Europa Contagion

by Nicholas Thorp

  As Alice approached the Nomad, she quickly considered her options. If she got lucky, the Habitat would not explode and she could devise a plan to vent the hydrogen and save the structure. She just didn’t know how much time she had. For all she knew the Habitat only had minutes left, so she decided to get in the Nomad and get as far away as she could as fast as she could.

  She powered up the vehicle and began to drive away from the hangar at the highest speed she could. She disabled the normal safety procedures as she had seen Kato do during their earthquake scare that seemed so long ago. The Nomad flew out of the hangar going at its top speed. A minute later, she put her hand back on the throttle to slow down, when the sky lit up in a brilliant and blinding white light. A moment later the ground shook tremendously. Warning lights and alarms in the Nomad went off. Alice looked at the rear-view cameras which showed a massive fireball mushrooming up from where the Habitat had been. The shaking stopped along with all the alarms and Alice relaxed the throttle, slowing the Nomad until she wasn’t moving anymore. She sat there, resting from the exhaustion of the last few hours.

  What was there left to do? The Habitat was destroyed. Alice hadn’t had the time to resupply the Nomad after her last trip to Outpost One and back. Communication was done through the Habitat, so she couldn’t send any messages. Would it even matter? Bailey, Li, and Dimitri were on the Seeker, but they wouldn’t be back for several weeks, maybe even as long as a month. The Nomad didn’t have enough supplies for that.

  She finally decided to travel to Outpost One. There could be some supplies that could help. This time she took it slow and told the autopilot to travel at an efficient pace rather than a fast one. After a twenty-two hour trip, she made it to Outpost One.

  She parked the Nomad in the hangar. With the power supply for the outpost coming from the laser transmission system located next to the Habitat, and the Habitat now destroyed, there was no power here, which meant that the elevator wasn’t working. Alice had to take the ladder down into the station. She looked around and grabbed what she could carry. Outpost One wasn’t designed as a permanent place to stay, so the supplies had been meager.

  Making her way back to the Nomad she dropped the supplies on the floor and sat down. She could go back to the Habitat and see what she could salvage, but right now that was the last place she wanted to see.

  Sitting in the Nomad she decided to take inventory to see how much of everything she had. She opened the emergency supply cabinet in the Nomad. When she opened the cabinet, she was surprised by what she saw. Four large supply containers sat at her feet.

  She opened the first box and found food. The second and third boxes had water. The last box had a number of medical supplies. All the supplies had been hastily thrown together. Nothing was organized. Alice considered this windfall as she made her way to the pilot’s seat and checked the fuel level. She had expected it to be low but it wasn’t.

  It must have been Navya. Kato said he saw her running around with boxes. She had put some extra supplies in the Nomad and even refueled it. Navya was planning to escape in the Nomad. Perhaps Alice could make this work after all.

  Her spirits buoyed, she got to work and tallied up all the resources she had. There were four things that she would need to survive: power, water, food, and air. With those four things, she might be able to stay alive long enough for the Seeker’s return. She just needed to survive for thirty days.

  Accessing the Nomad’s computer system, she looked at the projections. She saw that if she did not drive the Nomad anymore she could keep the power on for fifteen days. That wasn’t nearly long enough. She opened the manual and filtered her results for ‘power.’ She found what she was looking for: Power Saving Mode.

  By enabling that, all engines except one would be kept off. It would extend the power and allow for a significant sixty days before running out of fuel. That solved the power problem.

  The next problems would be food and water. Even if she had no food she could survive for about thirty days if she needed to. Luckily, she wouldn’t have to starve herself since she did have enough food with her. More than enough. If she rationed what she had she’d easily last more than forty days.

  Water was a problem, though. If she didn’t exert herself - which would be easy if she simply sat in the Nomad - she figured that she could drink one cup of water a day. She also needed water for her dehydrated food, though. With the water ration and the containers of water she found, she did some calculations and found that she could last about twelve days. Not good enough. But that wasn’t the only problem.

  Fresh air would be a concern soon. The CO2 scrubbers on the Nomad would work for a while filtering the carbon dioxide. Since the Apollo Moon Launch program in the 1960s and 1970s, astronauts were familiar with CO2 scrubbers that used Lithium Hydroxide to react with the carbon dioxide, absorbing the excess carbon dioxide. It was simple chemistry and hadn’t been changed since its inception. There was one backup pair, and she had taken a scrubber from Outpost One. She also had a few oxygen bottles with her. But would it be enough? She did the math again and found that one scrubber in the Nomad could last for two days with one person breathing normally. She had three scrubbers, and one of them had been used extensively. That left a little more than five days of air. Combining that with the oxygen bottles she had, she could maybe get six days. Again, not good enough.

  Her EMU could provide some air as well, but it was designed for short trips. At most she could get a few hours of air from her used suit. It was barely a blip compared to what she needed.

  She was completely, totally, royally, screwed. Without water, she could last maybe a week, but when the air ran out, that would be it. All hope seemed lost.

