Frontier

by Patrick Chiles

  Poole chewed on his lip. “So, what have we learned here?”

  “That stealth is still useful enough to defeat radar-guided weapons. Which all of ours are,” Wylie said dejectedly, then caught himself. “Sorry, Skipper.”

  Poole gave him a weary smile. “Don’t sweat it. I didn’t think we’d need laser or IR-guided missiles out here. It was a rescue mission, remember? The only thing I thought we’d have to fight off out here was stray rocks.”

  “Who knew the PRC had staked a claim?” Wylie asked. “That’s the real question, sir.”

  “Bingo.” Poole jerked a thumb at the H-K in the distance. “That’s obviously the mystery bird the Jiangs saw. It’s not corporate espionage and it’s not space pirates, it’s a state actor. And I think we can rule out the Russians; they can barely afford to get their own weather satellites into orbit.”

  “Active control?”

  Poole studied the infrared image. “Probably. My guess is it’s limited autonomy, just to keep the EM traffic down and compensate for signal delay. Now that Beijing’s Battlestar is in range, I’m betting they’re in control. It’s a force multiplier.”

  “We’re boxed in good,” Wylie said. “Spreading out the crew and getting the civilians clear was the right call.”

  “Damn straight it was,” Poole said. “Now I have to figure out how to keep from stranding them.”

  “Entry team leader reports they are not opening their outer door, sir.”

  Liu shifted in his chair, unconsciously tightening his restraints in the expectation of action. He keyed his radio mic. “Captain Poole,” he said calmly, “our team is standing by at your P-3 airlock. They are ready to enter at your discretion.”

  “Yeah, I’m still having a problem with the weapons thing there, Liu. I really need you to reconsider.”

  Liu caught one of his officers glancing at him from the corner of his eye, no doubt wondering how their commander would react. He kept his face a mask of stone, but for one small twitch from a corner of his mouth. “It is you who must reconsider, Captain.” He gestured to Zhou.

  Zhou nodded, complying with the command. “Laser is fully charged and tracking the target’s main propellant tank, sir.”

  “Very good. Major Wu?”

  Wu took a moment to activate their own fire-control radar. “Two interceptors are locked onto their propulsion section, sir.”

  Before Liu could say anything, Poole’s voice boomed over the radio. “And what the hell are you doing locking weapons on my ship? You understand what that means, Colonel.”

  “I’m afraid it is you who have taken the first hostile action, Captain. You have already attempted to lock your own weapons on a People’s Liberation Aerospace Force vehicle. That is still considered an act of war, and I am obligated to protect our national assets. Stand down, Captain Poole. This will be your only warning.”

  “He’s not going to fire on us with his own troops out there?” Wylie asked hopefully.

  “I’m not counting on his good nature,” Poole said, checking his watch. “Sharpen your pencil, we’re going to have do this the hard way.” He switched radios to the secure channel. “Specter, Actual. Take notes, son, this is about to get complicated.”

  “Understood, Actual.” Marshall switched off his radio and spun the shuttle about, pointing its docking collar—and lidar—at the Borman. He turned on the small transceiver as if they were attempting to rendezvous with it, and began relaying its range and bearing information to Poole as he did the same. “About to get complicated?” he muttered, and turned to face his passengers. “Faceplates down? Good. Switch to your personal tanks and disconnect from the cabin system. We’re about to depressurize.”

  “Got ’em,” Wylie said. “Range and bearing constant.”

  Poole nodded in acknowledgment; he first had to establish a baseline bearing and distance. “We’ve got to work fast here.” He keyed the mic. “Looking good, Specter. We’ve got your position zeroed. Light ’em up.”

  Marshall answered with two rapid clicks and began turning to face the H-K.

  “What are we doing?” Jasmine demanded. “We’re making ourselves visible to that—whatever it is!”

  Marshall turned to face her, genuine regret on his face. “Afraid you’re right, ma’am. I’m also afraid we don’t have a choice. You wanted to know if we’re prepared to do something? This is it.”

