Thomas Hoover - Project Daedalus

All the same, this moment always brought a gut-tightening blend of anticipation and fear. This was the part he dreaded most in any test flight-when he was strapped in the cockpit but without operational control. He lived by control, and this was one of the few times when he knew he had none. It fed all the adrenaline surging through him, pressed his nerves to the limit.

He flipped a switch under his hand and displayed the infrared cameras on his helmet screens, then absently monitored the massive white trucks towing him onto the darkened tarmac. The landing lights along the runway were off; they would be switched on only for final approach, when, guided by the radar installation, their focused beams would be invisible outside a hundred-yard perimeter of the nose cameras.

The asphalt beneath him, swept by the freezing winds of Hokkaido, was a special synthetic, carefully camouflaged. He knew it well. Two nights earlier he'd come out here to have a talk with the project kurirovat, Ivan Semenovich Lemontov, the lean and wily Soviet officer-in-charge. Formerly that post had belonged to the CPSU's official spy, but now party control was supposed to be a thing of the past. So what was he doing here?

Whatever it was, the isolated landing strip had seemed the most secure place for some straight answers. As they strolled in the moonlight, the harsh gale off the straits cutting into their skin, he'd demanded Lemontov tell him what was really going on.

By the time they were finished, he'd almost wished he hadn't asked.

"Yuri Andreevich, on this project you are merely the test pilot. Your job is to follow orders." Lemontov had paused to light a Russian cigarette, cupping his hands against the wind to reveal his thin, foxlike face. He was a hardliner left over from the old days, and occasionally it still showed. "Strategic matters should not concern you."

"I was brought in late, only four months ago, after the prototypes were ready for initial flight testing. But if I'm flying the Daedalus, then I want to know its ultimate purpose. The truth. Nobody's told me anything. The only thing I'm sure of is that all the talk about near-space research is bullshit. Which means I'm being used." He had caught Lemontov's arm and drew him around. The officer's eyes were half hidden in the dark. "Now, dammit, I want to know what in hell is the real purpose of this vehicle."

Lemontov had grunted, then pulled away and drew on his cigarette. Finally he spoke: "Yuri Andreevich, sometimes it's wiser to leave strategy to the professionals. You do your job and I'll do mine."

Yuri remembered how he'd felt his anger boil. He'd begun to suspect that certain CPSU hardliners like Lemontov, together with the military or the KGB, had their own plans for the vehicle. But what were they up to?

"Look, I'm doing my job. So how about a little openness, a little glasnost? This is not supposed to be like the old days."

Lemontov had drawn a few paces ahead on the tarmac, walking briskly, with the quick energy that had brought him to his powerful party post. Finally he'd slowed and waited for Yuri to catch up. He had made a decision and he had made it quickly. That was characteristic.

"Yuri Andreevich, in a way you represent part of our 'technology exchange' with Mino Industries. You have an indispensible role to play here. This whole program depends on you."

"I'm well aware of that." However, it hadn't answered his questions.

"Then you should also be aware of something else. This undertaking is a small, but highly crucial, part of something much larger. Nothing less than the fate of the Soviet Union in the next century rests on whether Project Daedalus succeeds."

"What do you mean?" Yuri had watched him walk on, feeling his own impatience growing.

Lemontov had turned back again, brusquely. "This hypersonic spacecraft is the symbol, the flagship, of a new Soviet alliance with the most technologically advanced nation on earth. Even a 'flyboy' like you should be able to grasp that. Through this alliance we eventually will find a way to tap all of Japan's new technology. The world of the future-advanced semiconductors, robots, biotechnology, superconductivity, all of it-is going to be controlled by Japan, and we must have access to it."

Yuri had listened in silence, once more feeling he was being fed half-truths. Then Lemontov lowered his voice.

"Yuri Andreevich, by forming what amounts to a strategic alliance with Mino Industries, we will achieve two objectives. We will gain access to Japanese technology and capital, to rejuvenate Soviet industry and placate our people. And we will strike a preemptive blow against the peril of a new China on our borders in the next century."

"China?" Yuri had studied him, startled.

"My friend, don't be fooled by summits and talks of reconciliation. Neither we nor China care a kopeck about the other. Think about it. In the long run, China can only be our nightmare. If America had to look across its Canadian border and see China, they too would be terrified. China has the numbers and, soon, the technology to threaten us. It's the worst nightmare you or I could ever have." Lemontov had paused to crush out his cigarette, grinding it savagely into the asphalt. "We must prepare for it now."

The hardliners have just found a new enemy, Yuri had realized. The Cold War lives!

"Like it or not," Lemontov had continued, "and just between us I'm not sure I do like it, we have no choice but to turn to Japan in order to have an ally in Asia to counter the new, frightening specter of a hostile China rising up on our flank."

"So how does Daedalus figure into all this?"

"As I said, it is the first step in our new alliance. From now on our space programs will be united as one." He had sighed into the icy wind. "It will be our mutual platform for near-earth space exploration."

"With only peaceful intent?" Yuri had tried to study his eyes, but the dark obscured them.

"I've told you all you need to know." A match had flared again as he lit another cigarette. In the tiny blaze of light he gave a small wink. "Even though the Daedalus could easily be converted to a.. first-strike platform, we naturally have no intention of outfitting these prototypes, or later production models, for any such purpose. The Japanese would never agree."

What had he been saying? That the hardliners were planning to seize the vehicles and retrofit them as first- strike bombers? Maybe even make a preemptive strike against China? Were they planning to double-cross the Japanese?

What they didn't seem to realize was that these vehicles didn't need to be retrofitted. Daedalus was already faster and more deadly than any existing missile. It couldn't be shot down, not by America's yet-to-be-built SDI, not by anything. And speed was only part of the story. What about the vehicle's other capabilities?

He switched his helmet screens momentarily to the infrared cameras in the nose and studied the runway. Infrared. Pure military. And that was just the beginning. There also was phased-array radar and slit-scan radar, both equipped for frequency hopping and "squirt" emissions to evade detection. And how about the radar altimeter, which allowed subsonic maneuvering at low altitudes, "on the deck"? Or the auxiliary fuel capacity in the forward bay, which permitted long-distance sustained operation?

No "space platform" needed all this radar-evasive, weapons-systems management capability. Or a hyper-accurate inertial navigation system. Kick in the scramjets and Daedalus could climb a hundred thousand miles straight up in seven minutes, reenter the lower atmosphere at will, loiter over an area, kick ass, then return to the untouchable safety of space. There was enough cruise missile capacity to take out fifty hardened sites. It could perform troop surveillance, deploy commandos to any firefight on the globe in two hours… you name it. He also suspected there was yet another feature, even more ominous, which he planned to check out tonight.