00h:00m:01s
The lights were blinding.
00h:00m:05s
Too bright.
00h:00m:14s
Her body ached. Everywhere. Her memory was hazy, and she was disoriented. What was going on?
00h:00m:26s
The blurry view of white, grey, and red blobs started to crystallise into shapes. She started hearing alarms blaring.
00h:00m:41s
...Was this Luna? She tried to move, but she couldn't.
00h:00m:55s
"Seriously? How is that freeing?" Scarlett said, raising her eyebrows.
"Well," Luke said without looking away from his laptop screen. "There's no opportunity for human will to interfere with the laws of physics, therefore, the laws of physics determine the future. That's just how the universe is. Free will is an illusion, created by the evolutionary nature of the human brain. Any thoughts that are of the nature of, 'I am not in control; how is that freeing?' are also created by the conditioned human brain. Who's to say we're meant to be in control? What if we're, in a sense, meant to lie back and enjoy the ride?"
"Huh," Scarlett said before taking a sip from her coffee. She was always fully engaged in the conversation when talking to Luke. At first, it seemed like he didn't feel the same way; he sounded bored, and never maintained eye contact. But, upon getting to know him, she realised that the sheer fact he was responding to her meant he was maximally engaged.
"I never thought of it that way."
Why was that the first conversation she remembered?
Luke...
Luke?
00h:01m:34s
She used her arms to lift herself up off the floor.
She was lying on the floor, and had to lift herself up. Gravity? But, it wasn't strong enough to be Earth's. She would've had to exert much more effort.
"...Europa?" She whispered.
She craned her neck to look outside the round spacecraft windows. Pitch black. Not a single hint of light, not even a single star in the distance.
That was a tell-tale sign. The spacecraft had successfully landed deep down on the ocean floor of Europa; one of Jupiter's ninety-five moons.
00h:02m:41s
She had an almost debilitating headache. The blaring alarms were not helping.
She ignored it for the time being. She needed to make sure the rest of her crew were okay.
The laboratory floor and countertops were coated with broken equipment and shattered glass. Everything was damaged. She assumed the laboratory's items were in use prior to whatever happened, rather than stored away according to protocol. She couldn't remember, but she had probably been using them; she was the astrobiologist of the mission, and the only crew member who would use the laboratory regularly.
