The ship Interstellar Traveller darted through the empty void, with blasts of energy shooting out of its rear and warming the surrounding nothingness. The crew was enjoying leisure as no foreseeable mission occupied their charts.

A telescope aimed at a planet that was rapidly coming closer. Or rather, they were moving towards it. The ship ignited the reverse thrusters and gradually came to a halt. Having nothing else to do, observing planets was the crew's favourite pastime. They called themselves- the IMG, which stood for: Interstellar Missions Group. Having come into business only a month ago, few knew about their existence. But their name was spreading (they operated under the Galactic Patrol after all) and it was presumed by them that a mission would arrive soon. Their first ever mission.

It was exciting yet boring at the same time. Until and unless there was a mission, they had nothing else to do, which meant: no mission, no payment.

The robots aboard took turns and observed the planet through the telescope. It was big, green and active. Probably less developed forms of life inhabited the planet.

"I see strings form over the western region. What could they possibly be?" B.O.5 rotated his head and asked Sierra. She was lost in her thoughts when the sudden grainy voice stung her. It broke her out of her stance.

"Huh? What?" she looked at him, confused. Her hair was messy, as always.

"See for yourself", he made way for her to see through, his tyres rolling in reverse.

Looking through the eyepiece she said, "Oh it is rain." She mentally smiled but simultaneously sadness crept in too. She had never 'felt' rain. She had read about it in history books where Earth, the planet she genetically belonged to, was annually washed by it. It gave life to the barren lifeless areas and the humans danced under it enjoying every drop as each glided over their bodies.

"That doesn't match any entry in my memory." B.O.5 displayed an empty bucket in his facial display.

"That's because it is the first time you are in space." She looked around the planet to see small nebulae. "You'll have new experiences like this all the time. It's the first time after a month of blind travelling that we have come across a habitable planet. All the others were mostly gas giants."

"Tell me more about it." B.O.5 made a smiley face.

"You can just search it in the Universal Web but okay. I can tell-" she was interrupted by a ping.

"Results obtained," B.O.5 said with a high pitch.

Sierra sighed. They were all the same. Their conscious personalities were only a pretension set up by codes and wires. They did not have a heart. A heart through which they could feel. A heart that was capable of generating emotions and to understand feelings. They were all only tin cans at the base. Nothing else than that empty bucket.

"Good. So now you know? Then you may give your brother his turn now," she looked at B.O.8 at her back.

She got up and exited the room as the sliding doors shut behind her automatically. It was a dream-come-true experience for her to get a job like this but so far...she was not enjoying it at all. Going on tour to see planets was just a child's excursion which almost any good school across the galaxy provided. She wanted an adventure.

Stopping in the hallway she took a look at the planet again. She really wanted to get down there and dance in the rain. After all, she always wanted to experience it. But few planets rained water. Her eyes shot open as a question struck her head. Was it really water that was pouring there? Markus would know. He must be with Jayden.

Markus was the astrobiologist they had hired. He was a pretty cool guy. His actions always managed to put a smile on each of the group's faces.

Jayden, on the other hand, was her childhood friend. They had applied for the job together. It was their childhood dream. They had worked hard on training and thus were perfectly qualified to enter. I haven't seen him much today. I wonder what the both of them are doing.

She arrived at the control room to whose side was the observational room. They must be here...

She opened the door to find them both, fiddling with the computers. The holographic screens enrobed their faces with a tint of blue.

She smiled. Two knocks on the door drew the duo's attention. "Hey, Sierra! What's up?" Markus said with a smile as he stood up.

"Hi Markus! I was just wandering around." She swayed on her feet in excitement. "So what are you guys doing?" she pulled a chair and sat beside Markus.

"Well, we were trying to obtain data on that planet," Jayden pointed towards the green monstrosity, "but the atmosphere is getting in the way." He ran his hand through his hair and looked at her. "Jeez, your hair looks like somebody drooled on it." He laughed. Markus chuckled from his side.

Her face reddened and she looked away. "I-I forgot to comb it after I awoke. B-but that's not what we are talking about!"

