After almost two weeks at high warp Hermes was finally approaching the next target system. The bridge was again fully staffed after being almost abandoned for the last week.
"Slowing down from FTL." Joe reported.
"Position confirmed." Smyke said. "We're just outside the perimeter of the system. All scanners on full."
"Acknowledged." The Captain leaned back in her seat, eager for what awaited them at this new system.
"Captain, I'm getting scattered EM emissions. Lot's of them." Smyke spoke up. "They seem to originate from the fourth planet from the star."
"Intelligent life?" The Captain sat up.
"Very likely. The planet is right in the habitable zone. But from this far out we can't make out enough details to confirm this."
"What about the rest of the system?"
"Three gas giants and several planetary bodies, unremarkable so far." Smyke answered.
The Captain thought for a moment, carefully weighting the unmistakable excitement of the crew with the established routine so far.
"Alright, Ms. 9, take us in. Swing by the outer planets on the way in. No need to rush this. If there is someone there, they'll be there tomorrow as well. Keep scanning the planet, learn what you can on the way in."
"Understood." Joe answered.
Smoothly Hermes accelerated farther into the system aiming for the outmost planetoid. As it drew closer it used it's powerful scanners on it to learn what it could from it while breaking into orbit. After a brief orbit it accelerated again for the next planet.
During transit the scanners where pointed at the fourth planet from the sun taking in all the data they could.
By the time Hermes was closing in on the fourth planet everybody on board was glued to the next screen that was keyed to the sensor output.
A blue and green marble was growing in front of them. On the bridge several overlays displayed data an the main view screen superimposed on the image of the planet.
"Scans are confirmed. Reading multiple EM emissions from the planet. None of them seem to be pointed at us."
"Any sign of orbital activity?" The Captain asked.
"Confirmed. Reading multiple satellites and something that looks like a small space station in low orbit around the planet.".
"Something is odd about these signals, Captain." Dr. Schmitz spoke u.
"Odd?"
"It appears that none of these signals are digital in any way we would recognize. All of them appear to be analog in nature."
"Analog?" Joe asked puzzled.
"Analog signals used to be very common before computers where common on earth. Even after that they stayed in use for radio broadcasts until this day. But communication between computers are digital in nature, it's just a lot more efficient this way. We used it to communicate with satellites in orbit as soon as computers where common. We don't see any of this here."
"So they have not widely adopted computers yet?"
"That is my current theory, yes."
"Fair enough. What about the orbital activity. You mentioned a space station?"
"Yes. We're seeing a number of small satellites. They appear to be simple in construction, no more than signal repeaters for ground based transmitting stations."
"Fascinating. What about the space station?".
"It appears to be of modular construction. Primitive compared to our standards. No sign of any type of reactor, it appears to be only powered by solar arrays. It's systems are extremely limited. I don't think they are able to detect us."
The screen switched to a representation of the station, a set of cylinders connected together. Small solar arrays attached to most of them.
"Fascinating, it's like looking back into the past. Our first space stations looked a lot like this."
"What about the planet? Can they see us?"
"Judging by the state of the power grid and the overall signals we can detect it is safe to say that they can see us with an optical telescope, nothing more. As long as we stay in a high enough orbit they have little to no chance of seeing us."
"Alright, keep us in high orbit for now. Let's see what we can learn about these people."
The next two days in orbit where spent with all of Hermes' scanners pointed at the planet below it, analyzing the details of the civilization on it.
Powerful telescopes where used to analyze the structures and activity on the surface of the planet, along with every other scanning device that was available and was likely to be undetected.
Of special interest was the orbital activity for it's proximity and ease of examination. Signals where intercepted and analyzed. Distinct languages where identified and cataloged.
A large amount of data was gathered and slowly a picture of the people that called this world home was forming.
The rocket had sat ready to launch for several local days now due to bad weather. After many delays finally the launch date had been set and the crew had settled in the capsule, ready to make history. They sad back to back around the central stabilizer pillar of the capsule.
Multi-segmented fingers operated round consoles in front of the astronauts while the central control slowly went through the stages of the launch.
"External power cut off." the controller said.
The commander checked the mirrors for his crewmen's confirmation. "Confirm, unity one is on internal power."
"Priming fuel pumps."
