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Previously: the expedition crew are outside collecting a meteorite when the rover’s battery goes into thermal runaway. Pieter makes a valiant effort to disconnect the battery heater, but it is too late.
October 2056
Aiden hit the emergency override on the airlock control before it had finished cycling. He pushed the inner door against the force of the remaining pressure differential. It cracked open and, as air from the Hab rushed into the airlock equalising the pressure, the door swung open easily. He undid the clip on his neck ring as he walked through the door into the EVA prep room. Dumping the helmet on its shelf, he strode into the Hab, Lana and Joanna following in his wake.
Joanna, still wearing her helmet, collapsed onto a chair and pulled it off. Putting it down on the floor in front of her, she held her face in her hands, sobbing.
“Look Jo, this is going to sound harsh, but now is not the time to get emotional,” said Lana, putting her hand on Joanna’s back. “We don’t know what’s happened, if anything. But we are their best hope, so we’ve got to think straight and stay focused.”
Aiden tapped frantically at one of the Hab’s workstations. “I can’t get any telemetry from the rover. I’ll try to establish a voice link again.” He had been trying to call them as they made their way back to the Hab after their talk with Larsson.
Lana spoke into the air “Call Mission Control on the emergency comm link, main PA speakers.”
A chime sounded over the Hab PA system followed by an efficient-sounding voice. “Hab this is Analogue Mission Control, how do you read?”
“We’ve got you, strength five. Do you have a status update on the rover?”
“Negative Lana, sorry we’ve lost all telemetry. The last we saw was the battery heater being switched on and the temperature beginning to rise. It looks like there was an attempt to turn it off, but for some reason the control returned to the “on” position. And then…”
“And then what?” demanded Aiden.
This time it was a different voice, that of Connor O’Sullivan, the head of FASS training.
“The last piece of telemetry we received indicated the fire warning had gone off in the rover cab… I’m sorry.”
“Prep Rover 1 to leave immediately,” said Lana to Aiden.
“Lana,” said Connor, “we were just discussing this before you called. We don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go out and try to rescue them. We don’t know exactly what happened and how the systems in Rover 1 could be affected in a similar way. We are going to—”
“We are their best hope!” insisted Lana. “We can leave now, and if we drive at maximum speed we can be there in less than a day.” She looked at Aiden for confirmation.
“Sixteen to twenty hours non-stop at max speed. Provided we have no issues.”
“Lana, this looks like a deliberate act. We don’t know if Rover 1 has been compromised,” said Connor.
“The battery heater control circuitry has been removed. There’s no way to turn it on right now,” said Aiden. “We don’t need it. We are going to be at maximum speed. With that current draw, the battery will maintain operating temperature by itself.”
“Yes, but what about the rover? It could have been compromised in other ways that we don’t know about.”
“So we’re just going to sit here and do nothing?” Aiden retorted.
“What does Christian think?” asked Lana.
“He’s not here. He went out to take a call. We’re trying to get hold of him but haven’t been able to reach him yet.”
“Ok, we’re going,” said Lana. “When you get hold of Christian, if he doesn’t like the idea, he can tell us to abort.”
“Lana,” pleaded Connor.
“We’ll turn off all the rover’s comms and telemetry so it can’t be compromised remotely. And we’ll check in every hour with you on one of the standby satphones.”
“Lana!”
“Talk to you in an hour - disconnect Mission Control.” The call dropped with a chime through the PA system.
Lana looked at Aiden. “Ok I’m on it. The rover is already stocked with consumables. I’ll power it up now and then head over and find the right circuit breakers to pull to disable all the comms and telemetry.”
“Ok. Jo and I will grab some extra medical supplies and switch the Hab over to caretaker mode. We’ll see you in the rover in ten minutes.”
Aiden tapped a couple of commands on the workstation and headed for the airlock. Lana turned to Joanna. She seemed to have regained her composure, but her eyes were red and her face was streaked with tears.
“Just because there was a fire doesn’t mean there were any casualties,” Lana said softly.
