She reached for her helmet.
The terminal beeped. A new line appeared, and this one was not an automated handshake. It was addressed to her. The syntax was perfect English. The origin was not Earth. martian program persistent
Not a farewell. Not a prayer. Just a systems-status handshake from JPL, automatically generated and shot across 225 million kilometers of vacuum before the orbital relay fell silent. Program persistent. The code was still running. The mission, in the coldest, most mechanical sense, had not been aborted. But the people who had written that code? They were likely dead. She reached for her helmet
It was the last message from Earth.