NaNoWriMo 2014, Day Nine

That’s more like it.

While I normally put in a lot of  internal links to previous, related posts here, I won’t be doing that for what I hope will be this year’s thirty NaNoWriMo posts. If you have jumped into or stumbled onto this story in mid-adventure, there are plenty of other ways to navigate around the site to find previous installments. Actually doing so is left as an exercise to the student.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Put them up on the wall as they connect, please.”

Immediately two windows opened up, showing meeting rooms on the LEO Terminus and on O’Neill. In a few seconds, two more windows opened, connecting everyone to Goddard and Tranquility. In each view were the commanders and chief executives of the respective stations and colonies.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Pawley started, looking at everyone in the four windows, “we all know each other. We’ve all worked together for years, sometimes decades. We all trust each other. Now we’re all going to have to act together to save ourselves, depending on each other for our mutual survival.

“Our time has run out. You all have the information on the contamination and deaths on SpaceChem Echo. We’ve looked at this possible situation ever since it became clear that the AHF crisis on Earth was getting out of control. The time is here for us to act if we are to survive and avoid being dragged down with them. I am proposing that we immediately implement our Emergency Plan to cut ourselves off from Earth.”

He stopped and waited for the responses. After the usual three-second delay, there were various looks of resignation, sorrow, and exhaustion, but no one appeared to be surprised or shocked. Heads that weren’t bowed under the weight of the decision were nodding in agreement.

“Mike, you know that this only buys us a little bit of time,” said the Goddard Chief Executive. “We can declare independence all day long but we can’t survive independently. All of us still rely on Earth for at least some of our food, materials, and manufactured goods, especially the high tech equipment. None of us are a closed loop ecosystem.”

“Ari, that’s true, as it’s always been,” said the O’Neill COO, “but it’s also true that there are no other options at this point. We quite literally have no choice other than to take our chances on making ourselves self-sufficient. We can buy ourselves as many months or years as we can, or we can die from this disease in days or weeks. Our only chance is to unite and face the fact that we’re on our own.”

“Within only a few weeks there won’t be anyone left down on Earth with the capability to send anything to us anyway,” said the Tranquility Chief Executive. “The number of shipments has dwindled to a trickle already and now we can’t trust the supplies we’re getting anyway. I don’t know if we’re in better shape or worse than the poor bastards on the ground, but at least we get to face our problems head on. Well, we’ll have that option as long as we don’t allow their disease to contaminate us.”

“Very well then, I move that we proceed immediately,” Pawley said. “Are there any final comments or objections? We need your official agreement or disagreement for the record.”

“I agree,” said Ari Gonzalez, Chief Executive from Goddard. “God help us, we’re going to need it.”

“I agree,” said Ken Squires, COO of O’Neill.

“I agree,” said Klaus Schwiger, Chief Executive from Tranquility. “We’re caught between a rock and a hard place.”

“I agree,” said Alexa Garcia, LEO Terminus Station commander. “It’s going to get ugly here quickly. The best defense is a good offense.”

“That makes the current vote five in favor and none opposed,” said Pawley. He leaned forward and looked directly into the camera on his desk. “Pavel and Anya, Jean, I’m sorry that we haven’t had time to include you in the preliminary discussions, but obviously things are happening very quickly here. Please review what we’ve just discussed and join us immediately with any comments for the record, as well as your votes. We’ll keep the discussion going here while we wait for your reply.”

Pawley leaned back in his chair. “DEBBIE, what’s the delay time to Mars and Ceres?”

“Commander Pawley, the round-trip delay to Mars is currently twenty-two minutes and ten seconds. The round-trip delay to Ceres is twenty-seven minutes and five seconds.”

“Thank you.” Pawley looked back at the four open windows on his wall. “Let’s assume for the moment that this will be unanimous. We have an immediate situation to take care of with the infected crew that’s trying to get into SpaceChem Delta. Sarah, what do we need to do and Neil, how do we do it?”

“There’s no way that we can allow that crew onto another station,” said Sarah. “It won’t save them, and it will doom at least seventy-five percent of the people on the newly infected station. Their only option is to go back down to land somewhere on Earth, but I don’t know what the details of that option might be.”

“The pod they’re in does have re-entry capability,” Neil said, “although they might have limited options for where to land if the ground-based guidance systems are starting to fail. The pod will have emergency backup procedures to land autonomously at a major spaceport, or it can soft land by parachute if everything else fails.”

“Do we know who exactly the survivors are and where they’re from?” asked Alexa. “If we can give them some reasonable options it will be easier to deal with them.”

“The three crew members onboard the pod are all from the United States,” said DEBBIE. “Florida, Maryland, and Kansas are listed as the home addresses for their closest family.”

