Ultimate Adventure Novel: Mars Page 4

  You get the feeling that Julie is trying to get rid of you, but you think you’re going to take her up on the offer just the same. You’ve had more excitement than you bargained for in the greenhouse. Building materials sounds pretty good right about now, even if it’s not an expedition.

  TURN TO PAGE 187.

  You head to the science station and make sure no one is around. So far, so good. Then you check the rovers parked outside to see if they have the same fuel tanks as your model. Bingo! This is going to work! You start to remove the fuel tank from one of the rovers. Once it’s off, you’ll just switch it with the empty one from your rover. Simple enough.

  Except…as you start to lift out the fuel tank from the other rover, you hear an alarm go off. You try to take the tank out anyway, but it won’t release.

  “Let’s try to disconnect the alarm,” Julie suggests.

  You look at the wires of the alarm and aren’t sure what to do. But how hard can it be to disable the alarm? As you’re fiddling with the wires, you cross two of them that shouldn’t be mixed. ZAP! The last thing you remember is feeling a massive jolt of electricity running through your body, and falling backward. When you finally wake up, you’re told you are lucky to be alive. But you have some lingering side effects of near electrocution—your heart beat is irregular, and you have nerve damage. You’re going to be sent home as soon as possible to be properly treated by a neurologist. Unfortunately, the shock of going back to Earth without finishing the mission is going to take even longer to wear off!

  You watch as everyone scrambles to prepare for the emergency shutdown. You all gather around the lead scientist, who pulls a lever, sending rods into the core of the generator and stopping the nuclear reactions. Within four seconds, the generator is shut down. Whump. You hear silence as systems around the base turn off, powerless.

  “Disaster averted,” Commander Wen announces. “We got the generator turned off just in time.”

  “Yes, but now let’s see if we can get it going again,” Aneesa mutters under her breath. You look at her, surprised.

  “I think the shutdown was a bad idea,” she whispers. “Once it cools down and depressurizes, we’ll have to start testing, and it’ll take several days to get things going again.”

  You tell her about your idea to use the robot to clean the dust, and wonder if you should have suggested it after all.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t at least mention it!” she says.

  Now you really wish you did.

  Over the next few days, the base operates on reserve power, and everyone conserves energy as much as they can. And then you hear the news that Aneesa feared: the shutdown caused a malfunction in the generator, and it won’t be starting up again anytime soon! The generator needs a new part to arrive on the next shipment from Earth. Now the base has to come up with an alternative energy option in the next week, before your reserve power supply runs out. Even though geothermal power sources would be the best short- term solution, since it taps into the natural heat sources deep below the surface of Mars, searching for it and extracting it could take months. We’ve got just one week.

  Everyone is debating the fastest energy options: to put up more solar panels or to build windmills. Commander Wen calls a special meeting to decide, and the room erupts into loud disagreements over which path to take. Those in favor of solar panels argue that they can be put up quickly and are a proven energy source, even if they have low output at times. The windmill supporters think that solar panels haven’t provided enough power on their own to fuel the base, and that if you rely on both the sun and wind, you’ll have power no matter what the weather is like. Finally, Commander Wen quiets down the room.

  “We need to make a decision, quickly. This is a matter that affects all of us equally, and I think it’s best to take a vote,” he suggests.

  The voting starts, and it’s a tie. Everyone looks at you. Your vote will be the tiebreaker.

  VOTE TO BUILD MORE SOLAR PANELS.

  VOTE TO BUILD WINDMILLS.

  You decide to let Nico keep looking for ice on his own while you work on taking the permafrost back to base. You spend the next hour carving out chunks of permafrost with a chainsaw-like tool, and loading up a trailer with it. By the time the jumbo rover you called in arrives from base, you’ve got the trailer ready to haul. Soon, you’re on your way back to base, feeling like you’re sitting on a pot of gold.

  The team is jubilant when you get back. Permafrost is a really important resource, and the construction team makes plans to head back to your site and extract more as soon as possible. And you feel great when Commander Wen congratulates you on a successful expedition.

  But as the minutes go by, you start to get worried about Nico. After he left in the rover to search for ice, he hasn’t checked back in. You finally go to Commander Wen to ask if anyone has heard from him.

  “What do you mean?” Commander Wen asks you. “Nico didn’t return with you?”

  You tell him what happened, and about how you decided to pursue different priorities.

  “You never should have separated!” Commander Wen says sternly. “There is safety in numbers, especially out in the harsh Martian terrain. We need to locate Nico, and fast!”

  Nico isn’t answering any calls, so a search and rescue team goes out to find him. You wait on pins and needles for news of your friend. And then, finally, they return with him. He is lucky to be alive, you find out, as they rush past you to the infirmary. His space suit’s life-support system had started to fail, and his body temperature had dropped so low, he was barely alive by the time he was found. His nose and toes are covered with frostbite, and it will take him months to recover. You feel terrible for leaving him. If you had stuck together, you could have helped him. Instead, you left your friend out in the cold, literally. You don’t know how you’ll ever be able to make this up to him. And your team will have to face the chilling reality that your mission is down one valuable young astronaut for the next several months.

