Lee Edgar - The Andromeda Burn.pdf

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Τηε
Α�½δροµεδα
Βυρ�½
βψ Λεε Εδγαρ
DEDICATED
TO
DAUGHTERS
EVERYWHERE
©
Originally
L
EE
E
DGAR
1997
All
Published and Printed by
R
EGENT
L
ANE
Ltd
Devonshire Road Industrial Estate
Millom, Cumbria LA18 4JS
Rights Reserved by Bankside Publishing
SEQUELS
TO
THIS
BOOK
The Andromeda Seed
Return to Andromeda
The Andromeda Trial
Andromeda Time
ΦΙΝΑΛ ΑΠΠΡΟΑΧΗ
Cassiopeia Duncan glanced up when the computer bleeped at her. Although it
didn’t happen very often, she didn’t seem at all surprised. In fact, she even
smiled as she reached over and pressed a key.
The flight deck of Wayfarer Two was fairly large and seemed to her all the more
so when she was alone at the controls. On the main console there were three
monitor screens. To her left there was a white one labelled I.R.I.S. Immediately
in front of her, a black one which currently showed a bright pinpoint of light
dead ahead and, to her right, a red one which displayed the status of the various
drives.
The young woman leant forward slightly towards the centre screen and spoke.
‘Enhance and identify.’
The image appeared to jump towards her as the enlarged picture of the star
stabilised, while the left hand monitor cleared and the data began to flow.
IDENTITY
DIAMETER
SIDEREAL AXIAL ROTATION
INCLINATION
DENSITY
-
-
-
-
-
SOL
1392Mm
25.38d
7° 15'
1.409
--1
ESCAPE VELOCITY
- 617.5 Km/s
SURFACE GRAVITY
- 27.9
NUMBER OF PLANETS
- 10
DISTANCE
- 41.39AU >
She pressed the button marked TANNOY. ‘Commander Duncan to the flight deck,
please.’
After a few seconds, a man’s voice came from a speaker on the console. ‘What
is it, Cassi?’
‘Iris has Sol on the screen, Commander.’
She could almost hear his smile. ‘Very good. Prepare the reactor for reverse
thrust. I’m on my way up.’
Cassi turned to her right and moved her long, white fingers over the red
keyboard. ‘ACTIVATE MAIN REACTOR’
‘Are you sure? (Y/N) >’ replied the amber characters on the screen of the
drive computer which then waited patiently for her answer.
She pressed ‘Y’. Yes, she was sure.
‘Main reactor activated > 10 minutes to critical mass >’
Cassi relaxed. There was nothing more she could do but wait. During the long
haul across the void, the drive had been locked into stand-by mode and the
auxiliary drive had taken care of all minor course adjustments. The bulkhead
door opened with a slight pressure hiss and in walked a tall man who appeared
to be around fifty earth years.
He laid his clipboard on the console and looked over the girl’s shoulder.
‘Good work, Cassi. We’re coming home at last.’
Cassi glanced up at him. His blue-grey eyes still sparkled despite the
crinkles in the skin at each side. The teeth were still his own though the
once-fair hair and beard were now turning grey. All she knew was that she
loved him and that she could sense his enthusiasm which was infectious as a
tingle of excitement ran through her own body.
He sensed her observations and smiled. ‘How long to critical mass?’
Cassi glanced at the red screen. ‘Seven minutes.’
He stood up straight. ‘Okay. We’d better strap ourselves in. It’s been a
long time since I’ve done this. Warn the others, would you?’
Cassi nodded and pressed the tannoy button. ‘Attention all crew. Reverse
thrust in approximately seven minutes. Repeat, reverse thrust in seven
minutes.’
The Commander sat in his swivel chair and connected the straps across his
lap while Cassi returned to Iris.
‘Is the deceleration bad?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘Not normally. Just a sudden slowing to sub-light speed.
