Europa Contagion

by Nicholas Thorp

  “Could it come from the same area?” Felix asked quickly.

  Although taken aback at being interrupted several times, Sonya replied, “Yeah it definitely could. There’s no reason an earthquake couldn’t happen multiple times in the same area.” The moment she finished her sentence was when Sonya understood why Felix was looking worried.

  Felix immediately pressed a button on his wrist. His glasses lit up and the microphone built in the temple of his glasses picked up the vibrations through his skull as he spoke.

  “Nomad One, this is Habitat, do you read me?” He waited. Ten seconds went by. Twenty seconds passed. Thirty seconds. Finally, a minute went by with nothing. It seemed like an eternity.

  “Nomad One, this is Habitat, repeat, do you read me?” The moment he finished his question was when Navya ran into the room. Her hair was in a ponytail and her brown skin was glistening. She must have been in the middle of her routine workout.

  “I don’t have any more signals from Alice or Kato’s vitals,” Navya said while looking at her computer. “Is everything okay?”

  As she finished her question they all felt the rumble. It was just as big as the last time two years ago. No, it was bigger.

  “An earthquake?” Navya asked.

  Sonya responded as they hopped carefully toward the storage area. “Yeah, a pretty big one too. Looks like at least an eight on the Richter scale.”

  All three found their MK V EMUs and helmets and donned them. It was standard procedure to don a spacesuit in the event of an emergency such as an earthquake.

  Everything in the Habitat was designed with emergencies in mind. All equipment that could fall or any storage cabinet that could open up was strapped down or locked in place. All rooms were compartmentalized such that if there was a fire or fracture in the Habitat the rooms could close, sealing that room by itself. All rooms had two entrances and exits to make sure that if the doors got jammed in the closed position, a person could make their way out via another path. Each major room of the Habitat also had a pressurization room in case it was necessary to move into an unpressurized room. In addition, each room also had several emergency masks with oxygen supplies and a fire suppression system built in that would flood the area if any fires started.

  Only minutes after putting on their EMUs the rumbling stopped. The earthquake had ended, but that didn’t mean the danger was over. Something could have been damaged in the Habitat during the earthquake. Yet no one worried about that at the moment. The Nomad could still be in trouble, maybe even lost. It was an idea that no one wanted to entertain.

  “Sonya, is there any way we could get the satellite link and use it to find the Nomad?” Felix asked, but knew it wouldn’t be as simple as that.

  “Let’s find out,” Sonya replied.

  There was one primary satellite that orbited Europa. It had been the most recent space probe sent to completely map the small moon with high-quality images and take other measurements, such as radiation levels. It had a very elliptical orbit to try and reduce the amount of radiation it received as it passed close to Jupiter and Europa. It ended up being the satellite used by the crew to send out communication signals either to Earth’s Moon base or the Seeker, but its fourteen-day elliptical orbit meant it wasn’t available anytime at a moment's notice. It also wasn’t a spy satellite that could upload a high-quality live feed at any given time, but it was something that could potentially be used to locate larger objects of interest. Its cameras were used at regular intervals to map any changes that occurred on Europa’s surface.

  Sonya’s hands danced over her tablet.

  “It’s pretty close to that location, but it’s not in a position to take any pictures of that area. It’ll take at least four hours before it’s in a position we can use. Plus, even after that, it’ll take several hours just to download any of the images we take.”

  Sonya had everything set up for the satellite, but it was going to take many hours before they would see any results. Felix had been going back and forth between checking the location device and rebooting the system to pacing around the room. It was clear that he wasn’t making any sort of progress.

  Navya looked down at her tablet computer.

  Navya then looked at Felix and said, “Felix, your heart rate is high right now and you’re a bit dehydrated. Drink some water and come back. We can do a check on the Habitat while we wait and make sure everything is fine here. Maybe we can come up with something that can help while we do that.”

  Navya, the Doctor of the group, kept a careful eye on the vitals of the crew. Although seen as an invasion of privacy by some people, a half-decade long mission in space to another planet’s moon required a very careful eye on the physiology and vitals of everyone involved. This mostly entailed making sure that everyone was doing their regular workouts and scheduled muscle enhancement stimulation therapy.

  Navya had always been rather stern with everyone, but it was necessary. Almost every one of the crew members understood and accepted that she would check on their health and nag them from time to time. Everyone except Sonya. Navya and Sonya had never gotten to connect the same way everyone else had with Navya. Navya never understood why, either.

  For the moment, Felix was the center of Navya’s attention, though. Felix, for instance, tended to stress more than the others when things went wrong. This seemed like one of those times.

  Felix left and soon returned, but it was obvious he was still stressed.

  “Come on, we’ve got work to do,” Navya said and they all went through the procedure of manually checking to make sure nothing was wrong with the Habitat.

  The regularity of routine helped and Felix soon calmed down. He started thinking about what he could do to help. Just then he thought of an idea.

  The radar dish, we could increase the power to it. That would increase its range, he thought to himself. But Felix knew that would require other parts of the Habitat to shut down. Further, it wouldn’t increase its range far enough to where the Nomad was when they lost its signal.

