by Brian Kayser
She pointed the gun upwards and pulled the trigger. A bright flash of fire shot out of the gun as the flare jettisoned out. A second later a bright glow emanated from the flare, temporarily blinding her with its intensity. She looked around wildly but couldn’t see anything. All she could see was either blackness or the white streaks burned into her vision from the bright flare, that suddenly propelled blinding light into her wide open pupils.
She cursed herself again for being so stupid; ‘you don’t look directly at the light source when you’re trying to see something – all that will do is blind you!’ Now she was down to only two flares. She waited for the sun spots, burned into her eyes from the flare, to subside before trying it again. This time, she cocked open the gun before grabbing the next flare. She removed the exhausted flare and let it float away, then grabbed the third flare from the pouch and put it into the gun without a hitch. This time she fired the flare behind her and as it blasted out the full intensity of its glow for about ten seconds, she looked all around. Up, down, left, right… nothing. She thought that maybe she could see the bottom of the ice but she wasn’t sure. All she could really see was… nothing. She decided to save the last flare for later, in case she did happen upon solid ground or something. She ejected the exhausted flare she just used and carefully placed the fourth and final flare into the gun and cocked it shut. This way the gun was ready to go if and when she did need it again.
Without any light, she didn’t know if she was just floating stationary, moving with a current, or even if she was sinking. She could feel the force of the water with a consistent but gentle push and a pull; over and over again. She had the computer play some classical music, to help calm her, as she was gently rocked back and forth by the motion of the water. Her thoughts moved to her family and to Patrick, as she hovered in complete darkness; sobbing when thinking about the moment when someone tells her kids that she had died.
After about 10 minutes of this, she had nearly fallen asleep from the calming music and hypnotic rhythm of the water, when all of a sudden, she was jerked back with great force, snapping her eyes wide open and gasping as if falling. Nothing had grabbed her; it was a sudden underwater current that pulled her back for at least 10 seconds and then just as quickly, pushed at her with similar force for a few seconds more. This violent wakeup call repeated itself for a good minute or two, yanking her back, back, back, then pushing her brutally forward. Then again and again, before returning to the gentler push and pull that nearly lulled her to sleep. She figured the sudden action of the water must be related to the seismic activity they were experiencing on the surface.
She was wide awake now and looking around wildly, then… she saw something! Way up and to her right was a light! A faint red light blinking on and off, on and off. She thought to herself, ‘Could this be some sort of rescue?’ Her heart started thumping again. She could hear it pounding in her ears which were suffering from pressure changes as it were. With Beethoven playing in her ears she started to swim towards the blinking red beacon with all her might as it slowly descended. She is an experienced diver, but she is accustomed to a wetsuit and flippers. She had swum in her bio-suit before, during training, but it was not really designed for swimming; ‘flippers would be nice right no,w instead of these clunky boots!’ She had to slow her stroke, as her heavy breathing was making her light headed, but she was getting closer with every minor fall and major lift, of Beethoven’s music. She got close enough that the light was blinding, in the otherwise blackness that surrounded her; but if she didn’t hurry it could descend below her before she got there!
She had to dive down a little bit… she stretched, and stretched some more, and then finally was able to grab the object. ‘It’s just a flashlight’ she thought to herself; her excitement quickly deflated into disappointment. ‘No rope!’ she thought to herself in anger. But common sense sank in as she knew that a rope, that was many kilometers long, wasn’t necessarily standard issue in the rover’s tool kit. ‘But hey, at least I have a light source now,’ she finally realized. She examined the flashlight between the bright blasts of red light and found the switch to turn off the red blinkers and turn on a bright white beam.
Finally she could see… well, sort of… there wasn’t much to see. She shined it to the left and then to the right and all around, but she could only see the glow of the light-beam in the water. She shined it up and vaguely saw the bottom of the ice about 25 meters up, it had endless ridges of peaks and valleys, and long spikes protruding downward. She searched for the hole she came through for about five minutes, but it was hopeless. She had no idea which direction to start looking and how far she had drifted. Plus the light beam only seemed capable of illuminating out about 30 meters before being gobbled up by the dense water.
