Dale Brown - Sky Masters

“We will take nothing if we are dead!” “Keep your comments to yourself and tell me what they are saying, ” Leing hissed. “The Premier is telling Chin to be silent… Chin is saying to the Foreign Minister that he will not agree to release the Spratlys to Vietnam . . . the Premier repeats his order for silence.” The last order seemed to stick; General Chin stopped his bellowing and was content for the moment to shift his weight impatiently from foot to foot and glare at Leing. The Premier spoke up. “Please deliver this request to your government with all speed and confidentiality. We await your reply.” ANDERSEN AFB, GUAM THURSDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 1994, 1334 HOURS LOCAL (28 SEPTEMBER, 0034 HOURS WASHINGTON TIME) cc an-living in Arkansas, I thought I knew what humidMity~e~t~i~e, “~on~asters~a~sai~. “GuamhasBlytheville beat six ways to none.” Those were Masters’ first words when he stepped off his converted DC-I 0 airliner onto the tarmac at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Everything he touched felt clammy-the railing on the portable stairs, the concrete parking apron, everything. Breathing became a conscious activity, and things like long pants and underwear became serious personal liabilities. General Brad Elliott had to agree. Although he had spent some months in Guam during the Vietnam War, flying B-52D and -G bombers from Guam over twenty-five hundred miles one-way on bombing missions, he never got accustomed to the oppressive humidity on the tiny tropical island, which felt like 100 percent every hour of every day. The daily three P.M. thunderstorms did nothing to improve conditions-in fact, it felt even worse, as if one were drowning in oceans one could not see, only feel. Guam had been the linchpin of American military presence in the Pacific since the Spanish-American War of 1898. The Japanese invaded Guam on December 7, 1941, at the same time that Pearl Harbor was being bombed, but they were ousted in 1944 after days of heavy American bombing, and the militarization of Guam began. Of the three B-29, B-36, and B-47 bomber bases built on Guam from 1944 to 1950, the largest, Andersen Air Force Base-first known simply as North Field-remained. Andersen Air Force Base was a vast, stark facility on Guam’s northern shore that, although reduced to a small fraction of its recent size and relatively quiet, still echoed with the ghosts of missions past. Dominating the base were Andersen’s twin twomile-long runways. Surrounding the runways, including the “infield” between the parallel runways, were concrete parking stubs big enough for B-52s. During the height of the Vietnam War, during Operation Bullet Shot in 1972, over one hundred and fifty bombers were parked here. The B-52s participated in the massive Arc Light, Young Tiger, and Linebacker bombing missions between 1965 and 1973. By 1990 the Air Force had removed all the permanently assigned B-52 bombers and KC-135 tankers from Andersen, and the base transitioned to caretaker status of the 633rd Air Base Wing of the Pacific Air Forces. But Elliott and Masters knew it would become an important base of operations again. Masters had already launched two ALARM boosters while still over the United States. The young scientist and engineer couldn’t believe his N1RTSats were being used in an actual operation that was part of America’s response to a nuclear explosion. What better endorsement could Sky Masters, Inc., ask for than from the U.S. government in a crisis situation? Unfortunately, his other Sky Masters colleagues had been less than enthusiastic. After General Curtis of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had given the go-ahead, the government presented Masters with a request for six satellites and two boosters ASAP-a contract worth $300 million. It was all on a handshake and letter of intent, and Helen Kaddiri, as a board member, was especially vocal about taking satellites contracted for by other buyers and selling them to the government. Masters check to see if all pages have been scanned. They had had to do some hard lobbying, but the board-even Kaddiri-finally agreed. Still, it put the ALARM booster program to its most grueling test, but it was the process that Jon Masters had originally devised the system to accomplish: twelve hours from the goahead, two space boosters were launched that inserted two completely different satellite constellations into low Earth orbit-not just single satellites, but multiple, interconnected strings of small, highly sophisticated satellites. Thankfully, both launches went off perfectly, all the satellites’ buses were inserted into the proper orbit, and one by one the skies were “seeded” with tiny Sky Masters, Inc., spacecraft. By the time Masters had landed his DC-10 back at his base in Arkansas, loaded the plane with the equipment he needed for the SAC STRATFOR team, and then flown on to Guam, all of his NIRTSats were in their proper orbits and reporting fully functional. The recon satellites were in nearly circular 415nautical-mile equatorial orbits; the communications satellites were in lower 200-mile orbits inclined 40 degrees to the equator so they could download their data directly to continental U.S. ground stations as well as to facilities on Guam. Masters was betting everything on this mission-and he was also betting that while he was away Helen Kaddiri would probably try to position herself for a corporate coup d’etat. He’d been expecting it for some time. He shrugged, realizing he’d have to deal with that later. Masters’ DC-I 0, with its distinctive red, white, and blue SKY MASTERS emblem on the sides, was parked just outside the hangar next to the north apron, which was perched atop the five-hundred-foot cliff on Guam’s north shore. Masters and General Brad Elliott, who’d flown in with Masters on the DC-10, met newly appointed SAC STRATFOR commander Major General Rat Stone, his aide, Colonel Michael Krieg, and Colonel Anthony Fusco, who was the commander of the 633rd Air Base Wing. Elliott was there to observe Masters’ gear in action, in person. If they were going to be using it at HAWC, he wanted to see it up close. Introductions were made all around, and after everyone mentioned the humidity, they were taken by military van-in a sudden downpour no less-to the MAC terminal, where a Guamanian customs officer, assisted by a MAC security guard in full combat rig and carrying an M-16 rifle, checked their customs declaration forms and inspected their hand-carried items. After that, General Stone turned to Masters. “What I’d like is to get your gear in place as soon as possible, ” Stone said. “I’ve got an EC- 135 communications plane and the recon planes available, so 1 can use DSCS to collect reconnaissance data, but I don’t like sending those planes so far over water unless we get a better idea on what the situation is over there. The sooner we can get your system working, the better.” The Defense Satellite Communications System, or DSCS, was the current global voice and data communications system in operation; the system’s drawback was that it could relay signals only from ground station to ground station and could not link aircraft. An EC-135 communications plane could act as a pseudoground station and could relay signals from another aircraft via DSCS to a ground station, but that meant orbiting the EC- 135 near the first aircraft-which meant sending another important aircraft thousands of miles offshore and exposing it to possible enemy action, which in turn meant assigning additional fighters and tankers to support it. “That’s what I’m here for, General, ” Jon Masters said. “With the NIRTSats in place, we can talk with your AWACS and reconnaissance planes directly. When my computer complex is set up, we can get their radar pictures and they’ll be able to receive our PACER SKY pictures.” Jon grinned. “It’s gonna be awesome. Once we get the rest of the birds tied in, you’ll have dozens of planes tied together and linked to Andersen. You’ll hear a guy on some B-52 sneeze three thousand miles away just as clearly as if he were sitting right beside you, and you can say ‘gesundheit’ a second later-and while he’s wiping his nose, you can lay his crosshairs on a target for him. Too much!” Stone turned and smiled at Elliott, who returned his amused grin. The officers and the young scientist piled into the heavy air-conditioned blue Air Force van, and they headed back out on Perimeter Road. Jon asked, “I understand your first reconnaissance sortie will take off in a few hours?” Stone nodded. “It’s about four hours’ flying time from here to the Philippines for the RC-135 and AWACS planes; about three hours for the EC- 135. They arrive on station in the Celebes Sea about midnight. They stay on station for four hours, then head on back. They RTB about eight A.M.”