"Lee Edgar - The Andromeda Trial" - читать интересную книгу автора (Edgar Lee)

Τηε
Ανδροµεδα
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βψ Λεε Εδγαρ


DEDICATED TO INNOCENTS EVERYWHERE


© LEE EDGAR 1997


Originally Published and Printed by
REGENTLANE Ltd
Devonshire Road Industrial Estate
Millom, Cumbria LA18 4JS
All Rights Reserved by Bankside Publishing

EARLIER BOOKS IN THIS SERIES
The Andromeda Burn
The Andromeda Seed
Return to Andromeda
Andromeda Time




ΤΗΥΡΣ∆ΑΨ
Navigation Officer Cassiopeia Hardy gripped the padded arm of her seat so tightly
that her knuckles were white as Orion Space Station loomed large in the forward viewer
of their shuttle craft.
‘You’re approaching too fast,’ she cautioned the pilot. ‘Take evasive action.’
‘I c..c..can’t,’ stammered the young man on her left, frantically stabbing at buttons
to fire the lateral retros. ‘It’s too late.’
He was right. Untrained instincts were too slow. The shuttle started to turn, but the
stubby port wing caught the edge of Orion’s docking bay, sending up a shower of sparks.
Turning as if in slow motion, the craft went into a lateral spin and the nose cone
rammed through the thin skin and pierced the space station’s reactor bay. The jarring
crash shook them all just seconds before the reactor went critical and exploded in a
ten-kilometre ball of irradiated fire.
Cassi’s head was in her hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ said the pilot, getting shakily to his feet.
She looked up sharply but spoke without malice. ‘Sorry? Paul, you have just destroyed
seven billion pounds worth of space station, four shuttles which were docked, an
interstellar cruiser worth untold millions, and in the process killed the hundred or so
workers and scientists on Orion, not to mention your own crew. You have got to start
getting it right.’
She stood up and faced the group of twenty young men and women behind her. ‘If this
wasn’t a simulation, you would now all be dead. How do you feel about that?’
None of them said a word. They had all failed. Paul Andrews had been the last to try