July 9, 2005 - Port-aux-Français - Kerguelen Islands - French Southern and Antarctic Lands - Southern Indian Ocean

MacKenna stepped off the gangplank of the Marion Dufresne II and headed toward the waiting truck at the end of the dock. “Bonjour, Générale MacKenna! Welcome to Port-aux-Français. My name is Dr. Léon Dupond, and I’ll be your tour guide, so to speak. I must say I was surprised to receive a phone call from the Ambassador to the UN to expect an Irish Générale on the next supply run. He wouldn’t say anything more, and directed me to answer all your questions.”

MacKenna smiled to the Frenchman as she hauled herself into the truck. “Please, Just call me Willow. It’s nice to be somewhere where I can hear my first name being used for once. I get enough of General and Ma’am back home.” Léon chuckled and put the truck into gear. “Alright then Willow, I was told to show you the Satellite Tracking Facility first, and that you would probably have questions after that point. I can’t promise I can answer all of them, but I’ll try my best. And if I can’t, I’ll find somebody who can.” He smiled at her as the truck bounced along the road, turning east from the docks.

Ahead, the spherical domes of the satellite tracking array dotted the landscape with a few buildings clustered near a tiny parking lot. “Tell me Léon, is this facility linked with any other tracking stations, to allow for continuous satellite communication?” Léon gave her a sidelong glance while they continued up the road. “Yes, a few facilities around the globe all link together to track data on the Deep Space Network satellites up in geostationary orbit.”

MacKenna smiled broadly, “That’s very good to hear. Very good indeed. I don’t need to tour the facility, so we can head back to the town. Was that a McDonald's I saw? I didn’t eat lunch on the boat since I knew we were disembarking today.”

Léon chuckled mirthfully and turned the truck around, “It was indeed, one of the only luxuries on the Islands.” They road in silence until they reached the restaurant and parked. After a quick lunch they returned to the truck. “Where too now? As you can see, there isn’t really much else here that might interest a Générale unless you’re here for the fishing.” He grinned comically.

“Sadly my visit isn’t recreational. I’m here with the authority of France via the United Nations to ascertain the viability of utilizing the area for military purposes.” She glanced to Léon as his face took a sobering visage. “Mademoiselle Willow. I am a scientist, how could I possibly be of use for deciding on something relating to matters of military interest?” Willow chewed her cheek thoughtfully before replying, “I understand your field of study isn’t related to Astronomy, but rather radio bathymetry?”

Léon looked at her sharply with surprise, “Yes, yes it is. What could the military possibly want with that kind of science out here? Surely you have your own scientists who study such things in your navies.” “We do, but we don’t have scientist who live here and have been studying the surrounding waters for a few years. We wish to establish a long term, permanent military presence here, and the depth of the water is of chief interest in this facility. In short, we want to establish a small naval servicing facility that can handle either a dry dock or floating dry dock that can handle displacements of up to eighty-thousand tonnes and drafts of up to twelve meters. Additionally we plan to construct the airstrip France planned but never built. The ability to land aircraft here year round will not only be vital to our plans, but it will also make resupply and servicing the regular scientific community significantly easier. Also it would allow scientists to fly here rather than spend a week at sea, which if they’re like me I’m certain they would prefer that.”

Léon whistled sharply. “You’re not asking for much are you. Why would you want a facility like that out here in the middle of nowhere? Sure a floating dry dock could be towed or built, but the dock you arrived on can only handle ships with a draft up to eight meters. The quay can handle maybe ten meter displacement at high tide, but look around? Even the the Marines stationed here don’t adhere to regular military life. Life is laid back here.”

Willow frowned briefly before remembering she wasn’t here to police lazy soldiers. “That will likely change, and change quickly once plans for here are set in motion. This facility is going to happen, and the regular Marines will be integrated into the facility. Furthermore, we have a vested interest in some of the sciences being studied here and on the surrounding islands. The use of the tracking station and the personnel that work there are also of prime interest.” Léon gaped at Willow. “Why does NATO have an interest in tracking satellites from here? Surely there are NATO facilities around the world with radar tracking that can follow satellites around the globe.” Willow pressed her lips firmly in a line before responding, “I’m not at liberty to say, but I have a feeling you’ll find out soon enough. How about we head to the hotel, it’s going to be a long week for both of us, I think.”

August 11, 2005 - Guiana Space Center - Kourou, French Guiana

Tala and Aiko stood quietly side by side in the operations center for the European Space Agency at Guiana Space Center. Aiko rolled her lollipop around in her mouth as she wrung her hands nervously. Tala placed a hand on Aiko’s shoulder to calm her. “It will be okay Aiko. Everybody involved with preparing this launch knows about the additional payload on board and where control of it is coming from. All we need to do is hear that it’s successfully deployed and the technicians back at the Facility will handle everything from there.”

Aiko glanced at Tala before removing the lollipop from her mouth, rather than trying to talk over it, “I’m not worried the secrecy aspect of the payload. I’m worried about the actual launch. You do know this is the maiden flight of the Ariane 5 heavy lift right? Everything could go horribly wrong and we probably won’t get a second chance at this until our own facility has the ability to launch rockets.”

