Black wind

columns, which were already submerged some forty feet under the water. While the automated ballast system easily kept each pontoon level with one another side by side, there was only limited means of maintaining balance fore and aft. With the water level rising rapidly in the stern support columns, it didn’t take long before Pitt’s drilling overwhelmed the rear ballast pumps. The sinking stern of the platform created a programming dilemma for the automated stabilization system. Under normal conditions, the trim-and-heel system would compensate the aft list by flooding the forward compartments and lowering the overall platform depth. But the platform was in launch position and had already been flooded to launching depth. Ballasting the platform lower, the computer knew, risked damaging the low-hanging thrust deflectors. In a handful of nanoseconds, the computer program reviewed its software logic for priority actions. The results came back unambiguous. During a designated launch countdown, the stabilization system was to maintain launch depth as its first priority. The sinking aft columns would be ignored.
    Aboard the Koguryo, a red warning light began blinking id the launch control room with less than two minutes to go. A bespectacled engineer studied the platform stabilization warning for moment, then jotted down some notations and briskly stepped over to Ling.
    “Mr. Ling, we have a platform stabilization warning,” he reportec
    “What is the deviation?” Ling asked hurriedly.
    “An aft list of three degrees.”
    “That is inconsequential,” he replied, brushing off the engineer.
    Turning to Tongju, who stood at his side, he said, “A list of five degrees or less is no cause for concern.”
    Tongju could almost taste the results of the launch now. There could be no turning back now.
    “Do not halt the launch for any reason,” he hissed at Ling in a tense voice. The chief engineer gritted his teeth and nodded, then stared nervously at the waiting rocket that stood shimmering on the video screen.
    The interior of the Badger was a jumbled mess of tools, computer parts, and interior pieces that sloshed back and forth across the floor with each jerk of the sub. Pitt remained oblivious to the carnage as he rammed the submersible against the platform column for the umpteenth time. Seawater slapped at his calves as he braced himself for yet another collision, listening for the warning barn of the core probe as it punched into the column side. Thrown harshly forward at impact, he detected the smell of burned wiring as yet another electrical component shorted out from saltwater immersion. Pitt’s hammering had turned the submersible into a shattered hulk of its former self. The rounded exterior bow had been pounded nearly flat, its coating of glittery red paint roughly scraped away from the repeated blows. The coring probe was bent and twisted like a piece of-licorice and barely clung to the Badger by a pair of mangled brace supports. Inside, the lights flickered, the water level rose, and the propulsion motors began dying one by one. Pitt could feel the life ebbing from the submersible as he listened to the groans and gurgles of the flailing machine. As he tried to reverse the thrusters and back away from the column, a new sound struck his ears. It was a deep rushing noise emanating far above his head.
    To the casual observer, the first sign of an imminent rocket blast off the Sea Launch platform is the roaring rush of fresh water as it is pumped into the deluge system. At T-5 seconds, a veritable flood of dampening water is released into the flame trench positioned beneath
    the launchpad. The effect of the massive water dousing is to lessen the thrust exhaust effects to the platform, and, more important, minimize potential acoustic damage to the payload from the maelstrom at launch.
    At T-3 seconds, the Zenit rocket begins groaning and stirring as its internal mechanisms are activated and the massive rocket comes to life. Inside its metal skin, a high-speed turbine pump begins force-feeding the volatile liquid propellant through an injector into the rocket engine’s four combustion chambers. Inside each chamber, an igniter is activated, detonating the propellant in what amounts to a controlled explosion. The exhaust from the fiery detonation, seeking the path of least resistance, comes blasting out of each chamber through a constricted nozzle at the base of the rocket. The power of thrust is generated by