Ambition
Copyright© 2020 by Yob
Chapter 18: Tomb Ship
MOM is a big ship, even just the half we live in. The alien ship dwarfs MOM. It’s enormous. MOM is in orbit around the blue water world, slightly higher than and creeping up on the PLUS craft. We’re going to bump.
While it’s a logical certainty, somewhere on the PLUS ship is some sort of door or several, we can’t see one. The PLUS ship looks like a long cigar shaped icicle. Using ice as insulation and repairable collision absorption material was as obvious a choice for the PLUS engineers as for our own.
Docking is always a controlled slow speed collision. We intend to dock the two huge vessels. Once we are locked together using part of our gravity drive as a clamp, we will melt some ice and spray the water on the connection, refreezing around the join. Building a thick scab of ice where the two vessels touch, then tunneling through the ice cofferdam created. Our intent is to penetrate the PLUS hull, and explore the contents. The mood aboard MOM is like Christmas eve. Our big present is waiting to be opened.
The alien apparently has died. At any rate, stopped communicating.
Even though we might not be of any assistance to the PLUS, we still need to get aboard the alien ship.
Using the space-plane as a standby rescue craft, it’s been launched just in case something or someone is ejected and needs recovering. Aboard the Space-Plane is myself as pilot, with the ever present JoAnn in my head, then little Brenda, Brenda’s mom Linda, and Maarta.
Flotsam is still in Cryo and in an out-of-body state. Brenda claims to see and communicate with Flotsam, and serves as our liaison.
A fine spray of ice crystals explodes from the contact point when the collision occurs. The comet head we used as a ram and front bumper during our voyage, is now being welded to the alien with a fresh deposit of ice.
Watching the sealing process and the invisible internal burrowing, is boring. Be alert. Remain alert! Might be pressure inside the PLUS hull, that blows everything apart. Paying strict attention. Why doesn’t someone give us a status report?
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