Planet B1

Soon the Shore reached the orbit of the 1st planet. It was codenamed the B1 for convenience sake. From Afar the planet B1 didn't look like much. It was a huge planet with nothing interesting happening at a glance. But once anyone studied it's orbit, then it was easy to figure out that there was more to the planets than what met the eye.

There was obviously something fishy going on. And the arrangement itself seemed unproductive. With constant heating up and cooling cycle, Who knew what the original creators wanted to achieve.

Two shuttles were being sent to the surface of B1 from the hanger bays of the Shore. These shuttles were equipped with many kinds of lab equipment as well as a vast array of sensors to monitor the surrounding atmosphere and weather conditions. Their job was to go in, take a look around. Examine the air composition and make sure that the planet was somewhat safe for the next batch of researchers.

All the researchers aboard the 2 shuttles wore heavy-duty vac-suits that were designed to make sure that the personnel inside them remained alive for as long as possible. The vac-suits were Paired with Anti-grav modules that would provide support to the humans. So that they could walk on the surface of the planet without any problems. The Mech unit that was gonna escort them to the ground was also equipped with similar modules. But scaled up to match the size of a mech.

After the Researchers boarded the shuttle, the pilot among them started to do per-launch checks.

"Everything looks Green. Status is Clear.", he announced through the comm.

"The personnel is on-board and seated, Yuki is ready for lift-off. Awaiting further instructions.", the co-pilot announced.

"The Hawk is ready for lift-off"

The confirmations rang through the bridge.

"Copy that Yuki and Hawk. Transferring command over to Dr. Helen.", Lieutenant Holland spoke through the Terminal before pressing a button.

"Yuki and Hawk, This is Dr. Helen. Do you copy?"

"Yuki Copies"

"Hawk Copies"

"Good, Listen gentleman. Although we may not know what lay in those planets. But our discovery might very well change the course of human civilization. For the better. So don't mess this up. And give it your all. "

"Always, ma'am"

"Always"

"Good. Take them out whenever you're ready."

"Copy that. Yuki taking off."

The Yuki was the 1st shuttle to take off. It hovered on the deck for a second before it passed through the energy barrier that separated the Space from the Ship. As soon as it phased through the barrier, it accelerated quickly on it's course towards the surface of B1.

"Hawk Taking off."

After that, The Hawk also followed the Sequence and went after Yuki.

The two shuttles both followed a pre-plotted path towards the planet. B1 didn't have any moons or satellite that orbited around it. It was quite simplistic in that regard. The two shuttles didn't face any obstacles when they were still in the vacuum of space.

However, as soon as they started to enter the atmosphere, the local gravity of the planet suddenly hit the shuttles.

"Heavy Gravity well detected. Adjusting Anti-gravity measures." The Pilot said and acted accordingly.

The sudden on-set of gravity was a little weird. It suddenly imposed itself on the shuttles. The anti-grav measures were already tuned for the calculated gravity of the planet. Yet, instead of gradually imposing itself, it just suddenly hit like a hammer.

"That's odd, Why did the gravity suddenly increased like that? It's still under the presumed amount. But it's not supposed to hit like that.", Dr. Helen said in an astonished tone.

"Send video link to the Bridge", she spoke through the terminal.

"Sending Video Link.", the Pilot's voice came through the terminal.

The video soon popped up in the main screen on the bridge. There wasn't much to see, it was just a mess of cloud that were mostly made up of several types of gas. B1 was covered with this cloud. The whole planet was covered in such a cloud. Deep scans from the shore didn't manage to penetrate it that much. Although increasing the output seemed to help a bit, but the scanner would quickly burn out this way. Since burning out the sensor at this point of the voyage was out of the question. They decided to save the futile effort and stop trying to can the planet.

"What's the composition?", Dr. Helen asked the crew of Yuki.

"Analyzing the Composition of the cloud", one of the operators said through the terminal.

"How far are the on-board scanner penetrate?", She threw another question.

"The Current penetration distance is 300 meters at 80% power.", One of the operators on-board the Yuki replied.

"300 meters? That's less than 3% penetration! This cloud is highly effective in blocking our scanning technology!", Helen concluded after hearing the numbers.

"What are the composition?"

"Still analyzing."

"At this rate, We're basically flying blind! I need that composition fast!"

"3 more minutes.", The Operator held his terminal as he watched that slow count down.

"Make it quick!", Helen was really concerned. With the frontal scanners being unable to watch anything beyond 300 meters, it was a flying hazard to descend down like this.

"Done, Sending you the composition of the clouds."

Helen received the data and took a look at it. She quickly scanned through the elements of the could. It was mostly generic gasses.

The main gas was Nitrogen. Then followed by carbon dioxide and Hydrogen. Then methane. There were other gases mixed in like Argon, Trace amounts of Oxygen. Carbon monoxide also shared a good portion. But there was one element that she didn't expect to find. It wasn't even possible to find this element in it's gaseous form. As turning it into a gas in the first place was quite hard. It was practically impossible for it to appear in nature. So it was quite astonishing when she found out the Reason for the horrible effectiveness of their scans. It was Gold.