Eagle Station

Thirty-Five

Captain Shan Jinai carefully closed the Chang’e-13 lander’s outer hatch and sealed it. Now that the Americans knew China and Russia had established a presence on the far side of the moon, there was no further need for any subterfuge. Instead of waiting for a deceptive rendezvous with the Chang’e’s unmanned ascent stage, the Federation spacecraft that had ferried Shan and Major Andrei Bezrukov here from Earth was already several hours into its long journey home. And so Chang’e-13’s unused ascent stage could wait here empty, high up on the crater rim, until the day it was needed to carry humans back into lunar orbit.

Moving awkwardly in his bulky EVA suit, the taikonaut slowly climbed down the Chang’e’s ladder and stepped off onto the powdery surface of the moon. He turned around and saw Bezrukov waiting near one of the landing struts.

Shan went over to him — practicing the half-gliding, half-hopping gait that experience had shown was the most efficient in this strange, low-gravity environment. From here, all of Korolev Base stretched out before them.

Parts of seven other spacecraft dotted the desolate plain. Four were large Mă Luó cargo ships. The rest were the spent descent stages of earlier crewed Chang’e landers. Brightly colored insulated inflatable tanks ringed some of the space vehicles. Each contained stores of oxygen, water, or hydrogen reclaimed from the lunar soil. Low, mounded heaps of loose dirt and rock showed where buried hoses and conduits connected these tanks to the base’s cylindrical habitat module.

Farther away, beyond the array of landed spacecraft and other infrastructure, Shan spotted several automated rovers moving. They were sharply outlined against the pitch-black sky. Rooster tails of fine-grained dust sprayed out from behind their wheels and scraper blades. Each rover was collecting the regolith needed to feed Korolev’s furnaces and chemical reactors.

Out near the very edge of the crater rim, the taikonaut could see three larger mounds of soil and rock rising several meters above the surrounding plain. Each was topped by what appeared to be a matte-black dome. Power conduits stretched across the moonscape, linking each mound to the small metal cylinder containing Korolev Base’s two-megawatt fusion reactor. For a few moments, he studied them more closely. In the end, the powerful weapon and sensors hidden beneath those domes were the whole reason for this difficult and expensive undertaking so far from Earth.

“An incredible sight, isn’t it?” the Russian cosmonaut said, sounding awed.

Silently, Shan agreed. Together, their two countries had built mankind’s first permanent fortified settlement off its home planet. Effectively, Korolev Base gave them complete control over everything in lunar orbit. As a result, once they developed their own affordable, reusable rocket technology to match that of the Americans, Moscow and Beijing would be the ones to unlock the awesome potential of the moon’s helium-3 resources. Russia and China would control the world’s future, not the United States.

Scion’s big, black S-29B Shadow spaceplane sat parked in the middle of the large hangar. Not far away, several rows of folding chairs faced several video display screens and a podium.

Dry-mouthed, Brad McLanahan watched President J. D. Farrell and his closest national security advisers, including his father and Kevin Martindale, file in and take their seats. They were followed by General Kelleher, his top staff officers, and the cadre of Space Force pilots and crewmen that he, Nadia, and Hunter Noble had helped train.

“Man, that is one hell of a lot of brass,” Boomer muttered. Grinning wickedly, he leaned closer to Brad. “You know, this looks like a tough crowd. Want me to go out first and tell a few dirty jokes to loosen ’em up a little for you?”

Before Brad could reply, the other man suddenly grunted. Rubbing his side, Boomer glanced warily at Nadia. “Hey, that hurt.”

Wearing an innocent expression, she shrugged. “With pain comes wisdom, Dr. Noble.”

Despite his growing tension, Brad felt himself smile. “Settle down, kids. Don’t make me stop this car and come back there.”

Geez, we all sound kinda punch-drunk, he realized. Ever since he and Nadia returned from orbit, the team they’d put together had been working almost around the clock to refine and validate their mission plan for an armed reconnaissance flight around the moon and back. Whatever sleep they’d gotten had come in the form of grudgingly snatched catnaps on cots in empty offices between simulator runs. Meals had been equally sporadic, more often than not sandwiches, chips, and candy bars from vending machines instead of real food.

In fact, up to this moment, Brad would have been willing to bet that every ounce of adrenaline in his body had long since been burned up — replaced by caffeine from the dozens of cups of coffee he vaguely remembered drinking. But now, looking out over an audience full of the most senior officials in the U.S. government, he was all too aware that his nerves were starting to twitch.

Given a choice, he’d much rather fly in combat than make any kind of a speech. But that was the trouble. He didn’t really have a free choice in the here and now. Because no one was flying anywhere unless he could sell this idea to the president and his national security team. So even though he wasn’t really cut out by training or inclination for this particular job, that didn’t matter.

“Well, I guess I’d better get this dog and pony show started,” Brad said reluctantly, knowing that he sounded like a kid about to hand his parents a really crappy report card.

Nadia pulled him down for a quick, passionate kiss. “You will be fine,” she told him after their lips parted. “Do not worry.”

Somewhat dazed, he nodded. He didn’t know exactly how she did it, but she had the ability to take his emotions, stir them around, and somehow leave him feeling a hundred times better.

