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Chapter 25

"Is this really going to work, Dr. Friedet?"

The head of Ares Project shrugged. "It basically has to work, General Deiderichs. We're doing—by far—the largest construction project in space anyone's attempted. Without factories operating out there, we have to throw everything up there, and that's not an easy task. In fact, it's exceedingly hard, which is the reason that both NASA and Ares exist. In the past twenty years, we've added reusable first-stage heavy-lift vehicles and upped the cargo capacity of the shuttles. But the fact is that even if we ignore the fuel, we are trying to assemble a ship in orbit that masses two thousand tons. Fueled, Nike will mass nearly four times that. It's immense, General. So we need all the tricks we can get in order to get that much stuff into assembly orbit in time to meet your deadlines."

General Deiderichs nodded reluctantly. The schedule Glenn Friedet presented had been generated by Ares and NASA's engineers working together to find a way to move that immense mass of "stuff" into space in as short a time as possible. Deiderichs found it a bit bemusing. Eight thousand tons was absolutely nothing on an Earthbound scale; freight trains carried that much. But then, trains could use seventy cars or more for a single trip. The situation for space was more like having to expend the same time, effort and money the railroads did per train—more, actually—except your trains could only move one boxcar load at a time.

"Basically," Joe added, "we're taking advantage of the one thing we have plenty of now. Money. We're preempting everything everyone else has even in other countries by paying penalty fees. Sometimes huge fees. We've got our own scramlaunchers, a few of the Shuttle-C mods, Europe's EUROLaunch-4, and Japan and China's launch capacity too. We're negotiating with India now, though they're not going to be able to add that much. Still, every little bit helps. Fortunately, pretty much everyone has reusable first-stage stuff these days, however they do it. So if you're willing to spend money like water, you can get respectable turnaround times."

"If I read this right, we're looking at something like eighty to a hundred flights." The general shook his head. "The logistics will be a nightmare."

"General, you knew this was going to get ugly when we started," Friedet said. "That limitation comes from the payload capacity on each ship. Even the big ones only manage to approach two hundred tons at a shot—and none of them actually reach that number. The average is more like one hundred and forty tons per launch."

Joe rubbed his chin. "The actual limitation is size, more than mass. It'd be impossible to do this in any reasonable time if we were still limited to, say, things the size of the old Space Shuttle cargo bay. We'd have to send up some things in eight or ten separate pieces that would have to be put together, instead of two or three pieces. Some of our scramlaunchers can manage dimensions more than twice that now, which makes it—barely—doable, if we're really smart about what we ship so that we take maximum advantage of the payload capacity on each launch, and if we are ready to start assembling as soon as stuff gets up there."

"Still. That's an average of almost two launches per week. And assembling it will . . ." Deiderichs waved his hands, but Joe knew what he meant.

"Remote drones will be doing a lot of the assembly," Joe pointed out, "supervised on the ground and checked in orbit by experts. With A.J. and others helping to design the software that helps coordinate work like that—detecting the targets, translating the groundhog controller's directions into equivalents for space engineering, monitoring the assembly so that the drones can tell before they do something disastrous, projecting the feedback to the controllers so that they don't notice the time lag much, and so on—we can effectively have a far larger team in space. The first loads, of course, will be the manipulator drones."

Deiderichs winced. "I knew the idea was batted around for years, but we've only started to have good results with it, and there are so many debates about the designs. Are you going to get enough reliable drones for this kind of work?"

Ken Hathaway's face showed an interesting mixture of chagrin and pride. "Baker's Faeries have been performing amazingly well in far worse, less controlled conditions, including their manipulative capabilities—which I thought were such a waste when he designed them. We're going with modified Faerie designs for a lot of the construction drones. Not so many sensors and other redundancies that were absolutely necessary for things operating a hundred million miles off, more power, a bit bulkier, stronger manipulators and additional tool units to perform the work. But they're based on designs that have now proven themselves under fire—even when abused to near destruction—and that makes it possible for us to produce quite a few of them fast. We figure another month and a half and we'll be starting real construction, now that we have a nucleus of a space dry dock already up there."

"Modern design approaches and our testing of materials helps out too," Friedet pointed out. "For many of the internal components which aren't major structural load-bearing elements, we've developed flexible molding approaches. What that means is that we can send up a few mold forms and tanks of solidifying foam material and create a whole bunch of things like interior partitions and furniture—without having to ship the things up, pack them with extra space, and all that."

General Deiderichs pursed his lips as he examined the schedule again. "I still don't see any way we'll make the original deadline."

