Ishtar Rising Book 1 - Michael A. Martin [0]
Starfleet Corps of Engineers series from Pocket Books:
#1: The Belly of the Beast by Dean Wesley Smith
#2: Fatal Error by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#3: Hard Crash by Christie Golden
#4: Interphase Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#5: Interphase Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#6: Cold Fusion by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#7: Invincible Book 1 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido
#8: Invincible Book 2 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido
#9: The Riddled Post by Aaron Rosenberg
#10: Gateways Epilogue: Here There Be Monsters by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#11: Ambush by Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur
#12: Some Assembly Required by Scott Ciencin & Dan Jolley
#13: No Surrender by Jeff Mariotte
#14: Caveat Emptor by Ian Edginton & Mike Collins
#15: Past Life by Robert Greenberger
#16: Oaths by Glenn Hauman
#17: Foundations Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#18: Foundations Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#19: Foundations Book 3 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#20: Enigma Ship by J. Steven York & Christina F. York
#21: War Stories Book 1 by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#22: War Stories Book 2 by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#23: Wildfire Book 1 by David Mack
#24: Wildfire Book 2 by David Mack
#25: Home Fires by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore
#26: Age of Unreason by Scott Ciencin
#27: Balance of Nature by Heather Jarman
#28: Breakdowns by Keith R.A. DeCandido
#29: Aftermath by Christopher L. Bennett
#30: Ishtar Rising Book 1 by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels
COMING SOON:
#31: Ishtar Rising Book 2 by Michael A. Martin & Andy Mangels
#32: Buying Time by Robert Greenberger
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Copyright © 2003 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.
This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
ISBN: 0-7434-7605-0
First Pocket Books Ebooks Edition July 2003
POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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For James, William, and Jenny,
my morning, noon, and evening stars.
—M.A.M.
For all the librarians who kept my interest
in mythology stoked, especially those at
the Kalispell, Montana, library.
—A.M.
Acknowledgments
For much of its “local color,” this tale owes a scientific debt to a terrific book about Sol’s second planet titled Venus Revealed: A New Look Below the Clouds of Our Mysterious Twin Planet by Dr. David Harry Grinspoon (1997, Helix Books/Addison-Wesley). Not only is this volume outstandingly informative and immensely readable, but it’s also got a good beat and you can dance to it. Any boners, fubars, or errors of the factual or scientific variety are purely the work of the authors, and not Dr. Grinspoon.
Chapter
1
Thirty-nine Days Ago
This place is the closest I’ve ever come to hell.
Dr. Pascal Saadya gazed through the viewport at the heat-distorted vista that lay before him. The terrain was typical of Venus: Fractured rock surfaces flattened by the ninety-bar atmosphere stretched toward the walls of a steep canyon whose details grew indistinct with distance in the smoglike haze. He knew the lethal heat of the planet couldn’t penetrate Hesperus Ground Station’s reinforced duranium hull—at least not so long as the shields remained operational. Nevertheless, tiny beads of sweat formed on his upper lip.
Venus was a terraforming challenge unlike any other. She was a deadly foe, and his body refused to be convinced