She continued shining the light in all directions. The water was crystal clear but she couldn’t really see anything. Shining it down was just black and the thought of going too deep frightened her. She wasn’t exactly sure why. The water pressure wasn’t too bad and she figured she could actually go pretty deep, with Europa’s 15% gravity vs. Earths’. With such low gravity, a diver could descend to much deeper depths than they could on Earth, as the water pressure would be much less intense. However, she had already accepted the fact that these were her final moments of life and she would rather die calm, verses going someplace scarier than where she already was. At least if she could keep the ice above her in sight, she would have a frame of reference as to where she was and if she was even moving or not.
After about 20 minutes of searching the dark empty waters, and just letting the push/pull current take her where it pleased, she noticed something strange up ahead as she listened to Moonlight Sonata. Initially, she couldn’t really make out anything in particular, but her light beam was catching something. She gently swam towards it as her heart rate increased from the suspense, and from the emotion of the Sonata playing in her ears. It took her a few more minutes of swimming forward, but she could now tell that is was… something… some sort of particles; flecks of some kind. They were little particle flecks reflecting her light beam, kind of like seeing dust floating in a room, when the sunlight is beaming in the window. She shined her light downward now and could see an even denser concentration of the particles. She decided to swim down; her curiosity overriding her fear.
As she swam down with the cadence of the music, she noticed the external temperature sensor in her suit starting to rise also, indicating the water was getting warmer. Then she instantly stopped and her body quickly jerked as she was startled by a movement, she could have sworn that her heart jumped into her throat. Moonlight Sonata’s intensity increased at the same moment and a warm tear rolled down her cheek. There was something else floating up also, something with a shape! She kept her light fixed on the shape as it slowly approached her. She could hear her heart thumping in her ears again, almost overpowering the music that was still playing. She watched the shape approach her; she slowly retreated, back up slightly, from apprehension. Squinting as it got closer; she could see that it looked like some form of coral! It was small. She grabbed it and examined it closely. It was certainly some sort of deep sea coral. It was not alive right now but it certainly had been, and not too long ago.
‘Does this mean that there is a bottom relatively close?’ she wondered. Looking closer at the flecks in the water, she was almost certain that they were sodium sulfide flakes that are produced by underwater hydrothermal vents. That is exactly what they were hoping to find on Europa.
The significance of hydrothermal vents is that of all the places there may be life on Europa, this is the best place to look. On Earth, these vents were discovered in the oceans, many kilometers deep, far away from the reach of the sun’s energy. However, the area around the vents were teaming with life, living off the energy of the Earth and not of the Sun. This changed many scientists’ theories about the origin of life on Earth and opened up the likelihood of life in outer space with a similar environment; su
ch as Europa. It is probably near this warm vent that this coral came from, and there was certainly a high probability that more can be found; living. And possibly other living creatures as well.
‘This is it!’ Evans thinks to herself, ‘I just discovered proof of life that evolved someplace besides Earth. And more than just a simple microorganism; a real animal. A simple animal yes, but an animal no less. And they must feed on something!’
Her heart was still racing, now from excitement; tears leaking from both eyes. She just made a huge discovery. Perhaps that is an understatement. A huge understatement. She just made one of the single most important discoveries of mankind. A ‘this changes everything’ type of discovery. However, it is most likely a discovery that she will be telling no one about. A discovery that she will be taking to her grave in approximately 105 minutes, according to the computer readout in her visor.
Her emotions were running even wilder than before; she blinked her eyes trying to clear the tears, wishing she could reach inside her helmet to wipe her face. She’s swimming in an underground ocean, on a moon orbiting Jupiter. She discovered proof of life somewhere else besides Earth and she can’t tell anyone because… oh yeah, because she is going to suffocate to death in about an hour and her radio is dead. She had found love again (which she was unprepared for and not expecting), she has two kids back on Earth that will never see their mother again, and what about her parents and all of her friends? This is the worst moment of her life. This is the greatest moment of her life.
