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The High Ground

by Henry Herz


Ocean City, FL, Sunday

Julie Harris’s stomach rumbled as she finished her run shortly after sunset. She stretched her short, well-toned legs on the front porch of her Cape Cod–style home. The enticing aroma of steak and potatoes au gratin welcomed her as she pushed open the front door and unlaced her Nikes. The midsoles are starting to compress. “Dinner smells great, Bill.”

After rehydrating and a quick shower, Julie threw on shorts and a U.S. Space Force T-shirt. She smiled upon entering the dining room—nice tablecloth, two lit candles, and her handsome blue-eyed husband uncorking a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. “Ooh, I’ll take a glass of that, please.”

Dessert consisted of Betty Crocker fudge brownies, slightly undercooked, just the way Julie liked them. “Dinner was delicious. But I can’t help wondering if I’m being set up for some bad news from Hurlburt Field.”

Bill sighed. “Am I that transparent?” He ran a hand through short-cropped brown hair. “The National Reconnaissance Office reports massive Chinese preparations for an assault on Taiwan. The works—amphibious forces, short-range ballistic missiles, airborne forces, submarines. The 73rd Special Operations Squadron has been ordered to deploy to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. We ship out tomorrow.”

Julie’s throat tightened. The downside of marrying an AC-130J Ghostrider fire control officer. He’s often flying into danger.

Bill pointed to the kitchen. “I’m afraid you’ll be batching it for a while.”

Julie took her husband’s calloused hand. A knowing look passed between them, interrupted by her work phone ringing. The number displayed was from her office at Eglin Air Force Base. “Lieutenant Colonel Harris,” she answered. “Uh-huh . . . . . . . . . Uh-huh.” Crap. “Very well, Sergeant. I’ll see you tomorrow at oh-seven-hundred.” She hung up and scowled.

Bill raised his eyebrows.

“A decommissioned Chinese weather satellite in polar orbit disintegrated. My team now has over two thousand more trackable pieces of debris to monitor.”

“Is that unusual?” asked Bill, clearing the dishes.

“They’re not sure if it was the result of a conjunction. But satellite high-pressure propellant tanks rarely rupture on their own . . .” She stood. “Shit.”

“What?”

Julie stood. “I get paid to be paranoid. So, given your news, I wonder if someone tested an antisatellite weapon. Knocking out our reconnaissance satellites would cripple our ability to respond to an attack on Taiwan.”

Neither of them slept well that night.

Eglin Air Force Base, FL, Monday

Julie strode into the conference room at the headquarters of United States Space Force’s 20th Space Surveillance Squadron. Her briefing team stood. “As you were. Any update on the Chinese weather satellite?”

“We double-checked the radar tracks and confirmed it wasn’t struck by debris,” replied her executive officer, Major Josh Waxler. “And we have no record of satellites of that model suffering spontaneous explosions.”

Julie’s face tightened. Making it more likely it was an ASAT test. “Very well. What’s on the board for this week?”

Waxler ran through his PowerPoint, quickly covering routine squadron operations. “There will be another bit of excitement on Thursday,” he concluded. “The Chinese are expected to launch a Long March 9 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.”

Julie’s eyes widened. “A super-heavy carrier rocket. Does Intelligence think the payload will be military?”

“No, ma’am. Their assessment is a supply delivery to the Tiangong space station.”

Julie nodded. “Very well.”

On his way out of Julie’s office, Waxler turned. “Don’t forget, ma’am, you’ve got that news interview in Pensacola at fourteen-hundred today. ABC local affiliate.”

“I thought you got me out of that?”

Waxler shook his head. “Sorry, boss. Couldn’t do it. Public Affairs says it’s your turn in the barrel. And heads up regarding the guy who’ll be interviewing you. He’s more of a weatherman than a military-affairs reporter. He knows less about Space Force than my golden retriever.”

“Roger that,” Julie replied.

WEAR-TV Station, Pensacola, FL

A young, enthusiastic production assistant led Julie to the TV station’s sound stage. “Ma’am, this is Fred Burns, our military-affairs reporter. Fred, this is Lieutenant Colonel Julie Harris.”

