Semper Mars (25 page)

Now, however, the Hecate HEL was about to be used for the first time in combat. According to the coded message beamed to Shepard that morning, cruise missiles were still striking targets across most of the continental US and causing heavy damage. It would be impossible to use one laser in a single fast-moving station in LEO to knock down more than a scant handful of the incoming cruise missiles, but the attempt would demonstrate once and for all the system’s practicality… and the value of an idea that had been argued vehemently over for the past fifty-five years. As Shepard Station drifted southeast across the Gulf of Mexico west of Florida, Dahlgren was floating in the lab, his face pressed against the rubber-hooded repeater screen for the station’s Earth-watch telescope system. The telescope, slaved to Shepard’s powerful look-down radar, was being operated by his companion aboard the station, Major Fred Lance, USAF.

“I’ve got a target, Colonel,” Lance reported. “Matanzas launch, two minutes, twelve seconds ago. Heading three-five-eight, altitude approximately five meters.”

“Lock us on, Fred,” Dahlgren replied. The lighted display showed a dizzying sweep of water and cloud as the telescope, a relatively small device mounted on the station’s outer hull, pivoted slightly. Green crosshairs centered a moment later on a white sliver in the center of the display. He pressed a touch screen point, and the image enlarged, giving him a detailed look at the target, which the telescope was now following automatically. The craft was apparently unmarked and painted off-white, a cigar shape with squared-off ends, a tail section like a miniature jet aircraft, and short, skinny wings amidships.

“You should be centered, Colonel.”

“I’ve got him. Do we have a shot?”

“Looks clear to me. On your command…”

“Fire.”

A point on the cruise missile, hurtling along at just below the speed of sound two hundred miles below, grew suddenly and intolerably brilliant, a dazzling star so bright that Dahlgren blinked and looked away. When he looked back, the dazzle was still there, but dimmer as the telescope-camera CCD adjusted for the intensity of the light.

Lance was counting off the seconds. “Two… three…”

And then the cruise missile was gone, replaced in a literal flash by a tumbling cloud of broken debris that streaked ahead for several seconds more before impacting the surface of the water in a ragged burst of white spray.

“I have lost target, Colonel,” Lance said. “Hecate at power off.”

“Target destroyed,” Dahlgren replied. He looked up and met Lance’s eyes across the lab. “Nice shooting!”

Lance shrugged. “Hell, Colonel. Hecate did it. All I did was push the damned button…”

And that, of course, was the beauty of the thing. Dahlgren looked up at the porthole in the hull a few meters away, at the drifting glory of sea and cloud. What Hecate had just done was truly remarkable. With little direction from the two human operators aboard Shepard, the sophisticated AI software had run a down-looking radar and, from an altitude of 320 kilometers, separated a speeding cruise missile three meters long and with a wingspan of less than a meter from the return of the water less than five meters below it. It had slaved an optical CCD telescope to the radar image for use as a visual target system and kept the target locked on despite both the target’s flight north at five hundred miles per hour and the space station’s drift southeast at its orbital velocity of nearly 18,000 mph.

And finally and perhaps most remarkably, it had fired the station’s laser and held the beam dead on its tiny target for the seconds necessary to burn through the missile’s hull and destroy it. Hecate was only a half-megawatt laser, and much of that energy was lost in the turbulence of the Earth’s atmosphere below; the Hecate AI had used backscatter from the laser beam on the target to continually correct the beam’s output and aim, keeping it locked on until the target was destroyed.

“Looks like we’ve got a winner, Fred,” he said. “Find me another target before we complete this pass.”

“You got it, sir. I’ve got another launch, same site, at one minute five seconds ago, bearing three-five-two…”

Dahlgren peered again into the hooded screen, watching as the AI software lined up the next shot. Like shooting fish in a goddamn barrel.

“Shepard, Shepard, this is Cheyenne Mountain,” a voice called over his jumpsuit’s com speaker. “This is Shepard, Colorado,” he replied. “Go.”

“Shepard, we have an orbit change for you, execution in… seven minutes. Drop what you’re doing and get set for a burn.”

“Ah… Colorado,” Dahlgren said. “We have a target ready for lock-on—”

“We copy that, Shepard, but this can’t wait. Secure your gear and stand by to copy the burn parameters. Over.”

“Roger that.” Damn! What could be so all-fired important? That cruise missile streaking north out of Cuba was going to come down someplace, and people were going to die. Shepard couldn’t intercept all of the missiles, but it could stop a bunch, each time it passed overhead. The idea was to force the bad guys to stagger their launches to times when Shepard was below the horizon, and give the air-defense boys time to regroup.

