Flying off towards Earth, Adrian and his crew peacefully relaxed back into their normal routine. They had been worrying a lot over the fact they lost communication with Earth for a while, but after learning that it wasn't just them, they felt a little more relieved.
"How far from the closest planet?" Adrian asked, leaning over to his left in his seat as he rested his cheek against his fist, "I want to make a stop for the original mission."
"Not far," Aria replied, glancing onto the screen, "I'd say we would get there in a few hours."
Nodding, Adrian stood up from his seat and exited the bridge and made his way down to communications, alone. The ship was very silent, barely any noise, even from the engines, could be heard as each crew member stuck to what they were told to do. Adrian, reaching communications, sat down and tried to get in contact with Earth once again, double-checking that it wasn't the distance that was causing the issue.
"Do you not trust me?" Jumping a little, Adrian turned back around to witness Darius leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest.
"It's not that." He said, "I was just double-checking."
Raising an eyebrow, Darius slung himself against the back of Adrian's seat, leaning forwards into the comms board, he said, "do you want to try again?"
Thrusting himself back, Adrian sighed, "what's the point after five tries? Clearly, we might still be too far from Earth."
"Not that." He shook his head, "I mean them. It didn't seem like the Janus crew contacted them either."
Realising what Darius was on about, he nodded and gave it a shot. After a couple of minutes, he sighed once again as the static response replayed itself over and over again.
"You don't think they got so far from Earth that we can't reach them?" He asked, "or maybe they've got communication issues too."
Darius pushed himself off the chair and against the wall, "we'd just have to hope that's the case."
While the two continued to converse about various things, from their mission to theories on what could be causing the communication issues. It hadn't even been more than ten minutes before they heard Aria's voice through the ship's speakers calling the two back to the bridge. Darius and Adrian made their way up from the communications room towards the bridge on the top floor and swiftly took their seats.
"What's up, Aria?" Adrian asked, not witnessing anything unusual.
She spun around in her seat to face him, "nothing is concrete yet, but Skylar and I got a sense that something wasn't right on the Janus ship. It seemed like the crew was hiding something."
Spreading across his face was the expression of interest, he didn't pick up on anything himself when they boarded the other ship, but normally when Aria or Skylar got a sense of something different they are normally right. He kept silent for a moment, allowing either Aria or Skylar to further explain themselves and their concerns as they made their way towards the closest planet.
"It wasn't anything big," Skylar added, "however, I did find their arguments for us to remain on our ship rather... Strange."
She did provide a valid point that Adrian couldn't entirely void, but he decided to keep the concern in the back of his mind, at least, until they met again, "alright, moving on from that, how far from the planet are we?"
The two girls nodded and spun back around, checking on the distance from the planet and their ship. After a few calculations and checking the ship is still working as normal, they replied, "30 minutes."
"Right." He said, leaning to his left as he rested his cheek in the palm of his hand, "Darius, got anything about the planet?"
"Visually?" He began, "nothing much. I highly doubt it's safe for us to go on without our suits though."
Nodding, Adrian stood up and made his way out of the bridge, "I'll check that the suits are all ready and prepped."
Exiting the bridge alone, Adrian made his way down from the top floor of the ship to the middle through the spiral staircase, and then towards the airlock where they kept the suits. Within the metal-plated corridors, silence was Adrian's only companion. With everyone else up in the bridge, Adrian could hear everything surrounding him from the smallest sounds that echoed from the engine to the slightest shift in boxes from the medical bay a little further ahead of him.
As he eyed the suits, ensuring that they were all safe and prepped for use, a sudden clash erupted from the tech room not too far from him. Curious as to what it was, he carefully made his way over to the tech room, hoping that it wasn't some sort of space pirate or unwanted guest that has finally revealed itself. Abruptly spinning around to face inside the room, he noticed how some things were shifted but not by a lot. He kept a mental note as to what was there and where it was, checking to see if anything was stolen.
"Nothing, huh?" He said, confused, his eyes glancing about the room as he double-checked his thoughts, "perhaps it was nothing?"
Remaining in the same spot for a second longer, double-checking his suspicions, he decided that he was just hearing things and left the tech room to head up to the bridge as they would be landing soon. As soon as he arrived, he decided to, at least, let his crewmates know about the noise he heard earlier.
"Did any of you hear any noises?" He asked as he took his seat, ready for landing.
A puzzled expression landed on the crew's faces as they all shook their heads, unsure as to what Adrian was talking about.
"Why?" Aria asked, "did you hear something strange?"
He pondered further about it, wondering whether or not it was really anything at all or if it was even all that important. Deciding that it wasn't, he briefly answered Aria's question before they moved on and landed on the new planet.