Chernobyl

   Chernobyl orchid. That was the name chosen for the first plant ever discovered outside our planet. Some thought it was a very distasteful thing to name the first living plant outside of the Earth, but the astronaut that made the discovery was not a botanist and couldn’t really think of anything better to name it. After all, it suited the flower perfectly, as well as its surroundings. Even those who weren’t thrilled by the name would concede that, overlooking the obvious, the name was pretty much accurate.

 The plant was found living in the Saturn’s moon Titan. It was once thought that no living organisms could live there, as the place looked more like the grimiest factory on Earth than like a the paradise one would associate with space travel. There were several lakes there made entirely with gasoline and kerosene and the air seemed thick, even through the spacesuits. The astronauts didn’t like to be wandering around there at all but they had to in order to take pictures and collect rock samples.

 It was just as they did that when they discovered the Chernobyl, almost hiding beneath a big mound of rocks that had formed something like a cave. Inside, the flower seemed to be trying to live, making an effort not to die in such a horrible environment. It was an impressive plant, as its leaves reminded astronauts of orchids but it lacked the beauty of those flowers. It didn’t have any bright colors, except for small yellow pustules beneath the leaves. The rest was black, black as night. And its most impressive characteristic was that it glowed in the darkness of its cave.

 That’s how they discovered it. Someone was using the special goggles to analyze rocks and when they turned their head, they were able to register the glow of the plant. So every single astronaut there, five in total, almost ran to the spot and started taking pictures. After a while, they just stared because they realized how important that discovery was. No one in the history of humanity had ever made such a discovery and, it was likely, than another of that kind would take many years to happen.

 Even looking so grim, even sickly, the Chernobyl was a bright new light in their investigation around the cosmos. It was delicate enough to look like a flower, to have developed like one. But it was strong enough to live in an environment where oxygen was almost non-existent and were fuel was the prime composition of the surroundings. After the shock, everyone took pictures with the plant, some smiling and some pretending they were just discovering it. It was their moment to be silly for a while.

 That ended when they heard the first explosion. Once they were all outside, they saw the second one. The rovers they had sent had burst into flames, collapsing under the components of the atmosphere. It wasn’t like normal explosions but more like something getting caught on fire. It was scary and it reminded them that they had just the time to get back to their lander and return to their ship, which was probably over them right that moment. They doubted for a bit, wanting to stay a little bit more.

 However, their two fellow astronauts in the ship warned them about the time they had and how the atmosphere was getting a bit crazy because the sun was starting to get brighter in the region where they had landed. So they needed to be fast and careful not to disturb their surroundings more than the necessary amount. They carried the rock samples to the lander, as well as various test tubes filled with gasoline from at least five of the nearby lakes. They would leave only one probe, the one attached to a balloon.

 When almost all of them made it to the lander, someone asked about the Chernobyl. That question made everyone freeze on the spot. They hadn’t really thought about taking the plant to their ship, as it was something that was explicitly forbidden by their rules. However, they had all seen that the plant was not going to survive for much longer in that cave and taking it could be the only way to save a species from extinction. It was a moral dilemma they had no time to think about in those moments.

 So as it often happens, someone made the choice before the rest. One of the astronauts, who felt able to run back to the cave in a jiffy, turned around and pulled away from the lander as fast as he could. No other astronaut even tried to stop him. They were all thinking the same thing and, even if they weren’t sure about letting an unknown species into their ship, they felt it was the right thing to try and save something that could not be saved in any other way. So they watched and waited for a while.

 The atmosphere was getting worse, all of their outfits warning about the possibility of intoxication if they didn’t protect themselves properly by getting into a room that could shield them from danger. The only room like that was the lander itself but they couldn’t takeoff without one of their own. They waited and waited until they couldn’t do it anymore without endangering everyone’s lives. Just as they prepared to close the hatch, they saw the shape of the astronaut running back to his team, with something resembling a glass case between his hands. He was almost out of breath.

