It has been a very LONG time since I wrote anything and submitted it, outside of a few random scraps. This story isn't furry related, but it is a start to me getting back into writing.


Stranded on Mars

Samuel gently kicked the tire of his ATV with his booted foot, feeling the gentle bump through the spacesuit’s padding. He opened his radio microphone, and called out, “Hey Jason? This is Samuel, over.
“Samuel, this is Jason, go ahead, over,” replied a gentle, but deep voice.
“Yeah, I uh...Well; I got my ATV stuck in a sand trap. It’s free now, but the impact ruptured my fuel tank. I’m outta gas. I’m about 2 clicks east of that dried out riverbed, uh, Absurd Alley. Is there any rover out here that can pick me up, over?”
“Hold on for a minute there Samuel, I’m checking now. You might want to start rigging up a shelter, just in case, over.”
“Alright, keep me advised. Samuel, out.”
With the distress call placed, Samuel began the slow business of building a shelter that could help him survive the brutal Martian night. He was about 2 hours from the nearest permanent structure, a mining base which brought the colony the bulk of its iron. Nightfall was in 3 hours. He was going to have to be one lucky guy for there to be a 2-seater rover or ATV within an hour of him.
“Samuel, this is Jason. You still there, over?” called Jason. He sounded worried.
“Yeah Jason, I’m here. Quit being such a worrywart. You got anything about a pickup?” Samuel replied.
“Sorry, there’s nothing nearby. We got a pressurized rover that’ll be able to get to you about 90 minutes past sunrise. They’ve been diverted from a cargo run to get you and your ATV. You’re gonna have to last a night, over,” Jason explained.
“Alright, thanks for the shitty news, my friend. I’ve already started on a shelter, and I’ll get you that drink I owe you when I get back tomorrow. Samuel, out.”
Samuel kept up the steady labor towards building his shelter. It took him another hour before he was finished. He stood up, inspecting his handiwork. The shelter was basically nothing more than a tent built from some iron stakes and a set of space blankets. Since the Martian surface temperature could go as low as -50o Celsius, keeping warm was a priority. The tent was already covered with red dust, almost as if the planet’s surface wanted to absorb any signs of civilization.
“Well, it’s not a dorm in Utopia, but it’ll do,” Samuel thought aloud. No sooner had he finished saying this than his suit’s oxygen level reached the 15 minute mark. A small alarm buzzed in his ears. He checked his watch for the remaining time he had on his tank.
“Hm, 13 and a half minutes. That’s not too bad. Alright, where’s that bag with my water and compressor?”
He walked over to his ATV and pulled out a small kit. In it were a bag, small battery-power jackhammer, a shovel, and an insulated container of water. With the jackhammer, he broke up a section of Martian permafrost. Then, while humming a song, he shoveled the soil into the bag and sealed it. From a small compartment, he added some water and attached his suit’s air compressor line. Soon enough, the peroxides in the soil broke down, releasing oxygen that was quickly sucked into Samuel’s air reserves. Two more bagfuls gave him a full tank, which would last for about 14 hours.
The Martian oxygen smelled like fired gunpowder, which suited Samuel just fine. His years as a solider back on Earth were full of such scents. In fact, he even missed the scent just a tad, even if he’d never admit it.
Samuel crawled into his tent, carefully closing the flap. The tent itself was entirely airtight, and an advanced temperature regulation system kept the entire thing at a chilly, but livable 15o Celsius. He flooded the tent with a reserve O2 tank, which let him take off his helmet for a few precious minutes. He also removed his gloves, and quickly did a full physical inspection of his gear. It took a few minutes before he was satisfied, and he let the remaining air in the tent cycle through his lungs.
Once it ran dry, he was fast to put his helmet back on. He looked at his watch and was surprised to see that it was already night.
“Jason, this is Samuel. You still on-station, over?” Samuel spoke over the radio.
“Yeah Samuel, I’m here. What’s up, over?” Jason replied quickly.
“Nothing. I just wanted to let you know I got a shelter set up, and am good on both oxygen and water. I’m set for the night, over.”
Jason’s transmission started in the middle of a sigh of relief, which meant he must have keyed the mike late. “We’re all glad you’re good. Call if anything changes, or when the sun rises. Good luck to you. Jason, out.”
Samuel took out the cot which was in his gear, and began assembling it. Sleeping on the ground was paramount to going EVA without a helmet, essentially a death wish.
“Feels more and more like my army days,” Samuel grunted as he labored. Once done, he promptly lay upon the cot and tried to get some sleep.
He found himself unable to, however. The idea of sleeping in an emergency tent in the middle of the Marian frontier, with no help and no remaining redundancy to fall back upon, kept him on edge. So he selected an audiobook from his suit’s memory banks and let it play.
“The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus,” the suit began, before beginning the lengthy essay. Samuel closed his eyes and contemplated the essay, which he usually did at least once a week.
Without realizing, Samuel drifted into sleep during the essay. He was awoken with a start when his suit buzzed an alarm, signaling dawn. He quickly took stock of his resources, and then made a call to the mining base.
“Mining base, this is Samuel, do you read, over?”
“Samuel, this is Zachary, over,” a gruff voice responded.
“Hey Zachary, I got about 4 hours of air here. What’s the status on that pressurized rover I was told about, over?”
“It got to within 3 clicks of you yesterday before nightfall. It should be there within the hour, so get yourself ready to move, over.”
“Roger. I’ll start tearing down the shelter. Samuel, out.”
The shelter came down much easier than it went up. The cot and tent took about 35 minutes to get back into their kits. He looked up from his work to see the rover less than 500 meters away. He clicked on his mic.
“Rover, this is Samuel, over.”
“Samuel, this is Theodore. I’ve got two guys here ready to suit up and help you get your ATV on the cargo trailer. You all set?”
“Yeah, I’m good here, and you know you’re supposed to say over when you’re done talking Theodore, over,” Samuel chastised lightly.
Theodore wasn’t that great with radio procedures, but his abilities in navigating the Martian surface made him one of the best search and rescue drivers out there.
“Yeah yeah. Alright, I’m offloading the crew, over,” Theodore said, with a hint of sarcasm behind the over. He never did take criticism well. The two crewmen jumped from the rover’s airlock as it slowed to a halt, and then helped Samuel lift his ATV onto the cargo trailer. In reality, Mars’ low gravity would have made it possible for Samuel to lift the ATV on his own, but Samuel wasn’t about to make the crew miss a cargo run and then do nothing. The three of them entered the airlock, which was then pressurized so they could remove their suits.
“It feels good to be free of that thing,” Samuel thought aloud. The three man mining team didn’t have quite as high spirits.
“You just had to get yourself stuck out here! Look, that run was going to win me a bottle of whiskey, one of the last ones we brought from Earth! So you owe the three of us big time Samuel,” Theodore said.
Raising his hands in surrender, Samuel tried to pacify the angry crew. “Hey, I got 2 bottles in my suit’s pack. I always keep them with me. How ‘bout I give the three of you one as thanks, and we call it square?”
The men’s eyes lit up at the thought of drinking a remnant of their past lives. Samuel got a bottle out, and the trip back to the mining base was little more than 4 guys drinking and having a good time.
“We even, Theodore?” Samuel asked carefully.
Theodore guzzles the last dreg of the whiskey before answering, “Oh yeah.”
“Good, I’d hate to make any enemies on Mars.”
Once the rover entered the large airlock to the garage, the crew hopped off and went their separate ways, leaving the unenviable task of scrubbing out the Martian dust to the maintenance officer…