Fable Hill by Christopher Uremovich

Author:Christopher Uremovich [Uremovich, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Publisher
Published: 2017-10-29T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

0626 hours, Sol 12

Southwestern Lyot Crater

Earth Date: May 16, 2045

Frank snored loudly as Mia kicked him from inside her sleeping bag. The temperature inside the tent had warmed significantly but was still hopelessly frigid. Frank stirred, opened his eyes, and stood with a jolt, striking his head on the center lamp.

“Ah!” he blurted out, gripping his head in pain.

“Wake up, bruh,” Mia said. It was the first time Frank had heard her speak slang.

“You aren’t cold?” she asked.

Frank exhaled a large breath of air, the condensation billowing out like thick smoke. He quickly grabbed for his helmet. His ears and nose were bright red from cold. The two lay next to each other in silence.

Mia grabbed two meal rations from her pack and offered one to Frank but he waved it away. Inside his helmet, a silicon straw connected to a mouthpiece deployed from atop the internal air filter, equipped with active nuclear, biological and chemical protection. Frank sipped slowly on water and played with the settings on his suit.

He watched as Mia poured a small amount of water into a ration heater, causing an exothermic chemical reaction. Steam rose from the bag, safely heating the contents of her breakfast: beef hash. She nibbled on a granola bar while waiting for the food to heat.

Inside the HUD’s main menu, Frank scrolled down to the bottom and selected the NBC protection system. Data poured onto his screen and showed the system as active. He read the description: “This suit contains an active, multi-stage radiation protection system. The first stage consists of a lead-injected gel that deflects, by reflection, alpha, beta, and some gamma radiation. The second stage is a thick tantalum-boron liner that is effective in reducing remaining gamma radiation by half. Deadly cosmic radiation is effectively reduced by 75%.”

A single red diode fluttered light above Frank’s visor, making it known he was running his suits diagnostics program. They sat in silence, hearing only the sounds of granola crunching between teeth and the continuous noise of life support.

The day continued on. Like the previous eleven, it was filled with hard work and moments of sacrifice. Astronauts at Ōme Station worked diligently preparing the settlement for maximum efficiency so as to begin conducting experiments and exploration of Mars. Regardless of how much they toiled, without more water they could not achieve that maximum efficiency since many systems required water to function.

Roland and Alexei had returned many of the rovers back to working condition. The reasons for their deactivation remained a mystery. Each rover had a primary power source. Most of the newer models relied on lithium batteries and curium-based radioisotope thermoelectric generators. The curium RTGs were housed in fifty millimeter-thick lead casks for added protection from self-made radiation.

Old solar-powered rovers were shown to have malfunctioned from exposure to dust over extended periods. The mass amounts of dust frayed the exposed internal wiring of the machines, rendering them inoperable after a decade of use. Newer rovers, being self-contained in complete housings, exhibited no such degradation.

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