Red Horizon: The Truth of Discovery (Discovery Series Book 2) Read online

  “Did you copy, Yuri?”

  “Affirmative, Anton. Sorry, I was distracted,” Yuri finally answered.

  “Ah, I see. Well, get some rest. I understand there will be one more round of tests Earth-side with you and your crew before you boost again. You’ll get one more chance to enjoy a real woman and good Stolichnaya.”

  “You don’t approve of Olga or Anya?”

  “Oh, I approve, but I said a real woman, not one of . . . them,” Anton said, his tone one of disapproval. “Besides, maybe if you are real lucky, you’ll get to spend some time on Mars with your American girlfriend.”

  Yuri laughed. “You know not what you are saying, Anton. I don’t see how this can be any worse than spending a winter in a dacha with a foul-tempered woman.”

  “You’ve done that?”

  “Da, more than one winter, I’m afraid to say. No worries, I’m sure we’ll be properly indoctrinated before we leave, and the rules will be presented again most clearly,” Yuri said.

  It was Anton’s turn to laugh. “Yes, no babies in space. Well, get some rest. I’ll have the schedule updated for you in the morning when my relief arrives. I’m sure you’ll be landside again soon.”

  “Roger, Red Star out,” Yuri said. He wondered if the man knew that a precondition for flight certification to Mars was sterility. There would indeed be no procreating in space.

  Chapter 3

  People’s Republic of China

  People’s Republic Space Command

  Beijing, China

  In the near future, Year 4, Day 5

  The monitors glowed brightly in the dimly lit room, and Hun Lee sat at his master console and surveyed his new team of engineers, flight technicians, communications specialists, and military liaison officer.

  Military liaison. That was a quaint way of quantifying their overlords. General Wang still ran all facets of space operations and overall security after the victory that he and Colonel Hen Sing had managed to perform.

  Yes, they called it a victory. The segments of video that they culled from various sources, most of them unknown, reinforced the account of Colonel Sing’s heroics on the surface of the moon. After landing first, the good colonel unarmed the security measures and unlocked the secrets of the alien genetic coding, managing to set the signal to broadcast to all humanity for the greater good of our species.

  He was forced to return when the Russians crashed into the device, triggering the security measures of the aliens. He managed to save two of them and then pick up the Americans, who had lost control of their craft, breaking both of his legs in the process. Once in orbit, they transferred to the Russian ship, which was also crippled, and Colonel Sing fixed the craft so that it could accommodate all three nations’ crewmembers.

  Once back on Earth, the secret data was shared, and the colonel was given a hero’s welcome. Hun and his team were allowed to visit Hen in the hospital where photographs were taken of the hero and the talented flight technicians who orchestrated the entire mission.

  Hun knew the truth, but the military didn’t bother to do much other than sequester their hero and make reports for him available. They briefly informed Hun and his team members that the colonel was on a top-secret military mission, and while he feigned injury and inactivity in his capsule, he was actually conducting clandestine operations on the moon’s surface. They were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements, and of course, all requests to see the colonel were denied, as they were informed that the man was still recuperating from his injuries.

  This paled in comparison to what happened two years later. Under General Wang’s aggressive expansion, the military conducted their own manned mission to Mars during the next window when the orbits of Earth and the red planet aligned again. As far as Hun knew, they were the only ones to make the attempt. It failed.

  The military didn’t exactly paint it that way. They presented to the People’s Republic leadership that both Russia and the Americans also sent secret missions that met in disaster. The Chinese mission never made it past lunar orbit. The catastrophic failure four minutes after launch resulted in the cabin crew and all fuel stores being consumed in the subsequent blast. The military blamed it on foreign sabotage.

  Luckily for General Wang, the premier who presided over the State Council was a personal friend of his father-in-law. This may have brought a reprieve this time, but it wouldn’t work a second. The premier insisted that all state resources be focused on one solution and that the civilian space agency be a part of the process. That’s when Hun and his team were given more autonomy with the mission and a mandate to do so with three ships now, not one.

  How in hell were they supposed to conduct, command, and control a multiple-ship mission to Mars if they were going to be treated this way? It was already bad enough that the military was using armed officers as astronauts and that they had armed more than one space-capable platform without telling him about it. Hun felt that they were walking blind onto an active roadway, and it was only a matter of time before they were hit.

  Lin Fu seemed to notice his consternation and picked up her tablet, stood, and walked to his console, laying out the tablet in front of him, and leaned toward him. “Can you look at the flight profile numbers one last time and ensure they look executable to you?”

  “Of course,” Hun said, looking at her data, which he had seen and approved a half-dozen times in the last week. He noticed her reaching into an inner pocket of her white lab coat and pull out a miniature white noisemaker. Technically, they were illegal, but it seemed that most any sane bureaucrat had one as a matter of course in their profession.

  She placed it on the console, activated it, covered her hand over it as if she were leaning on the desktop, and leaned a bit closer. “You seem upset. Is everything all right?”

