Chapter Text
“Earth to Solar, how’s it looking out there so far?”
“Uh, same as usual, I think. Orange, dusty…lot of rocks…”
Solar kicks some sand up to prove his point, watching some of it take to the air and blow back into his face. He swears he can feel the grit of it between his joints even with the protective sealing of his suit.
Earth stifles a laugh from her end of the comms. He fights his own crooked grin as she tries (and fails) to compose herself.
“Haha, very funny. Focus, silly, I need those dirt samples!”
“Oh yes, my apologies, your Highness, I’ll retrieve as many as my arms can carry as soon as you tell me exactly what it is I’m looking for.”
“I already told you–“
“Can you two stop bickering over the comms system?” Sun’s voice layers over Earth’s message, reducing it to static background noise. Even with the exasperation, Solar can still note a slight tone of amusement as he continues, “This channel is meant for professional transmissions, not petty arguments.”
“Aw, c’mon, Sun, why stop them now, it was just getting good!” Moon protests. Solar snorts quietly under his breath. “Hearing Earth and Solar squabble is almost as good as when he and Lunar do it.”
“Moon, you shouldn’t be encouraging this on public channels anymore than I am.”
“What? It’s not like we’ve got much else to do for entertainment.”
“I miss streaming,” Solar agrees wistfully. He can hear Moon’s squawk of approval and snickers.
“What are we talkin’ about? And what’s this I hear about me and Solar arguing?” Lunar chimes in belatedly.
“Oh. Hey Lunar. We were just talking about how much we hate you,” Solar drawls into his mic, lips quirking as he tries to pin his own laughter down. He waits a beat before adding, “Taking you an awful long time to fix that generator, bud.”
“Okay, screw you,” comes the petulant reply, but he can hear the huff of amusement that belays the sourness. “And hey, what’s with the third degree? Last I checked, you were still trying to set up those solar panels.”
“Only because you did a shoddy job of connecting them in the first place.”
“You try lugging around sheets four times your size!”
“ ‘Fraid that’s just a you problem, dude.”
“Don’t you dare–“
“Sho-ort~,” Solar sing-songs, barely masking the shit-eating grin on his face.
“Right, that’s it–“ some shuffling on the other end. “Sun, any chance you can kick Solar off the call?”
“Unfortunately, no, I can’t.”
“Really, Lunar?” Solar teases, just because he can. “Can’t find a better comeback, so you cut me off and throw a tantrum?”
The sunbot’s tone goes deadpan. “You know what, actually, you changed my mind. Moon, do you mind–?”
“Oh, yea, no problem. Just gimme a sec—“
Solar raises a brow, protesting good-naturedly. “Hey now, wait a minute, I thought we weren’t allowed to disable someone’s comms.”
“No, yeah, Sun’s not as team captain and all. Me, however, being the tech guy, have no such boundaries. Buh-bye, Solar.”
“Hey—“
Click.
Solar huffs out a laugh, shaking his head. He can technically reconnect to the comms system anytime he wants - Moon had only kicked him off, he hadn’t disabled his access to the network - but he decides to let them stew in his absence for a bit. There’s not much danger out here, anyways - just burning sky and desert as far as the eye can see. For the moment, the worst of it is the imaginary sand beneath his casing.
Besides, he’s got a job to do - and the sooner he can find the difference between the dirt near the Hab and the dirt here, the sooner he can take off this suit, dust himself off, and be done for the day.
*
“There, that oughtta do it,” Moon announces somewhat smugly once Solar’s signal cuts out.
“Oh, hey, I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” Lunar says, somewhat surprised. “Aren’t we…not supposed to do that? For safety, and stuff?”
“Pssh, he’ll be fiiine. As long as he’s still online, his signal’s still available, and he can join back in anytime. He’s probably just sulking about it until he finds Earth’s sample or whatever.”
“I sent him the location of the site just now,” she chimes in. “It shouldn’t take too long for him to find it. But really, Moon, let’s not take the joke too far next time. There’s still a storm coming up in the next few hours, you never know what could happen.”
