Here Be Demons

Tor Skarvald, Commander of the Heimdall had successfully managed to navigate the ship though the outer perimiters of the asteroid belt and had expected a clear run to the point in space where they would begin the orbital injection to Jupiter. Last minute flight checks were carried out and the crew readied their stations for the countdown. Astrogator Tori Varr was triple checking the course for the next section of the route, a close approach to Jupiter. As she did so, she opened a radio channel to listen to Jupiter singing across the ether, the trills and squeaks of her radiosphere calling across space in a cacophony of eerie sound. In the main control cabin, everybody stopped what they were doing to listen to the strange sounds, a chilling reminder to the amount of radiation the huge planet was putting out, right across a broad spectrum, from simple radio waves to lethal gamma radiation and microwaves. Just then, the cabin lit up in a series of warning lights as the collision alert sounded. Skarvald quickly went to the forward scanners, to check what could be heading towards them. Jupiters spectral song had been shut off and the sound was replaced by the steady beep of the doppler radar. The screen showed a familiar image coming into view, one of the long range cargo shuttles was drifting powerless in the darkness ahead. A brief scan of the shuttle revealed considerable damage to the forward section of the hull, evidently an asteroid strike, judging by the way the hull had been dented and folded like paper. Skarvald immediately requested a wide scan of the immediate area, but whatever had struck the shuttle had either disintegrated, or had continued on its chaotic way through the system. Luckily, the impact had only damaged the forward section of the craft, destroying the robotic guidance units and leaving the shuttle to drift aimlessly. Under normal circumstances, the Heimdall would remotely control the shuttles at the point of rendezvous and transfer the cargo to the main ship on arrival at the Saturn systems, so it was still possible to operate the cargo hold of the damaged shuttle from the main ship. Skarvald and two other crew members detached the Command Shuttle Gungnir from the Heimdall and approached the cargo ship, using the remotely operated handling arm inside the bay to ease out the containers of mission equipment. The Gungnir edged closer, opening the dorsal bay doors to accept the cargo. Back on board the Heimdall, Astrogator Varr watched the operation carefully, continually checking the scanners for further asteroid actvity. At this distance from the sun, its light was faint and visual identification of potential threats was almost impossible, so Varr relied on the doppler and Lidar scanners to scan the vacinity around the two ships. Soon though, the precious cargo was safely onboard the Gungnir and the shuttle was docking with the main ship.  After the shuttle had been secured to the Heimdall once more and the new cargo checked for damage, Skarvald declared the all clear and ordered the mission to proceed. With the crew at their stations and the course laid in for Jupiter, the magnetic shielding was tested and activated and countdown for the jovian fly by begun.