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The lead medic loaded the last of the scouts onto a stretcher and sat down wearily as his team carried them to the transport and readied it for departure. “Close one. If we’d gotten here much later, we might have lost someone.”
He brushed some red dust off his boot and stared into the Martian hills. “But they’re all going to be okay, and this plateau will make a great home for people who want to have kids, since the city really can’t support a much larger population.”
“We set out as soon as we saw the first scout collapse. Thank goodness you were here watching over them.” He wiped off a camera lens, scanning the ancient machine for signs of wear. “Got a team heading south in a month. Hope you’re up for going with them.”
He wasn’t a tech—human bodies were his job, not machines. But his gloved hands still roved out, almost automatically, checking for anything that might have gotten loose, broken off.
“You know, the scout teams fight over who gets you assigned to their expedition. All these sophisticated new monitoring bots, but they’d rather have the honor of having you on their team.”
He sighed, laying his hand on his companion with the same tenderness he might have shown with a flesh-and-blood comrade. “Anyway. Looks like they’re ready to go. C’mon, Opportunity. Let’s get back to base.”
#ThanksOppy Rest well for now, spacefriend. I choose to believe that we will find you again.
