Chapter One

"Isaac, it's me. I wish I could talk to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything. I wish I could just talk to someone. It's all falling apart here; I can't believe what's happening. It's strange … such a little thing …"

-Nicole Brennan, Senior Medical Officer; USG Ishimura

Isaac Clarke sat on the edge of his bunk. His face was a complete blank as he stared with wide eyes at the bluish holo-playback.

Though holograms couldn't relay colours the way life could, Isaac could clearly see past its flawed imaging. He could see the natural blonde of her hair, and the sparkling sea-blue of her eyes. He saw her soft cheeks and full lips. He saw her as if she was standing right in front of him, not quite smiling, and yet not quite sad.

He could tell from the frozen image that represented the cut-off point of the recording just how scared she was. But for all that he saw in her, he couldn't see what it was that scared her. He couldn't see any hint at all of what it was that prompted such fear.

He grunted and flicked the controls on the panel above his bunk; replaying the message for the twenty-third time since the USG Kellion had picked it up mid-shock, along with a general distress call.

Nicole Brennan was a senior medical officer on board a Concordant Extraction Corporation planet-cracker, the USG Ishimura. It was the first of its kind, and had been in service for more than fifty years. Nicole had been assigned to the ship two years ago, upon Isaac's insistence. He'd served aboard her once before himself as a junior technician, and he knew most of her crew. So he knew that Nicole would be quick to make friends when she boarded the ship.

Several months ago, the Ishimura had shocked out to find itself a planet to crack for resources to supply EarthGov. For all things, it looked and sounded to be a simple, routine rotation out.

But then the CEC had become worried. All contact with the Ishimura had been unexpectedly cut off. What made that worse was that, in lieu of regular communications, the planet-cracker hadn't dispatched a shock-capable shuttle back to Titan Station to report on their progress, and the communications failure.

So the CEC decided to send a ship to investigate.

They'd called on a group of specialists to crew the shuttle. As far as Isaac knew, their mission was to board the Ishimura as soon as they entered the Aegis system and determine the cause of the communications problems. Once said problems were identified, they were to be fixed, promptly.

Isaac jumped when a beep from his bunk controls sounded unexpectedly. Gathering his wits, he pressed the intercom on the panel. "Clarke," he said.

"We're coming up on the Aegis system, Isaac," the sultry voice of the team's computer specialist sounded over the intercom. "Hammond wants you up here for the landing."

"On my way," Isaac said and shut off the intercom without waiting for the acknowledgement.

Isaac sighed and pushed himself up from his bunk and stretched his arms, rotating his shoulders to loosen up the tension that had been building since he'd first seen Nicole's message. It took him only minutes to gear up and check all of his Resource Integration Gear's systems to make sure that everything was functioning normally. Then he downloaded Nicole's last message to his RIG, picked up his helmet, and left the bunk room.

The cockpit at the other end of the hall was larger than the bunk room. The middle of the deck was open and unobstructed. Toward the front were the navigational consoles where the pilot and co-pilot were seated. Around the sides were various systems and holo-panels.

The mission's commander was a dark-skinned, bald man by the name of Zach Hammond. He had broad shoulders and strong arms. Hammond was already wearing his military RIG, but his helmet, Isaac had seen, was still on his bunk at the back of the ship. His hand rested on the holstered Divet pistol strapped to the outside of his thigh. Isaac couldn't exactly see from his angle, but it looked like Hammond was once more going over the mission brief regarding the Ishimura and its planned planet crack.

Hammond's default XO for the mission was the woman that had called Isaac to the bridge. She was a computer specialist assigned to the team by someone in the CEC. Isaac had forgotten her name, but she seemed likeable enough; cheery, even. In fact, she was perhaps the only one on board that was confident that there was nothing wrong with the planet-cracker, and that they would find when they got there that they'd been sent for nothing.

Isaac nodded to her when she looked at him, and then sat down in a vacant seat at the back of the cockpit, nearest to where he'd entered.

Looking around, he noticed that no one else seemed to pay his arrival much mind. In fact, he doubted that the pilot, Chen Isamato, or the co-pilot, David Johnston, had even known. Both of them were paying more attention to their instruments, and to the white-blue tunnel outside the ship that was consistent with ShockPoint travel.

