Patrick McLanahan Collection #1 (152 page)

It happened with amazing speed: five minutes past a normal burn period, Boomer got a flashing warning message on his supercockpit display. “Cripes, just fifteen minutes to bingo fuel,” he muttered. “Normally we'd be getting ready to land by now—we haven't even completed our insertion burn yet.”

“It's going to be a close one, crew,” Dave Luger said. “We're watching the burn curve carefully, and so far we're just a few percent under it. About ten minutes to the emergency abort point.”

“Too much information, General,” Raydon said. “We're committed—there's no emergency abort.” Everyone knew he was correct: they could make it back to Earth intact, but exactly which runway they'd land on—or even if there was a runway nearby—was unknown. Their best—and soon their only—hope was to make the trip as planned.

It seemed to take forever, but soon the “leopards” engines shut down, and the ship went from a sustained, loud roar to complete silence within milliseconds. “Two hundred and fifteen miles up,” Boomer breathed. “I didn't think it would make that big a difference, but it does.” He looked at the fuel readings, then told himself not to bother looking any longer—they were dismal. Their fuel was nearly exhausted, and they still had one large LPDRS burn to do to slow the Black Stallion down from its current “chase” speed to a speed slow enough for the crew to use maneuvering thrusters to position the spaceplane.

The telemetry readouts showed them exactly how far they had to go and how long it would take to get there, so there were
absolutely no surprises, but Boomer found himself staring out the canopy side windscreens for their objective. The glare of the Earth against the darkness of space made scanning the horizon difficult. “Man, it's easy to see the station at night—I've even seen it at late afternoon,” he said, “but I can't see it now.”

“Be patient, Boomer,” Raydon said. “Don't anticipate. If we start chasing it, even subconsciously, we'll run out of fuel. Relax.” It was easier said than done, but Boomer forced himself to close his eyes and recite his Transcendental Meditation mantra to help calm him down.

It obviously helped, because Boomer found himself awakened by the warning tone that the computer was beginning the pre-rendezvous checklist. Moments later the thrusters activated to flip the Black Stallion around so it was flying tail-first, and shortly afterward the LPDRS engines flared briefly to life. Soon the speed of the station and the spaceplane were just a few miles an hour different. “Okay, Colonel, she's all yours,” Patrick radioed.

“Roger that,” Raydon said. Using the opposite set of thrusters in order not to deplete too much propellant from one set of maneuvering engines, Raydon carefully nudged the Black Stallion up and around until they were facing the direction of flight again…

…and Boomer felt himself take a deep, excited breath as their objective came into sight. My God, he breathed, it's beautiful…!

At magnitude minus-6, the Armstrong Space Station was fifty percent brighter than the planet Venus in the night sky—only the sun and moon were brighter. It was so bright that quite often the light reflecting off its solar panels, radar arrays, antennae, and reflective anti-laser outer skin cast shadows on Earth. Boomer knew all that and had studied and even photographed “Silver Tower” through a telescope as a kid. But seeing it this close was breathtaking.

The main cluster of four large habitats was arranged perpendicular to Earth's horizon, which gave it its “Tower” nickname, with a short service, storage, and mechanical spar horizontal. It had four rows of solar power–generating panels on the upper half,
each over four hundred feet long and forty feet wide. Two large remote manipulator arms were visible, ready to assist loading and unloading cargo and inspecting all of the modules.

The lower half of the station below the keel had two rows of electronically scanned phased-array radar antennae each over a thousand feet long and fifty feet wide, resembling a delicate ribbon floating in mid-air. This radar, the largest ever built, could detect and track thousands of stationary and moving targets as small as an automobile on land, in the sky, in space, and even hundreds of feet underwater and dozens of feet underground. A number of smaller antennae for signals collection, datalinks, and station self-defense surveillance were mounted on arms connected to the keel. Atop the tower was another device Boomer knew was the station self-defense system, nicknamed “Thor,” but it had been destroyed and had been mostly removed.

“Can you see it, Boomer?” Ann Page asked. “How does it look?”

“It looks…lonely,” Boomer replied. He knew exactly what Ann was asking about—and it wasn't the space station.

