The Icarus Void

by CK Burch

  ″Gordon,″ she whispered. Her hands came up to his collar and began unfastening it.

  His comm made a sound. He almost jumped. ″Rene.″

  ″The ship can do without you for fifteen minutes. At least.″ Her breath was hot on his neck as she finished undoing his collar and she leaned into him and kissed the skin there.

  He smiled. He sighed. Thank god for the small things. He led her over to the couch and they laid down together as the comm stopped whining.

  ***

  Commander Collins clicked her tongue and put her comm away. Wherever the captain was, he wasn't answering. Then she returned to leaning over Captain Udeh, who was sitting before one of the sensor consoles on the science deck where they were, and she said, ″Alright, show me again. And this time, please, pretend I don't understand technobabble, because I don't.″

  Udeh reached forward to the holo controls and waved his fingers about, dragging the animation scrollbar backwards to the beginning point. ″I was doing some scans and diagnostics on the ships sensor arrays, trying to discern how we could have lost the Prometheus – ″

  ″Because you don't think she's actually gone anywhere.″

  ″Yes and no.″ Udeh pointed at the animatic. In the center of the screen was an icon of the Icarus, to the left an image of the Sun, and to the far right a representation of the Prometheus. ″Here we are, making our approach to the Sun. This is just after I arrived on board in the Captain's Boat, making this about 1450 hours.″ He leaned forward, pulled up another translucent holodisplay, overlaid on the first. ″This is the condition of our sensor and communications arrays at that time. You can see that, at 1450 hours, we had very clear signals bouncing both to and from our external sensors, but Icarus's comms are experiencing heavy disruption from an unknown source, both external and internal. Which is why we're reduced to pinging each other on personal comms, which run on a different frequency than the ship's system.″

  Collins looked down at the comm on her belt. ″Huh. Didn't know that. How do you know that?″

  ″Just because I'm a military captain doesn't mean I don't know nothing about science.″ He smiled and winked. Collins chuckled; the captain was kind of cute. ″When I did my time on the Icarus a few years ago, I was first officer and one of the science leads as well. Hell, sciences was my major in academy. But, what's important to realize here is that at 1450 hours we had clear sensor feedback and signal bounce. Comms were down, yes, but everything else was functional.″

  ″Now, weren't you able to send a transmission to the Prometheus from the Captain's Boat?″

  ″Mmm hmm.″ Udeh moved the overlay aside, and the animation played a moment, showing a dotted line emanate from the Icarus and contact the Prometheus. ″That's 1453, and that's my transmission to my ship. The last clear outside communication any of us had with anyone.″ He moved the animation forward. ″Now, watch external sensor clarity as we get closer to the Sun.″ He moved the status window partially over the animation and hit play.

  The icon of the Icarus slowly approached the orb of the Sun, and at first clarity remained high. Then, as the dive process began, external sensor clarity began to slowly drop, represented by a sine wave. When it was clear and easy, the sine wave had few jiggles. The closer the dive took them to the Sun, the larger the wave bounced, until finally it turned into a large squiggle, like something a five-year-old would randomly scrawl across a piece of paper with a crayon. Collins leaned forward, looked at both external sensor quality and communications; the sine waves representing both were absolutely epileptic. ″Holy shit,″ she said. ″Is it chromospheric interference?″

  ″I thought about that, but Icarus's sensors are designed to cut through electromagnetic static fields like a hot knife. I had to move deeper.″ He paused the animatic, pointed at the holo and spread his fingers apart. It zoomed in on the Icarus, deep in the outer layer of the Sun, and a picture of the artifact became visible next to the ship. ″This is 1921 hours. The Icarus is deep, deeper than any ship has ever gone into the Sun before, or any star for that matter. Again, ship's sensors are designed to cut through all that interference, but I thought, maybe we were too deep, maybe that's why the external sensors were going haywire. But both external sensors and communications were experiencing the same interference at the same time, which means that at this point, we were operating on close-range sensors only. Everything immediately surrounding the ship was visible via our network, but outside of five hundred meters we had no clarity whatsoever.″

  ″We were flying blind,″ Collins said. She felt sick. Jesus, they'd been piloting the ship through that shit without a clue as to what was going on.

