by Brian Kayser
“Jeez, that’s it?” Juliana laughs with a smirk, swirling her finger around as if to say Ya-hoo.
All Turk could do is shrug his shoulders as if to say what can you do, it is what it is. He knows he can’t really try doing any doughnuts with all the eyes and ears on them. Maybe later!
They drive off in the battery powered rover, taking in the spectacular sights, with a massive Jupiter peeking slightly up on the horizon; they seem to be driving right into it. Some of the terrain is very smooth, but other areas are quite challenging and bumpy; much to the delight of Turk, but not so much to Evans.
There is so much to take in visually, yet they need to keep an eye on the instrument panel, specifically watching the readings of the ice penetrating radar that estimates the thickness of the ice they are driving over. They are looking for the best place to drill their hole down into the Great Schmidt Lake.
After a bit over an hour of exploring, they have located their prime spot. They found a deep wide groove that is traversable with the rover, while pulling the Nuclear Heated Torpedo Probe. This torpedo probe will be used to drill down through the ice.
“Yes, this should do nicely,” Juliana says while setting up a surface monitoring device. “The ice is at least 450 meters thinner here, which should shave off a few hours of drilling.”
“Great,” says Turk pulling the rover up to where Juliana is. “Is that thing all set? We need to get back to Eagle-2. We have less than 45 minutes of air left.”
“Yes, all s-- Jeez, do you feel that?” She grabs the tripod stand of the monitoring device to steady herself.
Turk, who is sitting in the rover’s driver seat just looks at her strangely and says, “Feel what? I don’t feel anything. Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine… but it felt like the ground was shaking,” she responds, gesturing down to the ground.
“Hmmm, I didn’t feel anything; maybe you just got a little dizzy. Check your oxygen mixture,” Turk suggests, seemingly throwing out a random suggestion.
“It’s NOT my oxygen; the ground moved, I swear it.” Evans retorts, a little annoyed at him.
“Okay, okay,” Turk hops out of the rover and stands as still as possible. “I still don’t feel anything…”
“I guess it’s gone now. Maybe I was dizzy… I don’t know... no, I don’t feel anything now.” She starts to climb into the rover. “That was just a weird feeling though. Okay, let’s go.”
Turk punches the accelerator again and gets going as fast as he can, to make it up the slippery slope of the groove they are in. It jerks to the right and then slips to the left, as the wheels spin on the ice, spitting out tails of crystalized snow. He spins the steering wheel one way, then the other, as he fights to get them up to the top.
“Come on Bessie!” he shouts, as they are almost to the top but almost stopped also, all four wheels spinning and causing them to slip all around. Finally the front wheels reach the top and somehow find enough traction to pull them out. As the back wheels lurch over the lip of the incline, and with the accelerator still punched to the floor, the rover does a complete 360 degree spin, much to the delight of Turk.
“Yee-Ha!” he shouts as he straightens it out and heads in the direction of Eagle-2.
“Yeah… somehow I knew you’d find a way to do that! Now I am dizzy,” Juliana says while shaking her head.
Turk just smiles and says, “Oh, sorry, that was totally an accident I assure you!”
“Ah huh… whatever you say Lieutenant. All I know, is that my bio-waste container is full, and I really need to, well, relieve myself, and that sure didn’t help matters any!” Evans says, realizing after she said it that it is now recorded for generations to come.
“Well, sorry about that. Maybe you should lay off the liquids,” he suggests.
“Jeez, I barely drank half of my water supply today,” she starts explaining, then decides to change subjects, “you know… I really don’t want to discuss this on the com.”
Turk just laughs and then announces on the public com band, “Eagle-2, this is EVA Team 2, we have located our drilling location and are en-route back to base for the night, ETA 5 minutes.”
When they pull to where Eagle-2 is perched, they see that Hicks and Fedoseev are already back, as their rover is parked out front, with the solar panels extended to recharge the batteries. Turk pulls their rover beside the other and also extends their solar panels, so it will have a good charge for the next day. They climb into the air-lock chamber, close the hatch and wait for 90 seconds for the pressure to equalize to the interior cabin.
