Charles spun his chair around and looked right up at the young man. He knew the pain of battle, he had covered himself with the marks of war. They were all badges of honor, but there was none left in him.
“There is no home,” Charles said, turning back towards the monitors.
Paul shook his head, and left the room. Charles cleared his mind when the silence returned. He knew full well what the messages from Earth meant. He had studied the capacity the nations of Earth had for war. He already could see the sky filled with the warplanes, flying by themselves. Hundreds, if not thousands of factories on the ground would continue to church out bombs and guns. Long after the cities were desolate and destroyed, the mindless machines would continue to drop hellfire on targets that no longer meant anything. Even if they could return to Earth, they would drop out of the sky into a war that would fight just as easily without their governments, without their masters. If there was anyone alive, their lives were barely worth it.
There was no Earth worth returning to.
- Horace –
After he spoke to both Paul and Ben, it was decided to keep a close eye on their former chief of security, lest he harm himself, or worse, someone else. Horace felt a tinge of regret. He had always admired Charles, but clearly saw in him the signs of a meltdown, a mental break. How the well trained man would react when that break came was unknown to him.
Paul, on the other hand, he was having a hard time reading. The soldier had come through his ordeal against the foreign attack like he expected, with the stoic behavior to match his wounds. Still, in the few talks he had with him, there were hints of fear. It was the kind of fear one goes through after dealing with something completely unknown, and after the ordeal, still not understanding it. He was confused, maybe even a bit alarmed that he had survived. He spent many hours talking with Jenna, and while he was not allowed to monitor such conversations, it was probably a good thing that he was at least opening up to someone.
The one good thing that came from the fight was a slight feeling of safety. Paul had, along with Charles, set up some kind of defense system with the plasma drills, the machines that had worked so effectively on the alien sphere. It had become a bit of a ritual to watch the replay of the battle in the evenings, and everyone would cheer and holler, except for Paul, as the two diatomic warriors dueled on the surface of the moon. It had become a matter of legend in the short time since it actually happened. It was a false safety, for sure, but sometimes that feeling was better than none.
Ben continued to be on edge. He was losing weight, eating very little and sleeping even less. In the grand scheme of things, there was little left to do. Connie continued her flights into orbit, but only taking the fuel for the return trip. The hydrogen was collected automatically by Thomas’ machines, and so everyone waited. No one knew anything about Glorin or Emir, much less the alien ship. There was nothing left to do except wait and hope.
Horace was scheduled to head up to the ship in two days, where the women working on the ship were in far better morale than anyone on the surface. That was the advantage of continuous work, a schedule.
Horace sat down at his desk and began typing up what he considered his final override order of the mission. He was going to send Ben up to the ship next instead of him. Taking over the preparations of the return ship would do him good, and he could keep his eye on the surface just as easily as if he was here. Horace would take the following trip up, and the schedule would remain the same. Jenna would be next, then Thomas. Susan would return on that trip to prepare the remaining plants. Then Charles would go up. Finally, the last trip would have Susan and Paul go up together on the last flight off the moon. It would be cramped, Connie had explained, but doable, especially since there would be no cargo.
There had been some debate among the crew as to whether they should blow the base once they were gone. It could be easily done, just by overloading the hydrogen reactor to go off a few days after they had left orbit. The damage would be surreal, and, Thomas hoped, maybe it would even impact the alien ship.
The ship, the vessel. It remained out there, a terror behind the wall of ice that barely kept them separated. Horace had taken a moment to look at the pictures Connie had taken in her last fly by and he’d been there for the sphere attack. The deepest fear everyone had was the ship would come after them, destroy them in flight away from Europa. The shrink admitted to himself that the thought terrified him as well. It was for that reason that he also advocated the destruction of the base.
Susan was the only opposing voice. Horace knew why, but let her make her claim that the destruction served no purpose, and that in fact, if it didn’t destroy the alien vessel, it would certainly confirm their own destruction when it retaliated. The matter was put to a vote and there was a resounding yes for the explosion.
No one really expected to see Glorin or Emir again. Horace felt sad. Neither were ever loved by the crew; one was an outsider by choice and the other by his decisions. Whether Emir was the deranged killer or not, no one seemed to care anymore. The deaths of two of their comrades seemed to have been put far in the past, especially with the prospect of annihilation by the alien ship. Everyone simply assumed that Emir was either dead or just assimilated, or was always alien, or possessed.
And as far as Glorin, most viewed his demise as the result of his own delusions. As Connie had put it, and most seemed to agree, he died doing exactly what he wanted, exploring an alien artifact.
Horace sat back in his chair and put his feet up. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done that. He pressed complete on his order and knew he’d hear about it from Ben soon, but he didn’t care. Maybe, truly, Ben wouldn’t either.
A thought came to him, suddenly. He reached out to his ice desk, with the three metal drawers built into it, and pulled one open. Sitting at the bottom of the drawer was a red and white box with a deck of cards in it.
They needed a game night.
