Silver Tower

CHAPTER 34

It certainly wasn't pretty.

The command module, connecting tunnel, engineering and Skybolt control module all leaked like wet paper bags. Environmental alarms went off constantly, sending the already exhausted and nervous crew scrambling for POS masks. But to Jason Saint-Michael it marked a major step in the reactivation of Armstrong Space Station, and as such he had to admit that, all things considered, it looked beautiful. Not pretty, but beautiful.

Saint-Michael had volunteered to be the first to take watch while the rest of the crew stayed aboard the spaceplane and got their first sleep in forty-eight hours. He didn't completely trust the "bubble-gum and baling wire" repair jobs they'd made on the modules, so he'd ordered everyone except one person to sleep in America. The spaceplane was now docked with the station, using yet another jury-rigged device made from the undamaged parts of the docking module so the crew could transfer between America and the station without prebreathing or wearing a spacesuit.

The general was keeping himself awake with shots of pure oxygen from his POS mask and by checking and rechecking the systems, all in various states of repair, in the command module. He took pride in the patch job they'd done. Luckily they had the supplies on board to fix pressurized module penetrations. Those supplies and a generous amount of elbow grease had gotten the job done so far.

Fixing the modules to allow for working without spacesuits was minor compared to repowering and repositioning the station itself. It had taken Marty Schultz three hours of exhausting hard work to refuel the two undamaged fuel cells from the large fuel tank they had brought from earth. But it had paid off. Direct system power had been applied an hour later, and enough systems were restored to allow the station's built-in self-test equipment to analyze and point out other malfunctions and damage. Once the equipment began looking after itself and telling its human keepers what was wrong, things began to ease up a little.

Now they had to try to position the station in a usable orbit. One main attitude thruster and both main station thruster fuel tanks had been destroyed in the Soviet spaceplane attack. After refueling the fuel cells to provide electrical power Marty had attached the fuel tank, still with three-quarters of the fuel left, into the station's attitude and positioning thruster system. By the end of the first twenty-four hours they had restored enough inertial navigation systems and satellite tracking and positioning data links to activate the station thrusters, and with far more human intervention than normal they managed to kick Silver Tower into a low equatorial orbit. Now at two hundred miles altitude, orbiting almost directly over the equator, Silver Tower passed appproximately six hundred miles south of the Nimitz carrier group in the Arabian Sea. At seventeen thousand miles per hour they could theoretically scan the fleet for twenty minutes on every orbit, or twenty minutes out of every ninety — almost one-fourth of the time. Providing they could get the space-based radar system working. They hadn't brought along an SBR engineer on the flight, but as long as the master system processor was working it could direct the SBR operator to system faults — the system would fix itself.

They had been following the SBR computer's direction for nearly twenty hours when Saint-Michael called a halt. Now he was there alone, monitoring the systems and watching in case the Russians staged another attack — although if they did there was no way he could detect it beforehand and not a damn thing he could do even if he did know they were coming. Silver Tower wasn't yet ready to fight. Not yet.

He looked over to the master SBR console. The huge master SBR monitor wasn't broken, as far as anyone could tell, but for some reason it wasn't coming on. After taking it down off its mounting spot on the bulkhead to try to fix it someone had used a couple strips of tape to secure the huge screen back to the wall. He went over to the console and checked the two screens, one of them cannibalized from a TV set found in the recreation area in the Skylab module. If the SBR screen had been working properly a political map of the earth would be scrolling across the screen with the SBR's scan pattern superimposed on it. Without the mapping display the only readout of where they were was a series of complicated digits zipping across the TV set, representing azimuth, declination, latitude, longitude, inertial velocity and planetary motion corrections of the station relative to earth. It might as well have been written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

He went back to what was left of his seat (one of the Russian missiles had blown off the backrest), strapped himself in, thinking that in the days before the attack he would have automatically picked up his earset and electret microphone and set it in place. Not so now. There wasn't any point — even though the station's tracking beacon had been activated, the tracking and data relay satellite system was smashed to hell. They could only talk with someone on the ground using the ultrahigh frequency radios that were limited to line-of-sight. With TDRS you could talk or exchange data with someone on the other side of the planet — with UHF, if you could cut through the static, if you talked at night, you might be able to talk to an earth station you could see out the window. Maybe.

He wished he could have the same problem seeing or thinking about Enterprise…

The thought of the wrecked shuttle and her dead crew back in the docking module suddenly deflated him, left him with a deep sense of frustration and anger. Nothing he or anyone else did would make a difference as far as they were concerned. And by forcing this mission to reactivate the station he'd exposed other crewmen… including Ann… to the same risk… But no, he had to remember this mission was about much more than revenge. It was about saving lives. American lives out there in the Persian Gulf…

That was what he'd told the Joint Chiefs and the president when he'd met with them to argue the case. He'd had a tough time at first… Stuart had done a good job convincing people that Armstrong's station commander was a casualty who, for his own good and the country's, ought to be put out to pasture. What he was after would needlessly provoke the Russians. Saint-Michael had countered with the very likely scenario, if they didn't reactivate the station, and when he'd finished even Secretary of Defense Linus Edwards seemed to comprehend the seriousness of the situation. Saint-Michael had gotten authorization only just in time, though, to put a hold on the launch so he could arrange a cargo switch…

Alone now in the command module, he was not so all-fired sure he was right. And with that thought came another: that he'd better be, or the folks back home just might invent a Yankee Siberia for him if his plan backfired.

