BENEATH - A Novel (12 page)

"I don't know," Harris said as he neared the exit.

Connelly returned her eyes to the transparent ceiling and watched as the cloud of glowing orbs closed in.

This is definitely not right!

Willard shot an evil eye at Choi. "If we live through this, I want to know everything."

Choi nodded, all traces of annoyance gone from her face. Then she bolted after Harris, who had just exited the room.

Willard looked up at the ominous view. "Fiction my ass."

The room shook as a second explosion rocked the hull, then another, and another.

Stumbling across the shaking room, the rest of the crew headed for the door. Connelly looked up at the cloud of shiny bombs headed their way. Instead of wondering how they were going to survive the massive pummeling, her thoughts jumped ahead to the next obvious question.

Where did they come from?

The ship's violent shaking reminded Peterson of the time his brothers tricked him into riding his bicycle down a very long staircase. Every jolt shook his body so much that his teeth began to chatter. He clenched his jaw tight to stop the annoyance and set to the task of moving through the ship.

Twenty seconds into the attack, the lights had gone out. They were replaced by dim, red emergency lights. So now, not only did the shaking floor make it hard to walk, but the dull light made it nearly impossible to see.

As he stepped forward, Peterson's feet hit the solid grey floor panels, sometimes too early and too hard, and other times too late. He lurched forward, bumping into Connelly. And she was having just as hard a time walking.

"Sorry," Peterson said, after colliding with Connelly.

"Which way to the control center? I lost sight of Choi!" Connelly shouted over the rumble of the Surveyor's shuddering body.

Peterson flashed the schematics of the massive ship through his mind. It was hard to think with all the noise, but he recalled the data he needed. "That way!" he said, pointing to the left.

Connelly led the way, followed by Peterson, Willard and Robert.

Peterson rounded a corner behind Connelly and looked back. He saw a terrified Robert closing in and Willard behind him. But Willard's face wasn't etched with concern like the rest of them. He looked calm. Peterson couldn't tell if it was an illusion created by the vibrating ship, or if his eyesight was true, but he swore he could see the slightest smile on Willard's face.

Robert passed Peterson without saying a word, too preoccupied with their dilemma to care about Peterson's pit stop. Willard caught up and Peterson could see that the man, who was supposed to be watching out for their safety, appeared to be enjoying the danger.

Not really sure why, Peterson felt infuriated by Willard's lack of concern. "You enjoying this?" Peterson asked as Willard moved past.

Willard looked him in the eyes. His smile grew. "You're not?"

"We could die!" Peterson said.

"But what a way to go, right?"

Peterson nearly choked.
Is he serious?

"Don't sweat it, Mikey, I always come out on top." Willard patted Peterson on the shoulder and moved past, into the control center.

Peterson followed him into the control center and was greeted by chaos.

He lumbered towards the center of the room, with Connelly, Robert and Willard. They looked like lost sheep in the middle of a lightning storm. Warning lights flashed in a myriad of colors, giving the room a seventies disco feel, and alluding to greater problems around the ship.

Harris and Choi were seated in twin chairs at the front of the control center, which was a pentagon shaped room with two chaired consoles on four of the walls. Peterson noticed that two of the vaulted ceilings panels were transparent. He gasped as he saw a cloud of what looked like millions of the tiny bombs floating in their direction.

 
"Some kind of charged particles!" It was Choi, screaming over the ambient noise. "The computer can't place them."

"I want to know what the hell we're dealing with here!" Harris shouted.

Choi threw her hands up. "The system is failing! We need to reboot!

Harris gazed up at the approaching cloud and looked unsure as dozens of explosions pounded the ship's hull. Peterson knew time was of the essence and any pause might make their situation more dire. He moved forward, intending to spur the captain on, but Willard beat him to the punch.

"Reboot!" Willard said, squeezing Harris's shoulder. "Do it now!"

Harris nodded. "System reboot in three…two…" Harris looked back at the rest of the crew. "Hold onto something!"

Peterson dove into the chair like a kid playing musical chairs and held onto the armrests with a python grip. Harris opened a small panel and depressed a single yellow button for three seconds.

Everything went black, which accentuated the approaching bombardment. Petersons's mouth slowly opened as the densest portion of the orb cloud grew closer.
 
He jolted as the vents in the walls slammed shut and the hum of electricity cut out.

The only thing he could hear now was the shaking ship and each tiny explosion, as they continued to degrade the integrity of the outer hull. His eyes snapped to a single monitor, which blinked to life. Text scrolled across the screen.

Life support off…

Gravity off…

Peterson felt himself become weightless. A surge of nausea filled his stomach, threatening to make him retch. He moved his hand to his mouth, preparing to block any bile that might escape, but the motion created by his arm was enough to move his entire body up off the chair in the weightless environment. He sucked in a breath and noticed the air becoming stale. He glanced at the computer screen and read the text upside down.

Life support systems off…

System shutdown…

Peterson worried that rebooting the system was a mistake. What if it didn't restart in time? What if it didn't restart at all?

Knowing his life was out of his hands, Peterson concerned himself with the only thing he could do to improve his safety. He pulled himself back toward the chair, but pulled too hard. He slammed into the seat of the chair and felt a pain throb in his side as the armrest pushed into his gut, knocking the wind out of him. Gasping for air, Peterson, righted himself, grabbed the other armrest and pulled himself firmly into the seat's cushion.