  Still, it was worth a shot. Managing most things on the Habitat was done through the main software, which meant that Felix could redirect power from anywhere as long as he had access to a computer. He sat down in the chair next to him and began to work. He knew that he couldn’t completely shut down the power from any one part of the Habitat and direct it to another without an emergency override, but he could decrease the power from one part to another. He redirected most of the power from the Lab, the medbay, the Hangar, and the recreation area.

  Just as he thought, however, the radar didn’t pick up on anything. The increase in the range had only been minimal. Despondent, he went back to his work.

  Hours passed. As usual, everything checked out on the Habitat. Not a single thing was out of place. All objects were still in place. All systems were showing nominal readings. No leaks were detected, no power loss occurred, and oxygen was still plentiful. With a clean bill of health for the Habitat, the three crew members had taken off their spacesuits and were sitting together looking at the map that was displayed on the monitor in front of them.

  Just then, something happened. A small blue dot appeared on the map, farther than the normal range of the radar.

  “Wait, something has popped up on Radar. It’s small but consistent with the size of the Nomad,” Sonya spoke. “That’s odd. It’s outside the range of the radar.”

  “I increased its power,” Felix said.

  “Ah, smart move,” Sonya replied.

  “Are you sure it’s them?” Navya asked.

  “It’s on the surface and moving straight toward us. It has to be them,” Sonya responded.

  Felix smiled for the first time. He ran his hand through his short brown hair and sat on his chair with a sigh of relief.

  It took several more hours, but finally, the hangar doors opened as the Nomad eked its way into its normal resting spot and stopped with what seemed like a groan. For several weeks the vehicle hadn’t left tha
t spot. Felix and Kato had been working to make sure that the Nomad was ready for its long outside excursion. The Nomad truly was one of a kind. Not only was it the first exploration vehicle that had been assembled off Earth - as it had been assembled entirely in a factory on Earth’s Moon - but all the materials used to build it had also come from a non-terrestrial origin. Many materials had been mined from asteroids from the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.

  The Nomad was a self-contained, tough-as-a-tank, exploration vehicle the size of a large bus. There was enough room to easily accommodate six people, had a pressurizing room, which included a washdown area, could fit 20 cubic feet of cargo in its hold, and even had an external crane that could lift and move large objects. It was powered by six small hydrogen engines, which were built into each of the six wheels, allowing for a six-wheeled drive vehicle. The Nomad was heavily shielded against radiation, and as such was one of the rare mobile items on Europa that had significant weight to it. When fully fueled, it could travel for a week. It had emergency rations, water, and even a small medical ‘room’ that could expand and be used in emergencies.

  Before it had left for the trip, the Nomad had been perfectly white and pristine. Now it sat as a dirty mess. Not only that, but the outside looked as if someone had taken a crowbar to it. One wheel was even obviously misaligned.

  As with most things on Europa, it wasn’t as simple as pulling into the hangar and hopping out. The hangar had been built into the side of a small cliff. The cliff was made of ice, which helped shield the living from radiation, but it wasn’t enough shielding to guarantee safety. So as the hangar doors closed, the entire hangar itself began to descend into the ground.

  Once at the bottom, the entire room began to pressurize. It was the largest room in the entire facility and took several hours to become habitable.

  Navya, Felix, and Sonya could only watch the Nomad on the monitor as they waited. It was a few agonizing hours.

  Once the hangar was finally pressurized, Sonya, Felix, and Navya opened the doors and quickly hopped into the hangar.

  Alice stepped out of the back of the Nomad first quickly followed by Kato. With the room pressurized, Kato and Alice took off their helmets. They were indeed alive.

  “It’s good to finally be back,” Alice said.

  Felix and Kato immediately joined up and began to walk around and look at the Nomad. While some parts were fine, other parts looked quite damaged. Kato pointed at the damaged areas as they passed and spoke out loud to Felix.

  “The antenna is completely bent here at the base. No wonder we couldn’t communicate with you. The cameras are completely lost. This wheel here will need some work. That explains why the suspension didn’t seem right.” Kato was surprised at the damage. He was glad he could finally see the vehicle’s exterior with his own eyes now.

  “Yeah,” Felix said, transfixed on the damage. He knew he’d be the one to fix most of it.

  Meanwhile, Alice was recounting their excursion to Sonya, and Navya. Sonya was very interested in the earthquake and was typing rapidly on her tablet.

  “I can’t connect my tablet to the Nomad. Were the instruments damaged? Did they record the earthquake?” Sonya said.

  “Yes, they did,” Alice responded. “Take a look for yourself, it’s all in the Nomad.”

  Sonya ran up to the Nomad and opened a panel revealing a series of data banks. Flipping a few latches, the solid-state drive popped out.

  I’ll take that, thank you,” Sonya reached over and grabbed the solid-state drive from the Nomad’s computer bank.

  Now Sonya had the data directly from the Nomad. She wanted to see if the model she created from her research matched the data from the Nomad.

  Kato and Felix had been walking around the Nomad and started to circle back to where they had begun their walkaround. As they rounded the corner, Navya finally got to look at Kato.

