Chapter 1

In the young star system “Gx-31” lays a gas giant, called Guilun. This gas giant sits in the habitable zone of its star, and has 5 major terrestrial moons. The only moon around Guilun that holds liquid water is Iris, named for its “rainbow” atmosphere consisting of oxygen, fluorine, nitrogen, and trace metals.

It is predicted that once the blue star, Bilos, matures, Guilun will retreat to a father back orbit. Hence Iris will become an icy moon. To prevent this, colonists began to inhabit Iris with the goal to push it out of Guilun’s gravitational pull and into a stable orbit as the 2nd planet around its star.

I roll over in bed. It’s early, I’m sure. The room is dark, but light still bleeds through the curtains of the window. I get up, and look at the clock, ‘19: 43.’ I slept for roughly 8 hours. I turn on the light, the dark-teal-green light still clearly bleeds on the floor. I look outside, Iris is currently on the other side of the ship. Greta, the green gas giant Iris orbits, is clearly in view. Its green-teal clouds intermingle as planet-sized storms rage in the atmosphere, barely visible.

The clock beeps, I look over, ‘20: 00,’ I spent about 15 minutes just staring at Greta. I still have yesterday’s uniform on, the gravity ring could turn off at any time, and getting dressed in zero-G is a pain. I don’t bother putting on another uniform anyway, they all look the same anyway. I walk out into the hall, I usually work pretty ‘early’ compared to everyone else. I make my way to the cafeteria, it’s a far walk, but so is everything else on the ship.

I get breakfast. Technically the ship doesn’t cycle to serve breakfast foods until 4 A.M, so I got ‘today’s steak’. I know a few people currently awake and working, Alex is currently fixing a server that broke yesterday. I would go say hi but I need higher clearance to enter the server rooms. Some team should always be awake checking atmospheric data, and right now, that’s me.

I head back to my room, “Phillip Almera” is on the plate. I look at weather systems. I’m supposed to warn the ground teams when a hurricane is forming so they can prepare, not much right now. There are some small storm systems, but it’s Iris, it’s always stormy on Iris. I look at my emails. 1 new message, I’ve been selected on ground duty for Coquina isle.

Ground duty? Why me? I work up here, I’m an ecologist that got a climatologist schedule, now they want me to head down to the ground on the ILS? I work on a computer all day. I try to relax, I look at my clock, ‘21: 27.’ 11 P.M. Ok, I start to feel light headed, but ok, I have time to consider. It says I’m scheduled for Monday. Considering today is Friday, that’s 3 days. Weird, normally you would get some time, like a week or two, not 3 days.

I eat a bite of steak. Cold. I’ve been freaking out over the ground mission for 10 minutes. I step out of my room, and just walk down the halls. It’s a good way to think. The surface is somewhat safe down there, it’s around just above freezing during the days and we don’t go out at night, the air is breathable or we wouldn’t be down there. My worry is the descent. The lander is rough, it’s fast, and it’s loud. It’s just a steel box, some light engines for steering, and a parachute. My thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door. I answered it, knowing it was Alex.

“Hey Phil.” Alex greets me, it’s still early, and I’m still tired. “Hey ... What’s up?”

“I need some help with some atmospheric data.”

“What?” I look around. “You handle servers all day, where would you even get atmospheric data?”

“I found a file, poked around and got it unlocked, it’s an atmospheric read from arrival.”

“Ok...” I rub my eyes, “send me it...”

“Well, I need you to see the raw ASCII file”

“Sure...”

“In the server room.”

I don’t react, sure I’m shocked, but I just pause. “So you, a well trusted software engineer, found a private file of the atmospheric read from when we arrived...” Alex nods. “And you want me to look at the data by bringing me into an area I’m not authorized in...”

“Exactly.”

I sigh... “Sure. Ok.” He leads me across the ship, we head to the central structure, floating in Zero-G isn’t fun, but there isn’t anything connecting the grand rings that give us centrifugal gravity. We reach the server room, and Alex uses his keycard.

“This is so stupid” I’m still tired and moving this far this early sucks.

“What is the current sea-level oxygen percent?” The question surprises me.

“28.4%? Why?”

“I have 3 readings here, 29.5% on arrival, 27.1% 15 years ago, 22.1% today.”

“Wait ... what?” I don’t understand, first he has one unlocked file, now he has 3, and the oxygen levels go down drastically each reading.

“Thats 7% oxygen in 30-something years, right?”

“Yeah...” I try to understand the information.

“Humans can’t survive at oxygen levels below 20%, right?”

I don’t respond, I do the math, 7% in 27 years, that’s 2.34% every 3 years. “So ... In 3 years the atmosphere won’t be breathable, why isn’t this public information?”

“The Terraformation project makes it irrelevant”

“That’s in 5-7 years, the P.O.M.S. Won’t be here for 10!” I panic a little ... Alex removes a thumb drive from the server. Something isn’t right, the oxygen is draining too fast, there are 3,000 people spread over 3 main bases and 7 minor ones, 1 person breaths 450 liters a day, it should take hundreds of years for people to put a dent in the air, Iris might be small for a planet, but it’s still a large celestial object, a type C Moon. “Something is using up the oxygen.”

Alex looks confused, “Yeah, people.”

“No, the numbers are off by a few dozen orders of magnitude, something else is using thousands of tons of oxygen.” We just sit on the floor, thinking. He eventually let me out of the server room, and I started walking toward my room. On the way back, I walked by the biomedics lab. I peek my head inside. There is Dr. Miller, in the corner of the room is a makeshift bed. She spends all her time analyzing the samples of biological material from the planet that she barely sleeps in her room.

“Hey” I announce my presence.

“Oh, hey.”

“Mind if I ask you a question?”

She signals me in.

“You’re the most well versed astrobiologist in Iris life, right?”

“Find me someone who spends more time studying these little guys and we’d be instant pals.”

“Do any of the little microbes use oxygen?”

“No, it’s all silicon based, they get carbon from carbon dioxide, and release water as a by-product.”

“And that water just builds up, nothing uses it?”

“Not that I know, there are 2 ‘kinds’ of life forms, more fishy, animal like, and more ‘shrub’ plant based,” she points to a glass container, the gas inside has a blue-ish hue, an atmosphere sample supporting a shrub-like plant, rooted into a ground sample, “but both kinds use the same process, CO2 in, H2O out.”

“Good to know.”

“Why are you asking?”

“Oh,” I stop for a second, thinking of some excuse, “I have been called down to the surface.” I blurted. I really didn’t want to admit that, but I had no other good excuse, I don’t want to admit I was looking at private files of the ship’s captains.

“I see...”

I walk out, and sigh. It’s a long walk back to my room, and more people are awake, it did take a while to walk this far. I grab breakfast in the B-ring cafeteria. I look out the window, the C-ring spins in the distance. In the ships scale the C-ring and B-ring are pretty close, but on a human scale, the C-ring is another city, you could take a half hour drive there. I look at the time, ‘7: 42’ The day really flew by. My panic is masking how tired I am. My head gets too heavy, the adrenaline in my system finally wears off, and my shoulders get weak, my eyelids are heavy, and I fall asleep before my head falls into my scrambled eggs.