Europa Journal

by Jack Castle

  #

  Mac had been holding her breath unwittingly, and she suddenly exhaled in astonishment. Like any good pilot, she was familiar with nearly every form of aircraft ever made. If memory served her correctly, the PBY was the last word in rescue apparatus at the time and could land like a gull in the roughest of seas.

  #

  Subsequent DNA testing proved what I already knew in my heart to be true: Captain Harry Reed’s body lies in the center of the Europa pyramid. According to records on Earth, at the time of his disappearance, Captain Reed was thirty-one years old and was survived by his wife and two daughters. His military record shows that he flew 25 bombing missions in his PBY over the Pacific during World War II and received the Navy Cross for Outstanding Acts of Heroism.

  As incredible as this discovery might sound, the contents of the book beside him are even more amazing.

  Base security and the base commander have ordered me to keep all findings top secret and to turn over all data and alien artifacts to the United Planets after they have been cataloged. I don’t know how they plan to keep the findings secret, especially when members of the Undersea Base have already visited, photographed, and seen the relics with their own eyes. But I do know that security has become so tight that it will be a miracle if this communiqué reaches you.

  I am sending you this information and trusting your secrecy, Mac, because I fear what the future holds, and this information is far too important to be lost or buried. This is it, Mac, what we have suspected for years. All of our suspicions are true, and now we can prove them.

  At the time of writing this report, I have only been able to give the book a cursory glance. Initially, it’s a pilot’s logbook that contains flight plans, dates, and times, but then it turns into a journal that details how Captain Reed and his crew were abducted from the Bermuda Triangle and transported to another world “with no recognizable stars or constellations.” The captain even describes some of the alien inhabitants he encountered and the features of an alien planet. I have only begun transcribing the journal, but what follows is a small portion of the entries I have copied so far:

  #

  Pilot logbook (05 Dec 1945)

  1630 hrs – Having just reported in as “ready crew,” my twelve-man crew and I have been ordered to search for a patrol of TBM Avengers lost over the Atlantic. We bear a fuel load more than sufficient to stay aloft for over twenty-four hours.

  …

  1715 hrs – Approaching last assessed position of the lost patrol. Holding course. Faulty compass. No sign of the missing craft.

  …

  1730 hrs – Faulty radio. Lost contact with mainland. Lt. Doug Johnson suspects faulty voltage regulators. Still no sign of lost patrol.

  …

  (Editorial note: As near as we can figure, this was Captain Reed’s last day on Earth. Now here’s where it gets interesting…)

  #

  Before Mac could read any further, a signal from the communications console indicated that the shuttle had an incoming packet from Europa Moon Base Alpha.

  She read the incoming communiqué and then flipped the intercom switch. She dialed in the ship’s bathroom and heard Leo singing some mid-twentieth century rock-and-roll song in the shower.

  “Leo, get your butt up here,” she ordered, cutting his crooning short.

  Leo’s slightly embarrassed voice came back over the cockpit speakers, “Acknowledged Commander.” With concern in his voice, he added, “Everything 10-2?”

  “Yeah, everything’s okay. We’ve got final clearance to land. I didn’t travel a billion miles just to stare at the damn thing, so get up here so we can start our final checklist and put this pig on the ground,” she said, eager to get surface-side.

  “Yes, ma’am. Next stop, Mudball Central!” Mac imagined her future son in-law smiling that big dopey grin of his.

  Chapter 3

  The Europa Moon Base

  Europa’s surface base, Moon Base Alpha, was hidden deep inside a large crater, whose ice walls provided protection from radiation and errant meteors. The Explorer II entered orbit and landed at the base without incident and in record time. As much as Mac hated to admit it, the credit was mostly due to Leo’s piloting skills. Her quirky space-jock son-in-law was shaping up to be quite an astronaut. The fact that he seemed to do his job effortlessly made it all the harder to admit.

  Safely tucked away in the base’s hangar bay, the Explorer II was swarmed by colonists anxious to unload badly needed supplies, to mingle with the newest arrivals, and to hear the latest news from Earth.

  However, Mac wasn’t one to waste time with small talk. The sooner she got the supplies un-loaded and the outgoing passengers on-loaded, the sooner she would get back home to her daughter.

  She was supervising the unloading of the first soil-mover when Leo’s patience finally wore out. As it turned out, it had taken him a lot longer than she had anticipated.

  As he handed her the updated returning payload manifest he asked, “Aren’t you even curious about the pyramid?”

  “No,” she replied curtly. She didn’t even bother to ask how or why he had hacked into her files and read the Bort report; they had both known he was going to do it anyway.

  “Not even a little curious?” he prodded.

  “No, it’s restricted.” She waited for a passing lift operator to move out of earshot. “It’s classified, and we’re not even supposed to know about it. That’s all I need to know.” Nothing — not even the secret of the universe — was going to cost her that promotion to base commander. She’d already lost too much over it. She waited out another passerby and then whispered harshly to him, “There’s no way I’m going down to that pyramid.”

  Mac had pushed aside her feelings of curiosity regarding Joan’s report, but she was still anxious to see her friend. She was surprised that Joan wasn’t waiting for her the moment she stepped off the ship.

