Elaina. In search of a planet.

Martian guardians, part 8

An hour after the burial of the scientist, the crew, dressed in spacesuits, stood on the surface of Mars next to a unique six-wheeled vehicle. She was a little less than a human tall, and from a distance she looked like a scarab beetle, with a spider robot attached to the back. The Cyber Machine is the prototype of the microscopic tardigrade beetle. The insect can withstand heating over one hundred degrees and cooling down to two hundred degrees. These parameters were taken as the basis for the creation of a research machine on other planets. On the red planet, the average run-up of daily temperature ranged from zero to minus eighty. Such. Under such conditions, the cyber-beetle was supposed to work.
But this was not the only ability of the machine. The uniqueness was that she could fly like an insect. The iron insect soared upward due to flapping wings made of artificial web -- a material dozens of times more elastic and stronger than steel. They were covered with two elytra, these were shells.
And another ability of the Beetle is to dive into the bowels of the planet. The subterrine worked its way under the surface using a drill that was placed in the front in a slightly lowered state for viewing from the windshield. In working condition, it was transformed, increasing in size and repeating the diameter of the machine body.
It's noon. Translucent white clouds appeared in the sky, which let the sunlight through unhindered. The sun, being overhead, completely illuminated the walls of the crater. The Martian heat has come -- the temperature is about minus five degrees.
Max and Janos stepped over the grooved wide wheels of the Beetle and got into the car. The hatches were closed hermetically and began to prepare for the flight. Tanya began to move away, because the turbulence of the wings was no less than that of a helicopter.
The shell began to rise -- two elytrons parted up and to the sides.
Then there were drop-shaped wings -- two large ones, and under them two small ones. They were grooved like a dragonfly wing, which handles air currents much better than the smooth surface of an airplane wing.
The power of the atomic reactor quickly set the gossamer wings in motion. Sandy dust rose all around. The beetle broke away from the surface of the planet and rapidly began to gain vertical height.
Having flown over the walls of the crater, the universal subterrine headed towards the giant Mount Olympus. Thick white clouds were already hanging around her, which were formed from the frost that had fallen on a frosty night. The weather was favorable, the orbiting satellites of Mars did not record the approaching sandstorms.
The beetle was approaching the Mariner Valley. The dimensions amazed people -- four thousand kilometers in length and six kilometers in depth. The necessary split of the giant canyon, where the unidentified object fell, was seen immediately, recognizing by the long furrow from the falling apparatus.
We started to decline. This appendage to the canyon was about fifty meters wide and a hundred meters deep. It was left from the turbulent flow of water, which millions of years ago made a stream of water in the ground, leaving erosional terraces on the walls.
Down at the bottom of the depression formed a shadow from a fallen object. He was lying on the bottom. One side on large boulders, the other buried in the sand. It measured two hundred meters in length. From a height it seemed something unearthly. It had an oval shape with a chopped off and sooty part towards the top, where one could see the semblance of jet engines.
The Beetle smoothly sat on the bottom of the canyon, a hundred meters from the object. There are no disturbances around. Small whirlwinds of sand hit the walls of the gorge, on which the sedimentary layers of a long-gone river are clearly visible. The water brought sand and silt with it, leaving its natural signature on the walls.
Wide wheels, like insect legs, smoothly with cushioned landing. Janos and Max found themselves at the bottom of the canyon. Behind him, the walking robot came to life as it detached itself from the insectoid machine. He deftly stood on his eight legs and headed for the alien ship.
The spider moved with the help of an ultrasonic rangefinder, which allows its paws to adapt to the terrain and various obstacles, smoothly but surely changing direction, as if it were a real spider. With the help of a video camera and sensors, he transmitted an image of the properties of the external environment to the display of the Beetle , where the commander controlled the robot with voice commands. Tanya was also watching all this, sitting at the control panel of Striver.

Hi folks, what will the Striver team find in the alien spaceship? You will find out in the next chapter. Subscribe and hit the star and may the force be with you!