Eagle Station

Forty-Two

The S-29B Shadow jolted downward and then rolled onto its left side — leaving Major Hannah Craig able to see only a narrow slice of the lunar surface they were flying toward at more than thirty-six hundred miles per hour. She just had time to get a hazy impression of sharp-edged smaller craters strewn across the vast interior of a much older, far more eroded basin. And then the spaceplane’s thrusters fired again, pitching its nose back up and to the right.

“Christ almighty,” she muttered. “I hope the computer knows where we’re headed, because I sure as hell don’t.”

“Me neither,” Miller forced out through clenched teeth from his own seat. The pilot looked pale. Droplets of sweat that had shaken loose from his forehead during brief moments of acceleration fogged patches of his helmet visor. But his hands remained rock-steady on his flight controls. As the Shadow rocked hard in another computer-triggered evasive maneuver, he fought to focus his blurred vision on the navigation map open on one of his control panel displays. “Looks like we’re about a hundred and fifty miles east of the Korolev crater… which is probably that big basin out there.”

Craig nodded tightly. Right now, her stomach felt like it was ready to come crawling up her throat. “Yeah, that fits.”

“Multiple radar and thermal surface contacts,” the S-29’s computer announced abruptly. “At one o’clock low. Range two hundred and sixty-plus miles. On the east rim of the Engel’gardt crater.”

“Son of a bitch,” Miller said, sounding almost surprised. “We actually found them.”

“And sitting right on the moon’s highest elevation,” she noted. Her teeth flashed in a quick smile. “Looks like McLanahan won his bet.”

Miller nodded. During their pre-mission planning sessions, Brad had told them he was almost certain the Russians and Chinese had sited their base someplace up high on the lunar surface. Wherever they were on the far side of the moon, they’d want the best possible field of fire for their plasma rail gun.

“Lock our long-range cameras on to those radar and thermal contacts and magnify,” Craig ordered the computer. The feeling of nausea she’d been fighting had completely disappeared.

Right away, virtually crystal-clear images appeared on their multifunction displays, with only a faint hint of distortion. Like their weapons laser, their visual sensors were synchronized with the computer’s evasion program — enabling them to adjust relatively smoothly to the spaceplane’s split-second maneuvers… unlike its human crew.

“I count four of those big cargo landers,” Miller said. “Plus another three Chang’e descent stages. And one intact lander, still with its ascent stage in place.” His eyes narrowed. “Plus what looks like some kind of big tent or something, not far from all those parked spacecraft.”

“That’s probably a Bigelow-style inflatable habitat,” Craig said absently. Then she stiffened. “Take a look at those domes right near the edge of the crater rim, Dusty.”

He saw what she meant. There were three raised mounds of rocks and dirt out near where the slope fell away, gradually descending thousands of feet to the darker plains below. Each mound was topped with a black dome. Their radar was having a hard time locking on to any of them, which indicated the black coating might be some sort of radar-absorbent stealth material. “Gee, I wonder what our friends are hiding under those?” he murmured sarcastically. “A bunch of peaceful, innocent scientific instruments, no doubt.”

“And here I was thinking it was more along the lines of ‘Oh, my, Cosmonaut X, what a big plasma rail gun you have there.’” Hannah Craig’s fingers hovered over her fire control menu. “Doggone it, I sure wish I could zap them, just in case. They’re inside our weapons range.”

Unfortunately, their orders were clear. They could fire on the Sino-Russian base only if they were fired on first — unless they were able to obtain clear and undeniable proof that the Russians and their allies had already positioned offensive weapons on the moon. But suspicion, however strong, was not proof, especially when you took into account the international community’s ever-present desire to look the other way when it was asked to consider unpalatable truths about Russia and the People’s Republic of China.

“Yeah, but we’ll keep the cameras and other sensors running,” Miller said. “And then we’ll dump every picture and piece of data to Peterson Mission Control and Sky Masters as soon as we come back around to the near side. My bet is that either our Space Force intel guys or Brad and Nadia will put enough pieces together to get us the green light for an attack run during our second orbit.”

“New radio transmission received,” the S-29’s computer reported. “Origin point is the presumed enemy base.”

“Put it through,” Miller directed.

Immediately, they heard a voice with a slight Russian accent crackle through their headsets. “American spaceplane, this is the Friendship Lunar Science Station. Welcome to the far side of the moon. Please accept our congratulations on your historic flight.”

Miller snorted. “Science station, my ass.”

“Are you going to reply?” Craig asked.

He shook his head. “Hell, no. We didn’t come two hundred and fifty thousand miles out from Earth to swap polite lies with a bunch of Russian and Chinese assholes. Let ’em sweat.”

“No response, sir,” Captain Yanin said.

Tian shrugged. “Hardly surprising.” He turned to Lavrentyev. “But at least Marshal Leonov’s analysis was correct. The Americans must have positive orders that prevent them from attacking us without provocation.”

The Russian nodded silently. A nerve twitched at the corner of his right eye. The S-29 was now less than one hundred and fifty kilometers from Korolev Base — passing south of them as it orbited along the lunar equator. Even against the infinite darkness of space, the black-winged spaceplane was plainly visible to their own long-range infrared cameras. Although its wing- and fuselage-mounted thrusters still fired repeatedly — pushing the enemy spacecraft through a range of random evasive maneuvers — the American spacecraft continually rotated to keep its nose and laser weapons turret aimed in their direction. Their own radar warning receivers emitted a continuous warbling set of tones, indicating that the S-29 was still scanning them with its powerful radar.

“The range to the enemy spaceplane is beginning to increase,” Major Liu reported, checking the tracking data supplied by the distant Kondor-L radar satellite. “Its orbit is now carrying it away from us.”

