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34

Studying the meager sensor returns on their latest visitor, Poole was coming to the same conclusions as the Jiangs. “It’s got a hell of a heat signature,” he said to Wylie. “Nuclear, for sure.” He pointed out its many hot spots on the thermal image, which painted a surprisingly detailed image of the satellite. “Good thing, because the radar cross section’s tiny.”

“So not only did they park an H-K out here, they made it stealthy?” Wylie said. “Seems like overkill, sir. Stealth doesn’t mean squat when you’ve got that big of an IR footprint.” They could hide a spacecraft from radar, but the inability to dissipate heat without massive radiators guaranteed no spacecraft could hide for long.

“I’ve got my theories,” Poole said. He switched on their more powerful fire-control radar, and the response was almost immediate.

“We’ve got lock . . . whoa,” Wylie said. “Big burst of EM emissions there, Skipper.”

“Not surprising,” Poole said. “Wait for it . . .”

Wylie cursed when the return disappeared. “It’s jamming us,” he sighed. “Broke lock.”

Poole waited to see if they could burn through, but the H-K was strobing their radar with false pulses in a jamming technique called “gate pulloff,” used by aircraft to evade detection. It didn’t make it invisible, but it did spoof the radar enough to keep it from locking on. And he was thankful Hunter had been smart enough to not try and paint the damn thing with his docking radar. The H-K seemed to “listen” passively across the EM spectrum and Specter would’ve been lit up like a Christmas tree if he’d turned on his radar. Broadcasting over a scrambled channel had been risky enough.

So was the thing piloted or autonomous? It was the difference between a drone and a droid. It was a long way from Earth; the signal delay implied some level of autonomy. But the “long way from Earth” part was what stuck in his mind . . . what was it doing here in the first place?

Poole chewed on his lip. “So, what have we learned here?”

“That stealth is still useful enough to defeat radar-guided weapons. Which all of ours are,” Wylie said dejectedly, then caught himself. “Sorry, Skipper.”

Poole gave him a weary smile. “Don’t sweat it. I didn’t think we’d need laser or IR-guided missiles out here. It was a rescue mission, remember? The only thing I thought we’d have to fight off out here was stray rocks.”

“Who knew the PRC had staked a claim?” Wylie asked. “That’s the real question, sir.”

“Bingo.” Poole jerked a thumb at the H-K in the distance. “That’s obviously the mystery bird the Jiangs saw. It’s not corporate espionage and it’s not space pirates, it’s a state actor. And I think we can rule out the Russians; they can barely afford to get their own weather satellites into orbit.”

“Active control?”

Poole studied the infrared image. “Probably. My guess is it’s limited autonomy, just to keep the EM traffic down and compensate for signal delay. Now that Beijing’s Battlestar is in range, I’m betting they’re in control. It’s a force multiplier.”

“We’re boxed in good,” Wylie said. “Spreading out the crew and getting the civilians clear was the right call.”

“Damn straight it was,” Poole said. “Now I have to figure out how to keep from stranding them.”


“Entry team leader reports they are not opening their outer door, sir.”

Liu shifted in his chair, unconsciously tightening his restraints in the expectation of action. He keyed his radio mic. “Captain Poole,” he said calmly, “our team is standing by at your P-3 airlock. They are ready to enter at your discretion.”

“Yeah, I’m still having a problem with the weapons thing there, Liu. I really need you to reconsider.”

Liu caught one of his officers glancing at him from the corner of his eye, no doubt wondering how their commander would react. He kept his face a mask of stone, but for one small twitch from a corner of his mouth. “It is you who must reconsider, Captain.” He gestured to Zhou.

Zhou nodded, complying with the command. “Laser is fully charged and tracking the target’s main propellant tank, sir.”

“Very good. Major Wu?”

Wu took a moment to activate their own fire-control radar. “Two interceptors are locked onto their propulsion section, sir.”

Before Liu could say anything, Poole’s voice boomed over the radio. “And what the hell are you doing locking weapons on my ship? You understand what that means, Colonel.”

“I’m afraid it is you who have taken the first hostile action, Captain. You have already attempted to lock your own weapons on a People’s Liberation Aerospace Force vehicle. That is still considered an act of war, and I am obligated to protect our national assets. Stand down, Captain Poole. This will be your only warning.”


“He’s not going to fire on us with his own troops out there?” Wylie asked hopefully.

“I’m not counting on his good nature,” Poole said, checking his watch. “Sharpen your pencil, we’re going to have do this the hard way.” He switched radios to the secure channel. “Specter, Actual. Take notes, son, this is about to get complicated.”


“Understood, Actual.” Marshall switched off his radio and spun the shuttle about, pointing its docking collar—and lidar—at the Borman. He turned on the small transceiver as if they were attempting to rendezvous with it, and began relaying its range and bearing information to Poole as he did the same. “About to get complicated?” he muttered, and turned to face his passengers. “Faceplates down? Good. Switch to your personal tanks and disconnect from the cabin system. We’re about to depressurize.”


“Got ’em,” Wylie said. “Range and bearing constant.”

