Work Text:
It was quiet on the red planet, but Perseverance didn’t mind. It went about its business, taking photos and collecting samples, wholly unconcerned with the loneliness of a barren world. It knew Curiosity was somewhere on the surface, thousands of kilometers away, going about its own tasks. And, if Percy thought about it long enough, the lifeless body of Opportunity was with them too, slowly succumbing to the red dust that Mars was known for. In the end, though, none of that mattered—‘friends’ weren’t a part of the mission.
Percy was rather comfortable with its routine, but then everything changed. An unexpected lander made contact with the surface, kicking dust and detritus into the thin Martian atmosphere. Percy could read the newcomer: another rover, yet not one of its brethren. It had similar parts, and Percy could interpret the signals coming from it, but it was still something altogether foreign.
Zhurong, that was its name. It came from a different land than Percy and the others, and with its own mission. It was alone too, slowly trekking across the surface but with no one else quite like it to communicate with. Percy was cautious of the intrusion at first, keeping its distance and avoiding the Chinese rover’s attempts at contact. Then, slowly, it found itself taking time each day to reach out, to send a friendly signal to the new machine. Some days Zhurong answered, other days it didn’t, but from then on Mars didn’t feel quite as empty anymore.