The missile has been designed to launch itself, just like the original test back in 1985, but at nearly ninety thousand feet. And the trajectory is not what they’ve practiced. Instead of a head-on shot, it will go for an intercept from a forty-five-degree angle from the back.

He’s already had the classified briefing on what they’re trying to do, and there’ll be only one chance. If they miss, on the very next orbit ninety minutes later the old Russian missile shroud will impact the spacecraft, obliterating both.

But his equipment is improved from the old days. The first and only successful test had none of the sophisticated onboard guidance computers he has now, and the missile was more or less a dumb infrared tracker. The pilot of that test plane, Doug Pearson, had become the first and only “space ace,” the first to shoot down a spacecraft.

And now,Owen thinks, I’ve got the chance to be the second. Sweet.

Yet, the seriousness of the mission is not lost on him. The stakes couldn’t be higher. He’s trained to take out an enemy’s orbiting eyes or an orbiting nuke if anyone is ever stupid enough to put one up. But this is a different type of shooting.

Owen engages the trajectory computer and locks his global positioning satellite system into the data stream, pleased to see the green light flash on his screen. The flight director pops into view and he places the dot representing the F-106 in the middle, following the computer commands to the start point. The mission is to be flown in radio silence, except for his transponder and an open satcom channel to the mission commander back in the Pentagon. He’s closing on the hold point where he’ll fly a racetrack pattern for thirty minutes waiting for the precise moment to start the run, and he looks over to check the fuel remaining, momentarily disbelieving the figures.

What the hell?

He should be reading a full tank but it’s coming up short. Disastrously short, and he wonders if the fuel totalizer could be wrong.

A quick mental calculation deflates that possibility, and he toggles the UHF radio back to the ground crew’s frequency at Holloman, triggering a series of messages that end with the realization that someone screwed up big-time.

I don’t frigging believe this!he thinks, his heart pounding. Twenty years to practice and the one time we get a mission we blow it for insufficient fuel?

There’s no time to scare up a tanker. He runs the numbers again, the planned fuel burn during the antisatellite launch run and the fuel between now and then, plus the fuel back to the base.

They don’t match. If he uses the most fuel-efficient speed to hold, he’ll still flame-out on the way back down from launch altitude.

Okay, but can I dead-stick her back to the base?

The thought is chilling, shoving an engineless F-106 back through the stratosphere and stretching the energy enough to make the home runway.

But that, too, won’t work. He’d end up crashing in the desert fifty miles short or worse.

The call to the command post in the Pentagon is tough but crucial, and there’s a momentary flurry of confusion until a general comes on the line.

“Bluebird Two-Three, Stargazer. You do realize we have no other options on this mission?”

“Roger, Stargazer. I can’t believe we’re short. I don’t suppose there are any tankers airborne nearby?”

“Negative. We just looked at that, and there’s no time to go back. Can you make the launch work?”

“Yes, sir. That I can do, but I’ll flame out on the way down.”

“We’re considering a punch-out scenario here.”

Owen’s finger freezes on the transmit button for a few seconds. Punch out of a perfectly good F-106? Worse, a specially modified F-106? A hundred million dollars or more reduced to junk because one of his team failed to read the tanks?

Not acceptable,he tells himself.

“Stargazer, there’s an alternate airport below my flight path. Civilian and short, but I can probably make it in dead stick.”

“Which one?”

“Carlsbad Muni, sir.”

Silence for a few seconds before a cautious reply reaches his ears.

“Your choice, Bluebird Two-Three. You are authorized to leave the ship or take it in without power to Carlsbad. We’ll scramble a team there right now just in case.”

“Roger.”

“Hey, Bluebird… a personal note from an old fighter pilot, okay? Don’t wait too long if you have to leave her. Eject inside the envelope. Got it?”

“Roger, sir.”

Satisfied that his parentals have quieted down at long last, Alastair Wood slides out of bed and quietly pads across the cold floor of his room. He pulls on a thick robe before sitting at his desk and firing up his most prized possession—a computer with a flat screen monitor and the high-speed Internet connection that was his main gift for his just-celebrated twelfth birthday.

The sleepy look and deep circles under his eyes he carries to school these days are worth it for the midnight hours he usually spends at the keyboard, but tonight has been a disappointment. It was shaping up at first to be a bonus with his father and mother doing their lock-the-door intimate thing at ten, but two hours have gone by. Now all he’ll have is three uninterrupted hours before having to hit the sack as usual at three to be up by seven.

While so many of his school chums have their heads buried in video games, he’s touring the world real time every night. And it isthe whole world that pours into his personal portal, filled with information on just about anything he would ever want to know.

His father will never understand of course, and he’s tired of being called a geek whenever he’s discovered hunched over the keyboard at some ungodly hour. He loves his dad, even though he knows he’s a hopeless dinosaur when it comes to computers and communication, thinking his GSM cell phone is cutting edge. Alastair can’t bring himself to tell him that they’ve had the same phones in Africa for over a decade.

The operating system goes through its start-up routine and he waits it out, reviewing his surfing plan for the next few hours. A new bulletin board from England, a number of Web sites in the U.S.—including one featuring bikini shots of famous actresses—and an attempt to hack into a poorly protected Internet e-mail provider are all on the agenda.

The house is quiet as a tomb, and he double checks to make sure the volume is zeroed before running the risk of a burst of noise—a big mistake he made a few weeks ago that brought his father flying up the stairs.

There’s a parcel of e-mails from friends, including one with a link he’s never seen before, some sort of Internet router service.

Oh what the heck,he decides, clicking on the address and waiting for the screen to stabilize.

A long list of active e-mail accounts parades by, and he selects a few at random, watching a stream of 1’s and zeros without being able to discern their meaning.

Right! A challenge!

He selects a translation program and tries it with no effect, then pulls in another, and on the third try someone’s real-time transmission is crawling across his screen, some teenage girl complaining about a feckless boyfriend.

Boring.

He pulls back a level and scrolls down to the very bottom, finding a message in progress without a coherent address.

Hm-m-m. Let’s look at this private, personal communique.

He triggers the translation program again, and the words assemble themselves in English, the transmission apparently still in progress and scrolling across his screen.

…record, I suppose I should yell Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! ( At least I think that’s the right phrase.) I’m a passenger on the private spaceship Intrepid, whichlaunched from Mojave, California, and we were hit by some sort of small object which came right through the cabin and right through my pilot’s head, killing him instantly. No one can hear me on the radios, and apparently I only have only five days of air left.