Of course, they had never been tested. How could they be?

"First time for everything," Harris said.

Working through the series of commands that only he and Choi knew, he prepped the Surveyor for a crash landing. After typing in the final command, he watched as the ship's computer extrapolated all the information it needed. Descent rate, surface density, angle, everything was taken into account.

Harris didn't like sitting back and letting the computer do the work for him, but there was no way he could manage the hundreds of factors involved in landing a gigantic spacecraft on a frozen ball of ice.

A warning flashed on the screen in front of him:

EMERGENCY LANDING PROTOCOLS ACTIVATED…

SYSTEM ENGAGE IN 3… 2… 1…

Harris clung to his arm rests and watched through the clear ceiling. A jolt pounded him as the ship violently pitched to the side and then rolled, propelled by external thrusters. The computer was doing things fast.

Must be closer to the surface than I thought.

The Surveyor's spin snapped to a stop as thrusters on the other side of the ship slowed the rotation. Had he been unbuckled, Harris might have become a stain on the wall.

The dark side of Jupiter and stars filled the view above him. The ship was now bottom down. Several explosions similar to those of the charged particles rocked the ship from below. But Harris felt no fear as section by section of the ship shook from the outside. He knew the concussions were created by the emergency protocol's secret weapon. Thousands of ten by ten panels lined the base of the ship. Hidden beneath each panel was a massive balloon, capable of absorbing tremendous amounts of energy and displacing untold tons of weight. The panels were separated from the lower hull by tiny explosive charges and launched downward.

The final piece of Surveyor's emergency landing protocol was about to kick in, and Harris knew this would be the most grueling. The ship, pushed out of orbit by the charged particles and pulled down by Europa's gravity, would slow itself as much as possible.

Harris felt all of the Surveyors down-turned thrusters kick on at once. He was pushed into his seatbelt. It dug into his chest, squeezing his ribs. Harris gritted his teeth in determination. The Surveyor had taken a beating and pulled through. Now she had to survive worse.

"C'mon, baby," Harris said. "Get your nose up. Get it up or we're both going to rot on this moon."

*   *   *   *   *

As the sphere edged over the top of the ice, Robert felt as though he had experienced a rebirth. He had believed, several times, that his life was coming to an end. Back on the surface, he felt renewed. Regardless of the fact that an entire alien species felt the need to exterminate all human life on Europa, he felt his fear ebb.

Then he saw Peterson.