Chapter 14

…[ MATIVO ]…

I was in the Bridge, staring at the Bridge Display. And I could still not believe what I was looking at. Or what Matt had just said.

“Can you please say that again?” Matt stared at me for a whole ten seconds, before looking around the Bridge, and back at me again. “I’m still waiting.”

He cleared his throat before he began talking again. “All our planned landing sites have a rover within a hundred meter radius region, and their backups too.”

Yes, that was our current problem. It seemed that the League of Nations and some of the private venturers who had rovers on Europa had collaborated with each other and mobilized all of their rovers to be in our targeted landing sites. Those sites had been carefully chosen to avoid any issues arising with other parties involved in Europa. But it seemed they had other ideas.

Our unfortunate delay at Ganymede had ultimately cost us a lot. The juiciest fruit in the Solar System. The delay had set us weeks behind schedule. And if I added the days the crew took to recuperate, it came pretty close to a month. A whole month behind schedule. By now, we should have been moving on to Io. Having discovered whether or not life had evolved on Europa.

But no, we were just arriving at Europa, and there were pesky little tiny ants standing in our way. Clicking their mandibles together in sign of aggression. Usually, one would just walk all over them without paying them any mind. Their interruptions were of no consequence to the greater scheme of things.

“What now? Shoot them all into smithereens?” I asked the Bridge.

“Can we do that?” Matt asked surprised.

“Yes.”

That answer seemed to bother him somewhat. “Wait. Yes, as in we have the weapons to shoot them to smithereens? Or we don’t care about the consequences of shooting them into smithereens?”

“Both.” Cindy answered.

“We have weapons on board?” Matt asked, his voice rising up a pitch by the end of the question.

“That’s what bothers you?” Pon asked him.

“Without weapons, we cannot reduce them into smithereens.”

“We could always go down there and hack them into pieces.” Mũsango said.

“Why would we even do that?” Kalũki asked.

“I will tell you that. Right after they tell us why they are in our landing sites.” Chantel commented.

It appeared that the Bridge itself was split. Not on how they felt with those rovers being on our landing sites, but on how we should respond to their presence.

“Clearly, they knew we were coming here. And where we would land.” Chantel seemed to be getting angrier the more she talked. “This was all intentional.”

“But that doesn’t mean we should go down there wielding our spanners and claw bars like cave people.” Matt argued.

“Then please tell. How do you suggest we deal with this?”

“I don’t know yet, but vandalizing their rovers isn’t it.”

“Are you sure? Do you want us to put that to the vote? See how the whole crew feels about those rovers down there?”

“The crew is tired from all we went through in Ganymede.”

“And you are not?”

“Let’s wait and hear what they have to say about their actions.” I tried to calm them a bit. Kalũki was right, Ganymede had been trying at the very least. And tempers were fraying. There was no need to give them a reason to boil over. There had been nowhere to direct that frustration, until Europa came.

“Robin.”

“Yes, Mativo.”

“Message to Control Centre. We have ants all over our honeypot. What’s a bear gotta do? End message.”

“Message send.”

“Now we wait for one hour and ten minutes.” I glanced around the Bridge to find everyone with somber expressions. Even Kalũki. “Matt, are there any locations of interest that we could land?”

“All the remaining locations of interest are the ones some of the rovers left to come here.”

“Not an option then.” I answered fast when it looked like Chantel wanted to say something. The evil glare she sent me confirmed that. “Cindy, call for conference.”

“Robin. Open communication.” When she got the okay, she continued. “Crew. This is Cindy. All senior managers to the conference room. Immediately. Cindy out.”

The general announcement was necessary, it let the crew know that an important matter was going to be discussed and that whatever was agreed on, the whole crew was expected to follow without question. Chantel was the first to head out of the Bridge.

..[]..

The first person to make it to the conference room, other than the members of the Bridge, was Strom, the Chief Research Officer.

“I’ve forwarded the data from Ganymede Submersible to you.” She told me as she took her seat at the round table. I, and Cindy after my insistence, never took the same seat during consecutive meetings. We also never sat directly opposite or next to each other. I thought it would delay the development of the so called ‘seat of power’.

The others slowly streamed inside, I decided to peruse the data Strom had talked about while they settled down.

The data from the Ganymede Submersible had been steadily coming back to the ship. And it was not as promising as we had hoped. There had been a lot of speculations about Ganymede not having a single continuous ocean, but layers of it separated by different phases of ice. That had sadly proved to be true. And since our Ganymede Piercer had been left at the crust, the Submersible could go no further. It was currently restricted to the top sub ocean layer.

