GUIDESTAR

This is just an excerpt from my new spine chilling British thriller GUIDESTAR due for release soon.

See http://guidestarjon.blogspot.co.uk for full details...

ICARUS.

            "Attention please this is ICARUS control. We are about to start a 4-minute sequence countdown forshot number 2, 6, 9, 4. This will be a full system shot with temporal re-compression on beams 1, 3, 4 and 6. This is a fast ignition experiment, I repeat; this is a fast ignition experiment. Would all personnel susceptible to electro-magnetic radiation please go to a shield-room now."

Scott released his finger from the button at the base of the microphone and sat back in the reasonably impressive, bright blue swivel chair. It was so much better than the tatty old brown civil service one back in his office. The loud ominous wailing of the warning sirens situated throughout the entire building, started to drown out the low chatter of the scientists, engineers and technicians in the dimly lit control room. The dramatic red beacons on the walls lit up and began to rotate. Scott looked up once more at the six,huge plasma screens mounted on the far wall of the NASA-style control room. From them alone, he could clearly see that the primary power generators were beginning to charge the vast array of capacitor banks in the catacombs of the building way below his feet. Scott glanced down at his own elevated console screen and made sure that he still had the small green light indicating that all of the otherstations were cleared to fire. Even though he'd done this a hundred times before, he couldn't help but think the same thought every time,

'Fuck me, this is so cool!' Scott smiled to himself briefly beforerefocusing his attention on the highly complex task in front of him. He began to prepare for the mid-countdown-sequence checks, his hand coolly reaching out for the black swan-necked microphone once more.

"OPG 1, status please." Scott looked across at the thin, dark haired scientist on the OPG1 control desk.

"Primary Optical Pulse Generation Room ready, sir," came a thinly veiled pompous reply. Scott ignored the characteristic stupidity and moved his eyes slightly further to the right.

"OPG 2. Are you ready?" The young girl in the ill-fitting white lab coat at the second console,to whom Scott was talking, was clearly trying to juggle several conversations at once.Somehow, she always managed to exude a mildly alarming air of panic into an otherwise calm if perhaps vaguely sterile room.

"Just a minute, Scott. Err. Oh shit! Hang on, argh bollocks! Not that one!" said the girl with a Slavic lilt. Scott placed his hand over his mouth to try to conceal the involuntary grin before regaining a more professional composure.

"OPG 2. Are you ready to fire?" Scott waited patiently for a reply but was becoming more than a little uncomfortable with the protracted delay. He waited as long as he could and then spoke in a far more urgent tone.

"Ava. Do we need to abort?" Scott's hand hovered above the large red button on the right hand side of his console that if required, could safely dissipate the colossal quantity of energy now being stored in the capacitor banks below. The flustered young girl hesitated until the last possible moment before replying.

 "Oh wait. It's OK, yes, we had some spectral instability but Foxy, sorry, Paul says it is OK now."

Scott slowly withdrew his hand from the vicinity of the large red button and continued with renewed haste through the rest of the checks.

"PAMs are we good to go?" said Scott quite abruptly.

"Natch!" came the somewhat sarcastic reply from the scientist on the centre console. Scott just ignored the flippant remark and turned to look at the console closest to the wall of plasma screens.