Richard J. Ronayne

Novella

Phenix Publishing Ltd

Nation-X Project

Dozens of my stories are currently being illustrated for release by Phenix Publishing Ltd for their Nation-X project, a multi-year project for 4-8000 word educational novellas.

This series was designed for young adults and high schoolers across Chinese and American schools, harnessing anthropomorphism to help digest mature, dark or joyful topics, whilst reflecting life, and exploring real social issues in an exciting and educational way.

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The Doomsday Vault
By Richard Joseph Ronayne

CHAPTER 1: Ode to Hostomel
Commander Yuri Prylypko was rushing through the usually silent facility, where he had spent the last year alone without any outside contact, as the incoming communique signal alarmed.
In the low gravity, his parrot wings did not assist his movement, even though his skin-tight, hi-tech customized spacesuit did not restrict his mobility, it was just easier to push himself off the floors, walls, and ceilings.
“Beep, beep, beep,” warned a small spherical robot, with a large grin drawn upon it.
“I know, Happy!” said the astronaut, as he held onto Happy, a name he had given the conscious barren robot to feel less alone.
Holding onto the robot, Happy flew off towards the comms room, carrying Yuri with it. With Happy’s help, he arrived more swiftly to a console with a large flashing yellow light for incoming messages.
“Well, let’s see what they have to say, after a year of silence,” Yuri said to Happy, as he tapped commands into the console.
“Mission Control to Project ReSeed. Mission Update as following: incoming vessel to receive first payload, ETA; one day, assuming favourable solar winds. Project ReSeed is greenlit. Instructions to follow. Repeat. Project ReSeed is greenlit. Instructions to follow,” said the computerized voice, which still sounded excitable to Yuri.
“Woohoo!” screamed Yuri. “You heard them, Happy! Get the logistics of stock preparation underway, as I have organized. I am going outside to check that everything is working with my own eyes.”
“Boop, boop!” said the little spherical droid.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, buddy, it’s just a precaution. I am here and I might as well make sure that there is no room for error. You know the project is too important,” Yuri consoled the grinning robot, who had no emotions or intelligence beyond his programming. “Now, go prepare the seeds for delivery,” he said as the little robot spun about face out of the corridor, and was joined by hundreds of other identical robots as they sped away to perform their task in the cryo-preservation modules.
Yuri checked the diagnostics of the lava tubes, before checking the video feed in the preservation analysis laboratory, as he always did before heading outside. Then he made sure the corridor was clear before heading out back towards the elevator shaft.
The spherical robots were fully autonomous and designed to run the facility entirely by themselves. In fact, there was no need for him to be here at all, but, as he explained to Happy, the project was too important. Most of the time though, he just gave himself jobs to do so he felt like he was being useful.
Arriving at the elevator, he selected the surface level, as the elevator raised him sixty miles upwards at extreme speed. The journey took only moments, as he stepped through the doors into the airlock chamber. He filled his suit’s oxygen sacks and tested the suit’s EVA mobility functions. All clear.
The airlock door opened, to reveal the frozen grey wasteland of the grey lunar regolith surface, just as the sun was coming over the moon’s horizon to light his way.
“Good timing,” Yuri thought, knowing that it would warm the surface and provide light so he wouldn’t have to use the power supply of his suit. He stepped out slowly, no longer in the slightly denser gravity of the underground, he walked in what looked like slow motion, bouncing as fast as he could towards the Ka-Band Antenna that was used for communications.
He had checked all the surface systems before heading upwards, and they all registered to be in perfect condition, but he preferred to check things himself. Not relying solely on the incredibly sophisticated robotics of the facility.
Giving himself small boosts with his suit’s thrusters, he closed the distance in no time and ran the diagnostics for the antenna. After a few minutes, it checked out fine, as expected.
Next, he headed to the Solar Panel Farm that powered the facility. He did the same there on the farm’s master console, which showed everything was also working at maximum efficiency.
Yuri looked around as solar winds slightly blew dust around every now and again. He pressed on through the rising temperatures. Night and day lasted an equal amount of time on the moon, thirteen and a half days. During the night, the temperature reached minus two hundred and ninety-eight-degrees Fahrenheit. As the sun rose across the horizon, the temperature was steadily rising towards the standard positive two hundred and twenty-four-degrees Fahrenheit.
This was no issue for the surface equipment, or Yuri’s hi-tech suit as he leapt across the grey wastes towards the Lunar Space Elevator Depot. A vessel visiting the moon from Planet-X would dock with the Luna Gateway three thousand to seventy thousand miles above, depending on the orbit cycle.
From the Gateway, they would use the lunar space elevator to travel up and down to the surface when the station was closest, just as Yuri did when he arrived a year ago. This was how the payloads were to be delivered to the Gateway as well.
Yuri’s job now was to send as much as the visiting vessel’s cargo module had room for, up to the Gateway before they arrived, making sure not to miss the few times a day where the Lunar Gateway was in position to collect the goods, as he had little time to connect each cargo packet.
Suddenly, a large shadow crept along the surface of the whole moon. This was the real reason Yuri sought to investigate the surface. He looked up and saw the distant sphere that was his home begin to eclipse the even more distant sun.
Looking across the mindboggling three-hundred, eighty-four-thousand and four-hundred-kilometre vacuum, Yuri saw Planet-X, or at least, what was left of it.
 
