Below Mercury by Mark Anson Read Free Book Online Page A

main runways and the maze of taxiways that connected the various parking aprons, loading bays, fuelling areas and maintenance hangars. Away from the base itself, a vast hinterland of industrial complexes, refineries, propellant storage farms, operations centres and easement areas covered over 175 square kilometres of land.
    From here, the US Astronautics Corps ran its biggest spaceport operation outside the United States mainland. Up to four orbital flights each day carried personnel and light cargo to and from low Earth orbit, and the fleets of space tugs, fuel tankers, asteroid interceptors and survey vessels that waited there. From Guam, it was possible to board a spaceplane and, within a few hours, to be on board a space tug on the way to the Martian bases, or any of the other distant outposts scattered through the Solar System.
    Supporting the spaceplanes were a fleet of airborne tankers, carrying hundreds of tonnes of cryogenic fuel through the skies. Two separate tankers – one for the fuel and one for the liquid oxygen – would typically take off first and circle at a rendezvous point, and then the spaceplane would take off, catch up with the tankers and refuel before the orbital climb.
    Transferring large quantities of super-cold liquids in mid-air was a tricky task that required considerable experience and practice, but it was easier and safer than trying to take off from a runway with over 150 tonnes of fuel and liquid oxygen on board. If a fully loaded spaceplane were to crash on takeoff, the resultant explosion would level the entire base.
    ‘Captain, we’re down to the last twelve tonnes to transfer. Are we okay for another two minutes?’
    Clare Foster glanced at the radar display before replying, but there was nothing out there but kilometres of empty sky in every direction.
    ‘Sure.’
    It was the afternoon of the tenth day since Helligan had come to see her in the simulator. The tanker that Clare commanded was about five hundred kilometres southeast of Guam, heading out over the western Pacific Ocean towards the scattered atolls of the Caroline Islands and the equator. The large aircraft juddered slightly as it sliced through some light chop, and the roar of air around the cockpit wavered as the nose was buffeted by the unsteady air, before settling out again.
    Below and a little behind the tanker, the sleek arrowhead shape of a spaceplane followed at a constant distance, hooked up to the long refuelling boom that trailed behind the tanker. The spaceplane had already filled up with liquid oxygen from another tanker; this was its final stop to top up on fuel before it started on the thunderous climb to orbit.
    Clare’s eyes moved constantly in the unconscious, automatic rhythm of the skilled pilot, scanning the primary instruments every few seconds, then looking up to do a visual check outside. The clear air stretched away into the distance, with only a few scattered clouds towards the horizon. Below, at the bottom of seven kilometres of sky, the surface of the Pacific Ocean shimmered like blue glass. It was a perfect day, a perfect fuelling operation, and to anyone looking in at the life of Clare Foster, a captain on temporary suspension but still on flying duties, it appeared idyllic.
    All Clare could feel, however, was a dull ache, a powerful sense of failure that she was here flying the tanker, instead of piloting the spaceplane behind her. In her mind’s eye, she was in the spaceplane’s cockpit, running through the pre-climb checklist, waiting for the last few tonnes of fuel to flow into the brimming tanks. Her hands rested on the thrust levers, ready to unleash the torrent of thrust that would hurl the spaceplane up and away, into the deep blue of the outer stratosphere.
    She sighed. No. She was flying a tanker.
    It had all started out so well, she thought, as she gazed into the blue haze where the sea met the sky, her mind wandering.
    A year ago (was it a year already? ) she had been on the way