Joachim checked the chronometer and spent a few more minutes responding to email from home. He made sure that his uniform was in order; he had a pair of silver Lieutenant's bars in his kit and proudly put them on his collar. Joachim then did a discrete biography check on Admiral Vague. The old man had been the second person on Titan and had barely escaped with his life when the lander started sinking into the ethane slush of Titan's frozen surface. He was also the first one to accidentally discover that the large moon had stable ice islands in the various ethane seas. At precisely 5 minutes before his scheduled appointment, Lieutenant Lee reported to Admiral Vague's office which was located above the surface with a spectacular view of the moon. The old gray Chief, Communications (grade one) acting as clerk gave the young officer a look. "Have a seat, sir. Admiral Vague will pip when he wants to see you."

Joachim nodded silently and took a seat under a photograph of Bill Anders in an old NASA pressure suit. Anders, Lovell, and Bormann were the first humans to orbit the moon in December 1968. Joachim sat in silence for a few moments when the comm system at the old Chief's station beeped. "Yes, sir, I'll send him right in."

The grizzled communications technician stood up and gestured to the solid aluminum door. "Lieutenant, the Admiral will see you now."

Joachim nodded respectfully. "Thanks, Chief."

In surprising fashion, the Chief said in a whisper. "Lieutenant, I think that the boss has something big for you. I hope that you're up to it!"

Joachim paused. "Yeah, me too Chief!"

Jo entered the inner sanctum of the North American Alliance's Chief of Earth-Space operations. The large suite of rooms was a combination of the admiral's office and a control center. He saluted sharply. "Lieutenant Joachim Lee, North American Alliance space fleet, reporting as ordered."

Admiral Harold Vague chuckled and gestured to an old-fashioned wood and leather Neems chair. "Have a seat Joachim."

Joachim sat in the old leather and wood chair comfortably and wondered what it had cost to get the old antique from the gravity well of the Earth to Luna!

Getting right to the point, the admiral gestured to the black of space outside of his armored plaz window. "I have a mission for you."

"What would that be, sir?"

The Admiral tapped a couple of keys on his desk and spoke quietly to his AI. "Brian, security protocol level five plus, restricted access only. Add Lieutenant Joachim Lee to the cleared list."

The AI responded in a cold mechanical voice. "Acknowledged and locked. Dampening fields engaged."

The lights dimmed, the window opaqued, and the sound deadened to indicate that the security field had been engaged. There was an ominous clank as the windows then shuttered and the door latched behind them.

A small screen on the admiral's desk illuminated indicating that the AI had complied with his instructions. The Admiral then opened an oak cabinet and removed a bottle. "Do you drink Scotch Lieutenant?"

Joachim shook his head. "Never tried it, sir."

"Well, you do now!"

The Admiral then pour a thin two fingers for his young protégé and a stouter splash for himself. "Don't ever put ice in good Scotch son!"

"Aye, sir!"

They toasted each other silently. Joachim was a bit thrown back by the smooth and oaky taste of the potent amber liquid. Finally, the Admiral spoke softly. "Lieutenant, we have to dance carefully with our new, ah, partners in the recently formed Chinese hegemony. It is finally stable over there after decades of turmoil. It is in our best interest and theirs that things remain that way. We just signed several treaties between the North American Alliance, the Anglosphere Alliance, and the Chinese Hegemony to maintain the status quo. The Euros are co-signers, but they don't have any ships of their own."

Joachim sipped his potent drink carefully. "I understand that sir. The whole last year of the Academy's geopolitical curriculum was devoted to exactly this topic. But what does any of this have to do with the CORDS project and my ship?"

The Admiral paused and sipped again at his Glenlivet. "First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your early promotion; it was well deserved!"

Joachim stared at his Scotch a moment. "Thank you, sir. It was quite unexpected."

"It was based on your performance and discretion. Now, as to the business at hand."

