BENEATH - A Novel (43 page)

Connelly felt the hand of whoever she was carrying searching across the side of her body. The hand stopped on Connelly's com system, adjusting the settings. Connelly had a sneaking suspicion about who she was holding. Only one person could be so in control after a near death experience. The suspicion was confirmed when a voice echoed in her headset. "I adjusted your com to the emergency channel."

Choi.

"What's our situation?" Connelly asked as they surged headlong into the tunnel.

"Peterson's still on the surface. His strength has been enhanced and he's still under Europhid control, but appeared to be suffering from a fever. He was covered in sweat. Can I ask why we're rising so quickly? These suits need time to adjust to pressure changes."

Just as Connelly was about to reply, she no longer had to. The first effects of the explosion reached them. A swarm of rapidly rising bubbles roiled toward the surface, pushed upward by the outer edge of the shockwave. "Just hold on tight," Connelly said.

A pulse of compressed water, squeezed up the ice tube, enveloped them from below. They were immediately propelled to the full speed of the shockwave.

Connelly looked up and saw a clean white hole above. The sphere was nowhere in sight. The guys had reached the top and had already locked the sphere down. The path was clear. Using the propulsion pack to guide their speedy ascent, Connelly kept them directly centered. She did her best to squeeze Choi even closer. The next part of their journey would be the most risky, especially for Choi. If Connelly let go of her, there would be nothing to stop Choi from being launched straight up into space.

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The Surveyor was shook so violently that Harris's vision became a blur. He was forced to work the controls by memory, which became a more and more difficult task as the Surveyor's descent became maddening.

When he'd first sat down, he discovered the primary systems were no longer functioning. He'd had to manually switch to a backup system. After pushing himself across the command center several times in an effort to reach the backup system switches, he finally reached it. He had yanked open the door and fought with the ten tight switches that looked like circuit breakers. Once all ten were switched, he flung himself back across the room. He'd struck the ceiling as the ship pitched forward, but the impact flung him towards his chair, which he was able to grab. He'd succeeded in switching to the backup system, but the effort had exhausted him.

He had managed to strap himself into the command console seat, but he was having trouble focusing.

One step at a time
, Harris thought.

The alarm had been shut off. That was his first step. Number two…

The pounding of thousands of charged particles blasting the outer hull was like a Fourth of July celebration, amplified through a loud speaker. The gash on his head throbbed with every concussion.

Restart the system
! The thought snuck through the chaos. Harris reacted instantly. His shaking fingers sped over the controls. A series of colorful control screen flashed past as Harris accessed and reset the ship's system. With a final strike of a button, the command center went black.

After several seconds of waiting in weightlessness, the screen in front of Harris blinked back on. Text scrolled down the screen. He recognized it from their previous encounter with the charged particle bombs. He held his breath, hoping that everything would check out.

System reboot...

Life support systems engaged...

Main electric engaged...

Gravity engaged...

Harris felt the weight of his body pulled down into the seat. Blood rushed from his skull towards his feet, relieving some of the pressure from his head wound and clearing his thoughts slightly. The text continued to roll across the screen.

Status check in 3...2...1...

Optimal atmosphere...

Optimal pressure...

Optimal gravity...

All systems functional...

Harris glanced up through the clear hull above…when he realized that above was actually below. To him, he was right side up, but Surveyor was actually upside down over Europa. As the descending ship cleared the lower rim of the charged particle cloud, Europa came into view.

The frozen moon was uncomfortably close. The Surveyor had been created for space exploration and high speed travel. Harris knew that the evasive maneuvers it would take to avoid crashing into the moon were not in the cards. The speed and bulk of Surveyor was too much. Crashing was inevitable. But surviving the crash—that might be possible.

Surveyor was the most expensive vessel ever created by mankind with a price tag in the high billions. The grand total was classified, but Harris thought it most likely surmounted the combined total income of the globes second and third world countries combined. It was no wonder Surveyor had been equipped with the very finest crash survival protocols.

Of course, they had never been tested. How could they be?

"First time for everything," Harris said.

Working through the series of commands that only he and Choi knew, he prepped the Surveyor for a crash landing. After typing in the final command, he watched as the ship's computer extrapolated all the information it needed. Descent rate, surface density, angle, everything was taken into account.

Harris didn't like sitting back and letting the computer do the work for him, but there was no way he could manage the hundreds of factors involved in landing a gigantic spacecraft on a frozen ball of ice.

A warning flashed on the screen in front of him:

EMERGENCY LANDING PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED…

SYSTEM ENGAGE IN 3… 2… 1…

Harris clung to his arm rests and watched through the clear ceiling. A jolt pounded him as the ship violently pitched to the side and then rolled, propelled by external thrusters. The computer was doing things fast.

Must be closer to the surface than I thought.

The Surveyor's spin snapped to a stop as thrusters on the other side of the ship slowed the rotation. Had he been unbuckled, Harris might have become a stain on the wall.

The dark side of Jupiter and stars filled the view above him. The ship was now bottom down. Several explosions similar to those of the charged particles rocked the ship from below. But Harris felt no fear as section by section of the ship shook from the outside. He knew the concussions were created by the emergency protocol's secret weapon. Thousands of ten by ten panels lined the base of the ship. Hidden beneath each panel was a massive balloon, capable of absorbing tremendous amounts of energy and displacing untold tons of weight. The panels were separated from the lower hull by tiny explosive charges and launched downward.

