by Randy Moffat
Because of this there was actually no clear link between the Asian giant and an obscure satellite belonging to Zambia. TESS certainly had no suspicion at all about the request. If TESS had a concern it was technical. The Zambians had asked for a geostationary orbit at the usual altitude of 22,200 miles plus or minus above the Earth’s equator and space was getting pretty tight up there especially around European and the US longitudes where telephone communication platforms were squeezed together more closely than blubber in a fat lady’s girdle. Luckily Africans were underrepresented in the global satellite community and had a good claim to the space according to existing space treaties. TESS had agreed readily enough to be the delivery agent if the South Africans really wanted to crowbar some neighbor’s device into their long scheduled launch number that they had bought when they became a TESS paying customer.
TESS was sophisticated in some ways and naive in others.
The fuel burn on the Shenzhou capsules took only a couple minutes to start them moving and then the engines went inert until a final burst was used for braking near the site where the Zambian satellite was due to be placed. The capsules were painted matt black. Their engines were given many hours to go cold after stopping and the capsules were almost undetectable by heat signature. Sho had no illusions though… radar might pick them up so their path was cunningly placed in an orbit that was shared by three different satellites. One of those satellites was travelling in earth orbit less than a hundred kilometers behind the Shenzhou that Sho occupied and was actually slowly overtaking Sho’s capsule. The second Shenzhou capsule was ten kilometers further along in the same orbit—less masked perhaps, but hopefully in a position to bracket any TESS ship appearing to launch the Zambian bird. Sho hoped that any TESS craft using radar would take them for the satellite behind him or at least be confused for a few minutes as to what was what out here in the ever thickening crowd of communications junk in Geo-stationary orbit. Sho only needed a few minutes for his plan to work.
Once in motion the capsules continued on momentum along their path through space. There was no room inside the small space craft for anyone but the pilots, Sho himself and Sho’s executive officer. The leaders held the two seats of honor inside. Snap-linked to the exterior of the capsules though were 23 marines, like grapes clinging to the two stalks of Chinese technology. The troops had hoses attached to external oxygen tanks and were lying with the practiced appearance of macho unconcern on the exteriors, but Sho knew many were gripping them a bit too tightly to match their attempts to demonstrate relaxation. The memory and example of Corporal Suen was only too clear in their minds.
There was no inertia worth mentioning in space so once momentum was imparted to both the capsule and the men they traveled together. Over time, the Chinese marines tried to outdo each other by increasing their casual look, several resorting to snoring over the radio. A few even actually achieved something like boredom while others sought laughs and took to seeing who could fill their rather dated urine collection devices and diapers with the loudest and most comical grunts over the radio until Sho shut them up abruptly by demanding radio silence. Once the engine and the marine’s nervous verbal diarrhea shut off, the black painted ship and her equally black painted passengers were essentially invisible—mere debris among the clouds of debris in orbit with about the same visual albedo as a mound of coal on a moonless night.
After a two hours and ten minutes of maneuvering into position Sho’s jaw tightened as the TESS ship materialized almost instantly out of the shield of the Petrovski effect a kilometer higher above the earth and two kilometers further along the orbit than Sho. It was hard to miss. She had just come from mid-ocean off the Canary islands and the scatter of seawater trapped inside the ‘bubble’ of other reality that was the ship’s Petrovski field flash froze and caught the sunlight in a pretty display of apparently fluorescing ice crystals scattering in twinkling fractals that was perfectly obvious and riveted the attention of the Chinese immediately. Sho felt a momentary urge to order his men off instantly, but fought the impulse as the TESS ship began to fire thrusters. He could still see her well because she was a blaze of light now from work lights mounted all over her hull and he could also make out the jets of her maneuvering thrusters firing. Sho’s adrenaline rose for the blip of an instant thinking that they might have detected his team and were trying to flee, but he quickly realized they were not running away but were maneuvering slightly towards Sho and his men—easing into the crowded space lanes from further out-system as predicted. TESS did not dare use their McMoran drive too close to crowded orbits for fear of accidently obliterating someone’s satellite with their drive field which from all his reading tended to crush matter in its path. Sho smiled grimly and waited. A hunter with his prey in sight.
Aboard the SS Gaia I was drooping into the straps on my ‘command’ chair in the bridge watching Lieutenant 2 Maxmillian seconded by Midshipman Baskarian edge the ship closer to earth using fine thruster controls. The command chair was a big cushiony thing that someone had thought looked admiral-like. I wasn’t arguing. When gravity was on it was really comfy and when it was ‘off’ I felt like a swaddled baby in the shoulder and waist straps floating in my mother’s arms. Safe. When I had been working hard the arrangement made me feel as dozy as a babe and I would sometimes find myself drifting off.