 They were all very happy to see their workmate. He even stopped running and tried to walk fast, seeing how happy everyone was with his return. He was smiling and showing them the glass box he had put the plant in. Everyone was so happy and smiley. No one saw the next explosion coming and they wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it, as it was the nearest pond that had spilt its content on the ground, burning the astronaut alive. His screams field their radio frequency and their eyesight.

 They saw him extends his arms and then his body disintegrated into Titan’s soil. The glass box fell to the ground, but it wasn’t consumed like the organic body of the astronaut. Everyone in the lander was horrified and, for one second, they forgot in how much danger they were. But then the pilot decided to abandon her post and run outside the ship. She grabbed the glass box and returned to the lander as fast as she could. She gave the flower to the others and then lifted the machine in order to get to a safer place.

 As the lander pierced through the skies of Titan, the astronauts that hadn’t taken off their clothes stared directly at the Chernobyl. One of their own had been killed trying to get it to safety, saving it from its own extinction. It was ironic how one death happened trying to prevent another. Being human, they couldn’t avoid blaming the flower, at least for a while. On their way to the main ship, they hated on that thing, wanting to dropped in space and have the same fate that their fellow astronaut.

 But once they got to the ship, someone else grabbed the flower and immediately put it in quarantine. Hours later, no one remembered who had been fast enough to do that. But even after dinner they all gathered in the quarantine room and just stared at the flower. It looked even darker than before, its pustules apparently disappearing, as they seemed to be less than when they had discovered it in the cave. Somehow, the plant looked even worse than in Titan, as it taking it away from there had made it worse.

 Sure enough, after only one day, the biologist onboard notified the crew that the plant had perished. There were no signs of life and the leaves were slowly dropping to the ground and then turning white. Even so, they were going to analyze it all to have a better understanding of its qualities.

 But the other astronauts were appalled and felt guilty. They could have helped the guy run faster by cheering him on or going out with him. They could have done something to prevent him from dying in such a horrible and futile way. Though it wasn’t really a futile death. They didn’t really know anything about the Chernobyl just yet.

Crisis above

   Captain Kohl had been looking at the problem for a long while, but she wasn’t able to find a single way to fix it without endangering her whole crew. She even imagined going outside the ship and fixing the problem there, but there were already many problems with the oxygen levels and walking outside the ship didn’t help fixing any of those. She spent a whole night trying to come up with a plan, making drawing in paper and then tossing it to the other side of the room. She forbid anyone to even whisper around her.

 The next day, Kohl ordered the crew to gather in the main room. She also invited the guests they had received from the military unit they rescued a few days back because, after all, what was going to happen affected them too. She waited until they were all there and when they were, she only faced a big screen and pushed some buttons. All of a sudden, everyone could see themselves on the screen. The captain was recording, so she put herself in front of the camera and tried to look as calm as she could.

 The message was for Earth, so she greeted her senior officers and chief of mission. She stated the current status of the ship and also its location. She then proceeded to tell them about the accident they had been in, just after rescuing the military personnel they had decided to help. It had to be said that people on Earth had no idea that had happened, so she was also reporting a number of deaths and injuries. She tried to do it in a compassionate way but without really stopping too long to explain all the details.

 Kohl then did detail the most important aspect of her message: the rupture of several solar panels as well as the leakage in their main reactor unit. The chamber where it was housed was already contaminated with radioactivity, which had forced them to evacuate half of the ship, mainly engineering rooms that could be control remotely. However the leakage was persistent and the risks had taken a more serious note. If it couldn’t be stopped, the generator could explode and they could freeze to death in minutes.

 The crew gasped, as they had not thought the problem to be that serious. They thought they could fix it but it was clear that the captain thought there was no real chance of fixing the problem. She did stated that she had tried to come up with a novel idea to prevent what she feared most, but that she had concluded that it was an inevitability. The reactor was going to explode and they could do nothing about it. Before her crew could actually react to that, she declared to the camera that they would evacuate the ship immediately and land on the planet below. No one said a word, they didn’t even breathe.