The final piece of Surveyor's emergency landing protocol was about to kick in, and Harris knew this would be the most grueling. The ship, pushed out of orbit by the charged particles and pulled down by Europa's gravity, would slow itself as much as possible.

Harris felt all of the Surveyors down-turned thrusters kick on at once. He was pushed into his seatbelt. It dug into his chest, squeezing his ribs. Harris gritted his teeth in determination. The Surveyor had taken a beating and pulled through. Now she had to survive worse.

"C'mon, baby," Harris said. "Get your nose up. Get it up or we're both going to rot on this moon."

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As the sphere edged over the top of the ice, Robert felt as though he had experienced a rebirth. He had believed, several times, that his life was coming to an end. Back on the surface, he felt renewed. Regardless of the fact that an entire alien species felt the need to exterminate all human life on Europa, he felt his fear ebb.

Then he saw Peterson.

As they rode the sphere towards the surface, Robert had imagined all the possible scenarios. There were hundreds of ways a creative intelligence could have killed him and Willard while they were helpless in the sphere. But nothing had happened. Their ride up had been smooth and fast. With Choi meeting her fate in the depths of the Europian ocean, there was nothing to stop Peterson from acting. So why hadn't he?

After reaching the surface, docking the sphere and searching the TES platform with Willard, Robert had his answer—part of it anyway. They found Peterson face down on the ice, ten feet from TES. Robert noticed that TES's control panel had been accessed, but no commands had been successfully entered. Perhaps whatever was controlling Peterson attempted to disrupt the sphere's ascent, but having failed, threw a temper tantrum on the ice?

Doubt it
, Robert thought as he approached Peterson's still body.

"Careful," Willard said.

"Playing possum?"

"Could be. Are his hands clear?"

Robert inspected Peterson's nearest hand, while Willard checked out the other. "Nothing," Robert said. "Looks like he passed out."

"Let's roll him over," Willard said. "Nice and slow."

The dead weight and stiffness of Peterson's body confirmed that he was either dead or unconscious. Robert grunted as they pushed Peterson onto his back. "Oh my," Robert said.

Peterson's face was bright red and pocked with hives. His skin and what was visible of his hair was soaked with sweat.

"Looks like he's burning up," Robert said.

Willard nodded. "He's alive. Look at his chest."

Peterson's chest was undulating like an eight cylinder engine. Robert was about to comment on the possible causes for Peterson's condition, but a growing tremor in the ice distracted him. He met Willard's eyes. "Take an arm."

Grabbing the ragdoll body of Peterson, they dragged him away from TES as quickly as they could. Seconds later, they were thrown to the ice as a wave of pressure burst from the melted hole. Robert landed on his back and watched as a geyser of ocean water spewed into space, rising one hundred times higher than
Old Faithful
. As he watched the climbing water freeze and drift away, he was overcome with a deep and sudden sadness. He hadn't seen a body come out with the water…Connelly never made it to the hole. She never had a chance.

Robert's head hung low. He'd never see her again. He clasped his hands on the back of his head and shook his head. Willard's hand rested on Robert's shoulder.

A shrill beeping stung Robert's ears as his headset blared out. He jumped back and looked around for the source of the noise, completely confused.

"Emergency channel," Willard said.

Robert quickly adjusted his com.

"If you guys can hear me, better move your butts." It was Connelly! "You've got incoming."

Robert looked toward orbit and saw a dimly lit object falling at him among the frozen snow and ice floating gingerly to the surface. He rolled to the side as Willard yanked Peterson back. The object hit the ice more gently than Robert thought possible, as though it had slowed its descent. Robert's eyes adjusted and he saw two PMS dressed bodies standing in front of him. But they weren't standing for long. Both slumped to the ice, exhausted.

Robert stepped forward. "Kathy?"

Connelly flipped onto her back and shot Robert a bright, but weary smile. "Hi, big guy."

Laughing, Robert threw himself on top of Connelly and squeezed her tight. She reciprocated his embrace.

"Thought I'd lost you," Robert said.

"Couldn't let that happen," Connelly said. "You just found me."

"Umm, guys?" Robert looked away from Connelly's smiling face and found Willard staring straight up. "Somebody mind telling me what the hell
that
is?"

Robert climbed off of Connelly and set his own eyes to the sky. Fluttering above him, beyond the frozen water that had been spewed from the TES hole, was a newly created star field, blinking in and out of existence. Robert squinted at the objects. He'd never seen anything like it. "I have no idea."

Thousands of glittering diamonds floated between Europa and Jupiter. What bothered Robert more than not knowing what he was looking at was that they were getting larger. Fast. He was about to offer a theory when the ice shook violently. He turned toward the source of the impact and saw a ten foot square of solid metal stabbing into the ice like a giant Chinese star.

"It's Harris," Choi said coldly as she stood on wobbly legs. "He's activated the emergency crash protocols."

Peterson sat up straight, suddenly revived. His eyes were wide. He glanced at the vertical sheet of metal gouging the ice, and then back up at the twinkling sky. "I know I've done some awful things, and my opinion might not matter to anyone anymore, but I'd like to make a suggestion."

All eyes were on Peterson. He was back to normal, but seriously on edge, and as far as Robert could tell, with good cause.