Orbital

Seventeen Sino Space

Last time I road a DarkStar it was like tearing through the cosmos on a space dragster. The acceleration was on the borderline between pass out and feel like you’re having sex with the universe.

This time the experience was much less intense. Previously, we were using the separation event from the second stage of the Alicorn booster as a mask for the launch of the DarkStark from its Unicorn shell.

Because the DarkStar II launches from a faux-satellite, a rapid launch is both unnecessary and unwise.

Instead, the DarkStar is ejected from the Night Bird like a pellet from an air rifle by filling up the chamber it sits in with compressed air and decoupling.

It’s a bit of jolt, to be sure, but more like the kind you experience if you’re sitting in a shopping cart and your friend gives you a shove.

The thrusters don’t turn on until I’m miles away from the satellite. And even then, they’re only opened up slowly.

The reason for this is because we assume the Night Bird is being watched by our opponents. If there was a sudden flash of rocket fire and something totally radar and infrared invisible came shooting out the end, the secrecy of the stealth spaceship would be shattered.

To this day, the Russians don’t know how I snuck aboard the Korolev space station. The public assumption, and the one we let leak, is that I traveled to there via a blacked out Unicorn that managed to sneak through their radar.

The Night Bird is one more means to protect the secret of the DarkStar. While from a technical point of view, the DarkStar isn’t all that sophisticated, the outer coating and shape they designed is extremely well-suited for stealth operations in space.

It turns out that ship was originally intended to be a space-based missile for taking out other orbiting platforms. Fun times. I’m in a missile.

To dock near the CS626, the DarkStar has to pull a very tricky maneuver of matching orbit and then getting a trajectory that brings it very close, but not use rocket thrust to slow down. This is so any Chinese spies watching their satellite on an infrared telescope don’t see a suspicious heat plume.

While the DarkStar does have compressed air jets that shoot out cold gas to make small position adjustments, there’s a very limited amount onboard. If I overshoot the CS626, the mission is a scrub.

If that’s not enough of a challenge, the DarkStar can’t use its onboard radar system to intercept the CS626. Bouncing radio signals off the hull of the satellite might let them know we’re coming. The DarkStar will have to rely on visual systems and a passive radar using other known sources — which isn’t nearly as precise.

And because the CS626 is in a sleep mode, there’s no transponder sending out a friendly beep we can track. Which technically makes the satellite a derelict piece of space junk.

More fun times.

Fortunately, this is all handled by the computer. So nobody gets to point any fingers at David if it all goes south. Although they’ll probably find a way to.

“How are you doing?” asks Laney over the comm.

“Watching the CS626 get bigger. You?”

“We have you on satellite.”

“This is a stealth ship. Shouldn’t you not have me on satellite?”

“We’re looking down as you cross the day side of the Earth. And we know exactly where to look.”

“Maybe I should paint a map of Tasmania on the roof?”

“That’ll work. Don’t worry, you’re still very radar invisible. If another satellite did aim in your direction and adjust for the right distance, you’d appear to be just another piece of space junk.”

“Another piece? Thanks. Dashboard says I’ll be near the CS626 in eight minutes. The thing is still in sleep mode, right?”

“Yes. I’ve been looking at Victor’s data and noticed a thermal peculiarity. It’s probably nothing. But the satellite appears to retain heat a little longer than something else that size with a similar function.”

“What does that mean for me?”

“It won’t be sub-zero inside there. But don’t go stripping off your spacesuit and bouncing around in your tighty-whities. There’s still radiation to consider. I’m assured by everyone here that it’s totally safe. Which is easy to say when you’re fifteen-thousand miles away from the source of radiation.”

“No worries. I’m a boxer-briefs kind of guy anyway.”

The DarkStar makes some small orbiting adjustments and the CS626 becomes a recognizable shape on my display.

I’m still a hundred meters away and will have to do a spacewalk to get there, but the tricky intercept part is done. Now it’s just a matter of using my suit jets to mosey on down there and pop the hatch.

“Ops, I’m in position. Getting ready to depressurize and open the hatch.”

“Proceed, Mongoose.”

There was a small discussion about what call signs to use. I wanted Captain Odyssey or Danger Blackheart. Laney suggested various species of egg-stealing rodents. We settled on Mongoose. I guess I’m okay with that.

I give myself a small push and float out of the back hatch of the DarkStar. The arrow-shaped nose is pointing directly down towards the CS626 and Earth.

Between the stealth coating of the spaceship and my spacesuit, anybody looking up should only see a bright shiny satellite and not the thieving pirate leaving his vessel.

My tether unspools from my waist as I drift away from the ship. To make my way to the CS626 I have a small compressed gas gun that will pull me along like Mary Poppins’ umbrella.

I give the gear bag strap a tug and it floats clear of the DarkStar. Inside is my lock picking tools and tanks of compressed gas I’ll need to infiltrate the airlock and not depressurize the whole thing.

“Making my way to the CS.”

“Roger that, Mongoose. Try to be quick about it. It’s not all about you,” Laney quips.