I dropped out of warp at the edge of the system and started scanning the system with passive sensors, staying cloaked until I was completely sure there were no new and subwarp civilizations in the system.
Unlikely as there were no radio signals, but it was not impossible for a species to skip radio and go straight for laser communication.
Three planets, one gas giant, fifty four moons.
I sat and listened, watching, waiting.
"Anything?" Jhita asked as she swiped the screen, switching to the next screen on her work station to bring up the readings of the next moon.
"Nothing at this range at least." I answered her and dropped cloak, "None of the planets or moons are inhabitable by any known species." I said before I shrugged one shoulder of my holographic avatar where I stood next to her, "Well, other than Horta I suppose. So I guess there could be some subterranean silicon based lifeforms."
"The odds of that are pretty tiny," she said and tapped the com link around her wrist. "Jennifer, any idea of where you want to start?"
"Nothing stands out from here." Jennifer Moreau answered from the astro-geology lab across the ship, brushing her blonde hair behind her ear with a frown as she looked at her own screen, "As I see it, we might as well work our way in from the outside, planet by planet. Perhaps with some special attention spent on the moons of the gas giant. They have a tendency to have a higher than normal gathering of rare minerals than rocky planets. What do you think, Ivy?"
I nodded the avatar sitting across the table from her, "As good of an idea as any." I agreed, "Seems like a pretty quiet system to me, but we are already here so we might as well do a preliminary survey."
"What, don't like looking at rocks?" the geologist asked with a smile.
I flicked my ears with a smile of my own, "It's fine, making new discoveries is always fun. But I have to admit, geology is not my favourite subject."
Doctor Jennifer Moreau was really good at it, picking up her doctorate at twenty three. There was a reason Jhita picked her out of all the candidates for the position.
"It's not the rocks, the rocks don't really matter." she said and leaned back in her chair, "It's... like looking into the heart of the planet, learning its past, its history. What makes it tick."
"...Yeah, I guess I can see that. So... outer most planet first?" I asked and engaged my impulse drive, dropping the cloak as I accelerated up to half lightspeed.
"Yes."
The planet in question was about the size of Mars, sitting quite far out from its local primary. A yellowish to the visual spectrum rock. Average day time temperature of about 138.15 kelvin at the equator.
No real detectable pockets of ice and no atmosphere to speak of. No magnetic field nor any volcanic activity. Those two usually go together.
Even at this range, I could tell it had a solid iron core of about a fourth the mass of the rest of the planet. No moons.
It was an perfectly average rocky planet which there were literally billions of in the universe. Perfectly normal and boring.
I went over to full active scans. Maybe because I was a warship for a while, but anything that perfectly normal almost had to be some sort of trap.
Even so, I didn't find anything. Just a perfectly normal planet.
Going into low polar orbit, I started to map the surface with all my sensors. Optical, gravimetric, neutrino, lasers.
"Jen, the mapping should be done in about thirty hours." I reported, "Do you want me to deploy some probes to speed it up?"
She shook her head, "No, we have plenty of data to process as it is and we are not looking for anything specific." she said and glanced up from her screen, "And not like we are in a hurry." before she frowned, "We are not in a hurry, right?"
"Right." I agreed, "We can finish the survey and then see if there is anything down there worth sending an away team for."
"Mmm." she answered, already having turned her attention back to her console, "Mark, can you give me a reading on sector three?" she said, drawing the attention of one of her subordinates.
I smiled and cancelled my hologram, letting them get on with it without my interference. Still, not all my sensors were on my planet facing side so I went on to also map asteroids and comets throughout the system.
Which admittedly is important in a populated system, but in a place like this is more like counting pebbles. Though, I guess it was possible to find something really valuable like a high deuterium crystal one.
Still, I shouldn't complain. This was exactly the kind of stuff I signed up with Starfleet for. I may not be Starfleet anymore, but this was still what I wanted to do.
Besides, all the boring bits made the exciting discoveries much more fun. Oooh... pretty.
The ground slowly moved beneath me and I zoomed in on a canyon with big white crystals in the sides. Just quartz, but it was pretty. Hmm.
I marked the spot on the map for potential sample taking. So far it was as good of a place as any. Also, I wanted a picture to put on the walls of my quarters. I bet quite a few of the crew would want to see that as well.
Would be good for morale.
Mentally humming to myself, I started to make schedules for places on the aeroshuttles.
AN// Big thanks to FPSCanarussia for betaing this section.
