Strike Force

“Shuttle astronauts did tethered spacewalks quite a bit,” Dave said. “Even Gemini and Apollo astronauts did little spacewalks all the time. Every Skylab mission had several spacewalks to service the experiments they were running.”

“But each spacewalk was preceded by months of training and years of design study and testing,” Ann said. “We’re trying to put all this together in hours. We need some experienced crewmen to send up there. I volunteer. Got any ideas for another?”

Patrick smiled and nodded. “Dave, get Kai Raydon on the phone for me,” he said. Dave smiled, nodded, then picked up the telephone.

“Raydon, the Shuttle pilot?” Ann asked. “Haven’t seen him at the bar in quite awhile — I’m sure he owes me a few rounds. Is he still with NASA?”

“Was,” Patrick said. “He was reassigned to Los Angeles Air Force Base and put in charge of a program that just got canceled, and he came to me recently looking for a flying job. You may have heard of the program, Ann: Hermes.”

“The European Space Agency spaceplane project? It was canceled years ago. Raydon’s not that old.”

“The name was deliberately used to throw people off the track,” Patrick said. “Kai’s been involved in another project using that name. You knew it as ‘Skybolt.’”

“Skybolt!” Ann Page exclaimed. “That’s my project! What in hell’s going on, sir?”

“Skybolt, the space-based laser?” Boomer asked. “It’s still up there?”

“Did you really believe the U.S. would spend two billion dollars and five years to launch a massive space station into orbit and then just leave it up there, Ann?” Dave Luger asked. “When Raydon was getting his Ph.D. in the Air Force Institute of Technology program his dissertation was on the reactivation of Skybolt.”

“I know, I know, General — I was on his doctorate panel,” Ann said. “The guy’s brilliant. But the proposal never went anywhere. I was in the Senate committee overseeing funding for military space programs, and I pushed several budget cycles for the money to reactivate it. It never happened.”

“Skybolt went on life support funding under HAWC’s advanced technology research budget,” Patrick explained. “Officially the money went toward refueling and servicing the Armstrong Space Station to keep it aloft, and to use the station’s systems as a risk reducer for the SpaceBased Radar and SpaceBased Infrared System programs. Unofficially, we funneled some money over to Skybolt. The money runs out at the end of this fiscal year. After that, there’s enough money for a maximum of three Shuttle flights over the following twelve months to strip whatever useful stuff we could off the station before it re-enters the atmosphere.”

“They don’t want to spend a few measly million a year to save a space station worth more than three billion?” Ann asked. “The characters in Congress can be real jerks sometimes — I should know. So Raydon’s been to Silver Tower?”

“A few times. That’s classified.”

“That’s good,” Ann said. “And he’s an experienced Shuttle jockey, so he can handle the docking chores. So we got me and Raydon to turn the station on — all we need is for young Hunter Noble to give us a ride up there.”

STURGEON RIVER STATE FOREST,

NEAR VERMILLION LAKE, MINNESOTA

THE NEXT AFTERNOON

“Okay, cadets, listen up,” Civil Air Patrol Captain Ed Harlow, commander of the Grand Rapids Composite Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, said. He and a group of thirty-six cadets surrounding him were in a grassy clearing in the middle of a large forest in the Sturgeon River State Forest, about fifty miles northeast of Grand Rapids in northeast Minnesota. The cadets, wearing camouflaged fatigues, baseball caps, and combat boots, ranged in age from fourteen to seventeen years old. “This is our final exercise for this encampment, but it’s also the most important, so pay attention.

“We’ve concentrated on a lot of the search, rescue, first aid, communications, and critical support functions of the Civil Air Patrol mission. But all of our procedures deal with using our equipment, technology, and skills to help others in distress. But what if we get in trouble while on a mission? What if you become lost or crash-land while on a flight? How do we even understand what it’s like to be in a search, survival, or escape-and-evasion situation? Our final exercise will be to see how well you can help yourself if you become involved in a difficult situation.

“This exercise is a confidence-builder rather than a procedural evolution,” the CAP commander went on. “Your objective is simple: collect as many different objective markers as you can in four hours and return your entire flight to the starting point in the center of the exercise area. The flight with the most markers collected in the shortest time wins.