#(lit student brain taking over oh no it's a rant CABLE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE)

[macaroni-stars]

(tags via @/cable-salamder)

My friend proposed skysolo be renamed hanwalker

[strongerwiththepack]

Curiosity

For FabFiveFeb2021 (John).

Thank-you so much to everyone who’s left me such nice comments on my little prompt fics this past week. It gave me the motivation to finally finish this FabFiveFeb fic (on the 1st of March 🤦‍♀️).

A fluffy John and Alan fic. Set 3 years before TAG. Using the prompt ‘A curiosity’. Thank-you @gumnut-logic for organising the challenge!

“Scott come on, I’m too busy this week.”

“You’re busy every week John” Scott rolled his eyes on the hologram, making John pout pathetically. “Stop putting this off. Besides, you’d be able to test out the coding on your sample collector things while you’re there.”

John narrowed his eyes, he did need to do that, but he could do it on Earth or the moon even. There was no need to go to Mars.

“What if there’s a rescue?”

“We can handle it John, a day off isn’t going to kill you.”

John scoffed. “You’re one to talk, Scott.”

“Alan misses you, just do this for him, please John.”

John narrowed his eyes. He knew what Scott was doing. Scott knew he knew as well. Didn’t mean it wasn’t effective.

“Fine.”

So that’s where he found himself now. With Alan. On Mars.

His little brother was having the best day of his life, bouncing around pointing out the different types of soil and rocks. John smiled to himself at the enthusiasm. Alan was going to make a great astronaut someday.

The journey over had been really nice. John had fielded all of Alan’s questions about Thunderbird 3 and space travel. It reminded him of when they were kids and John would help Alan with his homework. He’d even given Alan the chance to pilot which wasn’t all that thrilling when they were already on course but his brother had seemed happy enough.

Despite his reluctance, this was nice.

“Do you think we’ll see any Aliens John?”

John laughed. The transition from describing soil types to the degree of a college PHD student to asking in all seriousness about Aliens was the perfect description of his youngest brother’s personality.

“Not likely Alan.” John chuckled.

The pout added to the humour.

“Do you think dad ever saw any Aliens while he was here?” Alan queried innocently, eyes wide as he waited for an answer.

John swallowed painfully and tried not to put a damper on Alan’s mood. “He never mentioned it if he did.”

“Can we go see dad’s plaque?”

John had been before, with their dad. The footprint in the soil surrounded by a podium. He’d teased the man about it then, thinking it was rather cheesy. Not so much now.

“Unfortunately no, they’re building the new mars colonies around it so it’s closed off at the moment.” John explained. He was glad, the lone footprint would have brought up unwanted feelings this time around. “That mission is set to launch in 2061. It’ll be the first-time humans have set up permanent residence on Mars.”

“Wow” Alan admired in awe. Distraction successful. “They would need a lot of oxygen for that, or maybe one of those prototypes for oxygen conversion has been approved! And obviously they would need some sort of sustainable way to grow food…”

John let Alan trail off on his rant. The kid was going to ace his Mars paper that was for sure.

He still had to test out his sample collection drones. It was his latest project. When he had been at university it had been extremely difficult to gather consistent interplanetary data for his research. The data was out there but it was either impossible to navigate or hidden behind a paywall. He still liaised with a lot of universities and knew it was still a problem. So, he’d decided to create an open-source, easy-to-navigate database for students and researchers around the world.

He could use the data that was already available but like he said none of it was consistent so he and Brains had designed some deep-space drones that could collect all the data they needed.

They were programmed to test gravity, air quality, rock types, temperature and a host of other categories. The engineering behind these tiny drones was insane. John never could’ve done it alone, Brains truly was remarkable. His dad sure knew how to spot talent.

He placed the little drone down before activating it on his tablet.

“Hey Alan, come check this out!”

Alan bounced over excitedly as the rotor blades retracted from the drone and it rose into the air.

“Cool! Can I fly it?”

“There are no controls, it’s fully automated!” John explained as he passed the tablet to his younger brother. “The readings are already coming in, these tiny little bots can produce so much data – it’s going to revolutionise research and academia in the future.”

“Where’s it going now?”

The drone had begun to quickly move away from them before it dropped down into the earth, out of sight.

John took the tablet back. “Hmm looks like it’s found a deep crater, it’s trying to gather below surface data.”

The tablet made a shrill beeping noise. “Hmm looks like it’s found something unusual down there, we can’t get a clear reading.”

They walked over to peer over the edge of the large crater. It spanned at least five meters wide and it was too dark to see how deep.

John grinned at his little brother as he flicked on his helmet torch. “Want to take a look?”

Alan gaped at him, looking into the dark hole before his face broke into a huge grin. “Yes!”

John chuckled. “Okay, come on, let’s get the grappling gear.”

*

He and Alan dropped into the crater that was dimly lit through their suit torches. It was incredibly dusty, their torches reflected off the particles floating in the air. There was a tunnel that led further under the surface. They didn’t have enough light to see more than a few meters in front of them.

“You’re sure about the aliens, right John?” Alan questioned unsurely beside him.

“Yes Alan” John rolled his eyes as he shone his light towards the ceiling of the tunnel. “It the structural integrity I’m more worried about.”

Alan whipped his head up to check as well.

“It’s not too far in, just tread lightly and try not to make any loud noises.” John reasoned.

The drone chose that moment to zoom out of the dark tunnel at them, and Alan yelped in alarm as it almost hit his head.

John rolled his eyes facepalming his helmet as a new dust cloud erupted. “Yeah, loud noises like that.”

Alan smiled sheepishly and whispered. “Sorry.”

John cocked his head towards the tunnel. “C’mon.”

They quickly came across the source of the anomaly. There was something partially buried in the red-tinged soil.

“No way…” John gasped as they got closer.  “Do you know what that is Alan?”

“Uhhh” Alan focused his torch on it as he inched closer. “A rover?”

“It’s the NASA Curiosity rover!” John explained, brushing off some of the dust that had settled there. “It went missing in 2040 and was never recovered.”

“It looks like a bit of a relic.” Alan commented.

“Oh it is.” John said with a smile. “It was launched in 2011. It still holds the record for the longest operating rover on mars.”

“Oh cool.” Alan said airily.

John chuckled. He could tell his little brother wasn’t impressed. The rover was a dinosaur by their standards but he knew it had been revolutionary at the time.

He couldn’t wait to tell his Grandma. He still remembered her telling him the story of the Curiosity landing. How it had been broadcast live on the television. How Jeff, who’d still been a young child, had sat on her lap bouncing excitedly. The Tracy’s had always had their heart’s in space travel.

“Come on.” John prompted. “We’re gonna tow this thing out of here.”

“Do we have to?” Alan whined. “It’s massive.”

“Yep. Let’s grab the tow cables from Three.” John instructed. “NASA are going to be over the moon.”

“You can’t really ever be over the moon, John.” Alan called over his shoulder.

“I know Alan.”

*

It turned out Curiosity had fallen into the crater and lost power when it got trapped without the sun. When John and Alan pulled it from the crater, it miraculously began to charge through the solar panels again.

And that’s how, in 2057, Curiosity was returned to the world.