Enjoy this cheesy short story inspired by my playthrough of Stellaris!
Date: August 15, 2210, 0720 hours
System: Sol
Planet: Mars
Region: Endeavor Impact Crater, Meridiani Planum Plains
Onboard the Imperial Science Ship Hawking.
Reshmi Mirza was no spacer. Her whole life was spent within Terra’s gravity well, safely studying the finer points of astrophysics at the Baghdad Sector of the Mesopotamian Urban Corridor. So when it was finally time to don a spacesuit to walk the Martian surface just outside, she knew very well she looked like a nitwit.
Well that, and Professor Hyun’s amused look as she collapsed onto the floor of the airlock getting her right foot in said it all. “Need help, miss Mirza?” He asked politely, his lips twitching upward.
“I do not. Instead of standing there like a smug mug, I need you to go and re-verify our navigational data is accurate,” she bit back.
“Smug mug...?”
“Hyun. The data.”
“Yes, miss Mirza. This is the spot. We’ve triple checked, although we had little reason to doubt your calculations.” Hyun walked over, moving to assist in putting the rest of the suit on. “Come on. One step at a time...”
Mirza growled in frustration, but nodded, letting the seasoned spacer help her. Revenge for her wounded pride would come later.
The Martian surface.
In 2142, Mars had undergone a small scale terraforming effort, allowing for a colony capable of supporting life to be built on its surface. Automated underground infrastructure had been constructed, and for over sixty years, patiently waited for the first colonists to arrive from Terra.
The first colony ship was already being constructed in Terra’s orbit, but Mirza, having been given command of the Terran Empire’s first FTL-capable science ship, had gotten there first. One last stop in humanity’s birth system, before the warp jump to Alpha Centauri, three light years away.
With the INS Hawking parked safely behind them, a suited up team lead by Mirza set foot on the rust-colored Martian soil.
“So. First humans on Mars. Gonna say something historic?” Hyun grinned at Mirza.
“Uh...about damn time?” Ignoring the titters from the others---albeit with a small grin on her face---Mirza pushed onward, scanning the horizon, trying to get to business.
But Hyun’s words had a delayed effect on her, and she paused. This was alien soil. Mars. Soon to be home to thousands, then millions of human souls. And only a few months later, she would be in another star system entirely. A place that, for all of humanity’s recorded history, was just a dot in the sky. A wave of giddiness overtook her, and she ran off to get the jitters out of her system.
Before she left the solar system, before Mars would see its first human colonists, she needed to get one thing. One important piece of history.
“Come on! This way!” She beckoned to the others.
---
They walked for hours, taking readings here and there, marking important sites for later analysis. But Mirza was insistent on reaching their destination first. Their journey eventually took them through an ancient erosion network, what old astrocartographers called “Perseverance Valley”.
The others didn’t quite understand Mirza’s insistence on coming to Perseverance Valley. Nor did they know exactly what she was looking for. She knew she sounded a bit bonkers. But the Terran Empire had picked her and her team for being humanity’s first interstellar explorers. She was utterly confident in her own qualifications.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kcFE4uFZ9o
“There. We found it,” She finally whispered breathlessly, pointing ahead.
Nestled up against a mound of red soil, was a curious looking robot. From a glance, the science team could tell it was ancient by at least two hundred years.
She began taking out her dataslab, eager to access the drone’s information banks, but turned to face the others. “I know...I know what you guys are thinking. ‘We came all the way out here for a...a forgotten little robot. But I---”
“Miss Mirza. Go right ahead,” Hyun gestured. No snark or sarcasm this time, a genuine smile on his face. “We’ve got all the time in the universe. Well, relatively speaking. But I do need to ask: what are we looking at here?”
Mirza didn’t initially answer, instead delicately moving over to link up her dataslab to the deactivated robot. Thank the gods that she’d managed to find those dinosaur-era handshake protocols to even communicate with this thing.
“This rover was sent by our ancestors here, a long time ago,” she said softly, watching her dataslab get to work. “Before our great grandparents were even born. Its mission was to scout the Martian surface for ninety days. But it ended up serving Earth faithfully for fifteen years.”
Her dataslab began to display scrolling blocks of texts, graphs, chemical readings, and other information, each a separate report from the ancient rover. Finally, it stopped on the final message of the robot before it deactivated:
-- My battery is low and it’s getting dark --
Mirza reached out a tender hand, gently stroking the rover’s side. In English, highlighted by the crimson Martian sun, was the word “OPPORTUNITY”.
“Come on, little buddy,” she whispered. “You’re going back home.”