Isaac refused to let the beautiful whirling colours hypnotise him, and keyed in an instruction on the wrist pad on his RIG. A holoscreen popped up in front of his face, and Nicole's message played for the twenty-forth time.

When it was over, Isaac readied himself to hit the replay control, but was distracted when the woman on their team spoke to him.

"How many times have you watched that thing?" she asked politely. Out of the corner of his eye, Isaac saw Hammond shoot a glance his way.

"A few," Isaac said with a shrug.

"I guess you really miss her," the woman said. "Don't worry. We're almost there. You'll be able to look her up once we're on board." She paused for a moment, and the corner of her lips pulled up into a sly smile. "Sounds like you two have a lot of catching up to do."

Isaac smiled in return.

"Prepare for de-shock, everyone," Chen called from the pilot's station.

Isaac gripped the armrests of the chair and the woman standing in front of him reached up to grab hold of an overhead guard. Hammond, who had since moved to stand behind the co-pilot's seat, gripped it with both hands to steady himself. The ship lurched slightly and the bright whorls of shock-space melted away to reveal normal space.

Isaac frowned when he saw what greeted them.

The planet of Aegis 7 was massive, even at the distance they'd come out of shock-space. Most of their path to the planet itself was littered with chunks of rock of varying sizes and shapes. The debris shifted and drifted around them as they passed, smaller pieces bouncing harmlessly off the Kellion's hull with tiny clangs or thuds.

"Alright everyone, we're here," Hammond said, pointing out the obvious.

"Syncing our orbit now," Johnston reported from his station in front of Hammond. The woman turned away from Isaac and walked over to stand next to Hammond, behind Chen's station.

"All this trouble over that chunk of rock," she sighed.

Hammond frowned as he turned side-on to look at her. "Deep space mining is a lucrative business, Miss Daniels," he said, disapproving of her comment. "Aegis Seven is a goldmine, according to prospectors' reports; cobalt, silicon, osmium."

He turned back to the forward window and looked out and around, searching for something as Chen ducked the shuttle under a chunk of wildly rotating rock.

"Now, where is she?" Hammond muttered quietly. As they came around the other side of the dancing rock, Hammond pointed out through the window at something in the distance. "There she is. We have visual contact," he added for the record."

"So, that's the Ishimura," Miss Daniels said, looking out into the distance as well at the great ship that had just come out of hiding. "Impressive."

"The USG Ishimura; biggest planet-cracker of her class," Hammond said, emphasising the ship's full name for Daniels's benefit.

Isaac smiled at the slight rebuke, but made no amused sound to accompany it, lest he be rebuked as well. It seemed like this commander was going to be a by-the-book type. That didn't necessarily bother Isaac much. By-the-book commanding officers made sure things got done smoothly and efficiently. Captain Mathius had been much like that himself when Isaac had been assigned to the Ishimura some time ago. And Isaac's direct commander had been like that was well. Nothing had ever gone wrong in that time.

"It looks like they already popped the cork," Hammond said.

He was right, Isaac noticed. The largest chunk of rock separate from the planet was suspended several hundred meters beneath the Ishimura, between it and the planet. There was no missing the eight, bright blue beams extending down from the Ishimura's tether fins to eight tether stations at equidistant points on the surface of the rock chunk. The gravity tethers were designed to hook a section of a planet like a fisherman catches trout. Once hooked, the tether beams would then be shortened incrementally so that the result was that the ship literally tore a large enough chunk away from the planet. The result was that the magnetic core destabilised enough to shatter the planet into an asteroid field fit for mining.

It was an ingenious way of mining, and Isaac as a child had thought about joining the mining corps and serving in that capacity on a ship like the Ishimura. But he'd ultimately decided to become an engineer, like his father. It fulfilled him more than being a miner ever could, he figured.

"Why is it all dark," Daniels asked cautiously. "I don't see any running lights."

"Hmm," Hammond replied thoughtfully. "Corporal; take us in closer, and hail them. And stay clear of that debris field. We're here to fix their ship, not the other way around."

Johnston nodded and keyed in the commands to do so. Isaac frowned as they came closer and closer, and the ship grew larger and larger. Daniels was right; there were no running lights anywhere on the Ishimura. That in itself was indicative of a problem.

