Executive Intent

“No other sensors had the capability,” Kai said. “DSP and SBIRS-High did exactly what they were supposed to do: detect the thermal bloom. On a typical DF-21 attack, the missile rises almost straight up to its intercept point, which means no track develops, or the track was still obscured by the ground fire. Only SBIRS-Low or Kingfisher-Eight could have tracked a DF-21.”

“Still not exactly evidence the Chinese attacked one of our satellites, sir.”

“We found another piece of the puzzle, Seeker,” Kai said. “We assumed that the safe and continuity circuits that McCallum replaced on Eight were faulty and caused a Trinity interceptor to explode. It turns out the safe and continuity circuits were working just fine…because Eight went into self-defense mode almost immediately after we powered it up.”

“What?”

“Kingfisher-Eight had activated its self-defense mode,” Kai said almost breathlessly. “It wasn’t a fault: It was real, because Eight detected the incoming Chinese DF-21 and was trying to reposition itself to launch an interceptor when it was hit. We were looking at the data but coming to completely wrong conclusions. We assumed the satellite was still bad even after Jeffrey changed the boards, but it wasn’t. Eight was trying to protect itself from a Chinese DF-21 attack.”

“That’s unbelievable!” Faulkner exclaimed. “The Russians damage Eight, and the Chinese attack it. Incredible!”

“But we still can’t exactly prove that the Russians attacked it or the Chinese DF-21 hit it, sir,” Seeker said.

“It’s more than enough proof for me, Master Sergeant,” Kai said. “This is starting to look like a Russian-Chinese conspiracy to saturate or shut down the Space Defense Force. Secretary Page is going to set up a meeting with SECDEF and PNSA and present all this information. We might not have proof positive, but it’ll be enough for the White House to stop any plans of shutting down the program or banning antisatellite weapons.”

UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS, NEW YORK CITY

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING

“This emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council will come to order,” the rotating chairman of the council, Ernesto Nascimento, said, tapping a gavel on the stone sound block before him. “The meeting has been called by the request of the delegation from the United States, with Great Britain seconding the request for an emergency meeting. The chair recognizes the ambassador from the United States.”

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman,” Marcus Colby said. Colby was a successful and well-respected attorney, senior partner of a political consulting group, and professor of international affairs. Although not a part of President Joseph Gardner’s true inner circle, the tall, gray-haired, and scholarly-looking gentleman was known to have full access to the president and therefore carried considerable power to the Security Council chamber. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Security Council, thank you all for agreeing to this emergency session. I know the hour is early, but a grave situation has arisen that requires our attention.

“The matter of the People’s Republic of China’s invasion of Somalia has already been discussed by the council, and although no consensus had been reached by this body, it was generally accepted that China had been sufficiently provoked by freighter crewmembers being executed by Somali pirates into taking direct military action against the pirates’ bases of operation in and around Mogadishu. However, last night’s air attacks in and around the harbor at Aden in Yemen is a clear violation of a nation’s sovereignty and is a serious act of aggression. The United States demands that-”

“I object, Mr. Chairman!” Ambassador Li Jianzhu, the delegate from the People’s Republic of China, interrupted. “The attacks in Aden earlier were purely and simply defensive in nature. Our entire task force, which had been granted permission to anchor in Yemeni waters and use Aden ’s harbor, port, and shore facilities, was in danger by Islamist insurgents, obviously in retaliation for our punitive actions in Somalia. The vessel that attacked and severely damaged our destroyer and killed a dozen sailors was part of the Republic of Yemen ’s marine patrol police, which is headed by the navy. That means the conspiracy to attack Chinese warships had to have been made by Yemen ’s defense forces. That is why defense sites were attacked by our naval air forces.”

“They were indeed attacked, Mr. Ambassador-attacked within mere minutes of the attack on your warship,” Colby said.

“That is certainly suspicious. Why did you have so many planes so heavily loaded with munitions obviously carefully selected for a specific set of targets?”