Episode Two: Short of the Goal
The crew finds a solution to re-mounting the remaining nuclear thermal rocket, but an accident costs them valuable fuel. They have five days to find a solution to get to Europa and enter orbit.
The Space Cruiser USS Marius, CS-1
In Transit from Io to Europa
August 2056
After four days of drifting in space, we were no closer to solving our fuel problem. At least we had fixed the fuel line connector. We could fire the nuke as soon as we had something to feed it. Without a better answer, the captain had ordered the transfer of four thousand metric tons of drinking water to the nuke fuel tanks tomorrow—a decision not everyone agreed with. Grumbling was becoming noticeable away from the Space Force crew members.
We’d come off our shifts, and Marco and I were taking a break in our quarters, but Marco was not happy.
“What the hell does he think we’re going to drink, Celeste?”
I moved a little closer, lay with my head on his lap on the floor, and hugged him with my free arm. “It won’t matter, sweetie if we can’t get to Europa.”
“And why’s getting to Europa so damned important?” Marco lifted me off his lap and looked me straight in the eye. “He’s never explained that. Just says ‘it’s classified’. What the hell does that mean?”
“It means we don’t need to know.” Marco’s frustration had been at a boiling point for a couple of days. Waste was building up in the reclamation system, and he was at a loss.
Marco crossed his arms and snorted. “Really? We’re stranded out here, in shit up to our ears, and Bullard’s worried about ‘classified.’ That’s literally a load of crap. And a lot of others feel the same way. I should speak to the captain—like right now.”
Marco moved to get up off the floor, but I grabbed his arm. “Knock it off, Marco. That would not be helpful. If you want to do something, help me figure out what to do about your sewage problem.”
“For all I care, Bullard can blow it out his ass.”
Whoa. Talk about a lightbulb moment. “That’s it, Marco. That’s what we can do.”
Marco scrunched his eyebrows, his mouth a thin line. “What’s it?”
“We can empty the sewage system and use it as fuel.”
Marco looked at me and just shook his head. “Are you crazy? I can’t purify that much sewage in a day. We need the fuel tomorrow.”
I stood up and pulled Marco off the floor. “We don’t need it to be purified. It just needs to be liquid. You can filter it, can’t you?”
“Well—sure.” Marco still looked skeptical, but he was thinking. “It might be doable. I’ve nowhere to store the filtered material, but the process is pretty straightforward.”
I pulled him towards the door. “Then let’s go see the captain. This could solve both our problems.”
###
We burst through the hatch to the bridge unannounced. Everybody there was trying to act like they were watching their terminals. But the sidelong glances and checking reflections on the monitors belied their attempts at ignoring me and Marco and not eavesdropping on my spiel to the captain.
“Are you out of your mind, Watson? You want to pump raw sewage through the nuclear engine.”
“Yes, Sir.” The captain listened while I explained, but then, again, I hadn’t given him a chance to interrupt until I finished. “Captain, the engine doesn’t care. It will turn just about anything into plasma. We only use purified water because of the fuel system.”
“And what happens when the fuel lines clog? Have you checked with the chief?”
I shuffled my feet around because—well, no, I hadn’t. “No, I haven’t, Captain. I wanted to run it by you and get your blessing before I bothered her.”
The captain shot me a look harsh enough that I took a step back. “Don’t try to play me, young lady.” The captain touched a contact on the arm of his command chair. “Chief Jemison, can you come to the bridge? Ms. Watson and Mr. Fuentes have a proposal I think you will want to hear.”
“On my way, Captain.” came the response from the bulkhead speaker.
The captain turned his attention to Marco. “While we’re waiting, Mr. Fuentes, I thought you needed the sewage for reclamation to supply the ship with drinking water and maintain the hydroponics garden.”
“I do, Captain. But as Celeste has explained, if we don’t get to Europa, it won’t matter.” Marco lowered his head and whispered to me, “Although I still want to know why that’s important.”
The captain leaned forward. “What was that, Fuentes?”
Don’t do it, Marco. Don’t piss him off. But, well, Marco wasn’t one to be deterred.
Marco stood straighter. “Nothing, sir. I just don’t know what the rush is to get to Europa, that you would compromise our water supplies and put us all at risk.”
The captain took a slow breath. “I hate repeating myself, but that is class—”
Marco was saved from a lecture by the arrival of the chief.
“So, Captain. What do I need to hear?”
The captain gave me a wave to begin, and I went through my idea again. And, of course, pumping sewage through the fuel lines was not a hit with the chief engineer.
“Watson, I get what you’re saying, and yes, the nuke can handle it, but those fuel lines won’t last. They’re designed to handle water, and clean water at that. The sewage is dirty at best and corrosive at worst. And the impeller pumps, I don’t even want to think about them.”
“I know, but they’ll last until we get to Europa. A limited number of short burns, and we’re there. We’ve been working on the orbital injection plan for days and know what it takes. We can clean the fuel lines out when we’re in orbit around Europa, and we have spares for the pumps.”
The captain still looked skeptical but waved a hand of deferral to the chief. The chief had been drifting with a light grip on a bulkhead handhold, but now pushed to the deck and looped her feet under the restraints. I’ve found that she thinks out loud better when she can use both hands.
