Fatal Orbit

by Tom Grace

  Having seen the clip several times, Kilkenny instead watched the reaction of the other people in the room. Jesup was the most visibly affected by hearing once more the voices of Liberty’s crew—people he considered friends—and then witnessing the manner of their deaths. The clip ended and the room lights came back up.

  “W-where did you get this?” Jesup stammered.

  “That’s the one piece of good news that I can provide today,” Barnett replied. “As you can see in the clip, astronaut Pete Washabaugh was outside the shuttle at the time of the attack. He survived the destruction of Liberty and, in a display of survival heroics comparable to Shackleton, managed to rendezvous with the International Space Station.”

  “Son of a gun,” Jesup said with a broad smile. He then turned to Kilkenny. “Why did Pete send this to you?”

  “He didn’t,” Kilkenny replied. “Kelsey Newton did.”

  “Who?” Kowalkowski asked.

  “Dr. Newton is a member of the current expedition crew aboard the ISS,” Ryerson answered.

  “She is also my associate’s fiancée,” Barnett added. “Upon recovering Washabaugh from space, Dr. Newton and her crewmates quickly realized the gravity of their situation and wisely sought a secure means of letting us know something terribly wrong had transpired. While not in our employ, Mr. Kilkenny does have a working relationship with the agency that to date has proven quite useful.”

  “What I don’t understand is why anyone would attack our shuttle,” Ryerson said. “And how did they do it?”

  “The how is easy,” Kowalkowski answered. “Star Wars.”

  “Star Wars?”

  “Under Reagan it was called Star Wars,” Kowalkowski explained. “Later it evolved into NMD, but whatever the name, the idea was still the same. Every missile defense concept has always included some form of space-based weapon—either energy beam or kinetic.”

  “Are you saying that Liberty was destroyed by an American missile defense weapon?” Ryerson asked, barely masking her anger.

  “The United States has not deployed any form of space-based missile defense system,” Oates replied firmly. “Nor has the government authorized recent testing for any part of our NMD strategy. Miss Ryerson, the answer to your question is an emphatic no—The United States did not shoot down Liberty.”

  “Ma’am, I didn’t mean to imply that at all,” Kowalkowski said to Ryerson. “My point was some form of space-based weapon is the likely mechanism of this tragedy. I have no knowledge regarding who actually pulled the trigger.”

  “Kelsey believes that the weapon used was an energy beam—a laser,” Kilkenny offered. “Getting back to your first question, Ms. Ryerson, whoever did this wasn’t after the shuttle, initially. They were after that communications satellite.”

  “Oh, shit,” Jesup blurted out before he could stop himself.

  “You care to explain that deduction?” Kowalkowski asked suspiciously, ignoring Jesup’s outburst.

  “Sure.”

  Kilkenny checked his notes and punched a time index into the computer connected to the wall display. The damaged side of the satellite appeared on the screen.

  “This is what Washabaugh saw when he retrieved the satellite. Note that both sides of this tank are blown out and that the openings are exactly opposite each other. There’s no way those ruptures are the result of metal fatigue or an Apollo 13-style explosion inside the tank. Something burned a hole straight through and ignited the fuel.”

  “Dr. Newton is a well-respected physicist,” Barnett added. “This image was enough to convince her that an energy weapon had been used to disable this satellite. What she saw of the damage inflicted on Liberty served only to bolster that opinion.”

  “So Liberty was attacked because we sent it to retrieve that satellite,” Jesup concluded.

  “That appears to be the most plausible scenario,” Kilkenny replied.

  “Which then raises the likelihood of a security breach,” Barnett said.

  “How so?” Tao asked. “I knew Liberty was launching that satellite—it was on CNN.”

  “Oh, that’s right, Roxanne,” Barnett said. “You and Nolan haven’t been briefed on the satellite’s true nature. Colonel, would you do the honors?”

  “Ma’am, what you saw on the news was our cover story. The satellite that Liberty took up was the first in a new generation of reconnaissance satellites, code-named Oculus. These new birds were designed to replace our aging Lacrosse radar imaging satellites. Since we don’t want anyone to know about these new ones, we’re mixing our launches in with those for a commercial constellation being put up by the shuttle for ZetaComm. ZetaComm also happens to be the contractor for our satellites.”

  “Convenient,” Kilkenny said.

  “Both sides do benefit from this arrangement.”

  Tao turned to Barnett. “So, someone who knew about Oculus must have leaked that information.”

  Barnett nodded.

  “Colonel, how many people knew about your covert launch program?” Oates asked.

  “Outside the NRO, somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty, mostly ZetaComm technicians involved with prepping the satellite for launch and a few key people at NASA. I can have my staff pull together a current list of names.”

  Jesup’s face reddened, still angry at being left out of the loop regarding his shuttle’s payload.

  “That’ll be a starting point for us,” McRae said. “We’ll put together a task force out of Quantico to run down those leads.”

  “Good,” Oates said. “The other half of this investigation falls to the CIA—identifying which nation may have placed a weapon system in orbit.”

  “Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong,” Kilkenny said, “but isn’t the attack on Liberty an act of war?”

