Orbital Jumpstart - 58807.17, 08h30

"Codes received, Commander," Raikon replied.

Looking over to Wryn, he nodded.

"You get yourself suited up. I'll follow in a minute."

When the Maverick docked, Raikon immediately went to work.

"Establishing connection... entering codes... we're in."

His hands glided over the console.

"Routing power from the Maverick. Bringing emergency lighting online from the docking bay to Engineering and the Bridge. Initializing bridge controls, engineering controls, and the main computer."

He waited a few moments while the systems responded.

"System draw is nominal. No abnormal power drain detected from the Keppler."

Satisfied that the transfer was stable, Raikon stood from the console and made his way over to where the environmental suits were stored.

Yassen, having nodded to Lektar in acknowledgement of her leaving the centre stations, turned his gaze again to the screen in front of him, focusing on attempting to refine the scattered readings identified earlier.

The atmosphere, it seemed, was infuriatingly dense, and he couldn't imagine it allowed much light onto the surface, whatever that looked like. The thick envelope of gasses encircling the planet was certainly comprised mostly of water; not entirely unexpected, he supposed. What was unexpected were the other strange readings he was getting, some sort of particle he couldn't identify but presumed was causing – or at least contributing to – the poor sensor readings.

Not worth it to try and actively scan directly through the atmosphere, then. Better to keep the passive sensors running on that, and more actively apply himself to finding some break in the volatile atmosphere to scan directly through to the planet's surface. Or suggest they beam someone down? No, it was a ridiculously optimistic endeavour in either case, given how small and sporadic the gaps forming were.

"I'm definitely getting consistently... odd readings, from some particles binding with the water vapour," he said. "I'll try to work out what they are, but I think it's worth keeping an eye on the brief breaks in the unpredictable atmosphere to run some sort of hyper-focused scan through, too. I don't want to limit our options when they all seem equally impracticable at the moment."