by Dale Brown
Gryzlov nodded his approval. “A good plan, Colonel.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Any comments, Mikhail?” Gryzlov asked, almost offhandedly.
Silently, Leonov shook his head. Strelkov’s proposal threaded the needle between common sense—sitting tight until the Americans grew weary of seeing nothing suspicious on Mars One and departed—and the president’s obvious eagerness to test their new weapons on a real live target. In the circumstances, it was probably the best they could do.
“Very well, Strelkov, you may proceed,” Gryzlov said. “But maintain this direct link to Moscow. And stand by for further orders as the situation warrants.”
Aboard the S-19 Midnight Spaceplane
A Short Time Later
Again, Brad McLanahan felt himself pressed back into his seat as the spaceplane’s main engines fired in rocket mode for the third time on this mission. But this time, they shut down after only a few seconds. Numbers and graphics flowed across his display. “Good burn,” he announced. “Our orbit is circularized and stable at three hundred and eighty miles up.”
“Fuel status?” Boomer asked.
Brad paged through to another screen. “Plenty of hydrazine for the thrusters. And we’ve got more than enough JP-8 and ‘bomb’ remaining for additional on-orbit maneuvers and a powered descent. But I’d recommend a rendezvous with another 767 aerial tanker once we’re back in the atmosphere.” He raised an eyebrow. “Unless you want to try making a dead-stick landing like the one Nadia and Constable pulled off in the simulator?”
“Not me,” Boomer retorted, smiling. “A man’s gotta know his limitations and I draw the line at trying to fly this sucker like it’s a glider. Sims are one thing. Reality . . . well, that’s a whole lot different.” He poked at his own display, transmitting a text to Sky Masters requesting additional tanker support. “In the meantime, let’s do what we came here to do. Can you give me a visual cue to the Russian station?”
“No problem, boss,” Brad said. Their S-19 was in an orbit whose inclination matched that of Mars One, though offset by roughly one hundred miles. Right now they were also trailing the station by twenty miles. On the other hand, their lower altitude gave the spaceplane a slightly higher orbital velocity—not much, just around forty miles per hour. Still, that meant they would pass Mars One in a little over thirty minutes.
Quickly, he instructed their computer to match their known position in orbit with the current estimated location of the Russian space station. Fractions of a second later, it sent a steering indicator to Boomer’s HUD.
Maneuvering thrusters fired as the spaceplane yawed, swinging its nose around until they were pointing almost at right angles to their direction of travel. Bright green brackets appeared in the upper part of their individual heads-up displays—highlighting where Mars One should be. But at this distance and deep in the darkness of the earth’s shadow, it was still effectively invisible to them.
“Any luck with the nav radar?” Boomer asked.
“Little blips and skips,” Brad said. “But I can’t lock the station up. That damned thing is definitely coated with some kind of radar-absorbent material.”
Boomer snorted. “Yeah, that’s just what you’d expect from a peaceful civilian orbital platform.” He shook his head. “Well, let’s see how much info we can shake loose up close and impersonal. You ready on the nanosats?”
Brad nodded. “I’m on it. Spinning them up now.” He began entering the commands that would bring their payload of eight tiny recon satellites to life. One by one, he activated their propulsion systems and electronics. Green lights blossomed on his display. “Good indicators on all eight,” he reported. “Initializing guidance systems.”
More taps on his MFD sent precise navigation fixes to each nanosat’s tiny onboard computer. These computers were essentially derivatives of consumer-grade smartphone technology. Using them to control a spacecraft sounded crazy, except for the fact that the Apollo computers that made it to the moon and back were millions of times slower and less powerful than a modern smartphone.
This time, though, Brad saw only seven green lights. One remained stubbornly red. One of their satellites, one of three rigged to carry a sensitive infrared camera, was refusing to accept data from the S-19’s computer. He tried again. No joy. Without up-to-date navigation data, that particular nanosat was as good as dead. Sure, it could still fly, but God alone knew where it was likely to go if they launched it.
