Europa’s surface base, Moon Base Alpha, was hidden deep inside a large crater, whose ice walls provided protection from radiation and errant meteors. The Explorer II entered orbit and landed at the base without incident and in record time. As much as Mac hated to admit it, the credit was mostly due to Leo’s piloting skills. Her quirky space-jock son-in-law was shaping up to be quite an astronaut. The fact that he seemed to do his job effortlessly made it all the harder to admit.
Safely tucked away in the base’s hangar bay, the Explorer II was swarmed by colonists anxious to unload badly needed supplies, to mingle with the newest arrivals, and to hear the latest news from Earth.
However, Mac wasn’t one to waste time with small talk. The sooner she got the supplies un-loaded and the outgoing passengers on-loaded, the sooner she would get back home to her daughter.
She was supervising the unloading of the first soil-mover when Leo’s patience finally wore out. As it turned out, it had taken him a lot longer than she had anticipated.
As he handed her the updated returning payload manifest he asked, “Aren’t you even curious about the pyramid?”
“No,” she replied curtly. She didn’t even bother to ask how or why he had hacked into her files and read the Bort report; they had both known he was going to do it anyway.
“Not even a little curious?” he prodded.
“No, it’s restricted.” She waited for a passing lift operator to move out of earshot. “It’s classified, and we’re not even supposed to know about it. That’s all I need to know.” Nothing — not even the secret of the universe — was going to cost her that promotion to base commander. She’d already lost too much over it. She waited out another passerby and then whispered harshly to him, “There’s no way I’m going down to that pyramid.”
Mac had pushed aside her feelings of curiosity regarding Joan’s report, but she was still anxious to see her friend. She was surprised that Joan wasn’t waiting for her the moment she stepped off the ship.
“Commander MacKenzie O’Bryant,” said a gruff and weathered voice.
Mac looked up to see a full-star general and a space commando appear on either side of her. They both looked directly at her, as if Leo weren’t even there. She noticed that they wore tactical gear and were armed with standard issue A.P.D.F. (Allied Planet Defense Force) rifles and sidearms. She quickly summed up both men in a glance.
Mac recognized General Zimmerman immediately. She knew him by reputation, and she’d also met him on her last visit. The general was an older man with stark white hair, a tough, lean body and calloused hands. He was not a physically threatening man, in terms of his size, but his eyes seemed old, as though they had seen far too much for any one man. Mac suspected that this was a result of his extensive service during the Seven-Year War with the Coalition. She knew the general was now in charge of security for the entire base and was probably responsible for keeping Dr. Bort’s findings top secret, as well.
“My name is General Zimmerman, and this here is Sergeant Brett Harper.”
The commando standing next to the general nodded and tipped his watch cap. “Ma’am,” he said with a Midwestern twang that rivaled her own accent from the Carolinas.
Mac didn’t know the six-foot-four, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound commando from any of her previous visits, but she could tell from his all-American, boyish good looks, which included a shock of reddish hair sticking out of his cap, that he was probably a country boy from the Midwest. If he weren’t in uniform, Mac imagined that he would be wearing a flannel shirt and would have a prairie weed sticking out of his mouth. The wad of chew hidden beneath his lower lip only confirmed her suspicion.
“What’s wrong?” Mac asked the general. She was more concerned now than ever that Dr. Bort hadn’t been in the hangar bay to greet her.
Brett answered for him. “We have a situation developing. One Professor Joan Bort has commandeered a guard’s gun and locked herself in the underwater base. She’s threatening to shoot anyone who enters.”
Mac wasn’t completely surprised. Professor Joan Bort wasn’t about to give up the secrets of the universe without a fight. Joan’s husband had died nearly twenty years ago, and her kids were all grown and had their own kids, so in Joan’s mind, she probably had little to lose. But still, this was crazy, even by Joan’s standards. Mac gave the general a questioning look, as if to say, “What does this have to do with me?”
“We think you might be able to help us defuse the situation,” the general explained. “Base Commander Ingram said that she was a friend of yours. We’re to escort you down to Beta Base to see if you can talk some sense into her.”
When Leo realized that Mac was being invited to enter the secret pyramid, he gave her his best puppy dog look ever.
She sighed and turned to the general, “If I’m going, my lieutenant’s coming along. I’d rather not find out what kind of trouble he’d get into if I left him here on his own.”
“Where we going?” Tae asked.
As usual, Tae had popped up at an inopportune time.
Before the general could say anything, Mac turned to the general and said, “And if she’s locked any hatches behind her, Tae’s your man.”
General Zimmerman shook his head and smiled before walking toward the exit. Mac understood the smile to mean that the general wasn’t telling them no.
“No, seriously, where are we going?” Tae asked Leo.
Leo quickly looked around to confirm that no one was listening. “To an ancient five-sided pyramid on the ocean floor,” he said, “but don’t tell anyone. It’s top secret.”
