Eagle Station

by Dale Brown

  Lavrentyev was a little taller and heavier-set than the wiry Tian. One of his hands rested lightly on the Federation’s flight control joystick. He studied the glowing readouts on their three multifunction liquid-crystal displays and grunted in satisfaction. “Everything looks good. We are go for docking with the Chang’e lander on this orbit.”

  Tian nodded. “And our communications links to Moscow and Beijing?” he asked. “No problems?”

  In answer, Lavrentyev opened a new menu. A row of solid green bars showed the status of their data links. Through a network of data-relay satellites, a steerable antenna mounted in the service module’s tail section kept them in constant touch with ground controllers in Russia and the People’s Republic. To maintain the fiction that this was an unmanned test flight, there would be no radio voice transmissions for the duration of the mission. Instead, all messages between the spacecraft and its controllers were passed in encrypted data packets, hidden in the stream of routine telemetry.

  “Very good,” Tian said. He cocked his head, listening. Apart from the background hum of their air-recirculation fans and water pumps, there was very little noise. The contrast with earlier space flights—with their never-ending torrent of radio static and chatter with mission control teams—was striking.

  He glanced at Lavrentyev. “This silence is . . . different.”

  The Russian cosmonaut’s teeth flashed white. “It’s so quiet, I can scarcely hear myself think.”

  Tian grinned back. “Perhaps that is just as well, Kirill. You know that thinking only gets you in trouble.”

  “Eto tochno.” Lavrentyev laughed. “So true.” During their long months of training together, differences in their approaches to problem-solving had become both obvious and a source of some humor. The Russian favored quick action, figuring it was better to act decisively than to dither in a crisis. In contrast, Tian was more analytical, though his reaction times were also almost inhumanly fast. Intensive preparation, instruction, and hundreds of hours of practice in simulators had welded them into a smoothly functioning command team. They were perfectly matched to the challenges of this arduous and fiendishly complex space mission . . . the first necessary step toward making Heaven’s Thunder an operational reality.

  Aboard the Chang’e-10 Lander, in Lunar Orbit

  Several Hours Later

  For three full orbits after docking with the unmanned Chinese-built lunar lander, the four-man Federation 2 crew worked hard to make sure Chang’e-10’s ascent stage and descent stage were correctly assembled and in perfect working order. No one had ever tried having two separate spacecraft autonomously connect themselves into a single functioning ship before. The technique probably wouldn’t have worked for a vehicle intended to fly in Earth’s atmosphere and gravitational field. Fortunately, operations around the airless moon, with just one-sixth gravity compared to that of the mother planet, would place considerably less stress on the lander’s structure.

  Now, Colonel Tian Fan and Kirill Lavrentyev left Federation 2 and transferred to Chang’e-10. With everything checked out, it was time to find out if the lander could perform the mission for which it had been designed.

  Tian tucked his feet under a bar to hold himself in place, connected his restraining straps, and looked ahead through his command pilot’s triangular window. The gray surface of the moon curved across his horizon. Without any atmospheric distortion, the edges of every crater rim and rise appeared razor-sharp, perfectly distinct even from nearly one hundred kilometers up. Pitch-black shadows stretched out ahead of them.

  He glanced at one of the large multifunction displays fixed between his station and his copilot’s position. Rows of status icons glowed green. The Chang’e’s main engine, attitude control thrusters, life-support system, lidar and star tracker navigation systems, and communications relays were all functioning perfectly. Compared to the dizzying array of dials, switches, and readouts crammed into the Apollo Lunar Modules, the Chang’e’s control systems were a model of efficient simplicity.

  Kirill Lavrentyev drifted down from the docking hatch over their heads and hooked in on his right. “We are closed up and sealed,” he reported.

  Tian nodded. With one gloved hand, he tapped a com icon on his display. For now, while they were crossing the moon’s Earth-facing side, communications between the two linked spacecraft used a hardwired intercom. “Federation, this is Chang’e-Ten; our hatch is closed. What is your status?”

