Free Odyssey Rising by Michael T. Best Page B

overcome something like this.”
    “Like this? Are you kidding?” Sam asked with a mixture of anger and fear. “We don’t know what’s really inside us!”
    “It’s actually not at all surprising,” Ravi said. “Invisible microbes of the Earth can be just as much a threat to humankind’s well being as the largest and most ferocious of predators.”
    “Don’t give us some doomsday scenario from wikipedia,” Theo said.
    “Then I’ll give you facts,” Ravi said. “The human race has almost been decimated by the Great Influenza of 1918. The Black Death. Lepers. AIDS. Swine flu. Flesh eating SSR. Yellow Fever. Malaria. Should I go on?”
    “No,” Theo said firmly.
    “But in space, especially in places like the Ark and on Odyssey, such doomsday scenarios are of an even higher concern,” Ravi added. “Adaptation to a new virus or microbe can take decades. It’s called natural selection and sometimes the smallest of invaders can fell the largest of foes.”
    “Come on, everyone, we are much stronger than these microbiotic invaders,” Theo said. “We have to be.”
    “Are we? Really? Are you so sure?” Ravi asked.
    “We don’t even know if they are a virus or something else,” Ellie added.
    “Maybe, but even an average student of history knows that when the Spanish conquistadors arrived in the New World after Columbus, it wasn’t their advanced weaponry or technological brilliance which destroyed the native people.”
    “Oh really, then what was it?”
    “It was the unseen pestilence and disease from the Old World. We don’t want the same to happen with Odyssey or the Ark or even us, do we?”
    “Don’t try to freak us out,” Theo said. “It’s all under control. We’re already in a quarantine.”
    Sam went to the viewing window, looked out and said, “We’re just fools for thinking we can tame the beast.”
    Outside, in the infinite void, there was a blackness that went on forever. Sam looked at the closest asteroid belt, which was only about three hundred thousand light years away and had a green glow to it. It looked like a much longer, wider and brighter Orion’s belt and the chief astronomer back at the Ark, a pudgy and balding old man named Mr. Arthur nicknamed the belt “Shrek.”
    There was another wrenching rumble beneath the floor of the Escape Pod and a shake and shimmer that sent them all off balance once again. They were now united in grief and anger and disbelief and then they all heard another rumble and then a very loud pop.
    “What’s that sound?” Sam asked.
    “We’re separating from the shuttle,” Ravi answered.
    “But why?” Sam asked.
    “That appears to be part of the plan,” Ravi said. “Is it? Is that the plan? Is that the protocol?”
    Sam snapped back, “There’s no plan.”
    “Yes, there is,” Ravi said with a look to Theo. “There has to be a plan, right?”
    “We were all dragged in here, totally knocked out like we’re some pieces of meat. There isn’t a plan,” Sam said.
    “There is a plan,” Theo finally answered.
    “What?”
    “Containment. Separation. Exploration,” Theo said.
    “And then?”
    “We’re going to find a cure,” Theo said.
    “Where?”
    “GidX7,” Theo answered.
    Ravi said, “I can’t believe this is happening. They’re really doing this. We’ve separated.”
    The four, even the dog, were all eager from a pure technical wonder of it all to see the separation occur. It was the first time the Escape Pod had ever separated from Odyssey. From this point of view, the group saw just how beautiful Odyssey really was, such an elegant intersection of modules and solar panels. Self sufficient and free, a silver and white and silver cross against a black backdrop of zero gravity.
    Theo received a voice-to-voice message on his handheld computer device.
    “Put me on speaker,” Doctor Starling requested. “Are you guys okay?”
    “Sure, I love getting drugged and thrown into the Escape Pod against my will,” Theo