  “Excuse me, Commander, can I speak with you?” you ask.

  “Sure, what is it?” he asks.

  “Well, sir, I know that the greenhouse work is important, but I don’t think I’m the right person for that job,” you say.

  “Why not?” he asks, turning to face you.

  As he looks intently at you, you feel your face turn red.

  “Because…I think I should get a field expedition,” you blurt out. “Like Nico.”

  “Well, that’s very disappointing to hear,” Commander Wen says. “I picked all the assignments carefully, including yours. It was going to be a short assignment, and you were next in line for a field expedition.”

  Oh.

  “But since you don’t want to do the goat assignment, I can send you to the construction dome, where you can make bricks for building habitats,” he continues.

  Wow. That’s not a whole lot better than goats. But even worse, now Commander Wen doesn’t see you as a team player. For the rest of the mission, you always seem to be passed over for the best assignments and given grunt work. It’s still great to be on Mars, but this is not what you had hoped for. And you don’t dare complain again!

  With your heart pounding, you guide the telerobot over to the possible stromatolite and, with the controller, command it to chisel off a section of the rock. Next, you make the robot scoop up the pieces and dump them into the rover. You spend the rest of the afternoon collecting more samples, and then head back to base with the team. As soon as you get there, you race off to search for Julie, and find her working in the laboratory.

  “Julie!” you call out. “I have something to show you… brace yourself.”

  “What is it?” Julie says, putting down the compound she was mixing.

  “I might have found something huge on the expedition!” you continue.

  “Really? Do you have a picture?” Julie asks.

  “Even better,” you say dramatically, pulling the sample out of your pocket and placin
g it on the lab table.

  You wait for her reaction, but she doesn’t seem excited.

  “Check it out,” you encourage her.

  Julie pulls on a fresh pair of gloves and puts the sample under a microscope.

  “I can’t tell what this is, but there’s a pretty pattern on the rock,” she says.

  That’s it?

  “Wait, look a little closer,” you say.

  “What do you think it is?” Julie asks.

  “Um…a stromatolite?” you volunteer.

  “Well, that would be amazing. But I can’t tell from this sample. Plus, I’m really surprised Ivan and Helena let you interfere with the setting. No matter what this is, it’s always best to study a discovery in its undisturbed environment first.”

  Oops. You tell Julie that you didn’t include the others in your finding.

  “Are you kidding me? That’s really bad form,” Julie says, and you can hear the disappointment in her voice. “I guess we’ll just have to go back and check out the setting. Can you take me to the site?”

  No…you can’t. In your excitement to get the sample, you didn’t mark your location.

  Julie is beyond disappointed now. And you can’t believe you messed up so badly. Even worse, when word gets out about your poor decision making, you aren’t taken very seriously by your crewmates. You aren’t invited to go on more expeditions. Eventually, you volunteer to go back to the greenhouse for the rest of the mission. At least the goats are satisfied with your work!

  “Are you absolutely sure you’re comfortable using dynamite?” you ask Nico.

  “Definitely! I’ve used it before,” he says. “It’ll be fine. Miners use it all the time to extract resources.”

  Yeah, but last time I checked, you were an astronaut, not a miner. You remember reading something that said only certified blasting experts should ever try to detonate dynamite, but Nico’s determined to do it.

  “Do you need my help, or is it okay if I stand over there?” you ask.

  “I’m good! You go ahead and stand back and relax,” Nico laughs. “I’ll try not to blow you up.”

  Ha ha.

  Nico rattles off a bunch of numbers under his breath as he calculates the amount of dynamite that he needs to blast the ice. He then uses a drill to make small holes in the surface, where the dynamite sticks will go.

  You nervously watch, taking an extra step back, as Nico slowly unwraps several sticks of dynamite. Next, he carefully slides the sticks into the holes that he drilled and presses them in with a plastic rod. Then Nico starts to unwind the lead wires.

  “All I have to do is connect these wires to the detonator and then, when we’re ready, hit the button,” he says.

  You brace yourself as Nico works with the wires, but you soon realize that you’re watching an expert in action. You find yourself starting to relax, and even moving closer to get a better look. Nico was right—he does know what he’s doing.

  The one precaution he didn’t take, though, was to turn off the rover’s radio transmitters to prevent the accidental firing of the detonator. As he’s activating the wires, you get a call from base checking on your status. You see horror register on Nico’s face as he hears the phone ringing, and you get a terrible feeling. It only lasts an instant, though, because an instant later…

  “Hey, Doc, can I talk to you for a minute?” you ask as Cooper wraps up his work.

  “Sure, superstar, what’s up?” he replies, smiling at you. “You look stressed. Hope you’re not too sore from today’s workout.”

  Cooper is always so friendly. This is going to be harder than you thought! You gulp hard, take a deep breath, and blurt out, “No, it was fine. It’s just that…I haven’t seen you monitor the ventilation system, and I was wondering if you’ve had a chance to do it?”

  “Oh, is that it?” Coopers asks. “I started it earlier, but didn’t get done. I was just going to finish up right now. Is your offer to help still on the table?”

