Eagle Station

Thirty-Three

Four hundred and fifty thousand kilometers from Earth, Russia’s Kondor-L satellite slid silently through space along its orbit around the invisible Lagrange point — held in its course by the combined gravitational forces of the earth, moon, and sun all interacting with each other. Its hexagonal radar dish was angled toward the moon. A thin metal strut connected the radar dish to the core satellite, which was a rectangular box studded with antennas, infrared sensors, small thrusters, and the nozzle of a somewhat larger orbit-correction motor. Two solar panels extended off the main body, providing electricity to power its S-band radar and other systems. From time to time, the Kondor’s tiny attitude control thrusters fired in sequence, rotating the satellite to keep the dish properly aligned.

Now, obeying instructions radioed from Moscow, a tiny spacecraft — less than a meter long and only centimeters in diameter — detached from the larger radar reconnaissance satellite and drifted away. Coated in jet-black radar-absorbent materials, this small stealth vehicle, called the Chenaya Osa or Black Wasp by its creators, was effectively undetectable by any U.S. ground- or space-based sensors.

Aboard the tiny craft, relays closed. Its battery-powered ion thrusters lit up. They glowed a faint blue as the positively charged ions stripped out of a xenon gas plasma were hurled outward into space. Compared to chemical rockets, the thrust provided by this form of electric propulsion was minute… but the speed it imparted built steadily over time.

Gradually, minute by minute and hour by hour, the Black Wasp accelerated. It curved away from the Kondor-L along a transfer orbit. In time, its track would intersect that of the much larger American AEHF-7 communications satellite as it looped around the same Lagrange point.

Subdued, blue-tinged overhead lighting gave the Space Force Operations Center a deceptively calm and peaceful atmosphere. Stepped tiers of computer stations were manned by officers and enlisted personnel wearing flight suits and communications headsets. Along the forward wall, displays showed the current positions of Eagle Station and two S-29B Shadow spaceplanes in Earth orbit. A large center screen showed the current status of the Space Force’s first lunar reconnaissance mission.

From an open observation platform looking down into the dimly lit room, Patrick McLanahan watched the icon representing the Topaz-M radar surveillance satellite move steadily along the curving path it had been following for more than two days — ever since the Delta IV sent it winging toward the moon’s predicted position at more than twenty-four thousand miles per hour. All through that time, it had slowed steadily as the earth’s gravity exerted its pull.

Now, more than fifty-five hours into its flight, the Topaz-M’s speed was down to just a little over two thousand miles per hour. But its velocity was already starting to increase again, because the satellite had crossed into the influence of the moon’s own gravitational field. As planned, it was falling toward the lunar surface. A circle not far ahead along its projected track was marked LOI, for Lunar Orbit Insertion — indicating the position at which the Topaz-M would fire its own engine for the first time, making a short burn intended to put the reconnaissance satellite into a stable orbit around the moon.

Patrick glanced at the three men standing next to him at the railing. Eager to get their first real look at what the Chinese and Russians were doing around the other side of the moon, both President Farrell and Kevin Martindale had come out to Colorado Springs in person. The third man, General Richard Kelleher, was the Space Force’s recently appointed chief of staff. As far as the media knew, the president was simply here to inspect the new Space Force field headquarters and other facilities. The Topaz-M mission was still a closely held secret.

Kelleher was short and fit, with close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair. Before taking charge of the Space Force, he’d already held most of the U.S. Air Force’s space-related commands. Although Patrick didn’t know him personally, mutual friends had assured him that he was a good pick—“smart and tough enough to handle the job, and ornery enough to kick Pentagon bureaucratic ass when necessary.”

Right now, Kelleher was on a phone, getting a status report from Brigadier General Rosenthal, the senior officer on duty in the ops center itself. “Thanks, Jill,” he said. “I’ll pass the word on.” He hung up and turned to Patrick and the others. “So far, all the telemetry looks good. The Topaz’s com antennas are already slaved to our L2 AEHF relay, so we’ll be in constant touch with that satellite even when it swings around the far side of the moon.”

Farrell nodded. “Any indication that the Russians or Chinese are getting antsy?” he asked.

