The Curse of Europa by Brian Kayser Read Free Book Online

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