Europa (Deadverse Book 1)

by Flunker, Richard

  Time passed as he sat and stared at it. Maybe it did its tiny time trick again, Ben didn’t know. It had stopped warping time when they neared Earth, as if it knew. A few hours passed when a small alarm beeped on his tablet. It was time for the meetings. Ben reached out and held his hand over the artifact and held it there. He expected to feel warmth, or electricity, or something, but there was nothing. He swiped it, and his first thought was that it was a rubic’s cube. Tiny, light, nothing to it. Still, in reverence, he held it in his hand, and floated down towards the mess hall.

  He walked in to the entire group sitting around the table. Jenna and Paul sat together on the end. Thomas sat next to Jenna, with Connie beside him. Crysta and Joyce sat opposite of each other, and they were arguing something about their breakfast. Horace was reading something on his tablet and glanced up when he saw Ben enter the room. Charles sat at the other end of the table, and motioned to the open spot next to him. The peace on his face was a welcome change to his friend’s face. Everyone was at peace, and no matter what happened here, they would welcome it.

  Ben set the artifact in the middle of the table and everyone’s attention directly focused on it. He then made his way to the open seat and sat down. He put his arms on the table, and waited. No one spoke for minutes.

  “Send it to the sun,” Jenna was the first to break the silence.

  There was a general nodding of heads.

  “I can program Hammy to fly the ship there. There’s enough fuel to get her going, and it will take a few years, but it will eventually fly into the star,” Crysta informed.

  “Won’t that destroy your AI?” Ben asked. The software had been incredibly useful to them.

  “I have a full copy of him on the descent craft. I think we can use him to fight off these automated attack drones down there. At least a few at a time,” she said.

  That had been the biggest topic at hand. Could they, a bunch of scientists and engineers that had lived on a moon away from Earth for two years, do anything to help? After all they had been through, they certainly wanted to try. With the AI they could maintain some contact with Europa, and perhaps, Emir could use any of his newfound memories to help them.

  “What if the sun can’t destroy it?” Horace asked. “That thing comes from another universe. As far as we know, our sun can’t scratch it.”

  “Then what?” Connie asked. “Leave it here, in orbit?”

  “Eventually, it would fall back to Earth,” Jenna said.

  “Or they,” Joyce pointed out, “could come back and get it.”

  “For that matter,” Jenna continued, “what’s to stop THEM from coming back and finishing the job?”

  That was something that everyone had thought about at least once. Maybe the other world was expecting a report back, or a mission complete signal. Of this, Emir did not know anything about. His memories showed him nothing of this. They were just overwhelmed by the sadness of the conflict within the ship.

  “It appears that, it would be expected that, maybe not today, and maybe not even in a thousand years, but our visitors will return,” Ben said, solemnly. “In the meantime, mankind’s own actions have already set it so far behind. How long will it take humanity to rebound from this nightmare? A hundred years? Three hundred? And that’s only from the point where this war actually ends. And how long will it take for these machines to run themselves aground?”

  Ben looked back at Charles. He looked up at the group.

  “Decades. Maybe a hundred years.”

  The news deflated them.

  “A hundred years of machines raging unconscious war upon our planet. What if the automated programs decide the next course of action is to use more nukes? Can humanity survive more of this?” Ben asked.

  Everyone looked around.

  “So, then what?” someone asked.

  Crysta looked up. “Can Emir find a way to dismantle it somehow?”

  Ben shook his head. He had already asked.

  “Then what?”

  Ben breathed in deeply, then exhaled.

  “We use it.”

  The gasps and exclamations that followed were expected. Even Charles leaned in, and asked him what he was thinking.

  “If we use it, and THEY come back, they will see a world where their device was used. Maybe we are ignored.”

  “Um, you’re saying we wipe out mankind?” Paul asked.

  “Actually,” Ben said. “That’s not what the weapon does. Remember Emir’s words? It is meant to set us back. De-evolve us. Make us primitive.” He tossed his tablet on the table and pressed a button. Everyone else heard a link beep on theirs, and looked to see the file he had transmitted to them.

  “This is from Emir. We have discussed this at length. Their intention was never to destroy humanity, but conquer it, disable it. The weapon won’t kill man. It will kill our technology.”

  Charles looked at him. “You sure of this?”

  “Emir seems to be.”

  “How does it work?” Crysta asked.

  “You are asking the wrong guy. Even Emir didn’t know. You heard him say how it alters the rules of the universe. That’s all we know.”

  Silence followed as everyone took in the implications of what Ben was suggesting. Ben struggled himself. There was no certainty in his choice of action. They were going on the dim memories of a man that had suffered a mental attack. Memories of people long dead from an entirely different universe.

  “So we take it down with us, and then what?”

