‘Set for landing. Four greens.’
‘
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.
‘
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 …
‘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
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:
‘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
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.
