Buried fourteen hundred feet within the granite of Colorado Spring's Cheyenne Mountain, in a cavern hollowed by a million pounds of explosive and three years of human sweat and toil, a computer terminal beeped a seemingly innocent warning. An Air Force captain instinctively turned to clear the message from his screen without diverting his attention from a nearby conversation, only to be frustrated by a second tone. He spun his chair to determine the source of the error and was snapped to immediate action. Before him was the beginning of an arc representing the orbit of a circling satellite.
"Colonel Pritchard, I've got a low flying bogie in a new polar orbit," announced the captain.
The three other officers in North American Air Defense Command's Space Defense Operations Center fell silent at the Captain's statement. "Captain Rossi, verify Harmon's data," ordered Pritchard.
Rossi dutifully rolled his chair to a second console and surveyed the screen. "Confirmed, Sir. Bogie in low polar orbit over the Pacific."
Pritchard raised an eyebrow and reached for his phone. He dialed the four digit number of NORAD's Combat Operations Center, sixty feet across the cavernous interior of the underground complex. Etiquette dictated the two centers communicate by phone, though during tense moments in the past, yelling had occurred. "Allison, this is Pritchard. I didn't get a launch warning... You asleep over there?"
"You didn't get a launch warning, because there haven't been any launches in three days."
"I've got a bogie on two of my screens: it had to come from somewhere."
"Run diagnostics, Pritchard... Nothing has been launched."
Pritchard replaced the handset and stood to look down on Rossi and Harmons' terminals. "Captain Harmon, run local diagnostics on your unit. Rossi, dump that orbital track to the Big Board. See if the computer can give us any history on the orbit."
Rossi issued a series of commands that ordered NORAD's computer to superimpose the orbit he was viewing onto a huge, projected map of the globe on one wall. The short arc was reproduced over the Pacific Ocean and began a sweep to the south. "There is no history available, Sir. According to the computer the bogie just appeared in orbit."
"Diagnostics report good," stated Captain Harmon.
Pritchard watched the blip trace a line across the map as his mind attempted to isolate the apparent problem. Things do not just appear in orbit. The phone on his console rang and he snatched it from its cradle. "This is Pritchard."
"Pritchard, what is that?" asked Colonel Allison.
"It's got to be a glitch, but diagnostics check out."
"I've run a check on my end. I'm good to the BMEWS stations, DEW Line, and Pave Paws sites. Even the early warning satellites are all clear. Nothing has been launched by any conventional method."
"Roger. I'll check The Book and get back to you." Pritchard dropped the phone and reached for the large blue notebook. 'The Book' was officially known as Space Threat Environment Description and was the result of hundreds of computer war simulations and outcomes. The other officers watched their boss nervously as he referenced the flowcharts for an applicable situation. "Major Harris: we'll need Captain Mia," Colonel Pritchard ordered his executive officer. "Captain Harmon: plot twelve orbits. Captain Rossi: determine if the object is a piece of fragmented space junk." Again he dialed Allison.
Across the dimly lit room he could see Allison rise from his chair and answer the phone. "Colonel," advised Pritchard, as he read from the notebook, "I need F-15's armed with MHV's standingby at Langley and McChord. Please notify CINC-NORAD a situation currently exists." Allison acknowledged his orders and hungup.
Major Harris returned to his post and Pritchard turned to see Captain Brenda Mia moving toward her station as quickly as her military issue skirt and pumps would allow. Standing five eleven, Captain Mia had found the skirt did not offer the mobility of the fuller civilian cuts. The problem was further compounded by her unusually long stride, and resulted in a walk that made it difficult for her male counterparts to concentrate.
"Captain Mia," commanded Pritchard as she took her seat behind an adjacent terminal, "Harmon will provide you with orbital data for the bogie. Get GEODSS online and get some dimensions."
"Sir, SPADATS reports all objects accounted for," reported Rossi.