She tried to clear her head of all the thoughts racing around; or at least narrow down her thoughts, to a more manageable level, so she could decide what her next actions would be.
‘Dammit,’ she thinks to herself, ‘It may be a foregone conclusion that I’m going to die, but if I could at least communicate with the ship and tell them what I found – this won’t be all in vain; my DEATH won’t be in vain! Jeez… what the hell is wrong with my com unit!’
Running a diagnostic on the Communication Unit indicated that it was fully functional; it just didn’t have any signal. Evans’ was not a mechanical whiz, but knew enough to realize that it was probably a problem with the antenna. With the small antenna on the backpack of the bio-suit, she couldn’t get to it or see it, which is why she hadn’t yet checked it. However, now was the time to take a great risk. She decided to attempt removing the backpack to investigate. This should be possible as long as she keeps the cables connecting it to the bio-suit attached, that she keeps the oxygen hose connected, and most importantly, that she doesn’t drop it.
She reached around and unhooked the left side and then carefully unhooked the right. She slipped out one arm and then the other, while keeping a tight grip on it, and then slowly swung it around to her front to examine with the light. Sure enough, the antenna was just dangling there by a single wire. However, the little twist locking mechanism that attaches it securely to the backpack was broken. She figured it must need to be completely attached for it to work.
She pushed the antenna back into place, but with the broken locking mechanism it would not stay attached on its own. However, as she was holding it in place, she noticed an alert in her visor that the com-link had reestablished itself with Eagle-2. She gasped and her cheeks got flushed as she realized that maybe she could communicate what she found after all, as long as she held the antenna in place.
“Eagle-2, Eagle-2, do you copy! This is Doctor Evans, do you copy.” She blurted into her com, breathing heavy and heart racing once again. She turned off the music she was playing. Her hand slipped and the antenna fell out and then she almost released the entire backpack, but held on. She quickly put the antenna back in and her com-link was again reestablished.
“Eagle-2, this is Doctor Juliana Evans, do you copy me?” she frantically yelled into the com a few more times.
Then all of a sudden she heard loud and clear, “This is Eagle-2, this is Eagle-2, do you copy? Doctor Evans, is that you? This is Eagle-2.”
Evans just about burst with joy and emotion when she heard Glover’s words coming through her com unit. More salty tears made their way from her eyes to the corners of her mouth.
“HELLO! Yes this is Doctor Evans! Hello? Hello?” she squeaked out as a reply.
“Hello! Doctor Evans, is that you?” she now hears the familiar booming voice of Commander Hicks.
“Yes, it is me, Evans! I hear you commander!” But she didn’t get a reply. “Can you hear me commander? Please! I hear you loud and clear. My antenna is damaged. Please respond if you can hear me! Hello! Hello! Please respond! Jeez!” she cries passionately into the com.
She waited a few moments to no response. Then her com-link went back down.
Chapter 20: Dr. Evans, is That You?
“Hello! Doctor Evans, is that you?” Hicks responds in an amazed voice. “Erick, can you boost our signal any further?”
“Still working to clear it up, but I’ve got the power full. The problem is that boosting our power doesn’t help much with the reception of her signal, which is weak. She can probably hear us fine. The best I can do is get our antenna precisely aimed to where her signal is originating from,” Glover responds, while frantically gesturing commands into his console and looking back and forth between two display screens.
Then suddenly, he must have found the ‘sweet spot’ for the antenna as they hear, “{ssssssst} {squaaaaaak} me {ssssssst}ear me comman{ssssssst}? {ssssssst} I hea{ssssssst} {ssssssst}ou {ssssssst} and clear. My {ssssssst} is dam{ssssssst} {ssssssst} re{ssssssst} can hea{ssssssst} {ssssssst}e”
“That’s about all I can do commander,” Glover says, while throwing his hands up in the air; a trickle of sweat running down his cheek.
