Nothing but choices in front of me, and each one can mean my death. Bring too few clothes: freeze to death. Bring the wrong type of clothes: freeze to death. Bring enough for every situation: not enough weight for food. Leave the freeze-dried food behind: starve. Die of starvation: miss out of being part of the first group striving to make Europa a home.
Every time I write “I’m going to Europa,” people think I can’t spell—and that I can travel in time. I can, and I cannot. In that order. Europe broke into three distinct pieces many, many years before I was born. I’ve never been there. No one I know has. Why would we? Our eyes are on the stars—well, the moons of Jupiter, to be precise.
But even that’s not precise: two moons of Jupiter–Io and Europa.
Io’s been inhabited by humans for, what, seven decades now? If you’re interested, you can look it up. It’s been a while, at least. Io1-Io6 taught us a lot about how to travel to a moon that’s not Luna; how to not die on said moon (though that took a bit of public trial and error); and, eventually, how to thrive in an Earth-adjacent ecosystem. We’re up to, like, Io23 now, each group getting further afield from the original basecamp. Some of those folks are household names now, at least among the circles I run in. Freeman, Bargsdale, Semperlin, Smyth, and Briggs. Full-time heroes. Part-time idiots.
But, man, idiots make the best mistakes.
And I could be next. Sky Peppersworth Langsdale. (Yes, kids always made fun of my middle name. No, it’s not from my great-great-grandparent, some confluence of consonants and vowels that conveyed a sense of family and history. Oh no. My Dad—the story is he wanted something ”unique and regal.” He definitely got one of those.)
Anyway, friends call me Sky; assholes call me Peps.
And I’m headed to Europa.
Maybe…definitely.
Maybe.
Sky of Europa 