Chapter 26
The door to the medical room closed behind Nik as she joined the rest of the crew.
"You found something?" she asked Naomi, who had called them together.
"Yes," Naomi turned on a monitor for all of them to see. The screen was filled by the wire with just a bit of insulation still attached.
"So, I used a scanner to magnify it trying to find some trace of what was destroying the insulation." She pushed a button and the screen zoomed in on the edge of the insulation. The edge was smooth as if it had been sheared off. There was no sign of wear or any tale-tale discoloration.
"I checked several and all of them looked the same. Then I came in here and used the microscopic scanner for a better look."
Again, the image on the screen changed, this time to the alien landscape of the microscopic details of the edge of the insulation. This time they could clearly see the damage to the polymer coating.
"It looks like it was chewed," Holden wondered. "What are we talking about here? Bacteria? Fungus?"
"That's what I thought," Naomi agreed. "All of these coatings are soy-based, and we did put down on an alien planet. One with some very aggressive microbial lifeforms."
"Yeah, and killer slugs," he groaned.
"And it fits with the point of entry being the airlock," Nik put in.
"But," Naomi continued, "there should be organic residue. Mucus, biological byproducts, dead microbes, and others. But these surfaces are clean. There's not even common dust on them. I scanned over a dozen of them and came up with nothing."
"Then what the hell is doing this?" Holden said with a frustrated sigh.
Naomi held up a slim hand to stop any further comments, "I did find something, but I can't identify it." The screen changed to show a tiny blurred shape moving back and forth.
"What is that?" Holden stepped up to the screen, squinting at the image.
"I don't know," she answered. "That's at max magnification. But watch what happens."
They watched the screen as the shaped continued to move in jerky motions, going in a tiny circle. After a few cycles, another shape appeared on the screen, going straight to the first one. When it reached the first, both stopped moving, but seemed to shake for a bit. Then both shapes started moving and made their way off the screen in a straight, smooth path. Where they had been was a single pit chewed into the coating.
"What was that?" Amos asked.
"It looked like something was wrong with the first one and the second one fixed it using the material from the coating," Nik guessed.
"That's what it looked like to me," Naomi agreed.
"So, what?" Holden jumped in. "They're using the coating from the wires to heal themselves?"
"Or make more of themselves," Nik jumped to the next logical conclusion.
"Reproducing?"
"That is what organisms do, regardless of what planet they're from."
Holden turned away and ran a hand through his hair. "What are our options?"
Naomi turned off the monitor before answering. "If the ship in infested, we can't dock on Medina. We'll just infect it too."
"Which means we need to find a way to kill whatever it is," he concluded.
"Nik, we need to find enough of these things to experiment on," Naomi looked at her. "Let's go through all the affected wire you pulled."
"I'm on in."
The next day, they were no closer to a solution. Despite their best efforts, Nik and Naomi had only found a few of the elusive creatures and every attempt to keep them contained failed. During that time, Naomi told her about the nearly disastrous peacekeeping expedition on New Tera. When she described the microbes that blinded everybody except Holden, Nik stopped her.
"Do you think what we're dealing with here is from there?" she asked.
"It's the only thing that makes sense."
"So, what was the cure?"
"The anti-cancer meds that Jim takes."
Nik was quiet for a moment, thinking. "Can we synthesis enough to aerosolize it throughout the ship?"
"Let me check," Naomi was already typing on her console.
"Hey, Naomi?" Alex asked over the comm system.
"What is it, Alex?"
"Can you check the air scrubbers? I'm reading a spike in CO2."
"A spike?"
"Yeah, it's five percent above norm. Maybe one of the scrubbers is malfunctioning because of our new little buddies?"
"I'll take a look," Nik volunteered, pulling up schematics for the system.
Sitting on the floor in front of the fourth scrubber, Nik huffed in frustration. Her headache was back with a vengeance and making it hard for her to focus on the task at hand, but she was forcing herself to power through it. Swiping at her running nose with a sleeve, she started putting the panel back together. Only two more to inspect, but if everything stayed consistent, she wasn't going to find anything. So far, she had come up with nothing. Only the grounding wires were affected and not as bad as some of the other systems on the ship. She used what little wire she had left to make the repairs, but Alex had reported no improvement on the air quality. In fact, it was now reading seven percent above normal.
"Find anything?" Naomi crouched down beside her.
"Nothing that would explain the readings Alex is getting," Nik grunted as she shoved the tray back in and shut the panel. "How about you?"
"We can synthesize enough of the medication, but it will take us dangerously low for making much more. If we fail and can't dock with Medina, Jim will run out of it in a few days. I don't want to take the chance. We need to test it on a smaller sample first."
Then we need to find some of them to test it on, Nik thought but kept the thought to herself.
"Hey," Naomi turned her slightly to look at her face. "Your nose is bleeding."
"Is it?" Nik's heart fell.
It must have shown on her face, because Naomi asked, "Nik, what's wrong?"
She sighed; the others would find out soon enough anyway.
"I have SSAS."
Naomi looked shocked, "why didn't you say something? How long have you been feeling ill?"
"It was still just headaches. The nose bleeds just started."
