File: Jacob Hardy, pilot, Ares One
Centcom Boardroom 223B
A/V Monitor
Path to Ares: 517 Days To Launch
1843 hours

Director Canterbury: Can someone get the lights?

Hardy: Mr. Canterbury, I notice your wife was still giving a toast out there.

DC: Yes, I know, thank you all for breaking away from the party.

Evie: Now, if you'll all look at the screen.

General Fiedler: Can we get some introductions?

H: Hardy. Special Flight Services. I'm, like, never here, I don't know anybody.

GF: And you are?

E: Evie, sir, Evie Calumet.

DC: Evie's one of our leading theoretical physicists. She has something important to show security services.

H: OK.

E: This. This shape you see.

H: It was important to show me a moon?

E: Not a moon. The weight's wrong and anyway, it shouldn't be there.

H: Is that planet beside it—

E: Jupiter. Does everybody get that? This thing just appeared in our solar system, and it's anyone's guess why.

GF: What are its capabilities?

DC: So far we don't know. Maybe it's just a roving satellite. Maybe it's something a lot scarier.