The Curse of Europa (11 page)

“His face isn’t blue and he seems to be breathing, he actually looks very pale,” he says to Fedoseev.

“Vell, helmet compartment is separated from rest of suit, there should be no depressurization; oxygen supply should be fine,” Fedoseev explains in quick breaths. “Also, it looks like his svollen hand and vist, has actually resealed suit,” he continues, pointing to Turk’s purple/red hand and wrist that has swollen up so much that it is tightly pressing against the inner cuff of his suit, mushrooming over like a fat man’s belly wearing pants that are too tight.

“Look, his helmet pressure and heat indicators on suit are pretty much normal,” Fedoseev continues, “but messed up his hand is going to be, I’m sure of that. He is in shock, vhich vould explain his pale complexion – yes?”

They pick him up and place him in the back of the rover. Fedoseev grabs a shiny blanket type item from a compartment and tightly wraps it around Turk’s hand to protect him from further cold and radiation exposure.

Hicks grabs a flashlight from the rover’s toolkit and walks over to the hole. He kneels down and carefully grabs the support rig that is sticking out of the ice so that he doesn’t slip down the hole as well. He shines the bright white light down the hole but doesn’t see anything except what looks like a bottomless pit.

“Doctor Evans! Doctor Evans, do you copy? Juliana do you copy!!?” Hicks yells into his com unit to no avail. There is no response, not even static.

He takes the flashlight and flips a switch on the handle which then makes both ends flash a bright red light, on and off, on and off. He drops the light down the hole, watching it descend slowly out of sight. After about 10 seconds it is completely gone. There were no signs that it hit anything solid.

He straightens upright and glances over at Jupiter peeking over the horizon, then he kicks an ice chunk while blurting out “God Dammit!” The ice chunk goes spinning away for a long distance on the slick ice. When he is finished watching the ice chunk’s trek he starts to walk back to the rover, hanging his head, wondering what to do now for Evans; if she is even still alive which he doubts. All of a sudden he starts to lose his balance as he feels a rumbling under his feet. A feeling that he does not like! He turns to look at the hole and sees a crack forming and water now seeping up out of the hole.

“Commander! Commander! Vee better get hell out of here! This does not feel good – no!” Fedoseev cries into the com in a panic.

“No argument here doctor, get to the rover,” Hicks shouts back, as he tries to run and keep his balance; the ground now shaking with more intensity. The ice where the crack was forming is now rising up, like a huge platform, with water spitting out sporadically.

A massive jolt of seismic energy knocks Hicks to his right side, causing him to hop on his right foot trying to regain his balance; flailing his arms like an out of control tight rope walker. Instead of regaining control he slips on the now wet, and very slippery surface, flat on his back. Luckily the low gravity kept his impact with the ground relatively soft, but apparently still hard enough to rupture a seal in his helmet – he knows this by the soft hissing sound he can now hear; followed by a beeping sound from the bio-suit’s environmental control unit which compensates by expending more oxygen. He sits up and then looks at the indicators displayed on his visor, showing that his helmet was losing pressure, but now seems to be okay with the extra oxygen being pumped in.

Meanwhile Doctor Fedoseev (
who may be geeky but is taking charge in a desperate situation
) has backed up the rover to where Hicks is sitting, the ground now shaking relentlessly back and forth and up and down. The shaking makes it impossible for Hicks to stand-up. At times it reminds him of being on a trampoline while someone else jumps next to you, sending you flying into the air. Huge amounts of water are now seeping out of the cracks, rushing towards Hicks and the rover in waves.

Hicks grabs a bar on the back of the rover and screams, “I’ve got hold! Gun it! Get us out of here… NOW!”

Fedoseev slams his boot down on the accelerator; unfortunately he still had it in reverse.

Hicks screams more from surprise than pain as he ends up under the rover, “Ahhh… Dammit! You idiot!” Hicks moved his legs just in time not to get run over by the tires.

