Chapter 6

Syra knew something was wrong,but no matter how she searched Star’s systems, she couldn’t find anything the matter. Other than running basic diagnostics, she’d couldn’t delve too deeply because Lucius sat close beside her and would want to know what was wrong. So she did her best to make it look like routine maintenance checks, which she never had to do because Star typically reported any systems’ problem long before Syra could have detected them.

Star’s latest diagnostic report ran one line longer than normal. It caught her attention simply because it wasn’t in the normal pattern. The line displayed for such a short moment that Syra would have doubted it had been there, except for the latent impression on her retina:

It’s not me.

If whatever was wrong wasn’t Star…

Syra didn’t like the implications of that, but couldn’t ask the computer what she’d meant. Not with Lucius right there.

Everything looked normal.

Except for the looming Mirror Moon. It was finally expanding from a navigation point to displaying a visible diameter. At their current rate of closure, it would eclipse the Earth in another minute. They’d be aboard in two.

If the defense system didn’t decide to kill them.

The mirror moon was a double mirror.

Facing Earth was a kilometer-wide reflector tuned to redirect and spread the ground-based particle beam into a lethal swath fifty-kilometers across. The Indians had raked it methodically over all of the surrounding landscape. They’d swept it over Pakistan for four complete passes. Not even microbes could have survived that level of abuse.

Facing the sun were a thousand steerable mirrors that had the opposite function: they gathered all of the sunlight striking the backside for the half orbit that it faced the sun. That sunlight was then focused on a collector tower at the very center of the mirror. That’s where the Mirror Moon gathered the power to remain in a geosynchronous position despite being in Low Earth Orbit. It set up a magnetic field that pushed against Earth’s magnetic field to keep it high above India.

Atop that solar energy collection tower was a flat spot too small for any ship…except an Inserter.

Hoping her retro rocket flare to land on the collector’s tip would be hidden by the sunlight pounding into the underside of the collector’s head, Syra unleashed a full burn at the last second.

Star even calculated the maximum compression on her landing struts to minimize burn time. They slammed down, eliciting a hard grunt from Lucius. Then Star pinned them in place with maneuvering thrusters followed up with spikes ejected through the landing pads.

“Now what Mr. Genius Roodee?”

“Now we wait six hours.”

“Why six hours?”

“Because thirty meters below us is the collection point for 4.29 gigawatts of solar energy. I’d rather not descend through that while the mirror is facing the sun.”

Syra wondered at his calm. They were perched atop the deadliest weapon in Earth’s very deadly history. Yet, they were oddly safe. Six hours with nothing to do except stare at the stars.

Nothing to do except listen to her pulse pounding in her ears.

“You know…” Lucius started in a soft voice, but his words ran out.

She knew. Her body knew. The Royal Dweeb Engineer had landed her on the ultimate target for a military operator. How many late nights had she spent in a Marine bar with a dozen other grunts trying to solve the Mirror Moon problem? Every scenario had been proposed: massive invasion forces (except Spec Ops was never a massive force, even before all of the disasters down on the surface), a small operational detachment (but they’d tried that and lost four top operators), missile strikes…nothing worked.

Yet she was sitting here on the Mirror Moon. Just her.

Her and the blond-haired, blue-eyed RDE.

Spec Ops Marines were smarter than the average spacer and had the bodies to match their job. She’d never accepted anything less in her bed.

Unable to help herself, she turned to look at Lucius. Earth-grav muscular, and smart enough get her to the Mirror Moon—something all of command’s best had never achieved.

Being a girl of action—once she knew her target (holy vacuum, she wasn’t going to think about the three wasted days they’d taken getting here)—she kissed him.

Lucius didn’t do some tentative little engineer peck. Instead he reacted like a man who’d been way ahead of her on thinking about this. He brought a heat to the kiss that threatened to match the solar burn going on mere meters below their perch.

She really wasn’t going to think about the three wasted days.