Saturn Run (The Planetary Trilogy Book 1)

by Stanley Salmons

  It didn’t come.

  He opened his eyes and straightened up. The program had got it right after all. He took a deep breath and expelled it, while making a grim mental note to modify the clearance that had seemed so adequate in the safety of the classroom.

  There was no time to lose. He punched up the displays he wanted but retained manual control. He couldn’t entrust this manoeuvre to the computer because it would refuse to execute any manoeuvre that violated design limits, so he’d have to fly it like a giant skimmer. He held the stick steady, gave the pedals the equivalent of full right rudder and fired the APUs. At first it seemed that nothing was happening. Then the stars began to traverse the viewing screen to the left – the massive freighter was turning. It creaked and groaned under the sustained stress. Holding his breath, he watched the readouts, monitoring the angle and rate of yaw. He jumped as a buzzer sounded; simultaneously a message came up in large red letters:

  “WARNING: EXCESSIVE RATE OF YAW!”

  There were strain sensors throughout the ship; somewhere the stress was building to a dangerous level. He conjured up a mental picture of the drawings of the ship, trying to visualize the failure mode for the structure. The weakest elements were the access tubes bridging between the cargo pods and the living pod. It would take only one to buckle and collapse under the strain. That would put even more strain on the remaining tubes and they would go, one after another. Then the unsupported pods would split like – well, like pea pods. He cancelled the warning buzzer and maintained the rate of turn. The normally silent interior of the ship was invaded by unfamiliar sounds. A prolonged grating noise resolved into a loud ticking that slowed and grew in volume. He shot a quick glance at the pressurization display; things were still holding.

  Sorry, old girl. I know you don’t like it but you’d like it a lot less if I flew you into half a mountain.

  The ship continued to swing slowly around. A series of clangs echoed up from the depths of the living pod. The warning display was flashing insistently now. Twenty-three degrees, twenty-four degrees…twenty-five degrees – he cut the APUs, letting the ship continue to turn within its own length. It was essential to let the structure relax before he applied opposite torque to decelerate it. At sixty-five degrees he put the pedals on opposite rudder and fired the APUs again. Again the ship stretched and moaned – and again the display flashed its warning; the tortured structure was objecting as noisily as ever but somehow it was staying together. They came round to ninety-five degrees, a slight overshoot. He paused for a moment and then blipped the APUs to bring them exactly broadside on. He swallowed hard.

  Okay, all set. I’ll fire all three torpedoes in quick succession; that way if the first one breaks the asteroid up there’s still a chance the others will hit the larger pieces.

  He accessed the torpedo launch systems manually and launched the torpedoes: Bay 5…Bay 2…Bay 7. Now he had to carry out the opposite manoeuvre to swing the freighter back to its normal flying attitude. Still on full left rudder he fired the APUs. The structure moaned and the display started to flash its warning. He ignored it, trying to concentrate on the course bearing, the angle of the ship, the rate of yaw, the pressurization display and the deep-space radar. He paused, then fired the APUs again to arrest the turn. The ship was nearly around, so why hadn’t the radar locked onto the asteroid yet? He touched the pedals, watching the instruments, gently nudging the ship, trying to align it with the exact heading.

  The forward-pointing deep-space radar locked onto the second asteroid and his shoulders sagged with relief. He’d done all he could now. The rest was out of his hands. Only one question remained: would the torpedoes pick up the reflected radar beam?

  He lifted his eyes from the monitors and peered ahead, biting his lip, searching for a sign.

  Have they flown on without detonating? If they have, it’s all over for me.

