Europa (Deadverse Book 1)

by Flunker, Richard

  “So…..” Joyce began.

  “Hammy?”

  - Yes ma’am? – The AI responded with a soothing electronic voice.

  “Have you been following the conversation?”

  - Always. –

  “Good, can you bring up the data in questions?”

  The screen in front of Joyce burst into life and images of files started to flood her workspace. The file count shot up from hundreds to thousands. Joyce looked back at Crysta, laughed gleefully, and hugged the introvert. Crysta returned the hug then got up to leave.

  “This is going to take forever. I’ll let you know when I find something,” Joyce said, fully focused on the files on her screen.

  “Just remember, Joyce,” Crysta said as she headed towards the door, “Captain Charles is the only person on the base that has a gun.”

  But the words fell on deaf ears. If there was any person that could hide her digital tracks on this base, it was Joyce.

  Crysta walked out into the hallway and headed down towards her own work space. She had several requests from Bobby and the captain to verify all of the drone soldier software issues, run any patches and make sure they were ready to take commands. It was then that she nearly came to a stop. The captain had been the only one with a gun, till now. Deep underneath her, twenty drone soldiers were in the process of refueling their bodies, biological and machine. Their next step would be to arm themselves. Then there would be many more guns on the peaceful mission to Europa. More guns than scientists.

  Crysta didn’t like guns. She thought the mind, whether biological or artificial, was a far greater weapon.

  She would have to keep an eye on those soldiers.

  - Horace -

  …Entry 893-A…

  …Subject Hoarry…

  …Last session…

  …Dr. Horace Tarner…

  Subject is ready for his mission. We spoke only briefly this morning during our scheduled session. Captain Hoarry is a well-assured, confident and strong man. During the two years on mission, plus the nine month travel, he has rarely shown any sign of mental anguish or trauma. The only other person to show similar resilience is the mission commander, Benjamin Kelly. It is my theory that the reason both of these men have such outstanding balance is due to their nature as family men.

  I further reiterate my long standing dispute with mission control that everyone on this highly dangerous mission should have families, myself included. Mission command overruled me, and instead sent men and women with no apparent attachments on Earth. They have instead created false attachments here within these tight confines.

  The mission reaches a critical point tomorrow. Captain Hoarry showed a bit of trepidation as we spoke. In any other situation, I would chalk it up to nervousness for such a grand achievement. Unfortunately, the captain has shown some unease now for the past several weeks. Something has changed within the man, even if ever so slightly, but he refuses to speak of anything but duty.

  On a side note, the captain did not express having received any messages from his wife. That was our usual session opener, but he has not mentioned her or his family in that same amount of time.

  Will need longer sessions with the captain once he returns from the artifact.

  Day 4 AE

  - Connie -

  A metallic knock echoed into the small dome. It was the smallest of the domes, but the only one that opened up if needed. Connie DeVicio looked up from her work and back towards the door. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

  “Uhm, yeah?” she shouted back. Her voice echoed in the dome.

  The door creaked open, scraping against the ice on the floor, sending frozen flakes sliding off to the side. Two heavy boots stepped in, holding the man down on the ice. Connie understood the magnetic boots that helped everyone walk easier on the base, without having to deal constantly with the low gravity. She knew because she had helped lay the magnetic lines in the ice just under the floor.

  She looked up and saw Thomas, and smiled.

  “I would have figured you would be out there with the crew,” she smirked.

  “And miss a moment alone with you?” he said, coming towards her. “Not a chance.”

  She stood up and met him in an embrace, kissing him once quickly, then again.

  “Well, you can help me out with this Tin Can,” she said, pointing up at the SEV.

  They didn’t call it a Tin Can for nothing. It was shaped like a soda can, with a tiny module at its tip. The control boosters ran down the soda pop frame and the whole thing sat on top of a large hydrogen booster. Thomas looked beyond the SEV where hundreds of pressure tanks lay. Usually, the small rocket ship was parked on a platform a few miles from the base, but before every orbital mission, it would be brought back to the dome in order to get a check through.

  “When do you start gathering the hydrogen?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow. Gotta be ready since the next pod comes into orbit in two weeks.”

  Thomas walked past the SEV and put his hand on one of the pressure tanks. When full, they would fit into the soda can frame and were used to burn the main booster. When attached to the supply pods sent from Earth, the SEV would burn the booster in order to slow the pod down and drop it back down to the lunar surface. Connie would have to make sure it was dropping at a precise speed. The pods had their own landing system which only worked if the pod was dropping at the exact speed needed.

  Connie finished working a bolt onto one of the maneuvering rings on the SEV, tightening it one last time. She set her wrench down and looked up at Thomas.

  “Seriously, why aren’t you out there with them? God knows you’ve earned it after all that brutal work you and Jenna have been up to for the past two years.”

  “Yeah, she wouldn’t miss it. Wouldn’t surprise me if she snuck into the artifact with the soldiers.”

  Connie laughed. She knew about their past. She also knew that Jenna was aware of what she had with Thomas. In fact, she was the only one that knew, in any official sense.

  “So, why aren’t you out there then?” she asked again.

