Chronicles of Sol: The Fall

January 7th, 007 SDE:

Countryman moved slowly as he pulled himself out of the nanobath. Nearby Robins helped him up, with a grim smile, "Morning sir, how are you feeling?"

"Like a starship landed on my head."

"The headache should pass, the grafts took quite nicely."

Countryman reached for a towel to get the gel off his body, "I know."

Robins blinked, "Sometimes I forget how aware you are of your own body."

Countryman gave him a look, "and here I thought you were learning after putting it back together seven times."

"I'd tell you to take it easy but I don't think it would do any good. I'm not looking forward to giving you an eighth surgery. Not to mention I think the crew are starting to notice."

"That I'm dying? Oh, I'm sure they have, but it's not like we have a good solution."

Robins handed him a uniform, "Well I actually wanted to leave you in the nanobath for a couple more weeks but a council meeting was called. Ruri and Tessa both sounded rather excited, and Rose was in here earlier with Rika who wanted to see you. The little one is quite the trooper, but I think she is worried for you too."

"I'm not dead yet, and I plan to stay that way. With any luck, I'll be seeing my second century," said Countryman. He would be turning 198 this year, but that was still a few months away. The big two hundred was drawing ever closer and he still wanted to see it. Not if he had anything to say about it, but he also felt sorry for his daughter. All she'd really known was the storm, her early years were shaped by the radiation and everything it brought with it. Yet she was doing better than one might expect given her small body. At the very least she deserved better than what the storm had brought them. They'd been here nearly two years and in that time, their shield project had met failure after failure. By now they were certain they were dealing with an issue related to hyperspace and not just the radiation, but they had in turn confirmed their earlier conclusion: the radiation was part of the problem.

"You might just get the chance, sir. Assuming I'm right about what this meeting is about."

Dressing quickly, Countryman nodded, "Well only one way to be sure. Lead the way."

Countryman took his seat as he surveyed the council. The faces he saw were typically grim, but there was a light of hope he had not seen in many days. It remained to be seen what breakthrough had been brought to them, but he would see what it was about. A couple of seats were empty, which made him wonder if there had been any deaths on the council in his absence.

Yet he soon learned the council remained intact as the tardy members arrived minutes later. As they were taking their seats, he took a moment to review the latest reports that Robins had prepared for him. The death count had risen again, they were now at nearly twenty-thousand dead roughly a fifth of their number. Most of the stricken were older, less able to recover from the constant damage the radiation was inflicting and the numbers were only going to rise if nothing was done.

Projections were anticipating both food and medicine shortages over the next couple of months. Radiation damage to crops and high demand for cloned tissues had coupled together to put a serious dent in their reserves. Food stockpiles were teetering on the brink and medical supplies were running out as well. Things had been looking increasingly grim over the last year.

Setting the report aside, he noted Ruri and today's guest Tessa were getting ready for their presentation. She turned on the projectors and brought up the project in question. Tessa displayed a series of images and graphs on it and started, "I present to you the culmination of my gene modification project. It required a lot of testing and quite a bit of reference into the Wovnar database, but we've managed to create something that has shown significant promise in protecting human tissue from radiation damage on the cellular level."

Questions followed and Countryman mostly just listened as the council discussed the new compound. Piecing together what this solution was. What he took from this was that it was a rich silver fluid encoded to trigger a very specific set of mutations which in the lab had been used to successfully protect cells from the Isanir radiation to great effect. However there was one item of fair note, those lab tests had all been conducted in the last month. They'd had little time to identify what if any long-term effects would result from this, but Countryman didn't think they'd have time to do that.

Stolen novel; please report.

After letting the younger people around him debate for a while, he finally spoke, "I think further testing would be a moot point, we need a solution now. I move that we vote on implementing the distribution of this new solution."

Richards shifted from her seat, "I'm not sure I like the idea of it. We've messed with genes before, but not like this."

Drakes frowned, and his coarse voice filled the chamber, "I for one would prefer the shield project, but at this point I'm starting to wonder if we will ever make a breakthrough."

