Europa (Deadverse Book 1) (30 page)

- Connie –

She wanted to feel urgency, like the enemy was at the door, but she just couldn’t. The Tin Can wasn’t that far away, so she drove at the normal twenty miles per hour. She hadn’t even bothered to tie down the crates in any way, and looking in the back seat, she saw there was no need. Two hours from now they would be blasting away to safety, but from what danger? The entire time she was driving she kept an eye out on the horizon. At any moment she expected a large green blob to come emerging over the ridge of ice to the north. It was the same ridge she had eyed every single time she blasted off into orbit. The enemy would come over it, and then she’d know the danger.

But nothing ever came.

She pulled up to the small orbital craft, the slight venting of vapor caused by the fuel transfer. The AI had already begun the launch process, going through and checking all the systems. Connie got out of the rover and began her walk around. She had already gone over the ship yesterday, but she did it again, out of habit. The same concerning warp in the hull was still there, just under the main hatch. She didn’t know how the ship was built in the inside, so she wasn’t sure what was causing the bulge, and it was minor, but it was still there.

“Just one more time,” she said, gently patting the side of the ship.

She walked around it two more times, then satisfied that nothing new had crept up in one day, she walked back to the rover. The crates were surprisingly light, even on Europa gravity. She hopped back and forth between the rover and the ship until she had unloaded them all, then opened the main hatch. She had allowed for the extra space, especially since she would be taking two passengers with her, instead of attaching an entirely separate cargo hold, like she had the past several weeks.

Then it hit her.

“Oh, no,” she uttered out loud.

An hour later, the interior door hissed open and Connie came forward. The three remaining crew members were there, waiting. Paul had come in on his own when he saw the rover approaching and still had his helmet on. Glorin was fully suited, ready to go, but Susan was not, although her suit was on a bench nearby. Connie removed her helmet and her look gave her emotions away.

“What’s wrong?” Paul asked.

“We have... a serious problem.”

Susan stood up.

“We weren’t expecting anyone else,” Connie said. “There’s only room on the Tin Can for three.”

Glorin quickly looked around. “Oh, I see. You counting me out now?”

“We had no idea you were still alive,” Connie said.

“Well I am going on that ship,” Glorin said, stomping off towards the hatch and entering. He stood there waiting, ungainly as always in the suit that barely fit him.

Connie looked up at Paul who was already walking forward.

“Can you come back for us?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe. If I came back though, we’d never make it back up in time for launch.”

Paul nodded. “Easy enough. I will stay. If those things attack, at least I will die doing my job.”

Connie looked over at Susan. She expected to see worry, fear, and despair. Instead, she saw the botanist, maybe for the first time in weeks, at peace. She sat back down on the bench and was looking around, aimlessly.

“You won’t have to, Paul,” she said, quietly, gripping the edge of the ice bench. “I’m staying.”

Paul turned around and began to protest, but she held her hand up.

“I have nothing to go back to. If I am to be lost, then I will remain here, with those I lost.”

Paul looked back pleadingly at Connie, but she had no answers. Somehow, she had suspected this might happen. In fact, she had wondered many months ago if all three were alive, that they might prefer to remain on Europa, where their relationship was not a matter of taboo or morality. Nearly everyone had come on the mission with nothing to lose, and nothing to go back to Earth to, except fame and prestige. Those two were gone now, but had been replaced by a sense of duty.

Susan’s job had been completed though. All her experiments were returning to Earth, to probably be forgotten in history. Her incredible expertise would be completely wasted, even if she returned alive.

“You won’t…” Connie began, but Susan stopped her as well.

“Live,” she said. “Die. I’ve done both already. Nothing else is a surprise anymore.”

“She’s made her choice,” came a gruff shout from inside the hatch, “let’s get out of here.”

Paul snapped an angry look back at Glorin, who just ignored it.

“I can’t just walk away,” Paul said, duty, honor and tears catching up in his throat. “I could never live with it.”

Susan, still sitting, reached out and took his hand. The color drained away from his face as he looked into her eyes.

“You will walk, so that you can live,” she said, “but know that I am deeply grateful for your nobility.”

