Sunshine

Our sun is dying.

Mankind faces extinction.

Seven years ago, the Icarus Project sent a mission to restart the sun.

But that mission was lost before it reached the star.

Sixteen months ago, I, Robert Capa, and a crew of seven...

left Earth frozen in a solar winter.

Our payload...

a stellar bomb with a mass equivalent to Manhattan Island.

Our purpose...

to create a star within a star.

Eight astronauts strapped to the back of a bomb.

My bomb.

Welcome to Icarus II.

Icarus.

Yes, Dr. Searle?

Please re-filter the Observation Room portal.

Filter up or down, Dr. Searle?

Down.

Oh, my.

Icarus, how close is this to full brightness?

At this distance of 36 million miles...

you are observing the sun at 2 percent of full brightness.

Two percent?

Can you show me 4 percent?

Four percent would result in irreversible damage to your retinas.

However, you could observe 3.1 percent...

for a period of not longer than 30 seconds.

All right. Icarus, I'm gonna reset...

the filter to 3.1 percent.

Well, it's invigorating.

It's like taking a shower in light.

- You lose yourself a little. - Like a flotation tank.

Actually, no.

Look, what is it, beef?

Chicken.

If you don't like it, you take my shift next time.

For psych tests on deep space, I ran sensory-deprivation trials.

Testing total darkness on flotation tanks.

And the point about darkness is, you float in it.

You and the darkness are distinct from each other...

because darkness is an absence of something, it's a vacuum.

But total light, it envelops you.

It becomes you.

It's very strange. I don't, um...

I recommend it.

What's strange, Searle, is that you're the psych officer...

and I'm clearly a lot saner than you are.

Mmm. Good.

All right, if no one's gonna say it, I'm going to.

The solar wind reading is much higher than we'd anticipated at this distance.

For the moment we can still send package messages back.

High-frequency bursts will rise above interference...

and the Moon Stations will be able to pick them up.

But it's possible that within 24 hours we won't be able to communicate at all.

Possible?

Probable.

We'll finally be on our own.

We're 55 million miles from Earth. I'd say we're already on our own.

Come on, guys. We were expecting this.

No great drama. We're flying into the dead zone...

seven days sooner than we thought.

But if any of you are planning on sending a final message home...

you should do it now.

Uh, well, Mom and Dad.

Uh, I hope you're proud of your son...

saving mankind and so on.

By the time you get this message, I'll be in the dead zone.

It came a little sooner than we thought.

But this means that you won't be able to send a message back.

So I just wanted to let you know that I don't need the message.

Because I know everything you wanna say.

Just remember it takes eight minutes for light to travel from sun to Earth.

Which means you'll know we've succeeded...

about eight minutes after we deliver the payload.

All you have to do is look out for a little extra brightness in the sky.

So, if you wake up one morning, and it's a particularly beautiful day...

you'll know we made it.

Okay.

I'm signing out.

And I'll see you in a couple of years.

Ugh. Icarus, dial it down a little, will you?

Yes, Corazon.

Captain?

Captain?

I'm guessing you've been talking to Searle.

- So, do you have that report for me? - Yeah.

Right here.

The O2 productivity is good. In fact, if anything, we're over-producing.

It will trail off dramatically when we get nearer.

But in truth, we have the reserves to make it there and a quarter-way back.

You're thinking about Icarus I.

Well, whatever it was that tripped them up...

I don't think it was a lack of oxygen.

Not on the outward journey, at any rate.

Fuck.

Fuck.

- Mace. - Mace.

- What are you doing? - Come on.

- Fuck. - Relax. Put it down.

You son of a bitch.

- Fucker took an hour in there. - Stop.

I can't send my package, the wind is too high.

- Calm down. - I'm sorry, all right? Jesus.

Kaneda, Searle, report to Flight Deck.

What's up?

We have an excess of manliness breaking out in the Comms Center.

So how does this work?

Am I supposed to tell you about my childhood?

I probably know more about your childhood than you do.

It's the time.

Sixteen months, you can get used to anything.

You just...

lose track.

I know I fucked up.

From now on...

I'm not gonna lose track again.

Prescription...

Earth Room.

Two hours?

- And get a haircut, Mace. - Yeah.

Bring back the waves.

Dr. Searle's prescription specifies a peaceful module.

The waves make me feel peaceful.

Again.

Mace, I'm sorry. I should have let you go first.

Capa. It's me. I'm the one apologizing, all right?

All right.

- Was that the apology? - Yeah.

- Consider it accepted. - Okay.

It was a sequence of contact reports on the top-left shield quadrant...

which, by 1700, had turned into a minor asteroid storm.

None bigger than a raindrop...

but we had 19 punctures...

and a secondary contact to the engine compartment.

Took three alpha shifts to patch it up.

Lost a little vapor. Nothing serious.

I watched them hit us from the Observation Room.

Gotta tell you, Moon Base, it was, uh...

It was...

beautiful.

Gotta tell you, Moon Base, it was, uh...

It was...

beautiful.

- Mace? - Yeah.

Your maintenance program allows a further 14 minutes...

for the mainframe panel to remain out of coolant tank.

Shit.

Guys...

you wanna see something?

Well, I should have a few words to say...

but on reflection...

what can one say?

Ladies and gentlemen.

Mercury.

Twenty-three hours ago, on the comms systems...

While listening to your space music?

While scanning the frequencies, I heard a transmission.

It appeared as we flew into the dark side of Mercury.

The iron content of the planet...

is acting as an antenna.

There's high background interference, but the signal is clear enough.

Icarus, please play audio file 7-5/B.

Yes, Harvey.

End file.

What is it?

It's the Icarus I.

That signal is their distress beacon.

Jesus.

That's impossible. It's been seven years.

Clearly it's not impossible because you can hear it.

- They're still alive? - We don't know.

But they could be. Oxygen is self-replenishing.

Water is recycled.

They have the solar power they need.

What about food? Their supplies couldn't last.

That depends.

They had stock to cover eight people for three years.

That's a four-year shortfall. Hell of a diet.

We don't know what happened to Icarus I.

There might have been an accident.

There might not have been eight people to feed.

- Captain, do we know where they are? - Well done, Capa. That is the question.

Icarus.

Please plot our trajectory following the slingshot around Mercury.

Yes, captain.

Now plot the source of the Icarus I beacon.

Jesus. They almost made it.

That's why no one picked up the signal until now.

It was lost in the background light and noise.

We're gonna pass right by them.

Within 10 or 15 thousand miles.

Can anyone survive?

If the shield is intact.

We'll be able to see them?

Yes.

I'd need to look at all of this pretty carefully. Very carefully.

But if I had to make a guess right now, I'd say we could adjust our trajectory.

We could fly straight to them.

But we're not gonna do that.

Just to make it absolutely clear, there's no way we're gonna do that.