Rasq Writes:Cold As Ice

== Cold As Ice ==
=== Weekly 232: In The Cold ===
1242 Hours, 7th November 2552 (Military Calendar)
Sol System, Jupiter Orbit, Equatorial region of Europa’s surface
If Seaman Alan Wallace had his druthers, he would have stayed in the lifepod. At least he would have died warm. But Petty Officer McConnell had other plans, and the crusty old sailor was such a hardass that Wallace had long since given up telling him no. Ten seconds after the lifepod hit the ice, McConnell was on his feet, screaming for everyone to grab everything and get out.
Wallace donned his helmet, locked the collar, scooped up the bugout bag from the seat in front of him, and bolted. Twelve Navy sailors, formerly of the UNSC Icy Yew, spilled out the airlock. McConnell sealed the door behind them, in the hope that they could return when the skies were clear.
Right now, the skies weren’t clear. The horizon divided the universe, with the rust-red ice of Europa below, reflecting the light of Jupiter above. The patch of sky around Jupiter was glittering with the lights of weapons fire and burning hulls. The sky was full of streaks too, as the remains of the Icy Yew and fuel scows like her rained down upon Europa.
And in the midst of it all was the telltale blue streaks of Covenant strike craft. 
Alan sprinted as best as he could in the low gravity, and out of the corner, he saw his fellow sailors doing the same. The radio was alive, and full of confused chatter, but McConnell was shouting for silence, and if only he had more time, maybe he would get it.
But the Banshees were already flying low. There was a green flash, then two, then blue light strobed across the expanse of ice. Wallace hit the deck, and the ground around him erupted.
He was too terrified to move. The radio channel was dead, save for the hiss of Jupiter’s static. He didn’t dare get up, and he didn’t dare look around. He could still feel the telltale drumbeat of plasma weapons tearing into Europan ice.
He felt the cold too, an oppressive force reaching up through the ice. The trouble with vacuum was that vacuum is an insulator, and spacesuits like the one Wallace wore were designed to shed heat as efficiently as possible, lest the wearer cook himself in his own body heat. It could adjust for temperature ranges, but the ice of Europa was far, far colder than anything the suit’s designers had in mind. It was drawing the heat out of him, wicking it up like a rag soaking oil off the deck.
But Wallace didn’t dare move. Not as the cold flowed up from his chest and his thighs and his arms, through his lungs and into his head.
An eternity later, or maybe just twenty minutes, he felt footsteps approach. He had visions of an Elite, sent down to bayonet the wounded. That terrified him, but at this point a hot plasma blade through the heart would be a relief.
It wasn’t an Elite. It was McConnell. 
The old sailor flipped Wallace over and inspected him. Wallace himself was shocked to see the state that McConnell was in. Plasma burns splotched all over his suit’s torso and arms, and the breastplate that contained the radio and other electronics was blackened, sparking, shedding steam. Wallace was amazed when he saw rust-red flakes falling from the breastplate, and realized that the steam was from boiling blood. The suit was breached. It was a wonder that the tyrant of the Icy Yew’s engine room was still alive.
McConnell leaned in, touching his helmet to Wallace’s. “Loafer wasser. Seward!”
Wallace didn’t understand any of that.
“Loafer wasser. Loafera geezer. Say! Ward! Gudluck kid!”
The petty officer pushed off and waved goodbye as he backed away. Then he turned around and pulled a pistol from his belt. There was a flash of red and a gout of steam from his helmet. Then the old sailor slowly collapsed to the ground.
The Banshees had been thorough. Wallace was the only survivor. He retrieved what remained of the other’s bugout bags and tucked it under each arm. That gave him power for thirty eight hours, at most, and a couple of squeeze-bottles of rations. Enough to keep him alive until help arrived, if he could find someplace to hole up and stay warm. He also took McConnell’s pistol and holster and clipped them to his thigh. 
Then he ran. The battle was still glittering overhead, and he was terrified that the Banshees might see his high-visibility suit on the ice, but he was so, so cold, and he hoped that running might warm him up. Soon, he was bounding in great bunny-hops, trying to reduce his contact with the ice as much as possible. It didn’t work well. His feet were like two lumps of lead, and the rest of his body wasn’t much better, but maybe it was warming up a little.
Gudluk kid. McConnell had obviously said “Good luck, kid!” The rest of it was an enigma. Wallace turned the words ‘Say ward’ and ‘Seward’ over in his head until he realized that McConnell had told him to ‘stay warm’. 
That was a lot of help. Seaman Wallace’s first instinct was to stay warm, but it was impossible out here. The warmest that ice could be in hard vacuum was in the ballpark of negative seventy degrees Celsius, or it subliminated into steam and bled away. And the surface of Europa was so much colder than that.
Wallace tried his radio again. He thought he heard something new, but whether it was traffic in orbit or Europan natives searching for survivors, he didn’t know. He needed help. He needed shelter. He needed something warm, but nothing stayed warm for long on the ice.
Case in point, bits and pieces of starship fell from the sky, buried themselves in the ice, and threw up geysers of steam. But that never lasted for long. They grew cold quickly, and…
Geyser. That word flowed through Wallace’s head like the last drop of syrup out of a bottle. He stopped and turned in place, shivering from head to toe, barely aware of the fact that he couldn’t feel his feet anymore. After… after he didn’t know how long, the word “Geyser” made contact with something McConnell said. Loafera geezer.
Loafera geyser. Maybe “look for a geyser”?
Wallace’s eyes settled on a hump in the horizon, topped by a faint shimmer, like a heat wave. Or a very thin jet of steam. A geyser, known as a cryo… cryo… cryo-something.
So if “Loafera geezer” was “Look for a geyser”, what was the other thing that McConnell had told him? “Loafer wasser?” Look for… look for water?
It occurred to Wallace that liquid water had the same minimum temperature everywhere in the universe. Water only ever froze at zero degrees Celcius. Which was a hell of a lot warmer than Europan ice. 
The geyser was two, maybe three kilometers to the north. Wallace didn’t know if he could make it, but he thought of the liquid water and imagined it to be like a hot spring, and he wanted nothing more in the universe than to be there. His legs practically started sprinting on their own.
Category:The Weekly