Paul cast one more look at Connie, but walked away, defeated.

“You sure?” Connie asked.

“As ever,” Susan replied.

Connie shook her head, slightly in disbelief, then reached out and hugged her.

“We will remember you,” she said.

“Remember everyone.”

“You know what to do?” Connie asked.

Susan showed her the app on the tablet. “The moment I see green aliens, I will leave a nice goodbye crater here on the moon.”

Connie gave her one more hug, then walked towards the hatch. She caught one last glance of Susan through the little glass window. She was smiling, looking up at her plants.

She was home.

- Susan –

The time had come and passed, on everything that it could have.

For hours, Susan sat still, in peace, among her plants. She had three tablets, each with a remote cam app open, and a moderately good view of the outside. She wouldn’t consider herself a coward, but she wasn’t about to test how death to an alien would be like. She knew the blast from the hydrogen reactor would take her life in a matter of nano-seconds. So she watched, with her hand on her own tablet, which had the program ready to overload and blow the reactor.

And nothing came.

After nearly five hours, she got hungry, so she ate. No reason to die hungry.

Then five more hours, and she was hungry again. Waiting to die was a tiring venture. This time, after she ate, she got up and walked around. She attempted to reach the central computer via the network, but it appeared down, so there was no reaching the Odyssey. So she waited. Still, no doom, no alien apocalypse. Just cold air and closing eyes.

She woke up the next morning, stiff and cold, but she snapped to. Sitting up quickly, she panicked and looked around, sure to find green spheres ready to pulverize her in agonizing pain. Instead, all she saw were her plants, her life. The entire day passed without anything happening, and Susan began to wonder if the aliens would attack, or if the goofy old man had just been wrong.

What if he had been wrong?

All throughout the day she continued to try to access the central computer, but there was no network. Paul claimed to have seen everything running, so she went over to the central dome, only to be confronted by vacuum once again. In her suit, she roamed the central dome only to find the computers still blank, a single white cursor blinking on the white screen. Confused, not only about the situation, but about what she should do, she continued to wander. The emptiness of the base frightened her a bit, so she returned to the green dome, where her plants gave her air. The only sound were the gentle chirps of the chickens. Now a month old, they were the size of fully grown chickens back on Earth, but with the flying grace of eagles. The leapt about their large pen with ease, while millennia of genetics inside wondered why they could fly now.

That evening, Susan ate a vegetable soup quietly on a table, with all the tablets still around her. By her watch, the Odyssey would be leaving orbit any moment now, ready to embark on their long trip home. She finished the soup and stared at her own tablet. The app was ready. All it needed was one touch, and one input code and one or two minutes later everything would be gone.

She stared at the tablet for hours. She caught herself remembering back a month, two months, and a year. But beyond two years, there was very little. Glimpses of Earth, dirt, lakes, ocean, a tree in her backyard, a birthday party. They were memories she had once cherished, but now were nothing compared to those she had filled over the past two years.

There was too much riding on it. If Glorin was speaking the truth, albeit warped, then blowing the base was the right thing to do, to ensure the safety of her friends. So she looked at the cameras again, and still nothing. And then she took off her clothes.

A botanist she was, but never a hippie. She was a tree hugger in the sense that she respected plant life, but she had no problem cutting one down to make a house. That was their role. Still, ever since she could remember, she had had a dream of running through the forest naked. Maybe it was sexual, or maybe it was just self-actualization, she never knew, but her own shame had kept her back. Now was her chance.

She jumped around, shouting and screaming, for only five minutes. Then it got too cold.

Still, her, final wish had come true. Now it was time to find Gary and Cary.

As she sat down, still shivering, but fully clothed once again, the lights began to flicker. She reached out for the cameras and looked, but there were still no signs of the aliens. Certainly, they would be sneaking in. It was time to go.

She closed her eyes and reached out for her tablet, touching the big red digital button. Then she opened them again, forgetting she had to input the code. She typed it in and press confirm.

An error message popped up: wrong input code.

She thought about it again. What had she typed wrong?

A familiar hissing sound echoed from the far side of the dome.

“Oh no,” she clamored. She typed another code, and again the message popped up.

