Ellipses

What footprint will you leave on your world?

A journey of a thousand years ends with a strange set of footprints on an unexplored world of a distant star. Now the real odyssey begins.

Koharu is about to step up her game. She's on the exoplanet Kepler-62f, with her exploration team, searching for a suitable landing spot for their orbiting spacecraft when she comes across alien creatures huddled together. They do not appear to be hostile. Are they intelligent? Is this planet big enough for both them and humans? Establishing personal contact with another species is a young field biologist's dream. To meet the moment she will use visual, auditory, and chemical signaling; proprioception; cutting-edge tech; even an ancient Chinese celestial jade artifact. Of course, communicating with aliens is one thing, getting through to her partner is another matter entirely.