The Curse of Europa (9 page)

“Oh crap, I don’t think the rover fared as well though, I can hardly turn the wheels. But the drilling spot is right up ahead, I think we can make it,” he says as he fights with the steering wheel.

As they approach the drilling location, they can see some of the remote sensor equipment, but they still can’t see the torpedo probe support rig at all. That is the tallest piece of equipment that they set up, and it should be the first thing they see. But it’s not.

“What the hell?” Turk blurts out, as he stops the rover near one of the remote sensor devices. “Look at that, half of it is frozen into the ice. How the hell is that possible? Did it melt into the ice?”

Juliana stares at the device and shakes her head in disbelief. “I don’t see how that would be possible, plus it is still level. If it somehow sank into the ice it would most likely be lopsided. Plus, look how shiny and smooth everything is here also. It’s as if a new layer of ice has formed in the whole area!”

“Wait, I’m not the scientist here, but the only way that would be possible is if fresh (unfrozen) water made its way up to the surface… right?” Turk says with concern in his voice.

“Pretty much…” Juliana responds; still just looking around in disbelief. Then she says to Turk, “Almost the entire surface of this groove is now a flat shinny surface. So, yes, subsurface water must have flooded this whole area since the last time we were here; and then refroze.”

“How long ago would you guess
that
happened?” Turk asks.

“Jeez, I don’t know. The water would freeze pretty fast out here though. It could have ruptured only an hour or so ago and be completely frozen like we see here. It may have been from the termer we felt in the ship right before we lost communication with all the equipment.” She responds with her best guess, digging the cleats of her boot into the ice to see how hard it is. It is very solid.

Turk moves the rover forward to where the drill tower should be, pin-pointing the exact spot with the global positioning equipment on the rover. The tower is not there. There is no hole. It is completely flat and shiny.

“Look at this,” Turk says pointing to the display screen on the rover. “The depth measuring equipment is all over the board today. Sometimes it says the ice is 3 kilometers deep, and then sometimes it says it is only 6
meters
deep. This is crazy!”

Juliana dismounts from the rover to look around. She is peering into the clear ice to see if she can see anything. Turk drives forward slowly about 60 meters, looking all around, still nothing but shiny new ice.

Turk jumps up on the seat to get an elevated look around, still nothing but freshly frozen ice in the groove. He looks around at some of the ice mountains that are surrounding them; they all look just the same as they did the day before. Then suddenly his eyes widen and he grabs for the roll bar of the rover as he feels woozy and starts to lose his balance. His hand misses, then thud, he finds himself flat on his face on the icy surface. Had it not been for the low gravity he may have been hurt badly, but besides some pain in his knees and neck, he is fine. His helmet seems to be okay and there are no alarms from his bio-suit sensors.

“Jeez, Patrick, did you feel that?” he hears Juliana on the com.

He sits up and can feel the ground shaking, rumbling actually. He realized he didn’t fall because he was woozy, he fell due to more seismic activity.

He responds to Juliana through the com, “Yeah, believe me, I felt that. And I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this; I think we need to get out of here
right now!
” Turk pulls himself back up to a standing position then looks over to find Juliana. He sees her trying to stand-up, holding her arms out to her side to balance herself as the ground shakes.

“Juliana, I can’t easily turn the rover around with the steering shot, do you think you can you walk over here?” Turk asks.

“Yes… I think so. I’ve just got to catch my balance.” She replies. She is bent over with her hands to the ice to keep from falling, but then manages to stand up and start a bounding walk towards Turk and the rover.

“Good! We’ll head North for a while and then figure out how to turn this thing around.” Turk responds back.

Just as Juliana starts to walk the 60 meters to the rover, the ground really starts to shake hard and she has to stop to keep from falling, placing her hands back down on the ice. Turk sees that she is struggling and starts to walk towards her to help. He is also finding it hard to walk with the ground shaking so much.

