Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (12 page)

           
He turned
to Ann. “Your laser system is what’s got us really excited. If you’re correct
in your prediction that a one-minute laser barrage will have the power to destroy
hundreds of missiles, we may have the ability to neutralize the whole Soviet
nuclear arsenal.”

           
“If
it works, Colonel,” Ann said. ‘The
problems we need to overcome are still pretty huge.. . , For now. I’d put my
money on the Thor missiles.”

           
Walker
accepted that with a shrug,
then
led the way to the
next module, which was like the command module except a bit less organized.
Again, four technicians manned the module, two of them positioned in front of
large banks of equipment.

           
‘This is
the experimentation module,”
Walker
said. “Personnel and equipment are moved in and out of this area on a weekly
basis. Some weeks it’s bacteria—others it’s transformers or superconductive
circuits. All of the equipment bays are temporary—we can remodel this entire
module in half a day. Dr. Baker, this will be your office.” “Great, it’s bigger
than my lab at
Los Alamos
.”

           
Walker
led them through the side hatch into a long glass-lined connecting tunnel,
'This leads to the second parallel column of modules. We’ve built each of these
connecting tunnels with thick Plexiglas so that it can double as a sort of
observation deck. The view is.., well,
see
for
yourself.”

           
The view
was breathtaking. The entire space station was spread out before them, a
science fiction movie come to life.

           
Far below
them the center open-framed keel stretched far out into space, almost out of
sight. Nearly a thousand feet long and fifty feet square, the keel held large
silverized fuel tanks, mounting and equipment housings for a variety of
antennas, and miles of pipes and tubes snaking throughout. Beneath the keel
were mounted the huge curved space-based, phased-array radars, their
football-field-sized electromagnetic eyes continuously scanning planet earth
beneath them. At the very ends of the keel were four solar energy collectors,
each twice as large as the radars—massive, delicate, incredibly thin-looking
sheets of glass aimed at the sun.

           
“On earth
those collectors would weigh eighty tons apiece,”
Walker
said. “Up here, of course, nothing. We use a tiny, fifty-horsepower electric
motor to keep them pointed at the sun. They supply enough power for two
stations. While the station is in sunlight they provide direct energy. We also
use them to recharge a bank of cobalt-hydroxide batteries for emergency use and
to break down waste water to produce hydrogen and oxygen for our fuel cells and
station thrusters.”

           
“Is that
what you’ll use to power Ann’s laser?” Baker asked him.

           
“Unfortunately,
no,” Ann answered for him. “We need ten times more collectors for just one
burst. We’ll use a small nuclear MHD reactor to power the laser.”

           
Baker
pointed toward the very ends of the keel. “The station thrusters are also out
there on the keel?”

           
“Right,”
Walker
said.
“Five small hydrogen rocket engines on each end of the keel.
They fire automatically about two dozen times a day to correct the station’s
altitude, attitude, alignment and orbit. They’re also used to move the station
if necessary.”

           
“And you
get the fuel for that from water?”

           
“Right
again. We use electrolysis chambers powered by the sun to crack waste water
into hydrogen and oxygen gas that’s collected and stored in those tanks out
there. We bring up a shuttle full of water about once every two months, and we
also get water from the fuel cells, where we recombine hydrogen and oxygen to
produce electrical power and water. In an emergency a full complement of twenty
crewmen can survive up here for six months without resupply.”

           
They
continued through the thick Plexiglas tunnel to the next module. Ann and Baker
found themselves in an immense structure many times larger than the command
module and laboratory modules they’d just left.

           
“This is a
complete Skylab module, the first component of the original NASA space station
launched two years ago,”
Walker
explained. “This segment of the station was first lofted before full-scale
shuttle flights resumed. As you can see, it’s as large as the third stage of a
Saturn booster, sizable enough for the experimentation we were doing
originally, but certainly not now.

           
“When full-capacity
shuttle flights resumed, we built the rest of
Silver
Tower
using cargo bay-sized
modules. We now use the Skylab section for living and recreation quarters. For
those purposes, there’s more than enough room.”

           
“That must
be your gymnasium over there,” Baker said, pointing to one area of the module.

           
“Uh huh,
everything today’s astronaut needs to keep his body fit,”
Walker
said, accenting his voice like a camy pitch-man. “Treadmills and Soloflex
weight—you shall forgive the expression—machines here, exercise bicycles over
there. At the other end a videotape and audio tape library, computers,
television.... We get two hundred channels from all over the world.”

