The Inner Ring (gxg)

Chapter 1

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A/N - I hate having to do this, but since NovelHD has already started to pirate some of my books, here we go. These works are mine. My poor little brain came up with the plots and characters, and I'd really prefer you to not steal them. If you're reading this on a site that is NOT Wattpad then it is most certainly stolen.

Thanks!

Loiosh

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Pepper pinched the bridge of her nose, her glasses suspended above her hand as she prayed for the headache to go away. Popping Advil like skittles wasn't helping the constant pain that was residing behind her eyes. Looking at the bank of computer monitors in front of her, she didn't think anything would. Her growling stomach wasn't helping either. She had been staring at the enhanced images of Uranus' rings for the last two years, ever since the MUSE spacecraft had started sending them back to Earth.

The MUSE mission almost didn't get off the ground, literally. It was a European program that was supposed to launch in 2026, and reach Uranus in 2044, but cost overruns on the power systems for the orbiter almost scrapped the mission entirely until Anton Joseph offered to put $1.5 Billion towards the funding, in exchange for real time access to all the information that was returned from the probe. But now, after four years of delays, and two years of images, Pepper was losing interest in her job.

She was part of the original team that worked for Pegasus Advanced Space Systems, one of the many companies owned by Anton Joseph. Well, owned by his daughter Vanessa these days since Anton had retired some five years beforehand. The company had been hoping for information from the pictures, Anton had been obsessed by Uranus since the old Voyager 2 probe had discovered several new moons, and that the ring composition wasn't the same as those on Saturn and were also newer. Pepper didn't know exactly what all the analysts had been looking for, but over the last few years, the excitement had started to ebb.

There were three teams, one for the planet, one for the moons, and her team for the rings. Each was staffed with a dozen people who would pore over the images sent back with contagious enthusiasm, and for the first-year things had been amazing. None of the things that the team found interest in were shared by those higher up in the company though, and gradually the teams stopped being as excited as they had at first.

People started to leave for other projects, funding dried up, teams were condensed. Several times, her coworkers had told her she should come with them, there were other companies that could use her abilities. She was constantly reminded that they worked for a company, and companies like to make money. This had always been an investment, and though it may not have paid off, it was all about trying to make money. She knew her job would be over within a few years, that was when the power generators for the probe were scheduled to run out since the craft was too far from the sun to use solar panels, but she still held out some glimmer of hope every day that today would be the day she found something that would make her bosses excited.

She could not have been more right.

Pepper stood up, stretching. The floor she was on was dark, the better to see the images in, and only small floor lights helped walking around. Her headache may not be gone, she thought, but she could at least get some food in her, and hope that helped with the pain residing in her head. She made her way over to the bank of elevators and pressed the down arrow. The high-speed elevator stopped with a low chime seconds later, not many people in the building at 3AM, and she was soon down in the basement cafeteria.