Eagle Station

“Very good,” Tian said. He cocked his head, listening. Apart from the background hum of their air-recirculation fans and water pumps, there was very little noise. The contrast with earlier space flights — with their never-ending torrent of radio static and chatter with mission control teams — was striking.

He glanced at Lavrentyev. “This silence is… different.”

The Russian cosmonaut’s teeth flashed white. “It’s so quiet, I can scarcely hear myself think.”

Tian grinned back. “Perhaps that is just as well, Kirill. You know that thinking only gets you in trouble.”

“Eto tochno.” Lavrentyev laughed. “So true.” During their long months of training together, differences in their approaches to problem-solving had become both obvious and a source of some humor. The Russian favored quick action, figuring it was better to act decisively than to dither in a crisis. In contrast, Tian was more analytical, though his reaction times were also almost inhumanly fast. Intensive preparation, instruction, and hundreds of hours of practice in simulators had welded them into a smoothly functioning command team. They were perfectly matched to the challenges of this arduous and fiendishly complex space mission… the first necessary step toward making Heaven’s Thunder an operational reality.

Aboard the Chang’e-10 Lander, in Lunar Orbit

Several Hours Later

For three full orbits after docking with the unmanned Chinese-built lunar lander, the four-man Federation 2 crew worked hard to make sure Chang’e-10’s ascent stage and descent stage were correctly assembled and in perfect working order. No one had ever tried having two separate spacecraft autonomously connect themselves into a single functioning ship before. The technique probably wouldn’t have worked for a vehicle intended to fly in Earth’s atmosphere and gravitational field. Fortunately, operations around the airless moon, with just one-sixth gravity compared to that of the mother planet, would place considerably less stress on the lander’s structure.

Now, Colonel Tian Fan and Kirill Lavrentyev left Federation 2 and transferred to Chang’e-10. With everything checked out, it was time to find out if the lander could perform the mission for which it had been designed.

Tian tucked his feet under a bar to hold himself in place, connected his restraining straps, and looked ahead through his command pilot’s triangular window. The gray surface of the moon curved across his horizon. Without any atmospheric distortion, the edges of every crater rim and rise appeared razor-sharp, perfectly distinct even from nearly one hundred kilometers up. Pitch-black shadows stretched out ahead of them.

He glanced at one of the large multifunction displays fixed between his station and his copilot’s position. Rows of status icons glowed green. The Chang’e’s main engine, attitude control thrusters, life-support system, lidar and star tracker navigation systems, and communications relays were all functioning perfectly. Compared to the dizzying array of dials, switches, and readouts crammed into the Apollo Lunar Modules, the Chang’e’s control systems were a model of efficient simplicity.

Kirill Lavrentyev drifted down from the docking hatch over their heads and hooked in on his right. “We are closed up and sealed,” he reported.

Tian nodded. With one gloved hand, he tapped a com icon on his display. For now, while they were crossing the moon’s Earth-facing side, communications between the two linked spacecraft used a hardwired intercom. “Federation, this is Chang’e-Ten; our hatch is closed. What is your status?”

Through his headset, he heard Major Liu Zhen reply from the larger spacecraft. “Copy that, Chang’e. We confirm both hatches are closed and sealed. Venting the tunnel now.”

Pumps cycled, depressurizing the short tunnel connecting the Federation command module and their lander. Both spacecraft shuddered slightly. Thrusters fired, automatically counteracting the tiny motion imparted by the gases venting into space.

Lavrentyev cycled through menus on his own screen. “Pulsing the lidar now,” he said. Their flash lidar system fired low-powered lasers at the lunar surface and used the reflected pulses to create three-dimensional images of the terrain they were flying over. By comparing those images to maps stored in its memory, the computer could determine precisely where they were, relative to the surface, at any given moment. Seconds later, the Russian cosmonaut announced, “Navigation fix confirmed. We are crossing the Ocean of Storms and approaching the Hevelius crater. Ten minutes to LOS.”