Stephen Coonts - Combat

He’d noticed the problems a few minutes earlier, but had concentrated on the systems at his end. The thought of the Battle Center going down left him feeling very alone.

Her message clarified the situation but didn’t help solve it. “Ray, we’ve lost sensors. We’re under attack down here.” Her words chilled him, but he forced himself to be silent, to listen. She explained the problem, but its effects were obvious. They were on their own. She could not say when they’d be back on-line.

Suddenly Ray felt vulnerable. Somewhere below, another T’ien Lung was climbing toward them.

Biff Barnes looked at the display screens. They were flat and two-dimensional, nothing like the Battle Center’s fancy displays. He selected different modes, looking at projected paths and engagement envelopes.

He ignored the new threat, somewhere below them. They could do nothing about it, so he’d decided to work on the one target they did have.

Ray looked over at Barnes studying the display. “They’ve missed their chance at us. They’ll have to go for a satellite.”

“I agree,” Biff responded. “Look at this.” He sent the plot to Ray’s console. It showed the remaining GPS satellite tracks and the area covered by the Chinese tracking radars.

“The easiest one to reach is number eighteen, here.” He highlighted one of the satellites. “If they make a course change anytime in the next half hour, they can nail it. They’ll be able to watch the intercept, as well.”

Barnes waited half a moment while McConnell studied the screen. Ray nodded slowly. “All right,” the engineer replied. It was almost a question.

“We’re taking it out,” Biff stated. “Right now. Before it gets any farther away. Before TL2 shows up to ruin our morning. Pilot, align us on TL1. Crew, engage TL1.”

Ray watched the stars and the earth spin slowly as Scarelli oriented the open bay so it faced toward the Chinese spacecraft. The distance was a problem, but at least they didn’t have to maneuver to keep the target in Defender ’s limited sensor arc.

Sue Tillman, the sensor officer, went from busy to extremely busy. She fiddled with the radar settings, then chose one of a number of search patterns for the radar to follow. Everything had to be done manually, and that took time.

The lieutenant finally reported, “I’ve got a hit with the radar, 151 miles, 330 relative, 80 degrees elevation. Changing to track mode.” A few moments later, she said, “Track established.”

Checking another display, she reported, “IR confirms.”

Ray suppressed the urge to comment on the gear actually working.

By rights, the detection should have been automatically tracked and evaluated. But systems integration takes valuable design time. Instead, it was all done manually, and with each second the target moved farther away.

Captain Baker, the weapons officer, didn’t miss a beat. He’d slaved the laser to the data sent by the Tillman’s radar. “Ready,” he reported, as calmly as if he reporting the weather.

Ray had seen the seven-ton laser turret tested on the ground. The motors made an unholy whine. Now, there was no sound, just a slight vibration felt through the ship’s structure, as it tracked the target.

“It’s at the edge of our envelope,” Ray reminded the major.

“And I figured out what that envelope was. Shoot six shots.”

Ray felt more thuds and vibrations as pumps pushed chemicals into a combustion chamber. The intense flash of their ignition “pumped” the chemical laser and a two-megawatt beam angled out and away.

Inside Defender , Ray watched five seconds come and go. Sue Tillman, looking disappointed, turned to look over Captain Baker.

The weapons officer watched a spectrograph slaved to the laser mirror.

“Nothing,” he reported.

Set for five shots, the laser automatically fired again. McConnell watched a TV camera set to cover the bay. Puffs of vapor left the combustion chamber, and he could see the turret slowly moving, but it was a silent combat.

Both Baker and Tillman spoke this time. The army officer announced triumphantly, “I’ve got an aluminum line.” The laser had caused part of the target to glow. Baker’s spectrograph had seen that light, and told him what that part was made of.

Tillman confirmed, “IR’s up now. It’s a lot hotter than before.”

“But it’s still there on radar?” Barnes asked.

She nodded. “Trajectory’s unchanged.”

“Continue firing.”

The third shot, five seconds of intense energy, also struck the Chinese vehicle, but with no better result than before. Ray fought the urge to fiddle with the systems display, or remind Barnes that the target was growing more distant with every shot.

They’d spent a lot of time trying to decide how they would know when they’d actually “killed” a target. You couldn’t shoot down something in space, and at these distances they couldn’t see the effects of their attacks.

During the fourth shot, Biff asked, “Sue, can you measure the temperature rise?”

“No, sir. The equipment’s resolution isn’t that fine. Physics says it can’t radiate heat away as fast as we’re adding it, but we’re also adding less heat with each shot, because of the increasing distance.”

By the time she answered Barnes’s question, the fifth shot of the salvo had been fired as well. They’d used up almost half the magazine, but the mission commander didn’t wait a moment. “Keep firing. Another five.”

Well, we’re here to shoot down satellites , Ray thought. He tried to stay focused on his monitors, watching for signs of trouble. It would be hell if a mechanical failure interfered at this point.

Tillman saw it first, on the second shot of the new salvo. “IR’s showing a big heat increase!”

“Spectrograph’s full of lines!” Baker reported triumphantly. “I’ve got silicon, nitrogen ….”

“Kill the laser!” Biff ordered. “Silicon means the electronics, and nitrogen’s either solid propellant or the explosive warhead.”

“There’s also hydrogen and plutonium,” she added, her voice a little unsteady.

Barnes nodded as if he’d expected it. “They were gunning for us.”

“Multiple contacts. Radar shows debris as well,” Tillman confirmed. Defender ’s millimeter-wave radar would have no trouble distinguishing individual pieces of wreckage.

“It’s a kill,” she said with satisfaction. Sue Tillman also handled voice comms with Miramar, and said “They’re cheering in the Battle Center!”

Ray noted the time. They’d been up half an hour.

“It’s gone, sir!” The communications tech handed him the headset. Shen listened to Dong’s report quietly. The Americans had destroyed the special T’ien Lung. They’d made the kill at long range, on an opening target. Defender was more than capable.

Shen worked to control his surprise and disappointment, making his face a mask. Defender had proved itself. Now more than before, it was vital that the second vehicle destroy the American spacecraft. Unfortunately, there was nothing more he could do to ensure its success. Like countless commanders before him, Shen could only wait for the dice to stop rolling.

“It’s a brute force attack, Jenny.” Chris Brown sat surrounded by display screens. Some showed packets of invading data. Others listed tables of statistical data — numbers of packets sent from each site, numbers rejected by the filter, amount of processor time lost, and many other values.

“They don’t have our encryption completely broken, but they’ve learned enough to get through occasionally. See,” he said, pointing to two invading data packets. “The body of the message is the same. And most of the header data is valid. All they have to do is vary the part they don’t know.