The door exploded in a spray of fine wooden particles, and the concussion from the blast lifted Sechin off the bed. He crashed face-first into the mirror.
He slumped over at the foot of the mirror, then rolled onto his side, frantically looking for the pen, his ears ringing too loudly for him to hear the faint hum of rubber treads on the floor. The breacher robot rolled up to him, and the gun mounted at its end pointed at Sechin’s neck and fired.
Tiangong-3 Space Station
When they retold the history of this war, no one would believe just how boring the space part of it had been.
They were the true “Warriors of China’s New Century,” as the unit’s commendation letter from the Presidium itself put it. Colonel Huan Zhou had read it to them as they shared a celebratory meal of dehydrated roast pork and mooncakes the day after Tiangong fired the war’s opening salvos. But since then, in a metal box two hundred miles above all the action, little had happened for months.
And for that Chang was thankful. If it was boring, Chang dared not mention it. Huan kept riding them hard, conducting training drills as if they had to shoot down the whole cosmos. There’s nothing left! Chang wanted to shout. All the targets have been serviced!
The only real threat they had faced came from a U.S. Air Force jet — an F-15, Huan said later, flying at its maximum altitude — that had fired an antisatellite missile at the station. The Tiangong’s laser-defense system turned the missile into more space junk and would have lased the plane if it hadn’t had some kind of high-altitude mechanical failure first.
The worst part about that action was that it was all automated. Chang wanted his son to think he was a hero, but the onboard systems had handled the targeting while Chang slept.
He ate another mooncake and gazed longingly down at the blue Pacific.
“Chang,” Huan called. He sounded even more on edge than normal, which perhaps reflected the fact that they’d run out of stims three days earlier. The pace of war in space was so slow, they’d gone through them faster than planned, trying to stay alert. “What is MAGIC array status update?”
“Operative at one hundred percent. No anomalies,” said Chang. Hainan had ordered them to shift the geosynchronous orbits of the surveillance satellites from their position above the central Pacific to an area over the Arctic region. It hadn’t made any sense until the new readings came in.
“It’s still tracking the American East Coast squadron coming from the North Atlantic. Two nuclear-ship readings, all data confirmed received. It seems whatever intel they had was right. The Americans are making one more push, this time up north.”
“I almost admire them. They have to know it won’t work, but the sacrifice is still worthy,” said Huan. “Near space clear?”
“Exclusion zone intact. The German comsat launched out of Sudan last week made sure to stay extra-wide. I think it’s a broadcast bird,” said Chang. “I can check the intel reports again.”
“Make sure you do. We want no surprises,” said Huan.
The Directorate had declared a two-hundred-kilometer zone of exclusion around Tiangong. The Germans had apparently learned their lesson three weeks ago after a Belgian weather satellite had wandered into the zone and been lased into a molten ball of junk.
“Today’s traffic?” asked Huan.
“A slow day. Intelligence reports two launches expected: an unmanned Russian replenishment vehicle for the ISS and one of those space-tourism flights from the European spaceport in French Guiana,” said Chang.
“War-zone tourists. In space! Such idiots. Let me check with Hainan to see if we can service that target, maybe make their trip even more exciting,” said Huan, laughing.
Huan’s braying laugh was one of the most trying aspects of life aboard the station for the entire crew. Was it bloodlust or boredom that drove Huan?
“And I will inquire about the resupply. You know, Chang, there may be fresh crew coming.”
Home.
“I’ll leave only when you leave, sir,” said Chang, hoping those words would be enough. If Huan thought he wanted to leave, Chang knew he would be the last to get off the station.
“Naturally,” Huan replied.
Chang closed his eyes and waited. He was good at waiting. He thought about his son: What was he doing at this moment? Were his eyes closed too? Chang began to hum a song he used to sing to his son when he was a baby.
A steady ping snapped him to attention. The station’s flight-tracking systems had detected a change of course by the tourists’ space plane.
Chang wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and stared hard at the screen again. No. That couldn’t be. It was heading straight toward the exclusion zone.
USS Zumwalt, North Pacific Ocean
“All stop!” shouted executive officer Horatio Cortez.
As the USS Zumwalt slowed, the black smoke coming up from the bow section of the ship blocked out the view of the nearly flat Pacific Ocean.
“Who gave the order to stop?” asked Captain Simmons, wanting to yell but producing more of a wheeze, as he had to catch his breath. He’d dashed up from the engine room, where he had been talking to the crew about how to get a few more knots of sprint speed out of the ship. “What the hell is going on, XO?”
“It’s some kind of internal explosion,” said Cortez, eyes flickering behind his glasses as he watched the ship give an automated damage report. “Fire-suppression system is working, should be under control any moment.”
The smell of burning plastic started to waft through the bridge.
“No sign of an attack. ATHENA says battery fire,” said Cortez in the clipped voice he used during high-stress situations.
“Then we can start moving. We have a schedule to keep!” said Simmons. He turned and left the bridge, and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was headed to find the source of the problem.
As he rushed below decks, the calls of “Captain!” and “Make a hole!” echoed down the ladder wells and passageways. He could never catch up to the crew’s warnings to the others that he was on his way and they should look shipshape.
As he got deeper into the ship, the calls ended. Damage-control teams rushed back and forth, focused on their work. A caterpillar-like fire-suppression bot crawled past, and Simmons tucked in behind it as the crew made way for the machine’s steady slink toward the rail-gun battery.
Simmons felt a hand on his shoulder pull him back.
“Captain, they’ve gotten it extinguished,” said Mike. “I mean, she’s gotten it extinguished. The Z’s fire-suppression system took care of it. If only one thing works right on this ship, I guess it’s good it’s the sprinklers.”
“I need to talk to Dr. Li, help her light a fire under the power team’s asses,” said Simmons.
“Son — I mean, sir — let me handle this,” said Mike. “Not much you can say to her or any of the crew to make them move faster. This one’s for me and Vern.”
“Chief, it’s my ship, my mission,” said Simmons.
“I told you to stop personalizing it. It’s the Navy’s ship, not yours. That’s what the best captains learn,” said Mike. “You think anybody’s going to go easy on themselves now? You keep everyone busy upstairs and let me get my hands dirty down here. You’re going to have your hands full soon enough.”
Jamie didn’t answer. He didn’t want to admit his father was right.
Tiangong-3 Space Station
“Turn off the damn alarm,” said Colonel Huan. “I can see them.”