"Yeah right." Markus turned away and looked at the planet outside. He then surfed through the data on the screen. "This planet is much bigger than the other habitable planets I have seen. It is easily a superearth class. The surface gravity is immense." He then looked at Sierra's face. "You sound interested. What's up?"

"Well, I wanted to know if that is water or not," she pointed towards the edge of the western hemisphere where clouds had formed and a clear liquid was pouring like threads.

"Uh...no. Though we weren't able to get any surface details, we do know about that. The chemical signature suggests it's some kind of organic acid." Markus said, enlarging a file on the monitor with the tip of his fingertips.

Her shoulders dropped.

"Why?" Markus said after a few moments.

"It's nothing." She looked away.

"Of course it's not. Tell me," Jayden looked into her eyes in a way that she felt like he was gazing inside at her soul.

"I wanted to dance in the rain..." she murmured.

"Phff!" He caught his breath but then it erupted into a loud "Ha ha ha ha ha!" Markus followed in a similar way though not as loud as him.

Markus somehow managed between laughs, "Honey that's a highly lethal acid. You'll burn and melt in a second before you even attempt to move a muscle to make a dance move. You better dance in the shower." Both of them started slapping the armrests as laughter echoed throughout the room.

"Oh shut up!" she hastily got up and was about to leave the room when a notification ping stopped her. "Analysis confirmed."

The two boys regained their composure for only a moment, when they sunk their heads into the screen and gasped.

"What is it?" Sierra said with annoyance in her tone.

They both looked at her with surprise clearly etched on their faces as they said in unison, "The planet is alive!"

_________

Sir Sanduo came running into the observational room. He was the head of the IMG. "What do you mean by 'it is alive'?" he said, panting.

"Those are not the readings of any seismic activity we detected. They are rhythmic. To be fair," Jayden looked with a serious face at Sir Sanduo, "those are beats. Heartbeats."

"The system found a clear area where the climate was moderate and it carried out our analysis through that region. The heartbeats are so strong that the planet deflected almost a kilometre from its initial position before coming back to where it was. It is rapidly doing so but we can't make it out by our naked eyes," Markus said with a deep voice as he eyed the readings again.

"There seem to be volcano-like structures present through which other organic acids and organic stuff come out. They are scattered throughout the planet." Markus finished.

"This will be a great discovery if we can collect enough information. But..." Jayden stopped.

"But what?" Sierra frowned, her voice trembling a little.

"We have to land to find out more. And... it's too dangerous to land there! The planet may attack us! We don't know what kind of consciousness it has developed! And those acids are mixed with the atmosphere too in forms of vapour. If by any chance we inhale it... we'll die on the spot," Jayden said with caution.

"That's true. But exploring and getting more information on it will be a good source of income!" Markus' eyes shone.

"We'll have to see-", another ping alarmed them. But this one came from the control room.

They all left the observation room and traversed the length of the hallway to enter control room and see a message had arrived. Sanduo played it and everyone seated themselves as the recording began, " Okay. I hope you are getting this. This is a message from the planet Remanisis, universal name- 78PF. We are being attacked by unknown forces as you can see-" the girl in the video pointed the camera towards her back and
laser-like rays of fire (only much thicker) could be seen. The group watched in awe as the video continued, "If you can reply back, maybe we can somehow contain this, I think."

"Wh-what! That planet is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud!" Sanduo shouted. "This message must be really old-" he stopped midway before completing the sentence. Everybody understood why. They had formed just a month ago and few knew about their existence so there was no way that a being of some planet being more than one and a half hundred thousand light years away could know about them. Light itself took, by definition, a half hundred thousand years to travel so how could information propagate any faster?

"This message is fake!" Jayden barked.

"No it's not." The girl replied.

The group stared blankly at the screen. It is live?!

"It would take too long to explain so it'll be better if you come down."

What?! They were all awestruck when they found their ship had come directly in front of Remanisis.

"This can't be real." Jayden and Markus said in unison, disbelief eminent in their tone.

But whatever the situation might be, one thing was clear.

The IMG had got it.

Their first ever mission.