But evidently, Cheyenne Mountain had other things in mind.

Shepard MOP was not exactly a spaceship. It had all of the maneuverability of an elephant in free fall. Still, a rack of strap-on B-30 maneuvering thrusters attached to the external tank’s framework gave them the ability to change orbit within certain fairly narrow parameters, enough to pass over a particular target on the ground at a specified time. If Colorado wanted them to engage in a burn within the next few minutes, it was because they had a particular destination in mind, one with a fairly narrow access window. That argued that they were trying to manage an orbital rendezvous.

Seven minutes wasn’t much time. The Hecate laser was a delicate piece of equipment, and parts had to be strapped down before any delta-v maneuver.

“Let’s hump it, Fred,” Dahlgren called. Together, they began securing the laser. Two hundred miles below them, the cruise missile continued streaking north, just a few feet above the Gulf of Mexico.

E
IGHTEEN

Saturday, 9 June: 1929 Hours GMT

Office of the President

White House Basement, Washington DC

1529 hours EDT

The president looked a lot older now than he had the last time Admiral Gray had seen him, less than twenty-four hours before. The familiar, easy, politician’s grin, the engaging and confident manner, both were gone. Markham was slumped into the big executive’s chair behind the desk, head supported on one hand, eyes bleak as he stared at the muted images flickering across the wall screen to his right. Net News had gotten back on the air again this morning, despite the cruise missile strike that had taken out its broadcast antenna in Silver Springs.

“So?” Markham’s voice was muffled by his hand. “How are we holding, CJ?”

“We’re doing better than we expected, Mr. President.” Gray laid a folder on the president’s desk. “Our air-defense forces, air national guard, naval air groups, and other assets, we estimate, have accounted for approximately four hundred cruise missiles, or roughly sixty-five percent of what they’ve thrown at us so far.”

“You’re saying over two hundred missiles have gotten through.”

Louis Harrel, standing at Gray’s side, nodded. “Two hundred fourteen, as of the latest count, Mr. President.”

On the big wall screen, Carlotta Braun’s dark features stared down at the three men, her too-red lips moving soundlessly. Abruptly, the scene shifted to an aerial view of Washington. The Mall was visible, a long green rectangle reaching toward the familiar, white-domed majesty of the Capitol Building. Something—a tiny, white something like a child’s glider—was streaking along the Mall, chasing its own shadow on the ground. In a heartbeat, it streaked past the Air and Space Museum, passed Fourth and Third Streets and the Capital Reflecting Pool, and arrowed squarely into the Capitol’s west side, detonating inside the Rotunda.

The explosion blew out windows, pieces of stone wall, and several Greek columns. The Capitol steps, mercifully, were empty of people, but the blast flipped several hydrogen-fueled cars parked on the drive below and lashed nearby cherry trees with hurricane winds. For an agonizing several seconds, nothing more happened. Then the huge dome seemed to settle slightly, cracked, then collapsed inward as chunks of white stone crashed down in a billowing avalanche into the gutted center of the building.

Braun’s face reappeared, lips moving.

“They’ve been showing that same damned news clip for three hours now,” President Markham said bitterly. “Can’t they find some other piece of death and mayhem to bombard the public with?”

“This must be playing holy hell with national morale,” Harrel said.

“It is,” the president agreed. “And the answer is, what? Invoke government censorship?”

“This is war, Mr. President,” Harrel said.

“Those days are long over,” the president said. “Even if we could censor the netnews—and I’m not sure we could—the people would just get their news from outside the country, and you know the spin they’re putting on things.” He gestured at the screen. “At least they know they’re getting an honest account here, and we’ll need that when the tide turns.” He looked at Gray.

“We can expect a turning, can’t we, Admiral? Please tell me there’s a bright side to all of this.”

“We expect a break in the attack soon, Mr. President,” Gray said. “Our estimates of the number of missiles in their stores suggest they can’t keep up this level of bombardment for much longer. They’ll need time to rearm and reequip. The likeliest scenario has them announcing a dramatic cessation to the bombardment after today or possibly tomorrow, and giving us a chance to think things over. Their ultimatum still stands. They’ll want some kind of a reply to that.”

“And if we don’t?”

Gray shrugged. “They’ll continue the bombardment, I suppose, until we comply.”

“There is a chance, Mr. President,” the national security advisor added, “that they will escalate in the next phase.”