The admiral brought up a single image on the HD monitor and gestured to what appeared to be a very old space station. "Lieutenant, this thing is called the Long March of the People Number Seven. It was launched as a weapons platform by the Chinese in 2018. As we speak, they claim it is not there, and our pols claim that we never knew that it was a weapon. All of them are lying. Nonetheless, it is there they all knew that the damn thing was a weapon and it was powered by a big box of extremely hot plutonium and sooner or later it will come crashing down and land somewhere on the earth. We have to safely stabilize the orbit of that bitch and then we'll analyze the situation and figure out what to do next. Your mission, Lieutenant is to do exactly that and buy us some time. No one must know that this is other than a routine project CORDS mission!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Lieutenant, this is a more sensitive mission than you could possibly know. I have authorized a new security protocol for it. It is called 3+ and even that name is classified. The only ones briefed in besides the NAA President who directed us to perform this highly sensitive mission are myself, my AI Brian, the senior Nav planner down in the vault, Colonel Christopher at CORDS, Captain Gupta on Far Side station and now yourself. He has the authority to in-brief the appropriate personnel as required; as do you, Lieutenant. So, let's get on with it, shall we."

The Admiral brought up a series of images and gestured to the monitor on the wall. "Lieutenant your next mission is safely de-orbit that derelict station. It was launched by the old People's Republic of China and was evidently abandoned soon after initial occupation. This one is a beast and there's something very odd going on there. The orbit is all wrong, and the radiation level is far too high. Our friends in Shanghai claim that all records were lost in the revolution of 2041 when the PRC collapsed."

Joachim stared at the display and gestured to a pre-launch image of the old orbiting station. "Yes, sir, we learned about this one in school. Speculation is that it was weaponized in violation of the Space Weapons treaty of 1967."

The old spacer nodded in agreement.

Jo stared at one of the data screens. "Sir, this thing is way too big for the THX-1138 to bring home or even to Luna. It must mass 15,000 kilos!"

The Admiral smiled. "Yes, over 18,500 kilograms to be exact. Indeed it is too big for your ship Lieutenant. Your mission will be to recce the situation, safe and remove the reactor and install thruster packs to circularize the orbit of the station and investigate. At that point, the decision will be made as how to recover or safely de-orbit the station."

Joachim nodded. "Aye sir, but why me and the -38? Surely there are bigger ships and more experienced crews to perform a sensitive mission like this one?"

Admiral Vague nodded again. "Indeed there are Lieutenant, but people might pay attention to what those ships of the line are doing. If I send up one of the named ships, it would make news, but you and your crew have been collecting space junk for the last two years and no one seems to care. It is the perfect cover story. No one will notice what the THX-1138 is about. If I sent the Armstrong, Aldrin or one of the other large orbital constructors it would be all over the worldwide data grid. You and your crew and the -38 can get there, take a look, do what needs to be done and get out without anyone knowing."

Joachim nodded sarcastically. "Thank you, sir, I'm glad that our mission has garnered the public's attention so much after their outrage at the toilet seat girl incident of several years ago. But why all of the secrecy? Even if this thing was a weapons platform orbited by a government which no longer exists, who cares?"

The old Admiral nodded gravely. "Not speculation Lieutenant. We've confirmed that it had a plutonium power core, an electro-optical surveillance system, and a high powered infrared laser weapon. We don't know why it was abandoned so soon after launch. Speculation from our engineers and they are pretty sure about this is that the reactor system malfunctioned."

Joachim gestured to the various spy satellite images. "Sir, what is this structure on the aft node of the Salyut? It looks familiar."

Admiral Vague chuckled. "Indeed it is Lieutenant. Our best engineers surmise that it is a Chinese copy of the SNAP-100 reactor. Does that ring a bell?"

Jo thought for a moment. "Yes indeed it does, sir. The SNAP series was developed by NASA in, ah, about 150 years ago. It was a fission powered reactor and had a nominal output of one hundred kilowatts."

