The spaceship started to gain more and more speed towards the planet. Franco didn't understand why Elio was so mesmerized looking at a planet with four moons. He knew that some of the planets have even 27 moons surrounding it. Franco started to accelerate because he wanted to confirm his curiosity. But by doing this, he's unaware of the amount of fuel that is being spent for the transport.
"Honey, be careful of not wasting our reserve just because you're in a hurry.", Luna reminded Franco who was only thinking for a short term.
Franco slowed down a bit, he then looked at the fuel level that is displayed in his glasses. Both Elio and Luna couldn't see this. "I got it, you don't have to worry about that.", a proud, confident, and calming smile came out from Franco's mouth. Elio was happy seeing this and Luna didn't have to see Franco, she already knew that he would smile like that every time he's sure.
******
Finally, the ship was getting closer. Franco was started to decelerate the ship, not because he was ready to land, but it was because he wanted to enjoy the view. The ship was above four big moons, even Franco can felt their gravities are trying to pull the whole spaceship down, but he already made sure that they were in the safe distance. Franco stood up and removed his glasses, taking a big deep breath and enjoy the view beside Elio. Luna who saw both of them looking at the windshield decided to join in. She was skeptical at first but as she saw the view, she finally understood.
The four big moons were rotating, although it's pretty slow, slower than the moon that used to rotate in Earth, but the way they orbit were faster. It explained why Elio thought that it was a train before. The high tide which looks like a tsunami was the effect of the gravitational pull of the four moons. Just like the moons, it also revolve around the planet, the tsunami created its own path that erode all the lands in the planet. From outside it looks like there was a huge whale under the sea and started swimming through the river that it had created.
******
Franco launched three sphere-shaped drones to go to the planets first. Securing possible safe zones for the ship to land. The drones were in a form of small balls that has the ability to scan in 360 degree point of view. Obviously, the safest landing zone was away from the tsunami. The drones gave information as well to Franco whether there are possible threats like poisonous gas or unexpected locals in the planet. Finally after both Franco and Luna read the report of the landing zone and possible threats, they move on to the third stage of scanning, which was gathering information whether the resources there were enough to become another new settlement for humans.
Franco set his spaceship on the designated landing area, a place where it was safe from the tsunami, but they were still able to observe the phenomenon from afar. Elio woke Gian from his sleep. He flicked his cheeks while Gian was still sleeping under his blanket, and then Gian slowly opening his eyes.
"Is it time for the class already?" confused Gian asked Elio who was on his side.
"No, dad just found a new interesting planet, you don't want to be left out here by yourself right?" Elio showed his eager face to Gian, who didn't seem to be excited at all.
The truth was Gian was not the type of kid that like to explore, he's the type of a kid that liked to finish his chores efficiently, watch movies and play some games for a while, and then sleep again. But one thing about him was that if his parents command him to do something, he will do it and finish it right away. These were the big differences between Elio and Gian. Elio was the type of person who got inspired by his surrounding, putting everything that he sees into some kind of art, a writing, a drawing, or maybe other form, which makes him easily excited in finding new things. Gian was the type of person who was responsible for his task, and commit to them, he could easily do monotone things daily, because he didn't want any tasks interrupting his rest.
The family however had rules that if they were exploring a planet, none can be left behind on the spaceship. This is due to the unexpected threat that might possess the spaceship if someone was still inside, like sudden atmospheric pressure change which end up destroying the spaceship or earthquakes and other phenomenon that might sink the ship and anything inside it.
Four of them were grouping in the changing room. They were putting on their special suits so they could roam freely outside. They were also connected with internal communications that was split into 5 buttons in their wrists: blue, red, green, yellow, and black. Blue is for Franco, red is for Luna, green is for Elio, yellow is for Gian, and black was an open comm that can be listened by four of them. However, Franco and Luna always suggest their kids to always turned the black button on.
Franco and Luna stepped out from the spaceship door that leads to the surface of the land through an enhanced steel ladder. Franco took the lead and place his right foot on the surface first. It was sandy, and once his foot touch the sand, water came out from it, just like when you step your foot on the side of the beach. Luckily it didn't behave like a quicksand that could swallow your whole body by minutes. It was still though, a hard terrain to walk.
