At the same time, the AL-52’s laser radar locked onto the rocket rising through the atmosphere and immediately began to send target airspeed, altitude, direction, acceleration, and flight path data to targeting computers. The computers immediately fed the data to the gimbaled turret in the nose of the AL-52, and the turret unstowed itself from inside the bomber’s nose and turned and swiveled until the laser’s telescope and four-foot-diameter mirror were aimed at the rocket. The pilots could feel a slight rumbling under their toes as the huge fifteen-foot-high turret slewed toward the target, but otherwise it did not affect the flight characteristics of the heavy bomber.

When all this information was received, processed, analyzed, and instructions sent—eight seconds after target detection—Patrick received a simple “LASER READY” computerized voice in his headphones. “Cockpit’s ready for launch.”

“Roger. COIL in attack mode ... now.”

The attack was purely automatic—there was no big red “FIRE” button anywhere on the plane. The laser radar system instantaneously measured the exact size of the SS-12 rocket and aimed the laser at the rocket motor section, the point of maximum pressure on the missile. The laser radar also provided an atmospheric correction to the laser telescope’s deformable mirror to adjust for temperature gradients from the Dragon to the target. Finally, the big COIL, or chlorine-oxygen-iodine laser, fired. A four-foot-diameter beam of high-energy laser light shot from the nose of the AL-52 and was focused by the deformable mirror down to a spot the size of a basketball on the motor section of the first rocket. The beam was completely invisible to the cockpit crew—they could see the mirror turret moving slightly, tracking the target, but nothing else.

Patrick switched the large full-color supercockpit display on the right-side instrument panel to the telescope view. He was now looking right down the barrel of the laser, watching an optical presentation of what the laser attack computer was looking at. The SA-10 missile was clearly visible, tracked and illuminated by the laser radar arrays and focused to razor-sharp clarity by the deformable mirror. The crosshairs in the center of the display were dead on the rear one-third of the missile—the center of the SA- 10’s rocket motor. Patrick increased the magnification and was even able to read markings on the side of the missile.

As the missile flew higher and higher in the sky, its thermodynamic pressures were building as well—pressure from the force of the engines, pressure from the atmosphere, pressure from gravity, pressure from building speed, and pressure created by the guidance system acting through the rocket’s fins and gyros. Finally, the heat from the laser burned through the missile’s skin enough that the skin surrounding the motor section couldn’t contain the immense internal pressures or structurally hold the outside air pressures, and the missile ripped apart like a rotten banana and exploded.

“Missile destroyed!” Patrick shouted. “We got it!”