“That’s what we think we have in LACE: a magnetic pulse from radiation creating a stream of electrons which are really electrical currents trickling down into our tightly packed electronics. This radiation drips down, the stream of electrons trickles inside LACE, and we have a short or some other electrical failure, like a burned-out code encryptor relay… LACE is crippled, but alive. Very much alive and on her own.”
“Shot herself in the foot, aye, Admiral?” asked the man from State.
The Admiral nodded without words.
“I called you here at this outrageous hour of the night to ask for a real-time status report on all of your laser projects. The people upstairs want to know what we have on-line in our nearspace laser arsonal to kill LACE.” The Admiral did not turn his face toward the Deputy Secretary of State.
“Let’s start with you, Commander Wiegand. How is Project Sea Lite?”
“One minute, Admiral,” interrupted the Marine stenographer who opened his eyes blinking at the glare. “Have to replace the paper.” Quickly, the young Marine threaded the end of a thick ream of steno paper into his machine. “Okay, Admiral. Sorry.”
“Commander?”
“Admiral, the Navy’s Project Sea Lite is a laser weapon in development since 1980. We have test fired TRW’s, 2 point 2 megawatt, deuterium-fluoride laser at 3 point 8 microns wave length. But it’s not operational. Our next step will be MIRACL, the Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser. It’s pumped by a pulsed xenon lamp. We’ve already fired it at White Sands.”
“Jack, can either system hit LACE from the ground?” asked General Breyfogle of the Marines.
“Maybe in about ten years, Ed.”
“Thanks, Jack. Jaimie, what’s cooking in your New Mexico projects?”
“Well, Admiral, we first fired the Dauphin Project laser in 1980. We’re working with Lawrence Livermore labs on it. It’s an X-ray-pumped laser using argon-flouride in a pulsed mode. It is designed to kill a missile by impulse — a lethal radiation shockwave… But we are maybe fifteen years from having anything operational. At Los Alamos, we’re also working on the free electron laser, known as FEL. We’ve just developed a photoinjector device which can increase FEL beam brightness one hundred times and boost power output from twenty to forty megavolts. But for right now, no way, Admiral.”
“Alright, Kathy, what about your excimer laser tests in the west?”
“In March 1988, we finally fired an eight-hundred megawatt, raman-shifted, excimer laser into the sky from Western Research Corporation’s San Diego facility. Although it was our highest power excimer test to date, we can only sustain the beam for half a microsecond. We’ve also had some success with an iodine-pulsed laser, pumped by magnetic flux, compression generators. Anti-satellite radiation is created by a bleaching-wave effect. But, Admiral,” the pretty scientist frowned, “we certainly are a decade away from knocking down something as big as the LACE spacecraft. Sorry.”
“Thanks, Kathleen. General Burns, what about your two flying vehicles, Pegasus and BEAR? Can we disable LACE with either of your babies?”
All eyes focused sleepily upon the sandy-haired officer.
“Well, Admiral, BEAR is our Beam Experiment Aboard Rocket payload. It is our first flying neutral particle beam antimissile weapon, as you know. But it was the most fundamental of early tests. She popped up to 126 miles on only a nine-minute flight. The particle beam was then cycled briefly through a firing sequence aimed at points up to only six miles away. The beam has a maximum power of one megavolt fired at five bursts per second. Just too primitive, Admiral.” The General shrugged with visible disappointment.
“Okay, Tom. How about Pegasus? Could it be rigged to catch and destroy LACE?”
“Not likely, Admiral. Pegasus is an air-launched missile designed to orbit very small payloads, too small to carry the electronics needed to find LACE. And there aren’t any explosive devices small enough to do the job if we could get them close enough to LACE. I just don’t have anything for you.”
“How about HOE, Tom?”
“Now that is a real breakthrough, Admiral. The Army’s Homing Overlay Experiment succeeded in destroying an incoming drone missile in June 1984 during an all-up test of the Talon Gold tracking device. It was HOE’s fourth test flight. We launched a Boeing Minuteman target missile from Vandenburg Air Force Base, California. Our interceptor missile was launched from Mech Island in the Pacific atoll of Kwajalein. One hundred miles up, our interceptor destroyed the Minuteman target… But, Admiral, HOE had three prior failures in February, March, and December 1983. HOE may be able to score on an incoming ballistic target 25 percent of the time, but it simply is not designed to pursue a target which is in orbit. Not enough energy. Sorry, Admiral.”
“Okay, Tom. Thanks. B.C., what about ALL?”
“Also not powerful enough, Admiral. The Airborne Laser Laboratory has flown since 1981 in modified, conventional aircraft. As you know, ALL is a carbon dioxide, dynamic laser. But its 400 kilowatts of power and her one-meter optics won’t even warm LACE’s skin.” The officer frowned. On General Cochran’s shoulder, a lovely blue emblem read: “Airborne Laser Laboratory: PEACE THROUGH LIGHT.”
“So,” sighed Admiral Hauch as he pushed himself from the table. “No one has anything operational for shooting down our wayward bird after three and a half billion dollars funded for this research in 1990 alone?”
“Your wayward bird,” counseled the man from State. “And you’re only half correct.”
One dozen exhausted faces studied Joseph Vazzo’s strongly lined face.
“There is a ground-based, anti-satellite laser which can vaporize LACE.” The gray haired diplomat was grim. “And it’s not ours…” He savored the dramatic pause. “Its code name is TORA and the laser weapon — I would call it a cannon — belongs to the Soviets. We’ve watched it for 10 years. We damn near have the wiring diagrams from our boys in trenchcoats. They’ve built it at Saryshagan, in Mother Russia: A flash-initiated, iodine-pulsed killer laser. It’s the size of a football field: Twelve Pavlovski, magnetocumulative generators around one monster of a pulsed betatron.”
“We estimate this facility can destroy our satellites up to 248 miles high, do damage to our satellites up to 744 miles, and at least disrupt our birds up to 25,000 miles.”
“God,” sighed the Admiral.
“Indeed. Its lethal range is only twenty-five thousand miles, give or take.”
“Accuracy?”
“General Gordon: TORA has fried at least six Cosmos satellite drones. LACE could be obliterated by it — as everything else we put into orbit. You should have sent the Russians an invite to this coffee break, Admiral.”
“I know, Joe. What else has Brother Ivan by way of operational, space laser weapons?”
“Near as we can tell, they have a free-electron, anti-satellite laser weapon at Troitsk and one at Chrernomorskoye. We don’t know their lethal range or aiming ability — yet, Admiral.” Admiral Hauch looked at the clocks along the walls for a long moment.
“Then we cannot take LACE down ourselves. Is that the concensus here?”
“Not this year or next, Admiral,” frowned the General from Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.
“Question,” said the young woman from the desert. “Can LACE do it again?”