The Anatomy of Wind: Beware!

Boarding STEED 7

After not being able to identify what’s wrong with pumps physically, we ran the full diagnosis of the captain’s deck to see whether it was system glitches.

Everything seemed normal, but the progress was stuck on 87%. That's when I told Tom that we can copy the system data to my drive to study them later.

In the process, we managed to pass all restrictions by using a Magnetic fields generating device to override the systems because the normal procedures required Admin’s Authority, and it was against laws to have a copy of the project like that on your computer.

He agreed, and he used his Drive to copy the information, but it failed because the whole dataset was 700 TB and his disc was only 500 TB. I told him that we can use my personal drive to download a copy of the rest system information because mine was 300 TB.

At break, he went to eat while I headed to my room and plugged my personal Drive to my PC. It had only 13% of the information, and it was the only one that was marked Classified! That made me wonder what was inside, then using password generating softwares I hacked into those folders.

Among what was inside, there were messages of the president to the captain, deceased crew members, number and descriptions of extraterrestrial contacts, and all sorts of information about their aggressive behavior and everything about alien cooperation with the government.

I also found out that their mission was to act like an intermediate channel between extraterrestrial alien civilization and humans on earth. There was a video of interviews between the captain and aliens!.

Among other folders, there was another about interstellar missions of discovery and the next pending mission which was about going to explore Proxima Centauri B. A potentially habitable planet which is only 4 light years away from earth.

After discovering all that governmental secret, I just ran a system diagnosis and eventually I found what was wrong with the Ship.

The system recorded a short power surge that lasted for 2 seconds. It was when the incoming crew from the mission called Beta p 1678, which was about exploring Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, were in the decontamination Chamber.

After that a few weeks later, the systems malfunctioned.

I scanned for the similarities between all failures and I found out that it was Hydraulic systems only affected. Linking that to when it started, I realized that there must be something from outer space messing with only hydraulic systems of the ISS ship.

I heard approaching footsteps and quickly unplugged the drive to lock it; it was Supervisor Tom from lunch break.

“Did you find something?” he said, hiding something behind him.

“oh yeah, I found out that I missed my lunch and I’m starving!” I said teasing trying to make him laugh.

“Lucky for you, I brought you a takeaway,” he said, laughing and handing me a tray of food.

“Well thank you,” I said, opening the cola tin can to drink.

“um, speaking of which, I found out what’s wrong with Jason’s Ship (the captain called Jason Bright)” I said, biting my sandwich.

“Let's see what we have here,” he said, leaning towards my computer.

“There was a two minute power surge, while decontamination was taking place. Since then, every hydraulic systems have been malfunctioning, but to this point I don’t know exactly what’s wrong or the causes”

“oh man, are you a trainee?” he said, looking so impressed

“impressed, huh?” I said, winking at him.

“you’re a genius!”

“matter of fact, I have a bank account! Maybe I can see a Complimentary SMS!” I joked.

“I hate you man,” he said smiling

“I love you too!”

“Now I have some sleep. After 3 hours we’ll visit one of the malfunctioning Hydraulic to see what’s wrong.”

While I was resting, I didn’t really sleep. Frankly, it was my first time being at the ISS, but I knew how the ship was built bolt-to-bolt! Actually, We studied that in college but everything was Virtual Reality. So I updated myself about the Ship’s Texture as an engineer and IT, using manuals.

Meanwhile, Tom alerted other mechanics about the malfunction of the hydraulic systems, telling them the situation of the ship.

After 3 hours, we headed back to the Garage, where the doors had jammed. We opened up one hydraulic cylinder and found that the Oil in the fluid base had solidified! Normally that’s impossible, so clearly there was something solidifying hydraulic reservoirs.

After replacing the fluid, we isolated that infected door to see if there are some sort of outer space Organisms in it. Using microscopes, there was nothing suspicious. We took a rest and agreed to resume the next day because it was nighttime.

That night, I found many letters from Taylor, my girlfriend. She told me that my parents missed me so much, that our car was struck by lightning, but the insurance company gave her another, that Cory had a boyfriend and that she was about to visit The Robinson family the next weekend.

After recording a message to her, I was browsing my Twitter account, when I saw an ad about invisible ink and black lights! An idea came to me of using the black light to illuminate the specimen for the microscopes to see what was in the oil.

The next morning, I downloaded STL files then I printed the black light torch from a 3D printer.

In the lab, we used black light torch, and what we found was extraordinary!

Normally the hydraulic oil is sterilized, which means that there was supposed to be no trace of life in it. But There was this tiny Rod-shaped bacteria, they were like gazillion in numbers and that was the cause of Miraculous Freezing of hydraulic fluid.

They used their secretions to prey on the oil then, after freezing unneeded contents. We also took a sample of air to test whether it was spread through the air, and the results were positive. The Bacteria literally everywhere, freezing every oil on the ship. They had the ability to penetrate anything and survive almost anywhere, including free space and vacuum.

After many trials, we found a way of reversing the effects caused by the bacteria using inert gases like argon to kill the bacterial parasites and melt the oil again.

We sanitized the Astronaut cosmo suits first, and then everyone on board put on their suits. Then the entire ship was disinfected using argon gas.

However, I mentioned nothing to anyone about Top secret information and I had formatted the drives so that no one would know that I knew something.

Finally, it was the time for the mission to Proxima Centauri B, and the captain, based on how helpful I’ve been, added me to the crew to explore the new world 4 light years away.

They had a special ship that was able to exceed the speed of light many times. They had a technology of wrapping the entire ship into an artificial vacuum, which made everything inside the shield be massless relative to the space. And being massless means unlimited speed plus hyper jumps. So the ship which was going to be used is STEED 7.

It was a 6 months’ journey on the scale of the ISS, but on the STEED 7 it was only a two months’ journey! How? Time traveling! Considering that the ship’s speed limit was temperature (which was nothing because of the Vacuum shield around the ship, so massless particles can’t heat up). That means that faster you go beyond the speed of light, more time contracted, so at the speed we used, six months was equivalent to two months.

The captain ordered that we can have 3 days of preparation for the mission.

On the last day of preparation, I slept during the day so that I could be available for Taylor during the daytime. I called her on video call and we talked for 3 hours straight. I told her about the mission, but I never mentioned anything about the Alien thingy. I knew that she’d freak out, so I didn’t say so.

The last day of preparation, I knew deep down that it was going to be a Bumpy Ride. I knew that I might not even be able to return, so I wrote an email and drafted every crucial piece of information about me, including my passwords and everything.

I recorded a video and said that If I die, Taylor will be able to access everything in my email, which was her message. She knew my email password and computer’s tho! So I left it on my computer and prepared to board the ship.