Chapter 6: Relationship?
After Turk and Juliana change out of their bio-suits, they are required to do a workout. Even though they had been outside moving around for nearly seven hours, the light gravity doesn’t work their muscles enough. After their required workout time, they are talking in the sleeping cabin, where they finally have a little privacy; if they keep their voices low.
“Wow, that was mind boggling today, surreal, I really don’t know how to describe it,” Juliana says in a soft voice, looking at Turk with a smile; a look of complete satisfaction on her face that is still flushed from the workout.
Turk returns her stare with a smile of his own and responds, “Yeah, that was great! Better than I expected really. The way she whipped around with all the tires spinning… ah that was fun!”
Juliana cocks her head sideways looking at Turk, “I’m not talking about your stupid doughnut on the rover!” Then she gently smacks him on his chest with the back of her hand.
“You’re not?” Turk sarcastically replies in a long drawn out fashion, and smiles. “Oh… that was classic though!”
Juliana just giggles and shakes her head. Then she sits down with a plop, on a built-in bench connected to the wall and continues, “I’m talking about just being out there, on Europa, on the surface of a moon orbiting Jupiter. All the ice, the ice mountains glimmering in the glow of the Sun and of Jupiter. Seeing the long reflection of Jupiter on the ice during our trip back home, back here.” She leans back and crosses her legs, wondering what smartass response he is going to come back with next.
“Yes, yes,” Turk says being more serious now and sits down beside her, “it was awesome, wasn’t it?”
Juliana grabs Turk’s hand, pleased that he is being more serious now. “Do you know what the best part was Patrick? And DON’T say the doughnut!”
Turks smiles big at that, but refrains from making a follow-up joke and just places his other hand on-top of hers and asks, “What?”
She locks her eyes to his and says, “The way you took my hand when we were walking to the payload pods. Although I longed for our hands to be flesh to flesh, like they are now, it was very sweet and very romantic. We’ve never taken a walk outside before, and for our first real walk outside to be on Europa, was very special.”
“I was thinking the same thing actually!” Turk responds then continues with much inflection in his voice, “I was thinking… how many guys can say they’ve taken their girl for a walk on a moon? Nobody! Forget Paris, we’ll always have Europa!”
Juliana giggles at that and then says, “Yeah, well you just better not take off without me though!”
“I’d Never!” he retorts, snapping his head back as if surprised she’d even suggest such a thing. “I’ve never seen that old movie but actually… I think it is the girl that leaves the guy behind anyhow.”
“Well, jeez, I don’t plan on doing that,” Juliana says along with a squeeze of his hand. “As special as our little moon walk was today, I still long for the day where we can take a moonlight stroll back on Earth.”
Turk smiles as he pictures that scene and describes it to Juliana. “Yes, me too. I can picture it right now. You and me walking hand-in-hand back on the old Jersey Shore Boardwalk near my home. After a nice dinner at Martells’, they have the best shrimp around, we would grab an ice cream at the Sweet Shop and walk in the moonlight. Then maybe we’d find a bench, or sit out on the pier, and
gaze up into the night sky.” Turk looks up to the ceiling of the sleeping cabin, as if it really was the night sky, and points up. Juliana looks up as well.
He continues, “While gazing up, we notice a small bright dot, the brightest dot in the sky besides the Moon, a dot that we know is Jupiter. Then we would look at each other nonchalantly and say: Yeah, we’ve been there, we visited her moon Europa and took a stroll hand-in-hand.”
Then Juliana adds, “…and then we’d say - We’ll always have Europa!” They both bust out laughing, hunched over now, trying not to be too loud and attract attention.
Turk gently places his hand on her cheek, to return her gaze to his eyes and says, “Yes, it’s a little strange isn’t it? We’ve spent our whole time together so-far in space and now on this moon. I guess you can say we have a far out relationship!”
