Patrick McLanahan Collection #1 (182 page)

“I want Russian skies cleared of American spacecraft, and I want our airwaves cleansed of American transmissions, and I don't care if I have to start a war in Iran, Turkmenistan, Europe,
or in space
to do it!”

 

A
BOARD
A
RMSTRONG
S
PACE
S
TATION

A
SHORT TIME LATER

“Stud Zero-Seven is ready to depart, sir,” Master Sergeant Lukas reported.

“Thanks, Master Sergeant,” Patrick McLanahan responded. He flipped a switch on his console: “Have a good trip home, Boomer. Let me know how the module release experiments and new re-entry procedure works.”

“Will do, sir,” Hunter Noble responded. “Feels weird not having you on board flying the jet.”

“At least you get to pilot it this time, right?”

“I had to arm-wrestle Frenchy for it, and it was close—but yes, I won,” Boomer said. He got an exasperated glance in his rear-cockpit camera from U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Lisette “Frenchy” Moulain, an experienced F/A-18 Hornet combat pilot and NASA space shuttle mission commander and pilot. She had recently qualified to be spacecraft commander of the XR-A9 Black Stallion spaceplane and was always looking for another chance to pilot the bird, but none of her arguments worked this time on Boomer. When Patrick flew to and from the station—which was quite often recently—he usually picked Boomer to be his backseater.

Minutes later the Black Stallion detached from the docking bay aboard Armstrong Space Station, and Boomer carefully maneuvered the craft away from the station. When they were far enough away, he maneuvered into retrorocket firing position, flying tailfirst. “Countdown checklists complete, we're in the final automatic countdown hold,” he announced over intercom. “We're about six hundred miles to touchdown. Ready for this one, Frenchy?”

“I've already reported my checklists are complete, Captain,” Moulain responded.

Boomer rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. “Frenchy, when we get back home, we need to sit down at a nice bar somewhere on the Strip, have an expensive champagne drink, and talk about your attitude—toward me, toward the service, toward life.”

“Captain, you know very well that I'm engaged, I don't drink, and I love my work and my life,” Moulain said in that same grinding hair-pulling monotone that Boomer absolutely hated. “I might also add, if you haven't realized it by now, that I hate that call-sign, and I don't particularly care for
you,
so even if I was unattached, drank alcohol, and you were the last man on earth with the biggest cock and longest tongue this side of Vegas, I wouldn't be seen dead in a bar or anywhere else with you.”

“Ouch, Frenchy. That's harsh.”

“I think you're an outstanding spacecraft commander and engineer and a competent test pilot,” she added, “but I find you a disgrace to the uniform and I often wonder why you are still at Dreamland and still a member of the United States Air Force. I think your skill as an engineer seems to overshadow the partying, hanging out at casinos, and the constant stream of women in and out of your life—mostly
out
—and frankly I resent that.”

“Don't hold back, Commander. Tell me how you
really
feel.”

“Now when I report ‘checklist complete,' Captain, as you fully well know, that indicates that my station is squared away, that I have examined and checked everything I can in your station and the rest of the craft and found it optimal, and that I am prepared for the next evolution.”

“Oooh. I love it when you talk Navy talk. ‘Squared away' and ‘evolution' sound so nautical. Kinda kinky too, coming from a woman.”

“You know, Captain, I put up with your nonsense because you're Air Force and this is an Air Force unit, and I know Air Force officers always act casually around each other, even if there's a great difference in rank,” Moulain pointed out. “You're also the spacecraft commander, which puts you in charge despite the fact that I outrank you. So I'm going to ignore your sexist remarks during this mission.
But it certainly doesn't change my opinion of you as a person and as an Air Force officer—in fact, it verifies it.”

“Sorry. I didn't catch all that. I was busy sticking pencils in my ears to keep from listening to you.”

“Can we follow the test flight plan and just do this, Captain, without all the male macho bullshit nonsense? We're already thirty seconds past the planned commencement time.”

“All right, all right, Frenchy,” Boomer said. “I was just trying to act like we're part of a crew and not serving on separate decks of a ship in the nineteenth-century Navy. Pardon me for trying.” He pressed a control stud on his flight control stick. “Get me out of this, Stud Seven. Begin powered descent.”

