19th of November, 2014. Phoenix, Arizona, the United States of America.
Richard Eckhart was a Commander in the United States Navy, Astronaut and, most famously, Senior Astronaut aboard the Lewis & Clark Station during the Sino-Soviet War. Now living in semi-retirement, he has up until now refused any interviews regarding the events of those dreadful days.
Commander Eckhart lives in a small suburb of Phoenix, a quiet, peaceful neighbourhood. If there is one immediately noticeable different between the city and its similarly sized counterparts across Europe, it is the prevalence of solar panels, subsidised by Federal Government. The cars are bigger, and pure electrical, or even hybrid vehicles are less common. People I have spoken to ensure me that it used to be a lot worse. I pull up to the Commander’s house, a detached bungalow with all the signs of repeated careful maintenance. The Commander is waiting for me on the landing, an empty chair beside him. I walk up to him, taking in both his age and the air of authority that still surrounds him.
I make my introductions and he sits, thinking, before finally asking
“You going to stand around or you going to come down to my level?”
I am perplexed, before realising that he is motioning to the chair beside him. I take a seat, and he offers me a beer out of a cool-box. I accept, and before I can ask him my first question, he pre-empts me
“When you’re the last one alive that was up there when it happened, remaining silent about its pretty hard. Well, I guess I'm the last one alive. The Soviets aren't talking, doubt they ever will.”
I reply that I understand his concerns, and he gives me a look that says you have no idea what my concerns are, but he doesn't say anything. I ask him about his views on the international situation in 1978, and how they reflected planning for the mission.
“To be honest, all our attentions were focused on Europe. The Polish SSR was being restive; the arrest of the Bishop of Warsaw, Wojtyła, that was his name, had set off a wave of protests, strikes, riots; the whole country had gone up. The Polish Government In Exile was broadcasting out of Danzig, calling for the Polish units of the Red Army to rise up against their oppressors; the fact that said units had all been moved as far East as possible didn’t stop them. President Udall and the other leaders of the LDS were having this conference in Edinburgh, we’d raised the Alert Level, and there had been a preparatory mobilisation order. Standard fair. So no, us boys and girls in Florida had no idea what was about to kick off on the border”.
He stops speaking, and I start typing on my M-Portable. The Commander comments.
“Those things look like something of Galaxy Quest”
I remark on the irony of a man who has been to space saying that, and he chuckles at the response. I ask him about the orbital situation at the time, the various stations and satellites.
“Well, there was us six on Lewis and Clark, as well as the three aboard Skylab. The Soviets had ten aboard Mir, this was before they shut down all manned spaced operations. There was the Franco-German Charlemagne station, four on that. And of course, 7 in Tranquillity Base on the moon, as it was back then. Not so many satellites as today, before GPS, before satellite TV, before the orbital assets of Skyguard. There the Early Warning dishes for Sentinel, the radio dishes, but like I said, nowhere near as many civilian ones”.
I keep typing and he sips his beer. Despite my preparations, I am hesitant to voice the subject which I came to discuss. How does one talk about witnessing the death of hundreds of millions from orbit? Luckily for me, the Commander seems to be telepathic.
“The first news we got was on our daily brief. This was on July 18th; we were told about border clashes between the DPRC and the USSR. Standard fare, you know? This planet ain’t enough for two red super-states. So me and the crew, well, we think “how bad can it get”. And then the news started coming in, naval clashes, armoured battles. And then, on the 28th, we hear that a Soviet Infantry Division has been hit with Sarin. Mass casualties, and the Chinese are telling the world they’ll keep doing it until the Soviets withdraw. Fuck knows what the Gang of Four were thinking.”
He pauses and takes another drink. I have a thousand questions, but I refuse to interrupt him. He speaks again.
“After that, it all happened very fast. The first ones were tactical, the Red Air Force wiping out entire units at a time. The ChiComms were the first to hit a city. Vladivostok, a 1MT bomb, bomber delivered. They lost what was left of their fighters getting that one through. We were over India at the time, so we couldn't see it. We saw what happened next those. We saw the missiles flying, not having to worry about ChiComm ABMs, they didn’t have any. And we saw the warheads go off. Beijing, Shanghai, every city they had was hit. The worst were the missile fields. You know the Chinese never got around to fitting warheads on them? That bastard Nixon gave them all the help he could, just to weaken the Soviets, but not to build the warheads. So the Soviets end up dropping about 10MT worth of nukes on these empty silos. And they still had plenty left over. You know the worst thing? That was just the first salvo; a couple of hours later, the Soviets fire another volley, this time at the small cities. The DPRC didn’t surrender, it ceased to exist that day”.
I take all this in, as decade old horrors flash through the Commanders eyes. I ask him what he thought, his feelings on the day.
“I thought we were going to die along with the Chinese. The LDS went to Alert Level Beta, we had our Lancers at their ready points, the Boomers in the deep, our ICBMs locked and loaded. Udall was trying to speak to Andropov, but he wasn’t answering the phone. Constantinople was calling for an immediate ceasefire, the Germans were moving people out of the border areas to the Baltic Coast, the Japanese Empire looked like it was about to launch a nuclear attack of its own on anyone who looked at it funny. And there we were, watching the fires burning and wondering if at any minute we would be blasted out the sky by a Soviet ASAT. So, in answer to your question, we were scared shitless.”
He finished speaking and remains silent, but I sense there is more to this tale. I gently probe him for more information.
“For me, the fear wasn’t the worst of it. It was the anger. Anger at Nixon, for selling the tech to the Chinese that enabled them to build the Bomb. Anger at the Gang of Four for thinking they could use a WMD and get away with it.”
His voice, which had risen to an angry growl, subsided, into a near whisper.
“And anger at ourselves. We’re supposed to be better than this.”