<div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/rrLZaAV.png)</div>As the conference room filled with the officers and crew that had been called for, Commander Mara was finishing the story of his first away mission to Captain Galven.<br/><br/>"So you can imagine my concern when I'm up to my waist in mud, trying to get out, and the first thing I grab onto is a rather large snake. It was about that time that I got beamed up to my ship, and so the transporter chief suddenly had about a cubic meter of mud and water splash onto his pad as well as a very large and very perturbed snake slithering around attempting to bite the ankles of anyone that got too close. Needless to say, he wasn't too fond of me for a few months afterwards."<br/><br/>After the laughter died down and everyone had composed themselves, Captain Galven addressed her crew. "Good morning everyone. I hope you enjoy the sweets, for we have a few things to go over. First, we're on approach to system 5826 Kang Xiu, which will be our first stop in the sector. I'm very excited because according to the report from long-range probes, there are clear radio signals from the planet, so we'll be doing a long-distance scan of the planet and then approach with caution. I just wanted to go over the protocols with everyone in case you're new to this kind of thing."<br/><br/>She tapped a few commands into the thin command console on the table and an image of the planet arose. It was a blue/green marble, about half green and half blue, with very small ice-locked poles. "Standard protocol is to lurk around their largest jovian planet and obtain long-range scans and collect radio broadcasts for analysis. We'll spend about a week gathering enough to learn about their language, their technology level, and if they're at all close to ready for first contact. Once we've got all that, we'll move on. Should be fairly routine, so are there any questions or comments?"