REMission

by Psychoflop

A Mission to Europa, and your sleep is screwed

p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Chapter 1: Shrinking Sleep/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;"emIt was standard procedure for anything scientific to be documented for holo-vision. The M.C.S. Star-Cola crew knew this all too well and decided to make quick holo-vision videos introducing themselves to the planet Mars, maybe even the planet Earth. After much deliberation, it was decided that they would film the morning before they were to depart the "red planet", and would film in order from the youngest member of the crew to the oldest. The youngest is a blonde-haired girl with glasses and a near-eternal grin on her face./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;"First Earth, Now Mars. We as humans know how to fuck shit up, don't we? This is mankind's first manned mission beyond the asteroid belt, and I'm happy that Starbucks and Coca-Cola are splitting the bill to send us on our way. The Earth Unified Commonwealth Government is too broke to fund our mission (and they have too many issues as well), Mars would've been too intrusive as to what we did and the Moon is still a glorified penal colony./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="text-decoration: none;"Thankfully, we didn't fuck up the natural environment of Earth (well, we did, but we fixed it /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"in time...barely...and not without consequences/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"). Or the /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"artificially /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"developed environments of the Moon or Mars. We just overpopulated our home, again /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"(We really should have put a cap as per the number of children allowed per family)/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". Our mission is to Europa, a moon of Jupiter that was discovered in the 14/spansupspan style="text-decoration: none;"th/span/supspan style="text-decoration: none;" century (2 and a half to 3 centuries ahead of most Aaronworlds, as we never had a dark ages). It's slightly smaller than our moon, so I don't expect it to l/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"ast very long. It may have taken mankind until the mid-18/spansupspan style="text-decoration: none;"th/span/supspan style="text-decoration: none;" century (on this world, at least), to reach a billion people on the much larger earth. Now, we'll only have to wait until I'm a grandmother /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"(actually, I'm being kind. It's more like mid-50's)/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". There have already been plans for Google to fund a mission to Titan, which I can't even fathom /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"as it's much farther away/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="text-decoration: none;"Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Dani Bunda (formerly Stafford for you regular readers of Mr. Collins' adventures), I'm the ship doctor aboard the /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"M/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"./spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"C./spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"S. Star-Cola (yeah, I'm not a fan of the name of the ship either, but each company gave us 10 trillion dollars, so I'm not going to complain to /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"either one/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" of them). I graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Medicine with a speciality in /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"human sleep. It will take us /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"approximately /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"9 months to get there, and the first missions to Mars taught mankind that it is more efficient for a crew on a deep mission to be placed in some kind of stasis for /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"at least/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" part of the mission, and then be awake for the rest of the mission. For a mission of this size, it was determined that each of us would be asleep for a month in turn, with all 8 of us being awake for the first /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"day/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" and last 2/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"7/span span style="text-decoration: none;"day/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"s of the mission in order to ensure a proper takeoff, landing and proper ship maintenance. It actually took 2 of the 4 years in our training just to prep for the sleeping aspect of the mission. A side effect to altering your sleep cycle this way is either reduced R.E.M. sleep, enhanced dreaming, or both. I expect 90% of my /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"new patients (including myself)/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" to fall into 1 of these 3 criteria. The scariest parts of all? We won't know which category each of us fall into until /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"after/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" the mission has already begun, and we still can't completely combat the issue even though we've been in space for over 100 years /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"now/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" (oh, right, most Aaronworlds have the Wright brothers inventing just a plane. I keep forgetting that we're probably the most /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"technologically/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" advanced Aaronworld in the multiverse). /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"I don't expect anything to happen during takeoff that will require my attention, so I defer this ship's log to the next person./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"D/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"ani then nods to a figure just off-camera. After a moment, a figure came into focus who wasn't much older than Dani but whose head had been shaved nearly bald, with only a trace of red stubble visible to compliment a full beard. The look on his face before he began speaking was that of relief, suggesting that he didn't want to be the main exposition person amongst the crew./span/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"D/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"amon Newall here, ship's technician. I'm a glorified 1-man maintenance crew /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"(and janitor)/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" for the /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"M.C.S. Star-Cola. I don't see too many issues happening on board in the beginning of the flight, as this is a brand new ship /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"(well, almost brand new. It was military, then massively overhauled for civilian use)/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". Then again, this is about the farthest any ship has flown with human beings on it, so maybe I'm an idiot for being so idealistic about this mission. As I have been "informed" by the other versions of me that I've read about, I seem to be an exception to the rule. I'm actually relieved I wasn't in the #EndG8 series (well I was, but I asked to be edited out as I could tell that there was a struggle to juggle so many characters)./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"Anyways, I was actually the first to arrive for the pre-launch /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"meeting. Not because of any punctuality, but to go over the pre-flight checklist /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"with mission control/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". I'm actually glad that I did, as we were short changed in Oxygen (I don't need to explain why we need that, do I?), Xenon (for fuel) and the tech manuals needed for flight operations (in case our pilot gets killed part-way through the mission /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"and one of us needs to learn years of piloting know how in 5 seconds). I was actually in the middle of registering a complaint to our sponsors while everyone else was going over the mission briefing. Starbucks and Coca-cola's liaisons for us (to their credit), took what I said to heart and over 50 people have been sacked. Christian Libertarianism is by no means perfect (as I'm an atheist and would prefer the bias caused by the bible to be removed entirely /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"from ur government and way of life/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"), but it's pretty good as far as governments go. Basically, if it breaks the 10 commandments, it's breaking the law. If it doesn't, you're fine. So Marijuana has never been illegal in this world (although we have to take it intravenously during the mission if we feel so inclined as smoking it will damage the instrumentation), but cheating on your spouse is punishable by 15 years in prison (30 if a pregnancy results from it). /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"Given how bored that police officers and lawyers