THE VISITOR

3 First Mission

'Wonder why it's spinning so fast?' I asked

'Probably thruster stuck until fuel exhausted.'

We both pored over the array of satellites on the central console. I did a search on cubic ones and it didn't give us anything like this, either.

'Hi, Gerald. This is an unknown USSR satellite. Not emitting any signals. Weighs about one hundred kilos. One broken solar array and the other missing. Very dead.'

'Юрий . Как вы думаете, мы должны сохранить его?' Roscosmos broke into the conversation asking if it was worth saving.

'нет', we both replied at the same time.

I'd been told Roscosmos listened in, but this was the first time they'd made their presence known.

'Hello, Ivan. Glad to know you are on the line,' said Gerald.

'What do you want to do, Eva? Can you stop it?' asked Yuri.

'Tricky. This bottom corner seems to be the slowest moving part.'

'Yes.'

'Pull back a few metres. Let's keep ourselves safe.'

Yuri fired thrusters and we moved to about fifty metres. Using my arm console, I unfolded the left arm. Each of the two main lengths were about six metres and I stretched them out to a total of about twelve metres.

'Okay. Bring me in so the claw is about twenty centimetres from the slowest-moving corner.'

Tiny jet manoeuvres let the Wagon close on its quarry.

'Change the aspect so we're facing the corner, please.'

Again, minor thrusts moved us around, so the satellite was turning with the slowest corner directly in front of us.

Using my controls, I opened the maw of the claw to about twenty centimetres, extended rubbery nodules within the grips, and rotated the claw until it matched the spin of the satellite. Fifty-five revolutions per minute. No wonder the arrays had sheared off.

With the stealth of stealing a chocolate from plain view, I eased the claw forward until it made contact. I snapped the grip shut and a slight judder passed through the ship as the difference in momentum transferred to us. The robotic hand and satellite revolved as one, and I slowed the rotation gradually as if deceiving the satellite into being unaware it had been captured.

It took fifteen minutes to bring it to rest in relation to the Wagon. Now we all travelled around the world at thousands of miles per hour as a single entity.

It was time to put all my training into use. With the precision of a surgeon, I drilled holes in the satellite's casing, attached a small deorbule rocket and primed it ready to fire. Meanwhile, Yuri photographed the satellite for identification purposes. I'd filmed the whole process for my educational talk for schools.

With both arms, I manoeuvred the satellite so when I fired the deorbule it would slow its orbit. I released the grip, folded the arms and tucked them neatly back to the sides of the Wagon. We were running short of time if we were to rendezvous with target two.

'Right, Yuri, get us out of the plane of this thing and a distance of about four hundred metres, please.'

Using thrusters, we soon reached the prescribed distance. Yuri rotated us, so we could watch the fireworks. We were motionless with target one stationary in the distance, highlighted by the setting sun against the blackness of the Pacific at night.

'Hello, Gerald. I think we need fifteen minutes to ensure any residue falls into the Atlantic. Give me a go to fire the de-orbiting module,' I said.