The racers begin to file into the launching bay as they prepare to head down to the inhospitable planet down below. The surface of Porix can reach temperatures of over 160 degrees Fahrenheit, so the racers need to be prepared with specialized suits to keep their body temperature low. Luckily, James has some that can fit all of the different body types of all of the racers, but Jack and Monique head into the loading room without their protective gear on.
"What the deal? You guys coming or what?", James asks as he loads a few days worth of supplies into the ship.
"Um… I think it's going to be 'or what'", Monique says as Jack has a look of shame on his face.
"What? What's going on?", James asks.
"Yea, I'm just not ready to go back into the field just yet", Jack says while hanging his head low, unable to make eye contact with James.
"You sure? I'm pretty sure there won't be anyone firing any guns this time. In fact, there shouldn't even be anyONE at all", James says in a way to try and lighten the mood a bit.
"Yea, I know, I just… I'm not ready yet. I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm just… just…"
James puts his hand on Jack's shoulder before he can finish that thought and just nods at him and turns to Monique. "Take care of him."
Monique smiles and nods. "He's in good hands. We'll see ya in a few days. Come on, Jack. Let's go see if that galactic map has any more secrets on it", she says as she leads him back up to the war room. Jack likes that idea; it's been his best contribution so far (aside from saving James on Cryton), so he's more than happy to look at the map some more.
James lets out a little sigh as he keeps loading up on supplies. The other three racers file in, ready to get to work. "Looks like it's just gonna be the four of us for now", James says. "Jack's not ready to get back out there just yet, and Monique's gonna watch over him."
"You think he's ever gonna be able to do this kinda thing?", Gazelle asks. "I feel like some of these kinds of missions just aren't for certain people."
"I don't know", James says as he packs up the last of the supplies they should need. "I'm sure he's got his reasons. Maybe he doesn't wanna put himself in danger. Maybe he wants to be the hero for Kate Alen. Maybe he just thinks he can push through it. I dunno. The option's always on the table to bounce like what Doc did."
As the four remaining racers head to their respective seats in the ship, James lifts off and flies out into the void of space towards the planet that their ship's been parked over. "Alright, so here's the plan", James calls out to everyone. "We're gonna try to stay in the ship and hover about 3-5,000 feet over the planet's surface. The planet's really hot, so we're gonna try to stay in the ship as long as we can, since the heat shields on this thing aren't the best. Gazelle, you're going down the bottom level, and looking out the telescope on the bottom of the ship. You've already got x-ray vision, so I'm guessing you've got thermal vision too, right? ("Both of them come standard with these eyes.") Perfect. Go ahead and head down there, and I'll give you a shout when we get in range. Any other questions?"
As Gazelle heads out of the room, Zoda perks up with a question. "Yea, why doesn't this thing have good heat shields, moneybags? This isn't the only toasty planet out there, ya know."
"Yea, yea, I know", James says in an annoyed tone. "Look, I'm usually really busy and I can't afford for my main planet cruising ship to be in the body shop for a few weeks adding a heat shield to it, especially since I don't keep the ship running for long periods of time. Plus, you can't just slap it on like a bumper sticker; it takes a lot of time and trial and error. Now, keep in mind. We're only doing a cursory search for the next couple of days. If we don't find him on this trip, I'll drop this ship off with my body guy, and get the heat shield then. That way, if we need to do any more searching on our second trip, we'll have full protection for it."
With the plan set in place, they fly into Porix's atmosphere. Even though all of the team are wearing specialized cooling suits, they can already feel the heat radiating off the planet as soon as they enter its atmosphere. The engines start running a little louder as they have to struggle in this oppressive heat. The minor heat shields already on this ship kick on, but they can only do so much before they'll eventually get burnt out.
"You ready back there?", James calls out to Gazelle, who he knows can hear him with his supersonic hearing.
The intercom clicks on and Gazelle replies. "Roger. I'm connected to the ship, and my optic feedback should be transmitting… now." As he speaks, the big screen on the wall turns on, and shows the planet coming closer.
Gazelle turns on his thermal vision, and James has to look away from the sharp red and yellow colors of the planet. "Zoda, Jody, you two are camera watching duty, while I steer the ship. Forgot how much those bright colors hurt my eyes", he says with a wince.
