--

  He could still see her. Her wine-stained teeth. Her sandy-blonde ponytail. The way she always tilted her head when she grinned. The crow’s feet around her eyes. He could hear her laugh. That enchanting giggle that escaped whenever he made a stupid mistake.

  I can still hear her voice.

  --

  Ron woke to harsh beeping from the speakers in the ceiling of his capsule. He ignored it and tried to keep the dream in his mind, holding onto the memory of her as long as he could, but it was only a matter of time before it was gone.

  He loosened the straps holding him down and pressed the button at his side, stopping the alarm and releasing the door’s safety locks. When it stopped hissing, he swung it open and stepped out into the outer somnibay, then took a moment to look at the world outside.

  From the icy shell he called the ground to the genetically modified trees and grasses dotting the landscape, most of the surface of Europa was covered in white. The few exceptions were compounds like sulfuric acid and hydrogen peroxide, which formed naturally from Jupiter’s radiation, and were rarely so pure as to be clear. Although the ambient temperature of the moon had more than doubled since the beginning of Project Argive, compounds like this almost always froze, creating pockets of brown and yellow beneath the surface. Rarely, pools of compounds formed in just the right way that they kept their freezing point low enough to remain liquid. If Ron’s habitat was closer to the moon’s equator, he might see more, but where he was remained mostly ice.

  The sky, however, was a complete contrast. With Europa lacking much of an atmosphere, Ron could stare straight out his window at the stars. He could see galaxies and clusters of light, then little pinpricks in the dark. Closer, vapor from geysers south of the equator drifted overhead, reflecting and diffracting the light to make soft rainbow glows in the sky

  He pulled his focus away from the window and began the day’s meticulous routine, starting with the most obvious item on the list: making food. Ron made his way through the hall and into the small cafeteria his habitat had. Considering he was completely alone and didn’t need to cook any meals, he never saw the point in having one, but who was he to say otherwise?

  The room was tiny, consisting of only a table and bench bolted to the wall, a metal machine roughly the size of a fridge, a pressurized cabinet set into the wall, and barely enough room to maneuver. Ron went to the room’s interface and picked out two french toast packets, along with a blueberry smoothie one, then waited as a deep whirring began in the room.

  As optimized and nutrient rich as the food packets were, they still required some mild preparation before they were edible. In a pinch they could be eaten as is, but they would lack enzymes the human body didn’t naturally produce, decreasing the nutrients he could break down in the packet. This would also have the side effect of making him sick from trying and failing to process them. It was pretty similar to how lactose intolerant people would get sick from undigested lactose, only the packets were so thick with normally indigestible compounds that the sickness would be much worse. The food would be rendered effectively worthless from the energy spent emptying your stomach.

  They also tasted terrible when you didn’t prepare them first.

  When the room dinged and the whirring stopped, Ron stepped over to the cabinet on the far side of the table and pressed the release, opening the door with a small hiss. While he pulled out his breakfast and sat down at the table, he spoke to the empty room around him, “Allan, how long has it been?”

  “It’s been four years, one hundred thirty-six days, seven hours, sixteen minutes, and forty-six seconds since you began your stay at Habitat Alpha-6b,” Allan’s chipper voice crackled over the speaker, “Only two-hundred-twenty-eight days, thirteen hours, forty-thr-”

  “Any new transmissions?” Ron asked, taking a slurp from his ‘smoothie’.

  “Just one; headquarters says they’re expecting a rather large solar flare on Earth. Shall I play the message?”

  Ron stopped eating--drinking, really--and sat up a little straighter. A solar flare? That’s not great news, he thought to himself. “Yeah, show me the message.”

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  The wall in front of Ron slid open to reveal a screen, and Ron instantly recognized the motionless face it displayed. Project Argive’s mission director, Samuel Karrid, sat on the other side of the screen, grimly staring at the camera.

  Shit. This can’t be good. Ron set down his empty meal packets and leaned over the table towards the screen. “Play it, Allan.”

  “Attention Project Argive. Approximately-” the director paused to look down at something, “-two hours after the recording of this transmission, a record-breaking class X70 solar flare is due to hit Earth.” Karrid paused for a moment, letting the weight of this news settle before he dropped another bomb. “Approximately twenty minutes later, the same solar flare will also hit Europa.”

  “As you probably know, a flare of these proportions will make communications on Earth extremely difficult and almost certainly stop all communications between Earth and Europa. Not only that, but even though it must travel more than five times further to reach Europa, this flare will still have major effects on the moon because of its reduced atmosphere and magnetosphere, among other things, compared to Earth’s own.”

  Double shit, Ron thought, An X70? That’s enormous! I’m going to be stepping in acid for days!

  “The flare will only actively affect Europa for approximately six hours, but we’re also seeing increased sunspot activity indicative of several smaller flares near the site of the largest. These flares will disperse enough over distance to have little effect on Europa, but they’re close enough to Earth that they will continue to interfere with communication satellites even past the end of the first flare. We’ll have no contact with anything off world. People here are thinking it’ll be two days at a minimum before we can make contact with you, but it’s likely closer to three or more. Thankfully, local communications between the habitats on Europa should be back up a few hours after the first flare.

  “Aside from communication, Earth will be relatively fine. Civilians all across the planet have been advised to seek shelter, and fallout should be at a minimum. On Europa, things are different. The radiation emitted from the flare is strong enough that your suits will not protect you. I repeat--none of the suits in any of your habs will be enough to protect you from the radiation. The habitats themselves, however, are enough. We may not have expected a solar event of this magnitude, but we knew that Europa was ill-equipped to defend itself from radiation and went overboard on protective measures.”

  The director paused, and his shoulders dropped as he let out a breath. “Look, the be-all end-all is this: under no circumstances should you leave your habitats until at least ten hours have passed since the transmission of this message. That should give you a two-hour buffer from the end of the largest flare, but for the next few days, you still shouldn’t leave for long periods of time. Even then, you should rely on your habitat’s AI module to inform you of the outside conditions, and listen to it above all else.

  “The radiation hitting the ice of Europa is likely to form compounds you’ve come across already alongside many you haven’t, and all at an accelerated rate, so I cannot understate how important it is to be careful if you must go out. That being said, you are all some of the smartest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, so if anyone is fit to survive this, it’s you.

  “Lastly, I’m informing you now that this transmission will be set to priority three so it won’t wake anyone up. This should allow you to sleep through most of the first flare without having to worry about staying safe. As I said before, your habitats will be more than enough to protect you from the worst of the flare’s radiation, so we all took a vote to decide whether we should wake you up or save you some worry.”

  The director paused and took a deep breath, then steeled himself and looked directly into the camera. “This is Project Argive Director Samuel F. Karrid to all habitats on Europa--good luck out there, and stay safe. Over and out.” The screen froze on a still frame of Karrid saluting the camera. His jaw was set, and his shoulders were squared. He looked strong--powerful.

  He looks like he’s sending us off to war.

  “Allan, when did Karrid send this, and when did we receive it?” Ron called out.

  “Director Karrid sent this transmission on the fourth of May, twenty-two seventy-three, at five hours thirty-six minutes and forty-two seconds in the afternoon, Earth time. We received this transmission approximately twenty-four minutes and thirteen seconds later, at-”

  “Alright,” Ron said in a small voice, “and what time is it now?”

  “It is now eight-fifty-four and three seconds in the afternoon.”

  [1] hour and [18] minutes