Tae still looked confused or amazed — Mac couldn’t tell which — so she added, “The Beta Base wasn’t chosen at random, like everyone believes. It was built near an underwater pyramid that was discovered by thermal imagers about fifty years ago.”
“You knew about this, too?” Tae asked Leo looking hurt.
Mac didn’t blame him. This was a huge engineering feat, and he was only now hearing about it. Tae and Leo had been together on the Explorer II for nearly six months and had trained together for nearly another year before that. Mac could see it on his face; they were the closest things he had to friends, and they hadn’t let him in on the secret of the century.
Leo smiled impishly and said, “Sorry, Tae. I just found out about it myself.”
Tae bit down on his bottom lip, too angry to reply and choosing to stay quiet instead. Mac decided she would have preferred if he yelled at them just to get it off his chest.
Mac started after the general and Brett, and Leo and Tae followed.
Leo stopped for a moment and removed his camera from his shoulder pocket to check it for a charge.
Mac called back to him, “No cameras, Leo.”
Leo seemed to debate this order before he put the camera on a nearby crate and dashed after them. Seconds later, he reappeared, made sure no one was watching, and covertly pocketed the camera.
He caught up with Mac, Tae, the commando, and the general after they had already passed through the busy base command center and entered the elevator that would take them down seventy kilometers through the slushy ocean to Beta Base.
“Hold the door!” Leo said.
Mac rolled her eyes at her errant second as he slipped through the closing door.
“Is this it?” Mac asked the general as she nodded toward the big red-haired country-boy commando. “Aren’t you bringing more men?”
“No,” General Zimmerman said, “the pyramid’s strictly need-to-know basis. I’ve already got one of my men down there securing the entrance.” He checked the radio mic in his ear. “By the way, after this is all over I’ll have NDA’s for all of you to sign, no exceptions. Get used to not talking about it ladies and gentlemen. What you’re about to see is classified.”
There was a light hum as the elevator began its descent.
“Ah, is that normal?” Tae asked Brett, who stood next to him. He pointed to the sticky liquid that had begun seeping in near the floor.
“What, that? Oh, that’s nothing,” the commando replied somewhat unconvincingly.
Brett pressed a button and spoke into the microphone on the elevator’s control panel. He crouched low so his lips were as close to the speaker as possible. “Hello, maintenance?” he said. “We’ve got some water leakage in the deep-sea elevator.” Turning back to the group, he said, “Nothing to worry about — happens all the time.”
For once, “Great” was all Leo could manage to say. Tae took a small step away from the puddle of dark water pooling at his boots.
Just then, everyone heard a resounding THUMP against the elevator shaft’s outer wall.
“What was that?” Mac asked, struggling to hide the concern in her voice.
“Oh, that? That really is no cause for alarm.” This time Brett’s voice was more believable. “We call them ‘Thumpers.’”
“You call them what?” Leo asked.
“We call them ‘Thumpers’ because they like to ‘Thump’ the sides of the station’s walls.” Seeing their apprehension, he quickly added, “Don’t worry; they’re perfectly harmless — about the size of an orca back on Earth. We don’t have any clear pictures of them yet, only what the thermal imagers give us.”
The commando rambled on about Europa’s sea life, but Mac didn’t hear him. She was thinking about the pyramid in the ocean’s murky depths and her friend, in peril, within its walls.
The leaky elevator continued its 70-kilometer descent, and the doors finally opened on a cheerfully automated “You have now arrived at Beta Base level” to reveal the dimly lit underwater Beta Base, which consisted of little more than a basic command center and a modest laboratory. It was surrounded on all sides by cold, cloudy waters, visible through large rectangular viewing ports.
Surprised to find the base abandoned, Mac asked, “Where is everyone?”
“As a precaution, everyone was evacuated to the surface,” the general said.
Brett added, “A few misplaced rounds from the sidearm your friend stole and then all the water out there would come rushing right on in here.” He motioned to the view ports.
“Wait a minute,” Leo said nervously. He stopped walking away from the safety of the elevator. “What did you just say?”
“Don’t worry about it, flyboy,” Brett said. “Just standard operating procedure.”
“It’s right through there,” the general said as he stepped down into a smaller version of the aboveground OPS center.
Mac looked where the general was pointing and saw the entranceway to a tubular passage on the other side of the tiny OPS center.
Brett unslung his large black gear bag and dropped it to the floor, where it landed with a heavy THUNK. He unzipped the bag and pulled out a tactical vest. “Here you go, Commander. Put this on.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Mac replied.
“Yes, ma’am, please put the vest on.” Brett smiled. Clearly, she was going to put the vest on, without his help or with it.
Mac knew better than to argue with a commando, and it did make sense. Brett helped her put on the vest and tighten it.
“Wait a minute,” Leo said. “Don’t Tae and I get one?”