After a cursory check the commander replied. "Fuel pumps primed."
"Start engine ignition."
"Engine ignition is live." the flight engineer answered.
"Confirm all clear."
"Confirmed." The commander answered after checking the readouts on his console.
"Start fuel pump." the controller gave the final command.
The cafeteria was again packed by people sitting on all the available chairs, some standing back against the walls. A large view screen was installed so everybody could watch the launch live. It displayed a top-down live feed captured by Hermes' powerful telescope. It's speakers where outputting the live transmission between the control center and the primitive spaceship.
"Fuel pump started." The commander said over the roar of the powerful engine.
On the screen a huge plum of vapor was seen spreading out from the rocket ship.
The whole crew held their breaths as the ship slowly lifted off from the launchpad.
"Confirm liftoff." the voice of the controller came over the speakers.
"Liftoff confirmed. Engine nominal". The commander confirmed.
Slowly the rocket ship gained speed and altitude, climbing into the cloudless sky towards the stars. The eyes of the world, and some more, where on it as it went onto it's historic mission.
It took the primitive ship almost three full local days to match orbit with the station, carefully monitored by the crew of the Hermes and the beings on the planet below.
They watched as the detached capsule closed in on the station and performed an agonizing slow manual docking procedure with the station, documented by the dialogue between the crew of the ship and the ground station.
They observed the station coming to life as it's lights lit up for the first time.
They monitored all transmissions between the primitive space ship and its ground station, the signals not being encrypted made intercepting and analyzing much easier than anticipated.
It had taken a lot of analysis and Henry's assistance to interpret the signals to display the video feed that was transmitted from the capsule to the ground.
With the station coming to life new signal feeds where appearing from it to the ground.
They watched live as the airlock was opened and the brave astronaut clumsily boarded the station in zero gravity.
"What are they?" Joe asked.
Everybody on the bridge was left speechless.
"What I don't understand is the lack of infrastructure." Sunblast mentioned.
"That is curious, yes. We also expected the planet to be more developed than it is." Dr. Schmitz answered.
"They are clearly not human, we can't expect them to behave like they are." Joe put in.
"That is a good point." Sunblast replied. "I'm just puzzled about these inconsistencies. Supporting a space program is a major effort for a civilization. Space programs on earth lead to major advances that translated to the rest of society pretty fast. This doesn't seem to be the case here."
"What do you mean?" The Captain asked.
"We don't see a large amount of ground transport or mining. It is all on a very limited scale. They don't even seem to have large factories."
"It appears that this society works very different from what we have come to understand as being normal."
"Our best guess currently is that they're highly evolved plants." Dr. Schmitz opened.
"How is that even possible?" The Captain asked.
"Basic signs of life and rudimentary intelligence can be observed with plants on earth as well, research has shown that plants know when they're in danger and even cry for help."
"But that is quite a stretch to walking and talking beanstalks, isn't it?" Smyke asked.
"That is true." Schmitz admitted. "Keep in mind, we only observed them from a distance for a very short time. So naturally, we don't know much about them just yet."
"That brings us to the next question. How do we proceed from here?" The Captain asked. "Especially do we make contact with them?"
"What do you mean? Why shouldn't we make contact with them?" a puzzled Dr. Schmitz asked.
"The question is, what do we have to gain from these people? Their technology is vastly behind ours. They don't seem to have a large economy, so we might not even be able to trade much with them. Settling on this planet is problematic as best as it is already occupied by a somewhat advanced civilization." The Captain explained.
"I think that is putting it way too simply, Captain." Dr. Schmitz argued after a shocked moment of silence. "We have no idea what they can offer us. This is a completely different path of evolution. Studying them would offer priceless insights. We can't just ignore this opportunity."
"I didn't say we should ignore the opportunity. I was just questioning whether we make contact with them right away. I think there is a lot we can do right away to gather more information before we decide if we contact them."
"Captain, contacting them would tremendously speed up this process. Information that would take us weeks or possibly months to gather they could just provide if asked."
"Have you considered how they would react to us?"
"What do you mean?"
"Imagine Earth in the 1960s. No idea of whether life even exists outside of earth. Imagine massively advanced, intelligent plants landing in a spaceship that is so far ahead of anything we could even imagine. What would happen? People would panic, there would be chaos. Panicked people tend to make mistakes. Like in launching nukes."