get with so few actual laws on the books, the law is taken very seriously here. I look forward to the change of scenery /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"by going to Europa, as I have had a fascination with geology since I was a child and this moon has silicate rock, which fascinates me./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emDamon then pointed to someone to the right of the camera. Another male came into focus, several years older, short, spiky, dirty-blonde hair. It was obvious to most of what would be the audience that this person may have been the most introverted member of the crew, to a point where he probably didn't want to be filmed at all./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Dr. Jason Price, ship's chemist. Basically my job is to make sure that anything we find on this mission corresponds to the periodic table of the elements. If it does, I then have to communicate in plain English to the rest of the crew how it affects our mission. If it doesn't, I try to collect a sample of it and possibly name it./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"While over a dozen probes and satellites have been sent to Europa over the last decade or so, we still don't know much more than we did a century ago. The crust is Water-Ice, the atmosphere is primarily Oxygen (but is tenuous at best) and the core is Iron-Nickel. Everything else has been speculated (or in the case of the McDonald's sponsored probe, suppressed by the sponsor on account of it crashing, proving that McDonald's is just as bad at making space probes as it is making Big Mac's) so this is why I was put on the team./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emJason then breathed a sigh of relief and quickly left the field of view of the camera. In his place was a new female with hair identical in colour to Jason but longer and put back in a ponytail./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Dr. Melinda Hughes, Quantum Scientist. While faster than light travel still eludes us (for now, I'm guessing my grandchildren will see it by the time they're my age), The Quantum Sciences play 2 very key roles in our routine ship operations. The first is with communications. A standard audio communication to Mars would take weeks to arrive, which doesn't really work if we crash into the asteroid field. If we crash on the first of the month, they wouldn't know until the 15supth/sup (and that's under ideal circumstances). With a quantum computer inside the ship, we can communicate in real time without issue, even with video./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The second use, is for shrinking. Europa only has about 35% of the gravity that Mars does (or about 13% of the gravity of Earth for all of you Terran readers) and with no known way to reach the sub-surface easily, we're going to manipulate the quantum state of the ship (and everyone in it) and shrink down until we're just a little more than a third of our current size. From there, we'll be small enough to fly through a crack in the surface that we've been mapping for nearly 2 decades. After that, our suits will adjust to the gravitational standards we have back home. This mission is going to be very similar to that of an antique submarine expedition, in that we will need to spend a considerable amount of time decompressing after we land in the sub-surface./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Hope I brought a big enough E-reader./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emMelinda then pointed off to her left as she walked away. In here place was a slightly older bald gentleman with glasses and pens resting on each of his ears./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Jason Collins here. I only got on board due to winning a contest held back on Mars. I submitted a holographic video explaining why I should go to Europa, then I passed a battery of physical and psychological exams, then I won a debate over 7 other finalists. My day job is that of a Science Fiction writer. I got into that racket for 2 reasons. One: I figured if a certain other Collins could do it, why couldn't I? And 2: At the rate that our society progresses, almost anything written becomes reality in less than a generation./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"So if you're reading this, and are a fan of the website , I'm a literal manifestation of the "Writer on Board" trope for this mission. Problem is, unless it's nonfiction pieces that I sometimes do for newspapers (yes, we still have a few of those, on Earth and on Mars), I've had writer's block for the better part of a year. I look forward to this mission hopefully recharging my creative batteries. Thankfully, I'm not dodging any publishing contracts by doing this (as breach of contract does technically fall under the "Thou shalt not steal" commandment) as I was smart enough to make my deals on a book to book basis. Starbucks even gave me a grant for writing supplies that could be used both in space and after we've landed./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emThe second Jason got up, a man of similar age but significantly taller sat down. It took the better part of 2 minutes to lower the chair in order to put his face into focus./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Stokely Woods, ship's pilot. I have flown missions for both the Earth and Martian militaries (one of maybe a dozen people in history who have served under both commands) with war medals on both sides. I suppose I should address this now, in case someone happens to be reading this who "isn't from around here": No, Earth has never gone to war with Mars (at least, not as of this writing) but you basically can't switch from one military to the other without being labelled as a traitor by the planet's civilians (and to some extent, the military that you're leaving behind). My justification is simple: I have to do what is right for my family (Wife and 2 kids, which happens to me over a lot of worlds as I've been told) and Earth's definition of "appreciating my exemplary military service to God and planet" was asking me to take not only a 40% pay cut, but to sacrifice a private education grant for each of my children that will see to it that they can be whatever they want when they grow up. So, in the closest thing that I've ever had to a "Han Solo moment", I defected to Mars and took my family with me. Mars offering me a raise, corporate perks with both Starbucks and Coca-cola (the least of which is that my suit has been modified to suit my personal hobby: Diving) and not only retaining my education requests for my children but extending them not only into college but the option for my children to choose an education for themselves outside of the military after their 18supth/sup birthday was only the beginning of my reasons to defect from Earth. And to be perfectly honest, I don't miss Earth at all./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Having said all of this, this is the most unique mission that I've ever had, as it involves more interaction with civilians than any other mission I've ever had. I don't really know if the rest of the crew resents me for my past, but as I have my priorities straight, I don't care./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emStokely then got up, and a middle-aged gentleman took his place. He probably seemed the most out of place out of the crew thus far./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Alex Kung, payload specialist. A few years ago, I designed an interplanetary probe that focuses on the chemical makeup of a planet, moon, asteroid etc. Starbucks bought it off of me for over $10 billion Martian Dollars (the unified currency for the whole planet), but I retained the right to supervise the deployment of the probe in all missions. There are actually several asteroids in the belt between Mars and Jupiter with stable enough gravity and surfaces where I have travelled along with my probes. Having said that, I look forward to this journey to Europa as the surface appears to be smoother./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"I don't have anything against other engineers, I just believe that if you want something done right, you just do it yourself. One of the other potential buyers was Microsoft and they wanted to overhaul the internal electronics in order to make it smaller. 