Smooth sailing to the planet

The remainder of the trip was painfully uneventful. With nothing to do but run diagnostics on the ships systems, taking inventory, spend their time in the Rec room, or in bed with one another. But finally, after seven days of travel they have arrived in orbit of the planet.

Looking at the planet below from one of the monitors on the bridge both Freda and Noreis saw that the planet has only one continent. A giant coastal desert circle the border of the continent. Deeper into the continent past the desert is a ring of mountain ranges with the gaps in the mountain every few hundred miles, and within the ring of mountains is swamplands.

"That's a little weird" Noreis said. "Could a meteor impact make the mountains like that?"

"No, the size of the meteor needed to make the mountains would have destroyed the planet." Freda answered back.

"Oh well, it's not our job to wonder about natural formation on the planet. Our job is to collect samples and get paid." Noreis replied as they went to the bridge elevator.

As Noreis and Freada reached the hanger bay they went straight to the dropship and preformed a last-minute inventory check making sure that they had all proper equipment to transport live flora and fauna. Sitting in the pilot seat Noreis start up the dropship.

"In ten seconds, we will be taking off to the planet below." Noreis called out to Freada who is positioning herself into the co-pilot seat. The ship rumbled as its thrusters lifted itself from the floor of the hanger bay and rotated to face the now open hanger bay door. Slowly the dropship moved forward to the black of space. "A.I., we will be back in a few hours let us know if anything happens on your end" Freda stated to the ship A.I. over the coms. "Affirmative." it responded back.

The decent to the planet below was uneventful and the two landed the drop ship by the ocean, in the desert, hills of the mountains, the mountains top, at an entrance of one of the narrow and dark gaps in between the mountains, and the swamps past the mountains to capture twenty wildlife of the planet. The two worked in tandem dropping off cryogenic livetraps for the long transport back. Collecting the soil and water samples was taken care of afterwards and was transported back to the ship.

After six hours twenty animals and five plants from six regions of the planet were captured and loaded in the ship cargo hold and put in storage. Freda expressed a desire to extract a small sample of some of the collected lifeforms.

With the last cryogenic livetrap loaded Freda turns to her fiancée "You know it will take about two weeks of travel to reach our destination to drop off the lifeforms. Why don't we stay planet side for a little longer?