There was a clanging of sounds behind her. It was now or never. Then she remembered the new code. She typed it in.

“Hello?” she heard.

Susan sat up, nearly dropping her tablet.

Wasn’t Emir evil? Hadn’t Glorin killed him? She looked back down at the tablet. A quick death. Fast. She looked up as the shorter form of the Middle Eastern man came around a wall of vegetation. There was a thick dark red patch of ice on his stomach area, and his helmet was fogged over. He reached up, slowly, and unlocked the helmet, twisting it off.

It was really him.

“What? How are, what are… are you???” Susan could barely stammer. She looked back down at the tablet. One touch would do it.

“The ship hasn’t left yet?” he asked, setting the helmet down. There were scratches all over his face, and a bit of blood had dried on the corner of his mouth.

“It did.”

“Why are you still here?” he asked, sitting down on one of the benches. The red patch of ice was already melting, dripping onto the ice floor.

“Are you OK?” Susan said, pointing at his mid-section. She walked towards him a bit, but kept an eye on the button.

“It’s that bastard, Glorin. He tried to kill me when I tried to come back to warn you.”

Susan stood up straight. “Warn us about what?”

“Glorin has a weapon on him, one he plans to use on Earth. It will mean the end of life as we know it. We need to get in touch with the Odyssey, immediately,” he said, trying to stand up. He stumbled a bit. He put his hand over his stomach, where the ice had already melted off. The blood flowed now, dark and steady. He took another step and fell over.

Susan looked back at her tablet, then glanced over at the cameras on the other tablets. Still no green aliens. In one motion, she threw the tablet back on the table and rushed over to Emir’s side. She reached into the suit, and felt the warm blood. As she pulled away the fabric, she saw the wound, a small stab, from which a slow but steady flow of blood came out. She knew exactly what to do. If there wasn’t anything badly damaged inside, then he might even live.

And so would she.

She dragged him onto the same table the tablets were on, and set him on it, ripping the rest of the damaged suit off. She ran back for the first aid kit and the emergency kit. One quick stab with a pain killer silenced Emir’s moans.

“Time for some glue,” Susan said, squeezing on the small bottle she held in her right hand. “And you’d better have a really good story when you wake up.”

- Jenna –

Melancholy and happiness, all mixed in one. When the hatch opened and the wrong three people came out of it, Jenna had cried. She had shed tears for Susan, despite everything Connie had told them. Joyce had kept an eye on the moon for a while, to see if they would see the blast, but within a few hours, they were out of orbit and headed towards the gravity sling of Jupiter, and the base was too far. Every attempt to reach the base returned silence, but whether that was the continued alien disturbance or the base’s obliteration, no one would ever know.

The stuffy old man had immediately demanded a room of his own, which of course, she gladly gave hers up, and just like on the base, he had vanished from daily life. Not one word of appreciation, and other than his brief little story about Emir, his escape, and the likely death of everyone down below, no one heard from him again.

She was sad to hear about Emir, as well. She had been so sure of him, despite his troubles and problems; he just wasn’t the killer. All she could hope for was that he had found peace, whether in death or not.

But there was joy in the air as well. Everyone, sans the old man, gathered together as tightly as they could get in the bridge-and it was really tight- to watch their approach to Jupiter. Funny thing was, they only had the tiny little windows, and then on top of that, the ice shield blocked any clear sight of the gas giant. But what they did get was a light show. As the browns, reds, oranges, purples and myriads of other colors that made up Jupiter filtered through the ice, the tiny bridge lit up like a mellow dance floor. Hammy offered to put up a simulation of what they would be seeing up on the monitors and even guaranteed that they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, but they were just happy with the moment of camaraderie and a sense of relief for the trip home.

Champagne was passed around in a zero gravity bottle and everyone took their turn taking a swig. There was laughter, jokes and stories, and toasts to lost friends. The ship rumbled a bit as the AI informed everyone the sling had begun and they all cheered. In their limited space, they hugged and high-fived each other. Jenna found herself pressed up again Paul, and in that moment, their lips met, and everyone that saw them cheered.

It was then, only naturally, that she moved in with him into his quarters, especially since her room had been taken.