"The most sophisticated radar ships in the world," Admiral Clancy grumbled, "and I still feel naked as a jaybird out here."

The commander of Nimitz carrier fleet was talking to Captain Edgewater, captain of the Nimitz, in the carrier's combat information center. He was talking about the USS Ticonderoga, Shiloh, Valley Forge and Hue City, the Aegis battle management cruisers operating alongside Nimitz as the battle group steamed slowly eastward in the Arabian Sea.

Ticonderoga and her sisters, although over a decade old, were indeed some of the most sophisticated vessels in the world. Their four large phased-array radar antennas could scan the skies for hundreds of miles in all directions, electronically link dozens of ships together and direct gun, aircraft or missile attacks against hundreds of targets all at once, They carried nearly a half-billion dollars worth of nuclear-hardened twenty-first-century equipment. Yet here in the middle of the Arabian Sea they were made virtually impotent by the sophistication of weaponry and the preponderance of enemy forces surrounding them.

Clancy pointed to a five-foot-by-five-foot liquid-crystal display in the center of Nimitz's CIC. "I need more eyes up there, Captain," Clancy was saying, jabbing his finger toward the center of the Arabian Sea. "Ticonderoga's detection range for high-flying aircraft is only about three hundred miles; for surface vessels and low-flying aircraft it's about fifty miles, and for fast-moving, sea-skimming missiles or aircraft the detection range could be as little as twenty miles." Edgewater agreed with the commander of the Persian Gulf flotilla. Clancy continued: "It's just not enough. With Soviet cruise missiles having Mach five speed and supersonic bombers that could carry fifty-thousand-pound payloads at Mach two and fifty feet above the water, Ticonderoga can barely keep up. An AS-6 cruise missile diving down on us at nearly Mach speed would only give our escorts five minutes to destroy the missile. A Soviet Blackjack or Backfire bomber at extreme low altitude, detected at maximum range, would be right on top of us in seconds, giving us barely enough time to react."

"They have to get past the fleet defenses first, Admiral," Edgewater said. "We've got nearly a hundred missile launchers on-line, plus fifty fighters aboard Nimitz ready to fly—"

"But we're already stretched to the limit," Clancy said, pointing around the periphery of his fleet's escorts. "We've got Soviet ships from the Red Sea and Yemen, Soviet aircraft and cruise missiles from Iran, and the Arkhangel carrier group from the south and east." He shook his head, trying but failing to manage a rueful smile. "Some old sea dog I turned out to be… A carrier's main defensive weapon is not getting itself into indefensible tactical situations in the first place. Here's a perfect example of what not to do: getting yourself surrounded on all sides by the bad guys… We need a good five hundred miles of reliable surveillance before we can safely secure this group. Right now we don't have it. We need some important help if we're going to pull this off."

"The best we can get out here," Edgewater said, "are our own carrier-based EF-18s and Hawkeye AWACS radar planes."

"Which will be prime targets when the shooting starts. And we just don't have the assets to assign one fighter to one Hawkeye for protection."

"We can try another HIMLORD recon drone sortie."

Clancy shook his head. "Those drones are worth their weight in gold, but they're sitting ducks against shipbome surface-to-air concentrations. We sent four of them up two days ago and the Soviets used them for target practice." He paused for a minute, staring at the screen; then: "What about Diego Garcia? Any help from the Air Force available?"

"Same deal with Air Force E-3C AWACs," Edgewater said. "The Russian Su-27s will pick them off right away. Command won't risk them so far out without fighter escort."

"They're trying to tell me about risk?" Clancy had no trouble getting up a sarcastic smile. "I'm up to my eyeballs in risk." He studied the huge SPY-2 Aegis repeater display in front of him. "Y'know what we need, Joe?"

Joe knew: they needed their space-based eyes back.

For the last ten minutes the general secretary had listened with scarcely disguised impatience as Khromeyev and Rhomerdunov briefed him on their conversation with Govorov about the recent movement of the space station. "Stop right there," the Soviet commander in chief said, holding up his hand. "I've heard enough to worry me. Thank you very much. But in spite of your emphasis on Marshal Govorov's assessment of the damage done to the station, you cannot dismiss that he did recommend a second attack."

"Nor would we wish to, sir," Khromeyev said quickly. "But I have already pointed out why an attack would be unwise at this time. Further, intelligence has come up with the very credible explanation that the Americans may be simply retrieving components."

"I can't believe that. The Americans would not have gone to the trouble of boosting Armstrong into a higher orbit if their only objective was to salvage scrap… Govorov should have finished off the station while he had the chance."

"Oh, I agree, sir," Rhomerdunov said. "But logic tells us there is no possible way Armstrong can be repaired and reactivated in time to contribute to the American fleet's operation in the Middle East. Their rescue of a nonoperational Armstrong is of no consequence to our operation,"

"I would like to believe these assurances of yours." The general secretary moved back to the seat behind his desk, leaving the two men standing ill at ease. He stared directly at them. "So your recommendation is to do nothing?"

