After They finished their dinner, Kita and Helen moved to their living room. They began reading their respective reports on different matters.
"What do you think we'll find down there?", Kita asked Helen. As a Exo-planet expert, she was highly qualified for this question.
"Well, According to data, There's Liquid water at least. And there may also be land. Whether it's under water or not that's the question. Our scans aren't able to penetrate the Cap.", Helen replied.
"What about any plants? Any chance there's any plants?"
"Probably not. Nothing can survive the temperatures that these planets reach on a regular basis. Even if there were plants once, everything has long been destroyed."
"Hmm, So no flora or fauna, What the hell did they wanted to do with the planets?"
"We'll only know after reaching them. There's simply no other way to know."
They soon finished their conversation and moved to their Bedroom. It was a pretty long day for both of them. They soon fell asleep in each other's embrace.
—
The next day, It was a busy time for everyone. Dr. Kbom got the permission for the investigation of the 4 planets. Although everyone knew that he'd probably get the permissions anyway, but there was always a chance that it might get rejected. Once everything was in place. The Shore began to move towards the 1st planet in it's path. Although it'd still take several hours before they could reach orbit of the 1st planet.
NEX2320 was a huge star system and it's too stars orbited quite far away from each other. They shared a common center of orbit. It helped that the 4 planets were quite close to each other as they were almost lining up straight. Once they reached the 1st planet, the others were pretty close by.
On the Deck the captain and the crew was busy planning out their path and the mission specifics.
"What's the ETA on out arrival?", The captain asked.
"18 hours till we reach orbit of the 1st Planet."
"How are the preparations going?"
"The Shuttles are being loaded as we speak, They'll be ready within 8 hours. The Crew are making the final preparations."
"Good, Keep me updated. I want to know any unplanned developments."
"Yes sir."
The Bridge of the shore was pretty busy, Everyone was busy making sure that the upcoming mission didn't end up in a disaster. This was a critical mission and failure wasn't an option. Everything needed to go right. Otherwise they risked jeopardizing the main mission. And the higher-ups made it very very clear. The Main mission took priority over anything that they may find on the 4 planets.
Dr. Helen soon arrived at the bridge, As the leader of the expeditionary team, She wanted to go to the surface along with the 1st shuttles. But Dr. Kita's Explicit order stopped her from doing so. It was for the best. As Dr. Helen had a record on getting herself into danger as soon as she was let out of sight.
After she settled on her station on the bridge, she started to plan out the points of interest. These are the potential points where they'll prioritize visiting first. From there on, it was mostly improvise. After making sure the planet was safe to visit, the 2nd round of shuttles would go down carrying the main batch of researchers. Dr. Helen fell among this batch.
The main points of interest was the magnetic poles of the planet and the huge area where a lot of energy seemed to be emitting from. These were the location Dr. Helen wanted to Investigate first.
"What could be creating such massive energy fields on the surface?", Dr. Helen murmured as she read the latest data. This Energy Hot spot was powerful enough to even leak through the thick gas cloud that covered the whole planet. There had to be something going on in the site. Either there were some exotics that were generating such huge amounts of energy spikes, or there had to be something that was purposefully doing something. What exactly? Only one way to know.
"It might be dangerous to go there, make sure the everyone is equipped with the adequate protective vac-suits. I don't want to hear any complains.", Helen commanded the officer standing behind her.
"I'll let them know at once.", The guy said and then moved away.
'The energy readings we're getting through the cloud is too much. The normal vac suits won't be enough.', Helen again murmured.
The Vacuum suit or vac-suit was the current standard equivalent of a space suit. It was used in all things from space walk to traveling on an exo-planet. These vac suits were like an swiss army knife. It was really versatile and could be life-saving in many situations. It was a fully enclosed system that was designed to keep the human inside alive for as long as possible. It came with food and water, With auto waste management. In the time of a crisis, the vac suits could keep someone alive for up to an year!
But the standard vac suits weren't suitable for every situation. Depending on the weather and the situation of the place they're visiting it might be important to switch to a better a higher performance model that was designed to Withstand much greater pressures and be able to resist harsher environment conditions.
Although these high performance models were really expensive compared to the standard models. The value of the life inside the suit was more important. If it's deemed that the standard suits might not be able to withstand the environment conditions then the use of the better models were mandatory.
"I really hope there's something other than an energetic exotic that's producing such energy spikes, Otherwise it's boring."
It was a well known fact that certain exotics produced high energy spikes that could light up spontaneously. While it didn't need an energy source to create such magnificent spikes. But they were a lot less interesting compared to something more exotic. Something more Alien. And that was exactly what Dr. Helen was hoping to find.