The Anomaly

The Anomaly

by

Will Anderson

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Will Anderson on Smashwords

The Anomaly

Copyright © 2010 by Will Anderson

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my wife, Jane, an avid reader of all types of literature, for putting up with me during the hours it took to write this book, and then for all the help and support she gave me by reading the chapters, providing insight on the content, and helping me edit the book. I would never have finished without her support. I would also like to thank Matt Hartnett and those many others who read the book or chapters, or listened while I read parts of it, and provided great comments. Thanks also go to the folks at the SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida, for helping me understand SEAL Teams, their history, and their current and planned equipment and submersibles. Lastly, I think it important to mention the Internet, which I used as a research tool and without which the research process would have been nowhere near as complete.

Chapter 1

Dime

A late-afternoon commuter train, filled to capacity, rolled to a stop in an underground station in Tokyo. The doors opened and the mass of exiting passengers surged onto the station platform and made their way through the mass of waiting passengers. One of those exiting the train, a tall, light-gray-eyed Caucasian, stood out in the midst of the sea of shorter, dark-eyed Asians. From the platform, he walked toward an adjoining subway station through corridors that would pass for an upscale mall in the United States. He marveled at the well-lit, clean shops that lined the passageways and the obvious lack of crime that allowed expensive goods to be displayed behind thin pieces of glass only a few feet from the commuting public. A public throbbing with energy, yet polite and quick to smile, particularly the groups of children dressed alike in school uniforms, returning home from all-day outings in the capital city.

He walked past a gun shop where no real guns were sold, only plastic models–realistic and avidly collected–but only replicas. How different from the U.S. where real weapons of nearly any type could be purchased almost anywhere, and where crime statistics told how often they were used. In a display case, he noticed a model of a lightweight 9-millimeter Berretta pistol. Involuntarily his left arm tightened slightly against the side of his chest. He felt the heft of the same weapon carried in a holster under his shoulder, only his was real, not plastic.

The man might easily have been a foreign businessman working in Tokyo, and on his way home. But he was not. Peter Dime was an agent of a foreign government. He was not tired from a long day in an office, he was just beginning his day, on his way to work. He was not engaged in the pursuit of commerce, he was engaged in the pursuit of information, under orders from his employer, the American Central Intelligence Agency.

In recent years, as more of the world's nations embraced free markets and capitalism, the international corporations that accompany capitalism had grown in wealth and power. Emboldened by this growth, they began to employ, in addition to influence peddling and bribery, new sophisticated and subtle means to alter world events as corporate needs demanded. The Agency recognized this fact and also that the most sophisticated and subtle of these means involved modern technology. Since most of the expertise associated with modern technology resides within these same large corporations, not within the world's governments, a new role for the CIA had been established–covert corporate espionage.

Along with others in the Agency, Dime was assigned to keep an eye on the high-tech industries of the Pacific Rim, specifically the aerospace sector. Since Japan was the aerospace leader in that part of the world, he was based in that country, assigned to the American Embassy in Tokyo, rostered as a minor diplomatic official. And tonight he planned to visit the headquarters of one of that sector's largest corporations, Tanaka Aerospace.

He was well equipped for the job. As a youth his parents lived and worked in Japan. He knew their language and a great deal about their culture. After returning to the States for college, he earned an undergraduate degree in engineering and a graduate degree in business. During his undergraduate years he joined the Naval ROTC. After graduate school, while on active duty, looking for something completely different from student life, he volunteered for the Navy's SEALs. Joint intelligence gathering missions while a SEAL linked him with Agency operatives. It was a simple matter to switch allegiances when his active-duty time was up.

One of the last to be literally pushed on the crowded subway, he stood like the proverbial canned sardine for a long 20-minute ride, walked a short distance from the station, climbed several flights of stairs, and arrived at the door to Nora Neece's apartment. He used his key to let himself in. He knew where the bourbon was, poured himself a healthy portion over ice, and sat down to wait. The glass was half empty when Nora walked in.

A pretty blonde with all the right curves, born and raised in Los Angeles, she had been lured to Tokyo by stories of the fantastic money attractive hostesses could earn in the city's upscale bars–hostesses, not prostitutes. But honest money could not cover the cost of living in one of the most expensive cities in the world and her savings disappeared. By pure chance, Peter Dime had been in the same hotel bar the night she decided to cross the line.