Kelleher shook his head. “No, sir.” He leaned forward over the railing a little, taking a quick look at the smaller displays that showed satellite views of various parts of the globe. “Naturally, we’re keeping a close eye on all of their launch complexes right now. But apart from the Energia and Long March boosters assigned to their next announced Pilgrim mission and another of those robotic cargo landers, we haven’t seen any new rockets moving out to the pad. Plus, we’re not picking up any new activity in lunar orbit.”

For the moment, Patrick held his own counsel. On the large central screen, he saw the radar satellite’s icon slide forward into the circle marked LOI. It began blinking rapidly, signaling that the spacecraft’s rocket motor had begun its Lunar Orbit Insertion burn on schedule.

He gripped the railing. Maybe Moscow and Beijing had been caught off guard by the Topaz launch. And maybe not. One way or another, they were about to find out.

“The American radar satellite is entering lunar orbit, sir,” Major General Panarin, one of Leonov’s staff officers, announced from his station. “Our tracking data shows this was a good burn.”

Leonov nodded impassively. “What is the status of our Black Wasp?”

Panarin checked his screen. “On station.” He looked back at his superior, obviously eager to proceed. “Your orders, sir?”

“Patience, Sergei,” Leonov said calmly. On his own monitor, he pulled up the latest live feed from their Kondor-L orbiting around the Lagrange point. Even from sixty thousand kilometers away, its radar and infrared sensors were powerful enough to pick out the American Topaz spy satellite as it swung above the moon at an altitude of one hundred kilometers. A digital readout at the top of his screen showed the time remaining before the enemy spacecraft crossed behind the moon. When it reached “0,” he nodded to Panarin. “Activate the Black Wasp.”

The younger officer’s fingers rattled across his keyboard. With a quick flourish, he entered the last command and looked up. “Our signal is on its way.”

Far out in space, hovering invisibly just a few meters from the American AEHF communications relay, the tiny Black Wasp hunter-killer satellite received Moscow’s encrypted command. Even traveling at the speed of light, the signal had taken one and a half seconds to reach its destination. It required considerably less time for the little spacecraft’s computer to carry out its orders.

Obeying the directives hardwired into it, the Black Wasp pulsed its ion thrusters for milliseconds — closing the gap with the American satellite. A wire-thin probe extending from its forward section brushed against AEHF-7’s box-shaped core, signaling contact between the two spacecraft.

Instantly, the shaped explosive charge that made up most of the Black Wasp’s mass detonated. A lance of molten metal tore into the American satellite with tremendous force. Knocked out of its stable orbit, the gutted communications relay spun off into space — trailed by a widening cloud of mangled antennas, bits of broken solar panels, and other pieces of debris.

From several thousand kilometers distance, Russia’s Kondor-L surveillance satellite witnessed the American spacecraft’s death and reported the news to Moscow. Leonov allowed himself only a moment’s satisfaction before opening a secure video link, this one to Korolev Base, on the far side of the moon.

Through a slight haze of electromagnetic interference, Colonel Kirill Lavrentyev’s face looked back at him. “Sir?”

“The Americans are deaf again, Colonel. We’ve destroyed their radio and data relay.” Leonov kept his tone level. “Accordingly, you are authorized to conduct immediate direct action against their Topaz radar reconnaissance satellite.” He tapped a key, opening a new window on his computer to check the necessary codes. “My authentication for this order is Omega Seven Nine.”

Two seconds later, he saw the cosmonaut colonel nod sharply and then look down at his own computer. “I confirm that authentication code,” Lavrentyev said. His chin lifted. “As directed, I must check this order with Colonel Tian.”

“Very well,” Leonov said calmly. “I will stand by.” The military agreement between Russia and China required approval from the highest levels of both governments before Korolev Base could undertake any offensive operations against the United States or its allies. Neither Moscow nor Beijing wanted to risk being dragged into a conflict not of their own choosing.

Lavrentyev came back on-screen. “Beijing has just transmitted the same action order,” he reported. Even across a communications gap of several hundred thousand kilometers, his sudden eagerness was obvious. Weeks of hard and dangerous work and months of elaborate planning were about to come to fruition.

“Then good hunting,” Leonov told him. “Hit that spy satellite on its first pass, Kirill. It’s vital that we deny the Americans any useful information for as long as possible. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly clear,” Lavrentyev replied stoutly. “It will be done.”