“Closer… Closer… . ETA thirty two seconds.” Dr Aziz said watching several readouts simultaneously over by my side. He was my mission technical expert and could see most bridge displays on his laptops. The flagship was currently on momentum alone and everyone was looking a little bored but focused as she inched slowly closer to the mother world. TESS was getting very practiced in planting satellites and the first blush of excitement was off the romance. It was becoming simply a job. A job they were now pretty good at. I was, however clinically watching Maxmillian. I was planning to propose him as the next Captain of the Gaia. Admirals had no business commanding ships and commanding fleets at the same moment. Now that I had a fleet I needed to move on. I needed to give up my Captain’s slot and move younger people up a pyramid of command so that one day they could organize a boardroom political coup, retire me forcibly and let me end my days drooling at happy acres old folks home. Give them something to aim for. In short, I needed to begin grooming replacements and I was out of time. I had actually asked Pinta if he wanted the job this morning. He had turned me down flat. He was a natural warrant officer; tough, capable and technically competent—but leading people other than himself except in emergencies made his head hurt. His off hours were reserved for drinking, not for exercising his people skills. Pinta was born to walk in space, not to watch others walk in space. He had no ambition to make himself an admiral one day. The selfish bastard. I had moved on. Maxmillian was my second choice and I was liking what I was seeing right now. The young man was thoroughly conscientious and supremely technically competent. Better than me actually. It was embarrassing really. Still, he lacked my razor-like wit and ability to charm women with the wave of a hand. That was something.
Sergeant First Class Rivera was forward murmuring patiently into the standard radio system with one of our deployable satellite tracking stations that was currently in Zambia. Her patience was required because there was a time lag of a bit more than a second from this far out. The tracking station for some reason answered to “ES 3” which I happened to know stood for “Etch-a-sketch 3.” The workings of the enlisted mind were strange and dark. ES 3 would take control of the satellite once we ‘launched’ it to test it functionality. ‘Launch’ here was a euphemism for WO Gaston hauling the French manufactured hunk of junk out of the forward storage unit on the ship and shoving it clear of the hull where its own maneuvering thrusters would be tested and used to push it into final position. Gaston was already outside in space waiting for the word.
“Admiral… . I have Mr. Murray on the radio for you.” Sergeant First Rivera.
“Roger… . let him kn
ow we are just approaching orbital stability. A bit busy. I will contact him in five minutes after we deploy the satellite.”
She began to murmur into the radio having two conversations at once now.
I could see Gaston opening the cargo compartment doors on the forward deck cargo container. He was premature, but so was everything about TESS. We were not supposed to have the technology of this ship for five more centuries I mused for a moment.
“Admiral… .” A tentative voice spoke from somewhere on the bridge. I wasn’t sure who it was as I was focused on watching Gaston’s moves on the forward deck monitor.
“Admiral.” Rivera said almost on top of the previous speaker. “Mr. Murray says its important. Very important.”
“Admiral!” The second voice spoke up again. I realized it was another T-Watch Stander over at radar station 1. We had two radar stations. One on each side of the bridge. They operated something like binocular vision with domes mounted on the outer hull on opposite sides of the ship so that we could cross check radar readings for pinpoint accuracy when using radar forward and aft. I held up my hand trying to eavesdrop momentarily on the ES 3 conversation and quiet out other comments for the moment. I would question myself about that gesture for the rest of my life. Second guessing is the price of leadership. A few seconds later I spoke again.
“What does Murray want. Just find out and tell me.” I said a bit testily, not really paying close attention to Rivera. I was focused on our current mission.
Rivera began to murmur again. Into her mike.
I looked around. It had been twelve seconds or so since I glanced over at the radar station. 12 seconds can be a long time.
Rivera spoke up.
“He says that you need to know this right away . . . for some reason the Chinese have something like 30 plus personnel on their space station. Their Tiangong Station in Earth orbit.”
I thought about that in distracted silence.
“30?” I asked absently. “Who the hell would cram 30 personnel into a conventional space station.” I remarked rhetorically. “Lemmie think about that one a second… What is it Radar One?” I asked distractedly to the radar station finally. Several other stations were murmuring to each other at the same time, coordinating actions. I was brought close to sensory flooding by all the people speaking around me at once and the various people clamoring for my attention.
The operator was another academy rookie. A kid named Smith I remembered her name suddenly. She was good at most things that she did and she had shown a genuine talent for radar and weapons.
“Just something’s screwy here, Sir. I have some returns on… well something… they are in the right orbit, but are uncharted.”
I thought about that a moment and envisioned the mountains of detritus composed of all the crap that humanity had flung into orbit over the last fifty years of space travel and left there like litter in a public park; but my curiosity was peaked for some reason I could not bring to mind immediately. I unbuckled and drifted over to float behind her station—peering at her displays over her shoulder to see what she was seeing.
I was taken aback.
“What the… ?” I asked to rhetorically… the objects were bigger than a lot of normal space junk and one of them was much nearer than I liked.
“Yes, Sir.” Smith answered thinking I was talking to her rather that posterity. “They are really close… . the nearer one is like a couple clicks away. This one…” The pointed at her screen. “This one is in roughly the right position for the nearest Satellite—It’s called… uhh…” She glanced at a paper list taped beside her screen. “Anik G4… It carries Canadian Television to Europe… these other two are… . new…” She pointed at the two objects again. “They are not supposed to be here… I checked visuals on the video cameras but they are really dark, basically no light reflectivity and I can’t see what they are using any visual zoom enhancements at all. They aren’t showing any lights either.”
