He was confident that he would do just fine, since he was a neo-evosapien, he could adaptively evolve to extreme environments just fine. But the same could not be said for the two Martial Artists, the elf, and the evosapien-technovore hybrid.
"Navigation gear is definitely a must in this environment," Misha concurred with a thoughtful tone. "We will need it if we want to navigate between entropy anomalies on the planet. Since the entropy points are constantly changing, trying to wing it or even rely on Ria’s senses alone isn’t enough."
Runark turned towards Ria. "How close to an entropy vent do you need to be in order to verify that it is an entropy vent again?"
"I can’t be too far away," Ria replied with a sigh. "I have to be within ten meters for me to make that distinction."
"So we have no other choice but to enter each firestorm and make sure that we vet them thoroughly," Siliscia murmured. "That’s not going to be easy."
"We will need highly durable exosuits that can withstand sustained heat," Misha remarked thoughtfully.
"I chose a suit made up of invintium alloy," Ria replied. "All of us will need to wear the most durable gear that we have."
"If it does turn out to be the case that each of the entropy points has firestorms at their entrance, does that mean the manifold is an extremely hot place?" Sternon couldn’t help but wonder. "Like, filled with infernos?"
Ria shook her head. "The entropy generated from such a world would destroy the consciousness of the virus. It prefers stable environments. I suspect something else entirely is happening with the firestorms."
She remembered her conversation with the Psyker and the Esoterist who told her that the virus’s integrated information, its consciousness, would fall apart if there was too much entropy and too much chaos. Based on that, she could deduce that the manifold was unlikely to have extreme temperatures.
"More importantly, our travel inventory space is limited, and with all the vital supplies we need: food, basic shelter, first aid tech, and antimatter reserves. We will only be able to carry about a month’s supply with us," Ria remarked. "It’s a shame that pocket dimension technology is so energy-consuming."
They wouldn’t be able to walk around with an entire truckload’s worth of supplies in a small pouch that had a pocket dimension. The technology was only useful under some circumstances.
They continued refining their planning, making it more precise based on all the information that the Stellarch had gathered about the general conditions of the planet. In the meantime, the Stellarch continued sweeping scans across the surface of the planet in steady orbit around the massive gas giant, all while remaining carefully in stealth.
They were dealing with an infected world, which meant that they simply couldn’t let their guard down. The defenses of the Stellarch were great, but they weren’t going to protect them if the infected world truly did get hostile in such a manner.
Eventually, however, the stealth surveyor ship pleted its survey of the planet, having finally mapped the entire surface.
The five pathwalkers were immediately transmitted the relevant data, neatly marked and labeled, with the remaining points across the surface of the planet.
Hovering above the table were holograms of the planet as it was and a map of the entire planet laid out flat. According to the piled information, there were twelve quantum entropy anomalies mapped across the entirety of the surface of the planet.
"That’s definitely manageable." Ria’s amber eyes lit up with interest. "Now, all we need is to have the Stellarch keep track of these points and update as it moves around."
Of course, that wasn’t the only new information that they had gotten about Planet Pinky. The intensive scans of the entire surface of the planet also revealed more information about the residents of the planet and its native life.
The macrobes.
"According to these reports, there are countless species of macrobes that have been observed across the surface of the planet," Misha remarked with an intrigued expression. "An entire tree of life that is centered around mega single-celled creatures. "Isn’t that fascinating?"
"What does it mean for our operation?" Ria focused on the parts that had relevance for the purpose for which they had traveled to this star system. "Are they dangerous? How intelligent and sophisticated are they?"
"We still have yet to gather enough information to concretely conclude anything about the macrobes, but we can be certain that we are dealing with decently plex lifeforms, even if they appear simple," Siliscia replied with a engrossed tone as she zoomed into the footage of the macrobes that they had been gathered. "But what is perhaps the most exciting—err, troubling—discovery that was made is the fact that these creatures appear to be able to utilize hydrogen and oxygen together in very dangerous manners."
She played the low-resolution footage of several macrobes releasing flames from within their bodies that spread around the environment in violent conflagrations. Even though the oxygen percentage of the atmosphere was lower than on Gaia, it was still high enough that with high proportions of hydrogen, setting a conflagration off wasn’t that difficult.
"This might make them more of a threat than I thought," Ria realized. "I’m assuming that there’s variation within these creatures and some can do this better than others."
There were always extremes, and if regular macrobes could spew flames, then maybe the most powerful among them could create extraordinary infernos.
That was a threat that they would have to keep in mind if they wanted to avoid any mishaps. Ria would rather steer clear of any threats entirely.
"Although there appear to be countless species of macrobes, there are distinct sets of colonies of what appear to be macrobe munities." Misha waved her hand, causing color-shaded areas to overlap with the flat map of the planet, highlighting a messy set of shapes covering most of the surface of the planet. "Based on the information that is gathered at the time, it does appear as though these colonies may not necessarily get along with each other. The analysts note the conflagrations across the borders of these territories, which indicates that they may be fighting with their fire generation abilities."
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