“Yes,” sniffled Joanna, “I know. But they are out there on their own and, by all accounts, out in the elements. I just …”
“The best thing we can do now is head straight out there ourselves and get them. We’ll be there in less than a day. Even if they are outside, their suits will keep them warm enough long enough for us to get there.”
Joanna forced herself to smile as she got up.
“I guess you’re right, and sitting here worrying is not going to help.”
Five minutes later, having grabbed some extra medical supplies, they were back in the airlock. Lana pressed the control and it began its cycle. The faint hissing - barely audible through her helmet - instilled a calm she had not felt in a while. She closed her eyes and let out a long, slow, deliberate breath. When she opened them, she saw a new message icon flashing on the screen on her wrist. It was from Larsson. She opened it.
Good luck Lana, talk in an hour.
“Kev, I think they’ve figured out they got a problem,” said Owen without looking up from the screen he was monitoring.
“Hey Kev.” Owen turned round. Kevin’s eyes were slowly rolling back as he drifted into semi-consciousness. Owen nudged his foot, waking him with a jolt.
“Uh… what?” said Kevin as he came back to reality. He picked up his tablet, which had fallen on the floor.
“I think they’ve figured out there’s a problem.”
Kevin rolled his chair over to Owen’s workstation. “How come?”
“They have just tried to turn off the battery heater.”
“They can’t do that though, right?”
“Nope, the control is disabled.”
“Is there no way you can get into the comms loops so we can hear what they’re saying?”
Owen sighed. “As I’ve told you, we’re lucky we’ve got this far. Their systems are really well hardened.”
“Yes, yes, you’ve told me that before,” snapped Kevin. “Is the battery in thermal runaway yet?”
“Looking at the temperature, it can’t be far away.”
Owen could feel Kevin’s gaze boring into him from behind as he kept focused on the screen in front of him. He kept his head still. His eyes flicked from the screen to the side, but Kevin was just beyond his peripheral vision.
“It’s moving, the rover’s moving,” said Owen, happy to break the silence. “They’ve disconnected it from the auxiliary trailer. They’re obviously trying to limit the damage.”
“Of course that’s what they are trying to do!” snapped Kevin.
Owen remained silent for a moment, calculating the response that would elicit the least anger from Kevin. But the choice was made for him.
“Oh.”
“Oh, what?”
“The battery heater has just gone offline.”
“What do you mean? I thought you said you had disabled the control.”
“I have. The only way it could be turned off is if someone physically disconnected it.”
“What!” exclaimed Kevin, standing up and kicking the chair out behind him. It slid across the room and hit the desk behind him.
“You said that wasn’t possible!”
“I didn’t say it was impossible. I said it was highly unlikely,” replied Owen in an overly calm voice.
Kevin slammed his hand on the desk. “For fuck’s sake! What happens now then?”
“Well, I—”
A red warning started to flash on the rover telemetry screen Owen had open.
“The fire warning has just gone off.” Owen rapidly scanned the rest of the parameters on the screen. “And… look at that.” he pointed to the cabin temperature, “it’s going through the roof!”
Kevin relaxed and smiled to himself.
“So it’s in thermal runaway then?” he said calmly.
“I would say so,” replied Owen.
“What sort of fire suppressant do they have?”
“There ain't no fire suppressant they could carry’s going to put that battery out once it’s gone over the edge.”
“Was there anyone in the rover when it went off?”
“It’s hard to say. But considering the heater just went off, there must have been someone in there to disconnect it.”
“Excellent.”
A few seconds later, all the figures on the telemetry flashed in unison. Owen started tapping away on his keyboard.
“What’s happening?”
“We’ve lost telemetry. All the data comes via the rover’s satellite link.”
“What about the auxiliary trailer?”
“It doesn’t have its own satellite link. It’s basically just a big battery with wheels. There’s space for extra consumables and cargo, with a crane on the back.”
“They could use it for shelter though, couldn’t they?” asked Kevin.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Turn on the heater in the trailer,” demanded Kevin.
“But Kev, we just went through this. I can’t do that bec—.”
