The Curse of Europa Read Free Page B

makes the entire crew gaze in amazement.
“Okay people, put away your goose bumps, we have work to do,” Hicks reminds everyone.
Doctor Huang pushes up her glasses (which are rare in this day and age) and starts speaking and gesturing commands into her computer terminal to start the first phase of the landing mission. Several remote control payload pods that are attached to the exterior of the ship will be guided down to the landing site. These pods include two All Terrain Rovers, two nuclear heated torpedo probes, and a lot of other gear that they will need for their 14 days of exploration down there.
Two of the payload pods snap off mounting arms and their thrusters fire. Huang remotely pilots the first pod toward the surface. Doctor Swygart pilots down the second pod, while the rest of the crew nervously monitors the progress of this critical piece of the mission. If the equipment doesn’t make it down safely, they may as well head back to Earth.
Much to everyone’s relief, the first two pods make it safely to the surface to almost the precise landing coordinates. The two remaining pods snap off of their mounting arms and are again guided down to the surface by Huang and Swygart. The pod that Swygart is piloting is descending a little too fast this time, and is dangerously close to a massive ice plume (or mountain) extending a few kilometers up from the surface.
“Gramps! You better pull up or… or… you’re going to lose it!” Lt. Tucker screams while watching the progress.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got it… there, see, not a problem!” Swygart retorts as the payload pod narrowly misses the top of the massive plume, on its way to the landing site just beyond.
Everyone breathes a sigh of relief when the second pair of payload pods make it safely to the surface. With the past history of Europa missions, every critical step is like watching an Olympic gymnast perform a balance beam routine; one little slip-up and no gold! Years of preparation down the drain in an instant.
“Okay, good job guys,” Commander Hicks says. “That was a little too close-for-comfort Gramps… good recovery though. Now it’s time to get us down there.”
     
“So… are you nervous?” Turk asks Juliana with a smirk on his face, floating over to the window she is looking out of again.
Evans squeaks out an answer, “Jeez, I don’t know Patrick. Yes… No… Maybe! I don’t know! I know I’m excited… I’ve definitely got butterflies. But I’m such a coward sometimes. I’ve never liked landings much. Hell, I’ve never really liked takeoffs either. I actually don’t know how I got up the nerve to serve on this mission! I guess it was one of my old college professors, Professor Scott; he convinced me to enroll for this mission and kept encouraging me. Jeez, he was a great old man!”
“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