The Abyss Beyond Dreams Read Online Free PDF

pulled every emergency manual control out of the console, cluttering it in a bewildering assortment of clunky switches and ergonomic toggles. Flight trajectory graphics slithered
about inside the windscreen like holographic fish. Smaller panes that had popped up out of the console glowed with complex system-status symbols.
    Laura eyed them suspiciously as she strapped herself into her seat. The colourful 3D glyphs were ominously similar to those she used to see on wall posters at primary school when she dropped her
first batch of children off in the morning – and that was three hundred and fifty years ago.
Haven’t they come up with anything more advanced since then?
    Rojas was sitting comfortably in the pilot’s couch, studying the ever-changing holograms and flicking switches like a twentieth-century astronaut, his voice a low-level murmur saturated
with confidence as he talked to the array.
    ‘Looks like our glorious leader has the right stuff,’ Ibu said quietly as he settled into the couch next to Laura. ‘It makes you feel grand to be alive, doesn’t it,
putting your life in his hands?’
    She grinned back at him. Ibu had the kind of phlegmatic outlook on life she approved of. He was a good choice for the team. She still hadn’t made her mind up about Joey. If anything, the
spasms afflicting his facial muscles had increased. It was pure prejudice on her part, she knew, but it did make him look as if he had some kind of bad neurological problem rather than just some
damage from the tank yank, which he kept assuring them was inconsequential. Aside from that, the emotions which did escape from his guarded mind indicated disapproval of the mission. His heart
wasn’t in it.
    As for Ayanna, she acted like a consummate professional, interested only in the science. The problem with their newfound mental abilities was that everyone could sense the sheer terror leaking
from her mind.
    ‘Two minutes,’ Rojas announced.
    Five metres in front of the shuttle’s stubby nose, red warning lights began to flash around the docking bay’s inner doors as they slid shut. Laura made a face and pulled on her
padded cap, then used the backup straps to stop herself floating out of the couch, clicking them together in the way she just about remembered from her childhood. Nobody was relying on the
couches’ plyplastic cushioning to hold them.
    With the straps pressing into her shoulders, she tried to steady her breathing. Apart from the two mandatory emergency training sessions before the colony fleet left Commonwealth space, she
hadn’t spent any real time in zero gee for decades. Some people loved it for the freedom of movement. Every time she was weightless, she’d needed her biononics to help suppress the
nausea. Andy Granfore had given her some drugs he promised would help, but she didn’t hold out much hope. Besides, she was still so full of tank yank suppressors, her biochemistry would
probably register as alien if she was given any decent kind of scan.
    ‘Fusion chambers active and stable,’ Rojas announced. ‘Onboard systems ninety-four per cent functionality. Umbilical links closing.’
    A large purple star flared in one of the console displays. ‘You’re looking good, Fourteen,’ Cornelius Brandt’s voice boomed from the cabin’s speakers.
    ‘Bollocks to this,’ Laura muttered. It was just a shuttle launch, for crap’s sake. All these reassurances were really starting to crank her tension up.
    ‘I just wanted to emphasize that your mission is important, but not worth taking any dangerous risks for,’ the starship’s captain continued. ‘Once we’re established
on the surface, we’ll be able to turn every resource into finding a way out of the Void, and there are a lot of very smart people in suspension. Any information you can provide will be
valuable, even if it is negative.’
    ‘Copy that,
Vermillion
,’ Rojas said. ‘And thank you. Fifteen seconds to launch. Umbilical disconnect