He starts to send a message the Eagle-2, to explain what is happening, “Eagle-2, this is Turk, do you –”

Before Turk can finish contacting the ship he loses his ability to speak, his eyes widen, and his jaw drops down. He can
not believe what he is seeing with his eyes.

Chapter 11:
Rain

T
urk just stares in horrid amazement, as a huge chunk of ice suddenly shoots straight up into the air, being pushed up by a geyser of water. This is followed by the steaming torpedo probe, which is shot up out of the hole like a missile. After the spinning chunk of ice reaches the top of the geyser, it starts to come down, right towards Turk.

He looks up and his eyes snap wide open as he yells, “Oh… shit!” He turns and tries to run as best as he can in his
bio-
suit, his boots slipping on the ice. He turns to look back and sees the flying chunk of ice ready to come down directly on top of him, so he dives head first off to the side, near the rover. The huge flying iceberg just barely misses him as it smashes down to the surface, exploding into a billion pieces of ice. The torpedo probe luckily veers in the opposite direction and lands on its side, buckling the metal housing, making it look kind-of-like a broken pencil.

The exploding chunk of ice however pummels Turk and the rover with ice shrapnel, toppling the rover over and pushing it another 5 meters in a spinning motion. As Turk lays flat on the ground, he can feel chunks of ice bashing his
bio-
suit for an eternity it seems. Some of the bigger chunks cause excruciating pain in his legs and his back, but his
bio-
suit stays intact; however he is now completely covered under a mound of ice chunks. He tries to move, even an inch, but he can’t – he is pinned to the ground. He can’t see anything except the computer display embedded in his visor. He notices it is reporting a problem with his com unit, as he no longer has his usual constant com-lock with Eagle-2.
Perhaps the ice bombardment damaged the antenna,
he thinks to himself.

“Eagle-2… Eagle-2… do you… copy?” he says into the com with a struggle, fighting against the weight of the ice pressing down on him. He waits a few seconds but does not get a response.

“Juliana… do
you
copy? Juliana… Juliana?” She is not responding either. He tries to move again but he can’t. Europa may only have 15% the gravity of Earth but the amount of ice lying on top of him is nonetheless extremely heavy.

As he is lying there helpless, sprawled out on his stomach unable to move, struggling to breath, he is startled by a very staticy broadcast.

“PATRI{sssssst} {ssssst}TRICK, {ssssst} NEED HELP!”

“Juliana, repeat…repeat! JULIANA, do you copy?” he asks frantically, but does not get a response. His heart is beating wildly now and he is breathing even heavier, wondering what trouble Juliana may be in from the geyser.

Turk is covered in ice chunks, in excruciating pain, is having trouble breathing under the heavy load of ice, and he is very disoriented. But hearing Juliana call for help makes him forget about his pain, and his mind becomes clear as a bell. He knows she needs help. He could hear the panic in her voice through the static. He is the only one that can help her, but first he needs to help himself.

He starts jerking his arms and legs with all of his might, he starts rocking back and forth, and he starts to push his way up. He fights and fights against the weight of the ice. He pushes and pushes and is finally able to get up on his hands and knees. He hears Juliana calling again on the com, but he can’t make out what she is saying as there is too much static; but he can still sense the panic in her voice, and knows that she still needs help – and fast. He yells back, “Hold on, I’m coming…” No reply.

It still feels like he has a horse sitting on his back but as he pushes up, ice chunks fill in the cavities, which actually helps as it prevents him from falling back down. As he moves his arms up, he finds he can then use the filled in cavities to push up even higher. Finally, as he pushes up again, he pops up out of the ice rubble like a mad man. Instantly, he tries to find Juliana through a visor that now has a frosty coating on the outside. He can hardly see anything. “Juliana, do you copy?” He says into the com. He never did hear a response back from his previous broadcast to her.

