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Chennah says once the feed was going, "Sir, scan is underway, data is being compiled."

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Dysniphos VI:
Orbital variance + 45 Galactic ecliptical plane
Planetary mass: +10 Earth norm.
Gravitational Variance: +8 Earth standard.
composition: iron 25%, Nickel 30%, Carbon 25%, trace metals and elements 20%.
Core Temperature: 649 C
Average equatorial surface temperature: -100 C
Average Polar Surface temperature: -150 C
Atmospheric Composition: Hydrogen 75%, Carbon Dioxide 22% trace rarified gasses 3%
Climate: heavy temperature differences between the poles and equator have created a series of hurricane like storms, each with average wind speed of 130 kph, moving irregulary across the surface at varying intervals.
Life scan: no life signs detected.
Resources: no minable resources detected.
Notes: no lunar bodies detected.
Trace metal detected, pattern indicates wreckage of some sort.
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Deathseide says to Chennah, "Get a closer look at that metallic wreckage, I want to know what it is."
With a nod, she focuses the scans, and soon a small field of debris is outlined under a drift of hydrogen snow. A few seconds pass, then Chennah says, "Sir, from size and general configuration of the debris, it can be extrapolated that the wreckage is that of a civilian frieghter, maybe a colony vessel. Age of debris indicates it has been here for more than a decade."
he says softly, "Any chance of survivors?" having a gut feeling there would be none, giving the intense harshness of the environment, and knowing it would be a death sentence for anyone without specialized gear. Chennah confirmed that fear by saying, "None, sir. There are no traces of habitation, either surface or subsurface, not any traces of detectable heat or life signs."
Giving a nod, he stands straight from where he had been leaning over Chennah's station, then says, "Ok, if we are done here, let's move to the next planet."
The helmsman complied, and the Far Seeker breaks orbit and moves on...

A Few hours later, the Far Seeker was edging slowly into orbit around the fourth planet in the system, Deathseide was seated in the command chair, and Chennah was once more working at the science station as the computers once again begin recording.
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Dysniphos IV:
Orbital variance + 22 Galactic ecliptical plane
Planetary mass: +5 Earth norm.
Gravitational Variance: +2 Earth norm.
composition: Carbon 55%, Iron 15% Nickel 13% Tin 7%, Trace Metals and Elements 10%.
Core Temperature: 1600 C
Average equatorial surface temperature: -70 C
Average Polar Surface temperature: -89 C
Atmospheric Composition: Carbon Dioxide 72%, O2 12% Sulfur Dichloride 11%, trace rarified gasses 5%
Climate: Average windspeed 29 KPH, appearance of electrical storm activity within 10 degrees of polar axis, no major climate shifts detected between light/dark interface, constant acidic snowfall detected across polar regions.
Life scan: no life signs detected.
Resources: no minable resources detected.
Notes: Double lunar bodies detected, distance from main planet 125,000 AU, tidal influence negligible, sizes of lunar bodies- .05 ELN and .25 ELN
Scarcity of heavy metals within planetary makeup accounts for gravitational Variance from normal standard. high levels of CO2 and Sulfur Dichloride creates extremely acidic atmosphere hazardous for any non silicate based lifeforms and vessels atempting to make landfall.
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Deathseide could not help but stare at the close up magnification of the surface, and the snow appearing as multicolored gems, yet he knew by the data readings that he would not live to regret trying to play in that stuff...
Averting his gaze while supressing a shudder, he says. " I think we are done here, helmsman, set course for the next planet, same routine."
A few seconds later, the planet swings out of view, leaving it's dazzling yet venomously beautiful surface behind as the Far Seeker noses its way out of orbit and begins its slow and graceful glide to the next world in the system.

