Felix donned his respirator and hit the release on his tube’s door. The pressure seals hissed open, and the door automatically fell over smoothly and silently onto the ground outside.

Felix’s gaze was met with a dark jungle. The basic components of the jungle were the same as Earth’s: green leaves facing the sky, mosses, vines, and so forth. However, upon closer inspection, there were differences. There was little grass, and the soil was more of a collection of superfine pebbles as opposed to conventional dirt. The night was very still, and the sounds normally populate a jungle, those of cascading water, bird chirps, and other distant animals, were not audible. The trees were also thicker and taller than their Earthly counterparts.

Felix was surprised there were tree-like plants at all. In training, the expedition members were made aware the life they would encounter may not be remotely similar to Earth’s at all. They were extremely lucky.

Felix tore his attention from observing the jungle and got to work. Communications with the mother-ship would be completely blocked for one hour, to assess whether or not the local life took notice of the earthly intruders, and a mission abort was necessary. Until then, the expedition members were supposed to assess their location and make sure they and their equipment were concealed.

The display on Felix’s tube informed him of the temperature, air composition, and his estimated location relative to his squad mates. It was a chilly 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit), he would need to wear his oxygen respirator at all times, and Felix’s team was more or less inside their designated 10 square mile landing zone. All in all, everything went exceptionally well.

Felix undid his harness and set foot onto the ground. Solid. He vaguely wondered if he was the first person to set foot on this new planet. He grabbed his rifle and slung it over his shoulder. The presence of weapons on the expedition stirred a passionate and long winded debate between some of the scientists and command. The scientists argued bringing weapons was undiplomatic and could lead to violence at the outset of contact between humanity and another potentially sentient species. However, the hypothetical diplomatic ramifications were eventually trumped by the hypothetical animal, environmental, and hostile ramifications. Better safe than sorry, or something like that.

Over the next hour, Felix patrolled the immediate area, finding no sign of non-plant life. He also extracted his hiking backpack and transferred most of the contents of his tube into it. Some things, such as his second tent and some of the anthropological study equipment, would weigh him down and would only be relevant later in the expedition.

After the one hour mark, his communicator crackled to life. Maxwell’s voice appeared once again over his airwaves.

“Congrats, bud. You made it!”

“Thanks Max-”

“Anywho,” Maxwell interrupted, “Three of your squad mates perished. Sorry to be abrupt, but those are the facts. Higgins, Tolbert, and LeTrec are your remaining comrades. You’ll have to travel to their tubes to get their supplies and destruct them.”

“Acknowledged.”

“But...” Maxwell continued, “The first order of business is freeing Tolbert.”

“Free her?”

“Yes. She survived the landing, but her tube landed door-down. I’m assigning Higgins and LeTrec to salvage Ortega and Powers’ tubes, then both of the parties will meet up at Muller’s. I’m off to administer the other teams. Wyoming is a disaster, but Washington is perfect. If you need anything dire, use the emergency feed.”