"HAMMER" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Joseph)

they execute their computer-randomized search patterns. The arctic is in
sunlight. It sparkles like a huge lopsided diamond atop the ring of dawn
and evening that circles the planet, though I cannot see the whole ring
this close.
I wish to contact my fellows. It is not allowed outside of combat. I
am a lonely bird.
But I don't enter a search pattern. My wings don't extend. I continue
to climb straight and steadily over Siberia, my throttle opening further,
though I have not willed it. "Mannet!
Am I doing orbital tonight?"
"Yes," comes his reply a little later through the eartubes.
I strain toward polar orbit, extending my ionic field ahead of me to
gather and cram increasingly rare oxygen and ozone molecules into my
scoops, switching to lox when breathing is too strained.
Shortly I rendezvous with the refueling ark, topping off my kerosene
and receiving a harness of oxygen and fuel tanks. I am technically a
ground-launched, manned killer satellite tonight. I won't be up here more
than 48 hours. I don't break the treaties.
What makes the world situation so unstable is that the bear doesn't
believe we have a creditable defense against the missiles he pretends not
to have, nor against his ground-based armies. I can do nothing about the
latter. No one really knows what I can do about the former.
But Georgi Gorbachev, who claims to be the son of Mikhail, has
threatened several times to blow up an American city or two if we continue
to help the Iranian and Mexican rebels. Not that he has any bombs or
delivery systems, of course. He'll just blow us up rhetorically.
And so we watch, playing a game of ducking in and out of treaties,
hoping for a premier who's a little less crazy. Trying to forestall the
unthinkable.
Hours into my watch, the unthinkable happens. "Bogeys, dead ahead
low."
Ninety-six ground-launched missiles appear to the recon satellites,
seven of them from the Middle East, where we've got no atmospheric
prowlers.
But I'm coming up through the Indian Ocean; and another killsat is
smack over the site.
"Overview," I say the code word to Mannet. A satellite-coordinated
video-game display in my eyetubes shows the entire Eastern Hemisphere,
with all missiles and killcraft.
"Localize. Small reduce. North. North. West. Half south." I get the
size and placement I need. I see only me and the other killsat, plus the
seven missiles.
Automatically we are heading for intercept, myself accelerating, my
partner slowing, both dropping out of orbit.
"Splitting targets," says Mannet.
My screen shows only me and three missiles. The other guy has four.
Good luck.
"Ready all boostbusters," I say. I squeeze them off at intervals.
They're long-range net-casting radar-homers designed to take out ICBM's
still under power, far below, before the multiple warheads and decoys have