 She finished the video by stating she would inform them of their success in a few hours. The captain then turned off the camera and then turned to her crew. The most affected by the news were the military, that tried to seem tough but they were visibly very close to crumbling. Her actual crew, her peers, just looked at her in disbelief. Someone asked if they really had to leave the ship, if there was really no other option. And she just nodded and declared it had been a very difficult decision to make.

 The next few hours saw the ship turned upside down. The captain had ordered everyone to pack whatever was necessary and then transport it to the lander that they had in order to land on asteroids. Because that was their original mission: they were going all around the solar system gathering information about asteroids. They landed on them and collected different kinds of data that could one day help understand many mysteries of the cosmos and even some of the remaining mysteries on Earth.

 So it was a priority to put the samples gathered on the lander first, as well as downloading their main computer into that vehicle. As they did that, the military people just stood aside, gathering their very few belongings and watching silently, waiting for the moment when they would be forced to jump on another transport in order to continue their journey. It seemed to never end for them and they were getting a little bit tired of that. They wanted to go home, some even obsessing with that prospect.

 When everything was almost ready, Kohl asked everyone t o gather around near the lander. She would explain the procedure to detach from the ship and then head for the planet they had nearby. It was Mars and they knew very well it could be hospitable if they landed on the right place. She was commenting this with her engineers and with the biologists when, all of a sudden, a gunshot could be heard and everyone froze on their spots. One of the soldiers, a man with very crazy eyes, was holding the gun.

 The captain turned to him and ordered to drop the gun. The man didn’t obey. He seemed to be somewhere else, maybe even high. The captain repeated her orders but the man ignored her, telling his comrades that they needed to stay put and wait for the army to come and get them. The other soldiers nodded, although some did look as scared as the rest of the crew at the sight of the gun. It had been a very big mistake not to check them before letting them in, but the situation had been so dire that the thought had not crossed anyone’s mind. Yet, the situation had been very strange.

 The scientific ship had received a distress call and, as they were so close, they had arrived in no time. The place where the military ship was floating around was not a common spot for any ships in the system. Actually, it was too far from any planets or moons and the military were usually assigned to taking care of military bases on such places. But there was nothing where they found them. Only the floating pieces of their ship and a few survivors unwilling to tell the whole story of what had happened to them.

 The truth was that they had been there to fulfill a secret mission concerning a very special kind of engine that the army was testing in secret. They had been sent to that spot in particular because they knew no ships would ever pass close by. It had been a miracle that the scientific ship had been passing not so far from them. Or at least that’s what they thought at first. Because with the firing of that gun, they soon realized there was no coincidence in anything that had happened, except in the crisis with their reactor.

 That had been a factor that the soldiers had not predicted. They did know how to hack unto computers, and it wasn’t hard for them to make the scientific ship deviate from their usual course into one that would put them directly on their path. That’s how they were saved. They had done that after their tests had been successful and a black hole had been formed artificially in the middle of nowhere. However, it had not been a black hole in the typical sense of the word. It was more like a portal, a door somewhere else.

 Apparently, something had gone horrible wrong with said portal. But the soldiers didn’t say another word. Actually, they weren’t able. One of the engineers toppled the man with the gun and a biologist sprayed the other military people with a special gas. The fainted in seconds and were dragged onto the lander. The captain thanked them for their bravery and kept the gun for herself, stating they had no idea if leaving it there was the best idea. One never knew what could happen once in the planet.

 They left shortly after. They landed on Mars about forty minutes after they had left, just on the outskirts of an abandoned colony. They could make things work again and then maybe asked for a rescue mission from Earth. It would be even easier than asking to rescue them in space.