           
Baker
examined one of the “weight” machines. “Clever,” he said. “Using thick rubber
bands to create resistance. Obviously a typical weight machine won’t work up
here.” He studied the treadmill. “How does this work?”

           
“Same as a
regular one except you strap on this bungee cord belt first. You can adjust the
tension of the bungee cords to increase the resistance. The skipper—General
Saint-Michael—practically lives on the treadmill. No one can keep up with him
and he’s forty-three years old.”

           
They made
their way to the sleep module, a series of small chambers that looked like
curtain-covered horizontal telephone booths arranged like two-tiered bunkbeds.
Each end of the module had two very large rooms, bathrooms.

           
Walker
peeled back the sides of a sleeping bag in the chamber. “You can adjuust the
elasticity of the sleeping bag covers. We’ve learned by now that crew sleep
better if they feel at least a little of the sensation of gravity.
Sleeping while floating around weightless isn’t all that
comfortable.
We’ve begun using those zero ‘g’ vacuum showers like the
Russians have, but they can be a real pain. By the way, the sleep
module—actually the whole station—is coed. No separate facilities. We haven’t
had too many women on
Silver
Tower
....”

           
Ann
wondered what it would be like bunking with a dozen men. They’d probably feel
more uncomfortable than she would. A battleship commander’s daughter, she’d
grown up seeing men being men. She also
liked
men, too often more than they returned the favor. . . .

           
The group
moved down to the next hatch; this one double-sealed and leading up to another
docking module like the one connected to the command module. According to
Walker
this docking area was better suited for transferring supplies and fuel from a
shuttle or an unmanned cargo vehicle. He motioned to the lower hatch. “That
leads to the storage and supply module, and below that is the MHD reactor. MHD,
as Ann can tell you, Dr. Baker, stands for magnetohydrodynamics—a way of
producing massive amounts of electromotive force in a very compact unit. We’ll
cut across here to engineering.”

           
Engineering
was much like the command center. “It’s really the computer center,”
Walker
told them. “The kitchen—uh, galley—is located here as well.” He continued on,
pointing to a hatch at one end of the computer module. “There is your office,
Ann—the control module for your laser, Skybolt. Nobody’s been in it except when
it was connected and tied into the rest of the station last month.”

           
They opened
the hatches and entered the module—or tried to. Unlike all the other pressurized
modules, the Skybolt control-and-exper- imentation center was choked with
equipment, wiring, pipes, conduit and control consoles, with a lone work space
tucked in a far comer.

           
“Wh—where
do I work?” Ann said. “I mean, where’s my lab, my instruments, test gear?
It’s—”

           
“It’s all
there,”
Walker
said, trying to
sound upbeat. “But it’s been compacted to fit into this one module. Your
control console is over there, plus a few other panels on the ceiling.” He
understated, Ann thought. The main control consoles were on the module’s
ceiling, surrounded by built-in handholds and footrests. She forced a smile in
Colonel Walker’s direction, but she was getting dizzy just looking at the
overhead console.

           
“Welcome to
Silver
Tower
.”

 
          
June 1992

 
          
DEFENSE
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
,
VIRGINIA

 
          
“All right, Mr. Collins,” George
Sahl, deputy director of operations of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said.
“You’ve got my attention— and apparently the attention of your section chief.”
He looked warily at Preston Barnes, in charge of the KH-14 Block Three digital
photo imagery satellite. “Spill it.”

           
Jackson
Collins, associate photo analyst under Barnes, cleared his throat and stepped
up to Sahl. “Yes, sir. The Russians are going to invade
Iran
.”

           
Barnes
closed his eyes and muttered a “Collins-you-idiot” to
himself
and not audible to the others, he hoped. Collins noticed the deputy director’s
shoulders slumping. Before Sahl could say anything Barnes turned angrily toward
his young photo interpreter. “Collins, didn’t you ever learn how to give a
proper report—?”

           
“Easy,
Preston
,”
Sahl said, raising a hand to silence his division chief. “I’ve scanned your
report and your analysis, Mr. Collins. Now I want you to
tell
me. Briefly, please.”

           
“Yes, sir
.. ..
The military buildup around the southern TVD
Headquarters at
Tashkent
is
inconsistent with either a fall offensive in
Afghanistan
or the army’s seasonal maneuvers scheduled for this month. The offensive—”

           
“What
offensive?” Barnes said.

           
“A CIA
report circulated through the division last month about a suspected, unusually
large-scale Russian push into
Afghanistan
sometime this fall.”