“Actually, it’s military-affairs journalist,” corrected a man with a bushy mustache and receding hairline. Burns impatiently shooed away a makeup person, who barely had time to remove the paper towels protecting his out-of-style tweed blazer.

Douchenozzle, thought Julie.

“Welcome to our studio. May I call you Julie?”

“Since I’m here in uniform in an official capacity, Mr. Burns, it would be more appropriate if you addressed me by my rank.”

His face reddening, Burns called out, “Someone mic the colonel.”

After introducing his guest, Burns went straight for the funny bone. “Is it true, Colonel, that members of Space Force are called guardians?” He winked at the camera. “As in Guardians of the Galaxy?

Julie offered a made-for-TV smile. “Actually, Fred, the term comes from the Air Force Space Command’s motto, Guardians of the High Frontier.”

A scowl flitted across Burns’s face. “And the delta symbol on Space Force’s insignia looks awfully familiar.” He broke eye contact with Julie to deliver his punchline to the camera. “Does Space Force owe royalties to Gene Roddenberry?”

Julie kept her face from sneering with an effort of will. Do you really want to keep playing this game? “That was funny when George Takei first tweeted it, but the reverse is true. Some U.S. Air Force unit emblems have featured a delta symbol since long before the original Star Trek series.”

Burns gave it one last try before transitioning into a more serious tone. “What can you tell our viewers about Space Force that they can’t learn from the Netflix series starring Steve Carell and John Malkovich?”

Finally.

Julie turned to the camera. “As I’m sure you know, Fred, access to space is critical not just to our national defense, but also to scientific research, communications, financial and economic information networks, public safety, and weather monitoring. Space Force’s Operations Command is comprised of a number of Deltas, which are analogous to Air Force Wings. Space Delta 2 includes five squadrons and is responsible for space domain awareness. I have the honor of commanding the 20th Space Surveillance Squadron. Our primary job is to track objects in orbit.”

“Kind of like space lifeguards,” interjected Burns, “but without the sunblock. Forgive me, but that doesn’t sound as exciting as flying space shuttles.”

What a turdwhistle. Julie nodded. “Oh, it’s very boring . . . . . . . . . until it isn’t. Even a one-centimeter piece of junk”—her eyes flicked to Burns’s crotch—“will ruin your day if it hits you at seventeen thousand miles an hour. Our job is very much to keep things as boring as possible. That’s not easy because there are a lot of objects orbiting the planet. Between operational and retired spacecraft, rocket bodies, fragmentation and mission-related debris, and the occasional meteorite, we track tens of thousands of pieces of debris larger than a softball. There are half a million golf ball–sized fragments and millions of smaller items we can’t track. Even flecks of paint can damage a spacecraft.”

Burns spread his arms, attempting to make himself relevant. “But isn’t space so vast that the chances of a collision are tiny?”

Julie offered Burns a steely gaze. “The International Space Station has had to maneuver dozens of times to avoid space junk. In 1996, a French satellite was damaged by fragments from a French rocket that had exploded a decade earlier. The impact created even more debris. Spacefaring nations need to do more to clean up the mess we make.”

“Colonel, tell us about the wonderfully expensive toys you get to use.”

Julie took a breath. “We operate GEODSS, AN/FPS-85, GSSAP, and Space Fence.”

“Ah, the military loves their acronyms. What do those stand for?”

Julie warmed to her topic. “The Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance network comprises telescopes in New Mexico, Hawaii, and Diego Garcia. The thirty-two-megawatt AN/FPS-85 phased array radar at Eglin can track a baseball-sized object in orbit at 22,236-mile altitude. The Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program uses orbiting telescopes to track geostationary objects. Space Fence ground-based radars monitor anything from low Earth orbit out to geostationary.”

The director gestured for them to wrap up the interview.

“Well, I’m afraid that’s all the time we have.” Fred extended a hand. “Thank you for visiting us, Colonel. To infinity and beyond!”

