Chapter 1575 - Rainbow on Europa (1/2)

From the view above, the ice sheet surrounded by the steel structure instantly shattered, and countless dense cracks began to form. In the muffled sound of vibrations accompanied by violent shaking, large pieces of ice fragments were thrown into the air.

Previously, the L-shaped structure drill sent low-temperature explosives under the ice sheet and inserted them layer by layer. The entire project took three years, and a neat cube ice pit was precisely blasted out of the fifteen kilometers of ice.

At the same time, the Svetovid, which embedded itself in the ice, surged upwards from the huge water pressure below. Thankfully, the starship’s titanium armor was durable enough, otherwise, such a blowout would be enough to squeeze the frozen Svetovid into scrap metal.

“The target is rising!”

“Continue the blasting to prevent the ice layer from freezing!”

“ROGER!”

The deafening sound of rupture came one after another from beneath the ice sheet as the low-temperature explosives embedded in the nearby ice layer blasted simultaneously. The blast generated a great amount of heat energy in the fragmented ice layer which prevented the upwelling seawater from backfilling and solidifying the cracks.

“The sensor temperature is at 11 degrees Celsius!”

“Continue the blast!”

Tan Ming’s eyes fixed on the holographic screen at the ice layer marked as red.

It was the ice layer where the Svetovid was located. Driven by the water current, it was now rising rapidly at a speed slightly slower than that of the seawater. If the ice sheet froze, all efforts would be in vain. In order to keep the water temperature above the freezing point, in addition to explosives, they even prepared anticoagulants…

Of course, that was their last resort.

To inject anticoagulants would result in unpredictable effects on the fragile ecosystem under Europa’s ice sheet. If possible, he hoped to solve this issue with those low-temperature explosives. Otherwise, the cost of saving these people would be too severe…

As the red layer of ice continued to rise, the explosives on both sides of the well exploded one after another.

Tan Ming watched the constantly changing temperature and water flow parameters on the screen as his palms became soaked in sweat.

When the ice suddenly got stuck a few times, his heart almost jumped out of his throat.

But fortunately, there was no unexpectedness that happened in the end. Under everyone’s gaze, the red ice layer finally touched the green line with a depth of two kilometers.

“The target has reached the safety level!”

Loud cheers broke out in the command room.

Tan Ming felt his legs give out as he collapsed on the chair and let out a sigh of relief towards the ceiling. As he watched the ice layer rise at a constant speed, a heartfelt smile finally appeared on his face.

The hard work of the past three years had not been in vain.

…

The astronauts who sat in the space vehicles put on their seat belts and unfolded the metal memory shield on the top of the vehicle.

The ice fragments that had been thrown into the air by the water pressure began to fall one after another. Some of these fragments were only tossed ten meters out, while some were thrown into the low orbit. Although Europa’s gravity was only one-seventh of Earth, the extremely thin atmosphere meant that these heavy objects that were thrown into the air almost maintained the same upward kinetic energy and smashed back down.

The dense ice blocks smashed down violently into the bowl-shaped memory metal shield and left craters the size of fists. The unluckiest vehicle was almost buried underneath by an ice chunk, but fortunately, the quality of the memory metal shield passed the test, and the space vehicle underneath was safe.

Finally!

The blowout was coming to an end!