“OK. It can work.” Using hand gestures, she outlined the solution. “We’ll run the unused fuel line from the nuke we ejected to the main impeller. That way, we can keep the line, currently connected to the nuke, free of Fuentes’s crap fuel. It’s extra work to reroute the line, but I’m sure Watson will happily do the extra-vehicular work. Either that, or she’ll have to crawl inside and clean out the grime.”
I have to admit, I do like Mae’s straight talk. And yes, I would take the EV any day. It would be nice to get back outside and off medical restrictions. I’m sure the moms would object, but screw it—I was back.
###
Spacecraft Assembly Facility
In orbit around Mars
August 2056
The shuttle carrying InterSol Inspector General Raul Fuentes, his partner, Jason, “Jaz”, Yazzie, and a dozen InterSol agents approached the docking port on SS&T’s spacecraft assembly facility in orbit around Mars. Fuentes transmitted the docking override code and the search warrant. The dock cycled and the InterSol pilot docked the shuttle.
When the interior station hatch swung open, Fuentes and Jaz entered the station. Fuentes turned to his partner. “Let’s hope this goes easy, Jaz.”
Jaz checked the agents exiting the hatch. “We can hope, Raul. But these SS&T guys seem to be difficult just for the fun of it.”
The head of station security drifted down the zero-g passage and confronted them at the entry hatch, arms crossed and a scowl on his face.
Raul floated forward and hooked his toes into a deck restraint. Looks like it’s going to be the hard way.
“Inspector, we don’t have a visit from InterSol on the schedule. What’s the emergency that you didn’t ask for permission to dock?”
“Chief, you know from our transmission we don’t need permission. So don’t waste my time and escort us to the control room. We have a warrant to check your construction inventories, and we need to speak with Senior Engineer Carlson.”
The security chief didn’t move. “What do you need to see Carlson for?”
Raul took a deep breath and fought, almost successfully, to reign in his impatience. “I don’t need to explain my reasons. And you damn well know I don’t. So, get us to the control room and get Carlson there—like now.”
After a few moments of glaring at Raul, the security chief unhooked from his foot restraints and shot down the passage towards the gravity ring and the control room without looking back. In transit, Raul heard him tell Carlson to meet them in the control room. Just catching snippets, Raul thought it sounded like Carlson wasn’t going to comply. Well, Raul would deal with that when they were in the control room.
Transiting “down” a connecting spoke in the gravity wheel and arriving in the control room, Raul identified the station director from the picture he’d call up on his handheld. With hand gestures, he dispersed his team to the various operations consoles.
“Director, my team will be shadowing your operations staff to audit your production inventories.”
The director hesitated for a moment. Raul thought he looked like he was going to object. After a quick scan of the room, his shoulders slouched, and he signaled to his staff to comply.
As the InterSol agents took their positions, Raul relaxed his stance, motioned Jaz to take up a position at the command console, and returned his attention to the director. “Thank you, Director. I’m sorry it has come to this. Now—where’s Carlson?”
A middle-aged man in SS&T jumpsuit stepped forward. “I’m Carlson.”
Raul motioned to an agent. “Sergeant, take Mr. Carlson into custody.” He then turned back to Carlson. “Jonathan Carlson, you are under arrest for the murder of the engineers that died when the Schiaparelli’s engine went critical.”
Carlson blanched, his face turning an ashen pale, barely able to remain standing by gripping a handrail as his knees failed him. “Murder. I didn’t murder anybody.”
To Raul, Carlson’s reaction belied his words. He clearly knows we’ve discovered his code. “Carlson, your kill code caused the nuclear thermal rocket to go critical. What you didn’t plan on was the lives it took when the explosion destroyed the construction tug with seven innocents aboard. You might not have intended to murder those men and women, but you did.”
“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to. They made me do it.” Carlson’s grip gave out, and he collapsed to the floor.
Raul signaled to the agent. “Sergeant, take him to the shuttle.” As the agent lifted Carlson up, Raul hardened his expression. “Carlson, you’ll get your day in court, but those people are still dead, and you need to pay the price.”
Tears ran down Carlson’s face as the sergeant dragged him from the control room. When they’d gone, Raul addressed his team.
“OK, folks. Let’s get to work.”
###
The Space Cruiser USS Marius, CS-1
In Transit from Io to Europa
August 2056
It took extra cycles to reroute the old fuel line. The connector had been damaged when we ejected the core. It forced a delay in the schedule, but we’d already fixed one, so we knew what to do.
The fabricators had been busy salvaging usable materials from the pods damaged in the big space battle and could manufacture the couplings we needed. The designers hadn’t contemplated connecting the nukes to the sewage system, so we needed to build an assembly. It was a little jury-rigged, but it worked.
I was on the bridge along with the chief engineer, strapped into our acceleration couches, making final readiness checks. We were ready to start the burns.
Chief Jemison checked the last item and swiveled to the captain.
“Captain. The engine is hot, the fuel lines are charged, and full thrust is available at your command.”
“Very well, Chief.” The captain touched a contact. “All hands. This is the captain. Full thrust in five-four-three-two-one …”
And we were off.
Except we weren’t.
Stay Tuned for Episode Four: Critical Repairs, coming soon to a website near you.