  “This war ends. The machines fall out of the sky. Radios stop working. I don’t know. Maybe we all die. But maybe we get a chance to rebuild. We look for the changes this device brings upon the world, and adapt. Maybe a little better this time around,” Ben said.

  “People are going to die. We are the only ones that know what’s going to happen,” Paul said. He was clearly conflicted.

  “People are dying right now, and will keep dying.”

  Ben waited, for anything, for any response. Some of them read the Emir message in more detail, and others stared at each other, or off into a day dream. Just when Ben thought he needed to say something, Paul stood up.

  “Let’s just go home. I’ve had my fill of technology for one life. I can do the rest of my life without it.”

  Jenna smiled, took his hand, and stood up. “I’m in.”

  Everyone stood up, one by one, agreeing, until finally, only Crysta was left sitting. Ben looked across to her.

  “You have the most to lose. Your life’s work will be lost.”

  She thought a little more, and looked up at her friends, then back across at Ben.

  “My life’s work was on that frozen moon. It’s time to go home,” she said, standing up.

  Ben reached across the table and took the device in his hands. The weapon had become the tool.

  Two hours later, they were all gathered in the entrance vehicle, a small tear drop shaped vessel that was housed in the rear of the Odyssey. It was cramped, but had ample seating, as they had planned for more than had survived. Ben took one last walk around the ship that had brought them home, and then went into the mess hall. He had one more thing to get.

  He reached the vehicle with Jenna waiting at the hatch.

  “Did you forget something?” she asked.

  Ben held out his hand. It was a jar filled with ice.

  “It’s a piece of Europa. I’ll keep it with me as long as I live.”

  Jenna smiled and ducked into the hatch. Ben followed after her and reached in to pull it shut. He took a deep breath. They had left Earth in hopes of finding greatness on the small frozen moon. Without knowing it, they had found mankind’s salvation. No one would ever remember if the device worked, but today, he fulfilled his mission.

  It was time to go home.

  Ben swung the hatch shut and spun it locked.

  Day 2126 AE

  - Emir -

  The plasma drill shut off and Emir stood up to look at his work. He had finally carved out th
e final bit of green hull he was trying to get to. He stood up and worked out the cramps in his legs. Sitting like that for hours gave them to him. He walked around a bit, feeling his muscles loosen up a bit. He took the visor off and tossed it aside. Sweat dripped down his face and onto his thick black beard. He reached back and grabbed the cup of water and drank from it. Cold as always.

  He got up out of the ice crater he had found the last piece in and scaled back up to the surface. He looked up at the dome that had become their home. Long strands of green were intertwined in the ice walls, and towers of lush green vines towered over everything. He heard the clucking and looked up just in time to see one of the white chickens jump from one vine to the next. It hung upside down for a moment before jumping off to another vine. It looked down at Emir, and in one action, a small pile of droppings came slowly tumbling down to the ice floor. He noticed where it landed, as he would have to come scoop it up later.

  The alien vessel had become their home, along with the ice of their moon. He still called himself Emir, but the remains of that man were only slight. He held the memories of ninety seven men and women, Emir included, and the journey to become just one man among those many had been difficult, terrifying at times. But he had worked through them, with help.

  He heard another sound and turned to smile. The infectious laughter filled the dome, and two small children came running around the bend. They were tall for their age, and amazingly agile, their bodies adapted to the low gravity of the moon. Behind them, he heard the admonishing words of their mother, and he couldn’t help but smile. The children saw him and came leaping towards him. He held his arms out towards them as they leaped into him. He caught them as they laughed together.

  Susan came around the bend and saw them together. Emir smiled back at her and waved her over. Emir tossed the children back up to the top of the crater and climbed all the way out himself. Susan met him at the edge where they briefly kissed. She then looked down into the crater.

  “Is that it?” she asked.

  “After all this time. It is.”

  Down in the bottom of the crater was a small green sphere, small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand.

  “And the ship? How long will it take?”

  “With this device? A few years.”

  Susan nodded, her eyes on the small sphere. She then turned and kissed him again.

  “Supper will be ready soon. I’ll take the kids, join us when you’re ready,” she said, turning to walk away.

  Emir watched her walk away, and his hand instinctively went to the scar on his stomach. She had saved his life, and she claimed he had saved hers. They hadn’t heard anything from their friends on the Odyssey since they reached Earth, not since Ben had requested how the alien artifact weapon worked. In fact, they hadn’t heard anything at all come from Earth.

  Here on this moon, they had built something. And just outside of the dome, he had rebuilt a ship from the parts of the alien vessel. The memories still haunted from time to time, but now they guided him. And at the bottom of the crater was another device, one that could save them. One that could save all of the worlds.

  “Just a few more years,” he sighed. “But now, I eat. Hey, wait for me,” he shouted after the children, and he ran after them, laughing like he never had before.