Red Eden

The prompt for day 1 creatuanary was Piranha-dog which I sketched on stream.
Sometimes I also enjoy writing little bits for flair as I imagine them, if you read it too hope you enjoy and thanks for looking!
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RD-774, an unlikely candidate in the exo-habitation field study program, resides shockingly close to home. Detection was avoided due to its parent red dwarf star being so dim in nature and it's overall galactic transit eccentricity being highly elliptical. Interestingly so, it may have come from another galaxy collision, slingshot towards us and grappled by our own galactic core.
With it's transit quickly making it's perihelion to our sun, it became the first manned exo-biological mission outside of the solar system. RD-774 was tidally locked, swinging tightly to it's host and cradled within an immensely dense atmosphere.
Of course, probes paved the way. Their findings all highly successful- A surprising abundance of life supporting materials, microbes and plant-life. A massive breakthrough for not just exo-habitation but SETI as well, RD-774 was being hailed as the Eden under red skies.
Remote study persisted while the field team was being recruited and prepared for interstellar travel. As close as the "Red Eden" was, it still took 20 long years in cryo to arrive. Comms were heavily delayed, a few months for data packets to travel to the nearest station on Europa. The team was on their own.
Humanity waited with baited breath for the first correspondence with "Red Eden" as their projected waking period approached. Tensions were high as regular ship status dribbled in month after month, but these worries were subdued as soon as the first video log was broadcasted.
The crew had just woken up, they were all ecstatic regardless of the cryo lag hovering above them. It would take the team several days to return to full cognition, but spirits were high and preliminary orbital data was already being recorded. This was one for the history books and everyone watched on as the old data trickled in.
Encounter logs of the thick air suspending water droplets in slow motion and spindling blackened plant life that thrived with little turbulence left the public in awe. It wasn't until the log reporting two missing members that this shift from a beautiful still-frame garden to a horrific purgatory began. The research stations that were set-up reported logs of high-pitch frequencies, chatter that couldn't be pin-pointed and seemed to move as if it was being thrown from different directions, bouncing off of invisible barriers. Despite what the sensors recorded, the air was still. Eerily quiet like the dead of night during an eternal day.
The remaining team members reported in a panic that they were packing to retreat to orbit as quickly as they could after an unsuccessful search mission for the two missing members.
That was the last manual transmission received. An override request for all data packets was requested from Europa to Red Eden, and the months following provided a body comm and field cam pandemonium. These hunters were concealed in crimson, moving with astounding speed, from invisible statue to a blur of gnashing teeth. Dr. Jerins, the final surviving field member, would be the last to compile images and data on these monsters as he lay wounded in his dropship. The aptly named "Hell Hound" worked in packs, conserving energy and blending in with its environment by not moving. The fins on its back and sides vibrated to generate high frequency pitches that aided in communications with it's pack members. The jaws worked on a hinge and lock, snapping closed at lightning speeds and locking shut to pin it's prey while the rest of the pack finished the work. The speeds at which this happened were too quick to observe through anything but field cam frame by frame analysis.
Broadcasts of the full data became censored after the missing member logs filtered in as to not panic the public. But even in the face of the harrowing warning of Hells Hounds calling for a reflection on hubris, Red Eden has become a holier grail. Military escorted missions are slated to begin within the next few years.
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