The Adventures of the Archeo-13 Team

Emma watched Ms. Blount's face for any sign of impressiveness, or even, at this point, acknowledgement; but she just merely looked at her credentials with no expression whatsoever.

"Very well, we'll let you know soon. Thank you." Ms. Blount told Emma at the end of their interview.

"That's it? I have here some projects and papers I wrote-" Emma started to say.

"That won't be necessary." Ms. Blount took off her glasses and smiled mechanically. "Thank you Ms. Broden, that will be all." Emma picked up her bag and portfolio and slowly walked out of the tiny office.

As she walked the short distance from the Human Resources Dept. back to her dormitory, Emma felt pretty let down. She doubted that she got the internship; Ms. Blount only asked her four questions and didn't even want to take a look at her extensive research and papers she wrote on Astronomy and Astrophysics.

"Congratulations!" Her roommate, Tina, beamed when she walked into the dorm they shared. Emma shook her head and plopped on her bed.

"What? What do you mean?" Tina asked confused.

"It went pretty bad, I don't think I got it." Emma sighed.

"Uh, yes you did!" Tina insisted. Emma stared at her friend like she had three noses. "They just videoed in and I took the message, you got the internship."

"Huh? I just left there...how..." Emma couldn't believe it.

"Here, they left this code-in for you to call, go ahead, see for yourself." Tina handed her a small piece of paper.

Emma coded-in through her portable and talked to Ms. Blount's secretary and yes, as Tina said, they gave her the internship. Wow. This was great! She really thought she lost her chances in that stupid interview; Ms. Blount seemed so disinterested.

"So, I have to be there in two days for an orientation meeting to learn what the internship is about." Emma told Tina. "I hope it will be in a ship, like the brief said."

-"It is on a ship." Tina said, and when she saw Emma's surprised look she added, "a guy in my Literature class also signed up and told me it was."

"Really? You know, you really should have tried to get this too-"

"No, no, forget it, you know I couldn't, I don't have a clue about astronomical stuff."

Emma knew her friend would love the chance to travel through space and to see different planets. She had only ever been to Earth, which happened to be Emma's home planet, and let's face it, most people in the 1st sector have been to Earth, since it is the Hub. "Besides, don't worry about me, I got some things lined up, and guess what? There may be interplanetary travel in some of them!"

"That's great! I hope it works out, really" She suddenly felt sad realizing she'd be gone for two years before coming back to finish her final year. "I'm going to miss you..."

"We'll be in touch, I'm sure whatever internship I get will be absolutely boring compared to yours, so you'll have messages and video-ins from me all the time."

Two days later Emma was sitting in an auditorium with a few other people as a school agent told them about the internship they were about to embark on. It was called Archeology Mission 4 and their team was called Archeo-13. They were to go on several space archeology missions in the two years of the internship to different X-planets and asteroids throughout the 4 sectors and vicinities. They'd be traveling in a military ship to Temir to meet up with other mission crew interns.

"Your first mission will be to travel to a new planet just discovered right outside of the 4th Sector, an X-planet by the code name of Planet Q." The school agent seemed to only be talking to Emma as he was pointing to a projection that showed a speeding image coming closer and closer to a greenish planet with three moons, but it stopped there showing no more detail. "We had a team do a preliminary investigation, but they had to abort due to problems with their hypersonic drive and we only got very sketchy details." He went on to give details of what to search for when landing there and handed her a microchip with all pertinent information to preview and store on her portable.

"Be ready for flight on the Dracus-5 at the Iris Spaceport on Thursday, at 1300 hours." The agent told Emma as he started packing his stuff.

"Sorry sir, but is it just me that's going?" Emma asked puzzled as she started noticing the other people there were not students.

"Well, yes, you and the other four you'll be meeting on planet Temir." He said matter of factly. "These are the trainers who will show you and the others all you need to know while on the mission." He stopped and then lowered his voice a little upon seeing her expression. "Listen, it's a very select internship, and... not too mention a bit, uh, challenging? Yes, that's what we could call it, challenging. Not many people applied for this. But it will look great in your credentials after you graduate." He smiled with what she perceived to be a bit of empathy.

Ok, she thought, this is starting to sound sort of bad...

