The Curse of Europa (4 page)

“Well, I’m sure he will be very proud when we discover evidence of life down there,” Turk assures her as he grabs her cold hands.

“Well, IF we find life-” she starts to retort until Turk buts in, “IF! What do you mean if? Let’s think positive woman!”

She laughs, “Jeez… Okay! I’ll be positive; I just don’t want to get my hopes up too high.”

“Well either way, I’m sure your Professor Scott will be very proud of you,” Turk says.

“He
was
very proud of me, I know,” Evans responds. Then with sadness in her voice she continues, “Unfortunately he just recently died, shortly after I reported to Cygnus actually. I wasn’t able to go to his funeral.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember something about that now,” Turk says, feeling bad that he didn’t realize that on his own. “We really didn’t know each other very well then. I’m sorry though… about your professor!” Turk brushes a couple of hair strands away from her right eye.

“Thanks. He was pushing 90 though. I think he was born way back in the late 1960’s. He lived a very happy life though;
he
was never a coward!” She bunches up all of her red hair behind her head and then let’s go, expecting it to fall back down to her shoulders, but it just sort of flutters in mid-air with the lack of gravity.

Turk rolls his eyes and says as he places one of his hands back on hers, “Oh… you’re not a coward or you wouldn’t be here on this mission! Although you do look a little pale; are you feeling okay?” He then places the back of his hand on her forehead.

“Well I’m… I am a little light headed, so I guess I’m glad that I won’t be the one flying us down.” She pulls his hand down from her forehead and gives it a long squeeze.

“Umm… Yeah… I’m kind of glad that
you’re
not flying us down either,” he responds with a smile and a return squeeze of her hand. “You’re probably a little light headed from the effects of the zero gravity.”

“Well… actually we’re in a
micro gravity
state right now,” She responds with an amusingly snide tone as she taps his shoulder once.

“Oh… Okay Mrs. PhD, your right… micro gravity,” he says rolling his eyes with a slight shake of his head. Noticing that no one is looking at them he sneaks a quick kiss from her. She smiles, devilishly.

“Are you ready to board the LM?” Turk asks.

“Jeez, really? Is it time?” she asks, surprised that the time is finally upon them.

“Just about. You’ll be fine!” He gives her a wink.

Chapter 3:
Eagle-2 Has Landed

“E
rick… LM time. Let’s go,” Turk shouts out to Lt. Erick Glover as he gestures with his arm to come on.

Hicks also yells out, “Yes, it’s time to get rolling up there people. We need to have separation in less than two hours. Mr. Tucker, take good care of the Command Module while we’re down there.”

Lieutenant Tucker, along with the scientists Huang and Swygart, will remain in orbit in the Command Module to run operations from there. Tucker is in charge of ship operations while the scientists will scan the surface with all kinds of orbital observation and mapping equipment.

Hicks, Fedoseev, Turkovitch, Evans, and Glover will take the Lander Module to the surface of the moon for close up study. Thirty three year old Erick Glover is on his first deep space mission and is very excited to be going down to the surface of Europa, even though he won’t actually step foot out of the lander. His young fiancée did not want him to go on this mission because of the supposed curse. He told her that the ‘Curse’ was just a bunch of hog wash, but deep in the back of his mind it does have him a little bit worried. A little more worried than he wishes to admit; perhaps that stems from listening to all the stories that his Native American grandmother used to tell him as a young boy. Just like Commander Hicks, he likes a cleanly shaven face and always keeps his black hair short and neatly trimmed.

The Lander Module (named Eagle-2 after the original Lunar Module that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on Earth’s moon in 1969) is attached to the top of the ship. It was not occupied during the long trip as it is essentially upside-down, at least when the engines are thrusting causing the gravity effect. Now that they are operating without the effects of gravity, there is no feeling of up or down.

The landing crew makes their way to the air hatch leading to the LM, which is essentially in the ceiling of the command deck. There is a ladder leading to it, but it is hardly necessary as they can just float in the zero gravity. Lt. Glover grasps the round wheel on the hatch and grunts as he turns it, bracing his feet in some foot holes and finally breaking it free after a couple of hard jolts. After many turns Glover opens the port door, which makes a short whooshing sound. A rush of ice cold air hits his face, as there is a slight difference in air pressure in the LM.

“Yeeee-ikes!” cries Glover. “It is colder than my Grandma’s feet in there!”

Turk chuckles and says “Okay then… Uh… please do
not
tell us how you know how cold your grandmother’s feet are. That is
not
a story I want to hear!”

Glover rolls his eyes as everyone else cracks up and then he pulls himself inside, followed by Turk, Evans, Hicks, and Fedoseev who closes the hatch behind him. They all float to their stations and start working through their respective LM check lists, to bring Eagle-2 online, starting with the heat. There are sounds of the computer systems booting up and the environmental system kicking on. The air goes from a stale-smell, to a slight burning-smell, as heat is starting to flow out of the vents for the first time in a few weeks.

