The Krone Experiment (7 page)

Jupp returned to the pilot’s seat. They were
in an orbit that carried them northward over China and Siberia,
across the pole and down over the eastern seaboard of the United
States. So far, so good. The shuttle, Cosmos 2112, and all other
Soviet satellites capable of interference were monitored closely
both from Earth and from space. There was no sign of excess Soviet
interest or activity. Shuttles did not usually adopt polar orbits,
but they were not unknown, especially when a surveillance satellite
had to be deposited in such an orbit. The mirror stayed folded
against its supporting shaft to avoid adding premature confirmation
to suspicions that must be growing.

The first tricky part was to close on the
Cosmos, using the mirror for protection. The Cosmos was a long way
out, in a parking orbit one day long canted a bit with respect to
the Earth’s equator. In twelve hours it would swing from some
distance north of the equator to an equal distance south, but at
the same longitude since as the satellite completed a half orbit,
the Earth would complete a half revolution, maintaining the
alignment. From the Earth, the Cosmos seemed to drift slowly north
and south, passing over a particular point on the Earth twice a
day. They would keep a maximum distance by going up in their polar
launch orbit, at right angles to the orbit of the Cosmos. There was
no place to hide in space from the weapon that shot beams at the
speed of light, but at least aiming would be more difficult at
greater distances.

To minimize direct ground-based surveillance
by the Russians, they waited until they were over the west coast of
South America headed for Antarctica and the Indian Ocean beyond.
Then Jupp programmed the rockets to begin the meticulous ascent
toward the Cosmos, which hovered near the spatial gravesite of its
recent victim. They climbed in an open spiral, belly of the
spacecraft up, the necessary orientation for ascent because of the
preset angle of the rockets. They circled once every few hours at
first while the Cosmos hovered near the northern swing of its cycle
over the southern Urals. The time for an orbit lengthened as they
rose until they were at an altitude slightly less than the Cosmos
and also orbiting once in about twenty-four hours. They were high
over Panama while the Cosmos drifted lazily southward over
Ethiopia.

Wahlquist had tried to keep the mirror shaft
pointed at the Cosmos out over the wing of the shuttle as they
ascended. This was difficult at first. Since they were upside down,
the Cosmos was apparently “below” them where the boom did not
extend easily. The heat resistant re-entry tiles might have offered
some protection from the laser, but this was still a high
vulnerability maneuver. As they rose, the necessary adjustments
became minor. Their aspect changed little since, from their
circular orbit, the Cosmos always appeared to be off their right
wing. Nevertheless, Jupp could feel the tension rising in his
copilot as time passed and still there was no activity from the
Cosmos.

Once more, Jupp played lightly on the control
thrusters until the nose of the shuttle pointed nearly at the
Cosmos. The rocket thrust would now rotate their orbit until it
aligned with that of Cosmos. The maneuver was a dead give-away,
however, and Jupp strained against the static of his earphones to
hear the warning he knew must be only instants away. He hit a
button to engage an automatic sequence. The rockets surged, and
then were quiet. He used the thrusters again to align them
perpendicular to their new orbit. The Cosmos was now at eleven
o’clock out his window as they hung upside down in the dark.
Wahlquist adjusted the boom.

The computer signaled readiness for the next
firing sequence. Jupp was reaching his finger toward the button
when the voice came up over the scrambled radio channel, the
standard conversational tone heightened with tension.

“Shuttle, this is control. We’ve got action
here. Standby.”

Jupp twisted in his seat to exchange a look
with Wahlquist standing at the rear of the flight deck. He glanced
at Colonel Newman who remained impassive.

“Cosmos has done a rotation and yaw.
Alignment on shuttle suspected.”

Wahlquist did not have to be told. He threw a
toggle switch and pushed a button, and the mirror unfolded, a
dainty weapon against the ravishing power of the laser on board the
Cosmos. The shuttle could provide a shirt-sleeve environment, but
they wore their suits for double protection. Now they closed and
fastened the faceplates on their helmets, switching to the oxygen
supply of the suits.

In their present orientation the mirror
completely obscured their view out the front. Jupp felt a twinge of
nerves. With the computer, he did not need to see where he was
flying, but his fighter pilot instincts rebelled. For all his
training with instrument flying and targeting, he still did not
like to have his vision needlessly blocked.