Admiral Vague nodded approvingly. "Well, it seems that your fleet Academy education was not wasted. That is exactly what it is. The original was never flown by NASA, it was too dangerous as determined by the politicians of the time. Anyway, the original NASA prototype used mildly enriched U-238 mixed element fuel rod. Our best guess is that the PRC used a very high energy PU-239 fuel to increase the power output. A modified unit with that fuel could provide very high energy levels for short periods of time, unfortunately, the SNAP design did not have anywhere near the shielding required to safeguard the crew."

Jo shook his head. "So why did they do it, sir?"

The grizzled old spacer shook his head and sipped his Scotch. "I don't know Lieutenant. The old PRC placed little value on life. The Taikonauts sent to man the station were likely on a suicide mission whether they knew it or not!"

The Admiral then showed Joachim more images of the derelict station. Some were clearly rendered engineering diagrams while others were fuzzy as if they were taken from a great distance. "Lieutenant, the images on the right side of the screen show LM-7 as she was designed, built and launched."

Jo looked at the Soviet era Salyut design as it been modified by the PRC. "Okay sir, but what is with these other images? I can tell that some are EO but the rest are..."

The Admiral nodded. "You are quite perceptive Lieutenant. Yes, the other images are from infrared and radar spy satellites. None of these were designed to look at orbital objects but were designed to observe earth-based adversaries. Nonetheless, this is the best that we have at the moment."

Jo stood up and went to the high-definition monitor. "Sir, I see the outline of the station but this blur on the edge of the IR image here." Jo then paused and pointed to a radar image. "Sir it does not show on the radar shot, only the EO and IR, what exactly am I looking at?"

Admiral Vague put his glass down and shook his head. "We don't know. The Chinese deny that they have any records since the counterrevolution. It could be another weapons platform or just an experimental inflatable hab. We just don't know. What we do know is that the station is coming down soon and hot! The politicians in Toronto and LA all insist that the recovery mission remain unacknowledged."

"Understood, sir."

"Lieutenant, your flight plan is quite complicated. The senior tech in Astrometrics has a chip for your autopilot. You will report down there as soon as we are done."

Jo nodded silently. "Yes, sir, I understand. We have to bring this thing down safely and make sure we don't endanger any more lives in orbit or on the ground!"

Admiral Vague brought up another slide on his display. "Even with all of the security requirements, you and your flight engineer..."

Joachim interrupted his senior officer. "Cassie Scott, sir. She is the best in the Fleet. She is also my primary grapple operator. We will have to run various scenarios in the simulator. I assume that this will be arranged?"

The Admiral laughed. "Yes indeed. That is what I have been told about Ms. Scott. She is the youngest person in Fleet history to pass a Technician level two certification. She could easily be the youngest Chief Tech we have ever had; I need people like her!"

Joachim looked puzzled. "Sir?"

Admiral Vague peered towards the shuttered window looking out on the lunar surface. "There is one more thing Lieutenant. When your mission is complete, please try and convince Ms. Scott to accept an appointment to the Fleet Academy."

Joachim smiled. "Of course sir, I'll do my best to convince Cassie, that is Technician Scott to that end, but before that..."

"Yes, the mission comes first; so to that end, the two of you will have as many sim missions as you need until the 1138 launches in just over fifty-two hours."

"We'll be ready sir, you can count on the 38!"

"Very well Lieutenant. You and Technician Scott will start training at 0700 hours.

Jo stood up, saluted sharply. "Understood, sir. I and my crew won't let you down."

The Admiral brought down the classified images and spoke aloud. "Brian, return to standard security levels as soon as Lieutenant Lee departs."

"Acknowledged, Admiral."

Joachim also finished his drink and started to appreciate the smoothness of the old Scotch. "Sir, and my crew?"

The old spacer nodded. "Yes, you may read them in as soon as the hatches are dogged upon departure. But no sooner understood? Please have your second in command prepare the ship for a long-duration mission. Ensign Goldberg in particular, doesn't need to know anything else at this time."