Before he sailed entirely across the compartment, Strelkov grabbed a handhold and arrested his momentum. “Give me a situation report!” he demanded.
Still bleary-eyed himself, Konnikov complied. “Our thermal sensors have a contact, sir! The computer evaluates it as one of the American spaceplanes. It is currently accelerating into orbit on a converging course. Based on its present trajectory, I estimate it will come within two hundred kilometers of the station, possibly even closer.”
Strelkov scowled. The Americans were reacting faster than he had hoped. Whether this was an attack or something else entirely — maybe only a reconnaissance flight — he would have to take precautions. He let go, pushed off the compartment wall with his fingertips, and floated over to the younger man. “Attention, all crew. Begin donning your Sokol pressure suits immediately. Major Romanenko, prep your special-action armor,” he ordered over the intercom. “Report when ready.”
GRU intelligence reports or not, he thought coldly, if that American spaceplane was armed after all and attacked them, depressurizing Mars One would at least minimize the danger of fire and explosive decompression. And since each man’s space suit was stored close to his assigned action station, it shouldn’t take them more than a few minutes to obey.
Seeing Konnikov reach for the tether holding him to his sensor console, Strelkov stopped him with a gesture. “Before you suit up, Georgy, I need you to contact Moscow,” he snapped. “Get me Colonel General Leonov… and the president!”
Twenty
Russia’s new military command center was a large complex of buildings on the northern bank of the Moskva River, about three kilometers from the Kremlin. It featured three auditorium-sized control rooms equipped with enormous, wraparound projection screens, tiered seating with dozens of individual computer stations, and secure connections to what was billed as the world’s most powerful military supercomputer.
Privately, Colonel General Mikhail Leonov judged those vast, futuristic-looking control rooms to be mere theater — stage sets to impress the gullible Russian public with a display of their nation’s military power and advanced technology. For all their glitz and glitter, no sensible commander would run an actual operation in one of those fishbowls. When you were making crucial, life-or-death decisions, who needed IMAX-sized screens or an audience of surplus junior officers all tapping away on their computers in an effort to look useful?
He had chosen, instead, to direct Mars Project operations from a much smaller control room buried deep beneath the ground and guarded by several layers of both human and automated security. Four workstations, one for him and three more for his principal deputies, were sufficient to manage operations — especially when coupled with secure video links to the Kremlin, the Mars One station, Vostochny, Plesetsk, and other key sites across Russia.
It had one other advantage: an adjoining bedroom suite. While they were not luxurious, these living quarters allowed Leonov to exercise direct operational command at any time of the day or night, with minimal delays. And during these first critical weeks, he believed it was vital to keep a firm hand on matters.
So when Strelkov’s emergency signal from Mars One arrived shortly before five a.m., Moscow time, Leonov was able to reach his desk within a matter of minutes. The colonel’s image, bounced through a network of military communications satellites, was up on one screen. His normally lean face looked puffy, a common hydrostatic effect of prolonged weightlessness where fluids normally drawn by gravity down toward the legs and lower torso accumulated instead in the face and upper body.
A second screen showed Gennadiy Gryzlov in his private Kremlin office. He appeared to be wide-awake. Given the president’s proclivity for keeping late hours, Leonov suspected he had not yet gone to bed.
“What is your status, Colonel?” Leonov asked.
“We have detected an American spaceplane, probably an S-19 Midnight from its thermal signature, climbing toward Mars One.”
“Ni pizdi!” Gryzlov thundered over the secure video teleconference link. “Don’t bullshit me! I thought you told me the American spaceplanes could not fly high enough to reach Mars One!”
“We have not yet positively identified the spacecraft, sir,” Strelkov said. “It could be a new model of their single-stage-to-orbit spaceplanes.”
“You had better get a positive identification, and get it now!”
“On its current course and velocity, we predict this spaceplane will very shortly enter a stable orbit offset from ours by less than two hundred kilometers.” Strelkov looked off-camera toward one of his subordinates and nodded sharply. “Major Konnikov is relaying our sensor data to you now.”
“Is this an attack?” Gryzlov snapped. “Could that thing be a missile or weaponized satellite?”
“It is possible,” Strelkov admitted. “Our cameras will give us a positive identification soon. I find it troubling that the Americans have timed their approach with such precision.”
Gryzlov stared at him. “How so?”
“We are still in darkness and thus unable to recharge our directed-energy weapons,” Strelkov said, unable to hide the anxiety he felt. “If the Americans are making an offensive move against us, this is the best possible moment for them — when our defenses are at their weakest.”
“Calm down, Vadim,” Leonov said coolly. He needed to reel Strelkov back from the edge before he overreacted. Tired men could make very bad decisions. And tired and frightened men were prone to jump at every shadow. “There is no evidence our enemies have breached the Mars Project’s security, let alone learned anything about your station’s temporary vulnerability.”
He looked at Gryzlov. “This American spacecraft is almost certainly only flying a reconnaissance mission. This is a probe, nothing more. It poses no real threat.” He shrugged. “From the outside, Mars One looks exactly like the peaceful, unarmed orbital facility we have proclaimed it to be. If we are careful, the Americans will learn nothing of value — certainly nothing that will contradict our cover story.”
Gryzlov frowned. “You seem very confident, Mikhail.”
“For good reason,” Leonov assured him. “At two hundred kilometers, or even at one hundred kilometers, an S-19’s limited onboard sensors should not be able to penetrate the station’s disguise.”
“And if the Americans come even closer?” Gryzlov wondered acidly. “If they poke the nose of that spaceplane right up Mars One’s ass, how well will your much-hyped camouflage and stealth measures work?”
Leonov shook his head. “The crew of that spaceplane isn’t likely to be so foolish, Gennadiy. Without positive coordination between Mars One and the American spacecraft, a very close approach would only risk a collision that could destroy them both. Since our two nations are nominally at peace, there is no reason for the Americans to take such a risk.”
“You think not?” Gryzlov said with undisguised scorn. “Where have you been for the past twenty years, Leonov? In a monastery? Have you forgotten all the other times the United States has launched unprovoked surprise attacks on Russia or on our interests abroad?”
“No, Mr. President.” Leonov saw little point in debating the subject. Gryzlov’s definition of unprovoked was much the same as any four-year-old’s complaint that his younger sibling had “hit him back first.”
“Exactly. And how many of those illegal aggressions were carried out by that madman McLanahan or his lunatic son?” Gryzlov went on. His handsome face contorted in anger. “You would do well to remember that they, along with their coconspirator Martindale, now have the ear of the new American president.”