*** Mission Log: Sol 5134 ***
*** AOS – BSN ***
*** Message Received (Source: Starlight): That’s it, you’re doing great! Just a little further. I promise, it’ll be fun. ***
Opportunity followed along. The morning had been spent observing Starlight Glimmer working on some kind of device. The machine had tried to figure out what kind of experiment she was conducting, but was unable to match either the tools or the process to anything in its own memory.
Resisting the temptation of analyzing the ruby Spike had provided, the rover had instead plotted a course that took it around the far more interesting subject of Starlight Glimmer in a slow circle, trying to get a better view of the experiment in progress with the panoramic cameras.
Starlight had giggled at several points as a rather puzzled Opportunity circled around her. “Just a little more patience. Trust me.” When she’d declared the mysterious project finished, she’d asked it to come along and follow her through the corridors of the castle.
Now Opportunity stood before a doorway, and it seemed as if the rover was shaking its head as it kept looking left and right, searching for a way forward.
*** NavCam: Calculating path ***
*** NavCam: Obstruction detected ***
*** NavCam: Calculating path ***
*** NavCam: Obstruction detected ***
*** NavCam: Calculating path ***
*** NavCam: Obstruction detected ***
“I think he’s afraid that he’s gonna get stuck,” Spike pointed out from where he stood behind the rover.
Starlight nodded. While roughly the same length and height as a pony, Opportunity was quite a bit wider. When Rainbow Dash had pointed that out and made a remark about ‘junk in the trunk’ during Pinkie’s obligatory party to celebrate the breakthrough in communications the day before, she’d gotten herself a swat over the head from Rarity who had taken offense on behalf of the rover. Not that Opportunity itself had any insecurities about its weight.
“It is a little tight, isn’t it?” Starlight agreed. “When I originally brought him from the roof to the workshop, I just teleported him. Hang on.” The unicorn concentrated and teleported Opportunity the few steps outside and onto the roof terrace. “There.”
“That could have saved us about an hour’s worth of inching through the corridors,” Spike groused, stepping through the door into the afternoon sun himself and setting down the laptop which, with the SGT attached, wasn’t exactly light to carry around.
Opportunity, finding itself suddenly in a completely different place, seemed appropriately confused. If a rover could blink rapidly, Opportunity would have done so right then and there.
*** NavCam – Error: Checksum failure of latest navigational photos ***
*** Reacquiring position ***
Once again, Opportunity’s panoramic camera spun in a full 360 degree arc. It even extended its instrument arm, taking a picture with its microscopic imager to confirm that the door was in fact now behind it. A few frantic lines appeared on the laptop monitor.
*** Message Received: Source - MER-B ***
*** Parsing ***
*** Navigation Error ***
“No, no, no, it’s fine,” Starlight reassured the freaked out rover. “I just teleported you the rest of the way. Trust me, you’re fine. A small hop like that shouldn’t do any harm.”
With its immediate surroundings once again photographed, Opportunity seemed to shake off its confusion and moved slightly forward, making sure all was well. It once again focused in on Starlight’s face who gave a smile.
“Come on,” the pony said, carrying something along with her towards the center of the roof.
Meanwhile, Spike placed the laptop in close enough proximity for Starlight to read any messages, rolled his shoulders to get the stiffness out of them, yawned and lazily flopped himself down on one of the lounge chairs Twilight had installed for chillaxing purposes on the roof terrace at the behest of Rainbow Dash.
For a moment, Opportunity seemed torn between the two people. Noticing the rover’s indecision, Spike said: “Go ahead. You two have fun. I’ll be here.”
Nonetheless, Opportunity first drove towards the dragon and extended its robotic arm. Spike rolled his eyes, but bumped a fist against Opi. “Yeah, of course we’re still good. Now go on. Starlight has been looking forward to this all day,” Spike said, then fished out a Power Ponies comic from underneath the chair and began to read.
In the time it had taken the rover to drive over to Starlight, the unicorn had finished setting up and was grinning widely as Opportunity pulled up at her side. “What do you think?” Catching the movement, Opportunity’s eyes followed Starlight’s outstretched hoof, further along the string it held and up to the bright, red kite in the sky.
Starlight watched the laptop for a response.
*** experiment – purpose ***
Starlight mulled the meaning over in her mind for a moment. The translation spell was still not perfect, especially with punctuation. Though if it was due to the way Opportunity itself communicated or the spell not fully being able to cope under the restraints of the laptop it ran on, was unclear to Starlight.
“It’s not an experiment. I just thought with all we’ve done for the last few days, we’d take it easy today.” She wrangled the kite back on track after an unexpected gust of wind. “You know, have some fun.”
*** mission goal – fun ***
“Sure, if you wanna put it that way. When I need to relax, I just like to take up a kite and watch it rise up into the sky. For miles and miles and miles.” Starlight giggled. “Well, maybe not for miles exactly. But sometimes that’s what it feels like.”
Twilight had all but collapsed into her bed after the successful conclusion of their experiment and the subsequent party, and Spike was fully expecting her to sleep through most of today.
Starlight herself had been nursing a mild headache after all the all-nighters spent working on the SGT. But she figured it would abate once her sleep schedule was back to normal.
They sat in a companionable silence for a while, simply watching the kite dance lazily in the sky. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’ve got, like, a million questions for you. Where did you come from? Who built you? What were you doing in that storm?”
*** Error – Query no recognized ***
“Right, right. Sorry. Getting too excited.” Too much input at once still seemed to confuse the rover. She thought for a moment. “You said something about mission goals earlier. What was your mission goal when I found you?”