“Oh Jeez!” she says shaking her head, as she does a lot with Turk, as he is always saying something off-the-wall. Then she perks to attention and says, “Hey… wait a minute, did you say relationship?” She locks her eyes to his, still being a bit silly.
“Ah, well, what I mean by that, is… well, you know…” Turk says, playfully stuttering, now looking at the floor.
“No… I don’t know. What?” She is now leaning over to him, their faces just a few inches apart as he looks back into her eyes.
“Well Juliana, I guess I mean… I love you!” Turk says a matter-of-factly, keeping his eyes locked with hers.
Juliana’s eyes widen, she pulls back a bit and chuckles slightly. “What? What did you just say mister?”
“You heard me!” He responds.
“Jeez, are you being serious?” She asks, peering at him with squinting eyes.
He reaches around and grabs the back of her head, pulling her nearer, then leans over and kisses her soft lips. She looks deep into his eyes for a second before returning the kiss, a little harder this time. It had been a few weeks since they were able to be passionate with each other, and now they could hear their hearts starting to thump in their chests, as they started going at it a little stronger.
“Ah hem!” is heard from the port door. They separate and see Hicks coming inside.
“Sorry, did I interrupt something?” Hicks booming voice asks, knowing darn well that he did.
“Ah… no, we were just talking, come on in,” Turk says with a little chuckle, while giving Juliana a wink; then squeezing her hand. She just looks at Hicks and smiles with blushing cheeks, giving him a hello nod. Then she looks at Turk with a complete look of shock and surprise on her face, as she tries to determine if he was joking around or being serious. He once told her that he had never told a girl ‘I love you.’
Turk and Hicks start talking mission details.
Juliana is lost in thought.
Chapter 7: Nuclear Heated Torpedoes
“Juliana… Juliana… wake-up…” Turk is shaking her, trying to rouse her from a deep sleep. A little spittle is on her chin and now her eyes are open very wide, looking around as if she doesn’t know where she is.
“Hey-hey there sleepy head, it’s time to get rolling! Ah… you’ve got a little, ah, drool right there on your chin. Very sexy,” he whispers.
She wipes her chin dry, rolls over to her side, still a bit dazed. “Jeez, what time is it?” she croaks in a raspy voice.
“Wow, you were really out of it. It’s 7:05am already.” Turk answers, pulling on her hand to help her out of the lower bunk. She whips her legs out and just sits there; hunched over so she doesn’t bang her head on the top bunk, as there isn’t much room between them.
“Oh, okay. I had trouble falling asleep,” she mumbles as her elbows are resting on her legs and her hands are holding up her head by her chin. “I don’t think I dozed off until after 2:00am, I was afraid I was keeping everyone else awake with my tossing and turning.” She rubs her eyes. Her mind was racing the night before, thinking about the day they just had, the upcoming day, and the ‘I love you.’
“Oh, sorry to hear that, I slept like a rock,” Turk says with a big smile, knowing that what he told her last night may have been partly why she didn’t sleep much. “I didn’t hear you rolling around at all. But no time to dilly dally though, I’ll meet you at the air-lock at 7:45.”
“Okay, okay, no problem. I’ll be on time,” she says as she pulls herself to a standing position. “Jeez, I really hate mornings! But at least it’s a little easier getting up with this low gravity.”
Hicks and Fedoseev head out first. They have basically the same core mission as Turk and Evans, which is to use a nuclear heated torpedo probe to drill a hole through the ice until it reaches liquid water, then release a small remote controlled exploration probe. There is of course, much more to the mission than that, but this is the mission in a nutshell. With the previous Europa failures of the past, the GSO needs this mission to be successful and having two teams and two probes, doubles the chances of success.
It is mostly business today, as there is a lot to do and they are limited to seven hours in their bio-suits. Hicks and Fedoseev are already gone when Turk and Evans emerge from the shiny Eagle-2 lander. Turk retracts the solar panels that have been charging the rover’s batteries and they both hop into their seats and drive the rover to where their payload pods are located. They are again amazed at the beauty of their surroundings that look slightly different this morning, with the Sun at a slightly different angle.
