“Spectral analysis of the radiation showed a sharp spike at 115 keV,” Walker continued, “which is the characteristic signature of positronium annihilation.”
“Would you care to try that again in English, son?” The tall and soft-spoken black man was Louis Carlton Harrel, the president’s national security advisor.
“Antimatter,” Admiral Gray said. “The sons of bitches have an antimatter weapon!”
“Yes, sir,” Walker said. “Specifically, we think they’ve developed a weapon that directs a stream of positrons—antielectrons—at the target. When positrons interact with ordinary matter, the two annihilate each other, releasing a very great deal of energy. That 115 keV spike in the gamma range is the giveaway. We’ve known how to build electron-beam weapons for years, but we can’t begin to generate that much antimatter that quickly.”
“Was it another spacecraft?” General Lamar Turner, the Army chief of staff, wanted to know. “One hidden behind the Moon?”
“Almost certainly not, sir. The power requirements for this kind of weapon are…considerable. Cheyenne thinks it more likely we’re dealing with a ground base, one with a large fusion reactor.”
“A ground base?” Harrel said.
“How the hell did the UNdies get a ground base on the backside of the frigging Moon?” Turner asked.
“We’ve known for some time that they were working at something major back there, sir,” Walker replied. “The transport launches from Kourou and Xichang have been regular as clockwork. And…nothing much has been coming back to Earth. Whatever they’ve been sending up there has been staying there.”
“Tsiolkovsky,” General Sidney said. She closed her eyes. “What would they be building out of our SETI base? What benefit could they—”
“Power, General,” Admiral Gray snapped. “Power from the fusion plant at the site, and Tsiolkovsky’s manufactory.”
“But SETI was shut down,” Turner said, protesting. “Everybody said, with the discoveries on Mars—”
“SETI was shut down,” General Sidney said. “And the UN grabbed the radio-telescope facility in…I think it was ’35, maybe ’36? I’d bet they’re using the factory to turn out something other than telescope components now.”
“Makes sense,” Admiral Gray said, thoughtful. “If they wanted to keep something hidden from us, something big they were building, the Lunar farside would be the place to do it, wouldn’t it?”
“And the SETI facility’s fusion reactor would certainly be big enough to power a weapon like that,” Sidney added.
“The president is going to want to know just what it is they’re building back there,” Harrel said. “He’s also going to want to know how the hell they saw our Sparrow-hawk! That thing’s supposed to be the best we have in stealth technology!”
“Even the best stealth technology,” General Sidney said, “has trouble masking IR. Especially in space, where a ship has to radiate the heat that builds up inside, from power plants and life support.”
“Was that how the enemy tracked them?” General Turner asked. He looked at Walker. “Colonel? What is Cheyenne’s analysis?”
Walker gestured at the IR image on the flatscreen, now frozen in time. “If we could track them by IR, so could the enemy. Now, we knew exactly where to look, of course. Broad-sky IR sweeps can be tricky. CCDs—the charged coupling devices used in such scans—tend to have a very narrow field of view, so you have to know just where to point them. And the Sparrowhawk’s flight profile was designed to keep any radiating surfaces blocked from UN observation by the body of the spacecraft itself. But heat does leak through. Also, to be frank, even a stealth space-craft with a radar cross section the size of my thumbnail can be picked up by a strong enough radar emitter, and the Tsiolkovsky facility can transmit an extremely powerful signal. Our best guess is that the UN forces at the SETI facility were carrying out periodic short-term scans of their horizons, concentrating on probable orbital paths of incoming spacecraft. Once they had a target, they would know exactly where to aim their IR CCDs.”
“But why would they have constructed something as powerful as an antimatter beam weapon on the Lunar farside?” Harrel wanted to know.
Walker clasped his hands behind his back. This was the real bad news, the news he’d feared delivering. There was no way to do it but to be blunt. “There is one other possibility that we need to consider, ladies and gentlemen. An alternative to a major Lunar base with a weapons system with a dedicated fusion plant. There is the possibility that the UN is working on their own version of Ranger. And that they’re using the SETI facilities as a construction site.”
This time, there was no conversation. The room grew so silent that Walker could easily hear the faint, shrill ringing in his ears that told him his blood pressure was rising. Absently, almost automatically, he reached into his blue and black jacket’s inside pocket, extracting the small plastic box with its dose of a single small, blue pill.
“How likely is that?” Archibald Severin, the secretary of defense, wanted to know. “We’ve been getting reports for months, I know, but there’s been no hard data.”
Ignoring the cold stares from his audience, Walker slipped the pill under his tongue, feeling it dwindle and dissolve. Like nitroglycerin, the vasorelaxant absorbed directly into his bloodstream. “So far, we’ve had very little information to work with, sir. And no means at all of gaining confirmation, short of a reconnaissance overflight—which, of course, is what we were trying to do with Black Crystal.”
“If the UN forces are working on a Ranger project of their own…” Gray said. His fist clenched, relaxed, clenched once more. He turned to Marine General Warhurst, seated across the table from him. “Warhurst? Your people are up there now. Any chance they could manage a look-see for us at Tsiolkovsky?”
“My people,” Warhurst replied, “are at Fra Mauro, with orders to conduct a snap raid at Picard. That’s twenty-five hundred kilometers away from Tsiolkovsky, across some of the roughest, most mountainous terrain on the Moon.”
“They have lobbers. Landing modules,” the SECDEF pointed out. “If the enemy is developing their own AM craft, then we are in a race. We must know.”
“Well, having the Marines trek across twenty-five hundred kilometers of Lunar wilderness seems to me to be out of the question,” Turner said. “But they may find some intel that’ll help us at Picard. Billaud might know what’s happening on the farside.”
“Long shot, General,” Admiral Gray said.
“Hell, long shots are all we have, right now.”
“The big question is whether the enemy’s waiting for my people at Picard with something they can’t handle.” Warhurst cocked his head, nailing Walker with a look. “Colonel? Anything at all about UN forces in Crisium? Ship landings? Transports from other Lunar bases?”
“None, General,” Walker replied. “We assume the Sparrowhawk crew was making their observations of the area when the laser took them out.”
“Then they’re going in blind.”
“We’re all blind on this one, General Warhurst,” Turner replied. “I’d say all we can do is send them in and see what they find at Picard.”
“What if the Sparrowhawk was shot down to cover UN deployments at Picard?” Admiral Gray said. “They could be walking into a trap.”
“We at least should warn them,” Warhurst said, “that Black Crystal was shot down.”
“I would strongly recommend against that,” Arthur Kinsley, the director of Central Intelligence said. “The Marines must reach Picard if we’re to have a chance of capturing Billaud. What can we tell them? To be careful?