Thursday morning, Emma awoke early because she was too nervous to sleep. Even after Tina assured her everything would be fine, that it's just an internship and internships are always safe, she was still dreading to go. When it was time to leave she almost called it off, but knew she couldn't, she had to go and she already signed the contract and everything. She was wishing she could take her roommate's internship instead, where she would be a communications intern traveling with the Presidential team doing press conferences all around the 4 sectors. Now that sounded safe and straightforward! But...she had to stop thinking about it and she had to contend with her pick and she had to just go with it.

Having only traveled on civilian and small private ships, Emma thought the Dracus-5 looked incredibly impressive; it was a newer ship with top of the line technology.

"Nice, eh?" One of the trainers that had been in the orientation at the school came up to her as she stood admiring the ship. "Ready to board? I'll show you to your quarters. My name is Susie, I'll be telling you guys a little bit about the mission once we reach Temir and have the rest of the crew together."

Susie took her into the ship through one of its three entrances. The interior was amazing, the metal shone new and it was full of controls and instrument panels all over the place. Military personnel walked about the corridors back and forth. Emma followed Susie through some narrow passageways into a lookout deck then went down an elevator that took them to the living quarter section for guests. Susie led Emma to a long corridor with numbered thick metal doors, they stopped in front of number 15 where she hit a number on the pad next to the doorway, which promptly opened with a short swoosh.

"There you are!" Susie said as she led her into the room. "We'll be arriving in Temir tomorrow at 1000 hours, don't forget that we'll go by Geon's time until we disembark at Temir. The time there will be about 430 hours." Geon was the planet in which Emma attended school and where her parents also had gone to school, it was well known for having great Astronomy programs that rivaled Earth's best schools.

"Alright, I'll be sure to set my watch and portable." Emma said realizing she'd have to get used to all the different time changes that she'll be going in and out of as they traveled to different planets. It was all actually kind of exciting and a little nerve racking at the same time.

"Ok then, see you later on." Susie said as she started to exit the room then turned and added, "They will be serving dinner at 0800 in the guests' dining plex."

After dinner Emma went to the lookout deck, which had a huge window that looked out into the vast space, she plopped herself down on one of the large soft chairs that lined the window and just sat there mesmerized at how beautiful the stars looked. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there before she realized how late it was; if she was to wake up in time for breakfast and be ready to disembark on Temir by 1000, she'd better get to bed.

"Once you reach the 4th sector you'll be dropped off and you'll be on your own in the Bertus. That's the ship in which you'll be conducting your internship from." Susie was addressing the team members the next day as they listened in a small room in the spaceport at Temir.

"That sounds kind of funny, doesn't it, Bertus?" the guy next to her said snorting a laugh. Emma though he was called Julian, if she remembered correctly from being introduced earlier.

"Why? It's probably a great ship, like the Dracus-5 but smaller." For some reason, Julian seemed a little arrogant when he said that so even though she did think the name was odd, she didn't want to agree with him. She stepped away from him to stand next to another crewmember, a girl called Nia, she was from Temir as well as her brother James who was also in the team. The girl smiled at Emma and they listened on as another trainer went on talking about their mission.

"You'll have all the contact numbers available, so if you run into any trouble someone will be there to help. There's a tracking module on Bertus so we'll know where you are at all times and you can never get lost." Susie said as the training session was coming to an end.

Later on, Emma and the rest of the internship crew were sitting in a waiting room at the spaceport as they waited to board the Dracus-5 to take them to their mission.

"Well guys, we'll be together for two years, so I think we should get to know each other better, no? I'm Angus as I said earlier in training." A boy with messy hair and ears that slightly stuck out, Angus seemed a little gawky, but sweet. He was from planet Bayor if Emma remembered right and was a bit of a nerdy type, but apparently extremely intelligent from what Nia told her earlier. "We're the Archeo-13 Team! That's a cool name, don't you think?"

"Hmm, yeah, just like the 12 others that have the same name... whee!" Julian rolled his eyes, picked a magazine from a pile on a side table and threw himself on a soft chair.

"My name is Emma, nice to meet you, Angus." She said frowning in Julian's direction. "And there's only one team 13, so yes, it is cool." Julian scoffed and kept reading his magazine shaking his head. The other four told a few things about themselves and then made Julian say something about himself as well; after a few groans and sighs he told us that he was from Spartan and wanted to pilot large military ships after he graduated school.

