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 the 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 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 asked. 'Should be done by dinnertime.'
'It's my turn to cook,' Admiral Woods asked. 'Thermostabilized beef with barbecue sauce, rehydratable cauliflower with cheese, irradiated green beans with mushrooms. Yurn.
'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 sn't wearing an 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 redorange 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 redorange 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 Al cargo bay Bates' voice was a scream. 'Commander Seedeck. Oh, 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-T' '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… T' Bates looked down. The lower part of his left leg was sticking out at a peculiar angle from his body.
'Oh God… I think I broke my leg.
'Can you make it to the airlock?'
'Admiral, this is Connors. I can suit up and-' God… ' 'Mission Control, this is Atlantis 'Not if you haven't been pre-breathing,' Woods told him.
'Everyone, make a fast station check, report any damage, then get on the cameras. Find Seedeck. Connors, Matsumo, get a POS and start pre-breathing. Bates, can you make it back to the airlock?' Bates grabbed the handhold. He expected a tough time hauling himself upright but suddenly found he had to keep from flinging himself up out of the cargo bay in his weightless condition. Slowly, he began to haul himself back toward the airlock hatch.
'Bates, what happened out there?'
'God, it looked like… like one of the damn projectiles laser satellites had numerous safety devices to prevent an detonated, ' Bates said as he crawled for the airlock. The X-ray accidental nuclear detonation, but the reaction chamber needed a big explosion to start the atomic chain reaction, and those explosives had no safety devices.
Something, some massive burst of energy, had set off the five hundred pounds of high explosives in the satellite's reaction chamber.
Just as he safely reached the airlock, Bates looked back to Ice Fortress. It took him a moment to spot it again, several hundred yards from where it had been a few moments before.
It was lazily, almost playfully spinning away, its radars and antennas and electronic eyes and spindly arms flopping about as if it was waving goodbye. Occasionally a shower of sparks erupted from its surface.
And a trail of debris hovered in its wake, as if it were dropping crumbs on the trail to help find its way back…
Commander Richard Seedeck left nothing. Nothing was left of him.
WASHINGTON, D.C
The President examined a large wall-sized chart projected on the rear wall of the White House Situation Room. He ran a finger over the black line, making sure it ran right through Kavaznya.
The line wasn't quite straight-Arawn by a computer, the Great Circle course was a series of straight lines representing dozens of heading changes. But it was the shortest istance, the President knew, to an encounter that now seemed unavoidable.
General Wilbur Curtis and his aide stood behind their chairs watching the President. Curtis knew that the President was looking at something no other American president had ever seen-a chart of an actual peacetime attack plan against the Soviet Union. Even though hundreds of such plans existed, none had ever been presented to the President for his direct approval.
After quickly examining the chart, the President took his seat at the head of the oval table. Curtis kept watching the President as the other advisers all took their seats after him.
