“We’re coming awfully close to that one, aren’t we?”
“We fly over many of them in a day, located in Russia, China, and several countries aligned with them,” Lathrop said. “That particular one is Yelizovo Airport, a MiG-31D fighter base that we know has antisatellite weapons they can launch from the air. They routinely fly patrols from there and even practice attack runs.”
“They do?” the president asked incredulously. “How do you know if it’s a real attack or not?”
“We scan for the missile,” Kai explained. “We can see the missile and have less than two minutes to launch defensive weapons or hit it with the lasers. We scan them and analyze any signals they transmit, and we can study them by radar and optronics to find out if they’re getting ready to do something. They almost always track us on long-range radar, but every now and then they’ll hit us with a target-tracking and missile-guidance radar.”
“Why?”
“Try to scare us, try to get us to hit them with Skybolt or an Earth-attack weapon, so they can prove how evil we are,” Trevor said. “It’s all cat-and-mouse Cold War nonsense. We usually ignore it.”
“It does keep us on our toes, though,” Valerie added. “Command, this is Combat, simulated target designated Golf Seven will be in range in three minutes.”
“Prepare for simulated Skybolt engagement,” Raydon said. “Attention on station, simulated target engagement in three minutes. Operations to the command module. All crewmembers go to combat stations and report. Secure all docks and hatches. Off-duty personnel report to damage-control stations, suit up, and commence prebreathing. Simulate undock Midnight.”
“What is that about, General?” the president asked.
“Off-duty personnel have damage-control responsibilities,” Kai said. “Up here, that may mean doing a spacewalk to retrieve equipment or . . . personnel lost in space. Prebreathing pure oxygen for as long as possible allows them to put on an ACES space suit and do their rescue duties, even if it means a spacewalk. They might need to do a lot of repair and recovery operations in open space. For the same reason, we also undock whatever spacecraft we have on station to use as lifeboats in case of problems—we would use the lifeboat spheres and await rescue by a spaceplane or commercial transport.” The president swallowed hard at those grim thoughts.
“Command, this is Operations, request permission to simulated spin up the MHD,” Valerie Lukas said from her place on the bulkhead, observing the mock engagement.
“Permission granted, simulate spinning up the MHD, make all preparations to engage simulated terrestrial target.” It was like a tabletop play rehearsal, the president noted: everyone was saying their parts, but no one was actually moving or doing anything.
“Roger. Engineering, this is Operations, simulate spinning up the MHD, report activation and fifty percent power level.”
“Operations, Engineering, Roger, simulated spin up the MHD,” the engineering officer, Alice Hamilton, reported. A few moments later: “Operations, Engineering, the MHD is simulated active, power level at twelve percent and rising.”
“Command, this is Operations, the MHD is simulated online.”
“Command copies. Combat, what’s our simulated target?”
“Simulated terrestrial target Golf Seven is a deactivated DEW Line radar site in western Greenland,” Lathrop said. “Primary sensor data will be from SBR. Stand by for secondary sensor source.” His fingers flew over his keyboard again. “Simulated secondary sensor source will be USA-234, a radar-imaging satellite, which will be above Golf Seven’s horizon in sixty seconds and will be in range of the target for three-point-two minutes.”
“What does all that mean, General?” President Phoenix asked.
“We can fire Skybolt fairly accurately with our own sensors,” Kai explained. “The SBR, or Space-Based Radar, is our primary sensor. Station has two X-band synthetic aperture radars for Earth imaging. We can scan long swaths of Earth in ‘stripmap’ mode, or use ‘spotlight’ mode to zero in on a target and get precise pictures and measurements, down to a few inches’ resolution.