The landing was way riskier this way, but the lander had extra fuel onboard and could maneuver if necessary. In fact, Gregori was counting on this as part of their overall plan.
The radiation alarm activated with a loud whooping sound throughout the entire station, and several small red lights in various pods activated and started to blink.
“Turn that alarm off,” Yuri ordered, looking at Olga.
Olga reached over and deactivated the alarm. “Scared the hell out of me,” she said, giving Yuri a rare smile. Her hand shook ever so slightly after pressing the button to turn it off, and she clenched it into a fist and brought it down to her side.
“Check the readings to be sure they are still within nominal levels,” Yuri said, nodding and ignoring her display of anxiety.
“Gordust, this is Zvesda. What was that alarm?” Gregori asked.
Yuri flipped the mike. “Zvesda this is Gordust. The radiation alarm was triggered. Checking readings now.” He paused, his mike still open, and he looked to Olga, who was scanning the readout before she nodded. “Zvesda, all readings nominal, proceed.”
There was a very long pause before Commander Gregori responded. “Confirm the readings, Gordust.”
Yuri saw Olga give him one of those looks, the look that said: we screwed up. Yuri keyed the mike again. “Zvesda, this is Gordust, readings are nominal, I repeat, nominal. We failed to update the alarm trigger level after adding the additional shielding. Disregard and proceed with the landing.”
“Roger, Gordust, Zvesda proceeding.” Gregori sounded more content now that he knew the Gordust crew had simply failed to dial up the radiation threshold reading from the sensor. It had triggered the alarm at a low level that was normally used in cases of solar flares and usually intended to have the cosmonauts suit up to have a safer level of protection from cosmic radiation.
“Those readings are higher than we calculated, again by a factor of four,” Olga said, looking at her monitor.
“Well, we are arriving closer to the alien transmitter than our orbiter. We’d expect the signal to be stronger,” Yuri replied.
Olga nodded, her face, however, more serious. “Yes, but we are calculating a linear progression in signal strength, not an exponential one. Our readings should show the signal strength at twice the normal level, but it’s twice that again.”
Yuri thought for a moment and then he heard Nikolai’s voice come over the command frequency. “Zvesda, Commence braking.”
“Commencing braking now,” Gregori responded, only using the term Gordust when communicating with Yuri or Olga.
Yuri nodded to Olga, and she brought up the rear camera screen to show the video of the lander as it had dropped behind the Gordust by nearly three meters. The compressed oxygen on board was vented slightly from the lander toward the Gordust, slowing the lander’s relative velocity by a factor of ten.
“Initial braking complete,” Gregori said.
“Velocity now delta v at minus ten meters per minute, point-one-six meters per second.” Nikolai read out the rate of distance separation between the lander and the Gordust. This was very important as the two crafts needed a safe distance between them before the lander ignited its rocket motors to slow its decent and begin its landing on the moon. The slower speed would allow the force of the moon’s gravity to pull the craft toward itself as the inertia from the orbital velocity diminished.
Yuri thought about calling an abort so they could extrapolate the signal data and update their reading estimates of the planet’s surface, but he knew immediately that the lander commander wouldn’t agree. He had too much of that Spetsnaz in him to play it cautiously. No, he would land, and to hell with safety protocols or discreet caution. The mission was priority number one. Still, Yuri thought they should give them the option, so instead of calling for an abort, he keyed his mike to relay the data Olga had given him.
“Zvesda, this is Gordust,” Yuri said.
“Go ahead, Gordust.” Nikolai sounded annoyed.
“Be advised that the signal power readings here are two times our estimates, four times normal,” Yuri said into his mike.
Olga gave him another one of those looks, indicating that Yuri should be more forceful with his information, but Yuri had dealt with the Spetsnaz’s commando for several days and Gregori’s reply was not a surprise.
“Understood, Gordust,” Gregori said curtly. “Commencing with burn.”
“Burn in ten seconds,” Nikolai said, his monotone voice, devoid of emotions, sounding like a computer or disembodied soul.
Olga nodded at Yuri, indicating agreement. The Gordust had tried. Time to get to work. “Yuri, we’ll be entering orbit in five minutes. Any altitude adjustments?”
“Considering the signal strength, keep us on the higher side. I’d feel better having more distance between us and the device,” Yuri responded.
Olga nodded. “At least we have an entire row of extra shielding.”
Yuri looked out the side viewport at the stanchions holding the shielding panels out toward the moon. Each one looked like a solar panel, but they were made from lead and compressed carbon panels designed to prevent electromagnetic and atomic radiation from penetrating into the station’s interior. They were mounted on the left side only, thus the reason for the Gordust using a retrograde orbit of the moon. They needed to keep the panels between the ship and the surface.
The station also had shielding added to each pod, but weight was a consideration, so the engineers in Moscow came up with this hybrid idea. It made the Gordust look even uglier, and definitely not like a spaceship, but it was extremely effective. The Gordust would use its banked array set on top of the ship and mounted five meters overhead to visually and electronically monitor the progress of their lander.
“Commence burn,” Nikolai said.
