Since the Dolya was critically low on resources, the crew had decided against enabling life support on the rest of the crew sections. Most had been damaged and scuttled during the voyage. Instead, the infirmary doubled as a makeshift operations room. Six of the nine members were gathered around a small round table, with Elisa strapped in her seat at the main console, flanked by Sigrid R?nningen the biologist and Ervin Sekhon, a religious man that filled the mandatory psychologist role onboard and also possessed useful qualifications in physics.


    “I must say the whole situation just looks bad,” Qi Meifen said, looking across the table towards Helena Petrova. Elisa had just finished the brief, while the eight newly awakened crew members listened in resigned silence. Each of them was pockmarked with unsightly burns and bruises, blood-shod eyes and lost their hair. All felt sick to their stomach. As their medical doctors, Mei and Helena had spent the better part of the morning attempting to patch them up, but the assembly still resembled a coven of the undead regardless.


    Mei continued. “We have to rely on a string of good luck to make it to the surface, and we should expect to suffer more casualties in the process. Even if ARI survives the trip intact, maintaining a sustainable civilization will prove to be a challenge. We will have very limited fuel reserves to power our initial industrial base, and will be reliant on solar for the foreseeable future. Everyone will have to work hard and medical personnel will be on double shifts for at least a year as we start reviving people still in cryo. Getting any kind of manufacturing set up is going to be another time-consuming process. So there will be no time for pregnancies and children.”


    “Can we not just use some of ARIs machines and drones for the resource-collecting and fabrication?”, Pom Mansouri asked. The strong-willed chief vehicle operator’s green eyes still looked hopeful.


    “Well, yes and no,” Elisa answered. Most of those systems are designed with the environment of space in mind. They don’t do well planetside, with atmosphere and gravity. We’d have the flyer drones, but the others would require some systems to ambulate, and the ship''s fabricators need refitting. We do however still have most of our specialized colony fabricators. As long as at least one makes it to the surface intact, we will be OK in the short while. Resource collection would at least partially involve manual labor, however.”


    “Speaking of resources, the surface analysis probe data came through this morning, and I’ve been going over suitable landing sites with Doctor Otto and ARI”, said Maximilian Barinov, the colonel in charge of the security force.


    Like most people, he avoided Otto’s last name, which was R?nningen, just like his niece Sigrid, whom people also tended to address by first name only.


    “The weather conditions are troubling. We detected extensive and frequent storms, with wind speeds in excess of 100 kilometers per hour. In addition, the atmosphere is dry, There are few visible bodies of water. No major rivers or oceans.”


    “So it is a barren desert? More like Mars? I thought ARI said it was very Earth-like...”, Sigrid said with a disappointed voice.


    Doctor Otto was quick to explain. “It is not like Mars. It has an Earth-like surface temperature, gravity, breathable atmosphere and it possesses a strong magnetic field. Of all earth-sized planets discovered by humans, at least up to the point we are aware, potentially habitable land planets outnumber ocean planets by an order of magnitude. The lack of water vapor in the atmosphere extends the habitable zone of such planets considerably. If our target planet had more surface water, it would have been a very unpleasant greenhouse more closely resembling Venus.”


    Maximilian frowned. “Please let us get back to the point.” He continued, “I’ll keep it brief. The equatorial zones are unsuitable. The temperature range is too high and these areas suffer most from the storms due to the coriolis effect. The polar areas contain more moisture, but due to the planet’s tilt, there are periods of up to two weeks of total darkness in winter and even longer periods where sunlight is too sparse for our PV arrays to meet our energy needs. So, we went to look for temperate-zone locations with rocky terrain that can shelter us from the storms yet are of low enough elevation that subsurface water is easily accessible. We found various canyons, but then we came across this…,” he said, while gesturing to an image brought up on one of the few remaining wall-mounted displays.


    On the display was an image of an ancient impact crater over a kilometer across. At its center, the outline of small lakes were unmistakable.


    “So there is open water after all,” Mei said.


    “What are these red spots?” Kyreth Vashin asked, pointing at the curious round dots that pockmarked the landscape.


    Originally a drone operator for asteroid mining, Kyreth had retrained to become a pilot of various types of aerial vehicles on Proxima. His presence in the room was unplanned; he was second choice after the former, a pilot by the name of Hyakk Petrosian, had perished during the lengthy revival procedure.


    “We are unsure,” Maximilian replied. It is hard to make out. It is unlikely to be volcanic material, as that would be covered by sand, even in this sheltered location. There is a good chance that it is vegetation of some kind.”


