The trick would be in coordinating the various strikes. Lieutenant Penner didn’t realize it, but he was far more right than he knew.
Warrant Officer Gunther Weise was seeing it on the big screen, but he could hardly believe it.
Maybe General Kaltenbrunner felt the same way. “Are you sure we’re receiving accurate information?” he asked the admiral.
“Yes, General,” the admiral said.
“Why are the Americans launching their ICBMs one at a time?” Kaltenbrunner asked.
“It is odd, isn’t it?” the admiral said.
After first checking his station controls, Gunther looked up at the big screen. Nothing would ever be the same for him now. He had survived a nuclear attack. That was amazing on several fronts. It had cleared away the cobwebs of his thoughts. Once his enlistment was up, he would leave the Navy and never reenlist. Adventures were best read in books or watched on the movie screen. Living them was much too harrowing.
Gunther watched another red dot lift from the middle of North America. It blinked, and he could almost feel the tremendous flames pouring from the missile, pushing it into space. Before a minute passed, a blue line reached up from Iceland or near Brest, Brittany, bounced off a space mirror and destroyed the lofting missile. Several minutes later and almost as if on cue, the Americans launched another ICBM. It didn’t make any kind of sense for them to do that. Didn’t they know how useless it was? They were throwing away their nuclear missiles.
“Surely they realize the uselessness of what they’re doing,” Kaltenbrunner said.
Gunther raised his eyebrows. He and the general thought alike. It made him wonder if he could have been the general. It didn’t seem that hard, standing there and observing the same things a warrant officer did.
The admiral tapped a finger against his goatee. “Their actions do give one pause. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if they’re actually trying to focus our attention there. If so: why? That’s the question.”
“Look there,” Kaltenbrunner said, pointing. “Are they trying to disguise the fact of their gathering air fleet?”
The admiral studied the screen in silence. He had dark eyes, and they seemed penetrating with intelligence.
“The Americans must destroy us,” the admiral said shortly. “We know that, yes?”
“It’s obvious,” Kaltenbrunner said.
“The fleet has deployed against submarines,” the admiral said. “The Americans don’t have many left, and my understanding is that most are in the Pacific. They attempt to halt the flow of Chinese weapons and reinforcements. We’re lofting the UAVs to annihilate this paltry force of US air. The American ICBMs are more pathetic than dangerous, at least at this point. Is it possible or even reasonable that the Americans have another trick up their sleeve?”
“What kind of trick?” Kaltenbrunner asked.
“Yes, that is an interesting question to ask,” the admiral said. “My first supposition is they’re trying to work a submarine or two near us with nuclear torpedoes. We’re hunting for subs and have found nothing. Hmm, what do the facts tell us?”
“I’m not sure I understand your question,” Kaltenbrunner said.
“Maybe the ICBMs should give us greater pause,” the admiral said.
“How so?” asked Kaltenbrunner.
“Why would the Americans launch them one at a time? Why not launch them all at once?”
“Couldn’t they saturate our space lasers if they went all at once?” Kaltenbrunner asked. “I mean make it impossible for our lasers to destroy them all in time?”
“That seems doubtful. Boost phase is the best time to destroy enemy missiles. They almost seem to be sacrificing the missiles to us.”
“Why would they do that?” Kaltenbrunner asked.
“There is only one possibility,” the admiral said. “They’re sacrificing ICBMs in order to keep the mirrors and the strategic lasers busy.”
“That would indicate the Americans possess another space weapon,” Kaltenbrunner said.
Gunther turned around in time to see the admiral stare in wonder at the general. The small man clapped his hands, and he strode to a communications officer.
“Put me through to Space Defense Command,” the admiral said crisply. This is an emergency priority message…”
Fifteen minutes ago, THOR Launch Vehicle #3 used cold gas propulsion to deorbit into attack position. A regular rocket exhaust would have created a bright plume—a beacon—for the enemy to see. Instead, the stealth satellite maneuvered with a minimum signature.
Maximum penetration of hardened targets such as missile silos or underground bunkers would have demanded a nearly vertical attack from space. Ships were another matter, something much more easily penetrated than the other two types of targets. The THOR missiles could therefore attack at a much shallower angle. It meant the different stealth satellites could converge more easily from a variety of places around the globe. Major Foxx had calculated—or the targeting computers and his team had—the various THOR satellite locations and their estimated launch positions relative to each other.
THOR Launch Vehicle #3 had now reached its location. At the same time around the globe, other launch vehicles reached their places.
Data flowed into the launch vehicle from high-flying drones and over the horizon radar. The satellite’s computer relayed the targeting intelligence to the individual missiles, giving them their priority objectives.
Miniaturized onboard computers went about their tasks with high speed. The #3 Launch Vehicle burst apart. Sleek tungsten rods—fifty of them—separated from each other like sluggish wasps. Gravity tugged at the missiles and they sped Earthward, on their way.
The remains of THOR Launch Vehicle #3 didn’t know that nine other vehicles did likewise. Nor did the computer-run machine have any idea that a GD sensor finally found it. Seconds later, a laser generated in Iceland speared the empty launch vehicle, destroying it.
Meanwhile, the fifty tungsten rods of the destroyed satellite began their race into Earth’s atmosphere. They sped at the fleet heading for New Jersey.
Lieutenant Penner flew in the second wave of the great air assault upon the approaching GD armada. The first wave of fighters and V-10 drones engaged GD carrier UAVs, swarms of them.
“This is going to be tough,” Penner’s wingman said.
Penner silently agreed. Look at the number of enemy UAVs, a flock of them or a swarm of bees on the hunt. Missiles fired, four of them.
He released chaff.
US Command didn’t have many options now. To win, they had to destroy the armada. If they burned up the Air Force to kill the ships, it would be worth it. Penner didn’t want to sacrifice his life, but they had to kill the GD armada.
He had thoughts about aborting the mission. He didn’t want to ide. But he was a Canadian officer. He would go down fighting if that’s what it took.
Lieutenant Penner, in his helmet with its dark visor, looked around at the clouds. This was a beautiful day. Maybe, likely, it would be his last day. Under his dark visor, he smiled. It was beautiful today, and it hurt to think that in less than an hour he would be dead, fish food in the great Atlantic Ocean.
Trying to fortify his resolve, Lieutenant Penner and the airmen of the squadron continued to bore in toward the approaching armada and its swarms of UAVs.
“It’s truly working,” the admiral said, with awe in his voice. “We’re killing their air force just as General Mansfeld predicted we would do.” He turned to Kaltenbrunner. “Mansfeld predicted the Americans would become panicked at the sight of my fleet. He said the Americans would hurl the last of their air against us, thereby aiding our conquest. I tell you, sir, for a landlubber, the man is a genius.”