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Blackbox Log ID:
NASA Lunar Colony Prometheus
General Stellar Communications Relay Station
August 4th, 2098
2:07 AM, GMT
Decrypting... [Success]
Initiating playback...
The holographic screen flickered to display a rather small control room with motivational posters and glass doors with access to servers formed the walls of the room, the camera recording this obviously placed in a corner in order to gain the best vantage point. The continuous desk that lined the perimeter was, for the most part, organized. Traditional computer monitors sat upon it behind scattered papers, most visibly showing various graphs and charts but the resolution was not high enough to discern exactly what they were displaying. The sound of footsteps against the titanium alloy floor could be heard down the walkway leading out of frame. Suddenly, two men walked into the room; one seemed to be a data analyst, being casually dressed in a white, hexagonally-patterned shirt. The other seemed to be more of a street rat, appearing in nothing more than a cotton t-shirt and a pair of khaki pants that bore the NASA emblem. They each pulled out a roller chair and slumped down in them, audibly sighing. They simply sat there for a good ten seconds before the analyst spoke up.
"W-what the hell was that?" he breathily muttered under his breath, ending it in a slight chuckle as he stared off into space. It was obvious that there was tension in the room as the other began to slowly shake his head before he suddenly shot up from his chair.
"I don't have the slightest fuckin' clue, Harry!" he shot back as he began pacing the small room in front of Harry. "I-I mean, what do they think they're doing?! They're... they're leading themselves right into a bloody extinction event!" he accentuated the end of his sentence by throwing his hands up. Harry turned his gaze to his friend, only now his face was filled with anger.
"Perhaps the reason our proposal was rejected was you," he said quietly. His friend was quick to react as he quickly walked up to Harry, his index finger extended and fist clenched.
"Oh, no! Don't you try to pin this on me. I was only trying to speed the process along. These NASA pricks don't even have the slightest clue of what they are doing."
"And you do?!" Harry rebutted. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. "We had one shot at getting that grant and you just had to go in there with a hot head because you thought they weren't listening."
"They weren't! You saw how they looked at us. Like... like we were out of our minds." Harry was about to speak up before his friend continued. "But, we aren't! Th-these probes! They could be the answer to saving mankind, for fuck's sake!"
"And you heard what they said back to us. It is simply too risky." Harry walked over to one of the computers and plugged in a holographic projector to one of its USB slots. After a few key presses on the keyboard and clicks of the mouse, the projector exploded the room into an all-encompassing map of the solar system. Harry turned back around to consult his friend. "This is our solar system." he patronizingly stated. His friend rolled his eyes. "And this," he zoomed out the map by bringing his hands close together and circled a star system in the corner of the room, "is where you want our probes to go. The course of the probe you want to send into this system alsojust so happens to cross through millions of miles of Galactic Council territory, Will."
William, dumbfounded, exclaimed, "Wha-... You were on board with this from the beginning," Will accentuated his statement by jabbing Harry in the chest with his index finger, "why are you only now siding with them?" His voice's anger was replaced by sorrow towards the end of his rebuttal. "This-... we have spent the last 3 years perfecting this plan. You and I both know that humanity is being threatened by possibly the most powerful force-"
"I know!" Harry cut in, causing Will's expression to soften. "I also know that they are the only ones that can get those probes," he pointed into a wall out of frame, "into orbit around that garden world." Harry slumps back down in his chair. "You think we're the only ones who have seen the activity on the surface of that planet? You think nobody's sensors have been fried by the gamma radiation coming from that quadrant, let alone? We're lucky we were even given this storage room, with it century-old tech!"
Will sat down in a roller chair next to Harry. He knew Harry was right; the United Nations and their bureaucracy wouldn't let any idea as outlandish as the Galactic Council having hidden motives. Even though the signs have been obvious that something is hiding in that corner of the galaxy, nobody has been brave enough to violate the treaty for some... gamble. The next few minutes were spent staring at the ground. It felt like their lives had been wasted for some fluke as the sound of fans and hard drive magnetization filled the room. All of a sudden, Harry got up and walked over to one of the server doors. Opening it up, he began typing on the terminal computer, seeming to bypass some sort of firewall in 30 seconds.
"Harry, w-what are you doing?" Will asked, gloom still evident in his voice. Harry paused his typing and turned to face Will with a smirk on his face.
"Let's just say you'll be happy you have such a conscientious partner." On the screen in front of Harry, Will's probe's schematics were displayed. Below them, what seemed to be... engines?!
"Harry? Are those what I think those are?" Will said cautiously, a bit of excitement slipping through his voice. Harry turned around and sat back down next to Will, propping his legs up on the chair in front of him and reclining. "I know a collector, a really... rich collector. He has a few antiques from the 2020s. Some of the test engines used in the Mars colonization dril-" Harry was cut short by a rather gleeful Will hugging his torso with the force of a bear. Harry began to laugh as he embraced the hug.
Eventually, Will broke the hug and turned to face his friend with a huge grin on his face. "This is great!" Will got back up out of his chair and began reaching for the refreshments in the fridge when a moment of realization hit him. "Harry?" he slowly turned to Harry, a more inquisitive look on his face. "Why didn't we just launch them without the grant?" Harry's face, however, remained just as ecstatic as it was five seconds prior. Grabbing the bottle of champagne out of the half-open fridge behind Will, he got ready to uncork it.
"Because these are hydrogen-powered, baby! They can only get up to 40,000 miles an hour!" Harry exclaimed with a smile while he uncorked the bottle.
"What?! It's gonna be well over 500 years before they can rea-"
A cork could be seen flying towards the camera before everything went black.
File terminated