Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (29 page)

 
          
Projectiles.
Weird name for
Ice Fortress
weapons,
Seedeck thought.
Ice Fortress
carried
five X-ray laser satellites. The satellites consisted of a main reaction
chamber and fifteen lead pulse rods encasing a zinc lasing wire surrounding it,
like knitting needles in a ball of yarn. The reaction chamber was, in essence,
a twenty kiloton uranium bomb—roughly equal to the destructive power of the
first atom bomb that exploded over
Hiroshima
.

 
          
Ice Fortress
sensors would track any
attacking intercontinental ballistic missiles and eject the X-ray laser
satellites toward them. When the satellite approached the missiles,
Ice Fortress
would detonate the nuclear
warhead within the satellite. The nuclear explosion would create a massive wave
of X-rays that would be focused and concentrated through the pulse rods. The
X-ray energy would create an extremely powerful laser burst that would travel
down the rods and out in all directions. Any object within a hundred miles of
the satellite would be bombarded into oblivion in milliseconds. The explosion,
would, of course, destroy the satellite, but the awesome power of the X-ray
laser blast would decimate dozens, perhaps hundreds, of ICBMs or warheads at
one time—a very potent and, if nothing else, cost-effective device.

 
          
Seedeck
knew a lot about the X-ray laser satellites that would be used with
Ice Fortress
—the
Atlantis
carried five of them in her cargo bay, and it would be
Seedeck’s job to load them into the launch cylinder on
Ice
Fortress.

           
Seedeck now attached the cable to
the front of the central launch cylinder and turned back toward
Atlantis.
While Seedeck had been
inspecting
Ice Fortress,
Bates had
been putting on his own spacesuit and was just emerging from the airlock when
Seedeck completed his inspection.

 
          
“Seedeck
to
Atlantis.
The inventory appears
OK. No damage. We’ll be ready to proceed at any time.”

 
          
“Copy,”
Woods replied.

 
          
“This
is Bates. I copy.” Bates had moved into
Atlantis'
cargo bay and had begun to unlock the canisters containing the partially
disassembled
Ice Fortress
satellites.
His job would be to remove the mountains of packing material from the
satellites, then reassemble the component parts. It would not become an actual
nuclear device until reassembly, and it would not even be possible to arm it
until it was installed in its launch tube on
Ice Fortress.

 
          
Meanwhile,
Seedeck had returned to
Atlantis.
He
maneuvered over to the cable reel and activated its motor, tightening the
cable. He doublechecked the controls. To avoid breaking the cable, a friction
clutch device would keep the cable tight during small shifts in distance or motion
between
Atlantis
and
Ice Fortress
and an emergency disconnect
button would open the pawl on
Ice
Fortress
and release the cable. The release could be activated by Bates
from the cargo bay, by Seedeck from
Ice
Fortress,
or by Woods inside
Atlantis.
Seedeck then attached a plastic saddle onto the cable that rode along it on a
Teflon track.

 
          
“Guide
ready,
Atlantis,
” Seedeck reported.
He carefully maneuvered closer above Bates, who was putting the finishing
touches on the first X-ray laser satellite. The satellite, its lead-zinc rods
folded along its sides, was well over ten feet in diameter and, at least on
earth, weighed over a ton; Bates handled the massive object like a beachball.

 
          
“Ready,”
Bates said, and unhooked the remaining strap holding the huge satellite from
its stowage cradle in the cargo bay. Using a hydraulic lift on the cradle,
Bates raised the cradle a few inches, then suddenly stopped it. The satellite
continued to float up out of the cargo bay and right into Seedeck’s waiting
arms.

 
          
Seedeck
grabbed a handhold on the satellite and steered it easily toward the saddle. As
if he had been doing this procedure all his life, he expertly clamped the
cylindrical satellite onto the saddle and steadied it along the cable. Although
the satellite was weightless, Seedeck was careful not to forget that the thing
still had two thousand pounds’ worth of mass to corral—it was hard to get it to
stop moving once it got going. He attached a safety line between the saddle and
the satellite, and the satellite was secured.

 
          
“Heading
toward the inventory with number one/’ Seedeck reported. Despite himself, Bates
had to chuckle at the sight. Seedeck had maneuvered over the satellite and had
sat down on top of it, as if he were sitting on a huge tom-tom drum. He was
gripping the satellite with his boots and knees, riding atop five hundred
pounds of high explosives and ninety-eight pounds of uranium. One tiny nudge on
his right-hand MMU control, and he and the satellite slid along the
two-thousand-foot-long cable toward
Ice
Fortress.

 
          
It
turned out to be a very efficient way of getting the X-ray laser satellite to
the platform. In two minutes, Seedeck and his mount eased their way toward
Ice Fortress
, carefully slowing to a
stop with gradual spurts of the MMU’s nitrogen-gas thrusters. As Woods and the
crew of
Atlantis
watched through
telephoto closed-circuit cameras, Seedeck jetted away from the satellite,
maneuvered underneath it, unhooked the safety strap and latch, and slid the
satellite away from the saddle. Seedeck gave the saddle a push, and it
skittered back down the cable to
Atlantis.

