The Black Knight Read Free

operations centers and agencies.
    At least that was the official line, but Duvall and other operators knew that far more went on behind the scenes at Cheyenne Mountain. With the decline of the Cold War and the reduced threat of a concerted nuclear exchange, Cheyenne Mountain’s role had changed gradually to become dominated by both the monitoring of near-earth orbital debris and also of monitoring signals coming from the wider cosmos.
    Although Duvall was not prone to conspiracy theories, she did know that from time to time suited men who wore no insignia moved through the base with complete authority. Inevitably nick-named the Men in Black , they showed up at unusual times and seemed to operate mostly from the Watch Station’s Signals Intelligence Office, which had recently developed links to the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. Whatever the hell they were looking at, they kept it well under wraps from junior officers like Duvall.
    Despite the perceived glamor of the role and the exotic location, Cheyenne Mountain seemed to Duvall to be a base in decline. Its staff numbers had been slashed over the years to a fraction of their former number, the base seemingly a Cold War relic consigned to mundane debris observation and…
    A small, insistent beeping noise broke Duvall from her reverie and she glanced at one of the signals screens before her. Arrayed across the walls of the Command Center, the screens showed a variety of images including maps of the Earth’s surface reminiscent of those seen at Cape Canaveral, that depicted the orbital trajectories of whatever objects Duvall cared to select at her station.
    However, she had not selected any objects and in an instant her eyes settled on a single transmission spike. It took her mind only a moment to assimilate three salient points of information from the track.
    It did not belong to the United States as it bore no transponder code.
    It did not belong to any other nation as it bore no identification code.
    It was in space, as its velocity was being recorded as close to seventeen thousand miles per hour, placing it in low Earth orbit.
    Duvall lowered her boots from the edge of her desk and leaned forward as she peered at the contact. It was tracking an unusual near-polar orbit, rather than the equatorial orbits favored by most satellites and space vehicles.
    The sound of Fuller’s voice broke through her thoughts. ‘The machine’s bust again, decaf’ only and…’
    ‘We’ve got an infiltration signal.’
    Fuller chuckled, more than used to the pranks played by bored operators on their colleagues. ‘Yeah sure, maybe E.T’s got some coffee we can borrow?’
    Duvall did not reply to him as she scanned the data stream on her screen.
    ‘Orbit is seventy nine degrees off the equator, apogee is one thousand seven hundred and twenty eight kilometres, perigee two hundred eighteen kilometres. Orbital period is one hundred and four minutes and thirty seconds.’
    Fuller glanced at the main screen, saw the track, and dumped the coffee as he slammed down into his seat and slipped a pair of headphones over his ears.
    ‘We’ve got a primary return,’ he said as he saw the same track on his own screens. ‘Records confirm it’s not one of ours and it’s not a catalogued piece of debris.’
    ‘I’ve got data,’ Duvall replied, ‘object is approximately twenty four meters in length, approximately six metres in width. Data calculations estimate a mass of fifteen tons.’
    Fuller glanced up at the screen. ‘Damn that’s big, real big.’
    Duvall nodded as she held her own earphones to her head, squinting as she sought to determine what she was listening to.
    ‘I’ve got audio,’ she whispered, almost so quietly that Fuller didn’t hear.
    ‘You’ve got what?’
    Duvall nodded to herself more confidently as she listened.
    ‘I’ve got audio,’ she repeated. ‘I’ve got a signal. It’s coming from the track.’
    Fuller stared at her for a long moment and then