The next couple of days crawled past at such an agonizingly slow pace, as if we had been caught in the event horizon of a black hole or something. I swear hours had passed, while in reality it had been only a fraction of that. It must’ve been the anticipation for what to come that made time tick by so slowly. But at least, because of this, I did manage to keep a very good overview about everything that was happening.

Doctor Winter had already put a part of the plan in motion that relied on slowly spreading some ‘symptoms’ throughout the Dokazuuk crew. Not something that would pull too much attention already, and in case the planet appeared to be a no-go, we could just argue it away as a simple rash, but just noticeable enough that if necessary, it would also be relatively easy to convince people that it was in fact a very serious disease.

Luna in the meantime was digging through her own archives to see if she could find any traces of similar cases regarding Gaia planets, but to no avail. It was the day before the arrival and she’d still found absolutely nothing.

“I just can’t find anything, Lauren.” Luna laid back down on the bed, looking completely defeated.

“This might be a weird thought.” I sat down next to her on the bed. “But would it be possible that any archived data regarding these things was completely wiped?”

Luna looked at me with her eyes wide open and then sat upright again. “Are you suggesting that The Conglomerate may have scrubbed any sign of these planets from our history.”

“There’s always a possibility, right? They are not really that open about the entire gene modification thing, either. If you have one secret, there’s a distinct possibility there are more secrets out there as well.”

“But why? Why would they do that?” Luna asked.

“I don’t know. We don’t really know why, who or what did the gene modding thing either.” I shrugged. “I am one of the most well-known people on planet Earth, yet there’s no one except for very high-ranking government officials who even know I got wounded during the war. There are a couple of soldiers too, but most of those are on this ship together with us… It’s not very hard to cover things up, you know?”

“Hmmm…” Luna grumbled. “But the discovery of an entire planet… or even multiple planets… And gene modding…”

I smiled at my girlfriend and put my hand on her lap to put her a bit at ease. “Hey, it was just a silly theory.”

Luna reciprocated by putting her hand on mine. “I know… but somehow it doesn’t sound that unlikely to me, and that’s the part that’s concerning to me.”

“Well, if there’s anything I know, it's that we can’t really do anything about it right now. So why don’t we go to sleep early today? Tomorrow will be exciting to say the least so a good night’s rest will do us good. What do you say?”

Luna nodded gently at my request. “Mhmm… let’s do that…”

“Alright.” I smiled. “The Pimsey movie can wait for another day.”

“Oh. I forgot about that… Can’t we watch it while we lay in bed?”

“Okay… But I’ll put on a timer so it automatically shuts off when we’ve both fallen asleep.”

Luna nodded and undressed herself, I did the same. And in no-time we were laying down in bed next to each other. From my spot you couldn’t really see the screen that well, but that didn’t really bother me. I just wanted Luna to calm down a bit. Luckily, being in my arms and cuddled up to me, it didn’t take too long before she fell asleep. The movie had barely gone on for ten minutes. I smiled and turned off the screen by myself. “Good night, Luna.” I whispered. And then closed my eyes for some well-needed rest myself.

It looked like the night’s rest had done wonders for the both of us. Luna was visibly less stressed, and I myself felt very energetic. It had been a while since I had been able to sleep for that long.

After a good refreshing shower, I put on my uniform and waited for Luna to get ready.

“Have you taken your pills?” Luna asked as she exited the bathroom.

“Yeah, yeah, I have.” I gave her nod. “Do you have everything you need?”

“Just my holostick.” Luna replied and walked over to the bedside table. “Alright, I’m ready now.”

“Alright, let’s go then.” I opened the door and together we started our walk towards the bridge. The halls were a bit busier than usual, with a lot of people who were off-duty going to the observation deck. I did mention to the groups we walked by that they should be ready just in case things happened. But that was mainly as a friendly reminder, as everyone knew what their duties were.

When we walked into the bridge, the crew from the previous shift was almost all still there as well.

“Shouldn’t you all go to take a rest?” I asked Lieutenant Somers.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Commander, we really want to see the planet from up with our own eyes.”

“It’s a Gaia planet, Ma’am.” One of the other officers replied. “I’ve only ever heard of these back in the academy.”

“Alright, alright. Just make sure you get enough rest.”

“Aye aye.” Somers saluted.

“Lieutenant Zu, how long until we get a good visual?”

“About an hour, Commander.” She replied. “We’ve dropped out of FTL further than usual following Ellie’s recommendations.”

“The scanners still don’t show any unusual signs?”

“Not that we can tell, Commander.” It was Ellie who replied this time. “We’ve also scanned using the parameters that the Lieutenant has found, but so far we’ve found nothing out of the ordinary apart from the planet itself.”

“No news, is good news, as my grandmother would have said. Anyhow, is there any news from the infirmary?”

“There have been curious crew members who have gone to the doctor already for some questions about the rash, so the seeds have been sown for the plan to succeed.” Luna replied. “She’d already opened up her holostick and had gone to work looking at the reports.

“Alright, then all we can do now is wait and see what happens.”

And that’s what we did. We could only keep up our guard as the ship slid closer and closer to the planet we’d found. About an hour later, we were close enough so that we could get a clear visual contact. It looked exactly like our scans. A ball of blue water with green continents. Not much unlike Earth, but clearly lacking in deserts and frozen poles.

When we got even closer, we could marvel at our new discovery.

“It looks incredible.” One of the off-duty officers commented.

“It’s definitely a beauty.” Zu turned towards the center of the bridge.

“Hey, what’s that shimmer, though?” Lieutenant Somers called out.

“What shimmer?” I asked.

“It might be my eyes tricking me, but I do believe I see a shimer when you look at the edge of the planet.” Somers replied.

“Ellie?” I turned myself to our AI.

“I’m not detecting anything in the atmosphere, Commander.”

“Can you give us an enhanced image of the planet’s contour?”

“Yes, Commander.”

Everyone on the bridge looked at the enhanced image that Ellie provided us.

“See! There it is!” Somers pointed at the big holoscreen. When Somers did so, Ellie drew a red square on the image and zoomed in even further. It only lasted for a moment before it disappeared but I saw the shimmer as well. It was as if there was some kind of shield around the planet at the border between the troposphere and the stratosphere.

Now that we knew what to look for, we could see the shimmer appear all around the planet.

“This is an interesting development…” I leaned onto the railing. “This is definitely not something that could develop naturally, right?”

“Not that we know off, Commander.” Ellie said.

“Hmmm.” I looked at Luna. She also shook her head. “Okay… can we launch a drone to see if we are able to penetrate the shield?”

“Drone is on its way, Commander.” Ellie replied once more.

It took a while for the drone to reach the planet.

“The drone reached the planet's surface without any issue, Commander.” Ellie reported back. “The atmosphere appears to be identical to our prior findings from our scanners.”

“Then what does that shield do?” I thought out loud. “A shield is something you use to keep things out, don’t you? And besides that, and maybe even more importantly, what in the Goddess her name is creating that shield. I suppose you are not reading any significant energy signatures either?”

“No, Commander.” Ellie replied. “If there is anything that’s creating that shield on the planet's surface, then its signature is camouflaged too well for the ship’s sensors to detect.” Ellie paused for a second. “However…”

“Hmm?”

“Detailed geographical scans have just concluded, Commander.” Ellie continued. “I have detected multiple possible man-made structures hidden beneath the foliage.”

“It isn’t the bugs again, is it?” Zu asked.

“I don’t detect any minerals that point towards that, either dead or alive.” Ellie said.

“At least that’s something…” I then looked back at Luna.

-This is going to be yet another ground mission, isn’t it?-