Kimberly’s shoulders sagged. Is he telling me to give up? What about the Chinese ASATs?
Tarantino continued, “The military has confirmed that your altitude is continuing to increase, and with Scott validating that the terrorists are no longer a threat—”
“With Scott validating it?” Kimberly said slowly. She glanced at her ex-husband. His normally dark, ebony face showed a shade of red. “You didn’t take my word that the two were disposed of?”
“I believed you, and NASA did,” Tarantino replied, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “But the NSC, they wanted a separate confirmation. Otherwise, they didn’t know if you were actually being held under duress, perhaps being forced to say the terrorists were no longer a threat. They could have turned the tables at the last moment, after we had put down our guard.”
Kimberly set her mouth in a hard line, feeling her innards turning to fury. Her own government hadn’t believed her. She could understand their point, but what did they want her to do, drag Farid’s body into Central Post for everybody down there to see?
And what would they have done if Scott had not confirmed that the terrorists were indeed no longer a threat? He may or may not have seen Farid’s dead body, floating in the Bigelow inflatable. And Bakhet’s lifeless, impaled body was locked inside the Russian MRM-2 airlock, completely out of sight.
But Scott believed me, she realized. He took my word that both the terrorists were taken care of. He could have very well wasted precious time methodically searching the ISS for the two, but he trusted me, didn’t even look for them. Staring at her ex-husband, she felt a happy glow dissolving her anger. And now he was showing more than trust. Finally, he respects me. She wanted to hug him.
Tarantino’s voice sounded calmer as he came back over the link. “Kimberly, this wasn’t about trusting you. It’s about ensuring that our station is completely safe and stable—”
“But I thought you said the military has stood down.”
“Yes, yes, they have.” Tarantino picked up the sheet at his elbow and waved it at the camera. “Patricia reports through separate channels that the President will be making an address to the nation later tonight—”
“And the Chinese,” Kimberly interrupted coldly. “You’re avoiding the issue. What about them? Have they stood down their ASAT capability as well?”
Mopping his forehead, Tarantino replied, “NASA, Defense, and State are working the problem. They’re all on the same page—”
“Kimberly!” Scott’s voice interrupted them.
She glanced at him. Scott looked grim. She saw that his laptop had a live, open link to TOPO, the Trajectory Operations Officer. It appeared that MCC had gotten that interface with NASA’s ground tracking facility fully up and operational.
“What is it?” she asked.
Pointing to the laptop’s screen, Scott replied, “The left window is from Goddard. The right is a delayed view from one of STRATCOM’s Space-Based Infrared System satellites at GEO. Vandenberg declassified this geosynchronous SBIRS feed before shooting it to TOPO. You’d better take a look.”
Kimberly pushed away from the link with MCC and peered over Scott’s shoulder. The left window showed a standard view of the ISS’s orbital trajectory, fed from NASA White Sands. The right window displayed a high-altitude image of Earth, broadcast from geosynchronous orbit 22,236 miles above the ground.
Scott pointed at two icons on the outer edge of the SBIRS image, overlaid atop a smoky-gray picture of Earth, typical of an old, but high-resolution infrared sensor. Dotted lines showed the icons’ projected paths: they both intersected on the right-hand edge of the image.
Scott said, “STRATCOM just detected two Chinese SC-19 launches from their facility in the Spratly Islands.”
“Can’t be.” She shook her head. “They launch out of the Korla Missile Test Complex in western China.”
“That would be too obvious. Their Spratly port is an unacknowledged site. I … flew escort for a Navy P-3 surveillance plane when we were gathering intel on it when it was being built.”
Kimberly’s breath gushed out of her. Oh no! After all this! “What did they launch?”
“Not sure yet,” Scott said tightly. “The intel’s not in. But if they’re carrying Dong Neng-3s, those are state-of-the-art exo-atmospheric missiles. ASATs.”
“You’re sure they’re Chinese?”
“Doesn’t matter whose they are. They’re on a counter-orbit interception. At the rate they’re approaching, we’ve only got fifteen, twenty minutes at the most before they impact us.”
CENTRAL POST, INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
Kimberly felt as if she’d been hit by a piece of space junk.
“But … but CAPCOM said our military and the Chinese were both in the loop to stand down their ASATs.”
Grimacing, Scott replied, “And how many times in our own government does the right hand not speak to the left? These are huge bureaucracies, and they’ve been on hair-trigger alert for days.”
Kimberly kicked back to her laptop, where she immediately started running through the graphical interface. “Keep me updated on those incoming trajectories. We’re going PDAM,” she said, as she called up the Predetermined Debris Avoidance Maneuver.
“Kimberly!” Bluish-gray light from the laptop’s open link reflected off the sheen of fine sweat that covered Scott’s face. “PDAM’s half-meter-a-second delta-v will never push us out of the way in time. You heard CAPCOM: we’ve got to abandon the station, evacuate in the Starliner.”
Kimberly was struck by his worried expression. She’d never seen her normally cool ex-husband look so concerned.
“Extended PDAM,” she corrected. “A longer, high-velocity extended burn for a lot more delta-v. I did it to evade our own ASATs, I can do it for theirs.”
“It’ll never work. Dong Neng-3s can maneuver up to the point of impact. They’ll be making last-second course corrections—”
“Help me solve my problem, Scott!” she insisted. “Don’t tell me that I can’t do it. I’m not giving up. The station’s too important.”
She refocused on preparing as much as she could for the last-minute maneuvering. Although they had not yet completed transferring all the fuel from the Starliner, they had plenty for giving the station more delta-v, so that was not a concern.
But if Scott was right, and if the DN-3s could really home in until the last second, then even with a tank full of fuel it was going to be tight timing—incredibly tight. So what else could she do to throw off the incoming warhead sensors?
Scott pushed over to where she was preparing for the extended burn PDAM. They’d have to work with TOPO later in order to get back in their safety box so other pieces of orbital debris wouldn’t accidentally hit the ISS. But at the moment that was the least of her worries.
Scott watched her for a moment. Then he said quietly, “They’re just over twelve minutes out.” He studied her face. “This station means more to you than saving your own life, doesn’t it?”
She continued working the laptop, not looking up at him.