To complicate matters, a Russian battle group centered around the Admiral Kurashov, what the Russians called an amphibious transport but what was really an aircraft carrier, was located thirty miles to the east. The laser blast arrowing up into the sky last night had caught them all off guard. The low-level intelligence reports said that they were there to monitor Kernel Blitz. But Lab Rat suspected that somewhere in the bowels of the organization would be a group similar to his, watching the TBMD tests and evaluating the impact of a success on the balance of power. Because, when you got right down to it, nothing was ever as secret as you thought it was.
There was, however, one primary problem with any land-based system: no matter how secret, no matter how covert, its location eventually became known. And once known, it was immediately targeted by America’s enemies.
The same reasoning that had led the United States to base a third of its nuclear triad on silent nuclear submarines had also spurred the development of sea-based ballistic missile defense systems. Omicron was again the lead contractor, as they had been for the land-based system, although this time through one of its wholly owned subsidiaries. Judging from the message traffic Lab Rat had seen that morning, Senior Chief Armstrong would soon be back aboard Jefferson, but this time as a very senior project manager whose equivalent military grade was several grades higher than Lab Rat’s rank.
“Finally,” Mason said, still holding his genial smile and staring at his audience while tapping the chart with his pointer — and just how did he do that, Lab Rat wondered, manage to nail exactly the correct spot without looking at it—“meteorologists all over the world are saying a fond farewell to a satellite known as Betty Lou. Last night, at approximately 0230, one final transmission was received from Betty Lou. After that, she no longer responded to control commands.”
“Okay, anything else?” Coyote asked briskly, tapping his number two pencil on the legal pad in front of him. Everyone on his staff knew that this was a sign that the admiral’s attention span had just been exceeded. Mason was the only one who never seemed to understand that, and to Coyote’s dismay, Mason continued.
“Odd circumstances, too,” he went on blithely. “In fact, Commander Busby, some of your folks are looking into it now. Just before Betty Lou passed away, she detected a — well, we don’t know exactly what it is. It’s being correlated with other intelligence sources now, I suppose. But it looked like a bolt of lightning.”
Shit. We’re supposed to be keeping a lid on this. Maybe he’ll take the hint if I blow it off. Coyote had talked to the midwatch TFCC crew and made sure that they all knew the laser incident was strictly hush-hush. If the lookouts kept their mouths shut, they might just pull off the secrecy bit for a while longer.
“Lightning?” Coyote queried. “In space? Right.”
“A sharp, short blast of light. Probably an internal short circuit of some sort that created an artifact, Admiral.” Mason was positively gloating over the fact that Coyote had shown enough interest to comment. Most of the time, his questions came from the destroyer squadron, or DESRON, who maintained an intense and somewhat anal interest in the intricate temperature profiles within the ocean.
“Well,” Coyote said, clearly a dismissal. “Unless there are any questions.” His tone of voice made it clear that none were expected. “Commander Busby, I’ll see you in CDC in ten minutes.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Lab Rat replied.
They’re testing their systems.
Of course, it could be one of those odd coincidences that keeps popping up around the world, and making a hash of the best intelligence estimates that money could buy. Lady Luck always had her hand in the works. But losing a satellite to something that looked like lightning just when Jefferson was testing out her systems and Russians were watching — or maybe even testing their own — well, that was just a little bit too much, wasn’t it?
Well, significant or not, it would have to wait. Lab Rat had eight minutes before he was supposed to meet the admiral in CDC to go over the final details for the test of their own system tonight. Sure, it was bad news that the Russians were testing their own version, not only from a correlation-of-forces point of view but simply as a matter of muddying up the playing field.
“Sir?” a voice just behind him asked. “Is there anything I can do?” Lab Rat turned to shake his head at Lieutenant Bill Strain, the new assistant intelligence officer who had checked in just before they’d deployed. Strain was a tall, lanky fellow, built like the college basketball player he was. Word had it that Strain had had a full scholarship at Notre Dame, a fact that was readily confirmed by the alumni on board. A few squadrons had already made a bid for him to join their intramural teams, but so far Strain had been pleading the need to concentrate on his duties in CVIC. Maybe later, after the deployment. Lab Rat suspected that his new lieutenant preferred more intellectual leisure activities and would probably continue to find excuses not to join until the interest died down. Nothing wrong with that, although Lab Rat found himself faintly envious of Strain for having a choice. At five-feet, six-inches tall, Lab Rat had long since resigned himself to signing up for bantam-weight sports.
“Not yet,” Lab Rat answered. “Not unless you know some way we can reach out and touch that system of theirs from here. And without getting caught.”
“Nothing comes to mind, but I’ll give it some thought.” Strain passed him a few sheets out of an intelligence update, information on the probable status of Russian laser defense systems. Lab Rat hadn’t known he wanted them until Strain handed them to him.
Sharp, real sharp. New, just like Bailey Kates, but already a front runner. We’re growing the next generation right here, our own replacements. And the Navy’s giving us some damned fine material to work with.
“Thanks.” Lab Rat glanced through them, refreshing his memory. It’d been a while since he’d looked at Russian capabilities, and it wouldn’t hurt to sound smart if Coyote had any technical questions. The admiral had a knack for surprising his officers with the depth of his knowledge on arcane subjects.
Maybe they’re done with their test. Maybe taking out the satellite was enough for them. Not that there won’t be hell to pay for that — in fact, I’m surprised we’re not already seeing warning orders on it. In some contexts, that would be a clear enough act of war to start a nasty little exchange of weapons.
But it was an older satellite, wasn’t it? One that wasn’t all that useful anyway. And maybe, with the U.S. concentrating their resources and efforts on fighting worldwide terrorism, the Russians’ cooperation was worth more than a little outdated chunk of metal in the sky.
And we’re just going to let them get away with it? Lab Rat shook his head in disgust. Not so long ago, destroying an American satellite would have been grounds for a declaration of war.
“I wonder what made them pick out Betty Lou,” Strain mused. “Old satellite, of course — were they walking some sort of line between pissing us off and proving that they could do it? A few years ago, they never would have dared. Seems like nothing’s sacred anymore.”
The changes that had been wrought in American society by the hideous events of September 11, 2001, were deep and profound. The legal system was already infringing on constitutional rights that just a few months before the attack were virtually untouchable. With U.S. military forces treading heavily around the restrictions on posse comitatus, the restriction on using the military inside the U.S. for law enforcement, a lot of things were giving way to the need to hunt down terrorists. Maybe that included not being quite so worried about one satellite and not being willing to risk war over it.