Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 03 (9 page)

           
That was when ALARM was bom. ALARM
was merely a SCARAB booster downsized to fit in a transport plane and fitted
with wings. It used the launch aircraft as its first-stage booster, and it used
lift from its scissor-action wings to help increase the efficiency of the
smaller first- and second-stage boosters. Two ALARM boosters could be standing
by on board the carrier aircraft; they would only need to bring the payloads on
board and take off. With aerial refueling, the ALARM carrier aircraft could
stay aloft for days, traversing the country or even partly around the world, ready
to launch the boosters.

           
Masters had developed several
different payloads for his small air-launched boosters. Along with the
communications satellites, he had developed a small satellite that could take
composite radar, infrared, and telescopic visual “photos” of the Earth, and the
resulting image was dozens of times more detailed than standard visual photos.
The images could be digitized and transmitted to terminals all over the world
via his small communications satellites, giving commanders real-time
reconnaissance and intelligence information. Combined with powerful computers,
users from the Pentagon or White House to individual aircrew members on board
strike aircraft could conduct their own sophisticated photo intelligence, plan
and replan missions, and assess bomb damage almost instantaneously.

           
With several different payloads on
board, the flexibility of the ALARM system was unparalleled. A communications-
satellite launch could immediately change to a satellite-retrieval mission or a
reconnaissance-satellite mission, or even a strike mission. A single ALARM
carrier aircraft could become as important a national asset as
Cape Canaveral
.

           
“Fifteen minutes to launch window
one,” Masters’ launch control officer, Helen Kaddiri, announced. Kaddiri was the
chief of Masters’ operations staff and the senior launch- control officer, in
charge of monitoring all flight systems throughout each mission. In her early
forties, exotically attractive, she’d been bom and raised in
Calcutta
. She and her parents immigrated to the
United States
when she was twelve and she changed her
name from Helenika to Helen. She was a completely career-minded scientist who
sometimes found it very frustrating working for someone like Jon Masters.

           
She regarded Masters warily with her
dark, beautiful, almond-shaped eyes as he studied the command console. Masters
was so relaxed and laid-back that all the uptight techno-types he worked with,
especially those developing new space technologies, got really rankled—herself
included. Maybe it was because Masters seemed to treat everyone and everything
the same ... like work was one big beach party.

           
The government officials they dealt
with almost always shuddered when working with Masters. Even socializing with
him was a strain. Kaddiri thought that every time they got a new government
contract was a matter of luck. If it weren’t for his genius . . .

           
“Fourteen minutes to launch window
one,” she said.

           
“Thanks, Helen,” Jon replied. He
pushed his baseball cap up higher on his forehead, which made him look even
younger—like “Beaver” Cleaver. “Let’s get Roosevelt-One in position and ready.”

           
Kaddiri grimaced at another of
Masters’ quirks—he named his boosters, not just numbered them. He usually named
them after American presidents or
Hollywood
actors or actresses. Helen thought that if Jon had a dog, he would probably
number
it
instead.

           
Jon swung his headset microphone to
his lips: “Crew, Roosevelt-1 is moving stage center. Stand by.”

           
The interior of Masters’ converted
DC-10 was arranged much like the firing mechanism of a rifle. Like a cartridge
magazine, the two boosters were stored side by side in the forward section of
the one-hundred-twenty-feet-long, thirty- foot-wide cargo bay, which afforded
plenty of room to move around the fifty-feet-long, four-foot-diameter rockets
and their stabilizers. Forward of the storage area was the control center, with
all of the booster monitoring and control systems, and forward of the control
room was a pressure hatch which led to the flight deck—for safety’s sake, the
flight deck was sealed from the cargo section so any pressurization
malfunctions in the cargo end would not prevent the flight crew from safely
recovering the plane.

           
The back fifty feet of the cargo
hold was occupied by a large cylindrical chamber resembling the breech end of a
shotgun, composed of heavy steel and aluminum with numerous thick Plexiglas
viewports all around it. The boosters would roll down a track in the center of
the cargo hold into the chamber, and the chamber would be sealed from the rest
of the aircraft. Just prior to launch, the chamber would be depressurized
before opening the “bomb-bay” doors. With this system, the entire cargo section
of the aircraft did not have to be depressurized before launch. Floodlights and
high-speed video cameras inside the launch chamber and outside the DC-10 launch
plane were ready to photograph the entire launch sequence.

           
With two of Kaddiri’s assistants
with flashlights watching on either side, the first forty-three-thousand-pound
space booster began rolling on its tracks toward the center of the cabin. The
crew, especially the cockpit crew of two pilots and engineer, had to be
notified whenever one of these behemoth rockets was being moved. Whenever they
moved a rocket, the flight engineer had to begin transferring fuel to the side
where the booster was moved to keep the launch aircraft stable. The booster
moved about ten feet per minute, which was the same speed that a similar weight
in jet fuel could be transferred from body tanks to the corresponding wing
tanks.

           
In two minutes the booster was in
position in the center of the launch cabin, and it began its slow journey aft
into the launch chamber. This time, to ensure longitudinal stability as the
twenty-one-ton rocket moved aft, a large steel drum filled with eight thousand
gallons of jet fuel in the belowdeck cargo section would slowly move forward as
the booster moved aft, which would help to keep the aircraft stable; after the
booster was launched, the drum would quickly move aft to balance the plane.

