Astronomicon: Icarus

3 - Introductions

The main hatch into the Icarus slid noisily open, the worn hydraulics clearly in need of some attention or at least a good squirt of oil.

"Now this is a small ship, with a tight crew," began Captain Taylor before stepping onto the ship, "I expect everyone to get along whether they like it or not. Work comes first. It's the whole reason you are here. It's the reason I'm paying you. I try to keep the working atmosphere friendly and pleasant for us all, but I expect everyone to be professional, to do their job well and to look out for each other. The Trojan cloud is a dangerous place. If everyone does their jobs and we all work as a team, we'll get back here in one piece. However, if anyone doesn't pull their weight or causes trouble, it puts us all at risk and I won't tolerate that. Understand?"

"Yes, sir," replied Felix.

"You can count on me," smiled Ishaan Joshi warmly.

"Now, first rule of the Icarus, you wear your mag-boots all the time, even in your bunk. We don't work shifts and everyone is on duty twenty-four hours a day. Grab sleep when you can, but you could be needed at any moment so I do not want to see anyone wasting time putting their boots on. Clear?"

He stepped into the airlock chamber. Felix, with his canvas duffle bag slung over his shoulder, followed immediately behind. Ishaan bent down to scoop up his two small holdalls and hurried after them. As soon as both of them were properly inside the airlock, Captain Taylor started the outer door closing.

Next, he set about introducing the two new recruits to the rest of Icarus' crew. They found Enzo Roux, ship's engineer, with his head and shoulders wedged inside an access panel in a narrow corridor. The balding, sixty-seven-year-old Frenchman lived for maintaining the many electrical and mechanical systems on the Icarus. He was always working on something. Even when nothing needed to be repaired, he would find something which needed tuning or oiling. It was more of a calling than a career for him. He greeted them both, then Captain Taylor took the new recruits up the wide ladder to the top deck.

Icarus was split into two proper decks with a two-thirds height engineering deck below those. The control room, cockpit and most of the accommodation were on the top deck, along with the galley. Most of the deck below was swallowed up by the ore hold, fourteen enormous rectangular bins to hold any ore the vessel mined. There were seven of these room-sized bins, each sealed with plastic webbing, either side of a broad central corridor.

The corridor was separated from the hallway with the ladders to the other decks by an internal, airtight bulkhead door. This allowed the option of completely opening the loading lock on the rear of the vessel and leaving the entire hold open to space, allowing for much faster loading of ore into the hold.

The vessel was less than a decade old, but had worked a hard life so far. Powdered rock from various ore cargoes had scoured any floor surfaces and a general look of grime and wear seemed to reach everything else. The powerful air-processing system removed any airborne rock dust but there were still traces of it in most of the grooves in panels, grilles and recesses. Had the two new recruits been able to see the exterior of the vessel they would have found it looked even more battered and dirty. Travelling within the asteroid clouds was not kind to the exterior of even the toughest vessels.

Their mag-boots clanked noisily on the metal rungs of the ladder as they climbed up into the control room. This large room was the full width of the Icarus and formed the nerve centre of the whole vessel, allowing control and supervision of every aspect of the vessel's functions. Four large, floor-to-ceiling windows on either side, each protected by a heavy-duty grille on the outside, gave an amazing view of any activities taking place outside the vessel. The super-tough laminated glass of each window had the green tint that betrayed its radiation-resistant layers.