Executive Intent

“Standing by, sir,” the officer in charge of the station’s active defenses replied. “All systems active.”

“Three minutes. Pirinclik radar lost contact.”

“Seeker?”

“It’s gotta be cooler than I’m expecting,” the Air Force senior master sergeant said. “Unslave the camera and search separately in case I’m way off.”

“You’re not,” Raydon said. “Relax and find it.”

“Damage control parties in position, sir.”

“Copy.” On the stationwide intercom he said, “All personnel, two minutes to-”

“Got it!” Lukas crowed. “It’s cold, not hot-they must’ve figured out a way to cool it off to make it harder to pick up on infrared.” She immediately slaved the camera to the infrared seeker and zoomed in. The visual image showed a simple black bullet-shaped object. “It looks like a payload, not the entire rocket-it must’ve already staged.”

“Countermeasures ready?”

“Defensive systems ready, sir.”

Raydon punched in instructions in his computer keyboard, then opened a red-covered switch and activated it, giving commander’s authority to fire weapons. “Attention on the station, countermeasures under way. Permission to engage, Seeker. Shoot when ready.”

“Radiating now.” Lukas entered commands into her computer, activated her own authorization switch, and hit a keyboard button. Moments later, an alert flashed on the monitors. “Automatic tracking failed,” she announced. She grasped a joystick handle on the right side of her console and squeezed the slewing lever, which brought up a set of crosshairs on her camera monitor. Adjusting the field of view with her left hand while watching the monitor, she carefully placed the crosshairs on the target and squeezed a trigger. “Targeting lasers firing…COIL activating.”

Mounted below the pressurized modules of Armstrong Space Station, in the place where the controversial Skybolt magnetohy-drodynamic antiballistic-missile laser had been mounted, was a simple boxlike structure with several articulating turrets around it. Small targeting lasers shot from the turrets began tracking the incoming target, precisely measuring distance and bearing.

When the object was in range-about two hundred miles, or just forty seconds to impact-the main weapon activated. The structure contained the Hydra, a five-hundred-kilowatt Chemical-Oxygen-Iodine Laser, or COIL, a smaller version of the two megawatt COIL aboard the YAL-1 Airborne Laser and the AL-52 Dragon antiballistic-missile laser aircraft. Chlorine and hydrogen peroxide were mixed under high pressure, instantly producing highly energetic oxygen, which was compressed by nitrogen and mixed with iodine, creating laser light. The light was amplified by mirrors and optics into a beam and sent to a beam director and through an adaptive-optics focusing mirror, which sent a nickelsize spot of intense laser light on the target.

As soon as Lukas pulled the trigger to activate the COIL, they could see tiny sparkles of light around the target-but it wasn’t from the laser. “Maneuvering thrusters-the sucker’s maneuvering,” Lukas said.

“Stay with it, Seeker,” Raydon urged her. “Nail that sucker.”

“I’m not sure if I have a coherent beam without auto tracking-”

“The targeting lasers didn’t malfunction, only the main turret,” Raydon said. “You’re the tracker now. Get it!”

Lukas released the trigger when the computer told her the laser volley had ended; she had to wait ten precious seconds until she could fire the next volley. “Sure would like to have another COIL up here,” she said.

“We’re lucky to have the one,” Raydon said. “Get ready for a second shot. All personnel, brace for impact and report any damage to me immediately.”

As soon as the computer said she could fire again, she pulled the trigger and sent another burst at the target. “It has a pattern,” she said. “I’ve got you now, sucker.” Carefully matching the target’s gyrations, she was able to keep the COIL beam on target long enough for the laser to burn a hole in the target’s thin skin with just seconds to spare…

…and as the beam drove itself through the target, it broke apart and showered Armstrong Space Station…with a cloud of paper confetti, traveling at eighteen thousand miles per hour but causing no damage.

“Good job, Seeker,” Raydon said. Lukas safed the COIL and secured her station, then let herself go limp in zero-g, being careful to use a towel to wipe away the sweat before it floated off her skin and became both a nuisance and a hazard. “Telemetry says you had the beam on target for three-point-eight seconds. I’d say that would be enough to take down a real antisatellite weapon.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lukas said. “But I wish we could do an auto engagement one of these days so I could sit back and watch the Hydra work.”