“Well, crap,” he muttered. “We’ve lost Sierra Four. It won’t accept data.” He glanced across the cockpit. “I bet a cable connector jarred loose during one of our burns.”
Boomer nodded. That was a reasonable theory. The need for speed in readying this mission had forced shortcuts in normal procedures—including having Sky Masters technicians double- and triple-check the bracing used to secure their payload under acceleration. Considering the shake, rattle, and roll they’d put the S-19 Midnight through over the past hours, he and Brad were lucky only to have lost one of the eight miniature spacecraft they’d brought into orbit.
He checked the elapsed time since they’d reached this orbit. “We’ll cross into sunlight in ten minutes,” he reminded Brad. “So let’s crank open the cargo bay doors and get these birds in flight while we’ve got some cover.”
“On it,” Brad said in agreement. He punched a control to open the cargo bay. Releasing their tiny recon satellites while they were still in darkness was a good move. True, compared to Mars One or even the S-19, the nanosats were about as big as fleas on an elephant. But they weren’t invisible, and launching a flock of them in full sunlight would certainly catch somebody’s unwelcome eye. Since the whole point of this trip was to recon the Russians’ new space station without unduly spooking them, that was definitely something to avoid.
Through the deck plating beneath his booted feet, he felt a soft rumble as the spaceplane’s cargo doors unlatched and swung open. A light above the control he’d pushed flashed green and stayed lit. “The doors are fully open.”
“Roger that,” Boomer acknowledged. “Launch at your discretion.”
“Launching now,” Brad said. He tapped icons in sequence, releasing clamps that had secured each of the seven functioning satellites in place. Small spring mechanisms ejected them into space one by one.
As they floated free out of the cargo bay, the nanosats’ onboard computers took over. Short bursts from their chemical engines—which used highly efficient and nontoxic AF-M315E, hydroxylammonium nitrate, as a propellant—sent them outward on diverging courses aimed roughly at where Mars One would be in approximately twenty minutes. If all went well, their little flock of satellites would pass on all sides of the station at ranges between fifteen and twenty-five miles.
A red icon suddenly blinked above the image of one of the stylized nanosats on Brad’s screen. “Shit,” he growled.
“Problem?” Boomer asked.
“The burn on Sierra Six was a fraction of a second too long. She’s heading off into deep space,” Brad answered. His fingers flew across the display, sending a series of new commands to the errant satellite’s computer through a secure data link.
In response, three small magnets aboard the nanosat—oriented along the x, y, and z axes—powered up in a precise sequence. Together, they generated a tiny local magnetic field oriented in a specific direction. When the field created by these magnetorquers brushed against Earth’s far more powerful ambient magnetic field, the reaction altered the nanosat’s facing—in much the same way a child could use a more powerful magnet to tug at a smaller one. Once the satellite was properly aligned, its chemical engine fired again, using just a quick pulse to push it back onto its preplanned flight path.
The red icon blinked off.
Brad breathed out in relief. “We’re good. All seven birds are flying straight and true.”
“And there you see the value of having a man in the loop,” Boomer said in satisfaction. “Now all we have to do is sit
tight out here in the dark and see what turns up.”
Twenty-One
Aboard Mars One
A Short Time Later
Colonel Vadim Strelkov saw the earth below them emerge from darkness as Mars One crossed the terminator line and came back into daylight. Swirls of brilliant white cloud covered much of the North Atlantic. Just ahead lay the rugged mass of Portugal and Spain, an undulating mix of arid brown mountains and plateaus and green, wooded ridges and valleys.
“Our solar arrays are back online at maximum efficiency,” Pyotr Romanenko reported from his post in another compartment near the aft end of the command module. “And our backup batteries are recharging at the expected rate.”
Strelkov felt some of his tension ease slightly. “Very good, Major,” he said over the intercom. “Cut power to all nonessential systems. I want electricity available to recharge the Thunderbolt rail gun and our lasers if necessary.”