  “Of course,” Hun said, smiling at her. “It’s the usual stuff.”

  “Walking the tightrope, then?” Lin asked.

  “Yes, in a manner of speaking. That’s what we’ve been doing for the past few years, haven’t we?”

  Lin nodded. “You’ve done an excellent job of keeping our mission viable.”

  Hun looked at the woman and thought for a moment of what she had said. She was used to using formal dialogue in their interactions—they all were—but he understood the inferred compliment that she had given him. He had also kept them somewhat protected, sheltered from the military and political brass that ran the government, sweeping away anything, and anyone, that got in their way.

  “You are too kind, Lin,” Hun began. “I fear the worst is in front of us, though. Two more years of space operations and they will need to be flawless if we are to keep our heads about us.”

  Lin nodded, understanding the dual meaning of her boss’s words. “On a good note, the American shuttle was intercepted by their primary ship, and I understand that all but one of their astronauts were saved.”

  Hun nodded, allowing his eyes to move to the screen on the wall in the top left center where a radar track was updating the flight path of the USS Red Horizon as it had turned the rear of the ship with its main engines against their direction of travel and was performing a major burn to stop the ship’s momentum and have it return to Earth. “It was lucky for the Americans that their angle of flight went outbound from the sun’s gravity well.”

  “Yes, it was,” Lin said, following his eyes and looking at the same data as the estimated speed of the massive ship was rapidly counting down to zero. “It slowed the rate of escape considerably as opposed to a sunward direction. By the way, Major Jaiying has Chang working on updating the capabilities now of their ship, including the available oxygen on their shuttle.”

  Hun knew this already, but Lin was simply being either thorough or polite in the course of their conversation. “It was impressive that the shuttle had such a long environmental profile, and of course, the speed of their primary ship was considerably above even our optimistic assessments.”

  “Do you think the Americans would
lie about the safety of their crew?” Lin asked.

  Hun returned his gaze to his now chief flight technician. Seeing sincerity there, and nothing to mock their own government, he chose his words carefully, perhaps risking a bit too much on her noisemaker for his own protection. “The Americans have no need to tell their own people lies.” It was a strong word, and he instantly regretted saying it, but moved forward anyway. If he couldn’t trust Lin, then it didn’t matter, anyway. “If they said they rescued five astronauts and one perished, then that’s what happened.”

  “And their ship?”

  “That is another matter,” Hun said. “Radar tracks easily verified its speed, but there is something most people are not considering.”

  “About the ship or the incident?” Lin asked.

  “We’re all assuming it gave chase at maximum speed,” Hun said, pausing to allow his words to sink in.

  Lin looked up, calculating the trajectory, time, and speed again in her mind. “They would have been forced to intercept at maximum speed in order to recover the crew safely and return in a timely manner, no?”

  “Would they?”

  Lin struggled with this for a moment, trying to understand the implications from her mentor and leader. “They are not known for taking risks, especially with a human life on the line.”

  “Who said it was a risk?” Hun wanted her to work this out for herself, and he also wanted to see if she did so and came to the same or a similar conclusion that he had a day earlier. Then there may be some merit to his theory.

  “Wait.” Lin all but turned and sat on his console now, losing herself in the problem. “The ship is capable of a much faster speed, and the shuttle had considerable reserves left for life support.”

  “Yes,” Hun said, allowing himself to nod, thinking of the effect this would have on their flight profile. “This could mean that had they not suffered this incident, they would have reached Mars first, easily.”

  “They could have boosted sooner and taken a more direct route, one that requires more speed, especially considering the fact that it would be fighting the sun’s gravity well.”

  “Exactly.” Hun allowed his pleasure to cross his face in the form of a smile.

  “But . . .”

  “You’re almost there. One more problem to work out,” Hun encouraged her, and he sat up in his seat and leaned forward closer to her, encouraging her to connect the dots.

  Lin took her time, thinking about the problem, and actually looked up behind her boss’s console at the desk where their military liaison officer was working. At the moment, he appeared engrossed in some mundane form of paperwork, but from prior experience, they knew that this wasn’t always the case. The appearance could be deceiving.

  Finally seeming to draw a conclusion, she turned her head back to him. “They may be limited now in their fuel supply with the burn to save their space shuttle, and the lack of the same shuttle means they are hampered in their efforts to resupply the ship for a timely departure.”

  “Yes,” Hun said, closing the exercise for her, “so now either they burned too much fuel and will arrive late, if at all, or their advantage has been taken from them and they will be forced to adjust their trajectory to the more standard one, the one we all must use.”

  Lin’s eyes went wide. “Does the general know?”

  “Doubtful,” Hun said, returning his gaze to the main screen in front of them.

  There was a long pause as Lin thought about this. “Will you tell him?”

  “Yes . . . if he asks.”

  “Why the denial?”

