Starfire (35 page)

Gryzlov looked Korchkov's body up and down. “And when the moment comes, I think it is time to send in Captain Korchkov—alone,” he added. “Your two-man teams are imbeciles or incompetent or both, and now this paramilitary team has been alerted. I am sure the captain can get the job done. She may have to eliminate a few of these ex-military men first before she gets McLanahan.” Korchkov said nothing, but she wore a hint of a smile, as if already relishing the prospect of fresh kills. “But not right away. Let McLanahan and his bodyguards think we have given up the hunt. Spend some time putting the captain in the perfect cover, close to McLanahan and close enough to get a good look at this paramilitary team. Do not use her diplomatic credentials—I am sure all embassy and consulate staff members are going to be under intense scrutiny for a while.”

“Yes, sir,” Ilianov said.

Gryzlov stepped closer to Korchkov and stared into her unblinking eyes. She stared straight back at him with that tiny smile. “They let you in here wearing a knife, Korchkov?”

“Oni ne smeli vzyat' yego ot menya
,
ser,”
Korchkov said, the first words Gryzlov remembered ever hearing the beauty utter. “They dared not take it away from me. Sir.”

“I see,” Gryzlov said. He looked her body up and down once more, then said, “It would not bother me one bit, Captain, if you chose to torture McLanahan for a while before you executed him. Then you could come back to me and describe it all in great detail.”

“S udovol'stviyem
,
ser,”
Korchkov said, “With pleasure, sir.”

I
N
E
ARTH
ORBIT

O
CTOBER
2016

“Wow, look at all the new bling,” Sondra Eddington said. She and Boomer Noble were aboard an S-19 Midnight spaceplane, making their approach to the docking bay on Armstrong Space Station, which was about a mile away. This was her fourth flight in a spaceplane, her second in the S-19 spaceplane—the others having been in the smaller S-9 Black Stallion—but her first time in orbit and her first docking with Armstrong Space Station. Both she and Boomer were wearing skintight Electronic Elastomeric Activity Suits and helmets for prebreathing oxygen, just in case of an uncontrolled depressurization.

“Part of that Starfire solar-power-plant project,” Boomer said. He could see Sondra shake her head slightly when he said the word
Starfire
. They were referring to two extra sets of solar collectors mounted on towers between the “top” modules on station, pointing at the sun. “Hard to believe, but those new photovoltaic collectors generate more electricity than all of station's silicon solar cells put together, even though they're less than a quarter of the size.”

“Oh, I believe it,” Sondra said. “I can almost explain to you how they're built and draw you the molecular structure of the nanotubes.”

“Brad talked about them more than once to you, I suppose.”

“Until it's coming out my ears,” Sondra said wearily.

This part of Sondra's training to fly the spaceplanes was fully computer controlled, so both crewmembers sat back and watched the computers do their thing. Boomer asked questions about possible malfunctions and her actions, pointed out certain indications, and talked about what to expect. Soon they could only see one station module, and before long all they could see was the docking bull's-eye, and minutes later the Midnight spaceplane was stopped. “Latches secure, docking successful,” Boomer reported. “Kinda boring when the computer does it.”

Sondra finished monitoring the computer as it completed the postdocking checklist. “Postdock checklist complete,” she said when the computer had finished all the steps. “There's nothing I like better than a boring flight—that means everything went well and everything worked. Good enough for me.”

“I like to dock it by hand,” Boomer said. “If we have extra fuel on Armstrong or on Midnight, I will. Otherwise the computer is much more fuel-efficient, I hate to admit.”

“You're just a show-off,” Sondra said. “Cocksure as ever.”

“That's me.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “How did the ascent feel? I sense you're still having a little difficulty with the positive Gs.”

“I can stay ahead of them just fine, Boomer,” Sondra said.

“It just looked like you were concentrating really hard on staying on top of them.”

“Whatever gets the job done, right?”

“I'm a little worried about the descent,” Boomer said. “The G-forces are heavier and longer. You only get about two or three Gs in the ascent, but four or five during the descent.”