“Ah, yeah,” the technician does sound somewhat chastised, though not entirely apologetic. “He should be able to join whenever, though - I can try bringing him back in-” he devolves into quiet muttering soon after, typing away at his keyboard.
Sun’s voice cuts in not a moment later.“Uh, guys? Remember that storm I mentioned this morning? Base says it’s due to roll in a lot sooner, and I’m looking at the numbers on this thing-”
“I can’t reach Solar’s signal from here,” Moon interrupts, blankly.
“What do you mean, you can’t reach his signal?”
“I mean exactly that, he’s not showing up on the system! It’s almost like - shit-” the moonbot swears under his breath, the muffled clack-clack-clacking picking up speed.
“Moon?” Sun prompts worriedly, voice cracking halfway. Earth lets out a worried hum from her end, waiting.
“Yeah, sorry, hang on-” A beat, then: “- I can’t reach his signal, he’s not connected to the system. I can try to contact him manually through his serial code, but I don’t know if he’s even active. He disappeared from the network without a trace, anything could have happened-”
“Take a breath, Moon, let’s try to calm down-” Earth starts.
The swoosh of the sliding doors behind Sun opening has him swiveling around so fast his servos strain. Lunar bursts into the room, trailing dust as he crosses the floor in seconds.
“Storm’s coming,” he says, eyes wild.
A large rush of static blips across the network from Moon, like the noise of a cornered animal.
“Solar’s still out there…” Earth murmurs, dazed.
“Sun?” his twin asks. Lunar’s pale optics flit towards him, waiting for orders.
Hot air vents roughly from the ex-Attendant’s exhausts. Running a hand over his face, he says in a voice more confident than he feels, “Just- get everything set up. Prepare to leave, just in case. Moon, keep trying to contact Solar.”
“...Okay,” is the response. More typing fills the silence.
On the monitor, the great stormcloud marked in red steadily approaches.
*
Solar did not think it would take this long to find some dirt - he doesn’t really understand why Earth needs this specific plot of dirt, either, but it’s not like he’s the botanist aboard anyways. Still, he’s been walking for about an hour and you’d think that he’d have reached the coordinates by now.
Hell, with the way the sky’s been darkening he’d have thought the team would call him back. So far, no one’s sent any warnings - surely they aren’t actually kicking him out of the network? He didn’t think he’d spend more than 5 minutes in the proverbial doghouse before Moon brought him back in, and he hadn’t wanted to waltz in himself in case they were serious - maybe they had been, or maybe he was just overthinking it and they were waiting for him to just join in again and- oh, there’s the spot he’d been looking for.
Spiral momentarily suspended, Solar stoops down to inspect the mound, plucking the little jar out of his toolbelt and scooping some in before rattling it around with a hum. As far as dirt goes, it looks like any other sample he’d seen before. He pings Earth with a quick image and a questioning ‘this good?’ before starting the long walk back. The sky overhead is a murky soup of oxidizing rust swirling above him.
The wind is beginning to pick up - he’s kicking up dust and watching it rush behind him in great plumes when he receives an answering ping an hour later- not from Earth, but Moon.
Solar brushes off the quick stab of discomfort and answers, trying to keep his tone light. “Oh, hey, finally coming around - what, did you miss me too m-”
“S-lar, are you- re?” Moon’s voice cuts in, loud and panicked.
Solar double-takes at the tone, all comedic pretense dropped: he’s never heard Moon sound like that before.
“L-en, you need -of there-”
“What on - Moon?” he puts a hand over his audials in a futile attempt to block out the wailing wind and static. “Moon, you’re cutting out, what’s going on?”
“Y-ou n-need to get out-” the moonbot repeats urgently, “ -ere’s- storm coming and-”
The line drops, audio breaking as Solar’s connection to the network severs like the snap of a dying man’s rope. Grasping for the threads of the collapsing system, he tries to call back, “Moon? Moon, are you there? Moon?”
