“Yes, sir. Everyone in SatCon and the RPL checked them,” he replied, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “See, the images show both the rovers moving and the solar panels being cleaned. Modifications have been made to—”

“Modifications? What modifications?”

Sartaq Dalavtchai, the director of the Rocket Propulsion Lab, held up an image, “Galathynius took the battery off the second rover and attached it to the first, to double its power…”

Asterin spoke, finishing his sentence, “She’s trying to travel to the Mistward crater for The Crone.”

“Exactly, Asterin, or that’s what we believe is happening.”

“But the rover will only be able to travel a total of one-hundred kilometres and Mistward is… two-thousand at least. Not to mention, she’ll need to use the heater during the nights.”

Sartaq nodded, “You’re correct. Which is why we believe she is planning to attach the solar panels and…” he and Nox shared a look; they wouldn’t be happy to find out what she’d dug up.

“And?” Weylan prompted, wariness in his eyes. “And what?”

“Sir, she dug up the RTG.”

Asterin’s otherworldly eyes – the truest black flecked with brilliant gold – widened, “The plutonium battery?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She sat back in her chair, thinking aloud, “Well, it would be able to fully power the rover without needing to be charged.” As well as powering a nuclear bomb, but Asterin kept that to herself.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“She’s what?” Manon barked, glaring through the computer at Nox, as if he had grossly offended her. “Who even is this, where’s the director of SatCon?”

Asterin calmed her cousin, “Stop being a dick, Manon, this is Nox Owens, he’s a satellite planner and the one who found out Aelin’s still alive.” She addressed Nox next with a cheeky grin, “Don’t worry about her, she hasn’t drunk the blood of a virgin for a while, she’s a little grouchy.”

Nox laughed, still terrified of the glaring woman, and Weylan shook his head from the opposite side of the table as Manon, as if thinking, Why did I hire so many witches?

“Please, continue, Nox,” Gavriel said, “where’s Aelin going?”

“Well, we’re not sure, sir. We believe she’s testing out her modifications on the rovers. She drives for thirteen hours, stops, and returns. We think the stops are to charge the batteries.”

Weylan frowned, he seemed to do that a lot. “But you said that she attached the solar cells to the top. Why would she need to re-charge and what about the RTG?”

Sartaq waved to introduce himself, “I can answer that. The solar cells are extremely delicate and the rover is designed to cross all sorts of rough terrain so she can’t have the solar cells out all the time because the risk of breaking them is higher. As for the generator,” he paused, rubbing his fingers over his jaw, “it’s good for spacecrafts but if it ruptures around humans… no more humans. Which is why she isn’t completely relying on it. And why we buried it, with a flag so we would know not to touch it.”

The Orynth team all nodded thoughtfully and Weylan asked, “Sartaq, what’s the fastest you can get a food probe ready?”

“Hmm,” the gears in his mind circled and he narrowed his eyes, “with the planetary positioning… nine months. We’ll need six months to build it in the first place—”

“Three months. Get it done.” Weylan held up his hand when Sartaq startled, looking to protest, “You’re going to say it can’t be done and I’ll give some speech about the immeasurable capabilities of the RPL team and you’ll say something like the overtime alone will be a nightmare.”

“The overtime alone will be a nightmare,” the harried rocket scientist mumbled, looking behind the camera at the rest of his team who were all shaking their heads and holding up a sign that read FUCK NO!!!

“Get it started, I’ll find you the money.”

Manon breathed out, trying to keep her anger in check, “It’s time to tell the crew.”

“Manon,” her boss started, his voice conveying his emotions on the topic they’d already discussed many, many times. “We’ve talked about this.”

“No, you talked about this. But I’m the crew director, I decide what’s best for the crew. They deserve to know,” she pressed, balling her hands into fists, her iron nails flashing for a second.

Gavriel shook his head, “I agree with Weylan, Manon. They need to concentrate on getting home safe.”

“Fuck all of you,” spat Manon, murder in her eyes. “Fuck all of you.”

