BENEATH - A Novel (44 page)

Peterson grunted as he climbed to his feet. "Run," he said.

Robert looked up. Running would be useless. There was no escape. The swath of falling panels covered an area larger than any of them could run. "There's no running from this," Robert said. "There's too many."

As though to reinforce Robert's observation, two more of the panels struck the ice, both within fifty feet.

"Not from them," Peterson said. "The Europhids. They're going to kill us! They're going to kill us—ack!" Overcome by some kind of paralysis, Peterson twisted his body into a sick position and fell back onto the ice. His breathing regained its rapid pace.

Connelly's voice filled Robert's ear. She had the voice of a commander again. "Everyone get down!"

Everyone quickly obeyed, diving to their stomachs. All Robert could see was the ice below his face. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Just stay down!" Connelly had an edge to her voice that told Robert there was a damn good reason for her insistence. Still, he had to see for himself. As soon as he did, he wished he hadn't. The Surveyor was crashing down towards them, its bottom covered in giant balloons, its thrusters spewing jets of blue flame towards the ice. Invulnerable space suit or not, they were about to be smeared on the ice.

Connelly looked to the left.

Willard and Choi were there, lying face down on the ice. Choi had one leg extended and bent, while her arms were spread in a sharp "Y". Willard's body was held tightly together, flat as can be, hands over head.

She looked to her right.

Peterson lay next to her, unconscious again, his body limp. Robert was just beyond Peterson, face down, arms clenched beneath his chest.

Connelly cursed herself for being dim witted. Out of the five of them, she was the only one to lay down face up. She had no way of knowing whether death would come in a quick crushing blow or whether it would be a slow drawn out suffocation under the weight of the Surveyor. But she knew one thing—

She'd see it coming.

And what she saw made her cringe. Even her Europhid altered emotional state was no match for the sheer terror of being crushed by a skyscraper sized starship.

As Surveyor closed in, Connelly could see that the thrusters were having an effect. The nose was turning up, but nowhere near fast enough to pull up from the surface and avoid a collision.

A shadow fell over Connelly as the Surveyor blocked out the reflected sunlight. It was almost on top of them. Connelly closed her eyes and waited for death. After five seconds, Connelly realized she was still alive. At the speed Surveyor was traveling and how close it appeared, she should have been crushed to paste by now. Connelly opened her eyes and gasped.

Two inches from her face, a blur of gargantuan balloons raced past. She felt like she was standing at the edge of a hover train track leaning out, tempting death. Only this experience was different in every way. She could see the flash of movement, but there was no physical sensation to accompany the image. No rush of wind. No roar of engines or whine of brakes. The vacuum of space made the ghastly crashing ship appear to be nothing more than an apparition. But Connelly knew better. With every passing second the Surveyor was descending. In moments one of the balloons would snag her helmet and snap her neck or catch her boot and fold her in half.

A fear of death no longer clutched her throat or ached her heart. This time, she kept her eyes open. The blur got closer and closer, she could see the thick stitches of the balloons moving back and forth across her vision like a pulse line.

Then the line disappeared, replaced by black space. Connelly's focus adjusted to the emptiness. She could see stars in her periphery…including a bright moon. The majority of the sky was black, blotted out by Jupiter's mass.

"Are we dead yet or can I pick up my head?" It was Willard.

"Surveyor missed us," Connelly said.

With a suddenness that surprised all of them, the ice shook.
 
Surveyor was crashing.

Connelly yanked her body around and watched in horror as the Surveyor made contact with the ice, several hundred yards beyond their location. Shards of ice exploded into orbit as the weight of the Surveyor pummeled every vertical clump in its path. Surveyor lurched slowly to the starboard side as it slide across Europa's frozen surface on a sheet of balloons, which held the Surveyor aloft on a cushion of air. Surveyor slid to a stop nearly a mile away, leaving a smooth trail of ice its wake.

Connelly sat up and leaned back on her hands, trying not to remember the closeness of the balloons, the haunting silence. She pushed the disturbing thoughts from her mind and took charge again. "What's our situation?"

If they had seen how close to death they had all come, Connelly felt sure not one of the crew would act so effectively as they all did in the next few minutes.

Robert leaned over Peterson's body and gave him a few gentle smacks. "Peterson's out again," he said, "but he's still alive."

Willard took the defensive route. "Not a Europhid in sight, creep or otherwise. I think we made a clean getaway."

"What about the Surveyor? Could she have survived a crash like that?"

Choi didn't answer. Connelly looked at her. She was standing on her feet, scanning the horizon. Connelly stood next to her. "Choi?"

"We have concerns other than the functionality of Surveyor," Choi said.

"What is it?"

Choi stopped searching the horizon and looked Connelly in the eyes. "How's your stomach feel?"

The question struck Connelly as oddly out of place, but with all the confusion and excitement of the past minute, she had completely ignored her physical pain. She focused on her body. She was struck by a sharp pain in her broken ribs, a sore back and a headache worse than any hangover she experienced during her college days. But there was something else, and it was getting worse. A nausea began twisting in her stomach, slowly gaining momentum.

The sickening sensation grew doubly worse when Connelly realized what was causing it. "Radiation."

Choi nodded.

"But TES has an electromagnetic shield."

"As does the ATV I was driving…but both were destroyed by Surveyor."