We can’t go tearing across a stellar system in Proton Drive. If we run into
Miranda or Phoebe at this speed, they will do more that scratch Wayfarer’s
paintwork.’
Cassi glanced at the red terminal and pressed the tannoy button once more.
‘Reverse thrust in four minutes and counting.’
James Duncan grinned. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
Cassi’s deep blue eyes flicked to him briefly as she set up the retros for
possible course adjustment. ‘It runs in the family.’
He threw back his head and laughed. ‘That’s my girl.’
Blushing a little, Cassi concentrated on scanning for any other nearby
stellar bodies that could impede their progress. There were none within range.
‘Three minutes to reverse thrust,’ she said over the tannoy. ‘Secure any
loose objects.’
The red screen said ‘Sol - Distance 40.2AU’ when she hit the key. There was
no noise, no sudden lurching or groaning, just a mild sensation of floating as
the big ship started to decelerate rapidly. At half light speed, she cut the
motor.
The Commander smiled his approval. ‘Anyone would think you had done that
before.’
‘I have.’
He frowned. ‘When?’
‘Yesterday, in the simulator.’
‘It’s not quite the same thing,’ he said as he unbuckled his belt and got to
his feet. ‘Get it wrong on the simulator and all that happens is you get
bleeped at. Loose off the Proton Drive at the wrong time in real life and we
could end up splattered all over some stray asteroid.’ He pressed the tannoy
switch down. ‘All crew stand down. Approximately twelve hours to Earthfall.’
Cassi turned to face her father. ‘Did I do okay?’
He kissed her forehead. ‘You did perfect. Go and get some rest.’
Her smile said everything.
WHEN Cassi woke, she felt strange. She put it down to the excitement of the
moment and thought nothing more of it as she splashed cold water onto her face
and arms. She then slipped into her overall before tucking her long, fair hair
into her baseball cap and stepping out into the corridor. She was the only
female on board ship which merited private accommodation next to the
Commander’s quarters, behind the flight deck. It was, therefore, not a long
journey to go to work.
However, Wayfarer was a big vessel by interplanetary standards. Apart from
the flight control centre and sleeping accommodation, there was also a science
laboratory, an engineering shop, some storage space as well as a large area of
fresh food growing under artificial ultra-violet light. Whereas local ships
had only needed supplies for a few months, Wayfarer Two, like her unfortunate
predecessor, Wayfarer One, had been designed to stay for years in deep space.
Now, she was coming home.
As Cassi stepped over the threshold and entered the flight centre, five
faces turned towards her. She smiled at them all. As long as she had known
them, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta had treated her with the utmost
consideration. In fact, she could not remember an occasion when they had
spoken an unkind word nor raised their voices in anger. Epsilon and Zeta spent
most of their time in the reactor bay, while Eta and Theta looked after the
food supplies and the like. She wondered how on earth they got such unusual
names.
With some effort, her father stood up when he saw her. ‘Good Morning, Cassi.
You’re just in time for our second reverse thrust. Would you like to do it?’
Her heart-rate doubled. Would she? She sat in front of Iris and ran her
hands over the computer keyboard. The black viewer screen showed a mass of
stars. She typed in one word - Terra. The viewpoint moved slightly and an
arrow appeared to indicate a tiny pinpoint of light.
‘It’s either very small or still a long way away,’ she observed.
‘Both,’ said her father with a grin. ‘At this speed, we would get there in
under three hours but we must slow right down to pass through the asteroid
belt. This time, instead of one big reverse thrust, we will take it in stages
as we approach.’
‘Enlarge,’ Cassi said to the monitor and the white pinpoint grew a little
larger. The left screen clarified.
IDENTITY
- Terra
DIAMETER
- 12.76Mm
SIDEREAL AXIAL ROTATION
- 23h 56m 4.091s
INCLINATION
- 23o 27’
DENSITY
- 5.517
ESCAPE VELOCITY
- 11. 18km/s-1
SURFACE GRAVITY
- 1.0
ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE
- 1.07kg/cm2
NATURAL SATELLITES
- 1
DISTANCE
- 8.6AU >
James Duncan shook his head. ‘Whatever would we do without Iris?’
