Eagle Station

“You think they might be planning a manned landing on the moon after all?” Nadia said slowly.

This time, Brad and his father nodded in unison.

“Whoa there, fellas,” Boomer interrupted. “Now, I know thinking outside the box is kind of a McLanahan specialty, but that’s pushing way beyond the envelope and out into wacko land.” He shook his head. “Particularly when everything we know about Leonov and the Chinese leader, this Li Jun character, suggests they’re both a hell of a lot more careful and cautious than the guys they took over from.”

“Cautious and careful doesn’t mean cowardly,” Brad pointed out.

“No, but at a minimum it means these guys aren’t stupid,” Boomer retorted. He shook his head. “Okay, look, I get the drift. A surprise return to the lunar surface would be a huge propaganda win for Russia and China. But the risks involved in using a wholly untested spacecraft for a stunt like that are huge. One serious hardware malfunction or one software glitch at just the wrong time and five gets you ten, you end up with a bunch of dead guys drifting in orbit or smashed to pieces in some crater.”

Nadia frowned at him. “You should not assume that Marshal Leonov and President Li Jun share our views on the value of human life.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure they don’t,” Boomer allowed. He gave her a wry smile. “But I do bet they know how to figure out the right side of a cost-benefit ratio.”

Martindale looked pained, Brad noticed. He was probably remembering the argument he’d lost over rescuing Sam Kerr.

Boomer pressed his argument. “Look, guys, the Russians and the Chinese don’t need to take any more risks than they already have to rub dirt in our faces. As things stand, even this one unmanned flight to the moon leapfrogs all of our half-assed plans to send astronauts back there.”

“President Farrell’s helium-3 lunar mining operation is a pretty big deal,” Brad commented dryly.

Boomer waved that away. “One, it’s still all on paper. And two, even if that mine ever gets built, it’s gonna be automated.” He folded his arms. “Robots just aren’t sexy,” he said straightforwardly. “Not compared to real spaceman boots on the ground.”

A chime interrupted them. On the screen, the icon representing the Russian spacecraft turned orange. Numbers appeared beside the orange triangle. They were decreasing.

“That’s updated tracking data from NASA,” Brad explained to his father and Martindale. He looked closer and frowned. “It looks like the Federation 2 is conducting its final maneuvers to close with that Chang’e lander.” He turned back to them. “Based on those closure numbers, they’ll be in position to dock somewhere around the far side of the moon.”

“Well, there you go,” Boomer said. “If those ships are manned and they’re going for a real honest-to-God landing, we’ll know soon enough. Just as soon as that Russian command module comes back around the edge of the moon on some orbit without the lander anywhere in sight.”

Twenty-Six

Aboard Federation 2, in Lunar Orbit

That Same Time

Colonel Tian Fan, China’s senior military taikonaut, floated next to his co-commander, Russian cosmonaut Colonel Kirill Lavrentyev. He kept his arms and legs carefully tucked in. While the clean, spare, off-white interior of the Federation capsule was significantly less cramped than the old Soyuz and Shenzou capsules they were used to, it was still not spacious — especially with a full long-duration crew of four aboard. Its total usable volume was only about nine cubic meters, though that was about 50 percent bigger than America’s Apollo-era command modules. Below their feet, Federation 2’s other crewmen, Major Liu Zhen and Captain Dmitry Yanin, were strapped into their couches, staying out of the way of their senior officers during this maneuver.

Lavrentyev was a little taller and heavier-set than the wiry Tian. One of his hands rested lightly on the Federation’s flight control joystick. He studied the glowing readouts on their three multifunction liquid-crystal displays and grunted in satisfaction. “Everything looks good. We are go for docking with the Chang’e lander on this orbit.”

Tian nodded. “And our communications links to Moscow and Beijing?” he asked. “No problems?”

In answer, Lavrentyev opened a new menu. A row of solid green bars showed the status of their data links. Through a network of data-relay satellites, a steerable antenna mounted in the service module’s tail section kept them in constant touch with ground controllers in Russia and the People’s Republic. To maintain the fiction that this was an unmanned test flight, there would be no radio voice transmissions for the duration of the mission. Instead, all messages between the spacecraft and its controllers were passed in encrypted data packets, hidden in the stream of routine telemetry.