Stu fretted–had placed great hopes in quasi-cooperation he had established with Dr. Chan. Me, I had never been sure–only thing I was sure of was that Dr. Chan would not himself sit on a target. But he might not warn his old mother.
My worries had to do with Mike. Sure, Mike was used to having many loads in trajectory at once–but had never had to astrogate more than one at a time. Now he had hundreds and had promised to deliver twenty-nine of them simultaneously to the exact second at twenty-nine pinpointed targets.
More than that– For many targets he had backup missiles, to smear that target a second time, a third, or even a sixth, from a few minutes up to three hours after first strike.
Four great Peace Powers, and some smaller ones, had antimissile defenses; those of North America were supposed to be best. But was subject where even F.N. might not know. All attack weapons were held by Peace Forces but defense weapons were each nation’s own pidgin and could be secret. Guesses ranged from India, believed to have no missile interceptors, to North America, believed to be able to do a good job. She had done fairly well in stopping intercontinental H-missiles in Wet Firecracker War past century.
Probably most of our rocks to North America would reach target simply because aimed where was nothing to protect. But they couldn’t afford to ignore missile for Long Island Sound, or rock for 87° W x 42° 30′ N–Lake Michigan, center of triangle formed by Chicago, Grand Rapids, Milwaukee. But that heavy gravity makes interception a tough job and very costly; they would try to stop us only where worth it.
But we couldn’t afford to let them stop us. So some rocks were backed up with more rocks. What H-tipped interceptors would do to them even Mike did not know–not enough data. Mike assumed that interceptors would be triggered by radar –but at what distance? Sure, close enough and a steelcased rock is incandescent gas a microsecond later. But is world of difference between a multi-tonne rock and touchy circuitry of an H-missile; what would “kill” latter would simply shove one of our brutes violently aside, cause to miss.
We needed to prove to them that we could go on throwing cheap rocks long after they ran out of expensive (milliondollar? hundred-thousand-dollar?) H-tipped interceptor rockets. If not proved first time, then next time Terra turned North America toward us, we would go after targets we had been unable to hit first time–backup rocks for second pass, and for third, were already in space, to be nudged where needed.
If three bombings on three rotations of Terra did not do it, we might still be throwing rocks in ’77–till they ran out of interceptors. . . or till they destroyed us (far more likely).
For a century North American Space Defense Command had been buried in a mountain south of Colorado Springs, Colorado, a city of no other importance. During Wet Firecracker War the Cheyenne Mountain took a direct hit; space defense command post survived–but not sundry deer, trees, most of city and some of top of mountain. What we were about to do should not kill anybody unless they stayed outside on that mountain despite three days’ steady warnings. But North American Space Defense Command was to receive full Lunar treatment: twelve rock missiles on first pass, then all we could spare on second rotation, and on third–and so on, until we ran out of steel casings, or were put out of action. . . or North American Directorate hollered quits.
This was one target where we would not be satisfied to get just one missile to target. We meant to smash that mountain and keep on smashing. To hurt their morale. To let them know we were still around. Disrupt their communications and bash in command post if pounding could do it. Or at least give them splitting headaches and no rest. If we could prove to all Terra that we could drive home a sustained attack on strongest Gibraltar of their space defense, it would save having to prove it by smashing Manhattan or San Francisco.