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            Magellan felt the storm surrounding the ship change subtly, something no particular sensor could register, but a discernable change. The turbulent and chaotic patterns of the nightmare space outside for a moment tensed solid. Something was going to happen.

            For a moment the ship was surrounded by a perfect black sphere, then it leapt, the walls shrinking towards a point somewhere inside the ship, Magellan just had enough time to snap the stasis field on, the barricades put up around the ship were breached as easily as a mist. The wave continued through the surface of the ship he was expecting the pain from the loss of systems but it failed to materialize, the wave just swept through the ship contracting to a point in one of it’s deserted corridors, and just when the sensors lost the mote Magellan realized that the clouding veil around the ship was lifted.

            The sensors began to read the stars to reckon the changes in orientation. He let his mind wander from the routine systems diagnostics and ran further checks in the corridor to make sure nothing unusual had come aboard, he sniffed the air with particle filters, and examined the uniform heat radiated off its surfaces, nothing had turned up. Then he felt the pang of discord, one of the ships own indigenous computers, had sent him an error report, his attention turned to it, as he expected the navigational computer was a bit upset by the sudden disappearance of the known universe, but the report had not made particular note of where the ship was currently positioned. Magellan possessed all the traits of human emotion but no human analogue can be formulated from the mixture of joyful surprise and abject horror as his machine parts came to comprehend the new whereabouts of the ship. He made the computer execute the same position finding routine, making it double check it’s steps, while he took a look at space himself, the local space seemed harmless enough, he shutdown Calica’s stasis unit, and waited for the unit’s door to open.

            He prepared to assemble the news to Calica. He knew she would be angry, deep amongst Magellan’s components, a swirl of atoms which had they been part of a human mind, would have raised the corners of his non-existent lips.

‘Well how far are we to the site?’

‘Practically there, a few more minutes, the region is rather large as the sensors could not accurately define the ship’s position, but this region is rather dense in bodies, we’re out into the system’s Oort cloud now’

‘Do we know what has happened to it, in hindsight I should have asked, I mean is it hiding or has it collided with something?’

‘There is no clear answer in the files I have been looking over, but the region of space that the ship could have passed through is quite full of things, so I crash is quite likely I imagine, especially if the craft was damaged.’

‘But you would have thought a high-speed collision would have shown up. I know the actual ship would be traveling sub-c when its propulsion field collapses, but it still should be going at a fair speed.’

‘I wish you hadn’t said that, no collisions spotted, though that does not rule one out, sensor coverage is far from total here, and it is a very small craft.’

‘Smaller than our own?’ Johan said, recovery would be easier if the craft was smaller.

‘No, a little larger, the reason this ship runs so fast seems to be that it is mostly engine’

‘And weapons’

‘Admittedly so, but if we are assuming crash then I don’t think it will be much of a problem. There are three bodies that it could have ploughed into, two of these probably do not have the integrity to withstand a collision, but the third is a rather larger and sturdier body, I suggest we investigate that one first’

‘This is of course assuming that it has crashed, and not just lurking’

‘Johan, just stop saying things like that! No, no, stop thinking things like that.’

The surveying craft, Eagle Eye, dropped from asymmetric field propulsion to fusion flame as it approached the largest icy body, although small by planetary proportions, it had a subtle gravity, and more for ease of flight rather than respect for the body, the craft was pushed into a low polar orbit.

Johan was sifting through the images collected from the approach, ‘What exactly are we looking for, I have looked over thermal and there is nothing out of the ordinary, a collision you would have thought, generates a lot of heat’

‘Oh it would, but you are assuming the craft is on the surface’ Meredith said.

‘Of course I would, most likely outcome, there is a nice fresh looking crater dead ahead’

‘We are in a vacuum, all the craters look fresh.’ Meredith continued to look through the data coming in from this current orbit. ‘No I think as there is no obvious thermal readings on the body that the craft has penetrated it, and all the ice is acting as an insulator, the body is far from solid I suspect under high peed it would have scarcely left a sign of impact as it ploughed through broken ice.’

After a while Johan added, ‘The fact that there is no big thermal readings might also more likely mean that it isn’t here, look we have imaging from the whole body now, and there is nothing obvious, lets move on.’

‘You are always looking at what you can see, you have not even processed the gravitational imaging data yet’ Meredith replied impatiently.

‘A ship that small would never show up on gravitational imaging, the resolution would barely pick out an object that size.’

‘Have you checked?’

She had an instinct that it was somewhere under the surface, the other two potential bodies imply would give away a collision, this one could be large enough to conceal it. The gravitational imaging was finally complete, now a three-dimensional model of the density of the planet could be brought up.

‘There!’ Meredith said pointing to a bright region submerged beneath the projections grey surface

‘At this point I might add this object you have just pointed to is about five times bigger than the craft and has about two thirds the density, that is, in other words, no.’

Johan was actually rather taken back with what the scans had shown, instead of the mixed lump of ice he had been expecting, there were large gaps and crevices riddling the entire body, Meredith despite her enthusiasm might have a point after all, you could hardly land on the surface without falling through it.

‘I think I have an alternate idea.’ Johan could already see a shiny white dot on the bottom of a large clear void.