Eagle Station

Farrell nodded grimly. Thanks to their Magpie Bridge com relay and Kondor-class radar surveillance satellite stationed out around the Earth-Moon Lagrange-2 point, Moscow and Beijing had complete situational awareness of everything in cislunar space and lunar orbit. Tactically speaking, any spacecraft the United States launched toward the moon was in essentially the same situation as a group of soldiers forced to attack uphill across a barren slope against an entrenched enemy. Every move they made could be observed. There was no real way to achieve surprise.

He wished, for the hundredth time, that there was some way to knock those satellites out. Unfortunately, given the enormous distance to the L2 point from Earth, that was effectively impossible. Even if the United States had hunter-killer satellites of its own, any launch toward the Lagrange point could be detected and monitored throughout its flight — giving the Chinese and Russian satellites ample time to evade an attack… or to eliminate it, with their own defenses.

No, he realized, subtlety was out the window here. The Space Force crew about to head for the moon on his orders would just have to bull ahead and hope luck broke their way.

Thirty-Seven

Over North America

A Few Days Later

Two hundred and fifty miles above the cloud-dappled peaks and snow-choked mountain valleys of the Rockies, two large black spaceplanes flew in tandem — circling the world together at more than seventeen thousand miles per hour. One was a Space Force S-29B Shadow now configured for a voyage to the moon. It was piloted by Colonel Scott “Dusty” Miller and Major Hannah “Rocky” Craig. The second was an unarmed civilian S-29A refueling tanker with two Scion pilots, Peter “Constable” Vasey and Liz Gallagher, at its controls.

Aboard Shadow Bravo One, Hannah Craig peered up through the forward cockpit windows. The other spaceplane hung just a few yards above the top of their fuselage — sharply outlined against a deep black sky strewn with the hard, bright pinpoints of uncounted thousands of stars. Relative to them, the S-29A was flying upside down and backward. A long, flexible boom extended from one of the two silver-colored fuel tanks inside its open cargo bay. The end of the boom was now seated firmly inside the S-29B’s refueling receptacle.

“How’s it look from your angle?” Miller asked from the left-hand pilot’s seat.

“Real solid,” she replied. She radioed the other spaceplane, “I confirm contact, Shadow Alpha Three.”

“Roger that,” Gallagher replied. “Commencing JP transfer now.”

Aboard the tanker, pumps whirred. Inert helium gas was used to “push” JP-8 jet fuel into the S-29B Shadow’s tanks in zero-G conditions — replenishing the stores consumed during its rocket-powered climb into orbit. Earlier in this evolution, the S-29A tanker had refilled their separate oxidizer reserves with highly explosive borohydrogen metaoxide, or BOHM. BOHM was essentially refined hydrogen peroxide and, when mixed with ordinary jet fuel, it enabled combustion inside their five LRDRS engines outside the atmosphere.

Minutes passed as the two spacecraft swung southeastward high over the lush Mississippi River valley, the cloud-covered Appalachians, and then out across the Atlantic. Ahead through their cockpit windows, Miller and Craig saw a patch of lighter-colored green-blue shallows appear, surrounded on all sides by the dark ultramarine waters of the deeper ocean. They were coming up on Bermuda.

“JP-8 transfer complete,” Liz Gallagher reported from the tanker. “Detaching the boom now.”

With a gentle CL–CLUNK, the boom’s nozzle slid back out of their fuel port slipway. Tiny thrusters attached to the end puffed in microsecond bursts as the long boom slowly retracted back into the S-29A tanker’s cargo bay and latched along one end.

Miller flipped a switch to close the slipway doors above and behind their cockpit. His hands settled on the controls for spaceplane’s hydrazine reaction thrusters. “Separating now, Shadow Alpha Three,” he radioed.

Peter Vasey’s English-accented voice replied through his headset. “Copy that, Bravo One. We’re on the move, too. Good luck. And give my regards to those bastards on the far side of the moon, will you?”

“Thanks, Constable. We’ll do our best,” Miller promised with a quick grin. He activated the controls. His hands made small, precise movements to fire thrusters positioned at different points along the spaceplane’s nose, fuselage, wings, and tail. Brief flashes of light against the darkness of space showed that Vasey was using his own thrusters. Slowly, carefully, their two spacecraft edged away from each other, separating both vertically and horizontally.