When he was finished, he glanced back at the screen and was relieved to see the startup sequence beginning.

System reboot...

Life support systems engaged...

Main electric engaged...

The room filled with a blinding light. Peterson squinted against the harsh glow, but opened his eyes painfully wide when he saw Willard floating ten feet up, clinging to a cargo box.

Robert, who was clinging to a support rail, his body floating horizontal to the floor, noticed Willard as well. "What are you doing?"

Willard had a bewildered look on his face as he spun slowly around in midair. When he returned to facing Robert below, he said, "I thought it was bolted to the floor!"

A beep, which was barely audible over the rumbling ship, drew Peterson's eyes back to the console screen.

Gravity engaged...

Thud! Willard crashed to the floor, as did Robert. Everyone else had made it to a chair and Peterson knew they were feeling just as he did, sick with the sudden return of gravity. But also relief. He looked at the screen and wrung his sweating hands together.

Status check in 3...2...1...

Optimal atmosphere...

Optimal pressure...

Optimal gravity...

All systems functional...

Harris's voice boomed a command. "Take us into higher orbit!"

"Already on it!" Choi said.

Peterson watched through the clear ceiling as the approaching orbs began to move away, heading down. But he knew it wasn't the orbs moving. Surveyor's upward motion just made them look that way. Still, he couldn't help but think the mini-missiles had been aiming for the ship. But it was impossible to prove. It was most likely that they had witnessed a natural phenomenon not yet observed by astronomers.

Astrophysics wasn't Peterson's field, but he knew enough to compile several theories on how the bright spheres had been created and how they were spewed into space. Jupiter alone contained so many mysteries that Peterson felt overwhelmed when he considered them. Of course, theories, while useful, are not conclusive. To really know what the orbs were, he'd have to observe them again and again, until true scientific data could be gathered.

And he knew for a fact that he'd be happy never seeing one of those things again.

Peterson let out a long breath as the rest of the explosive lights disappeared beneath the Surveyor's higher orbit. The shaking ceased. The noise dissipated. Everything, except for a few blinking warning lights, was back to normal.

The crew slowly climbed to their feet. They hovered around Harris and Choi, who were still seated at their consoles, breathing heavily. Choi punched a few keys on the console and switched on the autopilot.

Willard leaned close to Choi. "Did the electromagnetic shields hold?"

A sudden look of concern washed over Choi and she worked the keyboard with fast fingers. A diagnostic flashed onto the screen. Her shoulders sank with relief as she read the text. "A few failures, but the backup system kicked in. Shouldn't be too hard to fix. We're okay."

Peterson noticed that Willard didn't appear too convinced.

Connelly put her hand on the back of Harris's chair, stabilizing herself. "Please," she said, "someone tell me you know what just happened."

Choi looked over her shoulder and spoke, "They were charged particles…very large. Contact with the hull appeared to cause an explosive reaction."

"I know all that," Connelly said. "What I don't know, is
what
they were."

"I'm afraid no one knows that," Harris said, "but you're not going to believe this." Harris turned to his console's screen. "I had the computer analyze the speed and inclination of those particles, so we could know where they came from. There's no doubt about this, folks, they came from Europa's surface."

"No…"

Peterson didn't know who said it. He was too astonished to identify the voice.

He saw Choi's lips move and knew she was speaking.

"Perhaps this same phenomenon disabled the Orbiter in 2010?" Choi said.

Peterson shook his head and cleared his mind. When he finished, he noticed Connelly was staring out the clear ceiling, a smile forming at the side of her mouth. He followed her eyes and noticed a single bright orb, floating past. The sphere's light faded, flickered and disappeared.

When it was gone, he turned to Connelly. Their eyes met and a full fledged smile broke onto her face. "We have to get down there."

But Peterson wasn't so sure he wanted to any more.

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With every footfall, Connelly's steps echoed a dull thud through the maze of hallways. She'd been told by her mother on several occasions that she walked on her heels, which created loud thumps when she walked. As a result, she was never good at sneaking up on anyone. The long, empty hallways of the Surveyor accentuated the noise created by her footsteps, so much so that she became annoyed by them.

She adjusted her stride so the sole of her foot struck first. The noise disappeared.

Mom was right.

Connelly looked down at the digital map of the Surveyor's inner workings, which was displayed on a four inch touch-screen. Below the screen were numbers one through eleven, each representing a deck of the Surveyor. The user could move around the map and zoom in and out by dragging a finger, or two, across its surface.

Sighing, Connelly stopped at an intersection and looked in every direction. She looked back at the map, huffed in frustration and took a right. Being an intelligent and self sufficient woman, Connelly was unaccustomed to being lost, but the ship was so new, and so vast, that she had become hopelessly lost after only five minutes.

Connelly picked up her pace in an effort to speed through the maze, knowing she would eventually find something she recognized.

Without looking up from the map, Connelly took a right, using her peripheral vision to guide her forward. Had she been using all her vision, she would have seen Peterson approaching, looking down at his own map.

"Oof!" Connelly collided with Peterson and fell backward.

Connelly let out a slight yelp as she toppled over, but felt a force beneath the small of her back push up and equalize her fall. In seconds she was back on her feet and looking into Peterson's smiling face.