by Jack Slater
Carl Erickson’s passion was astronomy.
He had no scientific training, in fact had no qualification of any kind higher than his high school GED, and neither his appearance—a jovial face and thick white beard that often prompted children to mistake him for Santa, and a beer belly that sometimes peeked out from beneath his shirt—nor his former profession as a plumber suggested to anyone who didn’t know him well that he was a man who was fascinated with the night sky.
In fact, not just fascinated, but obsessed.
Carl didn’t own a television, for he reasoned he had no need for one, given the far greater delights that could be found in the skies above. Why waste hours watching reality television, he thought, when he could gaze into distant galaxies, studying glimmers of light emitted by stars that might have died billions of years ago? What wonders lay in the darkness, far beyond humanity’s reach?
Aliens? He was sure of it.
Other civilizations? How could there not be?
Carl’s pride and joy was his Meade LX850 home telescope, set on a GPS guided, computerized mount. It had cost him almost $15,000 and taken him years to save up for, but in his opinion was worth every penny. His laptop’s hard drive was filled with images of Saturn’s rings, of dust storms blemishing the face of Mars, and a hundred other curiosities.
Delights could be found closer to home as well. He had whiled away more nights than he could count simply watching the International Space Station pass by overhead, or studying the sinking orbit of a defunct communications satellite.
The purchase of the telescope prompted other changes, too. His wife had died some years previously, shortly after he retired, and they had no children, which meant no grandchildren either. And so Carl decided to move deep into the Utah desert, where the night sky was not obscured by one of the few things that could raise the friendly old man’s ire: light pollution.
So it was that Carl found himself that night in mid-summer, lying on a reclining chair on his deck with his laptop resting on his belly, connected by a cable to the only possession he truly cared about. A small cooler filled with ice and bottles of Budweiser sat by his side, and his dog Rex chased shadows as the sun faded beyond the horizon.
“Cut that out, boy,” he growled fondly at the energetic Labrador.
As usual, Rex ignored him, disappearing into the darkness, but that was no problem. Carl’s property was fenced, and he’d seen little sign of coyotes in the area recently. They were only usually an issue during the winter, when their natural food sources winnowed away, and they were forced into scavenging near human settlements.
Carl shook his head and focused on his night’s work. The LX850 outputted high definition video to Carl’s computer, and a program running on it sent instructions the other way. He initiated a search program of his own design and settled back into his recliner, lifting the cool bottle of beer to his lips as the telescope’s quiet motor whirred into action.
It wasn’t long before the program had identified its first target: a French communications satellite operated by a private company. Carl dutifully made a check in his notebook against the satellite’s designation, but while it was nice to be reacquainted with an old flame, the sight wasn’t particularly interesting.
Ideally, Carl was hoping to see some signs of the debris field that was reportedly orbiting the planet at frightening speeds—a result of the destruction of a number of America’s military satellites in the skies above Asia several days before. Unlike the explosion of a ship, or a plane coming down over the ocean, where wreckage might over the course of months be carried hundreds or thousands of miles on the tides, the destruction of the satellite could produce tens of thousands of pieces of debris—some only a fraction of an inch across.
And yet those tiny fragments could travel at speeds of thousands of miles an hour, never slowing, for there was no atmosphere in space to slow them down. And until those fragments were pulled by the Earth’s gravity into the planet’s atmosphere and burned up, they were a risk to all other spacecraft. Even a loose screw could, traveling at a high enough speed, be sufficient to kill every astronaut on board the ISS.
Of course, that was the last outcome that Carl hoped to see. But the space station, or another satellite, firing its thrusters to move out of the path of the deadly debris would be quite a coup.
His laptop chimed, and Carl squinted at the screen. “What have you got for me, baby?”
The image in front of him was unusual. The telescope had fixed its view on a satellite, but not one that Carl recognized. He consulted his notes and ran a quick web search, which indicated that the satellite currently passing over his head was operated by the US military. And according to his notebook, this wasn’t the first time he’d seen it. Perhaps not even the tenth.
But he’d never seen it like this.
The satellite appeared to have gained weight, bulging in the middle like a pregnant mother. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was seeing things, then consulted his hard drive for images he’d saved last time the satellite appeared ahead.
It looks completely different.
It was the same satellite, because it had to be. Satellites followed fairly predictable orbits, and their operators tended not to alter those flight paths dramatically, since the consequences of a crash could lead to costs of hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars. And yet the satellite had quite undoubtedly altered its shape, almost doubling in size.
Which was impossible.
And then something altogether more impossible happened, with Carl watching on with open-mouthed astonishment, his heart beating faster than it had since an untimely heart attack almost two decades before. He blinked and double-checked that his laptop was recording video.
It was.
The satellite appeared to move. Not just move, but separate into two constituent parts, with one half remaining in the orbit normally followed by the military satellite, the other pausing, then quickly disappearing off screen. Carl quickly typed commands into the laptop’s keyboard, attempting to follow it, but it was too late.
