“No. We saw another satellite after we had encamped on Malati. That’s how we knew a rescue might be on the way.”
Marshall played along. They had to have been delusional from fear at that point. “What kind of satellite?”
“Big enough to see from there,” Max said. “It was dark. Conical, maybe cruciform. Big solar wings,” he said, holding his arms out. “Are we still in orbit with Malati?”
“We are,” he said. “Coplanar, specifically. Separation’s increasing as we transit back to Earth.”
“How soon can we return?” Jasmine asked, diverting them from Max’s mystery satellite.
He looked down at the floor and wrung his hands, struggling with how to best explain their predicament. “I’m afraid that’s complicated.”
27
Marshall caught Rosie’s attention as she hovered in the background behind the Jiangs. She excused herself and glided out of the module, turning down the corridor to head for the control deck.
Max’s hand tightened around his wife’s, drawing hers closer to him. “This ship looks to be capable enough. You made it out here in a tenth of the time it took us.”
“We did,” he acknowledged, “but our situation has changed. We don’t have enough propellant for a high-energy return to Earth. Our current orbit—”
“Takes us around Mars,” Max finished for him. “It has to if you’re coplanar with ours, right?”
“That’s correct,” Marshall said. “We burned hard to get here fast then had to slow down to match orbits with your ship. In the end we’re on the same vector as if we’d flown a Hohmann transfer. We just took a shortcut to get here.”
“I don’t understand,” Jasmine said. “You can’t take a similar shortcut home?”
Marshall struggled with how much to tell them, and sorely hoped Rosie had caught his hint to go get the skipper. “That had been our plan, yes. But I’m afraid—”
To his relief, Simon floated into the compartment and introduced himself. “I’m Simon Poole, commander of the Borman. And young Mr. Hunter here’s correct, our plans have been forced to change.”
“Forced?” Max’s face contorted in a look that either showed concern or confusion, Marshall couldn’t tell. “Forced how?”
Poole’s lips drew tight. “There was an explosion in one of our outboard hydrogen tanks and we were forced to jettison it. That took over half of our remaining propellant.”
“This ship is nuclear-thermal, correct?” Jiang asked. “What’s your specific impulse?”
“Eight hundred twenty seconds,” Poole said, and held up his hands in caution. “I think I know where you’re going, Mr. Jiang, but efficiency ain’t everything. We do have enough to shave some time off the return trip, but that still relies on a Mars flyby to make up some of our lost delta-v, and we need enough in reserve for Earth capture at the end.”
Jasmine read Poole’s face. “That’s not what concerns you, is it?”
“It’s not.” He decided to get right down to it. “We only laid up a month’s worth of stores. Left our normal loadout behind, along with half our crew, to make the ship light enough for us to hightail it out here and get you home fast.”
“What is your ‘normal loadout’?” Max asked.
“Three month’s rations for twelve crew, plus antisatellite weapons. We didn’t see the need for those out here.” Poole’s mouth drew tight. “This may change my understanding of the tactical picture in the future.”
Max Jiang was not military, but the irony wasn’t lost on him. “Space has a way of challenging one’s assumptions.”
“It does,” he fumed, then caught himself. “And I have some good news, but I must admit to mixed feelings about it.” He explained the Peng Fei’s offer of assistance. “They’re a little over a week out,” he said when done.
The Jiangs did not appear as relieved as he’d expected. “What will happen to your vessel, Captain Poole?”
“We abandon it and hitch a ride home with the Chinese. Program the ship to execute the Mars flyby and Earth injection burns on its own, and we’ll see it in another six months.”
“You don’t seem happy with that outcome, Captain.”
“No skipper relishes the idea of abandoning ship,” he said, eyes narrowing. “But I’m not sure I like the alternative, either—we take your rations for ourselves, transfer you to the Peng Fei, and fly our ship home.”
The Jiangs looked at each other with alarm. “We would much prefer that you not do that, Captain.”
