"What do you mean that we have discovered a terrestrial planet on the outer edge of Alpha Centauri B's habitable zone?" Cooper asked. "You're joking, right? "

"No, I'm not," Simmons replied. "Coop, come up to meeting room four. Duflot wants to brief the entire command staff with the information that we have collected so far."

"I'll be there in five."

"I will meet you there."

Cooper all but hopped into her fatigues. She had been reading a novel on her portable in her quarters, so she had been relaxing in a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt. 'I have to be in uniform if I am going to meet with Duflot,' She thought as she looked at herself in the mirror. There, the youthful first officer ran a comb through her dark brown hair. Then she double checked the light eye makeup that matched her bright green eyes. "Let's go," she murmured as she rushed off to the meeting room.

Discovering potential planets was an important part of the Hope mission. They had spent weeks observing Alpha Centauri's B's rotation, so they knew where the star's plane of reference was. By using this information, Hope's scientists had a good idea of where to look for planets.

'The problem is that space is just so huge,' she thought as she hurried to the meeting room. 'I wonder if this is the only planet orbiting this star. Since it is in the star's goldilocks zone, it makes the discovery even more exciting.'

Once Cooper arrived at meeting room four, she found both Captain Simmons and Rear Admiral Duflot were waiting for her. "Where is everyone else?" she asked as she took an empty seat at the room's large table.

"They are on their way," Simmons reported.

Simmons was as tall as ever, with his brown hair and soft blue eyes. Meanwhile, the blonde-haired and green eyed Duflot was rather short in comparison. To be brutally honest, the rear admiral had a bit of a complex about his height, so no-one brought it up within his earshot.

Both of the youthful-looking men were wearing their Britanian fatigues just as Cooper was. However, when Anderson entered, she was wearing the Greater United States of the Americas' fatigues. When Kobayoshi and Watanabe arrived, they were wearing the fatigues of the Empire of Nippon.

'You can tell that this is an Alliance mission just by looking at how people dress,' Cooper thought while she was waiting for Duflot to begin his briefing.

"Since everyone is here, let us begin."

"As all of you are undoubtedly aware, the science division has found a planet on the outskirts of Alpha Centauri B's habitable zone. The reason that we discovered it so quickly is due to the planet's high albedo. Initial spectrography indicates that hydrogen of some sort is present, either on the surface or in the atmosphere. The science division also believes that the hydrogen they have detected is in the form of water ice covering most of the planet's surface. That would also explain the planet's high albedo."

"From this distance the planet seems to be roughly the size of Earth and the scientists are currently researching the rotational speed of the planet. Current rough estimates put it somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five hours."

"We will change course momentarily in order to get a closeup view of the planet. Getting there will take us a few months at one half gee of acceleration."

"In the meantime, the people in the science division will be very busy making observations, so please don't disturb them unless absolutely necessary. I will keep all of you posted as more information becomes available. For now, I want to keep this information under wraps until I tell you otherwise."

---

"So Duflot's World is essentially a slush ball Earth?" Cooper asked, referring to a theory that Earth had gone through similar phases in its long history.

Eight weeks had passed since Duflot had held a briefing concerning the planet. During that time, the crew had begun calling the planet 'Duflot's World' in honor of the rear admiral.

"Yes, ice covers eighty percent of the planet's surface. However, there is a break in the ice near the planet's equator which is mostly an open ocean," Duflot said.

"Water, as in liquid H2O?" Simmons said in disbelief.

"Yes, you are correct. Just from that information we can determine that the atmospheric pressure is very similar to that of Earth. That factor also makes this planet far more suitable for terraforming than Mars. People could probably walk on the planet's surface with cold weather gear and a mask of some sort."

"That's amazing!" Simmons interjected.

"Exactly. That is the reason that we are going to launch a probe into the planet's atmosphere to determine its properties."

"I can't wait to see that information," Simmons said. "Can you send the probe's information to the command staff?"

"I second that request," Cooper said. "I want to know if the planet is currently habitable."

"I would be happy to send all of you that information in real time," Duflot said. "In fact, I wouldn't mind if you shared our findings with the crew. Trying to keep everyone else in the dark has been more trouble than it's worth."

---

Two weeks later, Cooper was on the bridge in the captain's chair, and she was watching the visual information from the probe on the main viewscreen. 'Why does everything seem to happen on my watch,' she thought. 'Simmons always has it easy.'

As she watched, the probe was on final approach to the planet. By using the atmosphere for an aerobraking maneuver the probe was shedding most of its momentum. The photos it transmitted were some on the most detailed observations of the planet thus far.

