Gabatrix: Minerva

Chapter 1: February 3rd, 2349

It was cold and black in the emptiness of space. Like a vast ocean of nothingness, space was the definition of its very self. There was no sound. There was no heat except the sunlight that radiated from the star. Even in the Sol System, it was a long and lonely place. Consisting of a size of almost 290 billion kilometers, the only life that seemed to shine came from the glowing G-type star in the vast distance. The 4.6 billion-year-old star continued to shine as it was in its mid-life. Seemingly it didn't seem to care about anything else.

Described as a yellow dwarf, the sol system did have its planets, though. Even though there was no sound in space, there was activity going on. If one could hear the sounds of the solar winds and the electromagnetic particles, they could listen to the sounds each of the planets made. Mercury being the closest to the star, often sounded like a buzzing wind of darkness as the planet was being continually scorched by the sun. Venus sounded like someone blowing into a long hollow tube as the dense atmosphere burned and crushed anything that flew into it. Earth sounded like a reverberating wind blowing even if the planet had seen better days. Mars sounded like a calm wind in a desert, even with the human activity that was present there.

It was Jupiter, where the sounds were the most unique. Some would consider the sounds to be beautiful, while others might leave the room. The ambient music of Jupiter was the perfect source of mystery where humanity still had much to discover. Being the largest planet in the solar system, it was like a solar system in itself. Even if it was only 1/10 the size of the sun, the planet was two and ½ times larger than all the planets in the solar system combined. Consisting of mostly hydrogen, the world was very close to becoming a star itself. There was so much gas on Jupiter that it was consumed by it. Consisting of at least two cloud layers and more, the planet was defined by its color alone. Each zone consisted of a mixture of various colors from white, red, orange, yellow, blends of those colors, and more. Of course, the most distinguishing feature was the noticeable Great Red Spot that spun near the southern equator of the planet. Like a giant eye, it seemed to gaze at the other planets as if Jupiter itself was the master of the solar system. Perhaps it was.

It is here that we make our trip closer to Jupiter. As we get close enough, we can see the numerous moons that orbited the gas giant. Being so massive, the planet captured everything around it and held it like it was a father taming his children. There were almost 80 moons and celestial objects that orbited this monstrosity of a planet. Io, Callisto, Ganymede, Himalia, Sinope, Pasiphae, Carme, Leda......there were too many to list. Each moon seemed to tell its own tale as they all stared at the planet that they called their master. However, it was one particular moon that we focus our attention on.

The moon that we get closer to is the smallest of the four moons discovered by the astronomer Galileo. Its orbit was between Io and Ganymede, and it was slightly smaller than Earth's moon. It is here that we see Europa. Its orbital distance was about 670,000 kilometers from Jupiter, which was almost twice the distance between Earth and its orbiting moon Luna. Even then, Jupiter took up a sizeable chunk of the horizon when one stood on the surface of that moon. Europa itself was distinguishable for its surface. Consisting of a layer of ice on its surface, there appeared to be signs that it was seemingly assaulted. While there were very little craters on the surface, the moon was almost pasty white at first glance. When one looks closer, we can see what looks like orange lines that break the solid white color. The lines seemingly had no pattern in what direction they went or where they came from.

The year was 2349 AD as we finally see what looks like a small object that is orbiting Europa. While it measured to be about 250 meters in length, the object did not appear to be natural in occurrence. It looked to be artificially constructed.

The starship consisted of a long grayish tube that connected to several modules. On the bow section, it consisted of a large hangar bay. The bow also seemed to carry a series of launchers that connected near a large series of antennas. As you travel down the ship, you can see a series of vectoring thrusters to help the ship maintain orbit and direction. There were a couple of turreted guns that lined up to two doors that lined on both sides of the ship. As we proceed further to the center of the ship, we can see a description plate on the side of the hull. Written in both English and Chinese, the name "UHN Tyson" was written along with the registry number "RS-28" underneath the name.