He stepped back into the bridge and nodded to Admiral Walton. "Let's do it."
Walton smiled and motioned to a control panel mounted on the forward sea data console. Without hesitation the president leaned forward to the control panel and twisted a large bronze key in a triangular keyswitch. Immediately, a red light labeled "LAUNCH" illuminated and an electric horn sounded throughout the Constellation.
With a thunderous roar a geyser of water erupted less than two miles away from the Constellation, and a huge white object rose from the sea like a bellowing whale. It blasted fire of the waves, hovered about thirty feet above the water, and even seemed to slip backwards a few feet. Then, with a tremendous blast of fur, the Trident D-5/HI sea-launched ballistic missile's solid-propellant motor ignited, and the missile and its ten inert warheads roared into space.
The first Trident had hardly reached full thrust when the second missile pierced the surface of the now boiling ocean. The USS Pennsylvania, the seventh and youngest of the new fleet of Ohio-class supersubmarines, began disgorging her deadly cargo at a rate of one missile every ten seconds. The stain of white hot foam stretched from the Pennsylvania's launch point toward the Constellation, her escorts, and the thousands of men watching the awesome spectacle.
"Skipper, missile launch detection."
Brigadier General Jason Saint-Michael quickly set his coffee cup down on a Velcro mat on the bulkhead and maneuvered himself to the main sensor operator's console. On a wide two-foot by three-foot multisensor display screen, a flashing white circle was superimposed on a polar-projection map of the northern hemisphere near Japan. A few seconds later, a short column of position readouts printed on a second screen beside the main display. The general's face seemed to take on an added intensity as he read the growing column of data.
"Three hundred miles east of Tokyo, sir," the sensor operator read aloud.
"It's the exercise launch area all right…
"All sections, stand by," Saint-Michael said. "Alert the station, exercise under way, red alert." He readjusted his tiny communications earset and returned to his commander's seat — the only seat in the command module of the world's first strategic defense space station-and strapped himself in. The pedestal-mounted chair gave him a direct view of all the consoles in the space station's nerve center. He pulled out his ever-present notebook and pencil and attached the "doodlebook" to a Velcro pad on his seat's armrests to keep it from floating off in microgravity. His fingers were already making undecipherable scratches on the paper as he barked orders to his crewmen. "Okay, men," he said in a deep, resonant voice, "let's see if we can avoid letting these babies blow past us. Comm, transmit strategic warning message to Space Command, and ask them to verify that this is an exercise only."
"Already in contact with Space Command, sir," the communications tech reported. "Exercise code received and authenticated. "
The general grunted in acknowledgment. "Let's start lining 'em up."
"SBR reports six missiles boosting," the sensor tech reported. "SBR is tracking… now confirming solid radar lock on all six missiles." SBR was the acronym for space-based radar, two huge, football-field-sized, phased-array radar antennas installed on the station. Because of microgravity, the normal size limitations of a radar antenna did not apply in space; therefore, Armstrong Station's SBR was dozens of times larger and hundreds of times more powerful than most movable earth-based radars. The SBR could scan over a thousand miles in all directions from the station, detecting any object more than two meters in size in space, in earth's atmosphere and on earth itself. Although SBR stood for space-based radar, the acronym also referred to a wide range of sensors aboard the space station used to detect and track objects in space-radar, infrared, optical, Doppler, magnetic anomaly, radio, radiation, and laser.
Saint-Michael's four technicians worked quickly, speaking rarely and only in clipped, unemotional, well-rehearsed phrases. They had practiced hard for this very important test, and they knew the eyes of the world were on them.
"How does our orbit look?" Saint-Michael asked.
"We should be in position to intercept throughout the boost and midcourse phases," a tech replied. Armstrong Station was in a seven-hundred- by one-hundred-mile elliptical polar orbit, roughly centered near the north pole. Because the northernmost part of the orbit was farther from earth, the station spent two and a half of its three-hour orbit over the pole, allowing it to scan longer for attacking north-launched missiles.
"Missiles are above the atmosphere," the tech at the master multisensor console reported. "Approaching one hundred miles altitude."
"Thor missiles ready for launch," another tech reported. The general nodded once again. The SBM-29A Thor missiles were Armstrong Station's antiballistic weapons. Resembling long metal cigars, the cylindrical missiles were simple but effective. Ten of them were loaded into a circular free-flying carrier-ejector "garage" that was attached to Armstrong Station's long main structural keel by a steel tether. The missile garage was equipped with thrusters that would allow it to point its business end toward the attacking ICBMs in response to remote slaving commands from the space station's sensors.
"All six ICBMs are approximately two minutes from burnout," the main sensor tech reported. "Approaching max firing range—"
"Prepare to launch missiles," Saint-Michael ordered. "First three missiles on full automatic intercept during ICBM boost. Fourth missile on SBR intercept mode only in midcourse intercept. Program fifth Thor for blind-launch intercept. Program sixth Thor missile for full manual track in midcourse phase — Chief Jefferson will perform the intercept. Program the remaining intercept missiles for full automatic in case any get away." The missile tech's fingers flew over his controls.
"SLBMs approaching optimum range." Saint-Michael turned to the chief sensor technician, Space Command Chief Master Sergeant Jake Jefferson. "Ready, Jake?" Jefferson, a finger lightly resting on a large steering trackball on his console, nodded.
The general flipped his communications earset to stationwide intercom. "Attention on the station. Stand by. for missile launch." He sat back and laced his fingers. "Launch commit all Thor interceptors."
A single switch was activated. "Launch commit." The SBR tracking computer had been feeding tracking information to the Thor ejector, pointing the ten missiles towards the six sea-launched ballistic missiles flying at thousands of miles an hour through space. Three of the Thor interceptor missiles had also been receiving precise guidance information from the SBR sensors, so their on-board sensors already knew where to look for the SLBMs. These three missiles, with super-accurate data being constantly fed to them, waited in the ejector for their computer-directed launch command.
Of the other seven Thor missiles, two were launched immediately after Saint-Michael issued the launch commit signal. The first of these two missiles was directed entirely by Armstrong Station's powerful SBR and other sensors, simulating a failure of the Thor's on-board trackers. The second missile, simulating a failure of all tracking data uplink signals from Armstrong Station, relied solely on its on-board radar and infrared sensors for the intercept.
Despite the technician-induced failures, however, the two Thor missiles performed flawlessly. Each Thor missile had a two-stage liquid-fueled engine capable of ten thousand pounds of thrust, which instantly accelerated the four-thousand-pound missiles to fifteen thousand miles per hour in a few seconds. Shortly after their motors fired, a one-hundred-foot-diameter steel mesh web unfolded from the Thor missile's body, effectively increasing the missile's kill radius. The first two interceptor missiles did not need the webbing to neutralize their targets. The space station's SBR sensors detonated the one-thousand-pound high-explosive flak warhead on the first Thor missile a split second before the mesh hit the ballistic missile's upper stage, instantly shredding the SLBM's protective warhead shroud, destroying the sensitive inertial guidance electronics, and sending the entire upper stage spinning off into space. The second Thor missile, directed by the radar seeker head on the missile itself, made a direct hit on the SLBM upper stage moments after third-stage burnout, completely destroying the ballistic missile. "Two hits confirmed," a tech reported aboard the space station, and a cheer went up among the crew. Saint-Michael gripped the armrests on his commander's chair and allowed himself a faint smile.