SpaceCorp (32 page)

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Suddenly, a long klaxon sounded causing the Gun Watch, who had been lazing in their chairs in front of their monitors, to snap to attention. The long klaxon meant only one thing—missile launch. The long klaxon would switch to a short klaxon if the identification-friend-or-foe system determined the launch was hostile. The Gun Watch computers were linked to the Rock Watch so that both watches could coordinate their defensive procedures.

The Gun Boss’ monitor showed the signature of a
Shahab-7
minus its 1
^st
stage passing through the stratosphere, range 1000 kilometers.

“Hostile bogey confirmed!” the Gun Boss said as he lifted the guard on a toggle that switched the long klaxon to short.

“You sure they’re not just going for another Centaur shoot-down, Boss?”

“No, I’m not sure. But at that range and trajectory, and us just
happening
to be in the neighborhood, I’m sure enough.”

“Rock Watch, this is Gun Watch, missile passing above our max vertical engagement envelope. Cannot engage. Repeat. Cannot engage.”

“Acknowledge, Gun Watch—cannot engage. We show missile vertical ascent rate slowing to zero… missile at apogee well below graveyard. BREAK. Captain Dinesh, we have a likely top-attack missile inbound, ETA one-zero mikes.”

“Acknowledge, Rock Watch. BREAK. Captain Dinesh to
Einstein
, this is not a drill. Incoming top attack warhead, ETA one-zero mikes. Jettison hub and spokes immediately. Repeat. This is not a drill. Jettison hub and spokes immediately.”

“Captain, do you want to attempt evasive maneuvers?” First Officer Chong asked.

“Negative, Mr. Chong. If they’re targeting center of mass, I want to make it as easy as possible for them to fly right through us. Status!”

“All spoke hatches sealed. Bolts blowing in two-five seconds. Ring crew suited and standing by to assist disengagement.”

“Do we have a headcount on any crew that might have been in the hub or spokes?”

“Locator shows twenty-four crew, Captain.”

“Twenty-four?”

“Yes, Captain, a routine check of the nuclear thermal rockets was underway. All crew suited per SOP.”

“Hope they have sense enough to stay put and ride it out. Damned security protocols.”

“We have communicated that order already, Captain. Hopefully, none of them will panic before we can retrieve them.”

“Chief Engineer Mori, has the automatic deorbit sequence been interrupted?”

“Yes, Captain. I ordered that sequence changed to manual a week ago.”

“Good work. So what will happen to the hub and spokes now?”

“Assuming a clean disengage, they will descend about a hundred meters below the ring picking up speed and pulling ahead of us several kilometers.”

“And the retrieval protocol?”

“We were still working on that, Captain. The ring has good attitude control but depends on the hub for vertical translation. The hub can translate well but needs the ring for most of its attitude control. We were retrofitting for remote operation when this incident came up.”

“Bottom line it, Mr. Mori. How do I get my hub and those crew back?”

“Assuming we are undamaged by the passing of the warhead through our middle, we can instruct the crew on the hub to fire the reactors to climb back to our altitude. That will at least stop their increasing separation. Beyond that we’re going to need several space-only shuttles to give us a hand. The nearest one is six hours away. The farthest is eight. We have sent all three of them distress calls.”

“Gun Watch, this is Captain Dinesh, be advised we are blowing the hub and spokes and maintaining course in hopes the warhead will pass through our middle. Deploy your cannon and engage warhead as soon as it’s clear enough to minimize secondary damage. You will fire at will, Gun Watch. Do you copy?”

“Roger, Captain, copy fire at will. Gun Watch deploying cannon now.”

“Remember, Gun Watch, you’ll only get one shot and that’s only if their prox fuse gets confused by the fact that we have an empty middle. Good hunting!”

“Will do, Captain. We have a contingency firing solution ready. We will wait for ten kilometers clearance before firing.”

At that moment, a succession of muffled explosions reverberated throughout the hull of the main ring of the
Einstein
.

“Mr. Chong, status!”

“All bolts blown, Captain. Checking for clean disengagement.”