  Thomas turned around and looked at her. His eyes were a little glassed over. Connie stood up and walked over to him, looking him right in the eyes.

  “You OK, Thomas?”

  “You ever wonder why it didn’t make it to Earth?” he asked.

  “This again?” Connie had talked about Thomas’ fears many times over. “We sent a million drones up here before us. There’s nothing down in there. At least nothing alive.”

  “It’s very small of us humans to think we can even begin to understand what might be in there. We can barely get a few humans off halfway through their own solar system. And we think we know what might be in there.” Thomas turned away and walked back over to the cylinders. “I think we got lucky it crashed here. But here we are, about to walk into it.”

  Connie took a deep breath. She stood behind the distraught man and wrapped her arms around him. She had been chosen to come on the mission mostly because of her amazing abilities to fix things when there were no spare parts. Funny thing was, she had barely needed to put her skills to work. She got more than enough spare parts with every supply pod. Thankfully, unlike others that grew bored on the lunar base, she got to fly the SEV every six weeks.

  But the best thing that had happened to her here, had been Thomas. She had also come on the mission without any Earthly attachments. She had a boyfriend, but once she entered training, he dumped her. It was a matter of priorities. The idiot had asked her to choose between him and possibly the greatest discovery in mankind’s history. When she had showed just a hint of doubt, he had left. It had devastated her, but she had grown to be OK with it. Life would continue. She just hadn’t expected it to continue on a moon with no life on it.

  In two months’ time, the final supply pod would arrive, and she would help build their return vessel. Once they got back to Earth, they had already talked about tying the knot.

  A match made among the st
ars, just not literally.

  Close enough.

  - Charles -

  It was the closest she would get to the artifact, at least for now. Charles looked back upon the downtrodden Jenna. She had hinted to him more than several times that she was willing to go along with him and the soldiers ‘just in case’. That reason was why she couldn’t come along. Still, somewhere deep inside, he had almost allowed her to.

  He liked her. She was the kind of kid he liked working with. He even liked calling her a kid, even though she was far from it. It was just that she reminded him of his own children.

  The rover had brought him and the soldiers out on the ice plain. Deep below them, the artifact lay buried in ice. There was a large machine in front of him, one of the many plasma drillers that had been used to get to the artifact. Next to it was what amounted to a crane. It was used as a makeshift elevator that dropped down into the shaft which was about a mile deep. The shaft exited onto a small room carved out of the ice right above what was best assumed to be the entrance to the artifact. They were about to find out.

  Charles was nervous and he knew why. It wasn’t because of the mission ahead of him, and therein lay the irony. He was about to lead one of the greatest missions of discovery in mankind’s history, and his mind was elsewhere. His dreams had been haunting him, and today, maybe especially today, he did not want to be on that moon. He knew what needed to be done, he just felt helpless. What was worse was that he was concealing the facts from his fellow crewmembers, especially Ben. That made it even more daunting.

  “Let’s do this, captain,” came the sniveling voice of the mission’s xeno ‘specialist’.

  Charles walked up the edge of the shaft and looked down, seeing nothing but frozen darkness. All of the soldiers had checked out; they were responsive and had the full mission parameters uploaded. Even then, their own AI software was extremely advanced, and he could give commands while under the ice. He was ready, too. He had trained for this specific mission in Antarctica three years ago. He knew what to do. It was the bumbling fool of an idiot he had to take with him that worried him.

  “After you,” Charles said, pointing down in the hole.

  The gangly form of Glorin came over. His helmet seemed too big for his tiny body and for a moment, Charles almost laughed at the thought of his helmet tipping him over. He wouldn’t mind seeing him plummet down the dark hole. Of course, the low Europa gravity wasn’t about to allow for his moment of pleasure. Glorin stepped back and looked up at Charles. The helmet LED lights glowed dimly. Most of the light here reflected off the face of Jupiter, as it took up most of the Europa sky.

  Charles was about to step forward and jokingly push the man, but thought otherwise. How unprofessional that would seem.

  “Uhm,” Glorin stuttered for a moment, “The soldiers go first, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Charles said as he motioned for the first soldiers.

  As automatically as they themselves were, the first two drone soldiers walked up to the edge of the shaft. Their metallic and carbon alloy mech suits actually glowed from the Jupiter light, making them look that much more impressive. Each was an exact copy of the other. There were no unique markings at all. That was the point.

  “Command central, final check please,” Charles barked out into his helm.

  “Loud and clear. Will follow descent on cameras,” Ben chimed in over the speakers. “Everyone is here watching. Good luck, captain.”

  With that, Charles took a deep breath and nodded his head to the first soldiers. The soldiers designated #1 took a step forward, and for a moment, floated there above the shaft. Then, just ever so slightly, began to drop. Within a few seconds, he had vanished down into the shaft. The second soldier stepped up and repeated the same action, disappearing down the hole. A few minutes later, all but one of the soldiers had dropped through the shaft.

  “Now it’s your turn, professor,” Charles said. He liked calling Glorin that.

  Ignacius stepped towards the shaft and looked down. He looked back at Charles and the captain could see the fear in his eyes.

  “I’ll be coming right after you.”