    “That would explain the oxygen…” Mei said.


    “You don’t need vegetation to have large quantities of oxygen in the atmosphere, my dear,” Doctor Otto explained in a dry manner. “If the planet had more water in the past, it would have evaporated and the star’s radiation would have broken it down and blown away the hydrogen. The oxygen would remain behind in the atmosphere. That is a one-time thing. There wouldn’t be a self-replenishing oxygen cycle.”


    “Which is part of the reason why we brought our own plants,” Sigrid added. “For the long term.”


    “Right now I am more concerned about the short term,” Pom said. “That getting to the surface alive bit would be nice, and then surviving the first week.”


    “Of all sites we evaluated, the crater offers the best chance of meeting that second criterion,” ARI said. “I’ve made a plan with regards to the landing, if we can call it that. I’ve managed to restore quite a few of our drop pods to a functional state. However, there is insufficient fuel for all of them. Instead, I propose that we even out the fuel, keep the ship together for as long as possible, and use the deltawings to decelerate and level our descent as much as we can. Then at an altitude of twenty kilometers above the surface, we’ll eject, as the atmosphere will become too dense for our makeshift wings to handle. If all goes well, we will have decelerated enough to land more or less safely and only have to expend half the fuel to do so. However, there is a problem…”


    ARI brought up an overlay centered on the crater that was still on the display. “This is the area in which our drop pods are expected to come down. As you can see, it is over four hundred kilometers across.”


    “What does it look like if we have any serious structural failures?”, Kyreth asked.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    “If we have any serious structural failures during our descent, it would look far worse, as we’d seriously undershoot our target area and in the worst case end up on the other side of the planet. Then again everyone likely dies if that were the case. So we can save us some time and not discuss a contingency plan for that scenario.”


    Pom groaned, then stretched his sore arms. “Good, I hate long meetings anyway,” he replied. “Still, if this is our expected landing zone, we’ll have a lot of trouble getting our stuff together. All the people still stuck in cryo will be spread all over the place, and they won’t be doing any walking.”


    “I’ll be sorting out the logistics of who and what goes in which pod with ARI and Elisa,” replied Sigrid. We still got some of the ground vehicles and one functional lifter that can land wherever we want it to go, but no fuel to get it back in the air after it lands.”


    “Then that should carry our medical post and most important supplies to the crater,” Meifen said. “Our first priority is to revive and patch up additional crew members from the stasis pods, else we’d be desperately short on hands.”


    Pom looked up. “We could also make it drop radio beacons, which the rest can use to home in on the site. We won’t have ARI in orbit to help us with navigation, after all.”


    Elisa looked tired. “There really are a lot of ‘first priority’ issues to deal with after we land. Crew recovery, dealing with their medical conditions, gathering our supplies, setting up the PV arrays, securing a water supply, dealing with the storms, but for now we have preparations to make. Colonel Barinov, Mansouri and Reverend Sekhon, you should check the operational status of our vehicles. Doctors Qi, Petrova and Otto, I need you to do the thankless task of performing triage on the crew. The ones easiest to recover will go in our drop pods. Consult ARI and give priority based on relevant skills. I’ll be working on the logistics and drop pod inventory with Sigrid and Vashin. Let’s get at it, we have just a week to go before we arrive at our new home!”


    ===


    “Flying turd!”, Pom exclaimed.


    “Pardon me?”, Ervin Sekhon called back from much further up the ladder. Pom had lagged behind.


    “How much longer is this bitch?”


    “We are almost there. Approximately twenty meters from where I am now.”


    “Cabins filled with dreck…”


    Maximilian slapped Pom’s ankle from below. “Shut your mouth and keep going.”


    “Easy for you to say, I’m the only basebag here,” Pom cast back, using the derogatory reference to his status as a non-engineered human. While Ervin was at least twice his age and Maximilian over three times so, both were noticeably fitter and had recovered better from their arduous journey in cryo.


    The conveyors had long been removed, leaving the narrow corridor the only way to reach the other bays of the ship. With the engines running to decelerate the ship, anyone wishing to traverse it in forward direction had to use the ladder to painstakingly battle a force stronger than Earth gravity and climb what seemed to be a long upwards shaft.


    The entire structure was originally four kilometers in length, running along most of the length of the ship, but ARI had sealed off and removed most of it over time. Beyond the improvised radiation shield, it would not be possible for humans to survive, and ARI could use the unpressurized external conveyors for moving its drones around, if it had to. The party only had to climb a fraction of the corridor’s total length to reach the vehicle bays.


