One day late in the eighth month of the trip, Garrett was looking up in the cockpit of the ship. He noticed that the panel now displayed that there were only a couple days left until the ship would reach the destination planet. Since Garrett could now read the script on the display screen, he could read that the destination was a habitable planet called Ragol. He had also begun to pick up communications from the planet one day, when there was one day left before the ship was going to arrive in its orbit.
"This is Pioneer Two communications," said someone in the foreign language.
"Who are you?"
"I am part of the communications team aboard Pioneer Two."
"I could guess that much. Then where is this Pioneer Two, we're going to be there in one more day."
"We still haven't established any surface colonies. We're still in orbit."
"What do you mean, 'still in orbit'?"
"We arrived just as you were leaving, and we're still here."
"So you've been up here for over three thousand years?"
"What are you talking about? Is this the Gallea?"
"Is that what this ship is called? Is the Gallea a large delta-wing craft about a thousand feet long?"
"So you are the Gallea. Now what are you talking about? We've only been here five years. You left five years ago."
"Damn shame. I found this ship buried a few hundred feet underground at some ancient ruins."
"What?"
"I don't know. Perhaps there was some kind of time warping on this ship's trip to Earth and they arrived there a few thousand years earlier?"
"Okay. So you aren't the original crew?"
"Negative. There are only two of us. I'm Garrett and my girlfriend Jackie is also here."
"Okay. Do you know how to dock your ship with the docking station on Pioneer Two?"
"Negative. I'm going to have to go down on the surface."
"Okay."
"Do you know any good places to land this?"
"If you land near Pioneer One I can send down a search party to take you up to Pioneer Two."
"So where is Pioneer One?"
"When you see Pioneer Two, it is on the surface below that. It is a large domed structure. Try to land as close to it as possible but don't hit the structure."
"Okay. Land near the dome."
"I have one more bit of helpful information. You will want to watch out for the native wildlife. Everything is highly aggressive. Does the Gallea have an armory aboard?"
"Affirmative. I have armor and arms and I am trained in combat."
"Good. Make sure you take some of those with you. And also bring medical supplies if you have any, because it will be a difficult trip to the main teleporter once you get off the ship."
"Where are the medical supplies?"
"The medical supplies should be found in the main storerooms and storage computers. Look for items ending with the suffixes of 'mate' and 'fluid' and 'atomizer'."
"Okay. I'll make sure to do that."
Garrett went to the storage computer. Sure enough, there were large quantities of Monomates, Monofluids, and Moon Atomizers stored in the computer. Garrett transferred several of each item into the storage device on his armor and did the same thing with Jackie's armor.
Late that day, Garrett went up into the cockpit of the Gallea. He could now spot the planet far in the distance. He glanced down at the panel and noticed that the ship would be arriving in orbit in one hour. Far ahead of the ship, one of the stars could be seen increasing in size. Up until now, the ship's autopilot had steered it clear of every other star. The ship was going at a very high rate of speed currently, but it was going much slower than it had been going for the past time. The star was gradually growing larger, until the ship had passed it. Now ahead of the ship was a small blue planet that appeared similar to Earth. Garrett continued to watch this grow larger. Finally, the Gallea's autopilot set the ship into a high orbit. Garrett then switched off the autopilot and sped the ship down to under five hundred miles per hour. He used the screen on the panel to look up information about Ragol.
Ragol was a planet slightly smaller than Earth. There were three large continents, each one completely separate from the other. The planet had a large continuous ocean that was shallow and scattered with islands. The only habitations that were marked on the electronic map were Pioneer One, which was at an inland location on the largest of the three continents, and land marked for development around Pioneer One.
Garrett brought the ship down to a lower orbit. From here, he was able to activate the ship's radar. A large feature was two hundred miles away in front of the ship. Garrett pulled up to its level and sped up. In fifteen minutes a massive and complicated space station appeared in the distance. Garrett assumed that this was Pioneer Two. He slowed down and coasted by the massive aerial structure. This was several miles in every dimension. Garrett then remembered that the man he had previously spoken with said that Pioneer Two was orbiting above Pioneer One. Jackie was also in the cockpit, so Garrett instructed her to hold onto something. He pulled the joystick hard and flipped the plane upside down. From here, he could see the large Pioneer One dome.
"I see you have arrived," said a voice over the radio.
"Yeah. See you down on the surface."
"I'm not going down, but there are some hunters who will be sent to find you."
"Where do we meet them?"
"I guess if you are close enough to the Pioneer One dome then you can meet them at the main door."
"Where is the main door?"
"The main door is at ground level. It's a very large door."
"Okay. See you there, chief."
"I'm not a chief."
"It's a phrase where I come from."
"Oh."
Garrett, with the ship still inverted, pulled into a quick half loop and went into a slow descending helix. He waited until he was one thousand feet above the surface and leveled out. He decreased the speed to about one hundred miles per hour and began heading away from the dome. Garrett then pulled the ship into a tight turn and headed back toward the dome. He continued to descend to two hundred feet and slowed down even more. With one mile between himself and the dome, he shut down the main engines and switched to vertical thrust. He continued to coast forward until he was near the dome and once less than a half mile from the dome he pulled off on the vertical thrust throttle. The Gallea descended slowly, breaking through the canopy of trees, and came to a rest on the surface of the planet.