AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 517
ARES III SOL 507
The Whinnybago rolled on.
Although not perfectly smooth, the surface of Schiaparelli Basin, with its small ridges and sand dunes and widely scattered rocks, came close enough to allow the tandem rover to maintain its top rated speed of twenty-five kilometers per hour.
Through the low dunes scalloped into curls by the wan Martian wind, it rolled.
Over the rippling ridges left by water currents in the ancient days when the crater was a lake, it rolled.
Across the occasional small cracks in the crust left by thermal expansion and contraction of the topsoil, it rolled.
And despite the occasional bout with motion sickness by the passengers who had to endure the bumping, bouncing, jostling and rocking, it rolled on and on.
For the first time since leaving the cave, Cherry Berry was one of those passengers. When the space suits had been last checked and repaired, Dragonfly had put an extra thick layer inside and out of her suit’s boot soles, because they knew she’d put the most kilometers on them. She’d walked every inch of the thirty-six hundred kilometers up to the start of this day’s drive and then some. It was a testament to the otherworldly properties of changeling gunk and the design of the pony spacesuits that pieces of that rubberized coating hadn’t begun falling off until the day before.
Dragonfly had requisitioned a partially-charged magic battery and some potatoes to repair the suit- and her own as well, since it had seen almost as much travel while shared by three different ponies. As a result both suits were out of commission for the day, the goo still curing, and Cherry Berry had nothing to do but sit in a second-row flight couch and watch the desert go by through a porthole.
Today there were no scouting parties. The ground was too wide open, too rock-light, too flat to bother with scouts, especially since the rover would reach the MAV by the next sol. Three ponies, a changeling and a dragon sat in silence in Amicitas’s former bridge, watching the flat scenery and enduring the occasional bump or wobble.
Cherry didn’t care for the ride, but a day of rest suited her fine. Her forehooves held Groot’s improvised planter, and she occasionally put a hoof in the soil to make sure the transplanted sapling was doing well. Since the little plant was half again as tall as it had been when they’d left the cave farm, safe to say the trip hadn’t hurt it much.
But mostly Cherry’s mind remained on the upcoming flight. Training in the storm-damaged MDV was one thing, and a fun thing while it had lasted. Training in the MAV was another thing- the real thing. She had to get started as soon as possible, and she had to get it down cold. It wasn’t a matter of, “if you fail the computer flies the ship.” If the MAV missed its rendezvous with Hermes, the backup plan required a live pilot on board- and the MDV training showed she was far and away the best pilot of the group.
Failure was unacceptable. Succeed, or watch your crew die in the depths of space because you couldn’t do the job when needed.
Fireball’s voice interrupted her anxiety. “Roger, Mark,” he said. “Stand by.” He nodded at Spitfire, who sat in the copilot seat, to switch the radio on. This done, he said, “Hermes, Friendship. We receive MAV broadcast Hab beacon signal. Rover radio receiving message from Earth. From now on all comms to go through MAV except in emergency. This station shutting down. Friendship out.”
“What was that all about?” Cherry asked. Spitfire and Fireball had on their flight radio headsets; Cherry didn’t, and hadn’t heard Mark’s message.
“Rover has steady signal from MAV,” Fireball said. “NASA wants all comms to go through that now. Mark sending them logs and reports.”
“Agh!” Starlight sat up from her own flight couch. “My report on Spitfire’s flight isn’t done yet!” She ran as quickly as she could into the hab deck to get her computer, bumping into the frame of the pressure door as the rover took an unexpected wobble.
“Anyway,” Fireball continued, “with MAV, no need to listen for our radio now. So I close out comms.”
“Oh,” Cherry said. She understood the logic, but she still felt bad about it. She’d only used the ship comms a hoofful of times… well, ever- but the idea that the ship radio had just been shut off for most likely the final time…
Cut it out! she told herself. Amicitas is dead. We turned it into this trailer to get us here. And that job is almost over. It isn’t your ship anymore and hasn’t been for a year and a half.
But part of Cherry replied, It’ll always be my ship. And I didn’t bring it home.
The others began to talk, but Cherry slumped in her seat, hugging her plant and wishing she could hug a spaceship.