In our current age where information can get to millions of people in the matter of seconds, we have to ask ourselves.
Which bits of information get spread by the public faster than others?
Many of the greatest minds of our generation have come up with various answers: celebrities' birthdays, deaths, dumb animals doing funny things, cats and leaked government information. There are so many cat videos on the Internet that they need their own category and some scientist are getting worried by the rate they are uploaded. Oh, and leaked government information is also bad for some people.
In the midst of Galaxy Garrison's announcement of the disappearance of the crew of the Kerberos mission an unknown hacker made its way through the firewalls of the Garrison's computer. They were basically undetectable, like an expert thief who had robbed pieces of art hundreds of times and, like a professional thief; they got what they were looking for and quickly disappeared into the night, their presence never detected by anyone.
An unknown hacker capable of cutting through the firewalls of one of the world's most powerful scientific organization would usually be a bad thing. After all, they could leak highly sensitive information that could endanger the life of hundreds of people or use that information to blackmail said organization. Luckily this hacker had other ideas.
Lisa Loud was heavily involved with the Cerberus-1 project. From the ship's design to the choosing of the landing site she had a hand in almost every part of the project. When it came time to choose the crew of the first mission to the edge of our solar system, she was unfortunately uninvolved. When the new of who would be crew got to her she got a big surprise. The first two, the scientist, were expected. Professor Holt had become a prominent face in space exploration and practically revived the space program and his son, Mathew Holt, was a rising star in the world of science.
What really surprised her was the inclusion of Lincoln Loud in the crew.
She didn't even know he was attending Space Academy!
Looking back on those days made her wish she had known earlier, maybe talked him out of the whole space exploration field entirely. But she didn't, she just looked at his scores, made him test out some space simulators and concluded that he was optimal for the mission.
When she saw the announcement of the disappearance of the mission, she was at home working on her other projects. The moment the anchor man talked about Cerberus-1 she immediately called The Garrison to know what happened.
The only answer they gave her was: "This information is classified for anyone without level 5 clearance"
She was Level 7 when she left the Garrison.
Apparently they had demoted her the moment they lost contact with the ship. The High Commands at the Garrison had decided to fire everyone who had worked at the mission under the excuse of incompetence.
If she knew any better, she would think they are trying to hide something. Which of course she immediately deduced thanks to her superior intellect.
She locked herself in her room, grabbed her modified laptop and began tearing down the firewalls of the Garrison's computer completely undetected by anyone.
The massive amount of documents which she had stolen from Garrison went from the schedule for the next space missions to the janitors work days. It would take days, maybe weeks before she found what she was looking for.
But she would persevere and she would find whatever happened to the crew.
The endless stars that covered the sky twinkled as they worked. It had took the ship six months to get from Earth to Kerberos but for Lincoln Loud it had only been a few days since they left Earth. The ship was equipped with cryo-pods specifically designed to reduce the stress of deep space travel, they still had to make sure the ship passed the moon orbit to activate the auto pilot.
He would have to thank his sister when he got home, he trained his butt off manage the various operation that went along with being the pilot but to constantly make sure that the ship didn't stir out course due to a surprise asteroid or something would probably prove to be an impossibly difficult task.
Every time something made the ship get off course, the autopilot woke him up and only let him go back into cryo-sleep when the ship got back on track. Sometimes he went days without sleep trying to make sure the ship didn't land outside the solar system.
But all of that was worth it.
They were here on the moon of the planet that stands at the very edge of the Solar System.
"Easy son" a male voice said"The ice is delicate"
That broke him out of his thought; he turned his head to the other two members of the crew.
The Holts, a father and son duo who had been chosen for the scientific aspect of the mission: cataloguing the ice that was found on the surface on the planet and sending their findings back to Earth.
"Amazing" Matt Holt, the younger of the duo said with excitement "Isn't this exciting Lincoln?!"
"You guys get a little more excited for ice than I do" he liked Matt, a smile growing on his face. He liked Matt optimism and energy; it reminded him of a more emotional version of Lisa.
"This is story in the making" Matt said with a smile.
He stifled a little laugh. Who knew that him, a little runt from Royal Woods, with ten other sister with various talents and attitudes would make here?
From here on in space, all the worries he'd ever had seemed so small, like a flicker of dust. He knelt down and began picking some rocks. Just because he is in space doesn't mean he can't bring souvenirs.
"Lincoln? Lincoln?!" once again a voice broke him out of his thoughts
"Sorry Professor, just got lost in thought" he apologized.
"No worries son, we are farther than humanity has ever been so it's normal to think about how little we are on the face of the universe" he said with a warm smile.
"Oh…that's…weirdly specific"
"I have often found myself wondering the same thing, but the feeling passes eventually" he said as he reassumed rolling a big chunk of ice back to the ship.
He stayed there for a little longer, staring at the back of the professor's head. A genius he may be but he was also very creepy.
He walked to the ship were the Matt was animatedly talked to his father
"…the microscopic bacteria frozen on this ice could hold the clues about the existence of life outside Earth" He said with a big smile. "Think about it! We could be the first people to prove the existence of aliens!"
The professor smiled brightly at that "That certainly sounds amazing!"
Lincoln couldn't help but smile at their enthusiasm. While he didn't understand all of their scientific mumbo jumbo he knew the basics: Aliens. He would be lying if he didn't dream of little alien men who got to Earth asking for our leaders. Although the probabilities of finding an alien here right now where slim, he still wished some would show up.
A big tremor shook the site they were in. They had told him about the tiny tremors that could be felt thorough the moon, but this one was hard enough that it made all of them fall to the ground. As he got up he thought he heard the Professor say something but he honestly did not hear him. His attention was somewhere else.
He learned that day that sometimes you should be careful with what you wish for.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
Chapter 2 is finally here!
After a full week of things getting in the way of writing this I finally got to finish it.
Hello everyone, I am trollking01 (Yes, I know. The name was supposed to be ironic).
Okay, so I'm gonna be honest with you. I may not be able to update weekly like other writers, so I beg you please have some patience
So yeah, that's it.
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I thank those who believe in my story and hope I can bring you more quality work.