I sat on the bridge of the small survey ship orbiting above the large blue planet. It looked a lot like another planet I knew light years away from this one. The continents were a little smaller and there were more of them. The oceans were a good bit larger and deeper at that. The biological survey team had already discovered two species that would dwarf anything alive on Earth today. One was a large mammal that swam in the oceans. The other looked something like an over-sized camel, twice as tall as an Indian elephant and half again as wide.
My watch would be over soon. I ought to get some sleep but the excitement of the unknown had me pretty wired. Maybe I’d have a look through the powerful telescopes in the cartography lab if they weren’t all in use. I could look for an hour or two and still get six hours of sleep before I had to be up in the morning.
On a ship this small, we all had three or more specialties. It was the only way that made economic sense. If you sent a crew of eighty people to far flung planets light years away from anywhere, they had to be pretty self reliant. We were out on a three year tour and we wouldn’t get back to civilization until near the end of our mission.
The plan was to survey this planet for three to six months, depending on how rich or poor it was in features of interest. The science officer had already determined that it had enough interesting features to warrant a full time research outpost. That seemed to indicate we would spend more time here than we had on our previous stops. When it came down to it, we would spend as much time here as the captain thought prudent before moving on to the next planet on our agenda.
All together there were eight stops on our list each with a planet of potential interest and we had already marked two of them off. The first was a large, young planet still very hot and in the process of forming. We had finished our preliminary study of that one in just over six weeks. The second one was a tiny little planet about the size of Mercury and not much further away from the star that it orbited. We only spent a week on that one.
“Anything to report?” the captain asked from over my shoulder. He had walked in so quietly I hadn’t heard him. I think he enjoyed startling unwary junior officers.
“No sir, nothing too far out of the ordinary.” I replied, “I was just about to write up my watch report. O’Neil is supposed to relieve me at oh six hundred.”
“Good man. Are you headed to bed after your watch?” he asked.
“I thought I might spend an hour or so in cartography first. I can catch up on my sleep when we are between planets.” The captain smiled. He was proud of the enthusiasm of his crew. He knew each of us fairly well and made it his business to make sure that we were in good spirits.
“That’s a fine sentiment, son. Don’t push yourself too hard though. We’re going to take a long hard look at this one.” He sat down at his command console and started skimming the reports on his tablet. I busied myself writing my report and keeping my eye on the sensor dashboard of my watch station.
Ten minutes later, Bob O’Neil showed up to relieve me. I handed the watch over to him, told him and the captain good night and headed to the galley to grab a late supper before heading down to cartography.
Sweet dreams, don’t forget to tell the people you love that you love them, and most important of all, be kind.