“I know, Boomer,” Sondra said. “I'll be fine. I passed all the MiG-25 flights, and I did okay on the S-9 and other S-19 flights.”

“Those were all suborbital—we can avoid the Gs easier because we don't have to decelerate as much,” Boomer said. “But now we'll be slowing down from Mach twenty-five. To reduce the Gs I can shallow out the deorbit angle a bit, but then you'll have to go against the Gs for a longer period of time.”

“I've heard the lecture before, Boomer,” Sondra said a bit testily. “I'll be fine no matter what descent angle you pick. I've been practicing my M-maneuvers.” M-maneuvers were the method for tightening the stomach muscles, inflating the lungs, and then grunting against the pressure in the chest to force blood to stay in the chest and brain. “Besides, the EEAS helps a lot.”

“All right,” Boomer said. “Is that like practicing your Kegel exercises?”

“Something you'd like to feel personally?”

Boomer ignored the intimate comment and pointed to the displays on the instrument panel. “This shows that the computer is ready to begin the ‘Before Transfer Tunnel Mating' checklist,” he said. “I'll go ahead and initiate it. Since the transfer tunnel will be mated by machine—that's why we wear space suits—in case the tunnel isn't secure when we want to exit, we can safely do a spacewalk to reattach it or reach station.”

“Why don't we just do a spacewalk to get to the station, like President Phoenix did last spring?” Sondra asked. “That sounded like fun.”

“We will do that in a later evolution,” Boomer said. “Your job in this evolution is to learn how to monitor the ship and the station from the cockpit, be able to recognize anomalies, and take action.”

“How long does the cargo transfer take?”

“Depends. There aren't that many cargo modules on this trip. Probably not long.”

As the transfer tunnel was being mounted into place atop the transfer chamber between the cockpit and cargo bay, Boomer watched mechanical arms from Armstrong Space Station removing pressurized modules from the open cargo bay and carrying them to their proper destinations. The smaller modules were personal items for the crewmembers—water, food, spare parts, and other essential items—but the largest module was last. This was one of the last components of Project Starfire to come up to Armstrong Space Station: the microwave generator, which was to be fitted inside the free-electron laser already on the station to produce maser energy from collected solar-produced electrical energy.

A tone sounded in the astronauts' helmets, and Boomer touched a microphone button. “Battle Mountain, this is Stallion Three, go ahead,” he said.

“Sondra, Boomer, this is Brad!” Brad McLanahan said excitedly. “My team members and I would like to say congratulations for bringing up the last major Starfire component.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Boomer said. “Pass along our congratulations to your team. Everyone on Armstrong and at Sky Masters is excited to be installing the last part of this project and preparing for a test-firing very soon.”

“Same, Brad,” Sondra said simply.

“How are you, Sondra? How was your first trip into orbit?”

“I'm more like a babysitter up here: everything is so automated that I don't do anything but watch the computers do all the work.”

“Well, the takeoff was incredible, we watched your ascent from mission control, and the rendezvous was picture-perfect,” Brad said. “We can see them loading the microwave cavity into the Skybolt module right freakin' now. And you just made your first trip into orbit. Awesome! Congratulations!”

“You sound like a little kid, Brad,” Boomer said.

“The team and I couldn't be more excited, Boomer,” Brad said. “I couldn't sleep at all last night—heck, not for the past
week
!”

“So when do we fire this bad boy up, Brad?” Boomer asked.

“It's coming together real well, Boomer, maybe in a week or so,” Brad replied. “Construction of the first rectenna is complete, and it's being tested and readied for the test firing at the White Sands Missile Test Range as we speak. The computer chips and new software for the aiming controls are all online and tested. We've run into a couple glitches with the lithium-ion capacitors fully discharging into the Skybolt laser, but we have an army of guys working on them, and we recruit more experts and technicians for the project every day. I'm still trying to talk Dr. Kaddiri and Dr. Richter into letting me fly up to the station. Put in a good word for me, okay?”