“So there are your options,” said Ken. “Send them in to Brownsville, White Sands, or Topeka, which will give them emergency abort options that will land them east of the Rockies somewhere. They survived the outbreak in their station so they’re likely to be immune. Knowing that, they can deal with the situation on the ground as best they can.”

“And what if they don’t agree to go down?” Amanda asked. “The fact that they went to Delta instead of simply going down to begin with indicates that they either are totally panicked and irrational now, or they just don’t care about the regulations now that they’re the ones who could die as a result.”

“That’s not an option for them,” Neil said. “They can go down or they can face the consequences. If they try anything that might spread this outbreak, we will have to stop them, by the deployment of force if necessary.”

“Do you have that capability at either GEO or LEO?” asked Klaus. “If you’re going to start a war, you shouldn’t be bluffing.”

“We’re not starting a war. Everyone talks about this as if it is some kind of military action,” Amanda said. “It’s critical that we keep in mind the fundamental difference between military actions and police actions. Police actions are taken by society against internal threats in order to protect the members of that society. Military actions are taken against outside threats. Police actions are taken to protect, and should be undertaken with the goal of using minimal force to inflict minimal damage and casualties. Military actions are taken to defend, and often involve significant or maximum amounts of both force and damage. None of us will survive a military action, which would involve our colonies and stations fighting against Earth or against each other. Police actions may regrettably be necessary in order to protect us all from internal cancers.”

“I stand corrected, my apologies,” said Klaus in the awkward silence that followed. “But the question remains. Can we stop them if they won’t obey the order to go down?”

Neil considered his response for a few seconds, before simply saying, “Yes, we believe we can. We’ll see.”

“Anything else before we tackle this one?” Pawley asked. “No, okay, Sarah and Neil, you’re we me on this one. Everyone else, please stand by and monitor, if you have anything to add, send it through DEBBIE. DEBBIE, please put us in contact with the rogue pod that’s docked at SpaceChem Delta.”

As DEBBIE made the connections, the four open windows on the wall diminished in size and a large window opened next to them. In a second a picture flickered to life there, showing a cramped cabin and three people wearing jumpsuits. They hadn’t even taken the time to grab pressure suits.

“Escape pod crew, this is Michael Pawley from GEO. I’m here with Sarah Teffeau, the GEO Surgeon General and other staff. I understand that there has been an emergency and an AHF outbreak at Echo. Can you tell us what happened?”

The three occupants of the pod turned around in the air and pulled themselves in front of the control panel where the comm unit was located. The man and two women looked sweaty and flushed, but otherwise healthy. The older woman with her hair pulled back in a long pony tail answered.

“GEO, this is Marybeth Sullivan of SpaceChem Echo station. The three of us are the last survivors of Echo after the quarantine protocols were breached. We need help. Everyone back on Echo is dead, they won’t let us in here on Delta.”

“Marybeth, this is Sarah, I’m a doctor. Do any of you have any AHF symptoms or other medical problems?”

“No ma’am, we’re all okay.”

“But all of you were exposed to AHF back on Echo? How do you know that’s what it was? What happened to the rest of your crewmates?”

“They’re all dead, like I said, we’re the only survivors. I can confirm that all fifteen were dead and showed every sign of it being AHF, the symptoms matched all of the ones described in the news from Earth.”

“Marybeth, do you know how you got exposed?” Pawley asked. “Were all of the protocols for disinfection and isolation followed?”

“I don’t know, none of us were involved with taking care of the supplies from the new shipment. The guys who did that are dead. I just know that the drone docked, they did what they had to to get it opened up, and an hour or two later everyone started to vomit and choke, running a high fever, then convulsions and bleeding, then they were dead.”

“So you were directly exposed?” asked Sarah.

“Yeah, it’s a small station, just eighteen of us. Of course we were all exposed.”

There was a pause as the three GEO leaders glanced at each other, silently calculating who was going to take the discussion next.

“Marybeth,” said Pawley, “are you familiar with the current regulations regarding your situation? Has SpaceChem kept you all up to date on how a situation like this needs to be handled from here?”

“Not really, we’re techs and engineers, not pilots. Davis and Gurney would have been the people on Echo to handle that, but they’re dead. The guys we’ve been talking to here at Delta won’t open the hatch, but they haven’t told us why. It’s getting us pretty pissed  to tell you the truth.”

“Marybeth,” said Sarah, “I’ll be blunt. You’ve been exposed to AHF. The three of you appear to be in the minority, people that have a natural immunity. It’s  just like how some people don’t get a cold or the flu when it’s going around and everyone else gets it. But you’re AHF carriers now, even if it’s not making you sick. You have the virus and will spread it to anyone you come in contact with. The crew on Delta won’t open the hatch because almost all of them will die if they do. You will kill them.”

