Chapter 9
"Another tremor like that one and we'll all be in serious trouble," Doctor Centi told them as the numbers came in off the monitoring stations that had been setup around the planet.
"How bad is it?" Lion-O asked.
"Close to a three on the scale. Not entirely bad but it usually signals a bigger one is on the way," Sven explained.
"What are the other scientists working on?" Mwende wanted to know.
"Evacuation protocols. We've got to be able to get people and food off this rock should the worst be inevitable," Ali told him.
"Good. The security teams are at least an hour out to their locations. How will we know if the planet is beyond saving?" The President asked.
"When the tremors themselves are large enough to be earthquakes themselves, then it will be too later. We're working on a progression algorithm to see if we can predict it," Summa spoke up.
"Someone clarify things for me because it doesn't seem like we have enough time to get everyone off the planet," Cheetara said. With every aftershock, she worried that the big one could be here faster than they anticipated. Worse still was that if there was no earthquake machine and the planet was in fact in its death throes, a lot of people were going to die.
"The ground may be moving beneath our feet but those are just aftershocks that travel along the planets tectonic plates, diffusing the enormous amount of energy that one earthquake releases. The ground beneath us is always moving, we just don't feel it because the movements are usually so small that we don't have instruments that could measure it. When two plates collide, they cause an earthquake. Sometimes it's a gentle collide so you're looking at a one or a two on the scale. They can be happening and people wouldn't even notice. A slightly greater collision causes a three or a four. These can definitely be felt but their aftershocks are hardly ever felt and the damage to property is minimal if any. It's when you get to a five and above that things get fairly ugly. Now before recent events the largest quake that was recorded here on Mars was a seven. Luckily it occurred out in the desert plains of the planet and though some biospheres felt the aftershocks, the damage was not significant. Had there been structures located near the epicenter, they would have most likely been destroyed. On Earth the worst recorded earthquake was a nine point five, occurring the in the year nineteen-sixty. This earthquake lasted nearly ten minutes and the resulting tsunami destroyed communities thousands of miles away. Luckily, we have no massive bodies of water so tsunamis are something that could never occur here," Sven explained.
"So basically, even though the ground has been shaking here, the earthquakes are not nearly as bad as they seem," Cheetara nodded thoughtfully.
"Correct. The biospheres are basically meant to withstand a seven, something that should have never occurred where they were located which is why we began to wonder what was going on. It is not to say that it would never happen but the simple fact that the aftershocks barely declined in strength and that multiple large quakes occurred at the same time means that something extraordinary is occurring," Ali spoke up.
"I would concur. That quake you mentioned on Earth, those are fairly rare are they not?" Centi asked.
"There was never another like it before Earth was abandoned. I would hazard a guess that it hasn't happened since otherwise your Third Earth would have felt it. We evacuated Earth all those hundreds of years ago because the planet started to go through its second Ice Age. The further north you went the less hospitable it became. Soon everyone was cramming as far south as they could, overwhelming underdeveloped nations and causing food scarcities. Oceans began to rise more rapidly than the usual progression and soon even the southern hemispheres were not safe. We evacuated as many as we could and settled on the next hospitable planet. Now obviously the planet has gone through another age which allowed Third Earth to become hospitable again," Sven explained.
"So Mumm-Ra must have been a frozen popsicle then for quite some time," Ben-Gali chuckled. Lion-O couldn't help but laugh as well. The picture of the miserable mummy frozen like a popsicle was certainly entertaining.
"Mumm-Ra?" Mwende asked.
"An old enemy of ours that used to inhabit Third Earth. We'll tell you all about him once we have everyone safe," Panthro smiled.
"Sounds like something I would want to hear," the President smiled back. Just then the phone rang in the room and Mwende quickly answered it. It wasn't a long phone call and when he hung up he told them to follow him. The group quickly did as they were told and ended up back in the secure office of the President. He pulled up the video screen and the group got their first look at what a security team had found near Little China.
"So someone did make one," Sven shook his head.
"The crew operating it is down sir. We await your further instruction," the team leader spoke over the sound system in the room.
"Secure the area. If we try to remove it and we do it wrong, we could be in trouble. I'm sending a team of specialists to you," Mwende told them.
"Yes sir," the man nodded and the President turned to Sven and Ali.
"You two head out to meet them. Doctors Centi and Summa will keep working from here in an effort to see if this solves our problem."
"Yes, Mr. President," they nodded and quickly headed back to the lab to grab their things.
To Be Continued…