Below Mercury Page 4

  ‘Yep.’ The pilot’s entire concentration was on the controls and the display in front of him, which showed a wire-frame model of the asteroid turning in space above them.

  ‘Here it comes.’ Clare pointed out the distant mountain peak that they had selected as a reference point on the first pass. ‘Now remember, there’s about half a second between hitting the button and getting ignition, so aim a little ahead. I’d suggest that outcrop just ahead of the peak, just coming into the Sun now. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, I see it.’

  Clare glanced down at the checklist display on the cockpit console and selected some switches on the central console. ‘Fuel valves are – set to auto. Pre-ignition checklist is complete down to arming.’

  The pilot’s breathing quickened as his fingers crept to the engine controls. He flicked the master arming button.

  ‘Ignition sequence armed,’ the ship’s flight computer confirmed. The pilot’s eyes flicked from the asteroid rolling past above, to the navigation display, to the primary flight display, to the engine controls. The distant outcrop he was watching drew slowly closer. As it passed level with the ship, he pressed the firing button.

  A distant whine, and a muffled thump, then a faint vibration came through the ship as the engines ignited and burned, slowing the ship’s forward speed until it matched the asteroid’s rotation. Clare gripped the arms of her seat as the thrust rose to full power.

  The noise of the engines faded, as the short burn came to an end.

  ‘Burn complete. Engine safed,’ the flight computer announced.

  ‘Quickly now, remember that we’re not in orbit. We have to descend while we’re moving at zero relative speed, but leave it too long and the surface will start to move under us.’

  The pilot armed the thrusters, and turned the landing craft round, then pitched it forward until it was oriented for landing. The asteroid’s surface was below them now, filling their field of view.

  ‘Good. Now take us down.’

  He fired the thrusters again, in one long burst that pushed them towards the landscape below.

  ‘Aim for a landing point now.’

  ‘I’ll go for that flat-bottomed crater just in front of that vee-shaped outcrop there,’ the pilot said. Clare nodded, without comment. There were some slightly better sites, but none so close or so easy to see, and it was important to choose the site early.

  ‘Five hundred metres,’ the computer reminded them.

  Another burst of thrust, slightly forward this time, and the crater-marked hills and ridges started to drift beneath them.

  ‘They’re moving,’ his voice contained a trace of panic.

  ‘Correct your relative speed. Thrust back a bit.’

  The thrusters fired again.

  ‘Four hundred metres. Sink rate.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, you’re doing fine. Just keep the target steady below you.’

  The crater they were aiming for slowed in its motion, then started to slide backwards, away from them. Quickly, the pilot applied forward thrust in one long burst.

  ‘No, that’s too much,’ Clare cautioned, ‘you’ll need to correct.’

  The pilot hesitated. The landing point had moved again, and was now aligned perfectly.

  ‘Correct now,’ Clare’s voice was firm.

  ‘I don’t—’ he began, but then the crater started to move again, sliding underneath them and disappearing. A succession of rising hills rolled towards them.

  ‘Two hundred metres. Sink rate.’

  ‘You’re moving towards the surface too fast,’ Clare said, pointing to the primary flight display. ‘You could abort the landing and try again.’

  ‘No, I’ve got the hang of it, and there’s another good landing site ahead.’

  The pilot fired the thrusters briefly, braking their apparent forward speed, and pointed out a fresh site, close to a cliff-like ridge.

  ‘I’m going for that flat area by the far crater rim.’ He swung the ship round to line up with the new site.

  ‘Okay, you want to watch that ridge behind the site, though. Make your preparations for landing,’ Clare said.

  ‘Pressurise landing gear. Set landing mode,’ he ordered. Clare moved the landing gear selector and reached across to the mode control panel.

  ‘Set for landing. Four greens.’

  ‘One hundred.’

  The thrusters fired in a long, continuous burst, braking their movement towards the land below. At first, it looked like the landing was going well. The craft drifted closer to the landing site, losing altitude at a steady rate. Then the landscape started to slide past faster. The slide continued, and it was clear that something was going wrong; the ridge behind the landing site was moving towards them, faster and faster, looming higher and higher against the sky.

