Europa (Deadverse Book 1) Read Free Page A

two had opened up to each other. They knew about each other’s wives and children, troubles and politics. Charles voiced his concerns over potential wars and Ben expressed his concerns over troubling developments in technology. Both were tied in and both seemed millions of miles away. Sometimes it felt as if only the two men were really still in touch with reality. That reality was 365 million miles away.
    Today was a cause for celebration though. The mission had one objective. Unearth, or un-ice, the Jupiter Artifact, determine its contents, and bring it back to Earth. Charles was there in case they weren’t supposed to bring it back. The biggest problem was the artifact was under nearly a mile of ice. So for the first two years, the ice engineers had been digging and carving out pathways to the artifact. In order to help pay for the mission, NASA had allowed for several side missions to take place during the two years. Studies on the effects of low gravity on humans, growing plants in low gravity, and the effects of time on humans stuck in a sardine can for two years, were just some of projects the other crewmembers kept busy with. And it was up to Ben to keep the order.
    For the most part, he had.
    There had been the video issue with Emir, which was a pretty thorny one. There had been a love triangle between Susan Adams, the botanist, Cary Hughes, one of the research coordinators and Gary Fletcher, the mission surgeon. Horace Tanner, the mission psychologist had a field day with that mess, but after some fist fights and a broken nose, the issue settled itself. The trio were now a ‘happy’ couple. Horace was probably going to win awards whenever he submitted his findings on that matter.
    For the most part though, the two years had gone smoothly. The base engineer, Geoff, was a savant in low gravity structures. There had been no issues at all. Susan had been able to get plants growing in one of the domes that also served for additional oxygen and CO2 scrubbing. She had done so well, she was sure the crew could survive for years if anything happened. It didn’t matter of course. NASA shipped supplies up that arrived every three months. They had cracked open a huge tub of ice cream from the latest supplied and the central command room was now party central.
    The room was full of laughter, music and a general sense of completion. The work was far from over, but the longest and probably hardest phase was over. They would get to the artifact next, deal with it, then go home.
    “If there is a home left to go to,” Ben grumbled.
    “Not this again. The last briefing I got from command in Norfolk was that there were scheduled meetings with our diplomats and European, Chinese and South American diplomats. Command was very confident.”
    “Don’t you read the other news? You know, the ones not supplied by your brainwashing command?”
    Charles laughed at his paranoid friend.
    “I have,” Ben continued. “There are riots all over the world. Lots of small nations are toppling their governments. Africa is a giant mess as the drought is hitting there really hard. Those that can are leaving that continent heading north. You can guess how that’s going to play out.”
    “We’ve seen it get bad, and you know there is always a war somewhere, but that’s it,” Charles reassured.
    Ben shook his head. “I’m not so sure.”
    Charles slid a bowl of ice cream over to his friend. “Listen, the talks are taking place in two weeks. I have access to the vids and I’ll ask them to beam them up to us. I’ll let you watch them, OK? You’ll see. For now, let’s deal with the issue here. Has Connie got the extra O2 up and running yet?”
    Connie DeVicio was one of the base engineers. She joked she was the base plumber and janitor, as she dealt primarily with those issues. She helped Geoff on most things around the base. She was anything but just a janitor as she was an accomplished engineer by her own accord. Every single person on