“Commencing powered descent, stop powered descent…”
When the computer did not receive a countermanding order, it began:
“Commencing deorbit burn in three, two, one, now.”
The Laser Pulse Detonation Rocket System engines, or LPDRS, pronounced “leopards,” activated and went to full power. Burning JP-7 jet fuel and hydrogen peroxide oxidizer with other chemicals and superheated pulses from lasers to increase the specific impulse, the Black Stallion's four LPDRS engines produced twice as much thrust as all of the engines aboard the space shuttle orbiters combined.

As the spacecraft slowed, it began to descend. Normally at a certain velocity Boomer would shut down the main engines and then turn the spacecraft using its thrusters to a forward-flying nose-high attitude and prepare for “entry interface,” or the first encounter with the atmosphere, and then use aerobraking—scraping the shielded underside against the atmosphere—to slow down for landing. This time, however, Boomer kept it flying tailfirst and the LPDRS engines running at full power.

Most spacecraft could not do this for long because they didn't carry enough fuel, but the Black Stallion spaceplane was different: because it refueled while on Armstrong Space Station, it had as much fuel as it would have when blasting
into
orbit, which meant it could keep its engines running for much longer periods during re-entry. Although aerobraking was much more fuel-efficient, it had
its own set of hazards—namely, the intense heat of friction that built up on the underside of the spacecraft—so the crew was trying a different re-entry method.

As the Black Stallion slowed even more, the descent angle got steeper, until it seemed as if they were pointed straight up. The flight and engine control computers adjusted power to maintain a steady 3-G deceleration force. “I hate to ask,” Boomer grunted through the G-forces pressing his body back into his seat, “but how are you doing back there, Frenchy? Still optimal?”

“In the green, Captain,” Frenchy responded, forcing her breath through constricted throat muscles in order to keep her abdominal muscles tight, which increased blood pressure in her head. “All systems in the green, station check complete.”

“A very squared-away report, thank you, M. Moulain,” Boomer said. “I'm optimal up here too.”

Passing through Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, and just before reaching the atmosphere at approximately sixty miles' altitude, Boomer said, “Ready to initiate payload separation.” His voice was much more serious now because this was a much more critical phase of the mission.

“Roger, payload separation coming up…program initiated,” Moulain responded. The cargo bay doors on top of the Black Stallion's fuselage opened, and powerful thrusters pushed a BDU-58 container out of the bay. The BDU-58 “Meteor” container was designed to protect up to four thousand pounds of payload as it descended through the atmosphere. Once through the atmosphere the Meteor could glide up to three hundred miles to a landing spot, or release its payload before impacting the ground.

This mission was designed to show that the Black Stallion spaceplanes could quickly and accurately insert a long-duration reconnaissance aircraft anywhere on planet Earth. The Meteor would release a single AQ-11 Night Owl unmanned reconnaissance aircraft about thirty thousand feet altitude near the Iran-Afghanistan border. For the next month, the Night Owl would monitor the area with imaging infrared and millimeter-wave radars for signs of
Muslim insurgents crossing the border, or Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps or al-Quds convoys smuggling in weapons or supplies from neighboring countries.

After the Meteor container was away, Boomer and Frenchy continued their powered descent. The atmosphere made the spaceplane slow down much more quickly, and soon the LPDRS engines were throttling back to maintain the maximum 3-G deceleration. “Hull temperatures well within the green,” Moulain reported. “I sure like these powered descents.”

Boomer fought off the G-forces, reached out, and patted the top of the instrument panel. “Good spaceship, nice spaceship,” he cooed lovingly. “She likes these powered descents too—all that heat on the belly is not nice, is it, sweetie? Did I tell you, Frenchy, that those ‘leopards' engines were
my
idea?”