“When we have a rescue plan, we’ll tell them. Until then, it’s useless. Sartaq has three months to get it done, be patient.”

“We’ll do our best,” Sartaq said, his face pale.

Manon turned her gaze on him, cocking her head to the side, “Aelin dies if you don’t.”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Rowan couldn’t sleep.

Hadn’t been able to in the month following Aelin’s death.

He wanted more time. Not a lot, just five minutes, just enough to tell her he loved her with all that he was and would ever be.

There had always been some unspoken thing between them, it was impossible to stay away.

They’d loathed each other at the start.

Oh, she drove him crazy.

She seemed to know everything about everything and beat him to the first spot in their classes in the space program, utterly ruthless. At least, when Elide beat the two of them, she was tactful and humble, but Aelin…

She knew just how smart she was and refused to downplay it. Despite loathing her, it was always something he subconsciously admired of her.

She was a wildfire, unapologetic with her quest to get what she wanted, accepting nothing but the best of herself.

With her corn-silk hair and electric blue eyes, it was easy to peg her as a princess – a brat, only here on Daddy’s money.

Gods, he was an ass. It wasn’t until she had fled the dorms, crying after he’d insulted her by calling her a dumb blonde, looking for her Mrs. degree, and told her that she didn’t deserve to be here like the rest of them, and the verbal beating he’d received from Elide (arguably the most terrifying experience of his life – especially when Nesryn was forced to physically restrain the five-foot woman) that he’d realized how badly he’d fucked up.

Even Lorcan gave him a disgusted look and slapped him upside the head before Rowan chased after her and begged for forgiveness.

After… they weren’t friends but they weren’t at each other’s throats all the time either.

Everything had changed the night she’d stumbled into his room, high after smoking with Elide and Nesryn – a birthday tradition he was told – and he fell. Harder than he’d thought possible, irrevocably and irretrievably in love with her.

Rowan kept his eyes at the kitchen table, picking at his fingernails, refusing to look up as Fenrys and Lorcan sat down.

They stayed silent and for that, he was grateful. There were no words to say and so they sat, quiet until Rowan was ready.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Gavriel was absolutely exhausted.

It had been a long day, after flying to Perranth from Orynth and meeting with Nox, who he was currently sitting next to as they watched the satellites.

He could feel his eyes drooping shut. Slapping his cheek, a couple times, and draining the rest of his coffee, he sat up and tapped the screen, “Why is there a jump here?”

“Oh, because of how the orbits line up, there’s a thirteen-minute gap every thirty hours,” Nox explained, pushing his glasses onto the top of his head and rubbing his eyes.

“Where is she going,” Gavriel wondered, tracking the movement of the rover through every frame, “there’s out there except for…” he sat up straight, his tawny eyes wide. “I need a map.” With that, he was gone, making his way out of Satellite Control as Nox scrambled to his feet and hurried after him, not sure what was happening.

They sped-walked down a hallway until the cat-like man stopped abruptly and took down a framed image of the Anascaul crater, where the hab was located, and took a marker from his pocket as someone said, “Hey, man, you can’t just do that—”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. Nox,” he addressed the younger man next to him, Nox’s mind still reeling, “what are the hab’s coordinates?”

He rattled them off and Gavriel marked them on the glass protecting the picture, drawing another mark halfway across the picture, in the opposite direction of the Mistward crater. He nodded to himself, “Alright. I know where she’s going. Where’s Sartaq?”

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Nox still had absolutely no idea what was happening as he trailed after Gavriel and Sartaq through the lab. The dark-haired man said to Gavriel, “I got everyone who was here in ’03, which is when the probe went silent. I’d like to point out that it lasted three times longer—”

“Of course, Sartaq. No one is criticizing the RPL’s work, you’ve done an amazing job.” He shook hands with the three scientists, Malakai Scéalaí, Brulo Vojnik, and Philippa Bisset. “So, I’ll just get right to it. What’s the likelihood of Aelin getting it working again?”