“What the hell?” he whispered.
Carl had no idea what he had seen. But as his mind cleared, he reached for his cell phone with trembling fingers. Whatever had just happened, he knew it had to be important. He needed to tell someone.
33
“How the hell did we miss it?” President Charles Nash whispered, staring at an image on the large screen that filled one wall of the White House situation room. “In fact, take it from the top. What the hell even is that thing?”
An air force colonel, uniform slightly creased from the short drive over the Potomac from the Pentagon, cleared his throat uncomfortably, perhaps wondering whether the President had said we or you. The West Wing pass around his neck indicated his name was George Raven.
“Discovering it at all was a one in a million chance,” the officer said, hands clasped behind his back and shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot in a way that made him look like he was swaying. “Our experts are telling us that, like our own reconnaissance satellites, this spacecraft is equipped with stealth capability.”
“How did you detect it?” asked Ryan Stone, a diminutive African-American man in his 50s who had headed up the counterterrorism center before Nash promoted him to his current role as national security adviser.
Raven looked pained. “We didn’t, sir. An amateur astronomer picked it up first last night, and sent NASA the footage. NASA passed it along to us, and as soon as we realized what it was, we reported it up the chain.”
“Elaborate, Colonel,” Nash growled.
He wondered, yet again, why he ever wanted to become President. Why he had put himself through the grueling campaign, why he had cost himself any chance of reconnecting with his wife by throwing himself into his work. Better that some other man would be forced to bear the tremendous weight of the decisions he made in this room.
“Yes Mr. President,” Raven said quickly. “We believe that the sp
acecraft detected last night is an autonomous orbital drone, most likely of Chinese origin.”
“Tell me what we’re looking at,” Nash added.
“Sir, two years ago, the Senate Committee on Armed Services authorized a two hundred-million-dollar black budget contract, to be delivered by Lockheed Martin. The project was to build a satellite killer—a remotely controllable, autonomous spacecraft with stealth capabilities which was designed to close with enemy satellites without being detected.”
“To what end?”
“Our device was designed to attach a limpet mine about the size of a baseball to a satellite, and then withdraw without being detected.”
“And you think that’s what’s happening here?” Stone asked. “The Chinese are booby-trapping our satellites?”
“Yes sir.” Colonel Raven nodded. “We believe this is an experimental device known as Project Songbird. The evidence suggests that the device is now operational.”
“For what purpose?”
“As you know sir, our military relies on satellite technology like no other country on the planet. The People’s Liberation Army wouldn’t last a week in a standup fight with us. But if they had a backstop—a way of leveling the playing field? A way of cutting off our eyes and ears, of severing our command and control networks… The stock market would crash on day one, vital sea traffic would grind to a halt for months, the grocery stores would be empty in days.”
He trailed off.
“Dammit,” Nash groaned, picturing rows of empty shelves, civilians fighting over loaves of bread. “Colonel, how bad could this thing be? I need your honest assessment. No bullshit.”
Raven took a sharp intake of breath before replying. “Mr. President, Lockheed Martin’s project is still in the drawing board phase. But according to the project team, our spacecraft was designed to be pre-positioned in space for years ahead of any conflict. Once tensions began to ramp up, it would be activated. Our version of the system is built to carry enough ordnance to take out approximately fifty satellites.”
Expressions of shock immediately crossed the faces of the various members of Nash’s war cabinet.
“How many satellites do we have?” Nash asked.
“One hundred ninety-three,” the air force colonel replied, “between the air force and the National Reconnaissance Office. But…”
“But what, Colonel Raven?” NSA Stone asked in a tone that indicated he was sick of being drip fed information.
“Sir,” the colonel replied, splitting his attention between the national security adviser and the President, “our doctrine called for the stationing of six satellite killers in various orbits around the planet.”
The news hit the room with the force of a bomb going off. “Six,” Nash whispered. “Dear God.”
The President did the math in his head. It wasn’t difficult. If the Chinese had followed the same development trajectory as the air force, then they currently possessed the capability of wiping out American military superiority—not just in the Asia-Pacific, but across the globe.
“Tell me,” said NSA Stone, “that we have a way of eliminating these things.”
Raven replied, but with a doubtful expression on his face that left no doubt as to his true feelings. “We’re working on it, sir. But our antisatellite weapons are mostly still in the testing phase—and even then, they are designed to take out spacecraft with limited maneuvering capabilities and predictable orbits. That will not be the case here.”
“Do you at least know where the damn things are?” Stone growled.
Raven shook his head.
“Can we hack them?”
The colonel shrugged. “We’re working on isolating its command-and-control frequencies as we speak. But without access to the ground terminal itself, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to seize control of the satellite killer or killers.”
“And where is this terminal?” Nash asked.
“Our best guess,” Raven replied, using a laser pointer to indicate a mostly empty, mountainous region of China on a map on the wall, “is that the development work was being done at Xishang Satellite Control Center, near to the city of Xinjiang.”