'Thats definitely water,' she thought as she saw the dark blue of the liquid below. 'Now let's see what the other instruments have to say,' as she used her portable to switch the readings displayed on the big screen. 'Still no information on the makeup of the planet's atmosphere.'

Finally, after hours of monitoring, Cooper suddenly rose to her feet and said, "My God I need to tell Simmons about this."

However, before she contacted Simmons Duflot contacted her. "Please come to meeting room four for a briefing on the probe's latest findings."

"On my way," Cooper responded. Before she rushed off the bridge, she turned the conn over to Lieutenant Jackson.

As soon as Cooper arrived, she saw Simmons had beat her to the meeting room. After greeting the Captain and the Rear Admiral she took a seat. While the other officers trickled in, she muttered to Simmons, "Did you see the probe's data?"

Simmons replied in a whisper of his own. "No, I did not. I figured Duflot would call us as soon as the information came in."

Just then Anderson entered the room and sat in an empty chair.

"Now that everyone is here let's begin. Here is all the latest information that we now know about Duflot's World," the rear admiral said as he displayed the information on the room's large viewing screen.

It read as follows:

Mean Radius: 5,678 kilometers (89% that of Earth)

Surface Area: 405,000,000 square kilometers (79% that of Earth)

Surface Gravity: .838 gee (83.8% that of Earth)

Rotational Period: 25.26 hours

Axial Tilt: 2 degrees

Mean Surface Temp: -10 degrees Celsius

Atmospheric Pressure: .89 bars (89% that of Earth)

Atmospheric Composition:

Nitrogen: 77.7%

Oxygen: .06%

Argon: .9%

Carbon Dioxide: 21.3%

Other Gasses: .04%

"As you can see other than for the lack of oxygen and the extreme temperatures, this planet is very similar to Earth. As such, it is far more habitable than Mars. In fact, it wouldn't take very much effort to terraform it," Duflot pointed out.

"I notice that there is roughly as much carbon dioxide on this planet as there is oxygen on Earth," Cooper said. "So given enough time the right types of plants could turn this into a second Earth."

"Exactly," the rear admiral said with a smile.

"I wonder why there is so much free oxygen in the atmosphere," Simmons said. "After all oxygen quickly binds itself to other elements, so it requires constant replenishment."

"You noticed that did you?" Duflot said with another grin. "I think that there may be some form of plant life under all that ice."

"While that sounds like an interesting theory, how would we test it?" Cooper asked.

"For that I will need boots on the ground."

---

"How did I get talked into this?" Cooper muttered as the shuttle went through yet another patch of turbulence.

As soon as Hope went into the orbit of Duflot's World the rear admiral had put out a call for volunteers to command the first mission to the planet's surface. Everyone but Cooper had raised their hands to volunteer. However, Duflot wasn't happy about this. It quickly became obvious that the rear admiral wanted her to command the mission since he spent the next twenty minutes convincing her to go.

'If I had my way, I would have stayed on Hope and watched the results of the mission as they came in,' she thought. 'That is where the captain and the first officer are supposed to stay.'

"Ma'am we are approaching the landing site," the pilot informed her.

'Let's hope that the science division was right, and we will be landing on solid rock and not on an ice sheet over open ocean,' she mused.

The shuttle that they were on was the smallest atmosphere capable landing craft in Hopes small fleet of shuttles and skiffs. However, between the reaction mass needed to reach orbit and the fusion engines themselves it still massed many tons. 'The last thing that we need is for the ice to crack and the shuttle to sink.'

Once the craft landed everyone on board put on full hazmat suits before disembarking. All together there were only ten people including Cooper. Everyone else, including the pilot, was from the science division.

"Let's go," Cooper commanded after everyone had finished donning their suits. Then they cycled through the shuttle's tiny airlock one at the time.

"Wow, I haven't seen a blue sky since we left Earth," Cooper said as she took in her surroundings. "I had forgotten how beautiful it was."

The party quickly made their way to the nearest patch of open ocean. Since they had landed near the planet's equator the temperature was a balmy five degrees Celsius.

When they finally reached a patch of water, they immediately began running tests. It didn't take long for them to get some preliminary results.

"Cooper to Hope," she said, "The salinity is higher than on Earth, but that stands to reason considering how much of the planet's water is currently in the form of ice. The good news is that the oxygen level of the water is almost as high as Earth's."

"Hope actual here," Simmons replied. "That is wonderful news! That means that the planet is going through its own great oxygenation event. It also points to the existence of some form of blue-green algae in the water."

"Yes, that is what I was thinking," Cooper said. "We have just discovered the first evidence of life on this slush ball."