Jyra felt Garry pull his harness back and his foot pushed forward to stop his stumble turning into a fall. Something like that would end this patrol and he would have to return to get his suit cleaned up, a pretty ignominious end after just a few seconds of patrol. So he was glad to be stood up rights again. Garry was by his side and he heard the familiar voice through the speakers of his helmet

"Are you OK Jyra?"

"Yes, dunno what happened there. C'mon, lets get to our station and have some fun" He climbed onto the personal surface rover, he stradled the seat and put his hand firmly on the directional control joy stick. Garry attached himself to the back and Jyra put his foot on the power pedal. The four chunky tires rolled forward and away from the platform they had been standing on and they swung out on to the surface. 

The headphones on Jyra's helmet came alive "Drive forward to the front of the main platform please Jyra" Garry's voice wold instruct him where to go and the details of the day's work they had to do. 

"What have we got today Garry?" asked Jyra, "Cleaning pipes, realigning drill bits, digging rocks out of the wheel tracks?" Jyra asked with a smile on his face, listing some of the more arduous and less interesting jobs they usually had to do as surface maintenance, making sure the general wear and tear of the surface mining and terraforming did not break the machinery. 

"No, today we are investigating forward with the other crews. The platform is moving over a ridge and the commanders want to have eyes on the ground to double check what's there. The probe droids have reporting the geological situation and they needs us there on the ground"

Jyra liked this sort of work, basically riding (sometimes racing!) around the surface in front of the platform, and this time with the other guys in his shift. The crew in the command pod would have the data from the probe droids would give lots of data, but there was nothing like real eyes on the ground when it came to navigating the giant platform over the surface.

"Lets go then!" said Jyra, and he pushed his hand forward on the joy stick and the rover jumped forward, it was pretty fast and they were soon out from underneath the platform and out in front of it. He looked around him and quickly spotted the 3 other rovers heading in the same direction. Hetta was further out to the left, Henrick was not far ahead of him and Jen was someway back, always a bit more cautious. He decided to angle his rover towards Henrick and see if they could have some fun racing him until they got to the target investigation zone and had to start the geological work.

Henrick glanced behind him and saw Jyra and immediately weaved out of the way and towards Hetta to the left. Jyra's helmet speakers came to life with Jen's voice on the rover comms. 

"Boys ! boys ! we've only just left the platform, the commanders still have eyes on you ! Look out Hetta, looks like they are coming your way!"

Jyra saw Hetta swing her rover round to the right, still heading for the ridge but making it a little easier the Jyra and Henrik to reach her, the race was on. Jyra pushed himself into the seat of his rover, accelerated and smiled to himself, he weaved between a couple of larger rocks, trying to keep the rover on a level path, he could see Henrick about 20 meters away but caught in some rough ground and Hetta was already climbing the ridge. He hoped she would slow down so they could descend the ridge together, that would be when they would have most speed.

Jyra pressed to rover communications button on the control panel, "C'mon Jens, keep up. Henrick has got himself stuck so he is going to be a while!"

"Dont you worry Jyra, you may be pushing fast, but I wont be far behind" said Jens

"Hey, I am not stuck Jyra, im just checking out this interesting feature for minerals" laughed Henrick " I want to impress the commanders by finding something nice for them."

"Oh of course, they will probably give you a medal and extra leave, in the meantime Hetta is going to beat us and you will be in our dust trails!" Jyra's rover was nearing the top of the ridge, Hetta had almost stopped. Jyra looked down the other side and saw a long steep descent leading a rock strewn plain below.

"Can you see that?" asked Hetta. Jyra followed the direction of her finger and saw a regular break in the rocks which created a sort of clear path, often an indication of some ancient geological activity on the surface when Mars had an atmosphere.

"I think I am going to head that way, I think that would be a good path for the platform to follow and they will send out droids and probes to investigate the rock plain as they go through it" Hetta was planning a route for the platform that would be easiest for the giant machine. Jyra agreed but because he thought the route looked more fun.

"So, where are we going?" asked Jens as he and Henrick pulled up next to Jyra and Hetta.

"Down there" pointed Jyra "looks like Hetta has found  a route for us to follow. Let's go!" and he jammed the rover's joystick forward and accelerated down the slope.  Henrick was right next to him and forcing Jyra to the right. Jyra looked ahead and saw he had a boulder in front of him and he was sure Henrick was driving him towards that. He accelerated harder and pulled in front of Henrick and pushed his rover to the right and in front of Henrick

"Ha, too slow mate!" laughed Jyra into his communicator.

