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 the 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.

lcarus.

Yes, Dr. Searle?

Please re-filter

the Observation Room portal.

Filter up or down, Dr. Searle?

Down.

Oh, my.

lcarus, 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. lcarus, 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,

l 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...

I recommend it.

What's strange, Searle,

is that you're the psych officer...

...and I'm clearly a lot saner

than you are.

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.

Well, Mom and Dad.

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.

lcarus, 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 lcarus I.

Well, whatever it was

that tripped them up...

...l don't think

it was a lack of oxygen.

Not on the outward journey,

at any rate.

F***.

F***.

- Mace.

- Mace.

- What are you doing?

- Come on.

- F***.

- Relax. Put it down.

You son of a b*tch.

- F***er 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 f***ed 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.

lt 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.

l watched them hit us

from the Observation Room.

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

lt was...

... beautiful.

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

lt was...

... beautiful.

- Mace?

- Yeah.

Your maintenance program

allows a further 14 minutes...

... for the mainframe panel

to remain out of coolant tank.

Sh*t.

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,

l 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.

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

Yes, Harvey.

End file.

What is it?

It's the lcarus 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 lcarus 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.

lcarus.

Please plot our trajectory following

the slingshot around Mercury.

Yes, captain.

Now plot the source

of the lcarus I beacon.

Jesus. They almost made it.

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