The Commander by CJ Williams

Reconnaissance Orbiter. I’ll approach from above and behind so they won’t get us on camera. I’ll transfer from my scooter to the satellite and climb over the back side so I can block the lens apertures of the three cameras with these covers and then tape them down.” She pulled the cloth lens covers from a saddlebag on the scooter and took a roll of duct tape from a pocket of her overalls.
    Luke nodded. It sounded simple enough. He crossed his fingers that it remained so. “Okay, then. Good luck.”
    “Thank you, sir,” she murmured.
    The next day in his office in Baggs, Luke saw a news clip on CNN lamenting the unexplained loss of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Several politicians demanded a congressional hearing to investigate the loss. Others used it as a reason to cut NASA’s funding in the coming year.

Day 292—Population 7,177
    Luke waited in Moonbase’s main hangar. All of the available shuttles had been requisitioned for one task or another out at the construction site and Annie had taken Sadie to Earth to pick up some new scientific equipment. Luke was momentarily stranded and he had a meeting on the far side of the moon at the new complex that someone had unimaginatively named Far Side.
    Morrow sent word that Carrie Faulkner was on the way to pick him up and Luke hoped she didn’t come zipping into the hangar on her scooter. When visiting Far Side he often saw her maneuvering around the latest of Morrow’s space ships. Even though she was proficient in maneuvering the small vehicle, he didn’t want to be a passenger on the back seat.
    Luke breathed a sigh of relief when she appeared in a shuttle that was a duplicate of Sadie . He tried to exchange a bit of small talk on the way to the site but she was far too shy to utter more than a few one-syllable responses.
    Morrow waited for him inside the massive Far Side hangar. “Sorry about the lack of wheels, Luke,” he apologized. “I’ve already asked George to see to that.”
    “No problem. So, tell me about your big drone launch. Everything ready?”
    “I think so. Samantha wants to give you a final run-through before we send them off. Here she is.”
    “Hi, Luke,” Samantha said. She briefed him on the cone-shaped reconnaissance drones. They were durable, fast, and had a special, limited-capability AI that was designed by George. They would go out, reconnoiter, and return. “We call them Hermes probes after the Greek god; they’re fast and stealthy. We’ve tested the prototypes as thoroughly as we can. They’re ready to go.”
    “How long until we hear back?” Luke asked.
    “They all have different targets,” she explained. “The first reports will be back in about six weeks. After that, we’ll get a return with new information every few days. The drones that are going all the way to Bakkui space, what we assume to be hostile territory, will take about six months.”
    “How many going out? I saw rows of them on the pad out front.”
    “Yes, there are four hundred outside. We’ve got another twelve hundred in geostationary orbit overhead. With your go-ahead, we’ll launch everything we have. After that, we have a schedule for a set of two hundred each week.”
    Luke did some quick math. “So a year from now we’ll have sent out around ten thousand drones?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “And how many star systems in our target area?”
    Samantha slumped. “I know. We need to investigate millions of stars. But you said our priority was to focus on the colony ships.”
    Luke waved away her apology. “No, I wasn’t complaining . It just hits me now and then what an overwhelming task we’re undertaking. Frankly, it boggles my mind. Someday, soon I hope, we’ll have enough people assigned to this project that we can send out ten thousand a day. Gathering reconnaissance is vital. But, as you say, so are the colony ships. You guys have done a great job. You’re working miracles. All of you,” he added, nodding to Ambrose