Silver Tower (novel)

"Silver Tower" is a technothriller written by Dale Brown. As in all his books, it follows his traditional genre of introducing high tech military weapons, described in great detail. It contains completly different charecters from Patrick McLanahan series.

Synopsis

Armstrong Space Station known as the Silver Tower is the first military station built by the United States to defend against ballistic missiles. With its arsenal of Thor Anti-ballistic missiles and a Tactical High Energy Laser weapon called Skybolt, it is a fearsome military weapon in space. Along with its highly specialised crew of scientists and engineers, led by General Jason St. Michael it forms a vital "eye in the sky", to assist the US military on the battlefield.

The Soviets have decided to invade Iran in order to gain control of the Persian Gulf. They mount a surprising lightning air attack on Iran and place their Aircraft Carrier flotilla near the Gulf. The Americans send the USS Nimitz and her carrier battle group in response. They also have Silver Tower, the ace up their sleeve to watch over the carrier and provide real time view from space.

The Soviets who are aware of Silver Tower use a powerful ground laser in an attempt to destroy or cripple the space station. But to the Soviet's surprise, the tower and its crew survive and continue to assist the Nimitz. Furious on their previous failed attempt, the Soviets send Elektron Spaceplanes to destroy the space station. This time, the station is massively crippled, but some of the crew members sacrifice their lives by manually launching the Thor missiles at one of the space planes, destroying it. The crippled space station is then evacuated to the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

Meanwhile, the situation back on the ground gets tense, with F-14s and F-15s engaging in dogfights with Tu-22M bombers and Su-33s launched from the aircraft carriers and missile ships exchanging fire. Both sides suffer heavy casualties. However, the Americans succeed in keeping the Soviet carrier group out of the gulf.

The survivors Jason St. Michael and Anne Page return to Silver Tower hoping to restart its systems, only to be met with another attack from the Elektron spaceplanes. However, they restore the Skybolt laser module and fire on the spaceplanes, vaporizing them. They then fire the laser on Soviet cruise missiles heading for the Nimitz group.

In the end, even though the battle is not over, the Red Fleet is kept out of the Gulf and Silver Tower is to be repaired and returned to operation.

Characters

Brig. General Jason St. Michael (USAF) - Commander of Silver Tower

Dr. Anne Page - Designer of Skybolt laser module

Captain Matthew Page (USN) - Skipper of USS California