  ‘Terrain, terrain. Pull up,’ the computer warned.

  The pilot realised that they weren’t going to make it. He hit the abort button, and the main engines coughed into life, but it was too late. The craft started to rise away from the surface, but the cliff was rushing towards them. It expanded until it filled the sky; it became a mountainside, bearing down upon them to crush them. The terrifying sound of the collision alarm filled the cockpit.

  ‘Brace for impact!’ Clare shouted.

  The pilot raised his arms in an involuntary attempt to protect himself from the crash, and the cockpit rocked with a massive blow as the ship flew into the cliff wall. Clare and the pilot were thrown forward into their seat straps.

  Everything went black, and a sudden silence fell.

  The view from the cockpit windows changed to the deep blue of the projection screens. Clare sat back in her seat as the cockpit lighting came on, and the simulator descended on its hydraulic rams.

  A klaxon sounded outside as the simulator came to a halt, settling on its stand as the access gantry moved up.

  They were back in the real world once more, at the US Astronautics Corps training facility on the island of Guam in the western Pacific Ocean, and it was the second week in February, 2151.

  Clare turned in her seat to face the other two students sitting behind them, who had been watching the scenario unfold.

  She had their complete attention.

  ‘So, important lesson. You cannot land on an asteroid as if you were in a normal gravity field. If you try, as Lieutenant DeSoto here has shown, the craft does not behave as you would expect. The view of the landscape tricks your senses into trying to fly a conventional landing, but we are still two separate bodies, moving independently, and your flying instincts can betray you. Once you’re set up for landing, with zero relative speed, you have to fly as if you’re docking – only the gentlest of touches on the controls, and don’t hesitate to pull away if your relative speed gets too high.’

  She turned back to face the lieutenant, who was still staring at the flight controls, an expression of mixed surprise and disappointment on his face.

  ‘Okay, so we’re dead, but that was a good approach most of the way down, and the main thing you did wrong was not to recognise when the time had come to abort. Don’t take it too hard, we’ve all been there. You should be able to land without difficulty after a couple more attempts.’

  She glanced at her watch. ‘Okay, let’s call that an early lunch; be back here by thirteen hundred hours. I’ll reset the simulator, and then you two can have a go this afternoon; we’ll try some landings on a different asteroid.’

  The three students clambered out of the simulator, and clanked down the access gantry, their voices fading into the distance. Clare stayed behind in the copilot’s seat, resetting the controls and selecting a new scenario from the simulator’s computer.

  As she worked, a head looked in briefly through the open door, and the substantial bulk of Group Commander Colonel Helligan manoeuvred himself into the cockpit. The smell of aftershave and stale sweat preceded him, and Clare knew who it was before she even turned round.

  ‘Good morning, Colonel Helligan
.’ She turned to face him. Helligan was 52, with a heavy-set, footballer’s body that was well on the way to turning to fat, and his greying, wiry hair was cropped close in a crew cut that accentuated the hard line of his jaw. Small, close-set eyes under deep brows gave him a mean, unpleasant look. He was dressed in a short-sleeved uniform shirt and dark blue trousers.

  She resented him being in here, his bulk filling the small cabin, intruding on her personal space with his presence, his aftershave, his … body.

  ‘Well, well, well. Another crash on an asteroid,’ he drawled lazily, as he leaned over the back of the pilot’s seat. ‘Are you teaching them how you did it?’

  ‘You know this is the first time for them, colonel. And I’d respectfully remind you that I never crashed any ship into an asteroid.’

  ‘Yes, but if you hadn’t pulled up at the last moment you would have.’ He paused. ‘Captain.’

  ‘The review panel completely exonerated me of any—’ Clare began, as patiently as she could, but Helligan cut her off.

