"Coming out of Warp in 3, 2, 1."
The ship shuddered slightly as Joe disengaged the drive and the ship stopped racing through the galaxy at an incredible speed.
"Initiating scan." Smyke stated.
"Position confirmed, we're on the outer edge of the system, short range scanners are clear." Joe stated working on her console.
"I'm getting first results. No signals detected, I'm reading three planets in the habitable range, more then expected, 8 planets in total. Not seeing any kind of artificial structures or activity." Smyke reported with a grin.
"There are two gas giants and several smaller planets of various composition." Smyke finished.
"Very good Mr. Smyke. Ms. 9, take us in, lets do one orbital pass per planet on the way in." The Captain ordered.
"Alright, plotting a course." Joe replied and got to work.
The ship smoothly accelerated to its maximum sublight speed on a spiraling course that would see it pass all outer planets on the way to the planets in the habitable zone.
"We're underway, E.T.A. to the first planet is approximately two hours." Joe reported.
The ship entered orbit of the outermost planet of the system, barely more then a lump of frozen ice and rock with a diameter of almost 1000 km. The scanners had been trained on the planetoid on the way in and where now in full swing scanning it.
"Results coming in, nothing special so far, composition 40% ice, 50% rock, 10% various elements." Smyke reported.
"One pass is enough, this planetoid is small enough, thank you." Dr. Schmitz stated from his console next to Smyke.
After a full orbit the ship accelerated again to break orbit on a course that would take it to the next planet in the system.
After two hours the ship entered orbit around the next orbital body, this time a planet by any definition. The scanners easily penetrated the thin atmosphere and started gathering data.
"Incoming data, atmosphere is pure methane with only a little trace elements. The surface is made up from frozen methane with again only some impurities." Smyke reported.
"Interesting. The trace elements contain water and some sort amino acids. There could be water and even live down there." Dr. Schmitz stated exictedly.
"Is there an easy way to verify this?" The Captain asked.
"Can we boost power to the scanners?" Dr. Schmitz asked Smyke.
"I'm diverting power, not much more I can do." Smyke answered working his console.
"Scanning. I'm reading traces of water and some amino-acids in the atmosphere. Very strong indication that some sort of live is down there, the building blocks at least are present." Dr. Schmitz reported.
"I'm reading a large mass of water, resolution is still not enough to see any more details." Smyke stated.
"Get all the information that you can from orbit, I don't want to linger too long here. There's always the option of a follow-up expedition." The Captain ordered.
Dr. Schmitz nodded his assent, not much more than he could reasonably expect from the Captain, especially with several planets in the habitual zone of the star.
Hermes completed three more orbits before the decision was made that all information that could be acquired from orbit had been acquired. She broke orbit again and sped of to the next target.
After traveling for two more hours the planet started to show in the detailed scans only possible from close range. The ship smoothly entered orbit and began scanning the planet below.
"Data is coming in. Not reading any atmosphere. Composition is coming in." Smyke reported.
"This is rather interesting. The planet has all kinds of materials. No atmosphere is present, I'm also not detecting any kind of magnetic field." Dr. Schmitz stated.
"Just like Mars but without the atmosphere."
"Yes. The surface is rather smooth, there are no indications of volcanic activity. That in itself is rather curious." Dr. Schmitz droned on.
"Anything concrete that could be useful in the short to medium turn?" The Captain asked.
"Besides challenging the theories on how planetary bodies are formed, no. It offers a wealth of material that should be quit easy to mine. Especially without an atmosphere it would be a prime candidate for strip mining as we don't have to work around any existing life forms." Dr. Schmitz answered.
Hermes completed another orbit and accelerated again, on to the next target.
After flying for another four hours through vacuum the ship entered orbit of a spectacular gas giant. Sunlight reflected on a massive ring that was accompanied by a plethora of moons.
"Initiating scan." Smyke said. "This is going to take a while. We have already scanned 23 moons on the way in and there are plenty more to go."
"Focus on the gas giant itself, we'll scan the moons during a separate orbit." The Captain ordered.
"Scanners show a very typical class 4 gas giant. Gas composition is almost spot on with the expectation." Dr. Schmitz reported.
"That is a nice change of pace, things being what we expect them to be." The Captain commented.
After several more orbits the results where in.
"This is indeed a very typical gas giant. The scanners picked up some strange patterns deeper in the atmosphere. To be honest, this is most likely completely normal as we have not seen so many type 4s before. I don't think there is much more to learn here for now." Dr. Schmitz reported.
"Alright, lets see what the moons have to offer. How many have we counted so far?"
"The count is up to 87 for now, I think we have them all." Smyke answered.
"The lets start scanning them and see what is to see. Ms. 9, plot us a course to get good scanner coverage. Execute when ready" The Captain ordered.
"Understood, plotting a course." Joe answered and went to work on her console.
"Alright, this will be some very fancy flying, executing." Joe stated.
