A red icon suddenly blinked above the image of one of the stylized nanosats on Brad’s screen. “Shit,” he growled.
“Problem?” Boomer asked.
“The burn on Sierra Six was a fraction of a second too long. She’s heading off into deep space,” Brad answered. His fingers flew across the display, sending a series of new commands to the errant satellite’s computer through a secure data link.
In response, three small magnets aboard the nanosat — oriented along the x, y, and z axes — powered up in a precise sequence. Together, they generated a tiny local magnetic field oriented in a specific direction. When the field created by these magnetorquers brushed against Earth’s far more powerful ambient magnetic field, the reaction altered the nanosat’s facing — in much the same way a child could use a more powerful magnet to tug at a smaller one. Once the satellite was properly aligned, its chemical engine fired again, using just a quick pulse to push it back onto its preplanned flight path.
The red icon blinked off.
Brad breathed out in relief. “We’re good. All seven birds are flying straight and true.”
“And there you see the value of having a man in the loop,” Boomer said in satisfaction. “Now all we have to do is sit tight out here in the dark and see what turns up.”
Twenty-One
Colonel Vadim Strelkov saw the earth below them emerge from darkness as Mars One crossed the terminator line and came back into daylight. Swirls of brilliant white cloud covered much of the North Atlantic. Just ahead lay the rugged mass of Portugal and Spain, an undulating mix of arid brown mountains and plateaus and green, wooded ridges and valleys.
“Our solar arrays are back online at maximum efficiency,” Pyotr Romanenko reported from his post in another compartment near the aft end of the command module. “And our backup batteries are recharging at the expected rate.”
Strelkov felt some of his tension ease slightly. “Very good, Major,” he said over the intercom. “Cut power to all nonessential systems. I want electricity available to recharge the Thunderbolt rail gun and our lasers if necessary.”
“Yes, sir,” Romanenko said. “Cutting power now.”
In response, lights dimmed across the command compartment. The constant background noise of their air-recirculation fans faded. Indicators on various consoles went yellow as whole subsystems — oxygen generators, water recovery, waste management, and others — were put on standby.
Satisfied that his orders were being obeyed, Strelkov turned his attention back to the distant American spaceplane. Up to now, it had been visible only as a blotchy, glowing heat signature. But as it crossed the terminator, still behind them though slowly catching up, the black-winged S-19 took on shape and definition in Mars One’s powerful telescopes.
He frowned. The spaceplane’s nose was aimed straight at them. “Are the Americans closing on us, Georgy?” he demanded.
From his sensor console, Konnikov replied: “No, sir. Their spacecraft is continuing on the same slightly lower orbit, offset from ours by one hundred and sixty kilometers.” He leaned closer to his display. “They’ve probably rotated toward us to increase the efficiency of their onboard radar.”
“Has it locked on to us?”
Konnikov turned his helmeted head. Since they were still on station air, his visor was up. “No, Colonel.” He shrugged. “The S-19’s radar is far too weak to penetrate our stealth coating.” He turned back at his screen. “One thing is odd, though,” he commented. “The spaceplane’s payload bay doors appear to be open.”
Strelkov felt colder suddenly. What were the Americans up to?
From the forward weapons module, Leonid Revin suggested, “Maybe they need to radiate heat generated by their life-support system, like NASA’s old space shuttle orbiters?”
“I do not think so, Captain,” Strelkov said slowly. While training for duty aboard Mars One, he had studied every piece of information gained by observing Sky Masters spaceplanes during their flights to and from America’s Armstrong military space station and the International Space Station. Everything indicated they usually opened their cargo doors only after they were docked… not during flight.
Gryzlov broke in abruptly over their link to Moscow. “Those open doors could be proof the Americans are planning to attack you!” he growled. “What if they brought missiles with them into orbit, hidden inside that cargo bay?”
Strelkov felt his pulse speed up. My God, he realized, the president might be right. Frantically, he pulled up what was known about the S-19’s payload capacity on his command console. Current intelligence suggested it was a little under three thousand kilograms. At first, that didn’t seem like much… not until he had the computer run that figure against different U.S. missile types.
His eyes widened. The American AIM-120D advanced medium-range air-to-air missile was the most likely match. The AMRAAM’s solid-fuel rocket motor meant it could be fired in space. With a maximum range of more than one hundred and eighty kilometers, attack speed of nearly five thousand kilometers per hour, and twenty-three kilogram high-explosive blast-fragmentation warhead, a salvo of AIM-120s might pose a serious threat to the Mars One station. And that Sky Masters S-19 out there could be carrying up to sixteen such missiles in its bay…
Hunter “Boomer” Noble kept his eyes fixed on the brightly lit dot that was Mars One. They were almost level with it now, though still at a lower altitude. Even from one hundred miles away, that Russian space station gave him the creeps. Something about it made him imagine a huge shark silently gliding through the ocean depths in search of smaller prey.
“Getting anything yet?” he asked.
“Well, nothing obviously bad. At least not so far,” Brad told him. He had his eyes fixed on his display while he scrolled through the thermal and visual imagery collected by nanosatellites as they flew closer to Mars One. “But our birds are still a little too far out to pick up much detail. Our guys on the ground ought to be able to get a lot more with computer-assisted image enhancement, though.”
Boomer nodded. Every piece of data obtained by their constellation of spy satellites was being relayed to Battle Mountain in real time. The Scion and Sky Masters intelligence analysts stationed there should be having a field day sorting through all the information they were gathering.
Through the S-19’s cockpit canopy, the glittering point of light that was the Russian space station slid slowly to the left. They were passing Mars One now. Thrusters fired, yawing the spaceplane to keep its nose centered on target.
Boomer frowned. “You know, those bastards over there are being awfully quiet.”
“You think they’re all asleep?” Brad suggested with a lopsided grin.
“Fuck no,” Boomer grunted. “The Russians must have spotted us almost as soon as we boosted. On any half-decent IR sensor, we’d have stood out like a sore thumb.”
He chewed that over for a few seconds. From an astronautical point of view, their S-19 and the space station were practically within spitting distance. So why the prolonged silence? At a minimum, Mars One should be querying them about their intentions and warning them to keep a safe distance.
Boomer came to a decision. If that big-ass space station out there was armed, he sure as hell did not want the cosmonauts on board it going off half-cocked. It was time to establish contact and ease the tension. He punched in a new radio frequency—143.625 MHz FM, one of the two commonly used by manned Russian spacecraft for voice communications. “Dobroye utro, Mars Odin! Good morning, Mars One! This is Midnight Zero-One. Sorry to pop up on you unannounced like this, but we just thought we’d swing by to pay our respects and welcome you folks to orbit.”