  “Exposing ourselves is ‘doing something’? How is that?”

  He pointed at the H-K, now just a kilometer away. “We give it two targets to worry about while we light it up with our docking lidar. I feed that information to the Borman so they can use it to box in that killsat. We get one shot at this.”

  As the shuttle’s laser-ranging data began to arrive, Wylie scribbled on graph paper atop the plotting board. Comparing the range and bearing from their own lidar data, pinpointing the H-K became a simple math problem. He began programming the solution into the control pad for one of their space-junk interceptors when the open frequency with Peng Fei came alive once more.

  “Captain Poole, what is that vehicle I see out by our satellite?”

  “That’s our shuttle. We call it Specter. The name sounded cool, but really it’s because it’s kind of hard to spot. You may have noticed that.”

  “Your humor is becoming tiresome, Captain. You did not tell us there was another ship in the vicinity.”

  “You mean like that hunter-killer sat of yours?” Poole shot back. “Specter was on a survey sortie at RQ39 and was on its way back when it came across your big orbiting stealth laser.” He shot a glance at Wylie, still checking his figures against the changing numbers. He spun a finger over his watch: hurry up. Perhaps it was unfair to expect a pilot to think like a sub driver launching a torpedo.

  “Your shuttle is unacceptably close to our defensive platform. I am cautioning you to have them maintain a safe distance.”

  It was an absurd demand, which Poole used to both buy time and rhetorically plant his flag. “Did you just call that thing ‘defensive,’ Liu? Because I’m curious what the PRC believes might need defending against out here. We have good reason to believe that weapon has been used against two American spacecraft, one being a military vessel. That, sir, is an act of war to which we will respond.”

  Wylie looked up triumphantly, if not somewhat surprised. “Interceptor one is programmed. We have a firing solution, sir.”

  A glint outside caught his attention; the H-K began slewing about, turning to face Specter. Poole’s eyes narrowed to angry slits.

  “Match bearings and shoot.”

  “Missile inbound!” Zhou exclaimed. “Sir, they’ve fired on us!”

  “Confirm that, Lieutenant,” Liu ordered calmly. He had not expected Poole to have acted so rashly. “Wu, activate the close-in weapons.”

  They were already standing by, it was a simple matter for Wu to activate their tracking program. “Point-defense guns are in free-fire mode, sir, tracking the target.”

  “Not firing?” Liu asked. “Zhou, have you confirmed that projectile?”

  “Confirmed, sir. It’s one of their meteoroid interceptors. They’ve targeted the laser platform, not us.” Momentary confusion passed over Zhou’s face. “I don’t understand how . . . they’re supposed to be radar guided,” he said plaintively.

  “The laser platform is being illuminated by infrared lidar,” Wu interjected. “Two different sources,” he said, consulting the satellite’s status board. “Radar jamming is ineffective,” he added unnecessarily.

  “Is the laser tracking the inbound target?”

  “Attempting to lock, sir. It’s close in and moving fast,” Zhou said, his voice raised as he attempted to take over control of the platform.

  “Time to impact?”

  “Imminent, sir.”

  The laser platform’s ion engine did not have enough thrust to move it quickly enough to evade. Liu’s mouth drew thin. “Very well.” It was time to take the next step. He switched radio channels to t
he boarding team. “Captain, begin boarding operations. Take the Borman.”

  “Hang on!”

  Marshall shut off his rendezvous sensors and began pulling clear as soon as he saw Borman release its missile. He turned away violently, kicking them in the pants with the OMS thrusters and zipping away from the H-K, the asteroid, and the opening salvo of what he hoped wasn’t about to become World War III.

  There was a flash of light outside. He waited for pinholes to appear at random, sunlight streaming into the cabin from multiple shrapnel wounds which never came. He turned to check on the Jiangs, both seemed to be okay. Neither they or his ship had been holed.

