CH-A6C TELEMETRY NOMINAL
XENOBOTANICAL SURVEY // FIELD JOURNAL
-47.223 / +108.910 UTC 00:00:00
0x4EF12A7C MISSION BRIEF · STRATUM TX 06 / 06 WORLDS

A6C

DWARF-STAR ORBIT · SIX UNCHARTED WORLDS XENOBOTANICAL SURVEY, ROUTED UNDER SEAL OF THE NOSTROMO-BOTANIC PROTOCOL

DESIGNATION A6C.QUEST
LOG DATE CY-2247.071
SPECIMENS 047 CATALOGUED
STATUS DESCENDING
BEGIN DESCENT
STRATUM 01

MESOSPHERE / INTAKE

48.000 km · PRESSURE 0.008 atm

The Vesper-IV drops past the cloud ceiling at eleven bells, and our instruments start singing in a language we have not heard before. The upper haze is heavier than the charts predicted — a rusted veil of iron oxide and frozen aldehyde — and somewhere beneath it, a living world is exhaling.

We are xenobotanists, not soldiers. There are no guns on this ship, only herbarium presses and spectral cameras. And yet the atmosphere meets us with the unfriendly hiss of a kettle set down too hard. I write this entry with my gloves still on, the cuff of my jacket burned at the seam where the hatch seal caught fire during entry.

Whatever is growing down there does not care who it is met by. It is simply, defiantly, there.

STRATUM 02 · CATALOGUE FRAGMENT

HERBARIUM / 04 SPECIMENS

SCROLL LATERALLY · MESOGRAPH STRATA 19–12 km
01 / 05
STRATUM 03 · FIELD TRANSCRIPT

NOTES / IN FLIGHT

7.200 km · DENSITY 0.61 atm

The forest of A6C begins not at ground level but in the sky. At seven kilometres up, we see the first of them — the Ignis Frondis, floating like orange embers on columns of rising warm air, their spores slowly inverting as the pressure climbs.

Dr. Ayenra wanted to reach out and grab one. I talked her out of it, but only just. She told me I have no poetry in me, and she may be right. What I have, instead, is the memory of a friend I watched burn on a platform off Callisto. That is enough to keep my gloves on.

We pressed one with the vacuum clamps — the largest we've ever captured alive. Its spores remained luminous for forty minutes. On the dorsal surface of the third frond, a second species had taken up residence: a parasitic moss we had not catalogued, growing perfectly in the shape of a constellation I last saw from my bedroom window when I was twelve years old.

I put that detail in my official log and then, after a long stare at the overhead lamp, took it out again.

STRATUM 04 · CROSS-SECTION

CANOPY / VERTICAL TRANSECT

1.400 km · TEMP +18.2°C · IRRADIANCE 0.42 kW/m²
Burnt Copper / specimen stem
Oxidized Teal / leaf vein
Patina Bronze / root network
Ember Gold / bloom apex
STRATUM 05 · GROUND ENCOUNTER

GROUNDWORK / SURFACE LOG

0 m · AMBIENT +22.1°C · WIND 4.8 m/s NE
TL-01

ARRIVAL

The ramp lowered at 06:42 local. The air smelled like beaten copper and wet sage. Ayenra stepped out first, as is her right, and left five boot prints in the black soil before any of us followed.

TL-02

FIRST CONTACT

A Copper Lily unfolded within six metres of the ramp, slow and unafraid. Its stamen vibrated at 42 Hz when our voices reached it. It was, I will admit, listening.

TL-03

THE GROVE

Three-hundred metres east of the landing site, a grove of Veil Orchids stood in a near-perfect circle. No one planted them. No one tends them. Yet the radii are correct to within 40 cm.

TL-04

ROOTLINE

A single Serpent Root traced beneath our feet for the entire transect — 8.4 km of continuous cellular tissue, thicker than a marine hawser, older than our own species.

TL-05

NIGHTFALL

At dusk, Pauper's Stars came on one by one like harbor lights. For the first hour we stopped speaking. I still cannot explain what moved across the sky at 21:14 — we registered it and said nothing, because none of us wished to be corrected by the record.

TL-06

DEPARTURE

We lifted at 04:11, holds full of pressed specimens and sealed spore tubes. The grove, when we looked back from 2 km up, had rotated 12 degrees clockwise. Wind cannot do that.

// A6C.QUEST · TERMINAL READOUT POWER DOWN SEQUENCE 
> MISSION          : A6C.QUEST
> ORIGIN           : NOSTROMO-BOTANIC
> CAPTAIN          : M. KARREN
> SPECIMENS        : 047 PRESSED
> SAMPLES          : 0.42 kg (bulk)
> LATERAL TRANSECT : 8.412 km
> DESCENT          : 48.000 km → 0 m
> DWARF-STAR ORBIT : STABLE
> BOOT PRINTS      : 5 (AYENRA)
> CORRECTIONS      : 1 (STRIKE ORION)

> RETURNING TO ORBIT........ [  OK ]
> HERBARIUM SEALED.......... [  OK ]
> SPECTRAL CAMERAS PARKED... [  OK ]
> HATCH THERMOCOUPLE BLED... [ FAIL ]
> LAST WAVEFORM CAPTURED.... [  OK ]
> FIELD LOG CLOSED.......... [  OK ]
> DEPTH GAUGE AT REST....... [  OK ]
> SOUND FROM STRATUM 05..... [ UNKNOWN ]
> ______
END OF TRANSMISSION · CH-A6C — KEEP YOUR GLOVES ON.