"No, sir," Rhomerdunov said. "Not at all. I have ordered Space Defense Command on full alert. Armstrong's new orbit will be carefully monitored, and any other spacecraft that attempt to dock or service the station will be tracked and reported to the Stavka. We will also monitor the station for radar emissions in case the Americans somehow manage to partially activate their space-based radar—"

"So your absolute assurances are not so absolute, after all." The general secretary shook his head. "You know as well as I the consequences of the Americans being able to use their space-based radar. Any advantage we hoped to gain by moving the Arkhangel into the area will be largely minimized; the balance of power will be restored."

"Sir," Khromeyev said quickly, trying to rebut but not too strongly, "the advantage of having a crippled space station with a partially active radar cannot be compared with having the world's most destructive war vessel. "

"But we've seen what Armstrong's radar can do. And we have yet to see what the Arkhangel can do." He paused a moment, considering. "You're right, though, about the effect of an attack on the station now, without verification that the Americans are reactivating it and right after that unfortunate incident with the Americans' rescue craft. It would no doubt turn world opinion against us, possibly even upset relations with some of our allies. It appears then that we only have one option…"

"And that, sit?" Khromeyev didn't like where this was heading. He wished Minister of Defense Czilikov had been at the meeting, but Czilikov had allowed him and Rhomerdunov to report to the Soviet commander in chief directly, assuming no action would be taken. It now appeared that was a mistake.

"It should be obvious that we cannot wait any longer to give Arkhangel the order to strike. I will not allow the advantage we now hold to slip away."

Khromeyev tried to keep his composure. "Sir, the fleets are still days apart. We can't mount a large enough strike force from such long range—"

"Then, damn it, augment the Arkhangel's forces with landbased bombers or cruise missiles. The heavy Tupolev bombers and cruise missiles were most eftective—"

"Against targets in Iran," Rhomerdunov put in. "The bombers were able to launch their missiles while still over their territory. If we were to strike at the Nimitz carrier group, the bombers would have to fly over the Gulf of Oman. They would be within range of the Nimitz's own fighters."

"Then use faster bombers. Use those supersonic Tupolev-22 bombers instead of the turboprop Tupolev-95s — I don't know why the damn things are still in our inventory anyway."

"Sir… " Khromeyev reached for the right words to tell his commander in chief that he should leave the battle plans to his generals, "I would like to suggest we involve Minister Czilikov. He no doubt will want a meeting of the Stavka; there are factors involved—"

"I am tired of meetings, Khrorneyev. Every hour we delay is a wasted one, allowing the Americans to prepare defensive measures. We have the upper hand — now is the time to act."

He sat back in his chair, looked at them, rapped his knuckles on the desk. "All right, brief Czilikov. Call your meeting. But by four o'clock… no, by three o'clock, I want a complete strike plan ready for execution. Clear?"

A barely heard crackle in his earset told Saint-Michael someone on board America was calling him. He picked up the earphone, put it on his head. "Saint-Michael here."

"Jason, it's Ann. Coming aboard." The general was surprised. It had only been three hours since the crew had transferred over to the spaceplane.

"All right," he said, putting on his POS mask, "come on through."

An environmental alarm immediately sounded in the connecting tunnel. The airlock they had built leaked connecting tunnel air rapidly when opened, setting off the alarm. Without a spacesuit Ann would have had about sixty seconds to get into the connecting tunnel, seal the door and repressurize the connecting tunnel before the atmospheric pressure reached the danger level. The repressurization always took away a bit of air pressure from the command module, which was why Saint-Michael had to wear a mask during a transfer. A few moments later, with the general monitoring the transfer and repressurization, Ann entered the command module.

Saint-Michael pulled off his mask. "You came alone?"

"I couldn't sleep any longer," she said, removing her mask. "I thought it would be nice to spend at least a few minutes with you alone…"

"Sounds like a good idea to me. We haven't had a chance to talk since Colorado Springs."

"And then you were so upset about Space Command's decision… You didn't say it but I knew it. I'm just glad all that arm twisting of yours worked. I have to admit that right before the launch, well, I'd pretty much given up hope."

"Well, luck had something to do with it… something we'll need more of in the next few days."

"They'll be coming, won't they?"

Saint-Michael reached out, pulled her against him, felt her body tight against his. "Yes," he said. "They have to… I'm sure they've realized that Silver Tower hasn't crashed into the atmosphere. They're probably asking Govorov, their Elektron pilot, how bad he thinks the station's been damaged. If they send him up again it'll be an act of aggression, and they'll want to be damn sure it's necessary. They're not fools or idiots, despite what some of our armchair heroes back in D.C. might think. Still, I've got to bet that Govorov will try his best to convince them he should attack again. There was too much celebrating over how effective the first attack was. He'll feel that he has to finish the job… Ann, you said that Skybolt was operational. Is it?"

"I don't know," she said, obviously frustrated she couldn't answer with a flat yes. "I haven't had a chance to check all the systems yet, but judging by the condition of the SBR, I don't think so…"

"We've got to know. Skybolt is our only defense against those Elektron spaceplanes. As of right now I'm putting you on Skybolt exclusively; I'll work on the SBR as much as I can. Marty and Ken can finish the repositioning and look after the station. There may be another way we can protect the station until Skybolt can be repaired. I can check on the—"

"Not now, Jason. Look, you need some rest. You'll be no use to anyone if you're—"

"Right, but we just don't have time…" He turned to his comm panel. "I think Marty's had enough sleep." He pressed his earset closer to his head and keyed the microphone. "America, this is Alpha."