Fedoseev also yells some Russian expletives followed by “SORRY!” as he hits the brake. Water is now gushing all around them and a light fog fills the thin Europian air. Massive chunks of ice break off the side of a nearby ice glacier due to the seismic activity, sliding down towards them in an avalanche.

“GOOOOO!!!” Hicks yells.

Fedoseev slams it into the forward gear and slowly pulls ahead to make sure Hicks emerges okay from underneath. Once he sees that he is, he stomps his boot down once again on the pedal as the water is continuing to rush over Hicks and around the tires. The wheels spin wildly, kicking up slushy water, but they grab hold enough to move the rover forward. The icy avalanche seemingly moving much faster than they are moving however.

Hicks is hanging onto the bar for dear life sliding on his back creating a wake in the water. He is thinking 15Kph seems much faster being dragged on the ground than it does in the rover’s seat. He is unable to see anything now due to his visor being plastered by slush and water from the tires. That is perhaps a good thing as the rolling pile of ice chunks is closing in on them. The hissing sound is also twice as loud now, ever since Fedoseev ran him over; and now he can feel the absence of pressure on his ears as you do when ascending in an air-transport.

Fedoseev remembers to drive back the same way they came in, to avoid the two-meter drop off, which would actually be a two-meter wall of ice in this direction. The rover finally reaches the top of the groove and leaps brutally over the lip, lurching Fedoseev forward and sending Hicks flying in the air; losing his grip on the bar. He once again lands on his back (“Ugh!”) and then spins around about ten times before hitting a rough patch that flips him onto his stomach (“Aaah… damn!”) He looks up but can’t see anything but shadows through his visor.

The ice avalanche rolls to a stop just below the lip of the groove, completely filling it in, spitting out just one big wave of wet slush over Fedoseev, Turk and the rover. Any slim chance there ever-was of pulling Evans out of the ocean below just disappeared below a massive amount of ice chunks.

Fedoseev shakes off the slush as best as he can, like a dog, and then runs over to Hicks. “Commander, you okay - yes?” he yells in the com.

“Yeah, I think so, but my helmet has ruptured and I can’t see shit - out of the - visor!” Hicks remarks back, wincing in some pain as he feels his ears popping. He feels Fedoseev grab his arm and torso to help him to his feet and guides him blindly to the rover’s ice covered passenger seat; the ground still shaking.

Fedoseev jumps into the driver’s seat and guns the accelerator once again… but nothing… nothing but a minor lurch forward!

Chapter 15:
Time Bomb

F
edoseev can feel the electric motor vibrate but the wheels are not moving, not even spinning. He looks at the wheels, which have now started to freeze to the icy surface of Europa, thanks to the slushy splash from the avalanche. He jumps out of the rover and nearly falls backwards, as his boots slip on the slick surface. He steadies himself and then kicks at the wire-frame tires as best as he can without falling down, knocking ice off of them. He kicks all four, then climbs back in and guns it. No-go, but it did lurch a little more it seemed. He gets out and kicks the tires again, and then pushes the rover back and forth, back and forth, and then he feels something give.

The ground rumbles sharply again and the ice platform grows ominously taller; new water is seeping out of the freshly filled-in groove. He guns it again, and it lurches a bit farther. He lets off and then guns it once again… and finally crack! - they are moving. Thump, thump, thump… they are moving but the ice frozen to the wheels is making for a bumpy ride. He follows the previous rover tracks and makes way for Eagle-2. Some of the ice starts to fly off the tires, way up into the air as he drives, making the thump-thump a little less intense; but it is still not very comfortable for his two hurting passengers.

The environmental control unit in Hicks’ suit is trying to compensate for the leak in the helmet, but it is also expending his oxygen four times as fast now. Luckily, they are only about five more minutes from Eagle-2 as Hicks probably has less than eight minutes of air left; at its current rate of expenditure.

“Fedoseev, this is Glover, do you copy?”