“Yes, sir,” Romanenko said. “Cutting power now.”
In response, lights dimmed across the command compartment. The constant background noise of their air-recirculation fans faded. Indicators on various consoles went yellow as whole subsystems—oxygen generators, water recovery, waste management, and others—were put on standby.
Satisfied that his orders were being obeyed, Strelkov turned his attention back to the distant American spaceplane. Up to now, it had been visible only as a blotchy, glowing heat signature. But as it crossed the terminator, still behind them though slowly catching up, the black-winged S-19 took on shape and definition in Mars One’s powerful telescopes.
He frowned. The spaceplane’s nose was aimed straight at them. “Are the Americans closing on us, Georgy?” he demanded.
From his sensor console, Konnikov replied: “No, sir. Their spacecraft is continuing on the same slightly lower orbit, offset from ours by one hundred and sixty kilometers.” He leaned closer to his display. “They’ve probably rotated toward us to increase the efficiency of their onboard radar.”
“Has it locked on to us?”
Konnikov turned his helmeted head. Since they were still on station air, his visor was up. “No, Colonel.” He shrugged. “The S-19’s radar is far too weak to penetrate our stealth coating.” He turned back at his screen. “One thing is odd, though,” he commented. “The spaceplane’s payload bay doors appear to be open.”
Strelkov felt colder suddenly. What were the Americans up to?
From the forward weapons module, Leonid Revin suggested, “Maybe they need to radiate heat generated by their life-support system, like NASA’s old space shuttle orbiters?”
“I do not think so, Captain,” Strelkov said slowly. While training for duty aboard Mars One, he had studied every piece of information gained by observing Sky Masters spaceplanes during their flights to and from America’s Armstrong military space station and the International Space Station. Everything indicated they usually opened their cargo doors only after they were docked . . . not during flight.
Gryzlov broke in abruptly over their link to Moscow. “Those open doors could be proof the Americans are planning to attack you!” he growled. “What if they brought missiles with them into orbit, hidden inside that cargo bay?”
Strelkov felt his pulse speed up. My God, he realized, the president might be right. Frantically, he pulled up what was known about the S-19’s payload capacity on his command console. Current intelligence suggested it was a little under three thousand kilograms. At first, that didn’t seem like much . . . not until he had the computer run that figure against different U.S. missile types.
His eyes widened. The American AIM-120D advanced medium-range air-to-air missile was the most likely match. The AMRAAM’s solid-fuel rocket motor meant it could be fired in space. With a maximum range of more than one hundred and eighty kilometers, attack speed of nearly five thousand kilometers per hour, and twenty-three kilogram high-explosive blast-fragmentation warhead, a salvo of AIM-120s might pose a serious threat to the Mars One station. And that Sky Masters S-19 out there could be carrying up to sixteen such missiles in its bay . . .
Aboard the S-19 Midnight Spaceplane
That Same Time
Hunter “Boomer” Noble kept his eyes fixed on the brightly lit dot that was Mars One. They were almost level with it now, though still at a lower altitude. Even from one hundred miles away, that Russian space station gave him the creeps. Something about it made him imagine a huge shark silently gliding through the ocean depths in search of smaller prey.
“Getting anything yet?” he asked.
“Well, nothing obviously bad. At least not so far,” Brad told him. He had his eyes fixed on his display while he scrolled through the thermal and visual imagery collected by nanosatellites as they flew closer to Mars One. “But our birds are still a little too far out to pick up much detail. Our guys on the ground ought to be able to get a lot more with computer-assisted image enhancement, though.”
Boomer nodded. Every piece of data obtained by their constellation of spy satellites was being relayed to Battle Mountain in real time. The Scion and Sky Masters intelligence analysts stationed there should be having a field day sorting through all the information they were gathering.
Through the S-19’s cockpit canopy, the glittering point of light that was the Russian space station slid slowly to the left. They were passing Mars One now. Thrusters fired, yawing the spaceplane to keep its nose centered on target.