1 demonstration of their version of my machine at a meeting lead to it bursting into flames, killing everyone in the boardroom except for me as I was communicating to them why they were idiots via a hologram chat. After an investigation was conducted, I was cleared of any wrongdoing as there was video evidence showing me trying to stop everything. So Starbucks bought me out and I got essentially a paid vacation to 1 of Jupiter's moons. Technically, I'm also second in command but it's largely a token position as I trust my crew to do their jobs without any orders from me./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emAlex then nodded and a near senior-citizen aged woman took his place. Her uniform was blue-grey compared to the red-grey of the other 7 people on the ship./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Captain Gloria Garbuio. I'll be overseeing this ragtag bunch of (hopefully not) misfits all the way to Europa. I was born on Earth (one of only 2 people on this ship who can say that, with my pilot Stokely being the other) but immigrated to Mars after my city of Ottawa was bombed in World War 5. There was literally nothing for me to come home to, but I'm thankful my father was able to evacuate us in time. I literally came to this planet as a refugee, look at me now./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"I went through a Sears-sponsored education system as a child, then enlisted in the martian military. I was not physically well enough to qualify for infantry (thank goodness), but did well enough on the entrance exams to go into the diplomacy leadership program. For over 27 years, I have served as both an intermediary aboard ships, and as a captain of them. This will be my final mission before I settle down and retire to Phobos (an irregularly shaped moon of Mars, though I'm one of many who contend that it's a captured asteroid with a somewhat fixed orbit and not a proper moon)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emThe camera then switched off, everyone was glad that it was./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Is anyone else terrified at the prospect that while each of us gets a separate month in cryosleep, we'll be awake for the other 8 months of the mission?" asked Dani./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I've done cryo lots of times, you'll be fine" replied Damon./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""No one's ever pulled a cryo cycle off like this" stated Jason P./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""And eye drops don't really work in zero gravity" added Melinda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Even if they did, they could mess up the instrumentation badly enough to cripple the ship" said Jason C./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""And then I would be piloting a very large washing machine to Europa." answered Stokely./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""If you don't crash us in the asteroid belt first" countered Alex as he guarded his probe with paranoia after the eye drop comments Melinda and Jason C. Made./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""60 seconds to launch. Give mission control a 'go, no go' for launch" came the announcement across the whole ship from mission control./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Everyone take your seats" announced Gloria as she was already putting on her helmet and then seatbelt. The rest of the crew were only seconds behind, then everyone began staring at the panels and screens that were closest to them./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Medical" came mission control./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Go flight" said Dani./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Engineering"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Go flight" said Damon./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Chemistry"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Go flight" said Jason P./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Quantum"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Go flight" said Melinda./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Media"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Go flight" said Jason C. (who then giggled, as he technically had nothing to check on the ship other than himself)./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Piloting"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Go flight" said Stokely./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Payload"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Go flight" said Alex./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Captain"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Go flight" said Gloria./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""30 seconds to launch"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Stokely and Gloria were relatively calm as they had more missions between them than the other 6 crew members that were onboard combined (though that wasn't saying much when Alex's record was in the single digits and this was Jason C.'s first). The other 6 were various states of nervousness ranging from mild (Damon, as he spent the better part of a week fine tuning as many aspects of the ship as he could knowing full well that if anything, he was underprepared for a journey this long) to severe (Dani, who immediately flashed back to her journey to that strange version of Philadelphia that felt like a lifetime ago). The seconds of the countdown seemed to slow down for all of them, even the veterans, as they all knew that as long as they made it to Europa alive, they would be heroes in the sands of history forever./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Ignition, and liftoff"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"A couple of them shed a single tear, as the full weight and ramifications of what was happening finally began to hit everyone. Ultimately, it doesn't matter which specific ones were crying, everyone was emotional. It took over 4 minutes for them to fully break the gravitational pull of Mars, followed by another minute to break orbit. Earth can be done in under 30 seconds on this plane of the Aaronverse, but that is a natural world, Mars was terraformed artificially, and thus needed to be better taken care of./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We're clear of home, aren't we?" asked Stokely./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Hit the gas, Mr. Woods" answered Gloria./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Stokely smiled as he flipped a red switch on a control panel in front of him on the right hand side. It took the better part of 2 minutes for everyone on board to not feel like they were being stuck to their seats, but afterwards, some of them silently admitted to themselves that they enjoyed the g-force./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Activate the artificial gravity wheel" stated Gloria to Damon. Damon nodded and pushed well over 10 buttons. The ship was precisely 500 metres long from nose to rear and weighed several thousand tons in solid steel and chemical coating to prevent burn-up or freezing from space, with the gravity wheel being located precisely in the middle. It's sole purpose was to spin around the middle of the ship with its' centripetal force converted into artificial gravity via the ship's computer. After a "ding" noise was heard, everyone took off their seatbelts and began moving around the cabin. The bathroom and bunk beds were located at the rear of the ship, but no one needed to use them yet. The spinning of the wheel stopped 5 minutes later./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""How often will we need to do this?" asked Jason C./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Assuming that we don't need to float around at any point, once every 6 hours." replied Damon./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Did everyone other than Mr. Collins and Alex write out the list of basic requirements needed for their departments when they're the ones that are asleep?" ask Gloria, who was now holding an old Mead composition book. The entire crew nodded, save for Alex and Jason C./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""How are we determining who goes to sleep first?" asked Alex./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I put all of our names in a bag in my pocket. Captain Garbuio, if you would do the honours" replied Dani. Gloria nodded and took the bag from Dani./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""OK, first is...Damon" stated the captain./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Hope the ship doesn't blow up while I'm asleep" he mumbled./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Second is...me. While I'm asleep, Alex is in command. Third is, Melinda." continued Gloria./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I love it when my atoms cease almost all movement" said Melinda with a grin./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Fourth is...Dani" continued Gloria./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""No one have any heart attacks in the middle of the flight" said Dani, the crew shared a laugh./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Fifth is...Stokely" continued Gloria./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""The autopilot better work" whispered Stokely./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Sixth is...Jason P." continued Gloria./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I don't have anything witty to say. As I doubt any interesting chemicals would magically appear when I'm out" he said, quite frankly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Seventh is Jason C., which means that Alex is last" finished Gloria./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Oh sweet, the 2 quasi-civilians go back to back at the end" declared Jason C./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Technically, I do have a guideline for all of you to follow regarding my probe while I'm asleep. But as it's only 1 rule, I didn't feel a need to write it down."