Squaring his shoulders, Brad moved to the lectern. “Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. He supposed strict etiquette would have required separately identifying every cabinet-level secretary and general officer, but that would have taken forever. Plus, he’d probably only have ended up pissing off someone important by leaving them off the list. “Thanks for coming. I’ll try to make this as quick and to the point as I can.”

Farrell and his father both gave him encouraging smiles.

“A few days ago, I mentioned that we were working on a possible plan for an armed reconnaissance of the moon’s far side,” Brad went on. “The good news is that after crunching all the numbers and running detailed simulations, we’re now confident our proposed mission plan is feasible.”

General Kelleher spoke up from his place. “And I’m going to repeat my earlier question, Mr. McLanahan: Where’s the actual honest-to-God spacecraft that’s going to fly this hypothetical armed recon you’re talking about?”

Brad ignored the other man’s somewhat insulting refusal to address him by the major’s rank he’d earned with the Iron Wolf Squadron. Like many officers in the U.S. armed forces, Kelleher probably wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of private military units. Besides, this wasn’t the time to get into a pissing contest over nonessentials. With a slight shrug, he mentally pulled the pin on the rhetorical grenade he was about to toss into everyone’s laps. Then he turned and nodded to the large S-29B Shadow spaceplane parked nearby. “You’re looking right at it, General.”

Kelleher stared hard at him. “If that’s your idea of a joke, I’d advise you to drop it fast and get serious.”

“I’m not joking,” Brad said quietly. “We can send that S-29 to the moon.”

Now he heard a muttered storm of protest from around the room. Even President Farrell looked uncertain. Only his father nodded thoughtfully. Figures, he thought. His dad was usually about ten steps ahead of everyone else when it came to adapting military hardware to new and never-imagined uses.

Martindale, however, was clearly somewhat less flexible — at least in this case. He shook his head in disbelief. “Cut the crap, Major,” he snapped. “The S-29s and their sister spaceplanes are designed solely for limited-duration missions in low Earth orbit and in the atmosphere. It’s sheer fantasy to propose flying something that’s half airplane, half spaceship out into deep space, around the moon, and then all the way back to Earth.”

To his own surprise, Brad stayed calm. If anything, he suddenly realized, he was actually enjoying this chance to play the contrarian. Maybe he was more like his father than he’d ever imagined. “It’s not fantasy at all, Mr. Martindale,” he said bluntly. “Like I said earlier, my team and I have run this concept through detailed analysis and simulation.” He signaled the Sky Masters computer techs controlling their audiovisual equipment. “And with the necessary modifications, there’s no reason that an S-29B can’t handle this reconnaissance mission.”

The display screens behind him lit up, showing computer-generated visuals to accompany his presentation.

“First, we’re going to cut the S-29’s crew from the normal complement of five to just two — a pilot and a weapons and systems specialist,” Brad said. On-screen, the S-29B schematic showed the whole aft cabin emptied of its crew workstations, acceleration couches, and other equipment and stripped down to bare metal. “In addition, we’ll need to remove all four defensive microwave emitters.” Again, the schematic changed — now visually deleting the two wingtip microwave pods, the third pod mounted on top of the forward fuselage, and the last emitter set below the S-29’s aft fuselage.

“What does that gain you?” one of the Space Force staff officers asked curiously.

Brad could feel the atmosphere in the hangar start to shift. He could tell that many of those who’d at first thought the idea of using a spaceplane for this mission was crazy were beginning to wonder if they might have been wrong. “Cutting the crew size and stripping out the microwave pods gets us just enough mass and cubic capacity for the additional life-support and stellar navigation gear we need to make a long-range, deep-space mission feasible.”

He continued. “Running through all the numbers, the Shadow’s five LPDRS engines, firing in pure rocket mode, are powerful enough to make a translunar injection burn from Earth orbit possible — as long as the spaceplane is fully fueled before departure.”

Another of Kelleher’s staff officers raised a hand. “But that’ll pretty much leave the S-29 with dry fuel tanks,” she pointed out. “So you get only one pass across the far side before using the moon’s gravity to slingshot you back toward Earth on a free-return trajectory. That’s a serious limitation for any reconnaissance mission, especially if the situation turns hot and the enemy starts shooting.”

“No doubt about it,” Brad agreed. He smiled. “Pretty early on in our sims, we identified the fuel constraint as a serious operational problem. Fortunately, we’ve come up with a solution for that. Granted, the maneuvers required are a little tricky, but they’re not beyond the capabilities of a good pilot.”

Speaking carefully, he outlined this revolutionary element of their mission plan. Behind him, the screens depicted the necessary spacecraft modifications, timing, and anticipated maneuvers in intricate detail. When he finished, you could practically hear a pin drop across the hangar.

From near the back row, Colonel Miller broke the silence. “You know, Brad, that’s really fucking clever.”

“Thanks, Dusty,” Brad acknowledged with a grin.

“It’s also the kind of cockeyed scheme that only someone who’s basically batshit crazy would even think of in the first place,” the S-29B pilot went on.

“Maybe so,” Brad allowed. He shrugged stubbornly. “But it will work.”

