Salvador Mercer: Lunar Discovery

“I’m sure you will. But cheer up, you’ll be back, I’m sure, or have your own station soon someday.” Yuri clapped Craig on the back and smiled.

Craig took one last look at the blue-green planet below and pushed off back to his habitat to prepare for his return.

“ Chto eta bilo? ” Olga Petrov asked, gliding up to Yuri and looking to make sure the Americans were out of earshot. Not that it mattered as long as they spoke Russian, but better to make sure. “Do they know?”

“Just that they are leaving. I just now told them, but not the reason for it. We have to make room for the new crew now, Olga. Pravda , we don’t really know anything either.”

“We know more than they do,” Olga said, moving to close the hatches on the habitat tubes Julie and Craig had used.

“What would we know, Olya?” Yuri said, using her diminutive.

“We are going to the moon, Yuri. I know we are, but I don’t know why. Not yet.”

“Perhaps, Olya, but I’d be careful not to think upon that too much. Not until we see what Roscosmos sends up,” Yuri said.

Olga simply smiled.

Vostochny Cosmodrome

Siberia, Russia

In the near future, Day 6

Vladimir watched the large Energia IV lift off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome with its atmospheric reentry vehicle perched atop the medium-sized lifter. He knew the next two days included two more launches of the same type booster, all for the space station. He was satisfied after sixty seconds when the counter rolled past T 1:00 that the rocket would enter low earth orbit without incident. He turned from the observatory platform and headed back to the elevators to schedule the next tasks for his agency.

As he arrived several floors below the observatory deck, he nodded in satisfaction at their new quarters, which were much improved over the old Baikonur facilities in Kazakhstan. That place was a dump , he thought to himself, and he wouldn’t miss the many reminders of the comrades who had died there over the years. Back in the Soviet era, half of the incidents weren’t even reported. Those had been hard times.

He had been thoroughly briefed and understood the mission as it related to his agency. The first launch would ensure the Americans were vacated from the Gordust Space Station as well as providing provisions for the next two months. The second booster was to carry a special fuel module designed to change the entire orbit of the station. Something like this had never been attempted before, but the stakes were high enough that the Kremlin felt that all other assets, including his cosmonauts, were expendable.

For that reason, the remaining technicians would not travel to the station until the riskier orbit changing burn occurred. If there was a catastrophic failure on board the station, this would limit the loss of life to only two cosmonauts, instead of the planned six.

Then there was the fourth launch. The massive Energia X was even now being prepped to launch a lunar reconnaissance orbiter around the moon. This would at least insure that they could monitor the object if nothing else. Currently they didn’t have a lunar lander that was capable of returning to the earth, much less lunar orbit. Dmitry had an entire team of engineers working overtime on that at a secret location outside of Moscow. If the Russians couldn’t land there yet, they’d be sure anyone else that tried couldn’t do so unobserved.

“You look worried, Vlad,” Irina Koroleva said, standing to greet him.

“It’s nothing, Irina, just the magnitude of what we’re about to do,” Vlad said, walking over to his chair in his office.

Irina followed him but didn’t enter, instead preferring to lean against the doorjamb. “I take it the launch went well.”

“You listened?” Vlad asked, wiggling his mouse and bringing his computer out of hibernation.

“Of course. The launch sounded like it went perfectly, as usual, so what’s the problem, Vlad?”

Vlad wasn’t in the mood to discuss particulars. During a lapse in judgement last year, he found himself in an affair with the attractive woman. It didn’t last long, but her familiarity with him never ceased. Oh, she wouldn’t call him Vlad in front of the rest of his staff, but at the start of the weekend, with most administrative staff at home and the technical staff overseeing the launch, he found himself alone again with the woman and it made him uncomfortable, to say the least.

“No problems, Irina. I’m just worried about the amount of launches we have planned in such a short period of time. Our staff has already been working around the clock and, though tired, it will only get worse before it gets better.”

“Ah yes, but at least there will be a break after the heavy launch, no?”

“ Da , at least we can take a few days off then. I’m sure the crews will need it. Speaking of which, why don’t you take some time off? I’m sure the paperwork will be here on Monday.”

“Vlad, if I didn’t know you, I’d say you wanted to get rid of me,” Irina said, now approaching his desk and slowly sitting on the side edge.

“Nonsense,” Vlad lied, noticing her long slender legs and really regretting last year’s lapse in judgement. “I’m glad you’re here. Perhaps you’re right. We work hard, get everything in order, and be ready for a well-deserved rest after we launch the heavy.”

“Sounds like a plan, Vladimir,” Irina said, leaning forward so close he could smell her perfume. “We can celebrate then,” she said, abruptly standing before he could protest and heading for the door. “It will be good for us,” she said, giving Vlad one last look that portended trouble, and then leaving the man to his work.

God help me , Vlad said, shaking his head. If this mission didn’t kill him, Irina would.

Irina sat at her desk and finished documenting and filing the reports as required for the launches. She downloaded the data of all four launches, the one that was just executed as well as the other three planned, onto a small portable thumb drive which she then inserted into her RF device that she had been given long ago, sewn into a hidden pocket of her purse.

Vlad was happy to say good evening to her as she left the base, passing through security, which was much more lax than encountered when entering the base, and walked to her car. Most Russians used public transportation, but out here a vehicle was a necessity due to the base’s isolation. It took her over twenty minutes to reach the small town where most of the base personnel lived. She parked her car in the garage and exited to the street, walking about three blocks before arriving at the large bar.

The place was fairly full from not only base personnel off duty at the moment, enjoying a rare respite after the first day’s launch, but also from the miners and loggers of the two other localized industries that the bar served. She was late by about ten minutes, but she knew her handler always had someone there, anyway. Her instructions were always the same. Go to the bar, spend thirty minutes there, and then leave. She knew the data was encrypted and stored in a portable RF query device that detected an incoming signal, which, if matched properly to its password coding, prompted the device to release its data stream.

What she didn’t know was the identity of her handler and who he or she represented. Irina felt only a tinge of guilt at what she was doing, but it often went away when she checked her Swiss bank account following each transaction. When she had enough, she was going to leave for good. Besides, how important could space secrets be, anyway? Not like she was transferring nuclear ballistic missile details.