Julie rolled her green eyes. What a wankhammer. She squeezed unnecessarily hard when they shook hands.

Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Gobi Desert, Thursday

The Chinese Long March 9 rocket towered 350 feet above Launch Area 4’s pad SLS-1. After a flawless countdown, twenty-six 200-ton-thrust methane/liquid oxygen first-stage engines lit up, pushing the 165-ton rocket skyward with an ear-shattering roar. Trailing a silver-white column of smoke and flame, the Long March reached an altitude of forty miles. Explosive bolts fired, disconnecting the now-spent first stage, which would plummet to Earth like the metal casing of an enormous bullet. Four 120-ton-thrust hydrogen-oxygen second-stage engines fired, accelerating the rocket to 17,000 miles per hour. The sky transitioned from atmospheric blue to the black of space. At an altitude of 240 miles, the second stage separated. The single-engine third stage inserted an unmanned Shenlong-3 spaceplane into low Earth orbit.

Over the next few hours, the Shenlong maneuvered next to a decommissioned Chinese communications satellite and matched its orbit. An operator at Jiuquan SLC directed a robotic arm to extend and gently grapple the satellite. After the satellite was stabilized and precisely positioned to the earthward side of the Shenlong, the arm deployed a small thruster pack from Shenlong’s cargo bay. Neodymium magnets locked the pack to the side of the satellite.

Command signals from Jiuquan initiated the thruster pack on the satellite, nudging it earthward, where it subsequently burned up upon atmospheric reentry.

The spacecraft fired its thrusters, maneuvering for several hours toward a spent second stage from an old Long March 5 rocket. Over the next twenty-four hours, it successfully deorbited two more large pieces of debris.

The Shenlong deployed its fifth and final package on the inactive Xuntian space telescope. This package was larger and more sophisticated than the other four. Installation by the Shenlong’s robotic arm took considerably longer, as it involved connecting the new hardware with the satellite’s telescope control and power subsystems. The package’s compact nuclear reactor provided electrical power, reactivating the Xuntian and reorienting its telescope earthward. Operators ran the sensor through an exhaustive series of tests. The reactor also powered a 50-megawatt linear accelerator.

Eglin AFB, Friday

Major Waxler knocked on Julie’s open office door. “Got a minute, ma’am?”

Julie set a staffing report down on her cluttered desk. “Sure. What’s up, Josh?”

“Looks like the Chinese are cleaning up some of their orbital debris.”

Julie’s eyebrows rose. “Really? That’s a welcome change.”

“Yes, ma’am. The AN/FPS-85 has been tracking Thursday’s Long March launch. Intelligence assesses the payload as a Shenlong. Over the last thirty-six hours, the unmanned spacecraft docked with five large pieces of low-Earth-orbit debris, starting with a nonfunctional satellite. The Shenlong then executed a controlled reentry, successfully landing on the three-mile-long runway in the salt flats at Lop Nur in southeastern Xinjiang. Spy satellite imagery observed extensive scorch marks on the nose cone and wing leading-edge insulating tiles.” Waxler scratched his chin. “The Shenlong’s first four maneuvers succeeded in deorbiting junk, but the fifth attempt on a defunct Xuntian space telescope produced no observable effect.”

Julie nodded. “Probably a malfunction in the fifth thruster pack or the comms link.”

Low Earth Orbit, Monday

Directed by Chinese ground controllers, the reactivated telescope aboard the Xuntian slewed, locking onto a defunct Russian Meteor-1 weather satellite orbiting roughly fifty miles away. Target data was fed to the newly installed linear accelerator, which featured two long parallel electrodes separated by insulating spacers.

Receiving and twice confirming the order to fire, the rail gun formed a plasmoid sheet armature. A current pulse driven from one electrode, through the armature, to the other electrode, generated an immensely powerful magnetic field behind the armature. Since the current flowed perpendicular to the magnetic field, the armature experienced a Lorentz force, accelerating the plasmoid down the length of the rail gun.

