“Vera, I’m almost in front of the—shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” The radio had just turned to statics.
“Tendai? Tendai, can you hear me? Tendai…? ARC 3…!”
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…”
“Shit!”
Outside, ARC 3 and its passenger were at a standstill. The vehicle had stopped abruptly without any warning, and everything in the rover was shutting down. Soon, nothing was showing on any of the dashboard monitors anymore. No lights, not even a bleep from the onboard computer. The whole thing was dead.
“What the f… OK, now what? Vera? Vera, are you there?”
It was no use. He had obviously lost all power. “When was the last time they had checked ARC 3? The vehicle was connected to its solar charger this morning, that much I’m sure of. Regardless, the computer should have alerted me that something was wrong with the batteries…!” He tried to recall who had done the last system check…
“Either myself yesterday morning, or maybe François last night…” The Frenchman often spent the last hour of his work day working in the garage. He loved taking care of the vehicles. His aptitude in robotics had been discovered early on at the Mars First Headquarters. François had a knack for figuring out problems and fixing things. He was almost always working on some technical project in his free time, if he wasn’t playing his Ukulele.
“Either way, there’s no point dwelling on that right now. What I need to figure out is what to do next. I can’t get out without a suit. On that particular point, Dedrick is going to be pretty mad, I have a feeling. And he will be right. I should’ve checked the cabin before I left. I guess I have only myself to blame for that too. I’m the one who forgot to put the suit back in its place yesterday… Ok, so I guess my only choice is to stay put until someone comes to get me. I hate waiting…”
Inside the station, Vera had already contacted the other two rovers. Both were on their way back. Dedrick had ordered her to stay put. He had formally forbidden her to leave the station. The storm had picked up again, not as bad as before, but visibility was still pretty much non-existent. Dedrick couldn’t let Vera take the risk of getting lost. The thirty meters or so that separated her from Tendai were completely filled with flying pebbles and a dark brown dust, an impenetrable fog that was not to be reckoned with.
“Tendai should have enough oxygen for at least another hour. The power may be down, but the oxygen left in the cabin will be sufficient for ARC 1 to get to him in time,” thought Dedrick. At least, he hoped so. He really had no way of knowing that for sure, but he couldn’t let Vera take any risk. Unfortunately, to make things worse, the storm had also extended south of the station, which was slowing the return of the rovers.
François and Sabrina reached ARC 3, just as Tendai was starting to lose consciousness.
“Stay with me buddy, hang in there just a bit longer,” François thought to himself, while heading back for the main hatch, the other rover in tow. ARC 1’s backup suit was in its compartment, but there was no way to get it to Tendai without entering the vehicle, which would have exposed him to the outside air and killed him.
“Vera! Tendai is out cold. Get the defibrillator and oxygen ready. We’re on our way. Meet us at the main hatch! Hurry!”
A minute and a half passed before François and Sabrina, their precious cargo in tow, reached the station. Already suited up, the Frenchman jumped out of his vehicle and rushed to the other rover. Accessing the external command panel, he deployed the rover’s cab extension and connected it to the station’s door. He then rushed to the next hatch and stormed inside the station, Sabrina right behind him. Inside, Vera was impatiently waiting behind the other hatch for the air in the pressurizing compartment of ARC3 to get back to normal.
The warning lights finally turned green, the hatch opened, and Vera rushed into the rover.
François, racing through the pod tunnels was already on her heels.
“François, give me the oxygen feed, quick!” yelled Vera as he approached.
“Here!”
Oxygen bottle in hand, she leaned over the unconscious man.
“Tendai! Tendai!” But the dark-skinned Zimbabwean wasn’t responding. She quickly placed the oxygen mask on his face.
“How is he? Any response? Did you check his breathing?” asked François standing behind her.
“No, there’s no pulse… Come on Tendai, come on! Guys, the defibrillator, now!”
Sabrina squeezed by François, the EBP machine rolling behind her, and extended the two pads to Vera.
“Remove his shirt, François. Hurry!” Vera grabbed the pads from Sabrina. François obliged immediately. She briefly brushed the two pads together, placed them on Tendai’s bare chest, and yelled: “Clear!” François barely had time to step out of the way. Sabrina pressed the switch, and Tendai’s body jerked up and back violently. Vera leaned down and placed an ear on his torso.
“Nothing. OK. What’s my charge?”
“Almost there…” replied Sabrina looking at the machine’s gauges… “OK, green!”
“Clear!”
Sabrina pushed the button again, causing Tendai’s body to convulse once more.
“Still nothing. Shit!”
Vera let go of the pads. They swung back on each side of the EBP and dangled at the end of their accordion cords. She climbed on top of Tendai and began performing mouth to mouth, adding several hands-crossed pressures on his chest every so often. Finally, Tendai’s lungs welcomed the forced air and soon, the man was opening his eyes.
“Tendai! Are you OK? Look at me. Look at me! Do you know where you are?”
He seemed a bit disoriented at first, staring silently at Vera for several seconds. Then, he began to smile, looking around at each one of them.
“Well, that was close. You had us seriously worried, you know?”
He smiled weakly at François and managed a soft “Sorry”.
Vera’s back slowly slid down the wall behind her. She sat there, shaking. She tried not to cry, fighting the overwhelming sense of fear. They had almost lost a member of their small group.
“Vera, you’re OK?”
“I’m fine, Sabrina, I’m fine. Just a bit tired,” she replied with an unconvincing smile.
The whole group soon regrouped, and the three helped Tendai into greenhouse II, where he could lay down and get some well-deserved O2 from the plants. Dedrick’s rover and its passengers arrived half an hour later to find Tendai seated at a table, surrounded by Vera, Sabrina, and François, all laughing loudly, a glass of Olympus Mons in hand.
The worst had been avoided. But the lesson had been learned. After that incident, only one rover was allowed to leave the camp at any time, and all three ARCs were checked every morning and evening, and their backup suits had to be in the vehicles at all times. The breakdown was eventually attributed to a simple relay malfunction. A small short in it had caused the battery to drain overnight. Why the computers had not registered the malfunction was another mystery altogether…
After another incident, a few weeks later involving one of the rovers left outside, it had not taken long for Lars to request that a garage be added to the station. Luckily, since the successful landing of MF1 and its crew back in 2025, funding requests for the project had become much easier, and in 2028, a supply ship had delivered the kit-style garage, for the colonists to assemble.
White Veil
It was a particularly beautiful day. Dedrick and Vera had taken a trip to their favorite spot for some alone time. Bathed in the crimson light of a beautiful sunset over the Laguna plateau, the Russian had finally proposed, and the emotional woman had said yes.