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Oh?" asked Gloria, looking a bit puzzled./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Don't release the probe from the ship's storage under any circumstances until we're in the subsurface of Europa" announced Alex in a loud, steady voice./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Everyone laughed again./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Wait, what about day to day duties?" asked Alex./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Stir the Oxygen tanks every 24 hours so that our air doesn't freeze in space, I already went over the gravity wheel, stir the Xenon tanks every 3 hours, eat 4 freeze dried meals a day, the shower is rigged to stop 20 minutes after it starts followed by a 10 minute period where it won't turn on at all, always jettison your waste after each trip to the toilet followed by cleaning the toilet itself (save for emergencies). That's the basics." ranted Jason P./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER"*/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emIt was well documented that a side effect to prolonged cryo-sleep was a more in-depth dream than when one just went to sleep for the night. While the average dream for a human being is approximately 90 minutes, dreams tend to repeat when the period of sleep is longer than 36 hours./em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emDamon's primary dream was astronomical in nature, as he been fond of that scientific field since childhood. From the days when he was in kindergarten, his favourite constellation was that of Sagittarius. Only a couple of years later did he fall in love with the Lagoon Nebula that was located inside of it. In his dreaming, the colours of the Lagoon Nebula alternated between the grey one sees when looking at it through binoculars or a telescope (as the naked eye has poor colour sensitivity at low-light levels) and the pink one sees when seeing it through time-exposure colour photos. Damon was in total peace, floating through it like a balloon in the sky. /em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The most noteworthy event that happened to Damon while he was awake was repairing the artificial gravity wheel (which made him the only member of the crew to go for a space walk outside the ship during the mission). He technically remained connected to the ship via a series of hooks located throughout the exterior of the ship and clips that were on his suit. It didn't take him long to reach a panel just to the left of the gravity wheel. Due to the complete absence of gravity, Damon was forced to put the screws of the panel in his pocket, then work 1-handed while holding the panel in the other hand. Thankfully, he noticed the problem immediately./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Just as I thought, a network of wires became disconnected. I'll just reconnect them here, OK, good to go" he said to himself. Then he put the panel back on, one screw at a time, making sure not to lose any screws. Then he began hallucinating the Lagoon Nebula moving closer towards him, along with the sounds of what might have passed for screaming, if they sounded anything close to human. He snapped out of it long enough to get back in the ship./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER"*/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emRather uncharacteristically, Gloria's primary dream was actually a nightmare. She remained almost completely motionless, regardless of effort. Her head was able to turn somewhat, and with that, she could make out that she was stuck to some kind of white, inconsistent surface. Desperate to ascertain her bearings, she decided to engage her other 4 senses. Hearing went first, all she made out were crickets in the distance. Her sense of touch indicated that the white surface was very sticky. Taste was not really an option (in the sense that there was nothing really to taste). Finally, Gloria's sense of smell indicated mustiness and trees./em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""emSo...I'm among nature. Wait a minute, white sticky surface? That could only mean I'm stuck to a...spider's web"/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emJust then, a giant Orb-Weaver Spider came crawling towards her. Gloria became very petrified at its' Brown, Yellow and White head, its' Brown legs and 8 nearly identical eyes./em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"And then she was pulled out of Cryo-stasis. Normally, there would some severe disorientation. But she immediately pulled herself together and resumed her duties as captain of the ship. She walked over to the main bridge./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Anything of note happen while I was asleep, Mr. Woods?" asked Gloria./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I had to make 2 course corrections. 1 to escape a solar flare that was coming from behind us, and the other to compensate for lost time. That's literally it"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Gloria nodded, still horrified that her subconscious was busier than the ship. Then again, the alternative to her was even more horrifying./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER"*/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emMelinda had only ever gone swimming in a natural ocean on earth once in her lifetime, but it stuck with her for the rest of her life. It required her to get in the right kind of physical shape in order for her body to adjust to the denser gravity, mental shape to cope with the side effects of cryo-sleep (which was not as long or intense as it was now) and then was only allowed to swim in the Pacific Ocean while wearing Scuba Gear that had been chemically coated to withstand the still heavily polluted water for about an hour. It was there that she saw a large Octopus, dying from said pollution. To this day, Melinda was convinced that that Octopus could feel all of the pain of being so physically ill despite multiple Terran Marine Biologists telling her that Cephalopods feel everything very differently than that of mammals. The Octopus was rescued, and put into an Aquatic Sanctuary in British Columbia as one of the last of its' kind on the planet (that wasn't cloned), but Melinda lost track of it after a couple of years./em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"When Melinda was woken up, she immediately asked for coffee. Jason P. then immediately gave her a shot./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""What was that?" she asked./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I couldn't get the freeze-dried stuff on board as it can clog the instruments, so that's pretty much literally coffee in a needle" he replied. Melinda then burst out laughing "Oh the irony of being on a ship sponsored by Starbucks yet no access to real coffee"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER"*/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"Dani had been into anatomy since she could spell the word anatomy (few doctors differed from this point of view). If forced to choose a favourite part of the anatomy, Dani would pick the cervical nerves,/span/em span style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emspan style="font-weight: normal;"the spinal nerves from the cervical vertebrae in the of the spinal cord. /span/em/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emspan style="font-weight: normal;"There are 8 in total, labelled C1-C8 (like their corresponding vertebrae in the spinal cord) and her main dream consisted of following the trails of each of them in sequence on a random loop. C1 is unique in that all other spinal nerves have both sensory and motor fibres, whereas C1 carries motor fibres and also a small meningeal branch that supplies some parts of the floor of foramen magnum (via hypoglossal nerve). /span/em/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emspan style="font-weight: normal;"The other 7 however, were effectively slight variations of the journey (albeit progressively lower in the human back). Dani's subconscious was in awe as to how far each nerve actually travelled. Then again, the average human intestine is 5 feet long whereas the average human male is 6 feet tall, so multiple parts of the human body were required to be very extensive in order to carry out their various jobs./span/em/span/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-weight: normal;"Dani woke up immediately and asked to view the ship's logs. She didn't have access to the personal logs (that didn't belong to her, of course) /span/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-weight: normal;"but if a crew member was hiding an illness or injury via their personal logs, she was not responsible for what happened to them. A couple of bruises stemming from "artificial gravity mishaps" aside, her month /span/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-weight: normal;"asleep/span/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-weight: normal;" was actually quite dull./span/span/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"*/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"emspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-weight: normal;"S/span/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-weight: normal;"tokely's cryo-dream began with him being surrounded in an octagon befitting of a fighting stage for mixed martial arts. There was however, no opponent across the octagon from him to fight, no ring announcer announcing the competitors, and no audience around the octagon to motivate the fighters. /span/span/span/span/span/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"emspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-weight: normal;"The person in front of him may have been a referee, as they were wearing the traditional black pants and the white and black vertically striped shirt that was associated with nearly every sport in the modern history of mankind. But Stokely's vision was /span/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-weight: normal;"blurry to a point of legal blindness. In the space of what might have been a few moments, he noticed that the other 4 senses were severely limited as well./span/span/span/span/span/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emWhat is the Right View?" Stokely vaguely heard. He quickly deduced that whoever was speaking to him phrased it just loud enough for Stokely to hear, but quiet enough to where Stokely would have to focus./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emOur actions have consequences, Death is not the end, and our actions and beliefs have consequences even after birth"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emWhat is the Right Resolve?"