  He turned about, pulsing the big OMS thrusters in the opposite direction to cancel their velocity. Both the Borman and Peng Fei swept into view, much farther away than he’d expected. How hard had he burned to get away? Near RQ39, a ball of incandescent gas expanded into space near the Chinese killsat.

  “No joy!” he called back to Borman. “Repeat, no joy. They lased it, sir.”

  Poole barely heard his report as more pressing matters fought for his attention. A muffled grating sound echoed from the direction of the emergency bay, a pressurization alarm began blaring soon after.

  “They’ve breached the outer door,” Garver reported on their discrete channel. “Four boarders entering at the P-3 lock.”

  “Copy that,” Poole said as he cut off the braying master alarm. “Are the two sentries keeping their positions?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Poole switched over to their common frequency so his next command went out across their radio net. “All hands, prepare to repel boarders.”

  35

  “Incoming missile destroyed, sir!” Zhou reported excitedly.

  “Excellent work, Zhou,” Liu said. If there were a time to give praise to build morale, now was it. “Is the platform recycling?”

  “Affirmative, sir. Capacitor banks are recharging and the emitter is cooling,” Zhou said with a self-assurance he hadn’t displayed before. “It will be several minutes before it can discharge again.”

  Liu already knew that but indulged him for now; the young man had just taken direct control of their remote laser platform and successfully taken a snap shot that destroyed an imminent threat. He would be in line for a commendation when this was over. “Very good, Lieutenant. Make their shuttle your next target. It is a nuisance we do not need.” He turned to Wu. “Activate the primary fire-control radar and target the Borman’s propulsion module. The time for gloved hands is past us. If Simon Poole does not hand over control of his ship to Captain Huang, then it will not leave this orbit.”

  A new alarm sounded in the control cabin, a shrill warbling tone. “Radar lock!” Wylie said. “They’re painting us, sir.”

  Which Poole fully expected, but it was no less disturbing. “Spin up the PDCs.”

  “Damage control protocols?” Wylie asked, a procedure they had drilled repeatedly but whose possibility had always seemed remote, at least from hostile fire.

  “Negative. Don’t depressurize the habs yet,” Poole commanded. He waited by the engineering station, watching the external camera feed from the port airlock. “I’ll take care of that myself.” He pressed the mic switch for his headset, calling to Garver on their secure channel. “Take them, Chief. We’ll set up the others for you.”

  Garver answered with two rapid mic clicks. He and Rosie each lined up their sights on a PRC spacer, the ones with the bulky maneuvering packs taking stations above opposite sides of the med module. Crosshairs and range markers appeared in their visor, heads-up projections from the targeting lasers on the carbines mounted to their chest packs. Garver looked in her direction.

  “I’ve got the guy on the right, Chief,” she said, anticipating the question.

  “I’ve got the left,” Garver said, and checked a setting on his MMU. “Recoil compensation?”

  “Active, Chief.”

  “Copy. Take the shot on three.” Garver rested two fingers on the M55’s big paddle trigger, an abomination to an earthbound marksman but a necessity for shooting in a bulky pressure suit with limited dexterity. He steadily increased pressure as he counted down. “One . . . two . . .”

  On three, he felt the thump of recoil and the shot of compensating maneuvering jets push at his back. There was puff of fire as the caseless 10mm round erupted from the muzzle, almost immediately landing where the glowing crosshairs in Garver’s visor sat: center of mass on a PRC spacewalker hovering about five meters to the left of their big P-3 airlock door. For a moment, Garver wondered if the guy would’ve considered himself lucky to be shot while parked just outside of the only emergency medical unit in this part of the solar system. Clouds of red and white mist erupted from the suited figure, spraying his vital fluids and oxygen in a bloody arc as he spun about from the impact.

  To Garver’s right, the other sentry was having perhaps even worse problems. Rosie had flinched, grabbing her trigger paddle with a hair too much force. Instead of a clean shot through her man’s center of mass, the round had pierced his combined life-support and maneuvering pack. He was clearly still alive and in one piece, flailing for control as his MMU sent him tumbling. With one hard bounce against Borman’s hull, he went spiraling into space behind a cloud of violently expelled maneuvering gas.