Well fortified with half-a-dozen drinks bought by a group of businessmen, she agreed to go with one of them to his room. A goodly sum of money was promised. But as they rose to leave, a cold chill of reality slapped her in the face, and she changed her mind. When she told the businessman, he became angry, and he and his friends maneuvered her forcefully from the bar to the hotel elevators, planning to take her up to the man's room. It was there that Dime caught up with them. He saw in her eyes a silent plea for help as she passed his table.

It took only a few seconds for the men to change their minds. Dime was an expert in most forms of hand-to-hand combat. He only had to hurt one of them to make his point. A powerful jab to the man's mid section left him on his knees gasping for breath. The man's friends backed away.

Dime took her to his apartment that night and gave her his bed while he slept on the couch. The following morning he made her an offer. If she promised to help him, he would pay for lessons to improve her rudimentary Japanese language skills, and have her trained as a secretary. Half enchanted with him, half afraid of him, and with no real alternative, she accepted. When the training was complete she was placed in a company that provided temporary secretarial services, a company with ties to the American intelligence community. After a couple of part-time clerical assignments she was judged to be sufficiently experienced and was assigned to replace a secretary in the Tokyo offices of Tanaka Aerospace–a secretary who became ill with a stomach ailment, suddenly and mysteriously. Nora had worked there about two weeks.

Did you get the keys? Dime asked when she closed the door.

Yes. They were on a ring in a closet under a sink, she answered. I had copies made at lunch. Then put them back, exactly like you told me.

Temporary secretaries were not given office keys at Tanaka Aerospace, but while working late one evening, Nora overheard a cleaning woman mention a spare set hidden in a custodial closet–the woman forgot hers that day. Nora had been looking for a way to get Dime a set since she had gone to work there.

Let me see them, he said, eager to find out which key went with which door. Then you'll have to help me label them.

Don't worry, we'll do that later, she said, looking at him and smiling. She did not see him often, but when she did she enjoyed his company. He never made a pass at her. Business and pleasure were kept separate in his world, she guessed. But after tonight she might not see him again. Once he used the keys, he might not be back. She decided to give him a memory he would not forget. Something that might bring him back.

I'm not going to simply give them to you, she said and smiled coyly. You have to earn them. She took the keys out of her purse and slid the key ring over a finger. They made a jingling sound when she shook them in front of him.

Bring them here and we'll talk about it, he said, returning her smile and patting the arm of his chair.

Oh, no. Not that easy, she teased. I have something else in mind. She turned and walked out of the room, gesturing with one hand for him to follow, unbuttoning her blouse with the other. By the time she reached the bathroom she was down to her underwear. With little hesitation he followed her, shedding clothes as he went.

She turned on the shower, made sure the water was warm, then climbed in. She stood under the spray, holding the keys behind her back with both hands. He climbed in after her, kissed her, took his time removing her wet bra and wet lacy panties, then stepped back to look at her. The water flowed down over her body, covering it, sensuous and shimmering in the shower light. She was a beautiful woman, with full breasts, a thin waistline, and perfectly curved hips. With a suggestive look she brought one hand forward. It held a bar of soap. She leaned back against the shower wall and closed her eyes. He took it from there.

Telerobot

Over six-hundred miles to the southwest, on the Japanese island of Tanegashima, lay the NASDA, National Space Development Agency, Space Center. In the block-house firing room, the Launch Director, a short man with a paunch and a flushed face, in charge of the team responsible for launching the huge rocket in view through the thick block-house windows, paced nervously back and forth behind his console. Duty on the remote island, far from his home and family in Tokyo, was always difficult, but the last month had been the most difficult one he could remember. Under pressure from the Center Director, he agreed to add an extra launch to the summer schedule. Additional funding–all that was needed and more–was made available for overtime and extra staff to man a round-the-clock operation, but preparations were not going smoothly.

During the day yet another problem forced him again to scrub the launch. It was now nighttime. That left only tomorrow in the summer window. If they did not launch tomorrow they would have to wait until winter. The Launch Director knew he would lose face with his superiors, perhaps even lose his job. He cursed the restrictions local fisherman had negotiated with the government that limited normal launches to only two periods each year, although in his heart he understood the objections to the hazards of launching huge rockets over ancient fishing grounds.

Other than the fact it's a Tanaka communications satellite, I know nothing about this payload, let alone what the problem is, the Launch Director complained to a subordinate. Frustrated by repeated delays, all he could do was wait until the special payload crew finished their work and Mission Control gave him the green light to continue the countdown.

And I don't understand all the secrecy surrounding it, he added, raising his arms, waving them in gestures of futility. None of our regular crew has even been allowed to see the satellite. I've never experienced this level of secrecy with a commercial payload. We've been forced to treat it like a military payload!