That had the whole room quite.
"We have not seen any sign of nuclear weapons or power generation anywhere on the planet. Come to think of it, there is no large scale military in evidence. Military seems to be restricted to local police stationed on the outskirts of settlements. Maybe to keep out wild animals."
"Maybe they'd consider us wild animals, dangerous animals."
Over the next days Hermes kept orbiting the planets, all scanners pointed at it's surface, gathering data about a strange people and the planet they lived on.
Slow but steady a picture of the alien society was forming. The humans analyzing the data became more puzzled the more complete the picture became.
"What do you mean there is no power grid?" The Captain asked.
"Exactly that. We don't see any scaled up power production, there doesn't appear to be power on most of the continent that is inhabited." Dr. Schmitz answered.
"Care to elaborate?"
"The Phaseli seem to only inhabit a single landmass on the planet. The other continents don't show any evidence of their presence, they appear to contain the flora and fauna that we see next to the Phaseli but without them. There is a higher rate of fauna on the other continents, we see live forms that we don't see next to the Phaseli."
"How is that possible?"
"Our theory is that, not unlike Earth, this planet once had a single continent that split up to form the present landscape. Unlike on Earth this appear to have happened in more recent history with flora and fauna developing before the split-up. This would explain the homogeneous liveforms across the planet, unlike on Earth."
"That means most of the planet is empty?" The Captain asked.
"It appears so, yes."
"A perfectly habitable planet, capable of sustaining human life?"
"According to the scanners, yes. We'd had to confirm that planet-side though."
Joe was carefully flying the pod in a steep angle downwards, quickly dropping altitude. When the pod reached two kilometers above the ocean she leveled it out and aimed it at the closest unoccupied landmass. It took almost half an hour of flying before it came into sight. This all was done to stay hidden from the Phaseli, most of which would turn out to be unnecessary later on.
The pod climbed several kilometers and circled the continent several times to get detailed scans. After the second circle a landing site was selected, the pod changed course and started to descend.
Expertly Joe landed the pod on flat ground a short distance from the river. Keeping the engines on standby she waited for the pod to settle, just in case the ground proved to be unstable after all. Satisfied that it was as stable as the scanners had shown, she idled the engines down and secured the pod following the after landing checklist.
Behind her the passengers unbuckled and eagerly left the pod for the exciting new world to explore.
After scanning the surroundings first be sight then by scanner Tony didn't find anything threatening for the landing party.
"Alright, landing site is clear, you're free to exit."
He barely finished his announcement when the scientists swarmed out of the landed craft. They took a couple of minutes to look around while unloading their equipment before getting organized.
Once they got organized they swarmed out to thoroughly scan the area, taking samples of everything they got their hands on.
Joe exited the pod last. With nothing immediate to do Joe took the time and enjoyed the scenery. She had landed the pod in a river delta near the coast. The pod was situated on the bank of a large river lined by a rich forest. The horizon showed snow capped mountains in the distance over a vast green forest. The air smelled of the nearby ocean.
Joe closed her eyes and had no trouble imagining being on earth, on a beach by the sea.
On second thought some things where different than on earth. There was no sign of birds. In fact they had yet to spot any sign of avian life forms on the planet. They had found abundant proof of insect-like life forms, the planet was as crawling with them as earth once had.
At that point exploring a new planet had become more or less routine. It was still new and exciting but everybody was approaching it more calmly than the first few times.
Joe's train of thought was interrupted by the sound of the approaching Mule. There was plenty of space for it to set down, so Joe watched from a safe distance as it set down and unloaded the base module from its hold. Several more trips would be needed to establish the exploration base. They would take their time as there was no reason to rush.
Joe turned into the sun and closed her eyes to enjoy the peace and quite until the Mule took of again.
As it did she turned back to the task at hand to make sure the base got set up so the team could get busy. Luckily this time they did not need to analyze everything in a makeshift lab as the scanners and ships' system where fully functioning on this planet. The base would strictly be for convenience so personal had a place to eat, rest and sleep and did not need to go back to orbit all the time. This would hopefully minimize the time needed on the planet to determine whether it was suitable for colonization or not.