Over the next minutes, as the distance between them widened inexorably, Tian kept his attention on Yanin. As more and more data poured into his computer, the younger Russian cosmonaut was fully immersed in his study of the American spaceplane’s evasive maneuvers. Since the S-29’s crew initiated their automated program, the Kondor-L radar satellite had detected literally hundreds of different maneuvers. Each was cataloged, correlated, and analyzed to find some pattern… but so far without any effective result. Within certain broad parameters, the enemy’s movements were foreseeable. For example, the spaceplane never left its larger orbital track or rolled or pitched or yawed in any way that would take its laser weapon off-target. But even within those known limits, there still seemed no way to calculate precisely where the Shadow would be at any given second.

The Russian plasma rail gun was astonishingly effective against spacecraft caught by surprise or locked into a predictable orbit or trajectory, Tian thought coolly. But it was not invincible. Against an alerted enemy, the weapon had weaknesses the Americans had clearly learned to exploit. Still, the enemy spaceplane faced its own constraints, including a hard cap on its thruster fuel reserves. If its ability to maneuver was restricted in any way, or the Russians scored a lucky hit, that S-29 was dead.

“Range to the American spaceplane is now four hundred and eighty-five kilometers,” Liu said. “Still opening at one point six one kilometers per second.”

Expectantly, Tian turned toward Lavrentyev. Based on their best available intelligence, the S-29’s weapons laser was now beyond its effective range.

The Russian colonel nodded back with a set, hard face. He took one short breath and then snapped out a string of orders. “Bring our radars online, Dmitry! And activate the plasma gun!”

“Yes, sir!” Yanin punched controls at his station. “Radars powering up. Plasma gun elevating into firing position.”

“We’re three-hundred-plus miles downrange, Dusty,” Hannah Craig said after a check of her own navigation display. “If those shit weasels are going to try anything on this orbit, it’s gonna be soon.” Miller nodded.

“Warning, warning. X-band and L-band radars detected,” the S-29’s computer announced calmly. “At ten o’clock low. Range three hundred ten miles.”

Their zoomed-in cameras showed antennas rising smoothly out of two of the rock-and-dirt-covered domes. The center dome slid open, revealing a stubby cylinder surrounded by electronic components in a six-arm, starfish-shaped array.

“Plasma rail gun!” Craig said tersely.

“Confirmed,” Miller grunted. His fingers flashed across one of his multifunction displays as he gave the flight control computer instructions to set up a new main engine burn.

Suddenly the Russian rail gun disappeared behind a dazzling pulse of light… just as the S-29 skidded sideways, shoved hard to the left by multiple maneuvering thrusters firing along its right side. A wave of deafening static roared through their headsets and then faded to silence. A toroid of highly ionized plasma had just slashed right past them at six thousand miles per second.

“They missed!” Craig said gleefully.

“Yeah, but not by much.” Miller brought the controls for the spaceplane’s five big LPDRS engines back online. Another random evasive maneuver rolled the Shadow ninety degrees back to the right. Through their forward cockpit windows, the rugged lunar surface seemed to tilt sideways. “So we’re done with coasting along up here like one of those stupid ducks in a carnival shooting gallery.”

Hundreds of miles away, a second blinding flash lit the blackness. A new hissing roar of static signaled yet another near-miss.

Indicators turned green on Miller’s head-up display. The flight control computer had finished its calculations. “Hold tight,” he snapped. Then he shoved all five throttles forward to maximum power. The big engines relit instantly — flaring brightly as they burned hard against the S-29’s direction of travel.

Jolted forward against their harnesses by enormous deceleration, the two Space Force pilots saw the cratered lunar surface coming up at them fast. Slowed far below the velocity needed to stay in orbit, they were again falling along a descending arc. A third dazzling flash erupted, this time right on the edge of the horizon. The static noise in their headsets was softer. This rail gun shot had missed them by a wider margin.

Straining to breathe under 5-G’s of deceleration, Craig focused on her instrument readings. “Our altitude’s down… to… forty miles.” At this range, more than four hundred miles from the Sino-Russian base, they were now also below the plasma weapon’s line of sight. “Rate of descent is… three hundred feet per second… and increasing.”

“Copy that.” Slowly, Miller pulled the throttles back all the way. “And… main engine cutoff.” Blessed near-weightlessness returned. “Discontinue evasion program.”

“Order confirmed,” the computer agreed. “Evasive flight program discontinued.”

Twenty miles above the jagged surface of the moon, Miller flipped the S-29 end-over-end so that its nose pointed forward again. Then he throttled back up — accelerating to arrest their descent. Another short, 5-G burn took them up to almost 3,700 miles per hour, the velocity needed to orbit this close to the moon.

Slowly, he floated back against his seat. “Well, that got ugly fast.”

“Sure did,” Hannah Craig agreed.

Miller glanced across at her. “You ready to tangle with those guys again, Major?”

“Yep.” She nodded. She was already busy entering targeting data on one of her multifunction displays. “You have a plan, Colonel?”

“I sure do,” he told her with a quick, fierce grin. “This time around, we’ll come in low, say about sixty thousand feet off the deck… where they can’t see us until our laser is in range. Then we pop up, and you nail that damned plasma gun first thing. After that, I figure we blow the shit out of the rest of that base. And then, we head on home.”

Ahead of them, as they came back around the curve of the moon, they saw the half-lit blue-and-white earth as it rose — majestically outlined against the black backdrop of space.

“It’s a great plan, Dusty,” Hannah Craig said quietly, gazing up in wonder at their native planet in all its breathtaking beauty. “Especially that part about heading home.”