Systemic Shock

Molniya.'

From the other end: 'That's not our war, Robin. I'm watching the display.'

'Yessir. Russkis will be mad as — jinkl Shit, it's a Demi-tasse, I have seven jinks! Against ours…'

'Fire the Moonkillers, Robin. That's our war.'

Chapter Nineteen

China had hoped to conceal the extent of her A-Sat weapons, the most sophisticated being her Jin ji, 'urgent', system. We had specs on it, a multiple independently-targetable antisatellite weapon cluster; hence a MITAS, hence a Q-clearance word, Demitasse. We had bragged on our Vought AA-Sat systems, which deployed interceptors on rocket boost as first-stage launch vehicles. The F-23's followed programmed pop-up maneuvers before releasing their solid-propellant missiles, which then would seek warheads such as Demitasse in pinpoint intercept. What we had not bragged about was our Moonkillers.

Though offensive armament had been prohibited by treaty on US satellites, defensive weapons had been installed. Satellites with sufficient energy storage were furnished with lasers capable of holing three-centimeter titanium plate. Heat dissipation in the system was so crucial that only five or six laser bursts could be rapidly fired at an approaching enemy. It was, of course, line-of-sight — but it could zap you from almost any orbital distance.

Satellites without surplus electric energy storage used something less elegant. It was a curious version of an idea used by Germans, then in our old SPRINT rockets. Solid propellant rockets are so simple and storable that a five-stage hypervelocity bird could be depended upon after years of storage. The entire weapon fitted into a cylinder fifteen cm. wide, seven meters long. The most deceptive feature was the propellant and chamber walls, so flexible with thermal protection that the cylinder could be curled into a hoop which passed as a segmented toroidal pressure vessel. It was a pressure vessel, all right…

The automated drill was 'uncurl; aim; fire.' Four stages of the weapon were straightforward boosters; the fifth carried a shaped charge that shotgunned a cloud of metal confetti, and the average 'burnt velocity' of those pellets relative to their launcher was on the order of 8,000 meters/sec, perhaps double that figure relative to an onrushing target.

Altogether, some fifty American satellites had been fitted — some retrofitted — with laser or shotgun defenses Taken together with their control modules they composed the Moonkiller system. The name was an obvious conceit, since they would not have stopped a sizeable asteroid; but in the early hours of Monday, 12 August 1996, they made expensive colanders out of forty-two Demitasse warheads,

RUS satellite defenses, Moonkillers and Vought AA-Sats accounted for most of the other Demitasse weapons but, in an hour-long display of orbital pyrotechnics watched by uncounted millions, some of those warheads obliterated their targets. Particularly galling to the US Navy was the loss of fully half of its laser translators. American subs, equipped with extremely sensitive detectors, had for years depended on communications via blue- green satellite laser that penetrated hundreds of meters into ocean depths. If you were on-station, you got the flashes.

In a small Extremely Low Frequency radio facility near Eau Claire, Wisconsin, Lt. (JG) Boren Mills whirled from his console. “ELF grid test program to standby, Chief,' he said, remembering to speak far down in his throat. Mills had been jerked from reserve status in grad school at Annenberg less than thirty hours before, to this Godforsaken tunnel in cheese country, but Mills was — had been — the kind of grad student who seldom forgot to employ the communication theory work he read. It had already earned him one promotion.

'At your mark, sir,' said the balding chief, prompting him.

'Uh — yes, at my mark: mark.' Mills touched fingertips to his headset, gnawed his lip, caught himself at it, forced his personal display to read calm.

'Running, sir. Should I test the time-sharing translators again? I can't believe anybody wants to use the ELF grid as main trunk transceivers.'

Mills saw a red-code flash on the display, studied it a moment, muttered, 'Jesus Christ on Quaaludes,' then remembered the chief's query. 'Test them again; all possible speed, Chief. We're losing laser translators over the Pacific and Arctic.' The ELF radio grid, though it lay across thousands of square klicks of dairyland and had cost an immense fortune, was a distant second choice to orbital laser methods. The message rate of extremely low- frequency radio was, by definition, extremely low. But it was not as vulnerable as an orbital translator either, as Mills was learning.

In moments the chief completed his software tasks, glanced at the new weekend warrior who, though green as a NavSat's eye, was shaping up damned fast on short notice. The chief judged Mills's age as twenty-seven, putting it three years on the long side because of the jaygee, the widow's peak high on a forehead that never sweated, and the hard brown eyes that never wavered. Slim, erect, with a strong nose and graceful movements, Boren Mills could surrogate maturity better than most. The voice was soft, almost a caress, when he wasn't working at it. The chief had seen lots worse. Mills might be one of the Navy's braintrust brats, but he knew how to do a job. The chief eased over to see past Milk's shoulder, and gulped at what he saw.

'Stay at your post or go on report,' Mills snapped, then spoke softly into his throat mike as the chief leaped back to his post. “With enough power, you may be able to get Arctic coverage from echo soda module, I say again echo soda. That's an awfully shallow angle to penetrate that deep in sea water, but it's your lasers, Commander. I 'm just an elf… Affirm; grid test programs running and green, we're ready when you are.'

Mills turned the level, heavy-browed stare on the chief. 'Pull the test programs, ready ELF grid for main- trunk use at-my-mark…mark! Chief, we're losing more orbital modules; too many bogies are getting through.'

The chief took a deep breath. “Sir, last time we really tried this grid for main trunk we caused a brown-out in Eau Claire, got charged with witching milk from cattle, and had downtime here you wouldn't believe.'

Mills listened again to his headset, saw verification at his console. 'ELF grid to main trunk, logged and confirmed,' he said softly, watching the display as he typed. 'Chief, I want a man on every auxiliary power unit and I want your hangar queens running.'

'We don't call 'em that, Sir, we—'

'We are at war, Chief, tell me another time. I don't give a fat rat's ass if every cow in Wisconsin gives condensed milk and farmers freeze in the dark; we are at this moment the Navy's first-line comm net and if any part of the grid goes down it will not be this one. There are SinoInd subs launching God knows what right now. You think they're propaganda leaflets?'

'Nossir. But I notice we seem to be getting a lot of comm from orbit.'

'Not enough of it from the Navy. And it's Navy that's got to bag those subs.'

The chief scanned his console, nodded to himself, mopped his face. 'I'll set up four-hour watches. What should I tell the ratings?'

'Tell them I want no surprises.'

'I mean about the A-Sat attack, Sir.'

A pause. Then, 'Tell them the SinoInd effort to sweep our satellites away has been repulsed. Failed. Defeated.'

The chief brightened. 'Aye, Sir.'

Boren Mills permitted himself an almost silent snort at the ease with which men could be manipulated. Statistically, the SinoInd attack was a failure. But it had been a tactical success. Our hunter-killer teams would suffer delays in coordination. Allied bases in Germany, South Africa, Australia, the Seychelles, and Scotland were to take loads of fast-dispersing nerve gas launched from SinoInd subs offshore. Even these ghastly weapons implied a certain restraint; a hope on the part of Peking that US/RUS strategists would follow her lead in avoiding nuclear weapons and attacks on mainland centers.

But China could not dissuade India from repeating her one-two punch which had overwhelmed Pakistan. Once India's closest ally, the RUS had rained cruise missiles with poor discrimination onto Kanpur; and the RUS presence among Afghans was a chronic thorn in Islamic flesh. Two waves of Indian choppers formed near Peshawar and essayed a blitzkrieg liberation war on Afghan soil. The immediate gains, they felt, could be bargained away