August 13th, 2017 10:59 GMT(Greenwich Main Time)

„You got to be fucking kidding me“ Robert exclaimed. He was an astronaut and space engineer, working for the ESA(European Space Agency). While in his career he had seen a lot of weird pseudo technology created by secretive geniuses, their names or even their faces not known to public, the past seven months were so strange, his grip onto reality almost slipped.

It began when his commanding officer called him two-hundred-fourteen days ago: „You have a new mission. Routine, that’s all, but it needs to be done.“ Routine my ass, he knew that now. Thinking back he just got a bit excited, what would his mission be? Hopefully some low orbit flight or something, always fun to do those.

But no, the briefing went in a direction insane even by Robert’s standards.

„We found a message in our DNA.“

„In fact, in every living beings DNA.“

„Coordinates. And a complete dictionary of an unknown language.“

The so called experts were shaking from the adrenaline pumping through their veins while pitching condensed crazy to the free world’s most powerful people, and one astronaut.

„This is proof of a grand design.“

„The coordinates show an orbit around our sun, directly opposite of it relative to earth.“

The president of the US decides it is a good idea to talk now.

„The US government has offered unlimited funding to get there. We must find out what this means at all cost.“

Now the emergency-appointed leader of the EU throws her bit of speech.

„The EU concedes also. Every resource needed will be provided and paid for.“

Finally, Father of Russia speaks.

„The Russian Federation and, by delegated right, the Asian Coalition pledge to support this mission with all we have to offer.“

Then, his boss had talked to him in private about how he was the most capable space pilot he had ever met and how he had recommended him as the leader and pilot of a small international team that would fly a newly developed spacecraft to approach the given coordinates and find out what the fuck was going on. The hell of a sentence, a wild dream and yet reality now.

While the ship was built, he got to meet the team and they went for lessons on the true language, as the scientists had named the ancient tongue.

He would command a team of seven, including himself.

Katarina Trutheim, a german aerospace engineer and brilliant physicist. She was in her mid thirties but looked easily ten years younger. Long blonde hair kept in a pony tail as to not disturb whatever task she currently worked on. About one-sixty centimeters tall, perfect to crouch into places where electronics were cleverly hidden. Always wearing practical clothes with a lot of slots for tools required. In her free time she calculated complex models as to widen her understanding of almost-future physics.

She won the physics Nobel prize at age fifteen when inventing a working principle for cold fusion. Of course, officially, the Nobel prize went to some dude for what-not as she got immediately introduced into the society of hidden geniuses and disappeared from her original life. But still, it counts. Of course, she’s the TO(Technology Officer).

Then there was Ryo Taku, a seemingly run of the mill japanese guy at age fourty. Average in every external property. Average height, weight, hair color, eye maximum opening angle. Unprecedented mental abilities though. Almost perfect memory, capitalised on by learning every not-dead language, even covering most dialects. He learned the true language in half a day. Spoke it fluently in a full day. He would hopefully understand whatever awaited us. Say hello to Ryo the FAO(Foreign Affairs Officer).

Alina Tscherenkow, daughter of Pawel Tscherenkow. She is the hottest team member, both in outer appearance and character. Fiery like a steam roller. Perfect face, long black hair, slender body with bulges in all the right places. And exactly tall enough to kiss you when standing lightly on her toes. Unlike her father, she was a genetics researcher and head of the team that discovered the reason for this mission. Her age remains undisclosed. Position is BGO(Bio-Genetics Officer), responsible for the oxygen producing plants in-flight, and collecting genetic evidence when at target site.

Every good team needs a brute who can handle shoot or get shot situations. That is where Colonel Sanders comes in. Fine. His name is not Colonel Sanders. It’s Blackwood, age thirty-six. He is a colonel in the US army though. Two meters tall pure brutality? Check. Shooting through a needle’s hole from two kilometers away? Check. Winning unarmed combat vs three giants? Check, check and check. All in all, a brute, yes, but smart in tactics. As long as enemy combatants are involved in a situation. He got his first medal two weeks after being drafted. Now he has a medal of honor, or two. Blackwood is our SO(Security Officer).

What is the world without backup? Meet the not-quite-main characters that will tag along for now. Sergeant Miller, AU Air Force, backup pilot. Private Baguette, French Army, security additional.

