16 - Contact

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Captain Taylor's cabin intercom beeped, waking him from his two-hour nap. He panicked for a moment, then remembered that he was floating in the vertical crib in his cabin, a claustrophobic space barely wider than his shoulders and about as deep. The intercom mounted inside his crib beeped urgently again before he managed to twist his arm around and press the button.

"We're here, Captain," came Iolo's voice through the tiny speaker.

"I'll be there now," he replied.

He rapidly unfastened his sleeping bag and started the always tricky task of sliding out of it without the aid of gravity. Once free, he pulled himself out of the crib, a vertical-cavity, rather like a tall cupboard in one corner of his cabin. Each crew member had their own. It formed a small cubicle-sized space in which to sleep and have some amount of privacy.

Two of the walls inside were covered with stretchy webbing pockets to hold personal belongings. The other two walls were lightly padded and were where the sleeping bag was attached, to stop the occupant from drifting around while they slept. A stiffened curtain, attached to rails at both ends, could be closed for privacy. While it was a practical and mostly comfortable way to sleep, it could be quite claustrophobic until you got used it.

Captain Taylor pushed himself downwards until his mag-boots latched onto the cabin floor, then he straightened himself up a little and marched out through the doorway which led directly into the control room. His cabin was the only room with a connecting door. All the other rooms on the accommodation deck were connected only to the main corridor that ran along the centre of the deck.

Seeing him appear, Iolo reported, "Less than four kilometres to go now, Captain. I've pinpointed the source and we've got a visual, of sorts."

"How's the signal?"

"It's stopped. I think their microwave transmitter has failed, but there seems to be some kind of VHF transmission going on. I'm trying to demodulate it now."

Captain Taylor arrived at the centre console and looked at the image on its main screen. Amongst the gradually drifting asteroids, he could make out a long, thin spacecraft.

"How big is that?"

"Very," replied Iolo. "Range-finding has been tricky with all the rocks around here but, if I'm right, she's at least one hundred and fifty metres long and the hull is split into two distinct sections, with a thirty-metre gap in the middle."

"That's one hell of a gap!"

"Looks like it's just gantries with a tubular tunnel leading down the middle. I don't know why she's shaped like that. It's a pretty vulnerable design in an asteroid field."

"Any signs of life?"

"Hard to say at this range, but there are some external lights and I'm still picking up a VHF carrier wave. No transmission on it though."

"Can we transmit in that frequency range?"

"Sorry, no, Captain. It's outside the range our system supports, but I've been trying to change the software to allow us to transmit at that frequency. It should be possible."

"But we can listen to it now?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Okay, well put it on the speakers and let's get a closer look."

"Yes, sir. And while you were in your cabin, I decoded more of the distress call she was putting out. It reads: 'Beacon USS Oppenheimer. Emergency Distress Transmission. Life-support is failing, power loss and in need of immediate rescue. Approach with caution – unstable space.'"

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