At the front of the room, on large-screen television monitors, were several views of the launch pad. He stopped pacing and looked at the monitors. In spite of the anger, he could not subdue his enormous pride in the high-technology, all-Japanese, multi-stage launch vehicle, with its LH/LOX, liquid-hydrogen/liquid-oxygen, engines, and its two attached solid-propellant rocket boosters. Bathed in the brilliance of flood lights, the towering machine dominated the night scene. Rising in the air over 50 meters, poised to lift its payload into orbit, it seemed to him a work of art. Night mist in the sea air, caught by flood lights, blew softly toward it, curled around it, caressed it, then disappeared beyond the lights and into the darkness. The scene calmed him. He sat down, his eyes riveted to the monitors.

High above the ground, near the top of the launch vehicle, engineers and technicians could be seen. He watched them carry tools and equipment across an upper catwalk from the vehicle to the service tower and then begin their descent down the tower. Only one man remained on the catwalk, leaning into a large access opening in an upper fairing of the vehicle. The opening allowed entry into the payload compartment, cavernous, over 4 meters in diameter and 12 meters high. The Launch Director could not see inside the compartment. He could not see the two satellites inside the compartment, not one as he had been told.

The two satellites were stacked vertically. The lower one, the one the Launch Director knew about, was a Tanaka communications satellite destined for a high-inclination medium-altitude orbit where it would join others as the spare satellite for a new constellation. The new constellation was designed to provide worldwide coverage for mobile telecommunications. The problem delaying the launch was not with this satellite, however, but with the one stacked above it.

The problem had surfaced during final check-out tests. One of the satellite's drive units, part of the deployment system for a special set of panels, was not functioning properly. Normal procedure for such a repair would be to return the entire rocket assembly on its rail-mounted Movable Launcher the 500 meters to the Vehicle Assembly Building. Once inside, the fairings that constituted the protective skin of the payload compartment would be removed, and the satellite brought down and taken to one of the clean-room labs in the building. There, the repairs would be made in a controlled environment. However, with such a short time left in which to launch, the decision had been made to replace the faulty drive unit in place. It made the job much more difficult and a gamble, but nothing in the space business ever came easily.

A technician and two helpers had been working for hours to replace the unit. Only a few more minutes and we'll have the new drive installed, the technician called out from deep inside the compartment, his words muffled by the intricate labyrinth of satellite components, ducting and wiring harbored within.

I'll let Mission Control know we're almost ready, Kato Akira, the man on the catwalk, yelled back to the technician. Akira, chief designer of the satellite, a thin nervous man with sparse hair, pulled his head outside the payload compartment, straightened up, rubbed a back stiff from hours spent in cramped quarters, then repeated the technician's message into his headset.

Mission Control was located in the Tanaka Spacecraft Control Center, far to the north, on the southern shore of the island of Kyushu, Japan. Mission Control acknowledged the report, then told Akira they were loading diagnostic software into their computers and would commence automated check-out of the satellite as soon as Akira told them the change-out was complete. Akira picked up his clipboard. On it was a checklist he had worked out for inspecting the repair. He read it over for what seemed like the hundredth time, trying to think of anything he might have forgotten.

Done, announced the technician as he and his helpers unfolded themselves onto the catwalk from inside the payload compartment, bringing with them their tools and equipment and pulling power and signal cables out from within. Check it out before we button up, but you won't find anything wrong.

I'm sure you're right, Akira said, climbing into the compartment. I'll just run through this check list and we'll be done. Get ready to reinstall the access cover as soon as I'm out.

Holding a high-powered light he climbed through the opening into the compartment and maneuvered himself to a position where he could see the upper satellite. Much larger than Akira, it reminded him of a giant insect, a predator with claw-like end-effector hands on the ends of two robotic arms, with video-camera eyes peering at him from oddly pointing gimbals. Its orbital-maneuvering engine, with large, long propellant tanks, brought to mind the torso of the insect. And on each side of the satellite, a set of panels stacked in a deployment mechanism, cast odd shadows about the compartment giving the appearance of rumpled wings.

As he climbed an access ladder attached to the inside of a fairing, an eerie feeling came over him. Was he intruding in the embryonic cocoon of some new space life-form? Was this telerobotic machine a precursor to the way in which Earthkind would populate space? He shook his head, as if to shake away the thoughts. I'm so tired, I'm beginning to hallucinate, he told himself.

When he reached a small platform attached to the fairing, he stepped off the ladder and took out his clipboard. He read each item on his checklist, made the corresponding inspection, then checked off the item. He found no discrepancies. As the technician predicted, the installation of the new drive unit looked perfect.