Assembling the base was as easy as putting down the modules next to each other and connecting them with an umbilical. The umbilical was able to compensate for uneven ground to a certain degree. They did not need that here as the ground was mainly flat due to being washed out by a large river from time to time, the modules where able so level out by themselves. As there was no wind challenging the pilots they where able to set the modules down very close to each other, so close in fact that the modules where able to make a hard connection without using the umbilicals.
It took four flights in total to ship the exploration base down, taking almost 8 hours in total as they had to take a flight path avoiding detection by the locals. For this they entered atmosphere on the other side of the planet and flew the rest of the way at a low altitude, the same way Joe had flown in earlier.
After the base was assembled and powered up Joe was done for the day. Guiding in the pilots to put down the modules was not hard work but the required level of concentration put quite a strain on her.
Smelling the already prepared dinner from the small galley reminded her of how hungry she was.
She entered the small galley that was already full of people. Getting some of the food she managed to snatch a spot on the only table and dug in.
To Joe the idea that food tasted better out in the open was not totally new. She had gone on a picnic back on earth with some friends, once. She had also had food outside on the different planets they had visited.
But here it was different somehow. Maybe because the sky had the almost perfect shade of blue or the trees that where the right shade of green.
She savored her food, cleaned up her plate and went straight to her bunk.
The day started planetside had started pleasantly with nice weather and a hearty breakfast for the team. Tasks where assigned and groups formed to explore certain regions of the continent.
Joe was assigned a group to shuttle around the continent to gather samples and set up sensor grids.
Her group settled in the pod and she went through the pre-flight checklist. She had already checked that the sensor pods where secured in the middle of the shuttle pod between the passenger seats.
As soon as the passengers reported secured and Joe finished with the checklist the pod took off.
Flying low and relatively small to not disturb the native critters more than necessary it took almost a full hour to reach the first spot 350 km away. Joe spotted a suitable landing spot close by and sat the pod down. The passengers got out while Joe secured the pod. It took them another two hours to gather the samples they wanted and set up the area scanner on a tripod. Once it's connection to the miniature cube sats in orbit was confirmed all returned into the pod and it took off for the next target site.
They spent almost 10 hours on that day setting up the grid and still had plenty left to do.
As Joe was wary of the toll on herself and the pod the next day the pod stayed grounded. Two engineers used the time on the ground to thoroughly check it over to make sure it was in good condition to fly again. They found no problem, only some minor wear and tear that would still need several hundred hours of flight time to potentially become a problem. Anything else would have surprised Joe quite a bit. The pod was a standard pattern that was widely in use all over the solar system and the colonies. It never hurt to make sure, especially when you're out in deep space and the next support would be months away if at all available.
They spent almost two full months down on the planet. Meticulously analyzing the vegetation of the planet on all major landmasses that where not occupied to make sure it was compatible with human life. When they left the surface for the ship they left behind a sensor grid that spanned a good amount of the surface area of the major land masses of the planet. It would constantly monitor the parameters on the surface and sent the data back into orbit where a small number of cube sats had been deployed for this very purpose.
"Amazing." Rick said. "The ecosystem is everything we could want. Edible flora and fauna, the soil is widely compatible with our crops. This planet is a prime candidate for colonization."
"With only one little flaw." The Captain said. "It is already occupied."
"And that is the biggest puzzle so far. They don't have an industrial base at all, at least nothing we can identify." Rick said. "It appears they are just living plants with no technology at all. And somehow they launched a space station and managed to send a crew to it. I don't understand how that can even be possible."
"They obviously don't think the way we do." The Captain answered.
"That is for certain. But to build and launch even a single orbital craft is an enormous effort. We take that for granted these days, we don't think about the industry and infrastructure all over the solar system and the colonies that make it possible." Rick paused. "When humans first ventured into space back in the 1960s it was a major effort. A whole new industry was needed, creating millions of jobs to send only a couple of people into low orbit. There was so much they didn't know back then. They didn't even know humans could survive in orbit."
"We don't see any of that here. No sign of any industry so far. I can't even begin to guess how that is possible." Rick concluded.
"I think it is time to make contact." Dr. Schmitz stated.
Please keep in mind that I'm neither a professional author nor an English native.
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