Elaina. In search of a planet.

Martian guardians, part 5

Striver landed. Everyone unfastened their oxygen masks at the same time and lifted their tinted helmet visors.
The manned Martian station was built from three domed structures, which contained: habitation modules, scientific equipment and a mini-factory for the production of rocket fuel, the tanks of which were located separately to the side.
Before the crew of the Kegy, a picture of the destroyed station appeared. The domes were a hundred meters away. They were half covered with sand. The dunes reached to the broken portholes. But externally the buildings are not destroyed. At the same distance stood the fuel tanks torn apart by the explosion. The two barrel-shaped cisterns were filled with sand, which was visible through their missing parts.
The sun had already left the horizon and, formed from the opposite side of the crater, the shadow began to move away from the territory of the base.
"Biosphere, this is Striver, over."
Brief calm. The crew was waiting for an answer. Everyone hoped that someone had escaped. After all, they still maintained contact with the Center on Earth a day ago. There was no answer.
"You know, Max," the flight engineer said. "Maybe our unidentified object worked here?
"Everything is very strange," the commander replied thoughtfully, looking around the surroundings. Stroking the stubble on his chin, he added. "We will return to the object, but now we need to inspect the station."
"It's still not clear," Johnson put in her word. She finally appreciated the whole reality of what was happening and added. "How could a hurricane bring tons of sand through the half-kilometer walls of the crater, and, moreover, settling in only one at the base."
Amano and Yablonsky looked around, surveying the desert landscape of the crater floor, which stretched ten kilometers in diameter. Indeed, the surface was almost flat, and here there were whole heaps of sand, filling the Biosphere.
"Tanya, you contact the Center, and Janos and I will reconnoiter the base," the commander ordered and got up from his chair.
After a while, dressed in spacesuits, the commander and flight engineer stood on the surface of Mars. They had an arachnid robot with them, in case someone had to be rescued. Slowly, but confidently, the astronauts headed for the domes. They were watched from the ship by Tanya, who wondered how they would have to survive in the future in this Martian desert. After all, existence in the Biosphere was no longer possible.
It was about a hundred meters from the ship to the destroyed building, and the two astronauts walked the first half of this distance in silence, looking closely at the environment.
"It doesn't look like Selena's gravity," Yablonsky said, jumping up and down, as the astronauts on the Moon did. "But I feel a little thinner."
Amano was not interested in the three times reduced gravity of Mars, even though he was here for the first time. He was completely focused on the future fate of the crew.
"Tanya, is there a connection with the Center? Over ," the commander called on the radio.
"Maxim, you forgot that the signal to the Earth takes twenty minutes," Johnson answered
"Yes, there are reasons to worry -- the nearest housing is sixty million kilometers," Janos added, stroking the sky.
Approaching the habitation module, they saw a half-filled dome, which was perforated like a sieve with small holes. Through the broken portholes, located at the level of the sand dune, one can see the sand going into darkness.
The astronauts began walking around the dome, inspecting the damage. Spider followed them. It was a rescue robot that responded to a voice command. Between the paws was a platform for transporting a person.
On the other side of the dome, a hole was visible. In this place, small holes turned into holes, and those, in turn, into torn and torn inward edges of the hole. This passage was large enough for a person to pass through. The sand only slightly reached the edge of the entrance to the Biosphere. No one understood how this damage could happen, and in order to clarify the situation, it was necessary to get inside.
Amano ordered to stay outside and keep in touch. And he himself went through the hole with the robot. Illuminating the walls with a flashlight, he cautiously walked along the sand.
From some holes, the sun's rays made their way, which, like rods, stuck out in the sand. Max first walked a little crouching, reaching the ceiling with his head. The robot, waist-high to a man, walked freely behind the commander, guided by its sensors. The further into the corridors, the less sand became, and in some places the floor was visible.