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emGiving up home and adopting the life of a religious mendicant in order to follow the path"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emWhat is the Right Speech?"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;""/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emspan style="font-weight: normal;"N/span/em/span/span/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emspan style="font-weight: normal;"o lying, no rude speech, no telling one person what another says about him, speaking that which leads to salvation"/span/em/span/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;""/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emspan style="font-weight: normal;"What is the Right Conduct?"/span/em/span/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emNo killing or injuring, no taking what is not given, no sexual acts."/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emWhat is the Right Livelihood?"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emBeg to feed, only possessing what is essential to sustain life"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emIt became increasingly obvious that for each correct answer, Stokely's senses were gradually being returned to him./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emWhat is the Right Effort?"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emThe guarding against sensual thoughts"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;""/span/spanspan style="font-variant: normal;"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emspan style="font-weight: normal;"What is the Right Mindfulness?"/span/em/span/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emNever be absent minded, being conscious of what one is doing"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emAnd finally, what is the Right Concentration?"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emPracticing the Four stages of meditation, culminating into unification of the mind"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Stokely only had 1 lasting image in his mind, that of a figure that may have been both a male and female at the same time, but that didn't affect Stokely after her regained consciousness./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Weird, I'm not even Buddhist"/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"*/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emJason P.'s cryo-dream was a vast space of white. There was literally nothing for him to see beyond the colour white in any direction that his eyes were focused on. Giving up, he began to engage his other 4 senses. There was no sound to hear of, and nothing to touch other than what resembled a floor that his feet were walking on. The smell, could only really be described as fresh, which his his sense of taste agreed with./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emThis may be the purest oxygen I've ever breathed. And it's not even real" Jason P. Thought to himself, seemingly aware that he was dreaming (something that had affected him since childhood. Then the atmosphere changed to what appeared to be a loft apartment in what Jason P. Recalled as downtown Toronto, in worlds he didn't belong to./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emAre you even alive on my world, Aaron?" asked Jason P. A figure in black materialized./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emYes, but very well hidden along the Moon's Sea of Tranquillity. Seriously, don't even go looking for me. Even if you found my front door you'd either be ignored or killed."/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emI'm sorry you're so fragile, when human, old friend" said Jason P. In a much softer voice./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emContrary to the events of the #EndG8, I'm not exactly stable here either. I'm just more at peace because no member of the human race will reach me unless I bring you to me, or you die and you get sent to me by mistake. Not even I know all of the rules of this place, I doubt I ever will"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emSo what was the nature of my dream? Why am I here?" asked Jason P./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emOxygen is the 8supth/sup element of the periodic table. Everyone is getting dreams revolving around the number 8 because there are 8 of you on your mission. You're here because...you were long overdue to appear in my stories."/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emNot your fault I didn't want to be mentioned in #EndG8. I showed up to Philly to save the universe, not to be publicized as a hero to people who will never believe it really happened"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emI know"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emAaron then shook hands with Jason P./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Who woke up, merely smiling. No one asked why./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"*/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emJason C.'s main dream was that of an upscale party. He assumed that he was either in Los Angeles, New York, or New Vegas, Mars. Upon looking outside, he didn't notice much in the way of decay (esp. As it pertained to atmosphere and sky) so he concluded that it was the last one./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emHey, Glad at least one Collins could make it" said the voice of a gentleman with long black hair and a beard, wearing a grey suit, a red tie and a white dress shirt. Jason C. Smiled, but was a little confused as to who this was referring to: Aaron, or his sister, whose name he couldn't quite remember./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emThere were people wandering around with silver trays with all kinds of hors d'oeuvres and what Jason C. Presumed was champagne, and surprisingly, not a lot of talking between the guests (Jason C. Estimated that there were over 100 people here). He tried to keep as low a profile as he could, sitting down on a nearby black leather couch. It was only here that he finally began listening to the music that was playing in the background. It was a Dream Theatre song "Octavarium" off of the album of the same name./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emOdd, am I at a listening party thrown by a record label?" Jason C. Thought to himself. "This album was put out in 2005. So either I've travelled back in time to the late spring of that year and I'm in my early 20's again (which could mean I'm also on another Aaronworld entirely, as I don't recall ever being here inside my own memories) or, this is one of those re-release anniversary deals where the album is remastered and bonus material is added to give fans a reason to buy an album again. If it's the latter, I hope they engineer it properly. Too many albums lack dynamic range these days. This was a solid album. I liked how there were 8 songs going from the key of F all the way through the notes along a scale, with the interludes serving as the sharps/flats."/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"He actually woke up disappointed./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Anything noteworthy happen while I was out?" he asked Dani. She shook her head./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Wish I had come in at the beginning of the album" he mumbled to himself./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"*/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emAlex's main cryo-dream began with him in a dirty, off-white straitjacket in a padded room. The padding was actually in military camouflage, not in white./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emSo I'm a person who fell into section 8 discharge from the U.S. military"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emAlex sat back against the wall, feeling dejected. Then he had a "eureka" moment./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emI'm dreaming, so I won't feel any pain."/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emHe then popped his right shoulder out of the socket, allowing his right hand to get low enough to reach the bottom of the jacket. He then pulled it off relatively easily. He walked over to the door: It was black, several inches thick of solid steel with only a small section (3 square inches) that showed freedom (and even that was barred). The door was locked with what appeared to be an alpha-numeric-punctuation padlock, that was 5 characters long. He looked around to each of the padded walls, then to the ceiling, where Alex read:/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emSo you want to escape? But you are already mentally gone. To get out, remember your basic training"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emAlex chuckled, as he went back to the lock for more help. The first digit ranged from "A-B-1-2-3", the second digit ranged from "V-W-X-Y-Z", the third and fourth digits each ranged from "K-L-M-N-O" and last digit ranged from "!