[ WP ] The Human race discovers something massive in the vast oceans under Europa 's ice .

`` Ninety seconds to impact,'' I called across the cabin. Hundreds of blinking lights around me coloured my vision green and red and amber. Captain Andersdottir waved her hand slowly, her eyes fixed on Europa in the distance. 
 
 `` Navigation,'' she called out calmly, running through the final systems check. 
 
 `` Navigation is go, we are in a stable Jovian orbit and have a clear view of Europa for the duration,'' Lieutenant Tanaka stated flatly. We'd been in orbit around Jupiter for ten days now with no problems. 
 
 `` Sciences?'' 
 
 `` Analysis software is good-to-go,'' Dr. Hauptman said quietly, staring blankly at her monitors. 
 
 `` Communications?'' Andersdottir asked, turning to Lieutenant Gonzales-Smith. 
 
 `` We're five-by-five, channel is clear.'' 
 
 `` Good,'' Andersdottir said as she turned back to face the icy moon. From here it looked about three-quarters the size of a full moon on Earth. We would n't be able to see the impact itself, but the data would arrive almost immediately. `` Telemetry,'' she continued. 
 
 `` Telemetry is within 0.05 deviation,'' I said, reading the numbers off the tiny screen at my station. `` *Galileo XXV* payload impact in... thirty seconds.'' We all turned to observe the moon, holding our collective breath as twenty-four satellites on six orbital paths around Europa stood ready. They'd been collecting data since we'd arrived, but their true purpose was about to unfold. 
 
 `` Count from ten, Singh,'' Andersdottir said quietly, hesitant to break the silence. I watched the countdown clock tick down, then.... 
 
 `` Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five -- payload will impact the surface in two... one... radar confirms payload has reached the target.'' 
 
 The idea was pretty simple. *Galileo XXV* was essentially a rocket with a 125-foot tungsten rod at the tip. It orbited Europa for six days, making slight adjustments to put it into an orbit with a high-altitude apogee. Today, about three hours ago, *Galileo XXV* reached its apogee, made a sudden adjustment, and began plummeting toward Europa. Seventeen minutes ago the satellite went full blast on its reverse thrusters, releasing the tungsten rod and allowing its inertia ( and Europa's gravity ) to pull it to the surface. Once the rod hit the icy surface, it was falling at something like 22,300 kilometers per hour; the force of the impact pushed it through seven kilometers of ice ( the thinnest portion we could realistically hit ), then it plummeted through about 3 kilometers of water before slowly sinking 99 more kilometers to the bottom of the ocean. The impact was significant, enough so that the other twenty-four satellites could measure the shockwave through the ocean below the ice. If the shockwave hit something more dense than the surrounding water, it'd slow down; if it hit something less dense, it'd speed up. Simple. But there was still 76 minutes before the shockwave completely travelled around Europa, so we sat back and checked all the systems for the hundredth time today. 
 
 `` Hold on... yeah, something's come up already.'' We turned to face Hauptman's station. It was obvious what she was looking at: an oval patch of extremely dense materials, a bright red shape on a green background. Then two more. Then five or six, all ovular but of different lengths. Suddenly the signal cut out. 
 
 `` Comms!'' Andersdottir shouted. Gonzales-Smith rushed back to his station, turning a number of dials and throwing a headset over his ears. 
 
 `` Captain, there's some sort of signal stepping all over our broadcast. I'm reading multiple sources, intermittent. Triangulating now....'' We watched as he typed in a command and stared at his screen. `` Ma'am, they're... coming from Europa....'' 
 
 `` Multiple sources?'' Andersdottir asked. `` Can you filter them out?'' Gonzales-Smith shook his head. 
 
 `` Too strong. They're overpowering our satellites, and -- hold on -- okay, they've all stopped, data stream is back online.'' We turned back to Hauptman's montitor. There was a thick black stripe where the shockwave had been moving during the interruption. Naturally, the data would be stored on the satellites; it was just a matter of retrieving them later. But to our amazement, there were now hundreds of circles, perfect circles, all congregated in a dozen clusters. 
 
