Eagle Station

“Me neither,” Miller forced out through clenched teeth from his own seat. The pilot looked pale. Droplets of sweat that had shaken loose from his forehead during brief moments of acceleration fogged patches of his helmet visor. But his hands remained rock-steady on his flight controls. As the Shadow rocked hard in another computer-triggered evasive maneuver, he fought to focus his blurred vision on the navigation map open on one of his control panel displays. “Looks like we’re about a hundred and fifty miles east of the Korolev crater… which is probably that big basin out there.”

Craig nodded tightly. Right now, her stomach felt like it was ready to come crawling up her throat. “Yeah, that fits.”

“Multiple radar and thermal surface contacts,” the S-29’s computer announced abruptly. “At one o’clock low. Range two hundred and sixty-plus miles. On the east rim of the Engel’gardt crater.”

“Son of a bitch,” Miller said, sounding almost surprised. “We actually found them.”

“And sitting right on the moon’s highest elevation,” she noted. Her teeth flashed in a quick smile. “Looks like McLanahan won his bet.”

Miller nodded. During their pre-mission planning sessions, Brad had told them he was almost certain the Russians and Chinese had sited their base someplace up high on the lunar surface. Wherever they were on the far side of the moon, they’d want the best possible field of fire for their plasma rail gun.

“Lock our long-range cameras on to those radar and thermal contacts and magnify,” Craig ordered the computer. The feeling of nausea she’d been fighting had completely disappeared.

Right away, virtually crystal-clear images appeared on their multifunction displays, with only a faint hint of distortion. Like their weapons laser, their visual sensors were synchronized with the computer’s evasion program — enabling them to adjust relatively smoothly to the spaceplane’s split-second maneuvers… unlike its human crew.

“I count four of those big cargo landers,” Miller said. “Plus another three Chang’e descent stages. And one intact lander, still with its ascent stage in place.” His eyes narrowed. “Plus what looks like some kind of big tent or something, not far from all those parked spacecraft.”

“That’s probably a Bigelow-style inflatable habitat,” Craig said absently. Then she stiffened. “Take a look at those domes right near the edge of the crater rim, Dusty.”

He saw what she meant. There were three raised mounds of rocks and dirt out near where the slope fell away, gradually descending thousands of feet to the darker plains below. Each mound was topped with a black dome. Their radar was having a hard time locking on to any of them, which indicated the black coating might be some sort of radar-absorbent stealth material. “Gee, I wonder what our friends are hiding under those?” he murmured sarcastically. “A bunch of peaceful, innocent scientific instruments, no doubt.”

“And here I was thinking it was more along the lines of ‘Oh, my, Cosmonaut X, what a big plasma rail gun you have there.’” Hannah Craig’s fingers hovered over her fire control menu. “Doggone it, I sure wish I could zap them, just in case. They’re inside our weapons range.”

Unfortunately, their orders were clear. They could fire on the Sino-Russian base only if they were fired on first — unless they were able to obtain clear and undeniable proof that the Russians and their allies had already positioned offensive weapons on the moon. But suspicion, however strong, was not proof, especially when you took into account the international community’s ever-present desire to look the other way when it was asked to consider unpalatable truths about Russia and the People’s Republic of China.

“Yeah, but we’ll keep the cameras and other sensors running,” Miller said. “And then we’ll dump every picture and piece of data to Peterson Mission Control and Sky Masters as soon as we come back around to the near side. My bet is that either our Space Force intel guys or Brad and Nadia will put enough pieces together to get us the green light for an attack run during our second orbit.”

“New radio transmission received,” the S-29’s computer reported. “Origin point is the presumed enemy base.”

“Put it through,” Miller directed.

Immediately, they heard a voice with a slight Russian accent crackle through their headsets. “American spaceplane, this is the Friendship Lunar Science Station. Welcome to the far side of the moon. Please accept our congratulations on your historic flight.”

Miller snorted. “Science station, my ass.”

“Are you going to reply?” Craig asked.