  Alice sat in the pilot’s seat while her thoughts wandered. She thought about Kato. How had he survived? The emergency oxygen masks only had enough oxygen for a few minutes at most. Perhaps Kato’s suit had tried to compensate for the sudden loss in pressure by providing as much air as it could. The surface of Europa wasn’t empty either; there was a small amount of oxygen on its surface. It must have been enough for him to survive and try his last move. She didn’t know if that was the actual reason. Maybe he too was infected and it kept pressing him on.

  She thought about what he said. He didn’t want the infection to spread. Was she infected? She thought she felt fine, all things considered. She didn’t seem to have any homicidal tendencies and her mind felt clear. No, she didn’t think she was infected.

  Her thoughts changed to the cave where they got the sample. For mankind’s first discovery of complex life, it turned out to be one hell of a nightmare. Whatever those creatures were, they had been smart enough to move the dead deep into that cave. Maybe it was best that she died alone after all. There was nothing she could do about it anyway.

  Eventually, Alice decided to record herself for posterity. She needed to tell the story of what happened. She navigated the menu on her wristband until she got to the recording mode and hit the ‘record’ button.

  She recounted the story of the earthquake that nearly killed her and Kato. She had begun to retell the story Navya had told them about the diving accident where someone had hit his head and Navya needed to perform an emergency operation on him. Her voice trailed off and she stopped the recording. Navya’s story had given her an idea. To say it was a long-shot would be putting it mildly, but if it worked she might survive this. First, she had to research to see if it was even possible. She pulled up the libraries on the computer and looked at medical articles related to her search and began to read.

  Many hours passed as she sat, reading. Articles, journals, and other medical pieces were consumed. Her idea might work, but she’d have to go back to the Habitat and hope that a few pieces of medical equipment had survived the blast. She did a few more calculations and figured out that she could still drive back to the Habitat and use the power-saving mode without worry.

  She took the twenty-odd hour trip back to the Habitat and continued rese
arching while the AI navigation drove the Nomad. When she got back, she used the emergency exit to get back into what was left of the Habitat. The place was running on emergency power. Many of the doors, which were supposed to close in the case of sudden depressurization, had failed to close. The damage had been extensive.

  She went into what had been the medbay. Of all the rooms she had passed to get here, the medbay seemed like the room with the least damage. The red emergency lights lit everything up, but she was relying mostly on the two Laser-Diode lights built into the new helmet she had swapped out from the Nomad. The UMAC was mostly intact, although without power it was useless and according to Kato had been sabotaged anyway. Thus, there was no way to ascertain if she had been infected.

  Looking around, Alice found what she was looking for: the supply of propofol, a few other drugs, and several IV bags filled with fluids containing a very special type of Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN). According to what she’d just read, TPN’s were used as a way of applying nutrition intravenously rather than eating to get nutrition. TPN had advanced medically to the point where they could be stored and used for decades without worry. Alice found an empty container and loaded the supplies she needed.

  Before returning to the Nomad, she grabbed a piece of metal from the floor and quickly scratched something on the inside panel of the last, operational door in the Habitat. Then, she helped slide the sticky door open, stepped through with her load and watched it automatically close before proceeding back to the Nomad. This was the last time she’d set foot in this place.

  Inside the Nomad, Alice took stock of her new medical supplies. The Nomad had some of this very special TPN, too, and she needed all she could get her hands on, plus a few other things.

  After working for a while on her calculations, she found that she was looking outside the window at the Habitat again and again, thinking that she might see Kato coming at her one last time.

  It was too stressful, seeing the damaged structure, so she decided that she didn’t want to stay close to the Habitat any longer. Too many bad things had happened there. She made her way to the small cave system to the north that she had passed so many times on her trips from the Habitat to Outpost One and back. Parking in the Nomad-sized cave she had noticed on her first trip back from Outpost One, she felt safe. She had parked the Nomad by backing into the cave, so she could still see the outside view through the front windshield.

  Alice continued with her calculations. Then she got to work and started to get everything set up. She pulled out the medical table usually used in emergencies and assembled the medical supplies she would need. Then she gathered the sleeping bags in storage and piled them together to form a mattress of sorts on the table. At this point, she had taken off her EMU and was wearing the basic elastic jumpsuit. She sterilized her arms and put in several different IVs, then connected the bags of TPN and several other drugs to the IV. She had programmed the computer on the Nomad to monitor and administer the correct dosages as needed.

  Before performing the last step, she turned down the temperature on the Nomad and used the oxygen bottles to saturate the room with oxygen. Then she had the pressurization control increase the pressure in the cabin. Finally, she made one last recording and laid down on the table. She wondered if the next time she woke up, it would be on the Seeker. If she woke up again.

  She had the computer inject her with the amount that the journals and articles recommended for her size and condition. Her sight began to get dim as she experienced tunnel vision. Turning her head, she looked one last time out of the window of the Nomad. Staring at the amazing bands of colors of Jupiter, her last thought was about the Big Red Spot. Only a few moments later, the drugs had worked their way into her system and she fell into a deep unconscious state.

