Onboard Dirac, Mike Trevino and Markus Fuller watched the delicate maneuvering on their screens. It would only grow more complicated as the ship came closer to the dock. If all went well, at the last moment the magnetic mooring pads would surge their power and hold the ship in place against the station’s hull before the clamps locked.
The two computers would almost certainly succeed, but it was even more certain that they would not have the initiative to abort the docking procedure and back off for a second attempt. The responsibility for a successful mooring – or the blame, should a botched attempt result in a crash and damaged equipment – rested on Trevino’s shoulders. If he wanted to abort and try again, he would make the call and instruct the Kostroma’s pilots to override the ship’s AI and back off manually. Following standard procedure, Mike opened a communications link.
“Kostroma, this is Dirac ops, come in please.”
Pavel Vorontsov, the captain of the Kostroma, looked to Terzi for approval. The colonel nodded to him.
“Go ahead, Dirac,” Vorontsov replied, switching on the comms link. “How have you been, Mike?”
“Hi Captain V, good to see you again. All’s well except that I’m on duty. I couldn’t get leave for the holidays this year. Sorry if you guys couldn’t either.”
“We did, actually. Russian Orthodox Christmas isn’t for two more weeks.”
Mike smiled. “Right, right, I knew that. Prosti. So how about this docking today? Are you feeling comfortable on your end?”
“We were briefed about the station-keeping thrusters before we launched. It’s a first for us. I think it’ll work, but… yes, this is the trickiest I’ve ever seen it. The next ten minutes won’t be any easier.”
“Agreed. Well, stand by your controls and be ready to heave off if I call it, or if you feel the need to. If it happens, it’ll be in the final minutes.”
“Copy, Dirac. Standing by. We’ll keep the comms link open.”
Terzi and Yilmaz kept their eyes on the captain and the others. No problems so far.
Outside the bridge doors, Demirci kept his eyes on the time. The docking could not be delayed, at least not for his plan, but there was nothing he could do besides recite the timetable in his head. Patience. And then go on autopilot. Move fast and cold and sure. We’ll all be dead in forty-five minutes. For the first time, he smirked at the thought.
* **
Lincoln reached twenty kilometers away from Dirac station fifteen minutes after Kostroma had done the same. Like the cargo ship had done, the Lincoln’s main engines abruptly cut their deceleration power down to a fraction of what it had been as the ship prepared to maneuver to a docking port. Lincoln would have to maneuver around to the Labs dock, on the opposite side of the station from where Kostroma was about to connect.
Now that the heavy deceleration was over, Beth Yamada extended the ocular scanner arms beyond the ship’s internal gravity bubble. C2C got a better look at the station and the inbound cargo ship.
“Captain, RFSS Kostroma is on final docking approach to the Hub-side port,” Yamada reported, suppressing her entrancement at seeing Dirac Station for the first time. “Their estimated time to dock… just under six minutes. We’ll datalink for maneuvering at five clicks out, but Kostroma will have right-of-way.” Across the room, Lieutenant Crawford established comms with Markus Fuller on the station.
“Everything seems fine,” Pierce said to herself, gazing at the same optical view of Dirac. The Hub’s docking lights were on, and Abe’s tactical display indicated that the station was already datalinked to the Kostroma. Dirac’s thrusters were visibly radiating on low power, but Pierce realized why a moment before she bothered to ask Abe. This was the L3 point’s season for interference from Venus. The Kostroma slowly approached Dirac, its maneuvering thrusters spitting out short bursts of lithium exhaust.
* **
Two minutes after being fired by the Theodore Roosevelt, the first particle beams streaked past the Isyan. Despite all the tracking data from SPACECOM and all the calculations made by Roosevelt’s AI, the cannons’ accuracy at that range was negligible. The neutral particle beams also had only a fraction of their original power. Eventually, all forms of energy dissipate as heat. The remnants of the beams were over a hundred meters wide and might have damaged the Isyan if they struck it, but the nearest of them only came within eighty kilometers of the missile.
Forty-seven minutes after its third stage propulsion lit off, the Isyan reached the L4 Lagrangian point. Its speed was ninety thousand kilometers per second and still accelerating.
