Eagle Station

“Stand by for General McLanahan,” a crisp woman’s voice said through his headset. A second later, his father’s familiar tones came over the link. “Brad, we need the three of you to stop what you’re doing and get back inside Eagle Station. The Russians and Chinese just blew the shit out of our two satellites near the moon. The president’s put a hold on that Orion flight you’re prepping.”

“A hold?” Brad asked, stunned by the news. “For how long?”

“Damned if I know, son,” his father replied. “But I can tell you one thing for sure, there’s no way in hell we’re sending an unarmed manned spacecraft to the moon. Not now. The next astronauts who head that way had better be ready for a fight.”

Thirty-Four

The White House Situation Room, Washington, D.C.

A Few Days Later

Long before he took the oath of office, President John Dalton Farrell had known there would be days and maybe even weeks and months that would make him want to tear his hair out, set it on fire, and then go looking for a fight — just to ease some of the tension. It was the nature of the job, where all of the nation’s troubles seemed to land on one man or woman’s shoulders, and too many people outside the government expected whoever sat in the Oval Office to work miracles. Put that together with too many people inside the government who spent their time explaining why nothing could ever be done to solve any problem, and you had a recipe for sheer gut-busting, artery-popping frustration.

Being president would try the patience of a saint, and saints were in short supply in politics. And you sure as hell ain’t one of them, J.D., he admitted to himself. Which left him wrestling right now with the urge to haul off and slug someone — Russia’s marshal Mikhail Leonov or China’s president Li Jun, for choice.

With that in mind, Farrell looked down the long table to a relative newcomer, General Richard Kelleher. Given the nature of this sudden crisis, it had been an easy call to include the Space Force chief of staff in this White House meeting with his national security advisers. “Let me get this straight, General. Right now, the Russians and Chinese have four separate payloads intended for the moon in Earth orbit.”

Kelleher nodded. “That’s correct, Mr. President. All of them launched within the past hour.”

“Li Jun and Leonov are busy sons of bitches, I’ll grant ’em that,” Farrell growled. “Okay, what are my options here? Can we use Eagle Station’s plasma rail gun or our armed spaceplanes to turn any of those rockets into floating scrap? Because I’d surely like to send Beijing and Moscow the only kind of cease-and-desist message they’ll understand before this day gets much older.”

At that, Secretary of State Andrew Taliaferro and several others exchanged worried looks.

“You have a problem with that, Andy?” Farrell asked.

To his credit, Taliaferro didn’t waffle. “Yes, sir,” he said firmly. “Without clear evidence that our satellites were actually destroyed by the Russians and the Chinese, most of the rest of the world would see U.S. military action against their spacecraft as unprovoked aggression.” He turned to Kelleher. “And as I understand it, General, we don’t have that kind of evidence. Nor are we likely to get it.”

The Space Force chief of staff nodded reluctantly. “That’s true. Short of somehow retrieving pieces of wreckage from AEHF-7 and the Topaz-M for forensic examination — which is essentially impossible — we can’t prove what killed them. Space is a dangerous place… and accidents do happen, especially to complex spacecraft. And plenty of countries out there will be looking for reasons to avoid confronting Beijing and Moscow over this issue.”

Looking out at them from one of the wall screens, Nadia Rozek-McLanahan spoke up. She and Brad were participating in this emergency national security meeting via a secure link to Eagle Station, currently orbiting high over the Indian Ocean. “The physics of this situation already make any attack impossible. By the time we come around the curve of the earth into view of those Russian and Chinese spacecraft, they’ll have begun their translunar injection burns and be well outside our plasma rail gun’s effective range. The same thing goes for the S-29s, which have a much shorter-ranged laser weapon.”

Farrell allowed himself a wry smile. “Y’all are starting to piss me off with these inconvenient facts.” He sighed. “Trouble is, I can’t afford to replace you with a bunch of sycophants, even if I wanted to. Look where that got poor old Stacy Anne in the end: up shit creek without even a canoe, let alone a paddle.”