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Chapter 23

Once the man had passed, the group continued up to the security point.  Logan's thoughts lingered on the old man for a moment before it was their turn to be cleared through security.  Mike held out his wrist with his DNAC activated showing his Military ID, along with Logan's citizenship ID.  The information was transferred to the security computer.  Mike and Logan then placed their hand on a biometric scanner to cross reference the information.  Once cleared the two continued down a hall until they turned into a large conference room.

This conference room seamed to be designed for lectures with a giant holo on once side, and stadium seating on the other.  Logan followed Mike up a few steps and then crossed into the seats.  There were several people seated in the room before they had arrived.  Some of which Logan recognized from the recovery room on the ship.

Fifteen minutes later, Nora and her escort entered the room.  The two went up two rows higher than where Mike and Logan were.  Less than five more minutes and James and his escort entered the room.  They sat a row in front of Mike and Logan.

After another half-hour of waiting as more people entered the room and took seats.  Then Lieutenant Scott stepped up to the small podium that was the focal point of the room.  Chatter from around the room died before he began to speak.  "My name is Lieutenant Scott, and i am the chief of security on Callisto station.  You have all been granted research and development level clearance for the project that this new station was created for."

The Lieutenant paused for a moment, and then continued.  "We are now only a step away from knowing if and were intelligent life exists outside our small system.  We have been developing a quantum tunneling devise capable of moving objects vast distances instantaneously."  He paused once again as several people started to whisper to their neighbors.  The whispering was primarily from the group of engineers.  Logan noticed that Mike sat forward in his chair slightly at the revelation.

"We have a working proto-type, which has not fully been tested yet.  However several test have already been concluded...” Lieutenant Scott swiped a finger through the air over his DNAC and the large holo behind him came to life.  On the right side of the holo a bright sun took up close to a fifth of the space.  Just left of the center there was a second star farther away than the one in the fore ground.

"This is Alpha Centauri A and behind it Alpha Centauri B.  This is an image that we were able to capture two weeks ago from a probe that we sent through our proto-type.  Keeping the quantum tunnel open we were able to receive real time messages from the probe over four light years away."

Once again Lieutenant Scott paused as more excited chatter occurred, this time including almost everyone.  Logan felt slightly ashamed, he knew that this was a big deal, but felt too slow and dumb to realize what this meant.

"The reason you are all here today is because we are about to start the most aggressive expansion of known space since to age of discovery over six hundred years.  Viewing stars and planets through telescopes and radio waves to learn about them will soon become an ancient practice.  Soon we will set foot on these planets and view them with our own eyes, and touch them with our own hands."

Everyone including Logan was now vibrating in their seats with excitement.  Space exploration beyond what anyone thought they could achieve was now right in front of them.  And each one of them was going to be a part of it.

"Because of the nature of our work," the Lieutenant continued, "it is imperative that we keep all aspects about this project secret, until Jackson Stone has had proper time to release this knowledge to the public.  Everyone here has the clearance to check out of the secured areas, but it is of utmost importance that all information stays inside of it."

"I'm sure that this raises many questions.  Unfortunately i do not have time to answer them now.  In a few short minutes you will receive a message containing this stations schematics as well as where you will be sleeping and working.  Your luggage has been taken to your general workstations.  From here you will meet with your superiors who will be willing to answer all the questions that you might have.  Thank you, and good luck."

Lieutenant Scott turned and left the conference room.  Logan sat back on his chair; he hadn't realized that he had been sitting on its edge.  The image of Alpha Centauri A and B was still on the screen.  Logan couldn't help but stair at it.  Intergalactic space travel at the blink of an eye.  The possibility of finding an intelligent race of alien has just dramatically increased.

The Drake Equation was developed to calculate the probability of coming in contact with intelligent alien life.  The entire equation is made up of variables, but now several of the variables have become constants, and others are no longer needed.  Now, there were only three variables, stars that have planets, planets that can support life, and most importantly life that have developed into intelligence.

Logan was brought out of his thoughts by a bip from his DNAC.  Opening the message, he found all of the information that Lieutenant Scott said that he would.

"Ready to go?"  Mike asked.

"Uh, yeah," Logan replied.

They stood up and followed the crowd out of the room.