Isaac watched as Chen opened a comm. channel with the planet-cracker. "USG Ishimura," he started, "this is the emergency maintenance team of the USG Kellion, responding to your distress call. Come in Ishimura."

There was no response and Daniels paced in Isaac's direction and then back to Chen's seat. "You're going to need to boost the signal if their power's low."

"Yes, we know," Hammond told her. He turned to Chen. "Boost the signal." Chen did so, but still there was nothing. "More," Hammond said, prompting another set of commands under Chen's fingers.

Daniels made a curious sound after a minute of continued silence from the great ship. "I've never heard of a total communication's blackout on one of these things. You'd think with a thousand people on board, someone would pick up the phone."

A burst of static came over the comm., and Isaac cocked his head. They all listened as a short stream of something that was badly garbled came over the comm. unit, with intermittent static bursts cutting through it.

"What is that?" Chen asked.

"It's a busted array, like we thought," Daniels said with conviction. "Sounds like they're having problems with their encoder. You get us down there, and Isaac and I can fix it. Forty-eight hours, max."

Hammond thought about it for a moment. Though they hadn't known each other long, Isaac knew that now was not the kind of time the mission commander would be open to suggestion. He'd already been given an option and Isaac would have to wait until he'd made a decision before putting his own thoughts in.

But beyond that, he was just so eager to get on board and find Nicole. The comm. array could wait a few hours while he did that, surely. It wasn't like there was any great rush; no one was dead or dying on board. Then again, if everything was fine, why the distress call? Why Nicole's message?

"Alright, you heard the lady," he said, looking down at Johnston and Chen. "Take us in. Let's see what needs fixing."

They were so close now that Isaac could see down the approach path to the Ishimura's hangar doors. If Nicole hadn't been his main objective for being on board, he would have relished the nostalgia of being back on board the planet-cracker. He might even have looked up some of his friends to see who was still stationed on the ship and who was free for a few drinks.

There was a light jolt and a thrumming from the outer hull. "Gravity tethers engaged," Johnston reported. "Automatic docking procedures are a go."

Isaac shifted in his seat and looked once more at the holo of Nicole before he thought to shut it off. After the screen disappeared, he waited as their approached levelled out and they proceeded straight down towards the approach tunnel. All was going smoothly.

Something crashed into the hull, and Isaac heard a tearing as something was shorn off the shuttle's exterior. A control holo on the starboard side exploded and disappeared, sending debris shooting across the deck and almost taking out Hammond's and Daniels's heads. The entire shuttle shuddered violently.

"What the hell?" Hammond demanded over the sound of the blaring alarms.

"Sir—the autodock!" Johnston exclaimed, panicked.

"What is it?" Hammond asked.

"We're off track! We're going to hit the hull!"

Everything was happening too fast. The Ishimura's approach tunnel was speeding towards them, and the shuttle wasn't levelling out to travel along it. Instead, it was taking a direct nosedive towards the hull.

"Hit the blast shields!" Hammond ordered quickly.

Responding instantly, Chen hit the right controls and the blast screens clamped down over the window, shielding them all from any bright flashes or objects thrown through the glass. A holoscreen flickered to life between the pilots and the screen.

"That guidance scanner's damaged. Switch to manual, now."

Isaac pulled his straps over his shoulders and clipped them into the clasp he pulled up from the chair on his left side. He gave the straps a tug to make sure they were secured properly. He gripped the armrests as they continued to swerve back and forth, out of control toward the hangar.

"Inside the magnetic field?" Daniels exclaimed, incredulous. "Are you insane? Abort!"

"No!" Hammond countered with a chopping motion. "We can make it inside!" He turned back to Johnston. "Corporal, I gave you an order!"

Someone said something, but Isaac didn't quite catch it over the alarms and the sounds of debris clanging off the hull like rapid fire.

The ship crashed into something, and Isaac was thankful for his safety webbing as it held him secure to his seat. He heard a loud grinding, wrenching, banging, as the underside of the shuttle slid painfully on its belly across the hangar deck of the Ishimura. They hit more than a dozen things, and something exploded against the blast shield, sending Hammond careening sideways into Daniels and knocking them both to the floor.