The high-temperature slug of ionized particles hurtled toward the nonoperational weather satellite at 125 miles per second. The impact inflicted massive mechanical and thermal shocks, as well as a pulse of high-energy x-rays that would have scrambled the onboard electronics had the satellite not suffered catastrophic structural failure from the strike.

Eglin AFB, Monday

Julie stood in the squadron’s command and control center, a fresh coffee warming her left hand.

“Colonel, you’re gonna want to see this,” said a specialist four seated in front of a large monitor. “We just lost track on the old Meteor-1 satellite.”

Frowning, Julie asked, “Could it be a sensor error or—”

“Space Fence detecting new fragments in the vicinity of Meteor-1, Colonel,” reported a tech sergeant from three monitors over.

Julie strode over. “Sergeant, check the Space Fence logs over the last twelve hours for possible conjunction.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Julie never drank that cup of coffee.

An hour later, Major Waxler rushed into her office. “Colonel, we’ve ruled out space debris collision with Meteor-1.”

Julie’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “How close to that inactive Xuntian was it at the time of destruction?”

Wexler sat and checked his ever-present laptop. “Roughly forty-eight miles, Colonel.”

Close enough. I hope I’m wrong. Julie typed rapidly on her computer. “I’ll have a GSSAP surveillance mission retasking for you in a few minutes, Josh.”

Geosynchronous Orbit, Monday

Space Delta 2 regularly employed the electro-optical sensors of GSSAP satellites to view objects orbiting geosynchronously, 22,236 miles above the Earth. Upon receiving new observation tasking, one GSSAP telescope slewed earthward to track the Xuntian in low Earth orbit. The telescope zoomed in, transmitting images to Space Force headquarters in the Pentagon, provoking a flurry of profanity-laced activity.

Eglin AFB, Tuesday

Major Waxler marched into Julie’s office grim faced, closing the door behind himself.

“That bad, Josh?”

“Yes, ma’am. Intelligence believes the recent visit by a Chinese spacecraft to the Xuntian attached a weapon . . . . . . . . . a directed-energy weapon.”

Julie’s shoulders slumped. “That makes it more likely they destroyed Meteor-1! Christ. The implications are enormous.”

Waxler sat. “It would appear the Chinese violated the Outer Space Treaty.”

Staring back, Julie replied, “Yes, but I’m more worried that we may soon start to lose our intelligence-gathering satellites, specifically those that monitor the Taiwan Strait. This could quite possibly be a prelude to an assault on Taiwan.”

“Shit.”

Julie scowled. “But it’s even worse than that. A directed-energy weapon in low Earth orbit could be used for more than destroying satellites.”

Waxler’s mouth dropped open as the implication sunk in.

Julie nodded. “Exactly. It might have the ability to intercept nuclear ballistic missiles. A constellation of directed-energy weapons would undermine the reliability of our ICBMs and SLBMs. Neutralizing our nuclear deterrent would leave the People’s Liberation Army free to exploit their conventional numerical superiority in attacking Taiwan.” She ran a hand through her blonde hair. “Get me the latest assessment of scheduled Chinese heavy-lift launches.” She straightened. “Wait. Do we have an X-39 in orbit currently?”

“Yes, ma’am. What do you have in mind?”

“Something I’ll have to run all the way up the chain of command to the Chief of Space Operations.”

Waxler stiffened.

Eglin AFB, Wednesday

Over the last twenty-four hours, Julie’s office phone rang frequently, but not all calls are created equal. “Lieutenant Colonel Harris,” she answered.

“Hey, Julie. This is Max,” replied Colonel Max Martin, commander of Space Delta 2.

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“I’m calling about your request to retask an X-39. That’s a big ask. If we divert it for you, Space Delta 8 is gonna be some kind of pissed because one of their WGS satellites is long overdue for a repair mission.”

Julie’s stomach tightened. “Yes, sir. But the Chinese have a number of Long March 9s on launch pads. That suggests they could launch more ASATs after their successful test. Those weapons would threaten our ability to have eyes on what they’re planning in Taiwan.”

