Travel To The Stars

Jalen swore. “That was not a minor shift.”

“Then I’ll be quick.”

She engaged the arm. The cutter whined, chewing a circle through the ice. Europa’s gravity made every movement float strangely; shards drifted around the lamps before settling against the crawler’s hull. Beneath them, the black curve widened into a hull.

Not a wreck, Mara realized.

A ship.

It rested in a cavern so large her lamps could not find its far wall. The crawler broke through the last crust, dropping hard onto a sloping shelf. Mara caught herself against the harness as the machine skidded toward the dark.

Warning glyphs flashed red.

“Jalen,” she said. “I need a tether.”

“Already deploying.”

The crawler’s rear winch fired. Cable screamed through the guide ring and snapped taut. The machine stopped with its nose hanging over the cavern’s edge.

Below, the ship gleamed beneath a ceiling of blue ice. It was long and narrow, built around a central spine that vanished into the darkness. No landing gear. No engine bells. Its hull curved like a blade, silver-black and untouched by centuries of pressure.

Mara stared at it.

The salvage beacon in her pocket had not led her here. It had begun pulsing only after she crossed the southern ice field, drawing her toward a signal that should not have existed.

“Jalen,” she whispered, “there’s a vessel down here.”

Silence answered.

Then, “How large?”

“Large enough to make your station look like a toolbox.”

“Do not approach it.”

Mara looked at the ship’s sealed airlock. “That wasn’t in the contract.”

“It is now.”

A fracture snapped somewhere overhead. The cavern flashed with blue light as a crack raced across the ceiling.

Jalen’s voice sharpened. “Mara, return to the shaft. Now.”

She checked the distance between the crawler and the ship. The cavern floor lay twenty meters below, scattered with ridges of ice. Her suit could manage the drop. The crawler could not.

“What’s the fracture doing?” she asked.

“Moving toward your position.”

“How long?”

“Six minutes. Maybe less.”

Mara unlatched her harness.

“Venn.”

“I’m going to the cockpit.”

“That is not your objective.”

“It is now.”

She opened the crawler’s side hatch. Cold punched through the cabin, turning the air around her visor into a haze of white crystals. Her boots touched the ice shelf. The tether line ran from her belt to the crawler, bright orange against the blue.

Jalen shouted through the comm, but she had already stepped off the ledge.

Europa’s gravity caught her slowly. She dropped, struck a slanted ridge, and slid several meters before driving her ice pick into the surface. The impact jarred her shoulder. Below, the ship’s hull rose like a dark horizon.

Mara pulled herself toward it.

The ice groaned again. A crack opened behind her, splitting the shelf from the crawler. The machine lurched. Its tether snapped tight against her belt and nearly tore her from the ice.

“Jalen, release the line!”

“Not until you’re aboard!”

“The shelf is going!”

A section of blue ice folded downward. The crawler slid toward the opening, dragging Mara behind it. She hacked at the tether coupling with her gloved hand. The release would leave her without a route back, but the cable was already pulling her toward the widening fissure.

She struck the emergency cut.

The line fell away.

For one weightless second, Mara floated between the collapsing shelf and the ship. Then she fired the maneuvering jets in her suit. They coughed, spun her sideways, and sent her crashing against the vessel’s hull.

Her shoulder struck first. Pain flared beneath the suit.

She clung to a raised seam and looked back.

The crawler vanished into the crevasse. Its lamps descended through the blue, then disappeared beneath a closing slab of ice.

“Mara,” Jalen said, voice distant now. “Mara, respond.”

She pressed her helmet to the hull. “I’m here.”

“Your tether is gone.”

“I noticed.”

“Can you climb?”

Mara looked upward. The ship’s airlock sat twelve meters above her, marked by a recessed oval and a faint ring of white light.

“I can climb.”

The hull was warmer than the surrounding ice. Heat seeped through her gloves, not much, but enough to feel deliberate. Handholds unfolded as she reached for them, narrow black grips rising from the metal one by one.

Mara froze.

The ship was responding to her.

“Jalen,” she said, “the vessel is active.”

“Get away from it.”

“It opened handholds.”

“Get away from it!”

She climbed.

The ice cavern shifted with every movement. Cracks traveled through the ceiling, their distant pops arriving after the fractures appeared. The ship’s hull hummed beneath her boots. At the airlock, the oval door opened without a sound.

Beyond it lay a narrow chamber filled with darkness and a line of soft white lights.

Mara pulled herself inside.

The outer door sealed behind her. Her suit pressure stabilized. A second door opened onto a corridor whose walls were smooth and curved, without panels or seams. The air smelled faintly of metal and cold stone. Her helmet display found no known atmosphere, but the ship’s internal pressure pressed gently against the suit.

“Do not go farther,” Jalen said. “I’m sending the rescue crawler.”

“You don’t have one.”

“I’ll improvise.”

“You have four minutes before the shelf collapses.”

“I said I’ll improvise.”

Mara moved down the corridor. Her boots made no sound. Symbols appeared beneath each step, glowing briefly before fading. At the end, a circular hatch opened onto a cockpit.

The room was small, built for one pilot. A single seat faced a wide black window. Beyond it, ice filled the view, blue and luminous. The controls curved around the seat in a crescent of glass.

Mara entered.

The cockpit woke.

Light flowed across the console. A low tone pulsed through the deck, steady as a distant heartbeat. On the forward display, unfamiliar stars appeared, then vanished beneath a wash of warning symbols.

One phrase translated itself into English.

CREW ABSENT.

Mara’s mouth went dry.

Another line formed beneath it.

AUTONOMOUS DEPARTURE SEQUENCE: ACTIVE.

“Jalen,” she said.

Static answered.

She turned toward the hatch. “Jalen?”

The ship gave a soft chime.

A timer appeared above the console.

00:09:58

Mara stared at the numbers.

The cockpit seat opened beneath her, restraints unfolding like pale fingers. She stepped back, but the floor tilted. Europa’s gravity shifted as the ship’s systems engaged. Mara fell into the seat. The restraints locked across her chest and thighs.

“Release,” she ordered.

Nothing happened.

She pulled the emergency latch. It did not move.

The timer continued.

00:09:31

Outside, the cavern convulsed. A fracture split the ice from ceiling to floor. Blue light flooded the cockpit. Somewhere behind her, the airlock groaned as pressure changed.

Mara struck the console with her palm. “I am not your crew.”

The ship answered in a voice made from layered tones.

PILOT CONFIRMED.

She looked at the timer.

00:09:04

Jalen’s signal returned in fragments. “Mara - surface - your position - what did you activate?”

“Everything.”

A deep vibration rose through the deck. Ice cracked beneath the ship. The vessel began to move, not forward but upward, its buried hull pushing against centuries of frozen pressure.

Mara reached for the controls. The glass surface rippled under her hand and displayed a star map. One point burned brighter than the rest, far beyond Europa, beyond every familiar route.

She tried to shut the map down. Instead, the ship accepted her touch.

The countdown changed.

00:08:47

The cockpit sealed around her with a final, airtight click.

Mara pulled against the restraints as the buried starship lifted into the ice.

This time, Jalen’s voice came through clearly.

“Mara, what is happening?”

She watched the blue cavern rise toward the black window.

“I think,” she said, as the ship’s engine began to wake, “it’s leaving.”

End of chapter one. 14 more chapters in the full book.