At the very “bottom” of the station below the keel and radar arrays was a single module almost as long as the upper “tower” of the station itself. It was actually four separate modules that had been lofted up to the station by the Shuttle Transportation System over a period of three years. This was Skybolt, the world's first space-based anti-missile laser, designed and engineered by Ann Page and a team of over a hundred scientists.

Skybolt was a large free-electron laser, powered by a small nuclear-fueled generator called a magnetohydrodynamic generator, or MHD, that produced massive amounts of power for short periods of time. The generator cranked an electrostatic turbine that shot an electron beam—a focused, intense bolt of lightning—through to the laser chamber. Inside the laser chamber a bank of powerful electromagnets “wiggled” the electron beam, thereby producing the lasing effect. The resultant laser beam was millions of times more powerful than the energy generated by the MHD,
creating a tunable and extremely powerful beam in the megawatt range that could easily destroy objects in space for thousands of miles and, as Ann and her crew soon discovered, even damage targets as large as a warship on Earth's surface, or aircraft flying through Earth's atmosphere.

“Good. That's good,” Ann cooed. “What are we waiting for, Kai? Let's hook up and get aboard.”

“Hold your water, Senator,” Raydon said. “I don't like distractions when I'm flying, so everyone pipe down. That's an order.” He flexed his fingers one more time, then unstowed the thruster controls and carefully placed his hands on them. Resembling small bathtub faucet knobs, the controls could be twisted, pushed, pulled, and jockeyed sideways or up and down to activate the small hydrazine thrusters arrayed around the Black Stallion. The controls were “standardized,” meaning that the same manual controls had been used in manned spacecraft since Mercury and extending all the way to the Black Stallion.

With the closure rate now less than five miles an hour between the spaceplane and the station, Raydon activated the exterior cameras and began his approach. Armstrong Station had two docking points, one designed for manned spacecraft such as the Shuttle and USS
America
spaceplane, and one for unmanned cargo modules such as Agena. The docking port for manned spacecraft was on the side of the upper “tower,” about halfway between the top of the tower and the keel.

Raydon began by flying the Black Stallion beside the tower directly opposite from the docking port, then gently stopping the spaceplane so the port was slightly behind his left shoulder but clearly visible out the side windscreen. There was an electronic positioning device straight ahead, but several pieces were missing and the indicators were dark. “Looks like the positioning target has been damaged,” Raydon said.

“Thank the Russians for that,” Ann said. “Their ‘Elektron' spaceplanes did a lot…”

“I said, be quiet,” Raydon interrupted. “I didn't want to chat,
Senator. Button it.” Ann shook her head and snorted her frustration so hard it briefly fogged the inside of her helmet. “I'll just have to line it up by feel and guide it in after I translate.” Raydon made a few more barely perceptible adjustments with the controls. The only sound anyone heard was the briefest of puffs from the thrusters. Then slowly, ever so slowly, the Black Stallion started a roll to the left so the top of the spaceplane was pointed at the station.

Just then, they heard a strange humming noise. Boomer checked his readouts—everything was normal. “Crew, station check,” he ordered.

“Quiet, Captain.”

“I hear a funny sound.”

“That's me, Noble. Now be quiet.” Sure enough, a moment later the humming sound came back, getting louder and louder as Raydon nudged the Black Stallion ever so slowly toward the tower. “Clear the docking tunnel, Senator,” he said.

“Tunnel's clear.”

“I asked you to clear it, not talk!” Raydon snapped. “What part of ‘be quiet' don't you jokers understand?” Ann had to bite her tongue to keep silent. “Okay, Captain, extend the tunnel…slowly.” Boomer hit a switch, and the docking tunnel extended out the top of the spaceplane. “Stop.” Raydon made a few more imperceptible adjustments. “Okay, extend…stop.” Another nudge of the controls; then they heard a deep “CLUUNK!” and four sharp snaps. “Contact, locks engaged,” Raydon said. “Senator, double-check your suit status lights, and tell me what they say.” Silence. Raydon waited a moment longer, then said irritably, “You can talk now, all of you.”

“Four green, no red,” Ann Page said. “My, Colonel, what a fart you are.”