Ruri sighed, "I'm afraid we haven't made any progress with that and with Vera currently bedridden..."

"Yes we understand the implications, she's the best mind we have for the project and without her insights, it will likely be delayed further by months."

Greyman said, "I'll second the motion to vote. More debate isn't going to solve things, and we've all seen the reports."

Everyone looked around and the votes began. Robins spoke first, "I vote yes."

Baker voted next, "For the record I'm against it."

Smith followed with another no, while Redfox voted yes. Bringing the count to 2-2

Kurtz and Reia voted next, both voting yes. While Richards voted against it, her discomfort likely influenced her vote. Now the count was 4-3 in favor.

Misaki, Eri and Kaori soon placed their vote, bringing the vote to 6-4 in favor. Generals Kirk and Forest voted against following that, bringing it back to a tie, at 6-6

His first officer Greyman, and his advisors Reynolds and Drakes were the next to cast their votes bringing the count to 8-7. That left only two votes remaining, his and Ruri's. Driven by his own desire to live to see his approaching second century he voted for the implementation. As he feared he wouldn't have the time for a better solution to come along, and Ruri followed suit, bringing the count to a final vote of 10-7. It was a narrow vote but perhaps not completely unsurprising. Still the motion had passed.

Countryman moved the meeting on, "Alright now that we have decided to implement Tessa's gene therapy, let's discuss how we will roll this out."

Tessa smiled and moved in to discuss it. There was a lot to discuss regarding the silver fluid she had made. It contained a new breed of nanite that they would need to mass produce and distribute. Producing sufficient vials of the stuff would be part of the equation and there was also the question of who they would give it to first.

Robin however cut that off quickly and claimed full responsibility for making sure it would get to who needed it the most first. Countryman figured that would fit well since he was their chief medical officer. Perhaps if they were in a less desperate situation they might have opted for a slower move to full-scale distribution, but there really wasn't much of an option. Their current actions had done much to limit the damage but it was evident that it was nothing more than a stopgap. A rapidly failing stopgap at that. Countryman just hoped that this action wouldn't cost them more later.

Sali sat down for her break and took a moment to watch the lines. She was somewhat overdue for her five year review but she wasn't mad about it. Given the whole radiation crisis, getting out of jail wasn't really high on her list of things to worry about. Now if there had not been a crisis she might have said something about it not happening, but the council certainly had bigger items to worry about.

Robert stepped up next to her and settled beside her heavily while handing her a canteen. "How are you holding up?"

"Well enough, considering."

He gave her a wry smile, "That's nice."

After taking a sip of the water, she inquired, "So have you heard the rumors?"

"Which ones? I think I've heard them all. Some people are talking about the captain dying soon. There are others about the shield project being in ruins with chief scientist Vera confined to a bed in the hospital."

"Not those, I've heard something about..."

She was cut off when a speaker crackled to life. It was a council announcement from the sound of it. Sali blinked when she heard what it contained. "The Council is happy to announce that a breakthrough from the gene therapy project has been approved for immediate distribution. Lab testing has confirmed it to be one hundred percent effective at protecting both Human and Valorian cells from local radiation exposure. Chief Medical Officer Robin will be responsible for getting this new treatment out to all hands, please check your personal mail for your scheduled medical appointment. If you can't make it at that time, please contact your primary physician. For those of you without a personal mail account, you will be contacted in due time about your scheduled treatment. Please remain calm and orderly during this time and we should have everyone treated by month's end."

Sali and Robert shared a look. The implications of this were huge. Something built in her core as it grew warmer. They weren't going to die! A grin graced her lips, "We're saved!"

He chuckled, "So we are, now we just have to make it one more month."

"A month? That's easy, we made two years."

"It's January, we got here in April. Two years comes in a few months."

She gave him a look, "Details, it is the second year since we got here. So we made it two years."

He laughed and then sighed, "Come on, let's get back to work."