Chapter 13
Though precariously perched on the broad back of the alien, Nick managed to get a look at his suit display. The battery life indicator suggested his suit had at most ten minutes of power left. Plugging into the outlet above Earth had given him a chance to draw some power from the solar cells, but not enough to fully charge the batteries. It had probably saved his suit, and his life since it was already operating in a low-power mode when they arrived on Europa. The lower power setting had probably also contributed to his near-freezing.
He rocked with the undulating movement of the alien as it glided across the ice in long strides on flippers that didn’t look strong enough to support them both, but then again, the gravity was much less here.
His ride carried him deep beneath th