"Good mornin', General," said Colonel Hampton. "Go ahead. "

"I need Marty Schultz over here."

"Yes, sir. "

"And Jon. Have Marty bring some chow and coffee."

Saint-Michael turned back to Ann, who gave him a sour look. "I know, I know," he said. "There'll be time for sacking out later. I want you on Skybolt as soon as you've had something to eat. Get that gizmo of yours working, whatever it takes. Meantime, I've got me an air force to assemble."

"Air force? You're going to use America for—?"

"Not America. If the shooting starts I want America as far away from it as possible, back on earth if necessary."

"Than what?"

But before he could answer Marty Schultz came in and Ann was left to speculate. Which she suspected Saint-Michael intended anyway for the time being.

For Marty Schultz this new job was nearly as painful as seeing the burned and disfigured corpses of his fellow crewmen stacked in the docking module. Enterprise was something special to him; he was the expert on its operation. He had flown on every shuttle in the fleet, old and new, but Enterprise was uniquely his.

He was a child during the early shuttle free-flight tests, and it was Enterprise being dropped from the back of a modified Boeing 747 that had ignited his desire to be an astronaut. He had imagined himself at the controls, retrieving satellites, rescuing stranded cosmonauts, building a city in the sky.

When Enterprise had been refurbished and activated as an interim replacement for the shuttle Challenger, Marty had set a new challenge for himself. Every waking moment had been spent preparing to fly aboard her, and since then he had flown Enterprise more than any other person.

Now he saw Enterprise a few hundred yards away through his bubble space helmet, and the sight tore at his guts. He saw the initial impact point of the Russian hypervelocity missile, saw the remains of the terrible explosion and fire in the lower decks, saw the devastation in the RCS, the nose reaction-control system pod. The shuttle's docking adapter and airlock were wide open, like the open spout of a dead pilot whale washed up on a beach. Her remote manipulator arm was sloppily sticking out of the open cargo bay, its grappler claws extended like fingers of a hand reaching for help.

Well, he was here to help. "Beginning translation," he said. "Roger," Colonel Hampton said from America. Marty nudged his MMU thruster-control and slid toward the shuttle. "Damn it, damage is worse than I thought," Marty said as he approached the shuttle.

Hampton glanced nervously at the inertial altimeter. "Marty, we're only a few miles above the atmosphere entry point. Then won't be much time. Can you fly that thing without a forward RCS pod?"

"She'll fly just fine. It'll be hard to dock her — maybe impossible — but if she's got power and fuel she'll be all right." He had to sound as though he believed it. For his own sake as well as the others.

He glided over to the cargo bay, unclipped the MMU and stowed it in a restraining harness on the forward bulkhead, then glided over to the docking adapter on the airlock and slipped inside. The sight of the middeck made him recoil. "I… I'm in the middeck, America. Everything's wiped out. There may be nothing salvageable." He paused for a minute longer, then, looking away from the unidentifiable hunks of debris remaining on the crew seats, announced, "Moving to the flight deck."

"Roger."

A few moments later Marty was in the commander's seat and surveying the instruments. "It looks good, America. Still have battery power on. I'm going to try to repower the fuel cells."

He examined the electrical distribution panel on the pilot's side of the cockpit. The switches were arranged on the panel with lines and arrows to show the relationship between the various circuits and power controls, but he knew them all by heart. As long as the cells weren't damaged, Marty told himself, they should be working. "Oxygen and hydrogen manifolds one, two and three open," he recited as he flipped switches. "DC battery power tied to essential bus. Tank heaters on… "

He continued his litany of system checks, identifying faulty connections and making the necessary repairs. Finally the main instrument panel lights came on. "We've got it, America," Marty said excitedly. "Enterprise is alive." His enthusiasm peaking, he finished reactivating Enterprise's fuel cells, then moved back to the left-side commander's seat. "C'mon, lady," Marty said, patting the digital autopilot panel. "I know you're alive. Now we need to get back into the game."

The computer-monitor in front of him was blank except for a tiny blinking rectangle no bigger than the size of a kernel of corn — but that tiny dot was the ballgame. Enterprise's brain, the GPC, was alive and awake — the problem was it had forgotten it was a General Purpose Computer. He had to perform an IPL, an initial program load, the series of commands that would tell the computer that it was a computer.

He did it quickly, entering a series of digital commands that told the computer where in its permanent memory it could find a program that would initiate the computer's speedy education. After each lesson the computer would perform a final exam, writing another program for itself in volatile memory that it would use to move to the next lesson. Marty coaxed each step into the process with commands that would periodically quiz the GPC on its progress. On the ground prior to launch these complicated steps were usually performed by ground personnel so that when the crew arrived on the shuttle they found a perfectly running fully educated GPC. Marty was one of the few who had taken the time to watch this procedure from the beginning.

"How's it going, Marty?"

"We're up to high school."

"Say again."

"We're doing fine, just fine."

Thirty long minutes later the computer screen was filled with messages telling of malfunctions, environmental problems, shortages of supplies. But to Marty it all meant Enterprise was thinking once again. He entered one final code into the GPC and grabbed the flight-control stick. "America. Enterprise is ready to maneuver."

"Roger. Moving clear." Hampton commanded America's computer to move away from Enterprise on a heading back toward the station. "Well clear."

