[ IP ] The Aftermath

With just a little planetforming, the world would be perfect. 
 The colony ship curved neatly around the second moon, the smooth, rust-coloured surface of the ceramic thermal insulation and ablative armour faintly reflecting the glow of the nearby star. 
 It was difficult finding planets with the correct conditions; so many of them were hostile to life - and while the titanic colony ships were impressively self-sufficient, there was something almost *spiritual* about having real earth under one's feet. 
 They'd certainly been in space long enough to be craving the comforts of planetary life. 
 
 Adjutant Kilm entered the spacious chamber that served as the ship's bridge. Much of the structure was a throwback to earlier times, as no one actually needed to be in the bridge due to the shipwide Link than kept every member of the crew constantly updated with everything that was going on; fed directly into the information nodes in their minds. 
 Still, there was something *soothing* about gathering in one place to coordinate the planetforming activities, it was pleasant to share the experience in the physical company of others. 
 The planetforming crew were setup now and began feeding instructions to the planetforming pods, which would transform the land from inhospitable wastes to the perfect living conditions. 
 Kilm stood by, monitoring their progress and lending his engineering expertise when two of the pods failed to arm properly. 
 
 As he swung out of the ship and into the cool void of space, he noticed the problem immediately; the arming bays for the two pods had been struct by interstellar debris and were heavily damaged. Such was the price for spending so long in space; this kind of damage was inevitable. 
 Fortunately the devices themselves were much deeper inside the hull and protected by multiple layers of armour and shielding. Kilm anchored himself on the ablative hull and started clearing the wreckage, opening up the launch bays to allow the pods to deploy. 
 After an hour of painstaking zero-G work, he'd cleared them completely and the pods began to glide out of their tubes, two glowing, golden eggs twice as long as his own body. 
 Time to clear out. 
 
 Back inside the bridge he had just enough time to see the six precious pods streak down towards the cardinal points of the planet, white contrails spooling out behind them. 
 The crew shared their satisfaction through the shipwide Link as the pods impacted. 
 For a moment there was no sign anything had happened, then the pods deployed their payload. 
 The planet had been filthy with water and vegetation; practically choked in organic, hydrocarbon based life. 
 Kilm's impassive, mineral face suffused with electromagnetic activity that signified satisfaction as he watched the green and blue burn away from the surface in expanding, overlapping rings, leaving only the perfect orange-brown of pristine regolith, ideal for his people to live on. 
 `` Good work,'' he sent to the planetforming team, then lumbered towards his landing pod to begin the survey, his mind filled with images of the star rising over the newly sanitised planet.