After a while the ship slightly changed course, taking it out of the immediate orbit of the gas giant itself by enlarging it and changing it to a corkscrew that weaved through the moons littered around the gas giant.
Smyke examined the course on his console. "Excellent, this gives us ideal coverage for all the moons while minimizing time in orbit." He exclaimed.
"That was the idea." Joe answered.
"Appreciate it." The Captain put in.
It took three hours to complete the necessary orbits to scan all the moons. At the beginning the crew on the bridge was tense as this was a high precision maneuver that Joe needed to perform due to the moons being so densely packed. But dense in space is relative. It still means that the medium distance is several hundreds of thousands of kilometers. On the other hand calling a ship the size of the Hermes nimble would be an exaggeration. It could easily maneuver in tighter spaces but this was still the first time anyone on board had been in this kind of situation.
After the first thirty minutes they started to relax and immersed themselves in the data gathered by the scanners. After an hour Joe also relaxed a bit on the helm. After three more hours Joe got relieved by a yeoman and retired for the time being, confident that the ship was in good hands.
True to her course Hermes elegantly glided along its ever widening orbit, scanning moons whenever they came into range. It took another six hours to complete the scan of all the moons in orbit around the gas giant. As nothing out of the ordinary was found it broke orbit and set out on a course for the next planet in line, another gas giant.
After several uneventful hours Hermes entered orbit around a much smaller gas giant with only a small number of moons and reached out with her scanners trying to penetrate the thick and cloudy atmosphere.
"Data coming in, data stream looks good so far." Smyke reported.
"Alright, what do we have here?" Dr. Schmitz said, crouching down over his console.
"Very much a standard gas giant. Atmosphere is again pretty spot on to a type 3 gas giant with little exceptions. The only strange things that it only has four moons, that is very small number for a gas giant."
"Maybe that is the reason the other one has so many?"
"My guess as well. The gas giants catch most of the asteroids heading in-system. A lot of them burn up but some get caught and become moons."
"Fair enough, anything interesting about the gas giant?"
"Not really. I'd like two more orbits to get a decent resolution of the whole upper atmosphere, but I'm not expecting anything out of the ordinary."
After two more additional orbits it was determined that nothing substantial could be learned from orbital scans any further. Additionally the siren call of the next planet was overwhelming as it was the first of three in the habitable zone around the star. Without further delay the ship broke orbit and went underway to investigate.
It took only three more hours until the ship entered the orbit of the outermost planet in the habitable zone with all scanners on full power.
"Data is coming in. I'm reading a breathable atmosphere but very low temperatures." Smyke reported.
"Lets see. Large parts of the planet are covered in ice, there is a wide zone around the equator that is ice free with moderate temperatures. Judging from the first data it seems like this planet is experiencing an ice age." Dr. Schmitz stated his findings.
"Any signs of life?"
"Unclear for now, we need to take a closer look. It seems like some plant- and animal life forms are down there."
"Alright, that is not exactly ideal. I'm curious to what we'll find here." The Captain stated.
The ship performed several more orbits around the very distinct planet. The scanners where easily able to penetrate the atmosphere and the first several hundred meters of ice. The overall color of the planet was white-gray with a thin green band around the equator.
"Do you see that?" Dr. Schmitz asked. "This is a large herd of some kind of animals, looks like they're migrating along the equator." He excitedly pointed at the screen to show Smyke who sat next to him.
"Please put it on the screen." The Captain asked.
Smyke complied, changing the orbital image of the planet to a very zoomed in version. A large mass of small dots was moving across a brown and green landscape.
"Amazing. Any signs of intelligent life? A civilization?"
"No. Our scans indicate that this planet is not experiencing an ice age. Due to its distance from the sun this is its normal state. There is simply not enough warmth or greenhouse gases to warm up the planet further. To learn more about it we need to get down to the surface and start a detailed analysis. The only region that is habitable on this planet is this ring around the equator. It's about 500 km wide and spans the whole planet. We have so far failed to find large bodies of water on the surface but scans indicate a huge ocean spanning most of the northern hemisphere covered by ice."
"What about the atmosphere? You said it is breathable?"
"It is. The scans show some trace elements that need further analysis but so far it seems perfectly safe to breath. Oxygen concentration is at 18% which is a bit on the low side but nothing humans can't handle. We have seen large forests covering a lot of the ground right into the colder regions that seem to be very similar to what we know from earth, at least as far as we can tell from up here."
"So what is your suggestion, Dr.?" The Captain asked with a slight grin.
"I think we should go down there and see for ourselves. This world might not be perfect for colonization but it is fascinating."
"But is it suitable for colonization?" The Captain asked.
"All data indicates that it should be, yes. Only problem would be the limited amount of usable land, but that is still a lot of land, much more than the last planet."
"Alright, put together a proposal on how you want to proceed in mapping the habitable area, lets review that in the morning."
"Of course, Captain."
As you might have already noticed: I'm neither a professional author nor a native English speaker. Feedback is greatly appreciated and helps me to keep going. So please leave a review or write a message.