While the enemy was en route to its final resting place, Tom and Brandon meandered toward the crater’s edge, passing by the machine during its slow trundling trek, and approached the piles of stones. They each picked up a few of the larger specimens. “These are some of the most unusual pieces I’ve ever seen,” Tom commented.<\/p>\n
“Agreed,” Brandon replied. “They give the impression of raw diamonds, but the colors are amazing, more like fire opals. In each stone there are at least three or four different colors. Hold them up to the light and check out their unusual shimmer,” he exclaimed, in wonder.<\/p>\n
Sally was on the control deck, monitoring their video and audio transmissions. “Hey, bring some of those in here! I need to see them, right away!” the geologist in her burst forth, in an excited and demanding yelp. “As they are on the edge of a crater, I’m thinking they might be carbonados and we will probably find microdiamonds in the surrounding soil, also.<\/p>\n
“Aye-aye, skipper,” Tom shot right back, with a chuckle in his voice and saluting her with exaggerated motions readily picked up from inside the Hab.<\/p>\n
Sheepishly, Sally replied, “Sorry Tom.” In a more formal tone she requested, “At your earliest convenience, gentlemen, I would appreciate the opportunity to examine some of the specimens that the rover collected.”<\/p>\n
“Well, since you asked so nicely, we’ll be right in,” Tom said. Turning to Brandon, he added, “See how many of these rocks you can fit in your pockets. We’ll make her sorry that she ever asked for some work to do.”<\/p>\n
“You got it, boss,” Brandon answered back laughing, then added, “Hey Tom, looks like our nemesis is at the edge.”<\/p>\n
Sixteen minutes after stepping outside Bolo One, with satisfaction the two watched their foe topple over the edge, plummet ass over applecart some thirty meters to the floor of the crater and finally come to rest upside down in an ochre cloud. Once the dust cleared, it silently remained motionless in a mangled heap.<\/p>\n
A quick survey of the vicinity near the crater’s rim indicated the Chinese rover had been piling the stones for quite some time. Each mound was nearly a meter high with a base of about one meter in diameter. There were at least several dozen piles scattered about, if not more. The predecessor craft, FP1 had landed on the small hills of Avernus Colles over eighteen months ago. The lightweight truck, which was used to deploy the nuclear generator is mounted with cameras. So, either it was never commanded to drive in the direction of the crater and thereby spot the rover or the rover arrived after the truck had finished its work.<\/p>\n
The crater is to the east of FP1 and the duties of the truck were performed on the west side of the craft, where the truck is parked now, with non-original exterior adornment consisting of several holes bored into its body. This mischievous robotic rover had been very busy for quite some time. Fortunately, it never approached the generator or its power cable leading back to FP1. If the rover had bored into the cable, not only would it have been destroyed, but FP1 would have been left powerless and unable to manufacture the much needed fuel.<\/p>\n
Though it has been widely suspected for quite some time that there are no viruses or bacteria in the Martian atmosphere, a general decontamination was performed on the specimens as a precaution. Back onboard, Tom and Brandon placed their samples in the cleansing chamber where they were bombarded with radiation, and sprayed with a disinfectant solution. Both of the men then received this same treatment before removing their pressure suits. A testing station will be set up just outside of the airlock and if it is determined safe, this procedure will be dispensed with in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While the enemy was en route to its final resting place, Tom and Brandon meandered toward the crater’s edge, passing by the machine during its slow trundling trek, and approached the piles of stones. They each picked up a few of the larger specimens. “These are some of the most unusual pieces I’ve ever seen,” Tom commented. “Agreed,” Brandon replied. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":387,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.emailfrommars.com\/outbound\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}