Astronomicon: Icarus

16 - Contact

"Unstable space? That's a bizarre thing to put in there. Are you sure that's correct?"

"The message was repeating over and over. There's no doubt that's what it said," replied Iolo.

"I have no idea what that means."

"I can only think it's some reference to the asteroids around here."

"Must be, but it's a weird choice of phrase," replied Captain Taylor, then he took the microphone again. "Felix, approach the Oppenheimer with caution. Let's see what state she's in."

"Yes, sir," came Felix's reply and they felt Icarus' main drive immediately start up and propel the ship smoothly forwards.

"Is there anything in the database about the USS Oppenheimer?" Captain Taylor asked Iolo.

"No. I've already checked that," replied Iolo. "Anything the US have of her size has, officially at least, been mothballed. They've got a couple of navy vessels in Mars orbit, and their flagship and two cruisers running on skeleton crews in Earth orbit, but nothing listed as being this far out."

"That doesn't look like a military vessel to me," replied Captain Taylor.

"It's an impractical shape for mining and it's too slim to be a freighter. What is it?"

"If it's a civilian vessel, it would be in the register."

"It can't be civilian," replied Iolo, "Not with the 'USS' prefix."

"Good point. So what is she?"

"And what's she doing this deep into the cluster?" asked Iolo.

"Look at the state of her," exclaimed Captain Taylor as the Icarus reached five hundred metres from the Oppenheimer. "Looks like she's taken one heck of a pounding."

They looked in awe at the odd-looking vessel. Her originally smooth, white hull was showing thousands of wounds varying from heavy scratches to much more significant dents and tears. It was apparent that she was fitted with very heavy-grade armour but even so, in places her hull was punctured and smashed. Captain Taylor could count at least four places where jets of gas could be seen venting into the vacuum.

A semi-circle of large rounded windows around the bow of the front section, some ten metres or so above the nose, looked like the obvious location of the vessel's bridge. There was illumination in the windows but they were still too far away to see much more than that. There were also lights in some of the many portholes, further back along the front section. Right at the back of that section was a ring of small, round pods, just as white as the Oppenheimer's hull. There would have been eight of them originally but at least three were missing.

Captain Taylor could not be sure, but they looked like escape pods to him. There were four more positions for the same pods along the spine of the rear section. Two of those were missing too. There seemed to be no lights visible in the rear section but there were not so many portholes there. Captain Taylor suddenly realised that the rear section not only had a dense scattering of impact damage, presumably from asteroid collisions, but also had major structural damage. There was a visible ripple in the hull plating, apparently circling the entire section from top to bottom. It was not just damage from an impact or stressing of the hull but looked like a wrinkle distorting the very structure of the ship. He could not imagine what would cause that, but it seemed safe to assume that the vessel was no longer space-worthy.

"How close do you want to get, Captain?" asked Felix via the intercom.

Captain Taylor grabbed the microphone again, "Take us to two hundred metres. We'll get a really good look before going closer than that. First sign of any threat, move us away."

"Yes, sir."

As the Captain hooked the microphone back onto the overhead console, the control room speakers crackled and clicked. Both the Captain and Iolo fell silent, listening intently. There was another prolonged crackle and Iolo made some subtle adjustments on the console. The crackling gave way to a distorted voice, unintelligible at first then, with some more adjustments by Iolo, it suddenly became clear.

"...roaching craft. I don't know if you can hear me – so many systems are malfunctioning – but we need an immediate rescue. Please respond."

"Can we transmit?" asked the Captain.

"Hang on," replied Iolo, "This might work."

"Is it working now?"

"Just restarting the comms pack. Almost there....yep, we're up again. Reopening channel."

"...ediate rescue. Please respond," sounded the speakers.

"Try it now," Iolo announced.

Captain Taylor chose the VHF channel for his microphone and hit the transmit button, "USS Oppenheimer, I am Captain Taylor of the Independent Mining Vessel Icarus. We can offer assistance. How many crew members do you have on board?"

"Oh thank God! We've been trapped here for weeks. We thought no-one would ever hear us."

"Well, we're here. What's your problem? And how many crew do you have?"

"Three or four. We're not sure. The ship is a mess."

"What happened to you?"

"That's a long story. I'd rather tell you when we are safely off this ship. We have extensive damage from collisions with asteroids, most of our main systems have failed and those that haven't are fluctuating. We're on reserve power and emergency air."

"Is your main escape lock functional?"

"I hope to God it is. She's got so much structural twisting most of the doors don't work properly. Some of the swing hatches are jammed, others have burst open. Please try docking with the main lock, I'll gather the crew."

"Good. We'll see you in a few minutes."

"Thank you, Captain. We can't wait for this nightmare to finally end."

The console reported that the transmission had ended. Captain Taylor reassigned his microphone to the ship's intercom and spoke again, "Felix, bring us in close to Oppenheimer's universal hatch."

He replaced the microphone, "Iolo, you supervise docking from here. I'm going to take Enzo and Hugo down to the airlock. Let me know the moment the docking hood is locked and sealed."

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