"You're leaving us alone out in space in that thing?" Nia said as the team gawked at what Susie referred to as Bertus. They were in Hanger Bay 12 on the Dracus-5 getting ready to board for their mission. Before them was a small ship that looked rusted and about 20 years old. The windows were all very small and had permanent fog on them from countless atmosphere crossings that it had seen in its long life. The name was missing the letter 'U' so it read 'Bert s'.

"Someone was supposed to put the letter back on before you guys left, but they couldn't find the heat shield coating for the lettering-" She looked over her shoulder as a young military uniformed man was hurrying up to them with a big box and a sprayer.

"I found it! I found it!" He stopped next to Susie and was smiling sheepishly catching his breath.

"Ok, all yours!" She pointed to the ship. "They're about to leave, so hurry up!"

"Right!" The young man ran to the side of the ship and opened a ladder.

"Yep, great ship, isn't it?" Julian said to Emma as she skeptically looked at their mode of transportation for the next two years. She held in a laugh and tried to sound serious when she said "It will get us where we need to go."

"Yeah, I hope so!" He said with a snort.

Randy, another trainer pushed a button on the belly of the ship that released a very squeaky escalator down to the ground from the hatch door on the front of the ship. Julian raised an eyebrow snidely at Emma and walked on towards the ship. She noticed with some remorse as the young military man placed the letter 'U' crookedly next to the rest of the ship's name, by then it was too late to fix since it was already sprayed with the heat shield. Oh well, it adds character, she thought reluctantly.

"Ok team, time to board!" Randy motioned for the team to go up the escalator. "Julian I believe you are the pilot, right?"

"Uh, yes I suppose so." He answered throwing his bags over his shoulder.

Everyone in the team knew how to fly small ships, they operated pretty much like all civilian flying cars and ships, but Julian had training in flying all kinds of ships including military ones so he was made the official pilot for the mission. They had no captain within the team since they were doing an internship. Their captain, or captains, were their trainers, so if they had any problems or decisions to make that they couldn't resolve on their own they were to contact Susie, Randy or any of the other three trainers.

"Alright guys, ready?" Julian said as he switched on the launch drives. The pad had been cleared of all personnel and the airlock gate was open. "Here we go, I hope this thing can-" Bertus moved slowly towards the gate and then suddenly it just took off at blinding speed. "Whew! Damn, this thing can go!" Julian said impressed by the ship's power. Looking out the small windows they could see the Dracus-5 quickly becoming smaller and smaller as they sped away.

"Let's see what this thing does on hypersonic drive..." Julian pressed a couple of buttons and pulled a switch, there was a little choke where the ship shuddered for a second. "Ok... a little hiccup." He said sounding a bit disappointed and then abruptly, Bertus felt as it was going backward and then flanged forwards at full force as the stars streaked by through the small windows. They were all fixed to their seats as the ship moved at super high speeds.

"Whoo-hoo! Man is ship can move, can't it?" Julian exclaimed.

"Not bad for such a clunker, uh?" Emma said sarcastically. Although, she had to admit that Julian was very good at the pilot's seat, he maneuvered the ship quite impressively. But, she also was secretly worried about Bertus, it was a bit of a bucket and not the most comfortable ship by any means. The sleeping quarters were small and antiquated with no windows; instead, there was a small round metal plate, which served no purpose whatsoever. The doors were very heavy and they were manual to boot, so it was a feat just to open and close, almost enough to get a good arm workout. The corridors smelled rusty and were dark, because half the lights didn't work. Emma told herself that she would look into fixing those by looking for some spare plasmas. All ships were required to carry spares for lights and fixtures. She'd also look into the ship's automated self cleaner and see if it worked properly, because everything was dull and dirty.

A few hours later, Julian announced that they were almost at their destination. From the bridge windows they could see a bright light, which belonged to Planet Q.

"Everyone sit down, I am about to disengage the hypersonic drive... that is unless you want to land with your head on the instrument panel!" They all took a seat and strapped themselves in. A loud whooshing noise emanated from the ship's belly and the ship came to a standstill. Or so it seemed, until they saw that the planet's light was getting larger as they approached it; they were still moving, but at a much slower speed than in hypersonic drive, so it almost felt as if they were stopped.

"Wow, it's so green!" Nia said as the globe became more visible and the details of the planet more evident. Her brother was staring at something out the window and all of a sudden started pointing frantically.

"What the hell is that?" James yelled. The rest of them looked towards what he was pointing and just stared in disbelief.