Chapter No.51. Interlude.

Surprisingly, the superheroes were not called upon to save anyone or anything. They were enjoying a hiatus of sorts. Janet went back to her job as a Credit Union manager. James and Sylvia spent their time enjoying the summer weather while Robert stayed at home and did the chores. Having plenty of time, he decided to make improvements to the house. The trouble with that was he didn't know how his wife would react to them.

Of course, when she arrived home, she immediately noticed the changes. "What did you do to the kitchen?"

"I decided it needed a bit of rearranging and some newer appliances."

She squinted at him. "I won't know where anything is."

"Hey, I don't mind doing the cooking. You're the breadwinner."

She gave him a smirk. "You are incorrigible!"

"I've been called worse."

James and Sylvia appeared. "What's up?" James asked.

"You should be aware of us everywhere we are at any time," Robert retorted.

"I was just being facetious."

The landline phone rang, and Janet answered it and held it out for her husband, He took it and after a brief conversation, he handed it back for her to hang up,

"NASA has a mission for us."

"Didn't the magnetic field trick work?" James said.

"No, this is something new."

"I'm ready!" his son said.

The superheroes appeared in the JPL mission room and found Jason and a tall, thin woman with gray hair waiting for them.

"This is Jill Fabio, our Space Telescope project administrator," Jason said, gesturing to Jill.

Jill stared at the superheroes for a moment before saying anything, "The Space Telescope has found a possible habitable planet orbiting a G-class star like our Sun, but it's fifty light years away from us."

"Distance isn't a problem as long as we can visualize it," Robert said.

"Well, there's a large Jupiter planet orbiting that star in the habitable zone. We believe that it has a large Earth-sized moon orbiting it that could support life. In fact, we've found that its atmosphere contains oxygen, which is a sign of life."

"I assume that you want us to go there and check it out," Robert said.

"Are you able to do that?" she asked.

"I don't see why we couldn't."

"This particular star is older than our Sun. It could be entering a sub-giant stage, but we don't really know that for sure."

"Is that a threat to life on the moon?"

"It could be. The star is 90% more luminous than our Sun."

"Okay, we'll go check it out," Robert said before he and his cohorts vanished.

Jill turned to Jason. "Are they for real?"

"Yes, they are, and we have no idea what they're capable of."

She just shook her head.

The superheroes materialized near a large Jupiter-like planet orbiting a bright G2-class star, one that was brighter than the Sun.

"Look at that!" James said, pointing to a Earth-sized moon orbiting the gas giant. "It looks like it has a decent atmosphere; although, It's very cloudy."

Janet said. "I see something interesting under the clouds."

"Yeah," Robert said. "It looks like a city."

"The orbit of this moon is oblique to the orbital plane of the gas giant," Sylvia said. "It's also obvious that it's gravitationally locked to the big boy."

"What does that imply?" James asked her.

"It would allow the sunlight to shine on all of the moon's surface; although, some of it would only see a fraction of that light."

"The atmosphere should moderate that effect," James said.

Robert turned to his wife. "Get some photos of this."

"Are we going down there?" she asked.

"We probably should," He replied. "At least since we came this far."

"We came here faster than an eye blink," she retorted.

He gave her a smirk in return.

The superheroes dived down into the moon's atmosphere and began a casual flyby near an odd-looking bunch of structures.

"I don't think those are natural," Robert said. "They look like long metal leaves arranged around a domed structure."

"It resembles a plant," Janet said.

"There are things moving down there," James said.

"Are those machines?" Janet asked.

"I think they're beings," Sylvia said.

"They look like praying mantises with pink eyes," Janet said.

"Make sure you get plenty of photos," Robert said. "No one is going to believe this."

"I think they spotted us," James said.

"Let's go invisible," Robert said. "We have no idea if they're violent."

"I assume that means we're going down there," James said.

"Yeah, we may as well. It'll give Jason and his people something to argue about."

One the superheroes became invisible, they were able to walk around on the moon's surface, and since they were invisible, they communicated by mental telepathy.

"These aliens are tall, at least eight feet," James said. "And they could easily crush a human in those appendages."

"I wonder how long they've existed here?" Janet asked.

"Good question," Robert said. "We'll let the experts argue that. Let's just get some photos and determine the environmental conditions here."

The superheroes looked around the alien city and noticed it was unlike anything they expected. The structures were all created from metal, mostly a titanium alloy, and there were no signs of any technology, at least nothing they could discern.

"Get some photos of this. It's not obvious how intelligent these creatures are, but that's not our job."

"We should go check out the star," James said. "We might be able to determine if it has entered a sub-giant stage."

"How are we going to know that?" Janet asked.

"We should be able to detect the metal lines in its spectrum," Sylvia said. "But we'll have to get closer to do that."

"Won't we be burnt if we do that?" Janet said.

"Nah, we're essentially impervious to anything like that," James said.

The superheroes flew toward the star, and despite its blinding brightness, they had no problem getting close to see if it was evolving into an end time scenario.

"I don't see anything that indicates it's going to go nuts," James said.

"I don't think that's a valid technical term," Sylvia teased.

"Yes, madame scientist," He retorted.

She grinned.

When the superheroes returned to the JPL mission room so soon after they had departed, Jason and Jill had surprised expressions.

"That moon has an intelligent race, but we're not sure how intelligent," Robert said.

"Really?" Jason said.

"Yeah. They look like praying mantises, but they've managed to construct some interesting structures out of a titanium alloy."

"So, the moon has an atmosphere with appreciable oxygen?" Jill said.

"Yes. The atmospheric pressure is probably double that on Earth."

James downloaded the photos they took to the JPL system, which caused people to gather to look at them.

"Oh my!" Jill exclaimed. "I had no idea that you would find this. It's a game changer."

"Yes," Jason said. "It means that there could be many intelligent alien species in our galaxy."

"All this is going to do is make the UFO crazies come out of the woodwork," James said.

They laughed.

"Did the aliens see you?" Jason asked.

"They might have seen us briefly, but we became invisible when we actually went down to the surface."

"I hope you didn't bring back any lifeforms from the planet," Jill said.

"I don't think we did," Robert said. "We flew pretty close to the star to determine if its spectra indicated that it was aging into a red giant. That should have destroyed any lifeforms on us."

"What did you find?" she asked.

"It's not."

"Thank you for helping prove that our new space telescope is able to detect possible habitable planets and moons," Jason said.

"No problem. We're here to help."

With that, the superheroes vanished.

They materialized on the Steris family's patio.

"Do you think it's wise to spy on alien species?" Janet asked.

Robert shrugged. "I don't see how we could harm anything. We didn't actually interact with them."

"We're obeying The Prime Directive," James said.

"We're not Star Fleet," Sylvia said. "We don't have any directive other than to not harm them."

"Our only directive is to save humanity. If it takes some harming, it's okay."

"Up to a point," Robert said. "Our actions are being judged. The success of the experiment depends upon what we do."

"Are those actions for which we're being judged both ethical and moral?" Janet asked.

"That's a very good question," Robert replied. "The difference between those two concepts is subtle. Ethics is a moral philosophy. It concentrates on the choice between good and evil. Morals are more associated with religious beliefs."

"Since we're dealing with God wouldn't that make morals more important?" Janet asked.

"Yes, as long as we don't try to understand God by using religion, which has distorted the understanding of morals."

"How can you ascribe to that when we go to mass every week?"

"Mass involves worship, which is accepting God as our creator and savior. It has nothing to do with morals."

"Especially in our case," Sylvia added. "We are not in the same belief system that normal humans are. We are controlled by angels who look out for us."

Robert smiled. "Yes, and they are tough masters."

They all agreed to that.