Philippa answered him, “It’s hard to say, really. When we lost contact, we lost a data bank, so we were never able to figure out how it lasted as long as it did and why it stopped working.” She indicated the covered machinery behind him, “We have the replica all ready for you.”

Gavriel turned around and they pulled the tarp off to reveal the original Farnor probe – The Lord of The North.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

Aelin had been sitting outside the hab for an hour. She was so ready to just give up, but every time she thought about throwing a fit and stomping inside, Lorcan’s face appeared and his voice filled her head, insulting her and threatening her with gross bodily harm if she went the ‘pussy-ass-bitch’ route and gave up. Aelin had to stop herself from answering to him, not ready to be that kind of crazy.

She stared at the probe, praying for it to move to point to either one of the signs she’d written and stabbed in the earth after travelling to dig up another TNSB relic.

There were three signs in total, the closest one reading Yes, the middle one: Messages written here. Are you receiving? And the third: No, which was a little redundant because if they didn’t receive, they wouldn’t be able to point to any of the signs, let alone No.

The sun was setting and Aelin could feel herself nodding off, drained after her day and the emotional toll. Gods, I just want to go home, she prayed, take me home, please. She hadn’t let herself cry and it seemed she had put it off too much to control when her eyes grew wet and soon enough, tears were rolling down her cheeks.

A whirring noise interrupted her and she opened her eyes, her heart in her throat as the camera spun to… the left. Yes, they were receiving.

Aelin almost didn’t believe it and stood on surprisingly strong legs before taking one step and then another, but when the probe stayed on the ‘yes’ sign, she threw her arms up and roared of her victory to the high heavens, her voice breaking as the tears came faster and faster.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

“So, here’s the thing,” Aelin addressed the camera once again, eating oatmeal for dinner, and potatoes. She’d always loved oatmeal, loved to load it up with brown sugar and cream aplenty, to the confusion of every person she’d ever met. “We have to have serious astrophysical engineering conversations with a still frame camera that has a thirty-two-minute round trip communication time. Luckily,” she ate a bite, talking with her mouth full, “the camera does spin three-sixty so I can use an alphabet.”

She stood and walked her empty bowl over to the sink, scraping it clean, “It just can’t be ours because with twenty-six characters plus a question card gives me a twelve-degree arc, which is too narrow, we’d never know what it’s pointing at. Which means,” she spun, pointing her spoon at the camera, “hexadecimals to the rescue!”

She elaborated as she dragged Nesryn’s box into the frame, “Only sixteen characters gives me enough room and I’m hoping the geeks at RPL can send me some code so that the rover’s computer can communicate with TNSB. Fingers crossed.”

Sitting down, she held up a TSCII – Terrasen Standard Code for Information Interchange – table, “I figured one of you had to have an old TSCII table lying around and, ladies and gents, I give you super nerd: Nesryn Faliq. Mala above, Nes, you’re such a computer geek.”

The code had been developed from telegraph code and eventually formatted for the very first telephones and then evolving to computers. It used the decimal numbers – 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 – and six extra symbols, which were transmitted in binary code to be converted by computers.

 +*+*+*+*+*+*

It had been three days since the probe first made contact with TNSB and Aelin had been right, the folks at RPL sent her instructions on how to hack the rover’s computer and with just a smidgen of code, they could now communicate by using the Lord of The North’s broadcasting system.

She’d told them what was happening and what had happened during the storm, reinforcing that it was not the crew’s fault.

Text appeared on the screen.

TNSB: Aelin, this is Gavriel Aryeh

TNSB: We’ve been watching you on the satellites for a while now, amazing job modifying the rovers and growing crops, we’re all rooting for you

LTN: I should hope you all want me to survive, Aelin replied, laughing to herself. Giddiness had taken over every emotion since they’d made contact.

TNSB: RPL is putting together a supply mission to keep you fed until The Crone

LTN: Glad to hear it, really excited about not dying

LTN: How’d the crew take it when they found out I was alive?

+*+*+*+*+*+*

an: well that was a fun place to end on! till next time lovies and as always, let me know if you want to be added/removed from the tag list!