Authors: Dale Brown
“Faulkner, secure.”
“Hi, Gonzo.” Patrick was immediately on alertâKai's face told him this was not a routine call. “What's going on?”
“The Chinese appear to be at it again, sir,” Faulkner said. “This time in Aden, Yemen.”
“What?”
“It's happening right now, sir. Looks like they launched bombers from their aircraft carrier off the coast of Aden and bombed defensive sites and command-and-control sites around the city. It
might be retaliation for an attack on one of their warships in the harbor.”
“You've
got
to be kidding me,” Kai exclaimed. He turned to Patrick. “The Chinese are attacking Aden, Yemen.” Patrick immediately picked up a secure phone. “Everyone's been notified?”
“Seeker is double-checking that SPACECOM and STRATCOM got the message.”
“Good. Where's Camerota?”
“He's down, sir.”
“
âDown'?
What do you mean, âdown'? What happened?”
“Chronic space sickness ever since he got here, apparently passed out with a throatful of vomit,” Faulkner explained. “He's breathing again but still loopy. Crawford is with him.”
“You take command of the station.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What's your status?”
“The station is Code One,” she replied. “I haven't checked all the garages yet.” She scanned her monitors and studied the one Lukas was pointing to. “Seeker just put it up: Three and Seven show some kind of fault.”
“Are you up, Seeker?”
“Yes, sir,” Lukas responded.
“The faults on Three and Seven: Are they similar to what happened to Eight?”
“The safe and continuity circuit faults? Stand by.” She called up a more detailed readout of Kingfisher-3's fault. “Yes, sir, same fault on Three.”
“We're looking at data readouts for the Kingfisher constellation for the past few days before the incident on Eight,” Kai said, “and we're starting to pick up a pattern: The satellites develop an error in the continuity circuits over just about the same location on Earth each time, give or take five hundred miles.”
“That's almost a pinpoint in orbital terms.”
“Exactly. We notice the failures at different times, and they're not exactly the same type of fault, but it's close enough to get our attention. We're trying to get tasking to set up reconnaissance over Venezuela. The Russians have two signals intelligence sites in Venezuela: Caracas and El Tigre. They're doing more than just listening at one of those sites.”
“So you think the Russians are using SIGINT sites to hack into the Kingfisher safe and continuity circuits and fault them so we're forced to shut them down?” Faulkner asked.
“Exactly.”
“Could they have caused Eight to blow itself up?”
“We might have a different reason for that,” Kai said. “Something I remembered about the moments before the accident. Remember that industrial fire we detected right about the same time, Seeker?”
“Yes, sir. We verified it: A Myanmar natural-gas processing facility caught fire. We photographed it afterward.”
“But if you take the typical attack profile of a Chinese DF-21 missile and place the origin of that profile at that spot, the missile would have hit Kingfisher-Eight,” Kai said. “I think the Chinese set an explosion at that natural-gas plant to hide a DF-21 launch.”
“But no other sensors detected a missile launch, sir.”
“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 fineâ¦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.”
U
NITED
N
ATIONS
S
ECURITY
C
OUNCIL
C
HAMBERS
, N
EW
Y
ORK
C
ITY
E
ARLY 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 thatâ”
“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. Ambassadorâattacked 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?”
“I do not know, Mr. Colby,” Li responded. “The Ministry of National Defense is occupied with rescue-and-recovery operations for its heavily damaged warship. I do know that the
Zhenyuan
was dispatched to the region to escort the Somali task force back home to China and to participate in exercises with the Russian navy; I also know that the carrier conducts many drills in preparation for diverse combat operations. And since the group was sailing into a known hostile areaâ”
“Indeedâa hostile area created by
China
!” Colby interjected.
“âI am sure they had an array of aircraft standing by on ready alert to respond to a wide array of threats,” Li went on, ignoring the outburst. He turned to the council chairman. “Why is China being portrayed as the aggressor here, Mr. Chairman? Why is China under such examination?”