  “Commander MacKenzie O’Bryant,” said a gruff and weathered voice.

  Mac looked up to see a full-star general and a space commando appear on either side of her. They both looked directly at her, as if Leo weren’t even there. She noticed that they wore tactical gear and were armed with standard issue A.P.D.F. (Allied Planet Defense Force) rifles and sidearms. She quickly summed up both men in a glance.

  Mac recognized General Zimmerman immediately. She knew him by reputation, and she’d also met him on her last visit. The general was an older man with stark white hair, a tough, lean body and calloused hands. He was not a physically threatening man, in terms of his size, but his eyes seemed old, as though they had seen far too much for any one man. Mac suspected that this was a result of his extensive service during the Seven-Year War with the Coalition. She knew the general was now in charge of security for the entire base and was probably responsible for keeping Dr. Bort’s findings top secret, as well.

  “My name is General Zimmerman, and this here is Sergeant Brett Harper.”

  The commando standing next to the general nodded and tipped his watch cap. “Ma’am,” he said with a Midwestern twang that rivaled her own accent from the Carolinas.

  Mac didn’t know the six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound commando from any of her previous visits, but she could tell from his all-American, boyish good looks, which included a shock of reddish hair sticking out of his cap, that he was probably a country boy from the Midwest. If he weren’t in uniform, Mac imagined that he would be wearing a flannel shirt and would have a prairie weed sticking out of his mouth. The wad of chew hidden beneath his lower lip only confirmed her suspicion.

  “What’s wrong?” Mac asked the general. She was more concerned now than ever that Dr. Bort hadn’t been in the hangar bay to greet her.

  Brett answered for him. “We have a situation developing. One Professor Joan Bort has commandeered a guard’s gun and locked herself in the underwater bas
e. She’s threatening to shoot anyone who enters.”

  Mac wasn’t completely surprised. Professor Joan Bort wasn’t about to give up the secrets of the universe without a fight. Joan’s husband had died nearly twenty years ago, and her kids were all grown and had their own kids, so in Joan’s mind, she probably had little to lose. But still, this was crazy, even by Joan’s standards. Mac gave the general a questioning look, as if to say, “What does this have to do with me?”

  “We think you might be able to help us defuse the situation,” the general explained. “Base Commander Ingram said that she was a friend of yours. We’re to escort you down to Beta Base to see if you can talk some sense into her.”

  When Leo realized that Mac was being invited to enter the secret pyramid, he gave her his best puppy dog look ever.

  She sighed and turned to the general, “If I’m going, my lieutenant’s coming along. I’d rather not find out what kind of trouble he’d get into if I left him here on his own.”

  “Where we going?” Tae asked.

  As usual, Tae had popped up at an inopportune time.

  Before the general could say anything, Mac turned to the general and said, “And if she’s locked any hatches behind her, Tae’s your man.”

  General Zimmerman shook his head and smiled before walking toward the exit. Mac understood the smile to mean that the general wasn’t telling them no.

  “No, seriously, where are we going?” Tae asked Leo.

  Leo quickly looked around to confirm that no one was listening. “To an ancient five-sided pyramid on the ocean floor,” he said, “but don’t tell anyone. It’s top secret.”

  Tae still looked confused or amazed — Mac couldn’t tell which — so she added, “The Beta Base wasn’t chosen at random, like everyone believes. It was built near an underwater pyramid that was discovered by thermal imagers about fifty years ago.”

  “You knew about this, too?” Tae asked Leo looking hurt.

  Mac didn’t blame him. This was a huge engineering feat, and he was only now hearing about it. Tae and Leo had been together on the Explorer II for nearly six months and had trained together for nearly another year before that. Mac could see it on his face; they were the closest things he had to friends, and they hadn’t let him in on the secret of the century.

  Leo smiled impishly and said, “Sorry, Tae. I just found out about it myself.”

  Tae bit down on his bottom lip, too angry to reply and choosing to stay quiet instead. Mac decided she would have preferred if he yelled at them just to get it off his chest.

  Mac started after the general and Brett, and Leo and Tae followed.

  Leo stopped for a moment and removed his camera from his shoulder pocket to check it for a charge.

  Mac called back to him, “No cameras, Leo.”

  Leo seemed to debate this order before he put the camera on a nearby crate and dashed after them. Seconds later, he reappeared, made sure no one was watching, and covertly pocketed the camera.

  He caught up with Mac, Tae, the commando, and the general after they had already passed through the busy base command center and entered the elevator that would take them down seventy kilometers through the slushy ocean to Beta Base.

  “Hold the door!” Leo said.

  Mac rolled her eyes at her errant second as he slipped through the closing door.

  “Is this it?” Mac asked the general as she nodded toward the big red-haired country-boy commando. “Aren’t you bringing more men?”

  “No,” General Zimmerman said, “the pyramid’s strictly need-to-know basis. I’ve already got one of my men down there securing the entrance.” He checked the radio mic in his ear. “By the way, after this is all over I’ll have NDA’s for all of you to sign, no exceptions. Get used to not talking about it ladies and gentlemen. What you’re about to see is classified.”

