Orbital Disruption Read online

  Orbital Disruption

  Andrew Brook

  Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Brook

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To my wife who supports my hobbies, even when they seem more like work: Thank you.

  And to my daughter who will undoubtedly experience a future beyond what I can imagine: Sail forth!

  Contents

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Foreword

  Several years ago, in an old (“historic”) office building in an unfashionable neighborhood of an unappreciated suburb of New York City, I was fortunate enough to join a remarkable team of engineers. When we weren’t hacking network protocols, natural language parsers and capital markets, we were having the most fascinating conversations. Business, politics and popular culture came up regularly but the focus on most days was technology.

  These were the days when Boston Dynamics unveiled BigDog, Google and others made great strides in autonomous vehicles, SpaceX amazed us with their reusable rockets and almost everyone was flying their first quadcopter. It was shortly after Planetary Resources announced their mission to mine the asteroid belt that one of us (I’ve forgotten who) asked what the follow-on business model would be. If the true success stories of the California gold rush were the sellers of shovels and blue jeans then who would follow the robot spacecraft to the asteroid belt? There were several suggestions but one in particular caught my imagination: space piracy!

  That startup is still going strong but I’ve moved on as have most of the others with whom I enjoyed those conversations back at the old Journal Square office. Thank you, Selerity teammates, for the fond memories and creative inspiration.

  One

  Space is boring … most of the time.

  For millennia a massive lump of iron, nickel and water ice passed silently through the void. Roughly spherical and almost two hundred meters in diameter, it weighed over sixteen million tons. It simply drifted in peace, only rarely jostled by a collision or gently tugged by the gravitational pull of Jupiter, three hundred million kilometers away.

  Six months ago everything changed when a fleet of robotic spacecraft arrived. A dozen in total, each a cylinder three meters long and a meter in diameter with landing legs and sensors on one end and the conical exhaust of an ion drive on the other end. Several members of the fleet examined samples of the body known only as asteroid 207302 and confirmed that it was special. Now it experienced the weak but steady push of an array of ion drives and its orbit was slowly bent in the direction of the brightest star in the sky. With a gravity less than one millionth that of Earth, asteroid 207302 had no real internal structure and would easily deform under even the gentle nudge of the ion drives. To prevent this, a coarse net of carbon fiber strands now enveloped the loose agglomeration of metallic rocks and ice fragments.

  The members of the fleet that captured the asteroid had affixed themselves to the netting and all but one were firing their ion drives, converting the power released by the radioactive decay of several kilograms of plutonium 238 into powerful electrical fields. These fields accelerated a trickle of ionized xenon gas to relativistic speeds, imparting a small but steady force in the opposite direction. It was slow but efficient.

  One of the spacecraft sat on the far side of the asteroid, opposite its fleet-mates. It was anchored to the asteroid surface like its peers but instead of firing its drive, it had deployed a delicate origami-folded antenna facing Earth. Acting as a communication relay, it reported steady progress to its masters. At their current rate the journey would take another two years but it didn’t care. A robot is nothing if not patient.

  The collision occurred with such velocity that it seemed as if the relay spacecraft had exploded. One moment it was sitting perfectly still, transmitting periodic messages and listening for instructions. The next moment it was simply gone. The landing legs and anchor hook were crumpled but still attached to the netting that surrounded the asteroid. The squat cylindrical body, dented almost beyond recognition, was tumbling away and the delicate high-gain antenna was a rapidly expanding cloud of debris.

  Less than an hour after the collision occurred, a new spacecraft gently coasted past the asteroid. The new craft, at roughly half a meter in length was smaller than the others and of a less elegant design. Where the others were smoothly curved and covered in bright corporate logos, the new one was boxy, unadorned and painted matte black. Virtually invisible against the dark backdrop of space, it went unnoticed.

  Once on the side opposite Earth, the new spacecraft fired a brief burst of pressurized inert gas. Far less efficient than an ion drive but with much higher specific impulse (and low detectability), the maneuver brought the new spacecraft alongside the asteroid. Surveying the scene with its camera it selected the closest ion drive and, careful to avoid the faintly incandescent plasma plume, fired brief bursts of gas until it was floating just a few centimeters from the other craft’s hull. The interloper extended a short arm with a simple three-digit claw and grasped one of the legs that supported the drive. Securely anchored, it scanned the surface of the other robotic spacecraft until it found its target. It extended a second arm tipped with a screwdriver and proceeded to remove the four screws that held a thin sheet of metal in place on the hull. The access cover was discarded and drifted away slowly. Inside the hull, a circuit board was visible. The second arm retracted, exchanged the screwdriver tip for a USB connector on the end of a cable. It carefully extended the connector into the gap and gently attached it to a matching USB socket on the exposed circuit board. Confirming that the connection had been established, the interloper uploaded new programming, the most important part of which was to assure the other craft of the small fleet that the interloper was one of them and should be permitted to join the low-power mesh radio network that they used to communicate.