Blindly, he sends out a ping to anyone still active, only for it to be swallowed up by the void. He watches each light on the system go out one by one until he is the last one left active, suspended in the nothingness.
“Shit-” he hisses out, rubbing his hands in an attempt to shake off the sudden numbness creeping in through his suit. The wind has gotten stronger, rattling his rays against the glass of his visor and pushing him further back every few feet forward. Steeling himself, he plants his boots in the sand and sets out in what he thinks is the direction of the Hab - he can’t tell between his busted Navigations system and the sandstorm blocking his vision.
Each step is more difficult than the last as the onslaught of the elements threatens to bury him standing. Every so often, he sends out a futile ping, throwing a line with nothing in return. He tries to wrack his brain for a way to manually access the network - send out a distress signal, a location or signature or something-
There’s no way to do that out here, though. He’s got no comms system, no tools - even that jar of dirt was snatched away by the air current. Figures. Solar prides himself on his tendency to stay level-headed even in the most dire of situations, but he can feel an inkling of panic wedge itself into his already-overworking processor, running through the list of things that could happen in the back of his mind.
He tries to dispel the thought as it occurs. It lingers, pressing against his consciousness as surely as the gusts of microscopic metal particles pushing back at him.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking when there, flashing faintly in the distance, blurry lights shine through the haze.
Even with the sound of metal on glass and the cold half-melting his brain, Solar still has enough cognizance to recognize a watch party. Laughing in open relief, he turns in the direction of the lights, fumbling for the button on his front to send out an answering beacon.
“Guys, over here! I’m back, it’s me!” He waves his arms over his head, bright light bouncing off reflectors. The sound is swallowed up by the storm, and his comms are still blocked off, but he can see the lights blinking closer and stumbles over the growing sand mounds to meet them.
Yet even through the rush of rust Solar can still make out the sound of metal against metal that screeches against the air - he turns to face it and in a slur of sound there is a snapping cable, a collapsing tower, and–
His vision goes black before the scream can pierce his audials.
*
Sun watches the communications tower crumble into the dust like a lumbering giant falling to its knees - behind him, Earth’s anguished sobs fill the air. She flings out a hand as if to stop it from crushing their crewmate beneath it. The flickering light in the distance is snuffed out by the cloud of sand that rises on impact.
A gut-wrenching sound is punched out of her, breath hitching, and he can pinpoint the exact moment she chooses to throw caution to the wind - she takes a step forward as if to rush towards the remains of the Hab. Sun grabs her hand on instinct, and his heart nearly shatters at the look of utter betrayal that crosses her face.
He can feel the apathy in his voice, the way his role as captain buries his grief down, down, down, under a mess of spaghetti code and discontinued protocols. He shakes his head imperceptibly and hates himself as he tells her quietly, “There isn’t time to go back. I’m sorry.”
“You cannot be serious,” Lunar’s voice is deathly low, gloved hands shaking at his sides. He throws one out in a wild gesture,“He’s still out there, we can’t just leave him behind to-”
“-There isn’t time.” Sun repeats harshly. The wind picks up the rising sand, ruffling the thin cloth of their suits, threatening to rip them off the skin. “We need to go now if we have any chance of surviving.”
Lunar stares up at him in a mixture of wonderment and abhorrence. He can feel the pop of anger crackling under the smaller bot’s skin, just below the surface. Moon is strangely silent behind him.
Earth breaks his hold on her, turning back briefly in the direction of the wreckage. Her eyes track the ruins, the broken cables and skeletal remains of the structure that groans horribly against the shrill sound of buffeting air. Her shoulders bounce once, twice - there is a press of static and Sun feels her send out a flurry of pings like hundreds of glass shards clinking in a bowl, one right after the other, each call crashing into the last until they are indiscernible from one another, with no pause in between.
“Earth-” Sun tries, voice wavering. She pays him no mind, sending out signal after signal, until Moon at last moves from behind him to steady her with a hand to her shoulder. There is no answering ping.
Without a word, the remaining members of the Ares crew mission trudge across the desolate sands of Mars back to their ship.