  There was a light hum as the elevator began its descent.

  “Ah, is that normal?” Tae asked Brett, who stood next to him. He pointed to the sticky liquid that had begun seeping in near the floor.

  “What, that? Oh, that’s nothing,” the commando replied somewhat unconvincingly.

  Brett pressed a button and spoke into the microphone on the elevator’s control panel. He crouched low so his lips were as close to the speaker as possible. “Hello, maintenance?” he said. “We’ve got some water leakage in the deep-sea elevator.” Turning back to the group, he said, “Nothing to worry about — happens all the time.”

  For once, “Great” was all Leo could manage to say. Tae took a small step away from the puddle of dark water pooling at his boots.

  Just then, everyone heard a resounding THUMP against the elevator shaft’s outer wall.

  “What was that?” Mac asked, struggling to hide the concern in her voice.

  “Oh, that? That really is no cause for alarm.” This time Brett’s voice was more believable. “We call them ‘Thumpers.’”

  “You call them what?” Leo asked.

  “We call them ‘Thumpers’ because they like to ‘Thump’ the sides of the station’s walls.” Seeing their apprehension, he quickly added, “Don’t worry; they’re perfectly harmless — about the size of an orca back on Earth. We don’t have any clear pictures of them yet, only what the thermal imagers give us.”

  The commando rambled on about Europa’s sea life, but Mac didn’t hear him. She was thinking about the pyramid in the ocean’s murky depths and her friend, in peril, within its walls.

  The leaky elevator continued its 70-kilometer descent, and the doors finally opened on a cheerfully automated “You have now arrived at Beta Base level” to reveal the dimly lit underwater Beta Base, which consisted of little more than a basic command center and a modest laboratory. It was surrounded on all sides by cold, cloudy waters, visible through large rectangular viewing ports.

  Surprised to find the base abandoned, Mac asked, “Where is everyone?”

  “As a precaution, everyone was evacuated to the surface,” the general said.

  Brett added, “A few misplaced rounds from the sidearm your friend stole and then all the water out there would come rushing right on in here.” He motioned to the view ports.

  “Wait a minute,” Leo said nervously. He stopped walking away from the safety of the elevator. “What did you just say?”

  “Don’t worry about it, flyboy,” Brett said. “Just standard operating procedure.”

  “It’s right through there,” the general said as he stepped down into a smaller version of the aboveground OPS center.

  Mac looked where the general was pointing and saw the entranceway to a tubular passage on the other side of the tiny OPS center.

  Brett unslung his large black gear bag and dropped it to the floor, where it landed with a heavy THUNK. He unzipped the bag and pulled out a tactical vest. “Here you go, Commander. Put this on.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” Mac replied.

  “Yes, ma’am, please put the vest on.” Brett smiled. Clearly, she was going to put the vest on, without his help or with it.

  Mac knew better than to argue with a commando, and it did make sense. Brett helped her put on the vest and tighten it.

  “Wait a minute,” Leo said. “Don’t Tae and I get one?”

  Brett looked at his bag and then back at them. “Sorry, I only brought the one spare.”

  General Zimmerman racked the slide to his pulse rifle and double checked that there was a round in the chamber. “Just try and stay in the back, behind us,” he said as he led the group toward the tunnel’s entrance.

  Once there, he checked in with a second commando, who had close cropped blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a square jaw. The commando wasn’t as tall or wide as Brett, but the fabric of his BDU strained from his ripped muscles underneath.

  “Status?” the general asked him.

  “No
change,” the blonde commando said with a curt German accent.

  Quickly introducing them, the general said, “Commander MacKenzie O’Bryant, this here’s the Coalition’s finest elite-class commando, Sergeant Alan Stein.”

  “Just call me Mac,” she replied before following the general and Brett into the tubular tunnel.

  The big blonde commando watched her with an appreciative eye. As Leo went to step past him into the tunnel, the commando’s large hand shot out with surprising speed and landed on Leo’s chest, stopping him in his tracks. Leo looked down. The commando’s hand was the size of a baseball glove.

  “You’re not going anywhere, I think,” Commando Stein said in his thick accent, which brought to mind the dozen or so World War II videos Leo had watched during the six-month voyage to Europa. Mac glanced back and snorted at her lieutenant’s wide-eyed gaze as he stared up at the commando blocking his way.

  “Stand down,” the general ordered. “He’s with the commander.”

  Mac couldn’t see the German commando’s face but something must have flashed across it because Leo suddenly paled and took a half step back. The commando turned to let Leo and Tae pass. Leo gave the man a wide berth, casting furtive glances even as he followed the rest of them down the tunnel. Mac could see something working in his mind and she decided she really didn’t want to know where his thoughts were taking him though she was sure she’d find out eventually.

  They proceeded through the tunnel, which, according to Brett’s recollection of the schematics, was 220 meters in length. Brett explained to Mac that the tube was made of a nanofiber matrix of the hardest acrylic glass known to man, but that they could’ve saved their money because visibility through the dark slush was nearly zero. If one waited for hours, he or she might glimpse a tail or fin passing near the glass, but that was about all.