I quickly realized that the rebuilt Icebreaker-5 is divided into four sectors: the cockpit ahead of me, the storage room which I left, the room with the goo and the engine room, which was pretty small and unremarkable, as I found out upon reaching the area.

Suddenly, I froze in place when I heard someone speaking, thinking that I've been noticed.

- Dawn, go see how the goo's doing. I need to be in perfect condition once we reach our destination - Leonid ordered Dawn. That pretty much confirmed what the others theorised about. I guess the destination is Earth?

I barely heard Dawn walk, because she also took off her chunky spacesuit and, much like me, merely had socks. Only soft footsteps were audible and those stopped once she reached the room with the alien sludge. I caught the sound of keys jingling and a metal door being opened. She walked into the room and her quiet footsteps were followded by a thud. Afterwards, I made out a strange bubbling noise.

I was able to reconstruct the sequence of events from the sounds: Dawn walked into the room and seemingly collapsed onto the floor. The pulp reacted with the bubbling noise. One thing was certain: Dawn was in trouble.

I didn't hesitate at all, making my way to the room as soon as I realized that she was in danger. Helping an enemy seemed wrong, but she wasn't willingly evil again. Dawn wants to be good and was forced into being with the Perseids again. I might be able to convince her to help me.

Upon reaching the room, I expected to find Dawn's unconscious body, but she was, to my surprise, fully conscious. She was standing in front of the goo with one leg in the air and the other one on the floor, as if she froze in the middle of a step. The goo was bubbling, but it wasn't spreading, meaning that Dawn was safe. As it turned out, I was more dangerous to her than the goop.

That's because she wasn't expecting to see me and besides, I was very quiet and caught her by surprise. Having turned away from the blob, she saw me and jumped backwards. I lunged and grabbed her, as she would have landed in the goo otherwise. Speaking of it, the pulp only reacted with an irritated slurp.

- How... are... you... here...? - Dawn stammered.

- I was knocked into the spaceship by the moving engine - I explained briefly.

- You scared me... - Dawn said as I helped her get up.

- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that... - I apologised - You're not willing to work with the Perseids again, are you?

- Of course I'm not. I don't want to be evil again... - Dawn confirmed.

- So you can help me with taking them down? - I asked.

- Yes, why not...? - Dawn agreed, but she was clearly afraid of Leonid. Very much so. I knew I had to calm her down if I wanted her to assist me.

- I know that Leonid is very creepy and intimidating, but think about it like this: He wants to terrorize you, manipulate you into becoming loyal to him once more. If we take Leonid down for good, you'll never need to be afraid of him again - I hoped that this would give her more confidence in standing up against Leonid.

- You're right... What do you think we should do? - she asked me.

- Well... - I started formulating a plan, but suddenly heard someone coming our way.

- Hide! - Dawn told me.

I looked around quickly to find a hiding spot and eventually chose to stand behind a vertical pipe which was thick enough to conceal me. This spot was very close to the goo, closer than I would have liked, but I had no choice. As the footsteps grew ever louder, I ran to the pipe and pressed myself against the wall, hoping that whoever was coming won't look here.

- Is it fine, Dawn? - it was, unsurprisingly, Leonid, sounding as imposing as usual.

- Yes, but it seemed stressed for a bit. It made some weird slurping sounds that scared me, but it's calm now - Dawn responded.

- Good - even though Leonid was congratulating Dawn, he sounded more like he was threatening her - I guess the incoming microgravity scared it - he muttered.

- What? - I thought.

Suddenly, I lost my footing and slowly drifted upwards, so did Dawn. We were high enough for Europa's weak gravity to not effect us anymore.

As Leonid left the room, I emerged from hiding, flying over to Dawn.

- That was a close call... As I was saying, I don't think that we can take out all three on our own... - I started explaining my plan, but stopped mid sentence, because I was formulating it right now.

- Yes, I'm aware. What should we do in that case? - Dawn asked again.

- Let me think... - I told her, but it seems like the alien blob heard me too. It jittered, uttering a peculiar noise - I got it.

- What's the plan? - Dawn was tired of waiting.

- We can use the goo to crash this thing by making it grow into the engine room... - I explained the first phase of my plan, but Dawn interrupted me.

- You want us to die with them? No way... - Dawn didn't want to perish, neither did I.

- That's where the next phase comes in. I'll try to call the rest of the team and get them to mount a rescue mission, which is feasible if we do it a while before the landing. Once they get going and we get close to the ground, we put on our spacesuits and drop onto the ground right before the crash. Afterwards, we wait for the others to arrive and pick us up. We'll see where we can go from there... - I added.

- That's a pretty... bold plan... but I have an objection... - it took a while for Dawn to process this information.

- Yes? - I wanted to hear it.

- There are too many "if-s". What if the others don't mount a rescue mission and we die on the surface? What if the Perseids unallow us to even leave Icebreaker-5, not to mention the precision required to time the jump...? There's just a lot of uncertainty... - Dawn confessed.

- Yeah, I know, but it's the best I've got... I don't think there's anything else we can do without any weapons... - I frowned. My plan wasn't good and Dawn's concerns were valid. Everything going to plan is like winning the lottery, but with the prize being survival instead of money.

Now that I think about it, all our earthly concerns seemed irrelevant. In the vast expanse of space, everything appeared to be so distant. I really felt like a speck of dust on the floor, with the floor being the enormous (perhaps infinite?) cosmos. And with the looming threat of death, all of those concerns were even more diluted.

I was submerged in reflections when Dawn spoke up:

- While it's true that I think this plan is terrible... I mean, not the best... I think it's the only way we have. Let's do it - Dawn spoke with determination, patting me gently. She cheered me up and helped me get to it.

- Let's do it - I repeated.