The Curse of Europa (7 page)

“No… I don’t know. What?” She is now leaning over to him, their faces just a few inches apart as he looks back into her eyes.

“Well Juliana, I guess I mean… I love you!” Turk says a matter-of-factly, keeping his eyes locked with hers.

Juliana’s eyes widen, she pulls back a bit and chuckles slightly. “What? What did you just say mister?”

“You heard me!” He responds.

“Jeez, are you being serious?” She asks, peering at him with squinting eyes.

He reaches around and grabs the back of her head, pulling her nearer, then leans over and kisses her soft lips. She looks deep into his eyes for a second before returning the kiss, a little harder this time. It had been a few weeks since they were able to be passionate with each other, and now they could hear their hearts starting to thump in their chests, as they started going at it a little stronger.

“Ah hem!” is heard from the port door. They separate and see Hicks coming inside.

“Sorry, did I interrupt something?” Hicks booming voice asks, knowing darn well that he did.

“Ah… no, we were just
talking
, come on in,” Turk says with a little chuckle, while giving Juliana a wink; then squeezing her hand. She just looks at Hicks and smiles with blushing cheeks, giving him a hello nod. Then she looks at Turk with a complete look of shock and surprise on her face, as she tries to determine if he was joking around or being serious. He once told her that he had never told a girl ‘I love you.’

Turk and Hicks start talking mission details.

Juliana is lost in thought.

Chapter 7:
Nuclear Heated Torpedoes

“J
uliana… Juliana… wake-up…” Turk is shaking her, trying to rouse her from a deep sleep. A little spittle is on her chin and now her eyes are open very wide, looking around as if she doesn’t know where she is.

“Hey-hey there sleepy head, it’s time to get rolling! Ah… you’ve got a little, ah, drool right there on your chin.
Very sexy
,” he whispers.

She wipes her chin dry, rolls over to her side, still a bit dazed. “Jeez, what time is it?” she croaks in a raspy voice.

“Wow, you were really out of it. It’s 7:05am already.” Turk answers, pulling on her hand to help her out of the lower bunk. She whips her legs out and just sits there; hunched over so she doesn’t bang her head on the top bunk, as there isn’t much room between them.

“Oh, okay. I had trouble falling asleep,” she mumbles as her elbows are resting on her legs and her hands are holding up her head by her chin. “I don’t think I dozed off until after 2:00am, I was afraid I was keeping everyone else awake with my tossing and turning.” She rubs her eyes. Her mind was racing the night before, thinking about the day they just had, the upcoming day, and the ‘I love you.’

“Oh, sorry to hear that, I slept like a rock,” Turk says with a big smile, knowing that what he told her last night may have been partly why she didn’t sleep much. “I didn’t hear you rolling around at all. But no time to dilly dally though, I’ll meet you at the air-lock at 7:45.”

“Okay, okay, no problem. I’ll be on time,” she says as she pulls herself to a standing position. “Jeez, I really hate mornings! But at least it’s a little easier getting up with this low gravity.”

Hicks and Fedoseev head out first. They have basically the same core mission as Turk and Evans, which is to use a nuclear heated torpedo probe to drill a hole through the ice until it reaches liquid water, then release a small remote controlled exploration probe. There is of course, much more to the mission than that, but this is the mission in a nutshell. With the previous Europa failures of the past, the GSO needs this mission to be successful and having two teams and two probes, doubles the chances of success.

It is mostly business today, as there is a lot to do and they are limited to seven hours in their bio-suits. Hicks and Fedoseev are already gone when Turk and Evans emerge from the shiny Eagle-2 lander. Turk retracts the solar panels that have been charging the rover’s batteries and they both hop into their seats and drive the rover to where their payload pods are located. They are again amazed at the beauty of their surroundings that look slightly different this morning, with the Sun at a slightly different angle.

When they arrive to where the pods are, Turk pulls the battery powered rover around to where he pulled out and left the nuclear heated torpedo probe. He puts the rover into reverse to back it up closer, so he can hook the rover to the trailer that the probe is attached to. He makes sure to put it back into the forward gear right away, so he doesn’t accidentally go in reverse when he hops back in and starts to drive off. It makes him a little nervous, pulling around a nuclear powered device on the bumpy surface of Europa, especially with the
curse
. But oh yeah, he’s not supposed to think about that silly anecdote.

They drive off in the rover with the probe in tow, taking in more of the spectacular sights. Jupiter is slightly higher on the horizon now and the moon IO can clearly be seen, along with its tiny shadow that is being cast on the surface of Jupiter.

Some of the terrain is very smooth, but other areas are quite challenging and bumpy. Normally, Turk would enjoy the bumpy terrain, but not with their nuclear bomb trailing behind them. Supposedly, there is zero chance it could actually explode; at least, that’s what the engineers who designed it say. He thinks the ‘Curse of Europa’ is a big joke, but it is hard not to think about all the failures and disasters of the past, when pulling a nuclear device.

At the drill site, it takes about two hours to construct the rig that will guide the torpedo probe into the ice. Something that may only take 30 minutes on Earth, but wearing bio-suits and the gloves, everything takes a lot longer.

As Turk is tightening the final connection rods, he sees the rig starting to shake slightly. “There! Jeez, do you feel that?” he hears Juliana through the com unit. She is about 60 meters away gathering surface samples.

