sounded. “Computer’s started the pre-engine start checklist, crew,” he announced. Things happened quickly after that, and before long the Black Stallion was airborne.
Because this was going to be a different kind of mission, the insertion into orbit was anything but typical. After refueling over the Pacific Ocean as normal, Boomer flew the Black Stallion on a steep climb and descent across the North Pole, then over the Norwegian Sea and North Sea just off the coast of Scotland, where they rendezvoused with another modified KC-77 tanker and refueled once again. They then turned north and cruised off the coast of Norway as directed by the flight computers, awaiting the proper time for orbital insertion. At the proper moment, the Laser Pulse Detonation Rocket System engines flared to life, and the Black Stallion propelled itself once again into space.
It was soon obvious that this was not another typical orbital insertion mission — the boost burn lasted several minutes longer than normal, and the view from the cockpit was completely different. The difference in altitude was striking. “Well, this looks weird,” was all Boomer could say. The sense of altitude and the sight of so much more of the Earth was unnerving, like looking down from a very tall bridge while standing on the edge of a very narrow catwalk.
“Coming up on the last normal orbital abort point,” Dave Luger said.
“Everyone okay?” Boomer asked, forgetting for the umpteenth time that the aircraft commander called for checklists to be completed, not the “Guy In Back. Station check and give me a green light to continue.” At this point if there was some sort of problem they could execute a deorbit burn, come out of orbit, and still have enough fuel to make a normal landing at a good variety of airports. If they went past this point with the main engines still boosting them higher, their options quickly decreased. But everyone reported all systems normal, so they continued.
It happened with amazing speed: five minutes past a normal burn period, Boomer got a flashing warning message on his supercockpit display. “Cripes, just fifteen minutes to bingo fuel,” he muttered. “Normally we’d be getting ready to land by now — we haven’t even completed our insertion burn yet.”
“It’s going to be a close one, crew,” Dave Luger said. “We’re watching the burn curve carefully, and so far we’re just a few percent under it. About ten minutes to the emergency abort point.”
“Too much information, General,” Raydon said. “We’re committed — there’s no emergency abort.” Everyone knew he was correct: they could make it back to Earth intact, but exactly which runway they’d land on — or even if there was a runway nearby — was unknown. Their best — and soon their only — hope was to make the trip as planned.
It seemed to take forever, but soon the “leopards” engines shut down, and the ship went from a sustained, loud roar to complete silence within milliseconds. “Two hundred and fifteen miles up,” Boomer breathed. “I didn’t think it would make that big a difference, but it does.” He looked at the fuel readings, then told himself not to bother looking any longer — they were dismal. Their fuel was nearly exhausted, and they still had one large LPDRS burn to do to slow the Black Stallion down from its current “chase” speed to a speed slow enough for the crew to use maneuvering thrusters to position the spaceplane.
The telemetry readouts showed them exactly how far they had to go and how long it would take to get there, so there were absolutely no surprises, but Boomer found himself staring out the canopy side windscreens for their objective. The glare of the Earth against the darkness of space made scanning the horizon difficult. “Man, it’s easy to see the station at night — I’ve even seen it at late afternoon,” he said, “but I can’t see it now.”
“Be patient, Boomer,” Raydon said. “Don’t anticipate. If we start chasing it, even subconsciously, we’ll run out of fuel. Relax.” It was easier said than done, but Boomer forced himself to close his eyes and recite his Transcendental Meditation mantra to help calm him down.
It obviously helped, because Boomer found himself awakened by the warning tone that the computer was beginning the pre-rendezvous checklist. Moments later the thrusters activated to flip the Black Stallion around so it was flying tail-first, and shortly afterward the LPDRS engines flared briefly to life. Soon the speed of the station and the spaceplane were just a few miles an hour different. “Okay, Colonel, she’s all yours,” Patrick radioed.
“Roger that,” Raydon said. Using the opposite set of thrusters in order not to deplete too much propellant from one set of maneuvering engines, Raydon carefully nudged the Black Stallion up and around until they were facing the direction of flight again…
…and Boomer felt himself take a deep, excited breath as their objective came into sight. My God, he breathed, it’s beautiful…!