A new Ganymede Piercer would need to be designed to allow access to the most bottom of the subsurface oceans where life was rumored to quite possibly have evolved. But that was not our objective. We had done the initial trials, reached the limits of our equipment. It was for the next expedition to come prepared for the obstacles that stumped us.

The Submersible was left to roam the top ocean, collecting as much data as it could. While still hoping to encounter any form of life. The next expedition will still find it operational, unless something crashed it. Like a big underwater living thing.

It appeared like everyone had finally arrived and settled down. The room had a total of twenty-four seats, but only twelve were filled at the moment. We had the seven from the Bridge, Strom and the other Chiefs: Mina, Hydroponics; Mũsonde, Medical; Mũthiani, Operations; and Xhalo, Security.

“So, right to it. The League of Nations and its collaborators are all over Europa.” I started by stating what had brought us here.

“We know that already.” Mũthiani was quick retort.

“What Mativo means is that,” Cindy ever my Second, elaborated for the room, “they have relocated some of their rovers to all of our landing sites.”

“What about the backup sites?” Xhalo asked.

“Those too.” Chantel quipped.

“Why?” Mina asked.

“They are claiming that we did not adhere to the decontamination protocols.” I told the room. “And Europa being such a likely candidate for life, we cannot be allowed to contaminate it.”

“I thought we did. What was all that process we were going through before descending to Ganymede and Callisto?”

“Me too. That thing was torturous.” Mũsonde said as he shook his body.

“Not according to them.”

“Why not?” Mina asked.

“They needed our decontamination protocol. Fully detailed.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Failure to that, they wanted some of their officers onboard.”

“Oh! Hell no!” Mũthiani exclaimed.

“Yeah.”

“So, you didn’t give them our decontamination protocol, and didn’t let any of them on board.” Mũsonde started.

“And now they are blocking us from landing on Europa. Either way, we lose.” And Mina finished.

“If we send them the—”

“What!?” Chantel interrupted Xhalo, hitting the table with her left hand.

“Hypothetically here, if we give them the protocol, they will let us land?”

“Not immediately. They will have to go through it. Test it. And vote on it.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“And how long is that going to take?” Xhalo asked as a follow up.

“It’s the League of Nations. Do you even have to ask?” Mũsango finally broke her silence.

“What other options do we have?”

“Landing and not giving a fuck about the consequences, or not landing at all.” Chantel again with her temper.

“Well, that makes it easy then.” And there were more than enough nods of agreement to make it a majority.

“The consequences are not something we can easily ignore.” I brought that point to their attention. I needed them headed to a certain conclusion.

“What do you mean?”

“This is an experimental ship. A proof of concept if you will. When we get back, I’ll want to build more of this. Maybe even better ships than this one. To do that, I need more money. Where do I get the money? From the people. Who are these people? Most of them are citizens of the League of Nations. Whatever the League says, they are more likely to believe it. After all, we will be shown on camera wrecking their equipment. Don’t lose sight of the big picture, we are aiming for out there not in here. And for that, we need as much capital as we can get.”

“How many nations are in the League now?” Pon asked.

“More than three quarters. But that is more than ninety percent in terms of all human population.” Mũthiani answered him.

“So, the real options are; either land on Europa now and risk losing the chances of going to space any time soon. Or, forget about Europa in the hopes that we’ll somehow gather enough capital to venture farther out.” This time, it was Xhalo listing their remaining options.

“You are assuming the League has enough influence to easily ruin our image.” Chantel was not letting it go easily. It was like a dog with a bone, you had to pry it out of its teeth.

“Not our image, but the companies image.” Mũthiani corrected her. “What we do here reflects on the company, and how the company is viewed is reflected on the revenue it makes. Which directly translates to either profit or loss.”

“The company’s revenue doesn’t just come from the masses. Yes, around fifty percent does, but the other fifty comes from the ultra-rich. We can focus more on that. Especially when we return successfully. They’ll be scrambling for a chance to ride on one of this ships.”

“And where do those ultra-rich get their money from?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes it does. If those ultra-rich no longer are ultra-rich, then they cannot afford to pay for a ride on our ships.”

..[]..

After a lot of debate, we had finally come to a conclusion. Truth be told, they had finally agreed to do things my way. The debate had been necessary and unnecessary at the same time. Unnecessary in that, ultimately, we were going to do what I wanted, no matter what they said. And necessary in that, I needed help to convince the rest of the crew to do what I said.

Cindy was shaking her head as the rest of the senior managers walked out of the room, and back to their offices. “You are evil. You know that, right?”

“I have never claimed to be otherwise.”

We, as the Bridge officers, slowly made it back to the Bridge. I took my seat and composed myself.