"Here we go." Marty double-checked his switch positions and nudged the stick forward.

Nothing. "C'mon, baby." He nudged the stick a bit more. Still no reaction. "Enterprise, any luck?"

"Stand by." Marty cleared the in-flight maneuvering code from the GPC and reentered it. This time the GPC refused to accept the code. He sat back in his seat, scanned the panel. "Last chance," he said to the instrument panel. He checked the RCS fuel-pressure gauges, power supplies, circuit breakers, bypass circuit — all nominal. "We don't have much time, Enterprise. Get her started or abandon her."

"One more minute." He cleared the GPC flight code once again. "This is it, you contrary s.o.b. If you don't go, I leave you to fry on your way down." He reentered flight code two-oh-two and the computer screen blanked. "The GPCs not accepting the maneuvering code," Marty radioed to Hampton. "Then let's get the hell out of here. Hull temperatures are increasing. If you wait much longer… "

"On my way, " Marty said. He was about to leave the commander's seat when a sudden thought stopped him. He sat down and cleared the in-flight maneuvering code, punched in the code to erase the IPL and the mass memory areas. He was eliminating all the shuttle's schooling.

Suddenly the code came back as "202," the in-flight maneuvering code. "A perverse lady… Reverse psychology, works every time—"

"Say again, Enterprise?"

Marty sat back in the commander's seat and took a firm grip on the control stick. "I say, lead on, America. Enterprise is right and ready to go."

Marty Schultz, along with Ken Horvath, hovered over yet another piece of free-floating SBR console, grabbed it and secured it back in place with another piece of tape. "Attention on the station," Saint-Michael announced over interphone. "Target-area horizon crossing in one minute. Stand by. This station is on red alert."

Horvath nudged Schultz, looking around the command module. Almost every panel and console in the entire module-ceiling as well as wall mounts had been removed during the past five days and only about half of them had been put back in their original places. The rest were either floating, attached or semi-attached to some other piece of equipment somewhere else in the module. Bundles of wiring of all descriptions crisscrossed the module in all directions: it was easier for the crewmembers to float around the wires than to try to route the wiring behind the ever-changing landscape of electronic components. Pieces of equipment borrowed from other modules — computers and monitors from the recreation module, wiring from Enterprise, tubing and insulation from the cargo module, test components and, in many spots, entire console sections from the scientific module — added to the seemingly random piles of equipment scattered throughout the command module. But the mountains of gadgets only partially concealed the huge silicone patches on the module walls, the areas of scorching where fires had broken out, and the occasionally flashing environmental warning lights (the warning horns had been deactivated long ago; they went off all the time but everyone watched the warning lights anyway).

One of the silicone patches had recently been removed, and a large data-transmission cable had been strung through the hole before a new silicone patch was applied. The cable ran from the command module out across space and connected to a port in America's cargo bay; the spaceplane had been secured beside Silver Tower by having America's manipulator arm grasp and hold the station's central keel. A few consoles had been removed on America's flight deck and a hasty rewiring job had also been managed there.

"Jon, we'll be ready to transmit in a few minutes," Saint-Michael radioed to Hampton aboard America.

"Roger," Hampton replied."

"TDRS set to fleet tactical, and TDRS link for America to Armstrong shows active and ready. Standing by."

Saint-Michael turned back to the master space-based radar console — actually, the one that was acting as the master display. Parts of the master console were spread throughout the module, but they had managed to cluster most of the important controls together to make it easier for one person to operate it. Ken Horvath took his place beside Saint-Michael and studied the displays, shaking his head, "I'm having trouble deciphering all this."

"I'll explain," Saint-Michael told him. "You may have to relay this information to Nimitz or Ticonderoga like an air traffic controller if the TDRS relay doesn't work. Okay, our SBR display computer is all gone, so it can't draw the informational maps and target symbols for us. But we still get the raw data that would have been fed into the SBR display computer — range, bearing, altitude, heading and velocity of the object being tracked. All of that is displayed on these two screens. The SBR can also analyze the target — tell us if it's an aircraft, a ship, its origin and even possible destinations and that's displayed on the left screen. You match up target designation codes to find which is which."

Horvath was feeling more confident. "Sounds easy enough."

"It isn't. The SBR can pick up objects weighing as little as a few hundred pounds, so we'll be getting a flood of information. We'll probably need to squelch some of the SBR data — delete the stuff we don't want to look at. We have a monitor that records what's being squelched but we can't see it from here. So be careful… If we link up with the Nimitz via TDRS, the third monitor here will show his position as well. I'm hoping that Ticonderoga's computers can digest these raw data into their information-center's digital display."

Saint-Michael checked the right-hand display. "Attention on the station. Target-area crossing." Then to Hampton aboard America, "Activate the TDRS link, Jon."

"Admiral, urgent message from the Ticonderoga."

Edgewater quickly read the message form. "Admiral, it's from Armstrong Space Station. They're back transmitting…"

Clancy was already staring in surprise at the liquid-crystal repeater display. It began to shimmer and undulate as if streams of phosphorescent water were pouring down its face. The numbers and scales of the display itself began to change at first, then the symbols of the ships belonging to the Nimitz carrier group. After a few moments land and political boundaries were drawing themselves at the upper edge of the screen.

