Astronomicon: Icarus

8 - Recovery

They could see the mining rig crate spinning slowly towards the camera. Clearly, it was no longer anchored to the surface, but Felix could not tell whether the miners had detached it or it had broken free due to the instability in the asteroid's surface. The three miners in their spacesuits were also floating up from the surface.

"The fools have attempted to recover the rig," said Captain Taylor. "Keep Icarus here. I'm going down to the airlock to help. Just be ready to get us out of here on my command."

"Yes, sir."

Captain Taylor raised his mag-boots off the floor and spun himself around, before stretching his feet out again to cancel his spinning. With the skill of many years experience, he clunked his way rapidly across the control room and through the doorway into the wide corridor that ran most of the length of the ship. Unfastening his boots as he ran, he pulled his feet out of them and left them attached to the floor in the middle of the corridor, launching himself through the air.

Using his hands to pad his way along the walls, he landed heavily against the bulkhead door at the end of the corridor. Wasting no time he crouched, turned and launched himself into the smaller corridor leading off to the right. Skillfully catching a handhold, he brought himself to a near halt next to the red lockers that lined the corridor wall. He threw one open and pulled out the EVA inside, still shrink-wrapped in its tamper-proof plastic cover.

Concentrating on the EVA suit instead of his position, he drifted slowly across the narrow corridor and bounced off the opposite wall as he ripped open the plastic and shook out the spacesuit within. Moments later he had thrust his legs into it and was pulling the rest of the suit up his body and fastening the inner seal. He yanked the zip part way up then set about pushing his arms into the sleeves. By the time his fingers were properly in each of the sewn-in gloves he was upside-down and bouncing off the ceiling.

It was difficult to get hold of the oversized tabs on the two zips with gloved fingers, but he succeeded in pulling first the inner one and then the outer one right up to the high neck ring and then locked them both into their safety bracket. He activated the reduced life-support pack affixed to the back of the EVA suit, then pulled the domed helmet from the shelf inside the locker. He steadied himself by holding the top of the locker for a moment and then hurriedly pulled the helmet over his head, lined it up with the metal hoop around his neck and locked it securely in position.

As soon as the catch on the back of his neck was clicked securely into position, he used the simple, touch controls on his wrist to activate the life-support pack. It took a moment to run through some diagnostics and then inflated the suit to test its integrity. A bright green line on the wrist panel confirmed that it was airtight, so Captain Taylor moved to the far end of the short corridor and pulled himself towards the floor.

A large, metal hatch in the floor was still closed. Holding himself down with one hand, he rapidly spun the wing-nuts that secured it into position, loosening all four of them enough to release the hatch. He pulled the heavy lid open and let it latch against the clips against the end wall of the corridor.

He stretched out his legs and aligned himself carefully with his feet aimed through the open hatchway. It was difficult to move with much accuracy in zero-G, and sliding through small gaps was especially difficult as it was all too easy to end up simply bouncing backwards and forwards between the sides of the gap.

He slid neatly down through the hatchway, pausing momentarily to grab the handle to pull the lid closed after him. It slammed into place with a resonating thud and Captain Taylor twisted the two clasps to seal the hatch.

He was now inside the Icarus' enormous ore hold. A ladder ran down the wall to the floor two metres below, but without gravity, all he needed was to use the rungs as hand-holds to push himself down to the floor. As his feet struck the dirty, metal panelling, the magnets in the feet of his suit took hold and he was able to run awkwardly out into the main corridor between the room-sized storage bins both sides, and then head to the wide airlock door at the far end. The display on the oversized console to the right side of the huge doors showed that the airlock was currently in use.

He clunked his way to the console and rapidly but carefully typed in his command password on the keypad. As soon as it was accepted he made several more selections and powerful pumps set about pumping the atmosphere within the cargo bay into a compressed reservoir in the bowels of the ship. The gauge on his suit displayed the pressure drop and he felt the suit inflating slightly, making it a little harder to move.

As soon as the pressure reached twenty percent of normal, he hit the button to open the airlock's inner doors, overriding the usual protocol of closing the outer door first. Unlike the outer doors, the inner ones opened vertically. Without an atmosphere, for the sound to propagate in, he could not hear the powerful motors winching the heavy doors out of the way.

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