  A ball of fire suddenly swelled in front of him and expanded soundlessly into a supernova-like veil of light and matter. Two more blossomed below and to the right of it. They spread and overlapped, filling the darkness in front, extending an intersecting filigree of glowing threads that stretched out to the periphery of his vision, then reached beyond it—

  He glimpsed the cloud of gas and rock fragments an instant before they plunged into it. There was a fearful noise, an irregular percussion like a demolition gang hammering on a tin roof. The ship shuddered under a heavier collision that sent metallic waves of sound through the structure, booming in his ears and vibrating under his feet. He cringed as another hit echoed through the hull, drowning for that instant the cacophony of smaller rattles and clangs and the insistent hooting of the depressurization alarm. He hit the button to cancel the alarm. The chatter of smaller impacts continued, then a few more patters and bangs, then silence.

  He’d been holding his breath and it felt like his heart was banging at the top of his chest. He wiped a sticky palm on his trousers, punched a few buttons to return control to the nav computer, and looked at the pressurization diagram of the ship, which had come on display as soon as the alarm had sounded. The living pod seemed to be holding up but three more tubes were damaged and one of the port cargo holds had no pressure at all; it had probably been ripped wide open. The computer in that hold had been bypassed. He couldn’t get in there to check the cargo because the access tube had ruptured.

  That’s just the inventory of penetrating damage. I hate to think what the ship looks like on the outside. On the credit side, though, the systems are still functioning, the ship’s still flying, and I’m still alive.

  He turned to the navigation panel. As he’d suspected, his manoeuvres and the impacts had pushed the ship slightly off track and they’d also lost some speed. He authorized the corrective manoeuvre immediately, then waited impatiently; the longer it took, the further off course they’d be and the more fuel would be needed to correct the trajectory. Seconds ticked by. This wasn’t a trivial calculation; they would almost certainly be passing close to Jupiter, so the gravitational correction would have to be recomputed. After what seemed like an age the APUs fired briefly and then there was a more prolonged burst from the plasma drives. The nav computer flashed up “COURSE CHANGE COMPLETED” and displayed the revised flight path. To his relief he saw that it cleared Jupiter’s orbit. He requested an update on fuel status. The result came up. There was just enough fuel left for the deceleration phase of the journey. But only by the most slender of margins.

  The crisis over, he fell back in his seat, eyes closed, and wiped the back of one hand slowly across his forehead. As his breathing settled and his heart stopped pounding a question began to nag at him. Why had this happened? It was precisely the kind of situation the navigation program should have been designed to avoid. He opened his eyes and drew himself up to the console.

  Using the computer’s data banks he displayed the on-board asteroid map and superimposed his original flight path. Then he went into the ship’s log, noted the coordinates for his close encounter with the first asteroid, and requested an enlargement of that portion of the flight path. The dashed line denoting his flight path passed straight through two large asteroids.

  No way could Mission Planning have missed that. What the hell went wrong?

  He took a deep breath. There were certainly major questions to be asked when he got back, but right now he hadn’t even completed the outgoing journey. What else could go wrong? He racked his brains but he couldn’t think of anything. Was he adequately prepared? All the torpedoes had gone and he didn’t like the feeling that he might be flying into more trouble unarmed. He needed to reload the launchers.

  The observation bays were open to the vacuum of space so he’d have to suit up. Arming the ship at the beginning of the flight had given him plenty of practice with this. He went to the lockers and took out a complete suit, a helmet, and the air tanks with their harness. He parked the air tanks in a shaped magnetic holder fitted to the wall for that purpose. He connected the air tanks to th
e helmet, donned the helmet, and ran up a little overpressure to check the seal. Finally he backed up to the air tanks, put the harness on, cinched it, and pulled the air tanks off the magnetic holder. He’d deliberately specified this type of suit, in which the air connection went to the helmet rather than a body socket, because it was easier to don without assistance.

  Next he boarded the open trolley and rode it on the monorail down the central corridor, travelling through the living space, the cryodorm, and into the cargo area. He stopped it at cargo hold 54, went down the access tube, and unpacked a torpedo. It wasn’t armed, of course, but the mere thought of handling an explosive charge that size made him move very carefully, staying close to the wall and using handrails wherever possible. He took it back through the access tube and rode the trolley to Bay 1, where he reloaded the launcher. He repeated the process with the next bay, and the next. It was exhausting work, and the need to operate airlocks at every stage lengthened the whole operation, but he continued until all sixteen launchers had been reloaded. Finally he desuited and went straight into the shower.