* * *
Liu Wang Shu hovered above a polar coordinate plot of their orbit relative to those of the Borman and asteroid RQ39. At his order, the control cabin had been kept dark since leaving Earth, “running red” with no illumination other than their red-tinted instrument screens. It had the practical effect of preserving the crew’s night vision, but he was more concerned with its subtle psychological effect. It kept the command crew focused, a quality he could judge by their quiet seriousness whenever he entered the cabin. They were always professional, as he would tolerate nothing less, but the days of lazily orbiting Lagrange 1 had created a routine that threatened to become too comfortable.
They were transiting a region of space that radar surveys had revealed to be populated with an unusually high number of micrometeoroid threats. The small satellites the PLAF had deployed to catalog these navigational hazards could not mark all of them, so this made for a useful test of Peng Fei’s “clearance control” system.
There were a number of labeled vectors on the polar graph, each representing the location and direction of a known threat. Most were only a meter or less across, and knowing where they were offered an excellent opportunity to calibrate his ship’s powerful search radar: Once the known quantities were accounted for, he could have much more confidence in anything else they may spot.
He opened up a file on one particular object that had been known for decades, and was pleased to see it would be in the vicinity.
“Captain Zhang.”
A youngish pilot stiffened in his seat and turned to face his commander. “Yes sir?”
“Initiate a broad-spectrum sweep, relative bearings three-four-zero through zero-two-zero.” They would clear a path along a forty-degree cone ahead of the ship’s trajectory.
“As you wish, sir.” The captain opened up a control menu on his touchscreen display and began spinning up the search radar. Within seconds, the big multifunction display mounted between the two pilots’ windows was peppered with new objects, their details filling in and building upon each other with each successive pass of the phased-array radar. As they sped along, layers of detail built up quickly for the nearest objects. Soon, Liu had a clear picture of the space ahead of Peng Fei for several thousand kilometers. At their rate of travel, the picture shifted continuously. “No threats within our hazard avoidance cone, sir.”
“Very good,” Liu said, electronically tagging each new object and adding it to their catalog of potential navigation hazards. Liu was not a naval man, but he imagined this must be exactly like charting new passages along unfamiliar shores. He sent new directions to Zhang. “Now, please sweep this area.”
“There is a return, sir,” Zhang said with surprise. “It’s small, perhaps three meters by two.” Its outline appeared at the edge of their coverage and began resolving with more detail as they overtook it. Not a threat; it would pass well abeam to starboard.
“Can you acquire it visually, Mr. Zhang?”
“Yes sir. Allow me a moment to redirect the outboard telescope.”
“Take your time, Captain.” He gave the younger officer a moment to switch gears. “Please bring it up on the central monitor when you have it.” He wanted the visual impact to be unmistakable. He watched the younger man’s eyes widen as the image came into focus: originally cherry red, now baked by decades of unfiltered sunlight into a washed-out pink. Once-black rubber at its corners had likewise turned nearly white.
“It’s a . . . car. Sir.” And it
was exactly what Liu had been looking for.
“Set condition Yellow,” he ordered. “Target ahead, bearing zero-three-two, elevation plus four.” When he tagged the object, a yellow box appeared around it on his polar plot and on the pilot’s multifunction screen.
Without a word, Zhang motioned for his copilot to activate their offensive suite. New information appeared alongside the target; its range and bearing began constantly updating as they focused the radar on it. “Target is boxed, sir.”
“Weapons free,” Liu said. “Engage at your will, Captain.”
“Yes sir. Activating penetrator missiles.” Liu thought he saw a smile break across Zhang’s face. The young captain carried himself with a square-jawed seriousness that Liu had always liked, and he was satisfied to finally see what the man took pleasure in: his job. “Weapon released.”
There was a barely perceptible shudder beneath them as a missile was ejected from its tube and a replacement immediately locked into place. Liu watched as a tracking camera followed the missile. Had it not been guided by their radar, he would have quickly lost sight of it: Its solid rocket motor only burned for a few seconds, launching it toward its target. Puffs of gas erupted from its terminal guidance jets soon after.