Sixty seconds prior, the detonator armed itself and waited for the guidance system to tell it to actuate. The guidance system was keyed to a simple signals receiver, detecting the outgoing streams of Dirac Station data being relayed from the satellite towards Earth. One hundred times per second, the missile’s onboard processor evaluated the intercepted signal strength. At 1258Z the missile streaked past the satellite and the signal strength dropped off to nothing, triggering a loss of electrical power from the fuel containment system. This was the Isyan’s version of a proximity fuze.
Eight thousand kilometers beyond the satellite, the Isyan exploded. The fuel tank still held three hundred grams of unspent antihydrogen, enough for a fifteen megaton blast. In the vacuum of space the visible explosion only lasted a brief moment, a quick white flash in the darkness. But the energy released continued outward in all directions.
The spherical blast expanded at near-lightspeed and hit the satellite a fraction of a second later. There was no shock wave to shatter the bird, but the detonation’s heat and radiation still damaged it beyond the possibility of repair. With its fuel cell reactions collapsed and its electronic systems burned out, the twenty-ton satellite became nothing more than a seared mass of scrap metal.
The blast of energy continued to expand and dissipate in all directions.
* **
Over fourteen light-minutes away, Trevino watched the Kostroma’s mooring approach on his screens and shook his head. He could tell that the computers were taking it slower than normal, but it still wasn’t as smooth as it should’ve been. Of all the data displayed in front of him, he focused most of all on a single figure: the estimate of a successful docking completion. It updated ten times a second, fluctuating between ninety-five and ninety-eight percent. He had never before seen it drop below ninety-nine percent. The closer to the station Kostroma got, the more the percentages ranged on the lower end. For a few seconds, the computer’s estimate dropped to ninety-two percent.
“Captain, I have to say I’m not liking this,” Trevino said to the bridge crew. “I’m ordering an abort. Do a thrust reversal and back out to approach point one. I’m going to simplify some things here.”
“I feel confident on my end, Mike,” Voronstov replied, feeling Colonel Terzi’s stare. “There’s no need for another run.”
“I just don’t want to risk any damage. Let’s make this approach a normal one. Give me a minute and I’ll shut down the station-keeping thrusters here. I’ll switch them back on once you’re docked and clamped on.” Trevino turned from the screen to his own maneuvering controls.
Vorontsov glanced at Terzi’s face. The colonel reluctantly nodded. After all, Terzi decided, he was not in a hurry. His timetable was not determined by the clock. The mission’s next phase would begin whenever this phase concluded. The warship still wouldn’t beat them to docking.
“Copy that, Dirac. We are backing out to approach point one. Standing by.”
* **
“TAO, Sensors,” Lieutenant Moore called out. “Ma’am, I’m detecting ionizing radiation. It’s not coming from Dirac’s direction or the Sun. Significant energy pulse from twenty-two degrees off our port bow, nearly parallel with this orbital plane.”
Beth Yamada spun around from her gaze on the maneuvering screens. “What? Where?”
“Three-three-eight mark point-two. I’m working on getting a point of origin along that line.”
&n
bsp; “The only known object along that heading is the communications relay satellite used by Dirac Station,” Abe interjected, displaying a chart of the inner solar system. “Assuming that is the source location, and based on the thermal energy and the levels of neutron and gamma radiation at this distance, I estimate the power of the burst to be approximately sixty-three petajoules, equivalent to fifteen megatons.”
Captain Pierce jumped forward in her seat and switched her headset on. “Comms, get a hold of Dirac’s Ops Center. Find out what they’re seeing from that relay. Abe, what’s the power source of that satellite?”
Abe displayed a schematic of the satellite as he spoke. “Molten carbonate fuel cells, Captain. Incapable of radioactive detonation in the event of failure. In the event of sabotage, the satellite’s generator could not produce an explosion beyond twenty terajoules, less than one three-thousandth of what we have detected.”
Dirac’s link with Earth cut off, destroyed… minutes after Kostroma was scheduled to dock.
