“Nice! You’ll beat it sooner or later. You’ve got eight inches on me. Besides, I set that one during my college days.”
Jack walked into view on the screen, wearing a terrycloth bathrobe but with a head of still-wet hair.
“Ah, I thought I heard Ellie talking to you,” Jack said, sitting down.
“Ack! God, Dad, your hair’s dripping all over me!” Ellie moved over a foot.
“What’s this business about DEFCON Four?”
Jaana chuckled. “Right to the point. No worries, but you know it’s nothing I can talk about.”
“I know, I just haven’t seen it in a few years. Is there anything you can do about it on your end?”
“Not a thing.”
“Okay. Your opinion though… likely to get better or get worse?”
“I’m guessing better from what I know. And you know that’s all I can say.”
“What’ll you do if things get worse?”
Coming from Jack, she knew it was a trick question. “Irrelevant, hubby. You know the life. I follow my orders. Cog in the machine, and the machine has to work.”
“Well, you are a wonderful cog. That’s why I married you, you know. I wanted a good, functional cog.” He winked. Jack Pierce first met Jaana Koskinen at the Celestial War College, when she was a fast-track junior officer fresh from her first tour on the George Washington and he was a guest lecturer on coilgun technology. He had just left the service, lured out of uniform for a comfortable life in the defense industry. “Are you okay? You seem a little somber today.”
“I’m just now waking up and I’m still tired, that’s all. I miss you two. And Arleigh,”
“How’s your bonehead XO doing?”
“Hmm… he is what he is, but bonehead’s not the right word for Yates. I had a sitdown with him yesterday. I’m still trying to get us on the same page about command values and how to deal with subordinates.”
“Any progress?”
“I think I got through to him about the importance of criticizing people in private, though I swear he should’ve learned that lesson at the academy. He’s just determined to be an old-school hardass. Probably thinks I’m too soft. His attitude’s not necessarily wrong, though. We’re just apples and oranges.” Pierce shrugged.
The three spent another ten minutes talking about holiday plans and family business before Jaana decided to wrap it up. “Two more months, guys. Two more months and I’ll be home again.”
“We miss you too!” Ellie said. “Stay safe!”
“Two more months,” Jack echoed.
Pierce switched off the connection and sat silently in her cabin. This is why crews are sluggish this time of year, she reminded herself. Ships have dealt with the same holidays away from families for centuries, comms or no comms. There’s just no way around it. She had already planned for a half-day of work and drilling ahead for the crew. It wasn’t an easy decision to schedule a half-day on Christmas Eve, but everyone would have enough idle downtime the following day. Pierce figured she might as well keep everyone busy, and DEFCON Four provided a perfect excuse.
What was it that Jack said about it? “Is there anything I can do about it on my end?” Not likely, if the issue is with undersea cables. But let’s see if there’s any news.
She didn’t even begin to read the classified message traffic before something struck her as odd. On her unclassified internet feed, she noticed one of the stories on Reuters: “Foul Play at Engels Spaceport?”
She read through the short article. One of their launchpad cargo supervisors was found dead in a hotel room, possibly poisoned with an undisclosed type of gas, and his co-worker had gone missing only hours before. They had been preparing one of the spaceport’s ships for a routine supply mission, which launched without incident yesterday morning. Russian police were assuming the cases were related and were working on tracking down leads.
What was the name of that ship? I read the launch message yesterday...
“Abe,” Pierce said to the AI screen on her desk, “What’s the last status you have of the supply vessel Kostroma? Has it reached Dirac Station yet?”
“No, Captain,” Abe replied, displaying an overview of the ship’s track on his screen while he spoke. “Orbital telemetry confirms Kostroma remains on schedule to arrive at Dirac Station at 1300 Zulu today. All communications from the ship to its home port have been normal.”
“When was their last communication?”
“Stand by.” Abe paused while establishing a datalink with Engels. “Engels Spaceport received a routine ship’s status and navigational message at 0514 Zulu. The message indicated that the same data was also transmitted to Dirac Station. That message was the twenty-sixth such report for its voyage.”
