LOG_011_MEDUSA

The payload spun and spun within the planet’s stormy atmosphere, buffeted by high winds and fickle vortices. Visibility conditions were nil as it tumbled through the clouds, its camera feed only offering grainy flickers of orange-red and the overexposed glare of lighting, falling, falling, falling– until it plunged through a particularly dense layer and into a patch of calm.

Two purplish objects floated into view, shapes reminiscent of Earth-native Cnidarian medusae: radially symmetrical, a translucent, bell-like structure, and trailing, wispy lines starting from the bottom of the bell. The currents gently tugged at them, and like kites in a storm, they vanished just as quickly into the reddish haze.