And at the right-hand side of the screen was the Arkhangel carrier group, its escorts spread out into the "Russian star" formation. Soon even finer elements were being added: the display identified aircraft, helicopters, even types of radar emissions from each vessel. The side of the display showed codes belonging to each ship and its course and speed.

Clancy hurried over to the master CIC console and picked up a headset. "Patch me into Ticonderoga. I want to talk with the space station."

The relay took a few minutes, but Clancy soon heard the familiar crackle of the scrambled satellite transmission and another familiar sound… "Nimitz, this is Armstrong Station. How copy? Over."

"Jason, I'm damned. I heard someone in space command might get off their duffs and fix that station but I didn't dare believe it. Very glad to hear your voice."

"Likewise, Admiral," Saint-Michael said. "We don't have much time. I've passed the essentials to Ticonderoga but here's our situation: we're on an equatorial orbit this time. That means we have coverage of you for only twenty minutes every ninety minutes. That's twenty on, seventy off, twenty on, seventy off. Best we can do."

"I understand, Jas.That's fine. Hell, even twenty minutes of SBR data is valuable. Listen, what's your level of damage up there? Do you have any defense?"

Saint-Michael gave a sideways glance at Marty Schultz as he exited the command module hatch. "We're working on that, Admiral. We might even have a surprise for anybody who happens to drop in on us. Anyhow, we're hanging tight here. Out."

The attack plan had been coordinated down to the very second.

The six Soviet Tupolev-26 Backfire bombers attacking from Iran each carried one AS-6 Kingfish antiship cruise missile semirecessed along its centerline weapons hardpoint, plus two AS-12 Kegler antiradar missiles on the intake-weapons stations. At three hundred miles distance from the northernmost escorts of the American aircraft carrier Nimitz, the six Backfire bombers would launch their missiles from eleven thousand meters. Then as the six cruise missiles climbed and accelerated to their cruising altitude the bombers would drop low for the long overwater supersonic dash toward the fleet. Once within ninety kilometers of any American vessel, the Backfire bombers would launch their antiradar missiles at any acquisition of tracking radars they met up with.

At the same time as the AS-6 missile launches, the first wave of Sukhoi-27 Flanker fighters would launch from the Arkhangel toward the Nimitz. Along with the fighters, two waves of five supersonic swing-wing Sukhoi-24 Fencer bombers would launch from the escort attack-carriers Kiev and Novorossiysk and begin attacks on the Nimitz's escorts from the south and west. Each bomber carried two AS-12 antiradar missiles, four AS-16 advanced long-range armor-piercing missiles and one thirty-millimeter Gatling-type strafing gun with armor-piercing shells.

The two-pronged attack, involving twenty-four heavily armed supersonic aircraft, was timed to near-perfection. The copilot aboard the lead Backfire bomber, First Lieutenant Ivan Tretyak, was responsible for force-timing for the six Backfire bombers from the Caspian Sea aviation base at Baku. "Checkpoint coming up, copilot," the navigator-bombardier called up to Tretyak. "Ready, ready… now. "

"Seven seconds late," Tretyak said, checking his flight plan and chronometer. "New groundspeed, navigator?"

"Stand by… New groundspeed to next checkpoint — one-one-nine-five kilometers per hour."

"Copy," the pilot, Major Andrei Budanova, replied. Carefully watching his Dopler groundspeed readout, he nudged the throttle of his twin Kuznetsov NK-144 turbofans up until the groundspeed read the proper value, then reset the Backfire's wings until the proper launch angle of attack was reestablished. "Groundspeed set." He switched his radio to the air-to-air command frequency. "Ruzlan flight, new throttle setting ninety-four percent. Wing-sweep setting forty degrees. " His five wingmen acknowledged the call.

Perfect, the attack-formation commander told himself. Dead on time, six good bombers and not one hint of detection or threats anywhere. Perfect…

"Sir, SBR is reporting six large high-speed aircraft approaching on an intercept heading from the northwest. Armstrong Station's SBR is calling them Backfire bombers."

"Range?"

"Aircraft are still over Iran, sir," the seaman aboard the Nimitz said. "Six hundred sixty nautical miles and closing at Mach one. All still at high altitude."

"Sound general quarters," Edgewater ordered, then looked to Clancy, waiting for a countermand or change. Instead he got: "Launch alert flight Romeo to intercept and get Whiskey One on the catapults. Send the cruiser Mississippi northwest to follow the Tomcats to assist. Broadcast messages on all frequencies warning all aircraft within four hundred miles to identify themselves or we will fire without further warning."

"Aye, sir."

Clancy slapped his hands together as his aide handed him a life jacket and helmet.

"Nimitz, this is Armstrong. We're showing aircraft heading your way. Do you copy?"

"We got 'em, Jason," Clancy radioed back. A happy warrior now. "You guys spotted 'em a full three hundred miles before Aegis would have even known they were there. You may have just saved this battle group. Well done."

Saint-Michael took a deep breath. "Thanks, Admiral. We'll be maintaining surveillance for another one-five minutes. Let's hope the Russians don't get too feisty while we're on the back side of our orbit."

"That's up to us. Thanks again on this end. Nimitz clear."

"Luck, Admiral. Armstrong out."

