Astronomicon: Icarus

30 - Breaking Cover

Captain Stirling felt cold and stiff. His joints ached and he was unable to shake off the claustrophobic sensation while floating in the darkness. The water around him was not icy but it was certainly most uncomfortable and he was sure he could feel the chilly liquid sucking the heat steadily from his body.

Every sound inside the Icarus was amplified greatly through the cold water. Even the small sounds like mag-boots clanking on floor plates were raised to the point of being almost deafening. He had heard people running around, doors opening and closing, some other unidentified bangs and clanks, and finally the heavy, resonating clunk of the docking clamps disengaging.

After that there was silence. Well, silence apart from many hums and drones of pumps, motors and the throbbing hum of the fusion reactors. There were no longer any sounds of footfalls or doors working. It was hard to be sure, but Captain Stirling was becoming convinced that the US salvage crew had gone back on board the Wagner and departed.

There was not much of a decision to make. Once the British crew of the Wagner broke cover there would be no going back, but the compact breather he was wearing had barely two minutes of oxygen left in it. Moving gently he propelled himself to what was left of the pocket of air at the top of the tank and pushed his head out of the water. He quietly shook the water from his ears and listened. He could hear even less than when his ears were submerged. Time to act, he decided.

He reached up out of the water and felt around the smooth metal surface above him until he found the service hatch. He wrapped his fingers around the handle in the middle. Stiff with cold, it was difficult to grip anything, but he succeeded in slowly twisting the handle until he felt the hatch come free.

Light streamed in around the edges of the rubber seal. Still moving carefully, he lifted the hatch free of the circular lip and slid it silently to one side before lowering it gently onto the top of the tank, allowing the magnets bonded to the lid to hold it against the roof of the metal tank. The four small electric fans mounted above the tank responded to the hatch opening and sent a downdraft of cool air to help keep the water in its place.

Water was unpredictable in zero-G and was usually dealt with by simply keeping it sealed away. He grasped the sides of the hatch and launched himself towards it. Sliding through the gap that was barely wider than his muscular shoulders, he pulled himself swiftly out of the tank. His soaked overalls dragged on the rubber seal. 

Floating blobs of water went spinning out of the tank with him, sloshing into pipework and the ceiling close above him. As soon as he was clear of the hatch, he slid to one side, turned himself around and set about quietly resealing the hatch. He let the compact breather fall from his mouth, leaving it to just float gradually away.

He pulled himself over the side of the tank, put one wet hand against the ceiling and pushed himself down towards the floor. Landing his mag-boots as quietly as possible, he crossed the two-metre gap to the other water tank and lightly tapped the all-clear signal against the metal. Almost instantly he heard the hatch on the second tank unscrewing.

First Lieutenant Karen Walker slid out of the tank, launching another cloud of floating water globules into the room, then Warrant-Officer Ewan Scott followed her. He climbed over the tank first while she vigorously shook her short hair over the hatch so the fans above her could attempt to push the displaced water back into the tank. The down draft was not powerful enough to cope with that and she ended up simply spraying a mass of fine water droplets all across the small room.

"The salvage crew have disembarked?" whispered Scott.

"Yes. At least the Wagner has undocked and I can't imagine that they're not all on board it," replied Captain Stirling.