Death Wish

On the routine Earth-to-Mars run of the freighter Queen Dierdre, Captain Somers senses trouble before anyone can name it. The ship is immaculate, the cargo secure, and the crew professional—until a hidden failure in the main firing circuit locks the engines on and sends the vessel hurtling past Mars and out toward deep space. With fuel draining away and no obvious way to brake, Somers, engineer Watkins, and navigator Rajcik are trapped in a nightmare of panic, blame, and hard-earned discipline. In the eerie stillness of a ship that seems motionless while racing beyond the Solar System, they search for a solution. A desperate radio exchange with Mars offers only one possibility: consult the enormous Fahrensen Computer stowed in the cargo hold. What follows is a tense, witty struggle between human judgment, engineering logic, and the unsettling hope that a machine may succeed where people cannot. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.