Thankfully, both launches went off perfectly, all the satellites’ buses were inserted into the proper orbit, and one by one the skies were “seeded” with tiny Sky Masters, Inc., spacecraft. By the time Masters had landed his DC-10 back at his base in Arkansas, loaded the plane with the equipment he needed for the SAC STRATFOR team, and then flown on to Guam, all of his NIRTSats were in their proper orbits and reporting fully functional. The recon satellites were in nearly circular 415-nautical-mile equatorial orbits; the communications satellites were in lower 200-mile orbits inclined 40 degrees to the equator so they could download their data directly to continental U.S. ground stations as well as to facilities on Guam.
Masters was betting everything on this mission — and he was also betting that while he was away Helen Kaddiri would probably try to position herself for a corporate coup d’etat. He’d been expecting it for some time. He shrugged, realizing he’d have to deal with that later.
Masters’ DC-10, with its distinctive red, white, and blue SKY MASTERS emblem on the sides, was parked just outside the hangar next to the north apron, which was perched atop the five-hundred-foot cliff on Guam’s north shore.
Masters and General Brad Elliott, who’d flown in with Masters on the DC-10, met newly appointed SAC STRATFOR commander Major General Rat Stone, his aide^ Colonel Michael Krieg, and Colonel Anthony Fusco, who was the commander of the 633rd Air Base Wing. Elliott was there to observe Masters’ gear in action, in person. If they were going to be using it at HAWC, he wanted to see it up close.
Introductions were made all around, and after everyone mentioned the humidity, they were taken by military van — in a sudden downpour no less — to the MAC terminal, where a Guamanian customs officer, assisted by a MAC security guard in full combat rig and carrying an M-16 rifle, checked their customs declaration forms and inspected their hand- carried items.
After that, General Stone turned to Masters. “What I’d like is to get your gear in place as soon as possible,” Stone said. “I’ve got an EC-135 communications plane and the recon planes available, so I can use DSCS to collect reconnaissance data, but I don’t like sending those planes so far over water unless we get a better idea on what the situation is over there. The sooner we can get your system working, the better.” The Defense Satellite Communications System, or DSCS, was the current global voice and data communications system in operation; the system’s drawback was that it could relay signals only from ground station to ground station and could not link aircraft. An EC-135 communications plane could act as a pseudo-ground station and could relay signals from another aircraft via DSCS to a ground station, but that meant orbiting the EC-135 near the first aircraft — which meant sending another important aircraft thousands of miles offshore and exposing it to possible enemy action, which in turn meant assigning additional fighters and tankers to support it.
“That’s what I'm here for, General,” Jon Masters said. “With the NIRTSats in place, we can talk with your AWACS and reconnaissance planes directly. When my computer complex is set up, we can get their radar pictures and they’ll be able to receive our PACER SKY pictures.” Jon grinned. “It’s gonna be awesome. Once we get the rest of the birds tied in, you’ll have dozens of planes tied together and linked to Andersen. You’ll hear a guy on some B-52 sneeze three thousand miles away just as clearly as if he were sitting right beside you, and you can say ‘gesundheit’ a second later — and while he’s wiping his nose, you can lay his crosshairs on a target for him. Too much!”
Stone turned and smiled at Elliott, who returned his amused grin. The officers and the young scientist piled into the heavy air-conditioned blue Air Force van, and they headed back out on Perimeter Road.
Jon asked, “I understand your first reconnaissance sortie will take off in a few hours?”
Stone nodded. “It’s about four hours’ flying time from here to the Philippines for the RC-135 and AWACS planes; about three hours for the EC-135. They arrive on station in the Celebes Sea about midnight. They stay on station for four hours, then head on back. They RTB about eight A.M.”
“So my crew can have the plane about nine A.M.?”
“That’s right. You said installing your PACER SKY gear will take less than five hours, which is good because maintenance needs to get the aircraft ready to go at four P.M. That gives you a little leeway, but not much.”
“It’ll be plenty,” Masters assured him.