"You really gotta get that looked at", Jody says as she starts looking at the planet's surface.
"Already have. Got those pills for it, but it's probably just migraines. It'll be fine."
"Hey guys, noticing a problem down here", Gazelle says to them over the intercom as the planet comes into focus. "The surface is hotter than any person's body temperature."
"Yea, figured that might be the case. You just gotta look for it the other way around and try to find the cool spots on the map."
"That's gonna be so much harder than finding a warm spot. He could blend in perfectly under a shady area", Gazelle laments.
"Yea, it's not ideal, but that's why we've got two trained sets of eyes looking out for anything out of the ordinary. If it doesn't work out, we can just go on the ground and look, but this way gives us the best chance to save time."
The crew spend the next couple of hours making passes over the section of the planet surrounding the location on the map where Beastman is said to be located. It's an arduous search as Jody and Zoda take turns staring at the map, looking for any inconsistencies they can find that might look sort of like a human. When they see something, Gazelle switches back to normal vision, and zooms in, but they usually just find a human-sized animal or something like that.
Speaking of animals, the planet is covered in them, and they're massive. The rich flora of the planet give these creatures plenty to eat, which over the course of billions of years have helped these animals grow to unbelieveable sizes, multiple times taller than anything that's ever walked the Earth, which in turn makes the predators even bigger in a never-ending evolutionary arms race to the coveted role of apex predator, a role which humans are nowhere close to holding here. Occasionally as they fly over the planet's surface, one of these animals would look up, see the ship, and roar at it. And despite them being nearly a mile below the ship, their roars still sometimes cause the ship to shake a little.
And when they don't see giant creatures, they see huge holes. About once every mile or so, they see a hole or two that seems to just stretch on for miles. Maybe the inside of the planet is rotting, or maybe there's even bigger things digging these holes. No one is too interested in hiding out what's causing these massive subterranean tunnels.
The racers continue this search over the course of a few hours, with Gazelle dutifully scanning the surface of the planet, which he can do with his robotic eyes, and Jody and Zoda taking turns looking at the thermal view of the planet, so as to avoid straining their eyes on the harsh colors. However, just being in the same room as the brightly colored screen, even while turning away from it, is really taking its toll on James's eyes, as he has to pop another pair of pills to stave off the incoming migraines.
However, running the engines in this heat starts to wear out the small heat shields, and after a few hours of flying, lights start flashing on the ship's console. James lets out an annoyed sigh and starts to descend. "Well, that was a waste", he says while shaking his head. "Got nothing out of it except an overheating engine. Let's head down to the surface and find some shade to park this thing under, try and cool it down a bit."
The ship flies down to the surface, and deploys the landing gear. They find an open spot in the jungle with some small trees, just large enough for the branches to be just over the ship, which should protect it from the rays of the planet's sun. James mouths a little countdown as the ship is about to land, but as he hits zero, they don't feel the ship touching the ground. Instead, they all hear a little thump on the roof of the ship. At first, they think that maybe some small creature has fallen out of the tree and landed on the roof of the ship, but then the intercom kicks on again.
"Captain, the ground just completely disintegrated below us when we landed", Gazelle says in a slightly panicky voice. Everyone turns back to the screen to see a few bits of rock and the tree they had just landed under falling into the abyss below.
"Holy hell, the planet's more unstable than I thought", James says as he lifts the ship back up and out of the hole in the planet. "Where can we land this thing and not come back to a giant hole in the ground when we're done?"
"Find the biggest tree you can, and park under it", Jody chimes in. "If it can support that big of a root system, it should hold the ship."
"Good thinking, Jody", James says as they move over to a denser stretch of forest. In this section, there's still shade, but the air is a lot hotter in this section than it is under the smaller trees. But it'll have to do. They start to land again, this time with James saying the countdown audibly, as if to tell the planet to do what it's supposed to do, and hold the ship properly. He winces a little as the altitude meter hits zero, and the landing gear makes contact with the ground. Everyone freezes for a second, waiting for the planet to give way underneath them. But the ground holds. "I think we're good."