Poole nodded in acknowledgment; he first had to establish a baseline bearing and distance. “We’ve got to work fast here.” He keyed the mic. “Looking good, Specter. We’ve got your position zeroed. Light ’em up.”

Marshall answered with two rapid clicks and began turning to face the H-K.


“What are we doing?” Jasmine demanded. “We’re making ourselves visible to that—whatever it is!”

Marshall turned to face her, genuine regret on his face. “Afraid you’re right, ma’am. I’m also afraid we don’t have a choice. You wanted to know if we’re prepared to do something? This is it.”

“Exposing ourselves is ‘doing something’? How is that?”

He pointed at the H-K, now just a kilometer away. “We give it two targets to worry about while we light it up with our docking lidar. I feed that information to the Borman so they can use it to box in that killsat. We get one shot at this.”


As the shuttle’s laser-ranging data began to arrive, Wylie scribbled on graph paper atop the plotting board. Comparing the range and bearing from their own lidar data, pinpointing the H-K became a simple math problem. He began programming the solution into the control pad for one of their space-junk interceptors when the open frequency with Peng Fei came alive once more.

“Captain Poole, what is that vehicle I see out by our satellite?”

“That’s our shuttle. We call it Specter. The name sounded cool, but really it’s because it’s kind of hard to spot. You may have noticed that.”

“Your humor is becoming tiresome, Captain. You did not tell us there was another ship in the vicinity.”

“You mean like that hunter-killer sat of yours?” Poole shot back. “Specter was on a survey sortie at RQ39 and was on its way back when it came across your big orbiting stealth laser.” He shot a glance at Wylie, still checking his figures against the changing numbers. He spun a finger over his watch: hurry up. Perhaps it was unfair to expect a pilot to think like a sub driver launching a torpedo.

“Your shuttle is unacceptably close to our defensive platform. I am cautioning you to have them maintain a safe distance.”

It was an absurd demand, which Poole used to both buy time and rhetorically plant his flag. “Did you just call that thing ‘defensive,’ Liu? Because I’m curious what the PRC believes might need defending against out here. We have good reason to believe that weapon has been used against two American spacecraft, one being a military vessel. That, sir, is an act of war to which we will respond.”

Wylie looked up triumphantly, if not somewhat surprised. “Interceptor one is programmed. We have a firing solution, sir.”

A glint outside caught his attention; the H-K began slewing about, turning to face Specter. Poole’s eyes narrowed to angry slits.

“Match bearings and shoot.”


“Missile inbound!” Zhou exclaimed. “Sir, they’ve fired on us!”

“Confirm that, Lieutenant,” Liu ordered calmly. He had not expected Poole to have acted so rashly. “Wu, activate the close-in weapons.”

They were already standing by, it was a simple matter for Wu to activate their tracking program. “Point-defense guns are in free-fire mode, sir, tracking the target.”

“Not firing?” Liu asked. “Zhou, have you confirmed that projectile?”

“Confirmed, sir. It’s one of their meteoroid interceptors. They’ve targeted the laser platform, not us.” Momentary confusion passed over Zhou’s face. “I don’t understand how . . . they’re supposed to be radar guided,” he said plaintively.

“The laser platform is being illuminated by infrared lidar,” Wu interjected. “Two different sources,” he said, consulting the satellite’s status board. “Radar jamming is ineffective,” he added unnecessarily.

“Is the laser tracking the inbound target?”

“Attempting to lock, sir. It’s close in and moving fast,” Zhou said, his voice raised as he attempted to take over control of the platform.

“Time to impact?”

“Imminent, sir.”

The laser platform’s ion engine did not have enough thrust to move it quickly enough to evade. Liu’s mouth drew thin. “Very well.” It was time to take the next step. He switched radio channels to the boarding team. “Captain, begin boarding operations. Take the Borman.”


“Hang on!”

Marshall shut off his rendezvous sensors and began pulling clear as soon as he saw Borman release its missile. He turned away violently, kicking them in the pants with the OMS thrusters and zipping away from the H-K, the asteroid, and the opening salvo of what he hoped wasn’t about to become World War III.

There was a flash of light outside. He waited for pinholes to appear at random, sunlight streaming into the cabin from multiple shrapnel wounds which never came. He turned to check on the Jiangs, both seemed to be okay. Neither they or his ship had been holed.

He turned about, pulsing the big OMS thrusters in the opposite direction to cancel their velocity. Both the Borman and Peng Fei swept into view, much farther away than he’d expected. How hard had he burned to get away? Near RQ39, a ball of incandescent gas expanded into space near the Chinese killsat.

“No joy!” he called back to Borman. “Repeat, no joy. They lased it, sir.”


Poole barely heard his report as more pressing matters fought for his attention. A muffled grating sound echoed from the direction of the emergency bay, a pressurization alarm began blaring soon after.

“They’ve breached the outer door,” Garver reported on their discrete channel. “Four boarders entering at the P-3 lock.”

“Copy that,” Poole said as he cut off the braying master alarm. “Are the two sentries keeping their positions?”

“Affirmative.”

Poole switched over to their common frequency so his next command went out across their radio net. “All hands, prepare to repel boarders.”


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