“Find a way!”
“I can only work with what’s there. The trailer doesn’t have its own connection to any networks.”
“I don’t want them to have a place to shelter!” screamed Kevin. “Do you get that? I want them exterminated.”
Kevin leaned in towards Owen, his nose almost touching his cheek. “Find a way to do it,” he whispered, then turned and left the room.
Lana hadn’t been able to sleep, none of them had. She alternated between thinking about Pieter, Brant and Zawadi and the message Larsson had sent through after they had departed. Aiden had placed one of the standby satphones on top of the rover’s instrument panel so it would have a clear view of the sky through the bubble canopy. The message had come through as an old-fashioned text message:
I said I would call but need to keep it brief. No more comms unless an emergency. Extraction team from Concordia Station will be waiting at the hab when you return. Mission Control not happy about you undertaking the rescue. I have overruled them - good luck.
She pulled up the map, still another hour to go until the last known position of Rover 2. She turned to Aiden, who was taking his stint at driving.
“Think I’ll get suited up. It’ll give me something to do.” He simply nodded.
Lana got up and gently tapped Joanna on the shoulder. She knew she was only pretending to sleep.
“Want to come and be my suit buddy?”
Joanna followed Lana to the back of the rover. They began putting on their suits in a silence only broken by the verbal challenge and response required by the suit-donning checklist.
When they were finished, Lana took over driving so Joanna could help Aiden suit up. They all now sat scouring the horizon as they approached the position where Rover 2 should be.
“There! I think I see it,” called Joanna from the jump seat.
A moment earlier Lana had thought she’d had begun to make something out, but she had wanted to be sure before saying anything.
“Yep, I think that’s it,” said Aiden.
On the horizon was a black shape - black not orange - which began to take the form of a rover.
“Where’s the trailer?” asked Joanna.
“There it is. It’s a little way behind the rover,” said Aiden. “They must have disconnected it so the fire wouldn’t spread.”
The trailer was still its distinctive bright orange.
“At least it still looks ok. Try them on the suit to suit back up UHF. Put it on speaker,” said Lana.
Aiden tapped a few commands on the comms interface.
“Pieter, Brant, Zawadi, do you read?”
Silence.
“Pieter, Brant, Zawadi, this is Rover 1. Do you read?”
Still silence.
“Manual squelch,” said Lana.
Aiden reached over to the instrument panel, and the soft hiss of static came through the speaker.
“Pieter, Brant, Zawadi, this is Rover 1. Do you read? Please acknowledge,” he tried again.
The static continued its soft hiss.
They were getting closer now, Lana slowed the rover, coming to a stop in front of the burnt-out shell.
“Wow,” whispered Aiden.
The shape of the rover was still recognisable, but it was merely a skeleton. All but a couple of the cab windows had shattered, the Perspex that remained was stained black. Thin wisps of grey smoke drifted out. Parts of the cab structure had deformed and buckled in the heat. Everything was black. The body of the rover was blistered and charred. It was also listing to one side where the ice had melted and it had sunk.
The rover remained stationary in front of its burned-out twin. Like a wild animal returning to the scene of a hunt, only to find the remains of one of its own left behind by the predators.
“Try them again on the radio,” said Lana as she backed up the rover.
The auxiliary trailer lay about a hundred metres behind the burned-out rover, seemingly undamaged. Lana slowly eased the rover over towards it.
“Pieter, Brant, Zawadi. Do you read? This is Rover 1 on backup UHF,” Aiden tried again.
There didn’t seem to be any signs of life. The meteorite collection gear lay abandoned to the side of the trailer. Lana made a wide arc around the site and approached the trailer from behind. The back door was open, with the loading ramp lowered. It was dark inside the cargo compartment.
“Ok, let’s take a look,” said Lana, powering down the rover drive systems.
“Look!” said Joanna, pointing.
A suited figure appeared in the doorway. The normally bright orange was dulled with soot, making the coloured identification marks on the suite difficult to make out. But the hooked hand was a giveaway.
“It’s Brant,” Joanna said excitedly.
