“We need the astronauts ready first,” Tempest reminded him. Only a handful of RAF personnel had ever been in space, but the former British Space Centre – now merged into Dashwood’s personal fiefdom – had had a handful more, and dozens of plans and concepts that had vanished into the bureaucracy and been forgotten. Now… now, people were discussing space guns, and rail launchers, and dozens of idea that had really caught the public imagination. They had had dozens of applications for astronaut training, from the RAF to ordinary students who had dreamed of space for years.
“True, true,” Dashwood said. “The SSTO should be ready for its test flight in January, but we’ll have to move to using the capsules for the rest of the year. It’s going to be extremely dangerous, but hell; they flew that way in 1960.”
“Yes, sir,” Tempest said. “We have continued their training at the British site.”
Dashwood nodded. “If something goes wrong from here, we can pick up from there,” he said. “Coming to think of it, the SSTO should be capable of launching from anywhere.”
Tempest chuckled. “So they keep telling us,” he said, referring to the collection of British aerospace companies that had contracted to build the craft. “I know that the Americans built one like it, but they only flew it from America itself.”
“We’ll be more adventurous,” Dashwood assured him. His watch started to bleep. “Ah,” he said. “Time for the launch.”
“Close enough to 0.23628 seconds past midday,” Tempest joked. Dashwood, who’d read the books as a child, chuckled. “I hope that you remembered the mice.”
“Should be just time for a cup of tea,” Dashwood said.
The Goddard-class rocket sat neatly on the launching pad, a combination of future and British technology. Like its predecessors, it carried a reconnaissance and communications satellite, adding another multi-function satellite to the growing orbital web staring down at Earth. Dashwood might have been imagining it, but there was a certain crudeness to its design, nothing like the Trident that they’d used for the first launch.
“I confirm launch commit,” he said, checking the telemetry. The observation units were in position, aided for the first time by two orbiting satellites.
“Launch commit confirmed,” Tempest confirmed. “Telemetry coming in at three locations; full data shunt and storage confirmed.”
“Don’t you get the feeling of déjà vu?” Dashwood asked wryly. Tempest glared at him; that wasn’t in the script. “Launch in ten seconds… five… launch!”
The rocket fired. For a long moment, it stood on the pad, and then began to rise on a pillar of smoke. Cheers broke out across the field as the reporters and crew stopped their work to gawk at the rocket, which was rising steadily across the sea. Dashwood smiled to himself… and then the alarms began.
“Heat rise in second stage booster,” Tempest snapped. “Sir, it’s going…”
The explosion echoed across the waters as the rocket disintegrated in mid-flight. Explosive packs triggered themselves, disintegrating the reminder of the rocket, which showered dust and components down on the sea. A dreadful silence fell over the base.
“Stand down from launch,” Dashwood said. He was amazed at how calm his voice was. “Everyone, back to work.” He hesitated. “Except the senior staff, who will join me for a conference in twenty minutes.”
Dashwood had banned both cigarettes and alcohol from Churchill Space Centre, except in emergencies. Reasoning that this counted as an emergency, he poured them all generous glasses of brandy, and set up the teleconference call with the Prime Minister.
“So,” he said finally, as they sipped their brandies. “What the hell went wrong?”
“The rocket’s shielding failed, I think,” Goddard said. Alone among them, he didn’t seem downhearted; Dashwood remembered that he had had many failures of his own. “The blast plume bored through the shielding and ignited the fuel for the second-stage, blowing it apart.”
Dashwood cursed vilely. Every time that there had been a space disaster, the program was shut down for years back in the old timeline. “We launched several more of those rockets without a problem,” he snapped. “What was wrong with this one?”
“Weaker structural integrity,” the rocket engineer said. “I did a check on all of the other rockets, looking for patterns. Every rocket from a particular company has weaker fuel tanks than the others.”
“A Bracken company?” Hanover asked sharply. “Who owns the company?”
“Not Bracken,” Tempest said, checking on his PDA. “One of the bigger American corporations, Dupont, I think.”
“So, was it an accident or sabotage?” Hanover asked thoughtfully.
“I don’t know,” the engineer said. “It could be just bad materials.”
“Perhaps,” Hanover said. “Major Dashwood?”
Dashwood took a breath. “I intend to resume launches,” he said. “I think that we’d return all of the Dupont rockets and demand that they improve their quality.”
“Good thinking,” Hanover agreed. “The BBC has already caught wind of the disaster; I expect that you can give a good press conference on it. I’ll inform Parliament that the rocket was lost through structural error and that launches will resume, once all of the rockets have been checked out.”
“They won’t shut us down, will they?” Tempest asked nervously. Dashwood grinned behind his brandy. Tempest sounded like a little boy.
“I won’t let them,” Hanover assured him. “Everyone is a big space backer these days; they’re just too useful to be ignored. Still, I expect a full report on your meeting with Dupont, understand?”
Dashwood nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I won’t let them get away with substandard materials.”
“Indeed,” Hanover said. “If necessary, let me know and I’ll talk to the President directly. There’s no point in working on an SSTO if the main rockets explode, is there?”
“No, sir,” Dashwood said. “Sir, we intend to begin laying the first stages of the space station soon; should we continue with that?”
“Keep running, Major,” Hanover said. “Then you may stumble, but you won’t fall.”
Chapter Thirty: Race War
Salvation
Mississippi, America
31st May 1941
Sheriff Jefferson Buckley had lived in Salvation, a tiny town out in the boondocks, for years and thought that he was used to the heat. It rose up from the ground, even in the darkness, and tonight it carried the stink of something… rotten. The very air felt feverish, as if it were too hot for any kind of activity, even the one that they were about to engage in.
“Take care of yourself, Jeff,” his wife said. Buckley smiled down at his wife, who had once been red-haired and beautiful. Years as the wife of the local sheriff had dimmed her fire, but he could still see the innocent young girl she had once been. Her body was still trim, even after giving birth to three children, and he kissed her once on the lips.
No nigger is going to have you, he thought grimly, and prepared himself as best as he could. The remainder of the posse would be making themselves ready as well and he wouldn’t disappoint them; the local sheriff had to be there to make the proceedings nice and legal. Buckley chuckled as he pulled on his gun belt; it had been fine when the niggers kept their heads down and out of his way, but as soon as they started to get ideas…
“I’ll be back,” he said, aping a character in one of the new movies. Salvation had been lucky enough to have a travelling cinema come to town; the citizens – no niggers, of course – had watched the movies with interest. Picking up his rifle, he headed out to the barn, where the posse had gathered; thirty men, armed to the teeth.