Alienus

Aliens Exist

"I would love to see the look on Mission Controls' faces when we give them the news about us finding water," Emiley laughed. That sentence sent an entirely new stream of thoughts through my head. 'News,' our story would be all over any science-related form of media. Maybe not only science related media.

I could make a list that stretched for miles with names of people who would jump at a chance to be famous like that. You probably could, too. I would not be on that list. No way. I have stage fright, a major case of it. I can only speak in front of groups of five and under. Even talking to six people is stretching my abilities. An unwelcome image of me seated at a talk show with some calm person interrogating me while I just sat in a chair looking like a total idiot, too scared to say anything, flashed through my mind.

The mental freak-out session I was going through was abruptly stopped when Emiley shouted, "Yes, we've got a connection!" and threw a fist in the air. "Emiley to Mission Control, we have great news: We found water." After a few minutes of waiting for the signal to travel all the way to Earth and back, a response was given by a deep voice filled with enthusiasm.

"WHAT?!" he practically shouted. "How did you find it? Where is it now? Where did you find it? When did this happen?"

"We were taking the deep core sample and I noticed the soil was wet about ten feet down. It was found about a half mile from the south side of Olympus Mons, and we are currently keeping it in the storage area with all the other samples. We discovered it about forty-five minutes ago," Emiley replied, making it a point to answer every question asked. During the pause time, I grabbed a sheet of paper and drew an inaccurate representation of a flower that could've been mistaken as a bush, or a tree.

The man's voice took on a slightly suspicious tone, "Why didn't you tell us earlier?"
Emiley answered his question easily, "We decided to eat a fast dinner first. All of us were very hungry, and Louissa expected this conversation would take a long time." I winced at the mention of my name. I added a smiley face to my plant, and a few more flower/shrub/trees in the background.

The man thought about that and seemingly accepted it. "One moment, we'll decide what you should do."

I started to get nervous; would they ask me to talk? The commander of the mission was me... it would be the logical decision. How many people were in Mission Control again? At least fifty. I tensed as I heard the muffled sounds of the rest of Mission Control discussing what we would do next. After about five minutes of expectant waiting, we were given our next assignment. "Okay, the majority votes for you to investigate the source."

I took a deep breath, "How?" I said with effort, attempting to sound cool and collected, neither of which were the case.

The answer was not an appealing one, but in the back of my mind I knew Mission Control was going to tell us to do something along those lines. "Dig down to the water source. There are shovels in the rover, if I'm not mistaken," the voice made it sound like he never once was and never would be mistaken.

Emiley took a deep breath like she was going to yell at the man, but at the last second she restrained herself. "I'm sorry Jameson, but it takes a decent amount of energy to carry the sampler, and the entire crew is sore. It will be extremely difficult to dig to the water's source." How Emiley could remember the name of everyone in Mission Control, and be able to recognize them by only their voice, I had no idea.

"I agree," Jon entered the conversation. "Digging down to the source will take a long time and more strength than we have."

"You don't need to do it all at once. The digging can be spread throughout the day," Jameson responded, unyielding to our complaints.