"The Agency is running short on personnel as you all well know," the communications officer spoke into his microphone between puffs of thick smoke, "we are allocating the aerospace team to the recovery of fragments of Innermoon V6. Out." the speaker popped off without waiting for a reply.

By aerospace team he meant me, my colleague, and the bumbling bot, not exactly a salvage party.

"From what I have gathered most of the debris scattered in a 150-kilometer radius around Atarcania, I tried asking for an infrared spectral survey but, well, you know," Egori tapped the pen against the map on the wall, "we don't have a spare set of drones for this job."

"We never do," I growled with my face planted on my desk, "I told you this months ago."

"Hmm, it's a wide range, but the desert should give us clear visibility of the wreck," Egori jotted down the coordinates, ignoring my boiling bitterness adding to an interminably growing stack of complaints.

The driest place on our planet, Atarcania, is responsible for sand dunes and solar storms, the list of attractions as absent as its rainfall. Yet the local clans survive and maintain control with the aid of a network of water storage pipelines and tanks, the blue domes perhaps the most noticeable and certainly the most coveted features of the desert. The same clans also hold a dear stake on Earth's raw material trade, a messy yet instrumen—

"Oooh, supernova signatures!" Satele floated into the monitoring room, antennae spinning wildly, her screen winking and buzzing, "the glow, it's changing! So beautiful!"

"Satele, focus please," I interjected, "did you find anything?"

"Anything? Oh! You mean, is there any debris? Oh yes! There are so many asteroids orbiting 'bout and beautiful, wow! Wait, soon the nova is going past the ultraviolet range, we need to..." her words spun into a whirlwind of gibberish as she felt the longwave radiation levels rising, her vitals lighting up excitable patterns of what is imperceptible to human senses.

"For the love of... I mean debris on the ground, Earth!" I tried a stern tone, it was time to cut the hyperactive bot short, "Satele, did you try finding the wreckage as I told you to do?"

She was hovering as far above our heads as the ceiling would allow, her strange abilities and interests alike showing fascinating yet incongruous vigor.

"Yes, yes, I am trying. Ah, zero dot zero times seven to one three three six astro units to the east starting from the Western Slopes I might say—my laser rangefinder is not what it used to be—I felt glints of messy metal there, 'kay?" her screen dimmed suddenly, with one last bright flash, like a sparkly meteor, she collapsed onto a box full of burned out cables.

That kind of day.

Our ride for the mission was a weary tiltrotor, not my least favorite craft but it wasn't ideal for the wide range of pressures we put on it.

"3-8-1 confirm, we are receiving lift," squawked Egori over the radio as I carefully leveled off.

I could hear Satele clanking behind me as the craft shook, she was still out of it somehow, I was worried but it wasn't her first trip out.

"Do you see anything? Egori radioed beside me, "I am seeing exactly zip."

What I saw were the light blue skies and sandy dunes of Atarcania, a dry and monotone sight. Dust whirled in the air, clouds of fine grit drifting with the currents. Over millions of years of whittling rock and stony soil, wind sculpted its desert. Shining out against the dust were the water domes, connected by the pipelines webbing across the desert. Despite the precariousness of their mechanisms and maze-like structure, they were anything but scrap metal.

The map beeped faster as we approached our destination and the craft vibrated with a lurch as I sequenced the landing; sand sprayed in all directions as we floated down the last meters.

As the dust cleared, I could make out a grey line against the horizon, the stone wall of a settlement only a hill away.

"Two kilometers east of the Western Slopes like Satele said, yet I see nothing of—wait!" Egori paused, craning his neck across the expanse, "does that look like an impact crater?"

Without waiting for a second opinion, he hopped out of the ship, sliding and tripping across the soft soil.

The trip took longer than expected but I wasn't in a hurry. Still, it was a relief to get out of the cockpit and see that Satele was still in one piece in the back. She looked okay, as good as could be expected, but something about the appraisal left me unnerved. Her technology was not the most advanced, yet it seemed so alien; the construction was difficult to comprehend, a trailblazer of a different breed. I could see the strictures of the universe had altered her, she was far from polished, but in a uniquely human way. I was used to beaten up tech but not quite used to the way her form worked, it was like a piece of electronics homebrewed with care by a cave dweller then left out in a field and forgotten. Somehow that seemed appropriate and gloomy at the same time. What was it that I felt as I checked her frame for damage?

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"BEEP BEEBEEEP!" her speaker crackled as her screen spun and flickered on. "Stellar energy levels low!" she spun her head, looking around. "Um? What?" a red light beeped on her chest. Her electronic eyes flickered in sync with the volume of her voice, shaping into a mouthless smile as she looked at me. "Staying indoors for so long is not good for my vitals, you know."

"Come on, there's plenty of light outside."

I hesitated for a moment before picking her up, her mechanical body was alive, cognizant, it was different from the inert hunk of metal I hauled to the ship just a few hours ago. Still, she was too weak to float by herself.

She wrapped her arms around my neck as I carried her. Sweltering was the air outside; the dunes whispered as thousands of sand grains danced in the air.

"Over here!" Egori's voice split the swirls from behind a dune, "over here!"

