The virgin & the bad boy (Gravity)

B2/Chapter 35/By The Light Of A Savage Moon

The final day we put on our pressurised orangutan sports climbing suits for real and left the safety of the crack city to crawl up real rock in a vaccume. Raw martian rock wasn't like climbing up the weathered rock inside the dome. There was dust and you were never sure if the rock would take your weight. Inside the helmet you had the radio messages from your friends, the screens printed out projected onto the rock around you and all you could really hear was the sound of your own breathing. The 

We were still safe here. We had local guides, plus robot climbers who could carry oxygen and just as importantly lunch. With Dante by my side, I felt I was unstoppable. We climbed and even practised attaching sleeping pressure tents attached to the rock. The next day everybody slept the deep deep sleep of the weary. I did too,  except this time I've slept with Dante. It was uncomfortable,  In my waking moments, I kept checking the weather forecasts. As I watched,  It didn't look as bad as I was expecting. My eyes heavy,  I slept.

By the morning the guides showed us up the final short climb to the ledge's edge. I would able to have a shower before we left.  As we pulled over the edge. I was pleased. 

"Red sky at night shepherd's delight" Dante said "Orange sky in morning robot's warning." 

  It looked like the storm was going to be a big one. The mirror in the bathroom held a message from Vaderman. It told me that maybe some malfunctioning orbiting sky mirrors have accidentally contributed to this cover. After breakfast, we said goodbye to our instructors. We left the robots by the bus with the gear and pretended we were going off on a climbing trip. We drove away and watched the airlock slowly fade into the distance.

A Martian dust storm isn't quite what you would think from Earth. The wind is fast but not particularly strong you can hardly feel it in a space suit. It's enough to lift some dust up but it feels like you're walking through orange fog. Eventually, the bus just drove itself down old dirt tracks. 

All we could see with a few hundred yards in front of us, a few hundred yards behind us and the rocks around us.

Eventually, we stopped. We checked every digit on the satnav. It was perfect, were at the rendezvous point. 

Dante looked at this watch. "Where are they?" he said carefully studying every inch of the orange fog.

At a tense hour of the orange fog drove a small truck this time carrying some of 'my' railguns. We spent an hour practising shooting. Then loading the guns up into the bottom of the bus we carried on. After a few hours are been jostled in the back of the buss,  we came to a couple of robots who had just cut a bus-sized hole in a security fence.

Beyond the ragged fence sat boxes on the ground, I think they were there to fool the sensor systems. After travelling through the second fence I knew we were inside the security area. We had lost our Internet connection hours ago in the storm, and I guess so had to surveillance systems. We carried on driving in complete silence. It was as if there were no words which were capable of framing what we were about to do.

Finally, the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere. Everyone put their suits one and checked each carefully. I saw some of the marines kiss their helmets before putting them on. 

"Why do they do that?" Dante asked. 

"Martain tradition," I said. "The next time that helmet comes off they will either be victors or dead. If you die the one who loves you kisses the faceplate's centre mark, they bury you in the suit... Check your gear." 

The bus depressurised.  We got out and got our gear. 

I'm following the signals we walk for a few minutes got the base of the Rock. There was a huge amount of faith here. Faith that the robot had taken us to right point. Faith the rock was claimable up to the base. Faith we can climb up in time. Faith that we could take over the system and stop the self-destruct on the chips working. Faith that we could get the codes which controlled the system.