“Robin. Open communication to all crew.”

“Channel open.”

“Crew. This is Mativo speaking. As I’m sure you are all aware of, all of our landing sites on Europa have been compromised. We could try new sites, but our time at Ganymede has proved to us that even with the best preparations we could think of, we are always a step in death’s door. We could always take over those sites, it would be as easy as crushing an ant underfoot. But the repercussions back on Earth would be severe. I’m sure you all know where we are going after this expedition.

“We do something here to these rovers, that mean nothing to us other than been pesky ants, and we might ruin our chances of successfully embarking on the next expedition. If you are on this ship, that means you are capable of differentiating between small fish and big fish. That you are capable of thinking big. Thinking grand. And in the grand scheme of things, Europa is a small fish.

“I’m offering you the whole galaxy. Bear with me, and I will take you to places the humans back home cannot even dream about. Worlds such as our own, or even better. Life, most bizarre than we could ever find here on Europa.

“Ask yourselves this; what worth is a moon covered in ice, when we have the whole galaxy right at our fingertips? WE, are explorers. WE, go big. Mativo out.”

…[ JACY ]…

“I guess it’s finally official,” Andrew said into the minutes of silence that elapsed after Mativo’s announcement.

“Yeah. And I was so looking forward to be one of the first humans to discover extraterrestrial life,” Park said, slumping down on his seat. Whatever they had been discussing before the meeting of senior officers completely forgotten.

The five of them existed somewhere outside of the ship’s hierarchy. Their only senior officer was Mativo himself. It made their relationship with the rest of the crew a little strenuous. They saw them as being senior officers themselves, just not where they belonged. Jacy thought that that was one of the reasons they had so many missions compared to the rest of the crew; Mativo’s way of integrating them. The more they participated, the less foreign they seemed. But there was still one problem, no one on the ship knew what they worked on. All the other research lab projects were openly accessible to anyone on board the ship, except theirs. Their lab was the only one found on the top deck of the ship.

“I don’t think that’s what he was talking about.” Mbithe brought Jacy back from her contemplations. That statement just confused Park. He looked around their conference room in bewilderment, before finally asking,

“What else could he be talking about? We just lost Europa if you hadn’t heard. We are not even going to land there at all. That is just devastating.”

Jacy, same as everyone else in that room, just stared at Park in amazement. She couldn’t believe it. It was not possible. Sometimes, Park’s singlemindedness knew no boundaries. Had he been so focused on Europa that that was the only thing he heard from Mativo’s announcement? Or did he not have any inkling at all about where they would be going next?

“Park, he was talking about us going to Outer Space next.” Dominic informed their slow-witted colleague.

“We are already in Outer Space.”

“Interstellar Space is what he means.” Andrew said.

Park laughed at that then. “Even with our supposed top speed, travelling to the nearest stars would take years. And so would every star after that. Even with our current technology on delaying the aging process, that would be a one-way expedition. Mativo is not fond of those, especially when there is no guarantee we will find a habitable planet or moon.”

“Park, think about it.” Jacy carefully said. “Three years ago, would you have thought that today you would be travelling at the speed of light. Or near enough?”

Park was quick to catch up. Of that, Jacy was thankful. “You don’t mean…” he turned from one to the next, before it fully dawned on him. “Wow! Faster than light! That would be… how did you guys know?” He turned to them then, in askance.

“Mativo always talked about this trip as a trial. Preparation for the next big thing.” Jacy thought Mativo to be an adventurous person, more than even he thought himself to be. From the very first time they talked about this trip, she knew he was aiming for far out of the Solar System. She just hadn’t thought it would be so soon.

“Man, now I feel stupid.”

“Yeah. Compared to where we will be going, Europa is like a drop of water to the oceans of the Solar System.” Mbithe was wistful.

“I would say a molecule.” Dominic was thoughtful for a moment, “Maybe even just an electron?”

“Still, it could be decades before we are able to travel at such speeds.”

“Decades? I give us five years, tops.” Andrew corrected him.

“Three. Maybe take a few months.” Jacy added.

“You guys are kidding, right? We can’t be that close!” When no one said anything to him, a crestfallen expression fell on Park. That had been unexpected, Jacy thought he would be overjoyed. Not devastated. All five of them wanted to explore the universe. Jacy knew that Mativo had used that as one of the criteria when choosing them. Not that he ever said it. “That is not enough time to convince my family.”

They spend the next hour or so convincing Park that they would help with his family. Then followed a brainstorming session for ideas that could help sway them, and another for things that could work against them. Just to be on the safe side. It was one of the things Mativo had drilled into them during their early days. And it had helped them a lot. It could easily have attributed to the degree of success and swiftness of the advancements they had enjoyed in their recent years.