“Nukes?”

“It’s a possibility. The DCI says they might try using one or a very few tactical nukes as a demonstration against military bases, or possibly our launch facilities at Canaveral and Vandenberg. It is not likely, at this juncture, that they will resort to chemical or biological weapons.”

The president grimaced. “‘Not likely.’ But it’ll happen sooner or later, if I don’t back down.”

Gray found himself holding his breath. The UN ultimatum had been blunt and to the point. The United States was to disarm completely. Its military forces were to stand down, its aircraft to remain grounded, its bases open to UN inspection teams and occupation forces. A United Nations Special Governing Committee was to take charge of the Washington bureaucracy; elected officials would remain in power, but subject to UN directives. It was nothing less than a blueprint for complete and unconditional surrender.

And Admiral Gray was afraid that Markham was going to agree to it.

“What kind of a chance can you give us, Admiral?” Markham wanted to know. “Tell me you have a secret weapon or two squirreled away that I don’t know about.”

“Well, sir, we don’t have anything like that, but we can buy us some time. Operation Freedom is on track. Launch is scheduled for 0700 Pacific Time Tuesday. We’re in the process of nudging Shepard into a better orbit, so they can provide backup and fire support.”

“Operation Freedom. That’s the ISS mission?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how is that going to help us?”

Gray drew a deep breath. “It’s a symbol, Mr. President.” He nodded toward the screen, where the destruction of the US Capitol Building was being played out again. “Most of their strikes, so far, have been against high-visibility, newsworthy targets. Public buildings. State capitols. Things with propaganda value, that demonstrate that we can’t protect ourselves from this kind of attack.”

The White House had been badly damaged several hours ago. A near miss had damaged the Washington Monument, too, though it was still standing. “Go on.”

“The International Space Station is also a symbol, Mr. President. A station that passes over our heads every ninety minutes or so and proves that we can’t protect our interests in space… an area where America historically held a strong lead over everyone else.”

“Hell, we were giving up on space,” Harrel pointed out. “At least until we found that alien shit on Mars.”

“That ‘alien shit,’ as Mr. Harrel calls it, may well be the key to this whole war,” Gray said. “It’s Ken Morrow’s contention that Mars is the main reason the UN jumped us. Not Aztlan. And not US unwillingness to go along with the UN’s agenda.”

“I know,” the president replied. “He’s been telling me that every day now for the past week.” He shook his head. “Tell me, gentlemen. Is anything we find on Mars worth that?” He gestured at Braun’s oversize face on the wall screen.

“We won’t know that, Mr. President, until our people have a chance to excavate the site a bit farther,” Harrel said. “But it does appear that the UN forces on Mars launched this adventure because they wanted to shut us down there.”

“Shut us down?” Gray said, thoughtful. “They could have done that as soon as their troops reached Mars, seven months ago. I think our people might have found something specific, something the UN didn’t want broadcast. Otherwise, why wait until now?”

“They might’ve just been waiting until they were ready,” Harrel suggested.

“Maybe, but the attack seemed rushed. As though it was being hurried along by events elsewhere. Mr. President, I think we have to assume that our most important battle right now is the one on Mars.”

Markham gave a wan smile. “The one we can’t do anything about.”

“Well, sir, we can start by getting the ISS back. If the Marines win on Mars, we need a working spaceport on this end to pick them up when they return. The ISS is also the center of Spacenet, which handles all communications off of Earth. We’ll need to secure that if we’re to have a hope of finding out what’s going on up there.”

“Hence, Operation Freedom,” the president mused. “The problem is, gentlemen, that even if we get the space station back, it’ll be months before our people on Mars can return on the cycler, right? In the meantime, what am I supposed to tell the American people? That we’re sitting through this bombardment so our people on Mars can dig up rusty alien spaceships?”

“That’s why we’re emphasizing the propaganda value of the ISS op, sir,” Gray said. “You could think of it like the Doolittle bombing raid against Japan, a century ago. It won’t hurt the enemy materially that much, but it sure as hell will hurt his pride.”

“Mmm. That sort of gesture can only sustain us so far. We’ve got to hit the bastards back here on Earth, hit ’em hard, or else throw a big enough scare into them that they back off and leave us alone.”

