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[h2]Chapter Three: Signs of Life[/h2]
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They were well out of Edenite space by now.  Outside of the space the Edenites had mapped.  Food would last for a few more months but because the ship had never been designed to go more than a couple of weeks, the hydroponics bay was not producing any crops yet and even when it did it would barely suffice.

Which was why the ship jumping into a system with a habitable planet was so exciting.  There was almost certainly [i]something[/i] they could harvest down on the surface, even if it wasn't food in the way that any of them knew it.

Velia was at her communications station as the ship entered orbit, performing the usual scans.  This wasn't usually a job for the Comms officer, but Velia had more knowledge of the ship systems than most, "The atmosphere looks... flammable.  No wait, let me check the manual," she paused for a few moments, flicking through a datapad she had propped up on the desk by a coffee mug.  The planet hung still, a green and blue jewel with swirling white clouds. 

"I'm getting that number wrong... habitable," she corrected.

She paused, muttering under her breath as more numbers came in, "Looks to be an advanced civilisation on the surface.  A few million humans... huh fancy that, some more of you guys managed to get off earth.  Heavy industry, but no transmissions on or from the surface.  That's weird right?"

"Also there aren't any satellites," she added, "But there's a single space port in the Southern Hemisphere."

She looked between the crew as if hoping someone would tell her what to do, then gave a small shrug, "Guess I'll hail on all frequencies and see what happens."

She clicked a button on her console, "Hello Aliens.  We come in peace.  This is the Edenite Colony ship..." she trailed off, they really needed to sort out a name.  "Requesting permission to touch down at your space port with a shuttle."

Velia waited.  She continued to wait for several minutes before giving an expansive shrug and an exasperated sigh, "Well they're not picking up.  I'll try them again."

She did.  Twice.  There was no answer to the hail either from the space port or anywhere else on the planet.

"This seems weird to me.  Our transmitter and receiver are not broken so the failure to communicate is on their end," she pursed her l, "I'm in favour of going down anyway and seeing if we can talk in person.  If they shoot at the shuttle we'll know they aren't friendly."