  There didn’t seem to be a lot more he could do. He’d sorted out the navigation and they were back on course. It would be another four months before they reached Jupiter’s orbit and after that another five before they reached the Saturn system. He had a calcium-supplemented meal and dosed himself with Ligasin for radiation-induced chromosome damage and Osteoporin for loss of bone calcium. And then, much as he hated the prospect, he submitted to the necessity of passing the rest of the journey in cryosleep.

  *

  Inside the cryochamber it was warm and humid at this stage of the cycle. A delicious feeling of relaxation spread through him, the tension seeping out of his body. The soft air cushions began their slow, travelling inflation and deflation, massaging his skin. His muscles contracted periodically in response to shaped bursts of electrical stimulation, which would help to preserve their bulk and maintain the slow venous return of thinned blood to his heart. As he sank into the twilight sleep induced by the drugs, uncomfortable thoughts were still lingering in his half-conscious mind.

  Things are happening that shouldn’t be happening. What have I been up against?

  50

  When he was awoken from cryosleep this time it was to behold the glorious sight of Saturn in the star-filled blackness ahead. It was still some way off – over a million kilometres – and because they were approaching in its equatorial plane the rings were edge on and almost invisible. It seemed a shame to come this far and not see the rings to full advantage but that wasn’t part of the mission. He ran careful systems and navigation checks. There were no problems and he was on course. Four hours later Saturn was larger than the moon in Earth’s night sky. Most of its surface was illuminated by the sun and he could see the belts in its fast-moving atmosphere. The sight of it enthralled him. The remaining ill-effects of the cryosleep vanished in a surge of elation that pumped through his veins and filled him with energy. He slammed a fist into a palm.

  I made it!

  It was time to set up the deceleration phase of the flight. First he had to turn the freighter end for end. He wasn’t in the asteroid situation now, so the cumbersome ship could be turned slowly and safely with a series of very short stabs from the auxiliary drives. He could have programmed the whole manoeuvre but he felt the need to busy himself, so he took manual control of attitude and set the nav computer to fire the APUs intermittently after a ten-second countdown. Holding the stick steady, and keeping an eye on the heading and attitude instruments, he positioned the pedals to initiate a flat 180-degree turn. The computer’s voice synthesizer called the countdown.

  “Ten… nine… eight… seven… six… five… four… three… two… one… FIRE.”

  The craft lurched and rolled to the left. His heart missed a beat and he hit the abort button immediately. All his joy had evaporated. Something was wrong. Something was seriously wrong.

  His palms were tingling and his insides were fluttering. Not the pirates – not even the asteroids – had made him feel this way. He knew he was panicking but it was with good reason. If he couldn’t turn this freighter round he couldn’t fire the big plasma engines to decelerate it. The ship would hurtle past Station Saturn at about eighty thousand miles an hour and spiral in towards the giant planet. They would enter Saturn’s upper atmosphere in a matter of days. The only consolation was that he’d get a stupendous view of the rings before he was squashed flat.

  Desperation gave way to desolation. A heavy cloud descended on him. He was not going to complete the journey after all. He was not going to return to Earth. And he would never see Neraya again.

  His chest contracted. “Come back, Danny,” she’d said. She loved him, she trusted him; she deserved better. The thought kindled a spark of defiance inside him that ignited his resolve. His jaw set.

  I will not die. Not like this. I’ve managed to get this far; I’m not giving up now.

  He focused his mind, forcing himself to examine the problem step by step.