Seconds later, there was a flash in the distance. “Impact!” Zhang said, uncharacteristically animated. Two boxes now appeared on the radar display. “Large fragments remaining, sir. Vectors have changed but they will still pass by starboard.”
“Predicted range?”
Zhang paused as he studied the plot. “Within ten kilometers, sir.”
Excellent opportunity, Liu thought. Just as he’d hoped for. “Engage with close-in defenses.”
Zhang nodded and motioned again to his copilot, who punched in a quick command. A mechanical whirring noise echoed through the hull from outside. “Point-defense cannons are tracking both targets,” he said, his hand moving toward a protected switch. “Selecting autofire.” The computer-controlled guns would fire when they arrived at an optimal targeting solution.
“Hold your fire,” Liu said. “Wait until they’re abeam.” A nearly head-on firing solution was relatively simple—he wanted to see how well they could engage a small target zipping past alongside. From the corner of his eye, he saw Zhang’s hand freeze atop the switch cover. Good.
He still had to work quickly—the remaining shards of their target would slip by as fast as he could get the words out of his mouth. As soon as he began to order “weapons free,” Zhang snapped the cover open and hit the autofire switch.
A muffled rattle coursed through the cabin as the electronically driven cannons fired a precisely calibrated cloud of slugs at each target. In seconds, each fragment disappeared, reduced to a cloud of shrapnel.
In terms of being a navigational hazard, they’d simply reduced a fair-sized obstacle into thousands of much smaller ones. They would eventually spread out, each presenting less of a risk over time, though they couldn’t hope to catalog each tiny piece with its own orbital elements. Liu would mark the entire region as a “debris cluster” to be avoided.
In the meantime, he was quite pleased with their results. They had engaged a small, fast-moving object in a high-angle, off-axis shot and reduced it to confetti with a combination of missiles and point-defense guns. Whatever capabilities remained with the Borman would be no match. And what had been the permanent remnant of a famous early-century publicity stunt had been reduced to a cloud of plastic, rubber, and alloy fragments.
Marshall was baffled. “We’re going to be out here for a long time on limited rations. You’d prefer to not get back to Earth ahead of us?”
“Not on a PRC vessel,” Jasmine insisted, her husband nodding along with her.
Poole was noticeably less puzzled by their reluctance. “We’d have two of our rescue medics aboard with you,” he offered nonetheless. “If that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“We have the utmost confidence in your quality of care,” Max said, “but that is not the root of our concern.”
Marshall realized Poole was probing them, and he suspected the reason why. “You’re worried about boarding a PRC ship, period.”
Max crossed his arms. “Of course we are! We escaped the mainland two decades ago and haven’t been back. We’ve been bothersome for them ever since. They don’t want us back except to silence us.”
“You’re a very high-profile couple,” Marshall said. “Do you really believe they’d harm you?”
“A place like that has lots of ways to silence dissenters without inflicting straight-up harm,” Poole said. “They’ll just invent some excuse to seize their passports and bank accounts while they put them up in a nice little country home. Give them all they could ever want except the freedom to live as they please.”
“Or to leave,” Max pointed out. “They’ll parade us in front of state news cameras once in a while for what you call ‘proof of life.’ Just to show they’re not complete monsters. But your captain is right, Mr. Hunter. If we return to Chinese soil, we will never be allowed to leave.”
Poole frowned. “If you return to Earth on a PRC ship, they’re definitely going to land you in China. But you’re still naturalized Americans.”
“And once we’re under their control then none of that will matter. All bets are off, as you say. I can guarantee the moment we board will be the last time you lay eyes on us,” Jasmine said gloomily. “No. We would rather take our chances with you, Captain.”
Poole stroked his chin as he considered their options. “I’m not going to try and dissuade you. You are American citizens under our protection, which right now is still my responsibility. But you must understand we simply don’t have the propellant for anything but a low-energy transfer that relies on a gravity assist from Mars. We’ll be taking the long way home no matter what. Even raiding your stores, we’ll barely have enough food for a minimum crew.”