           
Barnes
shook his head. “The CIA calls every resupply mission to
Afghanistan
an offensive. Overland routes into the central highland have been cut off
recently by bad weather and the Afghan government has all but folded its tents.
Naturally the Russians have had to step up supply flights.”

           
“But, sir,
not with as many as six Condors.... Those photos showed hangars large enough
for An-124s—”

           
“Condors?”
Sahl didn’t like to hear that. “Where did you see
Condors
in the southern military district?”

           
“It’s... an
educated guess, sir. Those large temporary hangars I mentioned in the report
are large enough to accommodate Condors—”

           
“Or
any other Soviet aircraft flying,”
Barnes said. Collins looked away—he’d never expected to have to fight off his
section chief.

           
“What
else?” Sahl prompted him. “Your report mentioned the rail units. You counted
forty percent more activity in the
Tashkent
yards. What about that?”

           
“Yes, sir,
the actual count is up thirty-seven percent from activity this same time last
year, also several weeks prior to maneuvers, and up twenty-four percent from
the Soviets’ last real large-scale offensive into Afghanistan two years ago,
when they put down the Qanda- har uprising. And that had been the largest
Soviet offensive since their invasion of
Czechoslovakia
.
Whatever they’re planning now, it’ll be larger than either of those—”

           
“Collins,”
Barnes said quickly, “you can’t make conclusions like that based simply on the
number of rail cars in a switching yard. There could be dozens of reasons why
there were more cars there.... Look—” and he softened his voice—“these reports
can set a lot of things in motion. Things that cost a lot of money and a lot of
effort by a lot of people. Dangerous things. They get a lot of attention. If
we’re wrong and we send all these men and machines off on a wild goose
chase....”

           
Collins’
face hardened. He dropped
two eleven
-by-fourteen
black- and-white photographs on Sahl’s desk. “You can’t ignore
this,
Mr. Sahl,” he said, pointing a
finger at the first photo. Sahl studied it.

           
“What...?”

 
         
“It’s a computer-enhanced KH-14 image
of one side of one of the large two-acre hangars at Nikolai Zhukovsky Military
Airfield at
Tashkent
.” Sahl peered
at the highly magnified photo. Trailing behind the hangar was, he saw, a fuzzy,
rectangular object. Almost no firm detail, though. He studied the photo for a
moment longer, looked up at Collins. “It’s a scrub photo.”

           
“Sir, it is
a photo of a GL-25 missile launcher. There are—” “Collins, it’s a scrub photo,”
Sahl repeated. “Magnification, contrast, grain, background—it’s not worth piss
for analysis. It’s a scrub photo.”

           
“
Sir,
I counted seventy of this same
weird-looking rail car in
Tashkent
.
All of them surrounded by guards, all of them bracketed by security rail cars.
I understand no certain judgment can be made on the basis of this photo, but an
educated
guess can easily be made—
it’s a GL-25 long-range cruise missile launcher, mounted on an allterrain
carrier. Here, look—two missile canisters, the control center—”

           
“It looks
like a concrete container to me,” Barnes said. “Or a gravel container. There’s
nothing unusual about it.”

           
“The KH-14 wasn’t
properly stabilizied,” Collins said, “but you can still make out the—”

           
“Collins,
you can’t make out that kind of detail on a scrub photo,” Barnes snapped.

           
“I can. I
did, sir.”

           
“If you
look at a photo
—any
photo—long
enough,” Sahl said quietly, “you’ll likely see what you want to see. That’s why
we have parameters for how much a photo can be enlarged or cropped.”

           
“Then I’d
like to request another overflight by the KH-14,” Collins said. “We need more
photos of those rail cars.”

           
“All right,
all right,” Sahl said. “I agree. I can start the request for some air time on
KH-14 for
Tashkent
, but I’m not
sure if they’ll approve it.”

           
“Sir, I
realize you suspect this is just another junior photo interpreter trying to
score points, but it’s not. I really believe there’s something going on.
Something big.”

           
Sahl tried
to hide a wry smile, took one more look at the photos, then tossed them on the
desk. “You mentioned
Iran
.
Tell me, Collins, how could six invisible Condor transports and seventy alleged
GL-25 mobile missile launchers in Tashkent lead you to the assumption that this
is all part of an Iranian invasion group?”

           
Collins
hesitated. Too late to retreat now, buddy, he told himself.