“The Tenth Infantry Division has deployed from Fort Drum,” Gray pointed out, “and has been engaging the Quebeckers outside Plattsburgh Aerospace Force Base. We stand a good chance of winning that one, especially since the 380th Bomb Wing out of Plattsburgh has started hammering Montreal. We’re also holding the Mexicans and the Colombians at San Diego. Our reserves and the National Guard are almost at full mobilization. Once the enemy attacks run out of steam, we should be able to go over to the offensive, both in Quebec and in northern Mexico. We’ll also be able to start coordinating things with our allies. The Russians seem to be doing okay against the Manchurians. England is taking heavy cruise missile attacks from across the Channel, but they’re holding. We actually stand a very good chance of holding them at our borders, and once—”

“That’s just the problem, Admiral,” Markham interrupted. “We’ve got to do more than just hold them. We’ve got to hit back. Hard. Before they decide to escalate to something nastier.”

“It’s possible, Mr. President,” Harrel said softly, “that our hitting back harder would precipitate an escalation.”

“I know. So the secretary of state told me.” The president paused. “John Matloff offered me his resignation this morning. Did you know?”

“No, sir,” Gray and Harrel said, almost in unison. Gray was surprised. Matloff hadn’t struck him as the sort to make dramatic gestures, especially where his career was concerned.

“I refused it,” Markham said. “Told him I wasn’t going to let him start a stampede. The government has to be together on this. Present a united front. For the people. And for the rest of the world. Am I right?”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Again, they spoke almost as one.

“I’ve authorized Operation Freedom, Admiral Gray. I’m not sure how much help it’s going to be to us in the short term, but it’s a good long-term gamble, and you’re right about it being a symbol. We win a victory up there, in orbit, and we’re letting the world know we still have the high-tech know-how to command space. But…” He stopped suddenly, one finger raised for emphasis. “But. If Operation Freedom doesn’t come off as advertised, we are going to be in an extraordinarily vulnerable position. The people will see us throwing away lives and equipment in space when enemy forces are marching through our backyards and giving us one god awful shellacking. They might not sit still for that. I may be forced to sue for peace, while I still have the option. So I want you gentlemen to make this thing work. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Keep working at ways of intercepting those missiles. The people won’t support a government that can’t protect them.”

“Overall popular response has been good, Mr. President,” Harrel said. “Surprisingly good, under the circumstances. The bombardment seems to have united most of them.”

“I would remind the president,” Gray said, “that an outside attack like this usually doesn’t have the effect on the morale of the target population that the attackers hope. The Germans learned that when they tried to bomb England during the Blitz. We learned the same thing in Vietnam a generation later.”

“Agreed. But it’s been a long time since Americans have been involved directly in a war like this, gentlemen. Unless you count a few shells from U-boats and Japanese subs in World War II, we’ve never suffered a bombardment… and the last time enemy troops were on our soil was the War of 1812. These attacks on our government buildings and institutions are designed for three things, as I see it. They want to demonstrate they can hit us, and keep hitting us as long as they need to. They want to break our morale. And they want to drive a wedge into our people, between the Nationalists and the Internationalists. The Internationalist Party, you know, has already come out in favor of a negotiated truce and immediate incorporation into the UN World Government. They could gain a lot of converts if this bombardment goes on. If we can’t show the people a damned positive turn in the battle, and fast, well…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

“Operation Freedom is the way to go, sir,” Gray said quietly. “Once we have control of Earth orbit, we’ve got the high ground, as it were. The Hecate laser aboard Shepard Station proved its effectiveness this morning. We’ll be able to turn it against enemy launch sites… maybe hit those European arsenal ships that have been tossing cruise missiles at us from the North Atlantic. We might even consider laser attacks against their capitals… or against the UN building in Geneva.”

“Who’s on the Freedom op?”

“The Marine commandant himself is running the show, Mr. President. He’s already left for Cheyenne Mountain. The unit tagged for the mission is First Platoon, Alfa Company, First Marine Strike Battalion.”

“They’re good?”

“The best. They’re the unit that brought our people out of Mexico City. They’re at Vandenberg, where they’ve been training for orbital combat operations.”

“Who’s in command?”

“A Lieutenant Fuentes, sir. CO of the rescue team at the embassy.”

“Well, I hope to hell he can pull it off.”

“Fuentes will do it if anyone can, Mr. President.” Gray decided not to tell Markham that Carmen Fuentes was a woman. Sex had stopped being an issue in the American military decades ago, but even now there was the unspoken but very evident assumption in government and in the chain of command that a man was needed for a man’s work. So far as Gray was concerned, Fuentes had proved herself and then some at the US Embassy in Mexico City. Warhurst trusted her… and, more to the point, the men and women in her platoon trusted her. He wasn’t going to risk interfering with that.