‘The Interactive Radar Identification System,’ corrected Beta in his usual
manner.
Cassi laughed. The Commander grinned. The screen bleeped. All chairs and
eyes swivelled towards it as a large, dark object blotted out the stars by its
bulk.
‘Good grief,’ cried Cassi. ‘What on earth is that? Identify!’ she screamed
at the monitor.
‘It’s Saturn,’ muttered the Commander without waiting for the computer to
respond. He turned to Gamma who was seated at the red control console. ‘Full
reverse thrust, right retro. We’ll tuck in behind her.’
‘No!’ cried Cassi as she watched the readout. All eyes looked at her as she
stared at the lettering gradually filling Iris’ screen. Without looking at
Gamma, she instructed: ‘Emergency full ahead. Full left retro.’
‘But...’ began the uncertain pilot officer.
‘Do it!’ she said evenly without taking her eyes off the screen. ‘And please
do it now.’
This time, the ship did shudder as the anti-matter reactor went critical and
the main retros strained to push the tail of the ship to one side. Gradually,
the great planet swung across their bows as Wayfarer accelerated rapidly,
plunging straight for the surface. No-one said a thing - it was already too
late to change course as the cloud belt rushed up at them. All eyes were on
the forward screen as the figures whirled crazily and the thrust bit hard,
pushing now on the outer atmosphere of mainly Ammonia and Methane, as the
nose-cone temperature rose rapidly. Suddenly, the tail flicked round as they
burst into the upper atmosphere.
‘She won’t take much more,’ cried Gamma as the ship fought for survival.
‘Put it into the red,’ instructed Cassi calmly. ‘Go in under the rings.’
‘I hope you know what the hell you’re doing,’ called Commander Duncan above
the noise.
‘Trust me,’ she said with no more than a sidelong glance.
The whole bodywork seemed to flex and strain as the massive gravity pull of
Saturn fought against the ship’s reactor. For a long time, it seemed as though
gravity had won until, suddenly, the cloud layer cleared and the Cassini
Division between the main rings of Saturn was ahead.
Cassi glanced at the screen once more and then spoke to the pilot. ‘You’ve
got to get us through that gap.’
‘We’ll never make it at this speed,’ Gamma muttered.
She turned to face him. ‘We’ve got to.’
With alarming speed, the gap approached and, just as fast, was past. No
debris battered the hull. No overheat melted them. They had survived.
‘Cut Proton Drive and activate reverse thrust,’ she instructed. ‘And resume
original trajectory.’
Gamma obeyed and the ship steadied and gradually slowed.
The Commander looked an old man as he sat down. ‘That was close - much too
close.’
Cassi just stared at the screen.
‘And how did we come to be so near to the planet in the first place?’ her
father asked severely. ‘How could you make such a terrible mistake?’
‘But...’ She was confused. ‘I didn’t know.’
He was angry. ‘You nearly killed us all by your incompetence. I suggest you
go to your cabin at once.’
With tears in her eyes, Cassi got to her feet and practically ran from the
flight deck. She felt so humiliated. But where had she gone wrong? Sol was
where it was supposed to be, give a degree or so on the parallax. What had
happened to pull the massive Saturn away from its usual mean synodic period?
Were any of the other planets out of their computed positions?
The door of her cabin opened and her father strode in. He was clearly livid.
‘From now on, you had better stay off the flight deck; I cannot afford such
mistakes. I told you before, this is not a simulation, it is the real thing.’
She bowed her head. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? And what about disobeying my orders? What on earth possessed you to
override my instructions, especially in front of the others? I think you had
better spend the rest of the day in the gymnasium. I want at least three of
your personal records broken before I see you again. Any disciplines will do.