  Glorin turned and took a step forward. Charles wondered if he had closed his eyes. A leap, or in this case, step, of faith.

  As soon as the small form of Glorin’s suit had vanished down the shaft, the captain turned around and looked back at Jenna, who stood next to the remaining soldier by the rover. He waved, and walked backwards over the shaft. He felt the ground give away and for a second, he too was floating. Then, he felt that remotest sense of gravity begin to pull his body down.

  Within moments, he was enveloped in darkness. He looked up and could see a small pinprick of light slowly growing smaller and smaller. He reached down, touched a button on his wrist and the lights on his helm came on. He shielded his eyes as they were too bright. Once they were dimmed properly, he looked around. He could reach out and touch the sides of the ice shaft. In fact, everyone descending was using this as a braking mechanism. Even in Europa’s fraction of gravity, you would keep speeding up.

  He brought his other wrist up and uncoiled a small display. He brought up the data links with all of the soldiers, showing their vitals. He could pull up each one of their cameras if he needed to, but all he would get now would be darkness.

  At about the ten minute mark, Charles checked on the status of drone #1. He brought up the camera, checked the link, and then was about to turn on its lights, but saw he didn’t need to. The camera showed an already lit cavern. The EUAs had done their job. Two were lodged into the ice walls, shining their flood lights into the room. Charles focused on the camera, but couldn’t make out much. He tried looking down, but couldn’t make out any light sifting up through the bodies still descending the shaft. The captain continued to watch his monitor as the drone soldiers emptied out into the lit cavern one by one. When he saw #19 empty out of the shaft, he knew he was close.

  Charles closed his eyes for a moment and thought about the turmoil that was wrecking his mind. For the moment, he would have to try hard to forget it, but all he could think of was his family. He was just forming an image of her face in his mind when he collided, ever so softly, into Glorin. The short man had braced himself against the ice, slowing down his descent just before the shaft emptied out into the artifact cave, but had come to a complete stop.

  “What are you doing? Drop through!” Charles yelled into the comm.

  “What’s going on Charles?” Ben chimed in over the helmet speakers.

  “This idiot is stopped here just at the end of the shaft.”

  “That’s a seventy foot drop. We can’t do that.” Glorin’s voice was visibly shaking.

  “We’ve gone over this. You will float down just fine, especially since you’re at a complete stop now.” Charles was really annoyed now.

  “Seventy feet…” Glorin began, but Charles wouldn’t wait. Instead, he gripped onto the side of the shaft as best as he could, raised his feet up, and slammed down onto the little man’s shoulders, pushing him through. Screams filled Charles’ helmet and he quickly switched off the comm link to Glorin.

  “Idiot,” Charles mumbled, allowing himself to follow through into the cave. “Every single one of the soldiers dropped through Ben, just fine, and here that idiot is getting scared. IDIOT!”

  “He’s, uh, still screaming, Charles.” Ben pretended to act concerned, but Charles knew his friend. If he wasn’t laughing out loud back up in central, then everyone else was. For a moment he regretted his actions. He was sure to hear about it later.

  He took a new look at the giant cavern. He looked around and quickly spotted the two EUAs, both on either side of the cave, frozen into the walls. Their flood lights reflected oddly blue light all over the cave. He was inside a diamond. He turned his head down and saw the spinning body of Glorin, his helmet LED lights shining as he spun about. He quickly voiced commands into his comm to soldiers two and seven to make sure they caught up. Further down, he saw bo
th of the mechs spring into action, looking up. The rest of them were already taking point. Three of the soldiers had gathered the plasma drill that had already been dropped and were positioning it at the very edge of where the alien vessel disappeared into the ice.

  That’s when he took gauge of the artifact. He already knew that it was nearly a kilometer long, shaped like a green crystal out of the depths of the Earth. But looking at it now, up close, he felt a moment of awe. He wasn’t sure if it was natural-looking or not. There were clear lines that ran down its length, as far as he could see. Either line ran parallel to the other down the length and sides. It was too even to be a fluke. There were ridges, like the bumps on a dinosaur’s back, long yet smooth and round. Towards its rear, or what they considered its rear, the ridges divided and covered its entire back end. Two large fins extended out, like a dolphin’s tail, but without the smoothness. Both were buried into the ice.

  As he touched down, he was ready for a bit of an impact, but was caught off balance by his landing. It was soft. Too soft. He reached down and pushed himself up. Odd. Charles stood up straight, nodded slightly then knew what he had to do. From afar, the hull had the appearance of a crystal, solid. Pushing himself up though, the hull was almost leathery though. It felt…odd.

  “Mankind has ever wondered if we were alone in the universe. Wonder no more.”

  Ben opened up the comm link and Charles could hear cheering and clapping in the background.

  “Good line,” Ben replied. “Going into the history books.”

  The captain felt himself being spun around. He came face to face with the bright LED lights of Glorin. He could make out the angry face yelling inside his helmet, but he still had the comms off. Charles pointed up to the lights and tapped on the helmet. The angry face stopped moving, jaw clenched. In an angry sweep, the little man hit his wrist tablet and the lights turned off. He then started yelling again. Charles took a deep breath, then opened up the comm.