  TWENTY ONE

  Manual Override

  The Seeker performed a burn to slow down, placing it in a stable and elliptical orbit around Europa. The elongated orbit helped reduce radiation exposure near Europa as well as use up less fuel but also meant that there was a specific window when the crew on the Seeker could use the Lander to get to the Habitat on the surface. Since learning that there could be a problem on Europa, Bailey’s normal sarcasm and dry humor had disappeared to be replaced by a serious demeanor. She wasn’t the only one affected. Li and Dimitri were equally concerned about their friends on Europa.

  Bailey, Li and Dimitri had been strapped in for the last burn but were now floating in the communication room. Li was at the console while Bailey and Dimitri watched over his shoulder at the monitor.

  “Well? Are you picking anything up?” Bailey asked.

  Li shook his head side to side as he spoke, “Nothing on the short-range channels. In fact, there are no signals I can find at all. Not even the landing beacon.”

  “Let’s take a look at the optics,” Dimitri said. Li pushed himself aside and let Dimitri take his place. Dimitri punched in several commands on the keyboard and booted up the telescope.

  The Seeker had a three-foot diameter mirror used in a Dyson-Ritchey-Chretien telescope. The telescope had been used extensively during the mission, especially as they had first approached Jupiter.

  Dimitri said, “They’re on the dark side right now. We’ll have to wait until we swing around to the dark side and then we’ll be able to see their lights using this.” From Earth orbit, the energy usage of all humans can easily be seen with the naked eye in the lights that spider-web out of the largest populated cities. Europa would not be lit up like Earth and the Habitat on Europa was mostly underground, but the Hangar was built above ground and was always illuminated. The landing pad was always illuminated as well.

  “Here we go,” Dimitri said as the screen began to resolve after a few minutes. The screen had been bright white as it looked upon the light side of Europa, but as their orbit brought them around to the dark side of the moon, the screen began to dim until darkness was the only thing that greeted them.

  Dimitri had already plugged in the coordinates for the Habitat and let the computer center the telescope on the desired location.

  “This should be it right here,” Dimitri said. They all looked closely at the screen.

  “There’s nothing there,” Bailey said. “I don’t see any lights whatsoever. Are you sure the coordinates are right, Dimitri?”

  Dimitri typed on the keyboard for a few moments and then faced Bailey.

  “Yes, it’s right. This is exactly where they should be.”

  For weeks, the crew had wondered what was going on. Now, their worst fears seemed to be confirmed.

  “How much longer until we can go down there?” Bailey asked.

  Dimitri once again turned his attention to the computer and spoke, “In fifty-nine minutes we’ll be in the right position in our orbit to launch the Lander. There is a bit of a problem though. First, without the landing beacon, it’s going to be more difficult to land precisely where we want.”

  “How much of a problem is it?” This time Li spoke out.

  “It won’t stop us,” Dimitri replied. “We can give the computer a general idea of where to go and we’ll get fairly close. But we’ll need to make sure that we have visual where we’re landing.”

  “That won’t stop us from getting there,” Bailey replied. “As long as we wear our POWER modifications we can walk the rest of the way.”

  “What’s the second problem?” Li asked.

  “If we can’t refuel when we get down to the surface, we only have enough propellant to get us down and then back up. That’s it, one round trip.”

  “If that’s what we have to do, then that’s what we have to do,” Li said. Bailey and Dimitri suited up and prepared themselves. Li was, again, going to stay behind in the Seeker and monitor the operation. He had already gotten a trip down to Europa’s surface shortly after they first arrived so he didn’t mind holding down the fort alone again. In fact, given the crowded living conditions, he secretly looked forward to having the entire Seeker to himself for
a while.

  In half an hour Bailey and Dimitri sat in the Lander. For the next half-hour, they went through their check-lists.

  Just like the last time they landed on Europa, they had to wait for the moon to be in the tail of Jupiter’s magnetotail. Although this meant it was night on Europa, it offered the most protection against radiation while on the surface. This, in combination with their POWER modifications, allowed them to do a surface walk from the Lander to the Habitat safely. It had been standard procedure since getting to Europa the first time.

  The first part of the launch was done automatically. The computer handled all propulsions perfectly and pushed the Lander away from the Seeker. After getting a bit of distance from the Seeker, it was time to fire the rockets and put themselves on a general path to the coordinates that Dimitri had plugged in. Once it was time to make the final descent, Dimitri began to read off the last checklist as Bailey responded.

  “Go/No Go for landing,” Dimitri said. “Retro?”

  “Go.”

  “Landing?”

  “Go.”

  “Guidance?”

  “Go.”

  “Control?”

  “Go.”

  “Telcom?”

  “Go.”

  “Computer shows all green. We’re go for landing,” Dimitri finally said and pushed a button.

  The rockets fired and the computers controlled the burn. The burn wasn’t very long and put them on a slow descent. Over the next hour, they floated toward the icy surface.

  Bailey was watching the video feed. Even with the night-vision mode, it was difficult to make out exact details on the ground. Suddenly she saw something on her screen and compared it to their predicted course.

  “Dimitri,” Bailey said, “I have a visual on the landing pad. I think we’re going to overshoot the landing pad and end up in a pile of large ice-rocks.”