Mission Control, Akira said into his headset.

Mission Control, go ahead, came the reply.

I need a partial deployment of the stealth panels.

Roger that.

A short moment passed while signals from Mission Control, traveling at the speed of light, raced through microwave links to the island Space Center, then through the Center's data communications network and onto the launch pad. At the pad they crossed an umbilical between the service tower and the payload compartment, then routed themselves through the myriad of wiring that made up the nervous system of the telerobot.

Akira waited, watching the newly installed drive unit. Suddenly it started to move and the panels began to open. He watched as they partially unfolded, stopping just clear of the fairings that defined the inside edges of the compartment. On orbit these panels would shield the satellite as would a coat of armor, not from a spear or sword, but from detection by radar. The panels would absorb and deflect electromagnetic energy transmitted from any such radar, preventing a return of energy back to the inquiring system.

Re-stow the panels, he told Mission Control and watched as the panels folded back into their stowed configuration. With a last lingering look, he climbed down the ladder and out of the shell protecting his odd creation, back into the world of earthbound humans. The access cover was screwed in place, and he followed the technician and helpers across the catwalk and down the service tower. The drive unit worked perfectly. As far as Akira was concerned, his satellite was ready for launch.

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With the repairs finished and the payload shroud buttoned up, the computers at Mission Control initiated their final checkout of the special payload. Each inquiry, or stimulus, sent out from the computers elicited a response which traveled back to the computers where it was compared with an anticipated response–a signature stored in memory. In less than an hour, the thousands of components and subsystems that made up the telerobotic satellite were tested and judged to be operationally within tolerance. Mission Control then examined the timeline for the mission. A launch window was computed and the firing room informed. The Launch Director sighed with relief when the call came. He now had the okay to go for launch in the morning at 0700 hours local time.

Search

Dime's watch alarm woke both of them. It was well after midnight. He had slept only a few hours, but he wasn't tired. He rolled out of bed and began to dress.

Nora's eyes opened slowly. I wish you wouldn't go, she said. I'm worried something might happen tonight.

Don't, he said. I know what I'm doing. I'll be okay.

The words gave little relief.

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Dime exited the subway about a block from the building that housed the Tanaka offices. Over his shoulder hung a bag filled with equipment he would use this night. He looked at his watch. It was 2:00 AM. He walked down an unlit alley to the rear of the building. The corporate headquarters offices occupied several floors in the building, but the main offices were on the 25th floor. Nora had described the building's layout, particularly that floor. He had keys to all the doors. The cleaning people would be in the building for another three hours. They would make enough noise to cover his activity. Should be a piece of cake, he told himself.

Dime entered the building through a service entrance. He found stairs beside a freight elevator, and started climbing, his soft-soled shoes noiseless. He stopped every few floors to catch his breath and listen. On the 15th floor, he heard someone open the stairwell door two floors above and start down. He assumed it was a watchman who had finished checking the 17th floor and was using the stairs to descend one floor. He guessed that would be the pattern until the watchman reached the ground floor, when he would ride the elevator back to the top and begin the cycle again. Dime felt he was right when he heard a door on the landing above him open and close.

On the 20th floor he heard the cleaning crew chatting among themselves. On the 25th floor he heard nothing. He waited again to catch his breath then carefully opened the stairwell door. A hall running the width of the building presented itself. It was well lit. No one was in sight. He could see damp spots on the floor where it had been recently mopped. No need to worry about the cleaning crew. They were progressing down the building, not up. At end of the hall he saw his objective, the entrance to the office suite of the Tanaka Aerospace CEO, Toshio Tanaka.

Dime closed the door quietly and waited for the cleaning crew to use the freight elevator after finishing the 20th floor–the noise would cover him in case someone was in one of the offices. When he heard the elevator start, he stepped out in the hall, walked directly to the CEO suite, unlocked the entrance door and let himself in. He closed the door behind him and re-locked it. The suite was unoccupied. He picked out a suitable spot to hide, behind a large desk, and tried to get comfortable sitting on the floor. Nothing to do but wait until a watchman came by. Nora had told him there would be two watchmen, coming on one hour intervals.