“Thank you, Senator. I'm just doing my job. Lieutenant?”

“Four green, no red. I've double-checked Ann's controls—she's ready.”

“I've checked Nano's controls,” Ann said. “She's good to go.”

“Roger. Captain?”

“I've got four green, no red,” Boomer responded. “I'm ready.”

“Roger. I'm showing four green, no red. Flight crew is ready for cabin depressurization, and passenger module is ready for equalization with the transfer module. Senator, Lieutenant, ready to go?”

“We're ready, Colonel.”

“Ready.”

“Very good. Captain?”

Boomer checked the status readouts being transmitted via an encoded datalink from the station. “Transfer module showing pressurized to nine point nine psid,” he reported.

“Good. Clear to match cabin pressure.”

“Roger. Bringing the passenger module pressure down to nine point nine.” Boomer hit a control. “Passing fourteen psid…twelve…ten…nine point nine pressure differential in both station transfer module and Stud passenger module.”

“Very good. Okay, Senator, Lieutenant, you're cleared to unstrap, enter the tunnel, and open the hatch. Be sure to check the visual indicators first. Good luck.”

“We're on our way,” Ann said. “And you still owe me a shot for every time you called me ‘Senator,' Kai.” She and Nano carefully removed their seat restraints and floated free. Ann moved to the tunnel first and pulled herself up inside. At the top of the tunnel she opened a small shutter over an observation window, which lined up exactly with a similar window on the station's transfer module. She flicked a switch, and a tiny LED light illuminated a pressure gauge inside the transfer module. “Transfer module shows nine point five on the gauge,” she said. “Close enough for government work. Here we go.” Ann twisted two recessed levers in the tunnel's hatch, and the hatch unlatched. She floated back and swung the hatch in, then locked it in place. She then reached up to the hatch visible just a few inches away, double-checked the pressure differential gauge again, then twisted two handles and swung the hatch open. “Hatches are open. I'm going inside. See you when I see you.”

“We did it,” Boomer breathed.

“We've still got a long way to go, Captain,” Raydon said. “But we've cleared one incredible hurdle.”

Nano began by unstrapping several equipment cases and boxes inside the passenger module, floated them through the tunnel to Ann, then followed them inside. In a few minutes she was inside the station's transfer module, and she secured the hatches behind her. “The hatches are closed and latched,” she reported from the transfer module. “Tunnel and module are pressurized and secure. This is so cool. Can't believe all the room in this thing!”

“The transfer module is the smallest on Silver Tower,” Ann said. “Wait till you see the rest of the place. You might want to move up here permanently.”

“Awesome!”

Inside the station, Ann floated into an adjacent tunnel, turning on lights as she went, then entered the adjacent crew sleeping quarters. She had stayed on the station a few times in the past several years, and she was pleased to see many of her “womanly” touches still in place—some artificial silk flowers, a few pictures, and even a magnetic chess board floating in the middle of the module.

“Wow, this is huge!” Nano remarked. “You can sleep a dozen people in this thing with room to spare! And there's a shower, closets, TVs, and desks—how cool! I thought it'd be all cramped like the Shuttle orbiter.”

“I told you you'd like it,” Ann said. She floated “down” to another connecting tunnel and checked the pressure gauges. “The cargo module is depressurized and checked, guys. Come on over.”

“Ready, Captain?” Raydon asked.

“As ready as I'll ever be, I guess,” Boomer said.

“I'll go over first,” Raydon said. “Follow me and do what I do. There's nothing to it.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Your readouts look okay?”

“Four green, no red, reading nine point eight psid.”

“Me too. Check your tether.”

Boomer opened a hatch on his side of his seat and pulled out a length of shielded nylon cable. “It's ready.”

“Mine too. Here we go.” Raydon hit a control, and the forward cockpit cabin began to depressurize. “Fourteen psid…twelve…ten…” But this time it didn't stop at ten psid, but went all the way to zero. “Forward cabin depressurized. Canopy coming open.” As Boomer watched in amazement, the forward canopy motored open, and moments later Raydon floated free of his seat and was outside the spaceplane. My God, Boomer thought, he's walking in space! “How you doing back there, Captain? You look like you seen a ghost.”