Astronomicon 1: Inception Point (Finished)

39 - Injection

"One minute until trans-planetary injection," Stephen reported from his station in the control room. "Are you sure we're going to do this?"

"Well, it's either now or in just over an hour's time, when we've completed another orbit of Proxima B," Ria replied, pulling herself back into her command seat using the harness straps as handholds.

"Once we break orbit, there's no turning back," he warned.

"We're doing this. Foxy, is everything ready for the injection?"

The computer replied, "Ion drives on both vessels are warmed up and reporting ready for operation, Commander. All four fusion reactors are ready for sustained output, all navigational systems are working at optimum capability, and propellant levels are sufficient for the manoeuvre. I am concerned at the inadvisable safety margin for the propellant."

"I know it's going to be close, Foxy. Any other problems?"

"The imbalance in propellant levels between the vessels will significantly complicate both acceleration and deceleration sequences. I will compensate by regularly correcting the attitude of both vessels with thrusters. Beginning manoeuvre now, Commander."

It took twenty seconds for the thrust from the four ion drives to ramp up to the power level they would cruise at for the trip to Proxima C. Even though she was expecting it, Ria found the rapid return of gravity a little nauseating.

A prolonged and highly disconcerting sound of metal grinding against metal caused them all to fall silent. Other metallic clangs and thuds punctuated the ongoing noise, but eventually, it reduced to just an occasional metallic creak as the ships settled against each other.

The five of them continued to sit in silence for an uncomfortably long time, waiting for the creaking noises to end, but there would be another grinding groan every few seconds. Ria already had a plan of the Hesperian open on her screen with stress-levels depicted as a gradient of green through to red. A worrying number of areas were highlighted in orange, but nothing had turned red, yet.

"Foxy, what's out current acceleration?" she asked.

"0.62G, Commander."

"Is that as fast as we can go?"

"I am monitoring stress levels and comparing trajectories with data-led predictions. If the variations are low, I will increase acceleration to 0.68G. That is the maximum acceleration that the winch cables can safely withstand."

"Okay, Foxy. Keep monitoring. We'll leave it with you."

"Yes, Commander."

"It's good to have some gravity back," sighed Stephen, stretching his arms out to either side and slowly rotating his wrists.

"It really is," she replied. "But now we've got to work out how to kill two weeks."

"I would suggest all of us going back into cryo but we've got another eighteen-plus hours before that's allowed."

"And if this operation doesn't go to plan, Foxy will have to defrost us again during the voyage," she added.

"Someone should remain awake to monitor things," he agreed.

Ria unfastened her harness and tentatively got to her feet. The induced gravity level might not have been much more than half what she was used to but, compared to the zero gravity of a few minutes before, it felt like they had resumed normality. She walked the few steps needed to look at Susan's console, which displayed the status of all drive components, before returning to her own seat and perching on the front edge of it.

"Here's my plan:" she announced, "I'm going to give everyone the option of going back into the cryopods for a fortnight, until we get there. It will help avoid us digging too deeply into our accessible rations but, as I'm remaining on duty for the rest of the voyage, it would be nice if someone could volunteer to stay up with me."

"No problem, Commander. I'm happy to do that," Stephen replied.

He switched off his console screen and turned his seat to face the command chair.

"Thanks for volunteering, Stephen. Is everyone else happy to go back into their cryopods?"

Everyone agreed.

"Two weeks of ship rations is too much anyway," Skylar laughed. "Wake me up when there's some proper food available."