He surveyed the office suite. He was not sure where to begin looking, or precisely what to look for. This was a fishing expedition. A large percentage of Tanaka Aerospace products were exported to the U.S. and concern had been mounting within the Agency over the influence this company, and others from the Pacific-rim, were having on U.S. trade policies and legislation. The U.S. kept its markets open, while certain Pacific-rim countries, Japan among them, kept major portions of theirs effectively closed. The U.S. had been unable to change the situation, with a huge trade deficit that proved the point. The Agency suspected Tanaka Aerospace was a major part of the problem, funneling money through Washington lobbyists into congressional coffers for favorable votes on trade legislation. There was also suspicion something else was underway, something that went well beyond the simple use of money. But they had no specific proof. That was what Dime hoped to find in these offices, or at least something that would bring him a step closer to the proof.

The sound of footsteps interrupted his thoughts–footsteps of a watchman stopping, checking doors, making sure they were locked. He noted the time and set his watch alarm to vibrate on 15-minute intervals. When the footsteps faded, he took a flashlight from his bag, attached its clamp to his shoulder and turned it on. The file cabinets in the outer office were locked but it was not difficult to pick the locks and he did it quickly. He began scanning files. When he came to something he thought might be important, he photographed it. A few minutes after the third watch alarm he stopped and hid again. Exactly on the one hour mark, footsteps came, the door was checked, and the footsteps receded.

After he finished with the file cabinets, he searched the desks. When he finished with the desks he took from his bag a miniaturized electronic device designed to copy, bit for bit, the information on personal-computer storage media. One by one Dime took every diskette and CD he could find and copied its contents onto the device's hard drive. He left the computers alone, knowing any use would be logged and time tagged–evidence he had been there.

The second hour was nearly gone when he finished in the outer offices. He waited again for the watchman to come and go, then unlocked the door to Tanaka's private office. It was large and opulent, situated in one corner of the building, its windows looking out to the east and south on Tokyo's still brightly-lit nighttime panorama. An office fit for a king.

When Dime finished with the contents of the cabinets and the desk, he paused and sat down in the large swivel chair behind the desk–Tanaka's chair. He looked at his watch. In twenty minutes the next watchman would come by. The cleaning crew would be leaving soon. Prudence dictated that he leave. Use the cleaning crew, the noise they made, their conversation, as cover. Get out unnoticed! That made sense. Once the crew had left the building, it would be as quiet as a tomb. The watchmen might hear him.

But he did not leave. He could not leave. He doubted he had yet uncovered anything of importance, but he knew something of importance was here, in this room. A sixth sense told him. All he had to do was find it.

Dim though it was, the early morning light coming through the office windows was bright enough to illuminate the furnishings, the paintings, the other art in the room. Dime turned slowly in the chair and took it all in. He knew art. He knew Japanese art, and was familiar with this genre. It was modern. It seemed in harmony with the decor of the room, which he guessed had been redone recently. Then he spotted something not in harmony–a painting of an earlier period than the rest. He smiled when he saw it. He knew what it was hiding.

Dime went to the painting and lightly felt along the outside of the frame. His fingers found a latch and he undid it. The painting swung out on hinges revealing a safe. The painting had not been replaced when the room was redecorated.

Dime checked the time–down to fifteen minutes. He would have to hurry. He took a small motorized piece of gear from his bag and attached its three legs to the door of the safe using small suction cups on the ends of the legs. He adjusted the suction cups so the legs evenly surrounded the combination knob. This had the effect of aligning the motor's shaft with the axis of the knob. He then coupled the shaft to the knob with another suction cup. Next he attached a small microphone to the door, its lead wire running into an electronics box. The box contained a microcomputer, as well as the battery and drive electronics for the motor.

He flipped a switch on the box and watched as the motor turned the knob back and forth, the computer listening to the tumblers in the lock, analyzing the sounds, steadily honing in on the combination. He watched a computer estimate of the combination on a display on the box. When the numbers stopped changing, the motor stopped. He turned the handle and pulled it toward him. The safe opened. Gadgets were great when they worked.

Dime's watch read one minute left on the hour. He closed the safe's door, swung the painting back in position, and turned off his light. One minute later he heard a watchman again come and go. Too close, he told himself. Bordering on stupidity! A few minutes early and the watchman would have heard the motor. A minute early and he would have seen the light. Dime thanked the Japanese psyche for its punctuality, went back to the safe and reopened it.

Inside were bank securities and cash–not of interest–and a small box. He opened the box. It contained one CD. He had copied others found in Tanaka's desk, presumably backups for a hard drive. But why was this CD in a safe? he asked himself. Perhaps it contained information too sensitive to leave on a hard drive.

The room was getting brighter with the morning sun. He hurried to copy the CD. When he finished, he replaced it and all the other items in the safe as quickly as he could, then shut and locked the door. He packed his gear and left, checking the offices on his way out to make sure everything was as he found it. The cleaning crew had left the building, but he was careful to be quiet and avoid the watchmen, and was down the stairwell and out on the street in a matter of a minutes. He felt good. The operation had been clean. He guessed the CD had important information on it. He could not wait to get to the embassy and find out what it was.