They hear more garbled words and everyone strains to make out what she is saying. They are definitely picking up her transmission, but unfortunately, it is too garbled to understand.
Coming in on a separate channel, they hear Tucker in the Command Module: “Eagle-2, this is White-Bull-2, Lieutenant Tucker here, do you copy?”
“Go ahead Tucker,” Hicks says quickly, not wanting to miss hearing anything that may be comprehensible from Evans.
“We are picking up Evans’ signal also and have aligned our antenna and boosted our power as well. I think we are picking her up a little better. Commander… let’s cluster mirror our two radios into one unit! The computer can then process both of our signals, combining only the best parts together, and can rebroadcast the cleaned up stream on delta channel.”
“Will that work Erick?” Hicks asks, bewildered as to what Tucker was even talking about.
“Yes, I think it will! These newer radios are designed to do that, we did it in training class.” An excited Glover responds with a smile, wondering why he didn’t think of that himself.
“Well hell,” Hicks responds, and then pounds his fist on his console like a gavel. “DO IT!”
It takes about 60 seconds to cluster mirror the radios. During this time, it breaks the com-link with Evans, until the cluster procedure is finished. Glover adjusts the radio to monitor delta channel.
After a few more seconds they hear, “{ssst} This i{ssst} {sst}octor Evans, do you copy? {sst}”
“Yes, we copy, this is Hicks, do you read me Doctor Evans?”
“{sst}es, I copy you {sst} Loud and {sst}lear,” Evans responds. She is very glad that the com-link was reestablished after a minute of nothing and wondering if the antenna had completely given out.
“Doctor Evans, what is your situation,” Hicks asks, not really expecting a rosy report. Actually, deep down hoping that she is not back on solid ground, looking for Eagle-2 that just left her behind with no possible way of going back to pick her up. The heat shielding may not hold for a second landing, plus they exhausted all of their fuel on their rapid escape from the surface.
“{ssst} Well jeez… {ssst} I’m okay, for now {ssst} guess. I’m in the Great Schmidt L{sst}ke, swimming! It was pitch blac{sst} until I retrieved the fl{sst}shlight that someon
e dropped down, {sst}hanks for that!” Hicks gets a surprised look on his face and goose bumps instantly sprout up on his skin. He was only dropping down his flashlight to try to gauge how far down the hole went. He had no idea that Evans would actually retrieve it and be able to use it.
“Even afte{sst} I got the flashlight every{sst}ing was still very black, {sst} until I finally saw white fleck{st} floating upward, so I {sst}wam towards them. {sssst}” Evans continues. “I’m almost certain that they are sodium sulfide fla{ssst} and I think I’m directly above a hydr{st}ermal vent. {sst} Now get this… I found {st} small piece of deep sea coral floatin{st} upwards as well! It’s dead, but it was certainly alive, not too {st}ong ago! Did you copy all {st}that?”
“Yes, we copy, holy crap. Can you see the vent?” Hicks asks, momentarily forgetting about the dire straits that Evans is in.
“No, not yet, my {st}ntenna is damaged and right now I have my backp{st}ck off; holding the antenna in place. {st}The locking clamp is broke so if I let go {st} will fall out.”
“Oh understood,” Hicks responds, not really knowing what to say next; afraid to tell her that they already blasted off of the surface.
“Listen, {st} I doubt there is any rescue for me; I’ve accepted {st}hat. So I do want to use my time left {st} investigate.”
“I’m afraid you’re correct Juliana,” Hicks chokes a little trying to hold back a tear, “We actually had to launch. Water was flooding the surface and tremors were causing avalanches all around us. We… we… barely made it off the surface in one piece. I’m so sorry. I’m –”
“Com{st}ander, don’t apologize, I understand. Even if you didn’t leave there would be n{st} way to save me. Let’s not dwell on that. I want to use my final minutes to {st}alvage this mission. I don’t want to die in vain{st}{st}.”