CHAPTER 2: Prodigal Son
Max walked into his father’s office at Elley Construction, as his father was on the phone, he gestured to his son to take a seat whilst he finished his call. “Alright, thank you, Minister. I look forward to discussing this further in person, we’ll make arrangements for your arrival. See you soon,” he said, hanging up the phone.
“You wanted to see me, Dad?”
“Yes, Max. That was the Minister of Science and Technology, Miles Keys, he is on his way here with the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to discuss a fascinating project for us. This is an important moment for Elley Construction, and I want you by my side for it. Do you think you’re up for it?” Grant offered.
“Yes, of course, I’d love to help however you think I can. What is the project?” Max queried.
“Good. I will let them explain, they’re on their way by helicopter, so they’ll be here shortly. But Max?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“I need your dreamer’s mind here. That utopia that you talk so much about, this is an important part of that, I will need your passion to make sure we pull this off as best as it can be done. Can I count on you?” Grant asked coyly.
“You know you can always count on me, Dad,” Max happily confirmed.
Max and Grant stood at the helipad as the government helicopter landed. They rushed over to personally assist Miles and Simon dismount from the noisy vehicle, as it powered down.
“This way, gentlemen,” Grant greeted as they headed away from the windy rotors. “It is a pleasure to see you both once again. Miles, Simon, this is my son Max, he is my best engineer for unique projects like this.”
They all introduced themselves as they took the elevator up to the meeting room, which Grant’s staff had prepared and supplied with refreshments.
“Alright then, shall we get into it? We should start by explaining the project in detail so that we can determine how feasible it would be for our company to achieve what you are asking. We like to be honest and upfront about what we can accomplish here, as you well know, so that is why I have appointed Max to take the lead on this one. He has the imagination, and know how, to determine if it is possible,” Grant explained, patting Max on the back.
“That is why we always enjoy collaborating with you, Grant. All right, so Max, as you know, climate change is melting the polar ice caps and heating the planet. This has drastic affects effects on the world’s vegetation. Forest fires, draught, flooding, storms, and all other forms of extreme weather are wiping out entire species of flora. We have already lost so many varieties of trees, flowers, and vegetation, most alarmingly for crops native to specific regions. What we would like you to build is a Seed Bank, which will remain safe and efficient for hundreds of years for storing the seeds of the world’s crop diversity,” Simon explained.
“Fascinating. Are there not already smaller seed banks for each region of Nation-X?” Max enquired.
“Indeed, but those facilities are not secure. They provide more immediate access to a region which has suffered a catastrophe, but they are vulnerable to the same catastrophes themselves. What we want is a global back up facility for duplicates of those regional seeds. This is the only way to safeguard the restoration of all the world’s sensitive ecosystems,” Miles elaborated.
“I see,” Max said, as his mind wandered off through intensely complicated equations and variables. “Alright, you need the Seed Vault to provide long-term storage of duplicates of seeds conserved in gene banks around the world. This provides security of the world's food supply against the loss of seeds in gene banks due to mismanagement, accident, equipment failures, funding cuts, and natural disasters.”
“Exactly!” Grant cheered, always impressed by his son’s abilities. “But, Max, can it be done?”
Max thought intensely for a moment, then stood and began covering the whiteboard with calculations. Miles went to speak, but Grant held a finger out to gesture for silence so Max could work. After only a few minutes, Max stood back.
“That’s it. That is the only way,” he said, pointing to the board as if it was written plainly.
“Why don’t you save us some time here. What are we looking at, Max?” Grant winked.
“Of course. The main issue of course is the incredible cost that this would require. This can be broken into three separate issues. Firstly, the size of the facility that would be required to contain ALL of the world’s seeds will be immense. Secondly to store the seeds effectively for such long periods would require immense amounts of costly power to maintain the differing temperatures of each region’s required storage needs without killing the seeds. Thirdly, to protect the facility from natural or manmade disaster, it will have to be built underground, and digging through earth and soil is extremely costly alone,” Max walked them through his scribbling.
“What do you propose, Max?” Grant encouraged. 
“I calculate that the cost can be minimized to a cost-effective amount if we use the world’s natural storage capabilities of the arctic’s permafrost as the basis of our facility’s storage. Then we can save tremendously on the energy required to maintain the necessary temperatures artificially and digging through ice is much easier and cheaper. 
“Furthermore, we can borrow some of the natural tunnels available on the small arctic island here at longitude minus fifteen and latitude seventy-five, which will cut the costs dramatically once more. Especially as there is no tectonic activity there and it is one hundred and thirty meters above sea level, protecting it from rising sea levels even if the polar caps melt entirely,” Max established, pointing at a tiny dot off the northeast coast of Northland on the map.
Simon, Miles, and Grant all nodded, impressed. “You’re quite an impressive young man, Max,” Miles congratulated. “Let’s make this official then, Grant. On behalf of the government of Nation-X, we are officially proposing the hire of Elley Construction to accomplish this grand project.”


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