A hero isn’t the strongest guy.

  A hero is the one who actually makes it to the finish line.

  Tor Sokolin. Retired Major. Callsign “Falcon.”

  CONFISCATED FROM TOR SOKOLIN'S PERSONAL STORAGE

  MEGACOM — EXTERNAL INVESTIGATIONS DIVISION

  CASE # EU-2154-09 / CLASSIFIED: CONFIDENTIAL

  INCLUDED IN INVESTIGATION MATERIALS REGARDING EVENTS ON EUROPA-7

  DATE OF SEIZURE: 03.12.2154

  Note: These records contain unauthorized references to corporate protocols and are not to be disclosed without approval from the Board of Directors.

  Tor Sokolin. Retired Major. Callsign “Falcon.”

  Personal Log.

  This ain’t no report.

  Not company paperwork.

  Not some confession for the bosses.

  This is for you, Maria.

  If I don’t make it back—and I’m pretty damn sure I won’t—let these words stay with you. Proof I didn’t waste my life. An explanation for all the shit I never got to say out loud. Not a will. More like one big sorry.

  Life ain’t a contract. A contract just shows what you’re worth on paper. Life is what you find inside that contract. I found your mom. Then I found you. Everything else was just background noise: wars, dusty trenches, alien rocks where people died for somebody else’s ego. History doesn’t teach anybody anything. Nobody even bothers reading it.

  Sorry I was never around. Sorry I kept picking the horizon, the wars, the far-off worlds. I kept telling myself it was for you guys. Maybe I just didn’t know how to live any other way. Soldier, miner, driller—a guy who dug holes in dirt, in stone, in people’s souls. But in you I see hope: clean, untouched. You’re my light in this endless black void of space. If I’m meant to disappear under the ice of some frozen moon, know I was thinking of you right up to the end. Your smile. Your dreams. How you’ll live free of all my screw-ups. These are my thoughts, my lessons, my little sayings—like seeds I’m planting in your soul. Let them grow into something bigger than I ever could.

  June 15, 2147

  Earth. Australia. Megacom Training Grounds. Cape York / Weipa / Atakani Space Centre (~11–15° S).

  The range stretches across red dirt like a fresh wound on the continent. Dust gets in your boots, your clothes, your throat—always reminding you the world wants inside, wants to fill every empty spot. Eucalyptus stand watch, their smell sharp and bitter like medicine against forgetting. Thirty-eight degrees heat, but inside the glass interview cube it’s freezing: AC blasting like it’s trying to freeze not just the air, but every memory of the past.

  I sit across from a guy named Mark Hoffkus. His suit costs more than my yearly pension. He doesn’t look at me—he looks through me, like an accountant staring at a line item where people are just numbers for expenses and revenue.

  “Major Sokolin, you’re a veteran of the Martian campaign. Your battalion took seventy percent losses. You specialized in tunneling under enemy positions. Why Europa?”

  I didn’t bother with a pretty answer. Why? Life teaches you honesty when you got nothing left to lose.

  “Because Earth wrote me off. I’m old. Treatment’s expensive. I got PTSD—echoes of wars that won’t let go even when I sleep. My wife left ten years ago and left a hole I never filled. My son doesn’t call; he picked his own road far from us. My daughter’s drowning in debt: student loans, a house that chokes her like a noose. You’ll happily buy out her debts if I sign.”

  He nodded. Not with sympathy. With satisfaction. Like someone who just found the exact number that fits the equation. Contract for fifteen years. Jupiter’s moon—Europa. Drill through the ice crust to the subsurface ocean. Money I’ll never touch. Citizenship in the First Colony. Pension. For me this wasn’t a fresh start. It was a chance to finish with some dignity—somewhere down there in the cold void where my death wouldn’t bother anybody except memories.

  That evening I called you, Maria. Your voice was an anchor in the storm. You were crying.

  “Dad, don’t. We’ll manage. Come home please…”

  But we won’t manage. You’re too young to get how this world really works. At twenty-one you’re wise beyond your years, but kindness always leaves people open. I told you it was like war, just without bullets. That I’d drill ice and bring water for humanity. That I’d come back a hero.

  I lied. I already knew it then. Heroes don’t come back—they stay in the ground they dug. That night I dreamed of Mars. Red dust. Torn suits. People you can’t put back together. Now instead of dust there’ll be ice. Cold. Silent. Like a body without a soul. But in you, daughter, I see continuation: you won’t repeat my mistakes. You’ll find your own path, full of light instead of shadows. That’s my hope—to leave you not just words, but a lesson: choose life, not a contract.

  July 10, 2147

  Megacom Training Complex, Australia.

  Been here a month already. Every day the same: vacuum chambers, 0.13 g gravity, drilling simulators. Ammonia ice breaks easy in here, but out there it’ll be way worse. The young ones yell with excitement. For them it’s one big adventure. Us old guys just frown. Weekly med checks. Blood draws, scans, psych tests. Doc says: “You’re good.” For my age that’s a death sentence. Radiation’ll eat me faster than it did on Mars.

