The tires crunched over the gravel.
In the boundless desert, a Mars rover slowly made its way through the swirling windblown sand.
In this forbidden realm of life, undisturbed for so long, only a few microorganisms still clung to existence besides the AI-controlled all-terrain survey rover.
Time seemed to have taken away everything it could.
In this dead world, desolation was etched into every grain of sand.
For this dead planet, however, today was undoubtedly a momentous day.
As the roar of engines traveled through the thin atmosphere, a silvery-white ring slowly descended from the sky. Four thick, long streams of flame and exhaust spread into a curved umbrella beneath its leading edge, blowing away the red sand on the ground from a considerable distance and even whipping up a sizable sandstorm.
As though it had heard the commotion overhead, the all-terrain survey rover inquisitively rotated its omnidirectional camera on top, casting a "confused" glance at the sky.
That single backward glance captured the breathtaking scene.
Like a comet striking the surface, the instant the ring hit the ground, the umbrella of flame was extinguished. In its place, billowing dust surged into the sky like a waterfall flowing backward, spreading a dark canopy like murky clouds.
[Data recorded... setting tags.] [Setup complete.]
The emotionless text flashed across the display. Having lost interest in the silvery-white ring, Crawler continued along its planned route. Its owner had assigned it the task of surveying the terrain, landforms, and natural resources of the Martian surface.
It had been doing this for years and would continue until its machinery broke down or its power ran out. Unlike the artificial intelligence that communicated with it, it had no curiosity about unrelated matters beyond recording them.
Without meeting this "colleague" that had arrived on Mars