Free Space Station Crisis: Star Challengers Book 2 by Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, June Scobee Rodgers Page B

air by Lifchez’s head before it could float around and make more of a mess.
    Lifchez mumbled. “Sorry, but … that’s not the end I’d be most worried about, if I were you.”
    “Oh,” Dyl said, as the meaning sank in. “I—uh, this is a problem.”
    “You’ll have to get him to the toilet,” Dr. Romero said, as Kimbrell started to retch again. “As you can see, I’ve got my hands full here. Fortunately, one of the station’s six toilets is right here in Medical.” She pointed to a small cubicle built into the wall.
    Lifchez’s forehead broke into a cold sweat as Dyl guided him toward the cubicle. Dyl had been on the station for less than two hours and didn’t even know how to use a bathroom in zero-G. The military man grabbed a handle beside the toilet seat and turned. “Thanks. I can take it from here,” he said in a shaky voice and pulled the privacy shield closed.
    Dyl breathed a sigh of relief, since he would have had no idea how to help. “How exactly does that thing work, anyway?” He floated back over to where Song-Ye and Dr. Romero tended the rest of the Sat team.
    Dr. Romero said, “It takes some getting used to. There’s no gravity up here to help with the, um, flow of everything, so we can’t use water in the toilets. The system is based on air flow.”
    “As in, a vacuum cleaner?” Song-Ye asked.
    “Pretty much,” Dr. Romero said. “You also have to use foot loops, handles, and straps to keep yourself in place or you might drift in unwanted directions. When you’re in position, you activate the air suction to carry away waste. At the front of the toilet there’s a suction hose for liquids. And there are specialized adapter funnels—one for women and one for men.”
    “Right now, uh, I think I can hold it a while longer,” Dyl said.
    Romero finished analyzing the patients’ blood work and shook her head in surprise to discover that each of the four sick members of the satellite team had fallen ill with the food poisoning known as Salmonella.
    Once Dr. Romero discovered what had caused the illness, she could better treat the Sat team members. “In the body, the Salmonella bacteria produces a poisonous byproduct, a toxin that makes patients extremely sick. They’ll recover just fine,” she said, to everyone’s relief. “But they’ll need a few days of rest before they’re back to full health. What I don’t understand is how it could have gotten into four separate food packs like that … unless there’s something wrong with our preservation systems, but that doesn’t seem possible.”
    More importantly, she was worried about a continuing outbreak. “Before we eat again, we’ll have to test each of the packages to make sure the rest of our food supply is safe.”
    “Is that something we can help with?” Song-Ye asked.
    Romero looked at her patients and let out a sigh. “Absolutely. If any other parts of our food supply are contaminated, it would be a complete disaster for the ISSC. We’re already at a minimal active crew complement—in fact, if we didn’t have you cadets to help, I don’t know how we’d finish even our basic work.”
    Dyl and Song-Ye spent hours testing small samples from the food packets in the Mess module. After careful analysis, they found two more contaminated with Salmonella. Dr. Romero quickly sealed away those packets so no one else would get sick.
    The patients looked at the packages with accusing glares. Lifchez groaned and didn’t even want to read the labels.
    “At least we’ve verified the safety of the other meals. We can have lunch now,” Dyl said.
    Song-Ye remained concerned. “That doesn’t explain how they got contaminated in the first place, though.”
    After an exhausting day, the Star Challengers were assigned a sleep shift. Ansari showed them to an empty set of compartments in the repressurized Hab 1. “This will be your home sweet home, for as long as you stay here.” She let them each choose their own private