As we got closer, Satele's metal against my bare arms burned hotter, and I wondered if the heat bothering me was already present in Atarcania.

"Ah, G2V stars are my favorite, nothing quite like a round yellow gemstone warming my panels. I think I can hover by myself now!"

Indeed she could, her gravitation thruster engaged and she drifted off my arms, gliding a bit uneasily but gently.

Egori waved as we approached, "look, there are tire tracks around the crater."

"It doesn't take drunken speculation to realize the locals scavenged our rocket," we did not concern ourselves with the dealings of the Atarcanians, but our tenuous connections to the desert clans made our dealings rather cold. They would sooner steal from us than seek our gifts, and here we were in this harsh land looking for our snatched goods.

The winds grew stronger as we neared the settlement, and we watched four armored trucks lumber through the dunes, driving off to the north. High walls circumscribed the outpost but the front gates were open.

"Act nonchalantly, please," I told Satele.

"Act do you mean? What do I what like? Do I look like a Chalan?"

"Just be quiet!" Egori signaled me forward, "let's just go in, alright?"

Guardsmen manned the posts outside but left us alone; the alleyways were mostly deserted, the Atarcanians were subtle people despite their ruggedness. A not so hustly market lined with vases, spices and locals immersed in the twilit hagglings greeted us. The customary cubic architecture of the streetscape looming around us.

"How much for the bot, traders? I am not tech expert but you be headed strange, you look not of Quel Hà?" a hooded figure spoke, camouflaged against the busy background of trinkets and shapes.

"We're not traders, just travellers looking for some specific things to buy. Can you tell us w—"

"This market," she stood up frailly, "full of bad choices, less obstacles in your way when you pick one from this row," she gestured with a bony finger to a stack of colorless dolls and geometries, "my eyes departed, yet my hands still delightfully alive, I can sense—" she wiped her nose with her sleeve, "sense your bot value, you want the very good price or give me some due of the memory, hmm?"

"She is not for sale, I said—"

"Tell me bot, cha you robot, il nerringaderies depuech a'ha?"

"I am sorry market madam, my data bank does not contain information about your language!" Satele responded after a short buzzing sound.

"It staying?" she looked at us uncertainly, "vie vas technology price?"

"She is not for sale!" I repeated, tired of some hustler looking for trouble.

The woman sized me up rapidly with her dead eyes, then she looked Satele up and down, cocking her head, studying her, "have your way."

We eventually made our way to an open square with dozens of stalls huddled together. Satele soared higher, balancing herself with the strength of her reaction wheels, "Clear to scan the area from above, like a glove. Glint, glint, glint! I detect a footprint!" she pointed to a building surrounded by scrap metal in the outskirts of the square, the grey rubbish that littered the building seemed like a good clue towards our fallen rocket's whereabouts.

"Rocket? Oh yes, we got rocket parts, just now in fact!" the vendor was very pleased, his smile was radiant, eager, "to repair trucks, of course, of course? I heard something's been lost?" he walked to the back of the workshop while still talking, "the salvage be incredible, oh, you looking for something in particular?"

"Just show us the newest parts you got, from scrap to control systems. We need anything."

"Snell!" he shouted through the open window of his small workshop, "traz il roket aoi vie surru d'ouge! Gentlemen, please follow me."

The man led us to a field, boxes and metal lay scattered, loose cables dangled all over the place, there was a distinct smell of rust and steel.

And there it was, the white and blue of our ruinous rocket, or at least a portion of it; the broken parts were roughly pieced together like a scrap sculpture, with wire stands holding up the bits that didn't want to stay in place. A sturdy black robot stood next to the rocket, silent.

The structural damage was clear in every part, so was the name, Innermoon V6, a mortuary number that painted the sides. This would help us identify the cause of failure well enough, surely better than the complete loss of V5.

It was dark and windy, the flying sand made it hard to see properly. We bought as much as we needed and it took us a couple of hours to carry all the junk into our tiltrotor even with the unyielding help of Snell, who stayed silent the entire time; the deadpan of the machine only broken by its single red eye faintly shining the dust around it.

As we bid farewell to the vendor and his robot, Satele was floating above a dune several meters away looking towards the sky. The dust was too thick for me to see anything above but she seemed entranced; her eyes matched the yellow of the sand, shining bright in the darkness, the diffuse light fed her ethereal looks.

"Hey Satele, we need to get to the rotor," I managed to say through the howling grains.

"A new star shines, one more," her eyes were focused on the deep cosmos above, "a new arrival to explore."

Understandably, I could not see a damn thing, but her awe was palpable and my curiosity was aroused, "what are we talking about?"

"So, so many are there. Look at the heavens, be aware. This is the time to open your eyes, see more, don't ignore," she tilted her head towards me, her eyes nearly blinding me with their intensity, "novas are a couple of seconds of triumph so rare. Billions of years of energy free, the climax ashore," her voice held a theatrical whine, "can't you feel the force? Follow their course! Don't let the chance pass!"

What I felt was a tired man climbing the cold and dry sand; he chased the astral brightness, yet he could not understand. He could see the glow in the void, for it was right next to him; he wished he could feel what the light was feeling from space’s rim.