About six hours after the team had beamed down, Chennah says, "Sir, comm from team leader Terrichi."
Giving her a nod, he says, "Ok, on screen."
A second later, a well bundled Caitian face appears on the screen, in the background flickers of motion as snow falls, and a few of the team members move in and out of the portable comm pickup.
the caitian says, his voice somewhat muffled by the wind "Xenobiologist Terrichi here, we have established a full defensive perimeter, and have started to collect flora data, suprisingly, the majority of the plantlife here are several varieties of a type of tree resembling a cross between the Terran Coniferous evergreen and the ancient japanese bonzai tree.
We have managed to locate a few samples of the small local fauna, which seems to outwardly resemble a terran snake, including in a few of the vaireties strong venom glands with syringelike teeth for delivery. Their outer layering is not scaled however, but rather a thick coat of white fur.
also, they have an amazinly fast ability to burrow, even through the frozen ground, making their capture more of a wait and pounce fast style of capture."
Terrichi turns as a very distinct and clearly heard hissing roar sounds from nearby, and quickly turns back to the comm pickup, saying, "my apologies, it appears that one of our small trapping teams have managed to capture one of the mid sized of the furry serpents..."
Turning again as a colleague shouts to him, Terrichi makes some motions unseen by the pickup, then turns back, saying, "we will be sending samples of the various flora, as well as biological samples from the fauna we find back up for more detailed analysis."
Another shout from behind his causes Terrichi to wave behind him, and he says, "I have to go for now, will contact you again in ten hours with further updates, Terrichi Out."
With that, the transmitting end of the comm went dark, and Deathseide says, "Switch back to surface view."
A second later, the black screen is again replaced by the small dots and white field of the base camp, but in a relatively small force field enclosure, there appeared to be a five meter long shaggy snake. Currently coiled in a classic ready to strike poise, which it used in a strike faster than his eyes could follow as one of the biological specialists got close, causin the specialist to jump bakwards several yards in suprise.
After the snake lunged, it appeared to rear up, and dive down, only to rebound from the forcefield below it. After it seemed to be dazed for a few seconds, it one more coiled up and shifted it's head to follow whichever of the team members that got close...
Sitting back in his chair, Deathseide says, almost in a whisper, "now that could get interesting to handle in the wild..."
he was about to have Chennah run a scan for any more of the local wildlife of that size, when the comm chime sounds, and Chennah answers, talking soft and quick for a second, then says, "Sir, Comm from the surface, they are ready to have the first batch of samples beamed aboard."
Deathseide says, "Very well, Have the transporter room beam it directly to the containment lab, full biological shielding, alert the Xeno lab team and have them report to their stations."
With a nod and a,"yes, sir." She begins passing along the instructions.
Deathseide leans back in his chair once more as the samples are beamed aboard....

Five hours after the Far Seeker departed the orbit of Dysniphos III the vessel slid with ease into orbit around Dysniphos II, Deathseide looks over as Chennah announces, "We are now in exploration orbit of Dysniphos II, sir."
Giving her a nod, he says, "Begin scans of the surface, usual procedures..."
And again, the main screen shifted to a more tactical view of the planet, while a steady stream of data began to slide across the screen on his chair.
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Dysniphos II:
Orbital variance +5 Galactic ecliptical plane
Planetary mass: +2 Earth norm.
Gravitational Variance: +7 Earth norm.
composition: Iron 34%, Lead 22%, nickel 20%, Carbon 14% Silicates 7%, Tace metals and elements 3%
Core Temperature: 5538 C
Average light side equatorial surface temperature: 500 C
Average dark side equatorial surface temperature: 230 C
Average Polar Surface temperature: 120 C
Atmospheric Composition: Carbon Dioxide 50%, Sulfur Dioxide 24%, Carbon Monoxide 20%, Argon 4%, trace rarified gasses 2%
Climate: Constant Eletric storms rage across the solar facing side, fueled continuously by the heavy gusts of wind created by the differences in surface temperature and by heat radiation from small lakes of molten lead across the sunward side.
Life scan: no life signs detected.
Resources: no minable resources detected.
Notes: No Lunar bodies detected, though a sizeable crater near the eqatorial belt suggests it may once have had a moon.
The constant high temperatures across the sunward side of the planet keep the exposed deposits of lead in a molten state, and fuel the near continous electrical storms which further increase and maintain the high surface temperatures. the dark side posses a surface resembling a blasted moonscape, where the lead deposits once more solidify. Rotational variance is five times slower than earth, so one solar 'day' from sunup to sundown is 60 hours. The high concentrations of heavy metals laced through the planetary crust and core account for the extreme difference in planetary size to gravitational variance.
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Deathseide could not help but feel a kind of desolation as he watches the dark side of the planet slide into view, the surface a wasteland of heat tortured metal and volcanic cones cooling down...
With an effort, he smooths the fur on his face down, and says, "Is the scan complete?"
When Chennah says, "Yes, sir." he nods again, and says, helmsman, set a course for the inner planet, and modulate sheilds to compensate for the increase in solar radiation."
With an acknowledging, "Yes, sir!" the helmsman sets the course, while Neggarth begins working at his controls to reset the shields...
A second later, the sleek form of the Far Seeker edges out of orbit from the fire scorched hell that was the planet below and into the darkness of intersystem space...