*** Science Goal 1: Determine whether life ever arose on Mars ***
*** Status: Incomplete, evidence of water found ***
*** Science Goal 2: Characterize the climate of Mars ***
*** Status: Incomplete, 2018a GDE defied expectations ***
*** Science Goal 3: Characterize the geology of Mars ***
*** Status: Incomplete, always more samples ***
*** Science Goal 4: Prepare for #### exploration ***
*** Status: Incomplete, no #### presence on Mars ***
“So you are an explorer! And a rocktologist, too! Maud was totally on the money. She’s gonna be so happy to hear that!” Meanwhile Starlight had pulled up the debugging options on the laptop, trying to puzzle out that missing word in the final two lines. She figured that it might be Opportunity’s name for its builders. However, without a frame of reference, the translation matrix had come up empty. But there was another word that stood out. “Mars. Is that where I found you?”
*** Sol 5111 – Position: 2.28°S 5.23°W, Endeavour Crater, Perseverance Valley, Mars ***
“Hang on. Hold this for me, will ya?” Starlight wrapped the string of her kite around Opportunity’s instrument arm. The rover looked down, then up at the kite, giving it a few curious tugs and watching the kite respond.
*** experiment – fun ***
“Mars,” Starlight said, having moved around the rover’s back and pointing at the most prominent word on Opportunity’s sun dial. Having learned the rover’s name now, she’d concluded that the word was too short to be Opportunity’s name. So the next logical conclusion would be its mission goal. “Is this the word?”
Opportunity’s camera eyes turned on their mast while it kept its NavCams and HazCams firmly on the kite.
*** Mars – fourth planet from the sun, distance 1.524 AU ***
“Fourth?” Starlight asked in surprise. It looked as though Sunset had been off in her conclusions from the sun dial. But she wasn’t willing to give up on that train of thought entirely just yet. She pointed at the small red dot that seemed to depict an orbit around the sun. “Mars?” she repeated, this time making it more of a question.
*** Mars – fourth planet from the sun, distance 1.524 AU ***
The rover confirmed via chatlog. Then Starlight pointed at the smaller blue dot. “What about this one? This is a planet too, right? Is this your home?”
Opportunity’s scratched camera lenses whirred as they focused in on the pale blue dot.
*** Earth – third planet from the sun, distance 1.000 AU ***
*** Parsing ***
*** Home ***
*** Fault Condition: Up-loss ***
*** Attempting to contact DSN ***
*** Connection Not Found ***
*** Attempting to contact MRO-Direct ***
*** Connection Not Found ***
*** Attempting to contact Earth-Direct ***
*** Connection Not Found ***
*** Reattempting contact during next fault communication window ***
The only line of communication Opportunity could find presently was the BSN. For Starlight’s benefit, it summed up its conundrum in one line.
*** Home – no can talk ***
“Oh,” Starlight said, her earlier excitement severely diminished as she watched the rover become completely silent. “I … I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to … ugh … stupid!” She pressed a hoof against her forehead, realizing that she’d just ruined a perfectly pleasant afternoon by reminding Opportunity that it was cut off from all contact with its creators.
The unicorn sat down on her haunches, eyes on the floor and too embarrassed to look her robotic friend in the ‘eye.’ The silence that now hovered between them was of the awkward kind.
A gust of wind picked up, and Opportunity felt a sudden tug at its arm before the string of the kite came loose. Its PanCam swung around and saw it float away. And then the rover moved, straining the electrical motors in its wheels more than it had ever done before.
“Opportunity!” Starlight called after it.
*** Starlight – sad ***
*** mission goal – fun ***
*** must save Starlight’s experiment ***
Opportunity’s instrument arm reached out, trying to grab the rapidly disappearing string. Its navigational subroutines kicked in, shouting at the rover to stop and take a look around before proceeding.
*** drive ***
And yet the rover kept going beyond the point where its programming should have automatically stopped it. “Opportunity! Leave it! I can just make a new one.”
But Opportunity wouldn’t have it. It had watched Starlight tinker with the wood and cloth toy for the better part of the day, seen her smile when it had taken flight. Then she had entrusted it to the machine, and Opportunity would not fail her.
*** more power ***
Being closer to Celestia’s sun on Equus yielded much more energy than the solar panels ever produced from its own sun on Mars. And right now, Opportunity put every spare Watt into chasing down the runaway kite, in the process far exceeding the measly top speed its tiny wheels had been rated for. The string firmly in its sights with all three cameras, Opportunity reached out to grab it. Almost there.
And then it paid the price for the mad dash when its right front wheel collided with an unseen edge that separated the rest of the roof from the pool area. The sound of shearing aluminum filled the air as the rover caught the edge and was spun around hard forty five degrees, the five remaining wheels scraping across the tiled floor and more broken bits coming off them.
“Opportunity!” Starlight screamed and ran up to the rover’s side.
Oppy watched as the kite wonkily flew out of reach and came down in an uncontrolled dive somewhere past the ledge of the roof. Then it centered its cameras on its own broken wheel, or what was left of it. The spokes had sheared clear off from the hub, the entire rim bouncing away and coming to rest a few feet away.
“What happened?” Spike asked in alarm, having come over in response to the commotion.
Starlight was nearly in tears, unable to give a coherent description of the accident.
*** Error – wheel number 2 inoperable ***
The electric motors strained to move as the rover struggled to get moving again, but produced no more than a small skid with a severe drag towards the right. Opportunity tried to move backwards. The result was no better.
*** help ***