“The reason is obvious, Mr. AmbassadorâChinese forces suddenly and without warning attacked the Republic of Yemen in an undeclared act of aggression,” Nascimento said. “The question be
fore this council is whether your actions constituted a reasonable response to an apparent act of aggression against your forces, and was the act of aggression orchestrated by extremists or by the Yemeni government, against whom Chinese forces acted.”
“China has a right to protect itself at all times,” the Chinese ambassador said loudly. “I hear no one asserting or defending this plain and simple fact!”
“That is not in question here,” Nascimento said.
“China refuses to prattle about cause and effect while Chinese sailors are still submerged and trapped in the wreckage of a severely damaged warship, as if we were philosophically discussing the nature of genocide in the midst of a bloodbath,” the Chinese ambassador said angrily. “There are a dozen dead crewmembers still on the deck of the
Wuxi
. The outrage belongs with China, not the United States. This emergency meeting is useless and a complete waste of time. No one here has offered China any assistance in rescuing its sailors or investigating those responsible for attacking our warship.”
“Why should we risk putting rescue workers or investigators on the ground while Chinese warplanes are bombarding Aden?” Colby asked.
“Perhaps that is what we should be discussing: the withdrawal of Chinese forces from the region,” the ambassador from the Russian Federation, Boris Tarzov, a reserved and gentle-voiced young diplomat, suggested.
“Withdrawal?” Ambassador Li asked incredulously. “You mean, take our stricken vessel and our dead and just sail away? If China withdraws, the perpetrators will withdraw as well, and the dead will curse us for our lack of resolve. That is unacceptable.”
“And having Chinese warplanes still attacking the city of Aden and buzzing over commercial and military ships in the Gulf of Aden is also not acceptable,” Ambassador Colby said. “The United States wants to know who hit the hornet's nest with a stick, sir, but
we will not sit idly by while the hornets continue to swarm around the place and sting everyone in sight.”
“I shall be sure to let the families of our dead know of your clever analogy, Mr. Colby,” Ambassador Li said acidly. “And then I will assure them, as I do you now, that China will not leave until the perpetrators of this dastardly act are brought to justiceâ¦
Chinese
justice.”
“How very convenient: Chinese naval forces on both the north and south sides of the Gulf of Aden,” Colby observed, “all because of supposed extremist Islamist attacks on its people and ships? If I didn't know better, Mr. Ambassador, I would say that China is inventing crises to support an imperialistic agenda in that region of the world, a vital choke point to sea traffic for the rest of the world. China has built itself a blue-water navy along with its one-hundred-million-man army, and now it intends to deploy that force wherever it pleases.”
“The United States certainly knows a thing or two about imperialism, instigating violence and death, and inserting military forces in critical areas with the objective of controlling them and closing them off to any power it sees as a threat to its own national interests,” Li said. “Do not seek to lecture the People's Republic of China about secret agendas and military dominationâone needs to do nothing but go outside on a clear night and watch your big bright space station fly overhead to understand that the United States wants nothing more than absolute world control.”
“This argument is getting us nowhere, gentlemen,” Ambassador Tarzov said, his voice calm but his tone surprisingly insistent. “The matter before us is simple: We need to ensure the safety and security of the Chinese navy while they are doing rescue-and-recovery efforts, and we need to launch an investigation as to who did this monstrous deed: Was it Islamist vengeance for attacks in Somalia, as it appears, or was it some other sort of attack?”
“And China needs to ground all those warplanes before any
more innocent men, women, and children are killed!” Colby interjected.
“And leave our sailors and rescue workers exposed to yet more attacks?” Li retorted. “Whom can China trust? The Yemeni army? Has the Yemeni navy and harbor police been infiltrated by jihadists? China demands that some sort of international security force be brought in to keep our sailors safe while we continue rescue-and-recovery activities. Otherwise, our armed patrols will continue.”
“That is not acceptable!” Colby insisted. “China cannot continue attacks over Aden. It is one of the most valuable and strategic ports in the entire Middle East. Insurance rates for ships transiting the area, which is almost one-fourth of all vessels on the high seas, are skyrocketing, as are oil prices. The air raids are terrifying the local residents and are fueling angry protests.”