  ″Not blind. Nearsighted. Now, the Sun didn't seem to be coating us with any extra hydrogen or magnetic waves, so I pulled up various radiation scans. I couldn't find anything at first, until I dug deeper and searched for any and all anomalous radiation sources. You ready for this?″ Udeh pressed the window and the animatic was filled with ripples of radiation cascading over the entirety of the image. The whole field was fucking washed over with radiation, and it was all after-images of the artifact's shape. It was coming from the artifact.

  ″What the fuck?″ Collins whispered. She leaned closer. ″How long has it – ?″

  ″How long has it been broadcasting that?″ Udeh rewound the animation, this time leaving the radiation field overlay. He backed up all the way to 1450 hours. The ripples extended outward to the Icarus, but not to the Prometheus, who was just outside the radiation field range. The ripples petered out just before reaching the solar collector. ″For a long time. This is data extrapolated from Doctor Straub's own findings, meaning that they knew the artifact was exuding this radiation, but since it didn't register on any lethal or dangerous scales, it was ignored. Even if it had been brought up, we wouldn't have been prepared for it to block our signals the way it has.″

  ″You said broadcasting. Like it's a signal instead of a natural occurrence.″

  ″That's the consistency of it, which is strange, but considering that we're dealing with an artifact of alien origin? It could mean anything. Maybe it is a signal, a radio transmission of some kind that we wouldn't be able to pick up via traditional comms regardless. It seems to be doing less emanation, more transmission, and broadcasting seems to be the most accurate word for it.″

  ″Okay,″ Collins said. She thought she was keeping up, but fuck, science. She'd been a pilot in academy and she'd only taken basic science. This was a little bit harder than basic science. ″So Icarus was flying into a radiation field as we approached our dive – ″

  ″Something we've never seen before,″ Udeh said. ″This is an extrawave field. We wouldn't even know to look for it, let alone the affects of it.″

  ″ – and as we were flying into it, we lost communications up here – ″ She pointed to the Icarus icon. ″ – and external sensors here.″ She moved the animation forward to 1921. ″We were gradually losing them as we moved forward into the field, but from this point forward they were just gone.″

  ″Correct.″

  ″So why hasn't anyone else made the connection? If we can't utilize external sensors, the boys on the bridge should have said something.″

  ″They haven't because I don't think they know.″ Udeh gestured at the holo. ″The interference is masking the sensors, not cutting them out entirely. Nothing is bouncing back, so while we're searching for the Prometheus and getting nothing, searching for engine wash or ambient energy movement and getting nothing, everyone is thinking about calibration, not clarity. Because I don't think anyone is realizing that they're getting nothing back from their scans. And I do mean nothing. Past five hundred meters, we are very truly blind, Commander. Prometheus is out there, waiting, with us having no way of communication and no way of seeing. And the source of the extrawave radiation is on this ship now.″ He paused. ″The artifact. We've got it on board and as long as we keep it on board, we are fucked. We might as well be dead in the water.″

  ″
Shit,″ Collins said. ″Who knows what other systems it might be affecting?″

  ″Exactly. And here's another thought: what about us? What's that radiation doing to us? For all intents and purposes, as I said, it doesn't register on dangerous or lethal scales, but there's two factors that I'm thinking of. One, I haven't had a panic attack related to my claustrophobia in years. Literally years. Haven't had a need for medication or special treatment at all, and yet, from the moment I arrived on Icarus it's been affecting me. And then I hear that Doctor Kerrick decides to attack, who was it, Doctor Straub? Attacks him out of nowhere. We all know and understand the stresses of solar dive, but I read the files of Tybalt's research team, and all of them have gone on at least one dive in the past. You've never been on one and yet, here you are, fine and not attacking anyone.″ He stopped and raised an eyebrow. ″Or should I be worried?″