When they got tired, they started on speculations of what they would discover out there. What kind of worlds were sitting in wait for them? Would they find icy worlds? Water worlds, dry worlds? Or even more gas giants. Ice giants. Could they even discover a water giant? Would a world like that really exist? What kind of life? Would they find boron-based life? Nitrogen-based? There was just so many things. Limitless things, just waiting. Civilizations too. There was no point discounting that. The universe was just too big for them not to exist. Even their own galaxy was too big.

Thought of civilizations reminded Jacy what that would lead to. Contact. Interaction. Conflict. Confrontation. War. That was a pessimistic way of looking at it. Mativo’s way to be exact. He had said that to them on more than one occasion. It was the whole reason behind their project to begin with. They didn’t know what awaited them out there, and Mativo thought it best to be prepared for any eventuality.

Jacy believed that it was possible for there to be contact and interaction without conflict arising. But she was not ignorant of the fact that even among the humans, there was always conflict. The most peaceful of places were not exempt to it either.

Human history had proved that expansion was always wrought to create conflicts. Scratch that, all of nature, everything in existence, was bound to create conflict by merely existing. Matter occupies space, and none could exist in the same space at the same time. That would only lead to chaos. She was starting to think a lot like Mativo, and that was not a good thing.

Back to humans and nature, everything new and different was always treated with caution. And if it proved to be competition for the available resources, then it was swiftly dealt with.

So Jacy had been contemplating starting a more thorough self-defense training. There was the mandatory training they were expected to undergo and keep with, even here on the ship. But Jacy no longer felt that it would be enough for their next expedition.

She knew they could get lucky and only ever contact peaceful civilizations, but it wasn’t a bad idea to be prepared for when things didn’t go their way. It could be finding a civilization that wanted nothing to do with them, or simply been caught in the middle of conflict between factions of the same civilization.

Or the more dreaded one, finding a civilization more advanced than them. That was recipe for disaster, no matter which way you looked at it. People thought that as a civilization became more advanced, it became less prone to treating other intelligent beings as inferior. But the truth of the matter was that they actually became more prone to it. They started suffering from a superiority complex. The bad kind. The one in which they didn’t even know they had. They came up with reasons to justify the things they did. Or started making their own lives unbearable in pursuit of rights for their food. It was like Mativo once said, ‘what form of mistreatment could be worse than being eaten?’

Jacy here liked Mativo’s way better. He at least acknowledged what he was, and what he was doing. He didn’t lie to himself, thinking that what he was doing was for the best of others. He didn’t think himself as being entitled to something just because he was better. No. He did things because he wanted to. Things that gave more to him than he invested in them. And it was all material. It was pure and utter selfishness.

And when travelling with someone like that, conflict was bound to happen. Not because he instigated it, but because the people he was dealing with felt offended in one way or another. So, Jacy was no longer contemplating. She was actively looking now. Maybe she would follow in Mativo’s footsteps and try and gain more power. That would increase her chances of coming out alive from any confrontation.

As she made her way to her quarters, Jacy felt renewed with vigor. Yes, not been able to explore Europa was dampening, especially when she combined that with their experiences at Callisto and Ganymede. Their stay at the Jupiter System was proving a huge setback every step of the way. Only Io and Jupiter itself remained. And those were mere dare missions. They didn’t hope to garner much from the explorations other than test their own capabilities. And those really did need testing. The good thing was that they would soon be leaving the Jupiter System behind. In two weeks-time, less if they pushed their schedule. And out there, there would be no human interference until they returned back to the inner Solar System.

They had called it a day at the lab to get proper rest for the coming days. They would need to be fully rested to make good use of their time. No one on their team was scheduled for anymore exploration missions for the next few weeks. Not until they made it to Saturn. They would all be putting more effort into their main research project as well as their own personal research projects which Jacy believed them to have. Mostly they were related in one way or another to their main research project, but there were exceptions, like Mbithe’s. It was not that it didn’t help in the main research project, but… Mbithe had come on board purely as a doctor. Not as a title, but more as a profession. She had had to study a lot on her free time about the project to even be able to start contributing. And she had become as knowledgeable as any of them.

She prepared for bed, and climbed on the inviting soft cloud she called her nest. Yes, she thought as exhaustion took over and she slowly succumbed to the allure of sleep, this is most definitely a luxurious ship. No doubt about it. Maybe the one for interstellar travel would be way better than this. But she didn’t think that would even be possible. What could be better than what she was currently experiencing?