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"Yes, you, there," Jillian said, pointing at Yasmine as if she simply chose one of the reporters in the room.
To her credit, Yasmine did a great show of looking around and making sure that Jillian truly meant her. Then she got up, smiling gratefully for the opportunity to be one of the reporters allowed to ask questions. It was all Ava could do to suppress a chuckle. She was pretty sure that Lilith, who was standing back at the wall, was rolling her eyes.
"Yasmine Amunet, The Independent," Yasmine said, her tone neutral, though some awe shining through in it, in a way that would have seemed completely natural to anyone who did not know Yasmine as well as Ava did. Ava was quite impressed by it, until Yasmine looked directly at her. Not that she hadn't expected it, but the intensity still took her aback. "Miss Silva, what do you say to the people who think you are too young for a mission like this?"
A murmur went through the room, the other journalists all looking various amounts of shocked by that frank question, but also very curious. Ava was pretty sure they all would have asked the same question if they had the guts. As it was, Jillian had arranged for Yasmine to be here and ask that question to make sure that it was addressed. After all, it was the elephant in the room, something that could still hurt the whole mission if TrentCorp decided to side with those who thought Ava was a bad pick and pressured Jillian to replace her. There had been rumours that they might want to if it wasn't addressed publicly.
So they were here to make sure that happened. After all, having good press was one of the most important factors of their success. TrentCorp wanted publicity more than anything else and for them to partner with ArqTech, despite their differences in moral leanings, that publicity had to be flawless. Ava took a deep breath and put a sweet smile on her face that she hoped did not look utterly fake. She stopped herself from looking around at either Beatrice, Camila or Jillian, knowing she had to do this on her own.
Telling herself that she could do it, that they had practiced it often enough, Ava took a deep breath and adjusted her smile to hopefully be the exact right level of polite but also a little cheeky.
"Well, I'll tell them what I always tell everyone who underestimates me. One, I look very young for my age," Ava said, nearly giggling when she thought about how much that was true. After all, she had celebrated her one hundred and fiftieth birthday just last month. Not that these people here knew that. Of course. For them, Ava was thirty-five and one of the youngest astronauts currently preparing to go on this one year mission. Suppressing a sigh, Ava continued, now turning very serious. "And two, if they want me to talk them through my PhD, they are very welcome. Though generally, I lose them after citing the title."
That got her a few laughs, Yasmine chuckling and nodding. She looked at Ava with a proud smile when she sat back down. Jillian called the next reporter, who thankfully asked her something Ava had little to do with. Discreetly, she looked at Camila and Beatrice, who both smiled at her encouragingly. Taking a deep breath, Ava leaned back, telling herself that she just needed to be calm. They had planned this really well, it would all be fine. Apart from everyone thinking Ava was too young for this job, which really was laughable.
So, okay, Ava did not look thirty-five, but that 's what happened when one was only nineteen when one died for the first time. Except for Beatrice of course. She had been the same age as Ava but somehow, she had been blessed with far less of a baby face. Ava chuckled to herself. It wasn't like she could do anything about it. Or rather, she didn't care to do anything about it. This day and age, nobody truly cared anyways, they just wanted to make sure it stayed that way.
The mission was too important for anyone to question any part of it. After all, Ava, Beatrice and Camila would spend a year in space. Or more accurately, on Tennara, one of the Earth like planets in the Milky way galaxy that humans had started to inhabit. Ava had previously been on Mars, on one of the earliest missions, as had Camila. Not that this was public knowledge, Camila having done a great job of erasing any footage of them and making sure their names were altered, so nobody suspected that they had been going on space exploration missions already for over a century.
As for Jillian and Arq-Tech, she mostly just posed as her own descendant, every twenty or thirty years completely changing her style and also relying on Camila to heavily alter or erase footage. The others generally simply stayed out of the spotlight. But right now, they had to do this publicly because TrentCorp was doing something shady out there in space and they needed to find out what and hopefully stop it, before more people got hurt. Fortunately, Arq-Tech was in a position to do so.
Unfortunately, this meant to leave Earth for a full year. Ava was both very excited and a little anxious about the prospect of leaving her family behind and travelling so far, for so long. Not that she hadn't spent long times away from them, but never this far away. Though, Beatrice and Camila would come with her, which made her feel a lot better about it. Shannon would also be there, though she was already on a different mission, having spent the last five years embedding herself in TrentCorp.
Ava knew Shannon and Mary missed each other, just like Lilith and Camila would. But she also knew that herself and Beatrice had once been apart for nearly three years and they had been fine. Especially now, with technology making it a lot easier to see each other despite being apart. Ava couldn't really imagine how it had been for Mary and Shannon three hundred years ago, or Jillian and Suzanne a thousand years ago. It sounded weird to her, to only be able to sent letters to a loved one, that might or might not get to the person you wanted them to get to.
Back then, travelling to the nearest town had meant being out of contact for weeks. Now, they were travelling to a far away planet and would still keep in contact non-stop. It was pretty cool. And necessary, if there truly was some big conspiracy going on, they could expose it without too much danger. Ava knew that Jillian was already planning another expedition, fully ready to send backup when things got to dangerous. Which they all expected to happen, but for now, they were still going on the assumption that whatever TrentCorp was doing up there, the four of them could handle it.
After all, being immortal had it's perks. The vacuum of space was far less dangerous when it wasn't a final death sentence. Ava chuckled to herself, only to be surprised when the reporters all got up, realizing she had completely gotten lost in her thoughts and missed the entire rest of the press conference. But apart from Jillian glaring at Ava without much heat and with an infinitesimal smile playing on her lips, Camila grinning at Ava knowingly and Beatrice chuckling a little, nobody reacted to Ava zoning out. Which made Ava hopeful that nobody had noticed it.
Well, other than Yasmine of course, who gave Ava a discreet but knowing nod before she left the room with the other reporters. Laughing quietly, Ava also got up with Beatrice, Camila and Jillian, who sighed.
"Alright, that went well I guess." Jillian gestured for them all to follow her. Suzanne, Mary and Lilith were waiting for them in their private room right next to the press room. Jillian smiled at them. "We're all set." Turning back to Camila, Beatrice and Ava, Jillian looked at them very seriously. "If all goes to plan, and I hope it will, tomorrow at this time, you'll already be on your way to Tennara. Right now, get some sleep, make sure you're ready, say your goodbyes. You got this."
Ava and the others nodded grimly. Looking at the model of the spaceship Jillian had Arq-Tech design and build, Ava felt butterflies in her stomach. This was truly real. Tomorrow, they would climb into that ship and fly into space to find out what was happening on that planet, where TrentCorp shipped prisoners and other undesirables by the hundreds. Those that returned were altered irrevocable. Shannon had not been able to tell them much for fear of breaking her cover, only having been able to send sporadic signs of life in the messages she was allowed to send her family on Earth.
But what Shannon had been able to send in coded messages was terrifying. Tight security, no contact with the prisoners. Experiments everyone only talked about in hushed tones. Barely a way to get off the planet or even to send messages conveying truthfully what was happening. In short, whatever was going on up there, it was enough to scare them all. They could only hope that with their combined expertise and abilities to fight, they'd be able to shut down the entire operation before it hurt more people. Ava certainly would do everything in her power to help with that. Though, if she was quite honest, being able to fly to a planet even further than Mars was also very cool in its own right. It was certainly something she had never thought she would do when she had died her first death a hundred and thirty years ago.
Though, there were many things she hadn't expected she'd ever be able to do back then. And now she was able to do all of them, while also having a family that unconditionally supported her. It truly was a miracle.