  Oates studied Kilkenny carefully before answering. “Any provocative act, taken at the wrong time, could be construed as an act of war. Our flying U2s over the Soviet Union, and the subsequent downing of one of those planes, could have easily been seen in that way.”

  “But isn’t there a sort of international gentlemen’s agreement about spy satellites? We don’t shoot down theirs and they don’t shoot down ours.”

  “Yes, but in the decades since that quiet understanding was reached, several other nations have acquired the ability to place technological assets into orbit. Some of these nations are ruled by people for whom the term gentlemen does not apply.”

  “I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves,” Barnett interjected. “Above us are four people aboard a space station, and somewhere in orbit with them is a weapon that could end their lives. We must find out whose hand guides that weapon, and our efforts must be both quick and quiet. We must act as though we suspect nothing, pretending that what happened two days ago was a tragic accident. Whatever action the president decides to take in the pursuit of justice, we here must not forget that four more lives depend upon our efforts.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  DAHLGREN, VIRGINIA

  “—and here in the Tracking Center is where we keep tabs on pretty much everything in orbit, right down to stuff about the size of a baseball,” Heshel explained as he led Kilkenny and Tao back to his office.

  Bright orange cards hanging from Kilkenny and Tao’s necks identified them as visitors to the facility. Military and civilian personnel working at U.S. Space Command all wore photo IDs with embedded chips that permitted or denied access to areas depending on the person’s clearance. Heshel swiped his ID through the reader by his office door, then held it open for his guests.

  “Last count, we were tracking nearly ten thousand objects,” Heshel continued.

  “And you know where everything is at any given moment?” Tao asked.

  “Pretty much. Coffee?”

  Both Kilkenny and Tao shook their heads as they sat down.

  “How do you do that?” Tao asked.

  “I’ll show you.”

  Heshel jockeyed his mouse around a pad decorated with the i
mage of an F117A. As he rapidly clicked away with the pointing device, one of his workstation monitors filled with an image of the Earth.

  “That’s the Fence,” Heshel said, referring to a thin, transparent plane of pale yellow that extended from the southern United States straight up into space.

  “How far up does it reach?” Kilkenny asked.

  “About fifteen thousand miles.”

  “Aren’t there satellites higher up than that?”

  Heshel nodded. “Geosynchronous orbit is 22,300 miles up, directly over the equator. That’s prime real estate—mostly big telecommunications satellites.”

  “How do you police the area in between?” Tao asked.

  “Optically, with a network of ground-based telescopes. That’s also how we keep tabs on all the smaller junk in orbit—stuff down to the size of a pebble. We estimate there’s around four hundred thousand objects in orbit, all zipping around at over seventeen thousand miles per hour. Getting hit by any of that stuff is guaranteed to ruin your day.”

  “With everything that’s up there,” Tao said, “it sounds like we’re looking for a speck of dust in a whirlwind.”

  “True, but fortunately, what we’re looking for should be considerably larger than a baseball,” Kilkenny said, “which should narrow the field.”

  “Considerably,” Heshel agreed. “There’s only somewhere in the neighborhood of a few thousand objects that meet the criteria of what we’re looking for. Also, your weapon will likely be in a lower orbit, putting it in range of the Fence.”

  “Why is that?” Tao asked.

  “You put a satellite in geosynchronous orbit when you want it to always be over the same spot on Earth. That way you can point a receiver up at one spot in the sky and forget it—like the small dish I have at home to watch TV. For something like a spy satellite or this weapon we’re looking for, you want flexibility, so you shoot for a lower orbit and move your bird around as needed.”

  Kilkenny studied the image on the wall monitor, imagining objects orbiting the planet. “So, you don’t have continuous real-time coverage of everything in orbit.”

  “No,” Heshel replied. “But we really don’t need to. When an object crosses our sensors, we know exactly where it is at that moment. Orbits being what they are, it’s not hard to extrapolate where something’s going.”

  “What about the satellites that move?” Tao asked.

  “That’s the exception to the rule, but even those birds can only go so far.”

  “So, how do we proceed?” Tao asked.

  Kilkenny studied the image on the monitor further, then motioned toward the white board on Heshel’s wall. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  Kilkenny cleared the board and drew a large circle. “This is the Earth, and this—” he said, adding a small triangle above the circle, “—is Liberty. Since we believe we’re dealing with a laser, the weapon must have had a direct line of sight with the shuttle.”

  He drew two lines, at a tangent to the Earth, extending down from the triangle. “Anything above these lines can see Liberty, anything below can’t, which eliminates it from our list of possibilities.”

  “That still leaves a lot of space,” Tao said.

  “Yes, but we can narrow the list even further by looking at the attack on the spy satellite as well.”

  Heshel crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, pensive. “It’s doable, but that’s going to be a hell of a lot of data to parse through. I’m not sure I have the resources here to do this quickly without somebody noticing.”

  “Just get me the data on everything you were tracking at the time of both attacks,” Kilkenny replied, “I’ll take it from there.”

  “What happens to old satellites?” Tao asked. “The ones that no longer function.”

  “If they’re in geosynchronous orbit, they get moved down into a junk orbit to make room. The rest are just left where they are. Eventually, all of them come down. Why?”