  Through his headset, he heard Major Liu Zhen reply from the larger spacecraft. “Copy that, Chang’e. We confirm both hatches are closed and sealed. Venting the tunnel now.”

  Pumps cycled, depressurizing the short tunnel connecting the Federation command module and their lander. Both spacecraft shuddered slightly. Thrusters fired, automatically counteracting the tiny motion imparted by the gases venting into space.

  Lavrentyev cycled through menus on his own screen. “Pulsing the lidar now,” he said. Their flash lidar system fired low-powered lasers at the lunar surface and used the reflected pulses to create three-dimensional images of the terrain they were flying over. By comparing those images to maps stored in its memory, the computer could determine precisely where they were, relative to the surface, at any given moment. Seconds later, the Russian cosmonaut announced, “Navigation fix confirmed. We are crossing the Ocean of Storms and approaching the Hevelius crater. Ten minutes to LOS.”

  “Understood,” Tian said. LOS meant loss of signal. It marked the point at which their spacecraft’s orbit would carry it around the curve of the moon—cutting off radio transmissions and observations from Earth or near-Earth satellites. Since their communications were routed through China’s Magpie Bridge relay at the L2 point, they would be completely unaffected by this transition. But the Americans, blind and deaf to anything happening on the moon’s far side, would no longer be able to see what they were doing. He entered a code on his screen. A new menu lit up. “Initiating final pre-separation checklists.”

  Row after row of separate spacecraft systems flashed yellow and then cycled to green as the computer tested them and made sure they were properly configured. To ease the workload on their two-man crews, the engineers who designed China’s Chang’e landers had built in a high degree of automation.

  Nevertheless, Tian and Lavrentyev followed along at every step. No sane pilot put his whole trust in automated systems, especially not on an incredibly complex brand-new space vehicle making its first real flight. “Lander life support is good. Thrusters are go. Docking latches are ready to release. Descent engine is on standby.”

  Through their headsets, they could hear Liu and the other Russian cosmonaut, Captain Yanin, going through their own checklists aboard Federation 2. A tone sounded. Moments later, a computer-decrypted message scrolled across the top of their displays: at your discretion, you are go for undocking and descent burn as planned. good fortune. leonov. li jun. message ends.

  The two men exchanged wry smiles. Did Marshal Leonov and President Li Jun honestly believe their explicit permission was necessary to men who were so far from their home planet? But since all crew conversations were automatically recorded and periodically downloaded to Moscow and Beijing, neither thought it especially wise to comment out loud.

  “Checklist complete. All systems are nominal. Ready for separation at LOS plus sixty seconds,” Tian announced calmly, as the computer finished its work. He reached up and slid the visor of his helmet down. It clicked into place. He heard the comforting hiss of air flowing through his space suit’s umbilical hose. Next to him, Lavrentyev closed and sealed his own helmet.

  Ahead through his window, Tian saw the moonscape change character. In contrast to the near side’s vast dark basalt plains, the moon’s far side was a rugged expanse of thousands of craters—some small, others hundreds of kilometers wide. A radio-antenna-shaped icon on his MFD turned red. “Loss of signal.”

  He tapped another icon on the display, setting an automated undocking sequence in motion. A digi
tal readout appeared on-screen, counting down the remaining seconds. The Chang’e’s sophisticated flight computer was now in complete control.

  As a precaution, Tian put his hands on the two controllers mounted beneath his display. If the automated program glitched, he was ready to shut it down and take manual control.

  “Ten seconds,” Lavrentyev said quietly, following the computer-driven countdown.

  Tian tensed, waiting as the seconds ticked by. Then, with a muted clang-clang-clang, the latches holding the Chang’e and Federation released. The lander jolted as its thrusters fired, pulling it away from the larger Russian command module. A com icon changed shape, signaling the transition from hardwired intercom to low-powered, short-range radio.

  “Good separation,” they heard Liu say. “Chang’e-Ten, this is Federation, you are clear. Fifty meters separation and increasing at five meters per second. We are commencing our own thruster maneuver to open the range faster.”