Harris noted Colonel Pritchard biting his lower lip and watched his finger trace the chart in The Book to the next box. "Major Harris, have security remove all nonessential personnel from the Mountain. We are escalating to Defense Condition Four."

To this day, Lieutenant General William Monroe didn't understand how he had survived in the military, as he was not a morning person. During his entire career he had volunteered for night missions, arranged with his buddies to take the graveyard shifts, and exercised one of the few perks of being a three star General by arriving at the office at nine o'clock. Apparently he had done something right over the years, as he now held the position of Commander In Chief of North American Air Defense and the nameless title of CINC-NORAD.
Two cups of black coffee and a half hour after being awakened by Colonel Allison's call, the General arrived at the Cheyenne Mountain Command Post to be briefed on the situation. He took his seat before the Big Board, with Space Defense on his left, Combat Operations on his right, and sipped his third cup while waiting for the Colonels. Allison and Pritchard arrived moments apart and took seats across from the General's desk. "You know I don't like being called in... Let's hear it."
"The bogie first appeared on the tracking screens at zero one twenty-six hours, local," started the Director of Space Operations, Colonel Pritchard, "As we had not received any form of launch warning, I ran diagnostics to determine if it was an erroneous reading. All equipment checked out and the programmers reported a few moments ago that the computer is performing nominally."
"We checked the network to all remote radars and downlinks on the satellites," added Allison, "All were operating within specs, but none reported a launch."
"Nothing from BMEWS?" asked the General.
"Ballistic Missile Early Warning System has not tracked any launches from the Russians since the one three days ago, Sir," said Allison.
"Nothing from the DSP-647's or HALO?"
"No, Sir. The early warning satellites haven't detected a launch either."
"What does SPADATS say about space junk, Pritchard?" asked the General.
"Space Detection and Tracking System can account for all of the eighteen thousand items in its database at this time, Sir." reported Pritchard.
CINC-NORAD opened his copy of Space Threat Environment Description and followed the flowcharts. "Are the F-15's ready?" he asked Allison.
"Yes Sir. They are armed with the Miniature Homing Vehicle, Anti-SATellite weapons, and can negate the threat on your order."
"Well, I don't think we're ready to start an ASAT war yet. This could be a meteor... Have we gotten any data from GEODSS?"
"Just the preliminaries," answered Pritchard. "The Ground based Electro Optical Deep Space Surveillance System has set the size of the object to be three meters in diameter, ten meters long and shaped like a funnel. It's unlikely the object is natural, as the tip of the funnel is always pointing to the Earth. Captain Mia says she'll have a picture of the object in about half an hour."
"That's big enough to be an ONW," stated CINC-NORAD under his breath.
"We've been expecting it a long time," added Allison.
"Captain Mia thinks it's more likely a space based laser system or photo recon sat, based on the funnel shape and polar orbit. Its current orbit could place it within range of any point on the Earth's surface once every two days."
"She's the astro-physicist; let's get her input on this," said the General to Pritchard. The colonel stood, faced his team across the room, and signaled for the female captain to join them. Pritchard returned to his seat and waited silently with the others as the captain gathered her papers and glasses.
A moment later their silence was broken by the sound of the captain's shoes as she ascended the steel stair case to the commander's platform. The General tried to treat his female officers the same as their more numerous male colleagues, but he couldn't help but notice the distinctly different tone of their walks on the steel floors. Mia saluted smartly and the General rose more out of gallantry than ceremony. As General's go, his five-foot-eight-inch height was not short, but he typically avoided taller women. He made an exception in the case of the Captain, however, as most of her height was from the waist down.
"Please have a seat, Captain," offered the General. "I'd like your views on this object. How do you think it got up there?"