- -#-$-%"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emWell, this is obvious. A-W-O-L-!"/em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emAlex escaped, which woke him up./em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Did the payload get loose?" asked Alex. Dani shook her head. Alex nodded, then walked a few laps around the ship in silence, enjoying the use of his real legs again, happy that he didn't put his shoulder out for real while he was sleeping./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"*/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"The final 27 days were critical, as Captain Garbuio had to go over the landing step by step. There should've been at least 1 person on the crew who thought that the daily reminders were increasingly tedious, but even Alex and Jason C. (the ship's resident civilians) took it seriously. Gloria's daily speech went something along the lines of: "When we are within 100 feet of the surface, we will activate the Quantum Miniaturizer after setting it to 1/3 of our current size. Then we will activate the thrusters for a long burn, finding the crack along the flat surfaces our probes have been mapping since 1997. We will be small enough to actually go through the crack, travelling through the crust of the moon until we reach the subsurface. Our deep geological probes have found us a large cave with lots of water for us to get started. We will however need to do precisely nothing for a few days as we will still be adjusting to the shrinking. Daily housekeeping will also be mandatory whether we're in the ship or not as even dust particles can cripple the ship when we're ready to re-enlarge. As the dust would enlarge along with us"/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"The landing itself went almost like clockwork./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"We're within 100 feet of the surface" announced Stokely, staring at a black screen to his left that showed him the altitude in neon green letters./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Dr. Hughes, you may now engage the Quantum Miniaturizer" declared Captain Garbuio./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Aye captain. Everyone get ready to be ants" declared Melinda she deleted two zeroes on a screen on her quantum computer. She then flipped open a red dial, followed by turning a key clockwise. The miniaturization process for Jason C. And Alex felt very disorienting, almost as if they felt their rains shrinking before the rest of themselves followed suit. For the other 6, it just felt like falling./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"We're at 33.333%" said Melinda about 30 seconds later./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Copy that, engaging thrusters" replied Stokely./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"The extreme dive felt like an old-fashioned jet nose diving 10,000 feet to everyone on board, and upon entering the crack, it reminded a few of them of the deep mountains of Mars, or maybe the Himalayas on Earth (well, what was left of them). Jason P. Actually fell asleep./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"At least he's not drooling this time" mumbled Damon. Shortly afterwards, they arrived. They stared in awe at the cave (which they knew was really only a few cubic feet in size)./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Home" whispered Dani with a smile. Everyone took out e-readers, except Jason, who was just writing down everything he could for the next 4 days./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Chapter 2: No fluttering on the horizon/span/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"The training to adapt to the side effects of cryo-stasis was nowhere near sufficient, the crew soon learned (even Gloria)./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"It affected each member of the crew differently, but the crew could easily be divided into 2 halves. Dani, Damon, Melinda and Jason P. (by Dani's estimations) were in the group that was struggling to achieve REM sleep on account of having excessive energy. Whereas Jason C., Stokely, Alex and Gloria were actually sleeping too long and needed to be woken up by the others in order to keep up the rotation required to complete the mission./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Much to their relief, the amount of ice available to be made into water was actually higher than normal. Everyone used this to their advantage in regards to growing basic crops, but even they came out differently./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Is there a direct correlation between colours of vegetables on Earth or Mars to Europa?" asked Jason C. With a fresh notepad and pencil./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"In many cases, yes." added Jason P. (as he was basically the closest person on the crew to an agriculturalist) before adding "Even though I saw pictures of green lettuce in history books as a kid, it still amazed me to actually make the stuff in a room designed to replicate the conditions of Earth circa 100 years ago before natural crop development started becoming too difficult. I even got to eat a couple of pieces of it. It wasn't bad, a bit too watery for my taste. Give me Mars Red lettuce any day. Truth be told, I was expecting most of these crops to be yellow. But instead, we get blue and purple for most of them and black for the rest. I look forward to telling people that I ate a black apple."/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Meeting, 5 minutes" declared Gloria. The 2 Jasons nodded in unison at her./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"*/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I think that it's pretty obvious why I called this meeting. Half of us can't sleep, and the other half are getting too much of it. About an hour ago, I received a Quantum audio message from the people at Starbucks, after I reported this issue. Their only solution is that in addition to the food we're already making for ourselves, we should began looking for...local cuisine."/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Every member of the crew except Gloria began laughing./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"This is a moon of Jupiter several hundred million kilometres away from the sun. We had to shrink ourselves and travel to the subsurface just to find enough water to not die after a few days. Other than MAYBE algae, or what passes for Algae in this part of the Solar System, what the hell are we going to find?" asked Alex./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I'm personally hoping for an element or 2 not on our periodic table" said Stokely, with Jason P. Nodding in approval./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I'm hoping that we don't have to start...eating each other" said Jason C. Before gulping./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Well whatever we find, we're also going to need to find it's exact opposite too. Unless our brain chemistry has been radically altered since we got here, 1 substance will only help half of us, and likely make the other half even worse" stated Damon./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"And we'll have to find it quickly, because I no longer have enough stimulants or sedatives for all of us to last us for the whole mission. At the continued rate of consumption, we'll run out of each one just after the halfway point. Then our reports back home and our work here will degrade to a point of incoherence, and we likely won't make it back home alive" said Dani grimly./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Couldn't we all just go into cryo-stasis for the entire journey home?" asked Jason C./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Nope, for 3 reasons: First, the autopilot can't navigate accurately through the asteroid belt. Secondly, even if it did, all 8 of us in stasis at once for that long would be too much of a strain on the ship. Lastly, there's no guarantee that Mars or even Earth would pick us up. We could be adrift forever, or be incinerated by the sun while we're sleeping" replied Stokely./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"How long do we have before we're permanently damaged?" asked Alex./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Maybe a week for those of us who can't sleep, a little longer for the others. I actually have less of an idea for the ones that are getting too much sleep than I do for the ones that aren't getting enough as there is no precedent for this in the history of the Mars space program, or Earth's for that matter." stated Dani./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"We better get to work then." stated Melinda./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"*/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"The cavern itself was actually not unlike a cavern on Mars or Earth. Granted, most of the rocks inside were beige, but it was extremely cold (even with the suits that everyone was wearing), and deposits of ice and geodes of all colours were scattered about the place. Thankfully, their