  Having successfully joined the fleet, the interloper disconnected the USB cable and released its grasping arm. Firing its gas thrusters again it gently drifted around the asteroid to a point that would be near the equator if the drives marked the south pole. Extending its grasping arm it anchored itself directly to the dark carbon fiber netting.

  New instructions were conveyed to the ion drives commanding several on one side to cease thrusting, inducing a slow rotation in the asteroid.

  Using the positions of the stars as reference, it carefully aimed a laser at
a point in the asteroid belt more than 50 million miles away. It accumulated charge in an array of capacitors from its small radioisotope thermoelectric generator for several minutes. When sufficient power was available the laser flashed a brief pulse, modulated with an encrypted twenty-one-byte message:

  207302 CAPTURED, ARR!

  Two

  Dennis Li detested hotel bars.

  He hated hotels, too. And conferences. And anywhere that was crowded with people. But especially hotel bars. And especially hotel bars that pretended to be something they weren’t. Like a faux Irish pub in Japan.

  Perhaps his ex girlfriend had been right and he was mildly autistic. Or maybe he was just an antisocial ass. She’d said that too. More than once. Or maybe he just didn’t like most people, especially when they were all gathered together in their herd-like stupidity. That wasn’t a syndrome or something, was it?

  Clad in faded jeans, sneakers and a worn t-shirt bearing the logo of a cloud computing vendor with a hooded sweatshirt draped over his lap, Dennis didn’t look like the suited salarymen who took up most of the seats at the bar. But in recent years this hotel bar had seen enough examples of nerdus technorati that his clothes didn’t attract attention.

  Dennis looked at the bottle of overpriced Sapporo for the fifth time, turning it slowly in his hands. It was nearly empty but he didn’t really feel like ordering another. He was drinking mainly to kill time. And despite his hatred of hotel bars, that’s where Tony had insisted on meeting. And Tony had said it was important. So...

  “Denny!” a voice boomed out across the background din of the bar. Tony had arrived.

  Dennis turned to see Tony Vincent striding purposefully through the entrance, dark suit jacket casually slung over one should, the other arm extended in an exaggerated wave, wide grin across his face. Dennis tried to put on a smile and just nodded to acknowledge that he’d seen Tony. As if anyone could ever fail to notice him. Tony had the personality, the looks, the height and the money to catch anyone’s attention. The fact that he didn’t take himself nearly as seriously as everyone else did was about the only thing that made him ok as far as Dennis was concerned. That and the fact that he was a pretty good business partner.

  As Tony reached the bar, he paused and looked back over his shoulder.

  “Jessica!” Tony shouted and sure enough, Dennis saw a woman trailing in Tony’s wake.

  The woman caught up to Tony and he gestured from her to Dennis.

  “Jessica, meet Jovian’s co-founder, Dennis Li,” Tony said dramatically. “Denny, meet Jessica Stewart, aerospace analyst at Merchant and Hitchcox.”

  Dennis dutifully rose from his stool, set his empty beer bottle on the bar and offered his hand to Jessica.

  “Pleased to meet you, Jessica.”

  “The pleasure is mine, Dennis,” Jessica replied, smiling. She had a firm handshake. “I’ve been following you since Starlight.”

  Dennis’s smile flickered for a moment and it was only with effort that he re-engaged it.

  “Ah, yes. Starlight. Well, that’s a long time ago.”

  “Sure, but it was amazing what you guys pulled off,” Jessica insisted. If she’d noticed his discomfort, she didn’t let it slow her down. “The first commercial nanosats to reach the belt. And on a shoestring budget. Pretty impressive stuff.”

  Dennis felt his smile morph a little from a pasted-on emoji to a real expression. “Yeah, it was a pretty good hack.”

  “Aw, that’s nothing compared to what we’re doing now, though,” Tony interjected, pantomiming nudging Dennis in the ribs with his elbow. “Right, Dennis?”

  “Heh. Yeah, Tony,” Dennis replied and rolled his eyes.

  “I’ll buy the next round if you’ll tell me about it,” Jessica said.

  Dennis shrugged his shoulders but Tony countered, “Oh, we’ll be happy to tell you all about it. Jovian Resources is going to be way bigger than Starlight. A flying decacorn, seriously! But I’m buying!”

  “Ok, Tony. You’re buying,” Jessica laughed. “But I want to hear Dennis’s version. We all know you’re the salesman here. I want to talk to the engineer.”

  Dennis knew it was flattery and probably had a motive but… he smiled anyway.