Severe Space Adaption Syndrome occurred in less than one tenth of a percent of the human population. SAS was first diagnosed in the late twentieth century among astronauts. For most it was similar to a bad case of motion sickness, but as more humans traveled into space throughout the next two centuries, low gravity or lack of gravity has serious effects on a small percent. Dubbed SSAS, the vascular system in individuals that suffered from the condition put more pressure on the vessel walls than they could withstand. First capillaries burst, causing headaches, petechiae, and minor tissue damage throughout the body. Then larger vessels gave way, leading to nose bleeds, subconjunctival hemorrhage, visible bruises, and blood in the lungs. If the individual remained on the float, major arteries would rupture resulting in internal hemorrhage and probable death.
There is no cure for SSAS other than limiting exposure, and only a few treatments to lesson the severity of the symptoms. Pressure chambers can temporarily relieve symptoms, but not reverse them.
"I thought it was why my parents left. I was really sick by the time we reached the station from Mars and it took a long time for me to recover. I didn't know they had been murdered until Maggie found their death certificates," she explained. "It's the reason I never left Tycho station. There was enough rotational gravity there for me."
"I see," Naomi stood and reached down to give Nik a hand up. "Let's get to medical and get you started on a course of meds until we can figure something out."
"There is nothing to figure out, Sésata. Besides we have bigger problems to worry about."
"Ya, and we need you at your best to help."
Nik let the other woman pulled her towards medical.
"Can we please not tell the others?" she asked. "I don't want them treating me like I'm fragile and will break."
"I'll tell Jim, but nobody else, kay?"
"I guess I can live with that."
In the medical room, she sat in the chair and put her arm in the diagnostic cuff. As Naomi ran tests and had the equipment synthesis a drug regiment, her mind wandered back to the microbes. They needed enough to test their theory on, but the wires that she had replaced already were a bust. They needed to find a large concentration of the invaders. Since they were invisible to the naked eye, how did one go about finding them.
"I have an idea."
It was simple, actually. They knew where the largest concentrations of the microbes had been, so they could predict where they would be next. Working their way back from the airlock, Nik and Naomi followed the trail of destruction until they opened a panel that was only partially touched. Even though Nik had replaced the worst of the damage only a few hours ago, this panel was starting to show signs once more.
"This is it."
"I'll go synthesis the cancer meds package them for aerosol disbursement," Naomi patter her shoulder. "I'll be back in a few minutes."
While she waited, she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. The meds must have worked because her head wasn't hurting as much anymore. Still her symptoms were just going to keep getting worse as long as she stayed on the Roci. She needed to get the Mars thing resolved and join her family on Ganymede.
"Hey, you okay?"
She opened her eyes and looked up at Amos.
"Just tired," she smiled weakly. "It's been a long day."
"What's with the blood?"
She frowned, then looked at the sleeve of the coveralls. There, where she had wiped her nose, was a dark smear of dried blood.
"Just a little nosebleed," she explained. "No big deal. I used to get them a lot when I was little." It wasn't exactly a lie.
He considered her answer and apparently accepted it. "What's going on?" He nodded towards the open panel.
"Waiting on Naomi. We're going to test a theory." She explained their plan.
"Think it will work?"
"I don't know. We really have no idea what we're dealing with. Everything we try is just a wild guess."
He cocked his head slightly and touched his nose. "You missed some."
"Oh, thanks." Nik rubbed her nose with her clean sleeve.
"No, you missed it. Here," he stepped close, putting one big hand on her shoulder to hold her still. With the other hand he reached for her face.
"No, you don't have to…,"
"Just hold still…,"
"Will you stop…,"
"Got it."
Nik batted his offending hand away. "Why do you do that?" she huffed.
"Do what?" He seemed genuinely baffled by her question.
"Treat me like a child."
"You think I treat you like a child?"
"Ya, I do."
He frowned, "then you don't know me very well."
"It's not like you make it easy, you know," she retorted. "With this quiet macho thing you do all the time. I can never tell what you're thinking."
She saw the muscles in his jaws tense, "you don't want to know what I'm thinking, Kitten."
"Maybe I do."
"No, you don't."
"Try me."
She refused to back down as he stared at her, daring him to share. To open up. But he just shook his head slightly and turned away.
"I didn't take you for a coward," she taunted at his back.
So quickly that she didn't have a chance to react, he spun back around, picking her up by the waist and pinning her to the wall with his body.
Putting his face so close to hers that their noses almost touched, he bit out, "believe me, you don't want to know what's going on in my head."
His eyes were angry. Finally, something she could read. Meeting his eyes steadily, she said in a calm voice, "I'm not afraid of you. I was at first because you reminded me of that kid I had to space, but now I see. You are not a monster."
"I am a monster, just like that kid."
"Maybe once, ya. But that kid couldn't help himself. He did those things because he enjoyed it. You might have been like that once but being around people like Naomi and Holden has changed you. Now, when you do awful things, it's for different reasons. You see it as a way to solve a problem, but I don't think you enjoy it."
He was quiet, but she could feel the tension in his body as it was pressed against her. If she stopped to think about it, it would be distracting.
"Tell me what you're thinking," she said softly.
She held her breath as she waited for his response. Then his eyes returned to their usually bland expression and he stepped away, lowering her back to the floor until her mag-boots snicked as they locked onto the metal surface.
Caught off-balance by the abrupt change, she didn't see Naomi step into the corridor.
"Am I interrupting something?"
Thinking quickly, she replied, "Amos noticed the blood on my sleeve and was asking me about it. Can you tell him I'm not a child and can deal with a little bloody nose?"
She shot him a smirk, but he was already gone.
Naomi laughed, "good luck. He can be a little intense at times."
"Ya, I noticed."