    They had been shocked by its state. Even materials that would normally be considered impervious to time were now warped or eroded. The ladder and bulkheads had the appearance of a marine shipwreck that had been on the bottom of the ocean for at least a decade. As they climbed, the pockmarked surface of the ladder bit into their hands, despite the safety gloves they were wearing.


    Ervin reached the entrance to the vehicle bay and sighed with relief when ARI opened the door remotely. “Yeah, I fixed that last week,” ARI exclaimed proudly.


    “Bless you,” Ervin replied, then turned around to hoist the cussing and panting Pom the last steps up the ladder by his shoulders. Maximilian was right behind him.


    The bay was a patchwork. Clearly the whole ensemble had been cut in half and welded shut at some point in the distant past. Some structural components were ancient and well past their serviceable lifespan, while others looked brand new.


    “Oh ho ho!” Pom called out in amazement, as ARI turned on the sparse lights of the bay.


    Laid out before them were a series of vehicles that had a brand-new appearance, each lashed securely to flat-racks which were themselves thoroughly attached to the floor.


    “Obviously, I had to recycle all our original vehicles as they were well beyond salvaging. A considerable chunk of a decade’s worth of energy was spent on fabricating these.”


    “ARI, this is magnificent” Pom said with a smile, as he walked circles around the shining yellow landing vehicle. ARI had even taken the time to paint black racing stripes on it, which gave it a sleek apid-like appearance. “This is the sexiest thing I have seen in seventy thousand years.”


    After Pom wandered off to inspect the landing vehicle, Maximilian and Ervin approached a groundcar. Maximilian suggested they talk, and they climbed into the vehicle to test it out. After confirming it was functioning properly, Maximilian shut it off and spoke in hushed tones so that ARI couldn''t overhear them.


    “What do you wish to discuss?”, Ervin replied impassively.


    “Our captain,” Maximilian answered quietly.


    Ervin kept his voice down and answered in a quick matter-of-fact tone “There is not much to discuss. According to procedure…”


    “She is 27 years old, her officer training was the quickest and cheapest to pass regulatory standards, and she has no noteworthy enhancements. She was added to the officers roster as an afterthought, because she was small and inexpensive. She came from Earth, with her mother divorcing due to debt and her father prosecuted for fraud…”


    “Colonel,” Ervin cut him off. “I fully understand your concerns. I acknowledge that your experience, training and enhancement would technically make you more qualified for command. I also understand that had the Dolya touched down rather than be in space, it would be you as the ranking ground officer that would have inherited command, rather than the space officers, which makes the situation more frustrating for you. However, we cannot simply abandon procedure when it suits us.”


    “I agree with that, your reverence. Yet, there are proper and procedural ways of dealing with situations such as these. Consider: The odds are stacked very heavily against us. There will be life-or-death decisions that have to be made.”


    “So far I have not seen our captain make any decision that jeopardized us.”


    “She only needs to make one, and we’re all dead...”


    Ervin thought carefully, then nodded, although his expression remained indeterminate.


    Maximilian turned quiet as he saw Pom approach. “We’ll talk again later, your reverence,” he said with a curt nod.


    ===


    “Elisa… Captain… do you have a moment?”, Sigrid asked, while looking up from the cargo manifests displayed on her monitor. “Could you come over and have a look at this?”


    “Sure!”, Elisa said cheerfully. Sigrid carried a pleasant personality and melodious voice that had lifted the somber mood. The two had made good progress organizing the remaining inventory and allocating it between the drop pods.


    “We need to fit these two fabricators in somewhere, and they are kind of essential to our colony, but if we take them in our primary drop pods, we’d have to leave out a lot of other things.”


    Looking over Sigrid’s shoulder, Elisa noticed a cleverly concealed datapad in the monitor’s recess.


    She read the short message it contained, then quickly deleted it.


    “I think we can make do with just one fabricator in the primary drop pods, and we can leave out the prefab greenhouse,” she finally said.


    “Very good Captain,” Sigrid replied, removing the datapad and flipping the switch to restore its connectivity. She cast Elisa a meaningful glance after the latter had returned to her seat.


    “Not much we can do about that at this point,” Elisa said with a shrug. “We just have to hope for the best.”


    But the message had troubled Elisa. Sigrid had calculated the odds of all the officers up the chain of command perishing, and even taking into account the fact that many of them were planet-born and thus affected by the deadly radioactive isotopes they had unwittingly brought along, the numbers did not add up.


    Officers have over triple the mortality rate, be wary of ARI, the message had read.