17:32 14 July 2173 AD

Mycenae’s moon was a spaceship.

Mycenae’s moon was another Daedalus.

As the two identical spacecraft met each other in orbit around Mycenae, Loretta used the TCM thrusters to manoeuvre their ship into position alongside the other craft. This involved a transference burn from a retrograde orbit to a prograde orbit, which effectively turned the Daedalus on its heels once it had met with the second ship.

‘Trajectory Correction Manoeuvre complete. I’ve used up the power from the photovoltaic scoop to enable us to fall into a match velocity pattern with the other Daedalus. But we’re running on empty. I’m relying on the orbital ellipse to keep us nearby; with a bit of thrusting to keep us on track, but I don’t know how long we can stay here. We have enough xenon, but we’re almost out of electricity to ionise it with.’

‘Okay we need to think about alternatives. Loretta, can you confirm that the signal picked up by the Lincoln Outpost was coming from this other Daedalus.’

‘I’m unable to confirm that sir. I can’t intercept the signal until we get directly in front of that antenna.’

‘Okay, well we don’t have any reserve power for a manoeuvre like that so we’ll have to put the signal confirmation on hold.’

Frank climbed over to the view-port and stared out at the other Daedalus. The craft had several dents in its hull, as though it had sustained many meteorite hits. Otherwise, the hull looked intact, but the accommodation module had stopped spinning. He could almost imagine that he was looking in a mirror, except he couldn’t see another Frank staring back at him.

He turned to face the crew. Pointing behind him, out of the view-port, indicating the ship that hung in space less than a kilometre off their port side, Frank said, ‘Now, does anyone have any idea how that thing got here?’

He looked around the cabin, and all he could see were blank faces. None of his team was able to offer a solution.’

‘It’s incomprehensible sir.’ Ian said, ‘It’s like the Voyager II cluster.’

‘Did the Space Foundation trick us?’

‘How?’

‘The accommodation module has stopped spinning. There can’t be anyone in there.’

‘We’ve been travelling for one hundred and fifteen years. Maybe during that time, while we’ve been asleep, the Space Foundation built a second Daedalus that uses a faster method of transportation than ion propulsion. It would have enabled a second ship to overtake us while we were in cryogenic stasis, and get to Mycenae first,’ said Frank.

‘I’m sorry,’ interrupted Ian, ‘but there are two reasons why that theory doesn’t work. Firstly, the Space Foundation would have notified us in that fifty-page report they sent us that they had built another ship. They would have told us. And secondly, they would have given it a different name. Not Daedalus. Even if they had called it Daedalus, then surely it would be Daedalus Two. To build two ships the same and give them the same name and send them to the same place. That would be plain stupid.’

‘Okay. What if we were the subjects of an experiment?’

‘Ha! An experiment?’

‘Yeah. Perhaps our reactions are being monitored. Put us in a strange situation and watch how we behave.’

‘That’s even more ridiculous. How would the Foundation have got the ship here?’

‘Like you said. A faster propulsion system.’

‘We’re going round in circles here. It’s not possible, it doesn’t add up. You’re insinuating pre-meditation. You’re saying that the

Foundation intended to fool us, meaning that they already had the technology for a faster propulsion system available to them back in 2048, when they decided to build Daedalus. Which meant that they would have sent us on a slower route, with a slower propulsion system, deliberately. It’s ridiculous. And what about the signal?’

‘Maybe there never was a signal.’

‘Oh there was a signal alright. I heard it.’

‘You heard a recording which could have been faked.’

‘Bullshit. This conversation is getting stupid. There’s nothing suspect about the mission profile. We encountered an anomaly. A puzzle that we have to figure out. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why this ship is here. We just have to find it.’

‘I think we should board her. We can download the ISOE and log data. There’s bound to be some information there.’

‘Are you crazy. Board her? Shouldn’t we hail her first?’

‘I’ve already tried. On every frequency we have. There’s no response.’ Loretta interjected.

‘Well, what else do you think we should do? We found the origin of the signal. We now know for sure that it wasn’t an extra terrestrial intelligence. It was humans all along.’

‘Whoa, wait, wait, wait…’ Ian said, ‘No, you guys are missing a vital component here.’

‘What?’

‘Okay,’ Ian continued, ‘The Lincoln Outpost received the signal in… when was it 2048? The signal, we assume, is coming from that spaceship, that Daedalus, right? This is where we tracked the signal. We found the source, and it’s this other ship.’

‘Right.’

‘Which means that it’s been transmitting the signal for about a hundred and thirty years. That Daedalus!’