  “Kato, come here. Now look at this,” Navya’s words trailed off and she moved in close to inspect his wound. “This is a surprisingly large cut. Come with me to the medbay and we can get that stitched up properly.”

  Everyone but Felix left the hangar. Felix had work to do on the Nomad.

  Navya had to do a medical checkup on both Alice and Kato before letting them continue their work. Luckily her facility was state-of-the-art; absolutely no expenses had been spared for medical equipment, not even weight. Being so distant from any other human establishment meant that if something went wrong there was no calling for help. Whatever went wrong, it had to be fixed right there and right then.

  One of the most sophisticated pieces of equipment was also the most obvious device in the medbay. It was an absolute feat of engineering and the pinnacle of human ingenuity. The device was an all-in-one medical machine. It had an MRI, CT-scanner, x-ray, ultrasound as well as nuclear imaging capabilities. Also, it could closely monitor vitals, incubate, and could draw blood, and run tests.

  There had been some difficulties making sure that the MRI would work properly on Europa. Usually, livable habitats were built with some amount of magnetic metal in them, and an MRI could only be operated in an environment without magnetic metals. The medbay in the Habitat had been specially constructed without any magnetic metals and was placed farther from the Habitat compared to most of the rest of the facilities.

  The device was officially called the Universal Medical Machine but was called the UMAC by the crew. Although the device was an amazing piece of machinery, the real ingenuity of the machine was the software. Huge advancements in artificial intelligence had been made in the last century. This included advancements in the medical field. While not truly artificially intelligent, the software was able to analyze the data it collected and come up with diagnoses almost as accurate as a seasoned doctor.

  This Artificial intelligence could, in theory, perform basic operations on a human. This, however, was something seen as a last resort. For most things, automation was the clear path to the future for medicine, but people still wanted a human presence nearby. It had taken long enough for people to accept automated transportation on Earth when it was first introduced. It would likely take just as long for people to accept automated surgeries. Yet, it made sense to have it on a mission like this. If the doctor was incapacitated or if a member of the crew was left alone it would be the last resort that could keep them alive.

  Navya did a quick diagnosis of Kato and Alice and then ran Alice through the UMAC to make certain nothing was wrong while she checked on Kato’s cut. She rarely got to perform any kind of interesting medical procedures in space, so she was happy to look at Kato’s wound and stitch it up.

  Alice had some bruising around her stomach, but otherwise, the machine reported no other problems. Then Navya ran Kato through the machine as well. UMAC diagnosed that Kato had a minor cut on his temple, but, like Alice, no other major problems. Navya was happy to see that her initial diagnoses were correct.

  Kato’s EMU had done its job. The medical spray had disinfected the area and ‘glued’ the wound shut so it couldn’t bleed anymore. However, it had left residue around the wound and, had the wound been left to heal, would have left a nasty scar. She needed to clear and clean the wound and properly pull the skin back together.

  Navya was able to quickly clean and glue and begin to staple up Kato’s cut. Using pieces of pure silver, she carefully began to apply each staple using a staple gun.

  “Did I ever tell you what happened on a diving trip to Antarctica one time?” Navya asked the question and pinched Kato’s temple the moment she applied the first staple. This was a trick she picked up as a doctor: distract the patient while doing something that would cause pain.

  Kato turned his eyes toward her but otherwise did not move his head. He hadn’t even flinched when the first staple went in.

  “No ma’am, I don’t believe you have,” Kato said.

  “Right after medical school, I went on a research trip to Antarctica,” Navya began. “The reason I joined the trip was b
ecause they needed a doctor as part of their team and they were going on SCUBA dives to gather samples. I had always thought that SCUBA diving was an incredibly interesting activity. Being underwater was like being in an alien world.” Navya slowly and precisely lined up the next staple and pulled the trigger of the staple gun.

  “I had been working there for a few months when a new person was assigned to our team. Dave was his name. He was a small guy, very young, and was a grad student. He didn’t have much academic experience. It turned out he didn’t have too much experience with anything. He was cocky, too. Always thought he knew how to handle any situation.”

  Navya clicked the staple gun again at the next spot. Kato still did not flinch.

  “Eventually Dave was partnered with me as his diving buddy,” Navya continued. “One of our dives was scheduled at night. I had logged thirty-two night dives by that point, but Dave had only done one before. He failed to mention that to me before we went out.”

  Click. The staple gun made its sound as Navya applied another staple.

  “The trip required us to travel by boat for half a day. The first part of the dive went well. We had all donned our drysuits and jumped in the water without any problems. We had even traveled to our target location and gathered the samples we wanted. The problem happened when we were coming back. We had set up a line to the location that we met up at and used it as a guide back to the surface. As we were coming back up, I looked down at my diving computer to make sure I was ascending at the proper rate. When I looked back up, I couldn’t see Dave anywhere.”

  Navya stapled one last time in Kato’s head and looked closely at the wound to inspect her work.

  “What happened next?” Navya heard the voice from behind and looked back to see that the rest of the crew was sitting nearby listening to the story. Felix had been the one to ask the question.