Shadow Bravo One, Entering Lunar Orbit
Sixty-Plus Hours Later
For most of their three-day voyage, the moon had been a presence off the S-29’s right forward quarter—a sphere half-blazing with reflected sunlight and half-cloaked in utter darkness that grew larger with every passing hour. Now, instead of seeing it as an object that they were flying toward, Scott Miller and Hannah Craig’s perspective of the moon had abruptly shifted. Its gray, cratered surface curved across the spaceplane’s entire cockpit canopy . . . and it was very obviously below them.
They were coming in at just under three thousand miles per hour, too slow to break free of the moon’s gravity and also too slow, for the moment, to enter a stable orbit that would stop them from ultimately slamming into the ground. Instead, the S-29 Shadow was steadily losing altitude as it flew westward across the moon—gliding along a descending arc that would bring them down to an altitude of around sixty miles as they swung around the far side and lost radio contact with Earth.
The Apollo missions had come in faster, heading around the moon at five thousand miles an hour before slowing down to enter orbit. With an armed enemy lunar base waiting somewhere on the far side, that wasn’t an option open to them.
From her right-hand seat, Craig carefully studied the terrain visible through their cockpit windows. Quick glances down at the detailed topographic map shown on her navigation display enabled her to fix their position and course. “Okay, I’ve got the Helvius crater rim just sliding past our right side. Grimaldi’s off the left wing. And that’s Riccioli there up ahead, just a little off to the left of our track. We’re headed right down the middle, Dusty.”
Miller saw the ancient crater she meant. It was huge—more than ninety miles across. Shallow ridges of debris thrown outward from more recent impacts streaked the floor. A layer of darker lava spilled across its northern half.
They were flying a course closely aligned with the moon’s equator. That would allow the S-29’s radar and thermal sensors to “see” more of the sites Space Force planners had picked out as possible locations for the Sino-Russian lunar base.
“Copy that,” he said. “How are we fixed for our LOI?”
Craig smoothly shifted her attention to their main engine readouts. “Temperatures and pressures all look good. Fuel status is good. No red lights. We are still go for our planned lunar orbit insertion burn in eight minutes, thirty seconds.”
“Okay, let’s seal up now, while we’ve got time.” Miller’s gloved hands slid the visor of his helmet closed and locked it in position. Beside him, Hannah Craig followed suit. Fresh air hissed through the umbilical hoses connecting their suits to the S-29’s life-support system.
Several minutes later, they heard Tony Kim’s voice through a faint hiss of static. Their fellow S-29 pilot was back on CAPCOM duty for this critical part of the mission. “Shadow Bravo One, this is Peterson Mission Control. Stand by for loss of signal in sixty seconds. We estimate reacquisition of signal in forty-six minutes.”
“Understood, Peterson. LOS in sixty seconds,” Miller radioed. “Talk to you on the other side.”
General Kelleher’s gruff voice came on the circuit. “Peterson Mission Control to Bravo One. Fly safe. Stay cool. But if those sons of bitches open fire on you, give ’em hell!”
Miller nodded vigorously. “You can count on it, sir,” he promised. “We’ll—”
Suddenly, a loud roar and crackle of static washed through their headsets. “Loss of signal,” the S-29’s computer confirmed. Now they were on their own, entirely cut off from communication with Earth. And up ahead, hidden somewhere in this torn and tattered moonscape pockmarked by thousands of craters, was a hostile enemy base—a base whose Sino-Russian crew knew exactly where they were at any given moment, thanks to their own satellites stationed high overhead at the L2 point. “Lunar orbit insertion burn in twenty seconds.”
Miller tweaked his thruster controls, aligning the spaceplane as directed by the steering cues that had just popped onto his head-up display. Then his hand settled on their main engine throttles. “Stand by for burn,” he warned. “Ten seconds.”
“We’re still good to go,” Craig told him, checking over her readouts. “All lights are green.”
Indicators blinked on Miller’s HUD. “Throttling up,” he snapped. “Going to thirty percent thrust.”
WHUMMP. The Shadow’s five big LPDRS engines ignited in rocket mode.
Inside the cockpit, Miller and Craig were pushed back against their seats by the renewed acceleration. Although they were only pulling a little over one and a half G’s this time, the three days they’d spent weightless made it seem like more. This same phenomenon had been experienced by some of the Apollo astronauts during their own lunar missions. Steadily, their velocity increased.
Ninety seconds later, Miller yanked the throttles all the way back. The muted roar from the back bulkhead stopped instantly. “Engine cutoff.”
Craig checked their navigation systems. “That was a good burn,” she reported. “We’ve entered a stable, circular orbit sixty miles above the surface.”
There were risks involved in coming in this high, since it automatically increased the distance at which the enemy’s plasma rail gun could hit them. But orbiting lower would have significantly reduced the ranges at which the S-29’s sensors could detect any unusual activity on the rugged, lunar surface. And since this was chiefly a reconnaissance mission, their first and most important objective was to pinpoint the Sino-Russian base and strip away its secrets.
Besides, they both knew, coming in much lower carried its own dangers. Maintaining a stable orbit grew more difficult the closer you got to the surface of the moon. At certain points, there were “mascons”—mass concentrations, or gravitational anomalies—buried below the lunar crust. They had been created by huge asteroids slamming into the still-cooling moon billions of years before. Like hidden tides and jagged shoals, these gravitational anomalies could tug low-flying spacecraft out of orbit or push them disastrously off course.
