A gentle humm quickly became the sounds of intense beeping and whirring.
Switchboards and monitors flickered back to life. The stillness of the air was filled with the gentle breeze of air being circulated once again.
And the bridge shutters opened up. Light rushing in and opening to the void of space and an orange orb getting larger and larger.
The ship was awakening from it’s deep slumber, the computers reactivating, sensors reaching out to the universe around it and the small crew inside was stirring.
As the captain made his way to the bridge, the sounds and smells of the coffee machine filled the bridge. The coffee prepared as always for the Captain after coming out of hypersleep.
“Computer, how long until we’re in orbit?” asks the Captain as he grabs his coffee and shuffles into the command chair.
“Calculating… 1 hour 23 minutes until scheduled orbit” the computer replies after a while.
The remaining bridge crew had entered the arena and taken up their seats.
“No coffee for the rest of us eh Captain?” asks Janson
“If you don’t program it in before we leave, what do you expect?” The Captain passes the coffee mug over to Janson. “You can finish that one off if you want, I’ll brew up a fresh one”
“Always the generous leader” Mary interjects “I’m almost ready to launch the probe droid, all sensors on board are checked out. Ready when you are Captain”
Miller looked out the window. The orange orb filling up most of his view now. Two months of travel and the destination was in sight. But with a much longer road ahead.
“Let’s fire it off”
“Probe ready … and it’s away”
There was a small shudder as the probe departed. Being launched from mass accelerator, it was on it’s own now as it headed to the planet, unable to stop it’s decent when it got there.
“It’ll be entering the atmosphere in 10. We’ll take a few passive readings on the way down before it deploys”
TIME PASSES
“First readings coming through now… trace amounts of nitrogen, argon, helium… some oxygen and xenon. Be an hour or so before it reaches the ground” said Mary
“And that’s when the real fun begins” replied Janson “We need to find out where on this hellscape, that meteor came from”
“Computer, how’s that image analysis coming along?” Asks the Captain
“Calculating … approximately 3.5% of initial surface scans completed. No pattern recognitions detected in the current batch process”
“Well, so no confirmed signs of humanity yet then. Estimated time until image recognition completes?”
“5.4 hours”
”And that’s just the side of the planet we’re orbiting…” muses the Captain
“We knew this could be a long job when we took it on. I’d say we need to get comfortable” replied Janson.
“Anomaly detected” the computer said in a calm manner.
“I take that back” the sardonic Janson exclaimed.