  ‘I know what the panel said, Foster.’ He drawled the word. ‘It’s what they didn’t say that interested me. What’s between the lines, not what’s in them.’

  Helligan glanced round the cockpit, looking for something to criticise, and, finding none, continued: ‘I’ll be watching how the others do. Let’s hope they aren’t too shaken by that little ride that you gave them.’

  ‘Is there something I can do for you, sir, I really have to get this set up again.’ Clare scarcely bothered to keep the contempt creeping into her voice. She knew it was unwise, but she wasn’t going to cave in to this bully of a group commander she had been landed with. Since her return from space six months ago, she had been seconded to the Training Squadron and to tanker duties while her case had been reviewed.

  She had assumed that after the review panel had reached its verdict she would have been straight back out on another assignment. Month after month had passed without any word, however, and she was beginning to think that the Astronautics Corps intended to get rid of her by boring her slowly to death.

  Helligan thrust a folder at her, which he had been keeping under one armpit. A faint whiff of his body odour accompanied the folder, and she saw that one edge of the paper had a patch of damp on it. The title on the cover of the folder read: Erebus Mine Accident Investigation Team.

  ‘I’ll save you the trouble of reading it. You’re being offered a temporary secondment to Deep Space Transportation while your case is being considered. I strongly advise that you take it.’ He paused to let the words sink in.

  So that was it – the end of her career as an interceptor captain. Clare tried as hard as she could to look impassive, to be neutral, but she knew her face was leaking the crushing despair that she felt.

  Helligan watched the emotions flit across her face. A slow half-smile broke his features. It had been worth it, he thought, putting up with this high-flying bitch for the last few months, just to see her brought down to earth.

  She said nothing, just looking back at him.

  Eventually, Helligan spoke again.

  ‘Don’t get excited, Foster. You’re going to ferry some a team of accident investigators to Mercury. Seems they want to take another look into that big mining accident a few years ago, and they need someone who can be spared from more important duties to take them there. I thought you fitted the bill perfectly.’

  He smiled, and waited for her reaction.

  Clare’s heart, which had lifted slightly at the prospect of a space mission, sank further, and it hurt the more because she knew that Helligan wanted it, and she knew that it must be showing on her face.

  Mercury. The hellhole of the Solar System. Nothing there but high levels of solar radiation, a tricky and dangerous orbit insertion manoeuvre, and some empty, abandoned mines. A damned ferry mission, taking her closer to her lifetime radiation limit, and all the time she was away, Helligan would be at work back here on Earth, making sure that she never returned to an interceptor squadron.

  ‘So, Foster, shall I say you’ll be taking it? If you’re not interested, I can offer it to someone else. Tyson’s been doing well in his assessments, and I know he wants a mission to command.’ Helligan’s smile disappeared, and he looked pointedly at his watch. Clare, who had been about to ask how much time she had to decide, saw that asking was pointless. Tyson was a schmuck – he would pilot a ship into the Sun if he thought it would get him promoted.

  ‘What are the pay terms?’ she asked.

  Helligan’s composure faltered a tiny amount at the question. He had to look away, out of the cockpit windows onto the blue projection screens, as he replied.

  ‘You’d be on full captain’s space pay for the duration of the secondment.’

  Full space pay? Clare scanned Helligan’s face for some sign of a catch, but she could see how much he hated telling her the good bit, so it must be true. That wouldn’t happen if there was a catch, she thought.

  So, it was stay here and endure Helligan, or get a few months on space pay away from him. There wasn’t any decision to make.

  ‘Okay,’ she nodded slowly. ‘I’ll take it. When should I report to them?’

  Helligan seemed to relax slightly at her response.

  So. He had been worried she would refuse it. She couldn’t tell if that was good news for her, or bad.

  ‘You’ll get your orders. In the meantime, you’re to continue on instruction and tanker duties until your secondment comes through.’