Pierce sat back.
Death by gas?
US Space Command Headquarters
Omaha, Nebraska
11:50 p.m. 23 December (0550Z 24 December) 2065
The main operations watchfloor at the U.S. Space Command contained desks for thirty watchstanders, their rows arranged in arcs which focused on a two-story screen wall of displays. From there, the United States monitored the movement of every orbiting satellite, space station and spacecraft in vicinity of Earth as well as elsewhere in the solar system. It was not an international facility, but the real-time data generated from SPACECOM fused into a “common operating picture” which linked to Democratic Alliance commands around the world.
It wasn’t the grandest of watch centers, but for the military it was crucial. That made it a hot billet for junior officers trying to advance themselves in Space Command. Most American commanders and department heads onboard the celestial warships and command stations had done at least one tour at SPACECOM prior to their deployed assignments.
The watch operated in three sections during the week, with turnovers at midnight, eight a.m. and four pm. For the midwatch personnel, their main task was preparing for the morning brief they’d deliver to the commanding officer, Admiral Martin, and his staff every weekday at 7:30 before the daytime watch took over.
Despite the importance of the command, on most days it was a dull place to work, with little to do but maintain a database on the comings and goings of launches and orbital course shifts of satellites. Even the DA’s increase of its DEFCON status from Five to Four meant little to the watch officers there, except that they were a bit more tense than usual, and especially attentive towards any changes in Hrąs al-M’umnyn satellites.
“Good evening, Smitty, what’s the word?” the lieutenant commander asked his counterpart as he walked up to the Senior Watch Officer’s desk.
“Hi Nate. Minimal changes from yesterday. HM-wise, we haven’t seen any shifts in their birds. Everything is pinging as normal. Launches in the last 24 hours are highlighted on screen four. Let’s see… passenger craft Columbus arrived at Whiteman, supply craft Kostroma left Engels en route to Dirac, and Izmir launched a solar probe yesterday morning; you already know about those three. They’re still tracking as expected. Since you left, we’ve had an Indian weather bird launch into LEO and a Brazilian commercial sat launch – that one is still heading for GEO,” Smith said, referring to their orbital destinations. “Japan gave us a heads up that they’re readying a new Washi-type imagery bird to replace one in their constellation – you know, the one that’s been having optics problems? But that’ll probably happen Friday afternoon. And the transport ship Hartford is still due to depart Mars orbit tomorrow. That’s about it.”
Nate Byers nodded along. “Pretty quiet. Any news on the cables thing?”
“Not much that I’ve heard. I called the Navy’s intel watch at ONI, and they say they’ll both be repaired within a few days. They still haven’t determined exactly what happened, but they’ll get a look at them pretty soon. It sounds like they’re trying to get ships out to do some improvised inspections on other cable sites around the Mediterranean. But that’s all I’ve heard. Personally, I think the HM is just screwing around with us, seeing wh
at we’ll do.”
“Yeah, probably. How about the Engels thing as far as Kostroma goes? Did you guys notice that?”
“You mean Engels Spaceport? What Engels thing?”
“I noticed it on Reuters a few hours ago. One of their cargo supervisors turned up dead in a hotel, though the police weren’t sure what killed him. But one of the guy’s coworkers from the spaceport went missing a few hours before that. They were both working on the Kostroma’s pad before it launched.”
“No kidding? Well, Kostroma is tracking normal and Engels hasn’t said anything to us. I didn’t even see the story on the news.”
“I don’t think it got much coverage considering the DEFCON bump going on. Plus the blizzard happening in New York. I didn’t notice a follow-up piece on it, but I haven’t checked for a couple hours.”
“Everything should be fine with the ship, or else we would’ve heard something. But you might want to give Engels a call when you’re on watch, find out what’s up.”
“Will do. By the way, am I briefing this morning? Is the admiral coming in?”