“Well… I’m not sure if I felt anything, but the support rig sure was shaking. Must just be some slight tremors; the ice plates moving or something.” Turk responds.

“Commander Hicks, Turkovitch here, do you copy?” Turk says on the public com channel.

“Go ahead Turk…” He hears Hicks respond a few seconds later.

“We’re feeling some small tremors over here, how about you guys?” Turk asks.

“No, nothing here. It’s probably just the ice plates moving a little.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too,” Turk responds back, “Do you think it is anything to worry about?”

“No, I don’t think so. Once we get all the seismic monitoring equipment set up, we can keep a closer eye on it. Have you fired up the probe yet?” Hicks asks, more concerned about that, than of any typical seismic activity.

“Nope, in about 15 minutes though.” Turk responds, hoping he can keep that promise. He senses Hicks will be annoyed with an answer reporting anything longer.

“Okay, we’ve had
ours
going for about 30 minutes now, has already gone a few meters. We are just about ready to head back to Eagle-2.” Hicks responds back smugly.

“Acknowledged. We’ll see you back there in about an hour. Turkovitch out. So Juliana, does that surface probe of yours detect any seismic activity?”

“Well, not right now, but I just got it configured and turned on. I’ll check the readings back at Eagle-2, after it has had some time to baseline,” she replies.

They take about 10 more minutes to finish constructing the support rig, then they set up the probe and engage the power. They monitor it for about 45 minutes, to make sure it is working properly, and then head back to Eagle-2. It will take over 40 hours for the probe to drill and melt its way through the nearly 3,350 meters of ice at this location. This is over 3 kilometers of ice, but is much thinner than most of the rest of the surface, which is estimated to be over 24 kilometers thick. They will return the next morning.

The drive back to Eagle-2 is pretty silent, as they both just take in the sights. Any conversation that does occur is centered mostly on the scenery. Without the torpedo probe in tow, Turk is taking a slightly different route back to the ship, which is a little more challenging; much to his delight. Juliana desperately wants to talk about their interrupted discussion the night before, but knows they can’t on the com unit. However, once they finally get to smoother terrain, where Turk isn’t constantly turning the wheels back and forth to avoid ruts and ravines, he reaches over and grabs her hand. She smiles.

Chapter 8:
Place Your Bets

B
ack at Eagle-2, Turk and Juliana have taken off their bio-suits, cleaned themselves up, and are now eating a late lunch with Hicks, Fedoseev, and Glover.

“So… I hear that the boys back home have placed some bets on whose probe is going to break through the ice first,” Glover informs the two EVA teams. “I hear that even General Navox pledged some credits to the pot,” he says with a slight laugh.

“Well I hope that Navox and any smart ones put their money on EVA Team 1,” Hicks announces proudly with a boom in his voice as usual. “We do have about an hour jump on you guys,” he continues, looking at Turk and Doctor Evans with a confident smirk.

“Yeah… well, you may have gotten a little jump putting in, but we took our time to find the
prime
location! We found a spot that is probably 750 to 1000 meters thinner, than where you guys put in, so I think that more than negates your little head start,” counters Turk with a smile.

“It seems, that you should place your credits vhere your mouth is,” Doctor Fedoseev says with his Russian accent. He is always up for a little gambling.

“Oh?? What are you thinking,
comrade
?” Turk asks, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

“Vell, I vould advise fifty credits should make due – Yes?” Fedoseev says, while twirling the end of his mustache.

“Jeez - Fifty? Did you say fifty credits?” confirms Evans, a little shocked as that is about a week’s pay.

“Da... er, I mean yes, fifty all,” Fedoseev acknowledges.

Turk responds, “Okay, so fifty credits each, for whichever probe reaches liquid water first. That doesn’t really seem fair though… for you two that-is, but if you want to give away your credits, that is fine with me!” Fedoseev and Hicks nod in agreement, sporting confident smiles.

“So, fifty – credits – each,” Turk says slowly, looking at Juliana. “You in Evans?”

“Oh yeah! Count me in!” She responds, trying to sound more confident and cocky than before.

“Okay – it’s on boys! Just make sure that you have enough credits in your accounts when we get home.” Turk teases.

Hicks looks at Lieutenant Glover, “How about you Erick? Who are
you
siding with?”

“Oh no… Count me out of this… I’m not taking sides,” he says, shaking his head no and holding up his hands as if surrendering. Then he takes a big bite of his food bar and starts chewing.

“Okay then, fifty each between us four,” Hicks booms out to finalize their bet. Then they start talking about the spectacular views each of them experienced while driving around on the surface with the rovers. Glover wishes that he could go out to explore also, but knows that isn’t his job. All five of them chomp down on their meal bars and dried fruit, washing it down with vitamin water.

Juliana really wanted some more private time with Turk to finish their talk, but there was too much going on. All they could really muster, was a few longing glances back and forth. Later that night, she thought that they may be able to sneak away privately, to the sleeping quarters to talk, but with all of the gambling talk, Fedoseev wanted to play poker. He was able to rope everyone into playing. Juliana wasn’t much for poker and was out of credits in under an hour; Glover was out not long after. Turk, Fedoseev, and Hicks however battled it out for many hours longer. By the time the game was over, Juliana was long asleep.

Chapter 9:
Communication Loss