Tala looked at her thoughtfully. “You know we never actually discussed building a rocket silo, but now that you bring it up…” Tala tapped her finger against her chin in thought. “We probably could easily put a silo in. It isn’t like there isn’t an entire mountain range to play with. It comes down to money, just like all our other woes. Still, we have the mining equipment and the support personnel free with most of the planned facilities built.”

The clock on the wall finally reached T-10 and the pair held their breath as the final countdown was called, “Dix, nuef, huit, sept, six, cinq, quatre, trois, deux, un, décollez!” The ground rumbled as the platform disappeared in a massive fireball as the rocket soared into the sky, trailing smoke all the way. Aiko cheered along with everybody else while Tala simply smiled and tugged her arm. “Come, it’s in the air which means it’s time for us to leave.”

August 11, 2005 - 35,000 Kilometers above Earth - Sol System, Milky Way

The payload successfully detached from the host rocket with slight lurch as the decoupler blew to eject it into space. A short pair of puffs from the maneuvering thrusters oriented the miniature rocket for the initial burn to put it in the proper inclination. A few seconds later a brief flare of electricity ignited the chemical propellant of the lowest stage and the rocket was on its way.

After the chemical propellant burned out, a few more puffs had the rocket turned around and it drifted toward the next burn point. A few thousand kilometers before that point of no return the rocket ignited it’s second stage to slow the rocket down. After the stage expended its fuel the rocket trigged the next decoupler to finish brining the rocket to a halt in space.

The thrusters puffed again orienting the satellite for its final burn phase and ignited the last stage. The rocket spent the next half hour burning through its fuel supply before finally ejecting the spent stage. The satellite made some adjustments with its thrusters to orient itself to face the distant object in the Kuiper belt and began deploying its on-board systems.

A pair of solar panels extended first so the battery system could begin recharging. Then a pair of telescopes deployed from the sides of the cube-sat and positioned themselves to watch Saturn and 1992QB1. Lastly, a small communications dish deployed and began transmitting the encrypted signals back toward Earth.

August 15, 2005 - The Facility - Köroğlu Mountain Range - Bolu Province, Turkey

Ariel hunched over the shoulder of the technician staring at the screen as data scrolled by. “It looks like the connection is stable Ma’am. The Molniya orbit will keep the satellite over the Port-aux-Français monitoring station for about eight out of even eleven hours. If we could put more satellites in orbit, we could keep round the clock coverage, especially if we can put a constellation out there.”

“If we had a budget that could support a rocket program maybe, although Tala and Aiko seem to seriously be planning out a rocket silo so maybe that isn’t too far of a stretch in a few years. Keep me updated on the data the satellite returns. She tapped her chin thoughtfully before adding “Monitor the data from the monitoring station as well, we never know what they might find.” She glanced at her watch. “If anybody needs me I’ll be in the officer’s mess having lunch.”

As she stepped into the hallway from the communications center she ran into MacKenna and immediately snapped to attention and rendered a salute before falling in beside the General. “Ma’am, I didn’t realize you were already back from French Antarctica. I was just heading to lunch, care to join me?”

Willow smiled tiredly to Ariel. “Sure, so long as there is coffee involved. I was never meant to serve on a ship and the boat ride there and back was horrible. I’ve barely slept this week. Well, less than normal.” Ariel nodded knowingly.

“I feel I should warn you before Doctors Ishikawa and Ilyinishna ambush you. They’re planning on building a rocket silo now since apparently we have almost everything on hand to do it, and the mountains aren’t lacking for space. I think sending them to the spaceport wasn’t the best idea for our budget.

Willow grimaced before sighing loudly. “Our budget is always in constant peril enough as it is, the last thing I need is more line items I have to try and justify to the council. Especially since our quarterly budget meeting is later this month. Russia and China keep threatening to reduce their budget contributions since we’ve yet to produce anything scientific they can exploit against the rest of the world.”

It was Ariel’s turn to sigh in a tired way. “Despite all the nations knowing that there could be a potential world ending threat looming over us, all they care about is what advantage they can gain from it. It’s times like these that I’m glad we don’t have a single country acting as oversight and we don’t exactly answer to NATO either. Can you imagine the bullshit politics that would create around here if every officer reported to their own country instead of you?”

“I really don’t envy your job Ma’am. None of us really have an easy job, but at least I don’t have to report to anybody but you. Anyway enough about work for the moment. Let’s eat lunch and you can tell me all about the boat rides.”

Willow grinned and elbowed Ariel playfully. “Let’s see you spend a few weeks at sea. I’m sure you joined the Irish Air Corps because you wanted to live on a boat.” Ariel scoffed, “I joined the Air Corps because I didn’t want to end up marching everywhere unlike you,” she looked at Willow pointedly, “Ma’am.” They both laughed as they entered the officers mess for a well earned lunch.