“What about infrared?” I asked absently.
I was distracted then for a moment as we reached our final satellite launch position and Aziz called out “Stand by for final stop burn… . five… four… three… two… one! Now!” In his mathematically precise voice.
“Burn acknowledged!” Maxmillian called and worked the fine thruster controls he had idiot linked his own position. I noted absently that we had halted our relative movement towards the planet and were now stationary in orbit in relation to the Anik satellite… and to the… the other things… . The Gaia, the Anik and the two unknowns were now orbiting the earth in roughly the same altitude.
“Something on heat readers though, sir.” Smith went on. “Very minor heat signature. As if they had done a burn recently. Pretty cold though. Maybe a while ago. Could it be debris? From earlier devices? You know… or older satellites? Or boosters that got shrugged off of some kind?” Smith asked the right questions.
“As for debris… I… the size is kinda big…” I started and then stopped abruptly.
Suddenly my stomach dropped and my ancient Reptilian brain at the top of my spinal column twitched. There was an instant conviction that something was very wrong about the presence of unknown large “debris” this close to the orbit we were approaching. The phrase Rivera had used about 30 people on the Tiagong Station floated at the speed of light across my neo-cortex. It was improperly analyzed by my thinking brain, but my adrenal gland gave me a shot of the good stuff. Like visually picking up moving shadows on a wall in the dark some atavistic part of me suddenly sensed danger. Something just instantly felt wrong! I knew wrong. Wrong had cost me Baxter’s life. Wrong had almost cost me Gaia three times and ‘wrong’ had brought me to the edge of death when an innocuous looking guy shot me. I had learned to trust that ‘wrong’ was bad. Score one of for instinct.
I twirled, smacked a hand on a big red button on my chair arm so that a claxon began to sound, I thrust a hand on the ship wide communications stud on the arm of my chair and shouted into the mike of my headgear.
“All personnel! Space suits NOW! Say again put on your suits NOW… this is NOT a drill… NOT a DRILL! Possible depressurization.” The bridge crew were frozen—staring me with their jaws agape. Shocked by this sudden appearance of a demand for action when they could not feel the premonition behind it. “NOW!” I verbally goaded them and to their credit they slammed their jaws shut and dove off their work stations for the lockers at the back of the compartment. My mind was working hard. Earth filled our forward screens. Between us and the planet was one of the most populated satellite environs in orbit. We could not use the McMoran Engines straight ahead or we would run right into the planet. We were inside a great big debris field, dense with space material—rapid lateral movements would also risk multiple collisions. We could not flee sideways using thrusters without running into satellite’s galore. I cared less about the outrage of their owners if we crushed a satellite or two than the fact that hitting and destroying some of them and likely damage us too.
“Baskarian!” I screamed at the rookie on the broad thruster controls who had just gotten his seat harness undone. “Turn us 180 degrees away from planet and get us the hell out of here! Anywhere out-system!” I called. He hesitated for a beat and then in a flurry began to slap controls on his console. My own pressure suit was two compartments back by the airlock. There was however an experimental emergency suit in a pouch on the back of my chair and I had fumbled it out, had dragged it up my legs and was dancing around trying to get an arm in a sleeve when a collision alarm broke out on both radar panels. I glanced over at Smith’s radar screen with dread and saw two blips finish breaking off from the nearest object and race towards us—fast. I swallowed. I pulled the suit’s plastic helmet over my head and zipped the suit shut slapping the heating and oxygen controls to ‘On.’ The suit design was untested. We had installed them only a month before at strategic locations. The suit would only last
about two hours even if it worked correctly which was not a huge given in my organization. Assuming I lived two hours to test it. I just had time to see that more of the ‘Debris’ was now moving too. I saw something like ten more blips break off the nearest large piece and also head straight for us.
Sho let his lip curl as he hit the makeshift control super glued to the control panel and the two radar guided missiles modified with a LOX fuel mix that would work in space instantly fired from tubes below the capsule and burned straight for the TESS ship. He recognized her fully now. She was the SS Gaia—TESS’ flag rather than the newer Tellus. The moment he gave the fire command he hit their own capsule thrusters and drove the capsule straight at the TESS ship too. As the capsule built speed and transferred momentum to it passengers he ordered his men; who were picking up speed from the capsule like a rider on a horse to fire their hand held personal thrusters and break away from his capsule to head for the TESS hull as planned. He heard the clink of d rings unclipping and grunts over his squad radio channel as most of his men leapt clear heading for planned targets locations on the TESS hull. Two men stayed… . his personal reserve reaction force and bodyguards. Sho had bet himself that he would not need them. The second Chinese capsule was already reporting they were ready to launch missiles and more men at the far side of the TESS ship. Sho ordered them to wait 20 seconds after his own launch, observe the effects of his fire and then fire their own missiles.