"He is right behind us Jyra" said Garry, "and look out for that rise up ahead." Jyra had already seen it and that was what he was heading for. He knew and this speed and in the reduced gravity of the planet he would be able to get the rover flying and well down the slope before it landed again. He hit the rise and took off. He looked over and saw Henrick had taken the same route. The rover flew through the thin atmosphere and the surface fell away quickly because of the steepness of the slope.

"This is going to be a hard landing!" warned Garry, who was already computing their trajectory and likely landing location.

Jyra looked forward, and saw a green light on his visor. Garry was using the head-up display to indicate where they would land, it was distressingly close to a boulder so he leaned left and hoped this would swing the rover away from the boulder. He could see Henrick was already back on the surface and bouncing down the slope.

"Here we go Garry ! Hold on tight!"

"I dont think I have much choice Jyra!"

The rover landed and Jyra saw the tyres and suspension compress but still the whole machine shuddered and crunched into the surface sending up a spray of gravel and dust. Jyra pulled to the left, not to hard but just enough to get past the boulder. 

"That was close" said the voice of Henrick

"A little too close Jyra!" laughed Hetta

Jyra slowed the rover, he liked having fun, but didnt want to have to explain how he had broken another rover. He could still see the lear path they were heading for and somehow Jens rover was already down there.

As Henrick, Jyra and Hetta got closer, Jens turned and smiled at them through his visor. "While you three were mucking about and looking for jumps to break your equipment on I followed the path! Our days work begins now." already Jens and Henrick had detached their robots who would spend the morning taking soil and rock samples from the terrain and would be sinking sonic probes in to the surface to determine what might be below.

"Come on then, let's go ahead and start our work up there" said Hetta and she pulled away. Jyra followed her and he could see a marker on his navigation panel where he was to begin his sampling. He stopped near a cliff face to allow Garry to detach and start his sampling. Jyra also climbed off the rover to walk a round and take some video of the cliff to look for interesting strata or features. 

"Hey Garry, come with me, there is something over there" he said indicating a dark patch on the cliff face. As they approached he realised it was an opening in the rock, about 2 meters up from the surface and about half a meter high. Stood at the bottom of the cliff he looked up at the hole.

" Is suppose we really should look inside" he said to Garry

"I suppose we really should inform the Command Pod what we have found so they can send a droid!" said Garry, reminding Jyra of the correct protocol.

"Ahh where's the fun in that?" Jyra was already climbing up the cliff and reaching up for the bottom of the hole. He pulled himself up and turned on his helmet light. He saw the hole became a tunnel in the cliff, it was smooth and wide and remained level. He had pulled his head and shoulders in and wriggled further in to the tunnel

"Jyra, are you going to make me follow you in there?" asked Garry

"You dont have to come, but you know it would be better if you did. " Jyra was smiling to himself as he heard Garry's robot hands gripping the side of the tunnel as well. Jyra could crawl down the tunnel, it was not high enough to stand in. He went further in and saw the tunnel started to angle down slightly and turn to the right.

"Lets just see whats round the corner and we will head back and report it"

"Are you OK in there?" Hetta's voice came over the communicator

"Yes, fine, just having a little look before we report it for investigation" Jyra crawled round the corner and saw the tunnel got wider and taller and went on much further than his lamp could illuminate. "Have a look at that Garry" he said.

"Yes, very impressive" Jyra was not sure how Garry, a robot, managed to sound sarcastic, but he did, "now can we go back please ?"

"Yes, let just get some images for the report. " Jyra stepped forward and suddenly the ground started to crumble below his feet , he wobbleed and fell to his knees, only making the surface give way more. He turned his body and reached out for Garry's arm. He grabbed it but saw Garry was also sliding towards him and the surface was breaking away beneath his feet and he couldnt grip either. Suddenly his visor was covered in dust and stones and he could feel the ground hitting his knees and chest and shoulders, he was falling, and falling fast.

Instinctively he rolled onto his back and looked down towards his feet, the helmet lamp lit the tunnel in front of his, it was smooth and steep and apart from the rocks which had come down with him from the surface there was nothing for him to hold to slow himself.

"Emergency! Survival protocol in place." Garry's voice was in Jyra's ears and he could feel the robot grab both his shoulders with it's hands and pull itself on to his chest. They were falling fast and the tunnel was curving to the left and right and then the floor fell away from them before they hit it again hard. Suddenly Jyra felt his feet his something and his knees buckled. His body pivoted through the air and then all he saw was white as they finally hit the ground and stopped moving.

"What happened? I cant see!"

"Emergency protocol ended" said Garry. He deflated the survival bags he had deployed to protect Jyra's head, that was the white he had seen. Garry let go of Jyra and directed his own lamp around to allow Jyra to see better.

"What happened? We fell and now where are we? Garry, can you reach Hetta and send an emergency notice to the platform. Where the hell are we?"