“Brant. How do you read?” Aiden tried the radio again.
There was no response. The suited figure just stood motionless, looking back at them. Aiden turned his head to the side and tapped his ear. The suited figure fiddled with a control on the wrist console.
“Brant. What’s your status?” said Aiden.
There was no response. The figure turned to look back into the compartment behind him and fiddled with the wrist console again. Just then a second figure appeared, clean unlike the first, and from the identifiers unmistakably Zawadi.
“Brant, Zawadi, where’s Pieter?” This time it was Lana on the radio.
The speaker in the cab crackled and Brant’s soft Canadian accent came through, although it sounded distant, hollow.
“He’s gone. Pieter’s gone. There’s just the two of us.”
Lana lowered her head and sighed softly. “We’re coming to get you. We’ll help you down.” She motioned with her hand to Aiden and Joanna to head to the airlock, then turned back to Brant.
“It’s ok,” he said flatly. “We can climb down the ladder ourselves.” His voice sounded as if he were comforting a child.
“What happened to Pieter?”
“Incinerated,” said Brant matter-of-factly. “He was burnt alive trying to disconnect the battery heater.”
Oh God. Of all the ways to die, Lana couldn’t think of a worse one.
“Do you guys have any injuries?”
“I bumped my head climbing out of the burning rover, but it’s fine. We’re fine.”
“Just wait there. Aiden and Joanna are on their way. They’ll help you down.”
“Ok, we’re not going anywhere.”
A moment later, Aiden and Joanna appeared around the front of the rover. Aiden moved towards the controls for the flatbed on the side of the rover.
“It’s disabled,” said Brant. “I’ve powered down everything and disconnected the battery.”
“You want a hand to climb down?” said Aiden.
“We can manage it. My hook works quite well on the ladder, actually.”
Brant motioned for Zawadi to go first and then followed her down the ladder to the side of the flatbed. Joanna went to the bottom of the ladder to meet him, and as soon as his feet touched the ground they locked in a clumsy embrace.
“You two head inside. I’ll check out the rover,” said Aiden.
“I wouldn’t bother. For your sake, it’s probably best you don’t see what’s inside,” replied Brant.
“We need to take a look and see if there is anything we can recover. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Suit yourself. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Come on inside, guys,” said Lana. “Aiden, I’ll come over to the rover with you. Joanna, you can drive the rover over to meet us.”
Fifteen minutes later, the rover was parked back behind its crippled twin. Lana emerged first from the charred hulk, followed by Aiden. She made her way carefully down the steps, which were now secured to the rover in only a few places. They were empty-handed. Brant had changed out of his suit and was now sitting in the jump seat of the rover, cradling a cup of hot soup in his hands. He watched them emerge and cast a knowing glance over at Zawadi.
A couple of minutes later, the airlock’s inner door opened, and Lana stepped into the rover, her face ashen. She made her way silently along to the cab, her face fixed in a thousand-yard stare. Aiden followed and stopped at the galley. He turned to the sink, and his whole body convulsed as he vomited. He steadied himself with both hands. A string of mucus trailed from his face into the sink. He spat it out and then turned to the others.
“Let’s get out of here.”
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I hope you enjoyed the latest episode of Orphans of Apollo. It’s a bit longer than my normal episodes, but I thought the flow worked better to keep these scenes together. This episode concludes season 3.
As I have done in the past, I will take a break between seasons. This time is probably going to be longer that the last break. It’s been quite a challenge to get these episodes out each week. Outside of writing, things have been pretty busy. As spring is now appearing on the horizon down here in the southern hemisphere, things will start to get busy again with the day job.
I have one more season of Orphans of Apollo written, which takes us to the end of what I plan to be the first book. These scenes do need some more heavy editing, which is another reason for planning on a longer hiatus. Lana and the crew will have to pick themselves up from this tragedy. Will they want to go on?
I dare say I’ll be back with a few posts before season 4 kicks off, but until then, as ever:
Have a great week.
Thanks for reading - the future belongs to the optimists.
Alex
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