Sol 19
Smokescreen prepared breakfast, Optimus' teddy propped up in front of him. He microwaved a piece of bread with a lump of butter smeared on it at a level which would render the bread into toast, no toaster needed. A single egg boiled in a little pot Arcee insisted on getting and bringing with. Smokescreen grabbed the teddy and held it as he took the toast out of the microwave and he ate it. He walked to his laptop to begin a video entry.
He held up the teddy. "Look what I found. Who knew Optimus had a soft spot for stuffed animals? Well, I think he's cute, but of course he's a little battered. How long have you had this little guy, Prime?" He set the bear aside and he sighed softly. "So, I've been thinking. I'm going to eventually run out of food if all goes well. If the machine that makes water via some strange science magic Ratchet didn't explain to me goes out, I'll die from dehydration, and if the oxygen pump-thing breaks, I'll suffocate. Assuming all goes well and Primus has a sense of humor, I should last a grand total of four hundred and something sols now that you guys are all gone and not eating like hogs. That's four hundred days for you playing at home." He steepled his fingers and rested them against his face, thinking. "So, somehow, I have to grow food. But planting Prime's Jelly Bellies isn't going to do anything useful. I need something raw." His eyes lifted to the laptop and he dropped his hands. "For now, I'm going to explore. Couldn't do that while you aft ports were here." He turned off the laptop and he lifted the bear off the counter. He carried it back to his bunk and he laid it on his pillow.
ooo
The controls of the Rover handled smoothly, as it should since Ultra Magnus was the one normally driving and he only had one hand. Smokescreen did a little territory sweep, small shivers racking him. The sun had set. He didn't dare turn on the heat. Optimus had noted that turning on the heat resulted in the battery life being cut in half, and he had an hour left. He was more than a half of an hour away from base. He turned to the camera staring at him, which made logs whenever the Rover was started. He spoke to it, thinking outloud.
"So, Mar's isn't Florida." He exhaled, his breath a small puff of a cloud before it faded away. "But I think I have a remedy. I'll have to turn around and head back to base, as well as shower and get my temperature back up. I would love to move, but my hands are fragging frozen." He rubbed his cold hands together and blew on them, then grabbed the controls and directed in towards base.
Once inside, he showered with hot water, used the bathroom, and padded towards the kitchen, rumaging through more cupboards for a pan. Instead, he found a box with the label Don't touch till Thanksgiving! :)
He defied the plea and he opened it. He ran to his laptop with his discovery.
"Raw potatoes. Whoever brought these onboard, when I see you, I'm kissing you. Even if you're Bee. You guys just saved me. I knew you had a little sympathy for me, even if I annoyed you." He smiled down at the bag of twelve potatoes. "This'll be so much easier than planting jelly beans."
ooo
Optimus laid on his belly, squeezing his eyes shut. Ratchet watched him. They had met up with Hermes, a ship that was orbitting Mars with the idea that when it was time to leave, the team would launch via the escape rocket and connect with the larger ship for the five hundred sol journey home. But they were a team minus one. Optimus couldn't stop thinking about Smokescreen.
"I have failed," the Prime whispered. He reached out and poked the bear Ratchet had found while rumaging around, but this bear wasn't the same as his original. This one was firm, fresh, and smelled like plastic. The other was soft, falling apart, leaking stuffing, and above all, his. It even bore his scent.
"Optimus," Ratchet sighed. "You have not failed. You did all you could do."
"Smokescreen is dead," he snapped. His blue eyes studied Ratchet, his face melting into a frown. "I killed him."
"You did what you thought was right."
"If Ultra Magnus had taken Arcee, I could have been with Smokescreen and I could have pushed him down...but I was too worried about a femme that did not even need my help."
"Optimus, you can't stop thinking like this. Casualties happen!"
He rolled over and hugged his pillow. He hated this pillow, too. It wasn't like the other one. He punched it and got to his feet. "I am going for a run..."
Ratchet knew that the Prime would probably feel better after getting his frustrations out on the treadmill. Arcee did the same most days, forcing herself to give that extra mile (or ten). He let his leader go, hoping that the Prime knew self-control and knew when his body couldn't give anymore. "You did all you could, Prime. No one blames you..."
"I blame myself." Optimus rubbed his mouth, pausing in the doorway. "He's probably dying...alone...scared...hungry."
ooo
Sol 20
"I'm dying!" Smokescreen screamed over the music as he stepped out of the shower. The laptop was recording. "I'm so scared and alone right now! Nobody knows how I feel! I'm also hungry." He paused the music with the little remote by the laptop. "That, ladies and germs, was a song on Arcee's laptop. It's all Red, all the time. All screaming or instrumentals. I'm going to die if that's all she has." He walked to her laptop and carried it back. "Oh, no, wait. I have some Casting Crowns." He clicked on the one called Set Me Free and he threw his head back. "So depressing...it's even in a folder called Uplifting Music for the Soul. This is awful! Arcee! I knew you hated me!"