Smith chuckled. “As always. Eduardo and Jenna are already putting the brief together.”
“Jeez, he doesn’t even take Christmas Eve off? Do you know if he’s planning on leaving early? You know, like any normal person would?”
“I don’t know, but I wouldn’t bet on it. If the DEFCON level goes any higher, would you want to explain to the Joint Chiefs that you had to hurry back here to do your job?”
“Right, fair enough. So everything you mentioned is in the passdown log? Okay, I have the watch. See you tomorrow, Smitty.”
Ten minutes later, the watch leader was sipping coffee as he looked through routine message traffic. There was a lot of chatter about the increased readiness. As he read through, a direct message arrived from the CO of the Lincoln requesting a status update of the RFSS Kostroma. The Lincoln’s captain cited Space Command’s standing protocols for DEFCON Four, which allowed the SPACECOM watch to query any satellites and manned craft outside Earth’s atmosphere. This captain must be a real tight one to ask us about that, he figured, considering the readiness bump had to do with undersea cables. Then again, the Reuters story was a little odd. She must’ve read the news just like he did.
Byers looked at the morning brief he’d have to give in seven hours. There wasn’t much to say, but perhaps he could fix that. Face-time with the admiral and senior staff was important, and it wouldn’t be long before Byers would be spending a week back on the day shift, and then the evening shift, then an admin week. All told, it would be over a month before he’d be delivering the morning briefs again. But the chain of command would begin working on officers’ annual fitness reports right after New Year’s.
He sent a text message to the operations center at Engels Spaceport and got the reply he had expected. One cargo supervisor had died in a hotel and his autopsy would happen today, and another one was still missing. But the Kostroma launched perfectly, and all transmissions had been normal. All good to know, Byers thought. But why not show some real initiative? When the means are available…
He accessed the data on the Kostroma’s flight: they were over seventy percent of the distance through with their planned route. Not yet far enough around the Sun for loss of communications, but getting close.
“Lieutenant Ramirez, align our laser comms relay to connect with the supply ship Kostroma. I want to be able to talk to their bridge before they’re too far around and go into the blackout zone.”
“Sir? That’s outside procedures, isn’t it? They’re a non-US, non-military ship.”
“True, but DEFCON Four or higher gives us permission to query any craft outside of Earth’s atmosphere. I’d just like to hear from them how things are running.”
“Are you worried about sabotage? I heard you talking with Commander Smith about Engels during turnover.”
“Maybe, I don’t know. I won’t tell them about the two dock workers. That’s for Engels to do when they get home, I guess. Do you remember that Chinese ship Yuè Shí two years ago? It was heading to the moon, had a reactor casualty halfway there, and it turned out that one of the ship’s engineers was an infiltrator from some weird-ass doomsday cult?”
The lieutenant snickered. “Aye, sir. Do you want text, audio, or visual?”
“Let’s go with audio. Video is going to look terrible at this range.”
SPACECOM linked to a ground transceiver dish in Australia, which linked to one of the DA’s four laser communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit. The powerful satellite adjusted one of its arrays to point a few minutes ahead of the Kostroma to where it would be by the time it received the signal. In Omaha, Nate Byers switched on a microphone.
“Russian Federation Supply Ship Kostroma, this is United States Space Command, operations watch. The Democratic Alliance is currently operating at an increased defense condition, and SPACECOM is conducting routine queries with underway spacecraft. Please respond with standard voice and datalink checks. Time is zero six one three Zulu, over.”
Not at all required, Byers thought, but not inappropriate either. At least he’d get to mention that he did that in the morning brief with the admiral. And better now than later: Kostroma was already entering the solar interference zone.
* **
Fourteen minutes later on the bridge of the Kostroma, Demirci and the MAKs jolted upright in their seats when they received the static-laced audio message.
“Bok!” Colonel Terzi blurted out. “Sergeant Kervan, bring the captain back here, quickly!”