  “Rosie, report.” It was Garver.

  Rosie gritted her teeth and cursed. Her instinct was to go after him: She was a rescue spacer, not a shooter. What the hell was wrong with these people? Did they really think we were just going to let them take our ship? And what was the deal with that TIE fighter or whatever the hell it was they’d hidden at RQ39?

  “Rosado,” he said firmly.

  “Right side is secure,” she said, and swallowed hard. “Threat . . . neutralized.”

  “Left side secure,” Garver said. “Stand by for action,” he announced to the team.

  Captain Huang checked his team inside Borman’s big emergency-receiving airlock, then began comparing the reality of it to his mental notes from their intelligence reports. While the ship’s specifications were perfunctorily classified, much of it had been crafted from the kinds of multipurpose modules American contractors had spent years building for NASA. How they functioned and were connected was no mystery; how they were configured inside was another matter. It had taken some work to pry those secrets loose, but with so much American technology based on Chinese products he assumed prying those secrets loose had only taken marginally more work. What he had seen so far had been predicted accurately enough to confirm his suspicions.

  He searched by the inner door and quickly found the cabin controls, a touch-screen system that should open up views of the rest of the ship. He navigated through its short menu using the English phrases he’d memorized, though so much of it was graphic that he’d had little need for them. Finding the environmental controls was easy, as was pinpointing their location relative to the rest of the pressurized modules. The door would be held in place by the nearly sea-level 14 psi air pressure. Stronger than any lock they could have devised, it was a smart move.

  As he moved to vent the module ahead, clearing their way inside, a shout in his earpiece stopped him cold. It sounded like Chen. He would have corrected Chen for abandoning radio discipline but for hearing him exclaim what sounded like “ambush.”

  “Chen, report!” Huang called. “Specify your location!”

  “Off structure, no control sir! We have taken enemy fire and they disabled my maneuvering pack!”

  “Where is Sergeant Gao?”

  “Unknown, sir.” Chen gulped, as if trying to keep his stomach down. “I could only get a brief glimpse of him.” He paused. “I apologize, Captain.”

  Huang immediately called for the other sentry. “Sergeant Gao, report!” he repeated, but there was no answer. He looked back at the remainder of his team, who had heard the entire exchange. The men were ready, he decided, and primed for a fight. They were about to get one.

  “Cha
rge weapons and prepare to board,” he said. As they racked the bolts on their vacuum-proof QBZ bullpup-style carbines, he moved to clear their entry by depressurizing the rest of Borman.

  Simon Poole locked down his helmet and made his way down the corridor, stopping in front of the medical bay. The inner airlock door at the far end was still closed, with a PRC breaching team on the other side. They could either pressurize the ’lock and get in, or vent the rest of the ship. That held the advantage of disabling or isolating the crew that they had to presume were still aboard; if he were a doorkicker for the bad guys, that’s what he’d do.

  He tapped an intercom control on his wrist, calling Wylie in the command deck. “You’re still buttoned up, right?”

  “Roger that, Skipper.”

  “Good. Stand by.” He reached out for the med bay’s door just as he saw a status light above the far hatch turn amber. Air whistled by him as the bay began to vent its atmosphere. Here they come.

  Simon pulled the door shut along its sliding track and dogged down the latch, sealing off the rest of the ship for now. He watched a nearby environmental panel—it turned red, signifying the med bay was now in vacuum. He waited to see them open the inner door, giving them enough time to get it fully open.

  He locked his feet beneath a restraint loop in the floor and took a deep breath, counting to three. He grabbed the latch and heaved it open.

  Air exploded around him as the entire ship’s atmosphere tried to vent at once through that single door. The med bay swirled in chaos as the PRC boarders scrambled for any handhold they could find before being swept back into space.

  Poole slapped his mic switch as they tumbled out into the void. “Garver!” he shouted. “Weapons free!”