“But it can be done?” Patrick asked. “We can fly the Black Stallion to Armstrong Space Station, dock or climb out, and space-walk over to the station?”
“Sure,” Ann said. “There are a million things that can go wrong, but that’s typical for any space mission. I don’t see why we can’t do it.”
“Shuttle astronauts did tethered spacewalks quite a bit,” Dave said. “Even Gemini and Apollo astronauts did little spacewalks all the time. Every Skylab mission had several spacewalks to service the experiments they were running.”
“But each spacewalk was preceded by months of training and years of design study and testing,” Ann said. “We’re trying to put all this together in hours. We need some experienced crewmen to send up there. I volunteer. Got any ideas for another?”
Patrick smiled and nodded. “Dave, get Kai Raydon on the phone for me,” he said. Dave smiled, nodded, then picked up the telephone.
“Raydon, the Shuttle pilot?” Ann asked. “Haven’t seen him at the bar in quite awhile — I’m sure he owes me a few rounds. Is he still with NASA?”
“Was,” Patrick said. “He was reassigned to Los Angeles Air Force Base and put in charge of a program that just got canceled, and he came to me recently looking for a flying job. You may have heard of the program, Ann: Hermes.”
“The European Space Agency spaceplane project? It was canceled years ago. Raydon’s not that old.”
“The name was deliberately used to throw people off the track,” Patrick said. “Kai’s been involved in another project using that name. You knew it as ‘Skybolt.’”
“Skybolt!” Ann Page exclaimed. “That’s my project! What in hell’s going on, sir?”
“Skybolt, the space-based laser?” Boomer asked. “It’s still up there?”
“Did you really believe the U.S. would spend two billion dollars and five years to launch a massive space station into orbit and then just leave it up there, Ann?” Dave Luger asked. “When Raydon was getting his Ph.D. in the Air Force Institute of Technology program his dissertation was on the reactivation of Skybolt.”
“I know, I know, General — I was on his doctorate panel,” Ann said. “The guy’s brilliant. But the proposal never went anywhere. I was in the Senate committee overseeing funding for military space programs, and I pushed several budget cycles for the money to reactivate it. It never happened.”
“Skybolt went on life support funding under HAWC’s advanced technology research budget,” Patrick explained. “Officially the money went toward refueling and servicing the Armstrong Space Station to keep it aloft, and to use the station’s systems as a risk reducer for the SpaceBased Radar and SpaceBased Infrared System programs. Unofficially, we funneled some money over to Skybolt. The money runs out at the end of this fiscal year. After that, there’s enough money for a maximum of three Shuttle flights over the following twelve months to strip whatever useful stuff we could off the station before it re-enters the atmosphere.”
“They don’t want to spend a few measly million a year to save a space station worth more than three billion?” Ann asked. “The characters in Congress can be real jerks sometimes — I should know. So Raydon’s been to Silver Tower?”
“A few times. That’s classified.”
“That’s good,” Ann said. “And he’s an experienced Shuttle jockey, so he can handle the docking chores. So we got me and Raydon to turn the station on — all we need is for young Hunter Noble to give us a ride up there.”
“Okay, cadets, listen up,” Civil Air Patrol Captain Ed Harlow, commander of the Grand Rapids Composite Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, said. He and a group of thirty-six cadets surrounding him were in a grassy clearing in the middle of a large forest in the Sturgeon River State Forest, about fifty miles northeast of Grand Rapids in northeast Minnesota. The cadets, wearing camouflaged fatigues, baseball caps, and combat boots, ranged in age from fourteen to seventeen years old. “This is our final exercise for this encampment, but it’s also the most important, so pay attention.
“We’ve concentrated on a lot of the search, rescue, first aid, communications, and critical support functions of the Civil Air Patrol mission. But all of our procedures deal with using our equipment, technology, and skills to help others in distress. But what if we get in trouble while on a mission? What if you become lost or crash-land while on a flight? How do we even understand what it’s like to be in a search, survival, or escape-and-evasion situation? Our final exercise will be to see how well you can help yourself if you become involved in a difficult situation.
“This exercise is a confidence-builder rather than a procedural evolution,” the CAP commander went on. “Your objective is simple: collect as many different objective markers as you can in four hours and return your entire flight to the starting point in the center of the exercise area. The flight with the most markers collected in the shortest time wins.
“We’re located in a wooded area of about ten square kilometers, bordered by Vermillion Lake to the north and east, the state park highway to the east, and Highway Twenty-four to the south and west — if you come across any of these major landmarks, you’ll know which way to travel to get re-oriented and headed back to the objective. We’ll drive you to starting points on different sections of the exercise area and set you loose at the same time. The markers are located in camouflaged metal ammo boxes marked on your maps. When you find the can, each flight takes one marker only from the can and leaves the rest.
“To make it more interesting, you have the capability to capture another flight’s markers,” the CAP commander went on. “You are all wearing laser targets and carrying eye-safe laser guns. If you come across another flight, and if you can hit the flight leader before he hits you, you capture his markers. The guns have a range of only thirty feet or less, so you need to be fairly close to your target to hit him. You can return to a previously discovered can to get another marker, but remember, only one marker from each can per flight.” He answered a few questions, made sure his four flights of nine cadets each were equipped and ready, then split them up into vans that took them to their starting points.
The exercise proceeded throughout the afternoon. The terrain was flat and rolling, with numerous hiking trails, outhouses, signs, and other landmarks to make the test challenging without letting anyone get lost. Harlow’s staff acted as referees and would assist any cadet flights who were having real difficulty, but most of these cadets, all from northern Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, were experienced outdoors enthusiasts, and Harlow didn’t expect any emergencies.
In fact, the flights were so evenly matched that as they approached the four-hour cutoff time, three of the four flights were approaching the objective point in the middle of the exercise area all at once. Harlow had set out each flight’s guidon in the clearing, and as the cadets got closer they started running through the woods toward their flag. “Once you enter the clearing, no more laser guns,” Harlow announced over a bullhorn as he saw the three groups converging on the objective point. “C’mon in and let’s count ’em up.”
This was strange, he thought as the three groups ran in — the fourth flight, Delta Flight, nicknamed “Red Dogs,” was nowhere to be seen. All of the flights were evenly matched; Delta Flight was perhaps slightly less “outdoorsy” and more intellectual than the others, but this was rather surprising — with only a few minutes left to go, the Red Dogs still were not anywhere in sight. Usually they were able to keep up with whatever else the rest of the cadet squadron did, but it didn’t appear to be the case today. Harlow raised his walkie-talkie and clicked the mike button: “Anyone seen Delta?” he asked. The answers all came back negative.
Well, Harlow thought, perhaps this will take a little steam out of Delta Flight’s fiery commander, fifteen- year-old Cadet Lieutenant Katelyn VanWie. She had this annoying air about her. She was cocky but wasn’t a braggard; she was smart but not a know-it-all; quiet but not shy; self-confident but not pretentious. It was as if she knew she was better than everyone else but simply chose not to prove it. She had infused the other eight members of Delta Flight with the same assuredness to the point that the team took on the same personality as its commander, which didn’t exactly endear them to the rest of the squadron.
To be honest, Harlow thought, Katelyn wasn’t an annoying kid — but she was different. He could sense it. It was as if she had some sort of magnetic attraction that drew people to her side somehow. That kind of personality turned some people off. Moreover, she knew she was different, that she had this power, but she chose not to exercise it for some reason — even though she did employ it. Frequently.
Harlow scanned the treeline once more, shook his head in confusion, then keyed the mike button: “Let’s bring