  Drake still believes in the ocean. Elena’s already counting bodies. Blackthorne keeps repeating: “Contract’s not war.”

  Evening call to you. You don’t pick up. Sorry, Maria.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  July 20, 2147

  Megacom Equatorial Launch Site.

  One hundred twenty people under the prep dome. Most of them young faces. Eyes burning like they’ve been promised immortality. But I know: immortality’s bullshit. Reality is sweat, injuries, blood and breakdowns waiting ahead.

  Andrei Morozov. Twenty-seven. Callsign “Drake.” Talks fast, laughs loud, believes in the future the way only people who haven’t lost everything yet can believe.

  “Sokol, you hear? Europa’s got a whole ocean under the ice. More water than Earth.”

  “Salty water. Radiation’ll cook you in an hour without shielding,” I said.

  He shrugged. He was right in his own way. We weren’t flying blind. Data from probes, orbital scopes, recon missions from the 2020s confirmed it. Ice crust averages twenty-nine kilometers. Jupiter’s tidal forces heat the interior. Hydrothermal vents possible. Life possible. Humanity’s hunting water far from home after drying out its own planet—the irony cuts deep. You can’t squeeze money from stone, but from alien worlds? Why not?

  Dr. Elena Voropaeva. Oceanographer. Calm, restrained. Eyes of someone who’s seen too many numbers to believe in miracles, but still hopes.

  “You don’t believe there’s life under the ice?” she asked.

  “I believe in the job, breakdowns, goals. Drills break. People break. Main thing is reach the ocean. Then we’ll see who’s waiting.”

  Colonel Rick Blackthorne commands the shift. Old Marine. His team—veterans over forty-five. People like me. We drill not for the corporation. We drill because there’s no other road left. Megacom is practically a state: owns half of Earth, Mars, the whole Moon. Now Europa. Best moon for colonization: closer to Jupiter, more tidal energy, ocean easier to reach than on Ganymede or Callisto. But what for? Progress? Fresh water? Or to hide how badly we’ve wrecked our own home?

  Tomorrow—cryosleep. Nine months in flight. Long dreams. I hope they’re free of wars. Maria, if you’re reading this, remember: experience teaches that hope isn’t weakness—it’s a weapon. I leave you my thoughts so you can dream bigger than I ever did. Of a world where people didn’t drill alien moons, but healed their own.

  May 12, 2148

  Jupiter Orbit. Arrival.

  Jupiter doesn’t look like a planet. It’s a living storm—swirling bands, vortices, the Great Red Spot like the eye of some ancient god, completely indifferent to our ambitions. Europa next to it looks fragile. A white sphere cracked like scars on a body that’s lived forever. The landing is brutal. The base dome is like a wound carved into the ice. Minus one hundred sixty outside. Radiation lethal—5400 millisieverts a day, three hundred sixty times Earth’s background. Without the dome, you’re guaranteed a slow, gray death. Under the ice—safe. Irony: we’re seeking shelter in the depths because the surface is a ruthless enemy. Space doesn’t welcome the weak.

  We start drilling. The ice surprisingly yields to the laser bore. We turn steam back into water. I tell the young ones not to rush. Ice is deceptive, just like life: it looks solid, but it hides fractures. Drake cracks jokes, full of energy. Elena analyzes samples: salt, organics. Traces of complex compounds.

  “It’s possible,” she says quietly, as if afraid to scare off whatever life might be hiding down there—and in her voice, there’s hope I lost long ago.

  I stare at the white wall of the shaft and think of you, Maria. You are my hope. If I don’t come back, remember: experience teaches patience. Don’t rush life—it will open on its own, like the ocean under the ice. I leave you this simple rule: sometimes the strongest thing you can do is wait until the darkness steps back on its own in front of the light you carry inside you.

  June 28, 2149

  Depth: eight kilometers.

  We’re ahead of schedule. Eight kilometers in a year and a half—record, but what are records in the infinity of space? Hoffkus is pleased on the video call. Shareholders are pleased. To them we’re expendable—numbers on a spreadsheet.

  Sometimes we hit gas pockets—hundreds of meters of empty space. The drill drops straight through. Lost a whole shift once. Hoffkus said: “Within acceptable limits.”

  Talked late with Elena. She asks why I’m really here.

  “For my daughter. And because on Earth I’m no use to anyone anymore.”

  She gets it. There’s the same crack in her eyes: husband died on the Moon, left emptiness. Between us there’s a quiet spark—like tidal heating in the depths.

  Another pump breakdown: clogged with ice. Two days in suits. Cramped. Sweat. Silence broken only by alarms. Atmosphere like a bunker: waiting for everything to give way.

  Dreams of Mars: blood in the dust. Wake up soaked, chest aching. I repeat like a mantra: pain is a teacher. It shapes character, but it doesn’t decide your future. Important to find strength in it, not weakness.