 
         
“It wasn’t just the missiles or the
transports, sir. It’s the buildup of Russian ships in the
Persian
Gulf
and the
Brezhnev
carrier battle group that sneaked into the Gulf last month. It was that
unsuccessful counterrevolution in
Iran
that CIA said was sponsored and financed by the Russians. It’s—”

           
“It’s also
bull, Collins,” Barnes cut in. “Your job isn’t to come up with a wild
hypothesis based on second- and third-hand information. Your job is to take
KH-14 imagery and describe it. Period.”

           
“I thought
my job was analysis. This is important, I know it. And I know it’s urgent
enough to require special attention—”

           
“Are you
sure it’s not you who wants the special attention?” Barnes said, fixing him
with a drop-dead stare.

           
Stahl
raised a hand.

           
“That’s
enough for now,
Preston
. I believe Collins is one
hundred percent sincere. Give him that.” He turned to the photo interpreter.
“Hot dogs come by the gross around here, Mr. Collins. Plenty of people want to
make the splash, but they do it knowing that they don’t have to take the
heat—the
real
heat—if they’re wrong.
Are you willing to take the heat?”

           
His
question hung in the air for a moment, a long moment; then Sahl said, “Why
don’t we try a little experiment? I’m going to put your name on this report.
I’ll clear it for the director’s review and put it on his desk with a recommendation
based on your findings that we follow up on this with another series of KH-14
overflights. If there’s any heat from the director’s staff, you take it. Sound
good?”

           
Collins
looked frozen in place... .It’s not a KH-14 Block Three analysis, he thought,
or a Satellite Photo Recce section report—it’s
my
report. A Jackson Collins report. Okay, damn it, I asked for it.
. .“Yes, sir—with one request. That I be given another week to make the
presentation my way.”

           
Sahl
glanced at Barnes. “What’s wrong with this?” and glanced at the thick report on
his desk.

           
“It’s a
standard section report, sir. As it stands it doesn’t convince anyone of the
seriousness developing at
Tashkent
.
I mean, it didn’t convince
you!”

           
“And whose
fault is that?” Barnes said.

           
“It’s mine,
sir. I’d like a chance to fix it.”

           
Sahl was
impressed. This wasn’t what you’d expect from a youngster. “I’m putting it on
the director’s staff-meeting agenda for Friday,” he said. “This is Tuesday. You
have until Friday morning to redo the report and refine your presentation. If
you can’t do it by then, forget it. This division doesn’t operate on your
personal timetable or mine or anybody’s.”

           
No
hesitation this time from Collins. “Thank you, sir. I'll be ready.”

           
He hoped.

 
          
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

           
“Your
turn.”

           
Ann
selected
two fifty
-pound tension
bands, slipped them onto the bars on the Soloflex machine, and floated over to
the bench and sat down.

           
“One hundred pounds.
Very impressive,” Ted Moyer, an
electronics tech said approvingly. No reply from Ann.

           
“You’re
very quiet today.”

           
“Living in
space,” Ann said, “definitely isn’t as glamorous or as ‘cosmically uplifting’
as I thought it’d be.” She rubbed an ache out of her left tricep. “At first, it
was all very exciting—orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth. But the novelty
has definitely worn off.”

           
“Well,”
Moyer said, trying to boost her morale, “we’re doing something that only a few
hundred people have ever done.”

           
She acted
as if she hadn’t heard him. “Take weight training. I love to run, but pumping
iron—or, in space, pumping rubber—was never my idea of fun.”

           
“You’re
good at it.”

           
“I do it
because it helps keep me fit and because we’re required to do it. I could spend
hours on the bicycle or treadmill, but after a half hour on the Soloflex
machine I’m ready to volunteer to change C02 scrubbers, vacuum the walls,
anything.”

           
Moyer gave
a sympathetic nod.

           
Ann laid
down on the machine’s bench, centered the bar above her chest—and found herself
immediately focusing on a hand hold on the ceiling and consciously controlling
her breathing.

           
“Still
getting the spins, Ann?”

           
“Damn,” she
said as she fought for control. “They told me it would only take a matter of
days and I’d get over it. But it’s just not going away.”

           
Moyer let
her lie quietly on the workout bench for a few moments. Then: “Better?”

           
“Yeah,” she
said, blinking and taking a few deep breaths. She tried performing a few more
repetitions but the nausea returned.

 
         
“Why don’t you call it a workout,”
Moyer said, realizing she had a ways to go before she was fully acclimated.

           
“It’s
okay... ?” she said.

           
“Sure.
You’ve been at this for an hour. That’s enough for today.”

           
She flashed
a grateful smile, then made her way “down” the exercise module, through a
vertical hatch, and into the sleep area.