“Only about a million times, Captain.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Air pressure on the surface is up to green…computers are securing the reaction control system,” Moulain reported. “Mission-adaptive control surfaces are in test mode…tests complete, MAW system responding to computer commands.” The MAW, or Mission Adaptive Wing, system was a series of tiny actuators on the fuselage that in essence turned the entire body of the spaceplane into a lift or drag device—computers shaped the skin as needed to maneuver, climb or descend, make the craft slipperier, or slow down quickly. Even flying backward, the MAW system allowed complete control over the spaceplane. With the atmospheric controls active, Boomer took control of the Black Stallion himself, turned so they were flying forward like a normal aircraft, then hand-flew the ship through a series of steep, high angle-of-attack turns to help bleed off more speed while keeping the descent rate and hull temperatures under control.

At the same time, he was maneuvering to get into position for landing. This landing was going to be a bit trickier than most, because their landing spot was in southeast Turkey at a joint Turkey-NATO military base at a city named Batman. Batman Air Base
was a Special Operations Joint Task Force base during the 1991 Gulf War, with American Army Special Forces and Air Force pararescue troops running clandestine missions throughout Iraq. It was returned to Turkish civil control after the war. In a bid for greater cooperation and better relations with its fellow Muslim nations in the Middle East, Turkey forbade NATO offensive military operations to be staged from Batman, but America had convinced the Turks to allow reconnaissance and some strike aircraft to fly from Batman to hunt down and destroy insurgents in Iran. It was now one of the most vital forward air bases for American and NATO forces in the Middle East, eastern Europe, and central Asia.

“Passing sixty thousand feet, atmospheric pressure in the green, ready to secure the ‘leopards,'” Moulain said. Boomer chuckled—securing the “leopards” and transitioning to air-breathing turbojet mode was done automatically, as were most operations on the spaceplane, but Moulain always tried to pre-guess when the computer would initiate the procedure. Cute, yes—but she was generally correct, too. Sure enough, the computer notified him that the LPDRS engines were secure. “We're still in ‘manual' mode, Captain,” Moulain reminded him. “The system won't restart the engines automatically.”

“You're really on top of this stuff, aren't you, Frenchy?” Boomer quipped.

“That's my job, Captain.”

“You're never going to call me ‘Boomer,' are you?”

“Unlikely, Captain.”

“You don't know what you're missing, Frenchy.”

“I'll survive. Ready for restart.”

Part of her allure was definitely the chase. Maybe she was all businesslike in bed too—but that was going to have to wait for a time when they weren't seated in tandem. “Unspiking the engines, turbojets coming alive.” They had enough oxygen in the atmosphere now to stop using hydrogen peroxide to burn jet fuel, so Boomer reopened the movable spikes in the engine inlets and initiated the
engine start sequence. In moments the turbojets were idling and ready to fly. Their route of flight was taking them over central Europe and Ukraine, and now they were over the Black Sea, heading southeast toward Turkey. Along with keeping hull temperatures low, the powered descent procedures allowed them to descend out of orbit much quicker—they could come down from two hundred miles' altitude into initial approach position, called the “high gate,” in less than a thousand miles, where a normal aerobraking descent might take almost five thousand miles.

Below sixty thousand feet they were in Class A positive control airspace, so now they had to follow all normal air traffic control procedures. The computer had already entered the proper frequency in the number one UHF radio: “Ankara Center, this is Stud Seven, due regard, one hundred twenty miles northwest of Ankara, passing flight level five-four-zero, requesting activation of our flight plan. We will be MARSA with Chevron Four-One.”

“Stud Seven, Ankara Center, remain outside Turkish Air Defense Identification Zone until radar identified, squawk one-four-one-seven normal.” Boomer read back all the instructions.

At that moment, on their secondary encrypted radio, they heard: “Stud Seven, Chevron Four-One on Blue Two.”

Boomer had Frenchy monitor the air traffic control frequency, then switched to the secondary radio: “Four-One, this is Stud Seven.” They performed a challenge-and-response code exchange to verify each other's identity, even though they were on an encrypted channel. “We launched out of Batman because we heard from Ankara ATC that they are not letting any aircraft cross their ADIZ, even ones with established flight plans. We don't know what's going on, but usually it's because an unidentified aircraft or vessel drifted into their airspace or waters, or some Kurds fired some mortars across the border, and they shut everything down until they sort it out. We're coming up on rendezvous point ‘Fishtail.' Suggest we do a point-parallel there, then head out to MK.”