After a bit more than an hour of bringing systems online and checking that everything is fully operational they are ready to separate from the main ship and start their descent.

“White-Bull-2, this is Eagle-2, do you copy?” Hicks radios.

“Copy Eagle-2; full strength signal,” Tucker responds from the command module.

Hicks: “This is Eagle-2, we have completed LM pre-flight check list and are ready for separation stage. Prepare to release capture latches.”

Tucker: “This is White-Bull-2, please wait for hatch integrity check.”

Tucker gestures a few commands into the computer system.

Tucker: “Integrity check complete, all indicators are green. Powering up latch release mechanisms… now.”

A buzzing sound of electric motors can be heard as the capture latches are released, followed by a loud clunk and a dinging sound from the computer indicating a successful release.

Tucker: “Eagle-2, this is White-Bull-2, we have successful release of the capture latches. We have an angle of 55.7 and an inertial pitch gimbal angle at 30 degrees. We’re in attitude hold until you’re ready for final release.”

Hicks: “Copy White-Bull-2. Let’s go in one minute. The thrusting monitor program is up and running.”

Tucker: “Copy that Eagle. You can go anytime you want to.”

Hicks: “Engaging push-off solenoids in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1… and now.”

Both ships jerk a little as four 3-meter long rods quickly extend out of the CM, pushing the LM away from the command module. The CM crew watches the separation on a display screen, as the LM slowly moves away.

Tucker: “Eagle-2, this is White-Bull-2. Separation clean and complete, you’re on your own. We’ve got you in clear sight now, give us a spin around and we’ll do a visual.”

Hicks: “Copy that, proceeding with spin.”

A maneuvering thruster is given a short burst to slightly spin the LM around, so the CM crew can visually inspect it for any potential damage during their long trip.

Tucker: “Eagle-2, this is White-Bull-2. Visual inspection looks good and spectral surface scans are clean. You’re clear for landing maneuvers.”

Hicks fires the maneuvering thrusters again, first stopping the ship from its slow spin, and then again to start their approach to the landing location. Tucker, in the Command Module, tracks their descent both visually and with the ship’s systems, to assist with navigating to the correct landing site. Turk is closely watching his computer display, to make sure they are staying on course. Hicks makes small adjustments as necessary, however the computer guidance system is doing most of the flying.

As they descend toward the landing site, the features of the ice moon are becoming more and more detailed. Doctor Evans is watching out the window just as she always does when landing in a commercial transport; however the terrain is much different during this descent. The surface looks like a huge mosaic in some places and plaster imprints of leaves in others. It is hard to look down at the surface without squinting, as the icy surface effortlessly reflects the sunlight that is blanketing the moon.

They are now gliding high above the Conamara Chaos region, which has a little darker surface and is easier to look upon. Their descent seems to be following a long ice canyon, known as the Agave Linea. Doctor Fedoseev is very excited as he is looking out a port window by his seat. He is excitedly shouting out the names of all the different Linea and other points of interest; his finely stranded hair whipping from side to side as he quickly turns his head to see all the sights.

Evans politely acknowledges Fedoseev, but keeps her own eyes fixed out her window. As they get lower, she can see the lines that looked like leaf imprints, are actually long rigid ice mountains poking up all around, and long canyons where it appears the icy crust had cracked, filled with water, and refroze millions of years ago. She can hear Fedoseev say that any minute now, they should be able to see Thera Macula, which is their designated landing site.

Thera Macula, was determined to have the thinnest ice crust where underneath, they hope to send their probe into the Great Schmidt Lake. This is a subsurface body of water, trapped in the icy surface of the moon, which has been the object of study for many decades. It contains more water than all the Great Lakes combined. It is in a dark chaos terrain with a very bumpy and irregular surface, making it a challenging landing site and equally challenging to navigate with surface rovers.

The chitter-chatter of Fedoseev and the pilots during the descent went mostly unheard by Evans as she was more interested in the sights out her window, however she snapped up when she heard Hicks announce; “Prepare for touchdown in sixty seconds!”

Now, the chitter-chatter of Hicks, Turk, and Glover has Evans full attention, as their voices are getting louder and more animated; making her wonder if something is wrong. She tightly grabs onto the arms of her chair; not that it will really do any good if they were to crash, but it makes her feel safer.

Glover pipes up, “Commander, here comes that plume that Gramps almost crashed his payload pod into. We’re going to come pretty close ourselves if we don’t
pull up a bit!
”

“Don’t worry, I’m watching it,” Hicks snaps back at Glover. “I can’t pull up too much or we’ll overshoot our landing spot.”

The Eagle-2 lander just barely clears the top of the huge glimmering ice mountain; Glover lets out a big exhale. They can now see the large valley where they will land. There is a small section that has a relatively smooth surface area where they will land. Up ahead, Evans can now see the sun shimmering off of the metallic skin of the payload pods, which were sent down ahead of them. She knows from mission briefings that they want to land as close to the pods as possible, to minimize the amount of walking required to reach them. They are now surrounded by the beautiful icy mountains on all sides as they descend into the valley.