Solar Warden

Icarus Part 10

The General was greeting all and congratulating the Captain for his successful mission. There were also the seven leaders of the SW teams here. Two of them were from the Icarus, the others from the Moon base. That meant SW teams of the ship were now replaced by the five new. The team leader by the look could come from different cultures. Ryan did not know all of them, yet, except from short discussions. But that didn't matter. They had a long journey to grow together.

"Before I begin with the next mission briefing a short recap of your mission would be good Captain Fisher," the General suggested.

"Sure, our first journey verified the reliability of our ship, the navigation system and the hyperdrive. We could reach the selected star as planned and scanned it. There was no planet in the circumstellar habitable zone. But a barren stone planet where we took some samples while we tested some hyperdrive short jumps. This maneuvers worked as expected and the landing team had also no problems with the suits in a not breathable atmosphere. We stayed in the system for three days to gather data and then started the journey home." Captain Fisher was done with his report.

"Good. Now our objective has changed a bit. With the discoveries made by Dr. Samuel Archer's algorithm. He is now a member of SW-5, Major Ryan's team. We have a probable origin of our hyperdrive technology. So your next mission will be to investigate this. As we cannot assume the aliens will be friendly. I suggest a cautious approach. The main objective is to gain intel but to avoid any threat of returning the intel to us. This does not mean you cannot scout the planet. But keep the Icarus safe and support the operation team as much as you can. There is no need to hurry. Therefore, you try and train on a nearby star system your approach proceedings and scanning methods. As we have no long range communication you are on your own for this. So you have to make all the decisions for the proceedings by your own. As the travel to your destination would take about a month. We expect you at your destination in two months. So use your detour well. You have two weeks there for testing and planning." General Wells was finished with the mission description. On the screen behind him was a star map showing the route and marking Earth including the other two stars with their cryptic name number.

"Sir, as most of our teams consist of special forces not having expertise in first contact situations like this. In which cases we should proceed a landing operation?" Commander Knight of SW-1 asked.

"That's a good question. If you meet up a civilization you won't proceed at all. In this case your scientists will try to decrypt communication and you just gather as much sensor data you can and return. Else if there is not much found you scan every surface of a planet and decide how you can proceed. If there is a habitable planet you may go down and take probes of course. For that you also have now more experts in biology. Also if you find minor signs of intelligent life, you have to judge for yourselves how much you can risk. Keep in mind if there is someone it would be useful to know what kind of threat they are. For that kind of reconnaissance operations, you are trained," the General replied.

"Affirmative," Knight replied.

"Good, I think all is said and things have to be decided when we are there." Captain Fisher had his orders and was fine with it.

"Then I can only wish you good luck and keep out of trouble. Dismissed," the general finished the meeting.