 
          
Using
a set of utility arms mounted on the MMU, Seedeck guided the satellite toward
the open center launcher. With the ease acquired from several days practicing
the maneuver in the huge NASA training pool in
Texas
, Seedeck guided the device straight into
the launcher. Once the laser satellite was inserted a few feet into the tube, a
pair of fingerlike clips latched onto the satellite and pulled it back into the
tube. Seedeck waited until he felt a faint CLICK as the unobtrusive yet
frightening device seated itself against the arming plate at the back of the
tube.

 
          
‘Atlantis
, this is Seedeck. Confirm
number one latched into position.”

 
          
“Stand
by,” Woods told him. He relayed the request to Mission Control. The answer came
back a few moments later.

 
          
“Seedeck,
this is
Atlantis.
Control confirms
number one in position.”

 
          
“Roger,
Atlantis.
Returning to Orbiter.”

 
          
It
took Seedeck two minutes to return to
Atlantis
’
cargo bay, where Bates had another satellite ready for him. The saddle had slid
the two thousand feet all the way back to
Atlantis
with Seedeck’s one little push.

 
          
“Seedeck
is back in the bay, Admiral,” Bates reported.

 
          
“Copy.
Stand by.” Woods relayed to
Houston
that no one was near
Ice
Fortress.

 
          
A
few minutes later Woods reported: “Control reports full connectivity. The
inventory is on-line. Good job, Rich. You’re hustling out there.”

 
          
Seedeck
nodded as Bates gave him a thumbs-up. The
Ice
Fortress
was now operational. It was America’s first strategic defense
device, the first of the “Star Wars” weapons—and the first time nuclear weapons
had been placed in orbit around the Earth.

 
          
“Forty-five
minutes from start to finish each,” Seedeck said, “should be done by dinnertime.”

 
          
“It’s
my turn to cook,” Admiral Woods said. “Thermostabilized beef with barbecue
sauce, rehydratable cauliflower with cheese, irradiated green beans with
mushrooms. Yum.”

 
          
“I
ordered the quarter-pounder with cheese, Admiral,” Seedeck protested. Bates was
smiling as he watched the navy commander maneuver the second X-ray laser
satellite onto the saddle. Moments later, Seedeck was riding along the cable
toward the menacing latticework square in the distance.

 
          
“That’s
the one thing I miss up here,” Bates said as he turned back toward unpacking
and reassembling the next satellite.

 
          
Bates
noticed the first light, a bright deep flash of orange that illuminated
everything. It got brighter and brighter until it flooded out his eyesight,
then turned to bright white. It was as if Seedeck had come back and pushed him
in the side, rolling him over, or as if Seedeck had slid the saddle back along
the cable and it had come back and hit him in the backpack. Bates wasn’t
wearing a MMU, but he was secured to the forward bulkhead of
Atlantis
above the airlock hatch by his
tether. There was no sound, no trace of anything actually
wrong.
It felt. . . playful, in a way. It was easy to forget you
were in space. The work was so easy, everything was so quiet. It felt
playful
—

 
          
Bates
spun upside down and slammed against the left forward corner of the cargo bay.
Some invisible hand held him pinned against the bulkhead. The only sound he
heard was a hiss over his headset. He tried to blink away the stars that
squeezed across his vision.

 
          
He
opened his eyes. Seedeck and the second X-ray laser satellite were gone.

 
          
‘
Atlantis
, this is Bates ...” Nothing.
Only a hiss. He found it hard to breathe. The pressure wasn’t hurting him, only
squeezing him tight—like a strong hug . . .

 
          
“Atlantis. . . ?”

           
“Seedeck. Rich, answer.” It was
Woods. The hiss had subsided, replaced by Admiral Woods on the command radio.

 
          
“Atlantis,
this is Bates. What’s wrong?
What—?”

 
          
An
even brighter flash of light, a massive globe of red-orange light that seemed
to dull even the brilliant glow of the Earth itself. Bates opened his eyes, and
a cry forced itself to his lips.

 
          
A
brilliant shaft of light a dozen feet in diameter appeared from nowhere. It was
as if someone had drawn a thick line of light from Earth across to
Ice Fortress.
The silvery surface of
Ice Fortress'
armor seemed to take on
the same weird red-orange glow, then the beam of light disappeared.

 
          
A
split-second later a terrific explosion erupted from the open end of the launch
cylinder aboard
Ice Fortress.
A
tongue of fire several yards long spit from the earthward side of the station.
Sparks
and arcs of electricity sputtered from one
of the spindly sides, and
Ice Fortress
started
a slow, lazy roll backward, sending showers of sparks and debris flying in all
directions. Bates ducked as the cable connecting
Atlantis
to the space station snapped back and hit the forward
bulkhead of the cargo bay.

 
          
Bates’
voice was a scream. “Commander Seedeck. Oh, God ...”

           
“Mission Control, this is
Atlantis
...” Bates heard Admiral Woods’
report. “We have lost
Ice Fortress.
Repeat, we have lost
Ice Fortress.
Bright
orange light, then massive explosion. One crewman missing.”

           
“This is Bates. What’s—?”

           
“Bates, this is Admiral Woods. Where
are you? You all right?”

 
          
Bates
reached up with his left hand for one of the handholds on the forward bulkhead,
found that the pressure was all but gone.

 
          
“I
fell into the cargo bay. I’m okay—” Just then a sword of pain stabbed into his
skull and he cried out into the open communications panel.

           
“Bates . . . ?”