Dr Weiss

[argyle]

The Darmstadt drifted slowly through Omicron Beta, engines set to idle and to any casual observer -as if there were any out here- the ship was completely inactive. The lights were on, but no one was home; mining lasers idle, drives offline, coms and scanners silent. Of course, things are rarely as they appear: the Darmstadt was indeed very active on the inside.

In the field of xeno biology, most of the researchers dream of doing research on proper aliens, like the nomads. Ralph Weiss was no different in wanting this, but he was a bit more practical than some of his peers. Researching nomads usually involve big guns and heavy shielding, neither of which he could really afford at the time. And so, in order to earn enough money to get his hands on the ship he needed, dr Weiss had chosen the less popular application of xeno biology as his specialty: alien micro organisms - space germs.

Dr Weiss sat on the bridge in a comfortable leather seat, with his assistant Walther Dietrich. There were several computer displays up here on the bridge that had nothing to do with operating the ship. Instead they were displaying status readouts of some very complicated machinery. Neither the doctor nor the assistant bothered to look at them. Dietrich picked up a small metal piece shaped like a horse from the table and moved it a few inches. "Check, herr Doktor."

The alien organisms that can be found in the far reaches of the sigma and omicron systems have wide spread applications, though the main one is terraforming: gather the organisms, haul them to a planet quickly before they die, and release them. Once released on a planet, the alien organisms will not reproduce, but for the remainder of their short life span, they will eat just about anything in their path and the waste products are terraforming gases. As the bacteria die off pretty fast, there's always need for more - and this is what Weiss had specialised in.

Radiation from the nebula bombarded the Darmstadt mercilessly. The electro-magnetic radiation shielding was only active around the bridge and the engines; the cargo hold was unprotected. The radiation impacted the armor plates, eating away at them, and they were becoming increasingly brittle. The thick rheinland armor was about as useful to ward off weapons as a brick wall now, but it'd all be replaced soon enough. Approximately eight percent of the radiation penetrated straight through the armor and continued into the cargo hold. As if by coincidence, eight percent is how much of the radiation that remains after it's passed through three inches of the local asteroids, and three inches beneath the scorched asteroid surfaces is where some very dull alien organisms live out their miserable little lives.

Deep Space Research Vessel Darmstadt was an oddity. She had begun as a regular rheinland transport ship, but once Weiss hed gotten his hands on her, the insides had pretty much been ripped out all the way down to the bulkheads, and then filled back up with equipment. In order to do the necessary research, the ship contained a genetics lab, and a small cryo-storage to store specimens - nothing unusual there. The rest of the ship though, was very unusual: About eighty percent of the volume was filled with high-pressure tanks, pipes, filters and compressors. It looked much like an oil refinery to the uninitiated.

Things stirred inside the Darmstadt's pressure tanks. Mostly, this was just the result of mechanical ventilation, filtering out waste, and filling up on fresh gases from the nebula. There were other things moving though: single cell organisms -known aboard the Darmstadt as strain "Omicron Beta 102-b"- swam about in the tanks, gorging on the thick condensed nebula gases inside, multiplying quickly in the modest radiation levels.

The Darmstadt could do the one thing that no one else could manage, at least not in a cost efficient manner: she could breed the alien organisms. Dr Ralph Weiss had early on realised that there was an endless number of different strands of alien organisms: some short lived, others long, some docile and some aggressive. He realised that if he could only find a way to breed them, he could deliver the right bacteria to the right planet - and be payed a king's ransom for each delivery. Recreating the natural habitat of the organisms is very costly: it requires zero-g, radiation, and some very rare elements. The Darmstadt was designed to exploit a short-cut: instead of recreating the alien habitat, you simply fly the ship into the nearest nebula. All you need to do is suck the thin nebula into the pressure tanks, filter out the unwanted elements, and turn off the ship's radiation shielding.

"Beginner's luck." the doctor said sourly, got to his feet and turned his eyes to the computer readouts. "The tanks are almost full. I'll start on the checklists, and prepare for departure. Get down to the lab, and help the guys sift through the new strains we've found." He left the readouts behind, and got into the pilot's seat to begin the checklists. "Jawohl herr doktor!" Dietrich bowed politely with a million dollar "I-win-grin" on his face and headed into the genetics lab.

Cryo-storage is a costly and complicated affair, and only a crazy person would turn an entire ship into a cryo-storage. It's better to store the organisms in a plain tank and let some of them die, than it is to spend the money on the worlds largest cryo-freezer. The Darmstadt was no different from other ships on this point: once the tanks were full, and the ship started to move to the destination - it was a race against time.

Dietrich looked over the computer readouts that concerned a new strand of bacteria, picked up just a few hours ago with the tractor beam, after a small rock had been annihilated by the mining lasers. "It's a bit short lived, but it has some interesting qualities. They might be interested on California Minor... yeah, let's store it." He nodded to himself and slipped a small specimen vial into the recepticle of the cryo storage. "Omicron Beta 804-f. Store." he said to the computer. Less than ten seconds later, the vial had been flash-frozen with liquid nitrogen, and stored alongside another eight thousand identical-looking vials.