"If it wasn't launched from the land or sea, which would have been detected by Combat Operation's warning systems, that only leaves two options. The first method would be a 'direct ascent' system where the device is rocketed into orbit from a high altitude aircraft. This is how the MHV is launched from the F-15's or the X-15 was launched from its B-52 mothership. The Russians have little experience with this science and the object's size makes it unlikely that this technique was employed. The second option would be to release the device from another spacecraft already in orbit."
CINC-NORAD referenced the chart in his note book, under the heading Possible Outcome. 'Device may be an ONW released from previously orbiting device.' Thirty years of space travel, and the Russians had finally taken the big step, mused the General. "This Russian launch three days ago, could it have anything to do with this?"
"Unsure," answered Allison. "The Russians launched Cosmos 2136 to replace Cosmos 1953 whose orbit has been decaying and is expecting to burn into the atmosphere over the Pacific. The Seventh Fleet is waiting with special recovery gear in hopes of salvaging some of the pieces. Also, the National Security Agency is monitoring Russian frequencies in hopes of recording the coded signal used to eject the satellite's nuclear fuel rods."
"The new bird," interjected Pritchard, "is pretty much your standard ocean recon sat for tracking our navy."
"More likely, the device was carried aloft a piece at a time and assembled behind a Saylut space station where our ground based system could not see it," said Captain Mia. "It was then released into its own orbit. Without a launch warning the computers would think it just materialized on the screen."
General Monroe sat back in his chair and thought for a silent moment. "Captain, prepare a report on the bogie and have it in my office in five minutes." The General waited until the Captain was on her way before continuing. "Though this device poses a possible threat, I don't think it warrants immediate negation. Keep the F-15's on alert, but I'm going to let the Old Man make the call as to whether to attack. Colonel Allison, as this could be an ONW, I'd like you to brief Strategic Air Command of its existence. Gentlemen, I'm going to leave us at DEFCON 4 until the Old Man has been notified, but be aware that as of this moment we should be preparing for escalation.

The President's National Security Adviser was greeted at the door to the White House's Office complex first by a Marine guard, then by a group of Secret Service agents. He was led to the dining room, where a rather groggy President was repeatedly dipping a tea bag into a mug of hot water. Robert Alexander had known the President for nearly twelve years, but ever since the election, he found it hard to call the man by his first name.
"Morning, Mister President."
"It's a little early even for you, isn't it Bob?"
"Yes it is," he answered as a servant poured him a cup of coffee. "As a matter of fact, I'd like to get back home to shower before sunrise."
"Of course-- What's going on?"
"Well, Sir, at about one-thiry Mountain time, radar screens at the NORAD command post detected a device in orbit that did not appear to have been conventionally launched. This triggered an alarm and investigation. Standing orders were to escalate to a higher Defense Condition and notify the command authority. At this time we are at DEFCON 4."
"The device in question is a funnel shaped satellite measuring about three by ten meters, in a low, polar orbit." Alexander slid the President a faxed copy of Captain Mia's report, which immediately upon his release rolled itself into a tight tube. "One of the officers in the Space Defense Operations Center believes it may be a space-based laser platform similar to our planned Star Wars satellites, but the computers favor it being an ONW."
"What's an ONW?" asked the President, flatly.
"Orbital Nuclear Weapon, Sir."
For a moment the President's eyes reflected what would more be described as shock than fear, but they soon changed to intense concentration. "Do we have any evidence to back that allegation?"
"No, we don't. The object's sudden appearance caught us entirely off guard. There was not even a hint from intelligence of such a project. It's thought that the Russians may have carried up the parts one at a time and assembled the bomb in orbit, but we can't prove it."
"The thought of nuclear weapons raining down from heaven without even a moments notice to retaliate, does not appeal to me, Bob."
"Nor I, Sir. It could be a spy satellite assembled in such a fashion just to tease us. There is one piece of information that the Air Force does not have yet: CIA reports the Russians are rushing to launch their space shuttle, the Buron. There was no activity reported until a priority message about an hour ago, and they sat on it for half an hour because they thought it might be related to the activity around Cosmos 1953."