The lander’s quad rocket motors, one at each corner of the craft, burned in unison, going through its localized supply of propellant. The effect was dramatic as the lander’s relative velocity was suddenly arrested and the craft began to fall toward the moon’s surface as its rate of speed decreased.
Gregori was reckless enough to even have Ivan calculate a surface-oriented burn to increase the rate of closure from the craft to the moon. Normally, any sane space program would never have a procedure to vector a burn toward a planetary body—gravity would fulfill that purpose—but the lander and Gordust had extra fuel, and Gregori was using every advantage to get to the surface as quickly as possible.
“Crossing the terminator,” Olga indicated as the Gordust started to turn its trajectory into an orbital one and cross from the open sunlit area into the shadow and dark side of the moon.
“Vostochny Control, this is Gordust, over,” Yuri said.
“Gordust, this is Vostochny Control, go ahead.”
“We are commencing blackout operations. The lander has initiated braking burn maneuver and is on schedule for lunar contact,” Yuri said, directing his communications into the long-range radio array.
“Copy, Gordust, convey luck and success to Zvesda. See you on the other side,” the technician’s voice sounded confident enough.
“Ready port lateral burn in ten seconds,” Olga said, referring to a small thruster burn toward the moon to keep the orbit at a higher inclination than what it was currently entering.
“Ready,” Yuri responded, bringing up his own screen’s video display of the Zvesda, now a brightly glowing ball of flames as the rocket motors lit up his view screen.
Yuri heard Nikolai’s voice again, calm and monotonous. “V level passing ninety-five kilometers.”
Olga looked at Yuri. “He’s really going in hot.”
Yuri reviewed the flight radar data as it was overlaid onto the video feed of the lander. “It’s well within his flight’s planned profile, aggressive though it was.”
Something that looked like a falling star streaked by to his right, passing the Gordust so fast that Yuri wondered if he really saw what he thought he saw. “Did
you see that, Olga?”
“Da, Yuri, that was the Glaza passing us,” she said, referring to the reconnaissance orbiter passing their station in the opposite direction but twenty kilometers higher in altitude.
Yuri felt he should have remembered their orbiter, but so focused was he on the lander’s progress as well as their own orbital insertion procedure that he had blocked that out from his mind. The craft became dark as the moon eclipsed the sun, and the glow of the instrument panel lit the interior of the cockpit brightly.
The moon began its pull on the ship, curving its flight path around itself, and the gentle push of the lateral rocket motors assisted the Gordust in keeping it at a higher orbit. Radar data began to come back as they tracked the lander and looked for the Chinese ship as well.
“I’ve got the data packet from the Glaza. Downloading it to your screen now,” Olga said, punching in the commands to place the info on Yuri’s desktop.
Yuri opened the file and found the mapping program. “Where is it?” he said.
“What are you looking for?” Olga asked, bringing up the same file on her screen.
“The Chinese lander, is it on the surface or did we beat them to the target?”
“There is no heat signature near the alien device other than the device itself,” Olga said. “I think the intel we received was faulty. It doesn’t look like the Chinese landed.”
“Zvesda, this is Gordust, over,” Yuri said into his mike.
“Gordust, this is Zvesda, go ahead,” came Gregori’s voice
“Zvesda, be advised there is no sign of activity at the target. Repeat no sign of activity at the target. You are in the clear.”
“Copy, Gordust, Zvesda is in the clear, ETA to target sixteen minutes.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Olga said. “The recon orbiter reported the Chinese lander had detached.”
Yuri widened the map field and started to look around the area. First in the ten square kilometers field and then further until he saw a small red dot far to the west of the device as seen from their overhead viewpoint. “There he is. He is well off target, at least fifty kilometers or so. What do you think they are up to?”
“I have no idea, Yuri,” Olga responded. “Maybe he has a rover or something to approach the target from a safe distance?”
“Perhaps. Did Moscow, er, I mean, Vostochny receive this data packet?”
As soon as they did, or maybe a few seconds later, Olga winked at Yuri, and Yuri thought the gesture was so foreign to her that he just stared for a moment. “You all right, Yuri?”
“Fine, I’m just not making sense of their actions. It doesn’t matter. If they haven’t approached the target, then we get there first and that is all that matters,” Yuri said.
They traveled on in silence, watching the minutes go by as they quickly led the Zvesda ship since their speed never decreased. They passed the longitude divide and began their journey back around the far side of the moon.
“Gordust, this is Zvesda, we have landed,” Gregori’s voice came through the system.
“Yuri, they are within five hundred meters of the target,” Nikolai said from his rear command seat.
“Copy, Nikolai. Gordust to Zvesda, confirmation received. You have landed near target. Will relay data to Central Control. Job well done,” Yuri said.
“Oh my God, look at the internal temperature reading of the Zvesda,” Olga said, pointing to the main screen that they shared between them.
Yuri tapped the screen twice. “Thirty-four degrees Celsius and rising. That can’t be correct. They are in the shade. The temperature should be falling, not rising.”
“Zvesda, shut down your heating element,” Nikolai’s voice came across the channel, no longer sounding calm.
The reply was filled with static and hard to hear, but Yuri could make out Gregori’s voice, triumphant over the interference. “Zvesda copy. Heating element shut down. Running a systems diagnostic now.”