Seven hours after they had crammed into the bridge, Hammy informed them they had successfully completed the sling, and were now blasting off towards Earth. The moment the drive came online at full capacity, they were all sitting down, each in their own blast seats in their quarters. A roaring cheer arose up from the entire length of the ship and that night, they partied in whatever fashion they could.

Of course, that very next day, Ben was up at six AM with a full load of work for everyone. And so the return trip had begun. For Jenna, that involved plant maintenance. She split the work with Thomas that day, and they both worked over every single plant to look for damage from the sudden increase in speed. Torn stems, branches, leaves, or any other kind of damage, was taken care of, but to her surprise, Susan’s plants had held their own very well. Still, the work has slow and laborious and while she ran into other folks from time to time during her long day, she barely talked to anyone.

That night, when she returned to her new shared quarters, she had hoped for some time with her soldier, but found him just as exhausted as she was, passed out on their modified cot. She thought deviously about disturbing his sleep, but they had plenty of time. So instead, she headed out to the mess hall to find a snack. On the way there, she went into a few other rings and grabbed a few snacks off the plants.

She ate in tired silence, crunching on freshly diced tomatoes and cucumbers. Everyone else was asleep by now, but despite her soreness and exhaustion, her mind was still keeping her up. Her mortal enemy: insomnia.

After her snack, she decided to go for a bit of a stroll, if one could call it that. What she enjoyed most was the back and forth between the zero gravity, and the warm, gentle tug of coriolis, between the rings and the drive shaft. It was an odd sensation, gradual for sure, but she liked it. So she took two quick walks up and down the length of the drive, pulling herself along or walking, each in its own time. Satisfied with her bout, she decided to tackle the issue of sleep next.

The fastest way to her room was back up to the bridge, and down to the other side, unless she wanted to wait for the ring her quarters were on to spin onto her side, so she walked, or floated. She had just come up to the bridge and started to head back down the other side when she heard something. She stopped for a moment and began to listen. She was always the late night owl, so she wondered if anyone else was having trouble sleeping. If anything, it would give her an excuse to stay up longer. She drifted back closer to the bridge and was certain the sound was coming from inside. She felt like reaching out and opening the hatch to see who it was, but something inside of her told her not to. She drifted back down against the wall and hugged the side of it when a loud sound announced the hatch popping open.

It was Glorin, and he was carrying a small case. He stumbled around in the zero gravity, trying awkwardly to pull himself along. He let go of the case once, and it began to spin away from him. Jenna watched intently, as the old man hadn’t noticed her. Had he gone in there to talk to Ben? More alien stories? She wanted to know. The old man continued his ungraceful flight through the drive shaft, heading down the opposite side. Jenna followed closely, just around the bend at the bridge, and watched him go in and out of the rings, stumbling about, always with his hands on the small case. When he was no longer in sight, she turned to go back into the bridge.

“Ben?” she called out, pulling herself in. There was no response. “Ben, are you in here? What did he have to say?”

The hatch door closed behind her and she lifted herself up to the main bridge room. Ben wasn’t anywhere.

She called his name again, and this time, she heard a stumble and the tiny captain cabin’s door spun open. A weary-eyed Ben emerged.

“What’s going on?” he said.

Jenna looked around, confused. “Weren’t you talking to Glorin just now?”

Ben looked straight at her. “Does it look like it?”

Jenna looked back at the hatch. “He was just in here. I just figured, you know…”

“Who was in here? Glorin?”

She nodded. “You sure?” he asked again, and she confirmed it, telling him about her snack and stroll and how she ran across him there.

“Ok,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Don’t tell anyone else for now. Ok?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. The old guy is just weird, but I want to be sure.”

“That he’s weird? He is.”

“No,” he laughed, “just… just don’t tell anyone else for now.”

Jenna agreed and left him as he started to inspect the bridge. She made her own way back to her room and snuggled into the cots with Paul, his warmth like a nuclear reactor. She would’ve enjoyed that, if only it were a bit cooler in the room. She’d have to change that. Her mind wandered back to the tiny case the old man was carrying, then drifted into sleep.