‘It’s been here all along’

Ian jumped in again, ‘Look guys, it didn’t get built at the same time as our Daedalus. It wasn’t part of some stunt pulled by the Space Foundation. It’s not a backup ship either. It was already here. That ship is the reason we came here. It’s the signal from that ship that we came here to investigate. It’s like we built a second ship, to come and visit the first.’

‘But that doesn’t make any sense.’

‘No, it doesn’t. Maybe it’s a decoy.’

James interjected. ‘We definitely have to board her. We need to find out if it’s transmitting a signal. Wasn’t that what our mission was in the first place?’

‘He’s right; we could sit and talk about this for hours. We have no choice. The answers to our questions lie on that ship, so we need to send a party in to investigate.’

‘Okay, who gets to go?’

Ian spoke up, ‘I’ll go.’

‘Okay, but we can get two in the EVA, who else is in?’

Silence, then James spoke.

‘Me sir. I’ll go with him.’

‘Okay James, follow Ian’s orders at all times.’ Frank said.

‘Yes sir.’

The two Daedalus spaceships floated alongside each other a kilometre apart, hanging in space at an altitude of 1,800 kilometres over Mycenae. The planet’s surface reached off into the distance above, below, in front and behind them. At regular intervals the turbulent storms on the planet’s surface beside them would throw up immense columns of steam into the sky, sometimes rising up as much as fifty or sixty kilometres above the orange sulphur cloud cover. Beneath those clouds were the secrets of this wonderful meteorological phenomenon.

Sometimes, the accommodation module’s rotation would throw out all sense of ‘up’ and ‘down’. Occasionally the Daedalus ships were hanging alongside the huge sphere, then, after a few degrees of rotation, one would be filled with the sense that they were hanging in the sky, on their side, directly above the planet. Then, shortly after, the notion that the ships sat side-on to a planet that hung directly above them, and the crew would have to shake the idea that gravity would cause the planet to crash down onto them, smashing the two tiny ships into a million fragments.

It was somewhat reassuring to Frank, (though he couldn’t really pinpoint the reason why) that Mycenae contained seemingly vast reserves of water. For when there was water, there would often be life, either in the past, present or future, provided the climactic conditions were favourable enough.

Whether life on the surface had had the chance to evolve out of the icy oceans was clearly yet to be discovered, but the presence of these ‘sky-geysers’ indicated that there was possibly heat somewhere on or below the surface. It was heat and water that enabled the development of life on Earth, in the depths of the sea where the thermal vents rose up from the core.

Then he understood why he felt contented by it. It was comforting to know that despite the massive - and yet universally tiny - distance they had travelled, the building blocks of life were still prevalent in other parts of space, reinforcing the increasingly definite notion that mankind was not alone.

If life had evolved out of the oceans on this planet, and time had allowed them to mature their genetic make-up, then within a few million years, a civilisation could develop. Perhaps even a species that could make it into space.

There was no doubt that Mycenae held – quite literally – a vast ocean of secrets that could aid mankind’s quest for knowledge in the universe.

‘Maybe,’ Frank whispered to himself, ‘we need to send a probe down’.

Inside the Command Module, Frank and Loretta sat at the comms unit. Frank pressed the button to open the link to Ian and James, who were preparing the EVA unit.

‘James, where’s Ian?’

‘He’s just in front of me sir.’ James replied through the radio unit.

‘Tell him to switch his unit on.’

A moment later Ian’s voice came over the unit. ‘Okay, I’m in the EVA unit, James is just getting in behind. Ready for detach in about two minutes.’

‘Okay, let us know when you’re out of the airlock.’

‘Does anyone think there’ll be any hostilities out there?’

‘James, we’re in space, the whole place is hostile.’

‘Okay sir, I’m opening the airlock.’

Through the speaker, they could hear the mechanical drive that rolled the airlock door open.

‘I’m thrusting forward. We’re clear of the ship and heading towards Daedalus Two. I’m moving at ten metres per second. I’m going to

reverse thrust. I don’t want to come up on it too fast.’

Silence.

‘Wow! What a view. It’s beautiful out here. We’ll be there in less than a minute. Its strange isn’t it James. Hanging in space between two Daedalus spacecraft. What the hell is this damn thing doing here?’

‘How are you doing, Ian?’

‘Okay, we’re coming up on it now. I’m sending a localised airlock instruction to Daedalus Two.’ A moment of silence, ‘It’s accepted the command. The airlock door is opening.’

‘Can you see anything yet?’

‘Not yet, but I’ll keep you posted, out. Oh, okay there’s another EVA unit in there. I’m going to manoeuvre it out the way. We may have to lose it or we’ll never get inside.’

