Chapter 2 Trusting gut feeling

Day of mission launch

Aariv and his family had come to Spaceport. It was very crowded because of the families of cadets and supporters of the mission. The New Dawn ship is very big so it can't be launched from earth's surface hence it was built in space and also docked there.

"Alright mom and dad it's time to go, please take care of your health and dad don't overwork yourself, Lil bro take care of yourself and good luck for passing space security corps exam"

"take care of yourself son, space is a very harsh place," his dad advised him with a concerned look.

"yes dad, I will take care of myself" Aariv hugged his father and then looked at his mother.

She had tears in her eyes but was trying to hold them back, he hugged his mother tightly "take care of yourself mom, I love you and thank you for everything"

His mother started weeping and replied while stuttering "I love... you too son, take care of yourself, *Sniff-sniff* don't skip the meals and... find a beautiful wife on the ship, if possible and... and we will be waiting for your safe return"

After a long goodbye talk Aariv went into the transporter which took him to the Main Ship in orbit. After a long identification process, he was sent to report to the Science and Research department.

He went to the office and reported to his commanding officer "Science officer Aariv Hector reporting for duty SIR!"

"At ease officer, and no need to be so formal, we'll be seeing each other a lot for god knows how long so no need to be stiff"

"Well let me introduce myself. My name is Victor Yang, the chief science officer here and our job is to conduct tests on anything new we find in our journey, new planets, micro-organisms, materials, etc. and find out if it is useful to humans," said Victor uninterestingly.

Victor went to his desk and switched on the holographic display which showed Aariv's face and all the data about him "hmm...let me check your qualifications then ill assign you to a post"

while looking at all the data, he started mumbling "so you have cleared Advanced quantum physics exam, Advanced programming exam, Advanced Chemistry, Advanced Human History, etc."

"Well you are qualified to become Assistant Chief Science office and you'll be directly under me, go to your quarters and change into the official uniform then report back to me here"

"Yes sir"

The Spaceship was really huge and if you don't have a portable navigator, you could get lost in so many pathways. After reaching his quarters, Aariv changed into his uniform and returned to the work station. Victor saw him coming and stood up.

"Good you're right on time, we are going to the flight control, well be launching soon, Our first mission is to go to the heliopause and check those gravitational fluctuations personally, the higher-ups are worried about it they are saying that it could be a sign of advanced alien life. "

Aariv thought about the news he heard the day before on T.V.

Soon after, they reached the flight control, there were a lot of people busying themselves and a lot of screens. Mission commander/flight commander Alex Marshal was conducting pre-flight checks.

Aariv and Victor went to their seats and sat down, although they had seats in the flight control room but right now they had no work, their work would start when they are on the outskirts of the solar system.

"Chief Yang, do you think there are aliens out there?" Aariv asked, thinking about their first mission.

Cheif Yang thought a bit before answering "I think the universe is too big for an advanced alien civilization to not exist, we just have to find them or they have to find us"

"I agree with you chief but I hope we are the ones to find them and not the other way around"

Victor was amused by the answer "And why is that?"

"Sir, although we are a peaceful civilization now, but we should not forget or history is filled with blood and war, we fought each other for more resources and now we are going into unknown space for more resources. Let's just say that we find a planet with a civilization that has just started to send satellites to space, a civilization between level 0 and level 1.

what do you think we will do? Let's say we tried to negotiate with them and they rejected, what then? will we kill them? and am pretty sure that we are ordered to kill if the situation asks for it, otherwise why else were we given fight training.

now imagine a super-advanced civilization finding us, then what do you think they will do to us for resources?"

Victor was smiling at that time "but we don't have any resources left"

Aariv looked at chief Victor smiling and understood that he was just testing him by asking these questions "Sir, do you remember, before 21 century, there used to be a term to categorize a certain group of people, SLAVES.

human resource is also a type of resource as well, if they find us, won't they make us their slaves to be used as cannon fodder? and I think them making us slaves is still a better ending than them killing us all."

"You are right about everything Aariv, this is also the reason higher-ups are pushing this mission, you see... we are in an arms race with an unknown enemy and let's just hope that when we meet that enemy, we are stronger," Victor said in a worried tone.

When Aariv was about to say something the speakers started announcing "Attention! all people on the deck, T-10 before the launch"

Hearing this, Aariv closed his mouth and got ready to say goodbye to earth.