“Oh my God…”
* **
Markus Fuller, sitting next to Mike Trevino in Dirac’s operations center, tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Every relay feed from Earth suddenly registered Loss of Signal.
“That’s affirmative, Lincoln,” Fuller replied to Lieutenant Crawford. “Complete LOS from our relay bird. I’ve never seen that before. Let me see if its base code is still pinging.”
Pierce interrupted. “Dirac, this is Lincoln’s commanding officer, do you read me?”
“Yes, ma’am, go ahead.”
“Check your sensor screens. From what we’re seeing it looks like the satellite was destroyed deliberately. If you can, abort your docking with Kostroma,” Pierce said quickly. “Do it now. Do not let them dock until further notice. They may be hijacked.”
“Wha– understood, Lincoln. Stand by.” Fuller turned to Trevino. “Did you hear that?!” He ran to the empty External Sensors station and saw the readings of ionizing radiation. “They’re right, we had a major energy pulse from L4’s direction. The relay bird must be toast!”
Trevino looked at Vorontsov and the rest of the Kostroma’s bridge crew on his screen. They looked as normal as could be. But all the Earth relay feeds really were gone. They went down at 1313Z, thirteen minutes after Kostroma was supposed to have docked. The audio link to Kostroma’s bridge was still muted.
“Holy hell. Markus, if Lincoln’s right, we can’t delay them forever. The ship can still dock in place with the magnetic pads, and they can manually open the hatches from outside.”
“Maybe the warship can do something about them?”
“Hang on, first let’s see how they react.” Trevino unmuted the audio link and opened the channel to broadcast, so Lincoln could hear it also. “Kostroma, hold your position at approach point one. We’re, uh, having some technical difficulties here with the station-keeping thrusters. Stand by.” Trevino wished he had thought of a better excuse. He had already powered down the thrusters. Vorontsov and the others had only to look at them and see a difference.
* **
Pierce’s mind raced through her options. Hoping for the best was no longer one of them.
Who could be on that vessel, and what could they be doing? Could Lincoln physically prevent Kostroma from docking? If not, would they know that? What might happen if Lincoln didn’t try? How quickly could Kostroma dock themselves, and how quickly could Lincoln? Too many questions…
Pierce looked at the maneuvering track. Lincoln was moving around to the secondary dock on the far side of Dirac, but not yet out of sight of Kostroma beyond the Hub’s dock.
“TAO, extend all DEW cannons and the coilgun and point them straight at Kostroma. Abe, bring us to all stop as soon as you can. Comms, open a bridge-to-bridge line with Kostroma. I want to speak to them.”
All three acknowledged the captain’s orders, knowing the cannons were only a ploy. None of the four were functional.
“Kostroma, this is Lincoln. Come in, over.”
* **
Colonel Terzi waved his hand across his neck as he stared at the view of Dirac Station. Vorontsov muted the audio link.
“Technical problems with their thrusters?” said Major Yilmaz.
“They said they would turn them off for the next mooring approach,” Terzi said, looking at Dirac on the screens. “The problem is, they did.” A minute earlier, they could see the glowing plumes of superheated plasma pouring out of all four of them, and now there seemed to be nothing.
“Captain, what is the warship doing?” the colonel asked.
“They’ve been on approach to Dirac’s far side, as expected–”
“Are they still?”
Vorontsov took a closer look at the tracks on his screen. “No, sir, they’re now holding position near the far side. No longer on approach.”
Pierce’s voice came over the audio circuit again. “Kostroma, this is Lincoln. Come in, over.”
“They’ll have us at gunpoint,” Yilmaz gasped.
Terzi unholstered his sidearm. “Captain, switch off the video link to the station. Now.” Vorontsov’s hands shook as he did so.
* **
“Lincoln, this is Dirac,” Trevino called over to the warship. “We just lost our comms with Kostroma!”
* **
Terzi stepped away from the side of the bridge and walked up to Vorontsov. “Captain, dock us with that station as fast as this ship can do it.” He rested the barrel of his weapon on the pilot’s console. “Do not hesitate, and do not blunder.”