If this was the twentieth century, I would be thrashing the hide off you by
now. Instead, I’ll let you do it to yourself.’
Cassi looked down at the floor in shame.
He turned at the door. ‘I’ll drive this rebellious attitude out of your
system for once and for all.’
Cassi slowly undid the velcro of her pale blue overalls and let them drop to
the floor. As if in a dream, she opened the door and stared into the gymnasium
which had been built specially for her in one of the store rooms. Letting out
a long sigh, she began her warm-up routine.
BY the time he re-entered the flight control room, Jim Duncan had calmed down
a little. Had he been too hard on her? After all, she was only young. However,
lives were at stake and mistakes like this could not be tolerated.
‘Commander,’ said Beta, sitting in front of Iris. ‘I think that you had
better take a look at this.’
What now? Jim raised his eyes and sauntered over to the console.
‘Recall and rerun last sequence,’ said Beta and the screen flickered for
several seconds before stabilising. The bulk of Saturn appeared once more,
creeping across the screen. ‘Stop!’
The Commander looked puzzled. ‘What’s the problem?’
Beta looked straight at him with totally expressionless eyes. ‘This is the
point just before you gave your order.’ He turned to face the screen. ‘Begin
recorded simulation.’
On the screen, the ship appeared to move towards the giant planet. Together,
they watched the rerun and heard Jim Duncan’s voice followed by Cassi’s
override.
‘Cancel last instruction,’ said Beta immediately and the ship’s nose began
to follow the Commander’s instruction and pull to the right as the ship
rapidly decelerated. With ease, the ship swung across the face of Saturn and
curved in an arc away from the deadly rings. The technician pointed toward the
simulation on the centre screen. ‘The ship has missed Saturn itself but, due
to the combination of drag from the planet and the centrifugal force of our
turn, there is practically no room to manoeuvre.’
The Commander shrugged. ‘So?’
Beta nodded towards the screen. ‘Watch!’
It went blank. Jim Duncan stared at it with his mouth open. ‘What happened?’
Beta leant towards the screen. ‘Back and slow rerun,’ he said and the ship
turned once more. As darkness closed over the screen, he said: ‘Pause.’
‘What is it?’
Beta looked at him. ‘Identify,’ he said to Iris.
The screen flashed up a single word - “ Atlas” . There was no inflection in
Beta’s voice as he stated: ‘Wayfarer Two is now in very small pieces all over
the surface of Saturn’s innermost moon.’
‘Hell’s teeth,’ the Commander said with feeling.
For the next half-hour, they reran the sequence, simulating every possible
course of action and each ended in disaster. Either the speed was too slow and
they crashed onto the planet’s surface or it was too great and they were
pummelled to pieces trying to break through the rings. They had become trapped
between Saturn and her moons.
He slowly got to his feet and placed his hand on the Flight Engineer’s
shoulder. ‘Thank you.’ He looked around the flight deck. ‘See if you can find
out why we got into this position in the first place.’
‘Already done, Commander.’
‘What?’
‘Iris confirms that the data is corrupted.’
‘Corrupted? But where? How?’
‘The information concerning the relative positions of the stellar bodies
seems to be still reliable. It is the time sequence that is wrong.’
‘Time sequence? But I don’t understand...’
‘Neither do I, yet. Iris is working on it now.’
‘Let me know when you have found the fault. And keep an eye out for Jupiter.
We should be crossing her orbit in about an hour’s time. By rights, she should
be at perihelion distance on the opposite side of the sun. But, then, so
should Saturn.’
‘I will do what I can.’
The older man turned with shoulders hunched and left the flight deck. He
found his daughter doing push-ups on the parallel bars.
‘Seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven....’
He placed his hand over hers. ‘You can stop now.’
‘Seventy-eight, seventy-nine,’ she continued. ‘Eighty.’ Cassi dropped nimbly

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