"I am showing ninety seconds to launch point," Tretyak announced. "Acknowledged, copilot," the bombardier replied, inside the dark bombardier cubicle a few meters behind Tretyak. Khabarovsk glanced across the narrow aisle to the defensive-systems operator, pulled, a flask from his boot and took a long pun. But he wasn't quick enough about it: the electronic warfare officer, First Lieutenant Artemskiy, spotted him. Khabarovsk thought he'd be in big trouble. To his surprise, Artemskiy nodded toward his own electronics countermeasure cubicle behind the pilot and opened his two gloved hands. Khabarovsk expertly tossed the flask into them.

Artemskiy unscrewed the flask and sniffed the contents. Not vodka? He swirled it around, glanced at Khabarovsk. The bombardier rolled his palm over his stomach.

"Coming up to missile-launch point."

"Acknowledged." Khabarovsk gave Artemskiy a thumbs-up and carefiilly rechecked his switch positions for missile launch. "Checklist complete. Ready for launch commit and ten-second alignment countdown."

"Ruzian flight, Ruzian flight," Budanova, the pilot, called over the air-to-air radio, "launch commit. Repeat, launch commit." Bombardier Khabarovsk moved the LAUNCH COMMIT button to the COMMIT position.

Artemskiy returned Khabarovsk's salute, then nodded at the flask. One sip couldn't hurt. They were still miles away from the extreme range of the Americans' radar. He tipped the flask up to his lips—

A threat-waming buzzer sounded on his panel. Startled, Aremskiy dumped a mouthful of home-made distilled grain alcohol straight down his trachea and into his lungs. "Defense section. Threat warning. Bearing and type immediately."

Artemskiy upchucked onto his tiny workshelf beneath his electronics console, but it did little good — he couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. The flask clattered down his flightsuit, drenching his pants leg and deck with alcohol.

"Defense. Report. Bearing and type to threat." Still no reply.

"Ruzian flight, evasive maneuver Echo-five-echo. Execute."

"Negative," Khabarovsk called out. "Still five seconds to go on missile countdown…"

"Disregard missile countdown, bombardier. Place your missile in countdown hold and get ready to launch after we roll out. Defense, give me a bearing on the threat."

But it was already too late. The lead pilot's only evasive maneuver in a line-abreast cruise-missile launch formation was a hard pushover to a three-"g" dive for the safety of the sea, and because he would be on the same heading during the maneuver the push had to occur immediately after threat detection. He did not have time to ask for bearings or give orders. Just at the point he decided to execute the evasive maneuver a U.S. Navy AIM-54 Phoenix missile struck the Backfire bomber's right-wing root and sent the one-hundred-fifty-ton bomber to a fiery crash in the Arabian Sea.

Attacking from one hundred miles away with long-range Phoenix missiles, six F-14E Tomcat Plus fighters from the USS Nimitz screamed toward the scattering Backfire bombers. The Phoenix missiles were relatively less reliable launched at their extreme range limit, but even though only one Phoenix missile found its target the attack achieved its effect. The AS-6 cruise missile required a steady launch platform within narrowly defined acceleration limits ten seconds before launch, and all six of the Backfire bombers had immediately exceeded those limits.

The devastation continued after the Tomcats closed in. With no internal bomb bay and the AS-12 antiradar missiles installed on the underside intake weapon stations, the Backfire's limiting speed was Mach 1.5, but the bombers were already at Mach one before they began their evasive maneuvers. As soon as they started their emergency descents for the safety of the radar clutter of the sea, they reached and then exceeded the normal weapons limits. The fortunate ones jettisoned the AS-12 and AS-6 missiles before reaching the emergency carriage speed limit of Mach 1.8; the rest found their supersonic bombers shaking themselves to pieces and their AS-12 missiles ripping free of their weakened pylons.

Of the original six-bomber attack force, three survived the initial F-14 Tomcat attack that had seemed to come out of nowhere. Of these three, one was chased down and destroyed by a medium-range Sidewinder heat-seeking missile. A second failed to jettison its AS-12 missiles, one of which ripped free of its pylon and struck the horizontal stabilizer, making the aircraft spin out of control.

The remaining Backfire bomber ended its evasive maneuver immediately after beginning it, realigned its AS-6 cruise missile and launched it seconds before two Tomcats hit it with three air-to-air missiles. The AS-6 missile, riding a long, bright yellow column of fire, sped skyward, leveled off at fifty thousand feet and went southeast at Mach three. The American Tomcats had no hope of chasing it down.

But the AS-6 missile tracked directly over the guided missile cruiser USS Mississippi, which had been trailing the Tomcats from the Nimitz and had been tracking the AS-6 almost since launch. It brought both of its fore-and-aft Mark 26 dual-rail vertical launchers to bear and fired a salvo of four SM2-ER Standard missiles at the speeding AS-6 cruise missile. The AS-6, in spite of its advanced design, accuracy and awesome destructive power, was still not capable of any evasive maneuvers; flying at high altitude and in a straight line toward its target, it also made itself an inviting target. The U.S. defense missiles intercepted the Soviet cruise missile several seconds later.

"Bridge, CIC. Aegis reporting radar-contact aircraft bearing one-five-zero true, range three-one-five, closing fast. Multiple inbounds. "

Well, the fleet wouldn't have Silver Tower to help them out on this one, Admiral Clancy thought as he and Captain Edgewater paced the bridge of the USS Nimitz, dividing their attention between flight-deck operations and the Aegis battle-management radar-repeater scope.

