Rings of Fire and
Ice
By Tom
Chmielewski
Genre: Science
Fiction
Ed Ferald
prepares to fly the Cydonia Zach on the fastest trip ever from Mars to Saturn,
revolutionizing interplanetary travel time from months and weeks into days. So
why are so many corporate execs, lawyers, politicians and thugs determined to
stop the Zach from getting there?
Even if the Zach
reaches Saturn Science Station safely, Ed doesn’t expect the Titan staff to
welcome him and his crew with open arms. Open rebellion seems more likely, for
the mission of Zach's is to evict the staff and close the station.
But what haunts
the captain most are his own memories of what occurred at Saturn. Worse is his
fear of repercussions should a reporter on board finally unravel the
15-year mystery behind the wreck of a legendary ship, a mystery buried among
the dark reaches of Saturn’s frigid moons.
There are some
secrets that best stay buried.
The story is set
in a plausible science fiction setting of the early 22nd century, yet the plot
doesn’t delve into the nuts, bolts, and protons of the technology involved. The
author, after all, is an English major, not a physicist. Instead, the story
focuses on the people who live and work on Mars and elsewhere off Earth,
interjected with humor, and sharpened by the dangers they face. Ed and his
uncle’s “business consultant,” Faizah, an expert in corporate intelligence and
who knows what else, struggle to keep one step ahead of forces trying to stop
them. They face the threat through wit and guile, and a few sparks between
them, along with help from unexpected sources.
Rings of Fire and
Ice is a complete story in itself, yet continues the arc that began
with Lunar Dust, Martian Sands, and will continue in a third
novel.
IndieBound.org: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780981533858
About the Author
Tom Chmielewski
is a writer and editor who has worked on newspapers, magazines, websites,
books, and ebooks. He has nurtured a longtime interest in space travel and
science fiction stories that peer into the future of our exploration of the
Solar System and beyond. Tom grew up with the space race and was on a Florida
Beach to watch Apollo 11 launch for the moon.
He started his
journalism career as a cop reporter at a small daily along the Lake Michigan
shoreline, but his interest in Science Fiction prompted him to take a break in
1982 so he could attend the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’
Workshop. Tom, however, wasn’t ready to leave journalism behind and continued
to gather experience covering a variety of beats including higher education,
the arts and theater.
His more recent
freelance work has him writing features for regional magazines and science
articles for The Atlantic Magazine’s website.
In the past few
years, Tom has written two novels in the Martian Sands Series, beginning with
Lunar Dust, Martian Sands. The second, Rings of Fire and Ice, was released in
the spring of 2018. Tom has also written and produced a short story audio
drama, Shalbatana Solstice, in the same setting as the Martian Sands Series but
independent of the plot in the two novels.
In late 2016, tom
joined the board of The Clarion Foundation as treasurer. The Foundation is
celebrating the Clarion Workshop’s 50th
year in 2018.
Tom grew up in
Detroit and currently lives in Kalamazoo, MI.
Rings of Fire Ice, Excerpt
Prologue
“Rings of Fire,
Saturn Station. Telemetry shows you below the altitude limit for Enceladus.”
The communications officer spoke in a calm monotone, but no one could mistake
his urgency. “We need you to regain altitude immediately.”
The control room’s
main speaker spat out only static in response. A silent, barely perceptible
wave of tension swept through Saturn Science Station’s small, darkened
operations center on Titan, the stale smell of discarded lunches and sweat from
controllers at the end of their long shifts hanging in the air. Most of the
morning the controllers leaned back and casually kept an eye on their screens.
Now as one they hunched over their controls, scrutinizing the ship’s telemetry
and hoping to find a minor glitch, afraid they would find much worse. The
operations director cut off a scientist’s droning recitation of early data from
the Rings of Fire, turning instead to the center’s main screen for any hint of
what was going wrong.
The Rings made
several passes over Enceladus, deploying a new sensor array to probe geysers in
the small moon’s south polar region. Those geysers fed Saturn’s thin E-ring,
orbiting beyond the rings visible from Earth. Everything had gone as planned
until this last pass. Treaty regulations prohibited a crewed ship from approaching
closer than 15 kilometers to avoid any risk of contaminating life thought to
exist in the moon’s subsurface ocean. The ship’s crew and the station could
face hefty fines if the Rings didn’t regain altitude fast.
The flight director
leaned over the com officer’s shoulders, his hands gripping the back of the
officer’s seat. “Keep trying to raise them.”
“Rings of Fire,
Saturn,” Com called again. “You’re still dropping below altitude restrictions.
We need you to correct your course now.”
Again, the only
response was static. The operations director scanned the telemetry, confirming
the problem was getting worse.
“Flight,” Ops
called out, “what’s going on?”
“Everything looked
fine, then suddenly the ship began drifting under the altitude limit.”
“A ship doesn’t
suddenly drift. Com, keep trying to raise them.” The Operations Director
hastened to the front row of computer screens “Flight, you said its trajectory
was right on target.”
Flight, baffled,
looked up from his screen. “The ship was on track. But it’s under power now and
should be gaining…. Check that. The ship’s thrusting downward.”
“What!?” Ops
realized the situation just went from a bureaucratic mess to a looming
disaster. “Com, tell them to abort.”
“Rings of Fire.
Abort, Abort, Abort. Gain altitude now!”
“Do we have a radar
image yet from the Aquarius probe?”
“The probe’s coming
into line of sight now, Ops,” another controller answered. “Putting it on the
main screen.”
The screen
flickered, replacing the data stream with a detailed black-and-white image of
the Rings of Fire turning in a herky-jerky fashion.
“Flight,” Ops
called out, but kept her eyes on the screen. “What’s happening?”
“I’m now showing
multiple thruster firings. They may be trying to get the ship back under
control.”
“Altitude?”
“Still dropping,
approaching 10 kilometers.”
The radio speaker
suddenly sparked alive with sounds of commotion and voices, angry or scared,
barely breaking through the static. Only a few desperate words got through —
“Stop … get main eng…. still fi…. no good” — before the signal faded. The radar
image showed the exploration ship cartwheeling over the horizon. A band of
interference briefly streaked across the screen, followed by a bright flash and
a cloud of debris rising from the surface.
The official investigation
lasted two years, and unofficial investigations much longer. In the end, all
that was left of the Rings of Fire was an ugly scar on the surface of
Enceladus, a 15-year mystery on what caused the crash, and a scrap of its
charred, shattered hull hanging on a Martian barroom wall.
No comments:
Post a Comment