 That night, they saw how their ship exploded over the Martian skies. The debris fell far away. They all felt strange, not only because it had been their home but also because they felt something was still amiss. Something was not right and  they needed to figure out what it was, fast. Before it was too late.

Survival

   As the capsule pierced into the unknown, the three former passengers of the ship known as Aurora, stared through the small round window, watching as the remains of their spaceship slowly separated from one another. They had been close, but fast-thinking from Beta, the onboard artificial intelligence, had saved them from a massive meteorite hitting them with all of its might. Now they were floating around in space, without a proper plan of survival and worry in their minds.

 Annika, the captain, had been the last one to enter the pod and was now trying to figure out what to do. They were too far from Earth for anyone in there to rescue them before the oxygen ran out. And besides that, there was the fact that no other spaceship was on that system, as it had been deemed a territory for observation and not exploitation. Other systems were being deprived of their resources by humans, but not that one. Their mission on the Aurora had been to observe and note.

 The planet closest to their position was a gas giant, maybe the size of Jupiter or a little bit larger. Mathematician Steve had been calculating many of the planet’s characteristics when the meteorite appeared out of nowhere. As they looked through the window, he noted that the planet was maybe so powerful that it had diverted to trajectory of a meteorite, sending it in the exact route on which they were working. An unfortunate occurrence but also of great interest. That comment wasn’t very well received.

 Shawna Clark was the main engineer and had been put in charge by her superior to guard the spaceship. Usually, she would have been with a senior engineer on the ship but he had to bail at the last moment because of a death in his finally. A replacement should reach them in a few months but now that was not really the best timing. The pod present many more challenges than the ones she was used to. Her training was the same as the one of any other person but she was very insecure.

 Annika ordered her crew, including the A.I. Beta to start working on improving their stay on the pod, at least long enough to be able to map some sort of plan that could end up on them being rescued or, at the very least, alive. Hours passed and everyone agreed the oxygen level was fine, although it could have been much better, and that the pod had no problems. Or at least not yet. Looking at the trajectory, they realized they were being pulled into the gas giant and their tiny ship could be destroyed if they didn’t do something to correct their path.

 The first thing was to choose another destination, at least for the time being. They decided to aim at one of the larger moons of the planet, one that they hadn’t been able to properly survey, as they had not been long enough in the system. They locked on the planet and used most of the small pods energy to propel themselves towards the moon. The bad part of this plan was that they had to control everything manually and certain problems would arise from the sudden thrust.

 Right enough, the ship started to shake violently even after all of the energy had been wasted. Shawna reported that most of the structure of the pod was damaged due to vibrations and Steve was trying to determine, with the help of Beta, how they could be able to remediate for their choice and if they actually had a chance of orbiting the moon. The reason why it was their goal was also because an old couple of satellites floated around it, which they could use to power the ship’s communications and call home.

 Shawna complained, as they moved around in haste, that calling Earth should have been their priority. However, Beta noted that the pod did not have the capacity to make contact with the Earth. Instead, it could only communicate with the main ship, whose pieces were now plummeting towards the gas giant. Luckily, that wasn’t going to be their faith but uncertainty was a lot more to handle for only three people and their friend with no body. They had to work fast.

 The impulse used to get away from the attraction of the planet, had been enough to liberate them, at least for the time being. They had to deprive the pod of many non-essential components in order to get a little bit closer to the satellites they needed to reach. But as they drew closer, a huge realization came to their minds: the satellites had stopped working for years, maybe even centuries. They would have to repair them and then use them and there was no time to do that inside the pod.

 And not outside either. There wasn’t enough air to breath. Their supply would last for about to more Earth days and that would be it. They would die of suffocation, inside a ship that was floating in space adrift. They all realized that their death was close and, instantly, their minds went to those they had left on Earth. They remembered their mother’s scent, the voice of their father’s, the tenderness of their grandparents and those who had children, heard them laugh once again. For a very brief moment, they were in peace with the fact that death was upon them.