On either side of each point where each of the four spokes joined the hull, a team of six suited crewmen were waiting in evacuated exit chambers should the explosive bolts that held the spokes in place fail to disengage the spokes cleanly. They were equipped with a variety of tools: large pry bars, a plasma torch, a carbide demolition saw, and blocks of C4 explosive. Time was of the essence in the event a spoke failed to disengage cleanly. The attachment point would act as a pivot point while the rest of the hub and spokes rotated around under the ring—a potentially catastrophic situation that could pry loose a large segment of the inner ring wall unless immediate action were taken. And of course, all of this had to be done in the remaining minutes before what they believed was a 1500-kg warhead passed through the ring, possibly hitting a piece of spoke that had not quite maneuvered away from the space station. The protocol required the crew to deploy, correct the problem, and return to the safety of the ring within two minutes. Deployment and auto-retrieve by the tether reels took a full minute leaving one minute to fix the problem. One minute only allowed only drastic, not elegant solutions.

If the warhead detonated at the moment it passed through the hull, no one really knew its damage potential. The inner walls of the ring were only two meters thick, nowhere near as thick as the outer walls. It was entirely possible for an explosive fragment to pass through the wall. Again no one really knew. If it did pass through and hit a piece of equipment, damage would probably be minor. But if it hit a crewman, death and dismemberment was the likely outcome.

“Spoke Four appears to have a disengagement failure, Captain.”

“ETA on the warhead?”

“Zero-six mikes, Captain.”

“Shit, this is going to be tight. BREAK.
Einstein
, this is the captain. All non-emergency personnel, prep for probable impact in zero-six minutes. Impact is probable, not definite. BREAK. Status, Mr. Chong.”

“Disengagement crew has exited their hatch, Captain. I count six, all wearing Delta Team jerseys.”

“Mr. Mori, status on the ring.”

“It continues to spin in time with the ring, Captain, but it is beginning to rotate downward. Right now it is about two degrees off horizontal. We’re attempting to arrest that motion with attitude thrusters. If we let it get too far off horizontal without separating, it will throw the whole station into dynamic instability and we risk hull disintegration.”

“
Einstein Quad Four
, this is the captain. Prep for probable hull breach at the spoke. BREAK. Put Delta Team’s helmet cams on the monitor and get me their audio feed. Do
not
interrupt their work!”

Delta Team – Outside the Hull by the Spoke Four Attach Point

First team member on the scene, Monica Carvalho, was furiously banging on the bolt head trying to free it so the spoke could separate from the attach point.

“It’s too pinched to come loose,” her team leader Gordon Smith said. “Let me get in there so I can blow it.”

Monica backed away still holding onto the stanchion she had been using to brace her swings with the sledge hammer. Smith placed the block of C4 into position and secured it with a length of duct tape.

“Delta Team, pull back!” Smith yelled as he pulled the thirty-second fuse cord.

Monica had been expecting him to need assistance and held the strap handle sewn into every space suit across the top of the shoulders. Inside of the hatch on Delta Team’s side of the spoke, the tether lines were on high-speed, low-torque recovery reels that could be commanded to reel each team member back into the safety of the hatch. If everyone did it at once there would be a traffic jam at the hatchway, hence the low torque and loose drag. Each reel needed ten seconds to pull a crew member to the hatch opening. It was calculated another ten seconds would be spent untangling bodies and ten more to close the hatch to shield the Team from the blast. There was no margin. It was a new procedure, not anticipated in the design of the space station. And although the team had practiced it many times, dignity and politeness were best forgotten in the interest of getting everyone inside and the door latched.

A block of C4 detonated in a vacuum would not produce a shock wave as it would in air, but unhampered by air friction, debris from the blast would travel a long distance. Inside the hatch was a wide angle monitor showing the exterior of the inner ring—this was to prevent folks from opening doors into one another. It could not be aimed and it did not produce a high resolution image of the spoke, but it was enough to tell if the charge blew. Inside the evacuated hatch, the crew would not be able to hear the detonation, but they might feel it as a reverberation in the hull.

“Einstein, this is Delta Team Leader, we have blast confirmed on the monitor. One and Two are exiting the hatch to inspect for full separation.”

On the bridge of the
SSS Albert Einstein

“Delta, this is Chief Engineer Mori, we do not have time for an inspection. Warhead is zero-three mikes from impact. I’m going to attempt to maneuver the hub clear of the ring with attitude thrusters. Keep your team well away.”

