Salvador Mercer - Lunar Discovery

Hun and his team had walked the debris field of the Long Reach impact site looking for anything salvageable. It had been an exercise in futility. Liquid hydrogen and oxygen didn’t just burn, it burned hot. Hun was no geologist, but he swore some of the rocks at the impact site had turned molten and reformed as a different type of stone.

His entire team as well as over a dozen military officers were flown from Beijing to Wenchang the day after the catastrophic launch attempt. He knew the exercise wouldn’t result in anything positive, but the military had insisted on it and had given Hun nearly a hundred soldiers to poke and prod through the blackened area. That had been a week ago. Hun’s team had been flown back to Beijing and was hard at work configuring a way to get one of the Long Reach rockets ready to carry a reconnaissance payload to the moon. The problem is they were always overweight for what the military wanted to send.

“Can’t we strip the horizontal brackets and use just one cross joint?” Chang Fu, his mechanical engineer, asked from the video feed on Hun’s second monitor. Chang was nearly a thousand kilometers from the command center, working on the actual orbiter which was to be called Liquid Eye. Hun thought the name unique but silly, if nothing else. They had to use a Skype-like secure video connection to discuss the details with their chief mechanic.

“Our calculations show that any lateral stresses above four-point-five G’s will result in structural failure,” Hun said, looking at his data tablet.

“So we keep lateral forces to a minimum,” Lin said from where she sat next to Hun.

“That would be a minimum considering the torque and spin once it enters LEO,” Chon said.

“How would you know, Chon? You’re a signals technician, not a mech engineer,” Lin asked him from across the table.

“I studied thermal dynamics and geometry before I took up advanced wave theory at Sun Tsu,” Chon said, referring to the new university which included advanced sciences as well as military theory.

“Chon’s probably correct. I was hoping our trajectory could be flattened a bit to compensate; otherwise, I’m running out of ideas here,” Chang said.

“The problem is we can’t add fuel to the Long Reach in order to flatten the trajectory,” Hun said, frustrated at the dilemma.

Everyone sat quietly for nearly a minute. The Chinese were known for their patience, and unlike Americans, silence was something to be welcomed, not avoided.

Finally Chon tapped on his paper. “Why do we have to send the orbiter on only one rocket?”

Lin looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “What kind of question is that?”

“Well, the entire purpose is to put eyes on the Fleeting Locust landing site, right?” Chon asked, referring to the unique name the original robotic mission had for itself. Hun nodded, as did Lin. “Well, we are already saving weight by going the lithium route on the battery instead of nickel-cadmium, but the whole thing is still large and heavy due to the electrical demands of the equipment on the orbiter. So we send up the equipment first, inserting it into lunar orbit minus the battery module, and then we send the battery module along with a docking clamp and mate it to the equipment module. Don’t you see? Equation solved.”

“Wait, yes, that would not only work but it would allow us to use a much stronger battery as well as bigger and more capable equipment,” Lin said, excitement in her voice.

Hun started to see the benefits of the idea, but instantly the complications reared their ugly head. “Can you configure docking clamps to each cargo section, Chang?” Chang nodded from the monitor. “I’ll need to ask General Wang if we even have two Long Reach rockets available. I was under the impression that we had only one.”

“Well, we would have had two if the colonel—” Chon was cut off by Hun.

“Shhh, don’t speak of it. What is done is done. Maybe we would have had two Long Reaches, but let’s look at the future, not the past.” Hun remembered all too vividly his boss’s fate, and he was fairly sure they were being monitored. Chon was young and rebellious, a bad sign for anyone living under this regime.

“How long would it take for you to construct a docking collar?” Lin asked.

Chang looked down at something and then back into the monitor. “Inventory shows we have two small collars ready. I just need to bring them out and size them. Perhaps make an adjustment after checking their tolerance levels. The main issue will be the actual maneuver. There will be just over a two-point-five-second delay in all command inputs for docking. We’d either have to adjust here or make sure the computer programming is up to the task.”

“I can take care of the programming,” Chon said. “That shouldn’t be an issue as long as I can get a targeting grid on the docking lens.”

“Sir?” Lin asked, everyone falling silent and looking at their lead.

“Go with it, Chang. You, too, Chon. Make the programming fixes, and I’ll present our idea to the general directly.”

Hun received nods from all his staff, including Chang, who nodded through the monitor before clicking it off. Hun knew the raw parts were available, but he had no idea what the Red Army had done to their engineering capacity once they took over. He moved to his desk where he phoned General Wang’s aide and requested an appointment. He told the aide it was urgent, and the man informed him he’d have an answer within the hour. It took only seven minutes, and Hun was instructed to meet the general in the director’s office in ten minutes. It appeared Hun was going to have one shot at this, and he planned to make it work.

White House Situation Room

Washington D.C.

In the near future, Day 20

“Those bastards!” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said more than a little uncharacteristically for his position.

President Powers looked at him and at the others in the presidential situation room located in the basement under the West Wing of the White House. “We’re sure the Chinese destroyed our satellite?” she asked.

“No, Madam President, not sure, but our HUMINT indicates that it is probable that an anti-satellite missile took out our bird,” the military attaché said, putting his papers back into his portfolio.

“It was a military sat, too, Madam President,” the Secretary of Defense said to her, leaning over and then returning to his stoic posture beside her.

“Well, that explains our chief’s reaction,” she said. “We have protocols in place for this, do we not?”

“We do, Madam President, you only need to give the word,” her Director of National Security said, a smug tone in his voice.

“Chief, are you in agreement with the deployment of the X47B Hunter drone?” she asked.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff smiled. “Hell yes, Madam President, and not only in agreement but ready as well.”

The Secretary of Defense clarified, “We’ve fueled the Atlas V at Vandenburg and stand ready to launch the Hunter within sixty minutes on your orders.”

Everyone looked anxiously at the president while she took her time with the decision. “Proceed to execute Mission Boomerang, then.”

People started to move quickly, some picking up secure phone lines, others heading to their duty stations. “You heard the president,” said the chief, “time for some good ole fashioned payback, the hoorah way.”

No one laughed, but more than a few smiled. Only a handful understood the danger involved. “Shall I give the order?” the Secretary of Defense said, his tone hushed, literally unheard by those in the same room, such was their focus.

“Yes, Secretary Davis, bring us to DEFCON three.”