[center][h2][b]Science Lab[/b][/h2][/center]

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The man hummed lightly. “Well, I am no expert on piloting, but I believe that may have had something to do with the missiles.” 

With a brief laugh, the man shifted somewhat in his seat. He seemed to consider standing for a moment, but with a glance down to his leg had second thoughts. “Dr. Edward Fortin.” He extended a hand, offering to shake hers. “I take it you haven’t been fully briefed? I suppose I’ll give you the short version. We weren’t ready for takeoff, but there was an attack. We don’t know who was responsible, but it was like special forces started storming the facility. The Captain made the decision to let any civilians nearby onboard and launch then and there. From my understanding, a missile struck just before they activated the FTL drive. They didn’t intend to leave the solar system, or even the atmosphere. Just a quick jump to get us out of there, but…something happened. I won’t be so irresponsible as to wildly speculate on exactly what, but I can say what situation we are in now. We’re not on Earth. We don’t know where we are, exactly, but we are on a planet that is [i]not[/i] in our solar system. The transition from there to here seemed almost instant, even though the ship should have had considerable travel time between solar systems. The crash was rough, to put it mildly. I got away with just a broken leg, but not everyone was so lucky. The planet is habitable. [i]Inhabited[/i], in fact. Multiple intelligent species exist on this planet, and have already made contact. They seem primitive, but…we have observed some phenomena we cannot explain.”