  “It’s my job to get us to Mars first. If he finds out that this may only happen due to luck, or shall I say misfortune for the Americans, how do you think he will view our performance the last two years?”

  Lin nodded, understanding the conclusion that her boss was laying out before her. If their government learned that they had a plan that literally resulted in failure to arrive first, then they would blame those who orchestrated and executed the plan. That would be them. “This is not good news. Surely they have to understand in light of their own failure two years ago.”

  “They blame that on the Americans,” Hun said.

  “How can they? We all know they wouldn’t dare attack one of our ships.”

  “Remember? They called it sabotage.”

  Lin shook her head and allowed her hair to flow freely over the side of her face. “I think that’s nonsense. Do you think we would have done something to prevent the American launch if they had boosted sooner than us?”

  “Yes, I think the general would have used weapons against their ship had it come to that,” Hun said.

  “That would mean war,” Lin said, her expression becoming serious and her eyes conveying a tinge of fear.

  “I think at this stage, our illustrious leaders would welcome that,” Hun said.

  “You can’t be serious.” Lin raised a hand to her chest and then quickly returned it to her side as she looked up under her brow at the military officer two rows above them.

  “You saw what they did on the moon.”

  “But the Americans were clear, weren’t they?”

  “Their ship suffered damage, from what I understood.”

  “You got a chance to talk to the colonel, then?”

  “No,” Hun said. “I talked to someone else whose name is better left unsaid. What’s important is that the elephant did not sit on us.”

  “This is serious, then,” Lin said. “Do we have a plan to compensate?”

  Hun looked at her again. She had been involved in every aspect of their mission flight planning and knew every contingency, so her question was a bit peculiar to his mind. “You know what we have and what we are capable of,” he said, watching her reaction.

  She leaned forward again and lowered her voice. “I mean, does the military have something planned that we’re not supposed to know about?”

  “Ah,” Hun said, understanding her now. She had said we, and he took this to mean the space operations team, Hun and his staff, but she was referring to their government in general and the military in particular. She thought perhaps he knew something and had not shared it yet. “Well, other than the arming of several of our ships and satellites, no. I have no specifics.”

  “When will we get the green light for finalizing the mission?” she asked.

  “I expect that has already been done months ago,” he said, noticing a faint hint of a frown come over her face at the revelation. “They’re simply trying to keep operational security for now.”

  “Whatever for? Everyone can see we have three ships in orbit, and most of us know why.”

  “But not everyone knows exactly how we will use those ships, and that needs to be kept confidential until it’s too late.”

  “Too late for whom?”

  “Too late for the Americans and the Russians.”

  *****

  “Do you want us to move in?” the voice said over the micro radio inserted in Captain Fan Zhou’s ear.

  Fan was typing his responses, giving anyone who observed him the appearance that he was involved in working at something important at his keyboard. Instead, he had a row of small CCTV cameras on the top, showing the floor of the command center as well as rest areas, a hallway, and the director’s office. No, just keep feeding me what you can of the conversation, he typed.

  “She’s having problems reading when her hair falls over her cheek. We can’t interpret anything when she leans over like that,” the man said.

  Fan looked at the camera showing Lead Technician Lin Fu leaning over the director’s chair while she talked to him. The woman attempting to lip read was having problems with the camera angle, and he could see that. Lee was being asked permission for a security team to detain the woman. That, of course, would tip their hand and would be unrecoverable if nothing damaging to her turned up in interrogation.

  He started to type again: Maintain surveillance. Do not go overt.

  “Unde
rstood,” the voice said, cutting off.

  Lee watched the monitor as the technician scooped her mike, canceling the electronic device and placing it back in her pocket. They had actually sabotaged the one that she was using a couple of months back, but the woman seemed to either check them regularly or was more paranoid than normal, a definite subjective term given their operating climate at the moment, so she had replaced it, and they had decided to use another form of monitoring her, in the hope that she would speak more freely if she felt the device was working.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d guess that the director of space operations, Hun Lee, seemed to always face away from any of their cameras during these conversations, or he had something inconspicuously placed between his mouth and their cameras when talking at certain times. At other times, when his conversation could be monitored, it was always trivial, benign, or professional subjects that he discussed.

  The defective plans that they had hacked from the Americans showed a level of lethality in their dealings with the so-called democratic nation. It appeared that even the moral, high-ground-loving Yanks were capable of some ruthless subterfuge as well. For this reason, they suspected someone on Hun’s team, or the director himself, of leaking information on the whereabouts of their astronaut four years earlier, but they had no proof.

  However, since the leak actually benefited the Chinese government, they overlooked it somewhat, and the general ordered that all safety sensitive and top-secret clearance staff be monitored on an occasional basis with a close to full-time monitoring of the executive team members for their civilian component of space operations.

  Fan suspected that someone was passing on state secrets, and his loyalty to his country and government was absolute. He would find who was involved and make them pay. He would live up to his name when that happened. Fan, in Chinese, meant lethal, and he intended for the consequences to be exactly that.