It was telling that with the most capable spacecraft yet fielded, it was ultimately limited not by its own fuel but by its human occupants. And deep space was notoriously absent of any food storage.
Marshall cleared his throat for their attention. “Mr. and Mrs. Jiang, if you could excuse us, there’s something I need to discuss with the captain outside.” He shot a glance toward the connecting tunnel.
Poole glided ahead of him into the corridor outside. “What’s on your mind, Mr. Hunter?”
“My apologies, sir, but I didn’t think this would be appropriate to bring up in front of civilians.” He paused, not sure why he felt afraid to ask. “What if we just asked the Chinese for assistance?”
“You mean ask for some of their rations?” Poole eyed him skeptically. “I admire your optimism but I’m afraid I don’t share it. You were right to bring that up in private, son.”
“They must have already decided they have enough to take us on. If we can convince them to transfer those stores, add them to what we already have, it might close the loop. Wouldn’t be the craziest request ever, would it sir?”
Poole thought about it. Any way to avoid abandoning ship was worth considering. A crooked smile creased his face. “Hell, I’m just irritated that I didn’t think of it myself. Maybe I’m getting too cynical in my old age.”
“As long as we’re at it, what about propellant?” Marshall asked, stretching his luck. “Do we have common fittings?”
Poole shook his head. “That’s where you risk being too clever by half, Mr. Hunter. Up until last week, intel thought the Peng Fei was a methane propellant depot. Now that we’ve seen them under power, the spectral signature confirms that’s what they’re burning.”
“Whereas we use hydrogen.”
“Much cleaner. It doesn’t foul solid-core reactors. So what does that tell us about their propulsion?”
“We already know it’s not chemical from the radiation signature. Either they don’t care about carbon deposits, or they’re using a different configuration.”
“Trust me, nobody wants a dirty reactor
core,” Poole said. “My money’s on gas-core, maybe a nuclear lightbulb.”
“Then they’re more advanced than anybody gave them credit for, sir,” Marshall realized. “Given how quickly they moved all that mass out of L1, it would have to be something with a higher thrust-to-weight ratio than ours.”
“Big, heavy, fast, and under PRC military control,” Poole said, falling back into his natural skepticism. “I don’t like that combination. I like it even less that we didn’t see it coming. Too many people bought into their public relations.”
Chief Garver emerged out of the darkened command deck at the far end of the corridor and pushed off into their direction. “FLASH traffic from Ops, skipper,” he said, pulling up next to them and handing Poole a tablet.
Poole skimmed through the message. “This is time-stamped almost an hour ago,” he said. “We can’t download a flash message any faster?”
“Tactical comm’s still offline, sir,” Garver explained. “We have to route everything through Specter’s high-gain antenna. It doesn’t have the bandwidth for a burst transmission.”
Poole’s scowl threatened to turn into a permanent feature. He went back to the top and read it over again. “Our friends on the Peng Fei did a little show of force. I’m sure it’s all completely justified, above board, and clearly out of an abundance of caution. They even marked it as a navigational hazard.” He looked up at Garver, gauging his reaction. “Do I sound like I’m ready for a promotion yet, Chief?”
“That level of blind naivete demands flag rank and a desk in the Pentagon, sir.”
“Yeah, I figured you read this yourself.” Poole handed the tablet to Marshall. “Your take, Mr. Hunter?”
Marshall read through the alert and accompanying intelligence analysis. “Pretty powerful search radar,” he said, “even better targeting. They locked up multiple small, fast bogeys and took them out at once.” He frowned, unconsciously mimicking his CO and earning a suppressed grin from Garver. “They used independently targeted interceptors and point-defense guns?” He looked up at Poole, eyes wide. “Holy shit. They blew up Musk’s roadster?” he stammered. “Why would they do that?”
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