  “Copy that,” Tian acknowledged. Looking ahead through his window, he saw a long chain of smaller impact craters curving roughly north to south across their flight path. He cued their nav system, and it confirmed his visual impression. They were approaching the Leuschner Catena. It was one of the aim points for their planned descent to the lunar surface. “All right, Kirill, let’s deploy the landing gear.”

  Lavrentyev nodded. He opened another menu on his display and stabbed at it with a gloved finger. “Master Arm on.”

  Tian saw the confirming light. “Go on that.”

  “Landing gear deploy.” The Russian tapped his display again. “Firing.”

  WHAANG. Another small vibration rattled through the Chang’e lander as tiny explosive bolts detonated. Released from the clamps holding them close against the spacecraft’s hull, their landing struts swung down and locked in position.

  “Chang’e-Ten, this is Federation,” Liu radioed. “Your gear is down. We see all four struts.”

  Tian checked their flight path again. They were still right in the groove, orbiting westward around the moon at sixteen hundred meters per second. He glanced at Lavrentyev. “Go for landing?”

  The Russian nodded decisively. “Da. We are go for landing.”

  “Initiating landing sequence . . . now,” Tian said, entering the necessary command code. New menus opened on his display. “Automated sequence activated. The computer is in control.”

  In milliseconds, the Chang’e’s flight programs assessed their position, heading, and speed, made the necessary calculations, and sent commands to different spacecraft systems. “Three . . . two . . . one,” Lavrentyev counted down. Indicators flashed green. “Pitch over.”

  Thrusters popped, rotating the lander through 180 degrees so that its engine was aligned against their direction of travel. Inside the cabin, Tian and Lavrentyev were now looking “up” at the moonscape through their windows.

  With a muted whummp, their descent rocket motor lit. Instantly the two men were jolted forward against their restraints. As the engine fired, the spacecraft’s forward velocity decreased. Too slow now to resist the pull of the moon’s gravity, the lander slanted downward.

  Ninety seconds later, the engine cut out.

  “Good burn,” Lavrentyev announced. Numbers and graphics scrolled across his display. “No residuals. Our rate of descent looks good.” He activated their lidar again, double-checking the computer. “Altitude now seventy kilometers. We are descending at one hundred meters per second. Speed over the ground eleven hundred meters per second.”

  More thrusters fired, pitching the Chang’e back around so that they could see where they were headed. The lander was sliding downward across the Hertzsprung crater. It was enormous, several hundred kilometers in diameter. Nearly a dozen smaller craters pockmarked its gray surface. Beyond Hertzsprung’s west rim—torn and gouged by other aeons-old impacts—they could see more large craters, Kibal’chich, Vavilov, and Tsander.

  Tian took another navigational fix, again checking to make sure the flight control computer was still hitting its marks. “Range to target area now eight hundred and thirty kilometers. Everything looks good. We are still go for landing.”

  Fifty kilometers downrange and thirty kilometers higher than the Chang’e-10 lander, the Federation 2 spacecraft spun end over end. Thrusters pulsed, stopping its rotation with the command module facing aft. Inside the Federation’s cabin, Major Liu Zhen tracked Chang’e-10 through remote-controlled television cameras. Even at high magnification, the lander was more a blur of reflected sunlight from its gold- and orange-colored insulating foil than a distinct shape as it sloped downward. “Well, they’re committed now,” Liu commented to the Russian cosmonaut hovering close by.

  Captain Dmitry Yanin nodded. Even if Lavrentyev and Tian aborted their landing at the last minute, firing their engine again to climb back into orbit, it was too late for their spacecraft to dock with Federation 2 again before both machines circled back around the moon’s near side—and into view of America’s spy satellites and ground-based telescopes.

  In truth, neither Yanin nor Liu expected their fellow crewmen to abort. During the long months of training and preparation, both Tian and Lavrentyev had made it pretty clear that they’d prefer to die trying to land, rather than experience the humiliation of a failed attempt and a long trip back to Earth under the mocking gaze of their American enemies.

