Astronomicon: Icarus

24 - Pursuit

Captain Lee continued to watch the escape pod jetting away from the Oppenheimer. It was several hundred metres away when there was a peculiar wrinkle, almost like ripples passing over its surface. In less than a second, the ripples deepened, distorting it beyond recognition. Moments later it seemed to just blow apart like a cloud of white smoke and dissipate into the void, leaving no trace that it ever existed.

"Colonel? Are you still there?"

"Yes, Captain. Just crossing to the connecting tube now," came her immediate reply.

Seconds later he saw someone in an EVA suit float gently into the opposite end of the tunnel, through another large tear in the fabric. Immediately behind was another figure, carrying a small toolbox. Both successfully landed on the twisted floor in rapid succession.

"Okay, I can see you," reported Captain Lee into his radio.

While he waited for them to get to him, he switched his radio to talk to Lieutenant Lewis in the bridge.

"Lewis. Are you reading me?"

After a worryingly long pause, a very crackly voice, barely audible, replied, "Yes, Captain."

"Have you finished copying all the data?"

"Not yet, Captain. Just need another couple of minutes."

"We're on our way. As soon as the transfer is complete, secure the datavault and we'll meet you on the bridge."

After a few seconds of totally garbled speech, the radio cut out, reporting that the signal had been lost. Captain Lee cursed then looked back at the two crew members hurrying awkwardly along the tube towards him. Running was an acquired skill in mag-boots as hitting the floor too hard could easily result in bouncing clear of the surface.

As soon as they were both safely inside the airlock with him, he hit the button to close the outer door.

- - -

"I've got into the internal camera system, Captain," reported Lieutenant Lewis as Captain Lee arrived through the bridge bulkhead door.

"Have you found anything?"

"No survivors," replied the Lieutenant.

"Bodies?"

"Maybe, Captain. Hard to be sure. Look at this."

Lieutenant Lewis pointed to the large video screen displayed on the console in front of him. His fingers danced across the controls, quickly flicking the system to the internal camera feed he wanted to display. He made further adjustments to the camera, positioned in an intersection between two corridors.

"What I am looking at?" asked Captain Lee.

"Look at the wall on the left, about three metres from the intersection."

"That... what... can you zoom in on that?"

"Yes, sir," replied the Lieutenant, immediately making the camera smoothly zoom to four times magnification.

At first, Captain Lee could not believe what he was seeing. The wall was intact and apparently undamaged, but about half a metre above the floor plates were two arms protruding from the wall. Bare hands with elasticated sleeves covering the lower arms from wrist back to just below the elbow where the arms appeared to pass seamlessly through the white wall panel. There was no trace of a hole and no trace of any injury. His brain desperately tried to make sense of the image.

If someone had been behind an access panel when it dropped, ignoring the fact that it was lightweight and would most probably cause no injury, it would have had to sever both arms to achieve the positioning he could see on the screen. Of course, severed arms would have gone spinning away from the wall panel, no doubt spraying a large amount of blood. However, he could see no trace of blood and the arms certainly did not look to be severed. While he studied the scene there was a sudden twitch of one of the arms, immediately followed by the other slowly closing its fingers.