Eagle Station

On-screen, President Farrell seemed as vigorous and full of life as Brad McLanahan remembered from earlier meetings. That made him an exception to the rule that most men and women who occupied the White House aged faster than ordinary people. If anything, the tall, broad-shouldered Texan seemed energized by the burdens of the Oval Office.

“I’d surely like to know just how we got caught with our drawers down… again,” Farrell remarked dryly. “How in the hell did we miss the Russians and the Chinese prepping those rockets for launch?”

From Utah, Kevin Martindale shrugged. “It’s the old story: too much ground to cover and not enough people, or, in this case, not enough space-based sensors, to do the job.”

Beside him, Patrick McLanahan nodded. “We still only have a handful of reconnaissance satellites operational, Mr. President,” he explained. “And they’ve been primarily tasked with tracking Russia’s Firebird spaceplane program.”

Though with slim results, Brad knew. In the months since the destruction of Scion’s Russia-based intelligence network, America’s spy satellites and Eagle Station’s Space Force crew had captured a few images of what appeared to be spaceplane prototypes at airfields around Moscow and other sites. But so far none of those prototypes had been observed in flight — either inside the atmosphere or in orbit. So it was still impossible to get a handle on how much progress the Russian Firebird program had made since its first test flight at Kansk-Dalniy.

But even if Eagle Station’s high-powered telescopes had been available to carry out other intelligence missions, they could not have spotted Russia’s massive Energia-5VR rocket moving out to the pad. The Plesetsk Cosmodrome was too far north of the space station’s orbital track — which probably explained why the Russians had chosen to launch from there, rather than the newer, more modern, and better-sited Vostochny space complex.

Reluctantly, Farrell nodded his understanding. Russia and China were still closed authoritarian societies, with their most vital secrets guarded by legions of secret police. Over the past several decades, American presidents and their national security teams had grown used to relying on satellite-driven intelligence. Robbed of the easy ability to peer down from orbit, and without the invaluable material provided so often by Scion’s human agents, they were all wandering in the dark.

“All right, then,” the president said grimly. “Let’s cut to the chase. Now that we’ve found out the hard way that Beijing and Moscow are in cahoots: What’s their plan? Are these surprise rocket launches aimed at building another armed space station?”

Brad understood his concern. A new Mars One circling Earth wouldn’t give Russia or China unchecked dominance in space, not as long as Eagle Station was still intact — but it would restore a balance of terror in orbit… and greatly complicate America’s ambitious plans to reach out to the moon and beyond.

He glanced sideways at Nadia and Boomer. They nodded encouragement. Bracing himself, Brad spoke up. “No, Mr. President,” he said firmly. “Whatever the Russians and the Chinese are doing, they are not building a station in Earth orbit.”

“You seem mighty confident about that, Major,” Farrell commented.

“Yes, sir, I am.” Brad shook his head. “For one thing, their spacecraft are not maneuvering for an Earth-orbit rendezvous. In fact, it would be completely impossible for them to dock now.” He opened a file on his laptop. It was synched to their video link. Instantly, several 3-D visuals were mirrored for the president, his father, and Martindale. “For example, here’s the current orbit of the Energia’s third-stage booster and its payload.” An image of the earth appeared, with a red line depicting the Russian spacecraft’s path around the planet. It was a wildly elongated oval — almost seeming to brush against the earth on one side, while curving far out into space on the other. “As you can see, it’s in a highly elliptical orbit, with an apogee nearly twenty-two thousand miles above the surface.”

“And what’s the perigee?” his father asked from Utah. “The lowest point of its orbit?”

“Just one hundred and twenty miles,” Brad told him. He looked back at Farrell. “There’s no way a severely elliptical orbit like that works for any kind of permanent manned military space station, sir. Apart from purely tactical considerations, any spacecraft in that orbit is yo-yoing up and down through both the inner and outer Van Allen radiation belts. No human crew could escape unharmed very long in those conditions, not without a hell of a lot more radiation shielding than would be practical.”

“What about the two Chinese rockets?” the president pressed.