Anyways, the first month went by fast as the team exercised working together while attending different must-have classes in true language, basic space navigation, basic engineering, basic genetics, basic combat-tactics and everything else basic that needed to be understood in order to enable comprehensive topics.

After that mildly strange month, things started to cross the boundaries of strange and went straight up to a kind of wtf-level. The spacecraft was almost operational, the cost to put it together so fast, filled with technology never implemented before, ran at a staggering eight-hundred billion dollars so far. The most expensive vehicle ever realised at this point. And it packed the kind of technology that makes Captain Kirk nod in acknowledgement.

Powered by the first ever industrial grade M-AMF reactor(Matter-AntiMatter Fusion reactor), hammering out a measly five-hundred megawatts in continuous operation, consuming a steady one gram of each per hour. All that energy powers the plasma (that’s right, plasma!) shielding covering the exterior. Then another reactor, same stats as the other one, provides electricity for the interior as well as the sensor array.

Oh boy, the sensor array. Almost half a gigawatt of power for active LRCD(Long Range Collision Detection), a technology based on radar and specially developed algorithms, and bundles of communication antennae so precise, you basically have LTE bandwidth in deep space. With a ping of minutes though, fuck you universal speed limit that is the speed of light in vacuum.

Next up, the engines. What, you need a million kilowatts of thrust? Yeah sure, let’s just build in two more M-AMF reactors, for fun. A little difference in wiring and output, bam, you got yourself an engine that works based on directed radiation pressure.

To have that much power under the hood requires sturdy casing, to say the least. So lets have some overly motivated german chemists and engineers get ADNR(Aggregated Diamond NanoRods) large scale production ready in two weeks. Also, lets build the entire framing of our mission ship with it. To fill the gaps lets just use something that does not weigh anything at all but still be the best heat and electricity isolator known. That’s right, stuff every corner with AG(AeroGel).

Lastly, processing power. Overly complicated maneuvers might occur, so we need fast calculations.

For serial processing, just implement Y-Gate transistors in Graphene instead of Silicon, CPU pipeline design by Intel, thank you very much.

Parallel processing for real time simulations of a ship moving thirty-thousand kilometers per hour through a cloud of single grained space dust? Got it, just need to call Quantum Leaps and throw a few billion dollars at them for a 8-Qbit quantum CPU clocked at 1-GHz, mass-produce ready in a month. Yes, i’d like to order 128 of them please.

Everything packed into an eiffel-tower-style spaceship sixty meters long, ten meters in diameter.

Robert, he himself being an engineer when not on pilot duty, almost passed out when seeing those stat-sheets.

Yeah, so seven months passed and here we are.

Right now the crew was boarding the PSC-1(Pioneer Space Carrier-1), Robert already sitting in his seat, checking controls. Trutheim was all over the engines and reactors, inspecting everything for the last time before takeoff.

„Permission to come aboard, Cap?“ Blackwood asked with a grin, Mr. Baguette and pilot Miller in tow. Not waiting for an answer, he carried his bags of cannon-sticks over to the weapons locker.

Taku started discussing the mission with Tscherenkow while helping her check the algae boxes in the life support section.

„This is your Captain, Reel. Be advised, scheduled takeoff in T-minus ten minutes. Please join me in the cockpit and straighten your belts. Bring snacks if you want.“

Robert read the overall system status. M-AMF reactors one and two green. Running at total one gigawatts steady. Engine M-AMF reactors three, four, green. No output, ignition ready. Com-Array green. LRCD green. Hull integrity 100%. Shielding working at 0% load. Life support at full capacity.

He thought about his situation: The thing i am about to fly behind the fucking sun still feels like a craft copied out of science fiction.

His mind reeled over his mission description. Fly a scifi space craft behind the sun to investigate coordinates found in our DNA, written in a language also found in our DNA. A language he could now speak. Sure, that kind of mission is okay for sane people.

Still in thought, he barely recognised the crew members taking their seats as well.

„Ground team to PSC-1, takeoff in T minus one minute. Status is green, initiate launch. Remember, your mission is the most important task ever assigned to humanity, but no pressure.“ The radio said in a male voice.

„You got to be fucking kidding me“ he exclaimed silently as he lit up the engines.