  “Ok, let’s get a table somewhere quieter,” he suggested. “I don’t want any of these ExLaxers to overhear.” He laughed as he said it and was surprised to realize he was genuinely looking forward to talking with Jessica.

  “So, what does, um, Merchant and, uh,” Dennis started to ask as the hostess showed them to a booth. Jessica sat down and slid in and Tony sat down next to Jessica. Dennis slid into the bench on the other side of the narrow table. The booth was around the corner from the main bar. It wasn’t quiet but it was possible to talk without shouting.

  “Merchant and Hitchcox,” Jessica completed. “We’re a private equity firm that specializes in aerospace and defense. We invest in companies that make aircraft, spacecraft, missiles, rockets, satellites, etc. Anything that ‘goes fast, goes high or goes boom’ as John Merchant, one of our founding partners puts it.”

  “Well, that explains why you’re here at Narita,” Dennis responded.

  “Yep. Part of my job is attending trade conferences like ‘Aerospace Asia’ to hear the presentations and meet the executives. Understand what’s happening and where each firm is going. And then I fly back to L.A. and write a big research report for my bosses. Rinse. Repeat.”

  “Don’t let her modesty fool you, Dennis,” Tony interjected. “Merchant and Hitchcox led a massive multi-billion dollar investment in Falcon Drone Defense last year. And helped broker the sale of Lightwave to Mitsubishi. Those guys are heavy hitters and Jessica’s their star analyst.”

  Jessica smiled at Tony and dipped her head briefly saying, “I think you overestimate my influence.”

  At that moment a waitress appeared. Tony ordered a whiskey that Dennis had never heard of but assumed was Scottish, old and expensive. Jessica ordered a cocktail, the name of which Dennis didn’t quite hear and Dennis ordered another bottle of Sapporo. As soon as the waitress turned away, Jessica resumed the conversation.

  “Tell me what happened after Starlight,” Jessica said, leaning across the table.

  “Well, you know I sold Starlight to Excelsior Launch Systems a few years ago,” Dennis started. Jessica nodded.

  “ExLax,” Tony explained helpfully.

  “Yes, I gathered as much,” Jessica responded without turning away from Dennis. “I take it you didn’t get along with those guys?”

  “Well, Starlight was just about out of cash,” Dennis explained, “so we didn’t have much leverage in the negotiations. We’d managed to launch our mission to the asteroid belt but we didn’t have enough capital to keep up operations while we waited almost two years for the craft to reach their destination. I thought we could raise a series B but… nobody wanted to put more money in until the technology was proven. So when ExLax made me an offer, well… I had to take it.”

  “So Excelsior got Starlight cheap?” Jessica’s smile was gone, replaced by an empathetic frown.

  “Cheap. Yeah. Ruben St. James and his crew basically bought us for nothing. They assumed some debt and committed to funding operations for the rest of the mission. In return they got the entire company.”

  “Wow,” Jessica said softly.

  “Hey, at the time I was just happy that we’d get to complete the mission,” Dennis explained, shrugging his shoulders. “The alternative was to pack up and go home. So we took Ruben’s offer.”

  Dennis paused for a moment. Remembering. His heart rate accelerated. He felt his palms grow damp. Five years. Five years of non-stop labor. Blood, sweat and tears. Literally. Annie leaving him when he mortgaged their condo. The calls from collection agents.

  “The mission was a success, right?” Jessica prodded.

  “Yes. Definitely. The RTG’s and ion drives worked flawlessly. We got the timing right, too. The laser pulse from the spotter ship came just as the impactor
hit the asteroid. The trailing sensor craft got a clear reading from the other side of the plume. Like playing billiards from five hundred million miles away and sinking the shot. And we got lucky - the rock we hit had high concentrations of water ice mixed in with iron, nickel and a lot of valuable trace elements like platinum.”

  “So it basically validated the technology and the business case for asteroid harvesting,” Jessica concluded.

  “Indeed. We handed Excelsior a billion-dollar business on a platter. One that we’d worked our asses off for. We’d scraped by for years on nickels and dimes. You know we crowdsourced our first ion drive test flight, right?” Dennis looked at Jessica intently. The sacrifice was still raw, even after all this time.

  “Yes,” Jessica affirmed. “I still have the glow-in-the-dark t-shirt somewhere.”

  “Really?” Dennis smiled, taken aback. “Well, um, thank you.”

  “You were saying about the mission,” Jessica prodded gently to get Dennis back on track.

  “Yeah. After the mission was a success, Excelsior got the tech, a massive IPO and all of the credit. When they’d first approached us about buying Starlight, they were so nice and friendly. Telling us how brilliant we were and how they wanted to ‘join the mission’.” Dennis was getting angry again.