  Collins smiled. ″Not about me.″ Then she frowned. ″Not yet, anyway. So, is this the only thing you called me down here for? Because as far as I can see, this all just means that we need to drop the artifact off the ship and leave it for future retrieval. At least, that's probably the best we can expect Doctor Tybalt to agree to.″ If even that. Tybalt had a hardon for the object and would do anything to keep the fucking thing aboard, even after her mishap in the cargo bay. Scientists. Always fucking things about. Maybe that's why Collins had always steered a bit clear of the scientists and just let them do their thing. They always seemed to get a little intense, a little removed from reality whenever they were involved in their research. Collins hadn't been surprised by Kerrick's reaction in the least to be honest. That one had seemed a little bit off from the beginning. ″I'm not really understanding the emergency situation. I mean, yes, we need to get in contact with the Prometheus and find a way to communicate with her, but at this point taking Icarus beyond standard orbit would be equivalent to grinding the engines against a mountainface. So...where's the fire, Captain?″

  ″Here,″ Udeh said. He returned to the overlay of the extrawave radiation. He moved it to twenty minutes before. There was a clear surge in output and signal strength, in clarity, in power. ″I wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't here working with the systems already. I tried contacting Captain Markov, and when I couldn't get him I got you. The radiation just spiked. Whatever's going on in the cargo bay, it's activated something and the radiation has doubled in output.″ He turned to Collins. ″We need to get that thing off the ship.″

  ***

  CHAPTER IX.

  ″Like fucking hell we do!″

  They were all in the cargo bay. Well, not all, but a good sized group of them. Straub was tired. Tired, primarily, of dealing with bullshit, and it was starting to feel like bullshit on all sides, especially after Kerrick's break. Working down here had been a lovely distraction at first, and Doctor Tybalt had even gone and apologized for her behavior, god have mercy, and then the experiment. Then the scientist in him had found something to really look at and into, and he forgot about the look on Kerrick's face just before she'd been knocked out by Laguardia, and, blessedly, he'd even forgotten about Sarah for a moment. More than a moment. A whole world had taken over his mind and he'd been deep into research and examination when the real world had broken in and the military minds had practically come in with guns blazing.

  Straub and Tybalt stood before the radiothermic scanner facing two captains, a sergeant, and a chief engineer. Around them, a number of engineers were wearing HESs and walking about taking radiation scans of the cargo bay, while Doctor Gaines was examining the artifact on his own with a medical scanner. The research area had magically expanded within the last five minutes into a hazard zone for everyone, and Straub, who'd been quite comfortable studying the ramifications of the experiment's results, now felt interrupted and if there was anything that he honestly, genuinely, truly hated, it was being interrupted. He imagined that Doctor Tybalt felt the same way. Her hands were on her hips, her face was red, steam practically seething from her nostrils, and while earlier on the bridge he'd been able to step back and away from the situation and peoplewatch, this time he was emotive and a part of the surging waves of tension all around.

  ″Doctor,″ Captain Markov said patiently. He looked slightly ruffled, but not in a bad way. His hair was messy and his collar was undone. You know, maybe, just maybe, the captain had gotten some. He had that look. But with who, Straub had not one clue. Whomever was the lucky girl, Straub wanted to kiss her, because if Markov had gotten laid it explained why he was so fucking mellow in the face of Tybalt's storm.

  ″Like hell,″ Tybalt repeated herself, calmer this time. She was trying, she really was. ″Captain, please, you don't know what we've discovered here.″

  ″What I've discovered,″ Markov began, then pointed over to Captain Udeh, ″or rather what Captain Udeh has discovered, is that your artifact here is exuding some form of radiation that we've never encountered before, and it's blocking not only our communication systems but our external sensors as well. We're flying with limited eyesight Doctor, and what's more, we have no idea how this radiation is affecting the crew of the ship.″

  ″We know about Kerrick,″ Laguardia said simply.