After a few seconds he does hear: “PAT{sssssst}, I’M SLIPPING, {sssssst} WHERE {sssssst}YOU? {sssssst} {sssssst}”

“I’m over here,” he says into the com to no avail. He can hear her, but she doesn’t seem to be able to hear him. “JULIANA, DO YOU COPY?” he screams into the com again just to be sure. She doesn’t respond.

Turk frantically tries to scrape the frost off his visor with his gloves. It doesn’t work well, but good enough; he is able to see that water is still shooting up into the air, filling the entire groove with water and creating a ‘rain fall.’ He sees the torpedo probe laying off to his right. Then he spots Juliana about 50 meters away from him in a steamy fog. He waves his hands over his head, but she doesn’t seem to see him as she is bending over with her hands on the wet ice. Water is up to her knees and she keeps trying to stand straight up, but she keeps falling back down on the slippery ice under the water, and from the rain pounding down on her.

Turk’s legs are still stuck in the ice so he starts pulling them up, he is able to move them only a few centimeters at a time. He keeps alternating pulls on his legs, until they are finally out. He slides down and off the mound of ice to make his way to Juliana. Water is gushing around Turk’s feet now as well, as he reaches the bottom of the mound. The water isn’t hot, but in the frigid atmosphere of Europa it appears to be steaming, creating the eerie fog.

Then suddenly, just as quickly as the geyser shot up through the ice, it stopped. It was as if someone had just turned off a valve. The last of the water falls down to the surface making one final splash. Turk breathes a sigh of relief, as he sees the last drops of the water stop its bombardment on Juliana. He also feels a glimmer of hope as he sees a rainbow for a brief moment; then the remaining watery mist in the air turn into snow flurries and slowly float down like feathers.

Turk hears on the com again: “{sssssst} {sssssst}atrick {sssssst}” He looks up and says, “Okay, Juliana, I’m not sure if you can hear me but hold on.”

He carefully starts to make his way to her, waving his arms again. This time she sees him and waves her arms back.

He hears her say, with less static now as he gets closer to her: “{sssst} Oh my God{ssssst}, Patrick, did {ssssst} see that? Well… there’s {ssst}ur water!” She gives a slight frightened laugh as she just stands there still trying not to slip and fall.

Turk says into his com, “Just stay where you are and I’ll come help you. The geyser stopped now, everything will be okay!” She must still not be able to hear
him
as she doesn’t respond.

As soon as Turk uttered those words though, he saw that things were not so great now that the geyser had stopped. About 10 meters behind Juliana, where the geyser spouted up like ole faithful, the water is starting to swirl around…

Chapter 12:
Whirlpool

A
whirlpool is forming behind Dr. Evans as if they are in a big sink and someone just pulled the plug. It reminds Turk of when he was a kid and would fill the bathroom sink with water, and then he would watch with delight as a lady bug he swatted into the water got sucked down the whirlpool, down the drain. Only now, Juliana is the lady bug.

Turk starts to run towards Juliana as fast as he can in his
bio-
suit on the slippery ice. However, just like those nightmares where you can’t seem to run away from danger, where you feel lethargic and keep falling down; this is exactly how Turk felt. He slips and falls on the slippery ice into the water, right onto his butt – with much pain. He ignores the pain and gets up as fast as he can and keeps moving towards her trying to not slip again.

He can see Juliana with her arm stretched out but he just… can’t… quite… reach… her! She is being pulled away from him, towards the whirlpool. The ice seems to be getting slipperier, if that was even possible. He is slipping and sliding and falling on the wet ice. Juliana is only about 3 meters from him now, and about 2 meters from the ‘drain of death.’

Turk lunges for Juliana’s outstretched hand. The hand of the woman he just recently declared that he loved. Their gloved hands lock as best as they can and he tries to stop her from sliding into the hole. It’s working, now if he can just dig the cleats of his boots into the ice and hold on. They don’t need to move away, they just need to dig their cleats in and anchor themselves.