Launch

At 0600 hours the Launch Director ordered his team to resume the countdown at T minus 60 minutes and the firing room came alive. The launch computers were activated and began, in sequence, to sample sensors that monitored the status of the launch-vehicle's systems. Each member of the launch team concentrated on the computer checks of the systems for which he or she was responsible. When these checks showed all systems ready, and the Director had completed his review of weather conditions on the island and downrange, the decision to go-for-launch was announced. Less cautious than normal, eager to launch on this last day of the summer window, he chose to ignore a report of upper-level wind shear along the early atmospheric portion of the flight trajectory.

At T minus 30 minutes the crew at the launch pad started to evacuate the area.

At T minus 20 minutes the IMU, the Inertial Measurement Unit, was aligned. The onboard computers were then told the pad's location and velocity in spatial coordinates, and the orientation of the vehicle relative to the pad. The onboard computers would use this information to calculate the position and attitude of the machine in flight. Minutes later the final update of the mission data set was loaded, thus enabling the computers to calculate and command the trajectory through the atmosphere and on into orbit.

At T minus 15 minutes the service tower catwalks began slowly to retract, clearing the view for visual inspections using the multitude of video cameras at the pad.

At T minus 5 minutes the APUs, the Auxiliary Power Units, were fired up and the electrical systems were switched to onboard power. With hydraulic pressure available, checkout of the attitude-control system was initiated, and the rocket-engine nozzles were cycled through a range of test orientations. The propellant tanks were topped off and the fuel umbilicals dropped away. Tank vents were closed and tank pressures began to rise toward the levels required for engine ignition.

At T minus 1 minute the onboard computers took control and began to run through programmed last-minute checks. These included self checks comparing each computer in the system with redundant units operating in parallel.

At T minus 10 seconds the computers commenced main-engine ignition. Software commands fired igniters in the turbopump gas generators, then opened valves in the propellant lines that fed the generators. Pressure in the unvented propellant tanks forced LH and LOX to flow to the generators where the liquids vaporized and ignited, producing hot, high-pressure gases. The gases expanded through turbines driving fuel and oxidizer pumps to higher and higher speeds.

At T minus 5 seconds the computers sensed sufficient pressure levels at the pump outlets, and valves to the engine's thrust chambers were opened. Fuel and oxidizer flowed into the chambers and ignited, the fiery holocaust within the chambers rapidly building main-engine pressures to their design values.

At T minus 0 seconds the computers, after sensing a Main-Engine-OK signal, fired igniters in the two solid-propellant rocket boosters attached to the left and right sides of the rocket assembly, sending bursts of flame that lit the combustible propellant, forcing white-hot pressurized gases through the rockets' nozzles. With a total thrust of nearly half again its weight, the launch vehicle came alive with vibration and upward force, straining powerfully against the support structure that held it to the pad.

Almost simultaneously the firing room sent the most important command in any launch–the command to detonate explosives that would shatter the support structure that held the machine Earthbound. Suddenly free, it began to ascend out of a cloud of rocket exhaust, dust, and steam from water sprayed to cool the launch pad, accompanied by the deafening crackling and roar of its solid boosters and main engine, with their long plumes of brilliant white, orange and yellow flame.

As the machine rose, the computers rapidly swiveled the rocket nozzles from side to side, struggling to keep it upright and clear of the service tower. Then, as altitude increased, it slowly nosed over, adding downrange velocity to the over 400 meters-per-second eastward toss provided by the earth's rotation.

As it rose still higher, the vehicle became lighter, devouring itself with an insatiable appetite for propellants, accelerating faster and faster as it climbed. A creature of motion, almost alive, eagerly sacrificing itself to accomplish the mission, to meet the objectives.

As it rose higher still, its structure began to vibrate. Coming up on max-q, was heard on the firing room communications net. The shaking became severe in response to the atmospheric buffeting that accompanied that point in the flight, designated max-q, when the aerodynamic pressure on the structure reached a maximum. Then it happened.

What was that? shouted the controller assigned to monitor structural load levels. All my accelerometer traces just went off scale!

The Launch Director grimaced as a sudden shot of pain from his ever-present ulcer hit him full force in the stomach. He remembered the report of wind shear. We must have passed through it at max-q, he told himself. Wind shear, a sudden change in the velocity of the wind, could cause aerodynamic forces acting on the structure to increase rapidly. Too rapidly for the control system to lean the vehicle into the wind and lower the forces to levels that would cause no harm.