They sat in silence for ten minutes. Finally
mission control broke in.

“No further action, proceed with orbital
sequence.”

Wahlquist spoke without removing his hands
from the boom controls.

“They’ve got a bead on us.”

“I reckon they do.” Jupp replied. “Maybe
we’re out of range. They know if they’ve guessed right we’re only
going to close on them. Maybe they’re waiting to see the whites of
our eyes. We’ve also given away our defensive strategy by popping
the umbrella. They’re probably working up their own tactics
now.”

Jupp reprogrammed the computers for the delay
and fired the rockets. Wahlquist rotated the boom during the
firing. Cosmos was now at ten o’clock out Jupp’s window, and the
boom and mirror shaft extended at almost right angles to the axis
of the shuttle. They were particularly vulnerable because the
mirror could protect the cabin or the tail, but it was not big
enough to shield both when they presented their side to Cosmos as
they now did. By previous decision, Wahlquist adjusted the boom
forward so the crew was shielded. Jupp rushed through another
programming sequence.

Too late!

No human could time the beam of energy that
leaped from a portal in the Cosmos. No need to lead the target with
this cannon, just point and shoot. Nor was there a mote of dust in
space to mark its passage to any eye not in the line of fire. In
less than a tenth of a second an intense beam of light crossed a
distance greater than that between the poles of the Earth and
slammed into the upper tail of the shuttle.

The beam delivered heat but little impulse so
there was only the faintest jolt and a tiny crackling carried not
by the vacuum of space, but through the metallic walls of the craft
itself. The three men in the cabin sensed the brief blue-white
flare from the change in shadows and odd reflections, as if someone
had struck up a welding torch out of their line of sight. The radio
crackled to life as the man in the rear seat made his first overt
move. With a single motion, smooth despite the constraint of his
vacuum suit, he pushed a button on his wrist. To one side of his
helmet visor, visible but not in his normal line of sight, the
green luminous display of an electronic stopwatch leapt to life,
its quickest digits whipping by at dizzying rate. He pushed another
button and the display was once again that of a standard
chronometer.

“Control to shuttle! Control to shuttle!
Cosmos has fired. Repeat, Cosmos has fired! Are you hit? Come in
shuttle.”

The battle was on! Jupp felt a calm of
adrenalin-charged tension settle over him. He rammed the control
thrusters, slewing the craft around to present a smaller, tail-on
target to the Cosmos, as Wahlquist adjusted the boom until the
mirror shielded them in the rear. Then he responded in his best
Chuck Yaeger drawl.

“Aaaah, that’s affirmative, control. We have
taken a hit in the aft section. We’ve covered our rear and are
having a look now.”

Jupp flipped a finger sign at Wahlquist who
hit a switch to relay the image on the cabin monitor to the ground.
Wahlquist adjusted the position controls on the boom camera and
watched the image play awkwardly on the monitor until he was
oriented and began to scan around. The boom extended directly to
the rear so that the shaft lay against the right side of the tail
with the mirror beyond. Everything seemed normal as he scanned
across the base of the tail and then around the bay.

“Look higher up on the tail,” growled Colonel
Newman from the rear seat.

Wahlquist gritted his teeth, turning stiffly
in his suit until he could see Newman seated behind Jupp. He
glanced quickly at him and then for a longer instant at Jupp. He
turned back and fingered the controls to tip the camera upward and
then let out an audible gasp.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” said Jupp slowly.

The upper third of the tail section was
missing. A scorched crescent marked the damage, beyond which there
were random ends of wires and shafts, and beyond them nothing,
their intended connections vaporized. The lower part of the rudder
that remained intact hung at a skew angle, its upper pinions
blasted away.

“Aaah, you copy that control?”

“We’ve got it, shuttle. Evaluation is
underway. Mandatory, repeat mandatory, shuttle, you must complete
orbital adjustment with greatest speed.”

“Roger.”