Edgewater studied the scope. "We've got Tango flight on patrol to the southeast, Admiral. Four Tomcats." He picked up the phone to CIC. "Combat, this is Edgewater. Got a count on those inbounds?"

"Negative, sir. So far only three targets, high altitude, fast moving, within two hundred miles of our cruiser South Carolina's position."

"Better get another flight airborne to back up Tango against those inbounds," Clancy told Edgewater. "I don't believe the Arkhangel's only sending up three planes. It's more than likely three formations- two attack and one fighter escort…"

"Aye, sir. " Edgewater replaced the phone to CIC and picked up the phone to flight operations: "Air ops, this is the bridge. Get Whiskey One airborne and Sierra on deck. Send Whiskey One to back up Tango."

He turned back to Clancy, who was staring at the buzz of activity surrounding the two F-14 Tomcats on the catapults. Behind the retractable blast-fence two more Tomcats waited for their turn on the catapults, and eight more were lined up waiting to taxi behind them. The number-three elevator was bringing still another Tomcat up out of the hangar deck to take its place in line. The flight deck was noisy and smelly, and cold rain began to pelt the lookout deck surrounding the bridge of the Nimitz — but Clancy was in his element as he watched his sailors do their stuff.

A messenger ran up to Edgewater and handed him a sheet of computer paper. "Message from the Mississippi, Admiral," Edgewater called out. When Clancy did not reply, Edgewater went out to him on the catwalk. "The Mississippi intercepted a Soviet AS-6 cruise missile launched from the north Arabian Sea."

"What about the Backfires? Did the Tomcats…?"

"All six down," Edgewater said, allowing a smile. "The Tomcats took out five of them. A sixth went out of control."

Clancy raised his eyes skyward, letting pellets of cold rain hit his face.

Thank you, Silver Tower…

The night of the abortive Backfire bomber attack in the Arabian Sea a uniformed man appeared at Govorov's home at the Space Defense base at Tyuratam. The banging on the apartment door startled Govorov's wife and caused their five-year-old daughter to wake up, asking if the apartment was on fire. Govorov opened the door and found an aide of the Minister of Defense with a sealed letter in his hand. The letter told him there was a MiG-31 waiting for him at Tyuratam Aerodrome; he was to report to the Kremlin immediately. The letter stated the exact time of his appointment with the Stavka.

Govorov was irritated but hid it from Czilikov's aide. There was no way he could arrive at the designated time, even aboard one of the world's fastest jet fighters. But that was intended, an obvious ploy to show how displeased the Stavka was with him.

Telling the aide to give him a few minutes, he went back to the tiny bathroom in his master bedroom and without a light began to run hot water to shave. His wife propped herself up on one elbow in their bed. "Who was it, Alesander?"

"A messenger from Moscow. They want me there."

"And you were going to shave in the dark?" She got up from bed and snapped on the bathroom light. "I'd better check on Katrina. The messenger scared her."

He could hear his wife's soothing voice trying to calm their daughter and had to steady his razor hand to keep from nicking himself. If one of the august members of the Stavka were roused out of bed as he had been, heads would roll. He didn't really stand much on ceremony or rank, but they were still treating him like a squadron commander.

He knew why, of course… It was because of the American space station Armstrong's not being destroyed as he'd thought at first…

He shaved, quickly washed, dressed in a space defense command flight suit and a pair of boots. His wife was waiting at the door with his flying jacket, an insulated bottle of coffee and an egg-and-sausage sandwich wrapped in a napkin.

He took her face in both his hands and kissed her on the lips. "I do not deserve you," he said. "Oh, I think you do," she said, helping him on with his jacket, "but I deserve you as well." She zipped up his jacket for him and returned his kiss with a long, warm one of her own. "Will you call me before you launch?"

Her question had been unexpected. "I won't ask how you knew that I might be flying today. If I could conquer the mysteries of a woman, I could conquer outer space, maybe even the Stavka members." She smiled, but it was strained. "Yes," he said quickly, "I will try to call."

"I love you, Alesander."

Her tone held him. He searched her round eyes looked away. What he saw bothered him… "I'll call you," he said, and hurried out. He nearly stumbled over the aide in his rush toward the stairway. The man ran ahead to open the door for him as they emerged into the cold darkness. Govorov snatched up the telephone in the rear of the car as the driver hustled behind the wheel and sped off.

Govorov punched four digits into the dialing keypad. "Marshal Govorov here. Duty officer. Gulaev? Put him on. Nikolai. I've been ordered to Moscow. Call dispatch at the aerodrome and take whoever is the pilot of the MiG-31 off the flight orders. I'll fly myself to Moscow. Have life-support put my gear on the plane, then put me on the flight orders for Elektron One effective upon my return to Glowing Star. Shift Colonel Kozhedub to Elektron Two and Litvyak to Three. Put Vorozheykin on the flight orders of Elektron One until I get back. He will drop back to standby with Pokryshkin when I take command of Elektron One."

Govorov dropped the phone back onto its cradle and leaned toward the front seat. "Drive faster." A vivid image of his wife and daughter came to him and he forced it away. He had seen something in his wife's eyes back in the apartment that he badly wanted to change. She was scared, too scared for her own good… or his.

"Faster."