Ben Bova - Able One

Charley craned his neck to look at the sky. Some heavy gray clouds out there, but still plenty of blue. Might just be a snow shower. Or if it’s a real storm, maybe we’ll outrun it. Storms usually come in from the west. We’re doing seventy, that’s faster than any storm can travel.

He had put the SUV on cruise control once they had hit an area of the highway where there were only a few other cars on the road. Charley didn’t mind traffic, although he couldn’t use the cruise control when he had to keep hitting the brakes all the time. It’s those dratted semis, he complained silently. Specially when it rains, they sploosh up beside you like a dratted tidal wave.

Martha found a local station playing country and western songs. Charley relaxed a little. If there was a bad storm coming they’d be putting out a warning instead of playing their regular music. He decided to wait until the top of the hour, when they played the news and weather. And sports. Martha didn’t know it, but he had bet money on the Seahawks.

“We’re at cruising altitude.” Colonel Christopher’s voice came through the intercom speaker in the compartment’s overhead.

Harry clicked his safety harness release and the straps slid into their receptacles on the back of his seat. To Rosenberg he said, “Check the tank pressures, Wally.”

Rosenberg nodded sullenly and got to his feet. “Angel,” Harry said to Reyes, “I want you to purge the oxygen line.”

Reyes gave him a questioning look. “Purge it?” Standing in the narrow aisle between the facing seats, Harry said, “There was a speck of grease in the oxy line when the rig blew up. I want to make sure the line’s absolutely clean.”

“That was three years ago, Harry! We haven’t had any trouble since.”

“Because we’ve been extra careful,” Harry said. “Purge the line, Angie.” With a slight grin, Reyes got out of his chair. The top of his head barely rose above Harry’s shoulder. “Okay, jefe. I’ll purge it.” Then he added. “Again.”

Nakamura came to her feet, too, even shorter than Reyes. “I’ll check out the board.”

She had the most critical job, Harry knew. The battle management system had to find the boosting missile and lock the laser onto it. He thought of little Taki as a sharpshooter. But her rifle weighed tons and took up most of the 747’s interior volume.

This was supposed to be a test flight, Harry said to himself. We don’t have a full crew aboard and we’re supposed to shoot down a real missile. A real missile that’s carrying a real hydrogen bomb. He wondered if they could do it. Make it work, Anson had told him. But now it’s more than the company depending on us. This time it’s for real.

As his teammates slowly started for the compartment’s hatch, Harry said, “Wait a minute. I’ve got something to tell you.”

They looked at him questioningly.

“The North Koreans set off a nuclear bomb in orbit this morning, and it looks like they’ve got more missiles ready to fire at us.”

“Us?”

“You mean America?”

Delany growled, “Goddam gooks, we should’ve wiped them out long ago!”

Nodding slowly, Harry said, “We’ve been ordered to fly to the Sea of Japan and shoot down any missiles the North Koreans launch.”

“Shoot down real missiles?” Taki’s voice was breathless with surprise.

“That’s right,” Harry said.

“They can’t order us!” Delany snapped, nearly shouting. “We’re civilians, for chrissake! They can’t—”

“The North Koreans have missiles with nuclear warheads. They’re getting set to fire them at American cities. We’ve got to stop them.”

“Now?” Angel Reyes asked. “On this flight?”

“Right.”

“How many missiles?” asked Rosenberg.

“Don’t know.”

“How far do we have to go?”

“As far as it takes,” said Harry. “So let’s make sure that everything—I mean everything —is in perfect condition. We’re heading into a real battle engagement.”

Delany looked stunned. He sagged back down onto his seat. Rosenberg, for once, didn’t have a wisecrack to offer.

“Let’s get to work,” Harry said.

Taki started for the forward hatch; Monk Delany got to his feet and followed her. Harry and the two other men headed aft. The plane’s engines throbbed smoothly; Harry barely felt any vibration as the jumbo jet lumbered through the stratosphere.

The laser bay was crammed with pipes and wiring. Harry insisted on keeping the area as neat as possible, but there were always loops of wire festooned from the overhead, spare parts tucked here and there along the narrow walkway. The clutter was inevitable: Harry remembered the old maxim that if a lab was spic-and-span, it meant no creative work was going on in it.

Rosenberg and Reyes went about their tasks, barely saying a word. It’s hit them hard, Harry realized. One minute we’re on a routine test flight and the next we’re heading into a war. He wondered why he didn’t feel excited. Or scared. He felt numb instead. It’s too much, he thought. It’s just too fucking much.

Slowly Harry walked the length of the laser bay, looking over every pipe, every wire, every weld on the tanks that held the volatile chemicals. Most of the laser itself was hidden behind all the plumbing; only its active lasing cavity was clearly visible and available for immediate adjustment or repair.

He stared at the lasing cavity. Built of thick slabs of solid copper with water-cooling channels drilled through them, that chamber was where the chemical energy of the combined iodine and oxygen was converted into megawatts of infrared energy. Leading into it was another copper section, built like a miniature wind tunnel: that’s where the mixed chemicals roared through at supersonic speed, entered the laser cavity and gave up their stored energy, then flowed out to be vented outside the plane.

Harry remembered the first time the Anson scientists had shown a blueprint of the COIL system to a group of visiting Air Force brass. One of the colonels stared at the wind tunnel section and shook his head.

“That’s a lousy design for a rocket,” he said. “You’ll never get much thrust out of it.”

The scientists laughed tolerantly and explained that the wind tunnel wasn’t designed for thrust. It was intended to feed the iodine and oxygen into the chamber where the lasing action took place.

Now, flying toward the Sea of Japan at more than thirty thousand feet, heading into a possible war, Harry studied the laser assembly with the critical eye of a worried father. It’ll work, he told himself. We’ll make it work.

But in his mind’s eye he saw the rig in the desert explode into white-hot flames, saw Quintana being roasted alive, felt the agony of his ribs cracking as he slammed against the back wall of the control room.

It should’ve been me, not Pete. I should have been out there. I should have checked the oxy line myself, made sure it was clean.

He shook his head to clear the nightmare vision. Well, Harry said to himself, if she blows today it won’t matter where I’m standing. We’ll all be dead.

Lieutenant Sharmon unconsciously pressed one long finger against his headphone as the data for their first refueling rendezvous came through. The information was being fed into his navigation computer, but he listened to the beeps and boops of the electronics even while he watched the data rastering across the small screen of his nav console.

They were over the Bering Sea now, just past the miserable rock of Attu, the last island in the Aleutian chain. Nothing but open water for the next zillion miles, Sharmon knew. With the surprising tailwind pushing them along, they’d reach the Japanese islands in five hours, he figured. But first he had to find the Air Force tanker that was heading for a rendezvous with them.