Connelly spun around, taking in their surroundings. A smear of debris caught her eye. She could see a mass of black twisted metal that used to be TES's three cranes. A loose string of cable was stretched out over the ice like an oil pipeline. Connelly imagined that the sphere had been punted like a kick ball when Surveyor struck it, dragging the cable out behind it. All that was left intact of TES were the three diamond shaped panels and the melted hole that led into the Europian ocean.

 
"She's gone," Connelly said.

A moment later, Connelly felt Robert's hand on her shoulder. "We can build her again," he said.

Connelly looked up into his kind eyes. "No…we can't."

"Found it!" Choi said, and before explaining herself, began hopping into the distance. "The lander's still intact. We have six minutes to get within range of her shielding or we're going to wish Surveyor had landed on top of us."

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The run back to the lander took only two minutes. Choi had just about left them all in the dust as Willard and Robert dragged Peterson between them. Half way across the ice, Connelly picked Peterson up by the legs and the three of them lugged him to the lander. By the time they arrived, out of breath and twisted with discomfort from the growing nausea, Choi was in the command seat, prepping for take off.

Connelly sat down next to Choi as Willard and Robert strapped Peterson in and took their seats. With the effects of radiation exposure wearing off, Connelly focused on her annoyance. "Where were you?" she said to Choi. "We could have used your help with Michael."

Choi worked the controls. The lander's hatch slid closed and the internal atmosphere and pressure adjusted. Choi removed her helmet and turned to Connelly.

With a brief gasp, Connelly sat back in her chair. "What happened to you?" Choi's face was covered in small lesions that looked like burnt flesh. "I spent a few minutes in the open radiation earlier. You had six minutes…I had three."

Connelly frowned. "Sorry."

"I'll be fine with some treatment," Choi said. "Right now, we need to get back to Surveyor, assess the damage and get the hell off this ice ball."

Connelly was constantly amazed by Choi's control in the face of impossible odds. Since Connelly's alteration by the blue Europhids, she'd discovered that same level of control within herself, but with Choi, it was natural.

The lander lifted off the surface of Europa with a relaxing smoothness that made everything feel normal again. The flight was just as easy. If Surveyor were still in orbit, and not lying out on Europa's surface, Connelly would have felt like everything was okay. But a dark foreboding filled her. They had survived the worst this moon had to throw at them. They'd all survived, every one of them. But still, something nagged at the back of Connelly's mind…a slight tickle that whispered:
run!

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Communications between the landing team and Harris commenced a minute later. Harris had a head wound that needed tending, but he was otherwise intact. The Surveyor had similar wounds, lots of topical injuries, but all major systems were operational. Harris guided them into the TES cargo bay. The landing bay doors had been fused shut by the charged particle barrage.

Within twenty minutes they had all congregated in Surveyor's med lab for patching up and debriefing. Connelly spoke very quickly about their sub-oceanic adventure and the encounter with the massive predator, the creeps, the blue Europhids and ultimately, their explosive escape.

After Choi related her end of the story, Harris scratched his newly stitched head and winced. "Ugh…So basically," he said, "Europa is like a large living organism?"

 
Connelly nodded. "Just as a human's made up of several separate parts that function as a whole. The red Europhids are a primal force acting like an immune system for the moon. They repair injuries, purge the weak and defend the body with their lives. They have an amazing ability to adapt to new threats. Just as humanity actively seeks to wipe out disease, the Europhids sought to destroy us. We're the foreign invaders. We're the disease."

Harris stood over Peterson's unconscious body. "And him?"

"They took over his mind…adapted to our species," Robert said. "They, ahh, they're really amazing creatures."

Harris shook his head. "Well, it almost worked."

Willard stood from his seat in the corner, "So what's his story?" he said to Choi as she checked Peterson's vitals.

"Ironic," she said.

"Peterson's vitals are ironic?" Willard asked with a smile. "I don't think that's a medical term."

Choi turned to Willard. "His immune system eventually routed out the Europhid infection. The fever and spasms were the result of the internal battle he was fighting. The Europhid that invaded his body was undergoing the same assaults from Peterson's immune system that we were experiencing from Europa."

"So the human immune system is better, then?" Willard said, standing next to Peterson. "How did he beat them?"

"Eventually, the fever did them in. His body found their weakness and turned up the heat. Used to living in a frozen world, his temperature was too much for them to handle. That's my theory anyway."

"So, he'll be okay then?" Robert asked.

"He's in a deep sleep, no doubt recovering from his battle with the Europhids. I'm going to keep him out until we return to Earth."

Connelly heard the conversation as it played out but she'd been distracted by the voice in her head. It was growing louder, simply more insistent.

 
"Amazing how the human immune system can adapt."

Connelly couldn't recall who made the comment, but it started a chain reaction of thoughts within her mind that ended with a one word expletive that alerted the entire crew to her concerns. "Huh."

Robert was at her side in an instant. "What is it?"

Connelly turned to the others. They stood around her, wounded and beat up, looking defenseless…weak…fragile. They were sitting ducks. "We need to get off the ice. We need to leave now."

As Connelly's final word slipped from her flush lips a gentle vibration shook her feet and slowly moved up her body, increasing in violence.

With a jolt, the vibration became a powerful shaking. Something was breaking through the ice. Harris was already moving to the exit. "Strap Peterson down and buckle up!" He was out the door and headed for the control center. Choi was at his heels.

"Take care of him, guys," Connelly said before rushing out the door after Harris and Choi. She felt slightly guilty for leaving the guys like that, but she had to see it. She had to see what the Europhids were sending to finish them off.