"Damn it, of course they are breaking away from the intercept!"
The passenger ship had just started another maneuver to further change its trajectory, requiring me to re-intercept them with a maneuver of my own.
"But wait... They are not exactly trying to shake me off... What are they doing then? Could this be another course change?"
"Is everything alright?" Mei tried to yell at me from his capsule, probably overhearing my monologue that got a bit too loud.
"Yes, you just stay put there." I said. "I've got it under control."
The distance between Lodos IV -the shuttlecraft- and the passenger ship was decreasing rapidly. I had to start my braking maneuver in time, otherwise the passenger ship's pilot would have an actual good reason to worry about me. Luckily, the flight computer was helping me out with all the complex flight dynamics calculations.
"And now, hold tight!"
I turned the shuttle around and engaged the main engines, this time to decelerate. When I matched velocities with the passenger liner, the separation between the ships was about a kilometer and a half. The passenger liner was still in the middle of a maneuver when I caught up with them, so I had to orient the shuttle in the same direction and maneuver together with the large vessel to keep near them.
"Now, how do I get these guys to let me dock?" I asked to myself. "Oh, I know!"
I very slowly approached to what I thought would be the bridge of the passenger liner, and made myself visible to the pilot. Of course I would've already been noticed by their sensors long, long ago, but deliberately approaching the bridge should have meant something more.
When I got close enough, I could barely make out three human figures through the cockpit windows. I reached to the external lights panel of the shuttle and started blinking the lights in a morse code pattern.
SOS - Three short, three long, three short flashes.
The passenger liner slowly decreased throttle and shutdown their engines. Then, they replied by blinking their bridge's internal illumination lights.
STATE INTENT
Short yet descriptive, just the way the morse code was intended for use in emergencies. I replied, using the external lights.
DOCKING
Just before they deployed their docking port for me to approach, I added one more thing.
MEDICAL
The reply came to me by the blinking of bridge lights again.
DOCK
"There we go, that wasn't so hard, was it?" I said, most likely to myself. I brought the shuttle to align with the port-aft-side docking port of the passenger liner and docked in a short time. After the docking port seal was confirmed and the doors were opened, I met a team of paramedics.
"Responding to medical emergency onboard. Are you injured?" the guy in the front asked.
"No." I said, pointing towards Mei's capsule. "Over that way."
They quickly approached her and started making various examinations, asking her questions as they did. Mei replied to each of them clearly despite the pain she was apparently in, as usual and expected of her cold-blooded nature.
The medics quickly decided that it was safe to transport her, and started preparing to bring her to their infirmary aboard the passenger ship.
While this was going on, a team of engineers and technicians also appeared on the docking port.
"You were having communication problems, capt'n?"
"Our comm systems are all down." I said. "I assume you are here to help?"
"Yes." the guy, who appears to be the chief, replied. "Intersol Type VII Shuttle?"
"Type VII with custom modifications." I said.
"Modifications such as?" the chief asked. It was apparent he was trying to get the job done as quickly as possible.
"I... I don't know entirely. She would've known." I said, looking towards Mei.
"She, who seems to be in no condition to help out. Well, we will have to figure it out on the way then, won't we?" A smile appeared on the chief's face, and indication of the pride in his expertise. "Ron, why don't you head to the antenna spaghetti on the top? Allison, you are with me on the inside."
I interrupted him while he was showering his crew with orders.
"Antenna spaghetti?"
"Yea, have you even looked at the mess on the top of your shuttle?" he asked. "I suppose not. Ron, to the airlock, come on, move! Allison, for the love of god, why would you not take the tool bag!?"
"You can take it slow, I'm not in a rush." I said. "You are not in a competition, man, easy."
The chied looked at me as if he had just noticed something weird.
"Aren't you the save-all-people-from-AI-apocalypse last Martian president?"
"Save-people-Martian-what?"
"You are!" he said, and continued. "Of all people, you should not be the one to tell me to take it slow."
"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked.
"You don't know?" he said, and paused for a bit. "Ah, of course you wouldn't know, because no communications - of course!"
"For god's- What are you going on about!?"
"We were on our way to help with the evacuation. But with your ship attached to the side of ours, we can not maneuver. We need to handle the repairs and send you into back into flight so that we can resume our rescue mission."
"Oh, yes, now that you mentioned... We did recieve an emergency transmission from a large ship, just before our comms failed." I said.
"Large ship?" the chief said. "It's not a 'large ship', it is a celestial! A celestial, on fire! Fort Unity is on fire!"
"Fort Unity? Wait, what? Fort Unity is almost the size of a minor planet!"
"Yeah? And it is on fire! What is your point?"
"Why didn't we find any celestials on the atlas when we got the emergency signal then?" I asked.
"How would I know?" said the chief. "Now stop stalling me, I've got work to do! Ask the pilots later if you have to - we will get your comms back online after all."
As I was talking to the chief, Mei was already carried over to the passenger liner.