  The engines had fired, he had no doubts at all about that. The control circuits were intact too, otherwise the problem would have been flagged up automatically. What could go wrong that wouldn’t show up on a systems check? It would have to be external. Some sort of mechanical interference? He quickly turned over in his mind what he knew about the steerable auxiliary power units. The nozzles didn’t operate independently, their control systems were linked. If one set of nozzles got stuck the other three would lock up and there wasn’t a thing you could do to override it. Somehow one set of nozzles must have got jammed. But which one? And how could he find out?

  There was a way: the robot arms used for loading awkward cargoes. They travelled on rails that ran the length of the cargo pods. Each was equipped with a camera and lighting system. He could use them to take a look at the auxiliary units.

  The robot arms were in their parked configuration at the front, so it was logical to examine the forward APUs first. It took him a while to bring up the images on the monitor and more minutes passed as he manoeuvred the arms, trying to point the cameras and high-intensity spotlights at the auxiliary engines. Finally he got the view he wanted on the left, and then on the right. He zoomed in. The port units were directed upwards and the starboard units were downwards – they must have been stuck like that since the last manoeuvre, when he tilted the craft past the big asteroid. At least that explained why he’d rolled to the left. But he couldn’t see anything wrong with either of these units. The problem must lie aft, with one of the units there.

  He set the robot arms travelling back on their rails. They seemed infuriatingly slow. The transport system was based on a mechanical drive because the arms had to be able to operate from a completely stable platform in every position. It was going to take ten to fifteen minutes for them to get to the other end of the ship. He waited impatiently, tapping his feet, trying to anticipate what he might see when the arms got to the back and what he might be able to do about it. Time was evaporating. How much time did he actually have? He brought up the flight plan on the screen, scrolled to the deceleration burn and set a clock to time zero. Then he released it to current time. It was counting down from fifty-eight minutes forty-nine seconds. Forty-eight seconds… forty-seven seconds...

  Great. I’m entering the gravitational field of a planetary giant and I have less than an hour to identify the problem, deal with it, fire the auxiliaries to swing the freighter around and start the plasma engines for the deceleration burn.

  If he started the burn late he’d overshoot. That wasn’t recoverable: the problems in the asteroid belt had left him with just enough fuel for the deceleration burn; there wasn’t any to spare for correcting an overshoot and there was nothing on Station Saturn capable of reaching him. The ship wasn’t equipped with an escape pod, either; according to Hal that was another economy Karl Stott had helpfully suggested. Apparently he’d said there was no point in having an escape pod on a journey such as this becaus
e if the pilot had to use it there was no possibility of reaching him before the life support systems gave out. It was hard to argue with that.

  Where are those damned robot arms?

  He brought up a graphic to get their current position. It showed a plan view of the craft with the rails on the top of the cargo pods in red and two red icons, depicting the robot arms, moving back in a series of jerks like a pair of small red beetles. The port one was slightly ahead of the starboard one.

  At the back of his mind the possibility was lurking that he might have to put on a suit and go extra-vehicular to deal with the problem. It was the last thing he wanted.

  EVA would be okay if I was working with a team, but I’m on my own. If something goes wrong or I drift off the ship I’ll be stuck out there without a soul to help me.

  In any case there was the question of time. The auxiliary units at the back of the craft were not much short of a mile away from where he was sitting now. It would be impossible to get there, do what had to be done, and get back in time.

  A flashing icon on the screen jerked him away from his thoughts. The starboard robot arm wasn’t moving any more. It must have jammed in the rails. After the battering the ship had taken he wasn’t altogether surprised, but it was yet another setback. Suppose he couldn’t see anything wrong on the port side now? He’d be left with two possibilities: either the fault was in the starboard aft unit, which he had no way of examining, or maybe he was wrong about the whole thing and the problem lay elsewhere.

  I won’t be able to take any chances. If nothing shows up on the port side I’ll have to go out to the starboard unit, and if nothing shows up there either… well, at least I’ll have a grandstand view of Saturn’s rings.