  Helligan heaved himself up and away from the copilot’s seat, and turned to go. At the cockpit door, he stopped for a moment with his back to her, and said over his shoulder: ‘Oh, and don’t crash the fucking ship into Mercury, Foster, because there’s no way they’d waste another mission on rescuing you. They left two hundred and fifty-seven bodies out there and declared it a space grave, rather than going to get any of them back.’

  His last words were almost lost as he went down the access ladder.

  ‘A few more won’t make any difference to anybody.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When the United States established the beginnings of a forward base for B-29 bombers on Guam in 1944, they could have had little idea that 200 years later, Andersen Base would be one of the principal launch sites for the spaceplanes of the US Astronautics Corps.

  The island’s location, just over thirteen degrees north of the equator in the western Pacific, made it ideal for launches into low-inclination Earth orbit, and it had Apra Harbour – a deep-water port that could accommodate the largest of vessels with ease. Two long, military-grade runways at Andersen Air Force Base, and an almost unrestricted airspace, made the location particularly suited for the development and trials of the early spaceplanes. Ninety years ago, test squadrons operating from Andersen Base had pioneered the technique of in-flight refuelling of spaceplanes, and the base was still a major training centre for the Corps.

  By the middle of the twenty-second century, Andersen Base had grown into a sprawling complex covering most of the accessible land at the northern end of the island. Separate control towers now managed the main runways and the maze of taxiways that connected the various parking aprons, loading bays, fuelling areas and maintenance hangars. Away from the base itself, a vast hinterland of industrial complexes, refineries, propellant storage farms, operations centres and easement areas covered over 175 square kilometres of land.

  From here, the US Astronautics Corps ran its biggest spaceport operation outside the United States mainland. Up to four orbital flights each day carried personnel and light cargo to and from low Earth orbit, and the fleets of space tugs, fuel tankers, asteroid interceptors and survey vessels that waited there. From Guam, it was possible to board a spaceplane and, within a few hours, to be on board a space tug on the way to the Martian bases, or any of the other distant outposts scattered through the Solar System.

  Supporting the spaceplanes were a fleet of airborne tankers, carrying hundreds of tonnes of cryogenic fuel th
rough the skies. Two separate tankers – one for the fuel and one for the liquid oxygen – would typically take off first and circle at a rendezvous point, and then the spaceplane would take off, catch up with the tankers and refuel before the orbital climb.

  Transferring large quantities of super-cold liquids in mid-air was a tricky task that required considerable experience and practice, but it was easier and safer than trying to take off from a runway with over 150 tonnes of fuel and liquid oxygen on board. If a fully loaded spaceplane were to crash on takeoff, the resultant explosion would level the entire base.

  ‘Captain, we’re down to the last twelve tonnes to transfer. Are we okay for another two minutes?’

  Clare Foster glanced at the radar display before replying, but there was nothing out there but kilometres of empty sky in every direction.

  ‘Sure.’

  It was the afternoon of the tenth day since Helligan had come to see her in the simulator. The tanker that Clare commanded was about five hundred kilometres southeast of Guam, heading out over the western Pacific Ocean towards the scattered atolls of the Caroline Islands and the equator. The large aircraft juddered slightly as it sliced through some light chop, and the roar of air around the cockpit wavered as the nose was buffeted by the unsteady air, before settling out again.

  Below and a little behind the tanker, the sleek arrowhead shape of a spaceplane followed at a constant distance, hooked up to the long refuelling boom that trailed behind the tanker. The spaceplane had already filled up with liquid oxygen from another tanker; this was its final stop to top up on fuel before it started on the thunderous climb to orbit.

  Clare’s eyes moved constantly in the unconscious, automatic rhythm of the skilled pilot, scanning the primary instruments every few seconds, then looking up to do a visual check outside. The clear air stretched away into the distance, with only a few scattered clouds towards the horizon. Below, at the bottom of seven kilometres of sky, the surface of the Pacific Ocean shimmered like blue glass. It was a perfect day, a perfect fuelling operation, and to anyone looking in at the life of Clare Foster, a captain on temporary suspension but still on flying duties, it appeared idyllic.