One of them — the woman — Parkowski had seen before. It was DePresti’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Thorne.
The man, she knew only by reputation. He was Colonel Hawke, DePresti’s former commander when he worked in the launch unit.
The three stood in front of Parkowski and DePresti.
She stood breathless, not knowing what to expect.
“Well, I guess you’re wondering what’s going on,” Chang said.
Parkowski remained silent. DePresti nodded.
“When the two of you went back into the city, I had a SWAT team come and pay me a visit,” Chang said. “Something to do with FCC violations. I was held in a cell in downtown LA for forty-eight hours and then released with a warning.”
“Was it the same people who attacked us at your house?” Parkowski asked in a softer-than-normal tone.
Hawke shook his head. “From my understanding, no.” He pointed at Chang’s restored living room. “Come, let’s sit down and chat.”
The two senior Space Force officers then gave their side of the story to Chang, DePresti, and Parkowski.
Hawke had been fully read into Bronze Knot since before the launch. Thorne had been read in more recently when Pham had been killed.
Other than Hawke admitting that he knew about the payload swap, they didn’t have much more to add in the way of new information. They just confirmed what Parkowski already knew. Some third-party had a payload that they wanted launched on top of the Shrike Heavy, and they moved the NASA payload off of the mission to put it there.
“So who is behind all of it?” she asked. “And why?”
The two FGOs looked at each other and then back at her. “To be honest, I’m not sure,” Thorne — the less talkative of the two — said.
“There were some weird groups at the launch from the State Department,” Hawke added. “And that’s just the government side. Who knows if there was a private company or companies involved.”
There was an uncomfortable pause.
DePresti asked the question that was on her mind. “So what happens now, sir?”
Hawke gave a small smile. “If the three of you can keep your mouths shut, I think you’re in the clear.”
Parkowski didn’t believe that. “I’ve almost been killed half a dozen times over the course of the last few weeks,” she told Hawke. “And I’m just supposed to drop it and move on, without looking over my shoulder?”
He nodded. “I can’t tell you exactly who told me, but I can stake my professional reputation on that. The powers that be — the ones behind Bronze Knot — recovered your recordings from the cloud and the phone they were taken on and have already cleansed the facility at Aering. The only loose ends are the three of you, and the Department of Defense was able to convince them that having you alive, rather than dead or imprisoned, is in the country’s best interests. So, stop looking into it, don’t tell anyone, and yes, Grace, you can stop looking over your shoulder.”
“So we’ll never figure out what was really launched?” DePresti asked.
“Mike, I don’t know myself. I don’t think any of us ever will.” Hawke responded.
Parkowski didn’t ask any further questions.
Six months — and one proposal — later, in late May, they found themselves again at Rock ‘n Brews in El Segundo. This time, it was for DePresti’s going away. He had been picked up for a special assignment at the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Virginia, and was leaving the next week to report. Parkowski would be joining him there too, having taken an internal transfer that would take her to Aering’s R&D division located near Dulles International Airport.
It was a perfectly clear night as DePresti and Parkowski left the restaurant, loaded down with going-away presents and plaques, and walked to her Camry. Despite the light pollution from the city, they could see plenty of stars.
Parkowski put down the large plaque she was carrying and looked up.
“What’s up?” her fiancé asked, stopping as well.
“Just wondering, whatever went up there on the ILIAD launch, it’s still up there, right?” the Aering engineer said as she gazed up at the heavens.
“Probably,” DePresti responded.
Parkowski laughed. It was probably a dumb question. “I wonder where it went.”
The second stage of the Shrike Heavy rocket launched from LC-39a the previous June, traveled towards its final destination.
It had been a cold, lonely journey for the RP-1/LOx powered upper stage. After launching into what had been the ILIAD mission’s initial transfer orbit, it had done a low-energy Hohmann maneuver once it was out of range of any Earth-based sensors that would detect the change in trajectory.
The intermediate target was Jupiter.
The second stage, with its mysterious payload that had been attached at the last minute, would use a fraction of its remaining fuel to slingshot itself around Jupiter and use the planet’s mass to propel itself forward; transferring all of the orbit’s potential energy to kinetic energy.