Jupp nodded to Wahlquist who swiveled the
boom so that the mirror was abeam them, clear of the rockets, but
once again exposing their tail. Jupp played with the thrusters and
rapidly fed data to the computer. He hit the rockets again, and
they felt the thrust of the final burst that would bring their
orbit into alignment with that of the Cosmos. When they finished
the maneuver, they were orbiting directly toward the Cosmos, but
going sideways, their side exposed. Jupp rotated the craft until
they were pointing toward the Cosmos, and Wahlquist rotated the
mirror to the front, protecting them to the maximum extent. They
were behind and slightly below the Cosmos, but orbiting more
quickly so they would slowly catch up. Wahlquist sticky-footed his
way over and buckled himself into the copilot’s seat.

At a critical point they would fire the
rockets and rise into the higher, less rapid orbit of the Cosmos.
In orbit, one could not simply fire rockets and catch up. You only
went faster than the other guy if you were in a lower, quicker
orbit. If you fired your rockets, you would be flung into a higher,
slower orbit, a maddening reversal of fighter pilot instincts. If
you wanted to go faster, you flipped ass over end and fired the
rockets in the direction of your travel. Then you dropped into a
lower orbit where your speed was higher.

They settled in to wait. The maneuver had
taken fourteen minutes. In twenty-seven they would begin the final
firing sequence that would raise them to within docking range of
the Cosmos. Seventeen minutes had passed since the Cosmos had fired
at them. Another six minutes passed in silence.

The intense white hot glow erupted in front
of them, accompanied by static on the radio. Both Jupp and
Wahlquist jerked, startled, in their seats. Newman punched a button
on the wrist of his suit again, and a small satisfied smile creased
his features.

“Shuttle, Cosmos has fired again! Please
report!”

“Whoa, that one caught us by surprise. Scared
the bejesus out of me. The mirror took that one head on, and it
seems to be intact.”

“Roger, shuttle, that’s satisfactory. You may
proceed.”

Newman’s voice croaked from the rear.

“The repetition time is twenty-three minutes
and thirty- seven seconds, even a little slower than we guessed.
We’ve got them now.”

Jupp looked at him in the small mirror
mounted above the window.

“Twenty-three minutes.” He turned his head to
see a count-down timer, and then looked back at the man in the
rear. “We’ll be in the middle of the final lift.”

“They’ll get one more shot at us. That can’t
be helped. But if it’s just before we close on the bastard, we’ll
have the maximum time to get in and get it disabled.”

Jupp settled back into his chair and stared
out the cockpit window at the thin mirror surface that shielded
them from a fiery death. He understood the logic, but he was not at
all happy about sticking out his chin and giving the satellite one
more freebie punch.

They coasted in silence for five, ten,
fifteen minutes. Without the obstructing mirror they might have
been able to make out the pinpoint of light that was Cosmos 2112,
hovering somewhere above and beyond them. Then as Jupp programmed
the final burn, the radio crackled alive again.

“Shuttle, there has been a new development.
This could be a problem.”

There was a delay during which a mumbled
conversation could be heard. Harsh whispers of troubled voices.

“Shuttle, the Cosmos has gone into a rapid
rotation mode. We can’t be sure but we suspect the purpose is to
spread the next shot over the surface of the mirror.”

“Roger, control,” Jupp replied. “What’s the
matter with that? Doesn’t that just lessen the intensity in any
particular spot?”

“A little,” came the concerned voice from the
ground, “but more important is that it increases the chance that
some of the power will fall in the interstices. The cracks between
the mirror segments. The reflection will be imperfect there, a lot
more absorption of energy, and the chance for some real damage.
You’ll be a lot closer, so the power will be more concentrated
anyway.”

“Copy that, control. What’s the recommended
procedure?”

“Shuttle, no change, repeat, no change in
procedure.” The voice lost some of its adopted authority. “Just a
warning to be on the lookout. You’re going to have to tough this
one out. Fer Chrissake, shield your eyes!”

Just before beginning the burn they darkened
their faceplates. Jupp set the automatic sequence and the rockets
fired, lifting them methodically to their rendezvous. Jupp kept an
eye on the clock. He sang out “twenty-three minutes,” over the roar
of the rockets. They closed their eyes and threw their arms over
their faceplates. A minute passed. The rockets stopped. They
floated in deafening silence for another minute. Somewhere just in
front of them, at point-blank range, was the deadly Cosmos.