We'd been trapped in Base Seven for almost a week before the rover showed up again, parked right where we left it as if it hadn't ever vanished. Needless to say we were too suspicious to go anywhere near it or a good three days as we pushed our food and oxygen rations to their limits.
When there's only a thin layer of glass between you and an absolute lack of breathable atmosphere, you tend to become overcautious. Asphyxiation is a real bastard of a way to go and none of us were keen to experience it.
By the time we decided the rover was safe, we were had minutes of air in our tanks and we remembered refilling the rover's spares before we left Base One over ten days ago. In a couple more days they'd tell the directors that we were MIA and we'd be presumed dead like so many others before us.
We wondered if their rovers had gone missing too and what they found inside theirs when, or if, they returned. All we found were strange claw marks along the roof and rear door like something had gotten itself stuck and spent a good few days trying to escape.
Luckily the oxygen tanks had been spared by whatever had clawed the everloving crap out of everywhere else and we managed to drive back to Base One just before they were going to tell the directors that we were probably dead.
After that we decided to affix cameras and trackers in all the rovers, wondering where they went and who was driving them. Less than a month later one of our teams went through our exact situation, the tracker showing that the rover drove to the ruins of Base Nine - destroyed three years ago in a freak methane explosion.
The cameras showed all eight missing crewmen crammed into the rover, faces barely visible through cracked helmets - all bloated and burnt from the planet's harsh atmosphere. They were all there and they all stepped out of the rover when it got to Base Nine, programming it to go back to the living team before they closed the doors.
When there's only a thin layer of glass between you and an absolute lack of breathable atmosphere, you tend to become overcautious. Asphyxiation is a real bastard of a way to go and none of us were keen to experience it.
By the time we decided the rover was safe, we were had minutes of air in our tanks and we remembered refilling the rover's spares before we left Base One over ten days ago. In a couple more days they'd tell the directors that we were MIA and we'd be presumed dead like so many others before us.
We wondered if their rovers had gone missing too and what they found inside theirs when, or if, they returned. All we found were strange claw marks along the roof and rear door like something had gotten itself stuck and spent a good few days trying to escape.
Luckily the oxygen tanks had been spared by whatever had clawed the everloving crap out of everywhere else and we managed to drive back to Base One just before they were going to tell the directors that we were probably dead.
After that we decided to affix cameras and trackers in all the rovers, wondering where they went and who was driving them. Less than a month later one of our teams went through our exact situation, the tracker showing that the rover drove to the ruins of Base Nine - destroyed three years ago in a freak methane explosion.
The cameras showed all eight missing crewmen crammed into the rover, faces barely visible through cracked helmets - all bloated and burnt from the planet's harsh atmosphere. They were all there and they all stepped out of the rover when it got to Base Nine, programming it to go back to the living team before they closed the doors.
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