"Probably not," conceded Joe. "But given that under normal circumstances this would've been something like a ten-year effort, falling behind by about three to five months isn't something to gripe about. You have to allow for some problems, some wiggle room, some testing and reworking. Once Nike launches, everyone on it is absolutely and one hundred percent dependent on everything in her working right. Even with redundancy. I know you understand this, General, but I'm not sure how clear it is to other people. You might be old enough to remember the Columbia disaster?"

Deiderichs nodded. "Yes. I remember it quite vividly."

"I don't remember it personally, but if you read the stuff from around that time, there were so many people trying to argue that they should have "done something"—gone to the International Space Station and waited for rescue, stayed in orbit until someone could get there, fixed the ship somehow, and so on. These people just didn't grasp that it wasn't like someone getting stranded on a mountain top or out at sea. To them, the ISS was in space, the shuttle was in space, so obviously the shuttle should be able to just go over to the ISS and wait for rescue. We know that it's not like that—that the Columbia simply, physically, could not reach the ISS from that orbit. All the other so-called solutions were just as impossible or impractical. I don't know if some of our enthusiastic funders grasp that once Nike is under way, there will be nothing man-made that can catch her, and absolutely no way for anyone to help if something goes wrong."

"You may well be right. I'll do my best to convey that to the President and the Cabinet when I present the current plans. Personally, I agree with everything you say. Three months off is nothing at all compared to what we're asking you to do. But I'm still going to have to make excuses to the guys who are writing all the checks, and some of them are peeved enough that they're being made to support this at all."

"And I have to go back to Gupta and Baker," Hathaway said, "and let them know if they should start or not. And remember what Gupta's going to say if the answer is 'wait.'"

"I do indeed. And I sympathize, Major Hathaway. Dr. Gupta is undoubtedly the right choice for the job, but I do not envy anyone trying to give him bad news." The general frowned for a moment. "Tell them to proceed with designs, but to order no actual construction until I get back with the authorization. Technically, I shouldn't even allow them to begin design work, but I'm willing to take that much on my own responsibility."

"I'll try to make them understand that, General," Hathaway said.

"And I'll get right to it." The general stood up. Much as he hated having to shuttle back and forth to Washington, the President and his top people preferred in-person meetings on matters of importance, despite all the technological advances in remote communication. And if he was going to be conveying news of mixed impact, he definitely wanted to be there physically.

He stopped a moment. "Oh, yes, I almost forgot." He signed a paper that had been lying on his desk, then placed it in its envelope. "Dr. Buckley, would you do me a favor and deliver this? Thank you." He strode out of the office.

Joe looked down at the envelope. "What . . .? Ken, it's addressed to you. Why the hell did he give it to me?"

Hathaway stared at the envelope as though it was a viper. "I think I know. Damn."

"What?"

"The final selection for the command crew of Nike was being made sometime this week. You know General Steve Goldman was campaigning hard for it. He's got space experience too, and a lot of connections."

"Oh. And Deiderichs didn't want to be here when you found out."

"Yeah." Hathaway sighed. "Well, might as well get it over with."

He took the envelope from Joe, opened it, and read:

"Kenneth B. Hathaway, Colonel . . . yadda . . . You are hereby informed that you have been . . ."

He trailed off, and then suddenly bellowed: "COMMANDING OFFICER OF THE UNITED STATES INTERPLANETARY SPACECRAFT NIKE!"

"Congratulations, you dreaming son of a bitch!" came Deiderichs' voice from the other side of the door, which opened to reveal the general grinning at them. He came over and shook Hathaway's hand, which seemed somewhat limp with shock. "Now get your team to finish building it. Hold on, though."

He reached into his desk. "Goldman was right about one thing. You do need the rank to command a mission as important as this one." He opened the case, revealing different emblems than those currently on Hathaway's uniform. "Congratulations again, Brigadier General Hathaway."

Hathaway was clearly having trouble keeping his voice under control. His eyes looked suspiciously shiny.

"I would have sworn they wanted Goldman," he said huskily.

Deiderichs looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "At first, they did—and so did I. But that was before I got here and had a chance to see the situation. I know better than to take a team with a commander they already listen to and trust, and replace him just because it might be politically expedient. If I went and got someone else, they'd have to spend a year just building the same rapport you have with your team now. If they can build one at all. Just do me a favor and prove that I made the right decision."

"Sir!" Hathaway saluted. The general returned the salute, nodded to the others, and walked out the door.

Ken finally came out of his daze. "I am going to go tell Gupta and

A.J. and then I am going to go get a pass, and then I am going to go party like I have never partied before! And you're all invited!"

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Framed