Illiya - Taylor Neeran Chronicles #1

Chapter 6 - Arrival

Prepare for landing

"How's it looking?" asked Susan, resting her hand on the edge of Carla's console.

Carla leaned in slightly towards the captain and pointed at one of the screens. "Low-level overflights are almost complete, captain. Four light drones were lost, but we received good data before they stopped transmitting."

"Reason for loss?" Susan raised an eyebrow. Drones got lost or damaged all the time, but it was always good to know why before committing to a landing.

Carla typed a short string of characters onto a virtual keyboard on the edge of the console, staccato-quick - the consummate professional. "We set them on pre-programmed circuits, trying to maximise the coverage of the planet, but with limited collision avoidance radar. They know how to avoid large objects, but they do hit the occasional tall tree. Sometimes they can fall prey to a local raptor variant species."

Susan raised an eyebrow. "Any of those?" Some species could be quite large, and could pose a significant threat to a ground party.

Carla shook her head. "No large aviary variants to be seen. Looks like they were mostly tree strikes, and two failed on their fourth circuit. Possible lightning strikes on the far side, there are some big storms over there at present."

"Any identifiable predators?" asked Susan.

"Not that showed up on the scans," Carla shook her head. "Of course, there is a lot of tree cover and they could be hiding. The drones make some noise."

"Thanks, Carla," Susan nodded. She stood up and looked over at Trent on the far console. "Have you picked a place to land yet, Trent?"

Trent nodded. "If it were up to me, I would land on the larger continent on the other side of the planet. However, we have picked up a large metallic mass on the continent right below us, which could be the other survey ship. Therefore I suggest that we land there and have a look, as the size and apparent mass are about right. No response when we try to hail it's systems though. Whatever happened to it, the long-life emergency backup batteries must have failed."

Susan glanced up at the view screen. "Bring it up."

Trent obliged, and a close-up of the area appeared on the view screen. It was covered in a wild tangle of green. No ship was visible, but a large green-covered mound might be the other ship. A hundred and thirty years of growth could hide even a destroyer, and they had no figures on plant growth rates here. Easy enough to make a small survey ship disappear. A red outline appeared on the screen, showing the rough shape of their ship, superimposed on the green. "I recommend that we land there, about a kilometre from the other ship. Geology is stable, aspect is good, only two degrees off the horizontal plane. We'll destroy a lot of vegetation no matter where we land - but there's a rough clearing close by. Too bad there's no desert or much in the way of grasslands, that would make for a much cleaner landing."

Susan looked at the screen and shook her head. "There's not much choice, really. Let's hope we don't annoy anyone by wrecking their front garden. Everyone buckle up, we're going to initiate de-orbit procedures in ten minutes."

Landing

Taylor had strapped into a bunk for landing. Squilm lay on her chest, asleep. Designed for a crew of six, there was nowhere for her to sit for landing manoeuvres, and she had declined Carla's polite offer to put her in a cryo pod for the landing, although Carla insisted it was safer. However, there was no guarantee Taylor would be woken up after the landing. Besides, she didn't want to miss it - her first atmospheric insertion on a new planet. There was no landing shuttle; the whole ship was going down to the surface of the planet. She watched their progress on a small screen set into the bottom of the bunk above her.