           
It took much longer for the booster
to make its way aft, but it was finally wheeled into position in the chamber
and the heavy steel hatch closed. Once in place, retractable clamps held the
booster in place over the bomb-bay doors. “Roosevelt-One in position,” Kaddiri
called out as she peered through the observation ports in the chamber. “Flight
deck, confirm lateral and longitudinal trim.” “Aircraft trim nominal,” the
flight engineer reported a few seconds later. “Standing by.”

           
“Roger. Confirm hatch closed and
locked.”

           
Masters checked the console
readouts. “Launch-chamber hatch closed, locked, green lights on.”

           
“Engineer cross-check good, green
lights on,” the flight engineer reported after checking his readouts from the
flight deck.

           
Kaddiri reached into a green canvas
bag slung over her shoulder into a portable oxygen pack and withdrew an oxygen
mask, checked the hose and regulator, and then clicked the mask’s built-in
wireless microphone on. Her assistants in the aft end of the DC-10 did the same;
Masters and Foch had already donned their masks. “Oxygen On and
Normal
,” she said. She got thumbs-up from her
assistants after they checked their masks, then said, “Ready to depressurize
launch chamber.”

           
Masters got a thumbs-up from Foch,
then replied, “Oxygen On and
Normal
at the control console.” He called up the
cargo-section pressurization readout and displayed it in big numerals on a
monitor screen so both he and Foch could read them easily—two sets of eyes were
always better than one. “Launch chamber depressurizing—now.”

           
For all that cross-checking and
preparation, it was quite unspectacular. In two minutes the launch chamber was
depressurized and the cargo-bay pressure was stable. After monitoring it for
another minute to check for slow leaks, Masters removed his mask and radioed,
“Cargo-section pressure checks good, launch chamber fully depressurized, no
leaks.” The computer would continue to monitor the cabin pressure and warn the
crew of any changes. Masters and everyone else kept their masks dangling from
their necks . . . just in case.

           
“Data-link check.” Masters checked
to be sure that the booster was still exchanging information with the launch
computers. The check was all automatic, but it still took several long moments.
Finally: “Data connection nominal. Two minutes to launch window/’ Masters
turned to Colonel Foch. “We need final range clearance, Colonel.”

           
Foch was staring intently at one of
the screens on the console, which was displaying atmospheric data relayed from
the
White
Sands
Missile
Range
headquarters through their extensive sensor
network. “I show the winds at the maximum Q limits, Doctor Masters,” he said.
“We should abort.”

           
“
Roosevelt
says he’s a go,” Masters replied, ignoring
the warning and checking the readouts again. “Let’s proceed.” Jon looked at
Kaddiri as he hit the intercom button. “Helen?”

           
She removed her oxygen mask as she
walked back to the command console. “It’s pretty risky, Jon.”

           
“Helen, ‘pretty risky’ is not a
‘no.’ Unless I hear a definite no, I’d say we proceed.”

           
Foch cleared his throat. “Doctor, it
seems to me you’re taking a big chance here.” He glanced at Kaddiri, expecting
a bit more support from someone who obviously wasn’t sure of what Masters was
doing, but he got nothing but a blank, noncommittal expression. “You’re wasting
one of your boosters just to prove something. This isn’t a wartime scenario . .
.”

           
“Colonel, this might not be a war
we’re fighting, but to me it’s nothing less than an all-out battle,” Masters
said. “I have to prove to my customers, my stockholders, my board of directors,
and to the rest of the country that the ALARM system can deliver its payload on
time, on target.” He turned to Foch, and Kaddiri could see a very
uncharacteristic hardness in Masters’ young face. “I programmed these boosters
with reliability in mind—reliability to deliver as promised, and reliability to
do the mission in conditions such as this.”

           
Foch leaned forward and spoke
directly at Masters in a low voice. “You don’t have to tell me all this,
Doctor. I know what you want. You get paid if this thing gets launched. My
flight parameters insure both safety for ground personnel and reliability of
the launch itself. Yours only covers the launch. My question is, do you really
care what happens after that? I think you care more about your business than
the results of this mission.”

           
Masters glared at him. He whipped
off his baseball cap and stabbed at Foch, punctuating each sentence: “Listen,
Ralph, that’s my name on that booster, my name on those satellites, my name all
over this project. If it doesn’t launch, I take the heat. If it doesn’t fly, I
take the heat. If it doesn’t deliver four healthy satellites in their proper
orbits, I take the heat.

           
“Now you might think you know my
contracts, Ralph. You’re right—I do get paid if Roosevelt-One is launched. I
get paid if we bring it back without launching it, too. I’ve already gotten
deposits for the next six launches, and I’ve already received progress payments
for the next ten boosters. But you don’t know shit about my business, buddy.
I’ve got a dozen ways to fail, and each one can put me out of business faster
than you can take a pee. I
do
care
about that. And still I say, we launch. Now if you have any objections, say it
and we’ll abort. Otherwise issue range clearance, sit back, and watch the
fireworks.”

           
Helen Kaddiri was surprised. She’d
never seen Jon so wound up. He was right about the pressure on him and the
company—there were more than a dozen ways to fail. Friendly and unfriendly
suitors were waiting to snap up the company. The aerospace sector had fared
very poorly in the recent
U.S.
economic mini-recession, and it was
worsened by the declining outlook on all defense-industry stocks with the
advent of
glasnost, perestroika,
the
opening of
Eastern
Europe
, the
unification of
Germany
. Sky Masters, Inc., had to indeed prove itself on each flight.