“Shit,” one of the Topaz mission controllers suddenly blurted out loud. The lines of data streaming across his computer screen had stopped dead in mid-byte. He swiveled toward the senior officer on duty in the ops center. “I just lost contact with the AEHF relay, ma’am!”

“Same thing here,” another officer reported from his station. “One second, we were receiving good data from the comsat itself and from the Topaz-M… and now, nothing.”

More voices rose from around the room: “No connection to SHF Downlink Array One or Two. They’re both gone.”

“Satellite Crosslinks One and Two are out, too. Everything just dropped off-line in mid-signal.”

“No joy with any of the dish antennas, ma’am. I can’t route a connection request through any of them.”

Brigadier General Jill Rosenthal kept her cool as the noise level increased. The petite, dark-haired officer stayed seated. “Settle down, people,” she ordered. “Let’s work this problem by the numbers. Start running diagnostic programs on your hardware and software.”

She rocked back to talk more privately to her deputy. “Get on the horn to the backup operations group over at Shriever AFB, Phil. See if they’re still in contact with AEHF-7. Let’s make sure this isn’t just a systems or computer malfunction on our end before we freak out.”

The colonel nodded and picked up a phone. “Shriever Ops Center, this is McMahon at Peterson. We need you to—” Interrupted, he listened for a few moments. His expression darkened. “Okay,” he said at last. “Keep trying. Call us back pronto if you get anything.”

Rosenthal glanced at him. “No dice?”

He shook his head. “They’ve lost contact with the satellite, too.”

“Well… that sucks,” she said meditatively. Then she straightened back up. “Okay, let’s see what we can do about this.” She began snapping out orders to the various sections of her mission control team — setting in motion different methods of regaining touch with the distant communications satellite, and through it, the Topaz-M radar satellite, which was currently out of sight somewhere on the other side of the moon.

For the next several minutes, the once-calm space operations room was a hive of focused activity. But one by one, their attempts to recontact the AEHF com relay orbiting L2 failed.

Stone-faced now, Rosenthal came up to the rear observation platform to report to the president, General Kelleher, and the other VIPs. Briefly, she recounted the efforts her team had made so far to restore their links to the communications satellite.

“Without any result?” Kelleher pressed.

“No, sir,” she admitted.

Martindale frowned. “Have you found anything that could explain what’s gone wrong with that spacecraft?”

“Nothing definitive,” Rosenthal said. “Although we have spotted one weird anomaly in the last megabytes of data we received from the satellite.”

Patrick’s jaw tightened. “What kind of anomaly?”

“The AEHF’s tracking and stabilization subsystems show what appears to be strong, unexplained motion perpendicular to its orbit… just prior to the loss of signal.”

“You’re saying it looks like something hit it?” President Farrell realized.

“Yes, sir,” Rosenthal said quietly.

“Some kind of space debris?” Kelleher asked. Comets streaking through the inner solar system sloughed off long trails of dust and tiny rocks. They were a known hazard for craft on deep-space missions. On its way back from Mars in 1967, NASA’s Mariner 4 probe had run headlong into one of those drifting dust clouds — taking repeated impacts that tore away insulation and even knocked the spacecraft itself askew.

“Possibly,” she said, sounding unconvinced. “But if so, it was a hell of a lot bigger chunk of rock than we’ve ever detected around that Lagrange point.”

Patrick turned to look at the operations center’s central display. It showed that they had a little over twenty minutes left before the Topaz-M surveillance satellite was expected to emerge from around the moon. Once that happened, they could expect to reacquire its signals and download the results of its first radar sweep across the far side.

But only if everything went according to plan. Which isn’t the way to bet, he thought bitterly. He swung back to Rosenthal. “You might want to alert Goldstone and Greenbank, General. Just as a precaution.”

She nodded her understanding. If they couldn’t regain contact with the Topaz-M as scheduled, radar images obtained by using those large antennas should give them a look at the satellite itself. “I’ll get on that right away.”

An hour later, a tight-lipped Brigadier General Rosenthal showed them the first images picked up close to where the Topaz-M should have reemerged around the curve of the moon. They revealed a small field of debris drifting in a slowly decaying orbit. Quick calculations showed that those scraps of torn and twisted metal would impact the lunar surface sometime over the next several days.