  “Sure!” you reply, breathing a sigh of relief. “Sorry for checking up on you!”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s always better to be on the safe side. Besides, now I can get you to do the hardest part— replacing the fans,” Cooper says with a laugh.

  Working together, you’re done with the job within an hour. Cooper logs the completed task into his log, and you’re glad that you talked to him directly instead of sneaking around behind his back. Cooper’s right, safety comes first, and working as a team means that you have to be upfront with each other, even if it’s awkward. You’re feeling pretty good about the way things worked out, and you decide to head over to the computer station to check your e-mail before bed. You find Aneesa there, talking on the phone to her mom in India.

  “I promise, Ammi, I’m still eating enough! The food’s actually good ! I even had chicken curry for dinner,” she’s saying as you float by.

  You make a mental note to put curry on your menu for next week. The Mars Program has come a long way since the early days of space travel, when astronauts had to suck food out of tubes with straws. Bleh! Now your crew has dozens of gourmet choices, from shrimp cocktail to lasagna to Chinese stir-fry. Most of your meals come partially dehydrated in trays. You just add hot water and then heat them up. They usually taste pretty good, you think. You also have all sorts of ready- to-eat snacks on board, like granola bars and pudding. And best of all, you have great smoothies—chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, banana, and orange—or any combination of those flavors you want. Yum!

  Just then you notice a faint smell in the air, and it reminds you of a food from back home that you really miss— hot barbecue straight off the grill. Mmmm. You can imagine the charcoal burning, and biting into a nice, juicy…wait a minute! You shouldn’t be smelling smoke! It’s not just in your head—you really smell something burning!

  “Aneesa!” you say, catching her just as she hangs up the phone. “Do you smell that?”

  Aneesa sniffs.

  “Smoke!” she says, her eyes growing wide.

  This could be a big, no, make that a huge problem. Fire and spacecraft just don’t mix, and you desperately hope that you are wrong.

  But where is the smell coming from? You and Aneesa tear into the habitation module, and your fears come true…

  “I think we have to vent the habitation module!” you suggest. Venting the module means opening a valve that will let the air inside the room get sucked into space. It will put out the flames immediately. But it also means that you and Aneesa have to get back to the service module next door, your closest exit, since once you open the vent valve, there will be no air left in here for you to breathe.

  “But we can’t!” Aneesa warns. “If we vent the hab module, we’ll cut off the rest of the crew!”

  That’s true. The rest of the crew is on the far side of the ship, in the command module. If you vent the habitation module, they will be stuck where they are until you can close the valve and fill the compartment with air again.

  You desperately press the com button, trying to reach the rest of the crew, but it’s definitely broken. You wish you could get some instructions from Commander Wen on what to do, especially since getting in touch with Mission Control isn’t an option—it would take eight minutes for your radio signals to get to Earth and equally long for their response to come back. And you just don’t have that kind of time with a fire burning!

  “Let’s quickly go and get the rest of the crew out! They can come help us deal with the fire,” Aneesa suggests. You’ll have to fly through the flames to get to the other side of the ship, and you don’t have a lot of time. Do you try to get them over here, or go ahead and vent the module, and cut them off? The flames are almost reaching the aluminum walls of the ship, and time is running out! Every second is precious. What do you do?

  VENT THE COMPARTMENT.

  TRY TO GET YOUR CREWMATES.

  You spray on some extra fertilizer. Now the tomato plants should be well nourished, and you expect to see them
perk up by tomorrow.

  You head back to the goats, take notes like usual, and play with the new kid. He’s really cute and nuzzles up to you like a puppy. You’ve gotten kind of attached to the goats now, and realize that when your shift in the greenhouse ends, you’re actually going to miss them.

  The next morning, you’re worried to see that the plants are looking even worse, not better. More of the leaves have developed spots. Maybe they just need another day for the fertilizer to kick in.

  But the following day, you’re horrified when almost the entire crop of tomato plants has leaves that are covered in brown spots. Now you’ve got no choice but to track down Julie. Fortunately, you find out that she’s closer to base now, since her expedition is almost over.

  “Hi, Julie,” you say, feeling nervous when she calls you back. “I’m really sorry, but there’s a big problem with the garden.”

  “Oh no! Did the goats get into it?” she asks.

  “No, not that,” you reply. “I think it’s best if you come check it out.”

  “I’ll be there soon,” Julie says.

  You nervously pace the garden while you wait for Julie. After a few hours, you hear her steps, and before you even look up, you hear a startled cry.

  “Oh my goodness! What happened?” Julie wails.

  “I saw the plants had brown spots, so I gave them more fertilizer. But it didn’t help,” you quickly explain.

  “This is clearly a case of blight!” Julie cries. “You should’ve gotten rid of the infected plants! Spraying them just spread the disease faster. Now the entire crop is destroyed!”

  You don’t know how to respond, but you sure wish you had realized the plants were diseased. Lucky for you, you’ve grown attached to the goats, because when Commander Wen gets word of this, you’ll be stuck on goat duty for a long time. Even worse, everyone will know that you have single- handedly set back the mission by killing off so much of the food supply.