Astronomicon: Icarus

32 - Digging In

With everything prepared, they waited.

The crew of the Icarus had been hastily armed by the three soldiers, with the exception of Ishaan who refused to play any part in any potential violence. Instead, he had grabbed some food and taken refuge in the starboard side bunk room. The Oppenheimer crew were taking cover in the other bunk room, on the port side, as Captain Stirling had suggested.

On the deck below, Captain Stirling and Enzo had taken up positions covering the main airlock. The Captain was crouching against the door frame of the doorway that led from the hallway next to the airlock to the ladder that serviced the control room. Enzo was peering nervously around the opposite door frame, from the doorway that led directly into the ore hold. Behind him, hiding in either side of the hold were Warrant-Officer Scott and Dmitry, both watching the wide rear airlock.

As the hold airlock was the largest point of entry, it seemed like the obvious entry from which to launch an assault. However, it was precisely for that reason that Captain Stirling had gambled that it would probably only be used as a diversion, if at all.

Up on the accommodation deck, Lieutenant Walker and Captain Taylor were ready to defend the control room, and Hugo and Felix were both hiding at the rear end of the main corridor, one either side, each covering the hatches that provided access to the ore hold below them. Iolo was manning the centre console in the control room, with the aim of defending the Icarus as much as possible from any electronic attacks or other attempts to take control of any of her systems.

Captain Taylor had locked many of the internal doors, including access to the four engine rooms and as an extra precaution, he had had all hatches to the service deck, the lowest level of the ship, sealed and depressurised the whole level. Now there was nothing left to do but wait for the Salvage crew to make their move.

Unfortunately, the Icarus did not carry any firearms, so they all had to make do with the weapons brought aboard by Wagner's crew. This limited them to the three stinger rifles and four taser pistols, which were only really effective at quite short range. On top of that, the Icarus crew had no previous firearms experience, so Captain Stirling did not expect them to be particularly effective in defending their vessel.

He felt there was very little on their side in this battle. He did not like operating on the defensive and was usually much happier taking the initiative and catching the enemy by surprise. Simply sitting and waiting for the enemy to arrive made anything he did far too predictable. Worse still the enemy had been able to get a pretty good look around the interior of the Icarus and knew its layout and what they would be up against. He just hoped that they would not be expecting those waiting on the Icarus to be armed and as well prepared as they were.

They waited for that tell-tale clunk that would signify the Wagner's docking clamps once again latching onto the Icarus at one of the two airlocks. The only question was, which docking point would Captain Lee choose?