Demirci ran over to the navigator’s station and peeked at the screen from behind Lieutenant Erkan’s shoulder. “It’s 0627 Zulu. We’re nearly at the blackout stage. Colonel… maybe we shouldn’t have their captain respond. He could send some kind of covert signal of duress.”
“Another half hour and we’ll be beyond comms range with Earth, correct? Too far behind the Sun?”
“Yes, Colonel. Possibly less time than that. The signals to and from Earth are already going through the interference zone. That was the static we heard.”
Kervan brought the captain back in, hands locked on his head. Terzi held up a hand towards them as he contemplated his decision.
“Lieutenant Erkan, replay that message. Let the captain hear it.” Erkan did so, and Terzi followed the recording. “Captain, I want you to tell me exactly how you would respond to that. Tell me what the protocol is.”
Pavel Vorontsov hesitated, but then swallowed and spoke. “The datalink they’re asking for is just a resend of our automated status and telemetry links. We have ten minutes to send them a single status message, broadcast on an open comms frequency instead of the encrypted ones we use to send to Engels and Dirac. The voice reply is nothing but a message acknowledging their message. There is no standard format for that.”
“Do they expect any code words? Something which signals all-clear or under-duress?”
Vorotsov wondered if he should lie. There were code words… if they were prompted for them: ‘dove’ and ‘raven’. But only Engels Spaceport would know about them. SPACECOM didn’t ask, and he didn’t know how he could work either one in an open response.
“No, sir, they asked for none. And we’re not required to–“
“But you have such words?” Demirci asked. “What are they?”
Vorontsov’s stomach tightened, noticing Sergeant Kervan standing with one hand on the hilt of a chest-mounted tactical knife. “Dove and raven. But we have to be discreetly asked for them.” The captain slouched, telling himself that he was a coward though he could think of nothing else he might have told them.
Terzi paced as he thought. The captain was right that SPACECOM didn’t ask for anything of the sort. He could simply trust the man, or he could first verify the words with the other crewmembers being held in the wardroom. But there wasn’t time for that. Better to just trust in God, he decided.
“Heavyweight, return the captain to the wardroom for
now,” Terzi said, using Kervan’s codename. The sergeant walked him back out of the bridge, and then Terzi continued. “Lieutenant Erkan, send no reply. And make sure no more automated status messages go out to Engels, only to Dirac. We are now in the blackout zone.”
CHAPTER 6
US Space Command Headquarters
Omaha, Nebraska
12:52 a.m. (0652Z), 24 December 2065
Byers looked at the clock. 0652Z was past the deadline. Kostroma should have responded by now.
“Are the Russians snoozing on their bridge?” he mumbled to himself. “Eduardo, the Kostroma… how far into the comms interference zone are they by now?”
Lieutenant Ramirez inset a tactical display of the inner solar system on the front wall. “Over an hour in by now, sir. They should be past that and into the no-comms zone in another ten to twenty minutes.”
“Okay. Any reason why they wouldn’t have received the message we sent? Or that we wouldn’t have received a reply? I mean, how flexible are the boundaries for the interference and blackout zones?”
“Pretty solid for us, sir. The ranges displayed are based on what we know we can send from our GEO transmitters. Kostroma definitely got the message. As for whether they could transmit back from where they are, uh…”
“Still likely,” said Lieutenant Jenna Katz. “Sir, I just pulled up Kostroma’s specs. Their main comms array includes a two-hundred kilowatt laser transmitter. It’s like the ones on our GEO satellites. Same manufacturer, actually. It should’ve gotten through solar interference at that range. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen comms go through similar ranges from other ships.”
“Well, isn’t this fuckin’ disconcerting?” he said, then followed under his breath with “Great, so now what?” It was no use sending another message – the ship would definitely be inside the blackout zone by the time the transmission got that far. “Thanks, Jenna. Eduardo, format a text message to send to SPACECOM commands that Kostroma failed a comms check. I think there’s a template for it already. Include the time of our message and a summary of their flight path. And also send it to the captain of the Lincoln. She’s the one who asked about that ship to begin with.”
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