  Holding on to the edge of the Federation 2’s control console to avoid drifting off across the cabin, Liu spun slightly to look at Yanin. He indicated the descending lander, now little more than a pinpoint of light against the rocky, crater-strewn surface below. “Do you wish you were aboard? That we were the ones making this first landing?”

  “My God, no,” the Russian lied. “My parents raised me to be a spaceman . . . not a lunonaut.” He shrugged. “Now, ask me again on our next trip . . . and you’ll certainly get a different answer.”

  Liu nodded with a smile. If all went well, he and Yanin were slated to crew the next Chang’e lander.

  An icon on one of the console displays pinged sharply, calling for their attention. It had been triggered by a coded ground controller message relayed through the Magpie Bridge comsat. Liu tapped at it. The icon opened into a menu headed deception operations. Frowning, he checked their position. They were still thirty-odd minutes from AOS, or acquisition of signal, the point at which Earth-based sensors could see them. “Moscow is impatient,” he told the other man. “They want us to go ahead and deploy the decoy early.”

  “I guess now’s as good a time as any,” the Russian said offhandedly. “Not that we can do anything if there’s a fuckup at this point.”

  “True. On both counts,” Liu agreed. He scrolled to the first necessary command button and pushed it. “Decoy deployment arming switch enabled.”

  Floating close enough to read the display, Yanin followed along. “The switch is active,” he confirmed.

  “Deploying the decoy,” Liu said. He tapped the button once. And then a second time, confirming for the computer that his first motion had not been an accidental swipe across the display screen.

  POP-POP-POP-POP.

  The Federation vibrated rhythmically for several seconds. Beyond the hatch, a cylindrical bag fixed around the upper outer hull burst open. Within seconds, a structure made of layers of interwoven Kevlar-like fabrics and vinyl polymer foam ballooned into being. Tightly tethered around the command module’s hatch, it was the same size and shape as the now-departed Chang’e lander. Carefully placed radar reflectors studded the decoy’s outer surface.

  Readouts on Liu’s console turned solid green. The decoy was secure, fully inflated, and holding its shape.

  Both men smiled at each other with relief. To American surveillance satellites and telescopes, it would appear as if the Chang’e lander and the Federation 2 were still docked.

  Aboard Chang’e-10, Lavrentyev set their lidar system to continuous pulse—providing the computer with the steady flow of data it needed to track their
altitude, rate of descent, ground speed, and position. “Altitude now twenty thousand meters. Rate of descent still one hundred meters per second.”

  Through his window, Tian saw the battered outer rim of the Tsander crater growing larger as they slanted down. Tsander was ancient beyond measure. Over hundreds of millions of years, it had been pounded by debris raining down from space. In places, these impacts had almost obliterated Tsander’s once-distinct edges—turning it into a jumble of secondary craters, slopes, and folds.

  Another large crater was just coming into view, far away across a plain pockmarked and pitted by much smaller hollows. Its slopes rose gradually, steadily climbing until they were several thousand meters above the lower ground. They were relatively unmarked, splotched and scarred only in places by lighter-colored ejecta—masses of once-molten debris—hurled outward from the asteroid impact that had created this large crater. “I have Engel’gardt in sight,” Tian announced. “Stand by for descent engine nozzle gimbal and relight.”

  He flexed his hands on the two controllers. He was prepared to shut down their landing program and come in manually at the first sign of trouble.

  From his position, Lavrentyev watched the indicators for their descent engine change color. Numbers scrolled across his display. “Gimbal complete. The angle looks good. Engine Arm light is on. Good fuel flow. Three . . . two . . . one—”

  WHUMMP.

  Once again, the two men swayed against their harnesses, jostled by the sudden deceleration. “Ignition. Throttling up to ten percent power,” Lavrentyev reported. He switched to his nav readouts. “Rate of descent slowing to fifty meters per second. Forward speed dropping, too. Down to three hundred meters per second. Altitude now fifteen thousand meters. Coming down steadily.”