 However, Beta interrupted them by announcing he had being able to access the memory banks on one of the satellites. Apparently, it had been able to function for a few more months after it stopped sending information to Earth. But the interesting part it’s that it hand found out that conditions on the nearby moon were similar to the ones in cold regions of the Earth. Climate was not ideal but they would be able to breathe.

 This statement by Beta made the crew breathe again and even a smile was brought to their faces. They decided to immediately recover the physical remains of the satellites by doing a spacewalk. This had to last the less amount of time possible so all three astronauts decided to do it together. Beta would coordinate from the pod and help them with robotic arms. That way, they would pull in the two satellites and use them down in the moon, once they landed.

 Because that was the idea. They knew it was their only chance. So once all the metal was inside the pod, they started calculating an entry route into the moon. It was difficult to choose a landing site because most of the information inside the satellite may have become obsolete. Ice and snow shift, as well and continent and they had no idea of what they could encounter down there. It could even have an entire ocean beneath the frozen surface, something that excited them and scared them at the same time.

 Once everything was done, all the calculations and thought processes, they began their descent into the planet. They decided not to rest or overthink their mission. They had to try to stay alive and the only way to properly do that was to launch themselves into the unknown. The ship, however, was much more damage than thought. As they plummeted to the surface below, they felt parts of the fuselage fly away from them. It got so bad, that even the main circular window exploded minutes before hitting the ground.

 The pod glided over an icy surface that seemed solid. It stopped after what felt a long time. They immediately knew the satellites information to be correct, as they could breath. They were happy, even with a broken ship. Beta survived on their special suits.

 The first thing was to check on the satellites and build a proper shelter. However, as they stepped out of the pod, they realized something that the satellites had completely missed. The planet appeared to be populated, as remains of building made of ice laid on the ground, destroyed by their ship as they landed.

Juno V

   Collecting ice from the rings was very dangerous but also one of the many things they had set up to do on the mission. The Juno V crew knew their responsibilities by heart and every one of them knew everything about their ship and their list of duties. They also knew how to fix the microwave if it broke or how to properly grow food in the small compartments where doctor Wood worked all day every day. Not that anyone thought he would leave or something, but rather he had told him how to do it.

 He was a botanist, one of the best, and had accepted to be on the mission because he wanted to test many of his theories and what better way than in a mission to Jupiter and its moon. It was the perfect place to make tests and try to execute every single one of his theories in order to know if they were accurate. His results would prove essential for the advancement of botanical technology on Earth and in other space missions.

 Wood had tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes and apples growing on his small farm. Well, it wasn’t really a farm because of the dimensions of the laboratory and of the food but he enjoyed calling it that, it made it seem less advanced, more grounded. After a few months, he was able to feed the other five people of the ship with his vegetables and they enjoyed their salad thoroughly. It was much better than eating one of those dehydrated meals they had in stock. No one complained about sizes or portions because they understood the difficulty of the whole thing.

 One of the astronauts that spend a lot of time with Wood was Brooke Stone. Ms. Stone was in charge of the telescope and everything related to the observation of the bodies they were studying such as Jupiter, Europa, Ganymede and Io. She love to spend her day taking pictures of them, trying to not only make them functional for work but also a bit artistic as she thought science lack a little bit of that sensitivity only real artists had.

 When she was younger, Brooke wanted to be a painter or a sculptor. But her parents did not encourage that at all. They were very accomplished scientists and believed the only art that made any sense was music and even if Brooke wanted to be a musician, they would have thought it would’ve been a waste of her time and their money. So throughout her childhood, she was convinced to become a scientist like them.

 She didn’t resent them or anything like that. If anything, she was pleased to be there, taking pictures of the chaotic weather of the gas giant, a very long distance away from her parents. They had a very tense relationship and she realized it worked best when they were separated instead of being in the same room. She loved her moments alone, which she used to draw, sometimes copying the picture she took.

