Space Agent Jonathan Bartell

A series of standalone novellas in a realistic future. Each novella features a mystery or crime, and portrays human space colonisation as it could happen in reality.

Contamination

Space Agent Jonathan Bartell 1

Jonathan Bartell is a young man, just out of university, when he signs up for the position of Quarantine Officer at the Orbital Launch Station.

He is part of a crop of students who flocked to study exo-biology when bacteria were discovered on Mars, and who are now all making their living flipping burgers, because the jobs are few and hard to get.

He is lucky to get a job in space, no matter how mundane.

Or so he thinks…

Gaby Larsen is a doctor at the tiny hospital at the space station, and she keeps secrets, not because she wants to keep them, but because she is too scared to share them.

Because out in space, your worst enemies are your fellow travellers.

Observation

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Space biologists Jonathan Bartell and Gaby Larsen arrive at Johnson Base at the Moon’s south pole for a project with Professor Isaacs that is so secret, he cannot share the details with them. However, the professor does not show up to meet them.

Vijay Singh borrowed money from a local council man who uses the debt to make continued threats to Vijay. In his despair to pay it back, Vijay gets involved with one of the most lucrative crime schemes in the solar system.

However, the capsule he retrieves from a crater near Johnson Base contains more than smuggled rare elements. What is buried in the moon dust in the crater? No one is going to talk about it for fear of getting on the wrong side of the crime lords. Even if keeping the secret will endanger the entire base.

Extermination

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While space biologists Jonathan Bartell and Gaby Larsen attend a conference held at a base in the asteroid belt, a man approaches Jonathan in great distress.

He was asked to take over command of a previously commercial research station, but strange things started happening: plants glowing in the dark, lights turning themselves on and off, computers misbehaving.

He discovered the cause, but Section Command issues a gag order on the issue. This is strange, because the Force is investing big in research.

Jonathan is left with many questions: who is this man, why does no one want to hear what he says, what is he doing at the conference, and what is the ultimate enemy of humanity?

A novella in the Space Agent Jonathan Bartell series, which explores biology in space and what happens when people start messing with it.

Permutation

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En route to a job in the asteroid belt, the transport ship that Jonathan and Gaby are travelling on is required to give assistance to a space station in trouble.

Astoria Station stopped responding to everything except automated messages. Jonathan and Gaby, familiar with disease and habitat collapse, offer to help.

But not even they are prepared for what they find, or the efforts by some to sweep it under the carpet.

Elevation

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Verona Rupes, on the ice moon Miranda, is the tallest cliff in the solar system. If you jump off the top, it takes 700 seconds to reach the bottom. What can you do in the most important 700 seconds of your life?

Jonathan and Gaby arrive at the ice moon Miranda to work with a local researcher and find that adventurists have snuck into an area infected with alien bacteria and have gotten themselves in trouble.

Do these people have to be stopped because they’re about to spread a bacterial infection to the human settlements or are there other factors at play? A tale of petty vindictiveness, competition and jealousy. Oh, and a wedding.