The Space Corps

(Source)

The satellite launched from the Asian land mass, known to the U.S. Air Force as Gaofen-12, had been in orbit for a number of months. The Western powers had never detected any energy emanating from it, so everyone assumed that the vehicle had somehow failed once achieving orbit. It was catalogued with all of the other "space junk" and promptly forgotten.

USA-244 had been in orbit since 2013. This bird and its siblings provided secure military communications for the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. The first bird in the series had had some issues early on, but those glitches were soon ironed out.

USA-244 was nearing the end of it's service life, it's replacement was already up and taking on some of 244's communications load. These satellites were essential to communications between higher headquarters and lower level headquarters. Some lower level units also used these birds for their communications. As one admiral had put it, "Without these communications assets, my carrier strike groups might as well stay tied up to their piers."

One morning an analyst at Space Command in Colorado Springs began to notice that Gaofen-12 was starting to show signs of life. It had generated a couple of bursts of random noise over the past few days. She brought this to the attention of her superiors who told her, "don't worry about it, probably just random discharges aboard the bird causing it to transmit noise."

In reality, Gaofen-12 was signaling its home base that it was alive and in position to go to work. On Friday, the 17th of March, home base sent three bursts of highly focused energy at Gaofen-12. Anyone recording that data would assume that it was a self-destruct signal.

And it was. Sort of.

"Sir, I'm picking up a lot of static on the line to Pearl."

Lieutenant Commander Willis "Buck" Owens walked over to the operator's console and asked the petty officer to show him what was up. Which the petty officer proceeded to do. They both listened for a moment and it seemed that the static was getting worse.

"Bad atmospherics?" LCDR Owens suggested. They both chuckled, Tora! Tora! Tora!, was playing on the ship's entertainment system this week. Both had seen it, both were somewhat incredulous at how badly the government had dropped the ball before the attack on Pearl Harbor.

High in space, Gaofen-12 came to life. Two brief bursts from its maneuvering jets moved it onto a collision course with USA-244. At the appropriate time, Gaofen-12 released two small packets of tiny steel balls. These immediately spread out, much like a shotgun blast. After doing so, Gaofen-12's maneuvering jets fired again.

In moments the satellite was dropping out of orbit, soon to burn up upon re-entry into the atmosphere. In Colorado Springs, the overworked, over-tasked office charged with keeping track of the myriad objects orbiting the Earth noted that the signal sent up to Gaofen-12 apparently was a self-destruct of sorts, commanding the satellite to leave orbit and plunge to its "death" upon re-entry.

No report of Gaofen-12's activities was ever filed.

The first few steel balls to hit USA-244 impacted in two places. Some went through a solar panel, causing complete disruption of that panel. The panel was used to help keep the bird oriented properly in space with relation to Earth. The others, which actually hit the satellite, damaged some external shielding and one of the communications antennae. Not enough to put the satellite out of action, but enough to degrade its communications capabilities.

The rest of the steel balls missed completely.

USA-244 began to develop a slight "wobble."

At Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Lance Corporal Mitch Higgins noted that the comms output from USA-244 was starting to fluctuate. As if the bird was pointing at them, then pointing away. Not by much, but a little more with each passing minute. He called over his boss, Gunnery Sergeant Isaiah Robertson.

"Damn, that bird looks like it's going flaky on us. How long has this been doing that?"

"About ten minutes now Gunny, and it's getting worse."

At that moment all communications were lost with the Kennedy Strike Group. At that point, the strike group started paying more attention to their organic sensors, passive at first, which were all fairly short range. They no longer had their giant "eye in the sky" data which USA-244 had been providing them.

"Get on the horn to Pearl, I'm blind for the moment, I might need to radiate, and soon."

"On it Admiral!"

USS LeFon*, an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer was the first to detect the incoming "vampires." The Chinese bombers which had launched them had been inbound since USA-244 went offline. They were coming in supersonic when they launched their anti-ship missiles, they wanted to get in and hit the Americans before their sensors were online.

They almost succeeded...

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So, do I think a new branch of our military is a good idea, to keep an eye on things in space?

Yes, yes I do.

But I'd be interested in hearing (reading) your thoughts on it. Chase those sources down under the pictures, interesting reading. Especially the bits where certain Congress-critters are upset with their staff wienies for not keeping them informed.





* With a tip of the hat, and apologies, to Claude Berube, who's Connor Stark novels are well worth your time.