Miller nodded. “Oh, no doubt about that.” He grinned back at the younger man. “I just wanted to go on record with my assessment of your fundamental mental health.”

Smiling broadly himself, Brad waited for the subsequent laughter to die down before picking up the threads of his briefing. Miller’s quip had broken a lot of the remaining tension.

Another Space Force staffer asked a question: “Without its defensive microwave emitters, won’t the Shadow be more vulnerable to enemy attack?”

Nadia stepped up to the lectern to answer this one. While Brad, Boomer, and Jason Richter worked through orbital mechanics and life-support problems, she’d put in a lot of time analyzing the military aspects of their proposed mission. “That is true only if the Russians and Chinese are using modified air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles as their weapons against targets in lunar orbit. We consider that highly unlikely.”

“Why is that?” President Farrell asked.

“Because, given the costs involved in ferrying payload mass from the earth to the moon, it would be remarkably inefficient to rely on relatively bulky, single-use missiles,” she explained.

The president’s eyes narrowed. “Then what do you think we’re facing?”

“Quite probably a version of the same Russian-designed plasma rail gun we captured on Mars One,” Nadia told him.

And just that quickly, Brad sensed the tension in the room return to its previous high pitch.

“Jesus,” Farrell muttered. “Powered by what? Some kind of solar array? With battery backups?”

Now it was Jason Richter’s turn to answer a question. “No, sir. My guess is they’ve also developed a smaller version of their helium-3 fusion reactor. My engineering teams don’t see any technical hurdles that would prevent the Russians from scaling down that ten-megawatt reactor they built for Mars One.” He shrugged. “A smaller reactor, somewhere on the order of one or two megawatts, would only weigh one or two tons. That’s well within the payload capacity of one of those Chinese cargo landers. And having that much power available would be very useful for any lunar base.”

Farrell grimaced. “It’s sure starting to sound like y’all are proposing a suicide mission. Just getting to the moon’s hard enough. Going up against a fully powered plasma gun at the end of the trip seems liable to be one step too far.”

Brad shook his head. “No one up here’s interested in turning kamikaze, Mr. President. For one thing, that enemy weapon, whatever it is, has to be based on the lunar surface. If the Russians and Chinese had a weapons platform orbiting the moon, we’d already have spotted it.”

“Which means their weapon’s effective range will be significantly restricted,” Kelleher realized.

“Yes, sir,” Brad agreed. “Plasma guns and combat-grade lasers are strictly line-of-sight weapons. They can’t shoot through mountains or crater rims, or at anything beyond their visual horizon. Worst case, a surface-deployed plasma gun will only have a range of around five hundred miles against a target in orbit.”

“So it can still shoot a lot farther than the laser on our spaceplane,” Martindale pointed out dryly. “That doesn’t sound too promising to me.”

To Brad’s surprise, Kelleher cut in to respond to this, sounding far more positive than he had at the beginning of the briefing. “Our S-29s have conducted a large number of practice engagements against Eagle Station’s plasma gun, Mr. Martindale. The evasive maneuvers my pilots have pioneered should give the crew of that spaceplane a fighting chance — even if they are outranged.”

“Yes, sir,” Brad said. “Which is why we’re confident this mission is doable, especially with an experienced crew at the controls.”

“So who do you have in mind for this little jaunt?” Farrell asked quietly.

“Boomer and I have the most actual flight and simulator time,” Brad replied. “So we should go.”

Beside him, Nadia muttered something angry-sounding under her breath in Polish. This was an argument she still wasn’t ready to admit she’d lost.

Abruptly, Kelleher stood up. “No, sir,” the Space Force general said flatly. “This isn’t a job for civilians.” Seeing their faces tighten, he held up his hand. “Lord knows, I respect the skill and courage you folks have shown in the past several years. But this mission rightly belongs to my pilots and mission specialists. Thanks to our training maneuvers, they have more practical experience than anyone else when it comes to flying against the kinds of Russian and Chinese weapons you’re talking about.”

Behind him, the uniformed Space Force pilots and crewmen nodded their agreement.

Kelleher turned to Farrell. “The United States has invested a lot of money and other resources to stand up the Space Force, Mr. President. And with respect, it’s time you committed us to active service against our nation’s enemies.”

Slowly, Farrell nodded. “I think you’re right about that, General.” He looked over at Brad and the others. “Y’all have put your lives on the line for the U.S. and our allies again and again. Usually when there wasn’t anyone else with the guts or brains needed to take on the fight. But that’s not the case here. It’s time for the regular armed forces to step into the breach.”

Brad’s jaw tightened. “Sir, I—”

Farrell shook his head. “My mind’s made up, Major McLanahan.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s just barely possible that the Chinese and Russians might hesitate to fire on a Space Force S-29 and risk a wider conflict with this country. They’d have no such hesitation in firing on a spacecraft flown by folks they’ve called mercenaries and space pirates.”

Nadia frowned. “That is a very thin reed to cling to, Mr. President,” she warned.

“I know it,” Farrell said evenly. His face was somber. “But given all the other risks involved in this lunar recon mission, I figure we should play every last card we can.”