“Excuse us, Colonel,” Nash said, dismissing the hapless air force officer with a flick of his fingers. The man hastily took his leave of the situation room, clearly relieved to be out of the firing line.
“Where does this leave us?” Nash asked the team arrayed around the situation room table: Ryan Stone, his Chief of Staff Emma Martinez, General Myers and various other representatives of America’s leading military and intelligence organizations.
Myers was the first to speak. His gruff, commanding voice sounded like a cannon booming in the conference room. “Mr. President, I believe the time has come to examine our first strike options.”
Everyone present in the room knew exactly what that meant. Especially President Nash, to whom the responsibility would fall to order an attack that might very well lead to the fall of mankind. Unconsciously, Nash brought his hand up, where it brushed the breast pocket of his suit, which contained a card upon which was written a series of challenge codes.
Codes for the nuclear football.
“Walk me through it, General,” Nash croaked, scarcely believing he was considering having this conversation. The challenge card felt like a lead weight in his pocket, compressing his chest, making it hard to breathe.
Myers stood, walking to the digital map glowing on the wall. He zoomed in, focusing on the Chinese coast and the South China Sea. “Mr. President, we have forward deployed five of our Trident nuclear submarines near the Chinese coast, with several more making best speed to the area. In addition, a squadron of B-2 bombers is currently en route to Guam.”
The general paused, eyeing each person in the room in turn. “Once the strike order is given, the navy will make a VLF transmission to our submarines, containing targeting packages and launch authorization.”
“How big an attack are we looking at?” Nash asked firmly.
Myers grimaced. “China’s long-range nuclear arsenal primarily consists of multiple land-based ICBMs. We believe we know the locations of most of the launch facilities.”
“Estimated casualties?” Stone asked.
“Sixty million within the first month.”
The room went silent. You could have heard a feather drop, let alone a pin. President Nash’s mouth was suddenly drier than he could remember, and he reached forward for a glass of water with trembling hands, hoping that no one had noticed.
It didn’t seem they had. Every face had gone pale with shock as its owner attempted to process that unimaginable figure. More casualties than both world wars combined. And that was in the first month alone. Nash could only picture what would follow next; waves of radioactive dust contaminating a country of 1.4 billion souls, traveling across the rest of Asia, rendering farmland and cities unusable, unlivable for generations to come.
Nash knew that if he gave the order, his name would go down in history as one of humanity’s most evil tyrants. He would share a Hall of Fame inhabited by names like Hitler and Stalin. There had to be a better way. But if there was not, if it came to it, could he bring himself to give that order?
The truth was, he did not know.
“Sir,” Martinez interjected quietly, breaking the stunned silence, “the Chinese ambassador is here to see you. He’s waiting outside the Oval Office.”
Nash closed his eyes, breathing deeply in an attempt to suffuse his brain with oxygen. The general’s briefing had shocked him. It was more than shock, really. It was disgust: that man even had these weapons, and worse—that they were contemplating using them.
But perhaps there was still a way of giving peace a chance. Perhaps Jason Trapp would find a way of ending this before it was too late. Nash knew that he had to buy some time. For if he did not, then the alternative might well be the end of human civilization.
The President briefly considered packing the Oval Office with decorated generals and
senior members of the cabinet in a show of force, but decided against it. Ambassador Lam wasn’t exactly a close personal friend, but they had met before on a number of occasions when Nash was still a freshman senator familiarizing himself with Washington’s party scene, and were friendly.
Nash loved Szechuan food, and since the best Szechuan dishes in town were found at the Chinese embassy, he’d made the trip to Van Ness more than once, striking up a cordial relationship with a number of Chinese diplomats.
Today’s meeting, however, could not be more different. There would be no waiters carrying silver trays of champagne, nor others whisking canapés around a luxurious ballroom. No small talk. Just the business of state—and one last chance of avoiding all-out war between the world’s only two remaining superpowers.
But if he couldn’t offer the man a glass of Californian sparkling wine, then President Nash could at least avoid getting the discussion off on a bad foot from the very get-go. As he well knew, the military option might well be inevitable. But he vowed to do everything he could to duck that outcome.
Nash pressed the button of the intercom on his desk and said, “Send the ambassador in.”
He walked quickly toward the door and adopted a friendly expression, hoping that his posture did not show the tension he still felt from processing General Myers’ briefing just a few minutes earlier.
Ambassador Lam entered, a Secret Service agent closing the door behind him. He was a diminutive man, a head and a half shorter than Nash, and had a wiry cyclist’s frame. In fact, if the President remembered correctly, the ambassador could be found on his bike most weekends, daring death on DC’s congested roads.
“Ambassador.” The President smiled. “Good of you to come.”
Lam bowed his head. “It is good to see you again, Mr. President.”
“Please,” Nash said, indicating the two light-blue floral patterned sofas that sat opposite the Resolute desk. “Sit. Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’m fine without.”