"Why would the Russians be preparing their space shuttle if this were an innocent spy satellite?" asked the President rhetorically.
"I agree, sir. It's possible the device had some form of Stealth Shield, or 'Cloaking Device' if you'll excuse the term, that failed and gave away the weapon's position. They are undoubtably trying to cover their tracks."
"I'm sorry, Bob, I'm not with you on this... If the cat's out of the bag, why bother trying to put it back? Why not admit they have us by the balls and use it as a bargaining chip?"
"I don't know, sir. I've got the CIA and Air Force looking into the situation and have scheduled a briefing at eight this morning. The Russians may be trying to recover the weapon before we have a chance to destroy it in orbit with our ASAT's. We have two F-15's standingby to negate the device. CINC-NORAD would like you to make that call"
"If we destroy this thing, we'll never actually know what it was, and may have acted too rashly," said the President.
"Correct, sir. I've asked several of our science advisors to attend the briefing to help us pin the Russians down on this."
"Fine, but let me get one more ball rolling... I think the Russians wouldn't be in a hurry to recover something of their own unless our knowledge of it would cause grave problems. We'll have no way of 'pinning them down' if they recover it. It might be a prudent move to secure that satellite ourselves."
The National Security Advisor sat stunned. "Sir?"
"Let's send our space shuttle up first... at least to have a look at the thing. If it's a nuke, we bring it down, and have our proof. If it's a spy satellite, we leave it alone, and having beaten them to the punch will be our way of thumbing our noses back at them; a sort of orbital show of strength."
"But sir-- If it is a nuclear weapon, they could detonate it, and destroy the shuttle."
"Then we'll have the proof we need," stated the President sternly, "that the device was not innocent. Have the Air Force launch an all-military crew from Vandenberg as soon as possible. I'll see you at eight, Bob."
Alexander considered protesting once more, but knew his boss was right. He left the White House and stopped at the Pentagon on his way home.

"General Hanson, are you awake?" asked the caller's voice from the phone receiver.
"I am now," lied General David Hanson, as he fumbled for his glasses, not yet realizing that they were unnecessary to carry on a telephone conversation in a dark room.
"I'm sorry to get you out of bed-- this is Robert Alexander, the National Security Advisor. The Air Force Chief of Staff is on this conference call, but we can't give you any detailed information on this unsecure line. Are you following me, General?" asked Alexander trying to ensure the General hadn't fallen back asleep.
On the contrary, the Air Force's Director of Space Systems was wide awake and sitting at attention on the edge of his bed. "I understand," he responded.
"Dave," interrupted the Air Force Chief of Staff, "how soon can you be in your office?"
"I can be at Cape Canaveral in an hour, Paul," responded Hanson, relieved his friend had spoken up to offer some validity to the call.
"Too long," stated Alexander, "I need some information from you right now. Have we got a shuttle ready for launch at Vandenberg?"
"Well, um, Atlantis could be ready in a few hours. It was scheduled for some systems testing before next months launch; nothing major."
"How long to get the crew?"
"The flight crew could be set to go by dawn Pacific time. Bradshaw is at Vandenberg and could command the mission, Cartwright is at Edwards and could handle the landing, we could do most of the admin from Kennedy. My best guess would be that Atlantis could go up by ten hundred hours, Eastern, if we have a good window. The one thing that will slow us down would be rounding up any mission specialists. Can you give me a hint as to the nature of the mission?"
"In a nutshell, General, I need our best man with space weapons systems. I can't be any more specific than that."
"I believe Dr. Clark is at Alamongardo: he's one of our leading Star Wars scientists."
"No, he must be military."
"This is highly irregular, sir," observer the General nervously.
"President's orders," snapped Alexander.
"I see. I met a brilliant young captain at Edwards last year, but I don't think we can get her."
"Her?" asked Alexander.