Yuri watched in fascination as the internal bio data from the lander displayed its readouts across their screens. The temperature stabilized for several minutes and then began to climb again, albeit at a slower rate than before.
Gregori’s voice broke the silence. “All systems check. We are preparing to go EV.”
“Negative, Zvesda,” Yuri said into his mike, anxiety and dread in his voice. “Stay in the lander and prepare to lift off on my command.”
There was a long period of silence before Gregori’s response. “Nyet, Yuri, we are going to the device now.”
“Damn the man, isn’t he reading their temperature readout?” Yuri asked rhetorically, clicking on the internal channel. “Nikolai, can Gregori and Ivan see their bio readouts?”
“Affirmative, speculate it’s the radiative heating from Zvesda’s landing rockets,” Nikolai responded.
“Negative, Nikolai, this is not possible in the shade of the moon. The ship should be getting cooler, not hotter. There is a problem with their internal heater. We need to get them out of there.”
There was no time to respond. The Gordust suddenly crossed the terminator and into the bright glow of the sun again after a mere forty minutes of crossing the dark side of the moon. They were quickly losing radio and telemetry data on the lander and their target.
“We’ll have to wait till we come around again,” Olga said, leaning over to switch the screen mode to lock so that their last reading would be saved and compared to the new one when they reacquired contact again in fifty minutes.
“Contact Vostochny,” Yuri commanded Olga. “Inform them we have landed on target.”
Chapter 25
Nuclear
Bridge, USS Berkshire
Fifteen miles off the coast of China
In the near future, Day 46
Captain Hansen watched as the Chinese rocket disappeared from sight, flying over them in a southerly direction.
“Not exactly discreet, that launch, was it, sir?” his second in command, Lt. Commander Jensen, said, lowering his binoculars.
“No, it wasn’t,” Hansen said, also letting his binoculars rest on his chest and looking north at the spy trawler they were shadowing. “The Orca didn’t need to be this close to observe that launch.”
“Why do you think they just launched one of their rockets right over our fleet?” Jensen asked.
“I don’t know, but I got a bad feeling we’re about to find out. Get the admiral on the phone; he’ll need to know about this.”
“What about Washington?”
“The Orca is probably transmitting everything even now. They already know,” Hansen said, looking north at the small ship as it bobbed up and down in the rough seas, still flanked by a pair of Chinese naval frigates.
“God help us,” was all his second said, walking back to the bridge to relay the orders.
“Indeed,” Hansen muttered under his breath.
*****
White House
Washington D.C.
In the near future, Day 46
“Do you want the bad news or the really bad news?” Director Rose said, closing a folder in front of him and looking at the president from across the conference table.
“You’re kidding?” President Powers said, leaning her head against her hand and gently rubbing the scar on the side of her forehead.
“I’m afraid not, Gloria. This is why we convened the emergency meeting,” Director Rose said.
“I know, I’m just not sure we’re going to get out of this unscathed by the time the dust settles. Go ahead, let me have it in order, then.”
The rest of the executive staff leaned forward to listen intently to the Director of National Security as he put his glasses on and straightened the single page of paper on his desk. “As of 0400 hours this morning, we have tentative confirmation from our HUMINT asset in Russia that their cosmonaut team has successfully landed on target and not only on time, but earlier than anticipated.”
Several sighs and even a groan from one of the J
oint Chiefs of Staff were heard as everyone waited for the president to respond. “I take it this is the bad news?” Powers said, her tone even.
“Yes, it would appear that we are going to be a day late and a quarter of a million miles short. Sorry to break it to you, but we knew this was most likely going to happen considering our past failure,” Rose said.
Powers finished rubbing her head and looked around the table before her eyes settled on Rose. “I’m dreading to find out what could be worse than this.”
Her National Security Director took his glasses off and looked the president straight in the eye. “Around the same time, we have confirmation that the Chinese launched a nuclear warhead from their Wancheng space base using a southern polar orbit toward the moon. It will arrive in just over thirty-six hours.”
The noise of various staff members felt overwhelming to her, and the president lifted her hand, waving it for silence. The room quickly came to a low hush as the initial shock of the news permeated throughout the executive staff.
“David,” the president addressed her National Security Chief, “is the destination of the Chinese warhead the alien device?”
“We have no way to know as we have no HUMINT on the matter, but our SIGINT and ELINT indicate that this is a high probability.” The man nodded, pulled out a handkerchief, and started to clean his glasses.
“How is this possible, only thirty-six hours?” the president’s Chief of Staff asked.
“We don’t know for sure. Has your team analyzed the track and trajectory of their latest launch?” Rose asked the lead science advisor sitting at the far end of the large table.
“Yes, the delta v,” he started and then stopped, looking into several confused faces. “The speed of the rocket is much higher than any normal acceleration. This would indicate that there are no pilots on the payload, and they were able to sustain a much higher G-force escape velocity, thereby cutting the trip time to the moon by nearly half.”
“But why a southern polar orbit?” the president’s chief personal advisor asked.
Lunar Discovery: Let the Space Race Begin Page 20