Dangerous Atmosphere:

The probes brought back some samples and the science team aboard Hipper’s IES Slipstream have made some interesting findings. The fungal spores that are spreading through this planet’s atmosphere are indeed quite dangerous, they latch on to internal organs and slowly feed on them to reproduce. The team suspects that originally these spores originally only fed on lung tissue but have evolved a method to work their way into the bloodstream in order to feed on every organ in a body. Apparently the process is so slow that it could take years to fully complete feeding, that must be an excruciating way to go, it’s a good thing I wasn’t too hasty here. Hipper has prepared a surface team and readied the hazard suits, the science team has confirmed that the spores are unable to penetrate them so the crew and I should be safe for our little expedition, obviously we can’t stay on the surface too long otherwise we’ll starve so we’ll have to return to the ships for decontamination to eat and rehydrate, this is gonna be quite an irritating investigation.

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Additional information supplied by the probes indicate specific hot spots on the planet's surface where the spore have gathered in greater number, I think it’s worth checking these areas first so I’ve let the team know our schedule for investigation, there appear to be four major hot spots all relative spread out from one another, so we’ll only be able to check one at a time before returning to the ship for decontamination. As a precaution we’ll also be running mandatory medical checks after decontamination to make sure none of us have been compromised by the spores before we’re allowed to enter the ships. We know these spores aren’t native to this planet so there’s a good chance these spores are what I was sent to investigate, I’ll have to gather data on them as well as look for any surviving members of the researchers working on this project that has clearly gotten out of hand. Hopefully the areas of high spore density are markers of life nearby, and hopefully those life signs indicate surviving members of the research team, that way we might be able to find out more about what caused all this, and why an entire array of shipyards were activated at such low efficiency, and why were the ships they were spitting out so strange looking. I have so many questions but I guess that’s why I’m here in the first place, and I will have my answers, no matter what.