  ″We don't know that for certain,″ Markov said. He flashed the sergeant a look that gave Straub some measure of relief; it said Don't fuck around right now. Then Markov continued. ″That's why I've asked Doctor Gaines and Chief MacConnel's people to examine the radiation output of the artifact – ″

  ″So do you want to dump it off the ship or not? Because you say you do, and yet you're in here getting in my way.″ Tybalt raised her hands to the artifact and then to the people around it. ″Captain, I've made an important discovery. It needs more research. Please, I need time with the artifact and the research methods. And besides, we already knew about the extrawave radiation, and we ran it through multiple field scans, and nothing came up with any dangerous levels.″

  ″For the record, I don't want to 'dump' it.″ Markov brushed his hair back, maybe half-remembering that it wasn't all together. ″If we were to remove it from the ship, we'd leave it with a stationary buoy for future reclamation. I understand that it's an important find, and I plan on treating it as such. What I'm suggesting is that if we ascertain any unhealthy affects from this extrawave radiation, and if we can't discern a way to cut through the distortion to our communications and sensor arrays, we'll have to leave it behind. What this thing is producing has been scrambling sensors and communications. At the long range you scanned it, there might not have been a definitive readout. If we understand more behind it then we can make decisions based around it. I have to take into consideration the safety of the ship first, then the needs of the scientists aboard it.″

  Mac came around the group and over to where Straub was. He pointed at the equipment setup. ″So you put together hydrogen extractors and the electromagnetic battery together to simulate the layers of the chromosphere?″

  Straub nodded. ″We have an electromagnetic shield up set at an opposing polarization to contain the hydrogen reaction. We've been producing some wild results.″

  Mac smiled. He was actually grinning. "That's fucking cool. I'm duly impressed. You scientists aren't so bad after all."

  Gaines looked over at Markov and shrugged. ″If there's anything dangerous involving this extrawave radiation, Captain, I'm not picking it up. It doesn't appear to be affecting anything outside of energy systems in the nearby vicinity, but I'd need to run further tests, tests on both Doctor Kerrick and the radiation before coming to anything absolutely conclusive.″ Gaines looked bored. ″Really, I think my services would be better suited to just looking after my patient. I see no reason to continue any investigation of this.″

  ″With all due respect Doctor, I'm going to insist that you do so.″ Markov's voice was final. ″Run those further tests, see if you can find anything that could suggest negative reactions to the radiation. If you can't, you can't, but I'd feel better if you would do so, please.″


  Gaines shrugged and left the cargo bay.

  Tybalt jerked her thumb after him. ″Does he always sound like he could care less about his job?″

  Markov winced. ″Doctor Gaines has a tendency to appear a little...apathetic at times.″

  Udeh looked up at the artifact. Straub noticed the captain's brow was slightly damp with sweat. ″The spike in energy output from the artifact,″ he said, ″what happened then? You said you've made a discovery.″

  Tybalt grinned from ear to ear, as she had twenty minutes ago when they'd first switched on the helio simulator. All pretense of tension had gone out the window and she was happy to show off. ″Well now,″ she began. ″There's a couple of interesting finds around that.″ She looked over at Captain Markov and raised both eyebrows. ″May I?″

  Markov started to mull it over, but shook his head at himself. ″Anything produced by the artifact will hopefully be picked up by the engineers over there. Give us a show, Doctor.″

  Damn. Markov must have gotten laid. That was the only way to explain his willingness to go along with any of Tybalt's requests right now. Straub remembered how it had been on the observation deck, looking out at the artifact's debris field, how Markov had been thinking about aborting the mission because he was unsure. That felt like a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, har dee har har, only Sarah's favorite film. No, he thought, not now, and instead of thinking about her he turned to the control console of the battery and looked over at the engineers scanning the artifact. ″You guys might want to step back,″ he said, and they both looked over at him quizzically.

  Straub turned to Tybalt. ″You want I should start at the initial layer?″

  She nodded. ″We'll go through the individual steps.″

  Straub looked down, set up the controls, powered the battery, and said, ″Contact.″

  A pulse of electromagnetic energy flushed the wiring connected to the artifact. Around the object, Straub could see the dense, blue force field erected and in place, and he activated the hydrogen collectors. As they flowed in reverse, releasing in a steady stream, he watched the hydrogen levels with a close eye. Then he activated the battery at a low watt output, and the hydrogen reacted, the artifact absorbed the radiothermic energy, and then the magic happened.