"Great Dragon from below." Lee shrugged as he translated what the man on the radio from the Chinese team kept repeating. "An attack from the great dragon down below." He admitted his mandarin was a bit rusty, but that was the best he could translate what was said.
Looking at the drone footage of their base it seemed like another structure had sunk into the ice. What could not be seen was a great dragon of any sort.
A few weeks ago, we would have ignored them entirely. This great dragon talk could have been a poor attempt at making us believe they'd discovered life before them. We had already discovered life however, and they surely knew it. Why would they send a message about some mystical beast from below?
Commander Hunt's answer was simple. This beast they spoke of was imaginary. From the data we gathered this Chinese team was ill prepared for this environment. They did not have enough food, or medicine, and their selection of location for a permanent base camp was poor to say the least. Our drill sites had been plagued by ice quake trouble, but the actual site where our main camp with the rocket and now the graves of our four friends was on solid ground, not ice. It was entirely possible that this team had no idea what they were talking about and chose to blame their trouble on some mystical creature. They could have also been suffering from a group hallucination. The point was, there was nothing that made them a credible source.
That being said, we'd already discovered life on this planet. Now, nothing we'd seen had been the size of what could be described as a great dragon. The largest alien we'd seen was about the size of a basketball. Still, just because we hadn't seen something bigger doesn't mean nothing else was out there. From a scientific perspective the lower gravity of Europa might even encourage larger life, however our findings seemed to only find smaller life forms.
Out of the three of us I seem to be taking this great dragon thing the most seriously. I've watched the drone footage several times, but all I can see is splintering ice that I guess could look like a giant talon if someone was hallucinating. I wish the drone footage was closer. I believe I am overthinking it.
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Europa
Science FictionIn order to embark on a mission to discover alien life on the icy moon of Jupiter Maria must leave her life on Earth behind, including her father and her seven-year-old son Diego. She thought the hardest part of the mission would be saying goodbye...