“Those floating bits and pieces are all that’s left of our radar satellite?” Martindale asked pointedly.

“Yes, sir,” she answered, nodding. “The orbit’s slightly off. But that’s no surprise, given the force evidently used to destroy it.”

“What in holy hell just happened up there?” President Farrell demanded.

Patrick answered him. His tone was tight and ice-cold. “Our spacecraft were attacked, sir. One satellite going dark could be an accident. But two dying over just a few minutes?” He shook his head grimly. “That’s enemy action, Mr. President. Somehow, the Russians and the Chinese have deployed weapons on the moon and in cislunar space.”

Four hundred miles above the cloud-covered ocean, three small, odd-looking spacecraft maneuvered between the aft section of the Orion crew module docked at Eagle Station and its thirteen-ton service module, a stubby cylinder topped by an adapter ring. The service module hung separately in space a few yards away. A much larger and more massive Falcon Heavy second-stage booster rocket was in a parking orbit somewhat farther off. Both the service module and booster were motionless relative to the space station, even though they were all circling Earth at nearly seventeen thousand miles per hour.

These one-person spacecraft were egg-shaped spheroids about nine feet high and a little under eight feet in diameter at their widest. Each was equipped with several mechanical limbs that ended in flexible appendages that resembled large, articulated metal fingers. Dozens of tiny thruster nozzles studded outer surfaces covered in advanced composite armor.

Called Cybernetic Orbital Maneuvering Systems, or COMS for short, they were yet another variant of Jason Richter’s first war robots. But unlike the CIDs, these human-piloted space robots were intended primarily for zero-G operations and orbital construction tasks. Experiments had shown that a single machine was more efficient than ten astronauts wearing conventional EVA space suits. Although they’d been used as improvised weapons platforms during Scion’s commando raid to seize Mars One, now Eagle Station, from the Russians, today the COMS were finally getting a chance to do the work for which they’d originally been designed.

Cocooned inside the cockpit of his COMS robot, Brad McLanahan, triggered a short burst from his thrusters. They popped in a computer-controlled sequence that moved him closer to the service module’s open adapter ring.

He peered inside. Through his neural link with the robot’s computer, the visual and other sensors set around its outer shell gave him an unobstructed view of his surroundings. It was eerily like floating in space without a helmet. Green indicators blinked into existence, highlighting several of the bolt assemblies securing the adapter ring to the rest of the spacecraft. “Okay, bolts twenty-seven through thirty-three look solid.”

“Copy that,” Nadia radioed. Her COMS was over on the other side of the ring. “I show a problem with seventy-eight.” One of her robot’s manipulator arms swung down holding a power tool and began tightening the loose bolt she’d identified. As she worked, multiple thrusters fired around the COMS hull, holding her securely in position despite the fact they were in zero-G.

Over near the docked Orion crew module, Peter Vasey’s COMS hovered near the umbilical connection interface. Spotlights glowed bright, illuminating the dark interior of the open port.

“Both the CM bracket assembly and line support check out,” the Englishman commented. Like Brad and Nadia, he was one of Sky Masters and Scion’s most experienced COMS pilots.

Brad smiled. This was their second full EVA and they were already ahead of schedule. If they could keep this pace up, it should be possible to finish mating the Orion crew module to its service module in three or four more days. Once that was done, they could begin the delicate task of maneuvering the fully assembled Orion spacecraft into position with the Falcon Heavy second stage.

“Priority override,” his COMS computer suddenly told him. “Encrypted radio transmission from Peterson Space Force Operations Center.”

“Put it through,” Brad ordered. What was so urgent that it couldn’t wait until they were all back aboard Eagle Station in a couple of hours?

“Stand by for General McLanahan,” a crisp woman’s voice said through his headset. A second later, his father’s familiar tones came over the link. “Brad, we need the three of you to stop what you’re doing and get back inside Eagle Station. The Russians and Chinese just blew the shit out of our two satellites near the moon. The president’s put a hold on that Orion flight you’re prepping.”

“A hold?” Brad asked, stunned by the news. “For how long?”

“Damned if I know, son,” his father replied. “But I can tell you one thing for sure, there’s no way in hell we’re sending an unarmed manned spacecraft to the moon. Not now. The next astronauts who head that way had better be ready for a fight.”