Its flight computer monitored the sensors, computing the optimal solution in both the planet-based as well as the sun-based reference frames. Most of the trajectory had been computed on the ground, long before the system had launched. Still, this burn to put them on a path for the gravity assist had so many different complex parameters that it was best done closer to its destination.
Thankfully, the stage was roughly where it needed to be. The flight computer sent a couple of commands to the thrusters and aligned the stage to be on the right path.
The rocket’s upper stage was soon grabbed by Jupiter’s gravity well.
The massive planet dwarfed the Shrike Heavy upper stage. But, the math worked out in the smaller body’s favor. The stage swung out of orbit with a much higher velocity than it had come in with, conserving its precious fuel for later.
It then headed out on a trajectory that would take it out of the solar system into the great void beyond.
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When I started writing, I had no plans to ever write a technothriller.
I've been reading them my entire life, ever since I saw an excerpt of Clive Cussler's Shock Wave in a copy of Boy's Life as a ten-year-old and being absolutely blown away. That led to an almost obsession, as I devoured everything in the genre from Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan books and James Rollins' thriller novels to Michael Crichton's spectacular novels that blend science, technology, and thrillers into an unmistakable genre. That continued into adulthood as I discovered Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child's series and standalones and A.G. Riddle's Atlantis books among many others. I can safely say that it's probably my most-read genre.
However, I always saw myself as a science fiction author. I wanted to write the next Dune or Revelation Space, or have a twisty thriller like Timothy Zahn's Conqueror series. I have been drawn to the genre since my dad showed me my first episodes of Stargate SG-1, Star Trek, and Babylon-5, and seeing the original Star Wars movies re-released in theaters cemented an obsession that unfortunately ended with the travesty of the Disney takeover. I wanted to write epic space battles, giant derelict alien starships, and exploring the endless expanse of our galaxy.
But, in 2020, the pandemic hit, and my motivation to write sci-fi plummeted. I was on attempt #5 or #6 of writing the same idea — the first book in my The Dark Galaxy series — and was just completely burned out. So, I decided to pivot to a different genre and concept.
When I was in my Space 200 class for at the time the USAF in 2017, there was an entire day-long cybersecurity block. Obviously most, if not all, of the details are classified. But, something the instructor said stuck in my brain. If you work in a domain such as space or cyber that you can't physically reach out and touch, how do you know that the data that comes across your screen is real?
In space, very few individuals get to go "slip the surly bonds of Earth" and get to go into orbit. Most of us work from a computer back on the ground, with data transmitted from sensors on satellites or other spacecraft transmitted via a complex communication pathway to our terminal. You have to trust that, for example, the telemetry information coming off your GEO satellite located twenty-two-thousand miles away is what it is — you don't have anything to compare it against.
That led to the core concept of Lag Delay.
I wrote the opening scene as a short story when I was working my launch in June 2019, during one of the rehearsals for STP-2. It sat for a year or so until I decided to write a modern-day technothriller, and used it as the prologue. I then wrote the next 5 chapters in a week-long daze during the opening days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and from their outlined the rest of the book, starting with the twist ending. The entire first draft, all 119,000 words, I wrote between May and September of 2020 — no travel for work and only being in the office every other week left me with a lot of time to draft.
Then, the beta process.