  I spent my whole life digging holes to bury my pain deeper. Maria, don’t repeat that. Let your wounds become sources of strength, light—not shadows of weakness.

  August 15, 2150

  Depth: fourteen kilometers.

  Another accident. The drill hit a fracture—unexpected, like betrayal. Steam explosion. Collapse. Drake was inside the shaft, ignoring protocol. We dug for hours, but he didn’t make it. Young. Full of life. Like the son I never had.

  Another gas pocket. Drake didn’t make it out.

  Buried him in the ice. Blackthorne gave a short speech; I only remember this line:

  “He drilled for the future…”

  He doesn’t believe his own words, but he has instructions, a prepared text. Everything thought out down to the funerals.

  Hoffkus reported to the shareholders immediately:

  “Losses within acceptable limits.”

  Son of a bitch.

  People break from isolation: confinement, eternal cold. I hold on by thinking of you. Elena came at night:

  “Don’t blame yourself.”

  We talked about the ocean: hydrothermal vents—oases of life in darkness. Jupiter’s tidal flexing provides energy equivalent to volcanism.

  Personal: Maria, forgive me. I think about death more often than I should. But if the ocean is alive, maybe it can save me too. I leave you this thought: loss teaches you to value what remains. Hold on to those who are dear and close. I’ve lost too many friends, too many pieces of myself. But in you I see what didn’t break. You are my last beacon. Shine bright.

  October 3, 2151

  Depth: twenty-one kilometers.

  Strange signals. The drill picks up unidentified noise—acoustic sensors catch sounds from the deep. Not echoes, not tides. Like whispers of awakened ancients. Anomaly?

  The team is more on edge than usual. Two went mad: hallucinations, screams, insomnia. Evacuated to the ship.

  Megacom demands acceleration at any cost. Hoffkus:

  “The ocean is ours. Classify our discoveries.”

  They’re planning colonies on our bones; to them we’re cannon fodder.

  Elena and I grow closer. Cold nights in her arms actually warm me. She talks about ancient civilizations. Aliens. I talk about monsters buried deep inside.

  Breakdowns constant: pumps, lasers, bits. Running around, repairs, same as always. Atmosphere thick: anticipation, fear, hope.

  Quiet grumbling in the crew. People whisper: “We’re not gonna make it.” Someone scratched on the shaft wall: Megacom logo + “Kills us.”

  New memories come in fragments, sometimes disconnected, as if someone is broadcasting intermittently and wants to say something: a million years ago—what kind of nonsense is that? Someone suggested: the signals are echoes of the past.

  Philosophy for Maria, simple: the unknown always scares, but it draws the explorer like a moth to flame. Humanity has always feared the dark and searched for the path to light, to warmth, to something that can become home… Searching for a new home requires an open and brave heart.

  I spent my whole life afraid of the unknown and so I went deeper into it than I should have. Now I understand: fear isn’t the enemy—it’s a compass. Follow it carefully, but don’t stop. Little one, you’re stronger than I ever was. You’ll find answers where I only found questions.

  November 22, 2152

  Depth: twenty-four kilometers.

  Fifth year of drilling.

  Gas pockets getting more frequent. Another accident—three dead. Hoffkus: “Acceptable.” Crew doesn’t believe anymore. Someone’s hiding weapons. Blackthorne pretends he doesn’t see.

  Quiet rebellion turned open. People yelling: “We’re not cannon fodder!” Hoffkus promises bonuses. Nobody buys it. Elena whispers to me at night: “They’ll wipe us out if we stop.”

  November 22, 2154

  Depth: twenty-eight point seven kilometers.

  We broke through. The last layer—fragile as glass. The drill entered the ocean. Black water, but light inside it divine. Bioluminescence? Or something else, beyond reason?

  In the water—forms. Not fish, not plants. Structures like ruins of an ancient civilization. Sensors going crazy: organics, metals, signals…

  Up top—another rebellion. Blackthorne’s team rose up:

  “Megacom is killing us!”

  Gunshots. Chaos. I’m in the middle: contract or truth?

  I chose the contract. I’ll lose everything, even life. But the ocean magically calls and pulls.

  Maria, if you’re reading: down there, something is rising to meet us. Glowing, ancient. It’s talking to us. I see it now not only in dreams, but awake…

  A million years ago someone came here, colonized the Solar System: Jupiter, Mars, Earth. Aliens? No. Our distant ancestors! They spread across the universe and found a new home for themselves and their descendants… Almost perished, lost knowledge, language. Rose from the ashes. Became us.

  I’m standing at the edge of the borehole. 29 km down. Something keeps moving toward me. Is this the end? Or the beginning?

  Goodbye, daughter. My hope is in you—live, dream, leave your mark. Let your life be the ocean I could never reach: deep, clean, full of light. I drilled my whole life to find meaning far from you. I found it in you, in my heart.

  Love you. See ya in the dream world babe.

  End of records.

  To be continued in the next book:

  “Project Europa”

  Cycle: Megacom – Conquest of Space. Europa Chronicles