At magnitude minus-6, the Armstrong Space Station was fifty percent brighter than the planet Venus in the night sky — only the sun and moon were brighter. It was so bright that quite often the light reflecting off its solar panels, radar arrays, antennae, and reflective anti-laser outer skin cast shadows on Earth. Boomer knew all that and had studied and even photographed “Silver Tower” through a telescope as a kid. But seeing it this close was breathtaking.
The main cluster of four large habitats was arranged perpendicular to Earth’s horizon, which gave it its “Tower” nickname, with a short service, storage, and mechanical spar horizontal. It had four rows of solar power — generating panels on the upper half, each over four hundred feet long and forty feet wide. Two large remote manipulator arms were visible, ready to assist loading and unloading cargo and inspecting all of the modules.
The lower half of the station below the keel had two rows of electronically scanned phased-array radar antennae each over a thousand feet long and fifty feet wide, resembling a delicate ribbon floating in mid-air. This radar, the largest ever built, could detect and track thousands of stationary and moving targets as small as an automobile on land, in the sky, in space, and even hundreds of feet underwater and dozens of feet underground. A number of smaller antennae for signals collection, datalinks, and station self-defense surveillance were mounted on arms connected to the keel. Atop the tower was another device Boomer knew was the station self-defense system, nicknamed “Thor,” but it had been destroyed and had been mostly removed.
“Can you see it, Boomer?” Ann Page asked. “How does it look?”
“It looks…lonely,” Boomer replied. He knew exactly what Ann was asking about — and it wasn’t the space station.
At the very “bottom” of the station below the keel and radar arrays was a single module almost as long as the upper “tower” of the station itself. It was actually four separate modules that had been lofted up to the station by the Shuttle Transportation System over a period of three years. This was Skybolt, the world’s first space-based anti-missile laser, designed and engineered by Ann Page and a team of over a hundred scientists.
Skybolt was a large free-electron laser, powered by a small nuclear-fueled generator called a magnetohydrodynamic generator, or MHD, that produced massive amounts of power for short periods of time. The generator cranked an electrostatic turbine that shot an electron beam — a focused, intense bolt of lightning — through to the laser chamber. Inside the laser chamber a bank of powerful electromagnets “wiggled” the electron beam, thereby producing the lasing effect. The resultant laser beam was millions of times more powerful than the energy generated by the MHD, creating a tunable and extremely powerful beam in the megawatt range that could easily destroy objects in space for thousands of miles and, as Ann and her crew soon discovered, even damage targets as large as a warship on Earth’s surface, or aircraft flying through Earth’s atmosphere.
“Good. That’s good,” Ann cooed. “What are we waiting for, Kai? Let’s hook up and get aboard.”
“Hold your water, Senator,” Raydon said. “I don’t like distractions when I’m flying, so everyone pipe down. That’s an order.” He flexed his fingers one more time, then unstowed the thruster controls and carefully placed his hands on them. Resembling small bathtub faucet knobs, the controls could be twisted, pushed, pulled, and jockeyed sideways or up and down to activate the small hydrazine thrusters arrayed around the Black Stallion. The controls were “standardized,” meaning that the same manual controls had been used in manned spacecraft since Mercury and extending all the way to the Black Stallion.
With the closure rate now less than five miles an hour between the spaceplane and the station, Raydon activated the exterior cameras and began his approach. Armstrong Station had two docking points, one designed for manned spacecraft such as the Shuttle and USS
Raydon began by flying the Black Stallion beside the tower directly opposite from the docking port, then gently stopping the spaceplane so the port was slightly behind his left shoulder but clearly visible out the side windscreen. There was an electronic positioning device straight ahead, but several pieces were missing and the indicators were dark. “Looks like the positioning target has been damaged,” Raydon said.
“Thank the Russians for that,” Ann said. “Their ‘Elektron’ spaceplanes did a lot…”