There was a stunned silence from the escape pod. As he realized what their situation was, the man in the pod began to get angry, banging his fist against a wall panel, an action that sent him spinning backwards across the cabin. His outburst shook the two woman out of their shock and they pushed off to grab and restrain him, screaming at him to get his attention. Slowly the situation calmed.

“Commander Pawley,” DEBBIE said quietly, “a message from Pavel Levieva and Anya Kapoor is coming in.”

“Record and hold it, DEBBIE.”

“Yes, sir.”

Marybeth was back at the comm panel, trying hard to stay calm. “So the disease didn’t kill us but now you’re just going to let us die here, is that it? Isn’t there any place where we can be cleaned, decontaminated, sterilized, or whatever? There have got to be other options.”

“There are no facilities on orbit that can handle you, Marybeth,” Pawley said. “That’s why the quarantine and isolation restrictions have been so strict. There is one option you have. The escape pod you’re in has re-entry capability. We can control it and put you down somewhere in central North America.”

“You’re kidding,” Marybeth said. “Right? You’ve seen what it’s like down there! Everyone’s dying, everything’s falling apart. They’re starving, rioting, it’s total chaos. That’s a death sentence too!”

“Not necessarily,” Pawley said. “Things are bad there, but you’re immune to AHF, you’ve been exposed and survived. You have a lot of technical skills that they’re going to need down there to rebuild. We can get you down and then it’s up to you to find a way to survive, but at least it’s not an immediate death sentence.”

“What are the other options?” Marybeth asked.

“There are none,” Neil said. “The situation is cut and dried, I’m afraid. You can not be allowed to stay on orbit where you are an immediate danger to anyone and everyone you come in contact with. You must go planetside immediately.”

“And if we don’t?” Marybeth’s angry crewmate asked.

“You have nowhere else to go. Delta’s not going to let you in. If you try to go someplace else, they will not let you in. If you try to do something irrational that puts others in danger, we will stop you. That will probably result in your deaths. You need to think this through, calm down, and head to the ground to take your best shot. I’m sorry, but there isn’t any other way.”

The three survivors pulled away from the comm panel of the pod  and could be seen huddled in conversation. It didn’t look like a calm conversation. Finally Marybeth came back over, leaving her two companions still in an agitated discussion.

“So we go down and maybe die tomorrow or later, or we stay up here and die today? You don’t give us much choice, do you? What do we need to do to land? None of us are pilots.”

There was an audible sigh of relief in the GEO office. No one had wanted their first act as an independent government to be an execution.

“You need to turn over control of your pod to one of our AIs,” Pawley said. “They’ll work with you to figure out the best place to put you down and how to time it to give you whatever advantages we can. Then they’ll fly your pod remotely. Are you ready to do that?”

“Not really, but we’ll do it anyway.”

“DEBBIE, will you please take over and do as I’ve described? If you have any questions or if anything needs to be handled at this end, please refer it to Neil. Marybeth, good luck to you and your crew.”

The conversation cut off.

“Commander Pawley,” DEBBIE said, “a message from Jean Duris is coming in.”

“Good. Is everyone else still there?” The four other windows expanded to show their various offices and meeting rooms, all still occupied by the other colony and station leaders and their staffs.

“DEBBIE, give us the messages, the ones from Pavel and Anya first.”

A fifth, sixth, and seventh windows opened, two with still images and the third showing a tiny, cramped office with a pair of old and weathered men seated at a tiny desk.

“We have nothing to add from Bradbury. So far things are still calm here, but we agree completely with Ari. None of us are living in a closed loop environment. Without resupply from Earth, it’s just a matter of time before we crash and burn. That’s got to be our first and top priority. But we’ve talked about that. I agree that we have to proceed. Levieva out.”

The image in that window froze and the next one came to life. “We agree with you at Heinlein, we have no choice but to proceed. Kapoor, out.” She never had been one for long speeches.

The final window started showing its message, originating in what looked like a cave of some sort. “Mike, Alexa, Ari, Klaus, and Ken, you all of course have my agreement that we’re on our own now and we must act accordingly. Let’s not screw it up, it’s awfully cold and dark out here, a miserable place to starve to death. Ceres, out.”

There was a pause as everyone on the conference call looked at one another, weighing what they had just done.

“Let’s do it, Mike,” said Ari. “You’re the boss now. Tell the troops what we’re doing. It’s time to get it done or die trying. Someone stole our safety net, so we’re going to have to make do.”

“DEBBIE,” Pawley said, “set up a broadcast to all stations and colonies as well as the various Earth headquarters locations that we’re still in contact with. We’ll start in ten minutes. Meanwhile, first I think I need to go throw up.”