‘Ian, you can’t lose it. Do you have any idea how much those things cost.’

Ian laughed, ‘Frank we have no choice. I’ve got it with the grappler device.’

‘Can you hook it onto the outside of the ship somehow?’

‘No, I’ve got a better idea. I’m going to keep it in my grappler and reverse into the airlock. Hopefully we’ll both fit inside and I can

shut the door.’

A few minutes of silence, then a couple of metallic clunk sounds, followed by a further message from Ian.

‘Okay, both the other EVA unit and us are in the airlock, and the door is closed. Depressurising now.’

Over the speakers came a faint hissing sound, followed by a beep, which indicated that the pressure outside the EVA unit in the Daedalus Two airlock was the same as the pressure inside.

‘Oxygen levels are normal,’ said James. ‘Hull integrity seems okay.’

‘Right,’ Ian said, ‘we’re ready to have a look around. We’re climbing out. The inner door is opening. All the remote commands I’m sending are being accepted.’

‘Does that surprise you?’ Frank asked.

Loretta interjected, ‘Even though the frequencies may have been recalibrated if the ship was different. It doesn’t surprise me that they’re the same. This is another Daedalus after all. What surprises me is the fact that it’s here at all.’

‘Okay Frank,’ Ian said, ‘we’re inside. It’s dark, get the torches.’

‘Any signs of life?’

‘Not yet. I’m going to head over to a network point to do a download of the ship status.’

‘Okay, and keep looking for…’ Frank was interrupted.

‘Sir, what’s that?’ James said.

‘I don’t know.’ Ian replied.

After a moment James’s voice came over the speaker. ‘It’s an artifact of some kind. It seems to be made of some sort of metal, and there’s a carving on the front.’

Then Ian spoke, ‘It’s a strange object Frank, the engraving is a picture of the Earth, it’s beautifully drawn.’

‘Ian you’ll have plenty of time to look around after you’ve downloaded the log data. Get to a network point.’

‘Okay, I’m plugging in. I hope the systems are running. We may have to reboot if there’s a… Oh. It’s okay; the systems are still

functioning. ‘I’m downloading the status data now.’

‘Okay. Good stuff. I want you to stay on the ship and catalogue what you find. We’re preparing to send a probe down to the planet’s surface.’

‘Sir, a probe won’t answer any questions about Daedalus Two.’

‘No, it probably won’t, but while we’re here, picking our noses waiting for Ian and James to gather some answers, maybe we can get a little science done. We can learn a lot from what’s going on down on that surface. Down there are the answers to serious questions about extra-solar planets. We can’t skip this opportunity.’

‘I guess you want me to Nav the thing,’ said Loretta

‘I’m afraid so.”

*

‘The probe’s parachute has deployed. EPI measurements indicate nominal levels of radiation. Angle of insertion is eight-point-five degrees. I hope this baby doesn’t bounce,’ said Loretta as beads of perspiration began to break out on her forehead.

‘We’ve lost visual,’ she continued as she pressed buttons and took readings off her screens.

‘It’s gone below the cloud tops. I have a confirmation that the heat shield has come away.

‘Okay we have a high-energy helium ion composite of twenty-three per cent. It’s very close to the helium content of Jupiter’s atmosphere. The planet’s interior is probably very hot. The Atmospheric Structure Instrument indicates mean temperature at the cloud tops is one-twenty degrees Kelvin, sir. That’s about minus one-five-three degrees Celsius.’ She looked up.

‘Can the probe operate under those conditions?’ asked Frank.

‘Yes, it’ll be okay sir, provided the winds aren’t too strong. I’ve got the Wide-Field sensor checking the speeds now. I think the orange clouds are formed out of some sort of sulphur deposits drawn up into the atmosphere from warmer regions. Okay, we now have twelve times Earth atmospheric pressure, and a wind speed of one thousand and fifty kilometres per hour. The temperature’s increasing. I’ve got the Nephelometer testing the cloud density.’

‘Nephelometer?’

‘The probe has an extended arm on it that reflects a laser beam back at its main body. The refraction of the beam shows how dense the cloud layers are.’

Loretta typed another command into her unit.

‘It looks like we have an ammonium hydrosulphide cloud layer at this lower altitude. Lower wind speeds, we’re down to seven hundred kilometres per hour now.’

Although he had seen her work this quickly in the simulator, Frank was still impressed by her speed and accuracy. I really do have a top class team working for me, he thought.