The Far Seeker enters orbit over Dysniphos III.
Deathseide says, "bring view up of Base camp, and open a channel."
Chennah nods, and soon the main view screen once more fills with the cool white of snow covered ground, and the soft shimmer of defensive fields arond the base. and something else...
Deathseide has to blink once or twice to make certain he is seeing right, then he asks, "Are you seeing what I am?"
Chennah says, "yes, sir... "
He nods silently, and turns his attention back to the screen as the image of Terrichi comes on, even through the heavy bundling of protective wear, the caitian seemed to be very excited.
Deathseide speaks first, saying, "made any further progress?"
Terrichi responds quickly with an emphatic, "Yes, we have indeed. We have managed to capture one of the large furry snakes, currently being held outside of the base perimeter fields..."
Deathseide raises his hand, and Terrichi falls silent as he says, "So, there is something in that mass of field distortion just east of the base..."
Terrichi nods, and says, "Yes, we have found that the big ones are suprising fast and durable, we had managed to knock it out for about an hour using some of the nerotas, but it has since fully woken up again... fortunately, we were able to get a very thorough reading on it before it did wake up. Now we are trying to figure out how to get it away from here..."
Deathseide breaks in again with, "Can't you use more of the nerotas? it had worked before..."
Terrichi shakes his head, saying, "Already tried that, it seems that on top of being very difficult to knock out, they also have the ability to adapt to certain things... much as some of the Terran bioforms can adapt, We are unsure how yet, as we have not had the time to fully examine the data we got from it."
Deathseide nods, then says, "Would it help if we transport it away from your location?"
Terrichi nods as well, saying, "yes, and please... It is making me very nervous just having it around at this point... Thankfully there are so few of them, relatively speaking."
Deathseide looks skeptical, and asks, "What does that mean?"
The response was, "well, form the data we have collected so far, it seems that there are about one of these big ones to every five thousand of the smaller snakes... And, until we can get a full permanant base here to conduct long term studies, we can only assume it is a matter of supply of food... too many of the big snakes and the populations of the smaller ones drop very fast..."
deathseide nods understanding, then says, "Prepare to drop the containment field around the big one, as soon as you do, we will transport the snake to a location over five thousand klicks from your location."
Terrichi nods, and says, "Thank you, sir."
Deathseide nods to Chennah to cut the comm, then says, "contact the cargo transporter room and have them prepare to activate on my mark, set coordinates for.."
he briefly studies on averlay map of the planet on his chair screen, then continues with, "here..."
He gives Chennah the planetary coordinates, then says, "Now..."
Then chaos broke out on the surface, as the signal went to the personnel controlling the containment field surrounding the snake, and they shut it down, and in that instant, something resembling a shaggy version of Titan's own jack in the box uncoiled like a released spring straight up nearly twenty meters, to land again with what looked like a hard enough impact that it made most of the loose supply crates in the base jump a good two feet, and the next instant, the massive snake was engulfed in the shimmering fire of transporter effect, vanishing the next moment like it was never there, save for the rather sizeable indentation where the creature had hit the ground.
A few seconds later, in a remote area far away, the shimmering fire of the transporter lights the night up, and continues for a few seconds, and fades out as the snake materializes fully.
the final Transporter paralysis releases the snake, and it immediately coils into a classic rattler pose, the massive head scanning wildly for any sign of what had grabbed it.
Deathseide watches the side screen and the view of the snake until it finally relaxes, raising its head and seeming to dive into the ground so fast the whole fourteen and a half meters of it vanish in a matter of a few seconds...
He looks back to the main screen as Chennah says, "Sir, comm from base camp."
He replies with, "Open a channel..."
Within a couple seconds, the rather disheveled Terrichi appears on the screen, the sounds of shouting and motion behind him as he says, "now that was a new one... Thankfully we were scanning it when we released the field, otherwise I would have never believed that such a massive creature could jump that high..."
The xeno biologist turns and shouts something that was indistinguishable over the general noise, and turns back, saying, "I think we have collected enough data for a full determination of viability, can we be brought back up?"
Deathseide could barely supress a half smile of relief, as he could imagine what the snake's little show looked like to those on the ground, if it was that viewable from orbit...
he says, "Of course, we will begin transporting personnel and supplies back to the ship immediately..."
He motions for Chennah to close the link, then says, "Contact both personnel and cargo transporter rooms, and have them begin beaming the supplies and personnel about..."
With a nod, Chennah relays the commands, and a minute later, the crates of supplies begin to vanish in the fire of transporter effect, and, as the away team signaled readiness, the team begins to be transported as well...

