2 hours had passed and the two bases deployed only about 12 meters from eachother. The landers repositioned themselves near the bases, to form a campground of sorts. The kerbals were provided a false sense of security and did not mind. They were pretty used to it. 6 pairs of kerbals hopped onto rovers, to further explore the area around them.
The small, wheeled craft kicked up dirt as they sped forward at 10.4m/s, off to explore new land. This land was much unlike anything that the little green men had ever seen before. Instead of the usual sand, dirt, and occasional rock, there was these weird brown poles sprouting from the ground. The had green atop them, and one of the kerbals thought for a small moment that his long lost brother might be among the massive poles. After a few scans, the confirmed that the foliage above was indeed foliage.
In way of other plants, the kerbals were beginning to find oddities on the land. It was supposed to be relatively flat, with nothing but a thin, orderly layer of grass above the soil, just how Kerbin's soil should be. But it was an untamed, billowing hair of the green color, whipping across in the breeze. Shrubs and bushes were among the poles, and the odd bush stood in the middle of the meadows near the beach. It was so chaotic and unpredictable! The little green men were thoroughly confused by how grass could grow higher than the soil it laid on. It simply didn't make any sense!
And these poles, they generated oxygen, according to the barometers. (They voided the warranty by conducting this test; Probodobodyne Inc. explicitly stated that exposing their product to air voids it.) The temperature stated it was a mellow 76 degrees Fahrenheit. It was safe to breathe, and the atmosphere had not been polluted with 17 years worth of nuclear and liquid fuel smoke. One of the braver kerbonauts, Rodfrod, took off his helmet and took a giant, drawn-out breath. the other 11 cried out, cutting themselves off once they had seen the Rodfrod Kerman was completely okay.
The communications channel lit up with cries of surprise and exclamations of disbelief. "Huh?" "What?" "How in the...?" "Impossible!" "Whoa." "Nuh uh! Not even! How? What?" "You totally could've just died."
Rodfrod began a gleeful dance of victory, ecstatic that he could take off the pinching, itchy spacesuit. He quickly stuffed it in the trunk of his rover and continued leading the small herd of cars.
"You guys! You totally won't believe what we just got from the guys in the rovers!"
"Hmm...?" "Oh really?" the crowd rang out over the small campground.
"It's safe to breathe! The grass and plant machines make their own oxygen! It's not even cold, either!"
The crowd stood silent for a full minute. Nobody dared make a noise. It was eerily similar to speaking with the late janitor.
Within 3 seconds, everybody twisted their helmets off and literally jumped out of their suits in glee. The oppressive, sweaty suits no longer clung to their body and the kerbonauts ran around happily in the blue shirts that they all had been wearing since recruitment. Playful screams and laughter rang across the beach and over the waves. They were happy.
Roughly 2 Hours Earlier...
Rainbow Dash raced the massive rock, barely keeping up. Her wings were pushed to the limit as even her natural pegasus air shielding began to give away. The air burned her belly and forelegs as she mentally screamed and wondered how this creature could go far without burning itself to a crisp. Daringly opening her eyes again, she spotted the giant rock glowing a brilliant orange, fire barely clinging to the front of it.
It was slowly inclining upwards, going further and further up to the thinner part of the atmosphere, where Dash's wings would work less effectively and her lungs breathe less. She took one last breath before darting forward again. The rock slowly stopped spitting flames as it neared the edge of the atmosphere. It almost slowed to a halt and Rainbow Dash flew forward to get a better look.
Rainbow looked back down, something pegasi should never do. And what she saw was magnificent. It was huge. She would've stared at the massive globe for hours, if she didn't soon come to the realization that she was running out of air. She snapped her head back toward the rock once more as a giant, muffled crack whipped across the thin air.
The rock ripped and mangled itself apart once more, its ugly, metal skeleton shining in Celestia's sun. The bastardization of a once perfectly symmetical rock stood still a revolting mess of cross-crossed metal and yellow tubes. It was covered in hundreds of cylinders and black/yellow lines. She almost bucked it for trying to race her and winning, but stopped herself.
The skeleton began screaming. Dozens of voices chirped and yelled for each other to "enter this, enter that, close this, close that." The word "go" rang out over and over and over. What sounded like hundreds of metal doors slamming and thousands of clicks slowly echoed ominously.
The skeleton broke off its limbs at every section labled "Warning" or "Caution" covered in black and yellow tape. They slowly drifted away from the spine as the head soon followed, in a macabre finality. Rainbow Dash almost threw up at the disgusting prospect of a creature that screams and tears itself apart, high in the the air so that nopony hears. But she was running out of air. She started falling back downwards and the skeletons and its severed limbs followed suit. Her face turned a pale purple, in high contrast to her cerulean coat.
The thick of the atmosphere began to kick in again, and she would not survive another flight through the devastating air. But she needed to breathe. There was no other way back down without being grounded forever or dying. She needed air, and she couldn't breathe that air because she was going so fast. She didn't have much time to panic as a octagonal limb hurtled toward her and knocked her unconscious. She clung to the back of the craft as it took the brunt of the heat whilst her limp body lay uncomfortably on a giant circle with a plus sign in the middle.