The Launch Director knew he would be blamed if any damage had occurred. Eager to avoid postponing the flight he had elected to ignore the wind-shear warning. He had gambled, but lost. His outward composure hid the anxiety he felt as he pressed the talk button on his microphone.

Any damage? he asked.

An eternity, just several seconds long, passed. Then, one by one, the launch controllers gave their reports. All were nominal except for one. Power to the onboard computer system had been interrupted momentarily during the wind-shear encounter. The Launch Director felt the knot in his stomach tighten further. He agonized over his bad luck. Perhaps an offering at the Shinto Shrine on the way to his quarters would help restore it. Perhaps the problem could be overcome and the mission would become successful. Perhaps, perhaps, he muttered to himself. But nothing could change one fact–the computer system would go into its fail-safe mode following the power interruption, and would guide the launch vehicle into a temporary low-Earth orbit. They had deviated from the timeline and he would have to answer to his superiors even if the eventual mission was successful.

At T plus 1 minute 53 seconds the two solid-fuel rockets burned themselves out. The computer system then fired explosive separation devices fracturing the connections between them and the main liquid-fueled rocket. The solids slowly lost speed, arced over and began their long fall back to earth.

At T plus 6 minutes 39 seconds the main engine ran out of fuel. Again the computer system fired explosives, separating the now dry first stage from the second stage, the stage that contained the payload. The computers then ignited the second-stage engine, continuing the journey into space.

When the computers were content with the trajectory and velocity, the engine was shut down. The second stage continued to gain altitude along an elliptical path until it reached the apogee, or high point of the initial orbit, where the engine was again ignited, briefly, to add energy and circularize the orbit. The stage, with its payloads secure within, then coasted unpowered but safe, in a stable near-circular orbit above the earth in the quiet domain of space.

Briefing

Shortly after the launch, three men entered the briefing room at the island Space Center and sat down at a table on a dais facing a small assembled audience of press and television reporters. In the middle seat, the Center Director, an older man, still robust but with hair turning white, introduced himself, then the Launch Director, and then a representative of Tanaka Aerospace, chief engineer Kato Akira.

I have a short statement to read, then we'll answer your questions as best we can at this time, the Center Director began, his voice loud and resolute. "At 7:00 o'clock this morning we launched one of our latest multi-stage vehicles. The payload was a Tanaka Aerospace medium-altitude communications satellite along with its apogee 'kick motor'. The satellite is a spare for a new satellite constellation designed to provide mobile telecommunications service to and from nearly any point on the Earth.

Normally in such a launch, he continued reading, "the payload is inserted into a transfer orbit by the launch vehicle, and climbs until it reaches the apogee, or high point, of the orbit. At that point, the kick motor is fired to circularize the orbit.

Unfortunately, a problem was encountered, he said without looking up, and the payload was not inserted into its transfer orbit. Initial checks revealed that the onboard computers suffered an upset early in the flight and went into a fail-safe mode. In this mode the computers guided the machine, still carrying the payload, into a low-altitude orbit. The fail-safe mode was designed to handle the type of problem that occurred and will allow us to conduct a detailed check of all systems while in a stable, low-altitude orbit, and with plenty of propellant remaining. With plenty of propellant, we have options available that will allow us to complete the mission successfully.

Several hands were raised for questions. The Center Director ignored them and continued to read his prepared statement.

I need to emphasize that we are being cautious because we are using a new and unusual computer configuration. The Tanaka communications-satellite computer system for this flight is doubling as the launch-vehicle computer system. Since we lose the launch vehicle during re-entry, we decided to eliminate nearly all of its computer system and the expense that goes with it.

He looked up from his statement. We will take our first question now, he said and pointed to a reporter.

Can you tell us what caused the computer upset?

The evidence seems to point to a momentary loss of electrical power.

Do you know what caused the power loss?

A severe wind shear was encountered just as we reached max-q, the point where the outside aerodynamic pressure is at a maximum. The Center Director turned his head and glanced unpleasantly at the Launch Director, whose eyes were downcast, staring at the floor in front of him. We think that strong structural vibrations during that period intermittently shorted the computer power-supply.

If the failure occurred at that point, why did the vehicle continue on course? a second reporter asked. What kept it on course with a failed computer? That seems odd.

The Launch Director's eyes rose and he looked out at the reporter. That's a good question, he said. It is odd, and we are not completely positive that a wind-shear-induced power failure did cause the problem. There could be another explanation, although it eludes us at this time. He made this statement without real conviction. When he finished, he shifted uncomfortably in his chair, trying to find a position where the pain in his stomach would go away.