“Da, Fedoseev here”

“I’ve been monitoring the situation and have the air-lock chamber all set for reentry when you get here. You know it will only fit two people at a time… so you’ll have to load Hicks and Turk first, once I’ve got them then I’ll reset it for you.”

“Acknowledged,” Fedoseev responds slowly. He knew the air-lock chamber only fit two people at a time but he hadn’t really given it much thought – until now. Being stuck outside alone isn’t very appealing, but at least he’s still alive he thinks to himself.

Glover radios back again on the com, “I hope you get here soon, Eagle-2 is shaking like a son-of-a-bitch! I think we need to leave ASAP!”

“I agree with that – very much!” Fedoseev responds again, leaning forward in the rover as if that will make it go faster. “This rover going as fast as is able – yes?” he asks.

“Yes… you are maxed out already, unfortunately,” Glover responds back.

The five minutes seem to take forever and gives him plenty of time to think about being left outside, while Turk and Hicks go in first. He looks to his right and sees some more ice yielding to the power of the tremors on a distant ice mountain; sending a huge section of the ice sliding down the side and crashing at the bottom, with unbelievable force. Then he sees another and another; luckily all far enough away to not pose any immediate threat.

As Eagle-2 comes into sight he notices the first thing he saw when he set foot on Europa, the huge ice mountain that they landed near. He was in tears at its glistening beauty. Those tears of joy have now been replaced, with a pit in his stomach, as he sees plenty of ice just ready to come plummeting down to smash their only way home.

Fedoseev keeps his foot on the rover’s accelerator until the very last second and then slams on the brake, making it skid to a stop just a few meters from the ladder. Hicks has to extend his arm to the dash to keep from flying forward, Turk rolls over in the back cargo bed, still unconscious.

Hicks slowly gets out of his seat, feeling very light headed and nauseated, his ears still in excruciating pain from the fluctuating air pressure in his helmet. He was able to scrape away some ice from his visor so he could at least see a little bit. He grabs one of Eagle-2’s landing legs to steady himself, unsure if he is disoriented, or if he is still feeling the tremors. Maybe it’s both!

Doctor Fedoseev jumps into the rover’s cargo bed and picks up Turk. With the lower gravity, he is actually able to pick him up by himself, feeling kind of like a superhero. In fact, he quickly thinks back over the last 30 minutes. During that time he grabbed Turk’s feet in the nick of time, as he started to plummet down the drill hole. If it wasn’t for him, Turk would be dead as well. Without thinking (and without specific training) he hopped on the rover and figured out how to put it in reverse to save Hicks. Sure, he sort of ran him over, but no real harm done. Right? He then sped away (at 15Kph anyway) as an avalanche was literally on their heels. He knew to avoid the 2-meter obstacle to get them out of the groove. He felt bad for sending Hicks flying, but there wasn’t anything else he could do. He then successfully got the rover un-stuck and made it back to Eagle-2 safely.

He was feeling pretty good about himself as he jumped off the rover, with Turk in his arms (after all, ‘
this is the fastest way down
,’ he thinks to himself.) He lands on his feet with a bound… then his feet slip out from under him causing him to land square on his tailbone, with Turk on his lap. “Ahhhh crap,” he winces in pain. “That was stupid!” ‘
Some superhero
’ he thinks to himself.

Hicks manages to come over to help with Turk, suffering through the pain in his ears and the dizziness. He moves slowly, as his air supply is very thin. Fedoseev has to push Turk off his lap so he can stand up, his tailbone still stinging. They both lift Turk up. Even in the low gravity, it is still a struggle getting him up the ladder and into the air-lock, as he is just dead weight. With Fedoseev holding Turk about half way up the ladder, Hicks climbs up around him and into the port door of the air-lock. He reaches down and grabs Turk’s hands, as Fedoseev extends them upward. Hicks has both his gloved and ungloved hands now, pulling while Fedoseev pushes him up. He is finally in the air-lock. Hicks is nearly passed out, breathing in and out, in and out, at a very fast pace due to lack of oxygen. He musters just enough energy to close the air-lock door.