 The adventurous one, the guy who took a step forward to pick up the ice shards with a robot, was called Alexei Ibaraki. His mother was Japanese so he had these different features that made every single person turn around to look at him. Not only was he very daring but he was also very attractive and interesting. He was one of those guys that always has a story to tell or that has that ability of making anything they say into something extremely interesting, even if it really isn’t.

 Alexei was also a model, besides an astronaut, and was used frequently in campaigns done in order to encourage children to study the sciences and getting interested into it. After being sent to Mars on a routine flight however, he became also the poster boy of several brands that wanted him as an imaged. His face was connected to beer, butter, insurances, banks, toothpaste and even condoms.

 The truth was he enjoyed that work but he loved to be in space doing work that was more important than selling beer to people that were already going to buy it. As he operated the hand of the robot that collected the ice from Jupiter’s rings, he realized that’s what he wanted to be doing his whole life. He wanted his actions to be remembered instead of his face. Alexei was tired that people only looked at him for his beauty and not his brain and wit.

 Carmen Nyongo, the medical chief of the ship, was very aware of the crew’s problems. She was not only a certified physician but also a psychologist that loved to spend at least thirty minutes which each of them every two days to check on their mental health. This was determined by the agency as something very important as they were going to be very far from home in a place where no one else had been before. They needed some support and Ms. Nyongo was an obvious choice.

 She had worked for years in military hospitals were she proved to be simply the kindest person ever to come in contact with all the soldiers and astronauts that needed her help. She loved to listen, since she was a very young woman. She liked telling her friends what she thought of the world but she much rather listened to them and their dreams and what they had inside their heads.

 Carmen thought people were extremely interesting and that’s why, after medical school, she got a masters degree in psychology. She thought it was essential to get to know about mental health in order to prevent and help people with their physical problems. She was not your average doctor but she had proven, once and again, that her methods made a lot of sense, to her and her patients.

The most frequent one, of course, was the captain. Her name was Katherine and she had been born in the Australian outback. Her parents still owned a big ranch there, where they had some of the best cattle in the country. With all the money they had won with that, they had built up a very good life for themselves and their two children. They rarely went to the ranch anymore, but it had been that place that made them who they were now.

 They lived in beautiful homes and went to the best school. When Katherine said she wanted to be an astronaut, her family didn’t say a word for or against it. They just supported her with money for every single expense she had to make to turn her dream into a reality. So she studied abroad and came back only on the holidays. From then on, the relationship with her parents was kind of broken, not really deep.

 They were not very sensitive people, any of them, but she would have loved more kisses and hugs in her life. She would have wanted to feel some kind of interest from them, but the only thing they did was giving her money and talking to her about it all the time. And when they weren’t they were busy. So when Katherine met Carmen, it was just a natural thing to become a very frequent patient of hers, even before the mission started. She just wanted to come to terms with the fact that she wanted recognition and she was never going to get it, not from her parents at least.

 The last crewmember, the one who made everything work properly, was Alejandro Obregón. Different from his captain, Alejandro had a very difficult life and had to raise himself to the place he enjoyed today. He was the happy father of a very intelligent young daughter. He loved his wife, whom he had met in a fast food restaurant after training in the astronaut academy. She was studying in a nearby university and they hit it off right away.

 They both had a very strong personality, the kind that made them being a little overdramatic but always effective in public. They didn’t mind being looked in the street as if they were crazy. They didn’t mind anything else than their love for each other. They also had in common that they supported a lot of good causes, maybe because they had received so little over their lives.

 Alejandro would always go to marathons supporting any type of disease, would march in the pride parade and would protests in front of police stations or administrative building. He was all about causes and its effects on people’s lives. He really believed everything could be better for everyone. And that’s why he had become an astronaut: he thought that a future where everyone was equal had to involve that final frontier and he was going to be one of those who brought it closer to every other person on Earth.