  “I was just thinking about target practice.”

  “Target practice?” Heshel questioned.

  “Yes. If you were placing a new type of weapon in space, you’d want to test it, wouldn’t you? Make sure that it works?”

  “Lady’s got a point,” Kilkenny said. “Have you lost any other satellites?”

  “A few die every year. Most are obsolete, but some get zapped by heavy solar activity or micrometeoroids.”

  “Can we get a list of those that appear to have failed suddenly?” Tao asked.

  “Sure. You just want the military and government satellites?”

  “No, I think we should take a look at everything until we have a better idea of what we’re looking for.”

  “How far back?” Heshel asked.

  Tao looked to Kilkenny. “Ten years?”

  Kilkenny nodded. “That should get us back to a time before this weapon was launched.”

  “I can get you some of the data on the military satellites, who owns what and when they went up, but our files on the commercial birds are pretty thin. If you want details on any of those, you should check with Lloyd’s of London. They’re one of the larger satellite insurers.”

  Kilkenny nodded, then turned to Tao. “After we’re done here, let’s give Barnett a call to set something up.”

  Heshel quickly wrote down a list of specifications, then picked up his phone. “Lieutenant, could you step into my office?”

  A moment later, Alana Taggert presented herself at Heshel’s door.

  “At ease, Lieutenant,” Heshel said, then he introduced Kilkenny and Tao.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Taggert said.

  “Lieutenant, these folks are working with NASA to get a better idea of the hazards posed by debris in orbit.”

  “Liberty?” Taggert asked.

  Heshel nodded, then tore the top page from the legal pad and handed it to Taggert.

  “I want you to pull this information together for these folks.”

  Taggert quickly skimmed the list, checking the date range. “Some of this will have to come out of the archives.”

  “I understand, but make it happen ASAP. This is your top priority.”

  Taggert worked into the early evening, assembling the decade’s worth of information that Heshel had requested. In the end, the data set she culled filled a stack of CDs, which she hand-delivered to Kilkenny and Tao at their hotel in Washington.

  Kilkenny had offered her a late dinner as compensation for her efforts. While tempted—she found the red-haired young man was easy on the eyes—Taggert dutifully declined the offer. In truth, she was tired and wanted nothing more than to go home, strip off her uniform, and slip into a cool shower.

  She pulled off the highway near Shiloh and located a pay phone at a gas station.

  “Yes?” Moug answered.

  “Something’s come up I thought you should know about,” she said.

  “Go on.”

  Taggert described the visit by two NASA consultants to the Dahlgren facility and their request for information about failed satellites.

  “Did they make specific mention of any particular satellite?”

  “No. The impression I got was that this was more of a broad survey. What happened with Liberty has a lot of people at NASA spooked, so they’re checking to see if collisions with orbital debris might be more common than the statisticians have led them to believe.”

  “A fishing trip.”

  “Probably, but the reason I called is that many of the satellites we’ve discussed in the past are on the list I gave them. I just thought you’d like to know.”

  “Give me the names of these two people and where they’re staying.”

  “Nolan Kilkenny and Roxanne Tao. They’re at the Hyatt near Capitol Hill.”

  After she hung up, Taggert returned to her car and thought about a vacation she might take with her next payment.

  “How are things in our nation’s capital?” Grin asked.

  Through the earpiece, Kilkenny coul
d hear the White Stripes rocking in the background.

  “Hot and muggy, which is why all the pols leave town this time of year.”

  “Leaving only the mosquitoes to suck your blood.”

  “Exactly. I got some data I need you to slice and dice for me.”

  “In the immortal words of Leonard Cohen, I’m your man. What-cha got?”

  “The full specs on the data are in a text file in a folder marked Orbital Survey. It’s in my directory and flagged for your access. Basically it’s ten years’ worth of information about every piece of equipment in orbit. I want you to create a model based on this data.”

  “How many objects we talking about?”

  “About ten-K at any given time. Almost all of it will be satellites with predictable orbits.”

  “Doesn’t sound too tough. What am I looking for?”

  “Start with Liberty and the satellite it launched. I’ve listed exact times and locations for the two attacks. What we’re looking for is any satellite that had a clear line of sight for both. I worked out some rough geometry on how to deal with this problem, but I defer to your mathematical skills to pull it off.”

  As he spoke, Kilkenny heard the staccato fire of Grin’s fingers on his keyboard.

  “Uh-huh,” Grin replied absently as he skimmed through Kilkenny’s notes on his computer. “If there’s ten thousand objects in orbit, then with only two points of reference, we’re still going to end up with a pretty big list.”

  “Roxanne and I are working to whittle it down a little more, but we gotta start somewhere.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  XIYUAN, CHINA

  AUGUST 13

  “You wished to see me, Minister?” Huang asked respectfully as he entered Tian’s office.

  “I did, indeed. Take a seat.”

  Tian leaned forward, his elbows set squarely on the desktop. As Huang sat down, he noticed that the minister’s gaze did not lift from the opened file atop his desk, his attention focused on a pair of photographs. After a moment, the minister shook his head and sat up.