Day 98 AE
- Ben –
The calm before the storm. That’s how it felt. What it really was were a series of storms, and the calm before each one was numbingly boring.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Ben had not argued an order he didn’t agree with, and off to the Odyssey he had gone. Looking back, he now understood the wisdom of Horace’s actions. Up here he was busy, he had order, a schedule, and as Jenna like to joke, people to boss around. But the calm was unnerving.
Nearly two weeks since the alien attack, or reprisal, or whatever everyone debated it was, and nothing else had taken place. The work had continued and even Ben had taken part in some of the extra vehicular labor work. Ben wasn’t an astronaut, nobody on the mission was, but it was truly something else, breathtaking, when he floated out, under tether, of course, into the nothingness of space. For hours on end, he and Jenna had worked on the large chunks of ice Connie had brought up with her from the surface. Three large plasma drills had worked nonstop to keep shaping and reforming the ice until they had made their own debris shield, covering the entire front and sides of the return ship. Jenna claimed she didn’t have the expertise that Emir would have used, but the end result was solid. Jenna had the foresight of attaching plenty of extra ice to the ship itself to act as extra radiation shielding and as extra ice for the shield, should anything happen on the return trip.
All the fuel was stored away in the large pods that lined the entire drive. The AI, Hammy, had run the calculations over and over again, and they had ample. Inside, the crew members had converted the ship into a living vessel, with Susan’s touch for zero gravity hydroponics a wonder. Each room was a floating jungle, with the plants growing better and faster than ever. Within two weeks of her work, they were already harvesting roots and leaves they could eat. Ben was amazed.
And that’s why he was afraid.
The entire mission had fallen under that pattern. Wonderful achievements followed by incredible calamity. There were two days left. Nearly one hundred days ago
, they had opened up the alien vessel, to what they considered either an amazing discovery, or a truly horrific disaster. What had seemed impossible then, was on the verge of happening.
Home.
Of course, what would home bring? Charles was also on board the Odyssey, and doing better. He helped out where he could, and seemed, in general, more upbeat than he had in a while. Still, any talk of Earth left him without words, and the few he did speak were rarely any good. Ben talked to him, and Charles understood, the morale of the crew was essential, and so Charles never spoke about it, and no one asked him. But that shadow lingered.
They had nine months to deal with that. Joyce was certain that once they got closer to Earth, within four months distance, that she would be able to pick up different transmissions. There was no way that, even in a nuclear holocaust, every single human being on Earth was gone. Hiding, underground maybe, but not dead. They would have time to prepare for that eventuality, and if, in fact, it was as bleak as Charles expected it to be, then so be it. At least they would be home.
Still, there was something melancholy about leaving the tiny frozen moon. For two years this crew had lived and worked there, struggling through the low gravity, the lack of bright sunlight, the cold. And yet, it had become home in its own fashion. Some of them would remain on Europa forever.
There was a tiny cabin in the bridge of the Odyssey. It was intended, although rather without true purpose, as the captain’s quarters. Of course, the Odyssey didn’t have a captain. It never needed one. Still, the tiny room existed, and so Ben, under the insistence of everyone else, had taken possession of it. It was barely a closet, with a bed, a sink and a toilet. Everything folded up if he wanted space to do some exercises, but otherwise, barley a room. Instead, he would descend from the tiny cabin and sit on the bridge itself, as if it were his personal office. He knew better than to touch anything. At this point, no one did. The AI would fly them with just minimal supervision by Connie.
From here though, he had one of the few views out the front of the ship, and the incredible ice shield they had created. Ben wondered, as they approached Earth, would they appear as a comet in the sky. The shield was bound to sublimate, just like a comet would, just at a far lower rate. Both Jenna and Thomas seemed to think so. Emir would have known.
It was six AM by his EST watch he still kept. It was the time they all kept. Thankfully, there was no real day or night on Europa, or its orbit. He had finished his exercises for the morning and felt invigorated. Two more days.
“Good morning Odyssey,” he spoke in a deep voice over the ship’s comm. It was the real reason he liked being on the bridge; the ship broadcast channel. “I do believe breakfast this morning will be roasted vegetable omelet. Yes, I did dig up some of the eggs to use and don’t worry, we have enough for a few more times in the next nine months.”
Ben floated down the right lateral shaft down the Odyssey towards their designated mess hall. Susan was the real cook among them, but Jenna had taken the over the duties while on board the Odyssey, at least until Susan joined them by the end of the day. The air filtration system was working wonderfully on the ship, almost too well. Ben was sure he would get a whiff of the food as he pushed himself down the zero gravity shaft. In and out he passed the spinning rings, feeling a slight tug as he passed each one. But as he got closer, he still couldn’t smell anything, until he reached the mess hall. Then the smells overwhelmed him.
Everyone else was already there, and eating too. Someone laughed as he came in. Ben had made it a point of being the first one at breakfast, and here everyone was.
“Funny,” he smirked, grabbing a plate.
The gravity of the spinning rings felt good, although there was something almost hypnotic about sleeping in zero gravity.
He felt good.
