air force had ordered an improved X-37B from Boeing. The air force hadn’t bothered to give it a new designation, like Secret Spaceplane One, or anything. They just called it the “orbital test vehicle.” Right.

The air force had needed its own vehicle, since they couldn’t use the shuttle anymore, and the X-37B was it. And it was all in-house, which simplified everything.

Only one problem: If the shuttle had been called a “space truck,” the X-37B could be described as an “orbital duffle bag.” The shuttle could carry a payload of twenty-eight tons and was big enough to hold two X-37s in its bay. The X-37’s payload had to fit in the same space as the bed of a pickup truck — a long bed, maybe, but it was a small fraction of the size and weight.

Biff’s degree in aeronautical engineering had been helpful, but he’d spent most of his tour learning new ways to make things smaller and lighter. He also spent a lot of time searching for new materials and technologies that could help the air force do that. He’d gotten to look at a lot of exotic hardware up close and visited more labs than he cared to count. It was important stuff. It was the future. But it still wasn’t flying.

And he spent way too much time futzing with paperwork, especially now, when anything connected to space was under a microscope. More than one congressman wanted to be briefed on the project. Could it be used to protect the GPS satellites? Why not? Could it be used to launch more satellites? As a substitute for one? What are we spending all our hard-earned tax money on, then? And then it turned out the congressman was angling for contracts in his district.

And that was just the beginning. Some other agency didn’t want to provide information he needed. That took some doing to finally pry it loose. The Government Accountability Office wanted to review their phone records. Or some reporter on a fishing expedition filed a Freedom of Information Act request. That had to be dealt with immediately.

Because the project was classified and only a limited number of people could be cleared into the program, everyone involved had to do double or even triple duty. The junior troops, like Barnes, drew most of the nasty jobs.

He couldn’t have dodged the latest flap, anyway. A government office concerned with equal opportunity needed to know if Barnes, who was African American, felt his “capabilities were being fully utilized,” and it had given him a five-page form to fill out. He’d put it off because of the congressional GPS flap and then spent too much of the afternoon finally filling it out. Biff had used the comments section to share his feelings about his “utilization.”

Barnes sat at his desk, closing up files and locking his safe, but still reluctant to go after an unproductive day. He checked his e-mail, at this point even willing to read Internet humor.

The page opened, and the first things he noticed were another two copies of the Defender document, from separate friends at Maxwell and Wright-Pat. He’d also gotten one that morning from a pilot buddy at March Air Reserve Base in California — three altogether. He’d ignored it then, far too busy, but his mind was ready for a distraction now.

He opened the file and almost laughed when he saw the cover. Someone had taken the old VentureStar, a prototype single-stage-to-orbit space vehicle, and tried to arm it. It was obvious why his friends had sent him so many copies. The introduction touted it as a way of defending the GPS satellites.

A worthy goal, although Barnes had no expectation that this lash-up was anything more than a time-wasting fantasy. Still, he was motivated by curiosity to see what this McConnell guy had done.

Barnes flipped to the section labeled “Payload” and started to read. Whoever this McConnell was, thought Barnes, he didn’t write science fiction. He hadn’t made any obvious mistakes.

But what about weapons and sensor integration? What about power? Or just flight controls? He started working through the document, answering questions and becoming increasingly impressed with McConnell’s idea.

He knew about spacecraft, not only because of his degree, but because he’d actually been selected for the Astronaut Corps after his first squadron tour. He’d flown one mission but then left the program. He hated the constant training, the public relations. And what he really hated was the lack of flight time.

Barnes’s stomach growled, and he looked up from the screen to see it was 7:45. He’d missed the rush hour, anyway. Biff said, “Print file,” and pages started to fill the hopper. He wanted to show this to his buddies.

Then Barnes pulled himself up short. His friends would be interested, but they didn’t all have security clearances, and the cover message had explicitly asked that it not be shown to anyone who wasn’t cleared. Respect for the design made him want to respect the author’s wishes.

The Vietnam crisis, another exercise in U.S. diplomacy and deterrence, had suddenly transformed itself into a much wider challenge. McConnell proposed this Defender as an answer — maybe the only answer, since Barnes hadn’t heard of any others.

He looked at the proposal. Did he really buy into it? He did, Biff realized. McConnell and his team knew what they were doing.

Biff sat back down at the keyboard. He had some friends in high places.

Secretary of Defense Everett Peck approached the podium; a sea of anxious reporters milled about, eagerly awaiting what he had to say. He was not a happy man. Earlier that day, another GPS satellite had fallen silent, and the tracking data confirmed the projectile that destroyed it had come from the Gongga Shan complex. Immediately after the JCS briefing, the president had ordered Peck to call the Chinese out publicly. The secretary was convinced the press conference wouldn’t do any good, but at least the cards would be back on the table. Striding up to the microphone, with camera flashes going off all around the room, Peck wasted no time getting started.

“Ladies and gentlemen. I apologize for the lateness of this press conference, but it was imperative that I had my facts straight, and that takes a little time. This morning at eleven seventeen Eastern Daylight Time, another Global Positioning System satellite went off-line. Like the others, it ceased functioning while over the eastern Pacific. But unlike many of the other GPS satellites, we at least now know why. Based on the two most recent events, the Intelligence Community and STRATCOM have conclusive proof that the satellites were intentionally attacked by a new Chinese weapon system.”

A low murmur broke out as the reporters whispered to each other. It was expected that China would be identified as the culprit, but the words “conclusive proof” weren’t. Peck raised his right hand to silence the mumblings.

“China has installed a very large cannon into the side of the tallest mountain in Sichuan Province in southern China. This mountain, called Gongga Shan by the Chinese, is well situated to launch attacks on any satellite in low-to-medium Earth orbits. The cannon is a kilometer long and has a bore of approximately three meters in diameter, just over ten feet. The intercept projectile is launched from the gun but is also rocket-powered, enabling it to reach our GPS satellites in orbit 12,550 miles above the earth.

“This act of aggression by the Peoples’ Republic of China was unprovoked and is in keeping with their overall campaign to conquer Vietnam. We see these attacks as an attempt to limit our ability to respond to their military buildup along the Vietnam-China border.

“Make no mistake: This is a hostile act perpetrated by the Chinese government against the United States. The president prefers to resolve this escalating crisis diplomatically, and has already delivered a strong letter of protest to the Chinese ambassador. However, the United States retains the right to protect its territory and interests, by military force if necessary, and that right extends to the heavens.”