Deceph 16
Week 81.166
Europhemer 164 | Day 582.364 | Tripareph 3
The uncontained A. facoxiviator had ravaged the EMCC’s (Europa Mission Control Center) water supply in only two ephs. The crew had 2.5 ephs of water remaining after the newly discovered bacteria was consuming the crew’s water at a faster, unexpected pace the past two triparephs. Dr. Adrian Cheung, Dr. Atticus Sagilir, and Dr. Daniel Lee quickly congregated in the EMCC’s main laboratory to discuss the problem.
“We need to quickly contain this bacteria”, said Daniel.
“We know that, but how?”, replied Adrian.
“You know, we could just let the bacteria keep consuming the water,” Atticus said.
“Are you crazy? Where would that get us?”, said Daniel.
“We just let them be, use their oxygen and wait for the emergency supplies to arrive,” Atticus said.
“So our plan is to rely on emergency supplies for the rest of the mission? That seems like a great plan.” Adrian said sarcastically.
“Well, what is your great idea?” Atticus asked, frustrated.
“I don’t know, let’s just all go back to our quarters to check the supply again.”
So the three doctors did that, and saw that they had an even bigger problem; The supply was so low, they were forced to extract it from the water splitters to conserve what was left.
With one eph of water left, Daniel said “Time is running out”,
“We can engineer antibacterial supplies in the next eph, while still harnessing their oxygen, just in case”, said Adrian.
“That actually sounds like a good idea” said Atticus.
So that is exactly what the doctors did. They thought this situation definitely qualified as an emergency, so it took about two decephs, but they eventually disposed of all bacteria on the ship. As a result they had to completely rebuild their water supply, but the RTGs were up and running, and with the help of the extra oxygen produced by the bacteria, they built up their water supply.
One Europhemer Later
“That was a near catastrophe”, said Atticus.
“Yes, well, now we must begin exploring”. said Adrian.
The water splitters never were an efficient way of producing water, but the crew still endured near-disaster.