Rogue Command (The Kalahari Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

was, apparently, some ‘Viking’ DNA in his makeup – he certainly looked the part with his wild hair and close-trimmed beard. The World Health Organisation’s Human Migration Database – a compulsory programme completed a decade earlier – had traced his origins to a 9th-century Norwegian populace. On duty, whilst his colleagues mostly wore casual clothing – tracksuits, chinos, polo jumpers and the like – Alex wore uniform, albeit his day suit. This was a mid-grey, lightweight coverall with darker trim to the pockets. Most of the crew kept their uniforms hanging in their lockers, only to be worn on courtesy visits, but Alex had worn a uniform all his life, liking the ‘tidy look’ it gave him. The three platinum bars on vivid neon-blue shoulder-boards, depicting his scientific specialisation, were an added extra on occasion of wanting to make a point about something. “I’ve earned them, so I’ll wear them!” he had been heard to say.
    He liked Rose Harrington, the pretty, petite, blonde Communications Officer, but she was all business and as specified. Anyway, the ISSF rules were clear enough – while in space, relationships were banned.
    The bridge crew numbered another five officers, making seven in total, although Lieutenant Mike Matheson, the Lander’s commander, and Aldrin Drake, his co-pilot, were usually to be found there too. For a vessel of its size the bridge was cramped. It sat at the apex of a raised, bell-shaped superstructure from which its occupants had a clear all-round view – ideal for orbital surveying. Eighty per cent of the Hera , however, lay behind them. Three enormous, latticed, titanium-alloy gantries extending over two hundred and eighty metres stretched seemingly into eternity. Looking back, the bright metal glinted in the reflected light of Jupiter like a stairway to the heavens. The elevated bridge overlooked the gantries’ full length and at their very end, in the distance, was a larger spherical structure that housed the primary thrust nozzle and other equipment.
    There was a monorail track running the entire length and on it was a small, enclosed, two-man capsule-like carriage that was powered by a magnetic impulse system. The capsule was usually garaged unless it was being used for servicing and the entire journey took almost ten minutes. Using criss-crossing structures, the three gantries triangulated and supported a giant central tube, part of which formed the primary ion generator and the remainder the particle accelerator. Finally they provided the fixed housings for the thrust deflectors. The latter focused and precisely directed a high velocity stream of atomic particles that fired out into space like an invisible laser beam. In line with the third law of motion, the reaction drove the Hera forward at an impressive velocity.
    There were also a number of directable, conventional, retro rocket nozzles interspersed along the gantries for manoeuvre control and two kilometres of pressurised gas tubing containing rocket propellant, oxygen, hydrogen and recycled carbon dioxide for the small, flat-topped bio-dome which was mounted behind the bridge.
    Vegetables required CO 2 and the ‘fresh’ oxygen they gave off as a result of transpiration was used to ‘invigorate’ the rest rooms. The bottled oxygen and hydrogen amalgamator for water production lay below the superstructure along with the moisture recuperator and 10,000 square metres of voltaic solar panels produced enough electricity for a small town. On the port side and central, there was a large, square hydraulically extendable platform on which the Lander was secured.
    The ship had been constructed in a low Earth orbit and then transferred to a higher orbit for fitting out – a concerted effort taking almost a year and at a cost of twenty-seven billion world dollars.
    There was another more advanced generation of interplanetary thrust technology available – a system utilised for the first time in the missing