"Leaving warp in 3...2..." Helmsman Mubarak began to count down as they passed the outer limits of the Dysniphos system. Last time they'd come out of warp 2.6 seconds after Mubarak had given the order, mostly because Orin had discovered that dead tribbles made excellent hair pieces, and so she'd quickly adopted the habit of counting down for the Deltan, just to keep him on-task.

"...1" Orin finished, his slim fingers striking half the controls in a flurry as Mubarak pumped the throttle back.

With a dead percussion of sound, the USS Veil popped into real space and began coasting toward the center of the system on impulse power.

"Bring up research reports again for me, Patz," Captain Bligh asked his communications officer as they sailed past an unnamed gas giant far to starboard. The viewscreen showed an enhanced version of their destination, an inhospitable node of life in otherwise dead space, which always fascinated Bligh.

Tables and charts began to flash onto the screen, overlapping the planet and picking out points of interest as indicated by the Far Seeker and her crew some months ago. Their job here, as a predominantly-scientific vessel, was to update information on the sensors left by the previous team, to download anything significant they may have recorded, and to give a secondary survey of the planet's surface.

"According to these notes here," Darixx, their chief science officer began, "it would appear this planet is suitable for colonization, and yet there has been no move by the Federation to do so."

"Dysnihos is untamed," commander Landon said flatly, offering her particular knowledge on planetary bodies and bureaucratic shuffling. "In other words, she is capable of settlement, but our job here will be to prove she's worth it. The Federation is a peace-keeping armada, not a colonial despot."

"I simply implied-" Darixx began, but Patz cut him off.

"Sir, we'll leedink a signul flom ze kumyunikeshunz kundwit," he intoned through his thick Albanian. "Shood vee lespont?"

Bligh hesitated for a moment, catching his commanding officer's eye, and knew that she'd recommend exactly what he was thinking.

"Take us in closer first," the captain said sneakily. "I want to get a good look before we put anything down on record."