“Mori, what if that spoke is not fully separated?” Captain Dinesh asked.

“Then we will have a problem, Captain.” The Chief Engineer, renowned for his coolness, continued to operate the thruster controls on his touch-screen as he explained the situation. “But if we don’t move the hub out of our middle ring and that warhead makes a hit, we will have a bigger problem.”

The attitude thrusters on the hub and spokes were ridiculously under-powered to translate the hub downward and clear of the hub. The nuclear thrusters had the power, but there was no time to fire them up since they had been shut completely down for an inspection. There were audible scrapes and crunches where the spoke ends hit the inside hull of the ring on the way down. Fortunately, the hub only needed a few meters vertical clearance before the difference in the ring’s altitude and the hub’s altitude would accelerate the hub and spokes ahead of the ring.

“Almost clear, Captain. I just need to keep the hub level so that it does not scrape the bottom of the ring as it accelerates.”

True to the laws of physics, the hub began to pull ahead of the ring as soon as it got clear. The effect—conservation of angular momentum—was the same as any child on a merry-go-round would have experienced as he moved from the outer edge to the interior of the disc causing the merry-go-round to rotate faster.

“Warhead on course for a clean pass in one point five mikes,” First Officer Chong said.

“Will it detonate, Mr. Chong?” Captain Dinesh asked. “Are you getting a secondary RF signal for the prox fuse?”

“Yes, on the secondary, Captain. We have a lock on their frequency and are attempting a noise jam.”

“Are you sure your jam signal won’t set it off?”

“No, Captain,” Mr. Chong said. He looked directly at her, both voice and expression flat.

Captain Dinesh closed her eyes and shook her head. “
Einstein all quads
, this is the captain. Anticipate warhead will pass through empty ring in one mike. Prepare for possible hull breaches on the inner ring from warhead fragments. Good luck. BREAK. Mr. Mori, status.”

“All but twenty meters of the spoke displaced from the ring, Captain.”

“Three-zero seconds, Captain,” Mr. Chong said.

“Hub is clear and accelerating ahead of ring, Captain. About three hundred meters ahead now and accelerating,” Mr. Mori said.

Overdue for a bit of luck, the warhead passed straight through the
Einstein’s
ring without detonating. The Gun Watch had a lock-on immediately and slewed the cannon along the warhead’s track. Two seconds later the cannon radiated a powerful beam at the butt-end of the warhead burning through the warhead’s rear access hatch and destroying the guidance & control and command uplink/downlink equipment inside. A fraction of a second later it burned through the helium tank and a spray of fragments was propelled rearward by the helium jet. Unfortunately, Composition B requires a blasting cap to detonate and a laser, while intensely hot, is not capable of detonating the explosive. The Gun Watch would have to content itself watching the intact warhead returning to the Earth’s surface.

“
Einstein
, this is Captain Dinesh. We have successfully evaded the incoming warhead. It is now passing back into the Earth’s atmosphere where it appears it will impact somewhere in southern Iran. I want to render a ‘virtual’ salute to the members of the Rock and Gun Watches, Delta Team, and the First Officer and Chief Engineer—you folks all performed admirably during this crisis. But before we turn the drinking light on, we’re not quite finished. We have a hub and spokes to retrieve along with the 24 crewmembers that were deployed inside. The Locator tells me all are well showing full vital signs. I’m counting on everyone’s professionalism over the next day or so while we get those people back. And for goodness sake, Rock and Gun Watches stay vigilant! We don’t know if our Iranian friends have another surprise for us the next pass over their territory. That is all, carry on your duties.”

There were no cheers to be heard around the
Einstein
. Without her hub she was ‘dead in space,’ unable to change her orbit and doomed to pass over the ISA Launch Facility at Shahrud, Iran in fourteen and a half orbits—twenty-four hours from now.

“Gun Watch, this is the Captain. Do we have enough battery power for another shot if we need it next pass over Iran?”

“The ultra-caps hold enough juice for eight shots, but that Parthian shot we took at the warhead was a pretty long burn. We’re good for five more shots if we’re allowed to be stingy.”