Eagle Station

Bright blue, red, and green sparks cascaded away from the midsection of the spacecraft as four explosive bolts detonated, separating its upper ascent stage from the four-legged lower half. Almost simultaneously, its Bell Aerospace rocket engine lit in a flash of searing orange flame. “Ignition.”

Propelled by thirty-five hundred pounds of thrust, Challenger’s ascent stage leapt into the black, star-filled sky. For the next twenty-six seconds, the camera followed the small spacecraft as it climbed rapidly toward its planned orbital rendezvous and docking with America and its pilot, Ron Evans.

And with that, an era came to an end.

In the course of forty months, six separate Apollo missions had successfully landed a total of twelve American astronauts on the desolate surface of the moon. All twelve men returned safely home to Earth. A scattering of footprints, rover tracks, emplaced scientific instruments, and jettisoned gear remained — offering silent testimony to a time when humans had, however briefly, lived and worked on another world.

For more than half a century, there would be no manned presence on the lunar surface.

But that was about to change…

One

USS McCampbell (DDG-85), South of Woody Island (Yŏngxīng Dăo), Among the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea

Spring 2022

Sunlight glittered on the azure waters ahead of USS McCampbell’s wide, flaring bow. Except for a patch of low-lying clouds on the distant northern horizon, the sky was clear in all directions. About two thousand yards to the southwest, a flash of white and gray showed where a small, twin-boomed, propeller-driven UAV, a drone, slowly orbited at low altitude — silently tracking the American destroyer as it drew closer to the heart of the Chinese-occupied island group.

“We’re coming up to Point Bravo, Captain,” the quartermaster of the watch announced. The young Navy petty officer kept his eyes resolutely fixed on the glowing integrated navigation display at his station. With the ship’s captain on the bridge acting as officer of the deck, this was no time to slack off. “Steady on course three-four-five. Speed twelve knots.”

“Very well,” Commander Amanda Dvorsky said calmly, keeping a tight rein on her own expression. Point Bravo was a purely notional spot in the sea. But it marked a moment of decision for the two ships under her command today — her own McCampbell and another Arleigh Burke—class destroyer, USS Mustin, trailing along a thousand yards behind. Turning back to the west or southwest would keep them out of waters illegally claimed by the People’s Republic of China, the PRC. Turning north would take a well-deserved poke at Beijing’s puffed-up territorial pretensions. Doing so, however, was sure to set off a diplomatic firestorm… or worse, if the communist nation’s notoriously touchy military overreacted.

Inwardly, she shrugged. Her orders to conduct a FONOP, a Freedom of Navigation Operation, were clear. She turned to her conning officer, Lieutenant Philip Scanlan. “All right. Let’s go trail our coat, Phil. Bring her to course zero-zero-zero.”

He swallowed once and nodded. “Aye, Captain.” He raised his voice slightly. “Helm, come right, steer course zero-zero-zero.” Aboard a U.S. Navy ship, only steering orders issued by its conning officer could be obeyed.

The helmsman, a wiry sailor barely old enough to be out of high school, reacted instantly, spinning McCampbell’s small steering wheel with practiced ease. “Come right to course zero-zero-zero, aye, sir,” he repeated loudly. “My rudder is left three degrees, coming to course zero-zero-zero.”

Dvorsky felt the deck under her feet heel only slightly as her destroyer swung north. The wide-beamed Arleigh Burkes were incredibly stable ships, especially when moving so slowly. One corner of her mouth twitched upward in a fleeting smile. McCampbell ordinarily cruised at twenty knots. Steaming straight through the middle of the Chinese-claimed Paracel Islands at just twelve knots was the naval equivalent of moseying onto a rival street gang’s turf with your hands buried deep in your pockets and a smart-ass grin on your face.

Part of her enjoyed imagining the heartburn and indignation this exercise was going to cause her Chinese counterparts and their superiors. But what she didn’t like was going into this situation without better intelligence. Reports claimed that the PRC had significantly beefed up its military forces in this region recently, especially on Woody Island, or Yŏngxīng Dăo as the Chinese called it, the largest of the Paracels. Unfortunately, those same reports contained almost no detail on the new Chinese sensors, combat aircraft, and missiles her ships might face. Equally unfortunately, those fragmentary estimates were the best the U.S. intelligence community could currently provide.