When they arrive to where the pods are, Turk pulls the battery powered rover around to where he pulled out and left the nuclear heated torpedo probe. He puts the rover into reverse to back it up closer, so he can hook the rover to the trailer that the probe is attached to. He makes sure to put it back into the forward gear right away, so he doesn’t accidentally go in reverse when he hops back in and starts to drive off. It makes him a little nervous, pulling around a nuclear powered device on the bumpy surface of Europa, especially with the curse. But oh yeah, he’s not supposed to think about that silly anecdote.
They drive off in the rover with the probe in tow, taking in more of the spectacular sights. Jupiter is slightly higher on the horizon now and the moon IO can clearly be seen, along with its tiny shadow that is being cast on the surface of Jupiter.
Some of the terrain is very smooth, but other areas are quite challenging and bumpy. Normally, Turk would enjoy the bumpy terrain, but not with their nuclear bomb trailing behind them. Supposedly, there is zero chance it could actually explode; at least, that’s what the engineers who designed it say. He thinks the ‘Curse of Europa’ is a big joke, but it is hard not to think about all the failures and disasters of the past, when pulling a nuclear device.
At the drill site, it takes about two hours to construct the rig that will guide the torpedo probe into the ice. Something that may only take 30 minutes on Earth, but wearing bio-suits and the gloves, everything takes a lot longer.
As Turk is tightening the final connection rods, he sees the rig starting to shake slightly. “There! Jeez, do you feel that?” he hears Juliana through the com unit. She is about 60 meters away gathering surface samples.
“Well… I’m not sure if I felt anything, but the support rig sure was shaking. Must just be some slight tremors; the ice plates moving or something.” Turk responds.
“Commander Hicks, Turkovitch here, do you copy?” Turk says on the public com channel.
“Go ahead Turk…” He hears Hicks respond a few seconds later.
“We’re feeling some small tremors over here, how about you guys?” Turk asks.
“No, nothing here. It’s probably just the ice plates moving a little.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too,” Turk responds back, “Do you think it is anything to worry about?”
“No, I don’t think so. Once we get all the seismic monitoring equipment set up, we can keep a closer eye on it. Have you fired up the probe yet?” Hicks asks, more concerned about that, than of any typical seismic activity.
“Nope, in about 15 minutes though.
” Turk responds, hoping he can keep that promise. He senses Hicks will be annoyed with an answer reporting anything longer.
“Okay, we’ve had ours going for about 30 minutes now, has already gone a few meters. We are just about ready to head back to Eagle-2.” Hicks responds back smugly.
“Acknowledged. We’ll see you back there in about an hour. Turkovitch out. So Juliana, does that surface probe of yours detect any seismic activity?”
“Well, not right now, but I just got it configured and turned on. I’ll check the readings back at Eagle-2, after it has had some time to baseline,” she replies.
They take about 10 more minutes to finish constructing the support rig, then they set up the probe and engage the power. They monitor it for about 45 minutes, to make sure it is working properly, and then head back to Eagle-2. It will take over 40 hours for the probe to drill and melt its way through the nearly 3,350 meters of ice at this location. This is over 3 kilometers of ice, but is much thinner than most of the rest of the surface, which is estimated to be over 24 kilometers thick. They will return the next morning.
The drive back to Eagle-2 is pretty silent, as they both just take in the sights. Any conversation that does occur is centered mostly on the scenery. Without the torpedo probe in tow, Turk is taking a slightly different route back to the ship, which is a little more challenging; much to his delight. Juliana desperately wants to talk about their interrupted discussion the night before, but knows they can’t on the com unit. However, once they finally get to smoother terrain, where Turk isn’t constantly turning the wheels back and forth to avoid ruts and ravines, he reaches over and grabs her hand. She smiles.
Chapter 8: Place Your Bets
Back at Eagle-2, Turk and Juliana have taken off their bio-suits, cleaned themselves up, and are now eating a late lunch with Hicks, Fedoseev, and Glover.