“Holy crap, this is insane!” Remy laughed, “Am I going insane? Girl, please tell me you saw all that too and I’m not going crazy. I’m not ready to be the hot psychopathic one just yet. Give me at least another decade first.”

“No, the cameras and everything came back on while they were here,” Giovanni said, “I just watched from them… You’re lucky I’m so chill, any other AI totally would’ve recorded that and sent it to the government by now or something, you guys should be THANKFUL for me! For real.”

“Yeah yeah Gio we know…” Thomas rubbed his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut to combat a newly formed headache. “That was just a lot, give me a minute…”

“You’re telling me? Thomas, this changes everything! This is why every day on this stupid ship has been a living hell, this… god, we basically just met gods. Oh my god Thomas this is unbelievable.”

“Yeah, and now I have to figure out what we do next,” Thomas looked between his two friends, the mood instantly changing. “Guys, this isn’t a warship! I can’t put everyone in danger like this, we can’t keep going on!! Jupiter and Uranus and possibly Saturn are quite literally trying to kill us, we can’t fight that! We're supposed to just be exploring, not fighting the closest equivalent we have to gods!”

“Wait,” Giovanni’s smile disappeared, “You want to turn back now? After… This?”

“I can’t keep all of my friends in danger like this, Giovanni.”

“Woah woah woah, hold up there girlfriend.” Remy interrupted, “You can’t expect us to turn back now, after that?? Thomas, we have three or four magical Planets guarding us, we just made the greatest discovery known to man in the history of forever, and you want us to leave!?! No way!”

“Weren’t you the one who was just trying to convince me that we need to go back to Earth??”

“Joan is fine now! No reason to turn back anymore!”

Thomas froze, “Joan… How am I supposed to tell them about all of this??” He didn’t think about that. “There’s no way I can tell them… Guys, no one in their right mind will believe us if we tell them about this.” 

“Giovanni, did you record it?” Remy suddenly asked.

The AI paused, and then shook his head, “Well, I technically did, but wherever they show up is all blurry. I could hear them, but I couldn’t actually make out their faces. And…” He stopped, looking confused, “Actually, that whole file has been erased. It’s gone.”

Thomas groaned, “Well that takes out that option…”

“We can’t tell anyone. No one can know or they’ll think we’re insane.” Remy hesitantly spoke, “We’re gonna have to keep this between the three of us.”

Thomas sighed. Truthfully, he had known that that was going to have to happen already, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He had already had to hide seeing first Saturn and then Venus from everyone and it was a nightmare! He shared everything with his close friends, especially Joan. He hated lying to them. But Remy was right… He supposed keeping this from the majority of his crew would be easy… with the exception of Joan. They could read him like an open book and would instantly be able to tell something was wrong.

And Thomas wasn’t ever going to be able to tell them the truth. 

“Alright, everyone, let’s make an agreement.” Thomas said, even if he was reluctant to agree to this himself, “We will keep this a secret. We will not tell anyone under any circumstances ever, okay?” He sighed, "At least, not now… maybe if something changes in the future we can tell someone but… as of now, we tell no one, okay?"

Giovanni and Remy both nodded, agreeing instantly.

***

Two days later, Thomas stared at the three individuals in front of him in shock.

“You BOTH told Emile?!??!” Thomas demanded.

“He asked what was wrong!!!”

“You want me to lie to HIM?!?”

“We can’t lie to him!!!! Thomas are you crazy?!?”

Thomas facepalmed, and Emile laughed from his spot besides Remy. 

“So… The Planets are real?” He asked, smiling nervously, “I won’t lie, I did wonder if maybe there was a gas leak of some sort at first, but Giovanni wouldn’t have been affected then.”

Thomas smiled meekly, knowing that if for some reason Emile was messing with them, he was about to look like a complete fool. “Yeah… They are, somehow.”

Emile’s serious demeanor immediately dropped, and he lit up, “Really??? This is amazing!!!” He exclaimed, “Can I meet them?! Oh my this is amazing!! I love the Planets!”

Remy looked confused, “Wait, you’ve heard of them?”

Emile giggled, “Of course! My grandmother was the one who first discovered traces of the myths! She was an archeologist! I grew up with stories of them, guys.”

“Seriously??” Thomas exclaimed, “Emile, tell us everything you know!!!!”

Emile grinned, “I don’t need to do that. You can learn yourself, don’t you know there’s a cartoon about them?” He immediately ran over to his desk, grabbing his tablet and swiftly tapping the screen. Moments later, the first episode of the series popped up. He handed it to Remy, “Of course, there’s some that’s been altered for plot purposes. But my grandma helped work on this project, so it’s pretty accurate. Now, go learn some of the mythology!” 

Thomas and Remy exchanged glances, before both of them burst out laughing. Of course Emile’s family knew all about the Planets and of course Emile knew of an entire cartoon about them. Why had they been so stressed about keeping this a secret? 

"However…." Both paused and turned to their friend, who grinned, "I don't give these to you for free, you have to let me meet them, okay??"

"Well, we don't even know if they'll come back," Thomas admitted slowly, "But if they do-"

"If?? Girl, you saw how Mars and Venus were. Those two were jumping at the chance to come back, we'll see them again!" Remy laughed, and Giovanni nodded in agreement. "There's no chance we've seen the last of them, don't worry about that! You'll meet them, Emile."

He laughed, "Okay, good! I can't wait!!"