The Gravity Well of Acheron

von John Bailey

426 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

THE FASTEST SHIP IN SPACE HAS ONE FATAL WEAKNESS.

The USS Rigel is the newest and fastest cruiser in the United States Space Navy. Designed for rapid deployment and fleet response, she represents the future of naval warfare.

She also has a serious engineering problem.

Her propulsion system can produce enormous short-duration acceleration, but it lacks the sustained performance necessary for prolonged operations inside a deep gravity well. The engineers who designed her knew it. They warned their superiors. Their warnings were suppressed.

Years later, a Shadow-class stealth fighter suffers a propulsion failure near the gas giant Acheron.

The nearest help isn't a Navy rescue vessel.

It's a mining settlement.

Earl Hetrick, captain of the tug Mackinaw, and Walter Kessler, the settlement's chief mining engineer, have no sophisticated rescue spacecraft. They have mining tugs, grapples, heavy cable, maneuvering thrusters, drones-and years of experience surviving around Acheron's treacherous gravity.

They improvise.

And they save the pilot.

Then they learn the Rigel is coming.

Captain Lyle Bouck is ordered to rescue the fighter, unaware that the miners have already succeeded. Commander John L. Smith, the Rigel's chief engineer, sees something disturbing in the ship's performance calculations.

The numbers don't work.

The Rigel can reach the fighter.

But can she get out?

Once the cruiser descends too deeply into Acheron's gravity well, the answer becomes brutally clear.

The Navy's most advanced spacecraft is trapped.

The crew must abandon ship.

And the miners of Acheron must attempt the rescue of hundreds of Navy personnel using equipment designed to move rocks.

But the disaster is only beginning.

As survivors return to civilization, an old engineering report surfaces-one that predicted exactly what happened. An investigation uncovers suppressed warnings, fragmented responsibility, contractor influence, and a certification process that declared the ship safe without ever confronting the full operational reality.

The Rigel was not simply defeated by Acheron's gravity.

She was defeated by the gap between what engineers knew, what specifications claimed, and what decision-makers were willing to hear.

THE GRAVITY WELL OF ACHERON is a science-fiction naval adventure about engineering, courage, institutional failure, practical experience, and the people who survive when technology reaches the limits of its promises.

Because sometimes you don't need the biggest engine.

You just need enough engine.

• ISBN: 9798194303687
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 22.08.2026
• Größe: 229 x 152 mm
• Verlag: Amazon Digital Services LLC - Kdp