The astronaut looked watched the window as the sun and Uranus were flying 'below' them. He was a vet in astronomy, he had four badges and the highest rank was five. From his radio a voice suddenly yelled, "Andrews! Come up here and look at this!"

"I'm coming Charles!" Andrews radioed back.

He floated through the air, pushing off against nearby objects in order to move. He was going down a tunnel. A hole was suspended in the air 'above' him. He pushed off from the wall beside him which rotated him by 180 degrees so that his legs pointed down into the hole. He pushed from the roof and went slowly down the hole. The observation deck was merely a non-solid, beamed, cube with five sides made of glass, as the other one housed the hole.

Charles had called him as he had spotted the destination that was unknown by men, and that no one was ready to face yet. The humble crew of Shainghei, of which there were eight, were the first people to come to the new planet. The planet had been spotted only a month ago. No one knew how it had avoided human eyes for so many millions of years but no one put it into consideration.

With all the planets colonized (besides the gas giants and Venus) it should be easy to spot any extra-terrestrial objects within the solar system.

Charles pointed out the window. He pointed exactly where a small blue dot was, it was about as far as Jupiter is from the sun (or so the scientists estimated).

"Look, only 23,000 miles left to go, it'll only last about a day at the most." Exclaimed Charles, as he had only 2 badges and had been to other planets only once, he did many missions with satellites however. He was originally from Pluto in which he was used to extremely cold weather.

"I'll let the commander know about this," Andrews said.

In the commander's deck Amber was looking at the new message sent from Mars. Amber was a very commanding person, especially for women that were in the same job. Ever though she commanded very strictly she was usually a stoic person, with usually no (appearing) liking for anyone in any mission, it seemed she wouldn't care if anyone died, yet no one had yet died from being under her command.

The electronic door to the room opened and Andrews floated it, upside-down compared to Amber. For people who hadn't been in space talking to people that were upside down was a very strange phenomenon, but the people of Shainghei were all used to it.

"Captain, Charles wanted to let you know that we can now see the planet and we are approximately 23,000 miles away."

"Ok, you may go; I'll check it on my console."

Andrews took out his radio and talked to Charles, "I'm going to cryogenically freeze myself, I'm getting nervous and way too impatient." He proceeded to the room that had eight beds with a glass dome over them, these were the freezing chambers, and the other five people on the ship were here sleeping. Andrews laid down on one and everything went black when the glass closed.

As he woke up so did the other astronauts. He went up to the commander's quarters. "Wow, we're so close." He exclaimed, as they were only a few mile away from the new, blue planet.

"We're slowing down our thrusters, we don't know how many gee's the planet has," replied Amber.

Finally the ship was within reach of the gravity of the planet. Norton, a 3 badge physicist-astronomer, took out a strange machine. "Odd, it has the same gravity as Earth!"

Amber quickly replied, "Good, it'll be easier to land as we know exactly how slow to go. The surface below had many craters and many rocks. The ship moved slowly around surveying for a spot to land safely. Once the commander found the spot she slowly let the thrusters calm down to let them slowly advance to the planet's ground. Landing gear popped out of the bottom of the ship and they all looked out the windows with anticipation.

Andrews was the first to get to the door, he pushed the button that operated it, knowing the secrets of the world now stood just behind this airlock door.

Heh, I love cliffhangers don't you? I got the idea of the end a bit from Rendezvous with Rama. Please Review and tell me what to do better!