At thirty kilometers’ range he activated the weapon. Outside Elektron there was nothing to see, but on the radar screen Galtin noticed the bloom and shaky path of the target satellite on radar, and in seconds he noticed that there were multiple objects on radar now—the satellite had been broken apart.
Hobnail was a one-hundred-kilowatt, carbon-dioxide, electric-discharge coaxial laser. It had a maximum range of more than fifty kilometers, but even at that range the laser could burn through a centimeter of solid steel in seconds—the skin on Kosmos-714 was far thinner. The batteries for the laser allowed it to be fired for about thirty seconds maximum, no longer than five seconds per burst, which equated to about six to seven bursts depending on how long the laser was activated. That was about half the number of attacks as in the Elektron’s current weapon, the Scimitar hypervelocity missiles, but Hobnail had much greater range and accuracy and could engage targets in any direction, even targets crossing at very high speeds. That was Hobnail’s first successful test in space, although the laser had been used successfully in a laboratory for many years. Every Elektron spaceplane would eventually get one, as would the Russian Orbital Section, the Russian-built segment of the International Space Station that had recently been separated from the ISS.
Galtin entered commands into his computer to stow the Hobnail back into the cargo bay and deactivate his attack radar. He would not begin his deorbit for another seven hours, but there was one more task to accomplish.
Three hours later, he reactivated the radar, and there it was, exactly where it was supposed to be, just thirty kilometers away, well within range of Hobnail: Armstrong, the American military space station. It was at a much higher altitude and in a completely different orbit—there was never any danger of a collision—but surely the Americans would squawk about a deliberate flyby like this.
Too bad, Galtin thought happily. Space does not belong to the United States. And, if necessary, it will become a battleground once again.
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION
THE NEXT DAY
“Oh my God, I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” Jodie Cavendish exclaimed when the monitor came to life. A round of applause broke out behind her from the spectators who had been cleared by the American Secret Service to watch the test firing—they were expecting the president of the United States to arrive in a couple hours. What they saw were Brad McLanahan and Casey Huggins, both wearing blue flight suits with patches of Armstrong Space Station and Project Starfire, floating in free fall at a console. Behind them were Kai Raydon and Valerie Lukas. “You made it! You made it!”
“Hi, Jodie; hi, Jerry; hi, Lane,” Brad said. “Greetings from Armstrong Space Station!”
“I just can’t believe what I’m seeing,” Jodie said, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks. “I never would have believed this would ever happen, mates.”
“You guys look great,” Lane said. “How was the spaceplane trip?”
“Awesome, Lane,” Brad replied. “The G-forces weren’t as bad as I was expecting.”
“Speak for yourself, buster,” Casey said. It was so strange to see the young woman floating in zero-G with legs extended underneath her, exactly like every other astronaut—it was almost jarring not to see her in a wheelchair. “I thought I was going to be squished inside out.”
“You guys feeling okay?”
“Not bad,” Brad said.
“He was puking his guts out,” Casey said with a giggle.
“Just twice,” Brad said. “I got a shot, and I’m feeling okay now.”
“I get dizzy every now and then, but I’m feeling great, Lane,” Casey said. “I still have my barf bag handy, though.”
“We heard you got to fly the spaceplane and even dock it on the station,” Lane said. “How cool! How was it?”
“I had a few shaky moments, but it went great,” Brad said. “I wish Boomer the pilot was here, but he had to take the spaceplane to the International Space Station—since the Russians disconnected their service module, they can’t make as much water and oxygen as before, so some techs have to leave. How’s everything looking from down there, Jodie?”
“Apples, Brad,” Jodie replied. “However, we’re still getting that intermittent fault on the lithium-ion capacitor output relay, the same one we’ve been working on for a couple weeks now.”
“Is Jerry up on the channel with us?”
“He’s meeting with his team on a video teleconference to try to come up with a solution,” Jodie said. “He’s thinking it’s a temperature issue—he says when the station is in sunlight the relay works fine, but then when they go into shadows the problem sometimes crops up.”
“Unfortunately, that means a spacewalk to change out the relay or its temperature-control unit,” Kai Raydon said. “That could take a day or two.”