He closed her laptop and walked towards the folded clothes he left for himself. Since there was a high probability he was going to die and these videos wouldn't get out to the public, he wasn't worried about anything. He dressed in front of the camera as he spoke, sliding jeans on over his legs. He buttoned them. "So, I have an idea. I'll cut the little potatoes in half or so, start my own little indoor garden...plant them..." He put on one of Optimus' tees that had the words Jurassic World across the front. "Really, Prime?" He rolled his eyes, chuckling. "Anyway, I just need fertilizer, and NASA had this excellent idea to individually wrap our human wastes for my convenience. Let's see who smells the worst."
After making sure that the human waste was stored within reach (hurray, it was) and after rendering Optimus' library into his indoor garden with tubs and tubs of Martian earth. He spread the dirt over tarp he laid out and hung from the ceiling, then he lightly made trenches in the earth with his hands. He rubbed his dirty hands on his pants, then set up his work table.
He cut open the pouches of waste, then dumped them into a bucket. When it was half full and he couldn't stand anymore, he poured water down on top of it and stirred the foul mixture until his arms ached.
Scooping the horrid tar was the worst. He sacrificed a dipping spoon and labelled it so he wouldn't be a fool and use it. Ever. He made little piles, buried them slightly, then stuck a quarter of a potato into it. He buried it fully, making a little mound. He continued until he ran out of potatoes.
"The real problem is water," he told the camera, carving up a wooden cross that belonged to Arcee. It was a pendant to a necklace, and he made sure she would get it back. It was recognizable, but the bottom part of the cross, instead of squared, was now pointed due to him shaving it. "I don't have enough to both drink, thus stay alive for a couple hundred days, and farm in my own crap, but I have a plan. NASA has this thing about fire, since it means death and all, so everything is fire resistant. Everything, except Arcee's necklace." He showed the cross pendant to the laptop that had become a sort of friend. "Which is being used as an experiment. I saw Ratchet do this kind of thing before, make water out of fuel using fire and a chemical I happen to have sitting a few miles away. The Rover is begging to be let out anyway, so..." He set the knife down. "And I know Arcee won't mind, because if she knew the position I was in after she left me here to die..." He trailed off, looking over at Prime's teddy. He smiled. "She'd smile and nod and let me murder her necklace. But I won't touch Prime's library yet. I need some reading material."
ooo
Ratchet, the great man he is, had a sketchbook of all his ideas and inventions, including a way to make water using chemicals and fire. NASA wouldn't be tickled about this idea, but they couldn't condone him dying on their watch, either. So Smokescreen, sketchbook in hand, followed its instructions. He made a drip of fuel using a hose and a tank of the rocket fuel from the secondary rocket that was reserved for the Mars mission that would land in six years (he knew they wouldn't mind, and it wasn't like anyone could stop him, either). He laid out solid silver lumps of... Smokescreen turned the sketchbook upside down and scowled. He couldn't read his writing. Well, since it was the only box of solid silver lumps they owned, it had to be right. And if it wasn't, well...he'd write a friendly letter for Ratchet to read about handwriting techniques. "Jeez, medic. You write like a doctor."
The last step was to light the fire and set it on top of the gizmo he had somehow created. He didn't understand the science, but the title of the sketch ("WATER MAKER") made him feel optimistic, and the instructions were written in a language he could understand. He just omitted a lot of things because of the weird sentence structure, which he would probably regret, but the idea of farming got him excited. And he would have water! The fire took; the two hot wires rubbing together gave birth to sparks that landed on Arcee's cross-shavings, which eagerly accepted the baby fire and made it grow into something more. He slowly lifted the wire tray he had crafted for it and put it on top of the machine. So far so good... He gave a shout of excitement when it didn't explode in his face, but he just invited disaster.
It exploded as if to spite him.
ooo
Smokescreen settled in front of the laptop computer, his flesh burned and his hair sporting shards of the silver lumps that went flying. He reeked of fuel and he sighed, rubbing his neck. "Well...that could have gone worse..." He flicked the shards out of his hair. "So, it exploded. Because I'm an idiot. Probably shouldn't have omitted these special instructions. If you take all the science crap out of it, it says, basically, do not exhale excessively." He snapped the sketchbook closed. "Now...I'm going to try again...once my ears stop ringing."
ooo
Take two involved him wearing his helmet and a metal disc that had been a satellite being used as a shield. He redid everything, restarted the fire, and then placed it where it was supposed to go. It took, and for several long minutes it did nothing. The flame flickered, the fuel dropped onto the silver rocks with an annoyed hissing sound, but nothing happened. And it didn't explode. Smokescreen decided to make lunch while it decided what to do.
A shower and a macaroni lunch later, the tarps on the inside of the garden facing the machine were wet with water. He ran his hand down the wet tarps and smiled. The earth darkened, starting near the edges and working towards the middle. He celebrated with a little dance and he laughed softly. Ratchet's crazy invention that he had spent hours yakking about worked. Wait till I tell him...
He stopped, mood dampened. "If," he corrected softly. He turned and walked out of his garden and he took a nap.
