Resolute - Mission to Mars

di Lance Elliott (Autore)

Lance Elliott, 2024

The Resolute, a massive colony ship built by the eccentric billionaire Ryan Steel and his company SSC, departs an overcrowded Earth on an audacious mission - to establish the first permanent human settlement on Mars. Aboard are 64 carefully selected crew members, a genetic reserve meant to provide the seed for populating the Red Planet. Though leaving the relative paradise of Earth fills them with trepidation, they steel themselves for the unknown challenges that await on the dusty, hostile Martian surface. The years of meticulous planning and construction of the ship could not prepare them for the unexpected hazards they encounter en route. A meteor storm breaches the hull, causing a rapid decompression that leaves one crew member dead from explosive decompression. A powerful solar flare disables critical systems, leaving the ship drifting powerless. In the creeping darkness of failed life support, a malevolent force seems to take hold - whispering doubts, stoking fears and aggression until the crew descends into paranoia and violence. Despite the captain's efforts to maintain order, irrational behavior spreads like a contagion. Fights erupt, equipment is sabotaged. In a horrific act, a mentally unraveled crew member attempts to breach the nuclear reactor, crippling the engines before he is stopped. Cut off from Earth with damaged communications, the surviving crew can only watch in dread as the crippled Resolute limps onward towards their tenuous future on Mars. When they finally enter orbit around the Red Planet, the full extent of the damage becomes clear - the ship will likely be unable to execute a safe landing. But having burned their planetary departure fuel, returning to Earth is impossible. The captain and crew make what repairs they can, then brace themselves as the Resolute shudders through the blistering atmospheric entry in a controlled descent towards their landing zone. Miraculously, the ship holds together long enough to reach the surface before finally coming apart. The surviving crew scrambles from the wreckage into the baked crimson desert of Mars, their new home. Though victorious in completing the journey, they are now tragically cut off from any resupply or support, their colony's future hanging by a thread. Donning their specialized Mars suits, the colonists force themselves to appreciate the vista of desolate wonder stretching to the rust-hued horizon. As they survey the barren alien landscape and take their first faltering steps, they steel themselves for the monumental task of ensuring the survival of human civilization on this unforgiving new world. Back on Earth, the SSC team pores over the telemetry data from Resolute's harrowing journey with escalating alarm and dread. For amidst the records of system failures and damage, they have discovered telemetric traces that point to an insidious, inexplicable force at work - a dark presence that seems to have instigated and fed upon the crew's descending spiral of mistrust and malice. Could this be the progenitor of future conflict that dooms the fragile Martian colony to failure...or is it merely the first manifestation of something far more ominous? As the colonists prepare to eke out an existence on Mars, they are unaware of the scrutiny they are under from Earth. Nor can they conceive of the true depths of isolation, privation and potential darkness that lie in wait on their desolate new home.

• Autore: Lance Elliott
• Anno edizione: 2024
• Editore: Lance Elliott
• Formato: EPUB2 con DRMFREE
• Compatibilità: Tutti i dispositivi (eccetto Kindle)
• Layout: Reflowable
• EAN: 9798227163905

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