Franco still keep his drones exploring the planet. They could be handy as watch dogs for the family, looking out for them. Elio walked behind his parent, and sometimes he used his enhanced vision as well to look further. Sometimes he turned himself in a 360 degree so that he can see the view of the whole planet. With his sight, he could see anything that happens there, the flow of the water, the foliage and rocks which spread across, and sometimes he saw one of Franco's drones scanning the area. Elio felt like it's weird that there were no living creatures here, or at least he couldn't see any of it living on top of the land.
"Dad, did your drones scanning any creatures in this planet." Elio asked his dad because he just saw his dad's drones working when he looked around with his enhanced vision.
"Yeah, no living creatures detected through the thermal scanner, my drones already gave the report through my archiver." Franco pull up his archiver and show it to Elio, and it didn't detect any temperature difference that can indicate living creatures.
"I mean, do all your drones work well though? Because I didn't see that one on that side doing any scanning." Elio pointed out the the Northwest side of the direction where they're walking.
Franco checked the scanner to look at the progress update of the three drones, they were all scanning. Then, he pressed another tab to see all the drones exact location relative from his position. In the archiver, there was no drone located in the Northwest side. "Elio, are you sure it was a drone? I didn't put any drones on that side.", Franco thought that Elio's vision might mislead him.
"Yeah, the fourth drone was exactly there." Once again, Elio pointed to the Northwest direction, however, once he zoomed in the view with his eye, the drone that he mentioned was no longer there. Elio was befuddled. Maybe he saw something else, just like when he mistaken the four moons for a train.
Luna used her long-range binoculars to check the side where Elio pointed. She didn't see anything. "Yeah I didn't see anything, sweetie, maybe you accidentally saw something else, like something further away.", Luna confirmed and looked calm outside, but she actually became more cautious when Elio said that. What Luna said was right though. Since Elio was still in his early stage in using the enhanced vision, he sometimes could be perplexed by the proximities of the things that he saw, especially if there's an object behind another object. He could mistaken a big planet from far away as a small drone from close distance. Because of that, both Luna and Franco already get used to Elio seeing things that other people couldn't see.
Gian didn't react that much, part of him wanted to zoom in as well to check the situation, but he needs to put a lot of effort in doing that, so he stopped. On top of that, it's already cleared anyway that there was no drone there.
******
Four of them walked towards the line that of water that the big wave passed. Franco made sure that they're in the safe distance. He then put a device that looked like a small steel rod in the beginning, but it could be extended to a pole. Franco pierced the pole and a small rectangular shape device came up from the lower part to slightly above the middle part of the pole. The rectangular device then turned into thin parabola-shaped satellite that moved from left to right, capturing possible signal that might be received. On top of the pole, a flag was hanged. It was navy blue and there was a symbol. A small solid circle in the middle of a whirlpool. Within the lines of the whirlpool, there were stars in it. This is the symbol of the New Earth.
Under the satellite there was a device where data can be transmitted inside. Both Franco and Luna put their devices closer there to transport the data from their archivers to the pole. Franco then made sure that the data storage below the satellite was properly encrypted and locked with a passcode. A signal will be transmitted to the military of New Earth for them to come and start settlement in these planets. Honestly, they were lucky, the planet was a hidden gem, there's rarely a planet without locals. Whether humans could live there or not was not Franco's problems, that's the responsibility of the New Earth's Field Assessment Team.
******
The family walked back to their own spaceship. Both Franco and Luna double check the condition of the spaceship, and once they finished, they got through the steel stairs. Franco and Luna made some preparation inside in the control room. Then they finally took off from the planet.
Although Franco and Luna already checked the exterior of the spaceship, it's a shame that they missed something. On the fuel tank side, there were five small circular steel chips spread on the wall of the spaceship. Four of them were making the corners of a rectangle and the small one was in the middle of that imaginary rectangle. They were so small that they looked like rivets or bolts from a distance. As the spaceship was flying in the vast space, those chips suddenly spun, works like a drill to create holes on the fuel tank walls. Small sparks came out from the holes because of the drilling. Then the sparks were gone, the fuel tank has five holes in total where the fuel started to come out from there. They came out in a form of dense bubbles because of the absence of gravity, and the family of four was totally unaware of this.