Kato Akira leaned forward to speak. He wanted to make sure that these reporters were convinced that a computer problem, caused by a power-supply failure, had truly occurred. The Launch Director sensed what Akira was about to say and again lowered his eyes and looked down at the floor.

Let me explain this in more depth, Akira said. "The computer system has multiple modules, with each module performing a different function, and each module having redundant units. The modules can sense when something is wrong, such as a loss in the power being supplied. The evidence we have suggests that when the power loss was detected in the guidance module, control was shifted to its core unit which has its own battery. The core unit is programmed to put the vehicle in a safe orbit, but it can't continue the mission beyond that. Mission Control has to assure that the power is indeed back on and that all of the modules are reliably available before the mission can be continued.

An analogy is an alarm clock running on house current, but also having a small battery. When the house current goes off, the clock can keep time, but the battery is too small to run the display or ring the alarm.

While most of the reporters mulled this analogy over, a young women from one of the national television networks spoke up. I would think the power supply would also have redundant units. It seems odd they all failed at the same time.

Akira smiled condescendingly at the woman. Redundancy is built into the power supply. That is true. And that redundancy is what brought the power supply back on line. However, evidence shows that the vibrations were too severe for it to operate during the worst of the wind-shear encounter. The answer did not completely satisfy her, but she did not know what else to ask. The line of questioning shifted.

Could you tell us what your plans are, what will happen next? another reporter asked.

The Center Director answered. Mission Control has advised us they need to reload the computer-system's software in case errors were introduced during the encounter. They have also advised us, that for reasons of simplicity and speed, they prefer to link directly to an antenna on the payload satellite during the reload.

What about the payload fairings? I heard earlier they weren't ejected. Surely they block the antenna?

"The fairings were not ejected as per the nominal timeline, that is true. But Mission Control thinks they know why and are devising a command sequence that will eject them. We will route that sequence from them, through our data link, to the onboard computer system. When the fairings are ejected, the satellite's antenna will be unobstructed, and the direct link will be established. They will then reload the software, subroutine by subroutine, testing as they go. When they finish, we will resume the mission.

We have absolute confidence, the Center Director continued, in being able to carry out our plans and complete the mission with 100 percent success. With that said, he smiled, leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms. The press conference was concluded shortly thereafter when the journalists had satisfied themselves all the available information had been covered. Even if some of them felt the story did not quite ring true, they had neither the background nor the desire to delve further. After all, who were they to question the veracity of what appropriate Japanese government authorities and a representative of the great Tanaka Aerospace Corporation had told them.

Chapter 2

Tanaka

Toshio Tanaka, a powerfully built man of medium height, in his early fifties, handsome, but rough-looking despite the expensive clothes he wore, walked through the outer offices of Tanaka Aerospace and into his private office. Tanaka, Chief Executive Officer, had been the driving force behind the company since leaving college at the death of his father, the founder, to take charge of the then small company. Tanaka was a man to be reckoned with, as skilled in the martial arts as he was in the art of corporate management–the former having been invaluable in earlier years, the latter in more recent.

When he sat down at his desk, he noticed the papers and reports on the desktop looked a bit differently arranged than when he left the day before, as if someone had been looking through them. Apprehensive, he went directly to the wall safe, opened it, and took out the small box. The CD was still there, but the cover of the box was not closed properly. He always carefully closed the cover so as not to damage the CD, but try as he might, he could not remember specifically the last time he had put it away.

Could someone have been in the safe? he asked himself. No, that could not be true. He had set the combination himself and was the only one who knew it. Content with that fact, he shut the safe, called in Yutaka Motohara, his trusted second-in-command, and began his day. But the incident lodged itself in a small corner of his memory, separate from the myriads of daily trivia soon to be forgotten.

Motohara, older, humorless, of plain looks, had been with the company since the time of Tanaka's father and managed day-to-day operations. He had received a message from the Mission Control facility on Kyushu. The message was short, but exactly what both men wanted to hear. He read it to Tanaka.

The launch was successful. All is proceeding as planned. The dark hawk waits eagerly for its release.

One could not ask for a better piece of news with which to start the day, Tanaka said with enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, there is another piece of news. One not so pleasant.

And what is that?

It concerns Sachiko Kida, he said slowly. The trial was held last night and she was found guilty. They will be passing sentence this morning.

Tanaka's expression turned ugly.

* * *

Well outside the city, in a windowless room in the basement of a building, the last act