suits were handling the new moon perfectly./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I gotta do an oxygen refill on my suit, would you mind taking my scanner for a few minutes?" asked Damon./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Yeah, of course." replied Jason P. The scanner was a combination of black plastic, metal and corningware. The size of it was equal to that of a cell phone that may have belonged to one of their grandparents. It continually fired an infrared pulse, then translated the data into elements on the periodic table (or if needed, chemical compounds). Standard operating procedure was to space out the scans every 30 centimetres every 10 seconds. But in the crew's frantic desperation, they were scanning every 10 centimetres instead. If something unknown was scanned, a high pitched beeping would sound off for 5 seconds. Jason P. Used Damon getting an oxygen refill to his advantage, alternating which of the 2 scanners he used so that he could scan in 5 second intervals as opposed to 10. He then thought he saw a small reptile (or maybe amphibian) scurry across the rocks into the water, but it kept going in and out of invisibility. Jason P. Panicked and turned on his radio via pushing a red button on the right hip of his suit./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Dr. Bunda?" asked Jason P./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Go ahead, Dr. Price" stated Dani./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Are visual hallucinations common in sleep deprivation?" he asked./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Definitely. I just saw a small animal go in and out of the spectrum of my vision" replied Dani./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"So did I, so they may not be hallucinations" stated Jason P./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Jason P.'s determination to focus on what he may or may not have seen was only for a moment or two, then a high pitched beeping was sounded on his own scanner. His eyes widened in cautious optimism, then he ran Damon's scanner across the same piece of rock. A near identical beep sounded by the borrowed scanner. He then went a third time, using his own scanner again. Same beep./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"OK, what did I just find?" he asked himself, before adding "If it's a new element, I think I'll suggest that they name it Pricium, after my chosen surname."/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I'm back." said Damon. Jason P. Very quickly handed Damon back his scanner, deeply focused on the screen of his own scanner./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I found what is basically what we know to be Rohypnol, but there's a couple of unknown variables as well. I'm sending the info to Dr. Bunda, as if anyone could solve this puzzle other than me, it would be her."/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I found something" exclaimed Gloria over the radio. The majority of the crew was impressed that Captain Garbuio did not use her rank to get out of doing the more mundane daily tasks required of the crew./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"New element, compound or both?" asked Jason P./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-style: normal;"I found it in the water. /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"It's basically a low-level amphetamine, but I can't for the life of me tell the rest of what I'm seeing. I'm sending the info to Dr. Bunda." she replied./span/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I did the same with something I found on a rock." added Jason P./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"The next several hours produced more of the same 2 finds. Some found more of what Gloria found in other parts of the subsurface lake, others found more of what Jason P. Found along other rocks. Dani then sent a message across the radio to the other 7 of the ship./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="font-style: normal;"Ladies and gentlemen, we have found what we need to continue the mission. The unknown variables found by Dr. Price and Captain Garbuio is basically Melatonin. I recommend administering 1 dose of 5 mg before bedtime for the light sleepers of what Dr. Price had found /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"along the rock/spanspan style="font-style: normal;". Whereas, I recommend the same size dose upon waking up of the stuff Captain Garbuio /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"in the water. I've updated the hard drives of the scanners via the Quantum wifi to look for both, so our search should be a lot easier."/span/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Handshakes and hugs were exchanged amongst everyone in the crew (including an emerging Dani, who had been inside the ship since Jason P. Sent his scan data to her)./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I'm only the pilot and all, but I put forward the motion that we take the rest of the day off and celebrate with a freeze dried meal." suggested Stokely./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I second the motion" replied Jason C./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"All in favour?" asked Alex./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"AYE!" shouted everyone else./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I'm only the captain and all, but the motion carries with a unanimous vote. I think freeze dried Lasagna is on the schedule this evening" said Gloria. Everyone laughed, knowing Gloria's fondness for Italian food./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="CENTER"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"*/span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emMuch to the bewilderment of all 8 people in the crew, they all began to revisit the dreams that they had while they were in cryo-stasis. For some, it was a welcome return to a specific point in their subconscious, others despised the repeated dream sequence./em/span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emThere was however, one very clear difference: The organisms that they had begun seeing in flashes were now prevalent in their dreams. One was red and best identified as a reptile similar to that of an Earth Gecko (except that the tail was shorter, the skin was much thicker and the front teeth were more pronounced, similar to that of a Vampire Bat. The other was blue, closer to that of an amphibian but also had a swimming pattern in the water not unlike a small shark. /em/span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"emLater on, the dreams of the 8 crewmembers switched to that of the first person perspective new animals. Those who dreamed of the new lizard were treated to a dream of gathering food (mostly what the crew believed to be as the Europa equivalent of algae and laying eggs. The sea amphibian could lay eggs as well, but the dream was more focused on it in a fight amongst its' own kind. Eventually, our human crew realized that it could change colours exactly like a chameleon (both the Earth and Martian variants). /em/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Everyone woke up, feeling as refreshed as they were the day they left Mars./span/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Chapter 3: First (eye) contact/span/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"The effects of taking these new substances maintained itself over the next few weeks. With Dani monitoring him, Jason P. Even briefly left the subsurface to take readings of the crack that the shrunken ship took to get below the surface with the probe designed and maintained by Alex, finding not only more sedatives and stimulants inside the crack, but a more in-depth reading of the limited atmosphere that Europa had. Everyone was shocked that the concentrations of Oxygen were uneven across the atmosphere moreso than estimated./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"That will be an interesting message to send back home" said Melinda as she began prepping said message./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Damon went about a routine of doing daily maintenance along the interior of the ship, with today's focus being the cockpit. Stokely made a few requests (namely a tightening of his seat, lowering the brightness of every screen in the cockpit and lowering a nearby section of glass that served as his directional crosshairs. Gloria supervised and provided info in plain English to Jason C./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Seats inevitably get loose in any form of travel, but it's twice as bad for space. That said, it's not even close to say, adjusting an office chair. Stoke's chair can actually move in basically every direction so it actually has 9 screws to be tightened. The brightness of the screens can be lowered or raised just by turning that black dial over there."/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"One dial for every screen?" asked Jason C./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Yeah. It can lead to a lot of pilot vs. Captain arguments. I just trust Stokely to handle my ship, so I don't mind" replied Gloria. She then continued "This ship was actually converted from an old warship so that crosshair screen is something they forgot to take out."