Europa (Deadverse Book 1) (4 page)

- Ben -

“Please tell me you’re not going to let him out of your sight when you go in,” Ben said softly as the two men walked down the dimly lit hallway under the moon’s surface. The few lights that turned on when people walked the hallways reflected eerily into the bluish-green ice that made up the walls.

“You know it,” Charles guaranteed.

“It’s finally down to this. Two days from now, friend…” Ben trailed off.

“We got this,” Charles reassured. “Two days from now, we will be making history.”

“Or becoming a part of it.” Ben began walking again.

He caught up to Charles and asked, “So really, what do you think we will find?”

Everyone had been asking that, especially now that they were only two days away.

“I don’t get paid to wonder about it.”

“You don’t get paid much at all for anything,” Ben joked.

Both men laughed. It was the running joke on the base. As a Navy Officer, Charles was the only one who wasn’t being paid a very handsome hazard bonus. Instead, he was just receiving normal military pay plus a deployment bonus.

“Seriously though, what do you think?”

Charles walked a little further down the hallway, stopped, and looked up. They had reached one of the residential domes. He reached up and pulled down the ladder.

“I honestly don’t care what’s inside. What bothers me more is why it crashed on Europa instead of getting to Earth. We watched it coming towards our planet and we all watched as something happened to it and it lost control into the frozen moon, somehow landing completely intact under a mile of ice.”

He locked the ladder down in the ice and looked back at Ben.

“That’s what bothers me.”

- Gary -

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you,” the doctor huffed, “the vitals are OK. Everything is good.”

Doctor Gary Fletcher was leaning into the control panel in his little office. It was the seventh time that day that both Bobby and Charles had messaged him, asking to go over the drone soldier vitals. He was confident with the results of the first reading and nothing had changed since, except for his attitude. He had dealt with drone soldiers in the past and fully understood their biological demands. There were no tricks, no special circumstances, and no gimmicks. They were human bodies stuck inside a machine.

Their vitals were good.

“Doc, we’d still like you to come down and check on them personally,” Bobby replied.

The doctor sighed in frustration.

“I’ve seen the video. I’ve seen the vitals and all of the readings. You have my go ahead. That’s all you need.”

He knew why he was here on the mission. There would certainly be a need for a doctor on any kind of mission, especially a surgeon. The whole mission had an initial success rate of only fifty percent. There was almost a sure guarantee that people would be hurt. His expertise would be invaluable. It had also looked really good on the mission specs that he was African American. It drove him nuts that racial issues still abounded in the United States.

But here, he was bored.

The trip to Europa had gone off without a hitch. The worst that had happened on the nine month flight from lunar orbit to the moon of Jupiter was a tooth ache. Barely a challenge for him despite it not being anywhere near his specialty. No one got sick, no one got hurt. Every man and woman on the mission understood that getting sick or hurt would be a terrible occurrence. Everyone ate well, everyone exercised as they needed to, and everyone stayed busy.

He was left to find something else to do.

At first, he tried helping out with the NASA-sanctioned experiments. They had come with several dozen and more came with every supply pod. But none caught his interest. Then, on a whim, he decided to help out in the green dome, and there he got to know Susan. It wasn’t long before he relieved his boredom in her bed. Not long after that, Cary Hughes, the lead research analyst on the mission came to him with some gynecological issues. Before he knew it, he had slept with her as well. What a terrible idea it had been because nothing was left unknown on the tiny base. There was no privacy. Soon the two women were at each other’s throats and he was at the center of an unwanted scandal.

But there he was. All these millions of miles away from Earth, the strange had gotten stranger. The two women had come to an understanding. Much to the chagrin of everyone else on the base, they both decided to remain ‘his’. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. There were already less women than men on the mission, and now he had two of them. The truth was, they owned him. And they never stopped letting him know.

So he had remained bored. For two years, on the frozen moon of Jupiter, the supremely skilled surgeon took urine and stool samples of the crew and did the quarterly physicals, and spent his down time trying to find something to do.

He should have been happy with the extra work now that the drone soldiers were awake. It was just that he didn’t like them. Very few people did, which, deep down, he knew was unfortunate. The whole drone soldier program was highly politicized and controversial. Government ran everything back on Earth though. These poor men were stuck in those suits for the duration.

Probably better that way.

He knew why they were here on the mission. He knew what he had to do next, and for the next day, at least, he would be busy. One day, out of hundreds. Better than nothing. At least Cary would be by soon to help. He liked her best, or so he told himself.

He already had one section of his dome mapped out. The idea was that he’d have a bed for each and every one of the soldiers, should it come to that. He just didn’t know what to believe. Cary told him she thought it was a waste of time. She was here on Europa for the experiments. The crazy fool Ignacius agreed with her, as did most everyone on the base. Susan, though, liked the thought of going in with the soldiers first. She was a little out there, the blonde botanist. She was sure the artifact was some kind of doomsday device.

She was out there in bed, too.

Gary sat down for a moment and put his hands on his head, squeezing his temples.

“What the hell am I doing here?”

- Crysta -

“See, here it is again,” Joyce pointed at the data stream on her display. “And here, and here. All on the laser bursts from Earth.”

Crysta MacKnight watched intensely. She was an aberration after being the only woman out of thousands of men to qualify for the final round of interviews for the mission, and even more so, to be chosen. It was unusual in the IT realm. She, along with Joyce, ran all of the hardware and software on board the base, but while Joyce’s specialty was communications, hers was entirely different. She was among the top AI minds on the planet. A savant, per se, on artificial constructs. She called them analogous minds, copies of human thought. Her AIs ran most of NASA and when she got back from this mission, would probably run most of American government installations. She would be filthy rich.

She didn’t care.

An accident when she was a child had left her barren, unable to have children of her own. That scar, both visible and psychological, remained with her her entire life. She could never hold a relationship with anyone else, man or woman, adult or child, but found her desire to create life burned brightly inside of her. She found life in programming, and then found artificial life in AI sciences. She poured her whole life into it, developing true AI, true android forms, and the most lifelike android companions. She had created life.

Yet, on this frozen ball of ice orbiting Jupiter, she had made her first friend in Joyce. The similar interests helped, but for the first time, Crysta found someone who didn’t care if she preferred machines over men. Joyce didn’t seem to care about anything. It wasn’t in a dark brooding kind of way, but in a careless, free for all attitude.

“They come from three different locations. This one from Dallas, this one from DC, and this one from somewhere out in the Atlantic.”

Crysta studied the data bursts and their hidden data.

“I don’t like this Crysta. We get nothing from Indy in weeks now, but Captain Camo Pants keeps getting data sent to him? I don’t like it.”

Crysta knew what was coming so she waited.

“I can crack it, but it would probably take a week. I was hoping you could have Hammy take a crack at it.”

There it was. Her friend wanted the station’s AI to crack the encryption of the data being sent to Captain Hoarry. She turned to her friend and smiled.

“He already did.”

The shocked and surprised look on her face made her happy. It wasn’t often she could get that reaction out of Joyce.

“He decodes everything, whether asked to or not. It’s a matter of security for the AI.”

“Wait, wouldn’t you get in trouble for that?” Joyce asked, truly concerned.

“Probably, but we never did build a jail cell did we?”

Joyce laughed. It was actually a topic of conversation that had come up with the Jenna shower video scandal. The designs of the base had never taken into consideration that someone on the mission might actually need to be locked up for some reason. Mission Control had assumed that since everyone was a strict professional, that no one would ever be naughty. They didn’t take into consideration human nature and men’s desire to see women naked.

“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.

- 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 stars, just not literally.

Close enough.