Brett looked at his bag and then back at them. “Sorry, I only brought the one spare.”
General Zimmerman racked the slide to his pulse rifle and double checked that there was a round in the chamber. “Just try and stay in the back, behind us,” he said as he led the group toward the tunnel’s entrance.
Once there, he checked in with a second commando, who had close cropped blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a square jaw. The commando wasn’t as tall or wide as Brett, but the fabric of his BDU strained from his ripped muscles underneath.
“Status?” the general asked him.
“No change,” the blonde commando said with a curt German accent.
Quickly introducing them, the general said, “Commander MacKenzie O’Bryant, this here’s the Coalition’s finest elite-class commando, Sergeant Alan Stein.”
“Just call me Mac,” she replied before following the general and Brett into the tubular tunnel.
The big blonde commando watched her with an appreciative eye. As Leo went to step past him into the tunnel, the commando’s large hand shot out with surprising speed and landed on Leo’s chest, stopping him in his tracks. Leo looked down. The commando’s hand was the size of a baseball glove.
“You’re not going anywhere, I think,” Commando Stein said in his thick accent, which brought to mind the dozen or so World War II videos Leo had watched during the six-month voyage to Europa. Mac glanced back and snorted at her lieutenant’s wide-eyed gaze as he stared up at the commando blocking his way.
“Stand down,” the general ordered. “He’s with the commander.”
Mac couldn’t see the German commando’s face but something must have flashed across it because Leo suddenly paled and took a half step back. The commando turned to let Leo and Tae pass. Leo gave the man a wide berth, casting furtive glances even as he followed the rest of them down the tunnel. Mac could see something working in his mind and she decided she really didn’t want to know where his thoughts were taking him though she was sure she’d find out eventually.
They proceeded through the tunnel, which, according to Brett’s recollection of the schematics, was 220 meters in length. Brett explained to Mac that the tube was made of a nanofiber matrix of the hardest acrylic glass known to man, but that they could’ve saved their money because visibility through the dark slush was nearly zero. If one waited for hours, he or she might glimpse a tail or fin passing near the glass, but that was about all.
On point, Commando Stein repositioned himself at the end of the tunnel, so he could use the temple’s entrance as cover.
Mac found herself looking in the direction of Stein’s boots. Pure white sand spilled amongst several roughly hewn temple blocks on the floor nearby, marking the spot where the original survey team had first broken through the outer wall. This is it, Mac thought. This is the threshold where past meets present, where our conception of history changes forever.
She instinctively ducked when a loud shot rang out and a bullet ricocheted off the frame surrounding the temple’s entrance.
“Jesus,” Leo stammered. He dodged to the rear, ducking back to where Tae was taking cover behind the party members actually wearing body armor.
“I missed on purpose!” Professor Bort yelled from inside the temple. “Anyone comes any closer and the next one goes right through the big blonde’s exposed head.”
Brett leaned over and whispered into Stein’s ear, “She’s right, you know. You did leave your head pretty exposed.”
Stein ignored Brett’s chide and announced in a harsh whisper, “General, I have a shot.”
“Hold your fire, soldier,” Zimmerman ordered.
Recovering her composure, Mac moved alongside the general. “General, she’s my friend. Let me go in and talk to her.”
“I’d advise against that, General, she can negotiate from back here where it’s safe,” Brett said.
“Why are we debating this?” Stein interjected without looking away from his sniper scope. “I can take her out before she brings the whole place down on us.”
Mac took an angry step toward the German commando, but Brett snatched her elbow and held her back behind cover. “Dr. Bort is a renowned extraterrestrial archeologist,” she told the commando.
“Yeah, well right now she’s a crazy lady with a gun,” Brett said in Stein’s defense. Mac tore her arm from his grasp.
“Noted,” the general said. He turned to face Mac. “Okay, I’ve got the medics and additional security standing by. Why don’t you try calling out to her first?”
Mac nodded, looked around at everyone for support, and took a step forward. “Joan, it’s Mac. I’m coming inside,” she yelled. Behind her, she could hear Brett’s grumble of irritation as her actions overrode the plan to stay behind cover.
“Mac, is that you?” sobbed the professor. “Damn it, Mac, didn’t you get my last message? I told you not to land on Europa.”
“What message? I never got any message about staying away. Can I come in?”
There was a long pause. “Okay,” Joan said weakly. She added more sternly, “But only Mac.”
Mac took a few tentative steps into the open and stopped at the pyramid’s threshold. She looked back at the group behind her. Brett was shaking his head, bidding her not to enter, while Leo and Tae were wide-eyed, wondering what she was going to do. Joan was her friend, mentor, and confidant. Mac knew that she didn’t have any choice. She crossed the threshold between the buildings that spanned millennia and entered the outer room of the pyramid.
The moment she did, the lives of everyone in the pyramid were bound together and fated to alter the history of humanity forever.