"Yes, 'her,' sir," repeated Hanson.
"Out of the question... This is a combat mission: no females."
"A combat mission-- in a space shuttle?" asked Hanson, now standing, almost screaming. His wife sat up in bed after hearing the word 'combat,' and Hanson stretched the phone cord into the bathroom. "Sir, its dangerous enough up there without looking for trouble."
"I understand, but we may not have the time to moralize the decision."
"I'll see if I can find someone else. It's just as well, the last I heard she was at NORAD."
Alexander flipped through his hastily scratched notes. "Captain Mia?" he asked.
"Yes-- You know her?"
"I know of her. We'll settle for second best on this one. Get to the Cape, assemble your staff, and be prepared to brief the President by phone at eight o'clock. Remember this is a strictly military operation."
Hanson acknowledged his orders and hungup the phone. Alexander shuffled his papers into a pile, placed them in his brief case, and faced the Air Force Chief of Staff. "General, we'd better get home and change... I have a feeling this is going to be a long day.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Cartwright was not the kind of man to question orders from his superiors, even when they came by phone in the middle of the night. When General Hanson called and asked him to get to Air Force System Command's headquarters building immediately, Cartwright hit the shower, threw on his Marine uniform, and was enroute to Edwards Air Force Base in mere moments. He was amazed to find several other officers already there, and the General on a secure line holding for him.
Cartwright took the call in a private office and listened intently as Hanson told him what little he knew. Cartwright advised the General that he could count on him, and stepped into the open office area where the other officers were waiting to be briefed. "Gentlemen: listen up," called Cartwright in a voice that commanded the undivided attention of all present.
"There is going to be an emergency shuttle launch from Vandenberg sometime today. The initial plan calls for Atlantis to go up late this morning if they've got an open window, and return this afternoon. We're going to have to get everything ready for her landing. I know it's short notice, but apparently this is fairly important."
"Hey, Curly," called a Major from the back of the room using Cartwright's nickname. "Why the short turn around-- we haven't had a mission that short in over eight years."
"I can't give you any more information at this time. Mission details will be issued strictly on a need-to-know basis until the boys upstairs decide to make an official announcement. For now, we'll follow standard operating proceedures."
The meeting brokeup as the personnel proceeded to begin their assigned jobs, but two sleepy figures remained in nearby chairs sipping coffee. Cartwright sat on the corner of an adjacent desk and looked down on Captains Lawrence and Morrison. The two were pretty much nerds (both were finishing their doctorates in aerospace engineering), but Cartwright saw them as indispensable-- for Air Force, that is.
"He's bluffing," stated Morrison without breaking Cartwright's gaze.
"Of course he's bluffing," concured Lawrence. "You didn't expect him to admit that he was in command, but had no idea what was going on."
"You two catch on quick," said Colonel Cartwright with a sinister grin. "Either of you want to speculate about what's going on?"
"This isn't a NASA's mission," offered Lawrence.
"Somebody in Washington's calling the shots," concurred Morrison.
"Why?" asked Cartwright, curiously.
"After the Challenger accident," explained Lawrence, "NASA's been acting like a bunch of chickens: they don't do anything unless the computers give them 99.9% odds. Something has got somebody stirred up."
"Right," agreed Morrison. "Since they're launching from Vandenberg, its a military mission. They spent 2.8 billion dollars on Complex 6 almost exclusively to launch the KH-12 spy satellites from there, but Atlantis doesn't have a bird loaded. As a matter of fact, Columbia is on the pad and fueled at Canaveral and could be ready hours before Atlantis. That could only mean they want this mission to remain secret.".
"Considering the short turn around time, I figure they're going to get something... Maybe that Russian spy satellite that's on its way down," wondered Lawrence.
"More likely the one the Russians sent to replace it," corrected the other Captain.
"Sound's like someone's playing a dangerous game," said Cartwright. "You two stick close to me... we may need to do some fast thinking today."