Commander Alex started giving orders "E.M Drive operation check"

Captain Jim, who was responsible for operating EM Drive, checked the monitor and answered "It's running smoothly, on standby mode at 100% capacity."

"Well let's start our journey then," Commande Alex said as he sat on his big chair at the center of the room.

The New Dawn ship started moving slowly as it adjusted its trajectory as to not hit other smaller ships nearby. The whole event was being broadcasted live all around the solar system. People were cheering crazily and the families of the crew members had their eyes wet. But then suddenly a holographic message came to the flight center from the Earth's space corps headquarters.

"Commander Alex, your first mission needs to be changed a little"

"What happened, General Gustov?" Commander Alex asked with a frown.

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General Gustov's face got a little serious: "You need to go to Mars first, the gravitational anomaly has been detected there, same as the one detected near Heliopause."

Commander Alex was a little irritated because sending their Ship to just check some anomalies was overkill, the space is filled with unknown anomalies "What's the problem? it's just an anomaly, we have already set our flight course, we'll check the anomaly at Heliopause and send you the reports"

"No Commander, it's a bit more complicated than that, this same gravitational anomaly was detected near Pluto then Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter, and the problem is that we can't seem to be able to communicate with any outpost in any of these planets.

The pattern shows that whatever this anomaly is, it is traveling inwards towards the Sun. Mars contacted us and told us the same thing, they sent a ship to check the place of the anomalies occurrence but they lost contact with that ship.

We are still in contact with Mars though, this anomaly could be something that is interfering with our mode of communication or ...alie"

Before General Gustov could finish Commander Alex spoke "Alright General let's not get carried away, we will go to Mars and check this Anomaly of yours"

"Very well then, Good Luck NEW DAWN"

After the message was over, people on the deck were quietly looking at the commander for new orders.

"What are you all looking at, GET BACK TO WORK, set course corrections to Mars and deploy as fast as possible"

While all this was happening Aariv was already on move going to the armory, After hearing all those things his gut was telling that things would not end well and he was also 90% sure that whatever that anomaly is, it's not naturally formed and also the last word that General Gustov was about to say ticked him off and gave him guts to do what he was about to.

His new ID of an assistant chief scientist, which was a high ranking post, allowed him to get into the armory with no trouble. But getting the weapons was hard because the containers were controlled by an A.I.

Only the people authorized by the commander or the commander himself were allowed to take weapons. Aariv's advanced programming degree was helpful and had already hacked through his remote communicator to access the mainframe and copied the commander's credentials and master code.

But what Aariv didn't know was that the A.I. identification used on the New Dawn was the bleeding tech technology of Human civilization, it not only required the id of the authorized personnel but also their DNA. The system was able to remotely scan the request initiator's DNA by using lasers.

Aariv unknown of all this initiated the request to get a Plasma pistol and a mini fusion bomb, the moment he pressed the request button the alarms started buzzing.

[Intruder alert, Intruder alert, Armory exits are being sealed]

"Sh*t...NO...NO...NO"

Aariv started shouting as he tried to forcefully open the door, but before he could continue he saw 2 big Automatic plasma Gatling guns come out and point at him. He heard the A.I. voice again.

[Get back from the door and lie face down on the floor]

[Get back from the door and lie face down on the floor]

Aariv knew he was in trouble so he did as the voice said. After some time the door was opened and 2 heavily armed men came in and pointed their guns at Aariv. Aariv saw commander coming in.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU TRYING TO DO HERE ASSISTANT CHIEF SCIENTIST AARIV HECTOR?" Commander shouted at the top of his lungs.

Aariv tried to stay calm but his face was already paled because he thought that they would send him back to earth for trial.

"Sir... Commander I was trying to get weapons to prepare myself, I think that the aliens are coming and they are very strong because we have not been able to even detect them and they have already taken down so many colonies and bases."

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH"

Commander punched Aariv in the face "Don't try to test my bottom line"

"take him to the prison cells and put him on 24 hours watch"

The guards picked up his unconscious body from both sides and took him to the prison cell.

When the guards had gone someone entered the armory room where the commander was standing alone "You know he could be right and the probability of his words being true is pretty high"

Commander had a very frustrated look on his face as he heard this voice. It was Chief Scientist Victor, Commander Alex's old friend.

"I know Victor... but what if he had some other motive? he could have jeopardized the whole ship. If we find aliens we will release him and if we don't then we will send him back to earth for trial and personally, I think... there are no... aliens."