“Even if you’re right, I’m not certain the X-39 will be able to successfully execute the mission you proposed on such short notice. Permission denied.”

Julie hung up the phone and scowled. “Shit.” This is more important than my job. She dialed an old friend at Peterson Space Force Base, Mike Gibbs, who just happened to be Command Master Sergeant for Lieutenant General Thompson, commander of Space Operations Command.

Gibbs sat up. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked after Julie outlined her request. “Colonel Martin is not gonna be happy about you going over his head.”

Julie nodded. Understatement of the year. “I don’t see that there’s any choice. This is a chance to convince China to cancel its attack on Taiwan. And if the mission gets blown and China figures out it was us sabotaging their system, they can’t complain about it because they’d have to acknowledge they put a nuclear-powered weapon in orbit. Anyway, country before career, right?”

Gibb’s throat tightened. “You’ve got some serious balls, Julie. Very well. I’ll pass your plan on to General Thompson. I hope you’re right—for your sake and all our sakes.”

Low Earth Orbit, Friday

Per orders from General Thompson, Space Delta 9 diverted an unmanned X-39 spacecraft from its planned orbit for a surreptitious rendezvous with the Xuntian. The spacecraft’s supercomputer-designed shape and radar-absorbing materials rendered it effectively invisible to enemy radar. After maneuvering to within three feet of the Xuntian, the X-39 transmitted real-time video. Space Delta 9 guardians ordered its robotic arm to extend a radiometer to measure gamma radiation, x-ray radiation, and beta-particle flux density. Upon observing levels strongly suggesting the presence of a nuclear reactor, ground-based controllers instructed the robotic claw hand to “reengineer” the Chinese linear plasma rail gun.

First, the claw severed the cable providing electrical power to the Xuntian, returning the telescope to a nonfunctioning state. Second, it pinched the breech of the rail gun’s bore, deforming the triple joint seal and ruining the electrical insulation needed for the weapon to function. The sabotage completed, the Space Force ninja glided silently back to its originally planned orbit, while far below, Space Force guardians cheered raucously.

Ministry of National Defense compound,

Beijing, China, Friday

Select members of China’s Central Military Commission sat around a long mahogany table in a secure conference room. All but one had surly expressions at having been summoned at such a late hour.

“My apologies, General Secretary,” began a People’s Liberation Army general. Sweat beaded on his brow. “This is a most urgent matter for the Commission. The first of our satellite-based plasma weapons is no longer replying to our commands . . . . . . . . . for unknown reasons.”

The General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, effectively the dictator of China, scowled. “Do you understand the gravity of the situation, General? We have nine rockets standing by, ready to deploy the full constellation of antisatellite weapons. And Operation Typhoon cannot commence until we’ve blinded the American military.”

“Ye . . . . . . . . . yes, sir. I recommend we not launch any more of these weapons until we understand what happened to the first one.”

“And how soon will that be, General?” he asked softly, but the menace behind the question was palpable.

The general’s heart pounded. “We will have to modify the recently returned Shenlong-3 for a recovery mission, then replace the payload of one of our Long March rockets. The Shenlong will retrieve the malfunctioning weapon so we can analyze it in a lab, identify the problem, and determine the appropriate corrections. If hardware modifications are needed, we will have to pull the other Shenlong vehicles from their rockets. The entire operation could take months, sir.” He wilted under the General Secretary’s stare. Men had been shot for less. At least I’ve planned for this. My children are studying in Europe and know what to do if I disappear.

Eglin AFB, Saturday

Julie called her senior staff into her office. The stress-induced lines on her face from the last few days had smoothed away. “Good news. Intelligence reports the Chinese are standing down their invasion forces. It would seem they don’t want to attack with our reconnaissance satellites intact and able to report their every move to Taiwan. Good work, everyone. We prevented a war from starting, at least for now. First round’s on me once we’re off duty.”

A round of cheers erupted as her personal phone buzzed.

A text from her husband read, Hi Sweetie. Our squadron expects to return home within four days. Whatever you did must’ve worked. So proud of you! Will be making you fancy dinners for a week.

***


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