Morley's Weapon

Morley never imagined he'd leave his modest job at a plastics firm for a life among the stars. Now, strapped into the cramped control room of Spaceboat 6, he must guide a half‑pound fragment of frozen meteor toward Saturn’s distant moon Japetus, aware that the icy projectile could spell disaster for the entire mission. His thoughts swing between the anxiety of waking his supervisor, Madsen, and the peril of attempting a solo landing on a world barely five hundred miles below.

His path to this moment was anything but smooth—months of cadet training, a modest class rank, and a transfer to the freighter Solarian that took him from Chicago’s launch pads to the edge of the solar system. The launch itself is a visceral tableau of roaring engines, shaking concrete, and the quiet awe of onlookers watching humanity thrust into the void. As Morley steadies the craft, his ordinary intellect and surprising breadth of knowledge become his only weapons against the unknown dangers ahead.