They talked about what little work they had left, some plans for music that evening, but mostly, about the food. Somehow, it always came back to food. The morning hours started to wiz by when Ben noticed something was missing. He checked his watch, and it was already nine AM. The base below had not called in at eight as they were supposed to, and how they usually did. While the rest of the crew cleaned up the mess hall, Ben took out his tablet and linked it into the Odyssey’s short range communications.
“Base, this is Odyssey,” Ben started, “did I miss your call this morning?”
He waited a moment. Only Susan, Connie and Paul were left down below, and they were all linked to the main comm by their earpieces. Even if they weren’t in the control room, they could still answer. But as the minutes ticked by, no one answered.
“Odyssey to base. Please respond,” Ben continued.
Nothing.
“Joyce?” Ben called over. She came to him. “Any issues with comms this morning?”
Her head shifted back. “Not that I know of. Hold on.”
She took out her tablet and began going through her own apps. She gave the readings a quizzical look, then looked back at Ben.
“These,” she started, then stopped. “This is odd.”
They continued to tap on her tablet.
“What’s going on?” Ben asked.
“Crysta,” Joyce called over, ignoring her commander, “can you have Hammy run a sync with base?”
“Huh? Why? We don’t need any more syncs.” Crysta asked from behind one of the cooking tables.
“Just do it. I don’t have access,” Joyce said. The look on her face betrayed her concern.
“Yeah,” Crysta replied, taking out her own device and tapping it once. The results were nearly immediate.
“No link. Dead.”
Joyce looked up at Ben.
“Get to the comms now. You get me something on the base, anything. Ears, eyes. Anything. NOW!”
- Connie –
There had been, over the course of her time on the mission, a few quiet days here and there. They were usually followed up a very intense project or experiment that involved lots of physical and mental labor over the course of a couple of days, and then the days after everyone was allowed to sleep in some. On those days, Connie enjoyed waking up early anyways. She would wander the halls of the base, then spanning five domes and countless of tunnels and hallways, and take in the silence.
Today it was quiet, even more so than usual. Susan and Paul were still sleeping, at least so she thought. But even with the lack of people talking or working, there was another silence that ebbed through the base. The machines, the humming of electricity, the drip of water somewhere, it was all gone. Now, the ice walls absorbed her steps and she was immersed in a silence unlike any she had ever experienced. She liked it.
It was a welcome break from the countless noisy rocket fire from the Tin Can. The poor orbital ship had endured far more than it was designed for. Her last stress test the night before had revealed all sorts of fractures and tears. How it hadn’t fallen apart in ascent or descent was beyond her. But it just needed to last one more trip. Exiting the green dome, where Susan’s plants towered over everything even more so than before, Connie entered into the small access panel room for the hydrogen reactor. It was a tiny room, with enough room for two people to sit side by side in front of the panel that remotely ran the reactor. The AI ran it most of the time, but from here, Connie could see the progress on the hydrogen extraction that fueled her little ship. Two storage tanks were nearly filled, and from here she would be able to transfer that fuel over to her ship.
As the ticker ran up to one hundred percent, Connie nodded and leaned forward, tapping the fuel transfer. Nothing happened. She tapped it again, and there was still no response. This had happened in the past. Every once in a while, water would condense inside the main fuel tank and then freeze. She would have to go out and find the freeze, heat it up and manually release the fuel to the Tin Can. It was a bit more than she wanted to do, but she was scheduled to fly up in about ten hours, and there was nothing else left to do, so she wasn’t too bummed out.
She checked her watch quickly
. Certainly the Odyssey was awake already. Unlike on the surface, they had a continual list of tasks every day. She pulled out her tablet and tapped on the comms and tried opening a link to the central comm console, but it fell through.
“Hmm,” she buzzed, heading out of the access panel. She instead tried out both Susan’s and Paul’s comm. Susan didn’t reply, but Paul did.
“Yes?” he asked.
“I have a possible fuel freeze, so I have to go out and take care of it,” Connie replied, already near the exterior vehicle hatch on the green dome.
“Do you need any help?” he asked.
She didn’t. “Still, I tried contacting the ship and my tablet didn’t reach the main comm app. When you get a chance, can you get up there and see if it just needs rebooted?”
“Yes ma’am.”
She needed to teach Thomas how to talk like that.
The vehicular hatch on the green dome was much smaller than the one on the main dome, and dwarfed by the garage they had on the engineering dome that no longer existed. One rover could fit inside of it, if, as Thomas always joke, you didn’t feel like actually getting out of it once it was parked. There just a few inches of access space on either side of the walls, and because of that, they had taken to leaving the rover parked outside. It wasn’t good for the vehicle, and so the green rover was jokingly referred to as the junker. It was under constant repair due to its exposure to the European ‘air’. The only benefit to the destruction of the other rover was that Thomas had taken the time to get this one running rather decently. At least for now.
The interior hatch door was circular, and rolled away once pressure was equalized. Connie always pretended she was entering an ancient Mayan ruin like Indiana Jones. No one got it. She tapped the screen twice, then a third time before it came to life, and typed in the code to begin the equalization process.
Nothing happened.
“Now what?”
Europa (Deadverse Book 1) Page 27