The Advance Team

The first group to land on the surface of Kepler-942c after the Daedalus arrived. Mixed from the security, engineering, biology and medical teams, its task was to survey, to sample, to assess the landing point, and to lay the ground for waking 100,000 colonists.

The first group left the Forward Module's belly bay at 08:32 on the morning of D+1 and was back aboard at 11:30 on D+1. The landing point had been moved off the colony centre originally planned for it, out to the edge of the forest 11 kilometres away; those 11 kilometres were the maximum safe distance worked out by the comms team and Janus, and they had been bought back aboard with a footnote in a report.

The landing procedure ran to Forward Module standard: the 2 longitudinal belts at the waist had to be buckled, while the lateral belt across the chest was for long-burn acceleration and not needed on a short descent. That day somebody buckled one extra. The wording of the sample labels was uniform across the team, content, number and time finished in a single line:

Surface slime layer / Sample 001 / D+1 08:42

The rules on the team were fine-grained. On exit the security team went out first and cleared the perimeter; the biology team was not the first to step out. Atmospheric readings ran on the faceplate HUDs, and each of them could hear the others breathing over the earpiece. Belts, labels and the order of return to the module all had a prescribed form, and a mistake meant doing it again. The squad leader would stand a full 3 seconds in the hatchway before reporting that it was clear out there, and those 3 seconds went into no record.

The second group left at 11:00 midday on D+2, 8 people, the vice-captain leading, 4 from engineering plus 2 military escorts plus 1 assistant from biology, the objective a routine sample extension 23 kilometres north of the advance base. The third was the 10-hour search-and-rescue team that left at 14:00 on the afternoon of D+3, 12 people: 6 engineering, 4 security, 1 biology, 1 colonial oversight representative. The time limit was cut by the captain at the meeting table out of the gap between 8 hours and 12 hours.

From the second group onward, the return protocol was tightened: no hatch to be opened before reaching the Daedalus, and on arrival straight into the P4 containment area without passing any medical station.

They are humanity's eyes and hands on this planet. Every report sent up to the ship from the surface carried a little more unease than the one before it, and none of it could be stated plainly.