Part 1: The Breach

Despite his impressive background, Dr. Banks felt a bit out of place among some of the brilliant minds aboard him on the craft. His education was quite remarkable: Magna Cum Laude in Biology at University of Virginia, followed by top marks at University of Washington in St. Louis School of Medicine, then a residency in Pathology at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, and finally a fellowship in Medical Microbiology at the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital. He was published in various top journals and considered to be a high-flyer in the field of clinical microbiology -- and all at the young age of 38. This made him an obvious choice for the mission. But his background was unlike those of his cohorts -- brilliant engineers, physical scientists, and hardcore researchers. Clinical medicine was still his true passion. Despite spending most of his time in a laboratory viewing samples and performing research, he found time to moonlight in an Emergency Department several miles away on the weekends to keep up his clinical skills. But here he was, millions upon millions of miles away, with only himself and five other potential passengers to treat.

The processors whirred with delight as they processed and ran analyses on each of the samples. A bit of a cumbersome process, but these would be absolutely critical in assessing for the potential of life as we knew it.

Still sweating, Dr. Banks noticed. Maybe I should look into this a bit more. He stood up from his chair and pressed the button to activate the intercom.

"I'm going to head back to the Medical Wing for a minute. Please keep an eye on the samples and call me if anything comes up." His own voice echoed back over the speakers.

"Everything alright?" asked an accented feminine voice over the speaker. It was Shreya, the brilliant engineer hand-selected from Punjab, India for her work on rocket propulsion.

"Yes, yes," he replied. "I just need to do a quick inventory of our supplies. It won't be long."

The intercom clicked off and he exited through the small porthole in the back of the laboratory. He stripped off his lab coat and placed it onto the rack and exited out of the semi-sterile container. A few quick turns and he was back to the small Medical Wing.

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