* **
“Captain, Kostroma just surged their aft thrusters,” Yamada reported. “They’re coming in towards Dirac at twelve meters per second! No, make that fourteen and increasing…”
“TAO, put us back on our mooring approach! Dock us with the Labs as soon as you can,” Pierce said.
Commander Yates leaned in. “Captain, the coilgun. We might have enough time to charge it and put a round right through their bridge.”
Abe cut in. “Impossible unless Kostroma decelerated at once, Captain.”
“Charge it anyway!” yelled Pierce.
The coilgun’s capacitors began to fill as the long weapon traversed forward to target Kostroma. A Mk-8 round was loaded into the magnetic chamber. But the cargo ship was fast slipping out of view, already partially obscured by Dirac’s Hub.
Yates clenched his fist. “Shit. Shit!”
* **
“They’re getting ready to shoot!” Major Yilmaz shouted.
“Sir, we– we’ve got to slow down now,” Vorontsov said to Terzi. “This speed–”
“Not yet.”
“We’ll crash,” Vorontsov said, his face gone pale. “We’ll crash, and the damage will be–”
Terzi pressed his pistol against Vorontsov’s temple. “How fast can we hit that station’s docking pads without destroying ourselves or them, Captain? Do you know? Care to venture a guess?”
Vorontsov nodded quickly. He did know. The adrenaline made his training come right back to him. Roscomsos engineers had given him an estimate.
“Seven. Seven meters per second.”
“Then that’s your end speed, Captain. Don’t slow down until you need to, and then I want you to ram this ship’s pads right onto that station’s pads and dock us.” Terzi motioned to Yilmaz. The major opened the hatch to the passageway, and Demirci and the rest of the MAKs filed into the bridge.
“We’re coming in quick, gray berets. They’re alerted to us. Sergeant Ekici, take over here and make sure the good captain docks us as fast as I’ve told him. Seven meters a second. Everyone else with me down at the bow airlock. We’re going in within three minutes. Contingency plan two. Move.”
* **
Yamada alternated between looking at the ship’s maneuvering track and the optical view of Dirac. Kostroma’s hull was unseen on the far side of the station.
“No chance for a shot, Captain.”
“Time to our mooring?”
�
��Eight minutes, forty seconds.”
Pierce switched her headset back on. “Dirac, this is Lincoln’s CO. Can you hear me? You’re about to be boarded–”
“No shit, Lincoln! Either that or they’re gonna ram us! We can’t secure the hatches on our end. I’m putting the station on alert.”
“We’re heading for the back door. We’ll dock at the Labs about six minutes after they’re at the Hub.”
As much as they wanted to try, Trevino and Fuller couldn’t lock the cargo bay’s outer hatch. Even if they ran downstairs to the airlock from the Ops Center, less than a minute’s run, they couldn’t lock the doors permanently. The airlocks could be opened and closed electronically, but like every space station ever built they also had old-fashioned manual controls. Anyone on the outside could spin the wheel and open the outer hatch. And as long as the outer hatch was closed, anyone in the airlock could then pressurize it and open the inner door. The reason, ironically, was safety. People working outside the station would not want to experience a spacesuit emergency only to find themselves dealing with a technical problem at the door access panel. Spacesuits only carry so much oxygen.
Markus Fuller accessed the airlock controls and began over-pressurizing the chamber. He couldn’t lock the doors, and he couldn’t even maintain permanent control over the airlock’s atmosphere. The controls could be overridden by anyone at the external access panel for the same safety reasons. But perhaps, he felt, he could at least delay them a few seconds, or even confuse them. He thought of over-pressurizing the cargo bay itself, but there wouldn’t be time for that.
Trevino ran to the internal ops desk and switched on Dirac’s intercom system, then adjusted the settings to enable his voice in every compartment of the station. He grabbed the microphone and took a deep breath. “Attention all personnel. Attention! We have a supply ship arriving at the Hub’s cargo bay in about two minutes. This is an unauthorized docking. We have reason to believe the ship may be hijacked. I say again, we think there may be hijackers. We don’t know what they want. This is not a drill! Lock down your spaces as best you can, and hide yourselves wherever you can. Pass the word to anyone who doesn’t hear this. This is not a drill.”
Critical Asset Page 13