Inquiry

Michael Kaidelan began pushing away civilians trying to enter the flight deck to get a better view. Apparently cameras and giant 15 foot windows were not enough. Michael quickly shut the airlock and he watched dismayed civilians walk away. All except for one.

"Joseph, what do you want?" he irritatedly asked.

Joseph simply asked, "When are we dropping down?"

"When we do," Michael sarcastically replied.

"Hilarious," the head of the prime science team deadpanned.

"Man, I don't know. Soon enough. You, me, everyone, and their brother wants to get down there and start finding places to colonize. But we still have no clue if nothing is living there. We need to do recon first, the admiral said," the military police officer quickly explained, wise to the scientist's antics.

Michael was speaking informally, as he very well knew Jospeh Christopher. Friends since 9 years of age, each of them ironically picked the opposite of the jobs they said they'd pick as children. Joseph wanted to be a cop. He became a scientist. Michael wanted to become an astrophysicist; before giving up when he realized the credentials and math were going to be long and arduous. He soon realized his love for tazers, lasers, and bullets.

As if to mock Michael's matter-of-fact explanation earlier, the announcer boomed over the ship's speakers

ALL MILITARY PERSONNEL AND CLASS B OR HIGHER SCIENCE PERSONNEL REPORT TO THE FLIGHT DECK. YOUR HAND SIGNATURE HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY ADDED TO THE WHITELIST.

"Not. A. Word." Michael barked before moving away from the door to allow himself and his companion in.

Joseph and his friend, Michael, walked back out of the command area through the same airlock they had gone in not 6 minutes ago. After quickly being debriefed on what exactly their mission was to be, they were all issued NASA standard issue colony scouting suits.

The suits were simply white-gray and airtight, with forearm guards, shinguards, kneepads, breastplate, shoulder pads (for military personnel only), and high impact helmet, complete with HUD. In Joseph's honest opinion, it seemed a bit excessive for a scouting mission on a hopefully peaceful planet. The science teams were quickly instructed to refrain from using the small Gauss pistols they were issued unless they encountered some sort of hostile inhabitant.

The military personnel, however, were issued high-power Gauss sub-machine guns resembling the ancient G36C crossed with an equally ancient P90. Their suits were a darker gray than the science suits, and sported menacing looking shoulder pads to possible deter any wildlife or traitorous crewmembers. The only other difference their suits bore were the fact that their helmets seemed slightly more restricting to peripheral vision, all of which was made up for with the helmet sporting hidden cameras for literal eyes in the back of the head.

"Alright, just received the notification. Me, you, and 6 others are off for a VTOL in hangar 7," Michael stated as he broke the silence.

"Liquid fuel or warp?"

"Fuel,"

"Tiltwing?"

"Yep, just the way you like it," Michael snickered at his companion's finickiness in which aircraft they were to take.

"One more question, Gladiator or Hummingbird?"

"Hummingbird. No heavy ordnance for science teams, man. Common sense. Now stop with the questions!"

"Damnit." Joseph promptly stated as he rounded a corner into a space hangar. He spotted the only Hummingbird MKII left in the room as the pair quickly jogged to the open doors. Jumping into their seats and quickly strapping in their seatbelts, the doors closed as the craft lurched.

With a violent jolt, the craft shot forwards, out of the hangar doors and past the forcefield. Within a matter of 6 minutes, the craft notification system sweetly stated, "3 Kilometers above planet sea level."

The roaring helicopter slightly dived down to where the cockpit HUD had designated as their landing site, only a mere 50 meters away from where all of the other craft had already landed. The giant camp came into view as a federally funded base was assembled by a team of 14 men in suits adorned with neon yellow, reflective stripes.

Dozens of aircraft were slowly emptying around it as teams of men began quickly flattening land as a makeshift parking lot.

When the Hummingbird's doors slowly hissed open, Joseph's team quickly bounded out of the door to set up tents and deployable fences. It was going to be a long day, which was now reduced to 18.4 hours on Hugrart-24b. Nevertheless, a long, stressful day.

Twilight Sparkle happily woke up from a happy sleep in a happy town. Of course, it was all a mirage. Disasters happened to the town on a monthly basis, either caused by a trio of little girls or some eldritch evil spirit returning from banishment to terrorize Equestria. Surprisingly, the spirits were easier to handle.

Nevertheless, she really did wake up in a happy mood. She stretched her forelegs and yawned, the average wakeup routine for nearly everypony. Tossing herself off the bed to regain her footing and wake her up, she began slowly trotting down the stairs to the sounds of  emerald cake batter being stirred in a large bowl. The cause of the noise was small purple whelp, wearing a girly, frilly pink apron and chef's cap.

"Good morning, Spike!" Twilight chirped, her voice still groggy.

"Mornin' Twi," he cheerfully replied. "Oh, by the way, the picnic is today!"

"Picnic? Since when?"

"Check your calendar, it was planned over 2 months ago by Pinkie and Rarity. Don't you remember?" Spike asked quizzically as he stopped stirring the batter.

"Ohmygosh! Oh sweet Celestia! I forgot I forgot I forgot!" Twilight panicked.

"Take it easy, Twi!" Spike calmly pulled a basket from a cabinet nearby. "I prepared it for you already,"

Twilight breathed the very essence of relief as she saw the meal already packed. "Thank you Spike," She smiled. "I have no idea what I would do without you." She rubbed her right forehoof through his frills, grateful that her little dragon was looking out for her.

"No problem. Just... tell Rarity I said hi?" Spike sheepishly suggested.

"Got it. You have fun, then. Consider it your day off." Twilight grinned ear to ear as she shut the door behind her with her basket in his magical vise. Bounding toward Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight looked up at the sun in the sky. I still have a few minutes left...

"Set it up, boys! Double time!" A man with a booming voice yelled through the communication network as Joseph left the channel. He was in the much more interesting Construction & Maintenance, and actually was supposed to be on the near-silent Science Teams' channel.

He simply sat in the helicopter, legs slung over the side as he thumbed his pistol. A figure walked up out of the corner of his eye and he stuffed it back into his holster.

"Hey man, you wanna help out? I mean come on, I'm helping set up your tent," A young man in Joseph's team complained.

"Yeah, yeah... Just a sec," Joseph grunted, leaping off of the helicopter as he made his way toward the mess of un-assembled steel.