Orphan Planet: A feelgood space adventure (Odyssey Earth Series Book 1) by Rex Burke

Author:Rex Burke [Burke, Rex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781916893689
Published: 2023-04-17T16:00:00+00:00

If anything about a seventeen-year, trans-galactic space voyage using a space-time warp drive could be described as easy, it was the whole seventeen-year, trans-galactic, space-time warp-drive bit.

“Because of the bubble?” said Jordan.

“If you like,” said Bryson, who had drawn the short straw and was trying to explain it to him. Again. “Though not an actual bubble, remember?”

“Sure, but still, you know. A bubble.”

“Anyway, look. In hyperdrive, everything’s nice and smooth. A big wrapping of spacetime around us and a hassle-free journey. Nothing can go wrong really. Unless everything goes wrong, in which case we wouldn’t even be here.”

“No one ever mentioned that when I signed up, funnily enough.”

“But now we’re pretty much there, we have to cut the hyperdrive and cruise in. Just using the regular old fusion-reactor drive and the brakes, like a normal spaceship.”

“Aren’t fusion reactors dangerous?”

“Very. Though only if they go wrong. But that’s not the problem.”

“I thought you were supposed to be reassuring me?”

“I am, but it’s very difficult – ” Bryson looked exasperated – “when you literally don’t understand anything about the simplest of things.”

“I think your definition of simple is very different from mine.”

“It’s basic physics and chemistry. Even the biologists can get their heads around this stuff.”

“All right, never mind. Tell me about the meteorites.”

“Meteoroids.”

“Meteoroids then, whatever.”

“Not whatever, they’re different things. Seriously, what was the education system like on Earth? A meteoroid is a little bit of broken-off asteroid, like a tiny rock orbiting a star. A meteorite is what’s left if it doesn’t burn up after entering an atmosphere and landing on a planet.”

“And they’re bad because … ?”

“We’ve just popped out of hyperdrive. Yes, the bubble. We’ve cleared the inner edge of an asteroid belt – lots of big rocks circling the home star – so we don’t have to worry about an extinction-event collision … ”

“The three words every space traveller loves to hear. Again, no one ever mentioned that before.”

“You don’t need to worry. Probably. But there are still tons of little pebbles – meteoroids – whizzing around in our vicinity. Mostly, we’re going to miss them and, mostly, the deflectors will take care of the ones we get too close to. But we might get a bump or two, and we might have to alter course now and again, pick our way through to New Earth. But it’s nothing we didn’t expect and nothing we can’t handle.”

“Space stuff is going to crash into us?”

“Maybe. Probably not. Nothing big anyway. Although even a speck in the wrong place could take out – never mind.”

“And that’s why we’re leaving the new planet alone for now? Because of the killer space dust?”

“Correct. I mean, it is pretty exciting, finding another new planet. Doubles our chances, opens up possibilities. But Reeves reckons it’s not worth the risk detouring, given we’re so close to mission end. We’ve no real idea about conditions there or what’s in the neighbourhood, not without a lot of prep work. We’ve got the flight plan already sorted for New Earth, and everything’s set for planetfall there, so that’s what we’re going to stick to.

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