Boomer frowned. “You know, those bastards over there are being awfully quiet.”
“You think they’re all asleep?” Brad suggested with a lopsided grin.
“Fuck no,” Boomer grunted. “The Russians must have spotted us almost as soon as we boosted. On any half-decent IR sensor, we’d have stood out like a sore thumb.”
He chewed that over for a few seconds. From an astronautical point of view, their S-19 and the space station were practically within spitting distance. So why the prolonged silence? At a minimum, Mars One should be querying them about their intentions and warning them to keep a safe distance.
Boomer came to a decision. If that big-ass space station out there was armed, he sure as hell did not want the cosmonauts on board it going off half-cocked. It was time to establish contact and ease the tension. He punched in a new radio frequency—143.625 MHz FM, one of the two commonly used by manned Russian spacecraft for voice communications. “Dobroye utro, Mars Odin! Good morning, Mars One! This is Midnight Zero-One. Sorry to pop up on you unannounced like this, but we just thought we’d swing by to pay our respects and welcome you folks to orbit.”
Half listening while Boomer talked, Brad stiffened suddenly. What the hell? He tapped his display. It froze on one of the pictures transmitted by their recon satellites. This was a close-up of a station module, one of those that formed the vertical “bars” of what sort of looked like a sideways capital letter I.
His eyes narrowed as he studied the image closely. Now that the nanosats had a good angle on Mars One in full sunlight, their cameras were spotting odd discontinuities in its surface structures. What first appeared to be ordinary cabling and conduits girding a section of hull plating looked wrong somehow. He zoomed in on a narrow section of the image. There were definitely places where those cables and conduits didn’t connect up the way they should—not if they were supposed to serve any useful purpose. Yeah, he thought coldly, that’s not my imagination. They were fakes. Window dressing. But why would the Russians build a space station hull and then layer it with phony conduits?
Struck by what at first seemed a pretty wild theory, Brad pulled up more data from another of their nanosatellites. Sierra Two was one of those equipped with a sensitive thermographic camera. The images it had captured showed Mars One as a riot of psychedelic colors, revealing even tiny differences in the station’s surface temperatures. In some ways, that wasn’t surprising. Depending on whether a given section of hull was in sunlight or shadow, you could expect its temperature to range anywhere from plus 250 degrees to minus 250
degrees Fahrenheit. But even allowing for highly efficient insulation, some of the readings he saw were significantly outside the predicted norms.
And that matched up with his suspicions.
Excitedly, he turned toward Boomer. “Holy shit! Parts of that space station’s hull are definitely fake!”
“Fake? Fake, how?”
Swiftly, Brad highlighted sections on several of the pictures sent back by their tiny satellites and copied them to Boomer’s display. “See? These are supposedly solid sections of hull. But that’s bullshit. They’re actually camouflaged hatches or ports!”
Slowly, Boomer nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” His mouth tightened. “Okay, let’s do our damnedest not to find out what’s behind those hidden doors the hard way.”
Aboard Mars One
That Same Time
“. . . thought we’d swing by to pay our respects and welcome you folks to orbit.”
Strelkov was caught off guard by the American spaceplane pilot’s cheerful, friendly-sounding greeting. Why this sudden radio transmission from the spaceplane that had been trailing them in silence for more than half an hour?
Konnikov glanced over at him from his sensor console. “Should I reply, Colonel?”
Strelkov nodded tightly. “Be polite, Georgy. But instruct them to keep their distance.”
“Yes, sir.” Konnikov keyed his own mike. “Midnight Zero-One, this is Mars One. Thank you for the kind sentiments. However, for flight safety reasons, we must insist that you approach no closer.”
Long seconds passed before Strelkov heard the American’s elaborately casual reply crackle through his headset. “Copy that, Mars One. Don’t sweat it. We’ll be sure not to crowd you. The sky up here is plenty big for both of us.”
