“Request permission to attack the entire f*cking Russian space force, General,” Kai said angrily.
“Negative,” Sandstein said. “Don’t do a thing except protect yourself. Do not fire unless fired upon.”
“I’d say we’ve been fired upon, General,” Kai said. “I don’t know if the spaceplane was the target or if station was and the spaceplane got in the way. Either way, we’re under attack.”
“Let me notify the president first and see what his response is, Kai,” Sandstein said. “In the meantime, I’m authorizing you to activate every defensive-weapon system you have and begin putting the Trinity modules you have stored on the station back into orbit. You have a spaceplane with you right now, do you not?”
“Yes, an S-29,” Kai replied. “It’s searching for survivors, and then we need to off-load supplies for here and for the ISS.”
“What other spaceplanes are available?”
“Two S-19s will be available in a few days, and we have two S-9s that can be made ready in a few weeks,” Kai said, checking his spacecraft status readouts. “General, I have ten weapon garages in orbit, which places much of the Russian antispacecraft force in the crosshairs, and they’ll be activated shortly. I began the process of disconnecting the Starfire maser device from Skybolt, but I’m having my crews reconnect it. That should be ready soon. I request permission to lay waste to any Russian antisatellite facility that gets within range.”
“I get the intent of ‘lay waste,’ Kai,” Sandstein said. “I want permission from the White House before you start bombarding Russian targets from space. Your orders are: Protect your station with everything you have, and await further orders. Repeat my last, General Raydon.”
Kai hesitated, and even thought about not replying; instead: “Roger, General,” he said finally. “General Sandstein, this is Station Director Raydon aboard Armstrong. I copied: my orders are to protect the station with everything we have, and await further orders.”
“I’ll be in touch, Kai,” Sandstein said. “This won’t go unavenged. Stand by.” And the connection was broken.
“Shit,” Kai swore. “The vice president of the United States was just maybe blown into space debris, and I’m supposed to just ‘stand by.’?” He checked his monitors. “Valerie, what is the status of the on-orbit Kingfishers?”
“We have six of the ten online and expect the rest in about an hour,” Valerie Lukas reported.
That was just a fifth of the complete constellation, but it was better than what they had just minutes ago. “Put up the Russian and China-based terrestrial targets within range of our land-attack weapons.”
“Roger.” Moments later a list of targets appeared on the main command-center display as well as a list of available weapons that might be capable of defending against them. The list included targets other than antispacecraft ones: any militarily significant target was on the list, and as the Kingfisher weapon garages or Armstrong Space Station passed beyond range, the target disappeared, only to be replaced by another that had crossed over a weapon’s horizon somewhere else on the globe. With only ten weapon garages plus Armstrong Space Station, the target list was very short, but every few minutes a new potential target popped up, would stay for two to four minutes, then disappear again.
One line on the target list turned from green to yellow. “Xichang Spaceport,” Kai observed. “What’s going on at Xichang?”
“S-500S ‘Autocrat’ Echo-Foxtrot-band search radar from Xichang Spaceport swept us,” Christine reported. “Ever since the Russians set up the S-500S in China, they’ve tracked and sometimes locked us up on radar when we pass overhead. I think it’s just calibration or training—it’s just a long-range scan. Nothing ever happens.”
“?‘Locked us up,’ eh?” Kai muttered. “Anything beyond just a scan?”
“Once in a while we’ll get a squeak of a 30N6E2 India-Juliet band missile-guidance uplink radar, like they’ve fired a missile at us,” Christine said, “but all signals disappear within seconds, even the search signals, and we don’t detect a motor plume or missile in the air—it’s obvious they don’t want us to think they’re steering an interceptor toward us, using radar or optronics or anything else. It’s all cat-and-mouse crap, sir—they shoot us radar signals to try to frighten us, then go silent. It’s bullshit.”
“Bullshit, huh?” Kai said. “Report if it happens again.”
“Yes, sir,” Christine replied.
Kai was silent for a few moments, thinking hard. “Christine,” he said, “I want some detailed imagery of that S-500S unit. Give me a narrow-beam SBR scan from our big radar. Max resolution.”
Christine Rayhill hesitated for a moment, then commented, “Sir, a spotlight scan could—”
“Do it, Miss Rayhill,” Kai said tonelessly. “Narrow-beam scan, max resolution.”