 `` How big are those?'' I asked. Hauptman circled one with his finger, then tapped twice on the screen. The computer began measuring the diameters of each circle. 
 
 `` Program says between 21 and 22 kilometers, average 21.45 kilometers in diameter. Density around 11,000 kilos per cubic meter. That's as dense as lead, maybe a touch less.'' 
 
 `` So huge spheres of lead-like materials scattered across Europa's oceans,'' Andersdottir said to no one in particular. `` Is it possible that it's a settlement of some type? Like a European city of sorts?'' I shrugged my shoulders; hypotheticals were n't my thing. 
 
 `` I do n't think so,'' Gonzales-Smith exclaimed after a moment's thought. `` Those ovals we saw initially: I think those were spheres, too. But as the shockwave approached, they started moving; the computer registered the movement because it was a pocket of density. It could n't predict movement, right?'' We all stared at him, wondering if he was correct. If they were moving.... 
 
 `` Well,'' Hauptman interjected, `` we'll see when the shockwave returns. There's enough power that it'll reverberate back to the point of origin and still be picked up by the satellites.'' 
 
 And sure enough, as the second data set began coming in, there were the same hundreds of spheres, all huddled in groups near the north pole of the moon. 
 
 `` Lots of movement,'' Hauptman said as he pulled up the initial picture. Sure enough, most of the spheres had shifted slightly; strangely, none had migrated from one group to another. 
 
 `` Are they ships of some sort?'' Tanaka asked. `` Maybe submarines? And are they broadcasting that signal?'' 
 
 `` Well, I do n't know about ships,'' Gonzales-Smith replied quietly, `` but I've been running triangulation, and all the signals come from sphere groups.'' 
 
 `` Here's the thing,'' Hauptman said, pointing at the screen. `` They're all quite dense, perfectly spherical, *ja*? And they're also all resting at the bottom of the ocean on the seabed. Obviously. No movement, very uniform sizes, capable of producing signals when affected by the shockwave.'' She stared at us all for a moment, then frowned. `` It's possible that they're eggs.'' 
 
 `` Bullshit!'' Tanaka shouted. `` There's no way! If they're eggs, what laid them? Something would've appeared on the monitors, yeah?'' 
 
 `` Most likely,'' I said. `` Unless they're exactly as dense as the water.'' Hauptman nodded his head. 
 
 `` These satellites could tell the difference between olive oil and canola oil.'' 
 
 `` So then they ca n't be eggs, right?'' 
 
 `` They could be,'' Andersdottir replied, her voice trembling. `` If the parent was interplantary.'' Tanaka scoffed. 
 
 `` Now we're stretching things,'' he said brusquely. `` We collect data, and the eggheads back on Earth do the hypotheticals, right?'' 
 
 `` I'm with Tanaka,'' I said with a sigh. `` It's a headscratcher, no doubt, but let's get the data from the satellites and move on to Titan.'' Everyone nodded in agreement. 
 
 `` Alright, we're going to begin extraction of the data, then Tanaka's going to program the satellites' journey to Titan. T-minus three days until we break orbit, okay?'' Just then, a number of alarms began blaring at Gonzales-Smith's station. He threw on a set of headphones and watched his monitor. 
 
 `` Ma'am, the signal's back,'' he said breathlessly. `` Pretty strong, too; it could fry out the satellites' receivers.'' 
 
 `` Switch to emergency band, order them to harden for the next six hours.'' Gonzales-Smith shook his head. 
 
 `` Signal's covering the emergency band....'' he turned a few dials. `` I could send it on UHF three; that's clear, but the instructions will take about twenty minutes at that low a frequency.'' 
 
 `` Do it anyways,'' Andersdottir barked. `` And see if you can turn them away from those damned spheres!'' Gonzales-Smith nodded, then paused for a moment. His face drained, becoming pale and sickly. 
 
 `` Ma'am,'' he said shakily, his voice trembling with fear, `` the signal's not coming from Europa.''