With their burn complete, Miller rolled the S-29 upside down. This maneuver gave them an uninterrupted view of the heavily cratered moonscape they were flying over. More important, it gave their two-megawatt gas dynamic laser, mounted in a retractable turret on top of the spaceplane’s fuselage, a clear field of fire.
A low whine permeated the cockpit as actuators raised the laser turret into its combat position and locked. “Our laser is online,” Craig reported. “Targeting lidar on standby.” She touched more controls. “Our search radar is active. Thermal sensors are live.”
Miller tapped an icon on one of his MFDs, turning on the spaceplane’s voice command system. “Initiate evasion program,” he ordered. “Synchronize the laser’s fire control system.”
“Evasive flight program initiated,” the S-29’s computer confirmed. “Laser fire control synchronized.”
Immediately, several of the spaceplane’s fuselage-mounted thrusters fired. It jolted sideways and then pitched nose-down. A second or two later, other thrusters fired, bouncing the spacecraft a few yards higher along its flight path. From now on, the computer would randomly activate different thrusters at short, unpredictable intervals—yawing, pitching, and rolling the S-29 through all three dimensions as it hurtled onward above the moon.
Thrown against their harnesses and then tossed wildly from side to side, the two Space Force pilots gritted their teeth and settled down to endure the wild ride. Simulator training and multiple practice attack runs against Eagle Station over the past several months had taught them how to handle the stomach-churning nausea induced by these random evasive maneuvers. But no amount of practice could teach them to enjoy it.
Command Center, Korolev Base
That Same Time
“The American spaceplane is maneuvering evasively,” Major Liu Zhen announced. He was monitoring the tracking data passed to them from the Kondor-L radar satellite, stationed nearly forty thousand miles away at the Lagrange-2 point. Like everyone else in the base except for Colonel Tian, he was wearing a bulky pressure suit as protection against explosive decompression if the habitat module was breached during the battle they all expected.
Tian himself had donned a full EVA-rated space suit, leaving only his helmet off for the moment. He held it cradled under one arm.
“What is the range to the enemy S-29?” Lavrentyev asked.
“Sixteen hundred kilometers, and closing at one point six-one kilometers per second,” Liu told him. “We will have a clear plasma rail gun shot in just over eight minutes.”
Captain Dmitry Yanin looked over from his own station. “Should I bring our fire control radars online now?” For the next several minutes, the tracking information provided by the Kondor would give them a reasonably accurate picture of the developing tactical situation. But when the time came for action, only Korolev’s own ground-based radars could provide the fire control data the plasma gun needed in battle. Even at the speed of light, it took nearly a half second for a radar return to reach the Russian satellite and then be repeated back to Korolev Base. And by that time, the enemy spaceplane would already be more than six hundred meters away from its reported position. Relying on the Kondor satellite’s radar data in combat would be like expecting a rifleman to hit a moving target after he’d closed his eyes a half second before pulling the trigger.
“Not yet,” Lavrentyev decided after a quick glance at Tian.
Tian nodded. “There is no point in alerting the Americans now, Dmitry. We’ll let them come farther into the kill zone.” For a few seconds, he stared over Liu’s shoulder, watching the blip representing the S-29 as it orbited toward them. The Americans were following the lunar equator, about five and a half degrees of latitude south of their position on the rim of the Engel’gardt crater. He turned back to Yanin. “At their current altitude and speed, how long will the Americans be in plasma gun range before their laser can hit us?”
“Nearly three minutes,” the younger cosmonaut replied.
“And how many times can you fire the rail gun in that time?”
“Eight times,” Yanin said. “It takes roughly twenty seconds for our fusion reactor to recharge the weapon.”
Tian frowned. “Only eight shots.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Can you guarantee a hit with one of those first eight shots, Captain Yanin?” Tian asked quietly. “Against an unpredictably maneuvering target?”
For a moment, Yanin hesitated. “My computer is analyzing the S-29’s evasive maneuvers now, sir—using the radar data we’re collecting. If it can crack the random-number generator the Americans are using in the next few minutes . . .” His voice trailed off. Then he shook his head. “No, Colonel. I can’t guarantee a hit, not before that spaceplane gets much closer.”
Tian nodded somberly. He looked across the tight, crowded command center at Kirill Lavrentyev. “You see the tactical problem?”
The larger man grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes. We are just as vulnerable to their attack as they are to ours.”
“More so, I suggest,” Tian pointed out. “The Americans can dodge. Stuck down here on the surface, we cannot. And as soon as we open fire, they will know the exact coordinates of our plasma rail gun—and our radars.”
“But our orders—”
Tian shook his head dismissively. “Our orders do not require us to commit suicide, Kirill. Which is the likely outcome of going off half-cocked and opening fire at the first possible moment . . . in the faint hope of scoring a lucky kill. We need to fight this battle with our brains instead of our balls.” Rapidly, he outlined the tactics he proposed.
When he finished, Lavrentyev nodded thoughtfully. “Da, to, chto vy govorite, imeyet smysl. Yes, what you say makes perfect sense.” He forced a thin, humorless smile. “After all, why shouldn’t we make these Americans take all the risks first?”