“Sure, Brad,” Boomer said.

“Sondra, when do you come back?” Brad asked.

“I can't tell you that, Brad, not on an unsecure transmission,” Sondra replied testily. “I know I have some classes and exercises up here on station, and I don't think we're returning directly to Battle Mountain.”

“I have to go back to Cal Poly tomorrow morning,” Brad said, the dejection apparent in his voice. “I've missed enough classes already.”

“Next time, Brad,” Sondra said.

“Well, I'll let you guys get back to work,” Brad said. “We're going to talk with the techs on Armstrong about beginning integration of the microwave cavity into Skybolt, and then the team is going to the city to celebrate the completion of Starfire. Wish you guys were with us. Thanks again for a thrilling and successful flight.”

“You got it, buddy,” Boomer said. “And I will talk to the brass about getting you up and other members of your team on a spaceplane flight to Armstrong. You should be up here when you make your first shot.”

“Awesome, Boomer,” Brad said. “Thank you again. Talk to you soon.”

“Midnight clear.” Boomer closed the connection. “Man, it's good to hear a guy so damned excited about something,” he said on intercom. “And I like hearing ‘the team this' and ‘the team that.' He's the head of a project that has almost a hundred members and a budget of over two hundred million dollars at last count, but it's still about the team. Very cool.” Sondra said nothing. Boomer looked over to her but couldn't read much in her face through the oxygen helmet. “Am I right?” he asked.

“Of course.”

Boomer let the silence linger for a few long moments; then: “You still haven't broken up with him, have you?”

“I don't need to,” Sondra said peevishly. “I've seen the guy just three weekends in six months, and when we do see each other, all he talks about is Starfire this or Cal Poly that, and all he does is schoolwork and Starfire stuff, and then he rides his bike or does hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups to work out. He did that every day I was visiting.”

“He works out every day?”

“At least ninety minutes a day, not including the time on the bike riding to classes or the gym,” Sondra said. “He's really changed, and it's a little creepy. He sleeps only four or five hours a night, he's on the phone or computer—or both at the same time—constantly, and he eats like a friggin' bird. I get home after visiting him and I feel like ordering a whole large cheese and pepperoni pizza just for myself.”

“I have to admit, he looked really good when I saw him before takeoff today, a lot better than the last time I saw him when his dad was around,” Boomer said. “He's lost a bunch of weight and looks like he's got some guns on him now.”

“Not that I ever got to shoot any of them,” Sondra said moodily.

Boomer didn't ask her to elaborate.

D
OWNTOWN
B
ATTLE
M
OUNTAIN
, N
EVADA

A
FEW
HOURS
LATER

“The last piece of Starfire is in orbit!”
Brad shouted to the team members assembled around him. “Excelsior!” All the team members echoed their newfound motto, which was Latin for “ever higher.”

“I made reservations for us at Harrah's Battle Mountain steak house,” Casey Huggins said, signing off on her smartphone. “They'll be expecting us at six.”

“Thanks, Casey,” Brad said. “I'm going for a little run. I'll see you guys at the casino concierge desk.”

“You're leaving to go running?” Lane Eagan asked. “Now? Casey and Jerry's microwave cavity was just delivered to a space station and will be installed in a couple days, and then Starfire will be ready to go. You should be having fun, Brad. Starfire is almost ready to test-fire! You deserve it.”

“I
will
be having fun, guys, believe me,” Brad said. “But if I don't get a run in, I get cranky. I'll see you in an hour at the concierge desk at Harrah's.” He trotted off before anyone else could object.

Brad ran back to his room, changed into workout clothes, did two hundred crunches and push-ups, then picked up his cane and went downstairs and outdoors. Early October in north-central Nevada was almost ideal weather, not quite as warm and with a little taste of winter in the air, and Brad found the conditions perfect. In thirty minutes he had run almost four miles around the hotel's RV park, which was a lot less congested than the parking lot, then headed back to his room to shower and change.