3 Mission Pretty Possible

Chapter Three Mission Pretty Possible "Finn! You're alive!" shouted Vale as he ran down the hall. Finn had just taken his first step out of his compartment. "Yep!" said Finn. "Four weeks, three days, seven hours, thirty-five minutes, and let's call it an even thirty seconds since I was quarantined." "Sorry I called your mom a snot monster!" said Vale. "What was that, Vale?" said Captain Caspian, following Finn out into the hall. "Um," said Vale. "I said, I'm sorry I called your mom not-a-monster. Finn was calling you a snot monster. Right, Finn? And then I was saying, 'no, she's not a monster.' That may have sounded like 'snot monster,' but it was 'snot a monster.'" "So if you were defending me, why were you apologizing?" said Captain Caspian. She smiled at

Finn. She knew that she made Vale nervous, and she was enjoying this. "I wasn't!" said Vale. Sweat rained off his forehead. "I wasn't saying, 'I'm sorry,' like, 'my mistake.' I was saying, 'I'm sorry,' like, 'No way. Nuh-uh, Finn Caspian. Excuse me? I'm sorry, you are NOT going to call your mother a snot monster in front of me! I'm sorry, but that is not okay.'" Captain Caspian was laughing hard enough now that Vale realized she was just joking with him. "Oh, I see," said Vale. "You guys get locked up together for a month and all you do is plan a joke on me?" "Vale!!" Foggy came bounding out of the compartment. "Ah, my dear old friend, Vale! Oh, how I've missed you!" He picked up Vale in a bear hug.

"Thanks?" said Vale. "Finally someone misses me. And it's the weird robot who saw me yesterday." "We all missed you, Vale," said Captain Caspian. "And I'll miss you even more when you go out on your new mission!" "What?" asked Finn. "Really?!" "Yes," she said. "While we've all been cooped up for the last few weeks, I've been planning the next Explorers Troop 301 mission. Vale, why don't you go get Elias and Abigail and tell them to meet us in the map room. Finn, you and Foggy come with me." Vale ran off to get them.

"Finn, I want to talk to you before the others arrive," said Captain Caspian. "I hope you'll take this mission seriously." "I take every mission seriously, Mom," said Finn. "I know, but this one is especially for you," she said. Finn tilted his head. "What do you—" "Here are the sickos!" Vale yelled as he ran in with Abigail and Elias. "I missed you guys!" Finn hugged them both. "No germs, I promise." "Just your usual germs, you mean," said Abigail. Everyone got quiet. That's what it was like in the map room. Something about the place made the explorers feel like they should be subdued. The room was round, dark, and had a domed ceiling. On the walls were maps of planets Marlowe explorers had ventured to in the past. In the center of the room a projector rose out of the floor. It shone a giant map of Galaxy Fishbone on the ceiling. (The Marlowe had long since run out of names for all the galaxies they visited, so Paige got to name this one.) At the center of the map

was a bright red star. About fifteen planets surrounded it. They were all different colors. "It's incredible," said Abigail. "It is," said Captain Caspian. Captain Caspian pressed a button on the console in front of the projector, and fourteen planets shrunk away. The image of a blue world, seven planets from the star, grew on the ceiling. "That's it," said Captain Caspian. "That's where you'll be going." "What is it?" asked Elias. "We don't know the name, but we do know that it seems peaceful," she said. "There's no reason to think anything down there would want to hurt us." She had said this to them before. And every time she said it, she'd been wrong.

"Anything?" said Elias. "I thought we tried not to call aliens 'things' because it made them seem like objects." "You're right," said Captain Caspian. "But those aren't aliens living down there. They're robots." "Robots?" said Foggy. "Yes," said Captain Caspian. "Only robots?" asked Foggy.