Vis Major by Edward M. Hochsmann

Vis Major by Edward Hochsmann
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A spaceship and its crew in peril is an exciting prequel or side story to the full-length novel Engage the Dawn: First Contact!

While making routine repairs, an unexpected coronal mass ejection from a nearby star, causes a repair drone to collide with its survey ship, killing three crew members, destroying the communication system, and forcing the jettisoning of the ship's endangered core. The damage is extensive and enough to prevent the vessel from traveling to the Confed repair yard. The Ship's Master and crew make the far-from-optimal decision to land on the closest planet and gather the raw materials that will allow them to make temporary repairs and enable their safe journey back for the more permanent work needed.

The planet's population has barely advanced beyond the ability to space travel outside of its own orbit. It was Confed policy that the survey ship must not let the natives discover their advanced spacecraft or even confirm that there were sentient beings and civilization on other planets; the inhabitants were just not ready for that knowledge. So, with the help of some of their own people secretly embedded in the native population, the crew makes plans to settle in a shallow underwater area just off the coast of the Florida Keys.

Originally a subplot in the full-length, soft SciFi novel, Engage at Dawn: First Contact, the author felt this storyline was robust enough to become a standalone novelette. And, boy, was he right! Vis Major has engaging characters and an exciting plot that grabbed me from the opening line – "It was not just a routine solar flare."

The Master and the crew of the stricken survey ship that survive the initial damage from the massive coronal mass ejection from the nearby star are in peril from the get-go. I could feel the tension and concern as they struggle to get their wounded bird to the closest planet to effect the temporary repairs needed to return safely to the Confed shipyard. The author successfully walks that fine line between providing enough technical detail to entertain without sending the less tech-savvy reader scurrying for cover.

I appreciated that once on the planet, the Master and crew took elaborate pains to make sure they remained undetected by the native population, and regretted any harm or damage they inflicted during the process. The Master takes great care to preserve the dignity of two natives that are accidentally killed during their presence on the planet.

The author also nailed the content of the dialogue onboard the survey ship and descriptive passages to move the story forward and still surprise the reader with the slow reveal of what is going on and where the action takes place. I enjoyed the realization when it hit home.

This story can be read as a prequel to Engage at Dawn: First Contact, it certainly piqued my interest, or as a side story to it. The primary work approaches this story from a completely different point-of-view. I recommend Vis Major to readers that like their SciFi to have some tech talk along with emotional interaction between characters. This short novelette has both.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an ARC from Reedsy Discovery.

See my original review on Reedsy Discovery!