/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I use it to help me in controlled burns. All one needs to focus on a controlled burn is 1 fixed point in space. The crosshair screen assists in that" added Stokely. Jason C. Enjoyed all the material that he was getting. Melinda then came back onto the ship./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Sorry to interrupt, I'm just going to organize all of the info everyone has gathered for future terraforming, then send it back home. Barring a lot of requests from our sponsors or a problem on our end of things, we'll probably prepare to depart in a few days."/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Gloria, Stokely and Damon then each took small, black data pads out of their suits (as if on cue), and handed them to Melinda (who sighed, as she now had effectively double the data to sift through). After a moment or two of thought, she decided to lead off with Gloria's datapad (after all, she was the captain)./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Everyone, I don't know how to say this but: Those creatures we may have been hallucinating...we're not hallucinating. I can see them without interruption now in both the water and on the rocks, but mostly in the water. I believe that they exist on a slightly different light spectrum than our naked eye can perceive and that what we've been taken to help us adjust our sleep cycle has accidentally adjusted our vision spectrum as well" said Dani over the radio./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I concur. They're actually kind of cute. If these reptiles and amphibians were indigenous to Mars or even Earth, we would be keeping them as pets in our own homes." added Jason P./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"There's gotta be thousands of them all over the rocks and in the water" was all that Alex could contribute to the dialogue. But it didn't matter, the entire crew was now out of the ship and in the cavern, effectively longing for first contact with whatever these creatures were./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"I wonder if these little creatures have a language for themselves. It would be the highlight of my career to translate them into English" said Melinda./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Do you prefer communications over Quantum technology?" asked Jason C. As he stared at one particular amphibian in the water, who appeared to be eating...the Europan equivalent of shellfish? Or a sea insect? It was too deep into the water for anyone to completely make out. The water itself was a different colour than it had been previously. To the crew, it was closer to a clear green as opposed to blue. Melinda nodded emphatically as Alex took notice of the creatures beginning to group together to form what could only be described as a noose./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"CAPTAIN GARBUIO, LOOK OUT!" screamed Alex, but it was too late. The creature's noose somehow leapt out of the water and attached itself around Gloria's neck, pulling her down into the water./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Who on the ship can swim, as Mars isn't really known for its' pools, much less oceans?" asked Damon. Stokely grinned, then touched a button on his helmet that no one else had. The suit then seemed to change it's exterior from the thick canvas of every other suit into something more, scaly./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Anybody else have any other cool mods to their suits?" asked Dani as Stokely dove into the water. When Stokely reached Gloria, he was competing against the unified strength of over a hundred animals. Not only did he lose the battle, but the animals themselves threw both Stokely and Gloria back up to the surface with little effort, but the noose was still around Gloria. Waves of what appeared to be electricity emanated over the creatures and Gloria, and her mouth began to open and close. After a few seconds, came sound, out of Gloria, but it didn't sound like Gloria./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Are you...carbon-based?" came Creature-Gloria./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Yes. Are you silicone-based?" asked Stokely. Creature-Gloria nodded slowly./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Why are you eating our...fecal matter and ejaculate?"/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Our planet is different from yours, we needed to change in order to survive here" replied Jason C. Who then joined in the symphony of vomiting that the crew were conducting./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Who are you to invade our home?"/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"We are just explorers. We are looking to make another home for ourselves." replied Damon./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"We lost our first home, our second home is a glorified prison, our third home is too small" added Dani./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"In your bible, it states "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours goods. Yet you have repeatedly done so in the name of colonization. You also kill, steal, how many other commandments have you broken to make new homes? Your race is not Christian...or Libertarian"/span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"It was a harsh assessment, in humankind's first contact with an alien lifeform, but none could argue with it./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Your race will just annihilate us with fire if we harm you, or even resist. We can't defend against that." mused Creature-Gloria./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="color: #222222;""span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"span style="font-size: medium;"Let the negotiations for the first interstellar peace treaty begin." said Melinda with a grin./span/span/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;" align="LEFT" /p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Epilogues: Parting of the species/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"Shortly after first contact, Gloria was set free by what Dani now classified as Europan Vampire Gecko and the Europan /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"FrogShark group. Gloria was...different from the experience. The Gecko's and Sharks left inside of her brain, very detailed maps of the entire moon (including details that the human race likely never would have found out). /span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;""I think they want us to colonize the opposite part of the moon, as they don't live there. Given how much we have to shrink ourselves to be here, I think we can sustain a quarter of a billion people without issue. They also detailed to me in, what I guess I was a dream, that both of them and us humans must keep a 2 mile neutral zone along /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"the outer perimeter of where we are so that we can participate in fair trade. I accepted, as we, the human race need to finally accept that we are the guests and not the conquerors."/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The crew nodded, as Melinda began preparing the final Quantum signal to send back home before departure./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER"*/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"The ship waited until it was out of orbit before it re-enlarged, in order to not disturb their new friends. The Vampire Gecko's and the FrogSharks couldn't say goodbye to their human visitors, /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"but they could discuss everything between each other./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We look forward to eating them homo sapiens" said 1 of the Vampire Gecko's to their flock./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We hope they bring as many as they can...to be eaten" said 1 of the FrogSharks to their assembly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER"*/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"M/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"elinda actually had the quietest job going home. Alex was going over the data that his probe gathered in case people back on Mars (namely, the ship's sponsors) ask /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"any/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" further questions. Jason P., Dani were doing similar things in their respective fields. Gloria was in cryo-stasis (as it was her turn). Stokely /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"was opting to manually pilot the ship rather than trust the autopilot. Damon was consulting a technical manual regarding the propulsion systems (as they were due for an inspection next week). Lastly, Jason C. Was already halfway through the second draft of the novel he had intended to write based on this mission. Melinda's job was basically to wait for any possible messages from Starbucks or Coca-Cola./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"And then the blue light went off./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Message from back home?" asked Stokely./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Melinda's eyes widened "No, sources unknown" as she read the screen on her quantum computer./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Did I hear you say that in the plural?" asked Dani with a grin./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Over a hundred messages, all from different Quantum realities than ours."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emTo be continued?/em/p