Children Of Gaia

Chapter 4: PLW-742256R

The Hyperion had at last entered the outer reaches of PLW-742256R's system. The Shroud generator was deactivated, the Beringer's Shroud dissipated instantly and the Hyperion began its approach now crawling at sub-light speed.

PLW-742256R was the smallest of the four planets within the system, the other three were large gas giants, each easily 30% larger than Jupiter. In high orbit, the Hyperion's crew began their preliminary observations. At roughly half the size of Earth, the surface of PLW-742256R was approximately 62% water, with some of it set as small ice caps trapped at the magnetic poles. The Colonel promptly informed the crew that the Hyperion had arrived and was now maintaining a high orbit, an announcement that Shyfer desperately wanted to make himself but the Colonel would never give away such rare privilege. The Colonel's announcement incited mass hysteria as the entire crew rushed to the starboard side to lay eyes on their collective goal first hand. The long-range probe data certainly didn't do the new world justice. The planet glowed of iridescent green and blue like a shimmering opal in the vast nothingness that consumed it, an obvious beacon in the form of a rock gifted with the ability to support life.

In one of the starboard common rooms for non-military personnel, Felix and Maddison had their first glimpse of the new world.

"Wow, just look at all that green. It looks so much like Earth, well more so ancient Earth," declared Maddison in wonder as her breath fogged up the view-port. She sat back down with Felix. "Looks to me, like a single mega-continent," she added.

"It is," chimed in Dr Alfred Gorelli, a geologist who was sitting on the other side of Felix. "But there are also tens of thousands of small island chains scattered along the coastlines. The largest scanned so far is no more than 5 kilometres in length," he added. "Mind you, given there is such an abundance of photosynthesising life, the chances of animal life being present also is quite high. Good news for you guys I guess," Alfred snorted as he chuckled.

"I'd wager it's quite primitive," said Felix finally weighing in, "who knows Maddie, we might even get to dissect a dinosaur," he laughed.

Alfred nodded silently to himself pondering that it could very well be possible.

"You're such a goof," grunted Maddison as she attempted halfheartedly to push Felix off his chair.

As the Hyperion descended slowly into the upper atmosphere, a trio of UAV's were launched to acquire the next stage of preliminary data. Within minutes the good news started to come through, much to the approval of the Hyperion's chain of command. The UAV data had an accurate analysis and breakdown of the atmospheric composition from various altitudes. Most importantly, at sea-level, it was 73% Nitrogen, 26% Oxygen and the final 1% as mostly Argon with nothing sinister to concern humans in the remainder. The UAV scans confirmed the presence of multiple life signs, but no sign of any civilisations, energy signatures or advanced life beyond the herding creatures seen grazing in open fields.

***

As protocol dictated, and derived directly from the mandates themselves, it would take several weeks to scan the majority of the surface properly, utilising dozens of UAV's for any signs of sentient life. Major Sova was well aware of this and yet, due to his impatience or perhaps a quest for glory and praise, he urged his staff to pressure the engineers into narrowing the scanning field parameters in an attempt to speed up the process tenfold. Sova waited two weeks as the scans filtered through only a minute fraction of the surface with no significant findings, then finalised his rather lacking preliminary report for the Colonel to sign off on. Sova knew full well that the Colonel had little interest in the elaborate facts and figures of the report and would only skim towards the conclusion for the summary of findings.