Loretta continued to speak. ‘We have lightning. Electrical disturbance pretty high, it’s affecting the telemetry. I’m switching the remote camera on.’A snowy image came on the monitors in the Command Module. Frank turned to look at one of the screens. The majority of the image was made up of orange cloud layers.

‘Pressure reducing, we should break below the clouds in a few seconds.’

And then it happened, the probe broke through the lowest layer of clouds and the picture on the monitors became much clearer. The probe was descending slowly now through the last few hundred metres of its flight to the surface of the planet

The view was quite stunning from this altitude. The weather was much calmer down at this level, the sunlight broke through the orange clouds and streamed down onto the surface.

Loretta spoke up, ‘Whoa, I thought it was ice down there.’

Instead of the ice-mountains they expected, all they could see were masses of darker objects, strewn all over the ground. In fact the objects were scattered all the way to the horizon.

‘Are they rocks perhaps. Turn the camera.’ Frank said.

As Loretta spun the camera through three hundred and sixty degrees, they saw that the view was the same in all directions. ‘They aren’t rocks, sir. It’s those metallic compounds we saw as we were approaching.’

‘No, they aren’t metallic compounds. Not natural ones anyway.’

Strewn all across the frozen wastes of Mycenae, stretching from horizon to distant horizon were hundreds, or even thousands, perhaps millions of scraps of broken spacecraft. All of the broken up modules were familiar to Frank. He had, after all, been involved in the design process of the Daedalus right from the beginning.

‘Jesus Christ Almighty.’ said Frank in stunned awe, ‘How did this happen?’

‘There must be hundreds of them,’ whispered Loretta.

They both stared open mouthed as the probe floated down to the surface on its triple parachute system, bringing the frightening image closer to them.

In increasing detail they saw smashed up parts of the Cryogenic Module, the Accommodation Module, the Science Module and the Command Module. Thousands of copies of the Daedalus.

Mycenae was covered in them.

Then the probe impacted with the ground, and the image was gone.

‘Ian, James, how are you doing over there?’

Ian’s voice crackled back over the speaker from Daedalus Two, ‘Frank you’re not going to believe this. I’ve found a journal here written by you. The dates are all messed up, but I’m uploading it to you now.’

‘Okay, keep up the good work. I’ve got some strange results from the probe. We’ll talk when you get back.’

Frank expected a response from Ian, but there was only the hissing static.

‘Ian, is there any news about the beacon?’ Frank asked.

More silence.

‘Ian. I said, is there any news about the signal?’

Still silence.

‘James, is Ian okay.’ Frank asked.

‘Sir… I’m okay’, Ian said finally, ‘I…I think you need to hear this.’

‘Hear what? You’ve found the signal?’

‘Yes sir, I’ve found the signal, but I don’t understand it. This thing’s been broadcasting a message to the Lincoln Outpost for over a century. It doesn’t make any sense. Anyway, I’m patching the message through now. By the way, it was backwards, I’ve had to reverse the recording and make a new copy of it that plays forward. Get a load of this.’

There were a couple of spurts of static crackling followed by a beep. Then a message started to play, and Loretta’s recorded voice came out through the speakers.

‘This is a message from Systems Officer Loretta Pearce of the Daedalus calling the Lincoln Outpost from a geo-synchronous orbit around PMC-04, a planet we now call Mycenae. We have received news of a catastrophe that will befall the Earth. Take immediate evasive action to avoid the inbound asteroid. 418-Minos will destroy all life on Earth. Track the object. You must escape. I only hope we are not too late.’

There was another beep, and the message repeated. The recorded voice was close to tears. The sense of urgency and helplessness was evident in the words Loretta said and the conviction with which she spoke them.

After the message had played twice, and its implications had time to sink in, Frank turned to look at Loretta. Her eyes were wide, clearly very moved by hearing her own voice speak such words. There were tears in her eyes, and as Frank looked at her, the first of many began to roll down her face.

‘What the hell happened here?’ said Loretta.

Ian’s voice came over the speaker, ‘Sir, what do you think we should do now?’

‘Ian, I want you and James to return to the ship. We need to regroup so that we can assess the situation. And bring that carving with you.’

‘Yes sir, returning now.’ Replied Ian.

Frank turned to the others, ‘When they get back, I want everyone assembled in the Rec room. In the mean time I’m going to have a look at that journal Ian downloaded.’

Frank climbed down the service tunnel to the rim corridor, and walked round to his cabin. He was struggling to stay awake now. All he wanted to do was sleep. But there was no time for that. And he knew that he wouldn’t be able to anyway. Not under these circumstances.

Once he was back in his cabin, he brewed up some coffee and settled down in his chair to read the journal.