Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever by Phoenix Sullivan (easy readers txt) 📕

Schmidt took a deep breath and put microwaved meals before the crew. “No one makes solar panels that big as a single unit. They’re actually a series of panels screwed onto a frame as part of a closed circuit. From reports and photos, I think there are at least two panels that can be brought online. That will at least provide light and run the scrubbers for a couple of people.”

“What about heat? The coils are gone.”

“We leave the shielding around the reactor but take the insulation off the drive engine. Instead of venting the engine’s heat to Mars’ atmosphere, we shunt it to the cabins. With the insulation gone, we should get to temperate conditions within a few hundred kilometers. At worst, we wear our thermal underwear 24/7.”

“How much power did you use to work that out?”

“One screen, twenty minutes, all on my personal ration.”

West looked down at his unappetizing meal. The air might be safe, but the smell of bodies eventually tainted everything. “What resources would you need?”

“I’ll cannibalize my down time; I can unscrew the panels by myself and hold them on the rails. I’ll need somebody to help put them in their new places. We’ll both need suits.”

“Start working on the panels. Use Buggy A’s power as needed. We’ll cable power or, if the cable won’t reach, beam power to the dig site from some other source. Give this project your full attention. And Schmidt … this better work.”

“Commander, you can’t—”

“Shut up, Casey,” said West.

The rest of the meal was eaten in uncomfortable silence. The place still smelled like a gym with the air conditioning off. Getting even two people to Buggy A would be a boon, but they’d have to do something really good to be sent over there.

West finished his meal and went to his office. He passed Aoki standing in front of a vent, inhaling the least tainted air in the general access section. The crew had been chosen based on people with needed skills who could handle difficult situations. Even when there were standouts, the testing procedures had been kept long and arduous, so being selected still made them feel special. But no one had calculated on months of pressure like this. They were packed too tight, always tripping over one another, always feeling each other’s sweat and smelling each other’s bad moods. It wasn’t a day-by-day as much as a minute-by-minute grind.

Little wonder that West let people do things in their own way and blow off steam as needed. It took the cocooned Earth politicians to think reality out here naturally conformed to whatever was written on letterhead emails.

West opened the door to his office. Susan Green sat on the floor, legs outstretched, back to the wall, sound asleep. It was a rare place to be alone. West closed the door and tried to decide how to occupy the time before his sleep cycle.

“Schmidt’s suiting up,” he said to no one. He thought he could help, but when he got to the airlock’s antechamber, there was already a crew doing that.

“Commander, I have to talk with you now.” Casey’s urgent tone drew West’s attention.

“Get me some results, Casey.”

“I’ve got them, Commander. That’s why I have to talk with you.”

“Well, then, Science Lieutenant Anne Casey should—”

“In private.”

As if that wouldn’t feed the rumor mill. He glanced at the six men and women suiting up. Some of them were skipping sleep to do this. West watched as they put on the thermal underwear embedded with hoses that carried fluids and circuits that carried information. The suit was armor over that, and it was designed to be put on fast. That had saved lives in the Buggy A disaster. Put on the boots, stand in the template and interlocking rings linked up around the body, using thread and screw to tighten to fit.

On top of that went each person’s customized helmet. A standard pack then latched itself onto the armor and connected itself for air, power, recycling, and sensors. All-in-all, it took maybe two minutes from boots to airlock. The suited-up crew all waved as they went out the hatch, and the people in the antechamber moved off.

Waiting for the crew to clear out, West wondered, not for the first time, why this room out of all of them had been left battleship gray.

“All right, Casey, the audience is gone. Now, what do you have to say?”

She pursed her lips. It was more like a pout than anything else. It seemed she was trying to not say something, which would make sense only if she was going to tell him less than the full story.

“The original anomaly was found in sand outside the main Secchi Crater. Instead of just repeating samples —”

“You broke protocol,” said West.

“Commander, if you get an anomaly in statistics you need to check with an absolutely fresh sample. If you include the original sample in the new one, you will still get the same anomaly because you polluted it—”

“Did you break protocol, yes or no?”

“I got a new sample that had an increased level of anomaly. Greatly increased. Do you have any idea what that means?”

West didn’t answer. Outside, through the viewing port, it was night and the stars were abundantly clear. In the dark, the crew repairing Buggy A were merely bouncing bobble lights. Buggy A itself sat in the shade of a hill. With no starlight to outline its position and no power of its own to put on any lights, it was invisible.

“Did you break protocol or not, Lt. Casey? If you don’t answer the question, I will have to suspend you without pay and conduct an investigation.”

“I’ll take it to Earth—”

“Go ahead, Casey, but if you do, you give your enemies in Congress leverage in the next election. Investigations there aren’t conducted to solve a problem or to get an answer but to affect an election outcome.”

There was a pause. Outside the bobble lights were bobbling in unison.

“I took a sample