Saturn Run Read Online Free PDF Page B

getting a mission to Saturn really fast. What they’ve brainstormed at the moment are broad concepts,half-baked ideas. But, yeah, they say it’s doable . . . given the highest priority and a year or so to prepare.”
    Fletcher jumped in. “Ma’am, I’m no intelligence operative, but are we sure that the Chinese ship is going to Mars? Is there any possibility that they spotted one of these aliens five years ago, and are on their way to Saturn? I mean, are we really, really sure it’s going to Mars?”
    White said, “Yes. We’ve seen their specs and their engines and we’re watching the work in great detail. This is all . . . secret . . . so keep your mouths shut, but yeah: it’s going to Mars. In fact, the mission’s purpose is to establish a permanent colony there. Which is the reason they are being so secretive about it.”
    Fletcher leaned back: “And they don’t know about this, this thing out at Saturn?”
    Emery: “Apparently not.”
    Crow reminded them, “Not yet. They will.”
    —
    Santeros turned back to White. “So, from our perspective the immediate problem is the Chinese, not the aliens.”
    “As we see it,” said the chairwoman. “But really, it’s all guesswork. We assume that any race that could build a ship like this, is at least rational. You’d almost have to be, to do the work involved in building the ship. What isn’t guesswork is that we have this competition going with the Chinese. Japan, Russia, and Brazil are on the fence . . . and boy, it’d sure be nice that if somebody gets a hundred years of new tech, it’d be us. At least, you know, until we transit into the post-conflict world.”
    Lossness nodded. “As Crow said, it’s gonna leak. The Chinese are just over a year away from launching their Mars mission. Their ship could be rerouted to Saturn without much work. Basically, they were already planning a long-duration mission to Mars, what with all the equipment and personnel needed to establish a permanent facility there, so they’ve got the supplies and the crew. If they rerouted, well, they’d be nearly ready to go. Offload a bunch of colony equipment, throw in a bunch more mission-relevant supplies, that’d be most of it.”
    “That’d be a hell of a long mission,” Fletcher said. “Mars is a fifty-million-kilometer run. Saturn is a billion and a half. Two, three months to Mars’d become, ummm, five years or so to Saturn.”
    Santeros said, “That would give us some time, right, Gene?”
    —
    Lossness said, “Well, my guys were tossing around trip durations of under a year. The thing is, if the Chinese find out what’s happening before they launch, they can soup up their ship. They’d need a longer initial burn, so they’d need a lot more reaction mass. But they’d be offloading weight by not taking the colony along. Strapping on additional mass-tanks in space isn’t as big a job as it is here on Earth.”
    Fletcher said, “We’re a little unlucky about the launch window here, if Mr. Crow is correct. If we could keep this secret until the Chinese launch for Mars, then it would be too late for them to recover. We could take our time building a ship, and there’s nothing they could do about it.”
    “Except shoot it down,” Emery said.
    Santeros said, “Based on Mr. Crow’s best guess, we can’t assume they won’t find out. And we can’t afford a gamble. We have to win this one. Jacob? Those half-baked ideas? I want them fully baked by this evening’s meeting. I don’t care what kind of carrots or sticks you have to wave to get the answers, I want to know exactly what we can do and how fast we can do it. Clear?”
    Nobody said anything for a long moment, then Santeros looked over at the politicians, Sweet and Cline, who’d been listening carefully, but carefully not making notes. “If we build a ship on a crash basis, can we get the funding through on the black budget?”
    Sweet said, “Yes,” and Cline nodded.
    Sweet said,